Voracious (28 page)

She didn’t get far.

The road was blocked about a thousand yards down the road. A line of traffic formed behind a ranger’s truck, the lights of which whirled and flashed, playing over the metal of the cars behind it. She couldn’t see why the ranger’s car was pulled over, though; the hulking masses of lined-up RVs saw to that. Most were so tall she couldn’t even see two cars in front of her.

Madeline tried to see what the holdup was by craning her neck and leaning over into the passenger seat. No luck. She could only see one corner of the ranger’s truck. She rolled her window down and instantly heard someone screaming angrily. A few people were out of their cars looking in the direction of the commotion. Some had even pulled out binoculars and stood on the doorsills of their RVs. The holdup showed no sign of clearing up quickly.

Madeline’s brow furrowed. She had to get to Stefan’s cabin. And this was the only way out.

“Goddammit!” she heard the angry voice scream. It was a man’s voice, but so hysterical and raging the guy barely made sense. What could have happened? Had someone tried to feed a bear and met with his just desserts? Was he even now cradling the stump of an arm or a chewed face, cursing at the park service?

The driver of the vehicle in front of her, a heavyset man with an Oregon Ducks sweatshirt on, was deep in conversation with the RV owner in front of him.

She tried to listen in.

“I don’t know,” Oregon Ducks was saying. “Just went crazy, I think.”

She wondered if he was referring to the screaming man or the possible bear who had mauled him for behaving stupidly.

Morbid curiosity tugged at her to go look at the source of the turmoil, but she knew she’d just get in the way. If some guy was injured or “going crazy,” the rangers would need space to work.

For three more minutes she sat in her Rabbit, and still the screaming persisted, though now it was completely incomprehensible.

“Why don’t they just tranquilize the guy or something?” murmured Oregon Duck to the other RV owner. “We’ve been here forever.” He had walked in front of the other guy’s RV, had his binoculars out, and was surveying the scene.

Finally Madeline decided to climb out and see what the fuss was. She shut the door behind her, pocketed her keys, and walked up to Oregon Ducks.

“What’s going on?” she asked him.

He answered without removing the binoculars from his eyes. “Some crazy guy is down there screaming at the rangers in the middle of the road. He’s poured gas all over himself but doesn’t have a lighter. He keeps telling them they’ve got to set him on fire. Can you believe it? They’re trying to talk him down. Jeez! This is just like an episode of
Real Trauma
!” The man’s face positively gleamed as he took in the scene, delighting in the stranger’s ordeal.

He made her sick.

She had no idea what
Real Trauma
was, but she suspected it was one of those reality shows where they showed people getting eaten by sharks or falling off bridges.

“You don’t understand!” she heard the man scream. “If I can’t kill him, what fucking use am I?” The suddenly coherent though still maniacal voice was uncannily familiar.

Madeline raced forward, down the line of cars to the front. Oregon Ducks yelled “Hey!” behind her.

When she reached the ranger’s truck, she immediately saw the law enforcement ranger Suzanne, who’d helped her the night she arrived desperate and wounded from the backcountry. Steve stood next to her, both talking quietly and serenely, their hands out in supplication. And in front of them stood Noah, doused head to foot in gasoline.

His Jeep was parked off the road with a dripping hose hanging from the gas tank.

“Help is on the way,” Steve was saying.

“I don’t want fucking help!” Noah yelled. “I want a fucking match and you people to leave me the fuck alone!”

For a moment, though the voice belonged to Noah, Madeline couldn’t even believe the figure before the two rangers was actually him. His blond hair lay plastered to his face, eyes red and enraged, fingers tensed into fists at his side, neck muscles and veins bulging. He stood hunched over, glaring at them with an intense hate she’d never seen in someone before, like a force of violent energy striking out in pulsating, visceral waves. If he had a gun right then, she had no doubt he would have shot the rangers. His demeanor made her think of a rabid dog, all sense of peace and logic gone, just a snarling, snapping beast in agony, lashing out at anyone stupid enough to approach it.

“If I can’t kill him, what fucking use am I?”

