Mike had been surprised by the apparent contradiction that was Chief Wally Court. His office, where the in-person job interview had taken place, had been neat to the point of obsession, with the obligatory citations and photos of the chief glad-handing dignitaries adorning his walls and with a shipshape desk devoid of any hint of clutter.
The outgoing chief’s personal appearance, however, had been a different story. His graying hair badly needed a trim, as did his beard. He sported at least a three-day growth of salt and pepper on a face clearly unused to the intrusion. His uniform was heavily wrinkled and appeared slept-in, and Court sweated profusely throughout the interview, looking extremely uncomfortable, as if he had somewhere else he needed to be.
Mike thought it all added up to something strange; there was clearly more to the story of retiring Paskagankee Police Chief Wally Court than met the eye. Perhaps the man was ill. Whatever his situation, it didn’t really matter. Mike had been notified three days after the unusual interview that the job was his if he wanted it. Furthermore, the town needed him to start as soon as possible due to the imminent retirement of Chief Court, a circumstance that fit Mike’s desires perfectly.
The first thing McMahon had done upon his arrival in town was to introduce himself to his small force of officers and announce he would not be changing any procedures or assignments right away, but rather that he would take the next month or two and accompany an officer on routine patrols in order to familiarize himself with the town and its people. He had chosen rookie Sharon Dupont to train with for no particular reason other than she was relatively new to the force, so he assumed she would be less likely to kick and scream and raise a fuss about having to babysit the new boss than a more established veteran would be.
Now the two were trading barbs like partners and friends, despite the fact Dupont had been on the job just six months and McMahon brought fifteen years of law enforcement experience to Paskagankee, all of it on a busy metropolitan police force.
A light-falling mist drizzled around the cruiser as the two sat in the otherwise empty parking lot of the town’s only funeral home, using a hand-held radar gun to clock cars passing by on Route 14. The effort was mostly for show, an attempt to discourage townspeople from speeding rather than actually to ticket drivers.
Mike prepared to wave what was left of his sandwich in Officer Dupont’s face again, just to enjoy her reaction, when a muddy, faded maroon Ford pickup flashed by, at least fifteen years old, losing the battle to rust and traveling a good twenty-five miles per hour over the posted speed limit of forty-five. The truck roared through a massive puddle, kicking up an impressive rooster tail of spray and fishtailing momentarily before regaining traction on the wet pavement and continuing along the road. The driver was clearly in a hurry and had not noticed the police cruiser, despite the fact it was parked in the middle of an otherwise empty lot.
Dupont looked a question at Mike, her short black hair framing her face in a very appealing way. “Go get him,” he said, nodding, and she hit the gas, pulling smoothly out of the lot and overtaking the pickup within a quarter-mile, an impressive feat considering the truck’s speed.
She hit her blues and the driver of the pickup traveled another several hundred feet before apparently noticing the cruiser and pulling to the side of the road without benefit of a turn signal. Sharon eased up behind the truck and prepared to step into the falling drizzle. Mike asked, “You want some help?”
“Nah,” she replied. “No sense in us both getting soaked.”
“Good answer. You’ve really got a future in my department.” He grinned as she whacked him on the arm with her hat and climbed out of the cruiser. He admired her slim form as she walked away—she looked good even in the unflattering blue uniform blouse and dark grey slacks of the Paskagankee Police Department.
Officer Dupont approached the battered pickup truck and Mike was unsurprised to see the occupant hand his license and registration through the window immediately upon her arrival at the door. It was obvious he had fished the required documents out of his wallet and glove compartment while they had had their brief conversation inside the cruiser.
“Had a little experience at this, have you?” Mike muttered to himself and then sat up straight in his seat as the driver’s side door of the truck opened abruptly and a man stepped unsteadily to the pavement. His first instinct was to rush to the rookie’s defense, but he forced himself to wait and watch, to stay in the cruiser and see how she would react. Had he not been riding shotgun to learn the ins and outs of this small town, she would have been patrolling this remote stretch of road alone, best to let her handle the incident by herself.
Standard department procedure dictated that the officer instruct the driver to wait in his vehicle while she returned to her cruiser to check for outstanding warrants. Mike was certain she had done just that as she approached the truck, so the man’s exiting the vehicle in spite of that warning constituted an aggressive action and cause for concern.
Mike’s concern turned to amusement, though, as the obviously drunk driver proved no match for Officer Dupont, despite his being at least eight inches taller and probably close to one hundred pounds heavier than she was. No sooner had his feet splashed down on the wet pavement than she grabbed him by the wrist, forcing his hand backward and using the resulting leverage to spin him around and slam him face first into the side of his truck. She kicked his feet apart and quickly patted him down for weapons, then slapped cuffs on his wrists and marched him to the rear of the cruiser, dumping him unceremoniously into the back seat while he sputtered indignantly about police brutality.
As soon as the man looked up through the cage separating the back seat from the front and saw Mike, he stopped complaining and slurred, “Who’re you?”
“New police chief,” Mike answered. “My name is Mike McMahon and I understand you have a problem with my officer?”
