In the Woods

by Nancy Gideon

  Pellman and the two FBI men listened intently as Alex spilled out his story in its entirety. They never blinked an eye as he spoke of the devil dog he and Wayne had resurrected in the woods, though they did ask for the exact spelling of Wayne’s last name. Nor did they show any amazement as he told them of the attack at the Gorhams's.They waited patiently for him to get control of his emotions after he spoke of how he'd left his injured wife at the grisly scene so he could put an end to the terror.

  "And so you blew it up?" the second FBI man reiterated. His features were stoic, his pen moving in rapid scratchings upon the small notebook he carried.

  "Yes."

  "Did you find its remains?" Pellman asked.

  Alex scrubbed his palms over his face, wishing he could wash away the images. "There was nothing left. It's gone. Like I said, I blew the damn thing up!"

  The note taker flipped his pad closed and snorted. "Right." He turned and disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a cup of coffee. His partner looked more interested in that steaming brew then in following up on Alex's confession.

  "Where's mine?"

  "Make your own."

  Alex ignored them. He'd told them the truth, now they were the ones who had to deal with it. His part was over. Let them believe what they wanted, he didn't give a damn. He had other priorities.

  "How's my wife?"

  Pellman eyed him suspiciously then softened slightly when he recognized the man's genuine concern. "She's in ICU. She went through quite a bit of surgery so it's too soon to make any calls. I’ve got officers posted at her room for her safety. They’ll let me know of any changes. She hasn't come around to identify her attacker yet."And his tone chilled to match his accusing gaze.

  "I already told you who—what her attacker was," Alex explained with an fraying edge to his patience. "She's not going to tell you any different."

  "Time will tell, Mr. Kerwood. We’d just like a second opinion.”

  Alex sighed savagely, feeling their scorn, their disbelief."Talk to Wayne Higley, my chief. He'll back up everything I told you."

  "He's seen this--creature?"

  "Not as clearly as I did."

  "Was that before you blew it up?" the first agent remarked, wryly.

  Alex glared at him, getting damned tired of explaining everything as if to a three-year-old. "Yes. Before I blew it up."

  He chuckled slightly and got up off the couch. "Let's hope your coffee is better than your story, Mr. Kerwood." He started for the kitchen.

  Alex leaned back, closing his eyes again. Had he expected any different? If he’d been in their shoes, wouldn’t he have entertained the story with the same cynical disbelief? They were used to dealing with monsters of flesh and blood and mortality. Not the kind found on Billy Bob’s Monstervision.

  It didn’t matter what they thought, not now, not really. When they went to the site, if they were worth their badges they’d find enough evidence to back at least some of his claim. Then he’d be exonerated of the killings if not cleared of the stigma of insanity.And his life could return to normal–or if he had his way, to better than normal.

  Once he got Helen back home.

  "When can I see my wife?"

  "Let's finish up here first, shall we?" the second Fed urged."We've got quite a bit of this puzzle to piece together yet."

  "Are you arresting me?" He wasn’t alarmed by that prospect, just very, very weary of it all.

  "We're still putting our case together," Pellman spoke up before the agents could.

  Surprisingly, the hard-assed police chief seemed more lenient in his reaction toward Alex's claims. Alex wondered why but didn't question it. He was more concerned with retaining his freedom now that the danger was over. Pellman's conclusion was welcomed news.

  "You won't be formally charged, but we will be continuing our surveillance . . . for your protection."

  "Yeah, right. My guess is the only protection I'll need is from these guys.” He hooked a thumb toward the buttoned-up Feds. “Don't bother to thank me for cleaning up your mess. I'd be dead if I waited around for you to open your eyes to the truth. If you’d been willing to listen to anything but your own preconceived notions, the Gorhams, Helen–maybe none of that would have had to happen. But if it’s not in your little play by the rules book, it doesn’t exist, does it?"He burst off the couch and began to stalk the living room, muttering about the inanity of his accusers.

  Pellman had nothing to say in his own defense. He was thinking of his reaction to Anne Goodnight when she’d come to him with her expert opinions–opinions he hadn’t wanted to hear. And because he hadn’t listened, Larry and his wife . . .

