The Outsider

By Ron Drummond

When Pete Conway stays at a rustic mountain guest ranch, he becomes involved in a frightening situation that is not the quiet vacation he had expected. Trapped by a heavy winter snowstorm, he and his fellow guests are stalked by an evil terror that is trying to kill them.

Who will be next? Hank, who owns the ranch? Hank's uncle, a tough former lawman? Gunther, who wants to hunt anything that moves?  Or the mysterious stranger, known only as Jan?

Trapped in a nightmare situation with no link to the outside world, their vehicles sabotaged, and no chance of help, the survivors have to rely on their own resources. But will they be able to survive the brutal weather and the brutal attacks of their unknown stalker?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ashart Publishing
• Release date: Nov 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386964469

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Wednesday, 1:45 am

The animals were restless that night, high in the valley in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado that was part of the backbone of the continental United States.

Earlier, as the murk of twilight was deepening into the starry night, a thin ray of red light had arced across the sky like a laser beam at a low angle. Seconds later, a cone of bluish light flashed twice skywards from between two mountain peaks. It was a strange light, more like an upside-down cone balanced on its tip as its precise shape strained skywards into the heavens. Now, hours later, the darkness had transformed itself back into the dark cloak of a moonless night.

The old cow died in the cool dark of that night.

It was early fall. On this particular night the darkness lay over the pine and aspen trees like a heavy mantle. Overhead the sky was crisp and clear, and a million stars gleamed and twinkled with the intense sharpness and brightness that is peculiar to the thin atmosphere of the high mountains.

About half-way towards tall cliffs that loomed to form one end of the narrow valley, where a ragged cliff with a jumble of rocks at its base rose almost vertically towards the stars, a vague shadowy shape moved through the faint glow of starlight around a thick grove of pine trees. Even in the heavy darkness the limbs of the trees seemed to form a deeper shadow and created an inky pool of blackness against the bottom of the cliffs. The large, indistinct, ghostly shape detached itself from the mass of rocks and boulders, paused for a moment at the edge of the trees as if testing the wind, and then moved silently towards the southern end of the little valley.

A little further down the shallow canyon formed by the cliffs stood a tall pine tree that had been blasted many years ago by a bolt of summer lightning. The sizzling surge of electrical charge that used the tree as its pathway to the ground had left the branches stripped stark and bare, like some nightmarish dead figure clawing at the sky with empty fingers. On this particular night, a grizzled old badger was digging furiously at the base of the tree, looking for something to eat. A family of field mice had made their home under the roots and the hungry badger knew that mice made a tasty meal. The badger's long, sharp claws tore at the rotten bark and scooped away the dirt packed under the dead roots.

A slight breeze rippled down the valley, stirring the aspen trees and producing a light fluttering, clicking sound as the heart-shaped leaves danced at the ends of their slender stalks. Then the breeze died down and an almost expectant hush fell over the night air. The badger stopped digging and raised its blunt muzzle. It peered grumpily up the valley with a short-sighted stare. After a moment, apparently satisfied, it resumed its digging.

Overhead, perched on one of the tree's dead branches, a great-horned owl blinked its huge yellow eyes and watched the badger digging. Perhaps the badger's frantic activity would scare out a mouse for it also. If not, perhaps the owl might even attack the badger itself. The owl’s appetite ranged from mice to skunks, although it wasn't sure on this particular night if it was in a hungry enough mood to tackle a bad-tempered badger. Suddenly the owl's head swiveled up the valley. Its amazingly sensitive peripheral vision had caught sight of the large shadowy shape coming down the valley with a shambling walk.

Down on the ground, the badger's head shot up into the air again. This time it sniffed the breeze once, snorted in fear, then scurried off with its characteristic rolling gait. The sight would have been comical if the frightened badger had not been in such an obvious hurry.

The owl looked down from its perch as the shadowy shape stopped underneath its tree. The shape paused and looked down at the base of the tree where the badger had been digging. By the pale light of the rising moon the owl could see a pair of close-set yellowish eyes peering craftily up and down the tree.

The shadowy figure bent down, apparently looking to see what the badger had been doing. It probed at the base of the tree, making a peculiar snuffling, grunting noise. Suddenly, sensing something watching, its head shot up and it glared at the owl. The creature put its shoulder to the base of the tree and pushed. The dead wood creaked as the scarred trunk rocked sideways slightly and then settled wearily back into place. The owl took one look at the hairy animal face with yellowish eyes staring malevolently at it, gave a hoot of fright, rose sharply into the air, and winged its way silently back up the valley.

