MADELINE opened the car door and climbed in, closing it with a soft click. In front of her most of the RVs and other cars had started their engines and driven off.
Instinctively Madeline locked the door. Home. That’s where she would go now.
There was nothing left for her to do here. If the creature came for her now, she may as well be home instead of here. At least there she had friends who could help her.
A couple cars impatiently moved around her, and her attention returned to the present.
Inserting the key into the ignition, she started the car. It roared to life, and she checked the mirror and pulled forward. The car sputtered, jerked, and went dead. She tried to start it again. It tried to turn over but didn’t catch. She let it sit for a moment. The reek of gasoline was still strong, and she rolled down the window in an attempt to get some fresh air.
Instead, a fresh wave of gasoline fumes bloomed into the car. Madeline coughed, tried the engine again. For a moment both car and person sputtered simultaneously. She looked down at the gas gauge. Impossibly, it read empty, even though she’d filled it a few days before and had driven it only thirty miles since.
She turned the key off, opened the door, and climbed out, pulling the neck of her shirt up over her nose to filter out some of the overpowering reek. She walked around the edge of her car and saw a large puddle of gasoline pooling beneath it.
Three cars drove by, no one stopping to see if she needed help, just concerned to be on their own hurried way.
Kneeling down, she peered under the car where the gas tank was. The metal fuel line lay broken and twisted, hanging down to the asphalt. The fuel filter was completely missing, and through a gash on the underside of the tank dripped the last remnants of fuel.
Something had utterly demolished her fuel system, and fear seized Madeline like a plunge into an icy-cold lake. Snapping her head up, she gazed frantically in all directions.
Another car drove by, the passenger giving her an unfriendly look that said, “What are you doing parked in the middle of the road?” No offer of help. No “Are you okay?” Just “Get out of my way.”
She straightened up, heart threatening to beat right out of her chest. The thing must have done it while she was talking to Noah. It was possible Stefan had damaged her car earlier, but the stink of gasoline surely would have tipped her off when she climbed into her car back at the cabin.
No. This was fresh.
He’d done it while everyone was focused on Noah. Which meant Stefan had healed.
The damn creature had snuck up here while she was only yards away and tore up her precious VW. And with Noah hauled off by the rangers, it was her only means of escape.
Frantically she glanced around, feeling more vulnerable than she ever had before. Until now she’d had Noah, and Noah had the knife. Now she was alone, weaponless, with no idea how she’d get away from the creature if it decided to attack. She couldn’t outrun it, couldn’t defeat it in a fight. Safety now lay only in movement and escape.
But for several moments she stood rooted to the spot, listening for any sign of the creature lurking nearby.
Several more cars passed. Mountain chickadees fluttered and sang in the trees nearby. Chee-dee-dee. Chee-dee-dee. A chickaree warbled and darted quickly up a tree, chirping agitatedly as it went.
Forcing her racing mind to slow, she thought logically. Her car needed to be fixed. She would tow it to the repair garage in nearby West Glacier, just outside the west entrance of the park.
Luckily it was Wednesday. Hopefully someone would be at the garage.
A beat-up old Subaru station wagon approached, slowed, and to her amazement stopped. Two women rode in it, both with shoulder-length blonde dreadlocks, braided hemp necklaces, and worn and faded T-shirts. They looked like sisters, both with similar freckled faces and the same sloping, upturned noses.
“Hey,” the passenger said. “You need help?” She was young, somewhere under twenty-five, Madeline guessed.
Madeline nodded quickly, stooping over so she could look at the driver, as well. “Yes. My car sprang a fuel leak. Can you drive me to the garage in West Glacier? The one just up the road?”
“Sure,” said the driver. “Hop in!”
“Thank you!” Madeline said gratefully. “Just let me get my car off the road.”
“You need help?” asked the passenger.
Madeline looked at the level ground and shook her head. “No, thanks. It’ll just take me a sec.” She jogged back to the driver door, stooped in, and inserted the key. Then she put the car in neutral, disengaged the emergency brake, and started pushing the car off the road. The Rabbit was light and easy to push on such level terrain, and in less than a minute, it was safely parked in the short grass along the road.
