“Right,” Ray said.
“How the hell did she squirm through such small openings, Ray? She’s a slender woman, but otherwise average for an adult female.”
“I have no idea...” he said, then an image popped into his brain: Lizzy with her hands against the opposite wall of her cell when he delivered her meals. Lizzy’s head pivoting owl-like toward him.
A human shouldn’t be able to swivel their head that far backward.
“Oh no,” he said.
“What?”
“Maybe she’s double-jointed.”
“That’s not a physical condition. The correct term is ‘joint hypermobility’ and doesn’t involve having extra joints.”
“I’ve heard of people who can pop their shoulders out of socket. Maybe she did something like that.”
“It very well could be. At this point, it doesn’t matter. She escaped, and we need to find her.”
“Agreed. Damn. I thought I was being so careful. I thought I had covered all the bases.”
Fergus gave his shoulder a squeeze. “You didn’t know the extent of her talents. Focus on what can be done going forward. Why don’t you get that drone aloft while I gather my things.”
“I will, but I’m going to outfit you first. You need to be prepared when you run up against her.”
Fergus slid deft fingers into one of his Doc Martens, then flicked out the glimmering blade of a long automatic knife. “I’m pretty good with this.”
“You had that the entire time?”
“Of course. I never leave home without it.”
“I really suck at this, don’t I?”
Fergus chuckled. “It’s not in your nature to be suspicious.”
“You seem to have figured me out pretty quickly. You know the old saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight? She has guns, in which case you should too. I’m fairly certain I didn’t miss any when I patted you down.”
A crimson eyebrow arched. “No, you didn’t. And you may be right. Very well. I’ll have the Ruger 357 and two boxes of ammo.” Blue eyes scanned the shelves. “Also a canister of the CS spray. Two can play that game.”
“You want tear gas and a revolver? The Ruger can only shoot five times before you have to reload. Don’t you want an automatic?”
“I do not. A revolver never jams and it will make me look like a bad-ass gunslinger.”
“Okay, if you’re sure. I’ll pack a first-aid kit for you as well, and some food and water. Would you be willing to carry a two-way radio? We could stay in touch that way. I have Motorolas that will transmit and receive up to twenty miles.”
“The problem with radios is they tend to squawk at the most inconvenient times. I’ll pass on the walkie-talkie, but I will take some of the Midazolam and a few syringes. Just in case. Like you, I’m no murderer. I’d rather catch her — and declaw her — than kill her.”
Ray nodded. “Unless she’s a threat to the children, of course.”
“Yes. In which case, she’ll be put down.”
***
After Fergus was gone, Ray concentrated on getting a shipment ready for the children. He located the candy — Jolly Ranchers and Smarties had been chosen for the comfort kits because of their shelf life — and included them along with more mac and cheese MREs, and the note, written in large red letters: A DANGEROUSE WOMAN IS ON THE LOOSE. DO NOT VENTURE INTO THE FOREST UNTIL YOU TALK TO FERGUS. HE’S ON HIS WAY TO YOU AS OF 9:00AM SUNDAY. SINCERELY, RAY.
He headed to the roof, then loaded the cargo onto the Freefly, which had been fully charged, thankfully, and was ready to take off. As the drone soared through the air, he scrutinized the ground below it, looking for any signs of Lizzy. She would be careful to keep out of sight if she heard its motor, so he wasn’t surprised not to capture any evidence of her. After the cargo had been dropped off and the Freefly returned safely to the rooftop, he could no longer delay his next chore.
He must go to Lizzy’s cell and inspect every inch of it. After that, he would come up with an improved system for securing her. He didn’t have much faith in Fergus apprehending her, but he would be prepared just in case.
The notion of touching anything she touched — let alone slept on, ate with, washed with, dressed in — was deeply revolting. When he did her laundry every week, he used gloves. He honestly didn’t know which part of the chore would be the most difficult, removing the mesh fence or scouring every inch of her personal space looking for insights.
