In the Woods Page 8

  Wayne and Alex eased back on their heels, staring at the bag then across at one another. Neither moved for a timeless second.Then Wayne reached into his pocket to withdraw a camping knife. The blade clicked open. Alex gave a start at the sound.

  Then he extended his hand to offer, "Let me do it."

  Wayne studied him.

  Curiosity had nothing to do with Alex's statement. It had everything to do with the fact that Wayne was Laurie Walshank's godfather.

  And if that little girl was in the bag . . .

  "Let me," Alex said again.

  Wayne handed the knife over.

  Alex bent down and felt around the top of the exposed burlap.The weave was coarse and uneven, a poor job, like something a kid would make for a 4H project. The fibers were fragile, fraying in his hands as if very, very old. He stuck the knife into a flap of material, then reared back.

  No smell came from the bag, not like he'd expect if he was opening up the shroud of a recently deceased and decomposing. It felt like a breath against his face, a hard puff expelled as if from the lungs of a corpse in its final death rattle. An old, fetid smell, the kind archaeologists must have inhaled when cracking the seams of a tomb.

  Alex clamped his jaw tight, fighting the bile burning in the back of his throat.

  Determinedly, he began to cut.

  It wasn't as easy as he'd anticipated. For crude material, it was tough, resistant to the blade, fighting against his intrusion.Alex cursed meaningfully, sawing with the tiny edge against corded nap.

  Finally, he gave up and set the knife aside. Fingers curling into either side of the opening he'd made, Alex clenched the fabric and pulled. It held. Planting his knees firmer, he tightened his grip, rending the sack apart.

  It gave so suddenly, Alex spilled back onto his haunches. He heard Wayne's hoarse cry and scrambled up to see what held his boss in such rigid fascination.

  Bones.

  The sack was full of bones. Old bones, polished clean by time. Not the bones of some innocent victim buried only weeks ago. Not Laurie Walshank in an unflattering state of rot. Not human bones, at all.

  Alex let out a noisy sigh of relief. "Looks like I was right after all. Somebody's pet."

  Not Laurie Walshank's youthful flesh wriggling with worms.Thank God!

  Wayne dropped back on his rump, head sagging forward, eyes closing weakly in his disappointment. The spade fell from slackening fingers, trickling dirt as it rolled away in awkward loops.

  Now that he was sure it wasn't the remains of anyone he might know, Alex leaned forward to examine the skeletal pieces. An animal, definitely. But what kind? No gerbil, that much was obvious. He reached into the bag, seeking an answer and finding a darker question.

  "Come to Poppa."

  The skull was heavy and huge. As big as a watermelon and like nothing he'd ever seen. He wondered in a brief euphoria, if they'd stumbled upon something prehistoric, for the long, tapering skull was possessed of a fearsome set of teeth, the canines elongated to curl like tusks. He'd heard of them discovering dinosaur remains in farmer's fields. Maybe that's what this was.

  He and Wayne could make the national news. Wouldn’t that be something!

  But what was it? A saber-toothed tiger? He touched one of the smooth fangs and shivered, thinking of the damage it could do if put to some serious business. Stranger still, was the short horn centered between gaping sockets and nasal holes.

  What the hell was it?

  As Alex studied the skull, it began to feel warm in his hands.Just his own heat transferring to the old bones, of course.

  "I bet you were one scary mother," he muttered, staring through the large vacant sockets, while wondering what kind of world the beast had observed with its last sight.

  And as he stared into those twin black holes, an eerie light-headedness swirled up around him, sucking at him, pulling him down toward some unnamed darkness that was scary as all hell. For a moment, he thought he might faint as vision ebbed and surged in sickening swells. He blinked rapidly, fighting the cresting nausea.

  And through that hazy focus, Alex's gaze was mesmerized by a sudden subtle glow emanating from behind those ghastly hollow sockets. A pulsing brightness, a compelling energy of life and power, beckoning him to come closer, to look deeper, to discover some mystery hidden by the centuries past.

  Calling to him.

  Master . . .

  "Alex."