“You’re damn right I do! You saw her beat on me for no good goddamned reason, and I want to file a complaint.”
“That’s certainly your right,” Mike told him. “But you do understand I sat in this cruiser and watched the entire little episode, and aside from the ease with which she subdued you, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I’ll be happy to testify to that in court if necessary.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” Mike interrupted. “Did Officer Dupont instruct you to remain inside your vehicle?”
“Well, yeah,” he reluctantly admitted.
“And you stepped out of your vehicle anyway?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then all I can tell you is you’re lucky it wasn’t me out there because you’d be on your way to the hospital right now, rather than to a warm, comfortable holding cell.”
The man slumped back in his seat and shook his head petulantly, turning to look out the side window as Sharon Dupont steered the cruiser off the side of the road and accelerated back toward town. Mike winked at her and she smiled.
In the back seat, the man suddenly found his second wind. “Hey, girlie, how’s your daddy?” he taunted.
Mike glanced at Sharon and held his tongue. Her face reddened, and she stared steadfastly through the windshield as she drove, ignoring their passenger.
“I said, how’s your daddy?” he repeated in a louder voice as if perhaps she had not heard him, despite the fact it should have been obvious she had, even to a drunken lout.
“He’s dead, Earl, you know that. Now do yourself a favor and shut your mouth,” she said sharply.
“Your new girlfriend tell you her daddy used to be one of my best drinking buddies?” This time, Mike decided, the man in the back seat must be addressing him. “Or at least he was before the pretty little thing sitting next to you replaced him. ‘Course, I s’pose it goes without sayin’ that he don’t come around too much no more. You know, what with his being dead and all. Ain’t that right, baby doll?” His voice resumed its taunting tone as he again addressed Sharon Dupont.
Mike glanced sideways at his officer and saw a hard set to her jaw. She was grinding her teeth and a vein throbbed in her forehead, and she looked like she might explode at any moment.
Mike decided enough was enough. For whatever reason, this drunken idiot was getting to the young officer, and it was time to put a stop to it. “Hey dumbass, open your mouth one more time,” he said, turning in his seat and staring down the man in back, “and we’ll add assaulting a peace officer to the drunk-driving charge. You mull that over in your tiny little brain, but remember, just one more word and you’re going to be sorry you ever opened your toothless mouth. That’s a promise.”
The drunk’s mouth dropped open comically but the remainder of the fifteen minute ride to the police station passed in silence. The pair brought the man into the station and deposited him into holding. Mike sipped a coffee while Officer Dupont processed the drunk-driving suspect. One thing common to police stations everywhere, he mused, was the consistently bad coffee. It was as if the worst coffeemakers in the world were reserved for the cops, to be filled with the stalest coffee and brewed with the nastiest water.
As he considered the feasibility of buying a brand-new coffeemaker and some fresh coffee with his own money in a gesture of mercy to his new employees, Sharon Dupont’s shapely form rounded the corner. She smiled tightly. “He’s a barrel of laughs, isn’t he?”
“Aren’t they all,” Mike replied, choking down the last of the bitter brew and following his temporary partner out of the station and back to their cruiser.
3
The drizzle turned to freezing rain and began falling more steadily as George Hooper crossed the uneven muddy track and approached the log cabin. The temperature seemed to have grown noticeably colder during the time he spent studying the granite foundations scattered around the deserted village. It stood to reason, though. George wasn’t sure how long he had been standing motionless in the cold rain, but he knew it had been a while.
For some irrational reason, he was having trouble forcing himself to complete the short walk to the cabin to ask for help. The sense of dread and foreboding, which had begun gnawing at him almost the moment he stumbled into this clearing, had grown rapidly until it threatened to freeze him—literally—where he stood.
“Just do it, you freakin’ wimp,” George muttered to himself. His voice sounded somehow foreign and his breath crystallized in the chilly air, swirling into the rain and disappearing. He reluctantly resumed trudging through the mud and weeds, the footing becoming more treacherous. The ground crunched under his boots and George realized for the first time he was shivering violently. How the hell long have I been standing out here?
The entire area seemed deserted but George felt certain it was not. Someone had started a fire inside that cabin, and George was positive no one had left while he was standing out here. Oh really? Are you sure about that? You were zoned out; you don’t have the slightest clue how long you’ve been staring at those gigantic granite blocks, now, do you?
The feeling of dread mushroomed, worming its way through George’s intestines and growing in inverse proportion to his distance from the cabin. Finally he reached the front porch, and as he mounted the steps, the panic exploded, threatening to overwhelm him. He looked frantically from window to window, certain someone (something) was staring out at him, waiting and biding his (its) time until George wandered close enough to launch an attack.
No one was visible in any of the windows; George could see that quite clearly because the glass in all of them had been cleaned to a smudge-free shine, and the rooms inside were as empty and vacant as the eyes of a zombie, a shambling undead monster intent on cracking his skull open like a coconut and devouring his brain.
Where in the hell did THAT come from? When have you ever watched zombie movies?