Hours later he sat on his bed and opened the leather journal Lizzy had kept under her mattress. He’d known about it, of course. It was the one personal item he let her keep. He’d searched every inch of her cell, but the only contraband found there was a black ink pen, stolen from his office.
The strange hand-tooled leather book felt as if it might begin squirming in his hands at any moment, having sensed an intruder seeking access to its secrets. Intricate designs of unknown meaning decorated its front cover and surrounded a large flat-back gem. The stone looked like the eye of a tiger, or perhaps a dragon. A pewter shank button spiraled by cording served as the closure. Ray could imagine Lizzy muttering privacy protection spells as she opened the cover to begin writing. He briefly toyed with the notion of protection spells himself.
What horrific insights would he glean from reading her journal? Did he really want to know the inner musings of a madwoman? He set the book down on top of the neat blanket, splashed two ounces of bourbon into his coffee mug, tapped on his desktop keyboard, briefly closed his eyes when Calypso began playing, and then picked up Lizzy’s journal again.
Dear Diary,
For my first entry, I want to thank my cousin for this gift. We are kindred spirits, Charlotte and I. She, being three years older and infinitely worldlier after traveling from Kentucky all by herself this summer, is my role model. We shared many dark secrets these past few months, so when she gave me this unexpected treasure in which to express myself after she leaves, I vowed to write in it regularly. And so here I am.
The handwriting personified Lizzy herself — vaguely gothic, unsettling on some ambiguous level, and generally creepy as hell. He thumbed through a couple hundred pages of spiky, cramped longhand to the blank sheets at the end. There were no more than a dozen. He flipped back to the most recently written passage, then reached for the bourbon bottle as Lizzy’s voice tentacles slithered past John Denver and squirmed into his brain:
If you’re reading this, Ray, it means my mission was successful. Of course, it was. You do realize that I only ever remained here because I chose to, right? Silly man. No one can keep me in a cage unless I want to be in it. It was fun while it lasted. The service was exemplary and the company most intriguing. I absorbed so much more from you than you realize, Ray. You thought you were being careful, but you weren’t careful enough. I wonder how profoundly you’ll regret that failure in the weeks and months to come. I’m smiling as I write this because I’m pondering your distress. Let’s face it, you’re not the most emotionally stable person in the world. I doubt your conscience will be able to tolerate knowing that you’re responsible for the carnage I intend to leave in my wake.
Do you think the guilt will compel you to take your own life?
I wish I could watch.
It wasn’t an easy decision to leave my journal behind. But even now as I imagine you sitting on your tidy bed with the red blanket, sipping from your coffee mug while reading its dark secrets, I’m smiling. And so I know it was the correct decision. Besides, this one is almost full and so I shall find an unstoried replacement with which to document my new life.
In the woods...
He slapped the book shut. The first thing he noticed was her use of the singular pronoun. All that ‘we’ and ‘us’ business when referring to herself had been for show. She had been trying to convince him she was insane. It had worked. Lizzy wasn’t a schizophrenic lunatic. She was a killer. A psychopath.
A predator.
The only way she could know about his red blan
ket and coffee mug was if she had spied on him during her incarceration. Had she been slipping out of her cell on a regular basis? She’d gotten out at least once, as evidenced by the ink pen. The image of her skulking about the warehouse while he relaxed in the evening — or worse, while he slept — made his stomach churn and his skin crawl.
He opened the journal again. Despite the dread washing over him, he would force himself to read it. He must know what he faced if he managed to work up the courage to join in the hunt.
Chapter 9
Willadean
“What’s it say?” Cricket demanded. His mouth wasn’t full of strawberry Pop-Tarts this time. Their benefactor — ‘Ray’ as it turned out — had sent candy, just as requested. Jolly Ranchers and Smarties didn’t break Willa’s Top Ten Favorite Candy list, but they were better than no candy at all.
“It says there’s a dangerous woman on the loose. Mister Fergus wants us to stay out of the forest for now.” Frowning, she scanned the surrounding woods. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No sudden hush of wildlife telegraphed approaching danger.
