Prowlers: Wild Things (7 page)

"What?"

"We've been on the road all day. Not once has either of us mentioned the Prowlers."

Silence descended upon the confines of the Jeep, save for the static on the radio and the roar of the engine. Jack had both hands on the wheel, but now he reached over to slip his fingers into Molly's yet again. A semi pulling a double trailer thundered by them with a squeal of metal that made Jack think of freight trains.

Molly leaned forward and used her free hand to switch off the radio. "I guess we've been postponing the inevitable."

"No more postponing."

Up ahead was another sign, this one for a rest area. They had passed a lot of them, on both sides of the road, but now that they were nearing Hollingsworth, they had entered the thirty mile stretch of highway that Courtney had identified as a kind of blacktop Bermuda Triangle, where people kept disappearing and far too many accidents seemed to happen.

The rest area ahead, just over the border into the town of Hollingsworth, was their first stop. The first of many. But it was already late in the day.

"We'll look around here, then figure out where the motel is. Tomorrow we can start hitting all the rest stops and roadhouses and whatever up and down this stretch."

Molly agreed and Jack put the directional on to indicate that he was going to turn into the rest area. As he slowed the Jeep, he glanced over at her again, and he was saddened to see the apprehension on her face.

"We'll be all right," he said quickly.

"Yeah," Molly replied softly. "I was just thinking that the reason we haven't talked about them? The reason we're feeling what we're feeling? It's that we both know that we're going to find something here. As much as I wish I could brush it off, Courtney found way too many stories about this area. I'm going to hope that it's just because this is some sort of migratory route for them. That's possible, by the way. We know some of the packs move frequently. Some are even nomadic.

"But I think we'll find them. And then we'll have to do something about it. Don't get me wrong, I want to destroy them. But I'm afraid, Jack. No matter how many times we fight one of these things and live through it, I think I'm always going to be afraid."

"That's good, Molly," he told her, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. "That's how it should be."

"Afraid all the time? That's how it
should
be?" She sounded almost angry.

"When they're concerned, yes. Not every minute of every day, but when you know there might be Prowlers around? Absolutely. Stay afraid. They're monsters, Molly. When we
stop
being afraid of them, that's when they'll get us for sure."

Jack drove into the wide rest area, a football field's worth of parking lot with a short row of portable bathrooms on the far side. Trashcans and a pair of rusting iron grills rounded out the list of amenities available to the truckers who passed through, slept the night or day away in their rigs in that rest stop. There were three tractor-trailers there now, one whose engine was running. A card table and folding chairs were set up between two of the trucks and a fortyish woman with weathered features sat with a cold beer in her hand, one foot on a plastic cooler, talking to a trio of tired-looking men all of whom needed a shave.

"Anything?" Molly asked.

He parked alongside the nearest truck, as though the Jeep were just another metal dinosaur. Jack took a breath and focused, and his perception was instantly altered. He peered into the afterlife, the spirit world. The trucks and the parking lot and the trees beyond, even Molly there on the seat behind him, were drained of color and substance. It was as though he sat in the midst of a dense fog and everything around him was just shadow, a world of brittle grays like faded antique photographs. Where the world of flesh and blood seemed on fire with vivid life, this place was nothing but ash.

The Ghostlands.

"Nothing here," he told Molly, though it felt very much as though he were talking to himself. "If anyone was ever killed here, they've wandered off or they're just not lost anymore. They've moved on."

He felt an odd mixture of relief and disappointment as he closed his eyes and frowned. There had been times when he had looked into the Ghostlands and had some difficulty snapping his vision back to normal. When he opened his eyes now, though, his stomach did a little nauseous flip and the world was back to normal.

Jack killed the engine, then looked at Molly again. She took a deep breath and smiled.

"So, how exactly are we going to casually get into a conversation with a bunch of truckers about mysterious highway deaths?" Molly asked, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "What excuse do we give for even saying hello to them, for stopping here longer than it takes to pee in the bushes?"

