Stutter Creek (10 page)

Beth thought about that for a moment. She was so thankful he was out of pain. She felt the survivor’s guilt begin to fade. Then she thought of something more: “Hey, how do you know if someone else was around the cabin—didn’t you say you could only see me?”

YES, BUT CAN SEE A STREAK OF ENERGY IF SOMETHING’S MOVING.

“Oh,” she replied. “I understand, I guess.” She caught a tiny flash of light when she glanced up from the phone. “I see you,” she said, and then she hesitated. “But I always thought spirits appeared as orbs or ghosts . . .”

THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS WE DIDN’T KNOW. I’M STILL LEARNING.

“I can’t believe I’m talking to you!” Beth felt like a child who has just learned that people really can flap their arms and fly, like that Ray Bradbury story she’d once read.

ME EITHER. BUT WE ALWAYS HAD A SPECIAL CONNECTION. DO YOU REMEMBER GRAN’S “VISITS?”

Beth nodded. “She’s been on my mind a lot lately.”

I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE HER AND YOUR MOM. I’VE GOT TO MOVE ON SOON. MY ENERGY IS BECOMING . . . SCATTERED. HARDER TO FOCUS
.

Beth felt the guilt rush back. “Of course, Dad, you go. I’m fine, really.” And oddly enough, she was fine, or at least much better. Just knowing her father hadn’t completely ceased to exist made her feel so much more hopeful. It was confirmation, just like he’d promised when she was a little girl.

***

John and Turk were taking their usual daily stroll, still getting used to the lay of the land, when Turk decided to dash on ahead. Something had piqued his interest. It looked as if he was headed toward the Brannock’s old cabin. John let him run. He was certain no one was staying there.

But when he saw the vehicle in the driveway, he was shocked.

Guess I was wrong.

He stared at the cabin through the trees. From this distance, he couldn’t tell much about it. He called Turk back to his side and proceeded to move in for a closer look.

It was around noon, the time most people went indoors to have lunch. He eased his way down to the edge of the clearing. The pine needles were thick beneath the massive trees. It made the going slippery; but that’s why he wore lug-soled boots. Checking his field glasses—the small set that he always carried in one of the deep pockets of his camouflage jacket—John scanned the area around the cabin.

A classic Camaro was parked on the circle drive squarely in front of the cabin door. He could see a few footprints going to and from the car to the front door and back to the car again. Carrying in supplies, he thought. He could also discern places where the thick carpet of pine needles had been disturbed in a circular pattern. It appeared that someone, a woman by the size of the footprints, had stood and turned around and around in a circle. Doubt if she was dancing, John thought.
Wonder what made her do that?

Though he had dealt with a few unsavory females in his line of work over the years, the majority of his contacts were men. John actually didn’t have too much experience second-guessing women. He knew one thing for certain though; women and men
did
think differently. Or maybe that was just his opinion. Or his gut feeling. He depended on his gut
a lot
. Like now.

He’d been here for a couple of weeks, and besides wild life, the only other creatures he’d seen were the father and son campers who appeared to have stayed only the one night. Turk was sure acting differently, though. Maybe that was the reason his own hackles were standing at attention.

Then he saw them, the larger tracks encircling the cabin.

Even an amateur could tell that these were not the normal comings and goings of the inhabitants of the cabin; these tracks were furtive. They stopped beside nearly every window. Due to the damp soil, it was easy to see where the maker of the tracks even walked on tiptoe sometimes. Of course, some of the tracks weren’t really footprints at all. They were more like smeary places in the pine needles; places were someone’s foot had slid the ground cover aside as they jockeyed for position, probably for a better view.

Most of the snow was gone now, except for the deeply shaded places under the pines. Those dark pockets still held traces of white, and it was there that John was able to scout out even more prints.

But it was the ones near the windows that bothered him most. “All the better to see you said the big bad wolf,” John muttered, stroking his beard thoughtfully. In his mind, he had a very good image of a peeping tom circling the small cabin, spying on the occupants as they moved around inside, thinking they were safe.

