"We didn't kill anyone," Jack said, voice cold and emotionless. "We went up there to save that girl's life. Risked our own lives."
"And you did this unarmed?" the sheriff asked quickly.
Jack frowned, about to argue the point, but then he realized what the sheriff had done; he had almost gotten Jack to admit the guns were theirs. That was a charge that would stick, no matter what else happened. Jack gave the sheriff back an eerie mirror image of his creepy smile.
There's something so shuddery about the sheriff, Molly thought. As though, at any moment, he might lose it completely.
"He was a friend of yours, this Ned?" Molly asked.
Tackett's face reddened. He stared at her as though he would hurt her. "Yes. You could say that."
Vance sat on the edge of the table. "What were you two doing at the library after hours anyway?"
Jack grinned at him. "Getting frisky."
Molly blushed and looked away.
Vance waved the words away. "Bullshit. You two aren't a couple. You told me that yourselves. And even if you were, you've got a room at the hotel. So, again, what were you doing there?"
Slowly, Jack reached up to scratch his head. Then he stood up from the table and walked toward the barred window in the back. He glanced out at the stars.
"We got lucky," Jack said, back to all of them. "We were driving around, just checking out the town. It's nice up here, but I don't have to tell you that. We went down the wrong road and drove into the library lot to turn around. We heard screaming, glass shattering, and we got up to run toward the front doors just as they came outside with the girl. I'm guessing her father was already dead inside. They ran off with her into the woods, and we followed. Her screams led us to that clearing, but by the time we got there, she was already dead."
"And these mysterious killers, they had the guns?" Tackett asked, nearly spitting with his disgust at what he perceived as an outrageous lie.
"They tried to kill us. They missed. We got lucky, I guess," Jack replied. Then he turned and glared at the two lawmen. "If you could call this luck."
Tackett stood and stalked across the room toward Jack. The sheriff glared at him, tried to force him to make eye contact. Finally Jack turned to meet his penetrating gaze.
"You killed the girl," Tackett said, voice cold. "You killed Kenny Oberst. And I'm wondering if you have an alibi for two other recent murders up here."
Jack sneered at him. "For Christ's sake, Sheriff, even you don't believe that. So why do you have us locked up in here?"
"Why don't I believe that?" the sheriff asked, incredulous.
Molly's eyes lit up. "The blood."
"What?" Deputy Vance asked.
"There's no blood on our clothes," she went on. Then she turned to gaze at Jack and the sheriff, and knew it was true. "If we had killed that girl, we'd be covered in her blood. We're not."
Tackett's nostrils flared and he lifted his chin slightly. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded map. "I found this in your pocket, Jack." He unfolded it.
Molly cringed. On the map were all the marks they had made when charting where the Prowlers had left the corpses over the years. It was a map of where murders had been committed in the area around Buckton, going back decades.
"I'm not going to ask what the x's are just yet. For now, answer me this. These three," he pointed to a small cluster on the page, "they're at the old Bartleby place. That's where we arrested you. Want to explain that?"
Deputy Vance stepped up to study the map, then glared at them both. "They told me they'd stumbled on that place hiking the other day, and were trying to find it again so they could have a picnic there."
Jack only glared at them. "There's no blood on us, Sheriff. How do you explain that?"
"Maybe I don't have to. You're in this. You were the only ones there. And I know those guns were yours. You can't even tell us what these killers supposedly looked like."
A shiver went through Molly, but Jack only laughed. He walked back to the chair, shaking his head, and sat down again. When he glanced up at the sheriff and Deputy Vance again, the almost perverse smile was still there, but his eyes were filled with pain. This was the Jack she knew, the boy she had been through high school with, the one who had worked so hard and lost so much and never been anything but good because he didn't know how to be anything else.
The moment he revealed that pain within him, Molly knew that he was going to do something stupid.
"Jack - " she began, trying to caution him.
But all caution was gone from him.
"You never asked us," Jack said. His eyes went from Tackett to Vance, and then back. "How come you never asked us before this? What they looked like, I mean. I'm guessing it's because you already know."
Molly stiffened. She had her own suspicions about the sheriff, for a lot of reasons, but she doubted that bringing them up was the wisest thing to do.
Especially if they were true.
The gray box of a room seemed to grow smaller around them. Tackett crossed his arms and stood officiously over them. Deputy Vance glanced back and forth between his boss and his suspects with an expression of utter confusion on his features. But it was clear he sensed that something unusual was going on here. A weird energy crackled in the room.
"Jack," Molly began again. "Maybe now's the time for that lawyer."
"Y'know," Sheriff Tackett observed, arms crossed over his belly, not even bothering to tuck his shirt in where it had slipped out of his pants, "I'm not sure your boy here wants a lawyer."
"What good would it do?" Jack replied harshly.
But Deputy Vance was still stuck on Jack's comment about the killers. He cleared his throat, scratched his head, and hefted his gun belt around his hips. It was something he did from time to time, Molly had noticed, and she wondered if it was his way of reminding himself of his authority.
"What about these supposed killers?" the deputy prodded. "I don't like the sound of what you're suggesting, Jack. Maybe you want to elaborate on that?"