“Reckon we better skedaddle?” Unease tinged Cricket’s words. She normally disparaged her friend’s ready caution, but not today.
“Yeah, that’s not a bad idea. Finish up boys, and let’s put this stuff in the cache. Not sure when we’ll be able to get back here.”
The thought of ending their forest adventures, even temporarily, threatened her cheerful mood. As soon as Mister Fergus returned, she would pump him for information. She hoped it would be that night. Pops had done an excellent job covering for him, but that couldn’t last much longer. Serena Jo would demand to see him in person if he didn’t show up for school the next day.
Her mind was preoccupied as they traipsed through the woods. With Harlan in the lead as usual, they navigated the treacherous ravines and thorny underbrush. They were approaching the perimeter. Everett and Otis could be nearby, or any one of the other folks whose primary job it was to keep strangers from stumbling upon their village and its surrounding land. The ones assigned to the farthest corners of Whitaker Holler got to move about the forest in all directions, looking for tracks and other evidence of people and wildlife. The Scouts, as they were known, included Everett and Otis; their group presided at the top of the holler hierarchy. Just below Serena Jo.
The lowly guards were assigned specific locations to protect: the crop fields, the orchards, or the livestock. They had to remain in one location all day or all night, depending on their shift. Willa had no idea how they didn’t fall asleep while engaging in such mindless, boring work. The Scouts, on the other hand, regularly enjoyed a change of scenery and experienced exciting adventures on a near daily basis.
She aspired to be a Scout one day. Someone with her intellect wouldn’t be assigned permanent grunt work like laundry hanging or crop tilling, and she knew it. But first she must turn sixteen and become proficient with a rifle. While the notion of killing forest creatures didn’t appeal to her, hitting the hand-drawn bullseye at the gun range did.
Movement from Harlan snapped her out of her reverie. He was signaling to stop-and-squat. That meant he had heard something out of the ordinary. She wasn’t alarmed, though. This usually happened in the vicinity of the perimeter during exiting and re-entering. This time, though, Harlan’s body language seemed more tense than usual. When he tilted his head back and sniffed the air like a bloodhound, her inner danger-radar blared.
“Cricket,” she hissed, then made a hand motion when his head swiveled in her direction. The well-trained Cricket dropped flat on the ground. He would pay for that later, she thought. The unfortunate timing placed him in a particularly nasty patch of smilax vines. Those cat-claw thorns could rip exposed flesh handily, and pierce lightweight clothing. Poor Cricket wore his jacket tied around his waist. His bare arms would be shredded like he’d crawled through barbed wire.
Willa’s hearing was no match for her brother’s, but it was still excellent. Lying flat on the ground, she listened for what might have registered on Harlan’s sensitive eardrums.
Muffled crunching of dead leaves in the cadence of footfalls. The snapping of a small tree branch, immediately followed by silence. Perhaps the perpetrator knew he’d screwed up, thus the silence to regroup and take the full measure of the mistake. Any woodsman worth his salt didn’t step on brittle tree branches in the forest when he was trying to be stealthy. The thought triggered an image: the handsome woodsman from Fergus’s fairy tale who vomited digestive juices to liquefy the Barbie monster. Another thought followed on its heels: that of the gingerbread house-dwelling witch who had prevailed against the over-confident child and her brother.
Two minutes passed. The crunching footfalls resumed, and they were coming closer. She slipped her fingers into the pocket of her jeans and withdrew her new knife. After a gentle press at its base, the stainless steel blade gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight.
A snuffling sound resonated from the direction of the broken tree branch. Was it a bear? Bears lived in the forest, of course, but they usually avoided humans. During their adventures, they had never encountered one. What was the correct protocol during a bear confrontation? Playing dead was definitely not the way to go. She remembered that, at least. Were you supposed to be loud? Make yourself appear large and aggressive? Yes, that was right. And one more thing. Never turn your back on a bear.
The snuffling stopped, but the crunching of leaves continued. She rolled onto her stomach, then lifted her torso off the ground just far enough above the brush to see what was happening. Movement in the murky depths caught her eye. A blurred shape darted from behind a giant pine tree, then disappeared behind another.
