“Doesn’t this remind you of that TV show?”
“Huh? No. Holy clouds, woman! This isn’t the Ponderosa.”
“Of course not,” she said. “Silly me!”
Realizing that he must have spoken sharply to her, Cnut softened his voice and said, “I’m fairly certain that show was filmed in Nevada. I have a brother who lives in Vegas, and he told me something to that effect one time. In fact, the TV set had been a tourist attraction for many years after the series ended, a theme park or something, until it got torn down.”
Logic told her that he was right, but, even so, this giant log house stood in the clearing like a testament to another era. Of prosperous ranching. Cowboys. Big families. American values. The Old West at its best. It saddened her to think that what must have once been a family home was now turned into a dude ranch lodge. Changing economic times, she supposed.
Made of richly grained, golden logs, it appeared to be a two-story dwelling that spread out in two directions, as if it had been added on to several times over the years. And there were lots of outbuildings as well, including a massive barn. She thought she heard the sound of a horse neighing from that direction.
But no people. At all.
“Uh-oh!” she said.
“Tell me about it,” Cnut said, opening his door. “Maybe you better stay here in the car while I check things out. Lock the doors.”
“Not a chance,” she said, and opened her door as well.
“Stubborn woman!” Cnut muttered.
“Smart woman!” she muttered back.
They walked along the side of the building, around to the front, and onto a long porch where four rustic rocking chairs sat empty. She noticed that Cnut had his handgun out again, which was rather alarming. Also alarming was the front door, which was open.
They stepped hesitantly into a wide central hallway whose only furnishing was a receptionist desk, minus a receptionist, a half-dozen rolled-up prayer rugs, and a long console table under an antique mirror that held a Koran and stacks of touristy kinds of literature. A blackboard display listed activities for the week. Lots of yoga and meditation, indoors in the solar and outdoors, weather permitting. Riding lessons. Koran study. Fly fishing. Holy yoga. Skeet shooting. Mediating with Allah. Roping and horse shoeing. Understanding jihads. Line dancing. Internet recruitment. Campfire sing-alongs. Capitalist devils. An overnight trail ride that coincidentally took place last night into this morning. A Sharia way of life. Coming up on Saturday was a hoedown, whatever that was. Some kind of dance party, she guessed. Yippee! It didn’t seem to fit in with all the propaganda-type programs, but maybe that was a way of hiding their true intents here.
Which one of those activities would Celie be involved in? She liked yoga, but for a higher purpose? Line dancing? Yeah, but in a burqa? As for fly fishing, Celie wouldn’t even touch an uncooked fish. Too yucky!
All this Andrea took in while Cnut went into a side parlor. There were several parlors, actually, on both sides of the hallway, their main features being comfy low leather couches and huge stone fireplaces. All the furnishings were Old West chic.
Here and there lay puddles of slime, similar to that by the gatehouse.
“It smells like bad farts in here,” Andrea said.
“Are there good farts?” Cnut asked with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t touch that stuff.”
She was leaning down near one gooey pile to see what it was. Her head shot up at the alarm in his voice.
“It’s sulfur you smell. You know, fire and brimstone kind of sulfur.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do,” he said. “For my sins, I know.”
“What’s going on here? Where is everybody?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I have my suspicions.”
“What?”
“Shh!” he cautioned, and walked slowly down the hallway.
She followed close behind.
There was a large dining room with an enormous pine table and benches that could seat sixteen, along with several smaller tables and chairs, equally rustic. Half-eaten meals sat on the tables—pancakes and syrup, sausages and bacon, toast, cups of black coffee. No slime here, but there were several piles of clothes, right down to boots and watches and jewelry, as if people had just disappeared right out of their clothing, top to bottom.
Was this one of those clothing-optional places, on top of its ISIS connection? No, that didn’t make sense. Of course, none of this made any sense.
“What’s going on here?” she asked again. “Where’s my sister?”
