He followed Cutter to the creek. Right where the beast had brutalized them girls. Staying back in the shade, he watched as Cutter paced, chewing his nails, like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders—or the blood of numerous girls on his hands.
Stepping from behind a giant Eastern Hemlock, the sheriff strode within a hundred feet of Cutter, rifle aimed at his chest.
“Hold it right there, Cutter.”
The haunted look in the man’s eyes caused him the slightest shade of doubt that this man was the one responsible for the killings in Coopers Mills.
“Sheriff Decker?”
“I said, hold it, Cutter.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Cutter said, gazing all around like a paranoid junkie.
“Expecting someone?” Decker said.
“I’m just…you should get out of here. Sooner the better, sheriff.”
“Something you wanna tell me, Cutter?” He took two steps forward. A slight trickle of fear rivetted its way through his veins. There was something off here. The hairs on Dennis’s arms and neck rose.
“I’m trying to make sure you’re safe, sir. Please, leave me alone.”
Got you, motherfucker. This was the Beast of Brenton Woods. This man was the threat. The killer.
“I don’t think you did it on purpose, Cutter. Any of it. But I can’t let you go now.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, and I don’t need to understand. I just need to do my job.”
“This…” The man bit his hand, struggling with the truth.
“You can say it, but I won’t make you. I want you to know, I’ll tell your boy and Susan it happened differently. They don’t have to be privy to the truth, son.”
“Wait, what? I think you—”
“I’m truly sorry, Cutter.”
“Nooo!”
He raised the rifle and squeezed off a shot.
Bang
Cutter’s head went back, as he fell to the ground.
Dennis recalled the gross smirk on Kenny Rutherford’s face while they dug the six-foot grave and pushed Cutter’s body in. Kenny was always a bit off, but Dennis thought what a man did in his own time was his business, unless that counted turning into a monster and killing the innocent. He knew Kenny was an asshole with women, but he liked to believe it never interfered with the job.
But that day secured one thing: he had to keep Rutherford close.
Secrets could keep a man in many ways. Keep him quiet or distant. Keep him twisted and tied up, slowly eating away at him, dragging him into the darkness.
Staring at his secret, Dennis needed to see the bodies of Conway Yates and Paul Clukey. Needed to know that this was different. Needed to know that he hadn’t made a mistake. That he hadn’t murdered an innocent man.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ben wanted to spend the day here. The fear he’d felt for the beast slid away. His father’s secrets were laid out upon the pages before his eyes. How his father could have hidden this from him and his mother was mind-blowing, but his dad was capable of anything he set his mind to. It’s what his mom always said about him that reminded her of his dad.
He picked up the notebook and continued digging into the tale.
When I went back to the creek, I sensed it. I knew it was there. Watching me. Waiting for me. Testing me.
I pulled the steak from my backpack that I’d taken from my fridge. My parents would have a fit, but I didn’t care. I knew what I had to do.
Of course, the beast didn’t come out that first time, but when I returned the next day the steak was gone. Anything could have eaten it, but I knew it was the beast.
I came back two days later, my ass beat red from my father when he found out I’d given his sirloin steak to an animal, but I was determined to make friends with this creature. I brought a package of Tasty Bite Skinless Franks to it and waited. It was nearly sundown, the full moon made its undeniable appearance in a clear, deep violet twilight.
That’s when I saw it again.
I pulled the package of hot dogs from my backpack and tossed them to the giant, white-haired beast’s feet.
It tore through the plastic and gobbled them down.
As it stared into my eyes, I sensed its gratefulness.
I returned every other day for the next three months. I only saw the beast on the evenings leading up to and proceeding a full moon. The food disappeared regardless, but it never showed me its non-beast form, if it had one. I was stealing meat from the grocer on Jenson Street, but I knew it was okay. I was helping something survive. I was taking care, taking responsibility for one of God’s creatures. That couldn’t be wrong.
It scared me only once in those first months.
I showed up empty handed. I pleaded my case. How I’d been caught at the grocers by an old man who couldn’t mind his own business.
The white wolf rose to its full height and howled into the night.
I ran.
It was nearly two years before I saw the beast again.
This time he returned as a man. A man named Arthur Dresden.
Ben sat back. His father had kept this thing alive. Kept it fed. Made friends with it, or at least had a relationship with the thing. The idea was insane.
Maybe it needed him. It had to have sensed the connection somehow. Smelled his blood. Smelled something familiar.
Ben set down the notebook and grabbed another from the box, which appeared to be newer. When he flipped that cover open, he saw that it was dated five years ago.
There was no date, but the entry was the only one in the book.
God. How could I have been so stupid. Arthur’s a werewolf. Of course, he’s done it again. After his promise not to, he went out and couldn’t help himself. Part of me has known all along that it was a matter of time. That maybe I should do something or tell someone else who might do something to end his curse.
Britney was a wonderful girl with her whole life ahead of her.
Goddamn you, Arthur.
