“Max,” said Syd excitedly from a short distance away. She stood beside two more suspended, wriggling victims. “It’s Sissy and Frank! They’re here too!”
“Helsing,” Boyle whispered. “It’s . . . it’s a monster . . .”
“I know, Kenny,” said Max, glancing up at Syd, who was already lifting Sissy off her hook.
A door slammed in the lodge above.
“Honeys, I’m home!” a familiar voice called. “I see you’ve invited some friends over to play.”
Booted footsteps crossed the floorboards quickly. Then they were on the stone staircase, heading down into the cellar. Max helped Syd lift Frank from his hook. Then Max was moving, dashing to the workbench.
His blood ran cold. The footsteps had changed. The sound of shoe on stone was suddenly replaced by something sharp and clipped, striking the steps like a chisel against marble. Like a hammer against bone. Like a hoof against rock.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE DEVIL WALKED IN
“What a night it’s been, Max Helsing,” said Gideon.
The flashlight remained abandoned on the floor, its beam reflecting off a puddle and sending rippling light bouncing off the wall. All the children and campers could see of the little man was his flickering shadow advancing through the corridor as he descended the stairs, backlit by the lamps in the lodge. His footsteps echoed sharply as they struck each rough step.
“Yep, it’s been a wild one, hasn’t it?” said Max, leaving the bench and his companions to approach the short tunnel that led into the room. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tuckered out and ready for bed.”
“Don’t worry, Max,” said Gideon. “You’ll have plenty of time to sleep soon enough.”
“Aw, Gideon, that just sounded plain sinister, dude. Why’d you have to do that?”
As Max reached the tunnel, Gideon arrived at the base of the staircase, not ten feet away from the boy. Max glanced back to his friends, checking they were okay, before snapping his head back around to the camp coordinator.
Although he was just a silhouette, lit from above, Max could see that Gideon had ditched his boots. The man’s feet had transformed into a pair of shiny black hooves.
The Beast of Bone Creek wasn’t a bigfoot. The killer was a satyr, and he’d been hiding in plain sight, right under their noses all along. This satyr wasn’t the happy little faun one might find in a children’s book. This monster was the stuff of nightmares.
“You don’t mind if I get out of these, do you?” said Gideon, beginning to unbutton his khaki shirt.
“If it’s all the same, I’d rather you didn’t.”
“You must know your Greek myths and legends, Max, following the rhyming verse and finding my little playroom. I hope you liked my painting, too?”
“I’m more of a Dr. Seuss man. That painting was a little grim for my tastes.”
“Heavens, no! What could be more joyous than a series of unspoiled offerings to Dionysus?”
“You mean sacrifices?”
“Sacrifice . . . offering . . . po-tay-to, po-tah-to. The whole blood ritual is indulgent, I’ll admit. But once I bagged those two lovebirds, well, it was all too good to resist! Your pal Boyle was the missing ingredient for the festivities.” He clapped his hands. “We’re all set now. You’re cleverer than you look. I clearly underestimated you. Bravo, Max. Bravo.” He shook the shirt off and tossed it aside.
“So the painting and the poem are what? The recipe for something sinister and sordid?”
“Sinister? Sordid? Step away from those combustible human emotions for a moment, Max. This is my moment, where I transcend.”
“Transcend into what, exactly?”
“A greater being, a vessel for Dionysus on Earth. Immortality, divine wisdom, untold knowledge. It will all be mine, and more.”
“And killing three innocents will make that happen?”
“The man, the wife, and the virgin child? That union epitomizes birth, beauty, and becoming. Goodness, it’s no coincidence that trio feature in religious iconography throughout your world. Could my Lord be any happier with such an offering? The death of those three would be the greatest sacrifice mankind can give.”
“Give?” said Max. “There’s nothing willful about this. It’d be murder. They wouldn’t be giving. You’d be taking.”
Gideon shrugged. “And we’re back to potatoes.”
“Gideon, no offense, but . . . I’ve been on better vacations. Scratch that—I’ve been to better funerals.”
