In the Woods (15 page)

‘… no story, just an old septic tank … Gases …’

‘… where’s that ranger? … need to scoop … two shot, plus explosion …’

‘I just told you … that explosion was nothing.’

‘… good visuals … sensational copy …’

Bob’s eyes narrowed. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ He got up and went to the door.

Pete rooted in his pocket, took out some money for a tip. The senior citizens had stopped eating pie and were leaning their heads together, whispering, eyeing the news lady. Sylvie sat at her table by the window, writing madly on a yellow pad. As Pete passed, the waitress lifted a hand. Her fingers fluttered in a wave, and she whispered good night. Her voice was like velvet.

Damn.

Someone was jostling her. Pushing on her head? Oh God – that creature? Harper tried to resist, shoving and twisting.

‘Harper?’

She opened her eyes.

‘Thank God.’ Hank’s face was a dark oval hovering over her. ‘You’re conscious.’

She looked up, saw tree branches silhouetted by the night sky. What had happened? She started to get up.

‘No, don’t move. Stay still.’ Hank touched her forehead.

‘Ouch.’ She pushed his hand away.

‘Hurts?’

Yes. It was tender. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe why Hank was frowning? Or where the creature was? Or why her head hurt?

‘Hank,’ she began. ‘What happened …?’

‘You fell. You went down hard and hit your head. What the hell were you doing, Harper? Running off barefoot like the hounds of hell were after you – where were you going?’

She remembered running, being chased.

‘A gunshot woke me up.’ Hank’s voice was harsh. ‘Was that you? The rifle was gone – I found it back there on the ground. Did you shoot something?’

Had she? Harper remembered being shoved to the ground, the Winchester firing, flying from her grasp. The memories came in a hodgepodge, flooded her mind. She looked around. Was the creature still there? Watching them?

‘Hank, we have to get out of here.’ She tried to get up, but he wouldn’t let her.

‘Hold on.’ He checked her forehead. ‘You need to take your time.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘If you say so.’ Hank reached under her hips and around her shoulders, lifting her.

‘Stop – I can walk.’

‘No, you just fell. And it’s dark and you’re barefoot.’ He hoisted her into his arms, carried her back to the tent.

Hank’s arms were sturdy and steady. Harper felt childlike, cradled against his chest, trying not to tremble. Struggling to process what had happened. Had she really just seen – just barely escaped from the Bog Man?

‘Our campsite’s all torn apart.’ When Hank talked, his chest vibrated. ‘Was it a bear? Is that what you were trying to shoot?’

She leaned against him; his body warmed her.

‘Why didn’t you wake me up? What were you thinking, going after a wild animal by yourself in the middle of the night?’ He went on like that, exasperated and worried, until they were back at the tent. Then he set her down and lit their camp light. Examined her scrapes. While he searched for the first-aid kit, Harper huddled beside the tent, staring at Hank’s collection of soil and water samples. They’d been knocked over, scattered across the ground. She couldn’t stop shivering. Without the heat of Hank’s chest against her, she was unbearably cold.

The others had stayed in their suffocating meeting, gabbing at each other. But the Bog Man wasn’t able to waste time like that. He was awake, energized. Moonlight brightened his way as he stomped along trails, leaving well-defined footprints. Entering campsites. Tossing around equipment. Working tree branches until they gave way. Scattering supplies and the contents of bear bags.

The longer he prowled, the more alive his senses became. He’d been listening to his heartbeat, the rush of blood through his veins. And he picked up sounds around him, too. Even through layers of skin and fur, he heard the light steps of a fox, the flapping wings of an owl. The skittering feet of prey.

Sometimes he heard whispers and touches. Bodies thumping together.

Sometimes, the breathing he heard wasn’t his own.

It was disorienting, all the smells and sounds, all the movement. Creatures skulked and hid, chased and fled. They killed and died, ate and were eaten. The night cloaked a world he’d known about but never been part of. Until now.

The moon was bright, almost full. Heart pounding, blood roaring, the Bog Man moved on among the trees, leaving footprints, noticing some already carved into the ground. Wait. Had he already walked this way? He didn’t think so, but there they were, his footprints, huge and deeply defined in the dirt. He must have doubled back at some point. No big deal. He walked on.