She locked up her car and moved to the back door of the Subaru.
“Oh, shoot! Carly, can you move some of your stuff?” the driver asked hastily.
As Madeline opened the door, a heap of gear spilled out, including a tent, an unrolled sleeping bag, as well as a bunch of bananas, a well-worn boot, and two unwrapped toaster pastries that looked older than the boot.
“Sure thing,” Carly said, turning around in the passenger seat and helping Madeline pull in the unruly gear and place it back on the seat.
With a small space cleared, Madeline sat down and closed the door behind her. Her fingers touched the vinyl seat of the car.
The two sisters hiking in the high country, backs laden with heavy packs, stopping at a rock pile to watch for pikas…
Carly as a teenager, sitting in the backseat of the Subaru on the way to a piano recital, nervous as never before…
The other sister, crying, ankle broken after a fall on a skateboard, Carly driving her to the hospital…
Their mother, in mid-lecture, warning them of the dangers of not following a more traditional path, wanting them to be lawyers or bookkeepers…
She pushed the myriad images to the back of her mind. The driver took off, and Madeline gave a long, mournful look at her faithful VW. I’ll be back, she mouthed to it. Don’t worry.
It was the only time she’d ever had to leave it somewhere like that. In all the time she’d had it, it had never broken down once. Now ragged holes gaped in its underside.
“I’m Meg,” said the driver.
“And I’m Carly,” added the passenger.
“Madeline,” she answered, smiling at them.
Meg sized her up in the rearview mirror. “You been out here for long?”
“Standing on the side of the road or camping in the park?”
She laughed. “Camping.”
“Not long. Four days. But it’s been one hell of a four days. What about you guys?”
Carly scratched her head, the dreadlocks on that side moving up and down. “We’ve been out for what, three… three and a half years, I think.”
Madeline’s mouth gaped. “Three and a half years?”
Carly nodded, turning to the side in her seat so she could see Madeline. “Yeah… it’s been awesome. We just go from job to job, you know? Meg here’s a cook, and I mostly do housekeeping-you know, changing sheets and that kind of thing.”
Meg nodded. “We just go from park to park, depending on the season, finding odd jobs and room and board.”
The idea of such a carefree life appealed immensely to Madeline. She studied the two women with admiration. “That’s terrific!”
“Yeah, we sure think so. Mom doesn’t so much though.”
At the mention of their mother, Meg laughed. “Nope. Definitely not. She wants us to be stockbrokers.”
“Or work for a PR firm.”
“But not us.”
“Nope.” Carly pushed a handful of dreadlocks out of her eye and smiled. She was beautiful. A stunning, natural beauty. “We’re free spirits.”
“You two are sisters, then?” she asked.
“Yup,” Meg answered. “You got a sister?”
They were nearing the intense traffic of the trinket store and restaurant area of West Glacier, and they slowed to a crawl behind a line of cars waiting to get gas at the little service station.
“Only child,” Madeline answered. But she thought of Ellie and smiled sadly. She was the closest thing to a sister that Madeline could ever want.
She took in the pile of gear in the backseat next to her and in the trunk. “Looks like you two are heading on to new adventures,” she remarked.
Carly nodded. “Yep! Meg here scored a job as a cook in a backcountry chalet here in Glacier. I’m going with her to hopefully talk them into hiring me on in housekeeping.”
“Sounds like a great life,” Madeline said. She thought of her last few dark days and tried to envision a cheery future for herself full of travel. Failing that, she just tried to envision a future. But she couldn’t see past the horror and terror of the last few days, couldn’t imagine what lay in store for her in the next few hours, let alone the next few years.
“You okay?” Meg asked, watching her in the rearview mirror.
“Yeah,” she lied. “Just really tired.”
By now they’d made it to the far end of the gas station’s parking lot, moving steadily in the flow of cars. Meg pulled up at the garage. “Front door service,” she said, grinning.
“Thank you!” Madeline opened the door, careful to keep more gear from spilling out. “Take care,” she said, stooping to look through the window. “And good luck on your adventures!”