Molly was startled when Jack turned to look at her. His smile faltered as he reached out and took her hand.
"Talk to them, Molly."
"What's the point?" she asked, surprising herself. "They had to have found the bodies, which means they're just playing with us now."
Deputy Vance stiffened. "Bodies? More than one? What are you confessing to here?"
Jack closed his eyes to shut them out. Molly realized he was trying to figure out a way out of this. Swallowing hard, she leaned forward on the graffiti-scrawled wooden table and gazed at the deputy. She ignored the sheriff.
"The killers you're looking for? They're covered in fur and have snouts and mouths filled with sharp teeth. Wild animals, Alan, but as smart as we are, maybe smarter."
Deputy Vance blinked, and a bemused grin appeared on his face. "Prowlers," he said. "You're talking about Prowlers." Molly's mouth dropped into a little O, and Jack's eyes snapped open.
"You know about them?" Jack asked angrily. "Then what the hell are we doing here? Why aren't you out there hunting them down?"
Tackett started to laugh. His face grew red and he bent slightly at the waist, shaking his head in amusement.
"You two are something else," he said.
Vance did not seem as amused. He frowned as he studied first Jack, then Molly. Finally he sat down across from Molly and gazed at her intently.
"Miss, the Prowlers, they're just legends," he said. "They're like . . . like the bogeyman, up this way. Everyone's heard the stories, but only children believe them. You hear the occasional story from a hunter. Don't go into the woods alone or the Prowlers will get you. And certainly there have been run-ins in these mountains with bears and bobcats. But Prowlers are no more real than Bigfoot or the Teddy Bear Picnic. Now I'll be honest with you. I know you're involved in this thing somehow, but I'm not convinced you're killers. I don't think the sheriff 's convinced, either."
"Deputy," Tackett growled in
a warning voice.
Vance ignored him. Molly's respect for him went up by leaps and bounds because of that.
"But you've got to give us something more than 'the bogeyman did it,' " the deputy finished.
Jack stared hard at him, hard enough to draw Vance's attention. For several seconds, their gazes met in silent combat.
"Alan," Jack said, voice low and controlled. "They're real. We killed two of them at the library. Then two, possibly three more in the woods up near that clearing.
They killed the girl and her father, and Kenny Oberst, and Foster Marlin, and Phil Garraty, too. Something's been stolen from them and they want it back."
"Those are the bodies I was talking about," Molly said calmly.
Silence fell over the little room, but a dark energy seemed to connect the four of them, a circuit that ran from person to person, a circuit of suspicion. Molly wished Jack had not mentioned the Prowlers until they had a lawyer, if ever.
There were only two possibilities. First, that the sheriff and his deputy had no idea the Prowlers were real, in which case talking about them would only make the lawmen think she and Jack were out of their minds. Second, that Tackett and Vance knew and were somehow involved, or even Prowlers themselves.
Molly's throat was dry as she finally accepted that the second possibility was the most likely. After all . . .
"Where are the bodies?" Tackett demanded.
He had put voice to the biggest question in Molly's mind.
"What?" Jack asked, growing angrier.
"These monsters you say killed all these people. There should be corpses at the library and in the woods. Where are they?"
Jack slumped back in his chair, at a loss. But Molly's mind was swirling with the implications of the question. She knew she ought to keep quiet, but found the words spilling out.
"You moved them," she said.
Tackett glared at her, arms dropping to his sides as he nearly shook with anger. "What did you just say?"
But she ignored him. Instead, Molly looked at Deputy Vance. The shock on his face was something he could not hide. She believed he was not in on it.
Therefore, he was their only hope.
"They could have dragged the bodies away from the woods near the clearing. I'll buy that. But we chased them up into the forest after the whole library thing.
They left those corpses behind. Who was the first person on the scene at the library?"
Vance glanced at Tackett, and Molly knew.
With a sigh, she nodded. "I thought so."
Tackett slammed a hand against the wall and it shook the room. He was overweight and aging, but he was still very strong. Molly was not surprised.
"Damn you, girl," the sheriff thundered. "Both of you. You're talking about legends and monsters. I'm talking about the real thing. People have been murdered.
As far as I know, you don't have any alibis for the vandalism at the Paperback Diner or at the library, or for any of the murders. No alibis except each other. You were at the scene. You were armed with unlicensed weapons. I found you with a corpse at your feet. Now maybe you ought to start talking about what's really going on here, otherwise I'd say you're screwed."
Molly and Jack exchanged a single glance. They sat in silence a moment. Deputy Vance seemed more than agitated as his gaze ticked from one to the other and back at the sheriff.
"Can we make our phone call now?" Jack asked, all sweetness and innocence.
Deflated, Tackett threw up his hands. "Sure, kid. Call anyone you want. Make it count, though. We don't like murderers around here."
Again, Molly ignored Tackett. She turned instead to Deputy Vance. She raised her hands and stood up. Twirled in a circle, like she was showing off her gown on the red carpet on Oscar night.
"Look at me, Alan. Look at Jack. That girl was ripped apart. You see any blood on us? Any at all?"
