Savage
by
H.D. Timmons
Smashwords Edition
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Published By:
H.D. Timmons on Smashwords
Savage
Copyright © 2011 by H.D. Timmons
Cover Art by H.D. Timmons
Discover other titles by H.D. Timmons at: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/hdtimmons
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Chapter One
Rob Peters’ condo in Metro-Atlanta was a dot in his rearview as he set out along Highway 19 to Highway 129 toward the base of the Appalachian Trail to Blairsville, Georgia.
The three hour drive gave Rob time to reflect on the circumstances that had sparked him to impetuously toss a small travel bag and his laptop into the back seat of his White late model Grand Am and head back to the familiar North Georgia Mountains.
The fact that his literary agent had recently implied that his best work was behind him aggravated Rob. And to add insult to injury his agent’s new prize client was Dexter Long. Rob knew that Dexter was the hottest new suspense writer to come along since… well, since Rob Peters.
Rob played his agent’s words over and over in his head. “Dexter’s very hot right now and, let’s face it, you’re not exactly selling the hotcakes anymore, Robby boy.”
It was true that Rob’s last six suspense thrillers were a lot less thrilling than his first six. It was also quite possible that if his current work in progress followed this pattern it just may stall his career indefinitely. He knew he let himself slip too far off the top of the heap, and just beneath his own self-loathing was jealousy toward the young, successful Dexter Long.
Rob had read Dexter’s work and was impressed. Dexter had only written two highly acclaimed thrillers, and the protagonist was the same in each — Nikki Hale, a female crime scene investigator who psychically pieced together the clues of a case to solve the crime. Each of Dexter’s novels was loosely based upon actual events. His recent bestseller concerned a string of church burnings in a major southern city; custom made for a movie of the week with the television promo slogan “ripped from the headlines.”
It was Rob’s desire to retrace his own creative roots and go back to where it all began – to the North Georgia Mountains where he wrote his first best-seller – to see if he could be inspired enough to revitalize his waning career.
After graduating from Georgia State nearly twenty ago with a degree in English, Rob began the custom of renting a cabin in the mountains of Blairsville, Georgia every autumn. The mountain’s fall colors were absolutely breathtaking. The fishing wasn’t bad either. Those mountains refreshed Rob’s mind and revitalized his spirit; inspired him.
Maybe it was the fresh air or the solitude, but he knew he always thought more clearly there. Creative story ideas seemed to materialize for Rob effortlessly, as if someone were planting them in his mind for him to discover.
While pursuing a teaching career, Rob took advantage of the story ideas that came to him and was lucky to have several short stories quickly accepted by prominent literary publications.
His first novel, Run from the Wind, was inspired by a dream Rob had while at his North Georgia retreat. When he awoke from the dream he immediately set about getting it on paper while the vivid images were still fresh in his mind. The turn-of-the-century small town sheriff who murdered his pregnant mistress; the young farmhand he framed for the crime, only to find that he is tormented by his mistress’s ghost who mystically reveals clues to the entire town as to the identity of her real killer. All the details of the dream assembled into carefully crafted sentences garnered Rob Peters his first best-selling novel at the age of twenty-five.
The next series of novels were inspired in the same way, and by novel number five, Grey House, Rob was at the pinnacle of his career.
Grey House detailed the life of two teenagers who discovered that the man and woman whom they called mom and dad had actually kidnapped them when they were infants and killed their real parents. The novel had proved to be very topical because within days of its release a man and woman came forward and remorsefully confessed that they had murdered a young couple, kidnapped their two children and had raised them as their own for the past thirteen years. A horrible news story but, needless to say, the eerie coincidence created a whirlwind of publicity to boost book sales.
While writing his seventh novel, Lightning Flash, Rob was under tremendous pressure by his publisher to produce a completed manuscript just as number six, Floating Dancers, was ending its four-month stint on the best-seller list.
Rob was forced to write on the road during his Floating Dancers book tour. He barely slept. Rob worked on the new book every night after each hectic day of traveling, interviews and book signings. There was simply no time to return to the mountains. It never occurred to him that the mountains, and the vivid dreams he had there, had such an effect on his literary prowess.
Reviews for Lightning Flash were harsh, and by the time Rob’s last novel Quicksand came out, the general consensus was that he shouldn’t have even bothered writing it at all.
Rob’s decision to pack up and head back to the North Georgia Mountains seemed impulsive yet logical – or perhaps the mountains were calling him back because they had one more story to tell.
Chapter Two
As the November evening sky grew darker with the onset of rain, Rob managed to catch the Pine Log cabin rental office in Blairsville ten minutes before closing, plunked down a week’s rent in cash, and was handed the key to cabin number 5D. The same cabin in which he wrote Run from the Wind.
