by Jeremy Bates
Her mom.
Ellie looked up and saw her mom slumped forward, her head resting against the dashboard.
“Mommy,” she whispered. “Mommy, wake up.”
She didn’t.
Ellie tugged her sleeve. “Mommy!”
Why wasn’t she waking up?
Ellie turned and saw T-Rex. He was slumped forward too, his body draped over the steering wheel. The windshield above his head was cracked. It looked like a big spider web.
Ellie didn’t think he was going to wake up, so she pushed herself off Bobby and shook his shoulder. “Bobby! Bobby!”
Bobby’s eyes opened. He looked at her dazedly. He felt a bump on his forehead and made a face like he was going to cry.
“Don’t cry!” she said. “It will hear us!”
Now he saw her, and his crybaby face became worried. “You mean the monster?”
Ellie nodded.
“Did you see it?” he whispered.
She nodded again. “Did you?”
“Not really.”
“Me either,” she admitted. “Should we check?”
“Check?”
“See if it’s waiting for us?”
“I don’t want to.”
Ellie sat a bit taller and peeked over the dashboard. The truck’s headlights were still on, illuminating the green-black forest. She realized she was facing the wrong direction. The road was behind them. She turned around and looked out the back window. The road was right there, not far away.
And in the red glow of the taillights she saw the monster.
It was crouched over the person lying on the road, unmoving. Ellie didn’t know what it was doing, and she couldn’t really see anything more than its big black outline, but it frightened her terribly.
“Do you see it?” Bobby asked.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Is it coming?”
“No.”
“What’s it doing?”
“Just sitting there.” She had a new thought. “Maybe it’s eating the other person!”
“Let me see!”
Bobby pushed up beside her. He gasped. “Is that person dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“We need to tell my dad.” He shook T-Rex. “Dad! Dad! The monster’s eating someone! Dad…?”
“He’s sleeping like my mom,” Ellie stated.
“Why won’t he wake up?”
“I don’t know.”
Bobby looked back at the monster. “What should we do?”
“We need to help the person.”
“How?”
“We need to scare the monster away.”
“How?”
Ellie was thinking. She didn’t want to get out of the truck, because then the monster might get her and eat her for dessert. She could yell. Tell it to shoo like you do to barking dogs. But it might not listen to her because she was just a little girl.
“Do you know how to use the horn?” she asked suddenly.
“What horn?” Bobby asked.
“The car horn.”
They both looked at the steering wheel.
“My dad’s in the way,” Bobby said.
“You can reach under him and push the button.”
Bobby frowned. “What button?”
“The horn button.”
“You do it,” he said.
“He’s your dad!”
“So? You’re closer.”
Frowning, Ellie stuck her arm under T-Rex’s chest. She felt the hard plastic of the circular steering wheel. Wasn’t the horn button right in the middle of it? Her hand followed a spoke until she felt a smaller circle. She pressed it.
Beep!
Ellie jumped in surprise.
“It heard!” Bobby said. “Honk again!”
She pressed the button a second time.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
“It’s standing up!” Bobby said.
“Is it running away?”
“No! It’s coming to us!”
“To get us?”
“I think so!”
Ellie pressed the horn again, holding it for several seconds.
T-Rex groaned.
Ellie let go of the button. “Your dad’s waking up!”
“So’s your mom!”
Ellie glanced at her mom, and she was indeed sitting up, rubbing her head.
“Mommy!” she cried.
“Daddy!” Bobby cried.
With a groan, T-Rex slumped back in his seat. Blood covered his face, and the whites of his eyes seemed very bright in the darkness.
“It’s coming, Mommy!” Ellie jabbed her finger at the back window.
The monster had stopped and was just standing there, staring at them.
Her mom frowned strangely at Ellie, like she didn’t even know who she was!
“Mommy, look!”
The monster turned and disappeared into the night.
***
“We need to get to the cabin before he comes back,” Rex said quietly but urgently. He had gotten out of the pickup truck and now stood in the forest, peering into the cab.
Tabitha was thinking the same thing. Whoever that man was, he had already killed two people, possibly three, and they needed to return to the cabin ASAP until they figured out what the hell they were going to do.
She shoved open her door, the movement causing pain to flare where she’d struck her head in the crash. Grimacing, she climbed out, her jellied legs nearly collapsing beneath her.
“Come on, Ellie,” she said, reaching for her daughter. “Give me your hand.”
They met Rex and Bobby back on the road. Rex shone the Maglite on the person lying unmoving on his stomach on the wet mud and gravel.
“Jesus, it’s a cop!” he exclaimed.
“What’s he doing out here?” Tabitha asked. Then with a surge of hope: “Could he know about the maniac? Did he come to help? Are there others?”
Rex didn’t reply, and the deep silence of the night seemed to answer that last question.
“Is he dead?” Bobby asked timidly.
“Don’t look at him,” Rex said.
“Bobby, come here,” Tabitha said. When the boy joined her, she turned him and Ellie around so they faced the forest.
“Why can’t I look, Mommy?” Ellie asked.
“You don’t need to,” she said simply.