That image made his blood boil. This was just the sort of vermin he’d been paid to guard against over the years; people who preyed on others.

Times have sure changed, he thought. This is what I came here to get away from. He shook his head and backed carefully away from the cabin. It was impossible to be certain that the larger prints were from a predator. After all, the smaller prints in the front drive went around and around in circles, too.

It wasn’t anything he could put his finger on, but he had suddenly developed a bad feeling. Not because someone was staying in the old Brannock cabin, but because the atmosphere of the forest had changed—as if he wasn’t the only dangerous man in the woods anymore.

With a wave of his hand, John let Turk know it was safe to scour the perimeter. Another wave, just a finger actually, told Turk to backtrack a few paces to make sure no one had crossed their trail after they had come down the mountain. If he had scented anything unusual, Turk would have stopped and waited for further instructions.

As they completed their perimeter search, John stopped a few feet behind Turk. They both stared at the cabin. Turk’s ears perked up. He could hear someone. .

John didn’t know who might be in the cabin or how long they’d been there. He had no way of knowing if Tom still owned it or if he had sold it to someone else. He seriously doubted that the Brannock family still had possession of it. It would be ridiculous to even think that Beth could possibly still come here. By now she would be married with grown children.

Besides, when he and Turk had returned to the mountain, he’d checked her cabin even before he’d checked his own. It had appeared deserted, just like a seasonal vacation cabin would.

And if it
was
still theirs, truth be told, he didn’t want to be introduced to Beth’s husband and family. When he had known her, she was just a girl with her whole life ahead of her. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see who had become a part of it. He didn’t want to meet the man who had stolen her heart.

On the other hand, he wouldn’t mind seeing her father, Tom Brannock. He thought maybe later he would ask around in town- try to determine if Tom was still around. But he didn’t like involving others in his business, and he didn’t like to appear nosy. Besides, running surveillance was second nature to Big John and Turk. He made a mental note to check back on the cabin tomorrow, and to let the local park ranger know about the footprints. Right now, though, he had more furniture to unload and a fridge to stock.

On the journey back up the mountain, he had to call Turk twice to come. The dog wanted to stay at the cabin. On impulse, John veered off the trail in order to check on the cold camp he’d stumbled across yesterday.

The man had looked like any other inexperienced camper. John had only caught a glimpse, and he didn’t let himself be seen. He’d watched for a while, and then decided the scruffy young man was just a sometime camper with poor outdoor skills trying to spend some time with his kid. He was just setting up what had appeared to be a spanking new tent and ice chest. The kid had crawled inside the tent just as John had approached.

They were gone. John was glad. He figured the dad had filled his kiddy-time quota for the weekend. Probably only had the kid on the weekend; that’s how most marriages seemed to work out these days. For a moment, John was glad he had never married; he didn’t think he could ever be happy being a part-time Dad like that.

Maybe that’s just my own background showing through
.
Always thought I’d give a kid the childhood I didn’t get. Guess that’ll never happen. Too damn old to start a family now.

He patted Turk’s tawny coat and they tromped on through the woods. “Too bad you were off chasing squirrels yesterday,” he said to the big dog. “I wonder what you would have made of that guy. I just really didn’t like the looks of him, not even from a distance.” To himself he muttered, “Gotta let go of the job. Constant paranoia isn’t the way to live in the real world.”

Chapter Thirteen

To pass the time at the camp, Kurt would pull out the items he’d taken off his two victims so he could amuse himself by reliving their last moments.

His first victim had been Sherylyn Combs, the Wal-Mart clerk.

The night had been calm, the moon in hiding. Underneath their feet, the shoulder of the road had been hard and unforgiving. Kurt liked that—no footprints. Within five minutes, Sherylyn’s SUV came around the curve.

For a moment Kurt thought he’d overestimated how close the boy was standing. It looked like Sherylyn was going to mow him down and keep on going, but at the very last second, she had stomped on the brakes, skidded a bit, and then came to a shuddering stop just a few feet past their position.

Kurt was hidden in the bar ditch along with Dave’s ratty old Ford.

