Would lighting a flame cause it to blow?
If so, wouldn't the flame on the fluid have done so before it went out?
Would the distance between the bottom step and the top of the porch make a difference?
Hesitation got the better of her for several minutes, lighter in hand.
Maybe grab a bottle and make one of those fiery cocktail things?
You'll have to go into the house to get one…
Going inside with the fumes was the last thing she wanted to do, but she also didn't want the house to be discovered intact and investigated with all her fingerprints and DNA inside. She needed to do something, and she needed to do it now.
Go inside, get Jeanne's gun, and fire a round through the doorway into the gas.
Would that work?
In movies gasoline trails were set ablaze with a gunshot all the time, but real life often had a way of disproving movie scenes. Even so, she figured it was worth a shot, no pun intended, and, holding her breath, headed inside to get the gun.
Two minutes later, gunshots still ringing in her ears, she stared in frustration at the house.
Get a piece of wood, cover it in lighter fluid, light it, and throw it in through the doorway.
Another minute passed as she went to the outdoor woodpile to retrieve a hunk of wood that she would be able to throw, one that needed to be small enough for her to lob from the safety of the yard, but large enough to carry a flame into the house.
Finding such a piece was not difficult and using the last of the lighter fluid, she set one end on fire while about fifteen feet from the house, and then threw it toward the doorway.
32
"Annie, thank God you're all right," Beverly said, her voice managing to keep the terror she currently felt from echoing within her words.
Annie didn't reply to that.
"Ever since I found out what Brendon and Cheryl did to you, I've been trying to find a way to get up here, but—"
"You're the one that brought me here," Annie said.
"What? No!" Beverly shifted a bit so that the light from the flashlight beam crossed Annie's eyes. "I checked you in, but then I left Cheryl in charge because I had a meeting in Clearwater." She let the light dance across her eyes again. "When I came back, she said you had left."
"No," Annie said. Then, as the light passed across her eyes again, "Stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Putting the light in my eyes."
"What? Oh, sorry. It's the gun. You have me so startled that I'm shaking. Can you not point it at me like that?"
Annie kept it pointed at her. "I saw you in the motel room, just before you covered my face with that rag."
"Annie, that was Cheryl. She and I look similar." She let the light pass across her eyes again.
"Stop that!"
"Sorry! Sorry!" She lowered the light. "Cheryl and Brendon are trying to create a Bigfoot news story. That's why he attacked your friend, and that's why they kidnapped you. They want that Bigfoot guy you contacted to come searching for you and to disappear so that her newspaper articles get picked up all over the world."
"You're lying!"
"I'm not, I swear!" Beverly shined the light in her eyes one more time before dropping the flashlight altogether and diving to the right.
A gunshot went off, the bullet hitting the wall that stood behind where her body had been.
Something hot pierced her lower back. It felt like a really intense bee sting.
Another round went off, this one nowhere near her body, yet even so the ricochet from the rock wall found her.
She needed to get out of the bedroom cavern and into the main area.
She needed—
A bullet cut through her leg, the shot echoing a second later. All the feeling in that leg disappeared. It was like her foot wasn't there when she tried to plant it, her body crumpling upon the dirt floor.
Oh God!
She tried to get up, the sound of chain links rattling echoing behind her as Annie approached, and then, without warning, pain exploded in her lower back. At first she thought she had been shot, but then she realized the girl had brought the rifle butt down on her.
Annie did it a second time, Beverly's scream echoing throughout the cave.
"Where's your brother?" Annie asked, voice eerily calm.
"He's dead."
The rifle butt landed again, something within her back popping.
The pain was so intense she didn't even register her own scream.
"Where is he?" she asked again.
Beverly couldn't answer, her voice having momentarily fled.
"Roll over."
Beverly didn't move, the pain too much.
"Roll over!" Annie demanded, a kick punctuating her command.
Dust billowed from the dirt floor as Beverly gasped into it, and then, with all her might, she pressed against the floor to roll herself over.
While doing this, the numbness the bullet had initially caused within her leg disappeared, pain flaring.
Annie put the muzzle of the gun to her right knee.
Beverly stiffened.
"I'm going to ask you one last time. Where is your brother?"
Beverly blinked away tears as she tried to find her voice, the words, "I told you, he's dead," eventually leaving her lips.
Annie stared at her for several seconds and then pulled the trigger.
33
Cheryl's face felt like she had suffered a mild sunburn, the flash from the flames as the house went up in a whoosh-like explosion having blasted her before she could turn away following the release of the burning log.
Afterward, as she hurried back toward her house through the woods, she considered what would have happened had she said “fuck it” and tried to light the fluid that had pooled on the porch near the doorway. Chances were, given the force of the blast and the heat, she would have found herself lying upon the scorched ground, body smoking where her clothes had been, hairless, skin completely crisped over like a fried turkey.
Wind chimes greeted her as she arrived home fifteen minutes later, as did the two bodies that had been left in her yard.
