The cabin.

The cabin was on fire.

Cole’s sluggish mind struggled to remember as his hands and legs moved in the snow. He could feel the cold wetness of the snow saturating his clothes.

He sat up quickly and he saw Stella. She was only about ten feet away from him; she was sitting up in the snow. She might have been saying something to him, yelling at him, but he couldn’t hear her.

She got to her feet and she ran over to something in the snow, a small dark shape slumped in the snow.

It was David.

Cole got to his feet and the high-pitched whine died away. He could now hear the crackling fire from the blazing cabin. He could hear Stella screaming for David.

He rushed through the snow and he dropped down to his knees beside Stella as she shook David’s body. She was crying; the tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Is he …” Cole asked.

David turned over in the snow and his eyes fluttered, then opened.

Stella burst into sobs and she hugged David. “Are you okay?” she asked.

He nodded and she picked him up into a sitting position on the snow. He smiled at her and he wiped away at her tears.

Cole looked back at the burning cabin. In the doorway and on the front porch were the burning bodies of what used to be his brother and the bank robbing crew. The bodies were being reduced to ash and bone very quickly in the blaze. A few of the bodies, now almost indistinguishable from each other, writhed and tried to move, but they were too badly damaged to escape now.

He could see something inside of the bodies – inside each one of them. It looked like something dark and leggy. The things slithered through each one of their ribcages, and then all of the things stretched out of the bodies and joined each other. The pieces of dark and slithery things formed a kind of a spidery creature that didn’t make sense to Cole’s mind; it resembled some kind of giant sea creature in the flames, like an octopus maybe, but the tentacles were jointed like a crab. And it seemed to be constantly changing form.

And then it scuttle/slithered deeper into the cabin, deeper into the fire.

Cole looked back at David who stared at him. “Did you get us out of there?” he asked David. “Did you save us?”

David didn’t answer, he only stared at Cole.

“Yes,” Stella answered for David. “He saved us.”

Cole stared at David. “That thing … is it gone?” he asked.

“Yes,” David answered. “For now.”

Ten minutes later Cole had the snowmobile running. He drove it out of the garage, drove it past Tom Gordon’s pickup truck, and then he came to a stop by Stella and David who waited for him. They needed to hurry – the smoke from the cabin was going to draw emergency vehicles eventually. And cops.

Stella got on the snowmobile behind Cole, and then she scooted back so David could climb onto the snowmobile in between them. She put her arms around David to protect him as they got ready to take off for the driveway that wound through the trees and joined the county road a half mile away.

She knew they were going to get away from this place, but she didn’t know what Cole’s plans were after that. She knew that she needed to get David to a safe place; she needed to find someone who could help David train, someone who could help David harness his powers.

Because this thing would always be after him – she felt certain of that.

Cole gunned the engine and they drove forward through the snow. Cole drove slowly, trying to be careful with all three of them on the snowmobile. Stella held on to David as he turned around for one last look at the burning cabin.

Stella didn’t see the small and mysterious smile on David’s face as he watched the cabin burn.

Other books by Mark Lukens

The Summoning

Night Terrors

About the Author

I’ve written several books, many of which will be coming soon to Amazon and Kindle. I’m also an artist and a screenwriter. I live with my wife and son in Florida, not too far from Tampa. I welcome any comments or questions you may have.

Ancient Enemy – copyright © 2013 – Mark Lukens

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No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (or any other form), business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.