Voracious - Alice Henderson [72]
They had phoned in the fire, though, on an anonymous tip, but it had already been spotted, and fire vehicles had been dispatched. The dispatcher told them the fire was under control.
She guessed they’d find Steve was “missing.” She felt really sad about him, blaming herself for getting him involved. Maybe Noah was right that night when they got down off the mountain. Maybe she shouldn’t have involved anyone else.
The road ahead lay in utter disrepair and looked like it was used only twice a year, if even that much. “How much farther?” she asked as she left her seat and almost hit her head on the ceiling and then on the passenger window frame.
The air was still incredibly hot. Stifling heat filled in the cab of the Jeep as they crawled upward, far too slowly for a breeze to really get going. Madeline could feel that the sky wanted to rain and alleviate the heat, and that when it did, a terrific thunderstorm was likely. But for now there were only a few tiny white clouds in the otherwise bright blue sky.
“Another four miles, I think.”
Madeline’s mouth fell open. “Four miles!” Four miles on the highway or a paved street was one thing. But four miles on this road could take—
“The rest of our lives.”
“What?”
“Estimated driving time.”
The truck dived into a pothole again, sending her over Noah’s way. The seat belt cinched painfully against her collarbone. “Why,” she asked, as her voice reverberated with the rough motion, “do … they … make … Jeep … shocks … so … tight?”
“I … don’t … know,” reverberated Noah as they hit a stretch of washboard road that she was convinced had last been traveled by a bulldozer carrying two tons of cement and a brontosaurus with a weight problem. The grooved tracks were so deep that the Jeep seemed ready to bounce them right into an alternate reality.
Madeline looked ahead with fear. Would rifling through the creature’s things would be like when she touched the Sickle Moon Killer’s knife? Would it haunt her for years to come? The images awaiting her could be worse than those. Suddenly she wanted to turn back more than anything in the world.
It was noon by the time they arrived. The forest was absolutely silent. If she strained her ears, Madeline could hear the muffled fall of pine needles dropping to the soft forest bed beneath. Sunlight streamed through the branches to the forest floor below, illuminating wildflowers and small fairylike rings of mushrooms.
She climbed from the Jeep and took in the cabin. It was tiny, couldn’t be more than four rooms. It lay at the end of the long and winding road they’d traveled, and the nearest house they’d passed lay two miles back down the road.
The creature had wanted its privacy.
She hoped Noah was right, that the creature would have no occasion to be here now, no person to devour and digest. No need to build a nest.
“It’s isolated here,” Noah said after he shut the Jeep door.
“Quiet, too.”
Both grew silent as they stood there.
“Too quiet,” she added.
Noah smirked. “Yeah. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you think of crimes being committed in the heart of the city. The kind of city that only comes in one size, big, and one flavor, dangerous.”
“Thank you!” she interjected, cutting him off. “That’s enough Sam Spade for one afternoon.”
“My pleasure. Thank you for tuning in to my one-man radio show.”
“Don’t forget to thank me for tuning in to your planet, too.”
“Uh. I’m hurt. Just because I’m a shape-shifter from another time period doesn’t mean I’m strange or something.”
“Yes, it does. It definitely does.”
“Well, I hope that’s strange in a good way.”
She smiled at him, his handsome face caught in a shaft of soft light. “It is.”
He returned the smile and gestured toward the cabin. Her feet had turned to lead. “Are you sure he won’t be in there?” she asked, her voice tiny. They crept closer. It was a rental cabin. Dusty curtains hung in the windows, and a sign on the door listed rules for staying there: wash your own dishes, take sheets off the bed when you’re done.
Don’t eat the help, she thought grimly.
“Ready to do this?