Gideon’s laugh was a shrill giggle as he turned his neck from left to right in quick, sudden motions. Max heard vertebrae pop and bones crack.
“Oh, Max, you and I have gotten along, haven’t we? The whole schoolkid-and-mentor thing, where you got to pick my brain and share your troubles, was real sweet. In another time, another forest, we could’ve been firm friends.”
“There’s still time for that.”
The shadowy figure shook his head, curled tufts of hair bouncing around his ears. Ears that looked a touch longer, more pointed now. “Sadly, there isn’t. The end comes to all men and beasts, and your end is upon us.”
There was a tearing sound, Gideon’s khaki shorts ripping as his thighs began to thicken. Max could hear his breathing growing more labored.
“Can you just tell me one thing?” said Max.
“Ask away, young man,” said Gideon, the satyr’s voice deeper now.
“What drove you to frame poor bigfoot for a string of hideous crimes? Why can’t you share Bone Creek?”
Gideon’s laugh was a rasping rattle, his chest broadening as he took another clopping step toward Max down the short stretch of corridor. “Oh, bless you, Max; it’s true what they say about you, isn’t it? You’re the soft Van Helsing. The one who thinks peace is the answer to everything. The one who doesn’t have the stomach for the job.”
“You seem to think you know a lot about me, Gideon.”
The man, or what had been a man, shrugged. Another step closer. “You’re a Van Helsing. Your forefathers are the bogeymen to my kind. The monsters whose names we whisper to our children. And you? Well, you’re just the Easter Bunny, aren’t you? Cute as a button. So young. So . . . tender.”
Max stood his ground, holding firm. He couldn’t allow Gideon to enter the room. Keep him talking, Max, he told himself. Let him chatter.
“Tender? I’ve been called worse.”
“I heard tell of a valley hidden away in the White Mountains that was a haven for the paranormal and supernatural. Your ancestor founded this place, did she not? What better place to claim as my own? I’ve wandered this wretched continent for over a hundred years, seeking a forest I can call my own, a wilderness to rival the Black Forest of my homeland in Germany, and could I find one?”
“Could you?”
“Of course not! Too many damn monsters, and they were always bigger than me. So I came here. I made Bone Creek my home. I picked my moment. And then I set the wheels in motion. I alerted humanity to the presence of our large-footed neighbors.”
“You’ve invited every fool with a gun into these hills,” said Max. “Bone Creek is crawling with people intent on finding a monster. Aren’t you afraid they’ll find you?”
“If they find me, it’ll be jovial, cheery Gideon, Mr. Funtime himself. They won’t get—” he cast a long-fingered hand over his shifting, twisting torso—“this.”
Russet hair caught the lamplight from upstairs. Hair just like Max had found in the bushes at the scene of Frank and Sissy’s abduction.
“So you get others to do your dirty work for you?”
“Hard as it may be for you to believe, Max Helsing, I’m a lover, not a fighter. My kind are not known for violence, although we’ll turn our hands if forced.”
“And you’ve been forced to do this?” exclaimed Max angrily. “Innocen
t people have died, Gideon—”
“And more to come tonight,” growled the monster, taller now as he advanced. “In a turf war, Max Helsing, there are always casualties. Let the humans find and kill that wretched twig-muncher. Bone Creek isn’t big enough for two apex predators. There’s only room for one sheriff in this piece of paradise.”
Gideon shook his head, the curling tufts growing longer now, joining up with the hair on his chest, his shoulders, the fur that sprouted all over his body. By the half-light Max watched as black nails tore from his slender fingertips. Another step, heavier than before, and now on mighty, muscled haunches. The satyr’s thighs were huge, the fur darkest here as it ran down to a pair of disjointed ankles, finally stopping at those big, black hooves. It all became so clear now to Max; the hoofprints he’d seen repeatedly around Bone Creek. He’d dismissed them as deer tracks; how wrong he had been.
“You hurt me and my friends, and others will come. You won’t get away with it,” said Max. “Jed’s already here.”