Emitting a low-pitched growl of anger, the creature below gave an abrupt massive shove at the base of the old tree. With a rendering, tearing sound the ancient roots gave way under the assault and the dead limbs that had weathered countless mountain winters and fierce storms without failing slowly toppled to the ground. There was a series of scraping, cracking noises as the dry limbs hit the ground and fractured under the impact. The sound was followed immediately by a resounding crash as the trunk plowed into the earth. Twigs, branches, and splinters flew everywhere. Then, slowly, the cloud of dust raised by the impact settled back down over the fallen tree. Destructive urges apparently satisfied, the creature resumed its way down the valley.

Lower down, where the vertical cliffs gave way to a gently-sloping grass-covered meadow, a herd of cows was alternately grazing on lush fodder from the valley floor and resting for the night. Most of them were lying down chewing contentedly, while the rest were standing or moving slowly around in apparently aimless fashion.

One cow in particular had wandered away from the herd. It was an old animal, moving with a stiff-legged gait that was the result of arthritis. In spite of the lush grass of the meadow, it had a gaunt look that was the result of many winters on the open range. It paced back and forth, swishing its tail and looking nervously over its shoulder. It alternately sniffed the wind and paused to look at the rest of the herd. This was not a very intelligent cow, even as cows go, but some innate sixth sense told it that there was danger nearby.

There had been a loud crash up the valley like a tree blowing over in a storm. But there was no storm tonight. The old cow couldn't see anything out of the ordinary; but, somewhere, something was wrong.

It knew.

Up on the hillside the large shadowy shape watched the herd through its large, dirty, almost luminous, yellow eyes. The creature was hidden in the trees; but, by the pale light of the emerging moon, it could plainly see the valley floor and the lone cow standing away from the herd. The large shaggy shape began to cautiously pick its way down the hillside towards the clearing.

The cow raised its head from grazing and looked nervously around again. The creature in the trees immediately stopped moving and, anticipating the cow, melted back into the shadows and stood still, its matted brownish fur blending in with the color of the  trunks of the pine trees surrounding it.

When the cow finally put its head back down, the shape moved again. Very slowly, so as not to make any noise, the shadow bent down and picked up a large flat  rock about eighteen inches across. The muscles tensed under the shaggy fur, but creature seemed to have no difficulty in picking up the large boulder.

Suddenly it put on a burst of speed and ran silently over the grass towards the cow, at the same time lifting the rock high over its head.

The old cow, warned again at the last minute by its sixth sense, raised its head and started to look around. But it was too late. A lifetime too late.

The cow never knew what hit it.

CHAPTER TWO

Wednesday, 3:18 am

––––––––

The strange red light that had streaked across the sky earlier had not gone unnoticed.

Two hundred miles away from the dead cow, at the Aerospace Defense Investigations Unit buried deep below Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, information from sophisticated electronic sensors scanning the sky had noted the strange path of something that should not have been there crossing the night. The mountain had previously been the primary home of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, until most of its functions were moved to Schriever Air Force Base, east of the town. Though most of the installation deep inside the mountain was now on caretaker status, ready to take over again as the command center if necessary, the ADIU still maintained its offices in the giant underground complex.

Moments later, sixty miles to the north, in the communications bunker of Nellman Air Force Base on the outskirts of Denver, Colorado, the urgent tone of an electronic beeper started its warning signal. At the same time, the soft glow of a computer monitor flickered to life and thin lines of alphanumeric characters started to march across the screen.

A quiet whisper came from the side of the console as a printed copy of the information on the screen slid out of a laser printer. When the paper stopped moving, a hand reached out to pick it up. After a moment's pause for the owner to scan the text, the same hand put the paper on top of the rack of electronic communications equipment, then reached out and picked up the handset of a red telephone.

Sir, this is the duty officer, said a quiet voice into the mouthpiece. Sorry to bother you at this hour, but we have had an alert from ADIU. Something unusual has happened in the mountains to the West. It may be just space debris returning to earth, but maybe not. Shall we scramble?

There was a momentary silence as the man holding the red telephone listened to the voice on the other end of the line.

Yes, sir. I understand, sir. was the soft reply. The red telephone went back onto its cradle.

The hand reached out again and pushed a red button on the computer console.

This scramble alert code Bravo Two Three, said the quiet voice. I repeat. Scramble alert code Bravo Two Three. Coordinates will follow.