Beverly's SUV was also there, parked behind Quinn's city vehicle, but where was Beverly?
Cheryl called out to her several times once she was inside the house, but didn't get an answer.
And then she saw the door to her shed standing open.
A gas can was sitting next to it.
Had Beverly gone up the mountain on one of her ATVs?
She hurried out the back door and checked.
Sure enough, one of her ATVs was gone.
But why?
With Brendon dead, what possible reason could she have for going up the mountain right now?
Unless…
Brian and his wife had mentioned that they had seen evidence that Annie Morgan had called the motel last Wednesday, but from what Beverly had said, Annie had never called or shown up to the motel. What if she had? And what if the reason Brendon had killed Marlon Gibbs was because he had seen something as they brought Annie up to the cave?
Cheryl went over and looked at the two bodies.
Flies had already started to take notice.
Beverly had used her gun to kill Quinn and claimed she had taken it from Brendon, but how had Brendon gotten it in the first place? And why, once he had been inside the house, would he head back outside to wait in the trees with her gun? No, if he had been so bold as to go inside, that was because he had planned on doing something to her when she came back.
Beverly's story wasn't adding up.
She went back inside, her mind replaying everything that had occurred over and over again to see if something would click.
Questions came and went, the most troubling ones being why Quinn had been at her house and why Jeanne had shown up at his while she had been inside. The timing seemed too perfect for the latter, and the former simply confused her because she hadn't found anything within Quinn's place that wou
ld point at her, nor did she understand how he would come to such a conclusion.
Jeanne never knocked or rang the bell!
The thought stopped her in her tracks as she paced the first floor of her house.
Jeanne had gone there knowing Cheryl was inside, which was why she crept in with her gun drawn.
And the only person who had known she was inside was Beverly.
No, no, no, her mind said, heart thumping in her chest while her feet took her to the nearest phone.
Once in hand, she checked the call history. Sure enough, there was an outgoing call to a number she knew she had not called, one she was not familiar with.
She dialed it.
And got Jeanne's voicemail.
34
The old logging camp reminded Alice of the ancient Aztec and Mayan ruins viewers sometimes saw on TV that had become one with the jungle during their long abandonment. The big difference was that whereas those buildings had been made of stone and had become entangled by the jungle, the buildings in the old logging camp were wood and when not rotting away from the effects of weather were simply punched through and crumbled by the roots and branches of the trees and vegetation that wanted to sprout up next to and even within the structures. In time one would be hard-pressed to find any evidence of man's recent occupation on this part of the mountain, the feeble structures simply unable to stand up to the constant onslaught of nature when not being helped along by people who had laid claim. It was somewhat humbling to see this.
The sound of something snapping caught her attention, followed by a curse from Brian.
Alice headed around the side of a bunkhouse and saw that Brian had gone right through a step that led up to the doorway.
He wasn't hurt, just startled.
Embarrassed too, judging by the look on his face.
"I don't think we're going to find anything worthwhile in any of these dumps," Brian said.
"Yeah," Alice agreed. "And I think whoever came up here simply parked because they were going on foot from here."
"But on foot to where?" he asked.
"We could wait and ask them once they come back," she suggested. "That way we see who it is too."
"And if they have a gun?"
"You could wait in the brush with a big stick while I wait here, and if they pull a gun I will duck away while you whack them over the head."
Brian didn't reply to that.
"Or we can look around and see if we can find where they went."
"That seems just as foolhardy as waiting for them to return."
Alice didn't reply and simply turned to head back toward the ATV, but then stopped when she heard something that sounded like a distant cry.
"What is it?" Brian asked.
"I don't know, I thought I heard—"
Another cry echoed, this one louder than the first, though still off in the distance.
"Sounds like a woman," Brian said, eyes having shifted to look up the mountain.
"Yeah," Alice agreed. "You think it's the person from the ATV?"
"That, or someone who they had waiting up there for them."
"We should go up and see if we can help."
Hesitation creased Brian's face.
Alice stared at him for several seconds and then, deciding this was not the time for a discussion but for action, said, "Come on," and started into the brush by the ATV to see if there was any kind of trail.
35
Beverly couldn't help but scream as Annie trussed her up to a tree outside of the cave, the girl having purposely twisted her ruined knee so as to leave her positioned in the most agonizing way possible. Once done, Annie stepped up close to Beverly, her wretched breath sickening her as she leaned in and said, "You're the bait."
"Please," Beverly said, tears and snot running down her face. “Don’t do this.”
Annie grinned and lifted the rifle, ready to smash her knee.
“Wait!” Beverly cried. “I have gems. Ones that Margaret found before she died. They’re worth a fortune. If you let me go, I’ll tell you where they are.”
“Gems?” Annie asked, rifle lowering.
“Yes! Emeralds, rubies and sapphires.” Beverly paused as a wave of pain overtook her. “She told my brother there was more where she found them. Some rich lumber baron buried them a hundred years ago and Margaret found them.”