“Jed Coolidge is as good as dead. I sent him searching for you in the forest. I think it’s called a wild-goose chase. The last I heard he was heading blindly toward a pack of dyre wolves. They’re probably finishing him off as we speak.”
It was Max’s turn to snarl now. The monster laughed.
“You thought he was going to be the knight in shining armor for you? You’ve been played, Max Helsing, every step of the way. Did you not wonder why you encountered vampires in Ike Barnum’s shack?”
Max hadn’t given it too much thought, but it had been quite the surprise.
“I sent them, child! The minute I knew of your intentions, I got in touch with our local undead friends and let them know you were heading there. They were to be your welcoming committee.”
Max managed his best cocky grin. “How’d that work out for you, Gideon?”
The monster sighed as he took a final step toward Max, causing the boy to stagger back into the chamber. “Never send a vampire to do a satyr’s job.”
With that, Gideon arched his back, embracing the final, most painful stage of his transformation. While his body continued to shift, becoming more bestial and savage-looking, the greatest change was to his head. Max heard a violent cracking as Gideon’s skull changed shape, teeth tearing from gums, mandibles elongating, jaw jutting. His rosy pink skin shimmered, turning ruddy and then a fiery red. Misshapen yellow eyes rolled wildly in their sockets as he let loose a gurgling wail. Another awful splintering sound from within that monstrous head, and two horns burst from the satyr’s temple on either side. They came out bloody, curling in on themselves, twisting and turning as they corkscrewed into the air.
Max took a step aside, moving behind the large white barrel he’d positioned in place, and gave it a heavy kick. The plastic shuddered as it toppled over, the lid rattling clear as gallons of acidic slurry splashed across the floor, showering the hooves, legs, and torso of the transforming satyr. As the monster’s wails became high-pitched screams of agony, Max leaped for the metal shelves, clambering up their height toward the open window above. Syd, Boyle, and the backpackers were there, already outside, waiting for him, grabbing him by the arms as they hauled him to safety.
Safety was, of course, a fleeting thing. The chase had just begun.
TWENTY-EIGHT
FOREST OF FEAR
The mist was thicker now, a swirling soup that blanketed Bone Creek. It was thin and wispy on high, drifting around the pine tree branches. Closer to the ground, it became a fog, obscuring root, rock, and river from view. On any other night, it might have appeared pretty, but tonight it provided an additional obstacle to the five humans as they staggered into the forest, the tiny will-o’-the-wisp lighting their way.
“Is he following?” asked Boyle, pushed on by fear and the furious roar at their back.
“Hard to tell,” said Max, the other boy’s arm slung across his shoulder as he supported him through their escape. “We can wait and see if he follows, if you like?”
“Keep going!” cried a terrified Sissy.
Max looked at Syd on Boyle’s other side, helping him along as they put distance between themselves and the lodge. Judging by the grave look of concern on her face, she shared the same worries as Max. They might have saved Boyle and the two Minnesotans physically—for now, at least—but what kind of long-term damage had been done to their minds?
“Maybe you stopped him?” hissed Syd as they scrambled up the incline in the direction of the road.
There was a sharp splintering sound from behind them as a door flew off its hinges.
“It’s a nice thought,” said Max. He unhitched himself from the bully and let him collapse into Syd’s arms. “Listen, you need to get these three up to the parking lot, away from here. The will-o’-the-wisp can lead you there, I reckon.” Right on cue, the insectlike fairy shone with a brilliant bright light, as if in agreement. “There’s a police car up there, I think. They should be able to keep you safe.”
“We’re not leaving you,” said Frank.
“Frank’s right,” said Syd, helping a shivering Boyle straighten. “You’re coming with us. We’ll get up there quicker if we all work together.”
“Better I keep Gideon occupied down here. Draw him into the woods. Distract him and buy you guys time.”
“That’s suicide!”
Max looked mortified. “I hope it isn’t!” He gave her a shove on her way. “Now get going, doofus, before it’s too late.”