That is all.

CHAPTER THREE

Wednesday, 1:15 pm to 5:00 pm

––––––––

Mine had been a messy divorce, with a whole lot of finger-pointing and yelling on both sides. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. Tension had been building for a long time between us. It finally came to a head the night I unexpectedly came home early from a weekend business trip and found Linda in bed with a western-swing dance instructor. A dance instructor, for God's sake!

I looked morosely out of the window of the Boeing aircraft and watched puffy white clouds drifting by several thousand feet below me as I sipped my drink. I grimaced as I felt the raw liquid burn down my throat and my thoughts continued. Maybe the breakup was all my fault. I had spent a lot of evenings attending meetings and entertaining clients. Maybe that was part of it. Or maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. In many ways Linda and I had been very different from the start.

I felt a light touch at my shoulder and I looked up. The flight attendant was leaning over me.

Another drink? she said with a smile.

I smiled back and shook my head. She nodded, smiled again mechanically and turned away. I watched as she turned around to ask the man across the aisle the same question. I felt a sudden twinge of desire as her skirt tightened across her hips when she bent forward to speak to him. Then she straightened up and moved up the aisle towards the cockpit.

I stared out of the window again, but my reverie was broken. Except for signing the final papers, Linda was out of my life now and the reason for this trip was to forget her and the divorce and the constant work that was probably the cause of the whole mess anyway.

I tossed down the rest of my drink and settled lower in my seat. The combination of this bourbon and the two other bourbons I had drunk in the bar in the San Francisco airport terminal before leaving had relaxed me and I found myself looking forward to my first time in Colorado.

Give me a total escape from civilization, I had told my travel agent. But do it on a budget, of course. I’m saving for alimony.

There was a nice young lady on the other end of the phone. At least I supposed that she was nice. She had sounded nice earlier in the conversation, but now she made a huffing noise in my ear. I suppose she didn’t appreciate my sexist attempt at humor.

After a moment’s pause – probably to give me a chance to take back my offhanded attempt at humor – she had responded. How about a nice guest ranch in the heart of the Rocky Mountains? That should be a total escape. I can set you up at Pine Lake Lodge. Their advertising says that they specialize in deer and elk hunting. She sniffed disapprovingly and continued: If you don’t hunt, there is trout fishing.

How about just plain relaxing? I had asked hopefully.

Well, that may be all that there is to do, she had replied, with what sounded like relief in her voice. You haven't chosen the best time of year for this, you know. Late September is too early for deer and elk hunting and, depending on the weather, a little too late for fishing. You may be left with a lot of just plain relaxing.

The plane curved around and started the long, slow glide for the landing in Denver. Below me I saw flat open fields that looked more like the mid-west farm belt than my mental image of the Mountain West. As far as I could see, the landscape was dotted with circular green patches, each one with a spidery mechanical arm of pipes slowly marching around in an endless circle of spraying water, irrigating crops or something. Ahead of the plane’s wing I could just see a yellowish-brown haze and the outskirts of Denver, Colorado's state capital and the self-styled Queen City of the Plains.

A light bump and a bounce and the plane was down on the ground. Almost immediately came the glib: Welcome to Denver International Airport. The temperature outside is a pleasant seventy-two degrees. We have enjoyed having you with us and hope to see you again soon. Have a pleasant day here in Denver or your final destination.

My onward connecting flight was a turboprop commuter plane that looked like a cigar tube and had almost as much room inside. However, in spite of the cramps in my legs from being squeezed into the tiny space under the seat in front of me, it was a relatively smooth flight over the mountain peaks of the Continental Divide, which stood out with crystal clarity in the early afternoon sunlight.

Gunnison, Colorado, was apparently not a busy stop on the airline's schedule because the pilot kept one of the plane's two engines idling while the co-pilot opened the hinged door in the fuselage and pulled down some tiny folding steps with a vinyl-covered cable for a handrail. As I made my way gingerly down the narrow stairway to the ground, I was greeted by a rich, warm smell of aviation fumes and overheated blacktop.

I had expected a September day in the mountains to be cold. Instead, pleasantly surprised by the strong sunlight and clear sky, I slung my light outdoor jacket over my shoulder.

Only one other passenger disembarked with me. A middle-aged, plain-faced woman wearing jeans and a sheepskin jacket. Since I was in shirtsleeves, I would have thought she would be sweltering in that heavy jacket, but the heat from the bright sun in the cloudless blue sky didn’t seem to bother her.