  About then, the other agent returned from the kitchen, the aroma wafting from his mug drawing Pellman's interest from his darker turn of thought.

  "I think I'll get myself one of those. Too bad there's nothing a little stronger than Creamora to put in it to make all this go down a little easier."

  The second agent laughed at that as he compared notes with his partner.

  Momentarily dismissed by them, Alex roamed to the front window to stare out across his front lawn. The neighborhood was usually quiet on work day afternoons, but today there was a lot of traffic. Cars filled with families leaving the subdivision. He puzzled over that for a minute until the sight of all the waving flags reminded him.

  Memorial Day.

  He'd forgotten all about the days of the week while trying to survive each hour. While his life had been put on hold by all the minute-by-minute horrors, other people had gone on without him, going off to celebrate a freedom earned by a cost of blood, remembering not just their war heroes, but their recent sacrifices. They gathered together with new enthusiasm, certain that the police had the killer in custody, and order had been restored.

  He envied them that innocence.

  Soon the street was empty of all but patrol cars. Everyone else was out having fun.

  A holiday. A day of celebration. Maybe it could be for him, too.If he could just get in to see Helen, maybe he’d have a reason to rejoice.

  He was staring aimlessly, brooding about the possibilities, when a sudden movement caught his eye, a fantastic vision that made him blink, doubting his senses.

  One of the policemen assigned to guard the house came hurtling through the air. He landed hard, head and shoulders first, doing a boneless roll on the grass before sprawling spread-eagled and still.

  Alex took a reflexive step back from the window. He started to turn, to shout something to Pellman, but the words jammed up against his gasp of disbelief.

  For as he watched, a gigantic hairy creature leapt onto the back of the fallen officer, gripping his head in two mammoth hands, jerking sharply with the power to send the officer to a forever slumber.

  Then the monster straightened, standing up and up and up to an incredible nine feet of muscle and hair upon hind legs like oaks with four massive arms waving from that thick torso. Its leathery snout wrinkled, rubbery lips pulling back from primal fangs. And its surprisingly intelligent gaze fixed upon Alex's, holding him helplessly in place.

  Oh my God, Alex thought in a daze. Two of them.

  The city’s celebration was premature.

  Then the monster rushed the house, powerful back legs churning, driving it directly toward the picture window.

  The first FBI agent noticed Alex's stiff posture and stricken expression. Frowning, he drew closer to ask, "Something wrong, Mr. Kerwood?"

  Then he saw it too. Thank God, he saw it, too! Alex could tell by the way he went slack with shock, his narrow mouth dropping open, his fingers loosening to cause a flood of coffee to splash down the front of his starched white shirt. He didn't react to the scalding heat of it. An intelligible sound snagging in his throat, he grabbed for the pistol.

  Too late.

  Glass, trim and splinters of siding exploded into the room under the locomotive force of the beast as it jumped through the window in a tangle of curtains. Alex stumbled ba
ck, toppling onto the sofa just as its huge feet smashed through the coffee table. The house shook on its very foundation.

  One ham-sized fist swung at the gaping FBI man, striking him in the temple with an impact that scattered everything above his shoulders in a shower of blood, brains and bone. By then, the other agent rushed in, gun drawn, but before he could fire, the amazingly agile creature sprang at him, flinging out a punch that wasn't stopped by rib cage, internal organs or spinal cord. Its fist tore clear through the federal officer's body, impaling him for one brief stop-frame instant before pulling its arm back. The body of that agent collapsed atop his partner's in a goulash of mixed entrails.

  The creature let out an ear-splitting roar as a round from Pellman's gun caught it in the lower arm. Without pause, it surged toward the kitchen where the police chief was standing braced to get off another shot. Pellman had time for one thought.

  Anne Goodnight was going to be measuring the bite radius off his corpse.

  The creature struck him like a tour bus, ramming him back into the kitchen, out of Alex range of vision. There was a scream, high pitched and abruptly silenced as the upper half of Connor Pellman's body flew into the living room, earning him, at last, his front page on the local newspaper.