Cnut didn’t answer. Instead, he had pulled out his cell phone and was speaking to someone.
“Vikar? Big trouble on dude ranch.”
Tell me about it.
The other person must have been saying something because Cnut paused.
“Who are you talking to?” she asked.
My brother, he mouthed silently to her.
“Your brother! Shouldn’t you be calling the police? Or the owners of this place?”
He put a forefinger to his lips and continued his phone conversation.
“We just got here. There’s nobody around. Just Lucie slime and sinner harvests.”
Huh? What’s a Lucy? And a sinner harvest?
“I don’t know how many were here to begin with, or how many might be out and about the ranch. Based on the cars in the lot. I’m thinking at least a half-dozen guests, and several dozen employees, not to mention all the recruits. No, I haven’t investigated outside yet. Barns and outbuildings. Yeah, send my team here ASAP, and some of yours as well.”
More talking from the other end. So, Cnut has a team, huh? Of what? Detectives? Security guys? Basketball players?
Cnut was walking while he listened, peering out the windows, leaving the dining room, taking a quick look into an office where there was slime again, then on to the massive kitchen with its commercial-size gas range and stainless fridge and freezer. It was a dream kitchen to an experienced chef like herself. All high-end appliances and tools.
She went over and turned off several knobs on the range where breakfast had cooked down to a burnt mess—oatmeal turned to concrete and pancakes hard as hubcaps. In front of the stove was another pile of clothing, what appeared to be a long robe, sandals, and an apron. Cnut came up and peered over her shoulder, then continued on his cell phone.
Andrea was beginning to freak out. Whose clothes were they? Celie’s? Oh God! Oh God!
“Must have happened within the past hour. The leftover food hasn’t drawn maggots or flies yet, and the slime hasn’t evaporated.”
Suddenly Cnut stiffened and said, “Holy shit!” as he looked out of a side window. Quickly, he went to another window and said, “Holy fucking shit! They’re coming. Dozens. Gotta get outta here.”
She looked outside now, too, and yelped. Huge animals—at least she thought they were animals—were rushing across the pasture, headed this way. And they weren’t cows. Not by a bovine long shot. Unless they were the Jurassic kind. From this distance, they did look like scaly prehistoric kind of creatures. Maybe they were cattle of some kind; this was a cattle ranch, after all. Yeah, mad cow–diseased creatures. But cows that ran on two legs? No. The closer they got, she could see long fangs coming out of their mouths, clawed hands, and red eyes, but even so, they seemed sort of human.
Cnut grabbed her hand and was dragging her back through the hallway toward the front door.
“What are they?”
“Demon vampires,” he said, at a run now.
“Oh, that is just great,” she said, running to keep up with his wide strides. “You say that as if it’s an everyday occurrence. What’d you do at work today, honey? Nothing. Just ran into a few demon vampires. Jeesh, don’t go so fast.”
“We have to get out of here. Right away.”
“No kidding. But we have to find my sister first.”
He came to a skidding halt at the front hall. Through the open front door, she could see mor
e of the monsters coming. This was fast becoming a bad horror movie, and she was the star.
“Forget your sister. For now. They’re already in the parking lot,” he pointed out, glancing toward a window in the second parlor. “Upstairs. Quick.”
“I don’t understand,” she cried, even as she rushed upward. She was halfway up when she turned and saw that Cnut hadn’t followed her. Instead, he pulled some kind of weapon out of a back pocket in his jeans, pressed a button, and whoosh, it became a long, thin-bladed sword. A switchblade sword? Holy cow! In the other hand, he had the handgun. And he appeared to have grown big fangs, and his blue eyes had turned an odd silver color. In fact, he made a low growling sound not unlike a wolf, although she’d never actually encountered a live wolf before, and said, “C’mon, make my day!” He was talking to one of the creatures who suddenly appeared on the porch, not her. It must have come from the parking lot. The large band of things was still some distance away. But getting closer.