I’ll tell him he’s on his own from now on. If he dares to show himself.
Susan and Ben need me. I’ve played with this monster long enough. After what I did to Susan… Arthur fucking owes me. He’ll have to understand and I’ll have to bring protection, just in case he doesn’t like what he hears.
And that was all it said. Ben set it down and pulled out the rest of the journals. They were all older. His father’s life, or at least a huge, hidden part if it, was all here in these books. Ben could spend all year reading through them, but he only wanted to know what happened when his dad went out that last time. How had Arthur reacted? Obviously, his father stopped visiting. He died two years after that last passage.
Maybe I can go directly to the source.
Maybe Arthur would talk about his father. Maybe he’d have interesting stories to share. Or maybe it would make him mad.
Ben returned the notebooks to the box and stepped out the club house door.
Somewhere off in the distance he heard something that sounded like a scream.
Arthur? Could the beast walk in the daylight? Ben had no idea what kind of rules there might be to the curse…that’s what his father had called it. A curse. Regardless, he was out here. Ben glanced down at the rucksack. The gun.
He gripped the gun and started off.
Just in case, he thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Barry Smith stared at the waters, his head weaving. It was still daylight and he was already sloshed. He’d finished off the twelve-pack two hours ago, but he wasn’t going anywhere. The rock under his ass would probably get his hemorrhoids up in a tizzy, but for now, he didn’t give a fuck.
He felt the tug on his line and nearly lost his rod.
That’s when he heard the scream.
He wanted to shake it off, say it was a figment of his foggy, foolish mind. Drunken madness. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d imagined something in this state. Hell, he’d chased down a turkey two sum
mers ago. Convinced it was that weasel Devin Plaisted out steeling his collection of hub caps. He’d blasted that bird to Heaven. Never got the chance with Plaisted. The dumb bastard got himself killed robbing a convenience store in Portsmouth.
When the shriek was overpowered by the howl, Barry hopped to his feet and wind-milled, falling on his ass.
The beast. The white wolf.
He’d heard it before, but never so close, and never when he was out in the thick of Brenton Woods.
Stumbling to his feet, leaving his rod and the army of empty beer cans behind, Barry huffed and puffed his way to the trees and zig-zagged toward the road. He had no urge to follow those sounds. He was no hero. He wasn’t a goddamn coward either, rather he was a realist. He was a survivalist. Running from the danger, Barry in his drunken state flew out of the woods and into the line of a semi-truck barreling down Route 17.
He heard the horn of the Peterbilt as he spun and fell to the side of the road, jamming his shoulder. The semi screamed past inches from his face, the wind blowing his greasy, brown hair into his eyes along with enough dust and dirt to send him into a coughing fit.
His shoulder was out of socket. He knew it. He’d enjoyed the experience most of his life starting when his older brother had tackled him in a game of one-on-one football when they were just kids. Football and wrestling throughout school had made it happen with more frequency to the point now that several of his drunken follies—fights at the Den, bull-headedly hefting something too heavy, or falls like this—easily caused the injury to occur. He’d never gone to the doctor, not since high school. He didn’t have insurance for that shit.
He managed to get to his knees seeing his truck parked across the road. He patted his pocket checking for his keys. He remembered setting them on top of his tacklebox. He’d hightailed it so fast he’d completely forgotten them.
Grumbling under his breath, Barry stood. His shoulder screamed out, flaring with pain. He’d have to knock it back into place, a trick he could do but hated. It hurt like hell and he was usually a lot drunker when he did it.
Fuck it, he thought. I’ll just have to suck it up until I get back home.
Wincing, he started back toward his fishing spot to fetch his shit.
When he reached his tackle box, the only thought he had was getting back to his truck and getting more beer so that he could drown the immense pain in his shoulder. He bent to snatch up the box and his pole, when the man emerged from the trees on the other side of the creek carrying a girl.
It wasn’t until the fella laid the girl down and began to disrobe that Barry started to give a shit.
“The fuck?” he said. The man dropped his red sweatshirt to the ground, and followed that by walking right out of his pants. Barry stood gawking at the fucked-up display. The man was probably one of those hermits you hear about. Living away from civilization, stealing food from nearby homes, and clothing from lines as they hung out to dry.
The naked man was frail, yet lean muscle clung to every visible bone. As he drew near, Barry saw how ugly the man was. His face looked as though it’d been run over by a semi and put back together by the most incompetent doctor available to do the job. His eyes were not horizontal with one another, and they were too far apart. Sharp edges stuck out in angles that were all wrong.
And his ribs were displaced, they looked as though they’d broken and healed incorrectly.
As he reached Barry’s side of the creek, his long pecker wagging freely, Barry caught sight of his hands. The man’s fingers looked longer than they should be, and at their tips, black nails that belonged in a monster movie. When he was close enough, Barry saw the yellow eyes. And he knew exactly who, or rather what, this horrid creature was—the white wolf.
