John Saul (20 page)

“Except that nylon’s tough,” Martin told him. “You don’t just grab it and give it a rip. Even if you start by cutting through the seams around the netting, it’s still too strong for me to rip. And look.” He squatted down, pointing to the triple thickness of nylon that had been folded over and seamed to strengthen the hole that had formed the back window. “That’s not cut,” he said. “That’s just torn apart. You got any idea what kind of strength it would take to do that?”

“More than any man I’ve ever met has.” Whit Baker shook his head. “So where are we? Are we looking for a man or an animal? What about tracks? Anything?”

“I want Olivia to take a look around, but given the rain, and the pine needles, I’m not counting on any.” He stood up, slapping the coroner on the back. “Thanks for coming up, Whit. I thought you’d better see the scene as well as the body, ’cause I have a feeling it’s going to be up to you to figure this one out.”

“Me and a good crime lab, from what I’ve seen so far,” Baker replied darkly. “If you don’t need me up here any longer, I’ll be getting back to my office. You going to be interviewing the survivor any time soon?”

“This afternoon, if she’s able to talk,” Rick told him. “I’ll let you know.”

As a crew began packing up the ruins of the tent, the bloody remnants of the sleeping bag, and anything else that could possibly be construed as evidence, Olivia Sherbourne moved carefully around the perimeter of the campsite, searching for signs of tracks. But as Rick had suspected, the rain had obliterated anything she might have found. Then, when she was almost back to the point where she’d begun,
directly behind the tent, she spotted something. Barely visible in a thicket of brush no more than ten feet away was what looked like the tail of a raccoon. “Rick?” she called. The deputy, with MaryAnne Carpenter trailing behind him, came over to join her. “Did you see that?” she asked, pointing to the furry object protruding from the shrubbery. Martin moved closer, finally reaching out to touch it with his foot. When nothing happened, he squatted down, grasped it, and pulled it free from the brush. When he stood up, the body of a dead raccoon was dangling from his right hand. Carrying it over to the picnic table, he laid it down, and Olivia Sherbourne immediately began examining it.

“No wounds,” she said at last. “None at all. I’d guess it’s been dead maybe eight to twelve hours.”

“What killed it?” Rick Martin asked.

“Its neck is broken,” Olivia replied. “It’s as if someone just picked it up, grabbed its head, and gave it a jerk. I think its spinal cord is severed, which would have killed it instantly. But no animal did this. Whatever killed this was definitely human. Animals just don’t kill this way.”

MaryAnne Carpenter, her eyes fixing on the dead raccoon, suddenly saw a face flash in front of her eyes.

An indistinct face, surrounded by a wild mane of hair, flowing down over the shoulders of a powerfully built man.

A man powerful enough to have snapped the raccoon’s neck with no more than a twist of his fingers.

“I saw someone,” she heard herself saying.

Instantly, Rick Martin’s and Olivia Sherbourne’s attention was fixed on her.

“You saw someone?” the deputy echoed. “What are you talking about?”

MaryAnne shook her head helplessly. “It doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “I don’t even know why I thought of it. But at the funeral, I saw a man. He was standing way off to the side, near the fence, almost hidden in the trees.”

Martin’s brow furrowed. “What made you think of him now?”

“I’m not sure,” MaryAnne replied. “It’s just—he was so strange-looking, and so strong, that when I looked at that poor little raccoon, I thought of him. He was big, and
looked terribly strong, and sort of—well,
wild
is the only word I can think of.” She turned to Olivia. “Like one of those mountain men you were telling me about yesterday.”

“A mountain man?” Rick Martin said doubtfully. “I know there used to be a lot of them living up here. Most of them were just harmless hermits, but I guess a few of them were pretty nuts. But I haven’t even heard of any of them for years. Can you remember exactly what he looked like?”

MaryAnne did her best to describe the man she and Joey had seen at the funeral, but her glimpse of him had been so short, and he’d been so well hidden in the trees, that she could add little more than she’d already told him. “He was staring at Joey,” she finished. “At least, Joey thought he was. Then he was gone, almost as if he’d never been there at all.”

“Well, that puts a new twist on all this,” Martin said. “Assuming, of course, that there’s a connection between whoever you saw and what’s been going on up here.”