From the rental office at the base of the mountain Rob cut on his headlights and began his ascent up the one-mile drive to the rows of cabins. He remembered how quaint and rustic the Pine Log cabins felt in spite of being outfitted with contemporary conveniences. Just about the only thing he needed to provide was food. Rob had purchased a six-pack of Bud, bottled water, a large bag of Doritos and a box of Ding Dongs when he stopped for gas. Real food could wait until morning.
The winding dirt road was deeply rutted by autumn rains that had sluiced down the mountain. Tree roots were exposed like arms stretched across the road and covered in sleeves of fallen leaves. The closer Rob got to the cabin, the faster he drove, racing the ever-increasing darkness.
The Grand Am kicked up a wake of leaves that sounded like papers whipping against the undercarriage in rhythm with the slap, slap of the windshield wipers. Falling acorns pinged off of the hood, branches cracked under his tires, and the ruts in the road nearly caused Rob to lose control of the car more than once. Suddenly, there was a flash of white in the cones of the high beams, then a loud thud on the front bumper that repeated under his right rear tire a split second later. Rob slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop on the muddy leaf covered road about ten yards from where he knew he had unmistakably hit something.
Rob grabbed his mini Mag-Lite from the glove compartment, slung his denim jacket over his head against the rain, and leapt from his car. Trudging with the flashlight beam crisscrossing ahead of his footsteps, Rob discovered a white German Shepherd laying on its side. Probing the animal with the Mag-Lite beam, Rob noticed the absence of a collar. He scanned the length of the dog and found no evidence of blood or visible wounds. The only distinct mark was that of a tire tread impression across his side. The dog’s eyes were open and fixed and Rob’s light cut eerily into their dead stare. There was no panting and no heartbeat that Rob could feel as he gently stroked its fur.
If it were something smaller, like a squirrel, Rob’s moral compulsion to remove it from the road would not have kicked in. He felt extremely sorry for hitting this poor beast partly because it reminded him of the same breed and color he’d had as a child.
Rob questioned his conscience as to whether he really wanted a dead, wet, muddy dog sprawled out in his car, but he knew the answer and proceeded to pop open his trunk anyway.
Rob tucked the Mag-Lite into his jacket pocket and lifted the dog. It was much heavier than he had anticipated, and hoisting the dead weight of the dog caused Rob to lose his footing, toppling him over backwards onto the muddy road. The German Shepherd’s body rolled over Rob’s chest stopping when it met his chin. The weight resting across his throat, and the wet fur that lopped into Rob’s mouth made him gag. Lying there, raindrops pelting him full on the face, his eyes blinking in reflex, Rob felt totally exhausted and helpless. Gasping for air, sucking in more fur and rain, Rob flailed his legs against the muddy ground to gain some leverage. Finally, with a belabored guttural groan, Rob was able to dislodge the heavy beast from his chest and sprang to his feet, slipping only slightly in the mud before his sneakers were firmly planted.
Rob retrieved the flashlight from his pocket to assess the situation and found that he had heaved the dog into the middle of the road, looking more like an accident victim now than when Rob first struck it.
“Shall we try again?” Rob asked as if requesting the dog’s permission. This time, anticipating the weight, Rob clenched the mini Mag-Lite between his teeth, squatted down low with his feet spread a wide distance apart. Reaching far under the dog’s torso, pressing his hands into the mud, he paused a moment to remind himself to lift with his legs and not his back. With a deep breath Rob hauled the dog up in one clean motion, biting down so hard on the Mag-Lite that he could taste the black paint flecks and metal on his tongue. Cradling the dog in his arms like a heavy cord of firewood, Rob’s laden footsteps carried it to the idling Grand Am.
During the remaining quarter mile drive, Rob hung onto the hope that the cabins were as well equipped as he’d remembered – with pots and pans, dishes and silverware, linens, fishing gear – but what he really hoped for was a shovel.
By the time Rob pulled into the short driveway the rain had dwindled to a slight drizzle. Looping the straps of his gym bag and laptop satchel over his shoulder, and clutching his sack of snacks, Rob opened the car door and made a dash for the cabin with his key at the ready. Upon reflection, he shook his head at the absurdity of running to get out of the drizzling rain when he was already soaked through to the skin.
The cabin was more or less the same as he remembered. The furniture was a bit more modern, but still rustic.
After settling in the rain had finally abated, and Rob felt ready to take a shower and turn in for the night, but he knew there was one thing still to do. He entertained the idea of waiting until morning to bury the dog, but immediately dismissed it shuddering at the thought of a corpse in his car overnight. “Let’s get this over with,” he muttered and located a shovel among the ample supplies in the storage closet on the screened in back porch.
Rob guided his flashlight about twenty yards from the rear of the cabin to a spot just inside the tree line, near a cluster of Dogwoods. The soft, wet ground made light work of the digging. “How deep for a dog?” he wondered. “As deep as for a person?” After digging a shallow grave about two and a half feet wide, four feet long and three feet deep, Rob was satisfied that it was enough.
