Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman

by Burtness, Scott

  “Oh, uh. No, thanks. I can carry it,” he mumbled with uncharacteristic embarrassment. Scooping up his change, he backtracked out of Patt’s and hoofed it over to Deloris. Tossing everything in the passenger seat, he gobbled up a jerky stick in two bites, freed a can of beer, and drank deep, excitement about the next clue and a fresh supply of brewskis conveniently erasing the recent events from his mind.

  Chapter 7

  Stanley had examined the small card from every possible angle before proclaiming, “I think it’s a map,” with the pride of a third grader showing off some hand-made macaroni art.

  To Dallas, it really did look like macaroni art. Stanley was pretty sure the mostly straight lines were roads and the squiggly ones were rivers or creeks, but it was still just a collection of strange doodles. Since there were more cartoony trees than cartoony buildings, they figured it was probably a map of somewhere in woods. Which woods in particular, bisected by which rivers or creeks in particular, and occupied by which buildings in particular though… Dallas had to keep drinking for fear of losing his gourd. What good was having a map if they had no clue where it was supposed to be?

  “Okay, great. We’ve narrowed it down to, um, lemme think on this. Not the desert, and not the artic. That only leaves us almost all of the planet to search. Geez, these guys are a real piece of work,” he opined, frustration adding a sharp edge to his slightly slurred words.

  “Hu-hold on, Big D,” Stanley said, holding his hands palm-out toward Dallas. “We know a few things. They gotta be local, right? Don’t m-make much sense to give you a map of someplace across the globe. No sir.”

  Dallas shrugged, the gesture accompanying a non-committal huff.

  “So it’s a map of somewhere ‘round here,” Stanley concluded, radiating confidence like an EasyBake Oven.

  Downing the last swig of the current Milwaukee’s Best and slamming the can on the table, Dallas swore.

  “We’re still no closer to finding them. ‘Around here’ is a mighty big place to search.”

  Stanley nodded, mouth pursed in thought. “We could try the l-local library. They got all kinds of maps,” he explained. “We could look at this little map next to the b-big ones and see what matches.”

  Dallas weighed the suggestion. It seemed like as good of a plan as any. If nothing else, the drive would make for a welcome distraction. He hadn’t been to the library in years, as in, all of the years he’d been alive. Grabbing his jacket, he waved Stanley toward the door.

  “C’mon, Stanwich. We’ve got a mystery to solve.”

  Trappersville could be described as a small town tossed haphazardly across a large area. As such, the drive would’ve normally taken about fifteen minutes. Dallas made it in seven. Rocketing into the library’s small parking lot, he cranked hard on the wheel and sent Deloris into a power slide. Tires squealed on pavement, leaving skid marks across the neatly painted white lines of no less than three parking spots. The noise caused a face to appear in a ground-level window.

  “This is a public library, not a friggin’ motocross!” Glen Montal, the head librarian yelled through the open window.

  “Morning Glen!” Dallas hallooed. “Helluva day, right?”

  “Dallas? Is that you? Geezuz, man. You near gave me a heart attack.” The bespectacled face disappeared from the window and reappeared a moment later when the library’s front door opened from the inside. “And Stanley, eh? I should’ve known. What are you two hosers doing out and about, eh?”

  “We got a m-m-mystery to solve!” Stanley crowed, only to grunt as Dallas slugged him in the shoulder.

  With a withering look at Stanley, Dallas forced a laugh. “Not really, Glen. You know Stan. Figuring out which side of the toast to butter is a mystery for him, poor guy. No, we were just thinking it’d be, ah, educational to look at some maps of the area. You know. For…” he trailed off, at a loss for a good cover story.

  “Looking for deer runs, eh? I should’ve known you weren’t looking to read a book,” Glen remarked with a lopsided grin. “However, I am impressed that you’ve realized the value of your local library. Get in here. I’ve got some maps that’ll help. We’ll find you a good spot for a deer stand, no trouble there,” Glen said, nodding in approval.

  Dallas liked Glen. He always had. When Dallas was in high school, the older man taught American History. Dallas thought that was hilarious since Glen grew up in Canada. At the end of the term, Dallas brought him French fries and gravy. In return, Glen let Dallas slide with a ‘C.’

  “Aerial maps would probably work best,” Glen reasoned. Holding the door and beckoning the men forward, he shepherded Dallas and Stanley into the library.

