Much later, at the onset of her mental illness at age twenty-six, he told her one way to control her illness was through discipline and magic. It was easy to persuade her to train in both sword combat and Shamanism. Through the training, she found Skunk, who helped her moderate her illness, though she still required powerful medication.
Now at thirty, as she recalled this conversation, she didn’t feel grown up. Afraid of getting a real job, though an assistant professorship was still in academia, she would be drawing a real salary and have to pay real rent and make huge payments to repay her student loans.
That is, if killing George hadn’t just derailed her whole future.
She should have been in love by now, but she hadn’t been. Her biological clock was ticking. She blamed her father. When he left the family when she was ten, she blamed herself, thinking she had done something wrong. Grandfather Cummings consistently told her she had not until she believed it herself. And then she got angry at her father and had hated him ever since. He’d ruined their lives, and now she couldn’t love. Because of him.
She looked at the runes the sword bore. She had translated them soon after her grandfather’s death. From close to the hilt down the length of the sword for several inches, the runes read:
ᛞᚱᚨᚢᚷᚨᚱ
Transliterated, it spelled “DRAUGAR.” The Draugar, in Old Norse mythology, were dead creatures come back to life, very strong, quick, and indestructible, requiring only brain and spinal cord to survive. Someone could kill them a second time by severing the brain from the spinal cord. Why name a sword after such creatures?
Jocelyn’s heartbeat quickened. George had fit the description.
What would Jocelyn tell the authorities? That her diseased friend had attacked her? Just contemplating her options made her dizzy.
The next thing she remembered, she was lying on the couch, hot under a few throw blankets, which she soon threw off. George’s stench overwhelmed her. Nauseous yet again, she barely made it to the toilet in time, almost tripping over his body.
Now she was burning up and disoriented. In George’s medicine cabinet she found a digital thermometer—she registered 103 Fahrenheit. Feeling sharp pain in her neck wound, she took off her bandage, and the bite looked inflamed, maybe infected. That would explain her fever. Luckily, George had antibiotic ointment and Tylenol, and after treating herself with those, she felt exhausted, almost crushed, as if gravity had tripled. It was all she could do to make it back to the couch and instantly fall asleep.
Chapter Four
Day Zero
Sheriff Marty Hill heard the familiar Marimba ringtone.
Sigh. Why did he have to tell his mother he took the day off? With the coming snowstorm, he’d be extremely busy over the next two days, and he wanted to rest up today. He did that by sitting in his living room, viewing old M*A*S*H reruns. Had there ever been a half-hour show as good as M*A*S*H? No.
The only thing he had left to do outside the house was drive into town and get gas for the patrol car.
The kids had yet to start school. Jamie, twelve, was off visiting his best friend Jimmy, while Amanda, eight and undergoing a phase, didn’t want much to do with her father. His beautiful wife Karen, his high-school sweetheart, lay on the couch with him, her head resting upon his shoulder, either sleeping or pretending to be asleep.
Marty fished the phone out of his jeans pocket, trying not to disturb his wife. The screen did not say “Mom” but “Kevin,” one of his deputies. Didn’t Kevin know he was on vacation? Marty had made that clear.
“Kevin,” Marty said after accepting the call, “this better be good.”
“Marty.” Kevin’s voice was shaky and then silent for a few seconds. “I think we’re under a terrorist attack.”
“Oh, hell. Where? New York?”
“No, here in Beaver Park. The ski resort!”
The ski resort was six miles south of Marty’s house and only a mile south of where his son Jamie was right now.
“Have you talked to anyone at the resort?” Marty was calm yet firm.
“Not anyone that works there, I’ve tried, but . . .” Kevin’s voice was tremulous before it trailed off.
“But what bro, out with it, if we’re under attack, time’s a wastin’.”
“Marty . . . I think they’re all dead.”
“Who’s dead? How many?”
“The entire fucking resort, Sheriff . . . And I sent four deputies in there . . . God dammit, I killed them. Marty, they’re all dead!”
Four deputies? Dead?
“What was it, a bomb?” Marty asked.
“No, worse, a bunch of crazed people beating and biting everyone to death!”
“Did you say beating and biting them to death?”
“Y-Y-Yes,” Kevin replied. “No guns, no bombs, no fucking knives! Just beating them.”
“How do you know this?”
“That’s what one of my deputies said before . . . Jesus, he said it must be some kind of diseased cult or something.”
Diseased? “How many cars do you have up north?”
“Four.”
Marty stared at the TV. He had seen this episode. Pierce was being pranked on April Fool’s Day.
“Send two cars from up north down here. Set up a roadblock past my house down to the Northern end of Airport Road. No one gets north of Airport Road, understand?”
“Yes, sir, I gotcha.”
“Good. Now for the south of town. Once you’ve dispatched those cars and given them instructions, call Bullhead City and get them to send some units up north. Leave the other two cars up north on high terrorist alert.”
“What about us?” Meaning Beaver Park itself.
“Are you at the office?” Marty asked. The Beaver County Sheriff’s office was in the heart of Beaver Park, only three miles from the resort, a half mile north of the gondola that takes you from the ski resort right into town.
“No, I’m at the police station.” Kevin sounded scared.
“Even better. Coordinate with them. We have to cut off
