The Hunting of Malin Page 6

  Chapter10

  At the lake, Roscoe located the gravel lot with a trailhead leading to the spot Malin thought they’d find their second body in three days. Shutting the engine off, he sat in complete silence, absorbing a dirt trail running into the shadowy woods. The lot was empty, the morning’s humidity already making Malin’s red tank top stick to her back. A hawk screeched above, soaring beneath gray clouds and seeming like a natural warning to turn and leave while they still could.

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” he finally said, removing a Budweiser ballcap and mopping sweat from his brow. “Maybe we should just call the police.”

  “And tell them what, Ross? I had another bad dream?”

  He undid his seatbelt and twisted in the seat to face her, exposing a little blond-haired girl pressing her hands against an old-fashioned television set on his t-shirt – the words They’re Heeeere printed below. “Look, we know she’s probably in there. You were right about Holly so let them handle it. We’re not detectives or coroners.”

  “No, I have to know for sure first. I have to see it with my own eyes this time. Then we call.”

  Roscoe’s gaze gravitated back to the trees, voice falling. “But what if he’s still in there?”

  Malin’s gut wormed into knots. “He’s not; it was dark in the vision, which means it happened hours ago, if not days.” She wished she could believe her own words but, for some nagging reason, she didn’t. It was possible he was still here, mutilating his most recent corpse or drinking the poor girl’s blood or whatever sick and twisted ritual he craved. Shuddering, she pushed the thought away before she could talk herself out of this. She had to know.

  “Maybe it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe this time, you had a flash of the future.”

  Malin tapped a nail against the face of her watch. She hadn’t thought about that and, at this point, anything was possible. “If that’s true, then we can still stop him.”

  “Shit.” Roscoe took a long drink of lukewarm coffee, following her stare into the trees. “I’m not going in there. This is stupid.”

  Tossing her shades on the dash, she opened her door and climbed out.

  “Goddammit, Malin!”

  Rocks popped beneath their shoes as they crossed the lot and entered the narrow pathway, every foraging squirrel and chipmunk a deranged killer in their minds. Tightening her ponytail, Malin could feel the negative energy hanging in the air like the smell of burnt toast, heightening her senses and thinning her blood.

  Roscoe held his cellphone over his head like he was taking a picture of the gray sky disappearing beneath an awning of dark green leaves. “I’m not getting any bars. Are you?”

  Malin pulled her phone from her skinny jeans, carefully descending the trail. “No,” she replied, the screen glowing brightly in the swelling shadows.

  “Great.” Roscoe slipped the phone into his jeans and pulled a handgun from the small of his back.

  Her heart jumped. “What’re you doing?” she whispered.

  “Just in case he’s still here.”

  “Since when do you carry a gun?”

  “Since crazy people started shooting everyone.” Ejecting the magazine, he examined it and slapped it back in with an open palm. “Can’t even go to church anymore without some idiot blowing your head off.” He pulled the slide back and racked a load, producing an unsettling click in the suffocating silence. “And I don’t plan on going down without a fight,” he added, slipping the gun into the holster clipped to the back of his belt and pulling his t-shirt down over it. Malin followed, pulse thudding in the hollow of her throat as they closed in on the clearing she kept envisioning in her head. Was there really a serial killer roaming the streets of Cottage Grove? It wasn’t possible. Things like that don’t happen here. People raise families here, go to festivals here, share dinners and boat rides here. But murder? No.

  Not here.

  “Man, I know she’s here.” Roscoe shook his head, leading them down the winding dirt trail. “I can feel her.”

  “Me too.”

  “You, obviously, have the same…whatever it is that your mom has.”

  “We don’t know anything yet.”

  “We are talking about a legitimate psychic ability,” he continued. “And if you and Luna have it, then you have to wonder what else is out there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ducking a low hanging branch, he held it for her. “I mean, you have to wonder what else is, perhaps, responsible for some of the most notorious tragedies known to mankind.”

  “Like what? And since when do you say perhaps?”