Rob tracked mud up the back steps of the cabin’s porch as he retrieved a large heavy-duty trash bag from the storage closet. He didn’t particularly cozy to the idea of holding that big, dead animal against himself again. He slipped the trash bag over and around the body in the trunk and dragged it to the hole.
Rob grimaced as he slung the heavy plastic bundle unceremoniously into the muddy furrow with a squishy thud. After the body was covered with dirt he felt obligated to say a few words, but due to his need for sleep the only words Rob could muster before he turned to walk away were, “rest in peace.”
Chapter Three
There was something about a clear morning after a rainy night that was like heaven; the way ground vapor seemed to writhe up to dance with the rays of sunlight cutting low through the trees. Rob took a deep cleansing breath through flared nostrils, eyes closed, smiling broadly. He was renewed.
At that moment he wasn’t a forty-year old with a career crisis. There was only confidence this morning. The dream had come. Whether he knew it would, hoped it would, or secretly prayed it would, the dream had come.
In the same way that his first novel Run from the Wind was inspired by a dream; a new inspiration that had found its way into Rob’s sleeping mind.
Rob wolfed down his last two Ding Dongs and waited for his laptop to boot up. In his computer satchel he found a printout of a manuscript he had begun last month. Rob didn’t have to read it again to know it was, in a word, crap. Take the High Road was the contrived tale of a young lawyer entangled in a murderous mob plot. The trouble was that Rob’s story was lacking just that – a plot. Without a plot there is no suspense. To solve this problem Rob selected the manuscript file on his hard drive and hit the DELETE key.
Promptly, Rob commenced his latest story with the title Savage, and proceeded to bang out the first two chapters effortlessly.
The story, as it had come to him, began with three murders in three small Appalachian communities. Because of the multiple state jurisdictions involved, local investigators yielded to seasoned FBI investigator Danny Cole.
The only person who could help Agent Cole in his quest for answers was his creator Rob Peters. But for the time being Rob was content and decided to drive down the mountain in search of lunch.
Inside the Waffle House, Rob contemplated the next few chapters while he ate. By the time he had wiped the napkin across his mouth for the last time he had imagined his new novel hitting the best-seller list. Rob grinned slyly as he entertained the thought of sending Dexter Long a copy, perhaps with a Post-It Note attached stating: LIFE BEGINS AT FORTY! WISH YOU WERE HERE.
Rob dropped in at the Quickie Mart for some things to stock the fridge and cupboard for the next several days while he worked on his novel. He balanced a box of Ding Dongs atop the Beanie Weenies, variety pack of Kellogg’s cereals, quart of milk and the six-pack of beer that were already in his shopping basket. Confidence in the effortless progression of his novel afforded Rob the impulse to pick up a small Styrofoam container of worms in the cooler by the checkout counter. Certainly he could afford the time to get in a bit of fishing.
Ahead of him at the checkout counter was a middle-aged gentleman. The man had filled up his Jeep Cherokee at one of the two Quickie Mart’s self serve gas pumps, and had begun a defensive argument with the clerk, both in their respective rich mountain drawls. The elderly clerk didn’t “give a rat’s ass” if the customer mistakenly thought he had two five-dollar bills in his pocket; he demanded all ten dollars owed for the gas.
The customer tousled his prematurely white hair in frustration, pushed up the sleeves on his flannel shirt, and restated loudly that he would have to come back with the rest. This was unacceptable to the clerk. Feeling magnanimous, Rob set his basket of groceries on the counter, reached in his pocket, and produced a crisp, new five dollar bill to square the man’s debt.
As the clerk snatched up the bill and stuffed it into the register the man turned to Rob, but before the man could speak, Rob said, “Think nothing of it.”
“Prick,” the man said.
“Excuse me?” the man’s rudeness startled Rob.
“You didn’t have to pay fer my gas like ‘at,” the man snorted back. Before Rob could respond the man called him a prick again and headed out of the automatic doors and back to his old brown jeep.
“Sheesh! You try and help out your fellow man, and you get your head bitten off,” Rob said to the clerk, his eyes still fixed on the man driving away. “He looked kind of tired anyway. All that guy needs is a good rest, and he won’t be so grumpy,” Rob continued, putting the whole incident behind him.
“Yeah, rest,” the clerk said under his breath, ringing up Rob’s items. “More like rest in peace, if ya ask me.”
For a split second a flashback of a shovel patting down the mound of dirt last night appeared in Rob’s thoughts. He quickly blinked several times to dislodge the image like a loose eyelash, and it was gone.
Chapter Four
The one thing Agent Danny Cole relied on was the way people always liked to brag. Even a stone cold killer will often brag about how many victims he’s killed, how they each had died, and perhaps even when the next murder will be. The bragging wouldn’t be in words, of course, but rather in actions, deliberate clues found at the crime scene. Psychologists will say such clues are left because the killer wants to be caught — a cry for help, if you will, but Cole knew it was bragging, plain and simple.
