Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman

by Burtness, Scott

  Even though it was faint, he recognized the smell. Taking a few tentative steps, he caught it again. Fixing it in his mind, he continued forward, pushing through the underbrush, stepping over fallen logs, and crouching under low-hanging branches. As he moved, the scent became incrementally more pronounced. He was passing by an old, crooked ash tree when his nose pulled him to an abrupt stop. Leaning in, he smelled a handful of leaves sprouting from a low branch. Beneath their leafiness, he smelled sweat, deodorant, maybe even cheap aftershave?

  “Randall? It’s Randall. Son of a bitch, that’s gotta be him.”

  Dallas swung around in a slow circle as he searched for traces of the scent. It didn’t take long to find it on another branch further into the trees. Soon, it was like a neon trail had been lit up just for Dallas. Every branch and leaf Randall had brushed against was emblazoned with his scent. Unquestioning, Dallas followed his nose.

  Fixated on following the smelly trail, he almost forgot his original intent. Fortunately, a voice coming from just past the next rise brought him to his senses.

  “… not much. I cast around for a bit, but I don’t think we gotta worry about a wendigo. And that ‘squatch scat was a least a week old. No fresh tracks, so it’s probably up in the Michigan U.P., maybe even Canada by now. Damn things got territories bigger than John Wayne’s balls.”

  Dallas froze, dropped down to his haunches again, and cocked his head to the side. The voice belonged to Randall, but he was clearly talking with someone else. Sure enough, a second voice rode in on the fickle breeze, clear one moment, faded the next.

  “That’s fine. We’ll replenish our…” the second voice said before the wind snatched the conversation away. A moment later, it returned.

  “…the next few days. Let’s just hope that new… worth it so we can keep heading…,” and then was gone again.

  Gotcha now, you sneaky dogs. Looking around, Dallas tried to place the location.

  “Crappers. Gotta mark something.” Dallas rummaged around for a minute before fishing his ever-present pocket knife out of his jeans. Flipping the blade open, he was about to start scratching arrows into the bark of a few trees when a thought occurred to him. If he started marking trees, those guys would know someone had been through here and followed them to their spot.

  Folding the knife up and returning it to his pocket, he pondered. Pondering, he realized he’d forgotten to pee before leaving Cecil’s. After a quick glance around to make sure he was alone, he unzipped and let loose on the side of the closest tree.

  Once finished, he moved quietly back in the direction he’d come from. After a half-mile or so, he suddenly had the urge to go again. Worried he might not make it back to Cecil’s, he pulled over at another tree, unzipped, and let it go again.

  With a satisfied sigh, he resumed his trek, only to find he still had to go. Grunting in frustration, he looked quickly around, unzipped, and peed yet again on a convenient tree. Convinced he was finally empty, he jogged the last half mile or so and crept carefully into Cecil’s small, dirt lot. Reentering the restaurant, he found Stanley staring out the window. A glance at his watch told Dallas he’d been gone about forty-five minutes.

  “Boo.”

  “Holy crap!” Stanley yelped. “D-didn’t see you.”

  “You’re a damn fine lookout,” Dallas observed, rolling his eyes. “No matter. I found ‘em. They’re hunkered down deep in the woods, just like I thought.” Grabbing Stanley, he dragged him from the restaurant.

  “Where? Where are th-they hiding?” Stanley asked when they reached Dallas’s truck.

  The question brought Dallas up short, key halfway into the lock on Deloris’s door. He hadn’t paid much attention to his route through the forest. Come to think of it, he realized he’d just followed his nose. Didn’t seem like a very reliable way to get through the woods, but Dallas wasn’t wired for worry.

  “Out there,” he gestured, irritably. “Dammit, Stan, I found ‘em the first time. A natural tracker like me can find ‘em again.”

  Dallas set a heavy boot on the truck’s chrome running board and posed against the autumn sky.

  “I’m a goddamn hero, remember? No problemo.”

  Chapter 9

  The sun was about to pull its daily disappearing act when Dallas arrived home and sent Stanley on his way. It had been a long couple of days, and Dallas realized that he hadn’t taken a shower since… well, it had been awhile. Kicking off his boots, he headed for the master bathroom, shedding various articles of clothing along the way.

