Paskagankee (4 page)

As soon as the man looked up through the cage separating the back seat from the front and saw Mike, he stopped complaining and slurred, “Who're you?”

“New police chief,” Mike answered. “My name is Mike McMahon and I understand you have a problem with my officer?”

“You're damn right I do! You saw her beat on me for no good goddamned reason, and I want to file a complaint.”

“That's certainly your right,” Mike told him. “But you do understand I sat in this cruiser and watched the entire little episode, and aside from the ease with which she subdued you, I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I'll be happy to testify to that in court if necessary.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” Mike interrupted. “Did Officer Dupont instruct you to remain inside your vehicle?”

“Well, yeah,” he reluctantly admitted.

“And you stepped out of your vehicle anyway?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then all I can tell you is you're lucky it wasn't me out there because you'd be on your way to the hospital right now, rather than to a warm, comfortable holding cell.”

The man slumped back in his seat and shook his head petulantly, turning to look out the side window as Sharon Dupont steered the cruiser off the side of the road and accelerated back toward town. Mike winked at her and she smiled.

In the back seat, the man suddenly found his second wind. “Hey, girlie, how's your daddy?” he taunted.

Mike glanced at Sharon and held his tongue. Her face reddened, and she stared steadfastly through the windshield as she drove, ignoring their passenger.

“I said, how's your daddy?” he repeated in a louder voice as if perhaps she had not heard him, despite the fact it should have been obvious she had, even to a drunken lout.

“He's dead, Earl, you know that. Now do yourself a favor and shut your mouth,” she said sharply.

“Your new girlfriend tell you her daddy used to be one of my best drinking buddies?” This time, Mike decided, the man in the back seat must be addressing him. “Or at least he was before the pretty little thing sitting next to you replaced him. ‘Course, I s'pose it goes without sayin' that he don't come around too much no more. You know, what with his being dead and all. Ain't that right, baby doll?” His voice resumed its taunting tone as he again addressed Sharon Dupont.

Mike glanced sideways at his officer and saw a hard set to her jaw. She was grinding her teeth and a vein throbbed in her forehead, and she looked like she might explode at any moment.

Mike decided enough was enough. For whatever reason, this drunken idiot was getting to the young officer, and it was time to put a stop to it. “Hey dumbass, open your mouth one more time,” he said, turning in his seat and staring down the man in back, “and we'll add assaulting a peace officer to the drunk-driving charge. You mull that over in your tiny little brain, but remember, just one more word and you're going to be sorry you ever opened your toothless mouth. That's a promise.”

The drunk's mouth dropped open comically but the remainder of the fifteen minute ride to the police station passed in silence. The pair brought the man into the station and deposited him into holding. Mike sipped a coffee while Officer Dupont processed the drunk-driving suspect. One thing common to police stations everywhere, he mused, was the consistently bad coffee. It was as if the worst coffeemakers in the world were reserved for the cops, to be filled with the stalest coffee and brewed with the nastiest water.

As he considered the feasibility of buying a brand-new coffeemaker and some fresh coffee with his own money in a gesture of mercy to his new employees, Sharon Dupont's shapely form rounded the corner. She smiled tightly. “He's a barrel of laughs, isn't he?”

“Aren't they all,” Mike replied, choking down the last of the bitter brew and following his temporary partner out of the station and back to their cruiser.

3

THE DRIZZLE TURNED TO freezing rain and began falling more steadily as George Hooper crossed the uneven muddy track and approached the log cabin. The temperature seemed to have grown noticeably colder during the time he spent studying the granite foundations scattered around the deserted village. It stood to reason, though. George wasn't sure how long he had been standing motionless in the cold rain, but he knew it had been a while.

For some irrational reason, he was having trouble forcing himself to complete the short walk to the cabin to ask for help. The sense of dread and foreboding, which had begun gnawing at him almost the moment he stumbled into this clearing, had grown rapidly until it threatened to freeze him—literally—where he stood.

“Just do it, you freakin' wimp,” George muttered to himself. His voice sounded somehow foreign and his breath crystallized in the chilly air, swirling into the rain and disappearing. He reluctantly resumed trudging through the mud and weeds, the footing becoming more treacherous. The ground crunched under his boots and George realized for the first time he was shivering violently.
How the hell long have I been standing out here?

The entire area seemed deserted but George felt certain it was not. Someone had started a fire inside that cabin, and George was positive no one had left while he was standing out here.
Oh really? Are you sure about that? You were zoned out; you don't have the slightest clue how long you've been staring at those gigantic granite blocks, now, do you?

The feeling of dread mushroomed, worming its way through George's intestines and growing in inverse proportion to his distance from the cabin. Finally he reached the front porch, and as he mounted the steps, the panic exploded, threatening to overwhelm him. He looked frantically from window to window, certain someone (
something
) was staring out at him, waiting and biding his (
its
) time until George wandered close enough to launch an attack.

No one was visible in any of the windows; George could see that quite clearly because the glass in all of them had been cleaned to a smudge-free shine, and the rooms inside were as empty and vacant as the eyes of a zombie, a shambling undead monster intent on cracking his skull open like a coconut and devouring his brain.

Where in the hell did THAT come from? When have you ever watched zombie movies?

George's hands were shaking violently, and he knew it was not just from the lousy weather conditions. There was something evil about this place, he could sense it.
Sense it, hell, I can almost
taste
it.
There was no point in kidding himself. He wanted desperately to leave, to run somewhere, anywhere, to get out of this cursed place while he still could, but he had no choice but to continue. If he turned around now he would freeze to death, his soaking wet clothes stealing his body heat and inviting hypothermia.

