“Psst! Boy!” said a female voice. “Come on, kid, get up! They’re almost here!”
Benny cracked open his eyes, but at first, all he could see was the dark gloom of the forest. Something moved at the edge of his vision, a blotch of white against the gloaming. “Who’s there?” he croaked.
“Come on, kid! They’re coming!”
Benny groaned and rolled onto his hands and knees. “Can you help me? There’s a guy chasing me—”
“I know all about that, kid! You’ve got to hurry! Run!”
“Can you help me?” Benny repeated.
“Kid, you’ve got to run!”
He sighed and hung his head. Just another trick, he thought. She’s not real.
“Yes, I am, Benny,” said the girl. “Real as real gets. Come on, get up and follow me.”
She was about his age, blonde-haired and pretty. Her clothes were immaculate, and barrettes held her hair. He tried to smile at her, but his lips just quivered.
He pushed himself up and took a tentative step in her direction. She held out a hand. On second glance, she might be a little older than him. He took another step. The dog-things howled, and they were much closer. Too close. He darted a glance in their direction and then back at the girl.
“We have to go, Benny,” she whispered. “Now!” She stepped toward him and grabbed his hand. “Run, Benny. You must run.”
Her hand felt cool against his sweaty palm. She smelled familiar, like the flowers his mother grew. Her eyes were intent on him. He nodded.
They ran away, her content to lead, and him content to let her. She led him on with confidence, never faltering. He tried to imagine what landmarks she was using to navigate, but he couldn’t spot anything that didn’t resemble everything else in every detail.
“I have to get out of the forest,” he panted.
“No,” she said, not sounding the least bit out of breath. “No, you must hide from them. It’s the only way.” She increased the pace, and the howling behind them took on a frustrated tone.
“I was at my house. I saw my little brother. Herlequin said if I got out he’d let me go. He didn’t—he lied.”
“Save your breath for running, Benny.”
Benny skidded to a halt, dragging her to a stop. “Wait a second. How do you know my name? I never told it to you.”
She stomped her foot in exasperation. “Benny! We have to run. No time for this now.” She turned and pulled him a few steps.
“No! Not until you tell me.”
“He told me your name, okay? The bad one.”
“Herlequin? Why would he do that?”
She shrugged. “If you keep standing here like an idiot, you can ask him yourself. Run!” She tugged on his arm, and he let her pull him into a trot.
“There’s something wrong with all this,” Benny said.
She scoffed. “You think?”
“No, I mean, there’s something off. Something that doesn’t make sense.”
“Yeah, and it’s you trying to figure everything out before we reach safety. We have to get away before we have this—”
“It’s important! If we don’t figure it out, we’re just being herded like sheep. We need a destination. We need a way out of this forest.”
She scoffed but refused to look at him. “You will make him mad.”
“I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand why Herlequin wants to chase me around in these old woods. I don’t understand why he didn’t let me go.”
She erupted in bitter laughter. “You never found your house, you dolt.”
“Yes, I did. And my brother—”
“No, you little idiot. He made you think you were home. He made you think your brother was there.”
Benny shook his head but let her pull him up to a faster pace. “But why?”
She huffed a breath in exasperation. “What difference does it make?”
Benny slowed again. “Because if we can figure out why Herlequin wants us, then maybe we can figure out how to make him not want us.”
She scoffed. “Come on!” She tugged on his arm, but Benny pulled her to a stop. She whirled to face him. “They’re coming!”
“Listen, you gotta help me. I have to get out of here, and since neither one of us knows how to get out of the forest, we have to figure out how to make—”
Her eyes tracked over his shoulder and narrowed. “I can’t help you. I can’t save you. It’s too late, now.”
The growling started behind him. Close behind him. Benny shook his head, thigh muscles shaking and aching in equal measure. When Herlequin whistled, Benny sobbed. The girls face melted like candle wax, and Benny screamed. Her joints bent and snapped in directions human joints didn’t go. Black fur sprouted along her jaw and neck.