  Steering them toward the local geography section, Glen rummaged, muttering to himself in a distracted way. Soon Dallas was staring at a table full of aerial maps. According to Glen, the maps covered a six-county area and then some. Most of what they showed were large swaths of unbroken forest, parceled up between grey roads and curving, wiggly waterways. Dallas looked questioningly at Stanley who beamed in response and bobbed his head.

  Giving Glen a hearty thumbs up, Dallas said, “These are great. I, um. Should definitely be able to find a great spot for a, you know. Deer stand.”

  “No trouble at all,” Glen replied easily. “You can just drop off some French fries and gravy later, eh?”

  Back at Dallas’s rambler, the dining room table had been cleared of empty bottles and cans. In their place were a variety of photocopied maps showing most of Marinette, Oconto, Menominee, Langlade, Forest, and even Florence counties. Stanley did the math and pronounced they were looking at a geographic region encompassing over five thousand square miles.

  “Holy crappola, Stan. We’ve got a cartoon map on a business card, and we’re trying to match it up with half of northern Wisconsin. I ain’t drunk enough to think that’s possible.” he complained. “Gimme a sec.”

  Dallas fished around in the fridge and returned with a fresh Milwaukee’s Best. “All better,” he announced. “Let’s find ‘em.”

  Stanley looked at Dallas with the eager eyes of a kid on Christmas Eve and set the business card on the upper left-hand corner of the first map. Gently resting his fingers Ouija-board style on the card, he slid it slowly down as both men’s eyes flicked back and forth looking for similarities. Upon reaching the bottom of the map, Stanley moved the card to the right and started to slide it back up toward the top.

  Three hours later, Dallas threw up his hands in disgust.

  “Dammit, Stanley. This ain’t getting us nowhere! We’ve been over and over these maps and haven’t found a thing that looks like what’s on the card.” Snatching it from Stanley’s fingers, Dallas flourished the business card while prancing around the room.

  “La dee dah, I’m a C.I.A. douchebag. I’m so clever! Here’s a worthless clue. Come find me.”

  Stopping mid-cavort, he held the card up close to his eye and squinted at the scribbly lines.

  “Or maybe I’m just not looking close enough, huh? Maybe you have to glue it to your eye ball. Or maybe…”

  Dallas’s mouth stopped mid-sentence, and his nostrils flared once, then again. Turning his head to and fro, he snuffed, blew air from his nose, and snuffed again. Tiny map momentarily forgotten, he tilted and twisted his head, nose held high.

  “Stanley! When did you run out to Cecil’s? You can’t just make a grub run and not say anything,” Dallas admonished. “I’ve been working like a dog here while you went out for a Reuben and fries and,” Dallas inhaled deeply again, nostrils stretching, “Oh, you bastard. You got deep fried pickles, and you didn’t share?”

  Stanley’s jaw hung for a moment before sputtering, “But D-Dallas, I’ve been here the whole time with you. I didn’t go to Cecil’s. We should though. I’m starving.”

  “Well, someone went to Cecil’s. Don’t tell me you can’t smell that,” Dallas challenged, spearing Stanley with a questioning glare. “Smell’s thick as day old bacon grease.” A couple of additio
nal whuffs and Dallas’s eyes widened to match his nostrils. He drew the small card in and held it beneath his nose. He sniffed once, twice, tentatively at first. Becoming surer of himself, he pressed the card up against his nose and snuffed again.

  “Geezuz. This here card, it smells like Cecil’s. Just like Cecil’s. I kid you not, Stan. Here, try it.” Dallas thrust the card toward Stanley.

  Always accommodating, Stanley took the offered card and sniffed daintily. “Um, nothing Dal. I j-just smell, um. Card.”

  Snatching it back, Dallas breathed deep again. “That’s why they’re recruiting me, little buddy. Lighting reflexes, eagle eyes, and the nose of a blood hound.”

  “M-maybe the guy who dropped it for you was there. So m-maybe Cecil’s is close to the X,” Stanley said, a glimmer of his previous enthusiasm returning.

  The two men returned to the aerial maps, sorting and tossing sheets of paper until they found the one that covered the northern edge of the county. Tracing a finger up highway fifty-five, Dallas stopped in the vicinity of the little roadside restaurant. He tapped decisively on the spot and fished around the table for a pencil. Finding one, he scrawled a circle around the little rectangle-shaped building barely visible through the canopy of trees. Cecil’s, photographed from above. Easy to look past since the building and adjacent dirt lot were encroached upon from all sides by the ubiquitous Wisconsin forest.