“Peace!” Carly said.
“Get some rest,” Meg added.
“Will do.” Madeline managed a smile, and the women pulled away, leaving her standing in front of the repair garage.
An hour later Madeline sat in an uncomfortable red vinyl seat in the repair garage waiting room, perusing a two-year-old issue of National Geographic. They’d towed her car back to the garage, and an elderly mechanic with a shock of white hair had been checking it over for the last ten minutes.
He entered through the employee door of the waiting room and walked up behind the counter, thumbing through pages on an ancient wooden clipboard. “Miss Keye?” he asked, looking questioningly around the waiting room, even though she was the only one there. She put down the magazine and walked to the counter. She fished around in the back pocket of Noah’s jeans for her wallet and realized she’d left it back at the cabin in her rush to leave.
“Yes?”
“Well, I’ve looked over your Rabbit,” he said softly. The sympathetic look in his eye did not do much for her confidence. “I’m afraid it’s bad. Now, I can weld some of the damage and get new fuel lines and a tank and filter, but the problem is that it’s an import, and I don’t have many VW parts here. The ones I do have are for the buses. Darn popular with campers, those buses. They got the pop-up top and those sinks and stoves and whatnot. Darn handy. But I don’t have any Rabbit parts. I’ll have to order them.”
She raised her eyebrows. Somehow she knew ordering them was going to take a long time. She asked the question.
“Two weeks,” he said. “Maybe a week and a half. Depends on if they’re making another shipment up this way. Otherwise I just get parts every two weeks.”
“Darn,” she said, using the old man’s word of choice. “That long? Are you sure?”
“I’m afraid so.” His soft blue eyes gazed on her kindly. “What do you want to do?”
She thought a moment, fingers drumming on the black and greasy Formica counter. What could she do? Towing it even as far as Missoula would cost her a mint. Leaving it here until he could fix it was the best bet. But she couldn’t very well stay here, with no friends and no escape car. No. She would leave the Rabbit here, get home somehow, and come back for it. She hated the thought of leaving her beloved car, the sense of familiarity it brought her, but it was the best choice.
“Can I leave it here until you fix it?”
“Sure can,” he answered. “Got a lot out back.”
She nodded. “Then that’s what I’d like to do. I’ve got to get back home, though. I’ll leave you my information so you can contact me when you finish or call me if you have questions.”
“Good enough,” he said, and produced a tablet from under the counter. In block letters he painstakingly wrote down what was wrong with the Rabbit and then handed the pen over to her to fill in her information, the car’s year, make, and model and sign at the X to authorize repairs.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It’s what I do.” He grinned, his blue eyes sparkling beneath the crop of short, white hair. She smiled back and hoped desperately that she was leaving her Rabbit in good hands.
Now she just had to find a way home.
Her first thought was George. No one else would be willing to drive five hours to get her.
Exiting the relative peace of the repair garage waiting room, Madeline entered the chaos of the parking lot beyond. Cars still circled endlessly, waiting to fill up on gas; kids screamed; parents yelled.
Across the street, Madeline spotted two public telephones. At one a gaggle of redheaded children and their parents gathered, each taking turns talking into the mouthpiece. On the other phone talked a lone woman in her mid-forties, with graying hair in a loose ponytail and a point-and-shoot camera in one hand. Her T-shirt advertised, God, Guns and Guts Keep America Free.
Madeline approached the telephones. Reaching in her back pocket, she remembered again that she’d left her wallet at the cabin. Luckily, though, she had her calling card number memorized. And at least leaving her wallet at the cabin was better than if she’d been carrying it during the flash flood. If she hadn’t stashed it in her car, her calling card, along with her two credit cards, her driver’s license, hell, even her Mothershead Library card, would be somewhere in the river, swept far downstream by now or sunk to voluminous depths along with her expensive, well-loved pack that she’d never see again.
She waited patiently as God, Guns and Guts chatted quietly with someone, and the red-haired family yammered away loudly to the grandmother of the familial clan.
