Off Season - Jack Ketchum [70]
“Let him get what he needs off the radio,” said Peters. “We got a good deal of work to do here. You say there’s two paths that lead down to the beach?”
“That’s right. At least, two that I know of. They branch off this one a couple hundred yards down. One of them isn’t used too much as I recall.”
“Rough?”
“Pretty rough.”
“You remember it well?”
“I think so.”
“Okay,” said Peters. “We’ll take the nice clean highway, me and Shearing. I don’t want to get lost on the way. You take your group and head on through the rough stuff. With a little luck we’ll meet down there, right?”
“I’m going to come in behind you if I remember correctly,” said Willis. “Should take maybe five minutes more my way.”
“You’ll just have to walk a bit faster then. Okay?”
“Okay.” Willis smiled.
Peters hoped he wouldn’t go eager on him. “I want you to be real careful. If you see anything you follow it, you don’t mow it down. You shoot only if you have to. We’ve got IDs on two more women and I don’t want to spook them into harming them. Also, it would be nice to get them resting real quiet at home if we can. And remember, there could be a whole trainload of ‘em out there. So watch your step.”
“Will do.”
He turned to Shearing. “You ready for this, Sam?”
“Do you ever get ready?”
Peters smiled. “No, I don’t think so. Tell you what, though. Do me a favor and run over there and tell that ambulance to hang around till we get back. We’re gonna move, so you catch up with us fast as you can. And don’t take any shit from them, either. If I get back and they’re not waiting here to greet us tell ‘em I am ready to take a ruler to their asses and kick in anything over one and a half inches. Got that?”
“Sure, George.”
“Let’s go, boys,” he said.
He turned away and they began to move along the narrow path. They kept their flashlights on their belts. The moon was bright enough. By the time they were out of sight of the house, Shearing had already joined them.
“Go screw yourself,” he said. “That’s their message. ‘Tell George to go screw himself.’ But they’re staying.”
“They’d better,” Peters said. He shook his head. “’Screw yourself,’ huh? That’s real nice. Old fat cop risks his tail in the woods at night and that’s what his colleagues give him. I tell you, Sam, civilization stinks.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Shearing. “Never seen it.” They fell quiet then. Their eyes searched the empty path ahead of them.
4:22 A.M.
The man in the red hunter’s shirt walked the beach in a kind of stupor, unaware that he was followed. Not only had he lost his prey but there had never been any trace of him at all in the woods. That could only mean one thing; that he was still somewhere in the house. The man did not know how that could be, but he could reach no other conclusion.
So he had doubled back as quickly as possible only to find the house aswarm with new activity. He had not seen the man he was hunting but he supposed he was there among the others. The others had guns.
He knew that they would have to leave the cave now and go north, deeper into the woods. It fell to him to tell them, and this depressed him. They would say it was his fault. He was the eldest and they would blame him for the failure of the hunt, for his failure to find the man. It made him angry that they would think this of him. His anger fell over him like a blanket and he could think of nothing else. It dulled his senses. It prevented him from hearing the man he hunted moving clumsily along behind him near the rocks.
Hunting him.
4:25 A.M.
She didn’t know if Laura was still alive. She knew she had no right to be. She’d watched as long as it was possible to watch, and Laura was still living when she could bear no more of it, when there was nothing left in her stomach to get rid of.
She had seen the man toss a pail of foul-smelling water in her face, saw the eyes flutter. He took another torch from the fire to replace the one that had burned away, and propped it against the wall. She had watched with dumb horror while the man bent over her and used the knife to cut away her jeans