She almost fainted and had to hold on to the stair rail for support.
Cnut wasn’t looking her way. He was concentrating on the lone animal/monster/human thing that was raising its own sword. A bigger, longer one. No matter. Cnut lunged with his weapon, nicking the creature in the arm, then swiping the point across its scaly chest where two breasts burst open like melons. The thing had breasts, for heaven’s sake! A female beast, then. Oh Lord! Oh Lord! Cnut ducked and swiveled to the side when the creature swung its sword in a wide arc intended to decapitate him. Can anyone say ISIS? Then Cnut went in for the kill, literally, running his long, thin spear directly through the heart of the creature.
It was all over within minutes, but felt like hours. The creature was already dissolving into a puddle of slime. Cnut, breathing heavily through fanged teeth, glanced up and saw her standing there, frozen with shock. Was he a creature/monster thing, too? He didn’t have the same horrible body, but the fangs . . . yuck!
“You’re still here!” He made a sound of disgust at her having disobeyed his order to go upstairs. Through the still open front door, she saw that the other creatures were even closer to the house now, only fifty yards away or so. He slammed the door shut and locked it while she turned, finally obeying his order. She needed to escape, and not just from the creatures outside.
Rushing upward, he picked her up by the waist from behind and took two steps at a time, despite her screeching and kicking. Going into the first bedroom they saw, he set her down and made sure the door was locked, even pushing a dresser in front of it. She heard the splintering of wood downstairs. And voices. The creatures could talk?
“Oh God! Oh God!”
“That’s right, sweetling. Pray.”
Cnut seemed to be studying the situation, going from one window to another, speaking on his cell phone again.
“A goat fuck for sure. Ha, ha. A cow fuck, then. Very funny. Get serious, Vikar. Send a hird of vangels. Right away, dammit.”
Did he ask someone—his brother—to send a herd of angels? Cnut was the one who needs to get serious. Meanwhile she was saying an Our Father in her head, but she wasn’t asking for God to send her angels, more like a battalion of police.
Cnut paused as he listened.
“You’re already on the way. Good. Why didn’t you say so? Quack, quack to you, too.”
He pocketed his cell phone then and gave her a direct look that scared the spit out of her. His fangs were mostly gone and the eyes were blue again, but still . . .
“Who . . . what are you?”
“A vangel.”
“You? An angel?”
“A vangel,” he corrected. “I don’t have time to explain now.”
Maybe she’d gotten knocked on the head and this was some strange afterlife. “Are we dead?”
“I am. You’re not. Yet.”
“What? Don’t come near me, you . . . you . . . thing.”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Andrea. I hope to save you, God willing.”
“And you have a close connection with the Big Guy, huh? That is just great. You have fangs, by the way.” She backed up, hitting the wall.
He retracted the fangs the rest of the way, and now just had two pointy lateral incisors.
“Make me feel better, why don’t you?”
He halfway grinned at that. “We can’t get out. I could fight off one or two, maybe a half dozen of them. But there are too many.”
“I could maybe shoot some if you gave me the gun.” Or maybe I will shoot you, Fang Man.
“Do you have weapon training?”
“No, but those beasties are so big, how could I miss?” You make a big target, too, even if you don’t weigh four hundred pounds, which was probably a lie, come to think on it now.
“Beasties?” he choked out. He came up to her then and wrapped his arms around her.
Now? He was going to hit on her now? “Oh no, no, no!” She struggled and tried to push him away, but he was bigger and stronger.
“Be still and listen. I have no choice but to teletransport us out of here,” he said, drawing her tighter into his embrace. Even in the midst of all the danger, she noticed that he smelled like fresh mint, clean and alluring. Not at all scary.
“Teletransport? Like, beam me up, Scotty?” she joked, even as she heard movement outside the door, then a claw-like scratching on the wood.
“Something like,” Cnut replied. “Hold tight, baby. I’ve never done this with a human before.”