When she growled at him, Benny ran shrieking into the forest.
10
Owen smiled the smile of a satisfied man. He stretched lazily and chuckled to himself. Brigitta was the perfect woman. She seemed to know what he wanted as soon as he imagined it. Plus, she was as gorgeous nude as any other way. In Owen’s experience, most women had something to hide. Brigitta didn’t.
He picked his pants up off the floorboards and slipped into them. One benefit of being short and skinny. With a grin, he fished his T-shirt from the backseat and pulled it over his head. Brigitta sat there, naked as a baby, and watched him, a greedy smile playing on her lips. Seeing her like that was almost too much for him, but he had things he wanted to do.
“Baby, want to go to a church picnic with me?” he asked, a sanguine grin on his face.
She clapped her hands like a little girl. “Oh yes, let’s!”
“Though it pains me to say it, you might want to put on a thing or two.”
She grinned at him and snapped her fingers. Just like that, clothing covered her beautiful body. Owen’s fingers fumbled with his shoelaces and he stared at her, mouth agape, and she laughed a deep, full-throated laugh. “So, going invisible is easy for you to deal with, but this is too much?”
Owen chuckled. “You’re the perfect woman, babe. You know that?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Am I? Am I, indeed?”
Owen shook his head, a wry expression on his face. He started the Skylark. “You got any idea which church we should visit?”
Brigitta cocked her head like she was listening to something far away. A slow smile spread across her cheeks. “First Methodist of Cottonwood Vale. They’re having a barbeque.”
“In the fall? Those Methodist fuckers are weird.” He pulled the Skylark onto the twisting dirt road that led back to the highway. “Won’t take us long to get there,” he murmured. He hit the pavement, and fish-tailed the muscle car out onto the road, pointed away from Oneka Falls. Brigitta shrieked in delight.
Soon enough, Owen was up in another tree, this one overlooking a park near the edge of Cottonwood Vale. Members of the Methodist church played frisbee in the open, grassy area beneath him. Others stood around charcoal grills and laughed at inane jokes only they could hear.
Brigitta leaned against his left side, her body warm and soft. She was quiet, but he knew she was excited.
“Pick one,” he breathed.
Brigitta glanced at him askance, a crooked smiled on her face. “Really?”
He nodded. “Pick one, babe. You pick the first, and if there’s time, the last. I pick everyone else.”
She laughed like a school girl. She pointed at a fat man sweating over a grill. “That one,” she breathed. “That fat one.”
Owen grinned and brought up his rifle. He aimed at the guy’s left knee. “Pow,” he said. He aimed at his right bicep. “Pow.” He aimed at the guy’s jiggling gut.
“Pow,” said Brigitta, putting her hand on his left shoulder.
“If you say so, babe.” He pulled the trigger, the shot rang out, and the screaming started.
11
Matt looked at the pool of drying blood and fought the slow, burning fury that blossomed inside him. An old l
ady and the only woman with the stones to try to help her, he thought with disgust. Only a coward like Fergusson would do something like this.
The ambulances arrived in minutes, but neither woman had survived, so they’d left empty, replaced by the county ME vans. Danny Jones was a mess. He was young—nothing more than a kid—and had grown up in Oneka Falls. He stood and stared off into space, hands shaking.
“Danny,” Matt said. He had to repeat himself twice before the young cop looked at him. “You’re in shock, Danny, and this…” Matt’s wave encompassed the parking lot. “This is a lot to swallow all at once. But I need you here, Danny. Can you pull it together?”
Danny’s eyes were red rimmed and watery, but he nodded and hitched up his duty belt. “Yeah, Chief. You can count on me.”
“Good, Danny. Who were the victims?”
Danny fidgeted through his pad, tearing the pages. “I got it here somewhere, Chief. Oh, here it is. Witnesses said Mavis Kendall came out first and got shot. Then Josie Fredericks ran out to help, and the fucker shot her, too.”
Matt turned and looked back at the store. “I’m willing to bet the shots came from over thataway. What do you think?”
