Monster (12 page)

“She read it,” he marveled. “She actually read all this stuff.”

With so much precious time lost and Beck not found, Reed felt as if he were in a torturous limbo between faith that they would find her and cold reason that insisted she couldn’t be alive. He dared not voice such things, for he wasn’t ready to face them, not yet.

“I’m proud of her,” he said, withered by emotion. “I’m really proud that she tried. You know she never finished a painting? She did finish one novel, but she was afraid to send it to any publishers. She was afraid of what they’d think.”

“It was a great book!” Sing affirmed. “And listen, Reed, for the record, the survival vacation was a great idea. Sure, Beck needed it, but I think we all could have gotten something out of it.”

“You did the right thing,” Cap agreed.

Reed gazed down at the pack. It was empty now. Cap took it off his hands and he sat quietly, trying to fathom the day’s disappointments. The two teams had returned for the night, some to stay at the Tall Pine, some to catch a few winks at home. What little hope there was, was fading. Reed wondered if they would all return the next morning. “They don’t believe me, do they?”

“It’s tough to get a read on some of them,” said Cap. “I think Pete and the trackers are with you, but as for the others, there’s some talk starting up.”

Sing tried to reassure him, “You have to expect that, Reed. You know this business. It’s all you can do to keep faith in people.”

“I saw Randy’s body. Beck saw it. We both
saw
it!”

Sing put out a hand to halt any more of that. “Reed, let’s move on. Something happened to it. What—that’s the question now.”

“Pete did find the tree, right?”

Sing answered, “As near as we could tell from your map and directions. He thinks he found your and Beck’s footprints around it, and that bush you say she fell into. That all lined up.”

“But no body.”

“No body. Anywhere.”

“But no bear tracks either, right?”

“There may have been tracks—”

“But not
bear
tracks!”

“Pete wouldn’t say one way or another.”

“That’s because this isn’t a bear and he knows it!”

Cap objected, “He doesn’t know it!”

“He found more of the same prints he found above the waterfall, am I right?”

Sing tossed up a hand. “He found some prints. Some of them could have been Randy’s, and some of them were just—I’ll tell you what I think: I think Pete does have some doubts about the bear theory, but he’s waiting before he says anything.”

“Nobody knows what the real story is here,” said Cap.

“So what were you sniffing the pack for?” Reed said.

“What?”

“You were sniffing the backpack! You were looking at the hairs! What were you thinking?”

“Reed, I wasn’t thinking anything.” Reed and Sing locked eyes with him. “Well, nothing
serious
!”

Sing leaned toward her husband, emphatic. “We need to identify those hairs, Cap.”

Cap looked cornered. “Why look at me?”

“You have friends at the university who can do it.”

“They’re not my friends!” They locked eyes with him again. “Well, okay, some of them are. They
might
be.”

Sing reached into her backpack and pulled out a plastic Ziploc bag, sealed with red “evidence” tape. The hairs were in it. She tossed it to her husband.

He tossed it back. “I am
not
going back there! I
can’t
!” He felt their gaze again. “All right, give me more reason and I’ll think about it!”

It took a long moment of stillness before the big red female relaxed her grip and Beck could move a little. Beck allowed herself a small bit of relief, a calming breath or two, but her heart was racing and the trembling wouldn’t go away.

A hand with the texture of a baseball glove wrapped around her face and forced her to look directly into the creature’s face, mere inches away.

Beck couldn’t even scream, her silent throat betraying her yet again.

With long, slimy strokes, a big pink tongue began mopping the berry stains and blood from Beck’s face. She raised her hand to push the big mouth away—
lick
—but then realized—
lick, lick—
that this disgusting, smelly, slimy act could be—
lick
—an act of kindness—
lick, lick
—and she’d better not mess with it.

The creature licked her some more, then inspected her face like a mother inspecting her child. Satisfied, she set Beck down and went to the stream for another drink.

Nauseous, Beck wasted no time crawling and hobbling to the stream, where she flopped on her belly and splashed water on her face. She could feel the slime on her skin, in her hair, on her neck, even in her ears. She kept splashing, frantically washing, longing for some soap and cleansing moisturizer, that wonderful, good-smelling stuff that came out of the quaint, decorative pump bottle by her sink in her nice, warm, clean house—

A string of slime hung from her fingers as she brought them up out of the water. When she stopped to stare at it, she heard an explosive spitting noise upstream.

The big female was drinking, then spitting huge, stringy mouthfuls of water. Apparently she wasn’t too pleased with how Beck’s face tasted.

Beck stopped, too insulted to continue washing. How could that disgusting monster find
Beck
disgusting?

The lady finished drinking, rolled back onto her haunches, and gave Beck a relentless, studious look, a gaze so unbroken it put Beck’s nerves on edge.

A cold wind whipped across the mountainside, swaying the trees and leaching heat from Beck’s body. The sun had dipped behind the mountain and a worrisome chill was moving in. So what to do? Was there anywhere she could curl up out of the wind? What if the other two creatures came back?

She eyed the big red female and tried to weigh disgust against wisdom. It seemed the big gal
was
intent on protecting her, something Beck couldn’t figure out but had to consider. With night coming on, she might do well to reconsider that big, warm body.

She immediately looked elsewhere. There had to be another way.

The beast grabbed her again.

“Noo!” Beck screeched.

She pulled Beck close.

The smell was enough to make Beck gag, the fur was oily and sweaty, and there was still that frightful streak of blood.

But the body was warm.

The beast’s big hands held her close, cuddling her. The coarse fur poked her in the eye and tickled her nose. The blood was turning sour; it gave off a smell like a dead mouse.

But Beck was warm. The cold wind would not reach her tonight.

