He looked down, squinting through the fluttering haze of a thousand swirling insects. What he found made his alcohol-soaked stomach clench in a terrified knot.
His boot had caught in an open chest cavity. His toe was snagged up just under the sternum.
Ted saw the rest of the body then. The head had been concealed behind a mask of flies. It looked up at him now, eye sockets teeming with maggots.
Another body lay near the first. As stripped of life as an ear of shucked corn.
Ted was too horrified to scream. He exhaled puff after puff of frantic breath, never pulling in fresh air.
Shaking, he collapsed back into the corn. Crackling stalks snapped loudly beneath his deadweight. Frantically, he shook his foot. Trying to knock loose the body that still clung furiously to him in some morbid final act of desperation.
His crazed, terrified blundering appeared to stir the very earth. As Ted watched in growing horror, the ground began to rise up before him.
No, not the ground. Something beneath the trampled corn. Something that had been lying in wait. The thing that had been hiding in the corn stalks before him turned rapidly, fangs bared.
Even in his panic, Ted recognized the face from his dashboard. The woman he was after. Judith White.
Sleep clung to her eyes as she dropped to her hands. Blood dripped from her open mouth as she shoved off on tightly coiled legs.
As she sprang toward him, she screamed loudly. Ted screamed, as well. As he did so, there came a terrible explosion nearby. The sound rang in his ears.
Another explosion. This one close, too. Like the first, it came from somewhere near the end of his arm. A gunshot.
In his panic, he'd fired his shotgun.
Judith's expression changed from savage fury to cautious rage in midleap.
Ted was still lying on his back on the ground. She dropped beside him. Pummeled stalks were further crushed beneath her weight. A heavy paw clamped on his chest. She snarled menacingly, flashing blood-smeared teeth.
Footsteps. Running. Shouted voices.
Judith raised her nose in the air, wiggling her ears alertly. Her paw stayed pressed to Ted's unmoving chest. He held his breath.
A decision. Instinctive.
She turned. Bounding on all fours, Judith dived into the field in the direction opposite that of the voices. In a second, she was gone. The most brilliant geneticist of her generation had been forced to abandon her makeshift nest to hunters.
And flat on his back in her corpse-strewn lair, Ted Holstein could take no pride in successfully fending off the creature that had terrified so many.
He had passed out cold.
Chapter 27
After a futile night of searching, Remo had finally given up hope of finding Judith White on his own. Defeated, he had returned home. Morning found Remo sitting morosely in his living room watching the back of Chiun's head.
The Master of Sinanju had brought a quill, an ink bottle and a few sheets of parchment down from his bedchambers. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, the old Korean was writing furiously. Every time Remo tried to steal a peek at what he was writing, Chiun hunched forward, blocking the papers with his frail body.
Remo finally gave up trying to see and instead turned his attention to the wide-screen TV, hoping for some fresh news concerning Judith White. If the latest reports were to be believed, there was nothing.
"I should have stapled one of those radio tags to her ear like they do on Wild Kingdom," Remo grumbled.
"Shush," the Master of Sinanju admonished. The great plume of his quill swooped gracefully. Remo couldn't take it anymore.
He was sitting on the floor a few feet behind Chiun. He leaned forward as he had before in order to get a glimpse of the parchment. Mirroring his pupil's movements, the old man tipped farther over. As soon as he'd lowered himself enough, Remo slapped both palms to the floor and unscissored his legs. He executed a flawless somersault, twisting in midair. Briefly, both men were back-to-back as Remo slipped over his teacher. He dropped back, cross-legged to the floor.
"Ow." Remo cringed, now face-to-horrified-face with the wizened Korean. He clapped a hand to his injured shoulder even as he read some of the upsidedown words on Chiun's parchment. "How are you eclipsing Na-Kup?" he asked.
The Master of Sinanju's shocked expression flashed to anger. "None of your business," he retorted. He snatched the parchments to him. Flipping them over, he hugged the papers to his narrow chest. "Instead of irritating me with acts of childish acrobatics, why not do something useful? The rain gutters need cleaning."
"Gonna hire someone," Remo informed him.
"Why? It is a job for a street arab or other common vulgarian. I will buy you a ladder."
"I think I liked you better when you were writing screenplays," Remo said as he pushed himself to his feet. A fresh ache ran from shoulder to chest along his healed scars. He headed for the livingroom door.
As he passed the phone, it rang. When Remo scooped it up, Chiun was already spreading his parchments out once more.
"Judith White has been seen," Smith announced without preamble.
"Where?" Remo demanded.
"In Concord," Smith explained rapidly. "She had made a nest for herself in the same field where the BETA Bos camelus-whitus exchange was supposed to take place."
"I'm on my way."
"Wait," Smith called quickly. "She escaped on foot."
"Dammit," Remo complained, jamming the phone back to his ear.
"It is not as dire as it sounds," Smith explained. "She apparently feeds at night. I suspected as much before. That is why most of the murders took place after dark. She is no longer accustomed to daylight hours, as is a normal human."
"She's not a freaking vampire, Smitty."
"She might just as well be," Smith replied. "For in daylight, she is exposed. People will see her. More so now that she has been identified as the killer."
"But we still don't know where she is," Remo argued.
"We cannot pinpoint a precise location," Smith agreed, "but there have been three sightings since the incident this morning. One in Minute Man National Historic Park, one in Winchester and the third in the woods near Middlesex Fells Reservoir. She appears to be heading back to Boston."
"I thought she was the thinking man's animal." Remo frowned. "Doesn't she know there are hunters everywhere around here? What's she doing coming back?"
"I could not begin to speculate," Smith said. "But that appears to be the pattern. Do you still have your Department of Agriculture identification?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I am sending an unmarked state police car for you and Chiun. It would be simpler if the officers believe you to be agriculture agents."