Wolfwraith (17 page)

To take his mind off it, he took a shower while the casserole cooked. After dinner, he settled in for a short nap.

He awoke about nine, dressed and went outside. It was one of those evenings, when the breeze blew away the haze from the nearby city and the Milky Way gave nearly as much brightness as a new moon would have. He pulled his automatic pistol from its holster and checked the magazine by the light coming through the door behind him, feeling a little like a character from a detective novel. Never before had he checked his gun before going out. At least not in America. He stepped away from the house and walked toward the road.

As he got into his truck, he glanced over at Jonesy’s trailer and saw the flickering light from the television. He briefly considered stopping by, but knew Jonesy didn’t like company when he was in a bad mood.

He drove toward the False Cape area with the window open, listening to the night noises over the hum of the engine. Summer would begin in two days and the clamor of tree frogs filled the air with the long, trilling mating calls of the males, the arias of the amphibian world. Occasionally, the raucous honk of a bullfrog would overpower the gentle melody of the smaller frogs, like a tuba blasting discordantly in the middle of a lilting symphony.

Passing through both campgrounds, he noticed nothing amiss. Not that he expected to see anyone lurking about, with the glare of headlights announcing Shadow’s approach.

With that thought, he gunned the engine so anyone listening would think he’d left. After driving maybe half a mile, he pulled off the road at a spot he had chosen earlier and cut the lights. Letting his eyes adjust to the dim light, he sat and ate a candy bar.

From here, it would be a short walk back to the meadow entrance, where he could watch over the campers without being obvious. He had selected this campground, rather than the ocean-side sites, because of the two girls’ presence. His mind made the gruesome comparison to staking out a couple of sheep as wolf bait.

Grabbing his flashlight, he hesitated before leaving the truck’s cab. It was foolish to go about in the park at night without insect repellent. Anyone would be able to hear him if he was continuously slapping at mosquitoes. He dug around in the glove-box clutter and found a small, plastic vial of bug spray. Getting out, he spritzed himself liberally—including his clothes, since some of the little bastards would sting right through fabric. He put the repellent in his pocket and then walked back along the road. He’d have preferred to sneak back through the woods, but it would be noisy going through the undergrowth.

His vision quickly became accustomed to the glow of starlight. The night remained warm, without the usual cooling breeze from the ocean.

He walked quietly into the meadow and hid behind a pile of gravel that the park’s maintenance crew kept at the edge of the campground for road repair. From this point, he could see everything in the large clearing.

Nearby, the four teens at site ten were sitting at the picnic table, almost as he had left them hours earlier. A bright propane lantern burned in the center of the picnic table and music was playing, though not loudly. The kids were talking and laughing in muted tones. Shadow was surprised they were so considerate, but maybe the other campers in the meadow had told them to hush up. A whiff of marijuana drifted to Shadow on the breeze. Normally he would have confronted the group, but not tonight. Site eleven, in the middle of the open area, appeared to be deserted; he supposed the campers slept inside their tent. Farther off, by lantern light at the other end of the meadow, he could see Marlene and Billie moving around their campsite.

As though he was hunting, waiting patiently for a deer to come down a trail, Shadow squatted down behind the gravel to wait. If anything bad happened in the park tonight, he expected it would happen in this meadow. He figured the northern sites were safe, near to the contact station and rangers’ homes. The group using the E.E.C. would be sleeping indoors. As for the scouts at the ocean-side campground, the several adult males provided adequate protection. Besides, the killer had always attacked females.

After nearly an hour of ignoring the mosquitoes buzzing about but not stinging due to the bug spray, Shadow intermittently glimpsed a light moving through the trees on the other side of the campground. At first, he thought someone might be walking there with a lantern, but the light was too faint and far away. It appeared to be on the other side of the woods, by the False Cape Dock. Perhaps it was a running light from a boat on the bay, heading south.

Either way, Shadow needed to have a look. Knees creaking from inactivity as he rose, he made his way through the brush along the edge of the campground, skirting the oblivious teenagers at site ten. Soon he was past them, moving slowly as thorny creeper snagged his pant-legs and socks. Several times, he had to stop and free himself from the clinging vines.

Marlene and Billie had turned off their lantern earlier, but a light still shone inside their tent so he detoured around the back of the nearby outhouses. As he passed, he glanced over at the girls’ tent. He nearly fell over as his feet became tangled with each other. One of the girls, Billie, the redhead, was kneeling down in the small tent with a flashlight illuminating her. The main flap of the tent had not been closed, since the opening didn’t face any of the other tents in the meadow, and only a fly-screen covered the opening. Shadow could easily see through the fine mesh. Billie was half-naked, with the bra she had taken off still in her hands. Her large, firm breasts were clearly visible, whiter than the rest of her body.

The mesh of the fly screen did nothing to hamper his view, but it did render the image softer, almost dreamlike. Except, his dreams had never matched the beauty or the sexuality of the girl in the tent. He held his breath as she unbuttoned her jeans and began to slide them down over the swell of her hips.

Shadow knew he should look away, but couldn’t do it. He was becoming aroused, especially since she had come on to him earlier, which shamed him because of the peeping tom aspect, but electrified him at the same time. He watched as she wiggled and squirmed to pull the tight jeans down off her hips, since there was no room to stand up in the low tent. Finally, he managed to force his eyes to look in another direction.

He sighed, firmed his resolve and began to slip away. Although the sight of a well-built girl undressing was a nearly irresistible lure, he wasn’t a voyeur.

As he was passing the men’s privy, the door of the women’s outhouse creaked open and Marlene emerged. She had her back to Shadow and he realized, if she turned around and saw him, she would know he had been spying on her friend in the tent. He slipped behind the back wall of the outhouse.

