In the Woods (18 page)

‘Hank,’ she began, but he leaned into the tent and pulled out the Winchester. He held it out for her. ‘Keep this with you.’

Harper took it, relieved, and smiled. ‘So you believe me about the creature.’

He hesitated. ‘I believe you’ll be safer if you have this with you.’ He leaned over, kissed her cheek, and turned to put on his vest.

Her smile faded. Hank still didn’t believe her. What was she supposed to do to gain credibility? Prove every statement she made? Gather evidence and document everything she wanted to tell him about? She thought back to the wad of fur she’d found. Damn – if Daniels hadn’t taken it, she could have shown it to Hank. Maybe that would have convinced him. But no, he’d probably have insisted that the fur had come from a raccoon or bear.

She watched him pack. Two water bottles, snack bars, a knife, a pack of tissues. Damn. He was infuriating. She wanted to scream at him. Throttle him. Shake him until he believed her. Instead, she opened her backpack and took out the first-aid kit.

Hank finished loading his vest pockets, stepped over and kissed her forehead. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

She looked up at him, opened her mouth to tell him how she felt. But he was leaving. There wasn’t time for a discussion.

‘You all right?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Fine.’

He waved and walked off toward the trail.

Harper watched Hank limp away, his solid frame disappearing among the trees. Her chest tightened, and she had a fierce urge to call out and tell him to come back. Or to run and catch up with him, and go along. But that was ridiculous. He was just going a few miles to the ranger station. He’d be back soon. Then they’d have time to talk. And after the cops and Captain Slader were done with them, they’d leave, as planned. By early evening, they’d be back home with Chloe, and life would go on as if this weekend had never happened.

Harper squared her shoulders and took an ace bandage out of the first-aid kit. Sitting on the ground, she wound it around Angela’s swollen, discolored ankle, trying to ignore the nagging tightness in her chest.

Hank hadn’t been gone five minutes when Harper heard rustling in the woods. She froze, motioned for Angela to stop talking.

‘Why, what’s wrong?’ Angela wouldn’t quiet down. ‘Did you hear something? Is someone out there?’

‘Shh!’ Harper put a hand over Angela’s mouth, stifling her.

Angela pushed her hand away. ‘What are you doing?’ She pouted but didn’t say anything else.

The rustling got louder. And more defined. It was definitely footsteps, running over dead leaves, coming closer. Harper picked up the Winchester.

‘Who’s there?’ she yelled, aiming it at the sounds.

‘Help – we need help.’ It was a man’s voice. Unfamiliar. Raw.

‘What happened? What kind of help?’ Harper didn’t lower the gun.

Angela edged off the chair. Using her stick, she hobbled toward a fat tree trunk, taking cover behind it.

‘Water?’ a different guy called. He sounded breathless. ‘Do you have water?’

‘Water?’ the first one said. ‘We need a fucking machine gun.’

‘I need water first.’

Harper listened to them, aiming at the sound of their voices, watching the woods. In a moment, two men burst out of the trees, their eyes wild, noses bloodied, gaits wobbly, clothes charred and tattered. They seemed to be unarmed. And they kept looking behind them, as if they were being chased.

‘We made it.’ One of them lifted a hand, maybe trying to wave. And sunk to the ground in a heap.

‘Bob?’ the other one yelled, kneeling to help him. ‘Bob? Oh Christ.’ He looked at the sky in despair, put his hands on his head.

Harper put the gun down and hurried to help, but stopped when she got close, recognizing the smells. Explosives. Fear. She gazed at the two men, the burns on their faces and hands. A skinless raw patch on one’s nose, red blank spaces where the other’s eyebrows had been.

Oh God. She needed to call for a medic, reached into her pocket for her radio.

‘What happened, soldier?’ she asked Pete. ‘Are there other casualties?’

Bob opened his eyes, recovering, and the two men exchanged glances. ‘Not that we know of.’

‘What was it? IED? Ambush?’

‘Say, what?’

The men whispered to each other, breathlessly watching the trees.

Where was her radio? She felt around inside her pockets. Found a pack of tissues, ibuprofen, a granola bar, a small flashlight, a lemon. A lemon? Harper stopped and looked around. Saw trees, a stack of supplies. Where was her unit?

One of the men was asking for water. Of course. Water. She spun around, went to the supplies, retrieved two water bottles. But she was still holding a lemon. Bite it, she told herself. Bite your lemon. She wasn’t sure why, but she popped it into her mouth and chomped down.