  Posthumously.

  Alex pressed back into the couch, stunned by the graphic violence, by the almost poetic nature of the Peckenpaw-type slayings playing through his dazed mind in a red streaked slow-motion. The actual murders were over in seconds.

  Then the tall creature stood framed in the kitchen archway, body hunched over, shoulders brushing the opening. It advanced into the room without a glance at the carnage it caused. Its stare was on Alex.Huge feet came down on pieces of its victims, pulping them, grinding bones beneath its tremendous weight as it moved with that strange, savage grace, to confront the immobile fireman.

  Taloned fingers closed on Alex's shoulders and forearms, plucking him off the couch as if he'd been a mere flea for the popping.Dangling several feet off the floor, pinned in that unnatural grasp, Alex squirmed and twisted until a single firm shake snapped his neck like a rear end collision at sixty-five miles per hour, causing his world to go temporarily black before bleeding back into focus.

  He hung motionless, powerless, terrified beyond rational thought as the creature lifted him higher, higher, until they were eye to eye. The scent of the forest was thick upon the beast, loamy, cool, pungently fresh. Its breath plumed against the wide vee torn in his shirt front, scorching against his skin. But it wasn't fright that held Alex. It was the creature's compelling stare.

  Its eyes were hypnotic, all black pupils and swirling secrets, cunning, clever and again, oddly steeped with superior intellect. Alex felt himself go limp and lost, his senses spinning, his mind filled with a fierce buzzing. A hum of motion burned against his eyes as other visuals superimposed deep within the creature's bottomless pupils.

  He stared and he learned.

  He saw knights battling in a forest, their edges hazy, their movements in a time lapse blur.

  He gasped as the devil dog burst upon them, feeling their fear, their horror, smelling the bite of blood upon the woodsy air.Powerful hands sprouting talons latched onto the demon dog, lifting it high overhead against the canopy of trees and cloudless sky. A roar of triumph thundered through his head. A triumph over evil.

  Alex watched, amazed.

  A blond knight, young, arrogant in his victory, yet somehow naively regal shouted his decree. The words were lost somewhere in time but their meaning transcending it within Alex's brain as he followed the scenario as if watching from the wings at a play.

  The vanquished hellhound and its monstrous conqueror adrift upon a cruel sea, the green of the choppy waves blending to become the verdant splendor of the woods. His woods, he knew instinctively.And the grave was there with its protective cross plunged deep into the soil. And the tall creature was there, the eternal guardian left to watch and wait forever to see the soil remained undisturbed.

  And in that hazy dream, Alex saw himself and Wayne through a third person's view point high above as if from the trees, entering the clearing, digging up the sacred soil, freeing a demon to look upon a new face. The face of the one it would call master.

  His own face.

  Then he understood.

  Slowly, he shook his head to scatter the mesmerizing dream.Then there was only the blackness of the beast’s eyes as they peered into his soul. Waiting. Judging.

  And Alex answered.

  "I am not your enemy. I didn’t know.”

  As if it understood his words, the tall creature let out another roar. Its taloned fingers opened, releasing Alex. He dropped to the floor, the shock of it shuddering up his legs in numbing rivulets as they failed to support him. He went down upon the gory-drenched carpet, senses rock and rolling to a sickening beat. The beast stood over him. Alex knew he was a hair's breadth from dying as ugly as the officers had.

  With a symbolic gesture, one of the creature's arms swung wide and it pointed out the shattered window, past the crumpled body on the lawn, out into the stillness of the distant, waiting woods.

  And then, finally reaching total overload, Alex fainted.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Nothing like a parade to release one’s pride and the privilege of being alive.

  The station house traditionally participated in the Memorial Day parade. They’d gear up and hang off the ladders, waving to crowds who held hands over their ears to block out the wailing sirens. The kids loved the hook and ladder truck and so did the firemen, little more than kids themselves when they weren’t called upon for serious business.

  This year was special. This year they had more cause than ever for pride.

  A hero in their midst.

