Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman (4 page)

Chapter 7

Stanley
had examined the small card from every possible angle before proclaiming, “I
think it’s a map,” with the pride of a third grader showing off some hand-made
macaroni art.

To
Dallas, it really did look like macaroni art. Stanley was pretty sure the
mostly straight lines were roads and the squiggly ones were rivers or creeks,
but it was still just a collection of strange doodles. Since there were more
cartoony trees than cartoony buildings, they figured it was probably a map of
somewhere in woods. Which woods in particular, bisected by which rivers or
creeks in particular, and occupied by which buildings in particular though…
Dallas had to keep drinking for fear of losing his gourd. What good was having
a map if they had no clue where it was supposed to be?

“Okay,
great. We’ve narrowed it down to, um, lemme think on this. Not the desert, and
not the artic. That only leaves us
almost
all of the planet to search. Geez, these guys are a real piece of work,” he
opined, frustration adding a sharp edge to his slightly slurred words.

“Hu-hold
on, Big D,” Stanley said, holding his hands palm-out toward Dallas. “We know a
few things. They gotta be local, right? Don’t m-make much sense to give you a
map of someplace across the globe. No sir.”

Dallas
shrugged, the gesture accompanying a non-committal huff.

“So
it’s a map of somewhere ‘round here,” Stanley concluded, radiating confidence
like an EasyBake Oven.

Downing
the last swig of the current Milwaukee’s Best and slamming the can on the
table, Dallas swore.

“We’re
still no closer to finding them. ‘Around here’ is a mighty big place to
search.”

Stanley
nodded, mouth pursed in thought. “We could try the l-local library. They got
all kinds of maps,” he explained. “We could look at this little map next to the
b-big ones and see what matches.”

Dallas
weighed the suggestion. It seemed like as good of a plan as any. If nothing
else, the drive would make for a welcome distraction. He hadn’t been to the
library in years, as in, all of the years he’d been alive. Grabbing his jacket,
he waved Stanley toward the door.

“C’mon,
Stanwich. We’ve got a mystery to solve.”

Trappersville
could be described as a small town tossed haphazardly across a large area. As
such, the drive would’ve normally taken about fifteen minutes. Dallas made it
in seven. Rocketing into the library’s small parking lot, he cranked hard on
the wheel and sent Deloris into a power slide. Tires squealed on pavement,
leaving skid marks across the neatly painted white lines of no less than three
parking spots. The noise caused a face to appear in a ground-level window.

“This
is a public library, not a friggin’ motocross!” Glen Montal, the head librarian
yelled through the open window.

“Morning
Glen!” Dallas hallooed. “Helluva day, right?”

“Dallas?
Is that you? Geezuz, man. You near gave me a heart attack.” The bespectacled
face disappeared from the window and reappeared a moment later when the
library’s front door opened from the inside. “And Stanley, eh? I should’ve
known. What are you two hosers doing out and about, eh?”

“We
got a m-m-mystery to solve!” Stanley crowed, only to grunt as Dallas slugged
him in the shoulder.

With
a withering look at Stanley, Dallas forced a laugh. “Not really, Glen. You know
Stan. Figuring out which side of the toast to butter is a mystery for him, poor
guy. No, we were just thinking it’d be, ah, educational to look at some maps of
the area. You know. For…” he trailed off, at a loss for a good cover story.

“Looking
for deer runs, eh? I should’ve known you weren’t looking to read a book,” Glen
remarked with a lopsided grin. “However, I am impressed that you’ve realized
the value of your local library. Get in here. I’ve got some maps that’ll help.
We’ll find you a good spot for a deer stand, no trouble there,” Glen said,
nodding in approval.

Dallas
liked Glen. He always had. When Dallas was in high school, the older man taught
American History. Dallas thought that was hilarious since Glen grew up in
Canada. At the end of the term, Dallas brought him French fries and gravy. In
return, Glen let Dallas slide with a ‘C.’

“Aerial
maps would probably work best,” Glen reasoned. Holding the door and beckoning
the men forward, he shepherded Dallas and Stanley into the library.

