Voracious (19 page)

Up ahead she could make out another road turning off to the left. In front of it stood a small wooden sign that read Private Residence.

She was almost there.

A sharp, snapping twig brought her to a halt. She spun around and heard another snapping branch. Her breath coming fast, fear consumed Madeline. Her feet became lead bricks, her mouth went dry, and though she wanted to run in terror, she couldn’t move.

Her eyes wide, she stared into the trees and brush on that side of the road. Another twig snapped. Then the shrubbery began to part, and a dark shape emerged. Madeline ran. Not looking back, feet pounding the pavement, she raced toward the rangers’ houses. “Somebody help me!” she yelled, though the plea came out hoarse and not as loud as she’d hoped. Almost at the other road, she dared a look back.

And saw a bear standing in the middle of the road.

She had never been so relieved to see a bear in all her life. She stopped running and turned to face it. Meandering along the pavement, it was a huge, hulking mass of shaggy, powerful limbs and a tremendous head. Its nose sloped distinctly from the forehead, and she took in the dish-shaped face and large shoulder hump. A grizzly. One look at the tremendous white claws scraping on the pavement confirmed it. It looked at her with disinterest and crossed the road to the bushes on the other side. Branches cracking and bending in its wake, the bear pushed into the thick of them and reared up on its hind legs. Placing its mighty paws together, it shucked the berries off a branch and devoured them.

Madeline laughed, breaking the silence, relief bubbling up inside her. Then she stopped short, feeling a little embarrassed, and hoped no one had heard her call for help.

The grizzly moved to the next bush, shucked off some berries. Then it dropped to all fours and pushed farther into the bushes, into the forest beyond and out of sight.

She sighed as she watched it go, but the minute it disappeared she felt the woods press in on her again, every piece of darkness hiding the creature. The presence of that huge ursine predator had comforted her.

But now it was gone, and she turned and hurried toward the ranger’s house.

MOST
of the windows in Steve’s cabin were dark. Though she knocked quietly on the door, the sound thundered in the otherwise hushed night. She waited on the doorstep, watching a haze of blue smoke drift through the forest, remnants of the many campfires still smoldering, even at this late hour.

No one came to the door. She peered in a window. A light was on in the back of the cabin. She knocked again. Waited. Knocked harder.

Finally she heard someone stirring on the other side of the door. “Listen, buddy,” Steve called through the wood. “There’s nothing I can do about your damned beer. You’re just going to have to drive to town tomorrow and get more.”

She stood silently on the other side, confused.

“Besides,” he went on, “if it was that important to you, you should have known they didn’t sell it at the camp store and brought more.”

Madeline said, “Um … Steve? It’s me, Madeline, the person who reported the murder tonight?”

“Oh,” came the reply. A lock disengaged, and the door swung open. Steve’s sleepy face came into view, his eyelids drooping as he focused on her. “Sorry about that. Some drunk guy keeps coming by, asking me if I have beer. He’s been driving me crazy all night.” He rubbed some sleep out of his eye. “This park’s not nearly as bad as the state park I used to work at. But, man, do I get the unpleasant ones.” He leaned against the door. “So what’s up?”

“Well, actually, I was hoping …” Her voice trailed off. It was the middle of the night, and he didn’t even know her. But she had to get away. Her life might depend on it. “I was hoping you could drive me to my car.”

“What, now?” He squinted at his watch.

“Yes.”

He looked back up. “What’s the hurry?”

“I’m just … freaked out, I guess. I just want to go home.”

He scratched his head, his already mussed hair now standing up where he’d ruffled it. “Well, where is it?”

“It’s at the Loop trailhead.” The Loop was a section of the Going-to-the-Sun Road east of there that made a sharp, hairpin turn. A small parking area lay up there, along with a trailhead that started off some fantastic hikes, including the Granite Park Chalet and Swiftcurrent Pass trails.

He scratched his head again, then ran a hand over his whiskers. “You’re freaked?”

She nodded emphatically.

“What, you think the murderer is going to come after you? We did talk to Mike up there, you know. There was no murder.”

She looked down, feeling awkward. They already thought she was crazy for what she had seen and didn’t believe her at all. “I just feel unsafe,” she said finally. “I know you don’t think that thing was real.” She gently felt the bandage on her head. “But regardless, I just want to go home.”