As I started across the tarmac to the terminal building, the ground crew was already rolling the service equipment back away from the plane and the pilot was restarting his second engine. By the time I had walked over and claimed my lone travel bag from the luggage cart sitting outside the door of the terminal building, the pilot had already revved the engines and was rolling down the runway for takeoff.

The confirmation letter I had received from the travel agency said that a car would be at the airport to meet me. There was nobody inside the tiny terminal building except a bored-looking gate agent reading a newspaper. So I picked up my bag and went outside. The woman who got off the plane with me was getting into a shiny new red pickup truck driven by a man in a large cowboy hat with a feather sticking up out of the leather hat-band. She slammed her door shut and they drove off.

There were three other vehicles parked up against the outside of the building. Two more pickup trucks and an old black jeep that looked like it had seen service in World War II. The jeep had no top and no doors, just a roll-bar, and there was a large pair of what looked like authentic steer's horns mounted where the hood ornament should normally have been. Sitting in the passenger seat was a wizened little man dressed in a checkered shirt, faded jeans, and a pair of boots with mud – or maybe something worse –  smeared all over the toes. At least I hoped that it was mud. A dusty black cowboy hat was tipped over his face. He looked like he was asleep in the sun.

I looked around. I didn't see any limousine or shuttle bus from the fancy vacation lodge that was to be my home for the next week.

I had already turned to go back inside the building and see if the airline clerk knew where the lodge was, when I heard a voice behind me say, You Conway?

I looked around. The little cowboy in the jeep apparently hadn't been asleep because he had tipped his large hat back on his head and was looking at me questioningly.

Yes. I am. I nodded cautiously. Are you from Pine Lake Lodge?

Yep. Call me Nails, he answered with a Western twang. Throw your bag in here. I reckon we'd better git movin'. We've got a piece to go.

In spite of his wizened look and small stature, he deftly maneuvered himself over the floor-mounted gearshift into the driver's seat and brought the engine to life with a deafening roar. I threw my bag and jacket into the back, on top of some groceries in a cardboard box. I was still climbing up into the passenger's seat when the little man let out the clutch and the jeep shot suddenly backwards.

It squealed to an abrupt halt while he ground the floor-mounted shift lever into first gear, then we were off again with a lurch that threw me back into my seat.

Fasten your seat-belts, folks, he cackled.

Since there weren’t any seat-belts, I figured that must be cowboy humor at work

I looked over at my driver. He looked exactly like a caricature of what I would have expected an old cowboy to look like. I guessed he was about five foot eight, which made him several inches shorter than me, and he had a wizened little face, topped by a battered old cowboy hat covered with an outer coat of dust and grime. His weather-beaten face was the color of old mahogany and was criss-crossed with a network of deep lines that looked like an aerial map of the Grand Canyon. He could have been as old as the hills around us, or however the proverbial expression goes, but was probably only in his early fifties, making him about fifteen years older than me. Even his name, Nails, seemed to be a part of the caricature.

We shot out onto the highway in front of the airport, narrowly missing an on-coming semi truck, and sped through the adjoining little mountain town at what seemed to me to be alarming speed. He dodged around what little traffic there was and ran the two traffic lights we passed just after they changed from yellow to red. In what I assumed was the center of town we made a left turn that made the tires screech in protest and almost slid me out of the open side of the jeep. I clawed at the side of the windshield and barely managed to keep my seat as he accelerated up the street. In a few minutes we passed through the last of the houses on the outskirts of the town and were out on the open road.

We shot past a small ranch house with several chickens wandering about the road in front. Nails jammed his palm on the horn button and the heavy bass sound of a diesel horn blared out. It wasn’t the sound that I expected, but it worked. The chickens shot out of the way in a cloud of flapping wings, loose feathers, and disgruntled squawking noises.

Hanging onto the side of the windshield with one hand, where the door would have been if the jeep had one, and holding tightly to the side of the seat with the other, I turned to Nails and raised my voice above the growl of the engine and the noise of the open wind whistling past the windshield.

Are we in a hurry? I asked in a shout that I hoped would not be blown away before he heard it. I tried to sound casual, but I was becoming rather alarmed by his erratic style of driving.

Yep, he yelled back, concentrating on passing a pickup truck full of hay on a narrow curve. Got to get over the pass before.

Before what he never did say. As I didn’t want to distract him by making small talk, I didn’t feel that it was safe to ask anything else. Instead, I concentrated on keeping myself from being