At least the revenant could scream. Jonathan could not summon the strength or courage to cry out. He would die with a whimper in this place, put to rest with only a breath of fear. He thought of Mary then. He thought of Jacob being offered up to this thing, which now stood behind him. He thought about where Jacob might be right now – that infinite, dark and cold place – and then his fear turned to anger, a welling up of animal rage from his gut that overwhelmed him, that felt as big and terrifying as the day his son was born. Life surged within him, forced its way out into the world, even in the face of death.
He felt the metal and wood of his rifle strapped across his back.
It chuffed another breath high above him, like some great African animal, too large to be bothered with a human. Yet it waited for him. He thought of Michael in his tree stand, letting out a birdlike whistle so a deer would lift its head and turn toward him before he punched it through the chest with a shotgun slug. Jonathan breathed in through his nose. He felt every part of his body; he felt the rifle, the way the strap slid slightly to the right so he could slip it off quickly, the way the stock touched the side of his leg. He tried to remember if there was still a round in the chamber.
Jonathan’s movement was not as smooth as he would have liked. He turned quickly, slid the strap from his shoulder, hefted the Remington in his hand, fumbled the safety for a moment and raised the barrel to fire. He didn’t know if it could be killed, but his rage urged him on to try.
And there, just a few feet away, he saw his own image staring back at him. He saw his own horrified face, his same camouflage coveralls, worn, wet and dirty; he saw his facial hair rubbing against the flesh of his neck, his eyes staring wide in wonder. Jonathan paused for a moment. He could not think, and his mind spun and snapped, unsure of who or what he was – whether he was the reality or the reflection, whether he was truly in control of his actions or merely the puppet for this thing, its desires and motivations. Jonathan slowly began to lower his rifle.
But he could not let it go.
Jonathan raised his rifle to shoot, and his mirror image, in turn, turned the barrel of its rifle upward, lodged it beneath his chin and fired.
Jonathan watched his head erupt outward with blood and bits of gore; teeth blasted out like buckshot from the explosion of gas and fire; flesh shook and limbs quivered and Jonathan watched as his mirror image dropped to the ground and slumped forward, reddening the snow and pouring blood into the rotten soil.
Jonathan screamed, fell to his knees and clawed at his own face.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jonathan wandered through the forest in the dark. He could not tell if he was man or ghost. He still felt the ground underfoot, felt the frozen air chafing his cheeks, felt the fear and desire to return to his wife and find his lost boy. But something lay dead in the Gulch. He followed the stream because it was the only thing he could think to do, as if his body were on autopilot to return to the cabin, get home and face…he didn’t know what anymore. The future was nothing more than a gray fog drifting toward him. It brought nothing but more pain, yet all he could do was continue onward. He stumbled. His legs weren’t working correctly anymore, tired and dead from three days of heavy hiking through the mountainous terrain. His gait was awkward; only the last remnants of his willpower dragged his body through the trees. Anyone who saw him would think a corpse had risen from the grave and stalked through the trees. He turned to see if his body still lay dead and faceless on the ground. He could see it – a black stain in the pale snow.
He did not know what time it was anymore. Time had lost all meaning. Time didn’t matter for Jacob – if indeed he were trapped in that terrible, lonely limbo like Thomas Terrywile – and time no longer mattered for Jonathan. He was dead. Whether it was spiritually or physically, it no longer mattered. All blended together, all was the same. The curtain had been pulled back momentarily, and he saw himself dancing on the stage, his own movements controlled by an unseen puppeteer. It was almost laughable, except he was the lone audience.
The snow ceased momentarily and the moon shone full and bright in a break between the passing clouds. The mountain ridges glowed, each a reflection of the other. He followed the stream but couldn’t be sure he was headed in the right direction. All he could do was keep on moving – keep living, if that was what it could be called. He saw identical places a thousand times over. He saw the stars turn. He heard branches move and break in the darkness, first on one side of the stream and then the other. The sounds and movements were too quick to be just one person or animal; it had to be many, all of them closing in. For what, he did not know, but he moved forward anyway. From behind came the sound of heavy timber being uprooted and thrown to the ground, heavy crashing sounds of thick, splitting wood. He looked to the moon, but it was half-hidden behind
