Hunted, page 8
Anna narrowed her eyes then moved to the back of the minivan. She dug through her bag and came up with a plain grey scarf. “Tie this on.”
“It’s not that cold.”
“No, but you want to look like you dressed with purpose, instead of grabbing whatever was closest to hand. Scarves are by default intentional, not accidental.”
He obediently looped it around his neck, only for Anna to sigh, pull it off, and redo it herself.
“How about me?” Flint asked.
“You’re fine. It’s simple but not dirty. And since you won’t be doing the talking, simple works great.” She snapped her fingers at Hailey. “You’re overdressed.”
She sniffed and shook her hair back. “I thought we were trying to make a good first impression.”
“We’re trying to look like responsible, mature adults, not seduce the commander. Here.” Anna zipped up Hailey’s jacket to hide her cleavage then fished an elastic band out of her pocket. “Tie your hair into a ponytail, then you’re fine. We ready to go?”
Chris retrieved the stack of printed photos from the back of the van then squared his shoulders as he turned towards the station. He hadn’t had many chances to interact with the police before, just a couple of breath tests. Flint, on the other hand, had gotten into a not-insignificant number of altercations as a teenager and had spent a couple of nights in holding. The group had unanimously agreed that he should stay at the back and not say much.
Anna kept at Chris’s side as they walked across the street. She was wearing her reading glasses, and he had to admit the librarian vibe made her look more mature.
“Remember, be calm.” She spoke softly as she adjusted her jacket collar. “Be polite and respectful. You’re part of Eileen’s family, so you’ll get more leeway than the rest of us, but only as long as you keep your temper in check and don’t act like you know more than them.”
“Even though I do,” he grunted.
She pointed a finger at him as they climbed the two steps to the front door. “I’m serious, Chris. This might be our only chance to mobilise the police to find Eileen. Or at least, find out what happened to her. Keep your cool.”
“Got it.”
The door swung open. The reception area was already crowded, with a mother and her crying baby in the seats awkwardly placed in the room’s corner and two officers at the reception desk.
Anna squeezed his arm and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Respectful. Polite.”
As they approached the reception desk, the woman behind it tilted forward. She wore the same uniform as the other officers, but a sprig of lilacs had been tied into her bun. It was sharply at odds with the serious, formal atmosphere of the rest of the building. “Can I help you lovelies?”
“Yes.” Chris clasped his hands ahead of himself and leaned closer to be heard over the baby’s wails. “I’m Chris Hershberger. My sister—”
“Ooh, yes, Eileen Hershberger. Are you here to speak to the managing officer?” The receptionist had already dialled a number and lifted the phone to her ear, so Chris just nodded mutely.
The woman with flowers in her hair spoke into the phone briefly. Chris couldn’t hear what was said in reply, but the tone sounded sharp. The receptionist listened for several moments, then she hung up and gave them a toothy smile. “All right, come with me.”
Chris looked back at his companions. Flint shrugged, and Anna waved for him to hurry up. He followed the receptionist back into the depths of the station. Painted plaster walls gave way to old brick. The place seemed to have been designed by a madman; the hallway wove without any rhyme or reason, and Chris was sure they must be looping back on themselves before the woman pushed open a door for them.
“Officer Delago will be here soon. Can I get any of you something to drink? Tea, coffee, water?”
“We’re fine.” Chris waited until she’d dipped out of the doorway before looking about himself. They were in a kind of conference room. Pictures hung from the walls, showing how the town had looked a hundred years before. One large print of the mountain range took up the back wall. A large wooden table filled the middle of the room. Smaller benches and filing cabinets lined the walls. Chris approached the seats on one side of the table but had only halfway sunk into the wooden chair before the door burst open.
A female officer marched in, her dark hair tied into a bun and a stack of folders under one arm. All of her movements were sharp and energetic, and her wiry frame seemed swallowed by her rumpled jacket. She dropped the folders into the bench, extended a hand to shake Chris’s, then slipped into the chair opposite him before he could blink.
“I’m Officer Carla Delago. I’m in charge of your sister’s case.” Like her movements, her voice was sharp and clipped. Chris had the impression that she was overworked and silently seething at the intrusion, but she still smiled as she folded her hands over the folders. “Sorry, Mr. Hershberger, but Viv didn’t catch the purpose of your visit.”
“We have a lead,” he blurted. Anna, to his left, nodded and looked as professional as she could. To his right, Flint and Hailey were keeping silent and trying not to draw attention to themselves.
“Oh?” The fake smile transformed into an expression of genuine attention. “I’d be glad to see it.”
Chris slid the stack of printouts towards her. “You gave my parents these photos yesterday. We found some, uh…”
“Abnormalities,” Anna interjected on his behalf. “A shape that appears in some pictures and not others. We believe it might be the reason Eileen was taking pictures in the darkness. And possibly the reason she went missing in the first place. She was trying to frighten off… whatever this is.”
Delago took the sheets. She spent a moment examining the top one then exhaled and lifted her head. “You’re going to need to point it out to me.”