A couple of loose floorboards in the porch creaked and groaned as George worked his way hesitantly to the closed front door. He thought it odd that the otherwise immaculate and solidly constructed log cabin would have loose floorboards for him to trip over. Had it been built that way on purpose?

George thought the only way things could get any worse at this point would be to fall through the porch on one of those loose planks and break an ankle. That would leave him at the mercy of the malevolent force stalking him.
Stalking and preparing to attack— watching with red-rimmed eyes and stinking dead breath redolent of rotting flesh, watching and waiting for the perfect moment to rip your throat out
.

After what felt like an eternity George reached the front door. His movements were becoming slower, clumsier, a sure sign of the onset of hypothermia; it was imperative that he shed his wet clothing and begin to raise his body's core temperature.

The cabin door stood before him and still George could not shake his conviction that something evil was lurking on the other side, inches away. It was listening intently, just as he was, separated from him by nothing more than a slab of oak with hinges on one side and a shiny brass knob on the other.

George raised one gloved hand and banged on the heavy wooden door and was surprised to see it swing slowly open. It creaked loudly, as if only reluctantly complying with the laws of physics. The noise sounded eerily like a scream. George was certain that when he had examined the house from a distance the front door had been tightly closed. Or had it? His mind seemed to be working just as slowly and clumsily as his body. Maybe he only thought the door had been closed; maybe he had never really even checked at all; it was so hard to remember, so hard to think.

He eased his head warily through the partially open door. “Hello?” His voice sounded fearful and hesitant, even to him. Clearing his throat and putting a little more conviction into it, George tried again. “Hello, is anybody in here? I got lost hunting and I could use some directions . . .”

By the time he finished speaking, George's voice had diminished until it was barely more than a whisper. If the cabin's owner was here, he clearly did not wish to reveal himself.

George took a few hesitant steps into the house, finding himself in a large open room, a combination kitchen/living area with a short hallway branching off to the left. The hallway featured three doors placed side by side, presumably opening onto a bathroom and maybe a couple of bedrooms. The entire home appeared empty now, but it was plain it hadn't been for long. To George's right, a massive fieldstone fireplace took up most of the side wall, and inside the fireplace red-hot ashes still glowed, the flames only recently having been extinguished.

But where was the person who had been warming himself in front of the fire? There was only one entrance to the cabin, at least as far as George could tell, and he had been standing in front of it for a long time. Had the cabin's occupant departed just prior to George discovering the tiny abandoned village? Or was he even now hiding in one of the rooms behind the three closed doors lining the hallway?

And if he was hiding, why? Could it be he was afraid of George? Certainly he couldn't be any more fearful of George than George was of him at this very moment. A strained chuckle forced its way out of George's constricted throat. He wasn't sure whose voice rang in his ears, but it sure as hell didn't sound like his.

Scattered throughout the interior of the cabin was the spoor of various small animals that had apparently taken up residence, and George was forced to step around their droppings as he made his way cautiously toward the hallway. He couldn't see any animals—or any living thing at all, for that matter—but it was clear the embers cooling in the fireplace across the room had not been built by any wild animal, large or small.

George hesitated, unsure of how to proceed, unsure whether he even
wanted
to proceed but unable to stop himself. He had to see who or what was in here with him. His intuition screamed he wasn't alone, and he was not about to strip off all his clothes and spread them out in front of the fireplace without fully scouting the interior of this creepy house first.

The question was simple—a cliché, really—but perplexing: which door should he open first? The crushing silence weighed on George with an almost physical presence. The only sound he could hear was the rushing of blood in his ears. He felt (
knew
) if he chose the wrong door he would be trapped inside a room with no escape and some God-awful, red-eyed, foul-smelling monster closing in to do who knew what to him
Oh, you know what; yes you do, don't kid yourself Georgie boy. It's a cold-blooded killer, and it will rip your head right off your body, and the last thing you hear will be your skin tearing and your bones breaking, and the thing will drink your blood and snap off your limbs one by one, and you will never be found, not ever
.

Every fiber in George's terrified body was telling him to run, to sprint out of the cabin NOW into the freezing early evening drizzle and take his chances with a slow death from hypothermia. The only reason he didn't bolt was he felt (
knew
) that if he tried to run, he would be pursued by the creature and taken down from behind; that he would never see it coming. The die was cast, George thought, with the emphasis on
die.
He had no choice but to confront the monster now.

George unconsciously shrugged the Mossberg 464 lever-action hunting rifle off his shoulder as he stood in front of the three closed doors, holding the gun in front of his body like a shield with two stiff arms, knuckles white, hands shaking.

Decision time.

He chose the middle door to open first for no particular reason other than it was the one directly in front of him. Grasping the knob in one sweating, shaking hand, George turned it slowly, listening intently for the slightest hint of a sound from the other side of the door, something that would give him an indication whether anyone (
anything
) was inside the room.

Silence. Deathly silence, George thought to himself as a hysterical laugh bubbled up from his gut. He choked it off in what sounded like a sob.

Predictably, the door creaked as it opened. George thought it was the most terrifying sound he had ever heard. It swung wide to reveal a bedroom, devoid both of furniture and of people. In fact, beyond the straw, animal droppings and other detritus of wildlife habitation, he could see nothing inside the room at all.