Shifting

Four

A young man’s mind never strays far from love. I’d heard that quote somewhere, and just to prove it, I found myself thinking that probably the last way to get a girl’s affection was to cut down a kid right in front of her.

As it turned out, in this case I was wrong. She knew it wasn’t a kid anymore. She knew it was a monster now. I looked at Monika. We were both breathing hard. She was clearly in shock. She trembled and stared at the thing on the hardwood floor.

“Billy. You said he wasn’t there. Wasn’t in the car,” she managed between the sobs and shivering. Her fingernails dug into her face making deep impressions and one tiny crescent of blood. I was shook up too, but tried to hide it. I laid the saber on a bench. There was a nasty stain on the blade, but now wasn’t the time to clean it.

“We’ve never seen him before now. He must have-changed in the car and caused the crash.”

“Right in front of us, so fast?” she asked. Then she stopped, thinking of something. “No, he had a blanket. He was cold. He had a blanket. He must have been changing under it… Shifting…”

I nodded. That word sounded very right to me. Wasn’t that what they called werewolves, Shape-shifters?

“Shifting, yes,” I agreed.

She fell against me then. She buried her face against my chest. I felt her body heat and smelled her hair. It was intoxicating. Using my clean hand, I touched the back of her head and shoulders. Her hair was silky to the touch. Vance watched us with twisted lips and I found his displeasure gratifying. I gave him a look and indicated the dark heap that was the troll’s body on the floor. He nodded and rolled it up in the entryway mud-rug. He quickly dragged it out back and dumped it.

“Will there be a service?” asked Monika, still hugging my chest.

“Tomorrow,” I said.

In the morning, the sky was gray and the sun was only a weak shadowy disk overhead. We buried the monster that had once been called Billy out back behind the tool shed under the watchful, looming pines. He was still wrapped in the entryway rug. We had nothing better. I mumbled a few words, bowed my head, and wished the Preacher were here. He always knew what to say.

Vance pulled me aside after our pathetic little service and made sure Monika couldn’t hear us. “You said it had hooves.”

I stared at him for a moment, and then realized what he was talking about. “Yes, the prints. I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right.”

“That thing had nothing like hooves. That wasn’t what made those prints.”

“But that was Billy,” I said, thinking it over. “There must have been something else back there at the wreck. Something else was outside our cabin yesterday.”

“Right,” said Vance. “Something that beat us here, because it knew where we were headed.”

I took that in and chewed on it. I didn’t like the taste at all. “Keep an eye out, this isn’t finished,” I told him.

“No shit.”

For breakfast, we toasted up the rest of the moldy bread. It tasted better as toast. Afterwards, Vance took Monika to Doctor Wilton in the Durango while I struck out toward the Preacher’s cabin. Her wrist had swollen up pretty badly. Doc Wilton wasn’t a proper doctor, but she was the best we had left. Pharmacists at least had gone through basic medicine and anatomy, everyone figured, so Wilton was it: our town physician.

Looking everywhere for something with hooves, I set out for the Preacher’s cabin. It was really best to walk to the Preacher’s place, as the only access was an old logging road strewn with potholes and deadfalls. The Durango had four-wheel drive, but I didn’t want to risk it without need. If I broke an axel now it would never move again. The last mechanic in the area had died weeks ago.

So, I hiked it up to the ridge. It was about a mile and half straight through, three if you stuck to the road. I stuck to the road most of the way.

It took me until mid-morning to arrive. There were some scuffling sounds in the bushes as I hiked up the hill. I stopped and looked around, trying to breathe quietly.

I listened for a full minute, but heard nothing more. Deciding it was probably nothing, I continued up the road.

The Preacher’s cabin was one of those A-frame type ski cabins. They were rare around here, as we really didn’t get enough snow to warrant building a place that is mostly roof. I supposed it was stylish when it was built. When I walked into the Preacher’s yard, I heard it again. More pattering, sounds, like small feet.

I pulled out my saber and threw one last glance over my shoulder at the tree line. Nothing stirred.