  Alex knelt, slack jawed, eyes twirling blankly, fixed stare riveted upon the skull cradled in his hands.

  "Alex!"

  Alex's breathing shivered noisily.

  "Hey, Alex!"

  This time, he was able to break away, shaking his head to scatter the dizziness, suddenly embarrassed by his momentarily lapse. He glanced up at Wayne, noting his companion's agitation. "What?"

  "Do you hear that?"

  Alex cocked his head. "Hear what?"

  There was no sound at all, except their hurried respirations.

  "That's my point, exactly," Wayne hissed. He was clambering to his feet in a scuffle of urgency. He glanced around at the darkening woods. "Let's get the hell outta here."

  Alex looked back at the skull. It seemed to be staring back up at him through those cavernous eyeholes, grinning at him around those mammoth tusks. He let it drop from his hands, abruptly repelled by its weight and silky texture. Suddenly, being on the cover of National Geographic didn’t seem quite as appealing as being tucked safely between his own covers. He staggered up, grabbing his pack.

  "I'm right behind you, Wayne."

  The crack of a branch made them both jump. The sound came from a distance, the origin obscured by the dense tree line. A huge sound in the unnatural silence.

  Alex eased the knapsack onto his shoulders and reached slowly for his gun.

  Another snap, a crunch, a rustle of movement. The heavy underbrush yielding before something alive. Something coming toward them.

  Something big.

  Coming fast!

  Wayne broke for the trees, Alex racing behind him. They bounded along the rough path they'd made on their way in, feet ripping through the tangle of roots, branches slapping, stinging their faces as they ducked and dodged, running too fast to avoid the majority of them.

  Because behind them, on their trail, was something they didn't want to meet in the dimming forest.

  And it sure as hell wasn't Bambi!

  "Damn! Where's the truck?" Alex wheezed, stumbling over a vine and nearly falling. He caught himself on his palms, skin tearing, knees pumping, propelling him into headlong flight almost directly into the closest tree. He feinted to the right then the left, like a wide receiver with the whole back field on his tail. He didn't dare look behind them. That would have been suicidal considering his full tilt sprint. But he could hear it, whatever it was, crashing through the bushes, cracking branches, getting closer with every stride.

  "Just keep running!" Wayne shouted.

  Good idea!

  Both men shrugged out of their packs, abandoning them on the forest floor to allow for greater speed and movement. Their hope that whatever pursued them would stop to investigate was short lived. If anything, the sound came toward them faster.

  Alex risked a glance and was greeted by a fantastic trick of vision. Something huge, shaggy, not quite human, just flashing glimpses through the trees. As he turned his attention ahead, he slammed full speed into the bed of the truck, the wind leaving him in a tremendous whoosh. He bent double, sucking air helplessly as Wayne scrambled past him, frantically groping in his pockets for the keys. Metal glittered in his unsteady fingers and scraped paint as he tried to find the door lock. The door flew open and Wayne leapt inside.

  "Get in the truck, you idiot!" he shouted at Alex, slamming his door and pounding down on the lock.

  Still gasping for a full breath, Alex wobbled around the back end of the truck. Wayne leaned across the seat to throw open his door and, shot gun first, Alex crawled in, locking his side, too.

&n
bsp; As if locks would protect them.

  Something banged into the rear of the truck with the force of a battering ram.

  Wayne cranked the keys in the ignition and the pickup roared to life. He slammed the stick into drive and tromped down hard on the pedal. The truck lunged forward then jerked to a stop, throwing both men into the dash.

  "Go!" Alex was screaming as the seat seemed to angle forward, spilling them off.

  The rear wheels of the truck had left the ground.

  Impossible . . .

  "Sonuvabitch!" Wayne shrieked, grinding through gears as the tires spun madly in air.

  Alex twisted around, bringing up the barrel of his .12 gauge, aiming it through the back glass. He could see a monstrous head sticking up over the airborne tailgate, glimpsing shaggy hair but no distinct features. But it was enough to convince him that it was no woodsman Don King on a bad hair day. And he let go with both barrels.

