“Elizabeth Ashton,” she managed through chattering teeth, taking it hesitantly. The warmth from his hand settled in her bones, right alongside the wariness she couldn’t pinpoint. He pulled her into the forest on what appeared to be a thin game trail, and the towering firs above caught most the rain.
Once the trees concealed them, he turned to her. His hand grew firm on her arm and graveness transformed his eyes. They penetrated, even in the dark, and that chill snuck its way up her spine. “Stay close, Ms. Ashton. It’ll be curious of visitors, always is.”
Chapter 2
Elizabeth couldn’t swallow. Did she stand in one of the places her father used to speak of—a place where magic existed?
“It?” she asked Eustace. “What will be curious of visitors?”
“The beast, Ms. Ashton.” Eustace turned and pulled her along, but she hardly felt there at all. Since her time as a teen when she’d learned life handed out nothing but disappointments and responsibilities, she’d been skeptical of her father’s fairy tales. She was a realist. She knew them for what they were: children’s stories.
Yet here she was, almost thirty and more seasoned than most, and she couldn’t shake the chill in her spine. A beast? She had to have misunderstood.
He traveled fast, too fast, and she nearly tripped. Taking a deep breath, she ripped her arm from his grasp and stopped. She could no longer see the highway through the trees behind them, even when the wide beam of his spotlight shone behind her. He stared at her as though she was the crazy one. “What do you mean, Mr. Bathgate?” she said through shallow breaths. Her hood had fallen in their short journey and her hair was soaked through. “You mean an animal, right? Like a wolf?”
He chuckled, spitting to the side. “Would’ve said wolf if I meant wolf. Not that there aren’t wolves in these parts, but the monster keeps most those buggers away. It’s not the wolves you need to worry about. And the longer we stand around, the more vulnerable we become.”
She pulled her wrist away when he reached for it again. “Not another foot unless you tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You’re actually telling me you’ve never heard? I thought when you said you knew the area, you were from somewhere around here. But you’re not, are you, Ms. Ashton?”
“California. I know only what I’ve studied on maps.”
He straightened, eyeing her with a look she didn’t understand. Was he second-guessing his decision to help her?
“That explains it then. I should have known, since no local would wander alone on Mt. Hood Highway, not between Rhododendron and Government Camp.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Have you heard legends about these forests, Ms. Ashton?”
She recoiled. “Actually…” Her tongue tripped over her words. “My father came here a lot, told me legends, but…they’re just legends, Mr. Bathgate.”
“Please. Eustace.”
“If you’re Eustace, I’m Beth.”
“How are legends born, Beth?” He lifted his brow, as though he knew her heart would sink at his word choice.
And it did. Legends are born from flecks of truth, her father used to say. But Eustace and her late father sharing the same philosophy didn’t make the philosophy any saner.
“I’m not trying to scare you, Beth, but judging by the look on your face, I’m doing a pretty good job. And you should be scared. Now, I don’t know how things come to be, or what it all means, but anyone who lives in Hemlock Veils can tell you these woods are guarded by a beast. No wolf, no werewolf.” He gave a breathy smile. “Oh, we once thought it was, since there was no other way to describe it, but then we realized it wasn’t just out on a full moon. It was out every night. And with its features…”
“Then what is it?”
“Now, that’s the scary part: we just don’t know. It’s a mix of everything, and then some. So demented that some say it was shunned from the underworld, with those devil ears and razor-sharp fangs. I’m not sure about that myself, but I do know it’s got no soul. Just pure evil.”
Regardless of how far-fetched his description was, Elizabeth began retreating in the direction they’d come as though her feet had a mind of their own. He grabbed her arm. “That’s not a good idea. You can’t be alone. I’m sure it’s smelled you by now.”
She laughed, shaking her head. Her heart beat in her throat. “Is that why you’re suddenly in no hurry? Because it’s too late to hurry anyway?”