Fortunately, Marlene didn’t turn around and he began to hope he could creep away as soon as she got farther from him, but she stopped at the hand pump for water. He was trapped. The sound of a rap song drifted over from the four kids at the nearest campsite and he hoped the music—if you could call it that—would mask the sound of his labored breathing.

He moved to the other corner of the outhouse, away from Marlene, and once again, he was facing the tent. Billie, now entirely nude, rummaged through one of the packs. From nearby, came screeching, thumping noises as Marlene drew gurgling splashes of water from the well, but his eyes remained riveted on the girl in the tent.

Billie pulled on a pair of tiny lace panties that looked like something from a men’s magazine. Surely, she wasn’t going to sleep like that? In the middle of the woods?

Water suddenly splashed near his boots and he nearly jumped from behind the outhouse in surprise. It took him a moment to realize Marlene had thrown a basin of water out after washing herself and was now walking towards the tent, wearing shorts and an exercise bra. He watched as she crouched down and crawled into the lighted tent beside her friend. Then he heard the buzzing sound of a zipper as the opaque, nylon flap was pulled down.

For a few moments, waiting for his pounding heart to subside, he stayed hidden. Jesus, what if she’d caught him looking into the tent? He’d have been accused of being a peeping tom at the least.

Then an even more horrible scenario came to him. What if, instead of him, someone else had been watching? Would the killer have crept quietly to the tent in the darkness and cut through the flimsy fabric with a sharp knife, revealing the tasty morsels within? Shadow had never realized how vulnerable the campers in the park could be.

Looking around to be sure no one else was sneaking about the campground, he quickly but silently moved toward the trail leading to the boat dock, hoping he wasn’t too late to learn the source of the light he’d seen earlier. The sound of rap music faded behind him and he was surrounded by the noise of the frogs, insistently clamoring for mates.

Chapter Eleven

Where’d you put my panties?

Making his way along the path to the dock was like walking in a mineshaft at midnight, since the thick canopy blocked the weak starlight. Shadow again decided against using his flashlight, even though his excellent eyesight couldn’t help him here. His night vision was no better than anyone else’s. He doubted if even a cat would have been able to see in such utter blackness, but he’d have to cope.

Thinking of a cat made him consider that he would be at a serious disadvantage in the dark if a vicious animal accompanied the killer, as the victims’ bites suggested. Or if there really might be such a thing as a werewolf.

Damn! Now he’d gone and spooked himself good. There was no such thing as a werewolf in Native American culture, but he’d watched plenty of TV when he was growing up and seen all the old monster movies.

The claw clutched his flashlight with a death grip. He desperately wanted to turn it on, but knew he’d give himself away for sure. Instead, his hand dropped to the butt of his pistol.

He managed to make his way by feeling with his feet. There’d been no rain for a few days, so the center of the trail was dry, but swamp flanked the way on either side. Every time a foot sank into the muck, he’d angle in the other direction.

Not only would he be unable to see anyone creeping up on him, he wouldn’t be able to hear them either. Thousands of frogs combined their songs until it seemed he was in a factory where squeaking gears were never oiled. Even the noise of mosquitoes seemed deafening, since they would veer close by his ears before his insect repellant deterred them.

The clearing seemed positively bright in comparison when Shadow finally came out of the gloom. There was no one near the dock, but he spied a dim light far out on the bay. It was well beyond the mouth of the cove, slowly moving south. He couldn’t hear an engine, but it was probably too far away for sound to carry.

He wondered if the killer might be using a boat to move around the park, pulling in at any of the three piers or the northern dock up at the wildlife refuge headquarters. It would be a stealthy way to get around, avoiding the dike trails or the beach where one would likely be seen.

Then again, no one had been looking for anything suspicious until the Gordon woman went missing. The killer wouldn’t have aroused suspicion and could even have been camping somewhere in the park when she came jogging down the beach. Had Lorene thought of that, he wondered? Sure she had, she was a trained investigator. He was not an investigator, however, and might be sticking his nose into something he couldn’t handle. Barnett had probably been right to tell him to stay off the case.

He shrugged. At least he could watch over the campers to make sure no one else was killed. Or could he? He couldn’t be everywhere, even if he patrolled twenty-four hours a day, which was impossible. Steeling his nerve, he entered the tunnel-like trail to the camping meadow again, planning to resume his earlier vigil.

The passage through the trees was no easier this time and when he arrived back at the meadow, he again detoured behind the outhouses to avoid being seen or heard by the two girls. The rap music was off now and none of the campsites showed any lights. He was almost past campsite twelve when he heard a low noise. It was hard to tell above the chorus of chirping frogs, but it had sounded like a person moaning. He froze.

Moments later, he heard it again. It was coming from the girls’ tent. He moved closer. There! He heard it again. It was definitely a female sound, and it sounded like she was in pain.

Jesus! While he’d been standing on the damn dock daydreaming, the girls had been attacked, as he’d imagined earlier. He drew his pistol.

Then he heard another noise. This time it was more of a grunt, and not the same person, because it coincided with another moan. Someone was being attacked! Shadow quickly put his flashlight under his right armpit, pulled the slide of his automatic back to cock it, and then fumbled for the flashlight again. He turned it on and played it on the side of the tent, surprised to see it had not been ripped open, as he’d feared. The fabric rippled as someone thrashed around inside.

“Freeze!” he ordered, hollering so loud the nearest of the frogs shut up.

“Oh, my God!” a girl shouted from inside.

“What is it?” Another female voice.

“Holy shit, what’s going on?”

“Ow, you’re on my hand!”

“Where’d you put my panties?”

Shadow abruptly realized there was no one in the tent but the girls; but why had he heard moaning, as though someone was in pain?

A zipper slid open and a girl’s face appeared. Billie. The flaps didn’t hide her entirely and Shadow saw she was at least half naked.