Chapter 23

Forrest - Sunday

Once he andNero reached the trailhead, they stopped pretending Nero was injured and broke into a jog. They'd been silent until then, only the sound of Nero's occasional fake groans breaking the quiet. The groans would've been funny if Forrest hadn't been so freaked out. The lack of waking bird chirps was disturbing. The forest creatures knew something was out there.

Rufus had warned them. He'd been hiding from someone, and Forrest had an idea he knew who it was.

"Fucking fuck a duck," Forrest hissed as they kept up the pace through the still quiet streets of Cooper Springs. He resisted mentioning his parents out loud, as if uttering their names would raise ghosts like the famous scene in The Mummy. The entire city would be contaminated with zombie-inducing spore, and he and Nero would be the only ones left.

No one appeared to be out and about yet. Rain and mist didn't keep Cooper Springs citizens inside their homes, but unless you were a fisherman or coffee stand owner, there was no reason to be outside this early in the morning.

"I guess we'll find out in less than half an hour. I wouldn't be surprised if Rufus beat us back down," Nero said with a calm Forrest did not feel.

"Right, that."

They were half a block away. He picked up the pace, knowing Nero would be close behind.

As he had just a few days earlier, after his most recent nightmare, Forrest hammered on the door of the Steam Donkey. They didn't have to wait long. Magnus opened the door almost immediately; he must have been downstairs waiting for them.

"Where's Pops?" he demanded looking past Forrest and Nero for Rufus.

"He said he'd meet us here in an hour. That was"—Nero looked at his watch—"about forty-five minutes ago."

"Alright, alright. Get inside already." Magnus shooed them past him, then shut and locked the door.

"Coffee?"

"Yeah," said Forrest, "and not the crap you serve the hoi polloi either. I need high-test good stuff."

"I second that," said Nero.

"He didn't tell you anything?" Magnus asked, walking behind the bar and toward the kitchen.

"No time to chat. He was lurking under some bushes and didn't want us sticking around."

He didn't know about Nero, but Forrest was covered with a gross mix of sweaty, sticky fear that was making him clammy underneath his clothing. He unzipped his coat and hung it on the back of a chair, then chose to sit at a table instead of the bar. As shaky as he was, he was afraid he'd fall off a barstool. Nero took off his coat too and sat down next to him.

They settled in, not speaking, just staring across the table at each other. Adrenaline whooshed through Forrest's veins, making him feel lightheaded. Over the ringing in his ears, he heard Magnus clattering around in the kitchen as if this was a perfectly normal morning—the clink of him getting down ceramic mugs, the hiss of his personal-sized espresso machine. The soothing sounds that helped Forrest calm himself.

"Here," Magnus said a few minutes later, plunking down three Americanos on the table. Then he sat down with them. "Tell me everything."

Nero wrapped his hands around the mug, hunkering over it protectively—a coffee gargoyle. Forrest laughed but it sounded odd even to his ears.

"There's not much to tell," Forrest said. "I didn't see him at first. He stopped Nero and told him to fake an injury or something. Right, Nero?" Nero nodded, lifting his coffee to sip the hot beverage. The man was braver than Forrest, who was going to wait just a bit longer for it to cool down. "He said he'd meet us here in an hour."

A scuffle and bang alerted them to someone's presence at the back of the building. Hopefully, it was Rufus and not whoever he was hiding from. Magnus was just rising to his feet when a grimy but very much alive Rufus emerged from the hallway.

"Pops, where've you been?" Magnus demanded, striding across the room and wrapping the older man in a hug. "You can't just disappear without telling me."

"We don't have time for this," Rufus said, thumping his son on the shoulder and then making Magnus release him. He crossed to the table where Forrest and Nero sat.

"There's no way to sugarcoat this, son. Dina Paulson's still alive, and she's got a lackey doing very nasty work for her. Sounded like his name's Dale."

"There was a Dale Lockwood and his wife, Jane, who were part of the original homesteading group that Dina and Witt Cooper were in," said Nero.

Peeling off his parka, Rufus hung it across one of the railings between the bar and the seating area.

"I need some of that coffee while we figure out what we're going to do. And something to eat too. I hate those protein bars I took with me."

Magnus handed his dad the espresso he'd made for himself but didn't move toward the kitchen. "Keep talking," he said, crossing his arms over his chest, maybe to hide the fact that his hands were shaking.