  Al Fargo took their congratulations, accepted Wayne’s hand shake, and the news that a city citation was forthcoming with an unusual modesty. His face was in every news report as the man who caught the monster. So why wasn’t he puffed up and strutting, the guys wanted to know.

  His answer was a name. Alex Kerwood.

  Had the rest of them forgotten him? Forgotten that they’d turned their backs on a comrade who was hurting and lost and in dire need of their support?

  Well, he hadn’t, so in his mind, until Alex accepted their apology, he had nothing to celebrate.

  After that, the crew grew quiet as they finished grooming the truck to a fireball brilliance.

  “Any word on Alex, yet?” Al asked his chief in an anxious aside.

  “Nothing yet,” Wayne told him. “I’m going in to make my statement right after the parade. Then let’s hope he can come home.”

  “Amen, brother.”

  “Let’s get this big boy on the road. There’s a whole city waiting to see her.” He grinned faintly. “And their newest legend.”

  Al muttered an unheroic word and, with Wayne’s arm about his shoulders, headed for the truck, where the crew would go out, one man short.

  Alex swam up blood-red seas toward consciousness. He wanted to protest, to resist the draw of the tide. Something tugged at him, coaxing him away from that cushioned oblivion where peace and darkness were a balm to his sorely abused sensibilities. He didn't want to go back. Back toward the harsh reality.

  But he wasn't alone.

  For a moment, he thought he was back at the burned out house.The smell of smoke and singed flesh was unmistakable. But so were the remains littering his living room, filling his vision with a ghastly tableau as he blinked his eyes open.

  He sensed more than saw movement, and knew a tremendous relief that for him, this ordeal was over. He didn't care if he spent the rest of his years in a padded cell, just as long as he never had to look upon the textures of death decorating his front room in splashes of crimson and brain matter again. He and Helen would have to move. It would never come out, that blood and gore, not from the fabrics, not from his memory.

  He turned toward the motion, readying to hail the arrival of the po
lice with a thankful resignation.

  And that's when he heard the soft snuffling sounds. Air being drawn in and expelled through an animal's snout. A very large, very angry animal.

  Disbelieving eyes focused upon the big, char-blackened beast crouched down by the kitchen. Though scorched and missing massive patches of hair and flesh, it was the devil dog returned from the hell where Alex had hoped it would remain. It was sniffing at the spill of Chief Pellman’s guts where they'd dried in great globs upon the linoleum. At Alex's unbidden moan, its mottled head lifted, the movement painfully slow but no less menacing. Maniacal eyes gleamed.And a low, rumbling growl issued from the backward curl of singed lips.

  Alex had no illusions this time. The beast no longer harbored the impression that Alex was its master. There would be no more gruesome gifts in humble offering. It remembered his betrayal with a recall both basic and wounded. The beast was free, free to exact whatever havoc it chose, and Alex Kerwood was the next thing it planned to close its jaws around.

  Not if he could help it.

  Alex eased up to his feet, careful to make the move gradual even though panic pumped through him, urging him to run. The broken picture window was only a stride or two away, and beyond that, his Jeep.

  The keys . . .

  What had he done with the keys?

  He'd changed out of the soiled clothing he'd had on for his dinner at the Gorhams's. Had he left the keys in his pants’ pocket or had he transferred them, as was his habit, to these he wore now?

  He inched his hand up the side seam of his jeans, fingertips reaching, searching. Finding the knot of metal in his pocket. He dipped in with thumb and forefinger, drawing the wad of keys out.Slowly. Slowly. They jangled in his palm.

  And across the room, the demon dog bristled up, its growls deepening into snarls. And it sank down on its haunches, ready to spring.

  Alex gauged the distance to his Jeep—a world away. His only hope was that the creature would be slowed by its injuries. He started edging toward the window.

  The monster came forward in a stalking crouch.

  Alex knew he was a dead man with the same hollow certainty that Larry must have felt. Pellman, too. But he had to try . . . for Helen's sake. Because he wanted to see her again more than he wanted to draw his next breath. He had things he had to tell her. Revelations that had come to him over the last tension-filled days. Truths borne out of stress and danger. Priorities sorted in moments of peril.