by Glenn Rolfe
“Right on.”
Surprisingly, they weren’t the first ones there. About ten other cars and Jeeps were parked in the grass parking lot.
“Pig, dude.” Joel pointed at the cruiser on the far right.
“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll go set up the park first, and then come back here when the place is packed. We’ll blend in a lot better with a crowd.”
Sonya checked the window. Heath’s Jetta was parked in the driveway.
“Come on, hot stuff,” Kim shouted from the passenger side.
“Be right down.”
Sonya pushed the sunscreen lotion into her backpack, threw on her sunglasses and strolled out her bedroom door. She hopped down the stairs and saw the yellow notepad on the couch.
Hey, honey,
I know this is a lot to ask, but I really need you to stay home today. Alex and the gang can come over if they want. I left thirty bucks on the counter if you guys want to order in. There’s supposed to be a wicked storm later. I just want you kids off the road tonight.
Love you,
Daddy
Bullshit. She already had plans. Like she’d told Alex’s Uncle Ted, there hadn’t been one single animal attack in nearly a month.
Sonya grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and went to meet her friends.
“Hey, lady,” Kim said. “What took you so long?”
She climbed into the backseat. “My dad left me a note. I’m supposed to stay home.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know, but I did hear him on the phone last night saying that he’s closing down the lake at five. He did say you guys can hang out here?”
Heath met her eyes in the rearview. “Under the sheriff’s watchful eye? I don’t think so. Besides, we agreed—beach and then movies. I’m seeing the new Spider-Man movie today. Everyone has seen it but me.”
“Shut up,” Kim said. She slapped his arm. “We can still do both, right, Sonya?”
“I don’t know? Why don’t we just get to the beach and we’ll take it from there?”
“I’m down for staying here tonight,” Kim said.
Heath sighed. “Well, the movie starts at four. I’m goin’ to the movie.”
Kim looked back at her. “We’ll hit the beach, catch some sun, grab some lunch, head to the movies and be back here by dark. Me and Alex went and saw Spider-Man already, but it’s definitely worth seeing twice.”
Sonya didn’t want to worry her dad, but she knew it was really the night that he was stressing about. “Okay, that’s the plan. For now.”
“Good, are we ready? Can we get this show on the road?” Heath said.
Kim looked at Sonya. They both burst out laughing.
“Okay, you guys have your fun. Payback’s coming at the beach.” Heath reached over and squeezed Kim’s knee.
She laughed and slapped his hand away.
He grinned and backed the car into the road.
Sonya saw Mr. Donavan out on his porch, smoking his pipe. She waved.
He nodded in return.
“So what time is Alex off?” Kim said.
“He said Josh only needed him for one job this morning, but that it involved lifting an engine out, so it could take a while. Said he’ll call when they’re just about done.”
“That’s cool. We can have some girl time while he’s slaving in this heat.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Oh calm down,” Kim said. “You brought your cooler full of ‘iced tea’. You can drink and swim.”
“That sounds safe. How about we have a three-way instead?”
Kim smacked his arm again. “You wish, jerk.”
“C’mon, babe, you know I’m joking. I would never touch another girl.” Heath’s eyes glanced to Sonya in the rearview mirror. “No offense, Sonya.”
She waved him off. “None taken.”
“You’ll be fine,” Kim said. She leaned across the center console and kissed his cheek. She turned to Sonya. “So the beach closes at five today?”
“Yep. Dad’s orders.”
“Lame. Oh well, we’ll probably leave around two or so. Otherwise we’ll burn up like a couple of lobsters.”
Sonya waited for Heath’s wolfman comment. He didn’t offer one. Curious. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She pawed through the front of her bag. “Here, can you put this in?”
Kim took the CD from her hand. “Full Moon Fever?”
“Trust me. Just put it in.”
The opening chords to a Tom Petty classic wafted through the car.
“I love this song!” Kim said. She turned it up.
Perfect summer song for a perfect summer day. Sonya leaned back and watched her town whiz by the window.
Joe got an early jump on the day. He’d driven up and down both Christie Road and Old Gilson Creek Road twice already. “Calm before the storm” was a cliché, but damn if it wasn’t true of this morning. This town was beautiful. He’d lived here his entire life. Met Lucy here, had Sonya. For all the heartache in the last decade, he wouldn’t change a thing.
He was grateful to have Randy on board and seemingly ready for what the night might bring. They had decided to break the truth to Clarke and Glescoe. They were good kids, but they didn’t have the pedigree or the experience of Somers or Paulson. They were raw, innocent. Hell, they might even think he was fucking with them.
Werewolf.
They’d think he was as crazy as Old Mike. Whatever the case, his back was now firmly pinned against the proverbial wall. He decided to let Hines and Glescoe catch a little more shut-eye before hauling them in for the meeting. Though, he was sure Randy’s sleep was probably as useful as his had been.
It was hard to close your eyes and not see the blood. Joe didn’t like the bad feeling that seemed to slowly be conquering his confidence, either. That awful dread, that this time things weren’t going to go down as easily.