MaryAnne felt a chill of fear move through her body.

Someone living up here in the mountains. Someone who attacked like a wild animal.

Where—and when—would the next attack occur?

Maybe I should leave now, she thought, not for the first time that morning. Maybe I should just grab the kids—all three of them—and take them back to New Jersey.

To what? she suddenly found herself thinking. How many people got murdered in New Jersey every day of the week? Would she really feel any safer there than she did here?

By the time she and Olivia were back in the truck and headed toward town, her spirits felt as deeply shrouded in gloom as the mountaintops were in the cloud cover that had settled into the valley. The temperature had dropped sharply and the dank mist felt to MaryAnne even colder than the chill of fear that had seized her in the campground.

“We’ll find out who did this,” Olivia said as they approached the village a few minutes later. “Just don’t make up your mind to leave too quickly, okay?”

MaryAnne forced a weak smile. “Was it that obvious?”

“It was pretty clear,” Olivia replied. “But what’s been happening around here lately isn’t the way things usually are. Give Rick and Tony a few days, and don’t forget that you’ll have more people watching out for you around here than you ever will back home.”

“I know,” MaryAnne sighed. “I know you’re right. But I have to tell you, this has shaken me up pretty badly. What if—well, what if the man who was watching Joey really did have something to do with this?”

“And what if last night was connected to Ted and Audrey?” Olivia asked, voicing the question MaryAnne had not yet brought herself to utter.

MaryAnne nodded.

“Believe me,” Olivia went on, “it doesn’t make any sense. What happened to Ted and Audrey were accidents. Horrible, yes, but still accidents.”

“What if they weren’t?” MaryAnne asked. “What if … what if someone killed them?”

To that question, Olivia Sherbourne had no answer.

Rick Martin stepped into the room where Tamara Reynolds lay on her back, her upper torso and head wrapped in bandages. A needle in her arm was attached to an IV bottle by a plastic tube, and another plastic tube extended from her nose, snaked across the bed and up the wall, where it was attached to an oxygen outlet.

“Miss Reynolds?” Rick asked softly. Though the duty nurse had told him the woman was awake, he found himself wondering if it could really be possible. “Can you hear me?”

The woman’s lips barely moved, and her breathy voice was all but inaudible.

“I can hear.…”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Don’t know … in the tent … someone …” She fell silent. Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath.

“Just take it easy,” Rick said soothingly, pulling a chair close to the bed and laying a gentle hand on hers. “I’m with the sheriff’s office in Sugarloaf, and we’re trying to find out what happened. I’d like to ask you some questions,
and I’ll try to keep them simple. All you have to do is answer yes or no. And if you get tired, it’s all right. Okay?”

“Yes,” the woman breathed, the word drifting from her lips as a quiet sigh.

“Good. Now, were you able to see anything? Anything at all?”

“Yes.”

“Was it an animal?”

“Don’t … know …” The words came out with an effort, but before Rick could ask another question, Tamara Reynolds began speaking. “Big. Hairy. Touched hair.”

“Hair on the head?” Rick asked.

“Don’t know,” Tamara Reynolds replied. “Couldn’t see.”

Rick Martin frowned. “Could it have been a bear?” he asked, knowing he was leading her, but seeing no other way to conduct the interview.

“Not a bear,” Tamara moaned. “Not big enough.”

“But you
did
see it?” he pressed, excited. “At least a glimpse?”

The young woman nodded, then groaned at the pain the motion had caused. Behind him, Rick heard the door open, then the nurse’s voice: “Only another minute, please. She has to rest.”

Very quickly, Rick Martin repeated the vague description of the man MaryAnne Carpenter had seen at the Wilkensons’ funeral, but when he was finished, Tamara Reynolds only sighed helplessly. “Maybe,” she whispered. “Maybe not. Too dark.”

Martin’s heart sank, for he knew that without a detailed description from Tamara Reynolds, neither he nor anyone else would have any idea of what it was they were looking for.

All he knew was that it was probably as large as a man, very strong, and very dangerous.

Mortally dangerous.