Barry started to back away.
“I was wondering when you’d start to get scared,” the man said. His voice was high-pitched for a man, yet with a slight rasp.
“I’m… I was..I..j-just…,” he stammered.
“Shhh,” the man stepped in front of Barry and placed one of those alien like fingers and its black nail on his lips. His stench was unbearable; a mix of body odor and rotten meat.
Before Barry could run, the man swiped at the bigger man’s side, rending flesh and tearing through to bone. Another strike caught him in the neck, and from the corner of his eyes, Barry saw the fountain of blood exiting the fresh wound.
Dropping to the edge of the creek, the last thing he saw was the ugly man’s teeth as the abomination lowered its mouth to Barry’s ruined side and began to eat him alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
As they pulled up to the cabin, Johnny half-expected to be turned away by the cops. An empty shell surrounded by yellow police tape is all they found.
“What should we do?” Bryan asked.
“We take a look. She could’ve helped herself to the rest of the beers and passed out on the couch.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Bryan said.
Stopping the truck just shy of the police tape, Bryan cut the engine. Johnny hopped out and hurried to the door thankful the police had at least taken Paul’s body.
Unless that thing came back and finished him off.
He shoved the thought away. Paul Clukey’s remains were moved to the morgue over in Travis. Still, he wondered where the police were. Where the hell was that asshat, Rutherford, or the sheriff for that matter?
“Wendy?” he said, entering the darkened room. Everything looked exactly as it always had. It was a shithole, but it had been their shithole.
Johnny came out to find Bryan in his ridiculous sunglasses staring at the deep red patch where most of Paul had been when he and Wendy found him.
“It’s unreal, man. This whole weekend is fucking…. I don’t know, like some kind of bad dream, ya know?” Bryan said.
Johnny knew all too well. And if he didn’t find Wendy, it was going to be a fuck of a lot worse.
“Come on, we should double back. She ain’t here, she’s bound to have gone the other way.”
…..
They drove back to his place, but Wendy was still missing. Johnny’s anxiety began to crush him from the inside out. She was his responsibility, had been ever since he could remember. If anything happened to her…if this monster so much as touched her…
“What do you want to do?” Bryan asked.
What he wanted to do was scream. How the fuck could she be so stupid? So selfish? Especially after what they’d seen the last two nights. He knew how she internalized guilt. He wasn’t so immune to beating himself up, either.
“We gotta call the station,” he finally said. Johnny picked up his phone and called the Grantham County Sheriff’s Department.
“What’d they say?” Bryan asked.
What they said was hella scary. What they didn’t was worse.
“Sheriff’s out tending to a car accident up ahead across the town line. Rutherford and Deputy Wilcox are unavailable.”
“Who’s that leave?”
“Lloyd.”
Lloyd Brannigan was a sweet guy. He truly was, but he was a shitty cop. He had about as much sense as the cows out in Alec Tafton’s fields.
“Is he going to help us look for Wendy?”
“He’s sending out word to the cops in Travis and trying to get a hold of the sheriff.”
“So.”
“So?”
“What do we do?” Bryan asked.
Johnny was at a loss. He had no ideas where his sister could have gone. The only possibility coming to mind was the one he didn’t dare face. The beast had gotten to her. They’d never find her driving around.
“Pull over,” he said.
“What? Why?”
“I’m going to look for her.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing,” Bryan said, and pulled to the side of the road.
When the truck stopped, Johnny climbed out and shut the door.
“Where you going?” Bryan said.
“You remember all th
ose stories growing up? The ones about the beast?”
“Yeah.”
“All those killings. They took place around the Point.”
“So, you think… you think it got Wendy?”
A vision of his sister flayed open, her cold, dead eyes staring into nothingness as her battered body lay in the ever-running creek….
“I don’t fucking know, but my gut is telling me we have to check it out.”
“If you think it’s worth a shot,” Bryan said as he reached for the keys.
“No, I’m going this way. You drive over to the Point. Keep your eyes open in case I’m wrong and she’s just been off fucking around somewhere.”
Bryan took his sunglasses off.
“We’re gonna find her,” Bryan said. “She’s too good for this. We’re gonna find her.”
“Thanks, man,” Johnny said. He felt his eyes tearing up. “If you find her first, call me.”
“Dude,” Bryan said. He reached under his seat and pulled out a taser. “I wish it was something more powerful, but here, take it.”
Johnny took the device, slipped it into his pocket, and nodded.
He watched Bryan drive away. Johnny headed down the road a bit to where he knew there was a trail.
The sun was heading south, and the night was about to fall.
…..
Bryan watched the side of the road and the tree line for any movement, any sign of Wendy. Of all the people this could happen to, why her? It should have been him. What did he have to look forward to? Working as a grease monkey in Travis or joining his dad at the transfer station? More disappointments? More beatings from the old man? Hell, he was probably bringing Johnny and Wendy down, holding them back. They both had something he lacked—potential.
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