“Human?” she began to gurgle, but then lost all ability to speak or even think.
She wrapped her arms tightly around Cnut’s shoulders, and his arms encased her back, and they began to twirl and twirl and twirl up into space. Or something. They were in a mist. Maybe like the eye of a tornado.
And then she lost consciousness.
Or died.
But, no, she wasn’t dead.
She was still in the bedroom, but she was lying on the bed. It was the same room, and yet it was different. Coming awake slowly, she noticed the wallpaper was different. Instead of the full-bloomed roses, there were now evergreen boughs and pinecones. And instead of the two double beds with rustic print bedspreads, there was now a multicolored coverlet, something she’d heard called a hap on Antiques Roadshow, on just one double bed. And instead of a bedside lamp, there was an oil lantern.
Cnut was standing at the window, staring at something outside.
“Are they gone?” she asked.
He turned. “You’re awake,” he stated the obvious. “Yes, they’re gone.”
Even though his fangs were mostly gone and his eyes were back to being blue, Andrea couldn’t forget what she’d seen. She felt like Alice in Wonderland having fallen down into some weird garden hole, except that the Mad Hatter’s world here was a ranch with terrorist owners and inhabited by strange beasts. And Cnut was the strangest of them all.
“I think I’d like to go home,” she said, sitting up on the side of the bed. And suddenly the prospect of being back in her cozy apartment and restaurant job, safe from any danger except a burnt soufflé, held much appeal.
“You can’t go home. At least not right now.”
“Why? Because of Celie?”
He shook his head. “I made a little mistake when I teletransported us.” His face was flushed, as if he was embarrassed.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re some teletransporter, Cnut. I’ve got news for you. We’re in the same place. Is that the ‘little mistake’ you mean?”
“No. We’re in the same place, but not the same time.”
“Huh?”
“We’re in the Old West now. The real Old West.”
She was beginning to think Cnut was a little bit crazy, and he was rubbing off on her.
“C’mere. Look,” he said.
She walked over to the window where he still stood. Looking out, she saw several horses tied to a hitching rail.
“That’s where the parking lot used to be . . . I mean, will be.”
“What are y
ou trying to say?”
“We traveled back in time. I’m guessing about a hundred and fifty years.”
“And this lodge?” She waved a hand at their surroundings.
“Is someone’s home.”
She started to laugh and couldn’t stop. It was probably hysteria. “That’s some mistake. Undo it.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Are you saying we are trespassing in someone’s house, and it’s the Old West, and the owner will probably come at us with pistols blazing?”
“Something like that.”
In fact, she heard some voices outside, a man and a woman. She and Cnut both went to the other window. The man and woman were coming from the barn and headed toward the house, chatting amiably. The woman had gray hair swept off her face in a bun or something. She wore a long-sleeved blouse tucked into an ankle-length, buckskin skirt and low-heeled boots. The man was much taller and younger, wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots. Andrea blinked several times. It was either Barbara Stanwyck and a young Michael Landon, or else they had doppelgängers.
She turned and smacked Cnut on the arm. “You idiot. What did you do?”
“I told you, it was a mistake. We vangels used to time-travel all the time on our missions. Back and forth through the centuries until a few years ago when we got stationed permanently in the twenty-first century.”
She hadn’t a clue what he just said. It didn’t matter. He was the one responsible for this mess, that much was clear. She smacked him again, then latched her arms around Cnut’s neck and hitched her legs up so that she straddled his hips. Surprised, he just held on to her.
“Get us out of here. Right now,” she demanded.
“What?”
“You heard me, you freakin’ moron,” she practically shrieked. “Do that damn transport thing. Again. Take me home.”
“I’m not sure if—”
Suddenly they were covered with the mist once again, and this time they were falling, falling, falling, as if off a cliff. She might have screamed. Cnut was definitely swearing.
And then she lost consciousness again.
Or maybe she was really dead this time.
She pinched herself. Nope. Alive.