Reluctantly, Syd headed toward the road, Boyle, Frank, and Sissy in tow, fairy above her head, looking back at Max all the while as he peeled away in another direction. He dashed through the trees, yelping, whooping, and hollering. He looked back down the hill, toward the creek, the lodge, and the bunkhouses. The route he was taking ran parallel with the creek, his path bringing him back past Gideon’s cabin. Lights shone from the lodge’s windows, the warm glow spilling out of the broken front door and illuminating the soupy mist.
“Yo, Mr. G!” Max shouted as he dashed on through the woods. “Do you have a feedback form we can fill out? I found elements of this vacation unsatisfactory!”
An approaching growl in the mist got him thinking faster. Gideon had taken the bait.
“Firstly,” called Max, as his slipped and skidded over pinecones, finding his way back down toward the river as it headed downstream. “Hot water was a bit of an issue in the morning shower. Secondly, the blankets in the bunkhouse were a little scratchy. And thirdly, the tour guide was a psychotic, murderous goatboy with terrible fashion sense!”
The ground leveled out suddenly, as Max felt spongy grass underfoot, as opposed to earth, twigs, and cones. He slowed, panting, and turned around. Not so far away, he could see the dim lights from Gideon’s cabin, faint through the misty night, but beyond that, nothing. The babbling river had never sounded louder. Max kept his eyes fixed back the way he’d come.
“Come on out, Gideon,” he called, steeling himself in preparation for the arrival of the satyr. He clutched his silver-tipped stake in his right hand, raised high, ready to strike out. Max’s eyes scoured the mist, now up to his waist, keeping everything obscured beneath. There was no sign of the monster. Had his plan failed? Had the satyr gone after the others? Max was cursing himself for being a fool when a low chuckle sounded in the darkness.
“I see what you’ve done, boy,” said Gideon. “Very clever, getting your friends to scurry off to safety, offering yourself up as bait in return. Clever, but ultimately stupid. You’re just delaying their demise. You’ll die and then they’ll die, and I promise, yours will be a slow and lingering death.”
Max concentrated, turned his head, trying to pick out where the satyr was in the darkness. The noisy water muffled the beast’s voice and movements, while Gideon’s words echoed around the forest in every direction.
“You should have stayed with your friends, Max
,” he said. “Safety in numbers. Instead, you’ve left yourself alone. Exposed. At my mercy.”
Max turned quickly, trying to gauge where his enemy was hidden, but it was hopeless. He could’ve been behind any tree, any boulder, even creeping up for a rear attack.
“How about you show yourself, Gideon? Make this a fair fight. Shouldn’t be hard, right? I’m just a snotty thirteen-year-old kid, and you’re . . . a tubby middle-aged loner with a receding hairline, horns, and hooves.”
The satyr’s laugh rumbled loud, over the noise of the river.
“Why would I reveal myself to you? I’m not looking for a fair fight here. You’re a monster hunter. You may be the last of them—and a poor excuse for a Van Helsing—but I know what you’re all about. You’re in my world now, Max.”
The teenager from Gallows Hill realized with horror that he’d played right into Gideon’s clawed hands. Max had imagined he’d be able to use his quick-thinking and street-fighting smarts on the satyr, once he’d drawn the fiend away from his friends. He hadn’t taken into account that these weren’t his streets.
Max edged forward, just a step, thinking about making a run for the tour guide’s home. There were bound to be weapons he could improvise with, he’d have a bit of light on his side, and the monster would have nowhere to hide. At the very least Max could pelt the satyr with fake fruit and books.
“Ah, ah!” came Gideon’s voice, extremely close by. “Where do you think you’re going, Max? We’ve only just begun to play!”
The monster sounded so very near, Max could hear his skin still sizzling where the acid bath had struck, the stench of burned hair and flesh pungent in the chill air. Then why couldn’t he see the beast? Max suddenly realized the problem: the mist. Gideon was hiding beneath the mist!
Max Helsing and the Beast of Bone Creek Page 17
