“That looks like Paulson’s car,” Earl said. “Why in tarnation would he go off and leave his vehicle running like that?”
Before I could stop him, Grayson cracked, “Like I keep telling Drex here, Mothman doesn’t need wheels. He prefers to fly.”
I shot Grayson a dirty look. “I asked you not to mention ‘the M-man.’”
“I think it’s time Earl knew,” Grayson said. “Because if my hunch is right, we haven’t seen the last of the M-man tonight.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
“YOU DON’T HAVE ANY proof that the guy pretending to be Paulson is the Mothman,” I said to Grayson as Earl maneuvered Bessie around and backed the wrecked Mustang into the service bay.
“You don’t have any proof he’s not,” Grayson argued.
“Is that what this is about?” Earl laughed. “I thought y’all was having a lover’s quarrel.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “You afraid the little ol’ Mothman’s gonna get you, Bobbie?”
“Or maybe the Feds,” Grayson said.
Earl winked at me. “The men in blue are after you!”
“Argh! You guys suck!” I clambered over Grayson’s lap, yanked open the truck door, and tumbled onto my knees in the parking lot.
I got up and dusted myself off. “While you two joke around like a couple of jerks, whoever’s after us could be hiding in the bushes getting ready to blow our heads off! The stupid Mothman has nothing to do with this!”
“But why’d the FBI show up if they wasn’t chasing Mothman?” Earl asked.
I adjusted my wig. “The guy pretending to be Officer Paulson called them.”
Earl climbed out of the cab. “But if Paulson’s the killer, Bobbie, why would he call the FBI?”
Crap. He had me there. I scowled. “How the hell should I know?”
“The FBI doesn’t usually get involved in simple homicide cases,” Grayson said.
“I don’t think ripping people’s throats out is simple homicide,” I argued. “But Earl’s got a point. If this fake Paulson guy was guilty, why would he call the FBI? Why would he call me for backup?”
“Wait!” Earl’s eyes grew wide—probably from the strain of using his noodle. “Maybe this fake Paulson’s working undercover with the FBI, and he thinks one of you is the Mothman.”
I rolled my eyes. “Then why would he shoot his own team?”
Grayson shut the cab door behind him. “Maybe this fake Paulson guy didn’t call the FBI at all. He might’ve gotten a heads up somehow that the FBI was on the way, so he used it to his advantage. He could’ve been monitoring Terry Paulson’s phone or radio or something. When he found out the FBI was coming, he played you along, Drex.”
I grimaced. Grayson could be right. “He told me two prisoners escaped from Starke prison ten days ago.”
“He might’ve known that because he was one of them,” Grayson said.
I shook my head. “He didn’t seem like the criminal type to me.”
“Too good looking?” Grayson asked.
He struck a nerve. “No! The guy was crying at the scene of Vanderhoff’s murder. He seemed genuinely unnerved. And he told me not to trust you, Grayson. Maybe when he saw us at his cabin, he thought you were holding me hostage. You did have a gun on me.”
For once, Grayson finally lost his cool. “This guy’s an imposter, Drex! He made us drop our weapons. He held us at gunpoint. He fired at us and tried to run us off the road! What more proof do you need that he’s the bad guy here?”
I shrunk back. “Okay, okay. He’s not who he says he is. I’ll give you that. But that doesn’t prove the guy’s some ridiculous Mothman from outer space!”
I stomped my father’s boots over to the office and flipped on the service bay lights for Earl. Grayson trailed after me.
“What about all those spider webs in his cabin?” Grayson argued. “They could’ve been the makings of a cocoon.”
I made a sour face. “He doesn’t clean up after himself. If that were a crime, every guy on the planet would be in jail.”
“Okay. But if he’s human, why did he abandon his vehicle? It was still running when we drove by.”
I shrugged angrily. “Maybe he was afraid of being spotted, Grayson. He could’ve seen you on the phone. He might’ve thought you were calling the cops to report him.”
Grayson grabbed my arm. “I don’t think so, Drex. He left his car in the ditch because he didn’t need it. He can fly.”