Tabitha heard Rex roll the police officer onto his back. She glanced over her shoulder. The man was in his late fifties, with a lived-in face and a rather large nose. His Eisenhower patrol jacket, zipped to the neck, had been torn open across the abdomen and appeared to be stained with blood.
Rex checked for a pulse and said, “He’s alive!”
Tabitha said, “What should we do?”
“Take the kids to the cabin. I’ll be right behind you.”
“We’re not leaving you—”
“Go! I’ll be right behind you.”
“Guys, come on,” she said, ushering Ellie and Bobby along the road. She could see the candlelit windows of the cabin blinking in and out from behind the trunks of the trees they passed. They had been moving at a swift trot, but when they reached the driveway Tabitha’s nerve left her, and she led Ellie and Bobby at a full sprint until they reached the rickety porch. The woman’s body, she saw in horror, was no longer covered by the quilt. Thankfully the kids didn’t immediately notice this in the dark, and she got them inside before they did.
“What if the monster comes back here too?” Ellie asked, her cheeks flushed.
“That wasn’t a monster, sweetie,” Tabitha said, trying to catch her breath. “It was just a bad man.”
“Do you promise?”
“Monsters aren’t real.”
“This one was.”
“No it wasn’t. Now I want you and Bobby to go upstairs and…get under your beds.”
“That’s where the monster lives!” Ellie protested.
“Ellie, for the last time, monsters aren’t real!” Tabitha clamped her mout
h shut, knowing this was an argument she wasn’t going to win. “Now listen to me, young lady, you and Bobby go upstairs and, well, just get in your beds if you won’t go under them. But be very quiet. Because if the bad man does come back here, he might want to hurt you. So the best thing you can do is to go upstairs and not make any noise. Do you understand me?”
She nodded silently.
“Bobby?”
“It’s dark up there.”
“You have your little flashlight, don’t you?”
He nodded, pulling from his pocket his keychain flashlight.
“Good,” she said. “You can turn that on if it’s too dark.”
Suddenly Ellie burst into tears. She wrapped her arms around Tabitha’s legs in a hug. “I don’t want to leave you, Mommy!”
“Oh, baby, hush, hush,” Tabitha said, crouching. “Look, I don’t think the man is coming back here. And Rex is with the policeman. And the policeman has a radio, and a gun, so we’re going to be okay. I just need you to go hide for me until help comes. Okay?”
Ellie sniffed, rubbing her eyes.
“Okay, sweetie?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Now go on. I’ll come up and check on you two shortly.”
Tabitha waited until she heard the kids clamber up the staircase before she stuck her head out the door and scanned the night. She saw Rex immediately. He was coming down the driveway, bent over, his back to her, as he dragged the police officer by the arms. She went to help him, taking one of the man’s arms. Together, they got the body to the porch, up the stairs, and through the door, which they deadbolted behind them.
“Where are the kids?” Rex asked, puffing heavily.
“Upstairs in bed,” Tabitha replied.
“Okay,” he said, his eyes glinting with concern. “Okay, we need to….we need to secure this place. Give me a hand.”
They spent the next few minutes moving the bookcase and sofa and other pieces of large furniture in front of the door and windows. Anyone half determined could still get in, Tabitha knew. But at least they couldn’t simply throw a rock through a windowpane and follow through the opening.
Back in the front room, Rex unzipped the police officer’s jacket. His navy uniform was shredded and bloodied. The nametag above the breast pocket read PAUL HARRIS.
Rex unbuttoned the shirt’s strip of buttons to examine the wound beneath.
“Not as bad as Daisy’s,” he muttered.
It wasn’t, Tabitha noted thankfully, but that wasn’t saying much. The police officer’s guts might not be spilling out of the leering gash, but it was still an inch deep and at least six inches wide and bleeding freely.
She retrieved a cotton throw pillow they had tossed aside when they’d moved the sofa and said, “I’m going to try to stop the bleeding.” She knelt next to Rex, pressed the pillow against the police officer’s abdomen, and held it tightly in place.
“Rex! His gun!” she said, noticing for the first time that the man’s holster was empty. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, frowning. He engaged the quick release buckle of the police officer’s duty belt and slid it free from around the man’s waist.
Tabitha glanced at the numerous pouches. “Shouldn’t there be a radio? Where’s his radio?”
“Handcuffs, spare magazine, keys, flashlight.” Rex removed and studied an expandable baton.
“Where’s the radio, Rex?”
“He must have dropped it. I’ll go have a look.”
“Go have a look?”
“Outside.”
“You can’t go outside! He’s outside.”
“We can’t just sit here, Tabs. We need to call for help.”
“A phone. Maybe he has a phone.”
Rex searched the man’s clothing and found only a worn wallet which contained a gold police badge and some bills. His eyes went back to the keys on the duty belt. One of them was for a Ford.
Tabitha knew what he was thinking and said, “He must have parked where we did and walked—
“Oh Christ!” Rex said, cutting her off. “The light we saw on the road,” he added, his face drawn. “It was this guy, walking here on foot.”
And we turned back, Tabitha thought with a dose of black despair. We were in the clear, and we turned back. But how could we have known better?
“What are we going to do, Rex?” she asked, and it was almost a plea.
