“Stop!” the demon roared in a commanding voice. “I don’t want visitors!”
That’s strange, thought Toby. Here I am, a helpless teenage girl—she should be salivating at the thought, not trying to drive me away. Toby kept climbing the hill, acting as if he hadn’t heard the demon’s command. “My car is…broken. The doohickey came loose again. I can’t…” Toby kept putting one foot in front of the other, shaking his head as if frustrated. “May I please borrow your phone?”
The demon lifted her too-long arms over her head and shook her fists at the sky. “Do I look as though I have a phone, missy? Do I look as though I care about your doohickeys and your car? Get out of here!”
Toby paused and lifted his gaze to meet the demon’s. He plastered a woe-begotten expression on his face, then looked behind him at the road. “But there’s no other house close. And no one comes out this way, not very often. I haven’t seen a single other car since mine quit.” He started walking again, holding the demon’s gaze with his own.
“Your problem! I didn’t invite you here. I don’t care if there’s no one else to help you. Leave! Leave now!”
Toby shook his head and pretended to sniff as if he were crying. “But…but I need your help!” he wailed. He was almost at the top of the small hill, virtually in the demon’s front yard.
“I’m warning you! Stay away from me!”
Can she see through it? Can she see through Shannon’s illusion? Why is she…scared? Toby slowed but kept his feet moving, trying to act like a confused teenager. He shot a glance behind him, back at the road, then turned back to face the demon once more. “Please help me.”
“Are you deaf, girly?” screeched the demon. She took a threatening step toward Toby, raising her hands and hooking her fingers into claws, the visible parts of her face drawn into a mask of rage…and something else.
Fear? What else could provoke that display? Toby stopped and turned toward the woods on the opposite edge of the property. His eyes scanned the length of the trees, looking for Scott or Mike, but he saw nothing and no one.
He turned back to the troll-like demon. “Please!” He lifted his free hand, palm up as if entreating the beast to help. “My cell phone has no service. I can’t… The car won’t start.”
The demon rumbled deep in her chest and took two rapid steps toward Toby. “I warned you, girly! Didn’t I just?”
“I need your help!”
With a throaty roar, the demon charged toward Toby across the small front yard, her arms raised above her head and twisted to rake her thick fingernails across Toby’s face. Without hesitation, Toby turned and sprinted away from the troll, moving away from the loose gravel of her drive.
He dove and rolled into the long grass at the top of the hill, coming to rest on one knee and bringing the paintball gun up as he did so. Here goes nothing, he thought and pulled the trigger. He set the gun for semiautomatic fire and watched the paintball arc away from him and slam into the demon’s chest between her breasts.
She stumbled to a halt, swatting at the broken paintball casing. The acetone and bleach combined in an exothermic reaction, boiling into a gas that she inhaled. She pulled her head back and sneezed.
Toby fired, again and again, both paintballs zipping from the barrel of his gun to the troll’s torso. Neither paintball went where he had aimed, but they hit nonetheless and added more chloroform gas to the breathing space around the demon.
“What is this? How dare you come here and—”
Toby flicked the switch that changed the paintball gun from semiautomatic fire to full automatic and squeezed the trigger for half a second. Four paintballs arced away from him, each following their own wobbling, off-kilter trajectory, but each one finding a part of the demon’s body. With each new hit, the beast jerked, as if she expected more pain.
No, these aren’t bullets. A savage grin distended Toby’s face.
“Who are you?” The demon slowed and dropped her arms as if their weight had become too much for her to support. “Why are you doing this?”
Toby’s answer was a one-second burst from the paintball gun. This time the last few rounds cut through the air over her shoulders and slapped into the trees at the edge of the drive. Short bursts it is, he thought. Unless there’s a bunch of them.
The demon swatted at the spots where the acetone and bleach boiled, as if no more than a human woman slapping at bug bites. The troll staggered another step, then stopped. She turned her face toward Toby. “Are you… Are you the one? The hunter?” Her voice degenerated into a fearful whine.
