“Matt?” Tawny asked again. He gave her a tight squeeze, waiting for her to finish. “Matt, I . . .“ The words stuck hard in her throat. She looked up into his face, but his gaze was still riveted in the distance. He stood there with her, but he was somewhere else.
Tawny snuggled her head against his chest, quiet in her own thoughts for the moment, wondering if she dared say them aloud.
“Yes?” Matt prodded. “What were you going to say?”
“As long as I’m still here for the next couple of days, can I meet your mother?” she managed to ask, her voice a little hoarse.
“Oh, God,” Matt moaned. “Tawny, we can’t. I’m so sorry.”
“Why not?” Tawny pried.
“I can’t explain, but we just can’t.”
She swallowed back the hurt and nodded. “There seem to be several things you won’t explain to me.”
“I’m sorry,” he offered once again. “I can’t do better than that right now.”
Tawny took a deep breath. “I’m hungry,” she mumbled, her head low.
“I’ll go get us something to eat,” Matt said softly. “But I’ll need to hunt something. I shouldn’t be long.”
With a long sigh Matt turned and left her standing on the porch. As soon as he was out of her sight, he stripped and shifted to bear. The air was bereft of the scent of prey, and his stomach was craving elk meat. He grumbled and pushed through the trees, his ears pricked for the sound of any large animal. A few minutes later he stumbled upon a wild boar, its face buried under a bush as it foraged. Matt grunted in resignation and charged.
Chapter 14
Kyle knocked on the thick wooden door, listening to the sound inside the old building echoing against its high stone walls.
Edward tugged the door open and peered out into the night air. “Kyle,” he breathed. “Come in. Everyone is waiting for you.”
“Sorry I’m late,” Kyle offered. “I had some trouble finding the place. Is this an old church or something?”
Edward chuckled as he pushed the door closed behind them. His grumbling laugh reverberated eerily in the large room. “Many years ago, when the town was first built, this was a common denomination church. Now the Methodists have their own chapel — a new one, across town. All the other denominations travel to other towns if they want a different church.”
He swept his arm through the air dramatically. “Thomas refurbished the place and he lives here now. It’s a perfect place for our organization to get together — nice and roomy. No more church meetings, but I can assure you the power of God is at work still within these walls.”
Kyle winced. “How many of you are there in this… organization of yours?”
Edward motioned for Kyle to follow him as he hurried out of the large entry room and down along a narrow hall. “There are more than enough of us. We’re called ‘The Path’. We’re the ones who step in when the lines of justice get blurry for everyone else.”
“And, exactly who — or what — is this guy who has Tawny? Is he some kind of strange animal?”
Edward motioned eagerly for Kyle to follow as they entered a warm sitting room with a fire blazing in the hearth. Kyle stared around at the overstuffed chairs and the gritty men sitting in them.
“This is your organization?” Kyle furrowed his brow.
“These are the only men that could make it tonight,” Edward spoke reassuringly. “That gentleman by the fireplace is Thomas. This is his house.”
Thomas craned his neck to turn and look Kyle over. “Are you a drinking man?” he asked, his rumbling voice bouncing through the room. “We have some scotch or brandy, and even a drop or two of whisky left — if that’s your pleasure.” He motioned to a bar, fashioned crudely from thick, rough timber, that extended the length of the room.
“I’m fine,” Kyle said with a shrug. He looked cautiously from one man to the next, eyeing up their rugged, torn clothes and scraggly beards.
“Oh, hell,” he finally muttered, sauntering up to the bar and grabbing a large amber bottle. “I’m going to need some alcohol.”
He poured himself a drink into a short glass, then a little more, and a drop or two after that. He turned, glass in hand, to find every ragged eye fixed on him. The room was quiet, the men deathly still.
Kyle raised his glass in salute and guzzled several ounces at once. He turned to stare at the bottle, still keenly aware of being the center of the attention in the stuffy, dingy room. “That was brandy?” he muttered. “Damn good stuff.” He poured a little more.
“We’ve heard you have a missing girl problem,” Thomas bellowed in his low, reverberating voice. “I think we can help you save her, if we hurry.”
Collapsing into a thick chair, Kyle stared around at all of them once again. He rubbed at his aching head, too tired to object anymore. “I just need a couple of men to go up there with me and make him let her go,” he said. “If it’s just me, he’s going to tear me to pieces.”
“You can’t begin to fathom the danger involved,” Thomas warned, his voice suddenly gruff and foreboding. “The beast you’re hunting here is something not to be trifled with, young man. There is no room for error in rescuing this girl, and no time to lose. This monster can crawl from the depths of hell to anywhere it wishes, which can be right behind any man at any time.”
Kyle stiffened at Thomas’s loud, terrifying warble and tried to avoid his gaze as the old man waved his hands through the air in distress. “It will shred its helpless victims with razor claws and brutal teeth. They say when it kills a man, it consumes his soul, damning it to an eternity of agony and torture amid the very demons of perdition.”
