“I want to know,” Ben said. He was floating toward the man who was now turning into something else. A creature…a beast.
It was speaking to him, but the words were unintelligible.
“What about my father?” he asked.
The beast swatted its black nails across his mouth.
Ben sat up screaming in his hospital bed.
“Ben, honey? You’re all right, okay? I’m right here, I’m right here.”
Ben’s head swooned, and his stomach flipped. He couldn’t hold back the vomit.
“Nurse? Nurse!” Susan Cutter cried out rising from her chair and placing her hand on his back.
“Mom? What happened? What happened?” He couldn’t hold back the tears. He couldn’t think straight.
A nurse rushed into the room and flicked a bright fluorescent on. He moaned at the light.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, hon,” the nurse said. She shut the light off and tended to him.
The nurse and his mom helped him lie down. The room swirled around him. He felt a wave of nausea roll in, but managed to keep it at bay.
“Are…” he said.
“What, Ben? What was that?” she asked.
“Are…thu….I need to…talk to Are…thu…dad…”
“Oh, Ben,” his mother cried as she bushed his bangs from his clammy forehead.
…..
Kathy Wilcox found Wendy Higgins with Maine state troopers. She was trying to tell them about her brother. He was injured but alive. She’d left him somewhere near the Point.
Bruce Davison fought his way through the small crowd to get to her.
“Kathy, you okay? You all right?”
“Bruce.” His eyes filled with tears.
She lunged forward, collapsing into his arms. Bruce held her tight. He glanced her over. She looked good, tired, a little rough around the edges, but fully intact and present. He squeezed her tight as if she were a daughter of his own. She’d made it through what most of the rest of the bodies they’d discovered out here hadn’t.
“That man,” she said. “Is he dead?”
“What man?”
Kathy jolted to life, breaking Bruce’s embrace, and she shoved past him to fight her way through the officers milling about and back to where she’d put that fucker down.
“Out of the way, out of the way!”
“Kathy?” Bruce said. “Who are you looking for?”
Bruce followed her back to the spot she was sure she’d left the dying man. He was nowhere to be found. Falling on her knees, she sat back on her feet and gave a weighty sigh. She looked defeated like the life inside her had been extinguished. A beautiful, worn out angel, dropped from Heaven and stripped of her wings. Bruce dropped to her side and held her. This time, it felt like holding an empty husk.
“Let’s get you home,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ben sat at his bedroom window, staring out at the entrance to the woods. His mother had forbidden him from going anywhere near them until she said so. He wouldn’t listen. He couldn’t. He deserved answers, and he would die trying to get them, if that’s what it took.
It would have to wait. The concussion symptoms still riddled his days and nights. The doctors said it could take one to two weeks, sometimes even longer in severe cases such as his. Tomorrow, it would be three weeks since he saw the white wolf. The dreams had been growing increasingly strange. They always began with the man crawling on the ground and ended with Ben being killed by the werewolf, proving the old myth wrong about dying in real life if you got murdered in your dreams. Ben would be dead at least eighteen times over otherwise. The last few days, the dreams included sexual elements. He’d even had his first wet dream. He was ashamed of how it happened. He’d seen himself as the beast and attacked Deputy Wilcox. Having sex with her until she was dead, and then devouring her.
He hadn’t talked to Tyler much since coming home. His best friend stopped by once, but left when Ben clammed up and did as he was doing now, staring out the window. The one phone conversation they shared after ended with Tyler telling him to call when he was ready to talk. Ben had nothing to say to Tyler. He wouldn’t understand. He couldn’t.
His mother knocked at his door.
“Come in,” he said.
She had the same concerned look she’d worn since he’d awoken in the hospital. He’d grown tired and irritated with her pitiful expressions. Angry even.
“My PTO is maxed out, so I’ll be going back to work tomorrow.”
He held back the grin that wanted out. He may be upset with her, but he didn’t hate her. She’d been worried. Some of the kids at school would kill to have a parent that cared so much.
“Are you going to be okay?” she said.
God, he wished she’d stop asking him that. He could just tear her throat out with his teeth if she asked him one more goddamn time.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You probably hate me asking that by now. I know you’ll be fine, I just…I don’t know what to say to make it better.”
As she turned to leave he blurted out, “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Did dad… did he ever mention someone named Arthur?”
She looked stunned.
“How do you know that name?’ She stepped back inside.
Now it was his turn to get anxious and uncomfortable. What if she’d known the entire time? What if dad told her?
Or she’d been the one keeping his notebooks?
“I don’t want to hear that name come out of your mouth ever again. You hear me.”
“Did dad tell you?” he asked.
Tears spilled down her cheeks as she sat at the edge of his bed. She sniffled and looked away.
“I don’t want to tell you. You’re not…you’re not ready to hear that story.”
Like hell, he thought.
“This thing. This…family secret nearly killed me. And you don’t think I can handle whatever it is you have to tell me? Fuckin’ A, mom.”
