Red Fox (33 page)

“
-I got it!” he yelled and
the car suddenly vroomed to life. Dex slammed the truck into
reverse and the dog went flying off the hood. He kept the truck
going backwards all the way down the driveway until we reached the
end and then he spun the truck around as soon as the smooth
blacktop was felt underneath the wheels. Dex popped the car in gear
and we were zooming down the road.

“
Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh
my God,” I whimpered. “What the fuck happened?”

He didn’t say anything but
gave my body a quick look.“Do you have any bites on you from those
scorpions?”

I looked down at my feet.
They were caked in dirt but they looked fine, no pain and no
swelling. The sight of my bare thighs, though, made me wish I had
put on my jeans before I left. Now they were gone forever, along
with my boots.

“
I’m fine,” I told him.
“You?”

“
No, nothing,” he
said.

“
But you saw them, didn’t
you? You felt them?” I asked, hoping he did.

“
Yes, I saw them. But that
doesn’t mean they were really there.”

“
How could we both imagine
that?”

“
I don’t think it’s that
simple,” he said but didn’t offer anymore.

It didn’t matter. The fact
was Bird and Rudy were gone and Rudy’s happy dog just tried to kill
us.

“
Do you think Boy Boy
killed Bird or Rudy?” I asked softly though I didn’t want to hear
his answer.

“
I don’t know,” Dex said
grimly. “Fuck, I wish I could think properly.”

“
So what do we do?” I
repeated.

“
I guess the only thing we
can do is go back to the Lancasters and explain to Will what
happened.”

“
But what if they are in on
it?”

“
I don’t know who is in on
it anymore. For all we know, Rudy and Bird could be in on
it.”

I didn’t want to believe
that but I’d be lying if that thought hadn’t crossed my mind,
especially when Bird failed to open the tent door. It did almost
have that set-up feeling. But the idea that we had no one to trust
was too much to handle.

“
Too bad you didn’t get any
of that on camera,” I said to him. I knew we left the equipment at
home because it would have been inappropriate to film a sweat
ceremony.

“
Oh, it’ll be coming out as
soon as we get back. I don’t know what the hell is going to happen
next but whatever it is, we are getting that shit down. If anything
should happen to us, we should at least get the truth
out.”

I didn’t like the idea of
more stuff happening to us but I knew it was just going to get
worse.

We sped down the road until
Red Fox came into view again. We drove down the main street and saw
a blur of people up ahead. We slowed down. There was a crowd
gathered in the middle of road, their backs to us, staring at
something in front of them.

We brought the car to
crawl. I was tempted to get out and ask what was going on but I
still wasn’t wearing any pants. I was also worried that people
would notice we were in Bird’s truck, with no Bird in sight. But no
one turned to look at us. We put the car in park.

Dex stuck his head out the
window and yelled, “What’s the hold up?” to no one in
particular.

A scrawny Mexican teenager
in skate shoes turned around to see us and sauntered
over.

“
It’s crazy,” he
said.

“
What is?” Dex
asked.

The teen pointed at the
crowd. “I don’t know what caused it. There are five dead cattle on
the road. They’ve all been turned inside out. It’s fucking
sick.”

“
Excuse me?” I said feeling
a chill go down my back. The teenager noticed me and gave me a
funny look. I forgot I was covered in a lot of dirt.

“
Yeah,” he said slowly.
“It’s like science fiction or something. Their skin and muscles are
gone. It’s only bones and organs. Fucked up.”

He sounded disgusted but
there was a hint of excitement in his voice.

“
When did this happen?” Dex
asked. They hadn’t been there when we drove through
town.

The boy shrugged. “I don’t
know.”

“
Do you know another way to
the La- get out of town, heading west?” Dex asked, almost asking
for the Lancasters.

The boy told us a quick
detour down the suburban side streets. We thanked him and did a
U-turn. He watched us go, looking puzzled. I didn’t blame him. We
were probably quite the sight. Not as gruesome as inside-out cows,
though.

“
What the fuck?” I couldn’t
help but exclaim again. “Now cows?”

“
That alone might be worth
filming,” he said, his eyes squinting in thought. “If we could get
our cameras and go back there, that’s just weird enough to make the
episode worthwhile. I think we should go back, explain to Will, not
Sarah, what happened. Pack our bags, get everything in the Jeep and
then get the fuck out of there.”

That sounded like the best
plan ever.

“
You should text Maximus and
tell him what happened,” I told him.

“
Fuck,” he yelled and
pounded the steering wheel. “My phone is in my shorts.”

Ugh. It seemed like we
couldn’t have an adventure without one of our phones going
MIA.

“
We’ll call him from the
Lancasters. Will has his number.”

Dex grunted, obviously
upset, and kept driving until we saw their familiar gate again. We
pulled the truck up to our Jeep and carefully climbed
out.

Will came hurrying out of
the house and nearly fainted at the sight of us pantless, dirty
people standing before him.

“
What on earth?” he cried.
“Where’s Bird?”

“
Um,” Dex said, looking
around him. He moved to the back of the truck and beckoned Will to
come over.

Dex explained what happened
in a hush. Or at least part of it. We left the skinwalker talk out
but said that Rudy had planned for us to take part in a sweat
ceremony to cleanse us from evil spirits. The rest was
history.

Will kept shaking his head
the whole time, muttering “I don’t believe it” over the story. But
in the end, he had no choice but to believe it. It was the truth
and it was apparent that we weren’t kidding.

He looked pained. I patted
him gently on his shoulder, feeling even sorrier for him than I was
feeling for myself. This was his friend, this was his problem, and
it seemed like we were making things worse by the
minute.

“
Has anything like that
happened before? Where do you think they went?” I asked, hoping to
get something out of him.