Danny turned—a little too slow to suit Matt—and stared into the store. “I don’t see how, Chief. He’d have to be inside the store, right?” He looked to the side and pointed up the road. “Must’ve come from down there, right?”
Matt shook his head. “No, Danny. The story’s in the blood here.” He pointed at the fan shaped splatter. “See this part? See how it’s farthest from the store?”
“Well…yeah.”
“That’s the exit splatter. See how it’s in a straight line from Meat World’s front doors?”
Danny nodded. “But if someone inside the store had made these shots, someone would have seen him, right? Who would let a guy do that? Why would—”
Matt grabbed his chin and lifted it a little. “What do you see?”
“The woods. Trees. What does that have to do…” He snapped his head toward Matt. “A sniper?”
“The sniper,” said Matt.
“The sniper,” echoed Danny. “Same guy. Okay, that makes sense…I guess that makes sense.” He scratched his chin. “But, Chief?”
“Yeah, Danny?”
“That’s a pretty… How far from here to the doors, you think?”
Matt nodded. He’s waking up. “A hundred and twenty yards.”
“Yeah. Now, how deep is Meat World? Store and warehouse?”
Matt shrugged. “Two, three hundred yards.”
Danny nodded again. “Yeah. Then, what, another hundred for the loading dock and back lot, then forty or fifty to the edge of the woods.” He pulled on his lower lip. “Boss, that’s four hundred and fifty yards, best case. Now, if I was good at math, I could tell you how long the shot would be from up in the tree—”
“It’s still about four-fifty. Maybe a few yards more,” said Matt.
“Yeah, okay, but even so, Chief. A four-hundred-and-fifty-yard shot takes a serious bit of skill, right?”
“Depends a lot on the rifle.”
Danny shook his head with vigor. “Well, sure, but a great rifle and a skell shooter is a miss, right?”
Matt shrugged. “Sure. But, an average shooter and a good rifle could make it.”
“But these…the victims were moving, right? That makes it harder.”
Again, Matt shrugged. “Well, sure, Danny, but they were moving in line with the shot. It doesn’t take much knowledge to lead them—”
“Yeah, but these ladies…the victims were shot with precision. They were both headshots, right? And the paramedic said the first…victim…the first victim got hit in the brainstem. I mean, that takes serious skill, right?”
“They could’ve also been lucky shots.”
“One of them in the head, yeah, chalk it up to luck, but both of them? And the second victim was running, not walking like the old lady was.”
Matt grunted and lifted an eyebrow.
“So, this guy has to be ex-military or something, right?”
“It’s possible, Danny, but we can’t just assume that he’s—”
“But, Chief, it has to be. Look at where he was! Up in a tree. Look at how far away he was when he shot the sheriff! Concealment. He’s got to be a trained sniper, right? Like a Green Beret or a Marine guy, what are they called? Force Recon.”
Matt held up his hands. “Whoa, there, Danny. Slow down. It might be a trained sniper, but it also might be an old redneck with his daddy’s shootin’ iron.”
“What? No, Chief, no. Think about it. Think about how this guy operates. What old redneck polices his brass? What old redneck leaves no sign?”
“First, we don’t know if he’s picked up his brass at this scene. Yes, he did that at Bobby Jefferson’s place, but he left it at the Candace Burton scene, and—”
“Oh! I forgot about her! Weren’t you on the scene almost right away? Didn’t you and Craig pull up before her body even cooled?” His voice was rising with his excitement, and Matt put a hand on the young officer’s shoulder.
“Rein it in, Dan. Keep your voice down.”
“Yeah, sorry, Chief. I’m just—”
“It’s okay to be passionate, Danny, but as a cop, you have to be aware of your surroundings. You have to be—” The rest of what he’d planned to say was drowned out by squealing tires as Craig Witherson slid his cruiser into the parking lot, going too fast for the turn, red and blues spinning. Matt sighed and looked down at the drying blood, waiting.
