For the second time in a week, Erik found himself tramping through the woods in the darkness with a flashlight. Only this time, at least, he wasn’t alone. Several State Troopers from the Scituate barracks, Pastor Mark, and about a dozen volunteers from the village fanned out on either side of him, spaced 25 feet apart as they moved carefully forward through the thick forest. Each of them carried a portable walkie-talkie and a compass to keep them walking straight.
Erik felt about as comfortable in the woods as zebra would on a tight rope, but he really hadn’t been able to refuse when the sheriff had asked for volunteers. It could have been his own kid out there-in fact, if Dovecrest hadn’t found Todd when he wandered off, it would have been his kid.
He walked slowly forward, sweeping the ground with his flashlight beam. He still couldn’t help thinking about what Todd had said-the rock got her. And he couldn’t help remembering the last post he’d read on the Satanic web site-“those who oppose him will suffer misery and death at the black stone.”
Then there was the graveyard with the headstone made out of a meteorite. Could that be the black stone? Was there a connection? He wanted to ask the sheriff these questions, but the man had looked at Todd as if he were crazy when he’d said that the rock had got the girl. He’d laughed it off and told the boy he’d been watching too many movies. Then he’d asked Erik to go to the shopping plaza and meet up with the other volunteers.
Pastor Mark had already been there when Erik arrived, but he had not had the opportunity to ask the preacher any questions. He wondered if the pastor would think he was crazy, too. It was funny, he thought, how the Bible dealt with Satan and demons and people believed, but such things weren’t accepted in the modern world.
The forest was darker than everything he could imagine, and he looked to the right and the left and was comforted by the flashlight beams to either side of him. Whatever moonlight that shone was completely obliterated by the canopy of leaves overhead. There were no paths here, so the going was very slow as he pushed himself past and through bushes and around tree trunks. It looked as if no one had passed through this section of woods in decades.
Vaguely, he wondered what it was about these woods that attracted kids into them-first his son, and now this teenager. It didn’t make sense. Then he reminded himself that the actions of kids seldom did. Like the time he, as a little boy, had stuck a bean in his ears so he couldn’t hear the teacher, and then had been unable to get the thing out without a painful and embarrassing trip to the emergency room. That hadn’t made sense either.
He pressed forward, not knowing exactly what he was looking for. Occasionally the searchers would call out the girl’s name, but there was no response. He wondered how far into the woods she could possibly have gone. And that black stone-that still haunted him.
Then, just ahead, he caught sight of something white in his flashlight beam. He charged through a rhododendron bush and there it was, right at the base of a large oak tree.
He recognized it immediately-it was a girl’s white sneaker, and it probably belonged to the missing teen.
“Over here!” he called. “I’ve found something.”
Everyone on the line stopped as the word was passed down. The State Trooper on his right edged over to take a look.
“I’d say it’s probably hers,” he said. “Don’t touch anything. We may be looking at a crime scene.”