I looked Grayson in the eye. “Don’t you see how crazy that sounds?”
Grayson looked indignant. “No. Not really.”
I shook my head. “Look. Whether Paulson’s the Mothman or not, he’s out there on the loose. We need to get inside and lock the doors. And call the Sheriff’s Department!”
Grayson’s face lost its tension. “You’re right, Drex. He’s nearby. And he’s after us. We need to prepare ourselves.”
A cold streak made my back arch. I suddenly became aware again of an uncomfortable dampness in my coveralls. For the second time since ditching diapers at age two, I’d peed my damned pants.
“Listen,” I said. “I need a shower and a stiff drink. Stay here with Earl. He’s exposed all alone out here in the service bay. When he’s done unhooking the Mustang, both of you come upstairs and lock up behind you.”
Grayson looked me over intently, as if trying to ascertain not only my plan, but my state of mind as well. Finally, he nodded. “Okay.”
I turned and headed up the stairs to my apartment, each step harder and heavier than the last. Inside my bedroom, I kicked my father’s burdensome old boots off into a corner. They seemed to stare at me accusingly as I unzipped my soiled coveralls. I dropped them on top of the boots and stared at the crumpled heap.
I peeled off my urine-soaked panties. Getting shot at had scared the piss out of me. Did that prove I wasn’t fit to be a private eye? I added the wet panties to the heap in the corner, along with my sweaty bra. I put my wig on the bureau and padded to the bathroom, as bald and naked and vulnerable as a newborn chick.
As I stepped into the shower and the hot water trickled over my shaved head, I wondered how, in just under a week, my life could have gotten so far off track. One lousy, unlucky shot from some bike-thieving punk at the mall had changed the trajectory of my entire life.
A week ago, my daily routine had been simple. Mundane. Predictable. Now, it felt as if I’d been yanked out of line at Walmart and forced to star in a low-budget horror flick.
Mothman: The Redneck Years.
I stepped out of the shower, dried off, and wrapped myself in a towel. It was going to be a long night. I padded over to the closet to get a clean T-shirt. As I opened the closet door, my mouth fell open. My hairbrush dropped from my hand.
Staring at me, eyeball-to-eyeball, was the same creature I’d seen outside my bedroom window last night. The same hairy, human-like face. The same glowing, red eyes.
Mothman was finally coming out of the closet—and heading right for me!
I screamed. Mothman pounced on top of me. I guess I was going to die in Point Paradise after all.
Crap.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
I WAS IN A STRUGGLE for my life.
Mothman was real.
The creature came at me from its hiding place inside my closet. The sound of my own scream broke my paralytic shock. Running on instinct and adrenaline, I smashed my right fist into the monster’s ugly, insectoid face.
He flew backward into my hanging clothes, then bounced back at me like a ricocheting bullet. I grimaced as his horrible, hairy face head-butted into mine.
His stiff, nasty whiskers scratched at my cheeks as I grabbed him by the torso and tried to throw him off balance. But I tripped on a flip-flop, lost my footing, and took him with me as I fell sideways onto the floor.
With the air nearly knocked out of me, I wrestled the creature on the shag carpet. Sometime during the struggle, Mothman ripped the towel from my body.
Naked as a jaybird, I
scrambled on top of him, straddled his belly, and walloped him good with a one-two punch to the face. He tried to roll over onto his stomach, but I pinned him with my thighs. Then I set out delivering a set of kidneys jabs to his torso until he let out a weird, squeaky, fart-like sound.
Suddenly, the bedroom door flew open. Grayson burst in, holding Earl’s shotgun. As he scrambled to my rescue, his face broke into a grin. Then the jerk burst out laughing.
I was ready to punch him in the face, too. “Uh ... a little help here?” I yelled.
Grayson shook his head. “What are you doing, Drex?”
I stared at Grayson, then down at my assailant. My adrenaline rush over, my thumping heart nearly stopped in my chest.
Mothman wasn’t real.
He was a blow-up sex doll in a cheap monster mask.
I glared up at Grayson. My vision went red.