Jack rolled that one over in his head. He ducked forward and kissed her, briefly, his lips barely grazing hers. Then he popped open the door and climbed out.

"Screw excuses," he said, voice low.

Before he slammed his door, he heard Molly's response: "This should be interesting."

Together they strode straight over to the truck drivers at their card table. Jack made no move to cover it with a quick trip to the bushes, and Molly did not mention it again.

As they got closer, Jack took a quick appraisal of the four people at that table. All four wore blue jeans in various stages of cleanliness and wear. At first glance it would be easy to assume that the woman was traveling with one of the men, but as Jack studied them, he decided that was not the case. The two men closest to him had beards and blue eyes and both wore tan work boots. They had enough similarity to their facial structure that he pegged them as brothers, likely traveling together, sharing the driving. That meant the woman in the white cable knit sweater was driving her own rig, and the third man, a jarhead ex-military man by the look of his drastic crewcut and the tattoo on his right forearm, drove the other two.

"You two lost?" asked one of the brothers.

"Not yet," Jack replied.

The brothers looked at him quizzically. The jarhead narrowed his gaze and sat up a bit straighter.
No sense of humor
, Jack thought. But the woman, whose tangle of dirty blond hair softened her looks up close, smiled at him.

"Can we help you folks with something?" she asked.

The other brother, bigger and broader than the first, popped the top of a can of Budweiser and brandished at them as though it were some kind of ward against strange travelers. "Don't even think about asking us to buy you beer."

"Hank," the woman said, a warning in her voice.

"Don't talk to me like I'm your husband, Suzanne," Hank replied dismissively.

Molly arched an eyebrow and seemed about to interject when Jack shot her a look that silenced her. He knew the way her mind worked. Why this smelly, half-drunk oaf would think anyone would trawl rest stops looking for someone to buy beer was beyond him, but he did not want Molly to make the man feel stupid. Hank's brother, though, the one who had first spoken to them, looked intelligent enough. When Jack spoke again, his words were directed at the woman.

"We're not looking for directions," he said. "Last summer, my cousin took off from home. Left Buffalo and tried hitched rides all across the state. I'm guessing he was planning to come to Boston to look me up. His name was Jared Wilkes. Blond kid, fifteen years old, big smile. Somewhere along the road he ran into the wrong people. Somebody killed Jared and tore him up like an animal."

The jarhead flinched and his nostrils flared in revulsion. Jack thought that was a good sign. The two brothers just gazed at him with blank expressions, clearly doing their best to be patient with the interruption until he and Molly left.

The woman was kind, though. "Aw, Jesus," she said. "That's awful. What are you doing up here?" A sudden understanding rippled across her face and she gave a tiny shake of her head. "But you kids can't think you're gonna find anything up here yourselves. Especially not after all this time."

"Trail's colder'n a polar bear's ass," Hank muttered.

Jack stiffened. The younger brother fidgeted as though he had the good sense to be made uncomfortable by his brother's behavior.

"He doesn't mean anything by it," the bearded man said. He stood up and offered his hand, first to Jack and then to Molly. They all shook.

"Jack Sears. And this is Molly Feehan," Jack lied.

"I'm Dave Krause," the man said. "Terrible thing about your cousin. I think I remember hearing about that on a run through here, maybe last fall. Found him at a rest area, didn't they?"

"That's right," Molly said.

All their eyes went to her. Jack didn't like the way Hank Krause looked at her, but there was nothing particularly monstrous about it. Just the normal every day beast that any pretty girl had to deal with. Still, he glared at the guy. Hank caught the look, and gave him a sly grin, just between the two of them. Jack wanted desperately to hit him, but he figured unless he had a baseball bat, he had best just stand right where he was.

"Actually, it was
this
rest stop," Molly went on.

"Oh," Dave said, and a moment of silence fell upon them all as they looked around, apparently creeped out by the news. "Wow," he added. "Suzanne's right, though. Not sure what you hope to find after all this time."

Jack took a breath, stepped away from the card table and stared out at the road. "Jared's mom still cries herself to sleep at night," he said, hating the taste of the lie in his mouth and wondering how good an actor he was. He turned around and studied them to see if they were buying it. It seemed like they were.