She couldn’t imagine the hopelessness Noah must be feeling. He’d followed Stefan for two hundred years, finally had the perfect weapon, the only weapon, to destroy him, and now it was gone.

But this—this was an insane, hateful way to end things.

None of them had seen her yet.

Now she stepped out behind the ranger’s truck and approached them. “Noah,” she said, when she’d reached Steve’s side. “This is crazy. Please don’t do this.”

He took her in, rage-filled eyes roaming over her. In a rain of spittle he uttered low and threateningly, “You goddamn, lousy sack of worthless shit! I’d still have the knife if it weren’t for you! I should kill you before I kill myself, reach in your belly and rip out your intestines, tear your face apart, you foul, useless shit!” He advanced suddenly, and Steve stepped quickly in the way, holding out his hand in protest.

Noah went on. “I’ll take you down with me before you have the chance to fuck up someone else’s life! You’re a god-damned joke!” Stopping in his tracks, he suddenly cocked his head to one side and said in a mocking voice, “ ‘I’ll help you stop him.’ ” She remembered saying those very words to Noah when she’d returned in the middle of the night after the forest fire ordeal. She’d meant them. Her mouth fell open, his words cutting to the core. He continued to mock her. “ ‘But ooops! Gosh, did I let the creature get the knife?’ ” Then he roared in her face, rushing forward and colliding with Steve’s outstretched hand. “ ‘Yes, I fucking did!’ ” Spittle rained over her face.

The reek of gasoline was unbearable. She staggered backward, her eyes stinging as a huge lump formed in her throat. She hadn’t let the creature have the knife.

Suddenly she wondered if he
was
the creature, once again taking on Noah’s appearance, saying these terrible things to drive them apart. They’d be less of a threat individually. It made sense.

But one look in his eyes told her that this was the genuine article; his grief-stricken face was the same face that had relayed to her the story of Anna’s death. The creature could be convincing, but not this convincing.

He continued to scream at her as Suzanne gently pushed her back, out of his reach. “I should have fucking left you for dead on the mountain. Or better yet, used you for bait. While he was feasting on your ruined corpse, I could have snuck up behind him and finished him off once and for all.”

“Noah!” she cried, wounded and retreating. Her mind spun. The rage in his eyes took on an almost physical manifestation. The veins in his neck bulged, his lips drawn back cruelly from his teeth as he shouted.

He hated her. Truly, utterly
hated
her.

Suzanne took hold of Madeline’s face to get her attention. “Honey,” she said. “You need to move back. You’re making things worse. He’s deranged. Just move back.”

Once again Madeline thought of a rabid dog. The way the ranger spoke of him, he might as well be.

Steve pushed hard against Noah, trying to restrain him, gas soaking the naturalist’s clothes as well. “Help!” Steve said to Suzanne. “I’m not trained for this sort of thing.”

The law enforcement ranger moved in. She grasped Noah in a painful-looking hold, with his arm twisted severely behind his back. Noah grimaced and sucked in breath sharply. She pushed him against the car and pulled out her handcuffs. Slapping them on his wrists, she cursed, “Where the hell are the other rangers? We radioed them ten minutes ago!”

As if on cue, sirens blared in the distance then died out just as quickly. Two park service trucks pulled onto the campground road, approaching rapidly.

Noah twisted in Suzanne’s grasp, but she held on tightly, one strong hand on his shoulder.

The two rangers driving the trucks leapt out and rushed to her side.

“Took you guys long enough,” she said.

They grabbed Noah, one on each side.

“And be careful. He’s covered in gasoline.”

“He’s not the only one,” Steve put in.

“So we smell,” quipped one of the backup rangers.

Madeline rushed forward to Suzanne’s side as the two rangers wrestled Noah into the back of one truck.

“What are they going to do with him?”

She squinted at the truck as it pulled away with Noah inside. Through the window he glared at Madeline with palpable hatred.

“Unfortunately, we can’t do much. We’re not cops. Unless a serious crime happens, we don’t even call in the Feds.”

Madeline stood stunned.
A serious crime. What, like murder?
she thought sarcastically.
How about five of them? And that’s just so far.

