Prowlers: Wild Things (17 page)

She was alone.

Talk to you in the morning.

Jack had told her not to worry yet, to wait.

But Jack was not answering his cell phone.

Again her gaze flashed across the news stories and urban legends pinned and taped to the walls. She hung up the phone and sat alone in the silence, and though she tried to convince herself she would not jump to conclusions, in her heart she knew that her fears had substance.

The phone seemed sinister to her now.

Something had to be done.

Talk to you in the morning
. But no Bill.

And now no Molly, and no Jack. Jack, her little brother who had nearly always done his homework the moment he got off the bus. Who had been so serious and dedicated about working at the pub even by the age of eleven. Jack who was all the blood she had in the world.

The last time Courtney had felt so helpless had been the night her mother died and left them with only each other. It filled her with terror to think that now she might not have even that.

Molly fought. In the dark wood the Prowler ran, carrying her under its arm, its free hand clamped over her mouth. Its fur pressed against her lips, bits of it between them. Despite the burden she presented, it moved swift and stealthy along unbroken paths. Her eyes were wide as she searched the night for some sign they were being followed, but she saw nothing, only the other beast, who led the way with Jack thrown over his shoulder, unconscious, the side of his face bloody.

And so she fought.

From some reservoir beneath her fear Molly brought up a burst of adrenaline and she bucked in the Prowler's grasp. In her mind was an image of the police and other emergency vehicles back at the sight of the crash, cops milling about, puzzled by the absence of victims in the Jeep, maybe shining flashlights into the woods. So she bucked, and she tried to turn in the thing's clutches, and she twisted around to swing her feet at its legs. Their limbs tangled, the Prowler grunted and then they were falling. The momentum of its gait threw them into an arced tumble. Molly struck the ground hard, roots and small stones underneath her, but she was still moving, trying to extricate herself. In her mind she could still see confused police faces, flashlights in the woods and she opened her mouth to scream.

The Prowler leaped on her, one clawed hand squeezing her throat. It drove her down hard and fell upon her chest and all the air went from her lungs in a pained gasp. The scream never came.

"Did you not see your boyfriend?" the thing growled. "Coulda knocked you down and out like him. Might be brain damaged, even. Count your blessings, Red."

It choked her, leaning on her chest, depriving her of any air at all. The edges of her vision blurred and began to go dark. Molly's eyes bulged and she tried weakly to fight him. Then suddenly he let up pressure on her chest and took his hand away from her throat. His feral eyes gleamed in the darkness of the wood and he stared at her, fur bristling. She understood that he was waiting for her to try to scream again, but Molly realized now in this moment of stalemate between them that the police would never reach her in time. The Prowler could tear out her throat in an instant and be gone before the cops had moved five feet.

Slowly, she sat up and nodded to the beast crouched in front of her.

"Count your blessings," he growled again.

Then he changed. The fur began to diminish, almost to wither, as pale flesh grew upon it in a sort of gelatinous sheen that settled in an eyeblink to become new skin. The snout retracted, the ears shrank, and yet because of the radical nature of the change it took Molly several seconds to realize that she had seen this face before.

"You . . . you're . . ." she searched her mind for his name. "Max. You're Max."

He smiled, then, but it was not the kindly expression of the man who had served them breakfast that morning at the Blueberry Diner. This was the smile of the predator.

"Flattered you remember. If you behave, I'll let you walk."

Again Molly only nodded in silence. She did not want to risk more noise, but more than that, she was afraid if she opened her mouth she might ask the question that was foremost on her mind. Not:
what are you going to do to us?
Rather:
why haven't you killed us yet?
To ask such a question seemed too much like an invitation.

"Walk," Max said, nodding in the direction the other beast had taken Jack.

Molly walked.

"Stay with me," Artie said, reaching out his hand.

The boy smiled and took it. He had died a teenager, but with the flip of blond hair that fell across his eyes and the wide grin he had worn ever since Artie had found him and
known his name,
Jared Wilkes looked like a child.

Jared turned, then, and took the hand of the other one with them, the other ghost, though Artie had discovered the kid didn't like that word. The other soul, then, belonged to a big, broad-shouldered man with thick dark hair and a mustache, a round pot belly that might or might not have been beer-related.

"Come on, Chet," the kid said to the ghost of the truck driver. "Hang on to Artie so we don't get lost."

"Lost?" Chet replied dreamily. Then a look of alarm crossed his face. "Lost! We're lost!"

"Chill out, Chet," Artie said. "Turn it down a notch, hombre. We are not lost. I've got it covered."

That seemed to pacify the ghost. Chet's gaze drifted as it so often did. He went in and out. Artie was fascinated by the dead trucker because most spirits he had met were either painfully clear about their circumstances or were little better than lunatics, shell-shocked by death into a kind of drooling vegetative state. Chet might be completely lucid one moment and nearly catatonic the next.

Almost as if the thought were a command, Chet snapped his head around to gaze at Artie. "You know where we're going, Artie?"

"I know exactly where, Chet."

The big man's eyes narrowed. "I guess I can stop worrying about getting those electronic parts to Albany on time, huh?" There was a twitch at the corners of his mouth that might have been the beginnings of a smile.

"Pretty sure they're gonna be late," Artie agreed.

Chet's gaze drifted off again, eyes riveted on the shifting grays and muted colors of the Ghostlands, the forever paths that swirled away around them, the dark, flat mirror of the old world that moved swiftly past as they traveled through it, a flash of people and architecture like some nightmare cinema.

"Late," Chet repeated. He laughed softly. "Gonna be late."

He was gone again.

"Hold onto him," Artie told Jared.

"I will. You're sure you can find your friends?"

