Thomas Prescott Superpack (53 page)

Chapter 48

I climbed on the large snowmobile and yelled, “GET ON!”

Erica jumped on the back and once again draped her arms over my head, the metal cuffs settling in around my waist. As I started the snowmobile I gave a quick look over my shoulder, but the Professor was gone.

I took a deep breath.
Relaxed. Tried to formulate some sort of plan. That’s when I saw the light. It moved slowly through the blanket of snow in the direction of the gate. It was blinding and moving fast. It appeared the Professor had swapped out the skis for a snowmobile.

Uh-oh.

Erica pinched me and said, “GO!”

Riley had mentioned a second gate at the far edge of the den.
If that was open we stood a chance. If it was closed, we would be dead.

We zipped through the deep snow.
The far side of the fencing came into view. It took a moment to locate the gate. It wasn’t easy to spot because it was closed.

I looked over my shoulder.
The Professor was gaining on us, maybe fifty yards behind. I thought about cutting it into the trees or circling back around to the other gate, but he’d cut us off at the angle either way.

I yelled, “HOLD ON!”

“WHY?”

“JUST HOLD ON TIGHT!”
I didn’t want to tell her that I was going to bash through the gate.

In the movies, this would be no problem.
But this wasn’t the movies. If the gate was locked with a thick chain and padlock as the other gate had been, then this wouldn’t end pretty. Lots of loose steel, loose parts, and loose limbs.

I was banking on the hinges.
They were relatively cheap on metal fencing, and with the intense cold, I was hoping they would snap easily.

The gate was twenty yards away.

Erica yelled, “THERE’S A FENCE!”

Then ten.

“ARE YOU CRAZY?”

Five.

“WHAT ARE YOU—”

I closed my eyes and stiffened.

There was a loud crack, then a jolt.

I opened my eyes and was surprised to see that I was still alive.

Erica yelled, “ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?
YOU COULD HAVE WARNED ME!”

“I DID.
I TOLD YOU TO HANG ON.”

I looked behind us.
The gate hung limply by a single hinge. And more importantly, the Professor had slowed to maneuver around the gate.

Take that,
Die Hard.

We started down a steep hill. We were in a valley and it was white as far as the eye could see.
The snowmobile was making an odd clicking sound. I brushed my hand over the control panel and noticed for the second time that the snowmobile was running on empty. One of those bullets must have ripped through the gas tank.

I said, “We have a problem.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Okay.
We have a couple problems.” I leaned forward and said, “We’re about to run out of gas.”

“Find a hill.”

She must have taken auto mechanics in high school. Most gas tanks have their drip in the rear. That’s why when you run out of gas, it’s usually on something of a decline. 

I leaned forward.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.” I laid the plan out for her. She nodded. It was our only hope.

We hit a trough and started up an incline.
The crest was about two hundred yards away and littered with pine trees. 

I asked, “Where is he?”

I could feel her turn around, the cuffs tightening around my waist. She turned back. “I can just barely see his shadow moving down the hill.”

We were fast approaching the crest, fifty yards away, when the engine first coughed.

Erica leaned back and yelled, “Left or right?”

The engine coughed twice more.

I yelled, “LEFT!”

We both situated ourselves on the left side of the snowmobile. We hit the crest. I had just enough time to take in the outlay of the hill; a steep decline with very few trees. We had a fighting chance that the snowmobile would make it to the bottom of the long hill and then some. We just had to pray the Professor didn’t notice it didn’t have any occupants.

I screamed, “NOW!”

We dove left. 

The deep powder cushioned our blow and we sank deep.
We dove near a series of trees, and the snow shaken from the branches gave cover to the large hole amidst the untouched powder. Erica’s arms were still wrapped around my waist so she couldn’t do much.

I said, “Count to ten.”

“Okay.”

I started digging, covering us with as much snow as possible.
Within two short seconds it was pitch dark. I pulled snow from beneath us and packed it above us, entrenching us in an ice cavern.

Erica whispered, “Ten.”

I stopped.

I could feel my heartbeat thudding against my ribs.
My throat began to tighten. I took deep breaths through my nose. I wasn’t exactly claustrophobic, but I wasn’t too fond of close quarters.