“Very funny, you smartass!” I shrieked. I yanked Grandma Selma’s blanket off the inflatable doll’s back and hastily covered myself with it.
Grayson pursed his lips in a poor attempt to hide his amusement. “Drex,” he guffawed, “I promise, I had nothing to do with this.”
“Sure you didn’t!” I hissed. “Tell me, jackass. How’d you get that stupid thing to fly outside my bedroom window last night?”
“With one of them drones,” Earl said, appearing in the doorway. He shot me a sadistic wink. “Ha ha, Bobbie! Looks like I got you good!”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT. The three of us were sitting vigil around the kitchen table, waiting for who-knew-what to come dragging up out of the darkness. I got up and poured Grayson and Earl some coffee, mainly because I didn’t have any arsenic on hand.
“How could you do this to me?” I muttered angrily.
“Aww, don’t take it so hard,” Earl said. “Beth-Ann told me about how you and Grayson was gonna do a stakeout by the Stop & Shoppe. I figured I’d have me a little fun.”
I shot Earl a scathing look. My whole life was nothing but a joke to him. “So Mothman was you the whole time.”
Earl grinned proudly. “Yeppers.”
“No.” Grayson said, shaking his head. “It couldn’t have been you in the woods the night of my accident. I didn’t even know you then.”
Earl looked over at Grayson. “What you talking about?”
“The night my RV broke down. I saw it. Oculi rubere.”
“The red octopus,” Earl whispered, his eyes as big as plums.
“Red eyes,” Grayson corrected. “The night I broke down, I saw glowing red eyes in the woods. I tried to roll up the window, then I felt this pain in my shoulder. I passed out. I couldn’t remember anything else.”
“That’s when the Mothman bit you,” Earl said.
“It was his seatbelt!” I yelled.
Grayson scooted his chair away from the table. “I can’t say for sure if it was Mothman or not. But if it was, it wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened to me. I guess it’s time I showed you two something.”
“What?” Earl asked. “You got a tattoo of him?”
I thought Grayson was going to show us his two navels. But then he stood up and said, “Not here. Follow me.”
We tromped down the stairs behind Grayson and out to the parking lot. Since we’d lost our guns at Alto Lake, Earl kept a wary watch for fake Paulson with his trusty Mossberg shotgun. After ascertaining the coast was clear, the three of us crossed the lot and climbed inside Grayson’s RV.
“You might’ve noticed I’ve got padlocks on the cabinets and bedroom door,” Grayson said as he pointed them out.
“Nope,” Earl said. “Hadn’t noticed at all.”
I shot my cousin a dirty look.
“Well, there’s a good reason for it.” Grayson took out a jumble of keys and opened the padlock on one of the cabinets. It was full of brown bottles with eyedropper lids.
“You must really be into aromatherapy,” I said dryly.
“Something like that.” Grayson padlocked the cabinet again and shuffled down the small hallway, past the tiny bathroom to the bedroom. He unlocked deadbolt after deadbolt on the bedroom door. After unlocking the eighth one, he opened the door and stepped aside for Earl and me to have a look inside.
Cautiously, we peered into the room. The walls were padded with a thick, gray, quilted fabric that reminded me of the back of an insulated potholder. Heavy-gauge wire mesh covered the windows. It was the perfect lair for a psycho killer to keep his hostages.
Earl grunted. “Darn. I thought there was gonna be some kind a critter in here.”
I turned to Grayson. “What is it?”
“It’s an electromagnetic holding cell.”
“Is that like a toaster oven?” Earl asked.
Grayson sighed. “In layman terms, it’s a monster trap.”
Earl’s eyes lit up. “Woohoo!”
Grayson nodded. “And it’s time we set this trap to catch the Mothman.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
Grayson shook his head. “No. I’m dead serious.” His eyes scanned the ceiling of the RV above his head. “He’s out there. I can feel him. But we’re going to need the right bait.”
Grayson shot a glance at Earl, raised an eyebrow, and tilted his head toward me.
Both men turned their heads, locked eyes with me, and smiled.
