Tomas Edel's Arc

Chapter 15 of 17

Tomas had never driven the forest track. He knew it only on foot, a rutted line of mud and root that wound to the wendigo's cave. The truck was dented and old. On rough ground it could stall, and a stall at night in these woods meant death. But the torches were loaded, and the wendigo slept. He had no other way to reach it in time. He put the truck in gear and turned into the trees. The track fought him at once. Roots grabbed the tires. The engine coughed on every rise. Hunter sat beside the oil, one hand on his bitten shoulder, eyes fixed ahead. "Left," he said. "There's a drop on the right." Tomas cut the wheel. The truck lurched past a black gully. Hunter felt the land through the creature, and he read it like a map. He did not explain. He never did. Halfway up, the engine died. Silence dropped over them. The headlights lit wet trunks and nothing else. Tomas turned the key. The engine ground and caught nothing. He tried again. Dead. Regan drew her stake and watched the dark tree line. "It'll hear us," she said. "Fix it or we walk." Tomas climbed out. He knew engines the way he knew trails. He raised the hood and found the problem fast—a fuel line jarred loose by the ruts. His splinted arm made the work slow. He pressed the line back with his good hand while the other hung useless. His fingers shook in the cold. Behind him, the forest stayed still, too still. "Now," Hunter said quietly. "It moved." Regan turned toward him. In the headlight glow her shaved head and bloody uniform looked carved from bone. She had killed worse than tired men and never blinked. But her jaw tightened. "How far?" "Waking up. Not close. Not yet." Then something happened that had no danger in it. Hunter looked at Regan across the seat. His mean face went soft for one second. He reached out and closed his hand over hers on the stake. Regan did not pull away. She leaned in, and they kissed—quick, fierce, two kids who had both buried people and found each other in the dark. It ended as fast as it came. Regan pulled back. "Don't die," she said. "Fine," Hunter said. Tomas slammed the line home and dropped the hood. He climbed in and turned the key. The engine caught. He pushed the truck up the last rise, and the headlights found jagged stone teeth ahead—the cave mouth, black and open, the single entrance he had come to burn. He killed the lights and let the truck roll to a stop. He had crossed the track. He had reached the wendigo's den with the creature still weak inside. Tomas gripped a torch. The hunt he had waited eleven years to finish began here, at the mouth of the cave.