As she stood there, baking in the afternoon sun that beat down between pine needles, she fantasized that someone walking along a beach in the Pacific Ocean would one day stumble across her backpack in a tumble of sun-bleached driftwood. They’d find the name tag on her pack and give her a call. Or maybe the pack would wash up in Hawaii or Japan. Maybe she’d have to go to Oahu to claim it, and would end up scuba diving with dolphins.
After she waited for a few more minutes, God, Guns and Guts hung up. As the woman walked away, she threw Madeline a gruff look over one shoulder. The woman’s face was tough, tanned, and leathered, and the eyes spoke of a rough life that hadn’t had too many lucky breaks.
Madeline smiled at her, and the woman managed a smile back, then turned away.
She walked to the phone and picked up the handset, getting a wave of psychic white noise as she did so. It hit her powerfully, and she dropped the phone, letting it swing at the end of its cord. Shaking her head lightly, she picked up the handset again, trying to tune the visions out, but the buzzing in her head only allowed itself to be reduced to a low hum instead of disappearing entirely. Normally she’d be able to tune out such a thing. But she was exhausted, and probably a hundred people had used the phone already today, leaving a sea of fresh vibes behind.
She thought about visiting the park in the off-season sometime, but that thought was immediately followed by an image of the Sickle Moon Killer, pursuing her relentlessly through the abandoned campsites and parking lots in front of boarded-up restaurants and gift shops. Vividly she could see his dark, whiskered face, deep grooves carved into his aging face from years of frowning and brooding over the fourteen-year-old who’d put him away. In her mind’s eye, with his dark eyes glittering over a crooked nose broken in a prison fight, the Sickle Moon Killer caught up with her, a knife gleaming in one down-swinging hand.
Madeline pushed the image out of her head. The phone uttered its annoyed staggered tone; she’d left it off the hook too long. Holding down the receiver and then lifting it again, she listened for the dial tone and then started pushing numbers.
At the special tone that sounded like a small gong inside the phone, she entered her calling card number.
George answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Oh, George. Is it ever good to hear your voice!”
“Madeline? You’re back early. I thought you weren’t coming back till next week.”
“Well, a lot has happened. I feel like I’ve been away for months.”
“What’s wrong?” he said immediately, sensing the despair in her voice. He was a good friend, she thought. She was lucky to have such a good friend in the world.
“A lot’s wrong. I can tell you about it in person. But the thing that’s the most immediately wrong is that I’m not home; I’m still in Glacier.”
“You need me to come get you?” he asked, his tone bright. “ ’Cause I can.”
She sighed. “Yes. Please. I can pay for your gas, if you need-”
“Don’t even give it a thought. I’ll just grab some snacks for the road and be up there in what… four hours?”
“Five from Mothershead.” She grimaced.
“Five it is. George to the rescue.”
“Thanks so much.”
“But what about your car? Where is it?”
“It’s here in the park. I’ll have to come back and get it in two weeks. But I’ll deal with that then. And don’t worry,” she added after a pause. “I won’t ask you to drive me back.”
“I would, though, if you needed me to.” Then, after a thought, he added, “It’s beautiful up there. I wouldn’t mind.”
She was glad he’d said it. Made her feel less like she was putting him out. She looked around at the swaying pines and the snow-encrusted mountains. “You’re absolutely right, George. I almost hate to leave.”
“So why are you leaving early?”
“I’ll tell you about it on the way home. It’s a thrilling tale of adventure.” Making light of her situation felt hollow and false, but she didn’t want to worry him. When he arrived and saw that she was safe, then she could tell him.
“You sure you’re okay, Mad?” He’d taken to calling her Mad now and then, the nickname Ellie had used on occasion. She didn’t mind his adoption of the term. It made him feel more like a friend than ever.
“Yeah. And I’ll be even better when I see you and we get out of here.”
“Then I’d better leave now. Anything you want me to pick up? Potato chips? Pretzels, that kind of thing?”
She smiled. “No, thanks.”
“Where exactly are you?”