“Here.” Anna reached across the desk to tap the shape between the trees, then she shifted the top page back to reveal the two beneath it. “Here, and here.”
“All right. And this is…”
“It looks like some kind of face. We believe Eileen was trying to frighten it off with the camera flashes. It’s moving around, almost like it’s stalking her at the edge of the light.”
Anna sat back down. Flint gave her a thumbs-up, and Chris quickly pushed his hand back down.
Delago didn’t notice, though. She was bent over the pictures, examining them closely. Then she pulled one of the folders out of the stack, flipped it open, and looked at something inside. Chris craned his neck, but the folder’s angle was too steep for him to see what she was reading.
After what felt like an eternity, Delago put the folder down and pushed the sheets of paper back to Chris. “Have you heard of pareidolia, Mr. Hershberger?”
Before Chris could speak, Flint pressed forward so eagerly that he nearly came out of his chair. “Is that what you call it? The monster in the mountain?”
Chris urgently kicked his friend’s shin. It didn’t stop Flint, though.
“Because I was thinking it was some kind of Bigfoot, you know. But if you already know about this paradola animal then you can—”
“Flint, sit down!” Anna hissed at the same time that Chris kicked him so viciously that he couldn’t ignore it.
He blinked at them, looking both shocked and hurt, then swallowed and slid back into his seat.
Delago had her hands laced in front of her in a perfect visage of calm and control, though the impression was ruined by her wide eyes and the alarmed tilt to her eyebrows. She maintained silence for a moment, seemingly waiting to see if there would be another outburst, then she said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your friends’ names.”
“Anna, Flint, Hailey.” Chris was careful not to use surnames. He didn’t know if the police departments were connected enough that Flint’s history could be brought up on their database. The last thing he wanted was for his friend to be incarcerated in a foreign state.
“Right. Well, like I was saying… pareidolia is the phenomenon of seeing familiar shapes where there are none. You might look at the swirls in a wooden floorboard and see a dog. Or look at a house with strange windows and see a face.”
“We know what pareidolia is,” Chris said, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. Anna shot him a pointed look, and he cleared his throat. “Ma’am.”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction, but her voice actually softened. “I understand the loss of your sister is… a horrific thing to go through. You’re trying to make sense of it. Find closure. I can understand that. But I’m sorry to say, in this case, you’re finding clues that don’t exist.”
“But…”
Anna pressed a hand over Chris’s arm. “Ms. Delago, we’ve been careful not to leap to conclusions. We examined the photos closely and discounted every natural explanation before coming to you. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
“Sherlock Holmes fan, huh?” Delago smiled, but it was gone within a second. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But in this case, you discounted a little too readily. Have a look at the original photos.”
She reopened the folder and brought out a stack of pictures. All four of them leaned across the bench to get a closer look.
“Here are photos twenty-seven, twenty-nine, and thirty-four. Their timestamps match the sheets you gave me. Can you confirm they’re the same photos you found the… phenomena on?”
Chris didn’t speak. Delago had found the right images; he’d spent so much time looking at them during the previous night that he had them almost memorised. There was only one key difference. The face was gone.
“I scanned these photos for your parents then imported them onto a USB. You then printed them out again. Somewhere in the process—during scanning or during printing—artefacts were introduced into the picture. Maybe your ink was running low. Maybe the scanner malfunctioned. But what you’re looking at… I’m sorry, but it isn’t real.”
“Bull.” Chris felt his anger boiling. No number of concerned glances from Anna could silence him. “You’ve… I… there’s a mistake. It’s here. It’s got to be here.”
He snatched the other photos out of Delago’s hands. She didn’t protest, but the pity left her face. He spread the pictures across the desk, hunting through them with an almost manic desperation.
“There was something in the forest. Something stalking her. I don’t know why it’s not in your copies…”
“Mr. Hershberger, until your sister’s case is concluded, those are still evidence.”
“You’re making a mistake.” He slammed his fist onto one of the pictures. “There’s got to be—you’ve got to—”
“Come on.” Anna yanked on his sleeve. “We’re going. Sorry for taking up your time, Officer Delago.”
“No!” His voice cracked, but he had no control over it. “My sister’s still up in that forest somewhere! You can’t just ignore that! You can’t just pretend it didn’t happen!”
“I can promise you I’m not.” Delago stood. All softness had fled her face, and her glare felt hard enough to cut. “We are taking measures to recover your sister. But you must reconcile yourself to the fact that she probably will not be found. If she left the path—and she must have—and became lost, then our best chances of finding her are when her bones wash downriver.”
Chris gaped. The officer’s words were like a punch to the gut. They snatched away his ability to think, let alone speak. Angry tears pricked his eyes.
Flint looked from him to the officer then rose out of his chair so aggressively that it toppled over behind him. “This isn’t just about Eileen! Other people are going to go missing if you don’t kill this monster, Bigfoot, whatever it is. Who knows how many it’s already eaten!”
“Monster, huh?” Delago tilted her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but there is no monster. I’m in charge of missing person cases in this station. We have perhaps one or two incidents each year, which is in line with the average for other hiking areas of our size, business, and difficulty. If there was a monster picking off tourists, I think I would know about it.”