George’s hands were shaking violently, and he knew it was not just from the lousy weather conditions. There was something evil about this place, he could sense it. Sense it, hell, I can almost taste it. There was no point in kidding himself. He wanted desperately to leave, to run somewhere, anywhere, to get out of this cursed place while he still could, but he had no choice but to continue. If he turned around now he would freeze to death, his soaking wet clothes stealing his body heat and inviting hypothermia.
A couple of loose floorboards in the porch creaked and groaned as George worked his way hesitantly to the closed front door. He thought it odd that the otherwise immaculate and solidly constructed log cabin would have loose floorboards for him to trip over. Had it been built that way on purpose?
George thought the only way things could get any worse at this point would be to fall through the porch on one of those loose planks and break an ankle. That would leave him at the mercy of the malevolent force stalking him. Stalking and preparing to attack— watching with red-rimmed eyes and stinking dead breath redolent of rotting flesh, watching and waiting for the perfect moment to rip your throat out.
After what felt like an eternity George reached the front door. His movements were becoming slower, clumsier, a sure sign of the onset of hypothermia; it was imperative that he shed his wet clothing and begin to raise his body’s core temperature.
The cabin door stood before him and still George could not shake his conviction that something evil was lurking on the other side, inches away. It was listening intently, just as he was, separated from him by nothing more than a slab of oak with hinges on one side and a shiny brass knob on the other.
George raised one gloved hand and banged on the heavy wooden door and was surprised to see it swing slowly open. It creaked loudly, as if only reluctantly complying with the laws of physics. The noise sounded eerily like a scream. George was certain that when he had examined the house from a distance the front door had been tightly closed. Or had it? His mind seemed to be working just as slowly and clumsily as his body. Maybe he only thought the door had been closed; maybe he had never really even checked at all; it was so hard to remember, so hard to think.
He eased his head warily through the partially open door. “Hello?” His voice sounded fearful and hesitant, even to him. Clearing his throat and putting a little more conviction into it, George tried again. “Hello, is anybody in here? I got lost hunting and I could use some directions . . .”
By the time he finished speaking, George’s voice had diminished until it was barely more than a whisper. If the cabin’s owner was here, he clearly did not wish to reveal himself.
George took a few hesitant steps into the house, finding himself in a large open room, a combination kitchen/living area with a short hallway branching off to the left. The hallway featured three doors placed side by side, presumably opening onto a bathroom and maybe a couple of bedrooms. The entire home appeared empty now, but it was plain it hadn’t been for long. To George’s right, a massive fieldstone fireplace took up most of the side wall, and inside the fireplace red-hot ashes still glowed, the flames only recently having been extinguished.
But where was the person who had been warming himself in front of the fire? There was only one entrance to the cabin, at least as far as George could tell, and he had been standing in front of it for a long time. Had the cabin’s occupant departed just prior to George discovering the tiny abandoned village? Or was he even now hiding in one of the rooms behind the three closed doors lining the hallway?
And if he was hiding, why? Could it be he was afraid of George? Certainly he couldn’t be any more fearful of George than George was of him at this very moment. A strained chuckle forced its way out of George’s constricted throat. He wasn’t sure whose voice rang in his ears, but it sure as hell didn’t sound like his.
Scattered throughout the interior of the cabin was the spoor of various small animals that had apparently taken up residence, and George was forced to step around their droppings as he made his way cautiously toward the hallway. He couldn’t see any animals—or any living thing at all, for that matter—but it was clear the embers cooling in the fireplace across
the room had not been built by any wild animal, large or small.
George hesitated, unsure of how to proceed, unsure whether he even wanted to proceed but unable to stop himself. He had to see who or what was in here with him. His intuition screamed he wasn’t alone, and he was not about to strip off all his clothes and spread them out in front of the fireplace without fully scouting the interior of this creepy house first.
The question was simple—a cliché, really—but perplexing: which door should he open first? The crushing silence weighed on George with an almost physical presence. The only sound he could hear was the rushing of blood in his ears. He felt (knew) if he chose the wrong door he would be trapped inside a room with no escape and some God-awful, red-eyed, foul-smelling monster closing in to do who knew what to him Oh, you know what; yes you do, don’t kid yourself Georgie boy. It’s a cold-blooded killer, and it will rip your head right off your body, and the last thing you hear will be your skin tearing and your bones breaking, and the thing will drink your blood and snap off your limbs one by one, and you will never be found, not ever.
Every fiber in George’s terrified body was telling him to run, to sprint out of the cabin NOW into the freezing early evening drizzle and take his chances with a slow death from hypothermia. The only reason he didn’t bolt was he felt (knew) that if he tried to run, he would be pursued by the creature and taken down from behind; that he would never see it coming. The die was cast, George thought, with the emphasis on die. He had no choice but to confront the monster now.
George unconsciously shrugged the Mossberg 464 lever-action hunting rifle off his shoulder as he stood in front of the three closed doors, holding the gun in front of his body like a shield with two stiff arms, knuckles white, hands shaking.
Decision time.
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