When he came to a campsite, he stopped, confused. Damn. Clearly, he’d been walking in a circle; the place had already been torn apart. Camping chairs lay broken, the bear bag torn down, supplies scattered. What was wrong with him? How had he become so disoriented?

Probably it was over-stimulation. He should go back and rest.

The Bog Man walked back toward the compound, unsatisfied. Messing up campsites wasn’t enough. Outsiders needed to be petrified to set foot in the woods, and vandalism just wasn’t that petrifying.

Death was, though. If the Bog Man wanted to strike terror, more people would have to die.

Before going inside, he turned to face the woods. The night smelled of cold and predators. He looked up at the moon, filled his lungs with air. And howled.

Bob turned on his flashlight and sat in the back seat of the Impala, studying the map. Pete stuffed the wrapped-to-go ham sandwiches into his backpack.

‘What the hell were they talking about in there?’ Pete asked. ‘Did you hear them? They said people got killed.’

‘How should I know?’

‘And what about that crazy lady? Going on about the Bog Man? Was she for real? Did you see the look on that news lady’s face? She was, like, somebody get this loony tune away from me—’

‘Here’s the deal, though.’ Bob looked up from the map. ‘The media are like killer bees. If you see one news reporter, you can bet the rest of the hive is right behind them. By morning, they’ll be swarming all over the place.’

‘But why? You heard them. They aren’t here about the bomb, so what is it? Is some serial killer loose in the woods?’

‘No. They’re here to catch the Bog Man.’ Bob growled like a monster.

‘I’m serious. If guys are getting killed out there, maybe it’s not safe to go back.’ Pete had a full stomach, was happily dry and warm. He wasn’t so keen on trekking back out into the chilly night to set off another explosion. Couldn’t stop thinking about going back to the snack bar and chatting up the waitress.

‘Oh, nobody’s going to mess with us.’ Bob adjusted the map, ‘Thing is, we have a great opportunity here. Something’s already drawing the media. So we have automatic publicity. When the pipeline blows, the media will be here, on site, with their cameras ready to film it.’

‘Cool.’ Pete tried to sound enthusiastic. ‘But we can’t afford another mistake. We need to do everything perfect.’

‘So?’

‘So right now, we’re both wiped. And it’s pitch dark, hard to see what we’re doing. So maybe we should wait until—’

‘No, we got to move now, tonight. While campers are asleep and before the media start prowling around out there.’ Bob’s jawbone rippled, a sign that it was best not to disagree with him. ‘And stop doing that blinking thing – you look like a damned cretin.’

He looked like a cretin? Really? Pete’s nostrils flared. He bit his lip. A cretin? Well, fine. Then it was a cretin who’d gotten the map of the pipeline and researched how to detonate explosives on the Internet. And that same cretin who’d actually gotten hold of dynamite and blasting caps. What had Bob done? Mostly, he’d criticized, complained. Bossed Pete around. And now, he was calling him names. Pete turned away, looked out the car window, blinking rapidly.

‘So,’ Bob pointed to a spot on the map, ‘we’re here. And the place we hit before is over there.’ His finger traced a path from one point to another. ‘The pipeline goes right through there. So how come we missed it?’

‘I think because that wasn’t where we actually were.’ Pete’s tone was cold, even condescending. He pointed to the map, showed their mistake. ‘I think we strayed from the pipeline. We went too far to the east, should have stayed closer to the bog.’

‘Then what was that building? If it wasn’t the old campground, then what was it?’

‘How should I know? All I know is that we got lost.’ Pete looked out at the snack bar. He should have gotten the waitress’s number.

‘Okay, what’s done is done. We’re starting fresh.’ Bob ran a finger along the map, retracing the pipeline’s path through the woods. ‘It goes along here, parallel to the road. And passes the bog and the lake, keeps going past Philipsburg.’

He should have at least asked her name, found out how late she worked. Damn. Maybe he should go back in. Tell Bob he had to take a leak.

‘So I say we blast here.’ He pointed to the map. ‘It’s not far from the bog trail, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. What do you say?’

Pete nodded. Fine. Said he needed to hit the men’s room. He’d be right back. He got out of the car, leaving Bob sorting through their backpacks, gathering usable items. On the way back to the snack bar, he planned his move, practiced what he’d say. Not a question, no. Something direct. Like ‘call me when you get off.’ Or ‘meet me for a beer later.’ He opened the door, looking for her. And stopped, a stupid grin pasted on his face, when he saw her.