Then I heard the slight vibrations.
A quivering that ran through the ground. Erica’s hands clenched to my chest. The soft tones of the motor came next. Slight at first. Then strong and swift. I could feel the snowmobile inch its way up the crest of the small hill. The sounds carried through the cold snow like a boat’s propeller through a silent pool. 

Just when I thought the sounds, the reverberations, had reached their pinnacle, they grew louder, stronger.
I could visualize the Professor taking stock of his surroundings. We weren’t being followed. We were being
hunted.
 

The seconds ticked by.
Why was he still here? Why hadn’t he started down the hill? Had he noticed the snowmobile was empty?

The noise was deafening.
The vibrations numbing. He couldn’t have been more than a couple feet away. Then the snowmobile went quiet.

I clung to Erica.

A thud.

The Professor was off the snowmobile.
He was behind us and to the right. 

I whispered, “He must have seen something.”

“Shhhhhhhhhh.”

“Right.”

“Be quiet.”

I paused for a second then said, “You be quiet.”

The
squish-squish
of the Professor’s footsteps came steadily closer. He was walking around his snowmobile. He took two steps and stopped. Erica’s fingers clawed at my chest and I could feel her body stiffen.

He took another step.
I flexed every muscle in my body so as not to move.

I could feel his leg drive downward in the snow.
His foot came down on my foot. I slinked my foot up as far as possible. I could hear his foot moving around searching for whatever he’d stepped on. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he just started firing into the snow.

He stood there for three seconds, then five.

I thought about using the element of surprise and going for him.
In fact, if his leg had been anywhere near one of my arms I would have. But I had a 110-pound bag of potatoes strapped to my back.

Then his leg slipped from the snow. The squishes faded.
The engine fired. The Professor was gone.

Chapter 49

We waited a good minute before we moved. Erica whispered, “You think it’s safe?”

There was a fine line between not waiting long enough and waiting too long.
If the Professor did come back, I wanted to put as much distance between us and the surrounding area as possible. It was only a matter of time before he noticed that wherever the snowmobile did come to rest, no footprints led away from it. And he would begin to backtrack. When he did, I wanted to be at the closest Comfort Inn.

I said, “Yeah, I think we’re good.”

I swept the snow from above us and we sat up.
I peered down the mountain. Two sets of fresh snowmobile tracks shot directly down and out of sight. I let out a long sigh. Although, as I think the cliché goes, we weren’t out of the woods quite yet.

We stood up.

The cuffs were still wrapped around my waist, and I turned so they were now around my back.
It was a tight fit and Erica’s large chest was squishing into my stomach. Erica was staring at my chest. Afraid to look up. I leaned my head down until it was touching hers. I gave her cheek a light nudge. She slowly lifted her head until her magical eyes were staring into mine. Her lips flexed into a meek smile and her chest moved slowly in and out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

I moved my cheek gently across her neck.
I ran my lips near her perfect ear, across her soft cheek. She tilted her head up and I brushed lightly against her supple top lip. Time stopped. She moved the cuffs up my back until her hands found the back of my head. Her lips welcomed mine, her silky tongue timidly exploring every inch of my tongue. I don’t know how long the kiss lasted. Nor did I care to know.

We stayed that way for awhile.
At one point, Erica pulled away and licked her lips.

I was in love.

Again.

Erica broke away and said, “Not that I don’t thoroughly enjoy this, but I think we should get moving.”

“Oh, right. That guy is trying to kill us, isn’t he?”

She nodded silently.
I think she said a quick prayer that the kids would get my eyes and not my personality. Or maybe she was having kisser’s remorse. Either way, she was right.

Erica pulled the cuffs up and over my head.
Then she pulled me down for another kiss. Just a quick one. They say it’s all in the first kiss. They’re wrong. It’s the second kiss that matters most. And in this case, the Earth shook. 

We gave one last look around us and took off.

Trudging through the deep snow took its toll and we were forced to take a break after twenty minutes.
We worked our way into a deep set of trees, which would be nearly impossible to negotiate on a snowmobile, and plopped down.