It wasn’t just the audacity of the killer burying the teenage girl in her own backyard, like the previous two victims, that galled Agent Cole, it was the small letter S crudely cut into her left cheek, which detectives had come to surmise signified the cause of death — strangulation. Cole skimmed through the forensic photos once more. Victim number two, the fifty-year old male doctor, had the letter K cut into his cheek. He flipped over the photo reaffirming what he’d scribbled there. K = KNIFE. Victim number one, the thirty-two-year old male letter carrier, B = BLUDGEONED. Oh, this SOB was bragging all right. He was bragging about how many ways he can kill. And, as of yet, there was no connection between the three victims. Perhaps further investigation would bring some answers.
The call came at 5:00am. Another victim. Agent Cole left North Alabama and headed into Georgia.
#
Rob finished chapter eight and flexed his overworked typing fingers. He recalled how beautiful an autumn day it had been during his trip into town for lunch. After such a productive writing session, it seemed a perfect opportunity to get in a bit of fishing. That would really put the cherry on top of the day. Rob collected the few basic fishing supplies he needed from the storage closet and hoped the lake had been kept as stocked with trout as he’d remembered.
The path was well worn from the cabin site to the lake, although there were no other footprints in the soft ground, promising that Rob would be the king fisher for the day. He recalled the pegboard of room keys at the rental office. Except for his own, only three other cabins appeared to be occupied – 1A thru 3A – and they were a fair distance from his more secluded cabin.
Two and a half hours before dusk, Rob dug his fingers into the Styrofoam container of night crawlers. Within fifteen minutes he got his first bite – at least a seven pounder. Not too shabby, Rob noted as he pulled out the hook and tossed the fish into a plastic bag bearing the Quickie Mart logo. If his good fortune held up, one more trout and it would be back to the cabin for a nice fish dinner.
Four more attempts, and thirty minutes later, Rob discovered that the fish were cleverly stealing worms from his hook without so much as a struggle. Rob baited the hook again and again with mounting contempt for the fish. As he waited for the bobber to be yanked below the water line, Rob began to feel uneasy. He couldn’t quite explain it, but he felt as if he were being watched. Maybe it was his distant cabin neighbors, he thought. He looked suspiciously to the left, and then to the right before a tug on his line drew his attention. He reeled in another good-sized trout. After setting the fish in the bag, Rob heard the crisp snap of a twig that made him whirl around on his heels in the direction of the sound.
“Probably just a rabbit,” he thought until a distinct and sizeable rustling sound changed his mind. With fish in hand, Rob packed up his gear and quick-stepped back down the path toward the cabin site. The rustling sound followed him, several yards away. He glanced over his shoulder as he quickened his pace. At first, Rob could see nothing until a flash of white suddenly darted through a layer of shrubs. Rob’s feet stopped a moment, though his brain didn’t want them to. As he stopped, so did the rustling.
Rob bit his lip nervously surveying the distance to the cabin site. The footpath meandered quite a bit, creating a needlessly longer route to the front of the cabins. If he cut through the tall dead grass to the right, and the few trees beyond, he’d get back to the cabin much quicker. If he ran he might even lose whatever it was that was following him.
In a quick burst, Rob took off to his right down his grassy shortcut, snagging his pants on hidden thorn bushes, instinctively dropping everything he was carrying. Looking behind him would only serve to slow him down, but Rob knew he was still being pursued. He could swear he heard heavy panting not far behind him.
The trees were right in front of him now, and just beyond them was the back porch of his cabin. Rob leapt over a fallen tree trunk, dodging through the wooded obstacle course as nimbly as he could, but fell when his foot stepped into a large hole near a stand of Dogwoods. “My God! This hole! This is where I buried the…but it can’t be.”
Bounding up the steps and across the screened porch, he was grateful that he had been trusting enough not to lock the cabin door. Once inside he quickly latched the door and ran to the front door to do the same.
Rob’s breathing was so labored that he wheezed. His leg muscles were quivering. He not so much sat on the sofa, as collapsed on it. “What the hell was that?” he asked himself, refusing to believe that it could be what the empty hole implied.
Sitting motionless on the sofa until the setting sun dimmed the room, Rob listened intently for any sounds of movement outside the cabin. There was nothing. To abate his fear, he reasoned that whatever he encountered in the woods was likely some woodland animal foraging for food. But, the image of the empty hole remained with him. It wasn’t merely an empty hole — it was an empty grave. Rob questioned if it was indeed possible that he’d buried that poor German Shepherd alive. “Nonsense,” he thought, rising from the sofa with curiosity. Walking stiffly across the darkened cabin, he peered out of the kitchen window to the tree line where he’d buried the animal, but it was difficult to see. And he certainly wasn’t going to step foot outside for a closer look. Not now. He quickly flicked on the kitchen light, bathing the interior of the cabin in a warm, comforting glow.