Toby didn’t answer but stood, holding the paintball gun loosely.
She flicked her fingers at him. “Why can’t I see you? You are no teenage girl…I sniffed that out right from the start. And I smelled the thing—the not-gun—you keep shooting me with.”
“Not being able to see who’s attacking you is a bitch, isn’t it?” Toby said. Maintaining distance, Toby walked around the troll-like demon. He glanced at the house, worried there might be other demons inside, but it was quiet, dead.
“When I…first heard about you…I stopped… Why have you…come…for me? I abstained…” The demon teetered forward and had to take a quick step to stop herself from falling on her face. “What is…” She flicked one of the wet spots on her flesh.” What is…this…junk?”
“Chloroform,” Toby said with a shrug. “Who else is in the house?”
“The house?” slurred the demon. She turned her head ponderously toward the porch. “I’ve been hiding…hoping you…would…pass me…by—” Her jaw snapped shut, and the demon fell forward, landing on her face.
“That was easy,” said Toby. Even so, he leveled the paintball gun at the facedown demon and fired three short bursts at the area around her head. Wisps of gas danced around her.
“Is she out?” called Scott from the woods behind him.
“I don’t know yet. But the chloroform seems to work.”
Scott grunted from his hiding place.
“Keep an eye on her, Scott. I’m going to check out the house.”
“You should let Mike and I do that,” said Scott. We are trained for it, you know.”
“Good enough,” said Toby with a shrug. He squatted, holding the paintball gun across his knees, and watched the demon for telltale signs that she was playing dead.
Mike and Scott emerged from the woods, each slinging a shotgun over their shoulders and readying their own paintball guns. They met on the porch, and without a word, Scott kicked the door in, and they both charged through.
Toby fired a few more rounds, hitting the troll-like demon in the head. She didn’t move, didn’t even twitch. He fished the small walkie-talkie out of his back pocket and keyed its mic. “Bring the car up, Shannon. Good job, by the way.”
“Benny said she could smell you.”
“That’s what she said. We’ll work on it.”
Down the hill, the Lincoln’s V-8 rumbled to life, and its tires crunched gravel. From behind him came the sounds of Mike and Scott clearing the house, banging doors, up-ended furniture crashing to the floor. Toby shook his head and grinned.
“We’re back in business,” he said to the unconscious demon.
Chapter 3
1986
1
In the distance, Greg cried out, and though Joe tried to run faster, he’d reached his maximum. For the first time in his adult life, Joe felt unequal to the task before him. For the first time in his adult life, he felt lost—unsure of which direction to go, unsure what to do next.
He shook his head and tried to focus on getting to Greg. He’s all that matters, he thought. I’ve got to protect Greg.
In the darkness ahead, a humanoid figure loomed. Joe slid to a stop, raised his rifle, and fired. He hadn’t taken the time to control his breath or calm his pulse, so had to settle for a center of mass shot. But the round went high, clipping the woman in the shoulder and spinning her to the side.
The shriek of rag
e rang into the night.
“No! No, Grandpa!”
It was Greg’s voice, and he was close by the sound of it. Joe shifted the rifle to high port. “Greg, where are you?”
“Go back, Grandpa! Don’t let her get you!”
Joe shook his head. “Greg, she’s not after me, she’s after you! Stop running and come to the sound of my voice.”
“Grandpa…”
The boy sounded exhausted, out of breath. The woman in black took a step toward Joe, and he snubbed the rifle butt to his shoulder once more and leaned into it a little. “Don’t do it, lady!” He didn’t understand how the woman was still moving. He couldn’t have missed all those shots, and the likelihood that all those .308 rounds had hit her and not caused lethal damage was close to zero. But there was no denying the fact that she was still up and functioning—in truth, she didn’t seem injured at all. What the hell is going on here?