  Dallas made his way up the stairs and down a short hallway, turned into his bedroom, and headed for the bathroom. Stepping into the tub-shower, he pulled the curtain closed and turned on the faucet. Soon, steaming water cut through the autumn chill, and Dallas felt an uncoiling deep in his chest. Shoulders that had been imperceptibly hunched relaxed, jaw muscles that tended more toward clenched gave way to a long yawn. For a moment, the briefest moment, Dallas closed his eyes, soaked in the shower, and didn’t think.

  Opening his eyes and seeing wispy clouds of steam rolling up from the cascading water, he couldn’t help but think of how similar it looked to the tendrils of smoke rising up from Herb’s face, hands and chest as he slowly burned away. With that thought, a thousand rubber bands throughout his body retracted. Face taking on a now-familiar tension, he set himself to wondering about other things, any other thing than that day. Grabbing a bar of soap and working up a lather with his hands, he mouthed words without really realizing he was speaking.

  “That wasn’t Herb. A damn monster, that’s what it was. A bloodsucking monster.”

  Dallas crossed an arm across his chest and started to scrub the sweat off of his shoulder and arm. Switching hands, he scrubbed at his other side. Upper body scrubbed to satisfaction, he moved down to the left thigh, then the right but stopped suddenly when his hand ran over a small, rough lump.

  “The hell?” Dallas twisted into the flow of water to rinse away the soapy lather. Looking down at the side of his thigh, he yelped in surprise at the dark lump firmly attached to his skin.

  The water stopped abruptly as he hit the faucet. He pulled back the curtain, climbed out of the tub, and headed back to the bedroom. The closet door was mirrored, allowing Dallas to get a closer look at the unwelcome hitchhiker. Eight legs and a teardrop shaped body that tapered to a tiny head buried firmly in his skin. Brown, a little splotchy, with tell-tale markings confirming his suspicion.

  Dallas pinched the tick and twisted first one direction then the other to no effect. Grabbing a book of matches off the dresser, he struck a match, blew it out, and held the still-hot sulfur to the tick’s head. The little bloodsucker wriggled but still didn’t release. A second match followed and then a third, but the damn thing didn’t budge.

  Dallas huffed in annoyance. Fixing this problem was going to take a more involved approach. Abandoning the matchbook, he returned to the bathroom. It took a bit of rummaging in the medicine cabinet, but eventually he found his nose hair tweezers. Carefully sliding one tweezer tong under the tick’s body, he pinched down on the base of the head and slowly pried. Eight tiny legs gripped more tightly, and the tick stayed solidly in place.

  “You’re a tough little sucker, ain’tcha,” he muttered in grudging admiration. Tweezers abandoned, he made a naked trek into the attached garage, modesty being secondary to the immediate task at hand. Returning to the bedroom, he brandished a pair of needle-nose pliers.

  “See these? Big D’s got your number.”

  Once the pliers were in the same position as the tweezers, he clamped down and pried, leveraging the handle against his thigh. Muscles accustomed to prying rusty bolts loose for a living corded up while the pliers handle dug painfully into his quadriceps.

  The tick didn’t move.

  “Un. Frickin. Real,” Dallas cursed, flipping the pliers onto the bed. “The least you should’ve done is popped. Enough mister nice guy. I’m cutting you out.”

  His jeans were near
the top of the stairs, along with his belt and one sock. Fishing into the jean’s front pocket, he pulled out his pocket knife.

  The knife was a gift from his dad for his sixteenth birthday. Maple burl wood handle, brass rivets, and a silver stamp on its side with his name engraved in bold, flowing script, it was one of his most cherished possessions. The blade was only five inches long but Dallas kept it honed to a razor-sharp edge. Drying his hands on his bath towel and taking a quick nip from a nearby flask to calm his nerves, he sat on the bed and glared down at the bloodsucker on his leg.

  “This here’s a knife, ticky tick. Time for surgery.”

