As he reached orgasm, she’d grip his ass and shove a finger into his anus. He would feel the penetration, would hear the crunch of her skin breaking apart as her finger plunged endlessly deep inside of him.
Then her whole fist would go in.
And that was when he’d wake up with a shout. His eyes would frantically search the darkened bedroom for her, examining the heavy shadows that piled down from the ceiling, checking the corners before ending on the window. Shadows danced across the glass, the twigs from the bushes outside making soft scratching sounds as the wind shook them.
But there would be no Amy.
On those nights, he’d kick the sweat-drenched sheets away and pull his pillow close. He’d hold it like a child would a stuffed animal until he fell back asleep.
Reaching a sharp bend in the road, Piper slowed the Bronco to take it. Being a top-heavy vehicle, if he hit it too fast, it might flip over. As he turned the wheel, he noticed how it felt slick in his hands. He was sweating. A dab slid down his side from his armpit. He looked into the rearview mirror and saw wild eyes gaping back at him. A bruise-speckled brow painted in glossy sweat was above them.
The dream. Even the memories caused him to panic.
His heart was slamming his chest, making his left arm feel as if he’d been sleeping on it for too long. He knew this was not a good sign. His anxiety seemed to get worse each month.
He constantly worried somebody might stumble across his little secrets that scampered through the woods. They ransacked campsites, butchering the campers for food. Sometimes it was fishermen, or people who’d traveled to Whisper Lake for the day to swim even though it had been condemned.
A lot of times it was lovers who’d driven their car deep into the woods for some fooling around. He’d come across many abandoned vehicles, doors hanging open, blood splattered all over the inside, panties in the floorboard. Sometimes there would be torn condom packages, or he’d find the actual used rubber lying like a latex snake in the grass. Never did he find the occupants or any trace of them, other than the copious amount of blood left behind.
But he knew the Haunchies’ calling card when he saw it. And though they were usually cautious with their attacks, it was still a large amount that made Piper nervous.
People went missing in Doverton, Cradle Elk and Whisper Lake more often than the newspapers knew about.
And that was due to Piper’s incisive strategies of disposal.
Though he had to admit he’d become sloppy from too much time between them. The Brown sisters had been the first and the last of this year. Maybe people were starting to understand that if you came to Doverton, odds were you weren’t going home.
He rolled down the window and peered out. Cold air, rich with the sweet smell of pine, buffeted his face. Reminded him winter was coming. The cold seemed to amplify the pine scent. His eyes dried up, making his lids feel as if they raked his eyes when he blinked.
Fog was already heavy in the woods, slinking between the trees, thin and white. The fields, brown with weeds, were being fingered by misty white hands.
Brooke was somewhere out there.
You’ll come home to Daddy soon enough.
Ted
Steph held the charred plank of wood in her hands. Its edges were black and crispy. Streaks of soot dotted her hands as if a magic marker had leaked on her skin. The wood was the color of rot, but the word carved into its front was still easily decipherable.
Mystic Lane.
Ted took a drag off his cigarette and exhaled a yellowish cloud of smoke that seemed to thicken as it wafted out. They’d walked on the busted path for half an hour until reaching an old barbed-wire fence where a pasture gate was secured to poles and held shut with a chain and padlock. They’d taken turns climbing over. He’d thought Steph was going to fall when she straddled the top of the gate and thrust her fists in the air, hooting.
They hadn’t trekked far when Steph found the sign. It was on the ground, poking out from under a matting of leaves.
“We’re here,” she said.
“Looks that way,” said Ted.
Ted could hear the calm slurp of Whisper Lake in the distance.
The area where those cars were deserted? Didn’t Al at the diner say an author owned one of them? And he still hasn’t been found?
Cold fear dripped down into Ted’s stomach, spreading tingles through his bowels.
Steph nibbled at her bottom lip. “Can you believe it? We’re finally here. I’m keeping this damn sign.”
“Why?”
“A memento.”
“Kind of messed up.”
“You’ve known me for almost two days, Ted, and you’re just now realizing I like messed-up shit?” Steph set the sign down. “I’ll get it on the way back.” She turned her back to him. He saw her shoulders lift and drop as if taking a satisfied breath. “What do you think is out there?”
“A lot of burned-up woods.”
“What do you think is in the woods?”
“Ash.”
She looked back at him, smirking. “You’re being a killjoy.”
Ted shrugged. “Sorry.”
He tried sharing Steph’s passion and couldn’t. To him it was just fire-gnarled trees with blackened, skeletal limbs that might crumble into ash if touched. The wildfire had left the grass in a gulch of bristly tar like the hairs on a fly’s back. It was firm and spiky under his shoes, like walking on Velcro.
There wasn’t anything to see worth the hike or the trouble they’d be in if somebody at the house found out they’d come here. What did Steph expect to find? Some missing evidence that would somehow link the mysteries together? Haunchies scampering around like squirrels, stealing nuts and scurrying around?