  “Like war, genocide, Columbine, 9/11, Newtown. Who knows what we could be up against out there? The point is: you and Luna have a power, and, more than likely, you’re not the only ones.”

  “There’s no evidence of any of that.” She tripped over a root but kept her balance. “And we’re not talking super powers here. We’re talking about a little…insight.”

  “We’re talking about the supernatural, and I want to believe.”

  Adjusting the red tank top sticking to her skin, she watched her footing, putting one black combat boot in front of the other. Trees and bushes crowded the path, scratching her arms and legs.

  Roscoe pushed through a branch of soft pine needles. “You remember that summer when I got a Transformers watch for my eighth birthday?”

  “You mean the one you lost and then formed a search party to locate?”

  “Yes! We had a well thought out search grid and everything, and outside of a stack of old Hustlers in a black Hefty bag, we found nada. So, what happens?”

  “You started crying?”

  “After that.”

  “You ate an entire tub of Rocky Road.”

  “No, Luna looks into her little crystal ball thingamajig and – Bam! – she knew right where to find it.”

  Malin smiled a little, a stick cracking beneath her boot. “Under the red tornado slide at Colby Park.”

  “I should’ve known right then and there she wasn’t completely nuts.”

  “Yeah, but she wasn’t right about everything.”

  “No, but that was something she could’ve never known.”

  “It was a lucky guess,” she said, wiping something from her arm. “We played there all the time.”

  “Not that summer. They opened a new park up the street. Remember?” He tossed a look over his shoulder, swollen rain clouds popping in and out of the trees, the trail growing as oppressive as the humidity. Cobwebs and dead bugs clung to Malin’s skin and she needed a shower.

  Roscoe lit up a joint and blew a stream of smoke to the sky. “How much farther?”

  Malin looked up. She’d never been on this trail before but according to the online map, it would take them close to where they needed to go. From here, however, everything looked the same and, without the GPS on her cellphone, she had no idea where they were or how far they’d gone. “Half a mile, maybe a little more.”

  He passed the joint to her and she waved him off. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” he said. “This is some Mango Kush straight out of Colorado.”

  “How can you smoke that right now? I’m so paranoid already.”

  “It’s medicinal.” Exhaling a pungent cloud, he swatted at a bug. “Helps ease my nerves.” Roscoe hit the joint again and meditated on something for a bit, tracking his sneakers. “What was the thing with the Salem witches again?”

  Malin rolled her eyes, wishing they were there already so they could quit talking. Whether or not Luna and her tales from the crypt were accurate didn’t matter. In the end, it gave Malin the creeps and reminded her of the father Luna drove off. The one Malin never got to build a dollhouse with. The one who never came for Christmas dinner. The one that got away. “They hung the wife and pressed her husband to death.”

  “On your mom’s side, right?”

  “Allegedly.”

  Bringing the joint to his lips, he sucked in and held it
. “Pressed to death,” he murmured, smoke trailing from his nose. “What a way to go.”

  Malin wiped perspiration from her brow and carefully navigated a curvy section of the trail where, over the years, heavy rains carved out wagon wheel-like ruts. Growing up, Luna spared no detail when recounting the horrid injustice served upon their ancestors, describing the shape and size of each stone authorities placed on her distant grandfather’s chest in order to coerce a confession of witch. Despite their ruthless prodding, and the struggle in his lungs, he would only whisper two words: more weight. The way Luna told it, you’d think she’d been there over three hundred years ago, watching from the crowded town square with torches flickering against their faces. Malin ran into Roscoe and shrieked in surprise.

  “Do not move,” he whispered, holding a hand out to keep her behind him.

  Cautiously peeking around him, Malin could already see the Carhartt killer before her eyes cleared Roscoe’s torso. She knew it was him. Could smell the evil in the air. Her pulse relaxed when she locked in on a bear cub twenty yards down the path instead. The black bear examined them for a leisurely moment and then, deciding they were harmless, stood on its short hind legs and began picking juneberries from a shrub bordering the trail. Malin inhaled a deep breath of sultry air. “Oh, my God, he’s so cute.”