  His brain filled up with thoughts of the little restaurant while his nose was inundated with the smell of sour kraut and beer-battered pickles fried to hot, crispy perfection. A thin tendril of drool formed in the corner of his mouth.

  “Must be hungrier than I thought,” Dallas commented, wiping at his mouth with a sleeve and absently scratching his thigh. “But look, this can’t be right. None of the stuff lines up.”

  Stanley pulled on his Columbo face. Squinting one eye, he rested an elbow on his wrist, stroked his chin, and scratched his head.

  “What did that g-guy say to you?” he asked.

  “Who? Glen? Um, let’s see. To bring him some French fries and gravy.”

  “No,” Stanley said. “N-not Glen. The taser guy. S-something about reflecting?”

  Dallas scratched his own head Columbo-style to see if it helped him recall the details.

  “He might’ve. Actually, yeah. ‘Reflect on things,’ or something like that.” Dallas’s face screwed up in thought. “He told me to reflect on things and get my bearings.”

  Looking down at the map and the little card Randall had dropped, he ran a hand through his hair. “But what the hell, Stan? How am I supposed to get my bearings when the damn little map ain’t nowhere around nowhere?”

  Stanley picked up the small card in one hand and the big map in the other. Looking around the room, he turned first one way, then the other before moving with purpose down the hall. Stopping outside the main floor bathroom, he looked back at Dallas.

  “Go for it,” Dallas waved. “But light a match when you’re done. Your dumps smell like roadkill chili.”

  “Dallas, come here,” Stanley said.

  “What? Need help finding it? Too bad. A friend in that kind of need ain’t no friend I plan on helping,” Dallas laughed.

  “No, the m-mirror, Dallas. Reflect on things.” Straightening his shoulders, Stanley stepped into the bathroom.

  Curious, Dallas followed him down the hall. Stopping outside of the bathroom, he looked in and saw Stanley had one hand pressing the map up against the wall next to the medicine cabinet mirror while the other held the card in front of his chest, tiny map facing the glass. Dallas walked in behind him and looked first at the aerial map, eyes going straight to the little circle he’d drawn over Cecil’s. Up the road a short ways was an auto body shop. A half mile or so west of the main road and across the river, the Skarsgard’s farmhouse could be seen in a small clearing. Dallas knew it well. He’d dated old Skarsgard’s daughter in high school and used to sneak up the trellis to her bedroom window. Not much else around since Cecil’s was, like most of the establishments in Trappersville, tossed almost randomly in the woods.

  Dallas’s eyes shifted to the reflection of the card’s hand-drawn map in the mirror. That line running at a slight curve from top to bottom, the one they thought might be a river or a creek, it could be the highway. Looking at the little rectangle-triangle things, two of them seemed to line up pretty well with Cecil’s and the old Skarsgard house. If that was true, that other line could be the Burnt Shanty Creek, a small tributary that fed into the Wolf River.

  “Ho. Lee. Shit,” Dallas whispered. Leaning over Stanley’s shoulder, he pointed a finger at the mirror.

  “Look here. The creek. Skarsgard’s. Cecil’s. That means the little “X” on their map is probably right around there.” Dallas said. Mentally figuring distances in his head, he continued, “That can’t be but a mile, maybe two into the woods, but there ain’t nothing out there. I think maybe an old, abandoned cabin. Otherwise, just empty woods. Why draw me a map to go there?”

  Stanley’s reflected eyes met Dallas’s. “P-perfect spot for top secret stuff to happen, don’t ya think?”

  Dallas breathed deep. The scent of a Rueben with fries was still strong in his nose.

  “I think it’s time I paid those sneaky-deaky government boys a visit, Stan. No more popping in on old Dal. I’m gonna drop by their place unannounced and see how they like it,” he announced, every pore oozing alcohol and resolution.

  “But first, let’s get some lunch. I’m starving.”

  Chapter 8

  Dallas couldn’t remember having been so hungry. The beer brat with a side of cheese curds went down faster than a third string quarterback behind a rookie center. The fried pickles had barely hit the paper tray before he’d swallowed them all in three bites, burning his tongue in the process. A second brat fared no better than the first, despite being loaded with all the fixings Cecil’s had to offer. It wasn’t until after he’d polished off a bacon cheeseburger with fries that Dallas felt satiated. After a long, belly stretching belch, he licked salt and grease from the fingers of one hand while scratching his thigh with the other.