Suzanne went on. “He didn’t hurt anyone, though he seemed pretty ready to do you harm.” She paused, scrutinizing Madeline. “Do you know what he was talking about?”

She froze.

“Was it the same thing you say you saw on the mountain?”

Finally she nodded.

The law enforcement ranger looked at her with concern. “Maybe you should talk to a counselor when you get home. Surviving a frightening experience like a flash flood can be traumatic and have deleterious effects.”

Madeline opened her mouth to protest and looked over at Steve, who was vigorously shaking his head no behind the ranger’s back. “I think several of us are going to need a therapist when this is all over with,” she said.

“Can I get a phone number so I’ll know where they’re taking him?” But even as she said it, the painful lump that swelled in her throat descended heavily to her gut. She was unwelcome. She had made things worse.

With a shudder she recalled the burning look in his eyes. Had she really messed everything up? For once in her life she’d felt a purpose, had begun to make sense of her gift and how she could use it to benefit others. Had she been so caught up in self-righteousness that she got careless and made things worse?

He had been ready to kill her just now. Only Steve and Suzanne had stopped him from trying.

That cut her deeply. Her protector, her knight from the mountain, wanted her dead. Her head began to pound.

Suzanne pressed a small card into her hand. It had the number written on it.

“Thanks,” she said shakily and turned away.

“Wait!” Steve called. He caught up to her. She could actually see the shimmer of fumes rising from his clothes. “Are you going to be okay?”

Clutching the card, she looked at him, trying to swallow back the painful lump that had risen once again at his kind words. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “But I think I’m going to go home. There’s nothing I can do here now.”

She started to walk back toward her Rabbit. Steve followed, throwing a cautious glance back at Suzanne. She was climbing into her car, well out of earshot. “But what about the … thing?”

She stopped and looked at him, squinting in the bright afternoon sun. “It’s still out there,” she told him. “And I have no idea what it’s planning next. I only know we’ve lost our only weapon and our best warrior.”

She turned then and walked back toward her car. Steve didn’t try to follow. When she glanced back, he had turned, walking slowly back to the truck one of the backup rangers had left behind.

She felt bad, just leaving him like this. But if Noah was right about the creature, then unless Steve got in the way again, he was safe from Stefan. She couldn’t say the same about herself. But because the creature had had the opportunity to kill her and hadn’t, the fear that once consumed her had dulled slightly.
That can make you careless,
she thought.

With RVs and cars pulling around her as the road cleared, she walked slowly back to her car, wondering about Noah and if she’d ever see him again.

And if she did, would he be waiting some night with jagged claws, eager to tear through her flesh as the creature had longed to do—the hero having become the monster?

MADELINE
opened the car door and climbed in, closing it with a soft click. In front of her most of the RVs and other cars had started their engines and driven off.

Instinctively Madeline locked the door. Home. That’s where she would go now.

There was nothing left for her to do here. If the creature came for her now, she may as well be home instead of here. At least there she had friends who could help her.

A couple cars impatiently moved around her, and her attention returned to the present.

Inserting the key into the ignition, she started the car. It roared to life, and she checked the mirror and pulled forward. The car sputtered, jerked, and went dead. She tried to start it again. It tried to turn over but didn’t catch. She let it sit for a moment. The reek of gasoline was still strong, and she rolled down the window in an attempt to get some fresh air.

Instead, a fresh wave of gasoline fumes bloomed into the car. Madeline coughed, tried the engine again. For a moment both car and person sputtered simultaneously. She looked down at the gas gauge. Impossibly, it read empty, even though she’d filled it a few days before and had driven it only thirty miles since.

She turned the key off, opened the door, and climbed out, pulling the neck of her shirt up over her nose to filter out some of the overpowering reek. She walked around the edge of her car and saw a large puddle of gasoline pooling beneath it.

Three cars drove by, no one stopping to see if she needed help, just concerned to be on their own hurried way.

Kneeling down, she peered under the car where the gas tank was. The metal fuel line lay broken and twisted, hanging down to the asphalt. The fuel filter was completely missing, and through a gash on the underside of the tank dripped the last remnants of fuel.