Steering
them toward the local geography section, Glen rummaged, muttering to himself in
a distracted way. Soon Dallas was staring at a table full of aerial maps.
According to Glen, the maps covered a six-county area and then some. Most of
what they showed were large swaths of unbroken forest, parceled up between grey
roads and curving, wiggly waterways. Dallas looked questioningly at Stanley who
beamed in response and bobbed his head.

Giving
Glen a hearty thumbs up, Dallas said, “These are great. I, um. Should
definitely be able to find a great spot for a, you know. Deer stand.”

“No
trouble at all,” Glen replied easily. “You can just drop off some French fries
and gravy later, eh?”

Back
at Dallas’s rambler, the dining room table had been cleared of empty bottles
and cans. In their place were a variety of photocopied maps showing most of
Marinette, Oconto, Menominee, Langlade, Forest, and even Florence counties.
Stanley did the math and pronounced they were looking at a geographic region
encompassing over five thousand square miles.

“Holy
crappola, Stan. We’ve got a cartoon map on a business card, and we’re trying to
match it up with half of northern Wisconsin. I ain’t drunk enough to think
that’s possible.” he complained. “Gimme a sec.”

Dallas
fished around in the fridge and returned with a fresh Milwaukee’s Best. “All
better,” he announced. “Let’s find ‘em.”

Stanley
looked at Dallas with the eager eyes of a kid on Christmas Eve and set the
business card on the upper left-hand corner of the first map. Gently resting
his fingers Ouija-board style on the card, he slid it slowly down as both men’s
eyes flicked back and forth looking for similarities. Upon reaching the bottom
of the map, Stanley moved the card to the right and started to slide it back up
toward the top.

Three
hours later, Dallas threw up his hands in disgust.

“Dammit,
Stanley. This ain’t getting us nowhere! We’ve been over and over these maps and
haven’t found a thing that looks like what’s on the card.” Snatching it from
Stanley’s fingers, Dallas flourished the business card while prancing around
the room.

“La
dee dah, I’m a C.I.A. douchebag. I’m so clever! Here’s a worthless clue. Come
find me.”

Stopping
mid-cavort, he held the card up close to his eye and squinted at the scribbly
lines.

“Or
maybe I’m just not looking close enough, huh? Maybe you have to glue it to your
eye ball. Or maybe…”

Dallas’s
mouth stopped mid-sentence, and his nostrils flared once, then again. Turning
his head to and fro, he snuffed, blew air from his nose, and snuffed again.
Tiny map momentarily forgotten, he tilted and twisted his head, nose held high.

“Stanley!
When did you run out to Cecil’s? You can’t just make a grub run and not say
anything,” Dallas admonished. “I’ve been working like a dog here while you went
out for a Reuben and fries and,” Dallas inhaled deeply again, nostrils
stretching, “Oh, you bastard. You got deep fried pickles, and you didn’t
share?”

Stanley’s
jaw hung for a moment before sputtering, “But D-Dallas, I’ve been here the
whole time with you. I didn’t go to Cecil’s. We should though. I’m starving.”

“Well,
someone went to Cecil’s. Don’t tell me you can’t smell that,” Dallas
challenged, spearing Stanley with a questioning glare. “Smell’s thick as day
old bacon grease.” A couple of additional whuffs and Dallas’s eyes widened to
match his nostrils. He drew the small card in and held it beneath his nose. He
sniffed once, twice, tentatively at first. Becoming surer of himself, he
pressed the card up against his nose and snuffed again.

“Geezuz.
This here card, it smells like Cecil’s. Just like Cecil’s. I kid you not, Stan.
Here, try it.” Dallas thrust the card toward Stanley.

Always
accommodating, Stanley took the offered card and sniffed daintily. “Um, nothing
Dal. I j-just smell, um. Card.”

Snatching
it back, Dallas breathed deep again. “That’s why they’re recruiting me, little
buddy. Lighting reflexes, eagle eyes, and the nose of a blood hound.”

“M-maybe
the guy who dropped it for you was there. So m-maybe Cecil’s is close to the
X,” Stanley said, a glimmer of his previous enthusiasm returning.