  Glass exploded and the cab filled with an eardrum busting roar.Another roar sounded from the rear of the truck, this one a howling wail, an animal sound that had every hair on both men's arms waving at a bristle of attention.

  Wayne shoved the vehicle into four wheel drive and it leapt forward, rear wheels striking the ground with teeth clacking force, spinning wildly for traction.

  Then they were moving, hell-bent down the two-track, with the snarl of the motor and the sob of their rapid breathing the only sounds.

  ӜӜӜ

  Behind them in the woods, in the strange clearing that had been unvisited for centuries, where dirt spilled back from a gaping grave, a thick mist rose. From out of that blanket of fog, something shifted and began to move. Something that had no business stirring in this modern century. The dark form gathered and grew, taking a monstrous, unholy shape that lingered only an instant to taste the air, to stare in the direction the firemen had taken, before disappearing into the trees.

  Life returned to the clearing. A gentle breeze brushed away the low crouching clouds and natural sounds filled the surrounding woods.

  After a time, the circle’s quiet was disrupted again. The intruding figure crouched down over the exhumed plot to examine what never should have been violated, ignoring its own pain because consequence was far more deadly,.

  In the center of that circle, in the midst of disturbed earth, the ancient woven sack lay empty.

  It was loose.

  The evil was free again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was too early for the evening crowd of rowdies who inhabited Double-Vision. The Quick-One-After-Work group had gone, and diners sought home or better restaurants to satisfy their hunger. The parking lot was nearly empty, shadows spreading wide but not yet dark enough for the mercuries to kick in. Wayne Higley's pick-up stood alone, half on the sidewalk leading around the corner of the bar. The passenger door stood ajar. Glass littered the bed and the tailgate was full of holes.

  Inside the bar, the jukebox crooned an old blues classic while the live band set up for its evening sets upon a dim stage. Behind the bar, Jodie looked up from stacking glasses as her twin appeared from the back room. Julie's dark head nodded toward the pair in a secluded dark corner. Two men leaned on their elbows, heads close together amid a maze of empties, rushing full bore toward intoxication.

  "How long have they been here?"

  Jodie shrugged, but her gaze was concerned."I don't know.Maybe an hour and a half."

  "Must've had a bad day."

  "Alex didn't even wave at me," Jodie murmured as if that omission held drastic meaning. To her, it did. She'd had a crush on Alex Kerwood forever. He was one of the few decent guys she never seemed to meet until after they were happily married—to someone else.

  At least, happily to this point, but considering the way he was weaving in his chair, the situation could be tenuous. Not that she'd wish unhappiness on Alex or Helen, whom she'd meet briefly once before when they’d come in after a station picnic to shoot some pool. No, she wouldn't wish them apart.

  But if it happened, moss wasn't going to gather on that man for long, if she had her way. She took the bar towel off her shoulder."I'm going to talk to them. Finish this up for me, would you?"

  "Sure," Julie agreed, silently resigned to her sister's unrequited interest in the unobtainable.

  Hoisting back her shoulders and unconsciously fluffing her hair with her fingers, Jodie strolled across the room, tray tucked under one arm. The only eyes that didn't follow her progress with avid appreciation belonged to the two men she approached.

  "Hi, Alex. Hi, Wayne."

  Neither responded with so much as a blink. Sure, plenty of bottles marked the path of their drunken sojourn like road signs, but she didn't think they'd had enough to put them into comas.Frowning slightly, she loaded up the tray.

  "Can I get you guys anything else?" She studied them for a moment and added, "Like a ride home?"

  Wayne gazed up blearily, taking a moment to recognize her. Then he tapped a forefinger on his almost emptied mug. "Keep 'em coming until I'm unconscious. Then hook up an IV."

  Alex placed his palm over his own glass and shook his head, wordlessly.

  Dismissed by them, Jodie returned to the bar, nursing her dejection with a chaser of worry.

  When she'd gone, Wayne slurred, "We can't tell anybody about this . . ."

  Alex stared at him, a wry smile crooking one side of his mouth.Tell them what? That they'd been grave robbing from some pet cemetery in the woods and gotten run off by Big Foot? Instead of National Geographic, they’d be featured in the National Enquirer.