Sure that his fish dinner lay outside in the grass somewhere now crawling with bugs, Rob popped the top on a can of Beanie Weenies and gobbled them down al fresco. The Beanie Weenies were not so much dinner as they were coating for his stomach, chased by three cold beers to help settle his nerves.
Chapter Five
The next morning was not as cheery and revitalizing as the previous one. The sky was overcast; looking like more rain was on its way. A low, thick mountain fog embraced the surrounding area, and a November chill had taken hold.
Rob pulled the blanket from the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders as he shuffled from the bedroom hungry for something. Not intending to labor over his morning meal, Rob selected a box of Corn Pops from the variety pack, tore it open, and tipped back his head tapping out a mouthful of dry cereal.
He wasted no time in preparing to work on the next few chapters that had come to him in the night. While his laptop booted up, Rob used the pages of his crap manuscript, Take the High Road, to ignite a fire under the logs the management had hospitably left nestled in the fireplace.
He tossed his empty cereal box onto the logs, and then readjusted the blanket snuggly around himself. The fearful events of the previous evening had been replaced by a compulsion to write.
Rob worked non-stop through the morning, pausing momentarily from time to time to grope for just the right words. By noon the blanket had slipped to the floor. The fireplace’s last log had been reduced to smoldering embers, but Rob hadn’t noticed. Adrenalin fueled the heat he felt now.
Savage now had nearly twelve chapters complete – one hundred and seventy-five pages in two days. And Rob knew that he was three quarters of the way through. He felt it in his bones. His last few novels had taken four weeks – on average – to produce a mere fifty pages.
The day wore on. Rob took no breaks, except to scarf down a few Ding Dongs and chug a beer or two. The novel had its own momentum, and Rob’s fingers were merely the implements by which the yarn was being spun.
#
The local law enforcement across the border in Georgia was no more helpful than in Alabama. Having the FBI show up always put the local Barney Fife’s on the defensive.
“Why should we just hand our investigation over to you, Agent Cole?” The officer’s belligerence showed through his southern drawl. “Ya’ll think we’re just a couple a dumb ol’ Georgia boys that cain’t get the job done, is ‘at it?”
Agent Cole hated to admit that the dumb ol’ Georgia boy was right. Instead he drew upon his years of bureau experience and offered the officer the most courteous professionalism. If he was going to have to rely on the local help he knew butting heads would only create more obstacles.
After the files were handed over to Cole, he was shocked to learn that there were actually two victims in this area rather than just the one he’d been told about. Both were women in their thirties, killed within two days of each other. According to the report, the M.O. was unmistakable. As evidenced by the corresponding letters carved in their cheeks, the first victim was cut over seventy-five percent of her body, while the second was whipped to death, most probably with a belt.
There still seemed to be no rhyme or reason for the murders. It looked like killing for the sake of killing. Scratching his head, Agent Cole almost longed for the days when killing meant something. When people murdered for a reason. All you needed was a plausible motive. Nowadays it seemed that murder was committed to relief boredom. And the court system didn’t help much with its revolving door justice. The only satisfaction Agent Cole had at the moment was that the scum he was after would have to face him first, before any court got involved.
The trail that led him to North Georgia was fresh. Tomorrow, Cole would interview some of the locals. This evening he’d visit the two most recent crime scenes on his own, sniffing around both shallow graves like a police dog.
#
There they were. The words to break the spell that bound Rob to his keyboard. Shallow grave and dog. Rob had been typing the entire day away, and now he was reminded that it was at this same time yesterday that he was chased through the woods only to discover the empty hole. Rising from his chair, he crossed to the kitchen window. Late afternoon was as dreary as the morning had been, and the remaining light played deceptively on the spot where he’d buried the dog. He had to get a closer look.
Slipping his jeans and flannel shirt over the sweats he had slept in, Rob laced on his sneakers and descended the porch steps cautiously. He snatched up the shovel he’d left propped against the outside of the cabin and hefted it, holding it tightly as a weapon in his hands.
Closing the twenty-yard gap to the tree line, it became increasingly apparent that the hole — the grave — was indeed empty. An eerie chill crept over him as if it were growing out of the dirt, winding and tightening around his body. He stood motionless twenty feet from the hole. The ambient light of the cloudy day was fading, the wind was picking up, and the scant drops of rain that pinged off the shovel hinted that more was on the way.
The sound of motion from the woods in front of him caused Rob to break his frozen posture, raising his shovel defensively, retreating two steps backward. His eyes darted through the trees in hopes of locking onto whatever was out there. Suddenly, a rustling from the stand of Dogwoods to his left sent Rob running back to the cabin.
“What did I do? What the hell did I do?” Rob panted, bolting the back door securely behind him. “That damn dog is still alive!”
