Silent Prey

  Silent Prey

  T. M. Simmons

  Excerpt from Silent Prey:

  Key an inch from the lock, Channing noticed the small gap in the door. Locked doors were also second nature for her, and she didn't hesitate. She turned back toward the car. Her shoulder inadvertently brushed against the wood, and the opening expanded.

  The stench hit her, and she halted. Slowly, she turned back. She recognized that smell. Nenegean had been here, perhaps still was. The odor reeked too potently to be an after-effect of the entity's visit. She needed to get back in the car at once. Let someone know where Nenegean was.

  But what about Sunni? The thought of the little girl froze her in place.

  Channing's mind shrieked Run, and she wished she hadn't allowed Radin to leave.

  Why was the entity here alone inside her cabin? Or had she left the little girl alone in that isolated cavern?

  Despite her mushrooming panic, Channing strained to hear. Her blood ran cold and the keys fell from her shaking hand when a child whimpered and sobbed. A plea — "Mommy" — intermingled with the crying.

  Oh, God, Sunni was inside. Daisy's granddaughter. Nenegean probably stood guard over her. Was it a trap so the entity could strike at another woman, as she had Annalise?

  Nenegean had gone through the safeguards Keoman had set up around her cabin.

  Would she try to communicate again? Or would she attack?

  Copyright © 2015 T. M. Simmons,

  Winter Prey Excerpt

  Copyright © 2012 T. M. Simmons

  Cover Design Copyright © 2015 by

  Angela Rogers, misadvmom at yahoo.com

  Original Release

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

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  Dedication

  To Mom

  T. M. Simmons takes you

  where monsters roam and evil perishes

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  Chapter 1

  She had no idea what instigated the stir toward reality — the birth of her return to actuality. At first, she was nothing but a wisp of memory, her own memory of the being who once walked the earth. The being who mourned long before her final dying day.

  Now, she began to physically congeal, a body forming from the elements. Bones calcified first, then muscle, a thin layer of fat beneath protective skin.

  Soon, in addition to thought, other senses joined in:

  Smell: the dank, musty odor of earth pressing around her.

  Sound: the faint noise of worms digging through soil.

  Touch: the resistance as arms moved hands upward, fingers clawing away clods of damp earth, at last tunneling through cold snow and grasping air.

  The body followed, easily dislodging the disrupted dirt from its path. With one final thrust, she emerged from the ancient grave, clods falling from the fully-formed body.

  Sight: eyes opened to stare at tall trees, pines, birch, and hardwoods towering beneath a brilliant blue sky. Snow piled high in banks and drifts.

  Taste: tongue flicked out to savor the zest of pine-flavored air that flowed in on a deep breath and activated the sluggishness into awareness.

  She frowned. Every part appeared to be functioning except one. She could not feel her heart beat, nor did her chest rise and fall, air flow in and out through her nose and mouth.

  She stroked down her body, then stared at as much of it as she could see. A slender figure, high breasts beneath a ragged doeskin dress. Knee-high makizins on her legs and feet, lined with a soft animal skin and beaded in a remembered pattern her fingers had sewn eons ago. Hair long and tangled below her waist, held back by a band. Her fingers traced the design, the same as on the moccasins.

  It appeared to be a zigwun month, one of those when the world was on the verge of opening to the growing and mating season after so long dormant. Maybe bobakwudagimegizi, the month after onibinigezis, the snow-crusted month. Where the frozen snow covering broke, slicing the asubikagun on the agim, the netting on the snowshoes. Though deep evening, nearing dibiguk, the sun was still a few minutes away from totally surrendering to darkness. The snow indeed had a hard layer, as though it had thawed some during the day, then refrozen as night approached. Icicles hung from tree limbs, formed when the sun hit snow-laden limbs and the melt dripped downward.

  What had brought her back? Her thoughts remained listless, her movements lethargic as she took a few steps, then more. She had no idea where the trodden path led, yet kept moving as her senses awakened. As memories returned. At first, it was only wonder at being again. Then long buried pain surfaced … and the reasons for it.

  She shrieked in misery and raced through the wilderness.

  Chapter 2

  Keoman Thunderwood clenched the pickup steering wheel in shock as the sensation stole over him. For weeks the spiritual rituals he attempted had fallen flat, the results beyond his grasp. He'd longed for the stir of touch from his ancestors ever since he woke from the coma three months ago, his abilities vanished and his confidence dwindling. It didn't take an Elder to conclude his lack of faith thwarted the ceremonies.

  Yet now a small spiral of the missing awareness flickered deep inside.

  He pulled over and turned off the engine. He'd been driving mindlessly, as he did at times lately. Now he sat on Harbor Drive, a residential street on the edge of Neris Lake, the small, lightly populated town located near the Ojibway casino.