The rind was bitter, the juice acidic, intense. Jarring. Harper puckered up, grimacing from the jolt to her senses. She blinked, swallowed. Looked at the two strangers. And, telling Angela to come out of hiding, she scrambled for her first-aid kit.

Angela emerged from behind the tree, wary of the two men. ‘What happened to them?’ She addressed Harper.

Harper didn’t answer. She’d been unbalanced by her flashback, the speed and ease with which she’d been disoriented. The men gulped water. They were jumpy, jerking their heads around, looking over their shoulders. Whispering to each other.

‘Was it that explosion?’ Angela finally asked them directly. ‘From last night?’

They gaped at her, eyes wide.

‘Explosion?’ one of them asked.

‘What’s she talking about?’ The other one looked blank, blinked rapidly.

Harper crouched beside them. ‘How about we start over. Who are you?’

‘Okay, I’m Pete O’Neal, and this is Bob Dixon.’ Pete held his hand out to shake, then, as if he remembered how burned it was, pulled it back. Bob glared at him, his eyes narrowed. ‘What? I just told her—’ Pete stopped mid-sentence. Then his mouth opened and he covered it with burned fingers. ‘Oh. Right. Sorry, I must be in shock or something. My tongue got tied. Actually I’m Bob Pete. And he’s Dixon O’Neal.’

‘What? You don’t remember your names?’ Harper poured bottled water onto some bandages. ‘So what happened to you?’

‘You mean the burns?’ They looked at each other.

‘Our campfire,’ Bob said. ‘It got out of control.’

‘We used lighter fluid,’ Pete added.

‘It got on my clothes, and Pete tried to help me, and we ended up on fire.’

‘We had to put ourselves out. Thank God for middle-school fire drills: Stop drop and roll.’ Pete tried to smile, but his face hurt. He couldn’t stop shaking.

‘You know what I think?’ Angela eyed them. ‘I think they got hurt in that explosion but they don’t want to say so.’

Harper wondered. The men were certainly hiding something.

‘We have hot oatmeal. You look like you should eat.’

‘Thanks, ma’am.’ Pete smiled, but Bob interrupted, ‘We don’t have time. No thanks.’

Bob and Pete leaned their heads together, talking in low, urgent voices. They appeared to be arguing. Harper approached them, reached out to place a damp bandage on Bob’s seared nose.

Bob jumped back, slapping her hand away. ‘Hey! What are you doing?’

‘You should cover those burns—’

‘No, we’re okay. No time. We have to go back and get our stuff.’ Bob tried to get up, teetered. Sat back down.

Pete shook his head. ‘Let’s just leave it and get the hell out of here.’

Bob set his jaw, enunciating each word. ‘We need to get our stuff, Pete.’ He tried to stand again. He grabbed onto Pete and pulled himself up, wincing. When he’d balanced, he looked at Harper. ‘You should leave, too.’

They should? ‘Why?’

‘I can’t leave,’ Angela whined. ‘My ankle—’

‘Shh,’ Harper cut her off. ‘Why should we go?’

Bob looked around again, into the trees.

‘Tell them,’ Pete said.

‘They won’t believe us.’

‘But if we don’t tell them, it’ll be on us …’

Bob nodded. He met Harper’s eyes. ‘There’s something in the woods.’

‘A monster,’ Pete said. ‘We’re not lying. Just now, it was chasing us—’

‘It was huge. And hairy. Like King Kong. A giant apeman.’

‘An apeman?’ Angela echoed.

Harper didn’t move. ‘You saw it?’

‘I swear. On my mother’s life.’

‘Me, too.’ Pete blinked rapidly. He was trembling.

So she wasn’t crazy. They’d seen the creature, too. It was real.

‘It’s been tracking us.’

‘I think it’s hunting us.’

‘When did you see it last?’ Harper gazed behind them into the woods.

‘Just now.’ Bob pointed north. ‘Like ten minutes before we ran into you.’ He held onto Pete’s arm, started back toward the trail.

‘Bob, for Christ’s sake. Why do we have to go back …?’

‘We can’t leave our stuff. Our backpacks. Think, for once. We need to take everything with us.’

Pete closed his mouth, nodded. Gave in.

‘Be careful,’ Harper said.

‘You believe us?’ Pete kept blinking. ‘I didn’t think anyone would.’

‘I believe you,’ Harper said.

Bob leaned on Pete’s shoulder as they started off. ‘You two should get the hell out of here,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Before that thing finds you.’