While I listened, I had time to admire the view. One thing this hilltop spot did allow was a wonderful sight of Redmoor and the lake beyond. I paused to gaze at down at the town I had grown up in. It was strange not to see any stoplights or moving cars. There were no fishermen gliding their boats over the lake, either. The only noticeable details were the burned out buildings, here and there, around the town. The church steeple had survived and the steel roof still shone brightly in the sun like a silvery white arrow.

The screen door slammed as the Preacher came out to meet me. He had his wood axe in his hand, as he always did, and his heavy black book tucked under his other arm-as he always did. About fifty paces apart, we eyed one another for an obligatory moment of suspicion. I thought to myself that centuries ago frontiersmen and scattered mountain people must have eyed each other upon meeting and performed just the same careful appraisals.

Neither of us saw anything wrong. I think I was the first to smile. We approached and shook hands.

“Gannon, my boy,” said the Preacher. He let go of his axe to clasp my hand, a centuries-old sign of trust. “How’s your brother doing?”

“Fine, sir.”

Reverend John Thomas was tall, even taller than I was, but thinner and twenty years older. He wore a long weather-stained cloak that matched his big, weathered hands. The cloak’s original color was a matter of conjecture, but now it was a deep brown. It hid most of his clothing within its shadowy interior, but visible below the hem were a heavy pair of well-worn boots. Around his neck he wore a stiff white collar and an equally stiff-brimmed fedora sat on his sharp-featured head. His appearance, garb and attitude would have fit the world better a century earlier. But then again, maybe his time had finally returned.

“Every time I see you, I know some of us are more blessed than others.”

“Just a bit of luck, sir,” I said, sheathing my saber.

“No,” he said very seriously. I looked at his hawk-nose and met his burning eyes under the fedora’s wide brim. “No, not luck. There were nearly four thousand of us in Redmoor and the surrounding hills last year. I’ve been keeping a tight tally. I now estimate there are about fifty of us left. By All Hallows Eve I would think there will be half that. But you boy, you will be one of those to survive if any do.”

Anyone under thirty was a boy, in the Preacher’s mind. This bothered Vance, but not me. He turned and walked back toward the cabin’s rickety wooden porch. Pondering his grim words, I followed him. I thought of Monika, and how I could get her out of Vance’s reach, and if there was somewhere to run to. Less than fifty left? Were we all doomed?

Both of us heard a sound in the woods then. It sounded like the voice of a girl. It wasn’t quite a giggle, nor a shriek, but something in-between. We paused and turned in unison. Both of us stood there scanning the trees. I quietly drew my saber.

The Preacher shouldered his axe. It rode there easily and naturally. I had seen him swing it, and he had an art with it that came from chopping perhaps a thousand trees to kindling.

“Come forth, lost one,” he said loudly, but gently. His tone wasn’t challenging, but rather filled with pity. He took a step toward the trees. Something moved in there, something that scuttled from one tree trunk to duck behind another. I glanced over my shoulder and eyed the cabin roof and thought about last night and my own cabin roof. I stepped forward too, wanting open space all around us. These things usually charged in close. I held my heavy saber high, but did not fully extend my arm, as I wasn’t sure from which quarter the attack might come.

“Come forth, that ye might be judged,” the Preacher boomed now, his voice a sonorous volume that filled the quiet clearing. Another shape, pallid in color and moving low to the ground like a running dog, moved between different trees on the other side of the clearing.

“How many are there?” I hissed aloud. Sweat ran down my arms and made tickling lines all the way to my elbows.

The Preacher ignored me. He stepped two more paces toward the trees and raised out his arms in a beseeching gesture. In one hand he held his Bible, in the other his axe, with his knuckles wrapped high up around the haft of it. “Come home,” he called out to the woods. “I offer you peace, if nothing else.”

The woods were silent. There was no more movement. We waited for several minutes, but still nothing came at us.

The Preacher nodded. “They will wait, so we will wait.”

He turned and went into the cabin. I followed him with many glances over my shoulder.