Accepting the mug, Rufus sat down heavily at the table. He was obviously tired and probably wanted a shower or warm bath to go along with something decent to eat. All three of them looked at the old man and waited. Forrest hated how much Rufus seemed to have aged since Ned's murder and the announcement about the teens.

"This likely doesn't come as a big surprise to any of you, but both of them are off the rails. I know it's not PC or whatever, but it's the truth. Dina Paulson is pure evil and Lockwood—I don't know about him, but he's in her thrall at the very least. Any shred of humanity he had is gone because of Dina, who never had any in the first place. That's the only way to put it." He looked at Forrest with sadness. "I'm sorry, son."

Forrest shrugged. "I think I've always known that about Dina." He tapped the side of his head. "My nightmares. I guess I'm glad to know they were memories and not a figment of a child's imagination. But then again, maybe not."

"I hiked up to where I estimated the original encampment was located," Rufus said. "It took me longer than I thought it would, even with no pack or anything. I didn't get there until almost nightfall. Most of the few structures they had set up have rotted away. Our weather isn't kind to untreated wood buildings—such as they were. If I hadn't had an idea what I was looking for, I might have missed it."

He grimaced, catching Forrest's eye again.

"Once this is over, I imagine that the chief is going to bring in forensic types. I'm sure there're more remains up there. Likely your dad is one of them." Rufus leaned back and dug around in the front pocket of his hiking pants, finally pulling out a lump of metal. "I found this. It's what's left of a Swiss Army fisherman knife Ernst gave Witt. Kid carried it everywhere."

Forrest stared at the red plastic and stainless steel. "Did they try to burn it?"

"Looks like. Anyway, when it was light enough yesterday morning, I started hunting around, thinking they'd moved the camp because there were things missing, not just abandoned and left behind. And I was right. It took me more than a few hours, but I finally tracked them to an area closer to town but still well concealed. I wouldn't have found them if I hadn't been carefully searching."

"Damn," said Magnus.

"I got as close as I could without being spotted, close enough to hear them clearly. Both of them are paranoid and delusional, talking about spirits, sacrifice, potions. Dina spent a good hour or so ripping Dale up and down about killing Ned."

"So, we know he did it," Nero said.

"Can't say if it will be admissible in court but..." Rufus shrugged. "From what I gathered, the creeper, Dale, was after someone else, but Ned got in his way. A teenaged girl."

All four of them were quiet while that sunk in. Forrest knew in his heart that Ned, if his spirit was still around, would be glad it'd been him rather than another girl. The thought didn't really make Forrest feel any better though.

"I never saw Dina with my own eyes, but I sure heard her. It's a hornet's nest of two up there. At one point, she ranted a bit about how it wasn't enough. Dale kept saying it was too dangerous right now, but she insisted there was no time. I never did hear what ‘it' was, but I can make a damn good guess. Made me sick to my stomach for a bit if you want to know the truth."

Rufus stopped, staring around the table at the rest of them. They were all quiet again for a minute, mulling over all the possibilities of what ‘it' could be. Forrest was pretty sure they all got to the same idea.

More murder.

Magnus spoke up. "I forgot to tell you, three other folks who live near the trailhead and cut through to the high school posted on the page that they'd recently seen someone skulking in the area before Ned was killed."

"Ned was an accident and Dina wants her puppet to finish the job she sent him to do in the first place," said Rufus.

"What happened, exactly? Why were you hiding in the bushes?" Magnus asked.

"It was the oddest thing." Rufus began raising a hand to forestall argument. "I know you aren't believers like I am, so just hear me out. I wanted to hear as much of what they were saying as I could. I was quiet, but Dale's extremely paranoid. He kept circling the compound, such as it is, starting at every sound real or imagined. Where I was hidden, I couldn't just sneak away without him possibly spotting or hearing me. So I waited until nightfall again. I'd finally managed to ease away, maybe one hundred yards or so, and was starting to head for where I knew the trail lay when I saw him."

"Lockwood?" Nero asked.

Forrest figured that wouldn't be Rufus's answer.

"No, the Sasquatch. I was about to step out on the trail when he appeared about fifty feet away, looking right at me. He raised his arm and pointed upward, gesturing for me to head that way instead of down. I didn't hesitate. About four minutes later, Lockhart was right where I'd been. If I'd stayed on course, he would've seen me. And I fear mine would've been the next body you found. I managed to turn the tables on Dale and followed him to another blind he must hide in. He stayed there but rose early and began making his way toward town this morning."