They hurried off, half hopping, half tottering to retrieve whatever they’d left behind.

Hopping with her stick, Angela made her way over to Harper and stood, perched on one leg. ‘You’re not going to leave me here, are you?’

Harper turned to face her. ‘No.’ She went to get the Winchester, though, just in case.

‘Because I don’t believe those two for a second. A campfire? Really?’ Angela plopped down into the folding chair, extending her injured leg. ‘If they got burned by a campfire, I’m Angelina Jolie. No, those two were up to something. Did you see their faces when I asked them about the explosion? How they tried to look all innocent?’

Harper watched the woods for movement, didn’t see anything. She couldn’t wait to tell Hank about the men, though. Now that other people had seen the Bog Man, maybe he’d believe her. She took the Winchester and sat on a fallen log near Angela, who had resumed her non-stop talking.

‘I lived with Stan long enough. I learned how to tell when a man’s hiding something,’ she said. ‘And Bob and Dixon, or whatever their names were, they’re hiding something. I wonder what they’re really running from.’

‘They told us.’ Harper checked the rifle, made sure it was loaded. ‘They’re running from a—’

‘Please stop, Harper. That’s bull. There’s no such thing as a Bog Man. Just like there was no campfire. No. I don’t know why they’re denying it, but I’d bet my ass those two got burned by that danged explosion.’

The sector chief’s landline was ringing again. Another call from the compound. He’d been there most of the night, calming everyone down, organizing them into task groups. He’d finally come home around an hour ago, hadn’t slept all night, and here it was, barely six a.m., and someone was calling to report more trouble. He swallowed the last of the whiskey in his glass, watched the phone ring. What if he didn’t answer it? What if he just let the Hunt Club do whatever it wanted? Seemed like they were doing that, anyhow. How far would they take things? What would they achieve? He was beginning to doubt himself, his aptitude for leadership. Hell, he was beginning to doubt the whole effort. No way they’d really be able to overcome big corporations like the pipeline or gas company. The government was just a puppet of big money, and, if there was money to be made, they weren’t going to let a little local militia stop them from confiscating and destroying God’s natural forests.

He sat in his hand-carved chair, watching the still-ringing phone. Finally, with a sigh, he reached out and picked it up.

‘I found the bastards.’ It was Josh. ‘The bombers for sure, maybe the shooter, too.’

‘Yeah? Who are they?’ The chief sat up, energized.

‘Outsiders. They were having a meeting – that guy who’s been taking water samples? They were all at his tent, having a meeting. A couple of them were hurt – looked like they got burned – must have bungled the detonation. But it’s obvious. We’re dealing with a conspiracy. Outsiders who are planning something. More explosions or more shootings. I don’t know who they work for, but somebody must have sent them.’

‘When was this?’ The chief ran a hand through his hair, processing the news.

‘Maybe twenty minutes ago. I came straight here to call you, but on the way I ran across the bomber’s stash. Guess what was there? Backpacks with a couple of walkie-talkies wired as detonators. Blasting caps. Paraphernalia for setting off explosives.’

Shit. Hot seething rage churned in the chief’s belly, rose up through his chest.

‘So what do you want me to do?’

The chief needed to steady himself. But there was no time. What he wanted Josh to do was capture the perpetrators and rip their limbs off. But he was a leader, not a thug. He needed to remain calm. ‘First, grab their belongings. Take everything.’

‘Done. I couldn’t carry all of it, so I told Ax and Moose to pick it up.’

‘Any identification in it?’

‘No.’

No, of course there wasn’t. There wouldn’t be.

‘Okay. Gather up everybody. Let’s meet again. The compound in half an hour.’

When he hung up, the chief went to the sink, splashed cold water on his face, ran a razor over his cheeks. Was Josh right about a conspiracy? And if so, who was behind it? He toweled off the extra shaving cream, figuring that whoever was behind the bombings wanted to terrorize the locals and convince them to scatter. Could be the government, the pipeline company, the gas company. They were all the same, really; all trying to take over the land and steal its minerals, and all of them would silence anyone who resisted them.

He peeled off yesterday’s shirt, pulled on a fresh one. Replaced his socks. Grabbed his pistol and some ammunition. Headed for the door. The landline rang again. The chief picked it up, saw that caller ID identified the ranger’s station.

But it wasn’t the ranger who was calling. It was Hiram, using the ranger’s phone, and he was whispering, his breath raspy.

‘Has Daniels contacted you?’ Hiram asked.