Tackett grunted once. "Alan, let them make their call and then put them in a cage. I'm going for a little walk, clear my head. When I come back, you can head home."
As he left, all three of them stared after him in silence.
Not long before midnight, inhuman things gathered in the sprawling home of Bernard Mackeson. It was an old Federal colonial that had stood there as long as any of the other structures in Buckton, on an expanse of grassy hill where the trees seemed almost to have retreated from the home out of apprehension rather than having been cleared. The Mackeson place stood back a quarter mile from the main road, invisible in its crescent of woodland, and yet still keeping the wild at bay.
Or it would have, had it not invited the wild in.
In an enormous front parlor filled with antiques and leather, the Alpha sat in a high-backed chair in front of a dead fireplace. The sounds and scents of the forest swept in on the breeze, and he shivered with pleasure almost unconsciously. For this was no time for pleasure.
His world was falling apart.
Wearing a human face and human clothes, he glanced around at the members of his Pack, who had gathered in the room. Young and old, they sat on sofas and leaned against walls and stood in doorways, waiting for him to speak, waiting for his guidance. That was what it meant to be Alpha.
And yet, now, somehow, he felt as though he were letting them down. He should have been with them at the library; because he had not been, things had gotten complicated. There were other ways to deal with them, neater ways, but they were still too complicated. Simple was always best.
Still, the journal was the priority. If he had never written that history . . . but there was no use wishing. It had come to blood and death now, and perhaps that was for the best.
The Alpha wondered for the first time if he might not be too old, if someone else should not challenge him for the mantle of the lord of the pack. Curious, he cast his gaze upon each of them in turn, eyes catching theirs.
One by one, they all looked away.
The Alpha felt tired. Yet not one of them seemed able to do what must be done. Only he.
The world was falling apart, and only he could put it all back together again. He resolved himself, in that moment, with only the light of the moon and stars seeping through the windows to illuminate them. The Alpha vowed to himself to save the Pack, no matter the cost, no matter the bloodshed. Buckton had been a sanctuary to all of their kind for a century. But if the sanctuary itself had to be destroyed, even that was not too high a price to pay for the sanctity of his Pack.
A new sanctuary could be created in another location, but only if the Pack survived to create it.
Sadness revealed itself on his false human face as he leaned forward in the antique chair. On the carpet lay their dead, five members of the Pack who would not hunt again. Jellison had died only twenty minutes ago, after a long struggle to survive the shotgun blast to his head. It was not to be.
He wanted to weep for each of them, but did not. What he owed to them was vengeance.
"How to explain this," he sighed to himself.
The Pack let out a collective sigh, perhaps of sympathy, or perhaps merely of relief that he had finally spoken. Some of them transformed, as if unable to control themselves, revealing their true forms - the wild, the beast within.
Though Jellison and two others among the dead would not be missed, or even recognized, by the people of Buckton, the other two would not go unnoticed.
One was Juliette Bleier, who had taught mathematics at the high school.
The other was Bernard Mackeson himself.
It might be days before anyone noticed the absence of Mackeson - whose large, red-furred corpse was matted with dried blood - but when Juliette did not show up to teach her summer school students, questions would be asked. Her disappearance could be explained, perhaps. Covered up.
But the Pack could not afford any more losses.
"Who are they, these children?" he snarled. "I know their names, but what are they doing here? How can they be so unafraid?"
They all stood a bit straighter then, but none da
red to answer. None of them had an answer.
"The journal is still missing," the Alpha growled. "Now these children arrive, and they appear to know far more about us than we do about them. It makes me wonder . . . maybe they have the book. We will find out more about them. Find out if they do, indeed, have the book. Then we'll make them tell us, one way or another."
The Alpha rose from the chair, flesh tearing away to reveal the monster beneath. He growled, the anger and pain coming from deep within him.
"If we have to tear apart every human in this place, we will have that journal. We will protect the Pack and the purpose of this sanctuary, even if it means the destruction of the sanctuary itself."
What the hell are you doing, Alan?
It was about the twentieth time he had asked himself that question. He had tried desperately to go to sleep. The sheriff had been gone over an hour. When he came back, he told Alan to go home and get some rest, that he'd sleep in the jail overnight, a job they always split up when they had prisoners. Which wasn't very often. Alan had been relieved not to get that duty.
But he had been unable to sleep.
Where's the blood? The girl, Molly, had spun around like it was prom night. But she had been right. No blood on either one of them. No way could they have killed the Meredith girl. She and her father had been torn apart, just like Foster and Garraty. Just like Kenny Oberst. Chunks torn out of them, organs ripped out, bones snapped and scraped as if by teeth.
Animals. All along a little voice in his head told him that these were murders, perpetrated by a person or persons more savage than anything he could ever have imagined. Because animals wouldn't have attacked Phil Garraty's van like that. Wouldn't have trashed Kenny Oberst's house, or the diner or the library.
Prowlers.
Whenever he had closed his eyes he had seen Molly Hatcher's eyes. Jack Dwyer's anger and sadness. He had recalled the way they had looked at the sheriff, as if he were the criminal and not the other way around.
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