Kyle swallowed his trepidation as he stared back at Thomas’s piercing, narrowed dark eyes and thick eyebrows twitching with vexation. Terror wrenched in Kyle’s gut, and his hand clenched at his empty glass until his knuckles hurt.
“I dare not imagine the depths of horror and despair your girl is forced to endure,” Thomas went on, slowly turning his attentions back to the waning fire. “I hope her mind is strong, as well as her resolve to persevere. This creature that has her in its grasp knows only pain and suffering, and revels in it like a sow in the mud. It craves sadistic lusts and filth,” Thomas spat.
Kyle shifted in his chair, trying to keep himself from imagining Tawny writhing, helpless, under the monster. As if reading Kyle’s mind, Thomas said, “I would urge you to do whatever you can to keep your mind from the constant, vile hell this girl must be in right now. Just cling to the hope that, by the end of the day tomorrow, she’ll be safe in your arms once again.”
Kyle fidgeted restlessly in the chair, his face dark and troubled, his shoulders hunched in gloom. Then he stiffened and sprang to his feet, a bit wobbly from the booze, but his heart pounding rapidly.
“Let’s get the men together now!” Kyle brayed. “Let’s grab some guns tonight, and — ”
“Here’s how this works,” Thomas interrupted him with a wave of his hand. He stood from his chair, revealing the extent of his frighteningly robust and burly build, and warmed his hands near the fire. “A large group of us will go, and you’ll be coming with us. After all, this girl of yours doesn’t know anything about who we are, and is likely to be as frightened by the sight of us as she is by the beast that has her captive now.”
Kyle looked at the men with missing teeth and tattered clothes, hearing himself laugh aloud as the drink drenched his brain.
“It will be you, Kyle, who will really save her. Without you we can’t find the cabin, and without you she’d never allow us to bring her back here to safety. You need to assure her that we can be trusted. I know we’re not much to look at, but some of us have military training, and all of us are fighters.” He turned sharply to look down at Kyle, towering high over him. “But most importantly, we’re determined to do what it takes to get your girl away from him.”
Kyle swallowed back his rising emotions. He nodded, and found it too hard to speak to bother trying. He toppled bac
k into his chair, slumping.
A satisfied grin spread over Thomas’s face. “It’s settled then. At first light we’ll be out on the trail. By evening we should have her safe from his clutches.” He looked Kyle over, his face concerned. “You can spend the night here. You look like you desperately need some rest.”
“What is he?” Kyle asked, trying to sit up straight. “I saw the man change into some kind of an animal. What, exactly, is he?”
Thomas’s face went dark. He turned away, picked up a poker, and toyed with the glowing embers. “There’s no good answer for that, son. But I assure you, we can save your girl. We are here for you, and we are your only hope.”
Kyle stared down at the rough hardwood floor, the room spinning lightly around him. He tried to plan for the morning, imagining what it was going to be like to confront the beast once more. His heart thudded in sudden fear at the thought, in spite of the calm murmuring of the men around him. He felt his head drooping, and he closed his eyes to rest for a moment.
“Kyle!” Thomas’s voice roared, echoing through the large room.
Kyle jumped up from the chair, his hands flailing and his eyes clenching tight against the searing rays of morning sunlight that poured into the room.
“Settle down, tiger,” Thomas laughed. “Save your energies for later. We’ve got a long hike ahead of us.”
“Oh God… my head hurts,” Kyle grunted.
Thomas slammed a huge hand across Kyle’s back, chortling uncontrollably. “You can’t handle your liquor, boy! You need to spend some more time at the bars.”
Kyle stared around at the bright room, avoiding looking directly at the tall windows with their draperies drawn. “Was I in that chair all night?” he asked in dismay.
“Unless you wandered around alone in the dark,” Thomas chuckled. “You seemed plenty content when we left you here last night, though. I hope you got rested.”
Kyle braced his forehead against his hand, looking around at the small group of ragged men. He counted ten before his headache forced him to stop. He guessed less than fifteen men as he listened to them mill around.
“Coffee?” Kyle had to choke the word out through his dry throat. “And maybe some painkillers?”
“There’s coffee on the bar,” one of the men offered. “I could use a cup myself.”
Kyle followed the young man across the room, too distracted by the pain to find the coffee on his own.
“My name’s Gary,” the young man said as he poured himself a cup and sat down on a stool. “I went to school with Edward’s daughter.”
Kyle gazed around the room, spotting Edward sitting comfortably in an easy chair, examining a rifle. But then he smelled the hot coffee, and the scent captured his full attention until he managed to get himself a cup.
“Oh God, this is perfect,” Kyle moaned as he took a sip.
“Really?” Gary sighed. “I’ve always thought Thomas’s coffee tasted like brewed charcoal.”
“This morning that’s what I need,” Kyle retorted. He looked up at Gary’s tired face, decorated with a thin wisp of a beard. But Gary’s somber gaze was on Edward. Kyle studied Gary’s face, the distant grey eyes lost in memories. He glanced over to Edward to see him fiddling with the ammo.