B
y the time the school bus dropped them off that afternoon, the rain had stopped and the clouds had lifted, revealing the dense stand of timber rising up the mountains’ flanks. The tops of the mountains were still lost in heavy clouds, and as she gazed up at the leaden sky, Alison could almost imagine that the great cliffs rose on forever. As the bus turned around to start back down toward the village, and Andrea and Michael Stiffle disappeared up the driveway leading to their house without so much as a good-bye, Storm came bounding down the road, tail held high, to greet his master. Joey knelt down to hug the dog, then, as he stood up again, pointed to the road leading up to Coyote Creek Campground. “Want to go up and take a look?” he asked.

Alison shivered, but wasn’t certain whether the chill had been caused by the damp breeze or by Joey’s suggestion, which immediately reminded her of all the stories she’d heard at school that day.

Stories of bodies being found—ripped to pieces—arms and legs scattered all over the campground.

Rumors of a pack of wolves marauding down from the mountains.

Of a maddened grizzly, standing twelve feet tall when it reared up, its jaws dripping with human blood.

“Once they get the taste, they won’t stop,” one of her classmates had whispered excitedly at lunchtime. “They can’t eat anything else, and just keep hunting for people!”

Ellen Brooks, her science teacher, had done her best to dispel the rumors that afternoon. Though she pointed out that one man had, indeed, been killed, a whole family had
slept unmolested in another tent in the same campground. “There has never been a proven case of wolves attacking men,” she had reminded them, “and while a grizzly certainly could have been responsible for what happened, there’s no truth whatsoever to that story that they develop a taste for human blood. While you should certainly all be very careful, there isn’t any reason for panic.”

But the whisperings had continued between classes, embellished with ever bloodier detail, and by the time the day was over, the scene had become vivid in Alison’s imagination—the mutilated body, the desecrated campsite, the huge, overpowering shape of the unknown creature, bear or Sasquatch, looming darkly in her mind’s eye, claws outstretched, lying in wait.

Now, as Joey started up the road toward the campground, with Storm charging happily ahead, she hung back. “Why don’t we go home?” she asked, hoping her own fears weren’t showing in her voice.

Joey grinned at her knowingly. “Scared?” he asked.

“I just think we should go home, that’s all,” Alison insisted, but now her brother took up the same chant he’d used this morning.

“
Chick
en, chicken! Alison’s a
chick
en!”

Alison stood her ground. “Mom said we should come right home after school!”

“She did not!” Logan crowed. “She didn’t say anything like that at all. That’s just what she said back in New Jersey! And I want to see the campground!” His fears at school all but forgotten in the thrill of actually seeing the spot where someone had gotten killed, he dashed after Joey. “Wait up, Joey! I’m coming, too!”

Alison hesitated, torn between wanting to stay on the road, where at least everything around her was familiar, and wanting to go along with her brother. In the end, as she, too, started up the road to the campground, she told herself that she was just looking out for Logan, making sure he didn’t get lost.

The trail was steep and slick from the rain, and more than once Alison nearly lost her footing. Just as she was wondering how much farther they were going to have to
climb, the campground opened out in front of them. As if obeying some unspoken command, all three of them came to an abrupt halt, their excitement at the prospect of seeing the murder site suddenly dampened now that they were actually there.

The silent campground spread out before them, its eerie emptiness oddly accentuated by the lonely appearance of the unused picnic tables scattered here and there among the trees. They glanced at each other uncertainly, none of them willing to be the first to voice what each of them had been counting on: that someone would be up here—one of the deputies, perhaps—guarding the scene of the murder.

But there was nothing.

Storm, his nose to the ground, was sniffing at the area where the tent had been, and finally the three children started toward him, Alison taking Logan’s hand in her own.

“There isn’t anything here,” Joey said. They stood at the edge of the campsite, none of them wanting to venture any closer to the trampled area where only a few hours ago half a dozen people had searched for clues to the grisly murder and maiming. “I thought …” His voice trailed off as he realized he wasn’t quite sure what he had thought, what he’d expected.

“I-I think we should go home,” Alison said, her voice echoing oddly in her own ears in the empty campground. “I don’t like it here.” She stepped back and was about to turn around when Storm barked excitedly, a single, sharp outburst, then moved away, his nose still pressed to the ground.