The Beast of Brenton Woods

by Jackson Thomas

  He pushed the Rambler harder. He loved his car, but wished he’d stopped and switched out for his SUV. He’d have to make do. He grabbed the cherry bulb from his dash, placed it on the roof, and flicked the annoying little bastard on.

  On his way to Beth’s, he saw a couple of Travis police cars on either side of Kenny’s. An ugly Buick, Beth’s Buick, sat out of commission off the road.

  “Jesus H. Fuck.”

  Of all the damned time to lose his damned head and pull some nitwit bullshit, Kenny chooses now. He’d always been a liability, one that Dennis thought he could handle. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  “Howdy, Sheriff,” Officer Todd said.

  “What’s going on here fellas?”

  “Not sure yet. We just arrived. Looks like one of yours maybe involved in whatever this is.”

  Officer Todd was one of the smarter fucks in Travis. The suspicious look on his face led Dennis to believe the man smelled something he didn’t like. Not that Rutherford’s reputation didn’t proceed him.

  “I haven’t been able to reach him since this morning. You know who the other car belongs to?”

  “Beth Albies.”

  He knew damn well it was Beth’s Buick.

  “Well, where the hell are they?” Decker asked.

  “Rutherford never called this into you, did he?”

  It was rhetorical. Officer Todd knew more than he was saying.

  “Sheriff?” Lloyd’s voice came across the radio.

  “Go ahead, Lloyd.”

  “Kathy just checked in. She’s at the Cutter’s. Says the boy’s missing. Says considering our current situation, she and the Ms. Cutter are heading out to search for him.”

  “Current situation?” Officer Todd asked.

  Decker grunted.

  “Where they going to look for him?”

  “Brenton Woods, sir.”

  “Thanks, Lloyd.”

  “You want to enlighten me about that situation?”

  “Listen, Officer Todd, if it were any of your concern, I’d be sure to let you know.”

  “You guys having an animal problem, too?”

  “What?”

  “Two nights ago. Not far from here, we found two cars, one that looked like a semi had rammed it off the road. We got three locals missing, no bodies, but plenty of blood at the scene.”

  “I hadn’t heard. I just came back from the conference last night.”

  “Well, we held it from the local media. Investigations underway, that’s why we’re a little concerned about this.” He nodded toward the cruiser and the Buick.

  He couldn’t let these boys find Kenny before he did. No telling what they were in for. And no telling how it might turn on him if Kenny had done something stupid like kill that girl.

  “I’ll give you boys a hand,” Decker offered.

  He pulled his car to the road’s shoulder. Opening the trunk, he took his rifle and the box of unmarked ammo. Locked and loaded, he slammed the trunk and started for the Buick.

  The short, bearded, rail-thin cop looked up from inside the car. “Officer Mackey,” he said. “You find anything?”

  “No, sheriff. I think they might have gone in there,” he said, pointing toward the woods.

  “What makes you say so?”

  “Found this just inside the tree line,” he said, handing the bagged item to Dennis.

  Kenny’s damn jackknife. No use arguing it was someone else’s. The moron had his named engraved in the handle.

  “Saw it lying like that. Open. Looks like fresh blood on the blade, too.”

  Officer Todd joined them, and said, “I got two more coming over, plus our wrecker. We ready to go in?”

  “Mackey, you wait here for the cavalry. Me and Todd will get a head start.”

  They agreed.

  Dennis and Todd entered the woods. This whole damn thing was getting worse by the second.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Ben stopped dead in his tracks. The beast stood peering down at him from the Point.

  His assumption that the beast would not harm him faltered. This was not something to commune with… it looked hungry and mean. Ben’s blood froze.

  He ran, hoping he could make it to the trail before that thing made it down, otherwise… He didn’t want to think about it. He just went as fast as his feet could carry him. The shade of night always fell faster in the protection of the woods, but Ben knew his way around here with his eyes closed. With all the noise he was making, he couldn’t tell if the beast was closing in. He wondered if he should stop, hide someplace, and get the gun from his bag. He didn’t have any silver bullets, but who knew if that old story was even true. It would be one less worry if he had them anyway.

  He reached one of the straighter stretches of the path. The clubhouse and the creek crossing were just ahead. He pushed on, ignoring the pain in his side, the rubber in his legs, and reached the fort.

  He flopped down just inside the entry, heaving like an old heavyweight in the final round. He wiped the sweat from his eyes, and scanned the path for any sign of the white wolf. He thought he heard something approaching. His heart already was ramped up and hurt against his bony chest.

  He threw the flap on his rucksack and reached in, wrapped his hand around the gun, brought it to his chest, and readied himself for what was to come. Could he talk to it? Would it understand? If he called it by name, would it get through? He was going to find out, one way or another.

  He stood and peeked around the doorway. Nothing moved back the way he came, instead, there was noise coming from the other side of the fort.

  Voices.

  Someone else is out here.

  Creeping from the fort, Ben placed his back to the plywood wall and slithered to the corner. He took a deep breath and dared a look.

  His mother and Deputy Wilcox?

  “Mom?” he said, stepping into the open.