She thought a second. She still had to go back and get what little she had out of the cabin. “I’ll be at Lake McDonald, near Apgar. They’ll give you a map when you enter the park. But it’s not far from the west entrance. I’ll be waiting in front of the camp store there at the lake.”
“Okay. Then I’ll see you soon. Hang tight.”
“Thanks, George.”
“No problem.”
They hung up, and as she turned away from the phone, she saw that God, Guns, and Guts had returned and was watching her from the shade of a nearby pine. She wasn’t smiling, either.
Fear crept silently through Madeline’s mind as she watched the woman’s gaunt expression, mouth a colorless slit in a drawn face. The woman stepped out from the shadow and moved deliberately toward Madeline, who stood staring.
She hated this. Stefan could be anyone around her. Madeline stepped away from the phone and began moving in another direction, away from the woman. Immediately the gray-haired woman’s eyes left her, and the stranger continued to the phone, where she picked up the receiver.
Madeline shook her head and picked up her pace, glancing once more over her shoulder to see the woman begin to dial. She’d only wanted to use the phone again, and Madeline had already ascribed some sinister motive to the woman.
Suddenly Madeline wondered how long she’d be like this, paranoid of strangers, not knowing whom to trust. She wondered if she could recognize Stefan by his eyes. She hadn’t right away when he was posing as Noah. But maybe now that she was expecting it, she could.
But she didn’t want to be expecting it. She wanted to put this whole thing behind her, not be paranoid about everyone she met.
Madeline looked around at the horde of rushing tourists with dripping ice cream cones and sunburned feet in vinyl flip-flops. Five hours. What could she do for five hours?
Noah was her first thought. She wanted to visit him, talk to him. Had he really meant the terrible things he’d said? What would he think about her returning to Mothershead? It had to be better than being alone in the open like this.
She pushed the thought of Noah out of her head. He’d been crazy back at his Jeep-the chilling way he’d looked at her.
She walked slowly to the edge of the parking lot, crossed the street, and began walking down the main road that led into the park. Soon she came to the bustling Lake McDonald area, where the Apgar Visitor Center, backcountry permit station, and a collection of gift shops clustered. Weaving among the throng of visitors, she finally sat down on a picnic bench under the shade of a hemlock tree. Putting her chin in her hand, she watched the swarm of tourists pour in and out of the camp store and souvenir shops, and knew that this was the ideal place to wait. With this many people around her, she didn’t think the creature would even try to attack her. It wouldn’t risk the exposure.
Besides, she thought dryly, it isn’t his style. He’s far more subtle than that. It seemed he thrived as much on the subterfuge and chase as he did on his victims’ flesh itself.
She resigned herself to a long wait.
To pass the time, she braved the camp store and bought a soda with some cash she found in her pocket. Sipping the cool liquid, she crossed the street and perused the Apgar Visitor Center. After looking at a display showing the topography and relief of the park, she took in a display with a mounted immature bald eagle. She read the plaque. Someone had shot the endangered bird and tried to hide his crime, only to be discovered later and prosecuted.
Feeling sad about the magnificent eagle, she meandered over to the book section. Among the ever-present full-color books filled with gorgeous photographs of wildlife and wildflowers, she spotted a few choice books that probably wouldn’t be the greatest thing to read, given her situation: books like Survival Above the Timberline, The Harrowing Escape: One Climber’s Tale of Catastrophe, and Into Thin Air. She read the back of a few of these survival books, and at last, despite herself, settled on Encounters with the Grizzly, which featured accounts of people who had been mauled by grizzly bears, and how future attacks might be avoided. She figured it would be cathartic enough to keep her mind off things.
She fished more cash out of her pocket, and after spending only a record ten minutes in line, she returned again to the fresh air, the gravel crunching beneath her feet. Beyond, the lake glistened in the midday sun, waves sparkling. The quiet lapping of the lake at the shore drew her attention, and she walked in that direction.
A photographer stood on the shore, setting up a large-format camera on a tripod, bag upon bag of gadgets strewn at his feet. Sometimes she’d seen camera enthusiasts set up hours before sunset to get that perfect alpenglow shot, when the setting sun bathed the distant peaks in an intense, rosy glow.