Daylight was burning fast. It was nearly noon already. He’d spent part of the morning reassuring people that the Full Moon Monster was just a bunch of rubbish concocted by a couple of punks trying to sell copies of their trash rag.
Hazel Betts called in and said she saw something lurking around her garage. Something just like Theresa Turcott described.
Damn those Insider jerks.
Dwayne had to leave his spot at the lake to find out what the hell Tina Bazinet was freaking out about. Something about a naked man in her backyard.
Joe had hoped his town would keep it together a little better than this, but the combination of boredom and supernatural hype was apparently too much to handle for some small-town minds.
“Sheriff?”
“Go ahead, Rita.”
“Pug Gettis just called. He wants you to come out to his property. Says something has his dogs howling and growling. Says he’s convinced there’s something in the woods that’s causing them to go crazy.”
Here we go again.
“I’m out that way now, Rita. I’ll swing by.”
Nick Bruce slipped through the forest, quick and agile as any ninja he’d ever seen in a movie, hell, more like a cheetah in the Sahara. He stopped at the site of Christie Road. He was near the spot where the sheriff had turned him around the night that out-of-towner’s body was found mangled and mutilated. A glimmer from the ditch before him caught his attention. He reached down and picked up a rearview mirror. Checking his stinging eyes in the reflection, Nick Bruce saw the thick mix of orange and yellow around his larger-than-normal pupils. His mouth, still smeared with blood, jutted forward a good four inches from where it normally was. He knew what was happening. Belief was not a choice.
He was the Full Moon Monster. He was the wolfman. He wondered what the final result might be. Would he remember it? Would he have control? He turned his hungry eyes to the ot
her side of road and dropped the mirror. His destination was on the opposite side of town out by Old Gilson Creek Road. He bolted across the empty street and headed toward Emerson Lake.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Thanks for coming, Sheriff.”
Pug Gettis was a small guy in his late fifties and had black, scraggily hair with a few gray streaks that told his age as much as the wrinkles around his old blue eyes. His ranch-style house was out on Old Gilson Creek Road and it neighbored Stan Springs’s place.
“Sheeba, that’s the mama German shepherd, has been yelping and growling all morning. Them two, the pups, been doing the same when they’re not whimpering in the corner like they are now.”
Sheeba was intently focused on the woods. There was definitely something out there causing her stress.
“You say they started acting up this morning?” Joe had to shout over the barks.
“No, just about half hour or so ago.”
Joe could hear another dog barking in the distance. “You have another dog somewhere?”
“Ick, short for Icarus. He’s the big daddy. He started all the fussin’ and broke his chain. I got another one on him and had to put him down in the cellar. He damn near bit me twice on the way.”
Joe looked through the trees. Animals could sense these kinds of things. He shivered.
“You hear or see anything out here so far?”
“Nope, but I got old Betty ready if that monster comes rushing out at my girls.”
Joe eyed the rifle leaning against Pug’s old Chevy. He clapped Pug on the back. “Why don’t you go grab your rifle? We’ll go have a look-see.”
Pug nodded, grabbed the gun and joined Joe. “You got anything bigger than that?”
Joe gripped his Magnum. “Worked for Dirty Harry.”
“Ain’t no bank-robbin’ nigger in there.”
Joe let the racist remark sluice by—small-town minds—and thought of the silver ammo in his gun. “Either way, she’ll put a nice hole in whatever it is.”
The dogs continued to bark as Joe and Pug crept toward the tree line. Joe kept his gun aimed at the dirt, and peered in. The hairs on his body rose up like bodies from the dead. The blazing sunlight at their backs wasn’t as comforting as he wanted it to be. Something was making those dogs lose it.
A shuffling sound just beyond them stopped Joe in his tracks. He held out a hand.
Pug stopped next to him, rifle aimed and ready. Joe noticed the barrel wavered under Pug’s shaky hands.
BANG
The sudden blast of Pug’s rifle knocked Joe off-balance. His ear screamed.
“Shit, Desi,” Pug shouted. “Sorry about that, Sheriff. Becky’s damn cat, Desi.”
Joe fingered his ear and waited for the ringing to cease. He glanced through the trees once more before motioning for Pug to head back.
“Definitely something out there. They can sense it. Might be our mountain lion,” Joe said. “Desi might be down a few lives, coming out of there intact without taking your bullet.”
“Sorry, Sheriff.”
“Becky home today?”
“She’s got church stuff. She usually comes back around four on Fridays.”
“Well, why don’t you take that rifle and hole up inside ’til she gets home. Just in case.”
“Sure, sure, Sheriff.”
“I’ll go swing by Sheriff Springs’s place and see if he’s noticed anything this morning.”
“That old loon?”
“Good day, Pug.”
Stan Springs awoke to the knocking on his door. Sheriff Fischer. He could smell the mix of cigarette smoke and Old Spice.
He grabbed a housecoat to cover his naked form but hesitated as he reached for the doorknob. His eyes. He knew the thick, sludgy feeling. Knew what it meant. Joe probably wasn’t ready to see them just yet, and Stan wasn’t willing to spoil the surprise he had in store for later. He put on the pair of black sunglasses from the bookshelf by the light switch and answered the door.