  Roscoe shushed her and a branch broke in the trees around them. Drawing the handgun, he wrapped it in both hands like a cop about to kick in a perp’s motel door.

  “Roscoe,” she hissed. “If you shoot that little bear I’ll kill you.”

  “We’re not alone,” he whispered coldly.

  She followed his stare into the woods on the right, skin tingling and sweat rolling down the middle of her back. “I don’t see anything.”

  The noise came again, this time up ahead on the left where a black bear emerged from the thick foliage and stepped out onto the trail, snapping branches like they didn’t exist. Malin grabbed the back of Roscoe’s wet t-shirt and held her breath.

  “Oh shit,” he groaned, widening his stance and raising the Glock 32.

  Her heart panicked, shifting into overdrive. She knew from growing up around here the best way to provoke a bear attack was to make yourself visible around their cubs. Bears were overly protective and usually in no mood for lame excuses from errant hikers. Her eyes darted to the small bear grooming the juneberry bush, fear clawing at her insides. Mama bear froze in her massive tracks, scanning them through eyes as dark as fresh blacktop.

  Malin looked away, cowering behind Roscoe.

  “Stay still and do not run,” he said, shielding her with his body. “Stand your ground.”

  Wet sounding grunts rushed from the bear’s snout as she sampled their scent. There was a light click when Roscoe released the safety. Peering around him, Malin winced when the bear released an angry growl that echoed across the lake.

  “Go on, bear!” he shouted, startling Malin but not the bear.

  The cub stopped plucking berries into its mouth and looked over before dropping back onto all fours and sauntering closer. Mama bear growled again, its guttural warning stopping the cub and vibrating Malin’s internal organs. She wanted to flee but knew it was impossible to outrun a healthy bear, especially in this overgrown mess. Her hands shook. Sweat ran into her eyes. Then, in a dark blur, the bear charged and Roscoe fired the weapon, making Malin shriek. Either missing altogether or barely making a dent, mama bear closed the distance with impressive speed for such a heavy beast. Saliva and mucus flung from her snout. Fur jiggled around her thick neck and legs. Roscoe held his ground and squeezed off another round that only seemed to piss her off more. She ran harder, growling like some ghastly creature in a bad Syfy movie, the ground literally trembling beneath them.

  Still aiming the gun, Roscoe couldn’t stop himself from taking a small step back. His heel collided with a protruding root and he fell to his ass, shooting the branches above and leaving Malin hanging in the breeze. The bear skidded to a stop and stared right at her, panting and drooling, snorting and grunting. Heart thrashing against her ribcage, Malin felt light headed and wondered how long it would take to die beneath the bear’s powerful jaws. Glassy black eyes held her dilated ones, snout sniffing at the air, cub scampering to catch up. Without warning, mama bear released a high-pitched groan, as if she just stepped on a thorn, and herded the cub into the trees, disappearing into the shadows from whence they came.

  Roscoe sat on the ground and stared after them through disbelieving eyes, still pointing the gun with both hands. “Holy fucking shit,” he panted, swinging the sidearm around.

  Wobbling on rubbery legs, Malin searched the woods, positive this wasn’t over yet. “Get up,” she barely whispered.

  Roscoe staggered to his feet, the trail slipping out beneath him like ice. He wiped his brow with a shoulder and finally lowered the gun. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

  “Jesus, Ross, where’d you learn to shoot?”

  He turned to her with the color fleeing his cheeks as fast as the bears fled the trail. “I just got it.”

  “Oh, my God,” she breathed, resting her hands on her knees. “I thought we were dead for sure.”

  “Theoretically, we should’ve been.” He blew out a steadying breath. “I don’t know why she stopped.”

  “Maybe you hit her.”

  “Maybe,” he said, lighting a cigarette with an unsteady hand. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I’m done with this bullshit.”

  “Wait!”

  Spinning on his heels, he raised the gun, ready for a black streak to come shooting from the trees, cigarette dangling from his lips.