An elderly couple walked by her, eating huckleberry ice cream cones, the afternoon heat causing the purple ice cream to drip off their fingers. They laughed, enjoying themselves, and she smiled. She didn’t know if she’d make it to be their age, but if she did, she hoped she’d be eating a huckleberry ice cream cone in this gorgeous place.
Tucking her book under her arm, she looked for a comfortable place to sit. She liked reading in unusual places: along whitewater streams, or perched on boulders above the treeline. Later on, when she thought of the particular book she’d read in each spot, she could easily conjure images of how the wildflowers looked that day or how the stream burbled and flowed over moss-laden rocks and driftwood.
She looked at her watch. She’d only killed half an hour in the gift shop.
Scanning around, she saw a sun-bleached log on the shore of the lake with a long, smooth spot, perfect for sitting. Little foot traffic passed by the log, yet it was still close enough to the swarms of tourists that she’d feel safer there. She started off in that direction, squinting in the bright sun.
Eventually she’d have to go back to the cabin to gather her meager possessions: the burned cotton shirt, jeans, and her new toothbrush. But most importantly, she needed her wallet. She dreaded the thought of returning to the cabin, one place the creature knew she might be, but she didn’t want to leave her driver’s license there for the creature to find. She didn’t know if the creature knew where she lived in Mothershead, but just in case it didn’t, she didn’t want to arm it with any more information than it had. Plus, she realized with an audible gasp, she’d written down her future address with student housing in San Francisco on a slip of paper that was in her wallet. She had to go back and get it before the creature found it.
She wondered if she should go right then and looked toward the path that led to the cabins. No one walked on it. The desolation of that shady trail invited doubts to gnaw at her, and she decided she’d just wait until George got there. It wasn’t worth definitely risking her life now to avoid possibly risking it in the future. She’d wait until more people filled the path or until George arrived. Preferably both. To find her future address, the creature would have to go to the cabin, find her wallet, dig through it, and recognize the importance of the slip of paper she’d written her address on. She hadn’t marked it “My future address” or anything. It was just a number and a street. She looked with uncertainty at the path again. Still empty. No, she would wait. But she definitely wouldn’t leave without it.
And when she went back, she could also grab her pocket knife. Her mom had given it to her when she was five, after the incident with the wildfire. It had bailed her out of several tough situations in her life. Once she’d used it to scare off a creepy guy who had followed her home from the diner in Mothershead, and another time she’d used the little magnifying glass to start a small fire when she was in danger of hypothermia in the backcountry of the Canadian Rockies. Plus she’d used it endless times to make repairs on her backpack during overnight hikes. Though it wasn’t very big, it was the one sharp weapon she had, and it made her feel safer. The knife held much sentimental value, and had been with her on every trip. She was superstitious that way.
Stepping off the parking lot onto the pebble-strewn incline that led to the beach, Madeline veered for the log. She sat down on the smooth spot with her back to sun and opened her new book.
Three hours dragged by, with Madeline checking her watch every ten minutes, reading, and staring at tourists. The book was amazing and fascinating, though, filling the three hours with gripping accounts of hikers and hunters mauled by grizzlies, almost all surviving the attacks. In the past, Madeline had always played it smart with grizzlies, making noise while hiking, getting the hell out of an area if she stumbled across the carcass of a game animal, backing slowly away quietly the two times she’d come across a grizzly on the trail. The gigantic omnivores couldn’t afford more problems with humans. Montana’s population of the bears had greatly dwindled since the arrival of settlers from the East, and she didn’t want to be another reason to get one shot.
The book gave her even more respect for the gigantic omnivores and had some very helpful tips to avoid confrontations with grizzlies. But the most interesting part had been the attitude of the victims. They didn’t wish harm on their attackers but instead had a sense of awe for nature and for the sheer power of the bears. She found it fascinating.
So fascinating, in fact, that at one point she realized her butt had long since fallen asleep. She shifted on the log, her back muscles groaning in protest. Finally she stood, stretching, and looked out over the lake. The sun was far lower in the west, and the photographer with the large-format camera was busy changing plates.