  A roar exploded from behind him. He was hit and thrown through the air. Ben hardly felt the fire in his back as his head slammed against a rock and sent his thoughts swirling.

  “M..mm..Mom…,” he managed, before he blacked out.

  …..

  “Ben!”

  Kathy aimed and fired off two shots. Both hit home as the impossible monster whined and fell back.

  “Susan,” she said. “Fire that weapon.”

  She did. Kathy fired twice more, watching the beast turn tail. Susan stepped to her side and emptied the pistol after the monster.

  Kathy took her wrist as she continued pulling the trigger well after the last bullet flew.

  “Susan, it’s gone. Let’s check Ben.”

  Susan handed her the pistol, and ran to her son’s side.

  Kathy returned the gun to her holster and joined them. Four bloody strips slashed through the cheap t-shirt material and ran up the boy’s back. Blood leaked from his forehead where he lay against a stone.

  “Let me,” Kathy said, kneeling across from Susan. She checked his throat. His pulse was strong. “I think he’s okay. We’re going to have to get him up and out of here.”

  She glanced around, looking for something they could use for a makeshift stretcher.

  “Stay with him.”

  Kathy got up and went to the fort. There was a little plywood table inside, but it was too short. She hoped they weren’t amazing carpenters. Backing up, she got a short start and crashed her boot against the wall. The corner came free. Two more kicks sent one of the walls to the ground. The roof and three other walls held.

  “I saw a blue blanket in there, can you go grab it for me?” she asked, placing the downed wall next to Ben’s body. “Susan!”

  The woman raised her chin.

  “There’s a blue blanket in the fort, can you grab it for me? We’re going to use it to place under Ben on this board. Can you do that?”

  “Yes…yes.”

  She rose and disappeared into the fort.

  Good. Kathy needed her fully functional. There was no telling how long
that thing would be scared off. They needed to get the boy out of here as quick as they could.

  Susan stepped out with the blanket in hand.

  “Good, fold it in half the long way and lay it over the plywood.” She did as instructed and joined her at Ben’s side. “Okay, I think his neck’s all right, but we still need to be careful. Normally, we’d play it safe and keep him right here until the EMT’s check him over, but with that…that thing out here, we can’t do that. I want you to hold his head and shoulders as best you can as I slip the wall under him, okay?”

  Susan nodded.

  They loaded Ben on to the makeshift stretcher, his feet hanging off the end. Kathy worked a few rusty nails from one of the corners and tossed them aside.

  “Okay, you take that end, I’ll get this side. Ready?”

  Susan leaned down, kissed her son’s cheek, ran her hand over his head, and nodded.

  “On three. 1-2-3.” They got him up. Luckily, he wasn’t a very big kid.

  They started down the path. Kathy kept her head on a swivel. She prayed they could get the boy to safety. It was nearly dark.

  …..

  The white wolf hurried through the trees, back toward its true treasure. The boy, if he lived, would have to wait. There was no time to waste. The girl…the future mother of its offspring, was most important.

  The bullets from the shots it had taken worked their way out and fell from its flesh as the beast headed back to its cave. In the monster state, the advanced healing was at its peak. Luckily, the full moon would keep it in this form until the morning. It was at full strength, and should the law come to him, it was ready to devour this entire community.

  EYE IN THE SKY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The hair on Johnny’s neck raised before he heard the noise. Ducking behind a towering Hemlock, he held his breath praying he hadn’t been seen. His already heightened heartrate accelerated. Scuffling feet hurried along. He dared a glance around the tree and saw two women, Deputy Wilcox and another woman carrying a kid on a stretcher of sorts.

  He stepped into the open. “Are you guys all right?”

  Startled, the women stopped.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…what happened?” Johnny joined them on the path.

  “You need to get out here, Mr. Higgins,” Deputy Wilcox said.

  “I can’t. My sister’s missing. I think she’s out here somewhere.”

  “Why do you think that?” Wilcox asked.

  “I can’t be sure, but I think something awful took her.”

  The two women looked at one another.

  “You saw it, didn’t you?” he said. He didn’t need them to answer. “And the boy, did it do that to him?”

  “Yes,” the other woman said.

  “Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so,” the woman that had to be his mother said.

  “Listen, Mr. Higgins,” Wilcox started.

  “I hope he makes it,” Johnny blurted as he headed deeper into the forest, leaving the group behind.

  “Wait!” Wilcox said.

  Johnny turned back and could hardly make out their shapes from where he stood. Darkness had settled in.

  Wilcox shouted, “Do you have a weapon?”

  He thought of the taser in his pocket. “Sort of. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this.”

  He left them behind.

  …..

  Kathy and Susan crossed onto the Cutter property. They eased Ben down in the backyard near the flat patch that had held the tent a couple of days ago.

  “I’m going to get Ben help, then I’m heading after that crazy asshole, Johnny Higgins.”

  Susan, sitting by her son’s side stroking his hair, nodded.

  “Dispatch? This is Officer Wilcox. I’m at 35 Crossroad Lane in Coopers Mills. I need an ambulance. I have a fourteen-year-old male with a head wound and some lacerations.”

  “Sending them over now, officer. Is the patient responsive?”