Chapter Six
Every light fixture in the cabin was on, including the small one over the stove. Although it granted Rob some sense of security, the interior illumination made the outside seem that much darker.
Rob stood in the center of the living room, head cocked to allow an attentive ear. Fat raindrops ricocheted off of the metal of the open flue and echoed in the chimney. A memory of the Big Bad Wolf, from The Three Little Pigs, stealthily shinnying down the chimney forced Rob to pull the flue closed, quickly withdrawing his hand when done, like a child fearing the boogeyman’s grasp.
The rain picked up, like gravel pelting against the cabin. It put Rob’s mind at ease to imagine that the heavy rain would beat back any lurking savage beast, sending it in search of shelter. But on the heels of that semi-comforting thought, lightning knocked out a nearby transformer, plunging the entire cabin into darkness. Thunder boomed overhead. The Mag-Lite would have come in handy, and Rob hated himself for putting it back into the glove compartment.
Beer. Rob needed beer. Feeling his way to the refrigerator, Rob opened the door and swore an impassioned “shit,” when faced with the betrayal of the little light inside, as if lighting were its inherent duty despite any lack of electricity. He grabbed three beers, and made his way into the bedroom.
Rob was sitting on his bed, huddled under the covers with his beer, when he heard the unmistakable sound of scratching. It was coming from right outside his bedroom wall.
“What does it want?” Rob thought. “It’s not going to rest until it... What? Tears at my flesh? Exacts revenge on me for hitting it with my car? Laps up my blood to redeem its lost soul?” All these thoughts charged through Rob’s brain. The one thing he knew for sure was that the dog was outside, and he was inside, and that was the way he aimed to keep it.
The wind grew more violent, and the sound of clawing intensified in rhythm with the storm. The cereal Rob had eaten that morning had long since expended its usefulness, and the only other thing to rest in Rob’s stomach all day were the beers he’d had. His head began to swim, and he pulled his bed covers over his head in panic. Panic gave way to terror.
Rob withdrew further beneath the covers; his eyes searched the pitch darkness of his man-made cave as if they were a second set of ears, listening beyond his own heavy, quick breaths. He heard growling, followed by a baneful howl that curdled Rob’s alcohol diluted blood. A sense memory transported Rob to scary stormy nights as a child when no boogeyman could penetrate the magic shield formed by cotton bed sheets. After another howl wetness crept onto Rob’s legs. He was relieved that it was simply the cool temperature of a spilled bottle of beer. Rob huddled more securely beneath his magic shield, kicking empty beer bottles to the floor. But this wasn’t some imaginary boogeyman. This was real. This was a mad dog he had mistaken for dead and then buried. Or worse, some sort of devil dog, risen up from the grave to rein terror solely upon Rob Peters. He had never known such raw paranoia and fear in his life.
Suddenly, there was a crash of shattering glass from another room. From under the covers, Rob placed the sound as coming from the kitchen, but he wasn’t about to go investigating. He squeezed his eyes tight, wondering why he hadn’t closed the bedroom door behind him. Terror seized his breath and, soaked with sweat and beer beneath his covers, he shivered as an icy cold chill straightened his spine. His imagination filled in the blanks of what the darkness did not reveal.
He sensed that the dog was in the cabin! He heard the growling, and could almost feel its heavy, panting breath coming right through the fabric against his face. He knew that if he peeked from the covers he would be met by the snarling muzzle of that ghostly white German Shepherd.
Chapter Seven
The caw of a crow roused Rob’s senses and he awoke tangled in bed sheets, one leg propped up on the beer stained mattress, to discover the rest of his body on the floor. And, to his amazement, he was still alive. His distracted brain didn’t even register whether or not any dream for his novel had materialized during the night. He was simply thankful to be alive. No zombie, devil dog had killed him and mutilated his body. That was the good news. The bad news was that he had survived to fear another day.
Rob rose from the floor too quickly and teetered a bit, clutched the sheets that still wrapped his body, and peered cautiously out of the far bedroom window. He could see nothing except strewn branches and debris from the storm. He remembered the kitchen window he had heard break last night, and ventured cautiously from the bedroom to survey the damage. It was broken all right, but nowhere among the shards of glass on the floor were there the muddy paw prints he expected to see. It didn’t add up.
What did add up was the fact that the coast was apparently clear, and his car was parked right outside. Rob hastily tossed his belongings into his bag, stowed his laptop in its satchel, and carried it all under one arm toward the front door.
As he left, he fished the cabin key from his pocket and flipped it onto the couch. He would explain it to the rental office by phone. Dipping his free hand back into the same pocket, he frantically squeezed the Grand Am’s remote door lock button several times before the car keys were officially out of his pants. Tossing his things into the passenger seat, Rob followed them in, slammed and locked the car door behind him, and proceeded to head down the mountain.