  Keoman glanced out the driver's side window through the falling snow. He didn't recognize the house across the street or the ones on either side of it. He knew quite a few of the townspeople, but nowhere near all. Still, he didn't think the sensation had originated there. On the other side of the truck, a brick walkway on a vacant lot crossed a drainage ditch over a creek. Following his instincts, Keoman got out of the truck and walked around it to look down the bank, beneath the walkway.

  "No!" he cried, then frantically scanned the homes across the street. None looked occupied. Driveways were empty, garage doors closed, no lights on inside during this overcast day. He braced himself and slid down the steep bank toward where the tiny foot stuck out of a snow bank.

  Heart pounding in both grief and anger, Keoman dug out the toddler's body. It was a tiny Native American girl wearing only a miniscule pair of panties. Tears blurred his eyes. What sort of monster could do this to a child? For an instant, the thought that he was disturbing a crime scene crossed his mind. The sheriff, Pete Hjak, wouldn't be happy with him. But Keoman brushed the little girl's hair back from her blue-lipped face, then shrugged out of his heavy jacket. He would not let her lie there naked.

  He tenderly wrapped the child in his jacket, a
lready shivering in the near zero temperature himself. As he cuddled her in his arms, he gasped. Had he felt a whisper of breath? Keoman pushed aside the jacket to examine her face again, but her eyes were closed, her features slack. Surging to his feet, he half-stumbled, half-crawled up the bank and jerked open the passenger door to lay the child on the seat. There was no hospital in town, but the local clinic was only three blocks away.

  He raced around the pickup and into the driver's seat, hand reaching for the ignition key even as he slammed the door behind him. Instead of a reassuring roar of an engine engaging, the click-click of a starter on its last legs filled the air.