  Throughout the entire meal, Stanley sat entranced. Finally closing his gaping mouth, he leaned in with a serious look.

  “H-holy smokes, Dal. You got a tapeworm? My uncle had one. Ate and ate, never gained weight. Finally ended up in the hospital. When they operated, it was big as a cucumber.”

  “Uh huh. Good story, Stan. So here’s the plan. I’ll go in on foot, take a peek at what their set-up is, and circle back here. Meanwhile, you’re gonna hang back and cover my rear.”

  Stanley’s face fell, reducing him to the kid who wasn’t picked to play kickball.

  “B-b-but Dallas. We tracked these guys together! You and me. We f-figured out their clues. Whadaya mean I gotta hang back?”

  Dallas rose up, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. “Besides you being worth less than a wet fart in a fight, what if someone’s been tailing us?”

  Leaning in for full effect, Dallas bridged his fingers on the table and spoke in an urgent voice.

  “Look. We can’t take any chances. You hang back, and if some little sneak has been tailing us, you take ‘em out of the equation. You follow?”

  Stanley’s face went from overlooked-for-kickball to flat-out terrified. Leaning back from Dallas, he started to shake his head back and forth.

  “Oh no. No way. I ain’t getting n-n-nobody outta no equations. I got no gun. I got no criminal element. Not me. Even if I had a gu-gu… oh crappers…” Stanley looked ill. “Can’t do it. Can’t be killing no one. No sir.”

  Dallas shook his head, palms out. “Oh for Pete’s… I wasn’t… What the hell do you think is going on here, Stanley? I meant distract him. You know, stall tactics. So I don’t gotta worry about no one sneaking up on me from behind.”

  Stanley lit up instantly. “Oh, I gotcha, big D.” Winking conspiratorially, Stanley started to plan. “I’ll f-fake a break-down. Maybe stab your
truck tire with something, give it a flat. Some sneaky guy happens by, I’ll make him ch-change the tire.”

  Dallas adopted Stanley’s previous look of terror. “No no no! No one’s stabbing Deloris nowhere. Christ on a stick, Stan, what’s gotten into you?”

  Chagrined, Stanley offered up a different thought. “Oh, right. Um, new plan. We’ll t-talk about Jeopardy. I’ll bet him five, no ten dollars that he don’t know the answer to last week’s Final Jeopardy question. That’ll hold him for at least an hour. Maybe two,” Stanley finished on an authoritative note. He immediately began trying to recall the previous week’s question, and Dallas ceased to exist.

  Shaking his head, Dallas strode through the door and out to the parking lot, turning his thoughts to the journey ahead.

  A quick glance around confirmed that Dallas was alone. The few folks in Cecil’s were thoroughly engrossed in hiking their cholesterol and stretching their waistbands. Despite having knocked off enough food to feed the Packers’ entire defensive line, Dallas felt nimble. A fish sliding back into water, he slipped into the trees and moved at a gentle lope. At least a quarter mile or so had passed before he realized a couple of important things. One, he hadn’t made any noise. Usually, even on his best days, he was bound to crack a twig or startle a squirrel. Today though, he felt like smoke through the trees. Two, he had no idea where he was going. He and Stanley had done a pretty good job of approximating where the “X” was in relation to Cecil’s. Even so, if he was looking for an old hunting cabin a mile or two into the trees east of Cecil’s, that meant upwards of four to five square miles he might need to search to find the place. Disgruntled, he decided to stop running willy-nilly into the woods and think about a direction.

  Squatting down on his haunches, Dallas’s face screwed up in thought. Why had he run this direction in the first place? He was pretty sure he’d followed an east-northeast course from Cecil’s, but it was hard to tell in the dense trees. A brief touch of wind rustled the surrounding leaves and his nostrils flared. Cecil’s, directly behind him. Inhaling more deeply, he realized he could also smell the river, the grass, even the moss on the trees. There was something else as well. A smell that didn’t belong with the others. Rising up from his crouch, Dallas cast around, sniffing and chuffing. For a moment it was there, then gone, then back. Each fickle shift of the wind made the scent dance mirage-like in and out of existence.