  “He seems to be pretty stable from what I can tell. But he’s out of it. Breathing and pulse are good though.”

  “Okay, we’ll have someone there in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay, the mom will be with him.”

  After getting Ben help, she tried for Sheriff Decker.

  “Sheriff? Sheriff, you out there?”

  There was no reply. “Rutherford? Brannigan?”

  Nothing.

  “Where the hell is everyone?” she said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m not far,” Lloyd said. “Kathy, we got a heck of a mess on our hands.”

  “What is it? Where are the sheriff and Rutherford?”

  “I don’t know where they are now, they’re not responding, but I did get notice from the Travis Police that the Sheriff is with one of their officers in pursuit on foot, but of who I’m not sure. Travis police responded to a call where they found Kenny’s cruiser and Beth Albies Buick, both off the road, Beth’s smacked into some rocks.”

  “Jesus. How quick can you get here?”

  “I’m about three minutes out.”

  Kathy brought a couple of blankets from her trunk and gave them to Susan. She covered Ben.

  “You got a back-porch light?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll turn it on. They said not to move him, and they’d be here any minute. One of my partners is on the way over. When he gets here, send him after me.”

  “You’re not going in there alone?”

  She thought about what Lloyd told her. Sherriff and a Travis cop out there, Rutherford and Beth Albies out there, Johnny Higgins had said his sister was there, too.

  “I won’t be alone for long,” she said.

  Headlights lit the side of the house.

  She jogged up the porch steps, opened the door, and found the light.

  Lloyd came bustling around the corner.

  Kathy hurried down. “Come on, Lloyd. And try to keep up.”

  …..

  Kenneth J. Rutherford wouldn’t be spilling any of his secrets any time soon. There was already plenty of him spread out across the forest floor. Decker knew that dreadful cowboy boot anywhere. It now stood with only a partial leg left in it.

  The sound of Officer Wesley Todd’s vomit splashing the ground somewhere off to his left reminded Decker of the possible predicament he was in. He spotted the other body twenty yards away. He hurried over and saw Beth, a bullet hole in her forehead, sprawled out, but otherwise intact.

  What did you do, Kenny, you stupid asshole?

  “What the hell did this?” Todd said.

  Decker, hands on his hips, head slung low, exhaled long and slow, and then headed back to where he’d left Todd tossing his lunch.

  He squinted at something on the ground. Bending he wrapped his hand around Rutherford’s service weapon.

  “Sheriff? That’s evidence,” Todd said.

  Decker rose, looked the gun over, and then said, “I know.”

  He squeezed the trigger and dropped Todd with a shot to the head.

  It took him a few minutes to find Rutherford’s shooting hand; it was no longer attached to the rest of him. Decker untucked his uniform shirt and cleared the gun of his fingerprints, then wrapped the cold, dead finger over the trigger and pressed the palm to the handle and squeezed off another shot.

  A small snap caused him to spin on his heels. Something was up ahead. The dark made it impossible to see who or what it was. He realized he was holding Rutherford’s dead hand and gun. He dropped them and reached for his own Glock before freezing. If it was the white wolf, that pistol was of no use. He unshouldered the rifle and flicked the safety.

  Swallowing hard, Decker grabbed his flashlight, shining light into the dark as he moved forward.

  …..

  Johnny wasn’t sure what he’d seen, but he knew what he’d heard. A gun shot. And then another. He ducked down behind an uprooted stump. His heart ceased a beat as the stick snapped beneath his shoe. The sound may as wel
l have been a fire alarm in the silence.

  Holding his breath, he tried to sit still. Maybe they didn’t hear it? When the light beam shot in his direction, Johnny got up and ran.

  “Hey, hey who’s there? This is the sheriff. Whoever’s out there I’m telling you to stop where you are.”

  “Sheriff Decker?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Johnny Higgins.”

  “Johnny, what in the hell are you doing out here in the dark?”

  The same question screamed across his mind.

  “My sister’s out here. I need to find her.”

  “You out here alone, Johnny?”

  Something about the question pulled at his stomach.

  “I, uh, I saw Deputy Wilcox back a-ways, and Bryan is just up ahead.” He found himself scouring the ground for a weapon, a rock or a thick stick.

  “Say, Johnny, did you see anything just now?”

  Johnny found a fat rock and got it behind his back just as the flashlight’s beam landed on his face. He shielded his eyes with his free hand.

  “I just… I was heading toward the Point when I heard the gun shot.”

  “That so?” Decker said. “I got me two dead officers and a civilian over here. You want to tell me something?”

  What the fuck? Did this prick think he—wait, he said a civilian.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Who?”

  “The civilian,” Johnny clarified. “You said a dead civilian.”

  “It’s not that pretty little sister of yours, but I’m suspecting you already know that.”

  “What? Know what? Sheriff, I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I need to go. Wendy’s out here—”

  The sheriff suddenly had the barrel of his rifle pointed at Johnny’s chest.

  “You’re not going anywhere, son.”

  He’s crazy. He’s fucking lost it and he’s going to shoot me right here.

  “That sister of yours ain’t out here, and if she is, well, I got a hunch she ain’t in need of saving any more than the lucky trio I just found back there.”