I extracted the bottle of water and two PowerBars from zipper pocket #7E.
I handed Erica a bar and said, “You want to tell me what happened?”

Erica took the bar and ripped off the wrapper.
She took a huge bite and forced it down, then gobbled up the remainder. She eyed the half eaten bar in my hand and said, “You gonna eat that?”

 
I had been thinking about it. I handed over the bar and said, “I had a Cinnabon thirty hours ago. I’m stuffed.”

She ignored me, attacking the second PowerBar.
I thought about telling her she was almost out of her Atkins points for the day, but I typically like to date girls for at least a month before I give them dieting advice. 

She polished off the bar, swigged down the bottle of water, let out a deep breath, and said, “Much better.”

I nodded.

She closed her eyes for a second, as if remembering. “So after I left your house, I was pissed off.
Actually I was really pissed off. At you. At myself. At the world.”

She paused. I think she wanted me to chime in that I shouldn’t have let it end the way it had.
I said no such thing.

She started back up.
“My plan was to call Ethan, tell him everything you told me, then go to the grocery store and clean out their Ben & Jerry’s section. Ethan answered, and before I could tell him anything, he told me he knew that I’d just come from your house and that he just got off the phone with the chief. I was officially on probation. This put me over the edge, and I told him he and the chief could go to hell for all I cared.”

“Let me guess.
You didn’t tell him about the wolves.”

She shook her head.
“I went home, slept for a couple hours, then drove to the mountains. I got up here and thought it was a dead end. There wasn’t anybody around. I sat in my car for a good hour, then this car pulls up and this big black guy steps out.”

“Herb.”

“You met him?”

“About six-six, two-fifty.
Talks like an Oxford educated Bubba Gump.”

She nodded.

“I hate to tell you this, but Herb was . . . how do I put this . . . devoured.”

Erica gulped.

“And I have a feeling if I hadn’t come to your rescue you would have met the same fate.”

She smiled, crawled the two feet to me, and planted a fat one on me.
She said, quite sarcastically, mind you, “My hero.”

“So you met Herb—”

She crawled back. “Right. Then I pretty much told him what you told me. When I mentioned Riley he got sort of choked up.”

She paused for a second.
I think she wanted to see if I would have a similar reaction.

The crime scene photo of Riley flashed across my eyes and my stomach tightened.
Not at the sight of her dead, but at the idea of what I was imagining doing to the Professor. I won’t bore you with the details, but I will tell you that the Professor’s testicles were no longer dangling peacefully from his scrotum.

“You all right?”

I was anything but all right, but Erica wanted to hear that I was all right, so I told her I was. 

She eyed me suspiciously, then continued in stride. “We hopped on his snowmobile and drove to the den.”

I nodded.

“There were a bunch of wolves and this man watching them.
Herb tells me the guy is the Professor. As we got closer, you could see that something was wrong with his face.”

“Congenital hemangioma.”

“Is that what it’s called?”

I nodded.

“A girl at my high school had something similar. Hard way to go through life.”

I concurred. Going through life like that, everyone staring at you, kids calling you a monster, it would be difficult.
I could see why he chose the life of a wolf. They didn’t judge him. Didn’t cross the street when they saw him. Didn’t see him and thank God they didn’t have what he had.

You deal with enough of these sickos, and I’m not saying that you understand—to understand is impossible—but you can see why.
Your dad locks you in the basement or your uncle wants to play hide the pickle or your mom makes you stick your hands in boiling water or one of your foster parents likes to make you watch
Full House
reruns, you’re going to end up fucked up. There wasn’t a day in the Professor’s life that he didn’t think about the red plague taking up the better side of his face. He probably considered just ending it a hundred times. A million times. But he hadn’t. He’d decided to end Ellen Gray’s. And Riley Peterson’s. And for those two reasons I was going to kill him. For those two reasons I was going to make him suffer.

“Thomas.”

I looked up.

Erica was staring at me.

“Sorry.
Keep going.”

“Well, Herb, he yelled at the Professor.
He looked our way, then finally walked over. I told him who I was.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t talk much.”