  Malin took the lead and continued down the trail, boots crushing the berries the cub shook loose from the shrub.

  “May!”

  Around the bend, the water came into view through a speckling of tree trunks. The sun broke through a hole in the clouds, sending sparkles dancing off the lake before ducking back behind the gloom and turning the water to lead. Malin’s determined steps quickened as she left the trail, the bear already a forgotten memory. She had to know. Was a dead girl lying in the bushes thirty yards ahead? Or was she losing her goddamn mind?

  “Is this the spot?” Roscoe panted, hurrying to catch up.

  “This is it.” Her eyes scanned the trees and bushes.

  But not for the bear.

  For him.

  The black bear was just protecting her cub, but him… He was evil incarnate and must be stopped. If Malin had the power to end him, she would risk everything to do so. Even her life. She owed these poor girls that much. Besides, look at the alternative. Haunted and cursed was no way to go through life.

  Wading through the brush, thorns grabbed at her jeans and refused to let go, urging her not to take another step. Stubbornly, Malin pressed on, tearing a bigger hole in one knee with Roscoe following close behind. She swatted at the insects buzzing around her head like a crown of flies, walking through a cobweb that covered her face. Clearing it with a hand, dead bugs stuck to her sweaty palm. She wiped them on her jeans and three steps further, the stench hit them.

  Roscoe dropped the cigarette and stepped on it, covering his nose with his shirt. “Oh shit, that’s not a good sign.”

  Her heart fluttered. They couldn’t see a body but Malin knew it was here. She also knew she had a power she didn’t want. Shallow breaths made her jaw quiver. Her boots disappeared in the overgrowth and Malin wasn’t crazy. This was really happening. But why now? After all these years of nothing? The rancid odor was overpowering, turning her stomach and stinging her eyes. Entering a clearing, she came to an abrupt stop, heart sinking when she saw a blond girl leaning against a tree in the distance. Outside of the bloody noose hanging from her neck, she looked like she was taking a nice relaxing nap.

  One she would never wake from.

  Chapter11

  “Sonofabitch, you were right!” Roscoe tore his wide eyes from the mutilated blond, lungs heaving. “Again.”

  Malin
traded a sickened look with him, smearing tears across her cheeks and grasping at tiny sips of wretched air. Seeing the girl up close hit hard. Malin wanted to be wrong. Wanted to be insane. Wanted to wake up. But there was no waking up from this nightmare, only struggling through it one body at a time.

  “Still no bars. You?”

  Blinking out another tear, she trudged closer on elastic legs. It was a morbid scene that would haunt even the most seasoned crime scene investigator. The dried blood harshly contrasted with the girl’s colorless skin, turning the tips of her hair pink. Her shirt was sliced open, exposing a blood-soaked training bra that sent a painful memory ripping through her. Malin bent closer and honed her gaze. Something had chewed away part of her left hand, nearly cutting through the rope binding her wrists together. Kneeling, she met the poor girl’s open eyes, reliving the last few horrible moments of her life all over again. After all, Malin suffered through it with her. That was her power. That was her curse.

  “Malin?”

  “What?” she said, not recognizing her own voice.

  “Are you getting any bars?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t even check!”

  Swatting flies from the mangled tear in the girl’s throat, Malin saw moonlight glinting off the boxcutter’s blade. Heard those horrid screams. Watched him run her down like a wild animal and slit her back open. Her eyes followed the bloody rope hanging from her neck to the forest floor between her outstretched legs, where dried blood pooled around her orange running shorts. Gently resting a hand on the girl’s rigid shoulder, Malin pulled the corpse to her, as if to give her that hug she so desperately needed. Her dead skin was cold and rubbery and the bloody gash running down her back pulled a raw groan from Malin’s lips. Looking away and holding her breath, she carefully leaned the body up against the tree and got to her feet. Working backwards, she followed a trail of blood indicating the body had been dragged to the tree, where he then hung her like some demented ghoul. Malin shuddered at the thought. Like it wasn’t enough to rip her back open, he had to hang her as well.