  He thwacked the tick with the knife handle, and it fell to the floor. Dallas blinked, surprised by the sudden twist in the epic struggle. The pest reoriented itself toward his bare foot and started to crawl purposefully forward. Grabbling the pliers, Dallas nimbly plucked the tick from the carpet and made his way to the kitchen. With a final glare at the little bloodsucker, he dropped it inside a Mason jar and screwed on the lid. If he remembered, he’d drop it by Stanley’s later.

  According to Stanley, there were at least sixteen known varieties of ticks plaguing the Wisconsin Northwoods. He collected the ones he found in hopes of discovering a seventeenth kind. Why someone would want to discover more ticks baffled Dallas, but everyone needed a hobby. He just hoped that if Stan did turn up a new kind of tick, it’d be one that didn’t eat humans.

  “Dallas not food,” he admonished, shaking a finger at the scrabbling little pest. “Stanley is though. If he takes you out to play, I say chow down.”

  Tick secured, Dallas made his way back upstairs to finish his shower. As he passed the mirrored closet door again, he paused to inspect where the tick had been feeding. The bite mark had turned an angry red and oozed a thin tendril of blood.

  “Frickin’ wood ticks,” he groused, continuing into the bathroom to finish his shower. Soon, all thoughts of the tick had washed down the drain along with the blood from his thigh.

  Chapter 10

  Dallas woke feeling… good. No, great. Gone was the perpetual hangover, and his mouth didn’t taste like burnt roadkill. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this way. Sitting up, he was surprised to find he was fully in his bed. The sheets weren’t a tangled mess, and both pillows were where they were supposed to be. Swinging his legs to the carpet, he stood, raising his arms above his head and stretching his tall frame. Shoulders and spine popped, the sensation bringing a wide smile to his face. Hungry, he pulled on a convenient pair of jeans and a clean flannel and made his way downstairs to whip up some honest-to-goodness breakfast.

  Dallas rummaged through the fridge, pushing cans of beer and a half-empty carton of milk aside. Nothing fitting the traditional definition of breakfast surfaced, so he grabbed his keys and headed out to track down some actual food.

  He was halfway to Ronnie’s when he realized he was going to Ronnie’s and only avoided stomping on the brakes by sheer force of will. He hadn’t been to Ronnie’s Grill since he’d confronted Herb and challenged him to make some garlic mashed potatoes. When Dallas had started to suspect Herb wasn’t Herb anymore, he’d watched The Lost Boys and learned a thing or two. Putting that newfound knowledge to the test had helped Dallas suss out the truth about his friend.

  He squashed the unwanted recollections down deep, gritted his teeth, and pressed the accelerator. He wanted breakfast. Ronnie’s made a damn good breakfast, and the odds of Lois working were probably slim, right?

  Rolling into Ronnie’s Famous Truck-stop, Grill, Bait Shop, and Gift Emporium, Dallas killed Deloris’s engine and walked inside. Five or six truckers packing in some grub after a long night on the road were scattered among the various tables and booths. Ronnie, a retired trucker himself, had classed the place up a bit over the summer but still catered mainly to the masters of the eighteen wheels.

  Mounting a stool and bellying up to the familiar counter, Dallas breathed deep and was rewarded with a cornucopia of smells. It was the olfactory equivalent of an IMAX movie after a lifetime of watching an old black and white T.V. For a moment, he was dizzy with trying to sort out more smells than there were stars in the northern sky. When a familiar voice spoke from behind him, it jarred him back to the present and shattered his euphoria.

  “What are you doing here, Dallas?”

  Swiveling on the fixed counter stool, Dallas turned and saw Lois, anger plain in every line of her posture. She looked different. Hair that used to be a brilliant blonde was dull and pulled back in a haphazard ponytail. Gone was the usual bright red lipstick and blue eyeliner. Instead, her eyes simmered over dark circles. She looked exhausted and pissed. Speechless, Dallas just stared, his thoughts a jumble.

  “Too drunk to talk? Then get out. Ronnie doesn’t allow drunks.” Lois crossed her arms across her chest and lowered her chin, hard eyes staring out from beneath long lashes.

  “Oh, hi Lois,” Dallas managed. “No, not drunk. Surprising, I guess, but one hundred percent truth. I didn’t have breakfast stuff, so I thought I’d get some breakfast stuff.”