The
two men returned to the aerial maps, sorting and tossing sheets of paper until
they found the one that covered the northern edge of the county. Tracing a
finger up highway fifty-five, Dallas stopped in the vicinity of the little
roadside restaurant. He tapped decisively on the spot and fished around the
table for a pencil. Finding one, he scrawled a circle around the little
rectangle-shaped building barely visible through the canopy of trees. Cecil’s,
photographed from above. Easy to look past since the building and adjacent dirt
lot were encroached upon from all sides by the ubiquitous Wisconsin forest.

His
brain filled up with thoughts of the little restaurant while his nose was
inundated with the smell of sour kraut and beer-battered pickles fried to hot,
crispy perfection. A thin tendril of drool formed in the corner of his mouth.

“Must
be hungrier than I thought,” Dallas commented, wiping at his mouth with a
sleeve and absently scratching his thigh. “But look, this can’t be right. None
of the stuff lines up.”

Stanley
pulled on his Columbo face. Squinting one eye, he rested an elbow on his wrist,
stroked his chin, and scratched his head.

“What
did that g-guy say to you?” he asked.

“Who?
Glen? Um, let’s see. To bring him some French fries and gravy.”

“No,”
Stanley said. “N-not Glen. The taser guy. S-something about reflecting?”

Dallas
scratched his own head Columbo-style to see if it helped him recall the
details.

“He
might’ve. Actually, yeah. ‘Reflect on things,’ or something like that.”
Dallas’s face screwed up in thought. “He told me to reflect on things and get
my bearings.”

Looking
down at the map and the little card Randall had dropped, he ran a hand through
his hair. “But what the hell, Stan? How am I supposed to get my bearings when
the damn little map ain’t nowhere around nowhere?”

Stanley
picked up the small card in one hand and the big map in the other. Looking
around the room, he turned first one way, then the other before moving with
purpose down the hall. Stopping outside the main floor bathroom, he looked back
at Dallas.

“Go
for it,” Dallas waved. “But light a match when you’re done. Your dumps smell
like roadkill chili.”

“Dallas,
come here,” Stanley said.

“What?
Need help finding it? Too bad. A friend in that kind of need ain’t no friend I
plan on helping,” Dallas laughed.

“No,
the m-mirror, Dallas.
Reflect on things.
”
Straightening his shoulders, Stanley stepped into the bathroom.

Curious,
Dallas followed him down the hall. Stopping outside of the bathroom, he looked
in and saw Stanley had one hand pressing the map up against the wall next to
the medicine cabinet mirror while the other held the card in front of his
chest, tiny map facing the glass. Dallas walked in behind him and looked first
at the aerial map, eyes going straight to the little circle he’d drawn over
Cecil’s. Up the road a short ways was an auto body shop. A half mile or so west
of the main road and across the river, the Skarsgard’s farmhouse could be seen
in a small clearing. Dallas knew it well. He’d dated old Skarsgard’s daughter
in high school and used to sneak up the trellis to her bedroom window. Not much
else around since Cecil’s was, like most of the establishments in
Trappersville, tossed almost randomly in the woods.

Dallas’s
eyes shifted to the reflection of the card’s hand-drawn map in the mirror. That
line running at a slight curve from top to bottom, the one they thought might
be a river or a creek, it could be the highway. Looking at the little
rectangle-triangle things, two of them seemed to line up pretty well with
Cecil’s and the old Skarsgard house. If that was true, that other line could be
the Burnt Shanty Creek, a small tributary that fed into the Wolf River.

“Ho.
Lee. Shit,” Dallas whispered. Leaning over Stanley’s shoulder, he pointed a
finger at the mirror.

“Look
here. The creek. Skarsgard’s. Cecil’s. That means the little “X” on their map
is probably right around there.” Dallas said. Mentally figuring distances in
his head, he continued, “That can’t be but a mile, maybe two into the woods,
but there ain’t nothing out there. I think maybe an old, abandoned cabin.
Otherwise, just empty woods. Why draw me a map to go there?”

Stanley’s
reflected eyes met Dallas’s. “P-perfect spot for top secret stuff to happen,
don’t ya think?”

Dallas
breathed deep. The scent of a Rueben with fries was still strong in his nose.