Sheriff Fischer raised his cowboy hat and nodded.
“Stan.”
“Sheriff.”
“Just stopping by to see if you noticed anything poking around your yard this morning?”
“Like what? A mountain lion?” He couldn’t hold back the smirk.
“Pug Gettis’s dogs, as you can hear, are all stirred up. Just wondering if you saw anything.”
“I haven’t seen shit. I was sleeping sound as a pound before you came knockin’ on my door.”
“All right, Stan. Sorry about that. If you see anything, can you just give Rita a call?”
“Sure, Sheriff.” He let Joe get to the steps. “Sheriff?”
Joe stopped a step from the ground.
“How’s Mel doing?”
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
Joe came back up the steps and straight to the door. Eyes intense, chest puffed out like the big hero.
Stan shoved him hard enough to knock him across the porch.
The sheriff’s right hand went to his gun, his left came up between them. “Stan. If you touch me again, I’m going to have to take you in.”
He let out a gruff laugh. “You try that and you know there’s going to be a fight.”
Joe’s nostrils flared, his cheeks reddened.
Stan took a deep breath. The sheriff’s heartbeat hammered. The emotional stimulus was intoxicating.
“That was you at Mel’s house a couple weeks ago.”
“You mean the night you stuck your little faggot deputy outside my driveway?”
“I don’t know what you’re going through, but tonight I really don’t need it.”
“Good luck with your fucking wolfman, Sheriff. You’re gonna need it.”
He slammed the door shut and ran his fingers through his coarse hair. This town was in for a bloodbath.
Joe was stuck somewhere between wanting to take the old man up on his challenge and hoping he never had another reason to set foot on that property. He climbed into his truck and turned it back toward town. Joe slammed his fist against the steering wheel and reached for the pack of Camel Lights on the dash. He took a drag and tried to let the nicotine do its trick.
Shorthanded—we’re not going to be enough.
Stan would have made a great ally. His knowledge, his experience. Too bad the man was batshit crazy on top of being an asshole.
Joe turned the radio on. He needed a reprieve.
“…so remember, Emerson Lake closes at 5 p.m., so keep the parties inside tonight, people. With the storm that’s coming this afternoon, you won’t wanna be out there anyway. This is Wild Ted signing off. Keep us cranked up, keep it safe. Rock out…”
Ted McKinney.
Joe could do a lot worse. At least he knew Jack and Ted had hunted these woods with their father when they were younger. He still had a few hours to mull it over. He could use all of the local help he could get, and Ted was already armed and certain of what was coming.
Ted headed for the station’s back door. He’d had to bullshit his station manager and Tonya, the overnight girl, about the tour he never went on. He wasn’t up for Freddy Daniels—Fab Freddie, as he called himself on air. Fab was always looking for the Mötley Crüe stories. Rock, coke and hos. Not today.
Fab waved and said “Hey, Ted” just as the door shut.
Ted hopped on his Rebel and cruised out onto the street, kicking up dust.
He hadn’t been scheduled to return to the air until Sunday, but he woke up at 3:00 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. He figured he could distract his mind at work, and also use the platform to do his part in warning his listeners about tonight. He wasn’t quite ready to shout out werewolf alerts, but he did reiterate the sheriff’s curfew a number of times, along with the fact that Emerson Lake c
losed at five tonight instead of eight.
The problem was that Sheriff Fischer was apparently banking on the idea that the monster wouldn’t show until nighttime. Ted’s guts told him that what he’d read on the Monsters Among Us website was correct. He had read that the beast could stalk in the day as easily as it could by dark. He hoped he was wrong about that, but of all the things he’d read in the last few weeks, that’s the one that stuck out like a broken spoke.
Ted pulled into his driveway. Upstairs, he grabbed his Glock and his silver ammo. He stuffed them in a duffle bag, along with a couple of beers, two extra packs of smokes and his hatchet. He imagined himself chopping at the wolf’s head like Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
Die, Die, Die
He shook the vision away and hurried for the door.
He zoomed out on the road dead set on staking out the lake.
Sheriff Fischer’s Range Rover slowed in the opposite lane.
Ted stared straight ahead. Lights lit up behind him, accompanied by the loud squawk of a siren.
Shit.
Ted pulled his bike to the side of the road and waited.
“Ted.”
“Sheriff.”
“Where you off to?”
“I was thinking about catching some rays.” He looked Joe in the eye. “You?”
“Ted, I want to talk to you about something we discussed a few weeks ago.”
Hmm. What is this? “Is this about the real reason you’re closing the lake early tonight?”
Joe crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. “I was hoping you might be willing to come down to the station with me and show a little support.”
“Oh, Sheriff.” Ted shook his head. “I’m sorry, Joe, but I already made plans today.”
“The beach?”
“Yeah, the beach. Is there anything else?”
Joe sighed. “No. Would you reconsider?”
“Can’t do it, man, but can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“How certain are you that this thing can only hunt at night?”
Joe slapped Ted on the back. “Do me a favor? Don’t shoot at any of my townspeople. Oh, and don’t go getting yourself killed.”