Craig bounded out of the car and ran over to them. “Chief!” he said. “Is this Fergusson, Chief?”
Greshin shrugged and looked up at the sky. “We have to work it like we don’t know anything, right?”
“Right, Chief,” said Craig, looking abashed. “What do we know?”
“The guy shot from the trees. I think he must be a military sniper, but Matt—”
“Tell you what. You and Danny go check the edge of the woods. Be careful. Don’t go in the woods, just check the tree line. You’re looking for brass, footprints, anything that might be of forensic value.”
“Check,” said Craig, taking Danny by the elbow.
Matt looked down at the drying blood, fighting his frustration and helplessness.
12
As exhaustion stole Benny’s ability to think, his leaden legs and feet ached and burned. But they were still back there—the dog-things, Herlequin, the pretty girl that changed into a dog-thing right in front of him. Back there, and chasing him, driving him ever onward.
He searched for a clue to the right direction for his panicked flight: light, the sound of a car passing on the road, kids screaming and laughing as they played. But the sound of his pursuit shattered the silence of the forest. Every direction he turned looked as dark as a lark.
He thought he was running in circles, but caring about that seemed too exhausting. Too hard. Behind him, Herlequin whistled and laughed like a madman. “What do you want?” Benny screamed. The dog-things howled, and Herlequin howled with them. When the howls faded, the only sound outside of Benny’s footfalls and panting breath was Herlequin’s mocking laughter.
No one would help him; he had nowhere to turn, nowhere to rest. Hot lead churned in his stomach. Helpless and alone, Benny sobbed.
Herlequin mocked him and laughed louder.
To Benny’s surprise, anger at the thing behind him elbowed his fear to the side, and he whirled around and sprinted toward Herlequin and his pack of mutant dogs. His pulse beat in his throat like it wanted to explode through his skin. He still couldn’t make his thoughts follow a straight line, but his legs no longer felt leaden, his feet no longer hurt.
The dog-things yelped and jumped out of his way as he ran through the pack, tears of anger and frustration streaming down his face. He burst out of the trees into a small glade, and his sprint slowed to a confused shuffle.
A behemoth tree loomed in the center of the circle. It sto
od thirty or forty feet high, but the diameter of the huge trunk was what made it seem so big. Benny had never seen a tree with such a thick trunk in his life—not even on TV. Twelve or thirteen feet in diameter, with ancient looking black bark, the trunk was studded with hundreds of burls. It looked like a mutated, cancerous growth of malignant tumors covered the trunk.
“What in the heck?” whispered Benny. For some inexplicable reason, the tree terrified him.
“Do you like my tree?” asked Herlequin stepping out from behind the huge trunk.
How did he get around in front of me? How did he get behind that tree with me staring right at it?
Herlequin lay a hand on one burl and caressed it as one would a child’s head. “I enjoyed her very much,” he mused. “Such fun.”
Benny looked closer and the panicky terror his anger had replaced swept back in like the tide. The round bumps weren’t burls. Screaming faces of children dotted the trunk where he’d thought he’d seen burls. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of them! a panicked voice in his head screamed.
Herlequin cackled. “If you could see your expression, Benny!” He lay his hand on another bump and caressed it. “He ran for weeks. Weeks, can you imagine? He never faltered, not until the end.”
“Mister, you are a sicko.” Benny spoke at just above a whisper, but Herlequin had no trouble hearing him.
“You don’t know the half of it, Benny.” He waved his hand at the ground like a circus emcee directing the audience to gaze into the ring.
The darkness at the base of the tree swam away like a living thing, and Benny gasped. Bones littered the ground at the foot of the monstrous tree—small bones from children. And skulls, some broken, some gnawed on. Benny’s mind raced back to when he’d come awake in Herlequin’s arms, and, unbidden, his eyes tracked up to Herlequin’s mouth. Skull-crushers he had called them. Benny shivered, and Herlequin leered down at him.
“Do you see them, Benny?” he asked with an edge in his voice.
Benny nodded, throat too dry to speak.
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