She started walking forward. Noticing the little bounce in her gait, he realized that was exactly what she wanted to find, and probably wouldn’t leave until she was absolutely convinced it wasn’t here.
It was time to head back. He was cold. The air had a vanilla scent to it that suggested snow was near.
And he’d been picked to make dinner tonight. Damn Debbie for telling everybody he was a good cook. This was the last thing he wanted to do. After losing his job as head chef at Romano’s, he’d decided not to cook anything ever again. He was through with it, burned out. Just wanted to collect his unemployment check until he figured out what his new career should be.
Problem was, he didn’t have any idea what he wanted to do with his life.
And then his unemployment benefits were exhausted.
And here I am.
Steph was still walking, the distance between them was now pretty far.
“Hey,” he said.
As she walked, Steph smiled over her shoulder and said, “Yes?”
“Ready to go?”
“Absolutely,” she said, motioning for him to follow her.
“I meant to the house.”
“Why?”
“We’re running out of time.”
“I know. Which is why we need to hurry up. The real stuff is in there. That’s where the fire started.”
“How do you even know that?”
“I just have a hunch.”
“Are you leading me around by the seat of your pants?”
“You come with me, and you’ll get to see the seat of my pants.”
Ted couldn’t resist smiling. “Can’t say no to that, can I?”
“Well you could, but you’d regret it.”
Ted dropped the cigarette, put his foot down on the cherry point. He pushed down.
There was a rusted snap. Pain shot through his foot and up his leg as dots of blood sprinkled across his hand.
Steph, starting to frown, must’ve heard the noise too.
Looking down, Ted saw three spikes poking through the top of his shoe in a straight line. Na
ils! One had pushed through the tongue; another severed the middle of the crosshatched laces. A third poked through the white arc at the tip of his sneaker. He could feel blood pouring into his shoe, drenching his sock.
Then Ted dropped on his ass, groaning.
“Ted!” From where Steph was standing, she couldn’t see his foot. She knew something was wrong, probably not what exactly, but came running anyway.
“Hold it!” said Ted, throwing a hand up.
Steph stopped a foot or so beside him. Gasping, she raised her fingers to her lip. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
He sat on the cold ground, his left leg extended in front of him. The other, with the nails, was bent with his knee aimed at the sky. Ted leaned forward as if he were about to tie his shoe, placing his hands around his foot.
“I heard a noise,” said Steph. “What was that? Sounded like a fucking mousetrap!”
A mousetrap…
“My foot…some nails…”
Steph’s face lost its color. “Oh shit… Ted, I’m so sorry…”
“Knock it off,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”
Though she didn’t say anymore, he could tell by her quivering mouth she was blaming herself for his injury. Ted attempted to lift his foot. He felt the skin stretch around the nails as they remained lodged in the ground as if rooted there. Scraping pulses of pain traveled through his foot, making his stomach hitch.
He stopped moving his foot. “What the hell…?” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“The nails…”
Steph started forward. Again he stopped her. She stomped the ground.
“I want to help you,” she snapped.
“You can help me by staying there. I don’t want you to step on anything.”
Steph folded her arms in front of her stomach. Her fingers nervously scratched at the bloated white sleeve of her coat.
Ted tried moving his foot, but the nails were firmly in place, sticking up rigidly. “I’m just going to pull my foot off.”
“Let me help…”
He started to protest but Steph cut him off.
“You won’t be able to do it,” she said. “The pain will just keep making you stop. I’ll just pull your foot up really quick…”
She’s right.
Just like trying to take a splinter out of your own finger, you keep stopping at the slightest hint of pain. When someone else did it, the pain was just as bad, but it was over quickly because they would just snatch it out.
These aren’t splinters! They’re three big ass nails!
He looked at them, sticking up from his foot in a Mohawk of points, thick as cigarettes, coated in his blood.
Ted took a deep breath, nodded and said, “All right.”
Steph hurried over to him, staring at the ground when she got close to his feet. Seeing his dilemma, she grimaced, baring her teeth. She sank to a crouch in front of him, her hands grabbing his shin. “I’m just going to do it,” she said. “Real quick.”
“Right…”
“Close your eyes.”
Nodding, Ted shut his eyes. He sucked in his lips and held his breath.
There was such a long pause that he was about to ask Steph if she’d changed her mind. Then he felt his leg being wrenched upward, felt the immense pain in his foot as if it were being ripped off his leg.
His foot was extricated from the nails. The pain immediately subsided, but did not entirely vanish.
“Got it,” she called.
Ted opened his eyes, looked at his foot. Steph held it in her hands, his blood running down her fingers. She didn’t seem to care her skin was being painted in the red oozing from three perfect holes.
She released his foot. Grabbing it, he pulled it to his lap and held it there. They would have to bandage it somehow. Maybe tear off a section of his shirt, wrap it around his foot. Randy would demand to know what happened. They couldn’t lie about something like this.
