“You’re scaring me,” Sarah said.
Pull yourself together, he thought.
He turned back around and continued walking. He smiled at her and she relaxed. “Sorry. I just had the weirdest sensation that we were being followed.”
She made a panicked glance behind her.
“We’re not,” he added quickly. “I guess it’s just this whole grisly ordeal. You know, walking in the woods looking for a missing person. It’s got me spooked.”
For once, he was telling the truth. He was spooked, but not about finding a dead body (he’d seen plenty of those). A wave of irritation washed through him. The stress of tonight’s event had his nerves shot. They had no business out here. He, Gordy and Nan should be back at the command center preparing for their guests.
It wasn’t just that, though. When they first arrived, he’d spotted a colossal black man standing off in the distance, taking their pictures. The giant had tried to play it off like he was taking photos of everyone, but more often than not the lens was pointed at the three Pummels. Was it possible he was a Fed? Maybe the FBI knew about tonight’s event.
“Are you all right?” Sarah asked. He looked up and realized that he had been walking very fast. “You look like you’re angry.”
Art unclenched his jaw and forced his features to soften. “No, of course I’m not angry. I just got myself all worked up.”
“About what?”
“I was just thinking how terrible it would be if we came across his body. I’ve never seen anyone dead before. I’m not sure I could handle it.”
Art thought about loading Theresa Bastion’s mangled corpse into the incinerator at St. Francis. How he and Wexxel had played a round of soccer with her head. He felt very aroused all of a sudden and it occurred to him that he loved lying just as much as he loved killing.
A strange noise, like a bird chirping through a bad sound system, echoed around them. They both stopped to listen, but the sound didn’t return.
“Tell me you heard that, too,” Art said.
Sarah nodded. “What was it? I’ve never heard anything like that before.”
“I don’t know. It must be a bird. Sure did sound weird, though. I think it was coming from those pine trees.” Art pointed to an area a couple hundred yards ahead where it looked like two different worlds had been poorly spliced together. The deciduous trees dead-ended at a wall of thick, diseased looking pines. The area of pines seemed untouched by the sunlight, tossed into a world of perpetual twilight.
“What time is it?” Sarah asked. She looked all around like a frightened rabbit.
Art looked at his watch. “It’s a quarter past eleven.”
“Maybe we should head back to the meeting spot.” Sarah shivered. “I don’t like this place.”
“It’s not that bad. Kind of peaceful.”
“Not to me it isn’t.”
“Come on. I want to go look in those pines. It looks interesting. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It looks like another planet.”
Sarah backed up a step. “Or a graveyard.”
It did look like a graveyard; perhaps a cemetery for trees. Now he really wanted a looksee. “I’m going in. Come with me.”
She crossed her arms like a pouting child. “Absolutely not.”
Art had one of his lightning urges to blast her teeth out of her mouth. He choked back the rage and forced a smile. “Well I’m going in. Are you going to walk back alone?”
She surveyed the forest around her, and Art could almost imagine what she saw. The trees, once beautiful works of nature, now seemed to be menacing giants concealing monsters and obscuring from view all the dark creatures of life.
Art’s smile broadened. The mind can be the cruelest and most sadistic of all prison guards. Put a man in the middle of a dark tunnel, hint to him that something terrible hunts him, and his mind will conjure such fears that his feet will become rooted and he will die in the same spot, unable to move forwards or backwards.
Art was a purveyor of fear. He understood it well.
“I’m going to go in there and have a look around. You’re welcome to join me, or walk back. Or if you like you can stay right there. I’ll only be gone a few minutes then we can walk back together.”
“You promise you won’t be gone long?”
He raised his right hand like a boy scout. “Cross my heart and on my mother’s honor.”
“I guess I’ll wait here then.”
It was a good thing she had a great body with a pretty face because she was as annoying as poison ivy in your ass crack. “You’ll be fine. There’s nothing in this forest meaner than me.”
Her face clouded with suspicion and he remembered that he had been playing the part of the sensitive, enlightened modern man. His lapse back into tough-guy mode was setting off her alarm bells.
He left her standing there and made his way to the pine trees. There were multiple types of pines all crowded together. The ground was choked bald by the discarded needles, which felt like a sponge when he walked upon it. The air was thick with the scent of the sap bleeding from the cancerous-looking trunks. Art hadn’t even touched one of the trees, yet he felt sticky and tainted. The lack of sunlight and the close spacing of the trees greatly reduced visibility and brought an inexplicable sense of claustrophobia.
Art pulled at the collar of his shirt as if it were choking him. It seemed hard to breathe, almost like he was standing at a high altitude. He looked all around, half-expecting someone to step out from behind one of the bigger pines. There were too many places to hide. He was vulnerable—easy prey. That terrible sound, somewhere between a bird cooing and a cricket chirping, rose into the air. He spun in an attempt to locate the source but stumbled and fell into the jagged branches of a Colorado Spruce.
After a bit of panicked thrashing he emerged from the branches, sticky with sap and bleeding from a scratch across his cheek. He cursed out loud, this time not caring if Sarah heard him. The girl made a sound that was either a cough or a laugh.