“You watch your mouth,” she said. Her face turned mean. She’d never scowled at him before, but right now, that’s exactly what she was doing. Scowling at him. There was hatred in her eyes. “I’m your mother and you will not talk to me that way. Understood?”
He nodded.
After a moment, he dared to pry a little more gently.
“Dad told you about him.”
“Your dad…he was once a great husband. You know he was an amazing father, but he had a problem. One that haunted him since he was a kid, younger than you.”
“The beast,” Ben whisper.
“That creature…that goddamn monster ruined him. Destroyed the good man inside your father.”
“But you guys seemed so normal?”
She wiped fresh the streaks from her face and stood. “Ben, you don’t need to know everything. Trust me, you’re better off not knowing that side of him. You love him. You cherish him. And I don’t want—”
“Not if dad was helping that…that killer.”
She took a deep breath.
“Mom, tell me. I can’t think straight. I can’t sleep. I can’t focus on anything but this monster and the relationship he had with dad. Please, I need the answers. And besides, I have the notebooks. I’ll find out anyway.”
“Your father was ruined inside by that monster. You wanna know how deep it went?”
“Please.”
His mother bit her lip and shook her head from side-to-side. “No, I can’t. I won’t tell you how bad it was.”
Ben stood. “Tell me, mom, please. I can’t… I can’t go on with all these questions and no answers.”
“Arthur Dresden raped me.”
Ben’s stomach dropped to the basement of his soul.
“And your father….your father is the one that brought me to him.”
‘Mom,” he wrapped his arms around her and cried into her shoulder. “Oh god, mom. I didn’t know….”
A dreadful thought occurred to him, but he didn’t da
re ask. Ben’s world rocked from the shore. He was a vessel suddenly lost in the darkest sea.
He clung to her until the vertigo that had plagued him since the concussion made him queasy.
She helped him to his bed and laid down beside him.
Ben fell asleep on her shoulder terrified that everything he’d ever known was a lie.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Kathy Wilcox was appointed interim sheriff, a title she would win outright six months later in the official election. She hired on new deputies and dove head first into the secrets held at the Dresden Place as well as every death that took place in Brenton Woods. The officers discovered the body of Scott Cutter on the Dresden property. The following investigation proved that the former sheriff, Dennis Decker, had shot, killed, and disposed of the body, while manipulating reports and creating various misdirections with the help of Kenny Rutherford.
Cutter wasn’t Decker’s only dirty secret. He’d put away innocent men, and buried evidence, that might have led to the creature’s capture or death sooner. Decker blamed his father’s death on the beast. The obsession to find and destroy the monster himself brought him to the highest highs, while simultaneously creating a monster of its own within his flesh that he could not control.
Coopers Mills made national headlines. Odd ball pseudo scientists and real-life monster hunters, flooded Grantham County’s inns and motels in search of the beast’s trail. The beast’s body was never recovered after the night in Brenton Woods. She didn’t think that there was anyway the monster could have survived with its head blown to pulp, but the existence of a werewolf changed her concepts of what was and what was not possible.
Sitting at Dell’s Diner, drinking a black cup of coffee, Kathy nodded at Ben and Susan Cutter as they stopped at her table.
“Would it be all right if we sat with you?” Susan asked.
“Please,” Kathy said.
She hadn’t spoken to either of them since the visit to deliver the truth about Scott Cutter. The lack of care or compassion that day had caught her off guard. She wondered if they might know more than they let on.
“How have you guys been?” Kathy asked over her mug.
“We’re okay, I think,” Susan answered. “Right?” she said to Ben.
“I think, we’re doing the best we can. How are you?”
Kathy ducked her head and grinned at the young man’s obvious nervousness in her presence. “I’m taking it one day at a time, Ben. You’re heading back to school next week?”
“Yeah, I had a tutor this summer,” he said, blushing and grinning like a fool in love.
“I’m guessing your tutor was kind of cute?”
“Oh, you should have seen the two of them. Nervous as hell every session, both of them,” Susan said.
“Come on, mom,” Ben said.
“Well, it seems like she did a wonderful job. I hate to run, but I’ve got to get back to the station. Sucks finding out that even the sheriff has to do paperwork.”
“Bye, sheriff,” Ben said.
“Great to see you again, Kathy,” Susan said. “Congratulations on everything, really. Ben and I are so proud of you.”
“You two stay outta trouble, okay?”
They nodded.
As Kathy stood before her car, she gazed at the treetops in the distance, just beyond town. There was a chance the beast had somehow survived, or that it might not even be the only one. But in the months following that full moon weekend of death, nothing more than Geoff Palmer poaching deer on Ed Herbert’s property had caused any kind of stink in or around Brenton Woods. It didn’t help her sleep at night, but she’d learned to not take the anything, especially the mundane, for granted.
She hopped in the cruiser and headed down Main Street, driving into the setting sun, and no longer counting the days until the next full moon. A flash of red fabric, moving between the trees lining the road out of Coopers Mills, caused her to brake.