  “Uh huh. Breakfast stuff. Well, my shift’s done. Dee should be here soon, and I’m sure she’d be happy to serve the Hero of Trappersville. Enjoy the wait.”

  Lois turned on her heel and walked past the counter to the swinging door that led back to the kitchen.

  “Lois! Wait! You don’t have to, I mean. I didn’t realize you were. Aww shit,” Dallas trailed off, an uncharacteristic blush flushing his cheeks.

  Lois hadn’t had a single kind word for him since the night he’d killed Herb. The guilt he thought he’d ditched swung back around and blindsided him, followed by a spark of indignation that burned up to a familiar anger. Stubbornly, Dallas waited until Dee showed up and took his order. Lois made her way around the diner but didn’t even spare him a glance. When his food arrived, Dallas mechanically pushed it into his mouth a surly forkful at a time, grumbling around each bite.

  Finished but not full, he left too much cash on the counter and made it to the door when some sixth sense pricked its way through the fog of his thoughts. Turning, he saw Lois, a stolid mask of reproach fixed on her face as she stared at him from across the diner. Dallas held her unwavering gaze for as long as he could. Suddenly self-conscious, he was about to look away when he saw Lois raise her arm and hold out a doll. It was a boy doll with dark hair, a red flannel, and little blue jeans.

  Dallas’s brow furrowed in confusion. He had no idea why Lois was showing him a doll and tried to decide if he should be annoyed. Before he could ask what the deal was, Lois’s other hand made an odd series of gestures. Her fingers wrapped and twisted around the doll’s head. Her mouth moved, but she must’ve been speaking very softly, because Dallas didn’t hear a sound. Actually, the more he thought about it, the more apparent it became that he couldn’t hear anything except the rush of a distant ocean, waves rolling and receding. Each wave seemed to pull at his awareness, dragging his mind far away and leaving gobs of soggy cotton in its place. The button on his shirt cuff caught his attention. It was a button. A round button. But why did that matter? With a tremendous amount of effort, he refocused on Lois and offer a tentative wave goodbye, but she just turned and walked away.

  Sound returned like a needle dropped on a record. With a huff, Dallas stomped out of Ronnie’s Grill and climbed into Deloris. As he twisted the key in the ignition, he pushed thoughts of Lois and Herb forcibly down. No one ever said being a hero was easy, and Dallas had some C.I.A. douchnozzles to deal with.

  The sun was spilling orange across the morning clouds when he pulled into Cecil’s lot. More of a lunch and dinner spot, Cecil’s was still a few hours from opening, and all was dark and quiet. Even so, Dallas decided not to take any chances. Pulling back onto the highway, he drove a quarter mile or so until only unbroken woods lined either side of the paved, two-lane road. A gap in the trees that looked big enough to accommodate Deloris appeared, so he drove off the road and killed the engine. Walking back to th
e shoulder, he looked at his impromptu hiding spot for the giant pickup. Only someone paying attention would notice the truck. Fortunately, most folks in these parts didn’t pay much attention, especially when driving.

  The morning air was crisp on his face as he jogged back toward Cecil’s to get his bearings. Putting the small restaurant to his back, he started walking into the trees in what he hoped was the same direction he’d traveled the previous day. Buoyed by his conviction that he’d figure out where he was going soon enough, he strode confidently through the woods. It wasn’t long though, before he realized that he didn’t have a clue where he was. Dallas slowed his gait and looked more closely at the surrounding pines and maples, hoping for a reminder of the path he’d followed just a day before. Finally coming to a stop, he ground his teeth in frustration.

  “Dammit! C’mon Dal. You found ‘em once, you can find ‘em again. No big deal, right?”

  A deep breath helped to bring his blood pressure down a point or two. Next, he exhaled, pushing all the air from his lungs. Closing his mouth, he drew a second deep breath through his nose. A hundred thousand smells that he’d been smelling the entire time suddenly registered in his conscious mind, a rush so intense he dropped to his knees. Letting the air whoosh out through his mouth, he drew another breath, more slowly this time. It was all there. Each tree, leaf, and blade of grass. Deer droppings, squirrel poop, and coyote scat. Bugs and birds and everything in between. And him.