"Did he see us coming up?" Asked Forrest.

Rufus snorted. "Of course he did. You two were louder than a herd of damn elephants. On the positive, it may have slowed him down a bit."

"He's on the hunt, isn't he?" Magnus said.

"He is."

"How are we going to stop him?" Forrest asked.

"I had a lot of time to think about this since Friday."

"Yeah? What's your idea?"

Magnus was eyeing his dad with a mix of affection and exasperation. Forrest was fairly sure that once this was over Rufus would be on the receiving end of a lecture.

"I think we need to set up Forrest or Lani as a lure. Lani would be best. Dina seems to be obsessed with, er, needing female blood for a sacrifice." Rufus shuddered.

"What the fucking hell." Forrest wasn't letting Lani put herself in danger. She already did that every day of the week. "No way. Lani is still recovering from being shot."

"As if telling Lani she can't do something has ever worked," Magnus remarked.

"Right now, today," Rufus said, "is our best shot at getting this guy. As Nero says, he's on the hunt. Dina is desperate—why, I don't rightly know, but if we don't stop him, another innocent will die."

* * *

"So,"Lani said as she stared around at them. They were all seated in Rufus's living room, where they were pawing through Rufus's old newspapers for any hints that could help them. Lani, Wanda Stone, and Chief Dear had joined them, and Dear had declared the house a makeshift command center. "My role is to play the helpless woman while the brawny men use me as bait and then rescue me from a psychopath who has possibly been killing women since I was a girl, all on the orders of our mother. Have I summed it up right?"

Lani wore casual clothing—jeans, sneakers, and a thick, black hoodie with CSBFS in block letters and the silhouette of a walking Sasquatch making the international sign for peace. She'd been at home and probably bored. Again. It wasn't as easy for her to circumvent doctors' orders when things were quiet in town. When Forrest had called her, his sister had answered on the first ring. Personally, he thought she sounded a little too excited about acting as bait for a killer.

"When you put it like that," Magnus sputtered.

"Nah, I get it." She shrugged carelessly. "But I'm older than his usual target."

"I'm no expert on the psychology of serial killers," Dear said. "But it sounds like Dale is acting on Dina Paulson's orders, not that he has a type. I wish we knew who he'd been after when he ended up killing Ned. I'd like to make sure they are safe."

"Probably one of the teens who cuts through town heading for PizzaMart or something, maybe someone who lives around Yew street? Wanda lives close by there," Rufus said, "and Romy would cut through if she was heading over to walk the dogs."

Wanda's gasp was immediately followed by a growled, "Over my dead body."

Forrest blanched at the thought of Vincent Barone's daughter being targeted. Or anyone's kid, for that matter. He didn't want Lani out there, but she was the logical choice. Their only choice. He might remember her as a toddler with her face pressed into his neck, but these days she was a trained police officer with a few tricks up her sleeve.

"We need to get a move on," Rufus snapped, rising from his seat on the couch. "He's close. I can feel it in my bones."

"Alright." Lani fluffed her shoulder-length red hair before pulling up her hood. "I don't think I look eighteen, but I could probably pass for late twenties."

"You look a lot like Dina did back then," Nero said from behind one of the newspapers.

Forrest peered over Nero's shoulder. He'd opened the Sentinel to the page with the article about the group. A picture of all six of the pioneers was set under the fold. Dina and Witt stood side by side in the middle, with Dale and Jane on one side and the third couple on the other. The resemblance to Dina and Witt was plain as day.

"You want me to pretend I lost my dog, or what?" asked Lani.

"Maybe a cat," suggested Rufus. "A dog might frighten him off."

"Plus, it gives a good reason for you to be out there for a long time. We all know cats don't come when you call," said Dear. "We'll do our best to hang back but use the signal if you're in immediate danger. We know nothing about this guy."

Lani had tucked a walkie-talkie in the pocket of her hoodie. If something happened where no one could see her, she would press the panic button.

"We do know Dale tried to enlist in 1976 but was given a 4F," Nero said. "Who knows, maybe he had bad teeth? He was probably very bitter about being rejected. Jane and Dale married in 1977, no kids that I've been able to find. It looks like Jane might still have relatives in Timber, but I didn't find any Lockwoods when I searched. What we do know is that he's dangerous."

"We need to get moving," Rufus said, heading abruptly toward the door. "Now."