“Just because you don’t want to hear about it, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.” Chris’s vision was turning black at the edges. He felt dizzy and wild, and not even Anna’s desperate yanks registered. “Eileen wasn’t an incident. She was murdered. Police are supposed to protect people, get justice for people, but you’re doing nothing.”
“Have a good day, Mr. Hershberger.” Delago slammed the folder closed.
Chris turned away before she could see how close to breaking he was. Anna corralled him through the doorway, with Hailey scrambling after them. Flint was the last to leave, and as he did, he twirled and waved his two middle fingers at the officer. Delago’s irritated sigh followed them down the hallway.
18
Friday, 9:15 a.m.
Todd woke to a horrible headache and a shooting pain in his leg. He rolled his tongue around his mouth, but there was no saliva to moisten it.
He crawled forward, leaving the safety of the hollow where he’d hidden. He didn’t care if the monster found him. Everything hurt so badly that a quick death might actually be merciful. He sprawled out in a gap between the trees and groaned in relief as his body had a chance to relax its tight curl.
A nerve in his leg had become pinched. It stung every time he tried to move it. Rocks dug into his back, but he barely cared about them. He’d been an idiot to come into the forest.
No, that wasn’t true. He’d known what he was getting himself into. He’d brought water, food, and even a change of clothes. He’d been prepared, damn it. But… that monster.
He hadn’t accounted for that. How could anyone? There was nothing that could have protected him from that except perhaps a couple of guns and a machete.
He’d thought he lived in a rational world. He’d thought he could deal with anything Ashlough Forest held. But the creature that had followed him was like something that belonged in a twisted fantasy dimension of monsters and gods.
Todd still didn’t know what it was. His glimpses had been brief and distorted by fear. He remembered the fur, thick and long, the claws that stretched to the ground, and the poison-green eyes. It was unlike any other animal he’d seen before.
The sun was up, at least. He would no longer be at a disadvantage against the creature in the dark. He felt around himself until he found a dead stick amongst the debris then pulled it close to his chest. He might not have the energy to engage in a proper duel, but he could at least poke its eye out before it sliced into him.
There were deep gashes in the tree opposite him. Three lines, about shoulder height, dug into the bark with a sharp blade. Sap bubbled around the scores.
He tried to remember if they had been there the night before. It had been too dark to see much of anything, except for where scraps of moonlight fought through the canopy and touched parts of his environment. That tree hadn’t been one of them.
Todd waited. Squirrels chattered in the branches above him. Insects crawled over his skin as they accepted him as part of their environment. Birds sang, and the trees rustled. It would have been almost pleasant if he hadn’t been waiting for his death.
And yet minutes passed, but death didn’t come. The pins and needles gradually left Todd’s legs. He groaned, sat up, and threw the branch aside. The sap on the cut tree looked dry. It was probably old. The monster had left. Maybe it really hadn’t seen him the night before. Maybe it had become bored of waiting. Or maybe it didn’t like being out during the day.
That meant if Todd wanted to get back home, he would need to move quickly. There was no way he could spend another night in the forest. He was thirsty, but that couldn’t be helped. He would just have to wait until he got back onto the trail and could flag down someone with a water bottle.
His two top priorities had to be defences and figuring out a path home. Todd rolled to his feet and grunted as the aching muscles tried to expire on him. He didn’t let them. The gym rats might be bulkier, but he had something they didn’t: determination.
He staggered through the forest, head bowed, as he tried to find a suitable way to defend himself. The monster’s claws were long, which meant he needed a ranged weapon. With more time, he could have built a small forge out of clay and rock then smelted a proper blade. He’d watched some videos on how to do it; they looked easy enough. But time was short, so he had to improvise.
Todd found a dead branch that seemed sturdy. It was longer than his arm and heavier than he would have liked, but it would do the job. He kicked around the rocks gathered on the forest floor until he found a smooth, flat one then bent and scraped the branch’s tip across the stone to sharpen it. The wood splintered and stopped him from getting the sharp tip he wanted. Todd muttered under his breath as he worked on it, finally getting it to something like a point.
As an experiment, he tried stabbing at a nearby tree. The impact sent shockwaves up his arm, hurting already-sore muscles and throwing off his balance. Todd swore.
It was the forest. He could have fashioned a deadly spear if he’d had the right ingredients, but Ashlough was too wet and too unruly. All along, the forest had sabotaged every effort he made. Begrudgingly, he picked loose splinters off the spear’s tip. He might not be able to create a proper weapon, but the stick’s edge was still pointed enough to hurt. It would have to do until he found something better.
Todd rolled his shoulders. With his weapon taken care of, the only other issue was finding his way out of the forest.
He lifted his chin and tried to get a reading on the sun’s angle. Layers of foliage created a confusing mess of sunlight and shadow. He thought the sun might be coming from behind him. That meant he knew how to find north… but he didn’t know which direction the town was relative to the forest. He swore again.
What else? Think. Problem-solving has always been your strong suit. It’s just a forest. It can’t be that hard to find your way out.