“No, he doesn’t. I told him I needed him to come down to the station for questioning. He nodded that he understood, then walked to the small building. He was in the building for about five minutes, and I was set to go check on him when he walked out the front door. You could tell right away something was off. It happened so fast. Before I knew it, Herb had a dart sticking in his chest, and I had one in my thigh.”

Erica weighed about a buck ten, about the same as an adult wolf.
She probably was out like a light within ten seconds. But it couldn’t have had much effect on Herb. Probably made him a little dizzy. Or high. But a single dart wouldn’t have knocked out a 250-plus-pound man. Which is exactly the reason Herb was dead. He’d probably been hit by the dart, started to get dizzy but shook it off, then made for the snowmobile. That’s when the wolves had pounced.

I asked, “How long were you out for?”

“I have no idea. When I came to I was handcuffed in one of the stalls. I’ve been there for a day and a half. I think you know the rest.”

“Thomas Prescott saves the day and gets the girl.”

“More like Thomas Prescott lights the barn on fire, gets shot at, hides in snow cave, gets hypothermia, then gets eaten by hungry wolves.”

“Spoil the ending, why don’t you.”

We both got a good laugh out of this.

I asked, “But does he get the girl?”

“Of course he gets the girl.”

This led to another round of kissing.
I was rounding second when a heart-stopping sound rolled through the mountains. A deep guttural howl. Chills crept up my spine.

They were out there.

And they were hunting us.
 

I said, “Let’s go.”

She nodded.

We stood and started picking our way through the trees until we came to a large clearing, a valley, not a tree in sight.
Erica and I glanced at one another. I think the same thought filled both our heads. The last thing we wanted to do was get caught out in the open and be run down by a pack of wolves. It would be certain death. Here in the trees we at least stood a fighting chance. Not to mention we could always climb a tree. But who knew how long we could be out here before we were saved. I didn’t want to get treed by these wolves only to have the Professor come pick us off like the first level of Duck Hunt.

I was weighing the pros and cons when another round of howls filled the cold night air.
When the echo ran its course, Erica said, “They haven’t moved.”

I agreed.
They sounded as if they either hadn’t moved or were headed in the opposite direction. I looked out on the large clearing and made some quick tabulations. I figured if we did it at a reasonable pace, we could traverse the clearing in ten minutes. Six or seven minutes if we really hustled.

I looked at Erica.
She nodded.

And we started across.

. . .

The snow was the deepest we’d come across and it took us ten minutes to reach no man’s land, or more accurately, the point of no return. I turned around. The sun was just beginning to wake and everything was cast in a perfect gray. If not for the incredible glare coming off the snow, I would imagine it was a breathtaking landscape.

We hit the three-quarter mark and I started to relax a bit.
We had, give or take, the distance of a short par three until we reached the haven of the thick trees. Erica looked my way and gave me a little smile. I smiled back. That’s when we heard it. A noise far more frightening than the howl of a wolf. It was the whir of a snowmobile.

I turned and looked over my shoulder.
Under the cover of the sun’s glare, I could just make out the snowmobile’s running light moving diligently through the trees. The Professor would reach the edge of the clearing in a matter of seconds, and in the open field he would be on us in well under a minute.

I looked at Erica and screamed, “RUN!”

We ran. If you could call it running. It was like trying to move through three feet of molasses.

I could hear the snowmobile closing in.
I looked over my shoulder again. The Professor had reached the clearing. I turned back around. The trees were still fifty yards off. I heard a slight puff to my left and saw Erica was face first in the snow. I yanked her up, giving the Professor a quick glance in the process. He had started into the clearing, and the bright running light of the snowmobile was coming at us fast.

We trudged on.
My heartbeat was running somewhere in the low 400s. The snow’s depth was receding slightly, plus there was a small decline, and we made good time the next fifteen seconds.

With just twenty yards left, I could feel the snowmobile rumbling through the snow, the whir coming from directly behind me.
I visualized the gun trained between my L4 and L5 vertebrae and I waited for the bullet to come. It never did.

I turned around just in time to see the snowmobile blow past me.
I pulled Erica behind me as it skidded ten yards ahead of us and stopped. The front running light and snow glare were blinding, but I assumed the Professor had the gun leveled at our chests.