Keepers of the Ageless One
by Rebecca Johnson
While filming a deep-wilderness reality survival series, Kerri, a young independent filmmaker, discovers there might just be some truth to some of history’s darker legends.
Chapter 12: The Mission
Kerri frowned down at the text message taking up her lock screen. Standing, she moved away from the fire, swiping at the screen with her gloved hand. After a few failed attempts, she yanked one hand out of its glove and flicked the screen open.
Her knees buckled and she went down, falling roughly against the wall amid a tangle of bones and bird wings.
“Tiponi!”
The shaman’s voice was urgent, and Kerri’s suddenly numb limbs were caught in a firm grip that guided her the rest of the way to the floor, vision darkening and blooming as she blinked in focused necessity to not pass out.
Her sight returned in a slowly widening tunnel. Kerri breathed and stared at Tiponi, using the Hopi woman’s eyes as a point of solid reference. The room around her began to steady. Tiponi’s grip on her relaxed, and she gestured down with a subtle tip of her head. Answering the unspoken question, Kerri brought the image of the monster around for her to see.
Tiponi’s jaw clamped shut and the muscles beneath her eyes began to quiver.
Kerri’s phone gave another buzz and Tiponi suddenly cried out, turning her face away. Kerri swung the screen back around and slapped a hand over her mouth, muffling the strangled cry that escaped at the sight of a decapitated body impaled on a tree.
Her fingers went numb and the phone slipped to the ground. Frantic, she scrambled to find it again through a second wave of tunneling darkness.
Warm hands brushed hers aside, and Mahasani closed his weathered grip around her phone. Turning it around to look, his features darkened, then hardened into a mask Kerri couldn’t read. Slowly, he handed it back to her and turned away.
Kerri immediately flicked away the image and hurried to dial Jim. It rang once.
“Kerri! Kerri, thank God!”
“Jim, what—”
“No, listen to me, Ker. We’ve got to get you down off that mountain, now! You and the supply team.”
Kerri shook her head, gaze flicking up to Tiponi’s as she watched with worried eyes. Bringing the phone down, she hit the speaker button. “The pilot said he couldn’t make it back until noon at the earliest.”
“I know. I’ve got a boat headed for Darren’s camp right now. They’ll be there in five minutes. It’s only a short walk from the village. I need you to meet them there.”
“Are you out of your mind! Not with that thing stalking around down there! After what you just showed me?”
“That... thing... didn’t do that.” A brief pause let the noise of the background scramble inside the warehouse reach her through the line. “Darren did.”
“WHAT?!”
Jim hurried on: “But we still have eyes on him in Todd’s camp. That’s nearly two hours away by foot. If you leave now, you’ll be safe.”
“Darren did... that?” Kerri repeated, still struggling with the idea that Darren could be capable of such a monstrous act. Though, after what she had just heard from Mahasani and Tiponi, and what she had witnessed when she went to find him in the forest...
“You were right, Ker. Whatever’s going on in these mountains...” But Jim didn’t finish; he didn’t have to. “I don’t know when we’ll be able to get a chopper out to you, but when we do, I want everyone present and accounted for at Bugout. Dr. Gillis is heading back to pick up Holly, and a separate team is headed for you. I told them to meet you at Darren’s fishing nets.” Jim’s anxious voice cut off as his breath gusted over the feed. “I sent them with the bear stoppers.”
Kerri, for her part, breathed a small sigh of relief, immeasurably glad now that she hadn’t backed down regarding the investment of several big-game rifles. “Alright, I’ll get everyone to Darren’s camp.”
“I know you will,” Jim answered. And the faith in his voice was almost enough to make Kerri believe it, too. “Keep eyes and ears on at all times. I’ll be watching from here.”
“I will,” she promised. Then she ended the call, reaching up to open the line at her earpiece.
After a moment, she heard a tinny rattle, then, “You got me, Ker?”
“I got you.”
“Good. See you back home.”
Copyright © 2021 by Rebecca Johnson
