Marina cautiously stuck a finger through the bars of the cage and the little kitten bounced happily toward her on fat little feet. The kitten reached up with her two front paws and grabbed onto the finger.
She bit the tip affectionately. The bite tickled, and Marina pulled her finger back, laughing. She turned to the Humane Society attendant.
"I'll take her," she said.
The man shrugged noncommittally. "Cost you ten dollars, including shots."
"That's fine." Marina smiled as she stuck her finger once again through the wire cage. The kitten grabbed onto the finger and started biting.
She filled out the proper forms and paid the money at the front desk, trying to think of names for her new pet. She definitely didn't want to name the kitten something like Coco or Princess or any of the other sickeningly saccharine names favored by old ladies or young girls. And names like Missy orQueenie that ended in an "ee" sound were definitely out. Perhaps Alfalfa would be good, after the Little Rascals'
character. Or Horton, after Dr. Seuss' elephant. Or Francois, after Truffaut.
The attendant brought the kitten out and asked Marina if she would like a box for the trip home, but she said she'd rather hold the kitty instead. The man handed her the peeping ball of gray fur, and she cradled her new pet in her arms like a baby. The kitten lightly bit her finger and purred.
Dracula. That would be a good name.
No,Vlad . AfterVlad theImpaler , the original Dracula.
She looked down at the gray furry face. "HiVlad ," she said.
The kitten looked up at her and bit her finger.
Vladspent the trip home exploring the car. She crawled under the seats, hopped on the dashboard and spent quite a while doing God-knew-what in the very back of the Jeep. Marina tried to drive and keep an eye on the kitten at the same time. She didn't want her to get stuck under the seat or try to jump out or something.
Once home, she grabbed the kitten, who was rummaging around in a box of emergency car parts, and took her immediately into the house. She put her down on the hardwood floor of the kitchen.Vlad looked around suspiciously at first but quickly lost her fear. She trotted off to explore the living room, padding across the floor on her fat little feet.
Marina spent the afternoon followingVlad around the house, keeping the kitten away from restricted areas such as the couches by picking her up, saying "No" and putting her down someplace else. She poured her new pet a saucer of milk but discovered that she had forgotten to buy any kind of cat food. She opened a can of Star-Kist tuna and made a note to have Gordon get some real cat food.
She made a makeshift litter box from an old Pepsi carton and filled it with dirt from the garden.
At a little after three, she putVlad back in the car and drove into town to pick up Gordon. She parked in front of the warehouse, held the kitten in her lap and waited. A few minutes later, Gordon pulled open the door of the Jeep, sat down and sighed. "Damn I'm tired. My arms hurt like hell."
Marina said nothing.
He looked at her. "What are you waiting for? Let's go." His eyes found the small bundle of fur in her lap. "Got a new pussy, huh?"
She hit his shoulder with her fist. "How can you be so crude?"
He smiled. "Must be from hanging around Brad all day. You'd be that way too if you had to spend all your time with him." He held out his hands. "Let me see the little guy." Marina handed him the kitten and he held the animal's face next to his. "Cute little thing, isn't he?"
"It's not a he, it's a she. And her name isVlad ."
"Vlad? That's a boy's name. Why are you calling her that?"
"Put your finger next to her face."
Gordon held out an index finger andVlad grabbed it with two paws and began biting. Gordon laughed. "That's great." He put the kitten down on his lap and rubbed her fur, playing with her. The kitten leapt and attacked. He held his hand over the kitten's face, and she tried to bite his palm. "You're a little fighter, aren't you? Aren't you?"
Vlad bit.
They drove toward home.
The white Dodge Dart, its bumpers and windows covered with a thin layer of fine reddish dust, sped down the forest service road toward Aspen Lake. The windows of the car were up, the air conditioning on, and the stereo was cranked up almost to the pain level. Matt McDowell, bouncing around on the ripped upholstery of the back seat, leaned forward, sticking his head between his two friends in the front. "How much farther?" he yelled.
Jack Harrison shook his head, unable to hear above the noise of the stereo.
"I said, how much farther is it?" Matt screamed.
"Another ten minutes or so!" Jack screamed back. "It's pretty far in!"
Matt sat back in his seat and looked out the window at the passing scenery. Although he had heard about Aspen Lake since his nursery school days, he had never been there. The most inaccessible lake on the Rim, it could be reached only by taking a narrow untended forest service road; what used to be an old logging trail. His father had never been willing to drive the road--he said he didn't want to ruin his truck--so they had always gone to Crest wood and Sherman lakes instead. And since Matt was still too young to drive, he'd never had any way to get there. Until now. Until Jack and Wayne had invited him to come along with them on an overnight fishing trip; their last of the summer.
An antlered buck, standing stock-still near a puddle of muddy water at the side of the road, looked up suddenly as they approached then bounded away into the trees. Matt watched it disappear into the forest. He had never been on a camping trip alone before, without an adult, and he was a little nervous. He was conscious of the fact that the last sign of civilization they'd passed had been a small bait and tackle store back on the main highway, a good thirty miles behind them.