She looked at her watch. Less than an hour until George got there.
She held the book up, looking at its cover, a close-up of a snarling grizzly’s face. She knew then why she’d chosen this particular book. She’d been looking for some insight into the mind of a survivor who had faced a powerful predator and lived. She wanted to know what they’d done to survive and how they’d dealt with the incident after the fact.
But what she’d come away with didn’t help. It didn’t even pertain to her situation. These people had faced grizzly bears, powerful creatures indeed, but seldom predaceous, and then only when desperate for a meal or threatened beyond reason. Most of the time when a grizzly attacked, it stopped when the person played dead or was no longer a threat. In only very rare cases had grizzlies eaten people.
A powerful force of nature, a symbol of a healthy ecosystem, the grizzly didn’t make it personal when it attacked. It hadn’t selected its victim from a series of newspaper articles, or from word of mouth as people chatted with each other about friends with extraordinary abilities. The victim mauled by a grizzly wasn’t selected at all but just happened to be the unlucky person who stumbled across a mother grizzly and her cubs or a big male eating a moose carcass.
But the creature she faced was no bear. It was undeniably predaceous and calculating, selecting each victim for the precise purpose of devouring the person’s flesh, for acquiring a talent or gift.
It had specifically selected her. And it wouldn’t stop when she played dead. It would keep coming, teeth sinking into her, devouring her flesh. And then it would have her “gift.” The power that would give the creature staggered her. It would know intimate details about its victims, where they were going, their routines, their deepest fears. It would twist and compromise her ability, finding endless, horrific uses for it; it would contort the “gift” into a thing of evil, extending it to a place of darkness she herself never would have taken it.
She glanced around nervously, scanning the lake’s edge, the gift shop and lodge, feeling oddly possessive of her gift. She may not have asked for it, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to see it used for evil.
She wondered where the creature was, why it hadn’t even made a single appearance since the night before. Here she was, sitting alone, and though she was among a swarm of pulsing, vibrant tourism, she thought at least she’d feel its eyes burning into her back or catch a glimpse of furtive movement in the trees at the lake’s edge. But she’d seen nothing in her three hours of reading and watching.
The extent of its injuries had been considerable. It might still be healing, though it had been well enough to rip out the underside of her car. Still, no ordinary weapon had torn the gashes into the creature’s flesh, and if Ffyllon’s journal had been correct, then those wounds took longer to heal.
She continued to glance around, briefly watching a couple in their fifties holding hands and strolling along the lake’s edge.
She looked again at her watch and thought about George. He didn’t know what was going on. If she asked him to go to the cabin, she’d be endangering him. She looked at the path to the cabins. Presently, quite a few people strolled on it. If she hurried there now, she’d be in public and could get her wallet and knife.
Tucking the book under her arm, she set off down the path, nodding at families as they walked by, surreptitiously watching them for any suspicious behavior.
Then suddenly she did feel someone watching her. Peering around, her eyes fell on a dark figure in the trees behind her, some two hundred feet away, just at the edge of the riverbank. A man, definitely watching her, stood there silently, unmoving. She tried to make out his face, but he was too far away. She looked closer, peering intently. He didn’t react at all to her noticing him, and this made her nervous.
Normally when you caught a stranger staring, he looked away.
The cabin area wasn’t too much farther. Madeline decided just to continue casually in that direction. She walked down the path, chancing a glance over her shoulder. The figure was closer. Much closer. Only a hundred feet away now, though she hadn’t seen him move at all.
She turned around fully now and walked quickly backward, not taking her eyes off him. He vanished behind a cluster of hemlock trees. She continued her backward progress, watching for his reappearance. Branches swayed a mere twenty feet away. When he did reemerge, he was only ten feet away. She took in the familiar features: the long black hair falling in waves about his shoulders, the olive skin, the lithe, muscular body.
Voices startled her, and she backed into someone. “Sorry, darlin’,” said a man with a Texas accent. She spun, muttering apologies, and realized she’d stumbled into a group of retired tourists, all of whom wore matching T-shirts that read Sunshine Tours.