The road down the mountain was slick, making the ruts softer to ride over, but more treacherous considering Rob’s increasing downhill speed. The thought of slowing occurred to him only when he needed to navigate a sharp curve, but at that he only removed his foot from the gas pedal rather than apply the brakes.
Before he had time to react, Rob’s front wheel struck a deep pothole that hadn’t been there when he arrived. Last night’s heavy rain must have scooped out the soft earth that once occupied it. The sudden impact wasn’t enough to make Rob stop, but the flat tire from an exposed jagged piece of rock protruding from the pothole was. Rob slapped both hands against the steering wheel in anger at his rotten luck.
He took a deep breath to regain his composure and took his bearings. He reckoned he was about three quarters of the way down, and if he quickly changed the flat with the small temporary tire from the trunk, he should make it the rest of the way down just fine.
The trunk was still damp from the other night and rank with the smell of wet dog. With only a few paranoid glances back up the mountain to satisfy him that no devil dog was in pursuit, Rob changed the tire in fifteen minutes.
Rob was trying to wipe his grimy hands off on his jeans when the sound of a car motor purring up the mountain caught his full attention. He wondered if he should flag the approaching driver and warn about the local wildlife ahead, but within seconds the accelerating old Jeep Cherokee slammed into Rob’s side. The air left his lungs in one huge blast and he could feel his ribs snapping on impact, like the branches that littered the road beneath the unstopping Firestone tires. Knocked uphill, the force thrust him down and under the vehicle, into the mud. Rob’s head struck the road, bouncing his forehead up into the Jeep’s oily undercarriage. Everything went dark.
Chapter Eight
Patches of gray-blue sky peeked down at him through the passing pine trees. Rob wasn’t quite sure how this was happening without him moving. He attempted to move his head, then his hands and legs, only to find that he truly couldn’t move at all. He was on his back, he was sure of that, and he could hear something brushing heavily against the ground. In a moment he realized it was his own limp body being dragged through the woods by something. If only he could turn his head to see what it was. Rob’s mind immediately conjured up a large white dog dragging his body. But to where? He was terrified, unable to utter a sound. It was as though he were trapped inside his own body with no means of reaching the outside world. The memory of being flattened by the car came back to him and the flash of light as he struck his head.
A severe head trauma had reduced Rob to little more than a living corpse, unable to do anything except stare, expressionless while his brain experienced all that passed before his eyes.
A familiar chimney came into view. He was being dragged back to the cabin! Rob wondered why the savage dog hadn’t simply torn his body to shreds when it found him in the road.
Although he could no longer feel, Rob made better use of the sight and hearing that was left him. He could hear the distinct trudging footfalls of human feet, not paws. As his body was rounding the side of the cabin, he made out the low grunt of a man heaving Rob’s dead weight around the corner. Passing the outside wall of the cabin’s bedroom, Rob noticed the overhanging oak tree’s bare branch touching mid way up the wall like the bony fingers of a skeleton. An autumn wind slapped it, causing it to scrape from side to side against the cabin. Rob recognized that sound. It was the scratching he had thought was trying to bore its way into his darkened bedroom last night.
To the back of the cabin he saw the broken kitchen window and the fallen pine tree limb that had been wind-tossed into it. The howling, Rob soon realized, could only have been the storm expelling its great lungs over the mountain. And the growling was simply rainwater rushing through the rain gutters and gurgling down the worn drainpipe.
The thought was both inconceivable and shameful, that he had been scared by his own imagination that had created a savage animal hell bent on some sort of revenge. Inside Rob’s head the irony continued, thinking of how a car had struck him, same as his had struck the dog. The only difference was that Rob was alive and now some benevolent soul was rescuing him, dragging him from the accident. But why return to the cabin? He wished he could speak, turn his head, or flail his arms. Anything. But there was nothing.
Six more feet through the mud and leaves, and Rob was settled into a soft spot just inside the tree line near a cluster of Dogwoods. He knew exactly where he was.
The man straddled his feet above Rob on either side of the shallow grave and adjusted Rob’s limbs to accommodate a snug fit.
“What are you doing? Can’t you see that I’m alive?” Rob said inside his head. But his body betrayed him. His breath had remained slow and faint, inaudible. His eyes a fixed stare. Everything else about his body appeared, for all intents and purposes, dead. For an instant the man’s face was that of baby-faced, rising star author Dexter Long, and then morphing to the well-worn countenance of his agent. Even Agent Danny Cole made an appearance. But Rob did know this man’s face to be familiar. It was the unappreciative man from the Quickie Mart.
This scenario was also eerily familiar. His memory recalled dream-like images from the past few days and Rob realized that he was face to face with the murderer from his new manuscript — from his dream. Only, this was all real. Then the revelation struck. He remembered how his book Grey House bore some coincidental resemblance to real events. But what if it wasn’t coincidence? What if each dream he had written about over the years was a true story derived from these mountains? Some from decades past, as with Run from the Wind — a crime so long ago that no one remembered. And others, from recent years that no one ever made the connection to because the crimes were never solved or kept quite by local authorities.