If something should happen, if one of them got bitten by a rattlesnake or broke his leg or choked on his food or something worse, they wouldn't be able to get help. The store was a forty-five minute drive away from the lake on this road, and it probably wasn't even open at night. Way out here, they could scream all they wanted and no one would hear them. Since this was a weeknight and not a weekend, there probably wouldn't even be any other campers around. And of course there was no phone and no electricity.
No electricity.
That was what he was really worried about, though he wouldn't admit it to Jack or Wayne. There was no electricity out here. No lights. When the sun went down, it would be dark. Completely dark. They'd have a campfire for a while, but they'd have to make sure it was extinguished before they went to sleep so it wouldn't start a forest fire.
They'd be all alone.
In total darkness.
Matt felt a rush of goose bumps cascade down his arms just thinking about it. He turned around and looked through the dusty rear window at the sky. It was clearing already, the storm clouds moving off the Rim toward Randall, but Matt knew from what everyone told him that it often rained at night on the Rim, that a second storm, a storm that would never reach the town, often unleashed its fury on campers around the lakes.
And he'd only brought his sleeping bag. He had no tent.
He might have to sleep in the car.
Jack turned the stereo down for a second, heavy metal guitars fading into a drone that offered a perfect counterpoint to the humming of the rebuilt engine. "We're almost there," he said.
Matt leaned forward and looked through the front windshield. Around them, the pine trees were thinning out, being subtly replaced by white-trunkedaspens. The ground, previously a dusty red gravel covered with a layer of brown pine needles, was becoming green, grassy.
Before them, through the round thickly-clustered leaves of the aspens, he could see the shimmering blue of the lake. "Where are we going to camp?" he started to ask.
But Jack had turned the stereo up again and couldn't hear him.
They camped on the south side of the lake underneath a small outcropping of rock that Jack said would protect them if it rained.
They were not direct
ly on the shore of the lake but were separated from the water by a clump of boulders and several trees. The car was parked off the edge of the road, several yards up an incline from the camp.
Although the lake had supposedly been stocked the day before, none of them got even a bite in their attempts to fish, and after trying several spots and several different types of bait, they decided to give it up. The rods, reels, and tackle boxes were dropped next to the car, and Jack opened the car door and turned on the stereo. He popped in an old Black Sabbath tape, and the opening strains of "Iron Man" blared through the door speakers, assaulting the silence.
They walked back down the dirt path to the campsite.
Matt sat on a fallen log, staring out at the lake and listening to the music. Jack read a car magazine. Wayne lay on his back on a rock, looking up at the passing clouds, then jumped off and began pacing around the cleared campsite. "I'm bored," he said.
Jack laughed. "Fine. You can pick up wood. We need to get some if we're going to have any kind of fire tonight."
"Fuck that."
"Suit yourself." Jack went back to his magazine. "But it's going to get awfully cold tonight. And I'm not collecting wood."
"I'll do it," Matt said.
Wayne looked from Matt to Jack, smiling, "He'll do it."
Jack shrugged. "Fine."
Matt slid off the log and brushed off the back of his pants. His fingers felt something sticky on the material, and they came away with small smears of sap on their tips. "Damn," he said.
Wayne looked at him. "Sap?"
Matt nodded.
"Those pants are gone. There's no way you can get sap out. I've ruined more pants that way."
Matt looked at Jack. "What do I use to carry the wood?"
"Your hands," Jack said.
Matt started up the hill. He passed the car on the road and continued climbing. There were a few small twigs on the ground, but no branches big enough for burning. He headed toward the top of the ridge in search of other, more promising trees.
Overhead, the sky was clouding up again. The dark gray clouds were moving visibly, propelled by airborne winds, billowing, growing thicker. Matt didn't have a watch, but the sun was already starting to go down and his stomach was making whirring sounds of hunger, so it was probably around four or five o'clock. Soon it would be dark.
Above him, on the top of the hill, he thought he saw something move.
"Hello!" he said loudly. He didn't know if it was human or animal, but it didn't hurt to be on the safe side. He wasn't wearing hunter's orange, and he didn't want to be accidentally mistaken for a deer or a bear and shot by some nearsighted hunter. "Hello!" he yelled again.
He reached the top of the ridge and used his hands to pull himself up the last steep little cliff.
The crest of the hill was flat, like a mesa. Most of the trees here had either been cut or had fallen over and there was plenty of good firewood for the gathering. Matt looked around him. Ahead, other hills and other valleys alternated in an endless progression atop the Rim. To the sides, his hill continued, the trees getting thicker and thicker until they finally obscured his view completely. He picked up a nice sized branch, long dead and completely dry, then dropped it.
This would probably be his first and only trip up this hill; he would have to be careful about the wood he chose. His picks would have to last them all night.
He looked around for the hunter, but he couldn't see anyone. Perhaps it hadn't been a hunter after all. It might not have even been human.
Perhaps he had seen a deer or an elk or some other large animal.
Or a bear.
No, it couldn't have been a bear. It wasn't possible. He looked around tentatively, carefully. If it had been a bear he had scared it off.
He quickly started picking up branches.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something move.
The wood dropped from his hands and he whirled around in panic. There was nothing there. The top of the hill was empty.