They filed past her, and the last tourist, with a kind, wrinkled face, smiled at her. “Young love,” she said. “I can remember being distracted myself. And who can blame you? He’s a handsome one.” She winked and continued on.
Madeline turned, intending to see how close the figure was. Instead, she bumped into someone else. Intense, green eyes stared down into hers. Handsome face with high cheekbones.
The creature.
He wore a dark red shirt and black jeans, and Madeline wondered whom he’d killed for the outfit.
She started to backpedal, her feet moving before she’d even told them where to go. Stefan reached out quickly, gripping her upper arm. “No,” he said. “Wait.” He held her fast, and she jerked her arm free, wanting to tear away from there. He bore no mark of the fight the night before. At least, none that she could see. The gashes in his chest from the weapon could still be there, beneath the shirt, but his face had completely healed.
Adrenaline flooded into her, making her hands shake, and her breath came up short. If he wanted to tear her to pieces right there, would the presence of other people stop him? She couldn’t kill him, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to go down without a fight. If he did attack her, she’d fight with everything in her: tear at his throat, his eyes, till nothing but a bloody pulp was left. He would live through it, but it would still hurt like hell.
More voices on the trail caught her attention, but she didn’t turn in their direction. A couple in their twenties walked by, arguing about where they would eat that night, the man complaining about being “out in the middle of nowhere.” The creature stepped forward, suddenly wrapping his arm around her as they passed. She wanted to cry out to them, ask them to help her, but there was nothing they could do. Except die.
The creature wasn’t the least bit interested in them. He didn’t even look as they filed by. Instead he studied her face intently, his other hand moving along her jaw. The couple was so caught up in their argument they didn’t even acknowledge Madeline or Stefan.
She let the creature pull her head toward his own, and he kissed her temple. She realized he wanted the couple to think they were the same, just two normal people out for a romantic walk in the woods. Not hunter and hunted. Not predator and prey.
She felt his strong hand on the back of her neck, her breath barely coming. This close she could smell him, and the power of that scent crashed into her. Her breathing slowed even more. That powerful, alluring scent washed over her, the same one that had made her so heady the night before, that exotic, sensual smell. She drank it in, leaning closer, her head feeling light, fingertips buzzing and trembling.
The couple continued down the path, and though they were far away now, she didn’t move, didn’t pull away, but instead stayed close, lips slightly parted, breathing in the scent of him.
He said nothing, moving his fingers through her hair. His other hand curled around her back, and a heavy sensation of anticipation crept into her belly. His lips traced down her face to her neck, teeth lightly grazing her skin there.
Still she didn’t move. She didn’t want to. He felt so good. Smelled so desirable.
Somewhere in the logical side of her brain, a niggling feeling pestered her to pay attention. But the feeling wasn’t strong enough to push through. She couldn’t even concentrate on it.
It didn’t go away, either, and she thought she remembered something from biology class. Something about chemical attractants.
So attractive.
Pheromones. Yes, that was it. Powerful chemical attractants. Is that what this was?
Her head felt muddled and light, as if she had drunk too much wine. Most of her didn’t even care. His lips reached her collarbone, kissing along the sensitive skin there. Her skin broke out in chills.
He eats people, the voice continued. And now his pheromones are lulling you into complacency so you don’t notice when he starts to tear out whole chunks of flesh.
I’d notice that, she countered the voice, as he began to move his lips upward again, over her jaw, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. His lips brushed her own, and she could feel his skin burning. Then they kissed, a deep, drunken kiss that sang in her mind, her body tingling with pleasure. She’d read it in a ton of hokey books before but had never experienced it till last night, but he tasted sweet, like apricot or honey, a rich, fruity taste that conjured images of a tropical paradise.
His tongue met hers, his legs moving closer until their bodies pressed flush against each other. Madeline didn’t even raise her arms. She continued to stand, hands at her sides, as if in shock.
A distant part of her whispered warnings, begged her to pay attention.
But her lips moved, her tongue met his, and she drank him in.