“You don’t have to believe me now, Beth, but you will. You’ll see soon enough.”
“Eustace…”
“Here.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from the chest pocket of his flannel, trying to protect it from the rain as he carefully handed it to her. It was thick and coarse, an artist’s sketch paper.
“A picture?”
He shook his head, vigorously. “No one’s ever been able to get a shot at that thing, by gun or camera. Granted, I’m the only one who’s ever tried. Everyone else’s too afraid, rightfully so.”
She still hadn’t unfolded the paper. “And why haven’t you succeeded?”
His brow wrinkles deepened, multiplied. “I’ve been close, too many times to count, but it’s always disappearing, jumping this way and that. It’s too fast for this world.”
“You said you were close tonight though.”
“Closer than I’ve ever been. The thing was just…staring at me—challenging me. Almost like it wanted me to pull that trigger. Then you shouted out there and it left.”
Something struck Elizabeth as strange, the first flicker of logic since Eustace began his horror story. If he’d been so close, and the beast—had it been real—was impossibly quick as he’d said, why wasn’t Eustace dead?
“You going to take a look so we can be on our merry way?” he said, eyeing the picture.
She unfolded it, and rain dotted the corners. Eustace shined his spotlight on the heavy sheet of paper, lighting it magnificently. It was frightening, sure, but something this frightening couldn’t be real. Her eyes followed the meticulous and graceful charcoal strokes. The beast was hunched over, claws in front of itself, and the teeth escaping its mouth looked like a hundred tiny knives. Its pointy ears looked like a wolf’s but were twice as long: devil ears, as he’d said.
“Did you draw this, Eustace?”
“From memory.”
She eyed him. “It’s very good. You ever think of illustrating comic books?”
With tight lips, he snatched the drawing and stuffed it back into his pocket, never removing his eyes from her. “Like I said, you’ll see for yourself soon enough.” The way he turned and continued without her left her momentarily speechless. Every option rushed through her mind. As logical as it seemed to go back the way she came, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Eustace, with swift steps and a bouncing light, was disappearing ahead. Eustace, with a shotgun for protection.
“Wait!” she called, the word rolling up and out of her throat as quickly as her feet ran. As though he knew she would follow, he stopped and waited patiently until she reached him. She wondered if he hid a triumphant smile.
When he offered his arm without words, she took it with resolve, and they began to walk again as quickly as before. Only this time she didn’t find the movement alarming. She did find it strange, however, that he seemed so forgiving of her skepticism. She tried to make it up to him, tried to entertain his belief. In the same way she’d done for her father during his last four years.
“So this…beast—how long has it been around?”
He threw a sidelong glance at her, but answered nonetheless. “It could’ve been around forever for all I know. But us residents of Hemlock didn’t see first signs of it until sixty-five.” His steps slowed only slightly while his mind appeared to be in a far-off place. He didn’t seem to pay attention to the direction they walked as he maneuvered through the trees. “I was thirty that summer, had my plans all set for me and Holly Farrell. On the night it came, the stars were bright—brighter than I
’d ever seen—and the town was gathered in the square to celebrate forty-five years in Hemlock Veils. There was dancing, singing, pie-eating. And Miss Farrell…” He let out a low whistle. “She was prettier than the stars. I was going to ask for her hand that night, you know.”
His face fell, and more so his voice, as he went on, “But…the monster lunged from the tree line and snatched Miss Holly, taking her into the woods before the band could even quit their song. It was the first time any of us ever saw it.”
Elizabeth’s steps slowed from his sorrow. No matter its incredibility, he believed every word of his story. It was almost the same way her father used to get wrapped up in stories, and she couldn’t help thinking how much he would like Eustace Bathgate.
“It was dark, so most couldn’t make it out,” he added. “You see, it’s only alive at night. No one knows where it goes during the day. It just…disappears. Then, when the sun goes down, these woods are transformed into something else entirely. Night is its time. These woods are its territory.”