He didn’t budge. “It’s all
too ridiculous. There has to be a simple explanation. I could call
the sheriff and put an APB on both of them, just in
case.”

“
You should,” Dex
agreed.

Will gave us an absent look
before turning back for the house and walking away. “You should
probably get yourselves cleaned up. Again.”

I exchanged a look with Dex
and whispered to him, “I’m starting to think we may be the bad luck
twins.”

It wasn’t appropriate to
joke about it but it’s all I had left. He put a comforting arm
around my shoulder and we walked back into the house. I wondered
what my breaking point would be.

CHAPTER TWELVE

After we took quick showers
to get the mud off us, we sprang into action and started throwing
stuff into our bags. At one point my bandage from my hand got
caught on the zipper and pulled a bit of it loose.

I decided to check it out
and unwrapped it. There were faint pink lines but other than that
the cuts were completely healed. I undid the other hand and it was
the same deal.

“
Huh,” I mumbled. Dex came
over to see what was up. I showed him my hands.

“
Guess he really is a
medicine man,” I said.

“
Or was,” he added
morbidly. He hunched down and lifted up the bottom of my tank top.
I instinctively sucked in my stomach as his warm hands moved to the
bandage. He peeled away the corners and peered at it
inquisitively.

“
Now that’s something,” he
said, sounding impressed, and gently pulled the rest of the bandage
off. I looked down. It looked like the cuts on my hands. Pink and
smooth, like they had been that way for years. That was
amazing.

Dex took the bandages from
me and threw them in the trash. He wiped his hands and walked back
to me.

“
Let’s just hope he can heal
himself,” he said.

There was a knock at the
door. My heart beat loudly. Everything was going to catch me on
edge now. Was it Bird? Was it Rudy?

“
Who is it?” Dex asked
suspiciously.

“
Will,” was the
reply.

Dex walked over and opened
the door. Will looked as pale as a ghost.

“
The phone is for you,” he
said to Dex. “It’s Maximus.”

Huh. Dex hadn’t even had
the chance to phone him yet.

“
I better go explain,” he
said and left with Will downstairs. I continued to pack, mulling
over the speed in which my cuts healed. Rudy truly was a medicine
man. It’s not that I really doubted it to begin with but I was
obviously a bit skeptical. But he was a man who wanted to heal me,
not harm me. If he were a skinwalker, why would he bother? No, that
didn’t make sense. I didn’t sense anything but sincerity coming
from him, even if he was a bit rough around the edges. As for Bird,
I just couldn’t believe it. But then where did they go? If they
were skinwalkers, the “logical” explanation would be that they
turned into animals and left. If they weren’t skinwalkers, the
“logical” explanation was that they had been killed or chased away
by the skinwalkers. I hoped they had only been chased away, but
either situation was devastating.

I heard the door click and
my head snapped up. Sarah was in the room with me, the door closed
behind her, a mug of something hot in her hands. She seemed to be
staring straight at me behind those glasses. I could feel her
unseeing eyes.

“
Sarah,” I stammered and
nervously crammed my last shirt into my duffel bag.

“
I heard the news,” she
said. Her voice had a soft, meek tone to it, a surprising
change.

“
Yeah,” I said and started
fiddling absently with the bag.

She walked slowly around
the bed but paused at the dresser, resting her mug on it. I studied
her shyly, as if she was going to catch me staring. She didn’t look
all that good, actually. Ashen and unkempt.

“
I’m very worried,” she said
wringing her hands. “It’s not like Bird to just disappear like
that.”

I stopped packing and faced
her. “Is it like Rudy?”

She thought about that for
a second before shaking her head. “I don’t know Rudy very well. His
business is none of my business. But he is an important man. That
would not make much sense.”

I nodded, not feeling any
closer to understanding the mystery. Sarah said nothing for a
while. Perhaps she was reading my vibes or something. At last she
picked up the mug and shuffled over to me.

“
I made you this tea,” she
said. She held the mug out awkwardly. I eyed it.

“
It’s just Earl Grey,” she
said quickly, sensing my hesitation. “None of that spiritual
stuff.”

“
Thank you,” I said slowly,
“but I don’t really drink tea.”

I tensed for her reaction.
She actually smiled and shrugged a little.

“
That’s OK.” She moved
forward, trying to put it down on the bedside table and missing. I
grabbed it from her before it went all over the place. I sniffed it
quickly. It was Earl Grey. It smelled like a London Fog actually.
Damn drugs had me paranoid over everything I drank now.

I sat down on the bed and
cupped the tea in my hands. Sarah still stood there, her attention
now turned to the window.

“
I have a feeling he’ll come
back,” she said.

“
Bird?”

“
Mmmhmmm. As birds
do.”

There were so many
questions that I wanted to ask her. Mainly, why was she such a
snickety bitch? And what did she think was going on? What were they
going to do?

But I didn’t say anything.
Instead I had a sip of my tea and let the silence get
awkward.

She sighed and patted her
frazzled black bun.

“
Do you have a hairbrush I
can use?” she asked.

“
Sure,” I said, putting down
the tea and going into the bathroom where my toiletries bag was. My
hairbrush was tangled with oodles of my hair which is only gross
when you have to give your brush to someone else but I figured she
was blind and wouldn’t know.

I came out of the bathroom
and stopped behind her.

“
Here it is,” I said loudly
and reached over and placed it in her hand.

“
Oh, thank you.” She
carefully made her way over to the bathroom and started undoing her
bun. Her hair was mad-ass long. She looked like an old-fashioned
wench from the olden days, long dress, long hair that she slowly
brushed with a blank yet fragile expression on her face. I watched
her for a bit before I started to feel creepy. I turned my
attention to my tea.