She was talking to the forest ranger. They were leaning toward each other on either side of the counter, their heads close together, whispering. She giggled, nodded, her eyes coy, her lips puffy and moist. Before the ranger went to the table with the news lady, he bent his head down and the waitress lifted hers up. When they kissed it was long, clearly involving tongues.

Pete’s smile withered, and he literally stumbled over his own feet as he backed away.

Halfway into the meeting, the sector chief hadn’t learned a thing. Nobody claimed to know anything about either of the shootings. Most people agreed with Ax when he stood up and said that it had to be outsiders, killing each other.

‘But it doesn’t matter to the government who’s actually doing the shooting,’ he declared. ‘They’re going to use the killings as an excuse to come on in here and take more control. Whereas if they’d kept out all those hunters and hikers and other outsiders from the beginning, no one would be shooting anybody and we’d be left in peace.’

Wade and Moose, Mavis and her ladies were on their feet, cheering, agreeing with him. Shouting that it was time to get rid of all the outsiders, government and gas pipeline and frackers included.

‘The land is rightfully ours – let’s take it back,’ someone yelled.

‘Yeah!’ someone else shouted. ‘I say we get rid of all of them. From litterers to frackers. Look what they did in just one day – bodies are piling up. We can’t just sit here—’

‘And it’s not just bodies,’ Hiram’s wife Annie put in. ‘Some asshole even went and blew up the old hunting lodge.’

The chief was losing control of the meeting. People were jabbering, exchanging rumors. He hit the gong, but they didn’t entirely quiet down. It took Hiram and his booming baritone to stand, raise his arms, and shout for order. ‘That’s enough. Everyone zip it.’

The sector chief took the floor. ‘If you’ll bear with me, I’ll fill you in on what I’ve found out. First, the two men killed today were likely shot by the same gun. Bullets have been recovered, same caliber.’

The murmurs started, but the chief kept talking in a controlled tone, not even trying to shout over them. Those who wanted to hear him took over, telling the others to hush up.

‘Also.’ He looked them in the eye as he talked, one at a time, making personal contact. A good leader, he’d learned, related to people, made each one feel individually valued. ‘I’ve learned that the explosion at the old hunting lodge was not caused by gases in the old septic tanks. A detonator was found at the blast site.’

‘What?’ Mavis stood again. ‘It was a bomb?’

‘Why would someone blow up an old latrine?’

‘I heard shit was flying all over the place.’

The comments flew.

The chief kept talking, ignoring them. ‘You can bet, since this is considered a state park and a bomb was set off here, ATF agents and possibly homeland security will be arriving in the morning, searching for terrorists. State cops are already here about the killings.’

The group was indignant. ‘God almighty,’ someone said.

‘The ATF and state cops? This’ll be a police state.’

‘Fine. Let them come. We’ll show them whose land this really is—’

‘I know how you feel.’ The chief remained calm. ‘I feel the same way. But I think we’d best lay low and wait out this crisis. It’s not time to rise up against the Feds.’

‘Bullshit,’ Hiram blurted. His face was bright red.

The chief was startled; Hiram was second in charge, and he never spoke out against him. ‘Hiram?’ he managed.

‘Chief, with all due respect, that was no terrorist who set off that explosion. I’ll tell you who did it: the gas company. Or maybe the pipeline company – they’re all connected. Sure, they’ll deny it, but they’ve obviously started blasting again. They’re probably expanding their pipeline or repairing it – maybe they made a mistake in their logistics. Whatever. Point is, after the hunting lodge blew the first time, we all agreed we wouldn’t put up with one more explosion from them, not even a firecracker—’

‘Hiram’s right.’ Ax stood, addressing the sector chief. ‘But I’m not sure it’s only about the pipeline. I saw some new ones today. Two of them – one’s a woman. They were taking samples. Bagging up soil and rocks. Taking water from the lake. It’s just like they did before the fracking. I bet they’re an advance team for the frackers, who are planning to do more.’

‘Now, Ax. We don’t know for sure what they were doing,’ the chief said. ‘Don’t jump to conclusions.’

‘I know they were taking samples. I saw them—’

‘Fine. For all you know, those samples are for some environmentalist group – they might be testing for pollution or whatever.’