Voracious (30 page)

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.