Had she seen it? There was nothing now. She pulled her car off to the shoulder and continued slow, studying the spaces shrouded in shadow. Nothing moved.
She let off the brake, pulled onto the road, and continued toward the fading sources of light in the sky.
…..
Wendy got a job and a new apartment in Travis for her and Johnny. Their parents’ house was foreclosed upon, but getting out of Coopers Mills was a fucking hell of a milestone. It gave her hope. Johnny, too. She could see it in his face. His eyes were more alive than she could ever remember. His leg was still messed up. He’d had pins put in, but the rest of him healed just fine. The leg meant he couldn’t work his old job, but at least his boss felt badly enough for them to give Johnny the beat-up work van.
And Johnny could have applied for disability, his leg being as horrible as it was, but that wasn’t him. He needed to pull his weight. He got a job tending bar in town four nights a week. Wendy worried about all the standing and moving, but Johnny maintained that it was all good. He had a cane, a stool for quieter moments, and plenty of Advil. She was sure his willingness to put up with the pain might have something to do with the fact that Shannon McGinley worked there.
Bryan’s death was the worst thing hanging over them. Johnny cried at the funeral, but seemed to have logged and shelved it out of sight. She respected his ability to compartmentalize and kept her guilt to herself. She knew that her impulses and stupidity had gotten both Bryan and Paul killed. There were nights when Johnny was at work that she cried for hours. She wanted a drink so badly, but being in her condition, she couldn’t touch alcohol.
They had endured hell, but good things had met them on the other side. Touching her extended belly, Wendy smiled. She hadn’t told anyone about what the monster had done to her. It wasn’t anyone’s business. She told Johnny and her co-workers it was someone she met at the bar; they’d never have to know the truth.
She wondered what she’d do if the sonogram showed anything out of the ordinary, but so far, the doctors had said everything looked great. It would only be a few more months.
“We’ll build a life from our nightmares,” she said as she lovingly rubbed her stomach. “Won’t we?”
Yes, something great would come from it after all. Something special.
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AMAZON REVIEW
THE NIGHTCRAWLER
Mick Ridgewell
Chapter One
When the elevator doors opened, Scott Randall stood just fifty feet from sunshine and freedom. His mood lightened as he padded toward the glass doors leading to the street. The late morning traffic in Detroit ran steady in both directions and pedestrians crowded the sidewalk. When he reached for the handle to open the door, his cell began to ring. The display identified the caller to be Thomas Andrews.
Scott’s shoulders slumped and his gaze shifted from the phone, back to the door and the sunny day beyond. However, it was not the bustle of Woodward Avenue he saw. He saw a man, a man whose appearance was so eerie and sudden it gave Scott a start and he dropped the phone. At the same time, he muttered an involuntary “eeah.” To describe this man as an unpleasant sight was like calling a hurricane ‘breezy weather.’
A sudden sense of unease came over him. He retrieved the phone and flipped it open. “Scott Randall.”
“Scott, this is Sarah. Thomas asked me to let you know that we added your copy of the amended contract to Bill Wheaton’s folder in error. Would you like us to deliver it to your hotel?”
“That won’t be necessary, I haven’t left the building yet. I’ll be right up.” He ended the call not waiting for a response then looked through the door. The ugly man had disappeared. He didn’t come in. Scott was sure
the doors hadn’t opened while he spoke to Sarah. He leaned toward the glass and looked north, then south. The entire front of the building was glass. He saw no sign of the guy. He should be there. How could there be no sign of him? He must have blended with the rest of the foot traffic.
When the elevator opened on the top floor, Scott walked into the lobby of Campbell, Sawyer, and Thomson, an industry leader in computer graphics and web design. The walls were covered with awards: plaques of bronze and pewter, on polished wood backings. Hung on the walls flanking the elevators, framed poster size prints of successful campaigns were each illuminated by a mounted halogen lamp. Directly opposite a polished oak reception desk and behind it, glass shelves displayed more awards of etched crystal and polished silver, mostly for computer graphics design.
Scott set his briefcase on the crescent shaped reception desk in front of Sarah, an attractive young woman with dark hair, green eyes and an inviting smile.
“You called?”
She handed him a folder, which he secured in his briefcase, then placed it on the floor and immediately returned his gaze to her.
“I have an afternoon to myself, can I buy you lunch? That place we ate at yesterday was nice.”
The raised panel doors of the boardroom closed with a thud. Sarah’s face flushed and they both turned in the direction of the noise. Scott nodded to the four men and two women from the meeting he had been in ten minutes ago. They were all dressed in dark designer suits. Bill Wheaton, a pudgy balding man, nodded back then returned his attention to the five gathered around him. They all spoke in hushed tones, all the while referring to the maroon folders in their hands. Embossed on the cover of each folder was a silver cobra, its hood flared and ready to strike.
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