  "My lips are sealed."

  "What—?" Wayne began, then apparently thought better of asking the question, muttering to himself, "I don't want persons to think me mad."

  Maybe that was it. Maybe they'd gotten spooked out there alone in the woods thinking about the grisly deeds of a serial killer.Maybe finding that grave had set up their subconscious to play a not very nice trick upon them. An elaborate hoax. There had to be a logical explanation . . . only at the moment, they were too drunk to come up with one.

  Except maybe that they'd intruded upon the territory of some really pissed off Sasquatch who'd scared them out of ten years of their lives and two darned good back packs.

  "What're you gonna tell your insurance company?" Alex blurted out when his wandering mind stumbled on it.

  Wayne stared at him, unblinkingly. "I'm going to tell them that the truck got stuck in the woods and when it jerked loose, the shot gun got jarred and went off by accident." His gaze grew challenging, daring Alex to say different. When he didn't, Wayne muttered."That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

  "Damn good story," Alex agreed. He shoved his chair back. In this situation, fiction would suffice. Who'd believe the facts?

  What was Helen going to believe?

  "I gotta get home. Give me your keys. You're too drunk to drive."

  Wayne laughed. "And you're not seeing quadruplets up there at the bar? I'm not near drunk enough yet. I can still see . . . what was never there." And he stared down at the table, suddenly more sober than he cared to be. He reached for his glass with an unsteady hand, a hand marked with scratches earned in their mad dash through the woods. A reminder that at least that part, their terror, had been real.

  Alex ignored him because he couldn't cope with reality yet. He was hanging onto his pleasant buzz with both hands. In a death grip.He stood, gesturing to the lovely twins who were looking rather like a foursome.

  "Take care of Wayne, all right."

  "Sure, Alex," Julie called obligingly. "Anything you want.We'll see he gets home."

  "Thanks, darlings."

  Somehow, he made it out of the bar under his own steam. His head was floating a good three feet off his shoulders and that's just the way he wanted it. Until he saw the truck and reality slammed home again.

  Reality was a shattered back window and glass shards carpeting the bed liner.

  Reality was a tail gate peppered full of shot pockets.
>
  Reality was a bumper splotched with dots of blood.

  Whatever it was, he'd managed to hit it.

  Good, he thought savagely. He hoped it was a fatal dose of lead poisoning after the scare it had given them.

  Because in spite of all the numbing drinks, he was still shaking right down to his socks.

  Just what the HELL had they stumbled onto out there in the trees?

  ӜӜӜ

  She looked right through him, just like the others did. A quick glance that recognized a space occupied but not the man filling it.A nothing. A nobody. Not worth the notice.

  Her mistake.

  She should have seen him for what he was, a celebrity, the king of the five o’clock news and front page headlines for the past five weeks. Now she was going to share those news reports with him. Only he would know her name for now. The rest would know her as number five.

  Helen Kerwood.

  It was inscribed on the bright pink badge pinned to her nicely rounded sweater front. He read it as he walked by the counter while she rang up the sale of a parakeet cuddle bone for some blue haired old lady. Just a glance was all she gave him. Probably just to make sure he wasn’t shoplifting. Probably just to make sure he wasn’t doing anything that would cause her to point a finger, claiming, “That’s him. He’s the one.”

  None of them ever really saw him unless it was to place the blame.Until he made them see him.

  “That’s him. He stole my notebook.”

  “That’s him. Right over there. That one. He’s the one who hit me.”

  “Sure I see him. Second from the right. That’s the man who grabbed my purse.”

  A nobody. A nothing. But not for long. Soon everyone would know his name.

  “That’s him. That’s the creep who tried to ask me out.”

  He could still hear Jenny Markham’s shrill cry as she pointed him out to her running back boyfriend. The creep. He’d sat next to her in geometry for almost a year and had let her copy answers off his paper. And she didn’t even know his name! The Kerwood woman reminded him of Jenny. Maybe that’s what drew him into the pet store.And if he couldn’t make Jenny pay for pointing the finger that got him two cracked ribs and a busted nose, someone had to.