Danny never blinked, but Kurt found that the whole near-miss thing had him so excited he’d folded the duct tape over on itself in the palm of his hand. He had to hurriedly yank a new length off the roll in his backpack. By then the SUV was slowly backing up to where Danny still stood, waiting.

That’s when Kurt had struck, uncoiling himself from his hiding place without so much as a warning rattle. He’d actually crawled up behind Danny and yanked the boy out of the way by the cord tied around his waist, and then he’d simply leapt into the unlocked door of the SUV.

Being his first time to practice what he had previously only fantasized about, Kurt had even more trouble with the duct tape. The second piece he tore off the roll got tangled up in her hair. The third piece wouldn’t stick the way it should have.

He freaked out, his breath like a furnace burning in his chest. Heaving, struggling, he held the woman down, yanked the second strip of tape from her hair, along with several huge clumps of blonde hair, and then he finally just wadded the whole mess into a spiky ball and crammed it into her mouth.

Sherylyn bit his fingers when he forced her lips apart. But it didn’t bother him, he simply grasped her chin and shoved it closed with the heel of his hand. She clawed his face, his cheeks, his arms. She tried to get a grasp on the door handle—but Kurt had her smashed against the driver’s door. He was snarling like a rabid beast.

Blood trickled from her scalp where he’d yanked the hair out, and now he had one wrist in his steel grasp, and the other arm was bent behind her, useless. Her legs were completely trapped beneath the steering wheel, his hard knee crushing her right thigh.

Kurt head-butted Sherylyn when she tried to grab the gearshift. Then he cranked up the volume on the radio and smiled when he heard the refrain of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.”

As Willie Nelson continued to wail, Sherylyn did her best to get rid of the wad of duct tape in her mouth, but Kurt went wild. He loosened his grip on her chin. Sherylyn whooped air through her suddenly open mouth just as Kurt thrust his entire hand between her teeth. Her jaw was forced open with a craaack, and he crushed the ball of tape down into her throat.

Completely panicked, Sherylyn whipped her head back and forth, but she could not dislodge the tape. His fist was iron.

The ball of tape slowly strangled Sherylyn.

Kurt’s breathing quickened even more. His heart galloped in his chest.

The struggle, the blood, the unbridled fear and fight for survival—this was what he had longed for. Five years had been worth it after all.

He looked into her eyes, relishing the dimming of the light as her life ebbed away.

Kurt didn’t want it to end, but he knew another vehicle could happen by at any second. Slowly, like a lover moving in for a first kiss, he covered her nose with his mouth, holding her nostrils closed with his teeth, cutting off her last hope of air.

Sherylyn briefly renewed her struggles.

But it didn’t matter. All the little nips and scratches she’d managed to inflict were beautiful to Kurt.

After he sealed her nose, it was all over.

No air was getting past that ball of tape in her throat.

At last, he sat back, breathing heavily from exertion and excitement.

Sherylyn gave a huge gasp through her nostrils, clicked open the door with her now free hand, and tumbled out onto the ground.

For Kurt, the night became three-dimensional for the very first time. The chance that someone might happen along while his victim was crawling along the pavement like a wounded animal was a new kind of high, better than meth, even better than heroin. Nothing he’d ever tried could compare to this feeling of power. He felt reborn.

Perhaps the list is too short, he thought.

Maybe I’ve finally found my purpose in life.

He followed her out the open door and fell upon the poor girl as she tried to dig the tape out of her throat with both hands.

It took a lot longer for her to die than he’d anticipated. Her will to live was incredible. But in the end, his will was stronger. He’d simply smashed her face onto the pavement and sat on her, one knee on each outstretched arm. Unable to remove the tape or him on her back, Sherylyn had finally choked to death on the cold, hard ground.

Kurt hauled her back into the vehicle and shoved her limp body down into the front passenger side floorboard.

Then he retrieved a very groggy Danny from the Ford—he’d managed to crawl back inside after Kurt yanked him out of the way—and stashed him in the back of the SUV.