"When we saw this news piece about a trucker who got killed pretty much the same way up here, we just figured maybe it's the same guy. Maybe there's some connection between how this freak found Jared and how he ended up killing this other guy."

All four stared at him. The jarhead's gaze went back and forth from him to Molly. It had not been lost on Jack that the guy had yet to say a single word.

"What was the driver's name?" Suzanne asked.

Jack had forgotten completely. He glanced at Molly.

"Chester Douglas," she said. "Chet, I think people called him."

As though they were holding their breath, the drivers all glanced awkwardly at one another, searching each other's faces, clearly waiting for one among them to say,
ah, poor Chet
, or something of the sort. Hank Krause tilted his can of Budweiser back and let it stream into his mouth, ignoring everyone else.

"Don't think I've ever heard of him," Suzanne said.

Dave shrugged.

The jarhead just stared at them.

Jack sighed and scratched the back of his head. He half-turned to Molly and she reached out to take his hand.
It's all right
, he thought as he slipped his hand into hers.
Let them see that. The frustration, or whatever. Maybe it makes it all the more real.

"Listen, we're sorry to have bothered you," Molly said. "We really appreciate the time. The way we're thinking now is that if whoever killed Jared also killed Chet Douglas, he may have killed more people around here. Chet drove a truck and the police say he often slept in rest stops along this road on his long runs. Jared was probably hitchhiking and his body was left in a rest stop. If you think of anything else you've heard, even if it's only a rumor, that might be related, we'll be at the Riverside Motel in Fairbrook for a couple of days."

Dave slipped his hands in his pockets, glanced at Suzanne, and then looked back at them. "We're on the road, y'know? I mean, in a couple of hours, none of us is going to be within fifty miles of here. But if I think of anything, well, I know where you are."

"Same goes for me," Suzanne said. "I'm headed for West Virginia, but I'll keep it in mind. And pass it on."

"Thanks," Jack said. "Much appreciated."

With that, he and Molly turned and went back to the Jeep. Behind them, the drivers were silent, save for the sound of Hank popping another can of Budweiser. They climbed into the Jeep and Jack started it up. He was about to pull out when Molly whispered his name. He looked up and saw the jarhead trotting toward them with a determined look on his face.

Wary, but curious, Jack rolled the window down.

"Hey," the jarhead said.

"You thought of something?" Jack asked.

The man blinked, then shook his head. "No. Just . . . I just wanted to make sure you knew how to get to that motel."

"Actually, we have terrible directions," Molly replied.

The jarhead actually smiled. "Take the next exit. Fairbrook, Dobbins Avenue, it says. Left at the bottom of the ramp, maybe two miles you'll pass this roadhouse called Capone's. The next left intersection is Dobbins. Take a right there and the motel's maybe a quarter of a mile up on the left."

Jack was astonished at how friendly the guy suddenly seemed. "Thanks," he said sincerely. "Drive safe out there."

But the guy did not back away. Instead, he leaned in closer to the window, and all the open, amiable warmth drained from his face.

"Pay attention, friend. I
know
you're full of shit," the jarhead said ominously. His eyes ticked past Jack to Molly, and then back again. "I remember the deal with that kid from Buffalo, and his mom killed herself not three months later. It was in the papers. You're not his cousin. I don't know what you're looking for, but I'll tell you this for free: go home. Turn around and drive back to Boston. Now, if you're stupid, and you stay? Just watch yourselves."

"Why?" Jack prodded, heart racing. "You know there's more going on here. Why don't you just talk to us?"

The jarhead glanced over his shoulder, though the nearest trailer blocked his view of the other three. When he turned back to the Jeep, his eyes narrowed and he stood back a couple of feet. "Stay or go. If you have questions about this dead truck driver, ask Max at the Blueberry Diner in Hollingsworth. That guy talks to everyone. Sees everything. Makes some mean French Toast, too."

He slapped the door. "Good luck."