He was starting to Spock himself. He walked to the edge of the ridge and looked down. He could see the water of the lake shimmering through the round clustered leaves of the aspens, but he could see neither the car nor the camp. "Jack!" he called. "Wayne!"
There was no answer.
A cold breeze came up suddenly, swirling the leaves and blowing Matt's hair. He shivered, and goose bumps ran down his arms. He turned around and began once again to gather up wood. There was a name for things seen out of the corner of a person's eyes, he knew. He had read about it in his parents' People's Almanac one day. Some cultures thought they were ghosts, but there was really some scientific explanation for them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something move again.
He grabbed one last chunk of wood, headed toward the edge of the hill, and tripped.
He fell sprawling, the wood flying out of his hands, his chin hitting the rough rock of the ground. His jaw was snapped forcibly shut and pain erupted through the nerve endings of his teeth. A sharp twig cut into his hand. A knee of his jeans ripped. Matt sat up, twisting around to see what he had tripped over. The wind was blowing hard now, tugging at his sleeves, and a few splashes of rain hit his face. He kicked at a clump of wildflowers next to his foot.
The leaves of the plant parted to reveal a small stone cross.
He jumped up, heart pounding, but fell immediately back down. His ankle was hurt, twisted, probably broken. He couldn't stand on it. He looked carefully at the rest of the hilltop. All across the flat ridge he could see tiny crosses hidden by weeds and wildflowers and piles of dead wood. He was surrounded by them.
A twig cracked behind him. "Jack!" he yelled. "Wayne! Jack!"
Another twig cracked. Closer.
"Jack!" he screamed.
But his voice was carried away by the wind and by the hard rain that had started to fall on the forest.
Annette Weldon stared down at the sleeping form of her husband as he tossed and turned next to her in the bed, rolling over onto his stomach then rolling back and throwing his arm over his face. His expression was troubled, his brows furrowed into a sleep-bound frown. His mouth worked agonizingly, opening and closing as if to scream, but no sound came out. She reached over and put her hand on the top of his head, letting her fingers run through the rough straw-like hair as she attempted to soothe him. She wanted to wake him up, but he got little enough sleep as it was and she didn't want him to waste any more.
Suddenly he sat bolt upright in bed, his eyes popping wide open, and screamed.
Annette screamed too, in shock. His glazed and staring eyes turned on her, then settled back into normalcy as his brain registered the fact that he was awake. He closed his eyes and opened them, blinking hard.
When he saw how scared she was, he reached out to put a hand on her shoulder and tried to smile. "Just a nightmare," he said.
"You never have anything but nightmares anymore."
"I know." He idly caressed her upper arm. "It's all these damn murders and all this .. . weird shit. It's really starting to get to me."
She stared at him and there was concern in her eyes. "You're going to get an ulcer."
"I know it." He sighed heavily and settled back down on the bed.
"Maybe I should turn it over to the state police." He looked at her.
"I've been checking into it, you know. The state police does handle things like this if the local operations aren't equipped to handle it.
And I don't think we're equipped. I'm tempted to just turn the whole damn thing over to them and admit that I'm baffled."
"You still don't have any leads? On any of these cases?"
He turned his face toward her on the pillow. She was still sitting up, looking down at him, and there was such a look of sympathetic understanding in her eyes, such kindness in the rounded corners of her mouth, that he thought about telling her his thoughts. His real thoughts. His crazy theories. But no, he couldn't do that. She wouldn't understand. She would want to understand, s
he would try to understand, but she would not be able to. Hell, who could? "No," he said. "We don't have any leads."
Shelayed down next to him and nestled close, laying an arm over his hairy chest, letting her hand rest in the crook of his arm. He put his hand on hers and they lay there like that for a while.
"Did you ever think that all of this might be connected?" she asked finally.
He had been about to fall back asleep. His eyes were closed and his mind drifted in that netherworld between sleep and wakefulness. But at the sound of her words he jerked awake, eyes opening, startled. "What did you say?"
"Did you ever think that all these cases are connected? I mean, it's common sense. I thought one of you would have noticed by now. AH those goats killed and their blood all over the churches."
"Well, we did put that together."
"And two of the farmers killed? And one of the preachers? It's obvious."
"We're not completely dense," he said defensively. He sat up against the headboard then looked at her indulgently, playing the condescending cop role, trying to remain outwardly calm though he was beginning to feel very excited. "We know they're connected. We just don't know how. Do you have any ideas?"
"Not really. It just seems to me that it's probably a group of devil worshipers or witches or a cult of some kind."
Close but no cigar. Their minds were not quite meeting. Still, they were thinking along the same lines. He was tempted to tell her about Don's dream, about his own dream, about Don's death, about the . . .thing ... he had seen and heard outside his office. Maybe she would understand. Maybe she wouldn't think he was that crazy. But as he looked at her he realized just how far off the deep end his ideas sounded. Her thoughts may have been courting his territory, but they made a hell of a lot more sense than his irrational theories of--what?
Supernatural forces? Monsters?
"You've been watching too many movies," he said.
She frowned. "You just admitted that you're stumped. My idea might be stupid, but it can't hurt to check it out."
The Revelation Page 9