“These gems, were they in a small drawstring bag?” Annie asked.
“Yes!” Beverly gasped. “Exactly.” How does she know?
Annie laughed and without warning gave the ruined knee a solid clubbing with the rifle butt, causing Beverly to scream again, and then disappeared into the brush, chain trailing behind her as she walked.
36
Cheryl found Annie's cell phone while in her bedroom retrieving bullets for her pistol, the discovery adding even more weight to the idea that Beverly was trying to set her up to take the fall for everything.
That's why she came here last night.
Not only had she planted a Bigfoot outfit to make it look like Cheryl was connected to the Bigfoot attack on Margaret, she had left the girlfriend's phone so that it would look like she had been responsible for Annie's disappearance, the fact being that an eventual investigation into the girl's whereabouts would have led authorities to Crystal Creek.
But why?
If Beverly had just let the girl prowl around the woods with Brian, they never would have discovered anything and eventually would have left. All they had needed to do was wait and soon everyone would leave and they could resume their quest to find the source of the gems Margaret had found.
Had she feared that Annie and Brian would find them?
Or had she feared that having to share them with Cheryl would be too much of a sacrifice, especially if they didn't find a very big source?
Was there even going to be any return on the gems?
Fearing that an examination would uncover trace amounts of blood that they hadn't been able to clean off, Beverly had never had the gems appraised to see if they truly were as valuable as Margaret had claimed they were. Instead, she had suggested they wait until they found everything and could bring in gems that had not been in the room during the poor girl's torture, her confidence in the fact that they would be valuable having always helped ease Cheryl's concerns that they might not be worth anything.
Now those concerns were back, along with questions on why Beverly had gone to such great lengths to make it so Cheryl would take the fall for everything.
Another realization arrived.
In order for her taking the fall to work, Beverly would have had to make sure she was dead and therefore unable to dispute the evidence pointing her way. After all, if alive, she could easily point the finger at Beverly and explain what had happened with Margaret and Brendon. People might think she was simply scrambling to try to get out of the charges leveled upon her, but what would happen once word spread of Beverly finding Jethro Black’s buried treasure on the mountain? Suddenly Cheryl's finger-pointing would ring true and might cause everyone to dig a little deeper.
No, Beverly would not have wanted to risk such a thing.
Cheryl would not have survived long enough to even realize she was set up to take the fall.
Pistol loaded and strapped to her belt, along with two extra magazines, Cheryl donned some woodland clothing and tucked her bloodstained items in a bag to be destroyed later, and then headed out to her shed to start up her second ATV.
Beverly had gone up to the cave expecting Jeanne to confront and likely kill Cheryl at Quinn's place.
This was going to give her a serious element of surprise.
And if she did have Annie up there, and if the girl was still alive, she was going to try to win some favor against her own involvement in all of this by rescuing the girl. It might not be enough, especially if evidence of her killing Jeanne ever came to light, but it would help her a bit and that was all that mattered now.
The shit was about to hit the fan, and whi
le she wouldn't go unsplattered, she would try to do her best to shield herself from the worst of it.
37
Another scream echoed as the two struggled up the tiny trail, bringing them both to a halt.
"We're getting close," Alice said.
Brian thought he heard excitement within her voice, but didn't say anything, his own concern growing. "I don't think we should go any farther."
"What?"
"Something horrible is happening up there, and we don't have any weapons or any training in how to deal with it. We need to go get the police."
"They'd never make it up here in time."
"Which is why we should start down now, so we don't waste any more time."
Alice shook her head and started working her way up the trail.
"Alice!" he hissed.
"If you want to go back, fine, but I'm going to try and help out."
Brian stared for several seconds, mind repeating the word fuck over and over again within his head, and then hurried to catch up with her.
A fresh scream erupted.
Brian looked up just as his foot came down on something that wasn't solid, his leg twisting out from under him, his body going face-first into the rocky surface.
Blood hit his taste buds, followed by pain.
"You okay?" Alice asked.
He looked up, blinking away a momentary fog.
Alice grimaced.
He pushed himself off the ground, collected all the blood within his mouth into a wad, and spit.
More appeared.
He spit that out as well and then probed his mouth for the source.
Pain erupted as he found it, a chunk of his inner lip having been bitten off.
He spit a third time.
"Okay?" Alice asked again.
He didn't reply, just nodded toward the screams.
She turned but then looked back as he took hold of her arm.
"I'm going first this time," he said.
"Oh."
He stepped around her and continued on the half-assed trail, a new sense of determination to figure out what the fuck was going on having taken root. Anger was present—anger at the fact that he and his wife had been brought out here for this. All he had wanted was to rekindle his writing career with what appeared to be new Bigfoot footage, and instead he was being led by the nose from one spot to the next in the woods by individuals who were up to no good.
Crystal Creek Page 18