"Oh, yeah." Artie nodded. He could always feel Jack and Molly inside him, just as he could his mother and father. They were like tiny flames burning inside him that tugged at him, drew him toward them. "Don't worry, kiddo. I've got a pilot light."

Jared frowned, not understanding, but Artie chuckled softly to himself.
Pilot light
. He liked that one. And even as he thought it, he let his heart go to Molly, the little piece of his soul that would always be with her calling out to him. He focused on her, seeing her face before him as if she were the specter and he the human, the dreamer. With Jared's hand held tightly in his, Artie
went
to Molly, felt the Ghostlands bend and rush and sweep around him.

Artie arrived in the woods trailing the kid and the trucker behind him as though he were Peter Pan and they the Darling children. He hovered there among the trees, feeling the Ghostlands around him but not the earth beneath his feet; never again, that. A smile crossed his features when he saw Molly emerge from the trees, walking toward him at a good clip. But his smile disappeared when he saw the blood on her forehead, the myriad small cuts on her face and hands, the glass in her hair.

Then the other figure emerged from the wood behind her. It wore a human face, but Artie could see its true shape. Artie was about to shout a warning — though he knew she would not hear it — when the monster spoke.

"Faster, Red. Move."

Molly picked up her pace, jogged right past where Artie and his companions stood. He felt Jared squeeze his hand more tightly and he glanced at them.

Chet was whimpering, cowering back away, afraid of the monster but even more afraid, apparently, of letting go of Jared's other hand. Artie's heart went out to both of them, but he had no choice.

"Come on," he said, and hauled them after him as he followed Molly and the Prowler.

A short while later, though Artie could not really tell how long — time blurred in the Ghostlands — Molly and the Prowler emerged into a parking lot behind a dark building. The bulkhead doors in the back of the building stood open, and they were just in time to see another beast descend into the basement through those doors with Jack on his shoulder, unconscious.

Artie whispered his friend's name.

"Wait, that's Jack? The one you said could help? The one you said would kill them?" The disgust in Jared's voice was clear. He wanted blood from the Prowlers, wanted to know the monsters would be destroyed.

"He
will
help," Artie replied, staring down at the kid. "But first it looks like we're going to have to help
him
."

Chet snorted with laughter, suddenly focused again. "We're dead, Artie. How are we supposed to help?"

"I think I know a way, but you two are going to have to wait here. Watch them, and call for me if anything else happens."

Artie let go of Jared's hand and once more the Ghostlands bent and rushed around him, but this time he was alone. As he moved through the afterworld he could hear Chet crying out in alarm, the fear in his voice echoing along the paths traveled by the lost souls of the dead.

Somewhere nearby, a door slammed.

With a long rumbling groan, Jack came awake. His fingers crept spider-like up his face and over his head, wincing at the tiny cuts he found there. Still, despite those small injuries he was surprised and relieved to find that despite the pain that told him otherwise, there was not an enormous crack in his skull. He might even have been elated if not for the driving, cutting pain that went along with that suspicion. It was as though a blade had been driven through his temple and as he opened his eyes and tried to sit up, someone twisted the knife.

Jack hissed and mouthed quiet obscenities.

"Hey." A soft voice. Molly.

He opened his eyes despite the pain and found her kneeling by him, a tender, worried expression on his face, her hand hovering near him as though she wanted to touch him, to soothe him, but was afraid she might only make it worse. There was still a streak of blood on her face where blood had run up into her hair as she hung upside down, but the rest looked more like chicken pox than anything else.

"Hi," he replied, risking a tentative smile, then allowing it to bloom once it proved not to increase the pain in his head.

Gingerly he began to sit up and she helped him.

"How's the head?" she asked.

"Amazingly intact."

"Just as hard as Courtney always said it was."

Molly slid her hands into his and they sat facing one another on the cold concrete floor. There was a single light in the room, at the bottom of a set of stairs that led up to a steel door. In that meager illumination, Molly's green eyes gleamed.

Jack smiled again, but then all traces of good humor drained from within him. "Why are we still alive?"

"I've been wondering the same thing."

A whisper of motion from the shadows, silk and cotton, and a figure shifted and walked toward them. Pain knifed through Jack's head again and he stared in astonishment. Though the far side of the room was pitch dark neither of them had sensed that they were not alone.

"If you're alive, it means she
wants
you for something."

"She?" Molly demanded of their fellow prisoner. "Who the hell is
she
?"

From silhouette, the figure stepped further into the light. She was easily six feet tall, beating Jack by a couple of inches, slim at the waist but with hips that gave form to her blue jeans. Her black hair was straight and hung as a curtain down upon the shoulders of her deep red V-neck top. When she spoke, it was without humor or warmth. She regarded them gravely.

"Jasmine, of course."

The girl flipped her hair back from her face and crouched by them, resting her elbows on her knees.

"My name is Olivia Navarre," she said. "Talk to me."

CHAPTER NINE

A caged animal would slink back and forth across its enclosure, pacing out the limits of it, troubled by captivity and searching for some opening, some opportunity for escape.

Bill Cantwell wanted out, no question, and the urge to stride back and forth across the antique train car in which he had been imprisoned was great. Instead, he eschewed even the chair and bedding that the pack had provided for him and he lay at the center of the car with his arms under his head and he stared at the ceiling. He was aware of his surroundings, of course, and he did seek an opportunity for escape. But he would not pace like an animal.

He waited, and he said not a word. In his mind he held an image of Olivia, the last time he had seen her. Thoughts and images of Courtney and Jack and Molly made their way into his head from time to time and he pushed them out again as best he could. He was not always successful. It was impossible for him not to wonder where they were now, what his betrayal had set in motion. But Olivia was his only blood in the world.