Art stood up, knocked off the needles that weren’t glued on with sap, and started back. Just outside of the pines he stopped and looked around. Sarah was gone.
He walked out a bit farther. “Hey. You hiding somewhere?”
She didn’t answer.
“Come now, don’t try to jump out and scare me.” Still nothing. Surely she hadn’t tried to walk back on her own. She seemed way too frightened to do something like that.
As he came upon the place where he had left her standing, he noticed strange markings on the ground. The fallen leaves were stirred and kicked up exposing the dark earth beneath. The ferns were trampled flat; the small saplings were broken over. There was a trail scraped into the ground that Art recognized all too well. It was the telltale marking of a body being dragged.
Art reached down to the holster that was concealed at his ankle and withdrew a .38 revolver. He opened the chamber, confirmed all six bullets were live, and then rolled it back closed. As he followed the drag-trail, bits of jetsam—one of Sarah’s shoes, her watch, and a shred of her shirt—littered the ground. The trail ended with more evidence of a struggle, a pile of tattered clothing covered in sand and nothing more. Sarah Chang was nowhere to be found.
“I’m in the shit now,” Art muttered.
He touched the scratch on his face then looked down at his own footprints. This was going to be a hard one to wiggle out of. Even if he did, Nan was still going to have his balls.
Art made his way back up the trail collecting the items Sarah Chang had lost during her struggle and made a pile of them. After that, he erased the trail by kicking leaves and dirt over the marks, masking it as best he could. He needed a place to dispose of the evidence. He needed someplace where bloodhounds wouldn’t find it.
As he started walking, he caught movement to his right. He turned, his heart thrashing around and his breathing cut to short bursts. His blood pressure must be through the roof, because for a moment he thought he saw the air
move, like waves of heat off of a sun-scorched road. But when he blinked it was gone. He watched for a long time, but nothing stirred.
With Sarah’s belongings in hand he made off through the woods looking for just the right spot. The day wasn’t especially warm, but by the time he found what he was looking for he was drenched in sweat and wheezing badly.
Art placed the pile on the ground then carefully knelt down so as to not soil his clothes. He wasn’t afraid of getting dirty, but the scratch on his face was incriminating enough. If he showed up with dirt on his knees and crud under his fingernails it would only make things worse. He looked at the jagged slabs of limestone poking up through the dead foliage, ferns and scrub brush. He gingerly pulled back the thin willowy branches. Concealed beneath was a hole no bigger than a groundhog’s burrow. He picked up a small stone and dropped it in the hole. It fell a good ways before plunking on bottom. That was at least one good thing about Indiana; the limestone beneath the ground created endless caves and crevasses.
Art dropped Sarah’s belongings down the hole then checked to make sure they were no longer visible. He stood up, unzipped his pants and pissed down the hole. That should be enough to cover up Sarah’s scent should any search dogs wander this way. Of course, if her body turned up raped and mutilated, all of this effort might be a big waste of time.
Still, chance favors the man that is prepared.
Art made it back to the search headquarters about an hour and half later. He could tell by those standing around that they had been back for a while, but it was the fiery eyes of Gordy and Nan that concerned him most. They approached him, followed by the squat toad-woman and several other volunteers.
“Where have you been?” Nan hissed.
“Just searching. Like everyone else.”
“Most everyone is back,” Gordy said. “What happened to your face?”
“I fell into a pine tree.” Art raised his arms to show them the sap stuck to him. “The branch cut my face.”
“Is Sarah not with you?” the toad-woman asked.
Art feigned confusion. “Who?”
“Sarah Chang. Didn’t she leave with you?”
Art hated the way she was watching him; her accusing eyes were bulging from their sockets. “Oh, her. We parted ways a long time ago.” He looked around, putting on a convincing mask of concern. “Has she not made it back yet?”
“No. You two were the only ones that hadn’t reported in. We were hoping she was with you.”
Art shrugged. “I wanted to search an area full of old pine trees.”
“The Pine Belt,” one of the bystanders interrupted.
“Yeah, I guess.” He wanted to shoot the interrupter and the toad-lady so much that his hand ached. “She said it was too spooky, so we decided to split up. I looked in there and she said she was going to look elsewhere.”
He could see that Gordy and Nan weren’t buying his story, but the others seemed convinced enough. Art clenched his jaw. Wasn’t this just great? For once he tells the truth, mostly, and his own brother doesn’t believe him. “I’m sure she’ll be back any minute.”
After a bit more conversation Gordy smoothed over toad-lady, allowing them a clean exit. They smiled and waved to the group as they piled into the car. Nan drove, Gordy took shotgun and Art sat in the back seat. When they were well on their way and no longer visible by the group, all Hell broke loose within the car.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Gordy screamed.
“You killed that girl, didn’t you, you impulsive, narcissistic asshole?” Nan added.
Art sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “I told the truth, so the both of you can go fuck yourselves.”
“The truth my ass,” Gordy said.
“That’s beyond your ability,” Nan said.
“Look,” Art said with an exasperated sigh. “I went into those pines, just like I said. The girl stayed back, just like I said. I fell into the tree and cut my damn face. When I came back out she was gone.”