“Make a break for the car again?”
“We can’t! He’s out there! That crazy, sick…” She shook her head. “He’ll be expecting us to do that!”
“Then I have to go look for the cop’s radio. If he was surprised, caught off guard, he probably just dropped it. Same with his gun.”
“Wouldn’t the psycho have taken them?”
“I don’t know. But I have to at least check.”
“Who is it, Rex? What’s going on?”
Rex shook his head. “All I can think is some copycat killer. He heard about what happened to the other families up here, and now he’s—”
“Other families?” Tabitha blurted. “What other families?”
Rex summarized what Tony and Daisy had revealed to him earlier in the evening. “I swear I didn’t know about any of this,” he finished. “I’ve always believed Logan and my parents died in a boating accident. I never would have brought you guys here otherwise.”
Tabitha sank back onto her butt, shocked and stunned, and cold, so cold, the sensation seeming to emanate from her bones.
“This is madness,” she said in a daze as Rex took over applying pressure to the police officer’s wound. “You know that, right, Rex? This is madness. What you’re saying happened, what, twenty, thirty, forty years ago? Three families kidnapped and never found? That’s bizarre enough. But what’s even more bizarre, it’s happening all over again, to us—”
“It’s not!” he snapped. “Whatever happened then has nothing to do with what’s happening now. Tonight’s a coincidence. Nobody knew we were coming up here.”
Tabitha felt as though her world was tearing apart at the seams. This was a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake. All they’d wanted was a few days away from the city to relax…
“The kids, Rex,” she said. “We can’t let anything happen to the kids.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to them,” he said decisively. “Press down on the pillow.”
When she did as he asked, he stood.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going to find the radio.”
“No, Rex!”
“We can’t just sit here doing jack shit, Tabs! We’re sitting ducks!” He softened his tone. “I’m sorry, but we have to do something. So just hold tight. I’m not going to go far.”
CHAPTER 13
Rex waited on the porch until he heard Tabitha latch the deadbolt on the other side of the door. Then, armed with the Maglite and a serrated knife he’d taken from the kitchen, he proceeded down the rickety steps. The rain started at the very moment he stepped from beneath the porch roof, increasing to a gentle patter to a hard fall in the space of seconds. The cold drops stung his face and eyes and caused him to squint. He held his hand gripping the knife against his brow in a salute and started along the perimeter of the cabin. The fresh, ozone-laced air filled his nostrils. His ears strained to hear any noise he didn’t make. Every muscle in his body seemed tensed to either fight or run.
Rex stopped when he reached the corner of the cabin. He swept the flashlight beam across the ground in front of him, revealing matted pine needles and rivulets of running water and wilted, soggy autumn leaves. He raised the beam, poking the darkness between the crowding, craggy tree trunks. Silent lightning flashed overhead, momentarily stinging the sky purple-blue. In the distance, thunder rumbled menacingly. Wind whistled and moaned and fluttered his clothing.
Rex heard something behind him and spun around. There was nothing there. The sound had been his imagination.
Exhaling the br
eath that had caught in his throat, he told himself to keep his cool. He was just about six-feet-tall, fit, and he had a knife. He was likely more than a match for whoever was out here with him. He couldn’t allow himself to slip into the mindset of a victim. That’s what this guy wanted. Predator versus prey. As long as Rex thought of himself as predator also, then they were on a level playing field.
Maybe I should stalk him? Rex thought suddenly. Or at least ambush him? I could lie up somewhere with a view of the cabin door. Wait for him to come out of hiding. Sneak up on him. Give the bastard a taste of his own medicine.
This prospect was appealing. But he’d told Tabitha he would be back shortly. If he didn’t return in a few minutes, she would get worried. She might even do something rash like coming outside to look for him.
Best to stick to the plan for now. Look for the cop’s gun and radio. If he didn’t find either, he would return inside and explain Plan B to Tabitha.
Rex started left along the lake-facing façade of the cabin. Unlike most modern cottages, only a single bay window looked onto the water. As Rex passed it by, he could see orange candlelight seeping between the window frame and drawn blinds, but that was all. He certainly couldn’t see the bookcase he and Tabitha had moved in front of it.
The rain continued to pour down in buckets. Rex’s hair was already as thoroughly wet as if he’d stepped from a shower. His green bomber jacket was holding up well, but his khaki trousers clung uncomfortably to his legs, and his feet felt clammy in his wet socks and boat shoes.
When Rex reached the far corner, he stopped again. He walked the flashlight beam back and forth revealing only trees, trees, and more trees. Lightning flashed. Through a break between the weeping boughs of two conifers, he glimpsed the briefly illuminated lake. Usually inky smooth, the surface boiled with peaks and white caps.
It was a dark and stormy night… he thought without humor.
Rex started down the back of the cabin. He passed another window shielded by closed drapes (and blockaded with a high chest of drawers in which his mother had kept her good china and silverware). Next came the chimney. It was made entirely of fieldstones and smaller rocks and protruded nearly three feet from the cabin proper. The top of the smokestack had succumbed to the elements years ago, and many of the stones that had composed it were now scattered over the ground.