She pushed the creature’s hair out of her eyes, then tried to relax and, of all things, accept the situation—if she could only breathe.

Reed was right about one thing: the rules were different out here. How different? How would she learn them other than one mistake at a time, and what if a mistake turned out to be fatal? She wished Reed were here to help her.

A cold breeze interrupted her thoughts and reminded her that there were more immediate things to worry about—like staying alive right now. Cringing, she pressed in close to the odorous, furry body and drew in the warmth. The beast cradled her with a big arm. More warmth.

Not far south of Abney, in a small meadow about ten miles back on a logging road, Ted and Melanie Brooks, a couple in their twenties, were “roughing it,” cooking up a meal over the open fire in front of their two-person tent. Several beer bottles lay empty in the grass, and they were working on two more. A boom box kept them company, preventing any unwanted quiet with the steady pulsing of bass and drums and the angry wailings of a lead guitar.

Ted was frying up the hamburgers. In the light of a camp lantern, Melanie was chopping up some bananas, apples, and melons for a fruit salad. Nearby was their camp cooler, the lid open, full of drinks, fresh eggs, and raw bacon for the morning’s breakfast. They’d eaten lunch in the early afternoon and burned their paper plates, but the leftover McDonald’s French fries and half of a Caesar salad still remained, resting on a stump, waiting to be part of tonight’s meal.

“Hey, babe,” Ted said, turning his face away from the heat of the fire. “You want to take a hike later? Nothing like a walk in the dark in the woods.”

“I’m up to it if you are,” Melanie teased back, her perfect smile lighting her face.

It felt good to get away from the big-city grind. Ted sang along with the CD now playing, a Hendrix tune he’d sung along with from his youth, as he flipped the patties in an iron frying pan.

“Almost done,” he announced, excessively happy. He reached for another beer.

“Salad’s about ready,” Melanie answered, cutting crookedly as the beer metabolized.

A reflection appeared in the trees at the edge of the meadow. It glimmered, moved, then winked out. Ted
thought
he saw it. “What was that?”

Melanie looked up. “What was what?”

Ted took the iron pan off the fire and set it on a nearby stump where the grease and burgers continued to steam and sizzle. Then he stood away from the fire, watching the darkness. “I thought I saw something.”

Melanie stood very still, though a little unsteady. “I think I
heard
something.”

Ted hurried over and shut off the boom box.

The sudden quiet was jarring, eerie. Except for the crackle of the fire and the steady breath of the camp lantern, there wasn’t a sound.

Then there was.

Snap! Crunch!

Melanie grabbed Ted’s arm, hard.

They both peered into the darkness beyond the reach of the lantern, frightened by the shadows—even their own.

A rustling and another twig breaking.

“Something’s out there,” Ted whispered.

six

“Did we bring a gun?” Melanie whispered in fear.

“No, no gun,” Ted answered, eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the dimly lit trees. Something was still moving out there. He heard the thumping of feet on a log. “Hello? Hey!” he shouted.

“Don’t yell. It might—”

The scream sent a shock through their nerves, jolting their muscles, turning their stomachs, quaking their hands.

“It’s . . . it’s a . . . there’s a woman out there!” Ted blurted, his voice high and trembling.

The mournful wail was still going, rising, falling, rising again.

“Who is it?” Melanie asked no one in particular.

“Hello? Are you all right?” Ted yelled into the dark, then rebuked himself, “That’s a dumb question.” He stepped forward.

“Where are you going?” Melanie said.

“I’m going to see who it is.”

“Don’t go out there!”

Ted walked cautiously, shakily, toward the sound, just now falling away. “Hello? You hurt?” He ventured beyond the reach of the light. His form was dim, broken into segments by the shadows. He stumbled on some fallen branches he didn’t see.

“Ted! Come back here! I’m scared!”

He turned to look back, his face illumined like a lone planet in the dark of space. “Can you see anything?” he said.

She could see only his face and his right shoulder.

Just beyond his right shoulder, two silvery-green retinas turned into the light.

Melanie screamed the scream of her life, backing away, hands to her face.

Ted spun around just in time to take a blow to his head that nearly snapped his neck. He tumbled like a rag doll out of sight. Branches snapped and Melanie heard hissing through the leaves.

“Ted!”

Something big was moving out there. It screamed like a woman being stabbed. Melanie found a rock and threw it into the blackness. It glanced off a tree.

“Melanie!” Ted’s voice was muffled as if he was yelling into the ground.

The shadow moved that direction.

“Ted, run!
Run!
”

She heard him screaming, thrashing in the brush, moving right, falling again, screaming again.

The woman screamed just above him.

Melanie grabbed the hot frying pan with a pot holder and bolted crazily into the dark, her own shadow a black demon dancing on the trees before her. She caught a glimpse of Ted high-stepping, grappling, pushing through the woods on her right, trying to make it to some light.

“Melanie, it’s behind you!”

She spun, swinging the frying pan like a baseball bat. The pan tilted vertically and contacted a black, furry mass with a dull
bong
and the hiss of hot grease.

The thing screamed and spun away. Melanie dropped the pan and ran toward the light.

Ted was ahead of her now, his body a silhouette against the camp lantern, his shadow a man-shaped tunnel through the campfire smoke. She ran down that tunnel, stumbling on the uneven ground.

The thing was behind her, screaming in pain and rage.

Ted had reached the car. “Come on, Melanie, come on!”

She got there as he started up the engine. She dove inside, slammed the door, then groped, slapped for the lock button until she found it and pounded it down.

Ted hit the gas and the car lurched forward.

The thing leaped through the headlights, its coarse, black flank absorbing the light, then glanced off the right fender. For an instant, Melanie saw a face in her window: crazed, glowing eyes, a gaping mouth, glistening fangs.