I scowled. “What?”
Then I figured out what, and ran for my life.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“COME ON, DREX! WHAT do moths find irresistible?” Grayson’s voice sounded muffled as he tried to reason with me from the other side of my locked bedroom door.
“I dunno,” I yelled through the door. “You’re the genius here. Mothballs?” I looked around for something to barricade the door.
“No. Flames.”
“So what? What’s the pyro-maniacal leanings of a deranged insect got to do with me?”
“Think about it, Drex. I think he’s attracted to your flaming red hair. He said he liked redheads, remember?”
I stopped shoving the chest of drawers toward the door. “That was fake Paulson, not Mothman.”
“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.”
I groaned. “Okay. So what if he does like redheads? I’m bald, remember?”
“That’s only a temporary setback. When he met you at the mall, you had all your hair, right?”
I frowned begrudgingly. “Yeah.”
“Listen,” Grayson said. “I think we have a chance of luring him into the RV if you could persuade him.”
“Me? Persuade him? How?”
“With your feminine, redhead wiles.”
My face puckered. “Right. And then what? Let him kill me in your rundown RV deathtrap? Uh...no thanks!” I tugged on the chest of drawers again.
“No. If I’m right about this, he’ll be powerless around you.”
I stopped and put an ear to the door. “What do you mean, powerless?”
“It’s hard to explain. I’m going to have to show you. You’re going to have to open the door.”
I laughed bitterly. “No way, Grayson. I’m not falling for any more of you guys’ stupid pranks.”
“Don’t you find it interesting that Mothman appeared to you in your Grandma’s afghan? Your security blanket?”
I thought about it for a second. “No. That was Earl’s doing.”
“Oh. Right. Well, still, what if this Mothman creature feeds on your fears? What if he’s able to lure his victims with a false sense of security?”
My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“What if Mothman can somehow read minds, Drex? Know his victims’ safe places? Then, he uses that knowledge to lure his victims. You know, make them feel like they have nothing to fear. It would explain how he’s been able to overwhelm them without an apparent struggle.”
“Or maybe he’s just a smooth talker,” I said through the door. “Like somebody else I know.”
“What?” Grayson said.
>
Suddenly, I remembered something. “Grayson, in the cabin tonight, right before somebody shot out the lights, I saw an image of Grandma Selma’s face over Paulson’s. Was that a hallucination?”
“I don’t think so, Drex. I think your vision was the work of the Mothman. He must be able to project images into your mind. He knew you wouldn’t shoot your grandmother, right?”
My gut flopped at the thought.
“This creature knew your safe space,” Grayson said. “It’s your Grandma Selma, isn’t it?”
I frowned. “Yes.”
“He tricked you, if only for a moment. Now it’s our job to figure out how to trick him back.”
“How?”
“I’m going to need your wig.”
I winced. “My wig? But I’ll be bald! What do you need it for?”
“You’ll see.”
I cracked open my bedroom door and peeked out. Grayson was in the hall alone.
“Where’s Earl?” I asked.
“He said he’s making booby traps.”
Aww, geez.
“You don’t know him like I do,” I said. “He shouldn’t be left alone out there unsupervised.”
Grayson nodded. “Okay. Then let’s go back down to the service bay.”
I grabbed Earl’s Lucky Red ball cap to cover my bald head and handed over my Woody Woodpecker wig to Grayson. He and I tromped downstairs to the parking lot. While he walked over to his RV with my wig, I went into the service bay to see what Earl was up to.
As anticipated, I was neither surprised nor impressed by Earl’s redneck ingenuity.
In a masterwork only he could have concocted, my brilliant cousin had taped together sections of cardboard boxes until they’d formed the basic size and shape of a refrigerator. Then he’d covered the whole Frankenstein mess with duct tape, sticky side out.
As usual, disaster had struck. Somehow the boy genius had managed to get the whole contraption stuck to his back. As I walked up, he was flailing around like Quasimodo stuck to a roach motel.
“Gimme a hand here, Bobbie!”
Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures Box Set Page 21