Elizabeth couldn’t help looking all around her, at the supposed beast’s kingdom.
“Why do you think Mt. Hood National Forest doesn’t mark many trails in this area? When was the last time you saw a sign for a hiking trail, or anything like it?”
“I…don’t know.”
“Exactly. No one likes it here because we aren’t supposed to like it here.”
That didn’t make sense to Elizabeth, so she moved on, asking hesitantly, “Did you ever find Holly Farrell?” She expected the answer to be a horrifying one. Maybe the monster had ripped her to shreds, scattering her remains throughout the forest.
“We found her all right. At dawn she came crawling through the trees, on the same edge of town she’d been taken.”
“She was alive?”
“Hardly a scratch on her. Crying like a child and shaking with fright, but for some reason, the monster let her live. To show everyone Hemlock Veils was its own, I think. To show us it could have anyone it wanted. I never saw her again after that.”
“She left town?”
He nodded, taking her hand as he led her over a moss-covered board that had been placed over a stream, creating an unsafe and slippery bridge. Camp Creek, if she remembered the map correctly. “She couldn’t get out of this place fast enough,” he answered. “We’ve never seen the beast come out of the forest like that again either. It was the first and only time. But every so often, people go missing for a night, people who got too close to the forest—only to wake up in terror in the trees the next day. Mostly women, too. The beast has been part of this town for almost fifty years. It stays out of our town limits, and we stay out of the forest at night.”
“Except for you, you mean.”
“Except for me. And now you too, Beth.” He smiled, crookedly.
“So if this is like some sort of…treaty, why break it?”
“I don’t think a treaty has anything to do with it. All I know is our town’s lived in terror for too long. I’ll never stop hunting that monster. It’s terrorizing Hemlock Veils just by existing. As far as I’m concerned, it can either die or move onto somewhere else.”
“You’re not afraid?”
“Course I’m afraid. You’d be insane not to be. But someone has to stand up.”
The trees cleared and they found themselves on the green shoulder of a narrow road traveling in an east-west direction, rain pelted her face with more force. Before she could ask, his grasp on her arm tightened. “We need to keep going. Just because we aren’t in the trees, doesn’t mean we’re safe.” They crossed the road, entering the firs and hemlocks on the other side, and continued south. The soggy ground began to decline, taking them downhill, and the first red cedar appeared at her left. Moss dusted its massive trunk, and its height rose far above what she could see in the dark. The vegetation thickened, became more difficult to traverse, and his arm broke away from hers as he again took the lead. She made sure to stay close.
“That was Road Thirty-Two,” Eustace explained. “You keep taking that and eventually, after a few curves and a couple turns, you’d be to Hemlock.”
“And this forest—the beast’s territory—is safer than the road?”
“Just quicker.” Their pace naturally picked up as the downhill slope steepened, but eventually the ground leveled out. The vegetation became mossier—more like the rainforest she always imagined Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness looking like, which probably wasn’t far. She would have to save her admiration for tomorrow, however, when sunlight offered her clear sight.
“You see, I have an obligation to stand up to it,” Eustace said, continuing his story. “When it took Miss Holly, no one besides me got a good look. The tavern’s light shed on him just so, just enough for me to make eye contact. It stared me down, with those devil eyes, and something passed between us. It knows who I am, and knows I’ll never stop. And in a way I can’t explain, it seemed to accept it. I swear I saw the thing nod right before it leapt back into the trees, Miss Holly screaming in its arms.”
Elizabeth allowed her imagination to conjure the images. With her chest close to Eustace’s back, the wetness in the atmosphere began numbing her extremities.
“You know, Beth, for a disbeliever, you’re awfully interested.”
She smiled. “For knowing I’m a disbeliever, you’re awfully open to sharing.”
“Well, you seem all right to me. Besides, like I said…”
“I’ll know soon enough.”