“You were in school with his daughter?” Kyle asked, sipping his coffee cautiously.
Gary nodded.
“Was she cute?” Kyle pried, a wry grin touching the edge of his lips.
Gary shrugged. “She really was a bit of a looker in high school, yes. I had my heart set on marrying her for a while, but then she met some guy from Tacoma.
“He got her pregnant and split. He left her to care for the baby by herself... except that Edward had to provide for it.
But it was when Edward lost his son that things really went downhill for him,” Gary added.
Kyle went quiet. He turned to see Edward smiling sadly to himself as he looked around at the other men. “What happened to his son?”
“It was a camping trip just last year,” Gary explained. “The kids had just graduated high school. There were several of them from town, just out enjoying the wilderness. But then they didn’t come back after the weekend.” He nodded towards Edward. “Ed there went out with a couple of the other guys to find them. They hunted the area for days without much luck. But almost a week into the search they did finally find them. At least, most of them.”
“Some of the kids were still missing?” Kyle asked. He took another sip of his coffee.
Gary shook his head. “All the kids were there. They just didn’t find all their parts, that’s all.”
Kyle froze and stared at Edward in horror.
Gary gave a long, solemn sigh. “Edward found his son’s body all over the camp area; it had been shredded by some very large animal. They all were — three girls and five boys. They say it was like a scene from a horror movie, with arms and legs scattered everywhere. Hands and feet were stuck in trees, and the guts were ripped from most of their stomachs. The coroner said it was definitely an animal, probably a bear.”
“Oh God,” Kyle breathed.
“Rodney over there,” Gary pointed to a graying man in overalls loading a 9 mm handgun across the room, “he lost a son as well. And Ted’s only daughter was ripped apart, too. Those are some strong men, Kyle, but I know they were devastated by what they saw that day.”
Kyle swallowed as Gary took a slow sip of his coffee. “A bunch of us went out hunting the thing after that,” Gary continued. “We tracked it for a ways, but then we lost the trail. The strange thing is, we found what looked like human tracks where the bear tracks ended. We tried following those, but in the end we lost that as well. We’ve been hunting the area ever since, but we’ve never tracked the beast down.”
“And now that thing has my girlfriend.”
Gary nodded. “This is why you can’t go after her yourself; it’s way too dangerous. The massacre at the campsite wasn’t the first time this thing has attacked people. It’s not even the most brutal killing. It relishes the blood, but never bothers to eat the kill.”
A dull roar in Kyle’s ears drowned out the murmuring men in the room. “Has it ever kidnapped someone like this before?”
Gary grimaced. He glanced at Kyle, then turned sharply away. “No,” he muttered. “This is the first time it’s ever taken someone alive. And I shudder to imagine the reason. We have no idea what we’re going to find when we get to the cabin today, if we find anything left at all. This thing is depraved and heartless, Kyle, and it won’t let us rescue your girl without a fight — if she’s even still there to be rescued. You should prepare yourself for just about anything.”
Kyle’s skin turned clammy and he felt his face go pale. He stared around at the small group of men, his knees going weak beneath him. “Are we… are we going to succeed with this?” His voice faltered.
Gary shrugged, but he set his jaw determinedly. “We have no choice but to succeed. Still, there’s no guarantee we’ll all make it back. People are probably going to die today.” He looked over to Kyle and rested a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “But your task isn’t to fight this thing. The way I understand it, you just need to make certain that your girl knows it’s safe with us, nothing more. The rest of us will take care of the battle.”
Gary took a long gulp of his coffee, his eyes fixing hard on Edward. “I’ve heard news that the rangers are out with her parents. Your girl’s friends led them to the campsite, and they’re fanning out from there. At the pace they’re moving it will be days still before they’re anywhere near the cabin — I hope. God help them if they get there first.”
Thomas gave an abrupt whooping call. Gary clenched his teeth and stood up. “It looks like this is it, Kyle. We’re moving out.”
Nervous spikes stuck in Kyle’s gut. He watched as Thomas pulled out a backpack and stuffed two bottles of whiskey into it, along with some newspaper. Then he grabbed a bag full of baseball bats, swung it over one shoulder, and burst from the r
oom.
Kyle felt a burning weight in the pit of his stomach. He struggled to not think about what he was doing, and poured the rest of his coffee into the sink.
Chapter 15
Tawny woke as the sun crept in through rugged cracks in the walls. She lay there alone in the bed, still naked, listening to see if she could hear him. Then the familiar thud echoed out and she grinned.
She climbed out from the warmth of the covers and pulled her clothes on. She sauntered onto the porch, swinging lazily from one of the posts as she watched Matt throwing his knives. He cocked his arm back, eyeing the log, and thrust the knife forward.
It missed entirely, falling uselessly into the tall grasses beyond.
“You’re really bad at that,” Tawny said with a laugh. She stumbled down the steps and he greeted her with a soft kiss.
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