  "Damn!" Keoman pounded the steering wheel with a fist. He'd known the starter was going bad, and he'd been meaning to stop by the auto parts for days now. He had a cell phone in the console, but he could be at the clinic long before help would arrive. Throwing the driver's door open, he gathered the small body into his arms.

  ~~~~

  Snow fell in heavy, soggy flakes, already layered two inches thick on what had been a newly snow-blown parking lot when she walked across it a half-hour earlier. Dr. Channing Drury fumbled with the key lock as she hurried through the curtain of white toward her rented Mercedes. No welcome chirp sounded, and she transferred the keys to her left hand, gripped her right-hand glove fingers between her teeth, and pulled it loose. Bitter cold penetrated her fingers as she pushed the unlock button again, twice for good measure. Crap, the battery in the key lock must have died. She doubted there was a dealership here in the far northern regions of Minnesota, but at least the key would open the door. She'd report the problem when she turned the rental back in tomorrow.

  Before she stuck the key in the door, though, Channing turned to gaze through the worsening snowfall at the small, one-story clinic building where she had arrived without a preliminary warning or appointment. It would do, she thought with a nod. It was nearly as far away from Texas as she could get, plus still stay in the United States and use her medical license. She had no family to worry about her, and certainly her ex-husband, Grant, wouldn't bother her when he learned about her decision to disappear from the radar of their ruined lives.

  She only regretted leaving…no, she wasn't going there. She'd go back now and then. Maybe even…but that was also a decision for the future.

  She jammed the key into the lock. Just as the tumblers disengaged, she noticed the tall Native American man racing toward the clinic's rear entrance. Is he coatless in this freezing weather? No, he carried his jacket wrapped around something in his arms. Something … or someone … small. A child?

  Oh, god, no! Not a child….

  But Channing's medical instincts kicked in, and she pushed the memories aside and strode back toward the clinic. The man beat her through the door, barely. She followed him down the hallway, to the front desk.

  "I need help," the man demanded as he pushed back part of the jacket to expose a child's face, lips blue-tinged amidst dark bruises. Channing gasped in shock and pain, clasping an arm over her stomach where the nearly-healed ulcer flared. The man holding the child didn't even glance at her.

  "I found her in a drainage ditch on one of the back streets," he went on, his voice a low growl of tenderness. "She's nearly gone. Get the doctor here. Now!"

  "Dr. Silver's out," the receptionist began in a shaken voice, then noticed Channing. "Dr. Drury! I'm so glad you came back."

  "Which exam room can I use?" Channing asked, steeling herself to reach out for the bundle in the man's arms.

  "They're all empty," Daisy, the receptionist, informed her. "I was getting ready to close."

  The man relinquished the jacket-covered bundle, and Channing felt the frail body inside. For an instant, she stared down at the tiny, blue-lipped face of a child barely three years old, and her heart lurched with agony. Dark hair, probably brown eyes, if they were open, since she was Native American. It could have been the man's own child.

  Stifling her non-medical emotions, Channing headed for the closest exam room. "Where's Dr. Silver?" she called over her shoulder.

  "Probably at the diner, but I'll call him on his cell," Daisy replied. "I'll also see if I can get Nurse PawPaw."

  Channing laid the child on the exam table, shrugged off her heavy jacket and tossed it aside, then noticed the man had followed her. The poor child only wore a pair of panties, and the inane thought that she was potty trained flashed through Channing's mind. She didn't take time to remove the panties. Later would be sufficient for that part of the exam.

  The jacket didn't hold any lingering warmth from the man. She didn't expect any from the child. Hypothermia patients lost the ability to generate heat. She needed to get the little girl warmed as soon as possible, but first….

  "What can you tell me?" she asked him as she felt for injuries.

  "Nothing more than I've already said. I found her in a drainage ditch, nearly covered with snow. I thought for sure she was dea-gone. But when I picked her up, I felt a bare hint of breath."

  Not for long, Channing thought. Her experienced hands could feel no sign of life in the cold, still body. Yet she couldn't give up right away. At times, systemic hypothermia patients recovered in miraculous ways. Their body functions might appear nonexistent, but the will to live was strong. There could be a flicker down deep, dormant but still there.

  "How long had she been there?" she asked, although as soon as the question left her mouth, she realized what the answer probably was.

  "No idea," the man confirmed.

  "Daisy!" Channing yelled, and the receptionist appeared immediately.

  "Dr. Silver and Nurse PawPaw are both on the way," Daisy said. "What can I do?"

  "Do you have any medical knowledge?"

  "Some," the receptionist said, and Channing glanced at the robust woman gratefully.

  "Do you know where anything is around here?" Channing's hands intuitively started the CPR compressions, two-fingered for the small body beneath her touch. "For one thing, a thermal warming blanket? For another, I need an IV set up. Five percent dextrose."

  "I can handle both those." Daisy scurried away and returned a few seconds later, the requested blanket in her hands. The receptionist plugged it in and shook it out, wrapping it around the child as Channing pinched the cold nose and blew a breath into the lungs. When she drew back, the narrow little chest fell on the exhale, but didn't rise again.

  "Stethoscope, please," she ordered as she replaced her fingers in compression mode on the small chest.

  Channing ceased CPR long enough to listen to the child's heart, but could hear nothing. Still, she'd noticed a heart monitor in the corner of the room, and she asked Daisy to shove it over to the exam table and help her hook it up. As she began her ministrations again, despite the flat-line on the monitor, she asked Daisy, "Can you call for a medivac copter?"

  "I already tried, while I was making the other phone calls," Daisy replied sadly. "Everyone's grounded until this storm passes. It's worse south of us, where the copters have to come from, and supposed to last until nearly morning."

  Channing gritted her teeth in disappointment, although the news didn't surprise her. The wind pushing the snow in the parking lot had been fairly strong, far too strong for a helicopter to travel in.

  "What other hypothermia equipment do you have?" Channing asked, dredging her memory for years-old lessons. Although she had seen freezing temperatures more than once in Texas, never had she treated hypothermia. What was that thing that delivered heated, humidified oxygen? "Do you have an ambu-bag?"

  "I’m sorry. If we do have one of those, I don't know where. Or even what it is."

  "That's all right. I'll bet you do know CPR."

  "Yes. Oh, yes. I can spell you with that."

  She and the receptionist worked over the little girl for what seemed like hours, but the clock confirmed was only an agonizing fifteen minutes, with no response from the child. Still, Channing adamantly refused to give up. As she labored, every miracle that she'd ever heard
of about a patient recovering from what appeared to be death but was only severe hypothermia rang in her mind. Finally, Dr. Edward Silver, a kindly, gray-haired man she had only met in phone conversations, arrived, his nurse, PawPaw, right behind him.

  "Channing Drury," Dr. Silver said as he and the nurse headed for the counter to pull on rubber gloves. "Daisy told me you were here when she called. What can I do?"

  Channing updated him on the child's condition, her non-responsiveness, the fact that nothing so far had brought any sign of improvement. The fact that Channing was quickly losing hope that this would be one of the miracle systemic hypothermia patients.

  "Well, we'll try the ambu-bag," Dr. Silver said, and his nurse scurried away without him having to give her any direct order.

  Another fifteen minutes crawled by, and Channing refused the doctor's gentle suggestion that their ministrations were of no use. Finally, Dr. Silver took Channing's hands in his own, pulled her away from the child and forced her to look into his eyes. "She's gone, Channing. I'm so sorry, as I know you are. But we need to stop trying to revive her now."

  "No! I—" Channing stared down at the tiny body. Tears dimmed her eyes, blurring the peaceful face, the blue lips, the hands curled into miniature fists. For a second, another miniscule face superimposed over the one on the table, and Channing choked on a sob. Then she jerked her hands free from Dr. Silver's grasp and angrily swiped her tears away.

  "You're right, Edward," she said. She glanced at the clock on the wall that she'd been aware of all along, hoping that she wouldn't have to use it for this moment. Nearly forty-five minutes had passed since she'd carried the child into the exam room. "Time of death, four—"