The crazy woman came on, walking straight at him, as bold as she pleased. Joe squeezed off the two remaining rounds in the magazine, grimacing as her torso twitched from side to side with each impact. He ejected the magazine, trading it for the full magazine in his back pocket. He released the bolt and brought the rifle back up to firing position. The entire maneuver had taken mere seconds, but the black-swathed woman had vanished again. She’d disappeared without a sound.
Again.
“Where are you, Greg?” he shouted.
Greg didn’t answer, but ahead dogs growled in warning.
2
Tom Walton passed the string of Genosgwa police cars and pulled in behind Gary Dennis’s cruiser, then slammed the car into park. This night is turning into a clusterfuck of epic proportions! He got out of the car and opened the trunk, waving at the other officers to join him.
Tom took an AR-15 for himself and three of the magazines he’d loaded. He slipped two of them into his back pockets and rammed the other into the rifle. “There are six magazines for each AR, boys, but don’t load yourself down with ammunition. I’m taking sixty rounds, and I figure that’s enough to stop a small invasion, let alone this crackpot after the kids. If you end up with a shotgun, take a pocketful of extra shells.”
Tom stepped away from the cruiser and walked toward the woods. Each AR-15 had a flashlight attached under the foregrip, and Tom switched his on, playing the beam across the trees closest to the road. One by one, the other officers joined him, and when they were all gathered together, Tom said, “We don’t know much, but we know this: Gary Dennis, Joe Canton, and Stephen Canton all went into these woods tonight, following little Greg Canton. We don’t know for sure that anyone else is in the woods, but each of those three men carried firearms. That means each of us needs to be hyper-alert and hyper-careful. I don’t want any friendly fire incidents, men.” He shook his head, plastering a mournful expression on his face. “The paperwork is such bullshit on that stuff.” That earned him a chuckle from a few of the men.
“What’s the plan, Chief?”
“The plan? The plan is simple. We line up about five yards apart, and we search every blessed inch of these goddamn woods. Stay within eyesight of each other at all times. The first one of you that breaks that rule earns both an ass-kicking and a month’s worth of shifts on your least favorite schedule. Everyone clear on that?” When they all gave him a nod, Tom nodded back. “Good. We’re going to maintain trigger discipline, and these firearms will stay on safe until I say different. Defend yourselves but make sure you are defending yourself if you fire.” He stared into each man’s face in turn, getting a nod from each officer before he moved on.
“Chief Walton? Is that you?” called Elizabet Canton from the kitchen door of her lake house.
“Yes, ma’am, it is, but I’m a mite busy at the moment. We are about to search these woods for your menfolk, so you’ll pardon me if I don’t take the time to speak to you right now.”
“Well, okay, Chief. I expect you to update me before you leave.”
“Of course.” With that, Tom turned toward the woods then shot glances at the men on each side of him and stepped into the chilly darkness. The moon shone down on them, lighting up the surrounding forest, and they hardly needed their flashlights.
After twenty-five minutes, they emerged from the woods on the thin strip of grass bordering the shoulder of Lake Circle. They hadn’t seen a thing—no boy, none of the men, no madman. Tom stood for a moment, not moving, just staring at the trees across the road. The forest on that side of the road was thicker, darker, and less well-traveled than the woods on the shore side of Lake Circle. “Gary wouldn’t cross the road,” Tom muttered.
“No, sir, he wouldn’t do that,” said Pete Martin. “I’ve only known him for three months, but that’s enough time to get to know Gary pretty well. I guess if he were hot on the trail of someone…”
Without looking at him, Tom inclined his head and then turned back toward the woods they had just traipsed through. “Gather around, it’s time for a palaver.” He waited a few moments for his officers to gather in a circle. “Did any of you see anything at all? Broken branches or disturbed underbrush? Anything you discounted?”
Each of the officers shook his head.
“Now, that just doesn’t make sense, does it? If it were just Greg and Stephen Canton, I could come to buy that they may have crossed this ribbon of blacktop, but Joe Canton? Gary Dennis?” Tom shook his head.
“What if they were chasing someone?” asked Martin.