Willadean wasn’t so confident that she believed three children could overpower a bear. So was it a good thing or a bad thing that the shape wasn’t bear-like? Somehow, the remaining options felt more ominous. If a Scout found them outside the perimeter, Mama would ground them to the village for weeks. Maybe even months. If it was a stranger, the outcome could go one of two ways. Bad stranger equaled danger. Good stranger, no harm, no foul...everyone could go about their respective business. If it was the dangerous woman on the loose that their benefactor Ray had mentioned in the note, they might be in serious trouble.
Seconds ticked by. She strained her ears. Snuffling sounds emanated again from the gloomy forest.
She smiled. Now that the snuffling was closer, she recognized who it belonged to. “Pops!” she called. “Over here!”
With his ancient shotgun in hand, her grandfather came into view. She saw a look of relief cross his wrinkled face.
“You kids will be the death of me. I been worried sick,” he said when he caught up to them.
“Why?” She frowned. Most likely, Pops knew about their forays beyond the perimeter, though they didn’t discuss them. She hadn’t given Pops the specifics of why he needed to cover for Fergus, and he hadn’t asked. Plausible deniability and all that. They were close enough now to the perimeter that she could deny realizing they had traveled beyond it. But with her grandfather, she wouldn’t need to deny anything. She suspected he didn’t ask a lot of questions because he already knew the answers.
“Can’t explain it. Just got a feeling.”
“Pops, you’re shaking.” She stared at the trembling hands in surprise. For such an old coot, they were still plenty strong. Strong hands didn’t tremble; weak ones did. The thought of her grandfather becoming frail sent a wave of nausea through her belly.
“Told ya. I been worried sick.”
“But why? Why is today different than any other day when we’re out...uh, playing?”
“Can’t explain it and you know why. Come on. Let’s get going.” He shot furtive glances behind them as they plodded through the woods.
“Seriously, Pops. What is going on?” she said once they’d gotten through the perimeter. Pops had given two men a cursory nod as they passed fifty yards in the distance. The Scouts had identified her grandfather moments ea
rlier through an exchange of subtle, nuanced whistles.
If Willadean could emulate those whistles, they wouldn’t have to traverse all the ravines and thorny brush to get through the perimeter. She couldn’t though, mainly because the melody and cadence changed on a weekly basis and wasn’t shared with the children. The ‘signal’ was part of the group’s defense strategy. Unsophisticated, but effective.
Just before they arrived at the village, Pops motioned for them to stop. They stood in a half-circle facing her grandfather and waited for an announcement, or perhaps a lecture. Whatever it was, Pops didn’t want Serena Jo or any of her spies to hear.
“You know how I get them feelings...” His voice was a hoarse whisper.
Three nods.
“Well, I have one now. And it’s a bad ‘un.”
“A bad ‘un? Like a mountain lion eating us up?” Cricket squeaked.
Pops’ faded blue eyes latched onto her friend. Willadean had never seen fear in those eyes. Until now.
“Worse than a mountain lion, boy.”
“What then?” Willa demanded. “A bear? They avoid people, Pops. You know that. And there aren’t any wolves in this part of the country. The only apex predators are mountain lions and bears. And people, of course.”
“Bingo.”
The handwritten note she had read an hour ago flashed through her mind. A DANGEROUS WOMAN IS ON THE LOOSE. DO NOT VENTURE INTO THE FOREST UNTIL YOU TALK TO FERGUS.
“It ain’t safe to be in the woods right now. I know you kids go where you ain’t supposed to, and it’s gotta stop. At least for a while.”
“Until your feeling goes away?” Cricket asked.
“Yep. I’ll tell you when it does.”
Willa whispered, “Is it a woman?”
Pops eyes flew wide. “How’d you know?”
She withdrew Ray’s note from her pocket, unfolded it and handed it to her grandfather.
What Befalls the Children: Book 4 in the Troop of Shadows Series Page 10