“And you didn’t do anything to her?” Nan’s eyes glowed with venomous spite in the rearview mirror.
“I didn’t. But someone did.”
“Tell me everything,” Gordy said.
Art explained the signs of struggle, the trail of clothing, and dropping the evidence down the hole. The only thing he omitted was the semi-hallucination he’d had that looked as if the air was moving.
After hearing the whole tale, Gordy faced forward once again. “That was good thinking, kid. But it might not be enough. When she doesn’t show they are going to start looking our way. We need to think this through.”
Nan gripped the steering wheel tight enough to bleach her knuckles white. “If you jeopardize our operation, I swear to God I’ll make you regret it.”
Art said nothing, but in his heart he vowed she wouldn’t get the chance.
An Evening Underground
Sly Felton walked the paths between the enclosures hoping that the sight of the cats would soothe his nerves. But today, they seemed to know he was a traitor to them. Almost every cat shied away from the fences and the few that stayed close wouldn’t even look at him.
The sun fell behind the trees and soon it would bury itself in the soil of night. He checked his watch: 7:35. His stomach knotted.
“I’m doing this for you,” he said to a blind albino tiger named Khan. “For all of you. Don’t you understand?” Khan seemed to neither understand, nor to care. Sly imitated the chuffing noise (a sign of affection among tigers) but Khan did not respond.
Sly continued down the path toward his golf cart. He passed a jaguar named Leslie and called out her name. Usually Leslie would rub up against the fence and purr like a kitten when called. Tonight, however, she paced back and forth in a figure-eight pattern, clearly agitated.
She knows something is happening, Sly thought. They all know. They can smell it in the air.
Sly moved on past the rest of the enclosures. He knew that his reasons didn’t matter. He had sold his soul and betrayed Penelope. He had broken the balance and peace of St. Francis and the cats would never forgive him.
Sly looked down from the top of the hill to the rear security gate. Flood lights mounted atop high wooden post illuminated the large open area. Two guards stood on either side of the gate, each holding assault-style shotguns while another guard manned the booth. A rumble of engines echoed and a horn cut through the night. The guard in the booth pressed a button, the gate rolled open and three large box-trucks drove inside.
The trucks looked like they belonged to the meat packing plant that delivered the cats’ food, but Sly doubted very much that they were carrying sides of beef and venison. For someone so paranoid about security and secrecy, Gordon Pummel should have thought this move through a bit better. Anyone with half a brain and was paying attention would know the meat is delivered once a week, during the day, by one truck. But, then again, who would be watching?
The two armed guards checked the drivers and peaked into the back of each truck. Satisfied that all was right, they sent the trucks on their way to the command center. Curious to see what the cargo was, Sly hurried down the hill after the trucks. As he came to the bottom and the silent golf cart’s wheels kicked up the gravel, the three guards turned in a lightning flash. They had their guns pointed at Sly’s head.
Sly jammed the brakes; the cart slid to the side and nearly turned over. He threw his hands up, waved them around and screamed, “It’s me. It’s Sly. Don’t shoot me.”
The guards lowered their guns but only the one in the booth, Wexxel, spoke. “What are you doing out here?”
Sly expected the man to be angry, or even relieved that they hadn’t shot him, but Wexxel’s voice was cold and mechanical.
“I’m due back at control by eight o’clock.” Sly’s voice rattled in this throat and he realized he was shaking. He didn’t want to look into the man’s lifeless eyes, but he was afraid that if he looked away they would shoot him. “Gordon is expecting me.�
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Wexxel never blinked, and Sly had an irrational fear that the man’s eyes would open into twin pits leading to Hell. Just when the man’s glare passed from uncomfortable into unbearable he holstered his pistol. “I guess you better get going then. It’s not smart to make the boss wait.”
Sly put his trembling hands down, gripped the wheel and turned down the road. He was now soaked with sweat and the wind brought a near terminal case of goose bumps.
He followed the road around the control center to the warehouse. The phony meat trucks were backed to the dock and unloading their cargo. Sly estimated about one hundred and fifty people, all dressed to the nines, were exiting the trucks.
Sly parked his golf cart then went around to the back of the trucks. The drivers were bringing down the doors, but he managed a peek inside. Plush couches were bolted to the floor and in both front corners were stocked minibars. The trucks were a strange combination of limousine and party bus. Sly still thought Gordon should have spaced the delivery out a little more. Perhaps he should mention this. He wasn’t keen on helping the Pummels improve their operation, but he also didn’t want the cops or feds raiding the place. That would not end well for the cats.
Sly found all three Pummels waiting for him in the security room. Gordon and Arthur were looking dapper in their tuxedos, and Nan was every man’s dream in her sleek, black dress. Everyone seemed so elegant and sophisticated that it was almost possible to believe they were attending an art exhibit or dinner at the White House instead of an orgy of gambling, binge drinking and blood.
“Good to see you dressed for the occasion,” Art said derisively.
Sly looked down at his worn and tattered tennis shoes, his faded blue jeans and flannel shirt. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware this was going to be a black tie event. It’s my first time.”
Gordon chuckled and Nan smiled. Art looked at him like he was something foul found in a public toilet.
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