“Or being chased,” said Michael Arnold, the evening shift commander and senior officer.
Tom dropped his chin toward his chest. “Yeah. I guess that’s a possibility, isn’t it? But Gary would’ve radioed Shelly. Updated his position, at least.”
“Maybe his handheld couldn’t get a clear signal.”
“That could be, Michael. Do we turn back and search these woods again, or do we cross this road and go on?”
Arnold shook his head and eyed the dark woods across the road. “It would be better to get Leland Chambers out here with his dogs than for the seven of us to head into those woods. We are too few, and that section of woods is too big.”
Tom agreed with him and treated him to a terse nod. “We’re going back through these woods toward the cars. This time, let’s spread out more—say ten yards separation.”
Tom led his men back into the woods, and at first, it seemed everything was the same as their first trip through the woods.
“I’ve got tracks here, Chief,” said Mike. The trail he’d found turned out to be four sets of tracks—a set sized for an eleven-year-old boy, and three sets of adult footprints.
“Well, that makes things easier, doesn’t it?” said Tom. “Good eyes, Arnold.”
They followed the trail farther into the woods and, as if they’d crossed an invisible boundary, lost the sounds of the lake lapping against the shore and lost the moonlight behind a ceiling of mist. The forest seemed darker, and their flashlights seemed less effective. After another hundred paces, the tracks disappeared—as Stellan Jacobsen’s footprints had on the other side of the lake.
Tom called a halt and motioned for his men to gather around. This makes little sense. How can the tracks just…disappear as if they’d never existed?
Tom turned and retraced his steps until he was out from under the mist. Once there, he turned back to his officers, but he could barely see them in the darkness. He didn’t care for the feeling in his stomach, like a mild electric shock causing his guts to twitch and jerk.
Something was very wrong, but Tom had no idea what it was.
3
“Come away from the window, dear,” said Elizabet. “There’s nothing to see.”
Mary nodded but didn’t move away from the window. The muscles in her back and neck had snarled and locked so hard they felt like iron—as if she would never relax again. Elizabet was right, however, there was nothing outside to see. Only the black of night, the woods across the road, and seven abandoned cop cars.
“Come now,
dear. Come rest. Tom and his men are very good at what they do. They will let us know as soon as there’s anything to know.”
Again, Mary lifted her chin and let it drop, this time accompanying the gesture with a gust of breath. This is so frustrating! She closed her eyes, praying silently that Stephen would find their son and bring him home whole. Mary opened her eyes, and when she did, something flickered at the edge of the trees across the gravel road.
She stared at the space where she’d seen the movement, but the flicker did not repeat. Mary forced herself to relax, forced her tense, rock-hard muscles to relax, and stepped away from the window. “I know you’re right, Elizabet. I just can’t help it.”
Elizabet looked up at her with a compassionate expression on her face. She patted the sofa next to her with one hand and waved at the cup of tea resting on the coffee table with the other. “Come sit. The tea will make you feel better, I promise.”
Whiskey might, but tea? Despite her thoughts, Mary walked over to the couch and sat. She picked up the teacup and sipped at the contents. Chamomile. That figures. Despite her worry, despite how tense she was, fatigue dragged at her. She opened her mouth with a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Why not nap, if you can, dear?”
Mary shook her head and looked at her mother-in-law askance. “I could never sleep.”
“Try, dear. You’ll do no one any good if you wear yourself out.”
Mary uncoiled from the couch and paced the length of the room. Each time she neared the window that gave her a view of the woods across the gravel road from the house, she stared at it, hoping to see Greg, hoping to see Stephen, but each glance was a disappointment. “I have to do something, Elizabet! I can’t just—”
“I understand, but there’s nothing—”
“Don’t say there’s nothing I can do!” Elizabet snapped her mouth shut with an audible click and averted her gaze, but not before a flash of hurt splashed in her eyes. “Oh, forgive me, Elizabet. I’m not myself.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, dear. The stress of this…”
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