He chuckled. “We only have about a quarter of a mile to go.”
“Tell me why Hemlock Veils is Oregon’s best kept secret.”
“One of Oregon’s best kept secrets is more accurate. I’d say our monster is the best.”
“But you seemed to think I should have heard of him.”
“And people around here have. But when folks think a story’s a mere story, their disbelief masks its reality, doesn’t it? That makes it the best kept secret. No one really believes the beast of Hemlock exists. People sense evil here and have come in search of it, sure, but they either come up disappointed or run away from here scared shitless. And in that case, who’s going to believe them?”
She took in the calming sound of boots in the mud and rain in the treetops. The beam of his light guided them over a fallen mossy trunk, and she stepped high. “Have you lived in Hemlock Veils your whole life?”
“Just about. Perfect little place, really: population only two-fifty.”
Though she nodded, the concept was far from her. She’d never lived anywhere but Los Angeles. Hemlock Veils sounded remote and isolated…and just the kind of place she was looking for. If it really existed. She wondered what she would really find at the end of that mile.
That eerie sensation pricked the back of Elizabeth’s neck again, and she stopped; something watched them. Only this time it was closer, blunter. And at the same time Eustace straightened, her heart dropped. Her eyes followed his. With a rigid stance, he stared at nothing she could see: trees, darkness, and more trees.
At once the air seemed colder.
“You feel that too, don’t you, Beth?” he whispered. He hadn’t turned to her.
Tree branches shook and shifted, first ahead then to their right, startling her into Eustace. They rustled above, then below; behind them and to the left, and again to the right. It darted here and there with a speed unlike any animal she knew, and Eustace aimed the double barrel of his shotgun in every direction, even up high. It was everywhere, this thing she couldn’t see. Either more than one hunted them, or it was just as Eustace said: not from this world
Whatever it was, it circled them.
And Eustace’s words didn’t seem so crazy anymore.
Elizabeth breathed shallowly, her hands in fists as she twisted in every direction, trying to pinpoint the movement that seemed to come from everywhere all at once. Then, in the wide beam of Eustace’s light, it darted past. A flicker of reflective eyes, a mass of blackness: an image so fleet
ing she wasn’t sure it was real.
A low grumble from behind made her turn with a jerk, but Eustace’s light had fallen around his neck, as both his hands now clasped the shotgun. Only heavy breath and a bass growl gave the animal away.
“Still skeptical?” Eustace said, his voice no longer a whisper.
“Your light,” she managed with an unsteady heart. In a movement quick and somewhat panicked, Eustace removed the leather strap of his spotlight from around his neck and handed it to her, returning both his hands to the shotgun.
She pointed the spotlight ahead and the gasp that escaped her chest didn’t sound like her own. Light bathed its large, hairy frame, reflecting off its eyes. Even if she had allowed herself to believe Eustace’s words, she would never have imagined a being so huge. Not even his drawing did the monster justice. And a monster it definitely was.
It stood erect, displaying the large, muscular physique of its upper body, before dropping to all fours and baring its teeth. Hundreds of them, it seemed: long, razor-sharp, and dripping. Just like the drawing, all of them appeared stuffed into its large mouth for one purpose: to shred.
A coat of short, dark fur covered its body, but a spiky ridge of longer black fur began at its snout, trailing over its head and down its spine, where it joined its long but bushy tail. The tips of its ears were so sharp they would appear as weapons themselves if they weren’t hung with a limp curve. And those claws: they could do just as much damage as those teeth, with their extended, sharp edges, decorating the largest paws she’d ever seen.
But the more she stared, the less they looked like paws. They were neither paws nor hands, but somehow a combination of both. Whatever this thing was, it appeared to be a mix of everything deadly. With those long ears, she imagined spectacular hearing, and with its long, wolf-like snout, a keen sense of smell. Eustace was right: it probably had her scent as soon as she’d entered the forest.
Hemlock Veils Page 2