Then he realized he’d have to walk the distance back on a bad foot. At the very least, it’d take them double the time to get back.
Damn.
Something cold and light landed on his hand. Then another. Little white blurs began to come down all around them. White fluffs stuck to his sleeve.
Snow.
Little flurries at first, they quickly became a downpour of thick white balls.
“That’s just great,” he said.
“It’s nothing to worry about. We’re in the open here, see?” She pointed around at the wide space between the trees and them. “It’ll take it a long time to do anything in the woods. The trees will block it out, at least for a little while.”
Ted sighed.
“The nails are stuck to some kind of plate,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a metal rectangle. There’s some springs here that I think shoots them up. I thought I heard something that sounded like a mousetrap. It was this. The fucking thing’s set up just like one!”
“Someone put that there? On purpose?”
“Not just put it here. They designed it. Crudely at best. But whoever it was wanted somebody to step on it.”
“Well, I guess I just made their day.”
Worry seemed to shroud Steph’s face. Her brow creased, eyes narrowed. She looked down at the ground. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Stop blaming yourself…”
Her head tilted sideways. “Wait. There’s something else.”
Ted looked and saw she was brushing dirt away from the ground. Something thin like string was unveiled. Looked like a trip wire…
“Do you see this?” she asked.
Before Ted could respond, she already had her fingers underneath it and was pulling it up. There was slack for a couple inches before the line snapped taut. Some kind of trigger mechanism was launched. Both of them froze when they heard the raspy crunch of something cocking.
Then a metal rod shot up from the ground.
Steph released the cord and slapped both hands to her mouth, screaming behind her hand muffle. She jumped to her feet, peering down at him in wide-eyed shock.
Ted looked down, stunned by what he saw. The rod’s tip was sticking out of his coat, to the right side of his stomach, by his hip. It had ripped through him with ease and he hadn’t felt anything. There was no blood. No pain. Just a protruding tip the size of a metal tomato stake on his side.
“Ted…” said Steph, shaking her head. “My God…”
Confused that there was no pain, he tugged at his coat slightly. The thick padding pulled against the rod, but remained pinned in place. Fabric started to tear. He turned a bit, moving his hips and found that he could move, though his coat could not.
The rip began to widen.
Ted stopped. He exhaled a breath of relief.
He hadn’t been stabbed. Just his coat suffered the hit of this one. He looked up at Steph. She had her face buried in her hands, bawling, having not realized his narrow miss.
“I’m okay,” he said. “It didn’t get me.”
Steph sniffled, raised her teary eyes above her blood-caked fingertips. Then her hands dropped to reveal a smile that was filled with pure happiness. “Thank God!”
“Just don’t touch anything else,” he said.
“I won’t, I promise!” She stepped forward. “Let me help you up.”
“Don’t touch me, either!”
Steph recoiled at his sudden shout. Ted felt bad for yelling at her, but he didn’t apologize. He wanted her to stay back. If she’d listened to him the first time, this wouldn’t have happened.
It’s not fair to blame her.
He disagreed with his thoughts on that.
Ted pulled his coat up and over the stake. He squirmed away from the skinny rod sticking up from the e
arth. Its surface was tarnished to a flaky brown. Dirt clotted around the base where it met the ground.
“Someone really doesn’t want us to go any farther,” he muttered.
“Think there’re traps all over?”
“I’d say it’s safe to assume that.”
“I’m sorry, Ted, if I would have…”
“Stop. Let’s not worry about that now.”
He looked at the ground around them. White dust had sprinkled all around. There were still plenty of black patches, like islands in a shallow river of white, spread throughout. Those dark sections would vanish before too long. The ground with its sugary dusting reminded him of his carpet after he’d dumped some freshener on it.
He looked up. Snow was falling in heavy clumps from the gray clouds above. He felt their cold patters on his cheeks, his forehead. Closing his eyes, he stuck out his tongue. A couple drops landed in his mouth. A taste like sugarless vanilla ice cream filled his mouth.
Even with what had just happened, he was still reminded of being a kid, playing outside in the courtyard of the apartment building his parents lived in. Then he saw Adam laughing as he splashed his hands in piles of snow. The image helped calm him, settle his nerves and anger. When he raised his head and looked at Steph, his heart seemed to sink.
His blood had smeared a red beard on her cheeks and around her mouth. Her tears had cut thin trails through the smudge. Now he felt lousy for yelling at her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have yelled.”
“It’s my fault,” she said.
To that, he said nothing. He looked at the path snaking through the trees. It was pretty even ground for the most part. If he just avoided the tire trenches, he would probably be okay.
But there was the pasture gate he was concerned about. How in the hell would be able to climb over it or the barbed-wire fencing around it?
Worry about that when we’re standing in front of it.
The Lurking Season Page 19