Steve studied her face for a long time. “I don’t know if you should drive with that head wound.”

Madeline looked at him pleadingly.

His face remained concerned. Finally he exhaled. “What the hell. I’m not getting any sleep here anyway. Besides, I have to see about my winter job in Missoula tomorrow, so I do have to head out of the park. Driving up to the Loop first won’t take me too far out of the way.”

Madeline felt a little guilty. If she waited until morning, she could get Noah to drive her or take one of the red historic touring cars that had been recommissioned to take tourists from location to location inside the park.

Steve looked at his watch. “I guess if I left now, I would just get there super early. Could even squeeze in a visit with my sister.” He dropped his hand to his side, then pushed the door open wider. “Sure. C’mon in. I’ll just get changed. Then we can be off.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” He gestured for her to come inside.

As she entered she said, “Thank you.”

“No problem,” he said, still groggy. He closed the door behind her and turned on a table lamp next to the door. “Make yourself at home. I’ll just be a minute.”

Sighing with relief, she watched as he walked off toward the back bedroom. Hope simmered within her at the thought of going home. She felt almost giddy. She was getting out of there!

Turning where she stood, she took in the meager possessions of the ranger: a small wooden table where he ate; two wooden chairs, the finish worn off on the seats and backs; a small bookshelf overcrammed with books. She approached the latter, taking in some of the titles. Many were field guides, the
Golden Guide to Birds
, the
Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky.
But a lot were fiction, mostly mysteries and thrillers. So many books sat on the bookshelf that they were crammed four-deep in some places. On top of the bookshelf, next to a painted, wooden katydid, books teetered and loomed in precarious stacks, readying to topple at the slightest movement of the bookcase.

“You like reading?” she called into the other room, trying to make polite conversation.

“How’d you know? I love it.”

She smiled at the teetering books. “Just a guess.”

“Just about ready.”

“Okay.”

A minute later, Steve appeared, threw a backpack down on one of the wooden chairs, and then disappeared into the bathroom.

As she listened to him brushing his teeth, an unsettling feeling crept up on her. She started pacing. Suddenly the windows felt too close, like the creature was out there, peering in through the gauzy curtains, and only had to stretch its hand through the screen—

In the center of the room she stopped, staring at the windows. Part of her wanted to open the curtains and stare out, but she feared that as soon as she pushed one aside, she’d find a hideous dark face with red saucer eyes staring back. But she remained transfixed, as if it were
calling
her to the window, daring her to see if she was right. The room continued to creep in on her, the windows growing closer.

“Well, I’m ready to go,” Steve said, appearing from the other room.

“Great.” She was already moving toward the door. The wooden floor creaked beneath her feet as she moved. Glancing back, she scanned over Steve’s outfit to see if he wore a gun. He didn’t.

“Don’t you have a gun?” she asked.

Steve shook his head. “I’m not a law enforcement officer. I’m an interpretive ranger. I don’t have professional weapons training. But I do have my own shotgun in the car. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. About different ranger categories,” she fumbled, lying. She knew the shotgun wouldn’t kill the creature, but if it came down to it, the fiery pellets probably wouldn’t feel too good. At the very least it might slow the creature down.

She paused before the door as Steve grabbed up his bag from the chair. Reaching out to turn the knob, she felt reluctance wash over her. And then Steve was opening the door, and they were outside, the cold of night sneaking in through the collar of Noah’s fleece jacket. She zipped it all the way up, turning while Steve locked the cabin. She scanned the shadows clustered at the bases of trees.

“My Jeep’s in the lot down the drive here,” he said.

Together they walked toward the vehicle, Madeline rushing slightly ahead, starting at every night bird rustling in the bushes, and each laugh or shout from loud campers. She wondered if she should tell Steve about the four guys who tried to attack her. There were no bodies, and nothing Steve could do except notify the families. She decided that when she got home, she’d write an anonymous note describing the incident. At least then the families would know. She wondered how many missing people had disappeared without a trace at the hands of the creature.

“You okay?” Steve asked.

Madeline nodded. “Just anxious to get to my car. I really appreciate your taking me.”