The mountains had given Rob Peters these true stories and now he was part of one. Rob now knew that the flash of white he saw while fishing had been this white haired man stalking him; and now that man adjusted Rob’s body into a grave.
Rob glimpsed a patch of recently disturbed earth six feet away. Rob recognized his own handy work; it was where he had buried the dog. It was still buried after all. His brain twitched at the realization of his own naiveté that in his haste to run for the safety of the cabin days before, he had tripped into a new hole. His own grave.
Satisfied that Rob was sufficiently nestled into the ground, the man pulled something from his pocket, knelt down and grabbed hold of Rob’s head. Rob heard the clanking sound of keys, and in his peripheral vision he noticed a pocketknife on a key chain. Although Rob felt no sensation in his face, he knew the man was carving something into his cheek. A capital D? A lower case B? Maybe an F? He couldn’t be sure from the motion. Rob managed to observe that against the man’s palm, as he carved, was a round wooden chip of a key chain. 3A was engraved over the familiar Pine Log Cabin logo.
“P. You’re a prick,” the man spat once his carving was complete. “I ain’t no charity case.” A well-worn, creased five-dollar bill appeared in the man’s fist, and he tossed it onto Rob’s chest, and then began shoveling dirt. The first shovel full covered the bill. The next one hit Rob squarely in the face. The reflex to close his eyes against the dirt was unavailable to Rob. The horror of what was happening to him was unfathomable, and he was helpless to do anything about it.
The wet earth settled into Rob’s nostrils and the thin gap between his lips. As his supply of oxygen dwindled, he lapsed into unconsciousness before the inevitable end, and somewhere between life and death he dreamt.
#
There was no way Agent Cole could have known what the P stood for, if he hadn’t questioned the local Quickie Mart clerk about any people that might have come in the store acting strangely during the week of November 12th.
“Well, there was this one feller. Cranky feller, with white hair. Tried to stiff me on some gas. This other feller, ‘bout your build come up and paid it fer him,” the clerk offered freely. “I’ll tell ya, that dude wasn’t none too happy about takin’ charity.”
Cole questioned further, “I don’t suppose you’d happen to remember how much money the other man…”
“A five dollar bill,” the clerk answered before Cole could finish.
Satisfied with the information, Agent Cole closed his note pad. He had, at least, an explanation for the five dollar bill they found with the body.
“Called him a prick, too,” the clerk added as he remembered it.
“What did you say?” Cole’s ears perked.
“That white-haired feller called the other’n a prick before he left. No sir, he wasn’t none too happy with him at all.”
Cole and the local team had spent the better part of the morning trying to associate the P with the cause of death, as with the other murders. Everything seemed a stretch. Pulverized. Punched. Pummeled. Even the make of the dead man’s car was suggested, Pontiac, but that made no sense either. The injuries found were consistent with being struck by a larger vehicle, like the Jeep Cherokee, which the Quickie Mart clerk had identified with a vague recollection. But, upon hearing “prick,” it made perfect sense.
All the victims bore their own semblance of a scarlet letter. Scarlet blood carvings for what the killer perceived each random victim to be. The teenage girl’s crime was being a slut. Strangulation was merely the most convenient method of dispatching her in the heat of the moment. To the man the Jewish doctor was a kike that came off too high and mighty, and the letter carrier was the bastard who probably lost his Publisher’s Clearinghouse Winner’s notification or something just as trivial. The last two women were deemed a cunt and a lesbian, both likely to have rebuffed the man’s crude bar room propositions.
So maybe the killer wasn’t bragging about how many ways he can end a life. But, Danny Cole knew he was still hot on the trail of a sick fuck that killed people who ticked him off with as much regard as most people would have for killing a housefly. And that trail was getting shorter every day.
Thanks to the records at the Pine Log Cabin Rental Office, which not only document renter’s names, but also their vehicle information, the FBI and the local police from every state in the southeast would be checking every campsite and cabin rental along the lower Appalachian Trail, for a one Mr. Thomas A. Blanchard. APBs would be issued for every early model brown Jeep Cherokee. Agent Cole hoped like hell that he would personally snag this twisted son of a bitch.
The sleet lasted only about ten minutes, and had stopped just as Tom Blanchard gave his gas cap one final twist at the Race Trac gas station. Merging back onto Interstate 20, and driving through Walton County, Georgia, a white BMW zipped across from the far left lane, cutting Tom off.
An angry honk of the Jeep’s horn prompted the silhouette of a middle finger to appear through the BMW’s rear window as it accelerated up to 80 MPH.
“Asshole,” Tom muttered to himself, as he followed the BMW approaching the exit ramp toward Athens.
# # #
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