He smiled, a kind smile. “No problem.”

Soon they reached the parking area, and Steve pointed out his vehicle, a green Jeep Cherokee, which waited among five other park service vehicles. He unlocked the door for her and went around the other side. Carefully she opened the door and peered into the cab, then into the back of the vehicle. It was clear. Exhaling sharply, she climbed in, closing and locking the door after herself. Steve got in the other side, fired up the car, and they were off.

“So, the Loop trailhead?” he asked, pulling out of the parking spot.

She nodded.

“Okay.” He straightened the car out and exited the parking lot, Madeline still searching the dark outside for any sign of the creature. When he pulled onto the main road, she watched with relief as the speedometer needle climbed, hopefully faster than even the creature could run.

They rode in silence, Madeline letting her head lean back on the headrest, Steve still looking a little sleepy. “I should have made a cup of coffee,” he said, rubbing more sleep out of his eye.

“Sorry for the rush. I guess it was just getting to me.” She felt safer in the Jeep now, freer. She couldn’t wait to be in her own car, speeding toward home. Once in Mothershead, she would talk to the local police. Ever since she’d played a part in catching the Sickle Moon Killer, they’d been kind to her and kept a helpful eye on her, even if as individuals they kept their distance. His capture had meant kudos for the tiny precinct, as they had solved a case that had baffled even the FBI. If the creature came after her, she could rely on them to help her.

They drove on, the headlights playing over the shadowed branches of overhanging pines, the yellow center line glowing reflectively. A pair of headlights appeared over the crest of a hill and another car sped by them, traveling too fast.

“Jerk,” Steve said. “So many people speed on these roads. Did you know that vehicle accidents are the number one killer of bears out here?”

Madeline raised her eyebrows. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“I hate it when people speed here. And I’m just a naturalist ranger. I can’t pull them over and give them a ticket, though I’d really like to.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said sincerely.

“Okay. Tirade over.”

She laughed.

“Or, wait—here’s another. People who don’t think park signs apply to them. Like there’s always some jerk who thinks the ‘Stay off the meadow—it’s being restored’ sign doesn’t apply to him, you know? So he just steps right over the fence and tramples the damaged area some more. Or the jerk who thinks the ‘Don’t feed the wildlife’ sign doesn’t apply to him, so he feeds a coyote some lunch meat out of the window of his car. Next thing you know, the coyote is hanging around the road all the time, eating unhealthy human food, and then it gets hit by a car. Even worse than that jerk might be the jerks who see him doing this stuff and figure, ‘Hey, if that guy can do it, then I don’t see why I can’t feed wildlife and trample the meadows.’ ” He paused to take a breath. “Man, it pisses me off!”

“I can see why.”

“I’ll say.” He paused. “Okay. That tirade’s over, too, and I don’t think I see any more looming on the horizon anytime soon.”

“No problem,” she said. “We’ve all got to vent sometimes, and it sounds like you’ve got more reasons to complain than the rest of us.”

“Except you,” he said, glancing over at her. “You’ve been through a tough time.”

She assumed he meant the flash flood and the bump on the head, so she said, “Yeah. My head is still giving me grief.”

“Not just that,” he said.

“I thought you didn’t believe me about the rest of the stuff. That I had hallucinated it.”

“I don’t know what you really saw up there, but it’s easy to tell it terrified you. I don’t blame you for wanting to get home. If I’d seen some
thing
up there, I wouldn’t be too anxious to stay in the woods.”

She turned to face him. “So then you believe that I really saw something?”

He nodded. “Once, when I was eleven, I was out hiking with my dad in Oregon. All of a sudden, I can’t explain why, but we both got this really intense feeling we were being watched. A primal fear washed over me, my hair stood up—everything.”

Madeline thought of her own feeling of being watched, just before the flash flood hit her.

“And then, all of a sudden, stench. I mean, the most god-awful stench you can imagine—like rotten meat and rancid, chunky milk, putrid, decaying flesh. The smell was so bad and so pervasive that I almost threw up, right there on the trail. I ran ahead, trying to get away from it, while my dad kept plodding along. Finally I turned around to see how far back he was. And something was there, on the trail behind him. I only saw it for a second, following along behind him, and then it darted back into the bushes.”