Master of the Abyss

pad on the ground, unrolled and unzipped her sleeping bag, and crawled inside.

Her body felt slow, heavy. Probably PMS. She gave a bitter laugh. Because of Jake, she’d made an appointment with her doctor to get birth control pills. No need for them now. So hey, she’d found the bright side to all this; she could cancel the appointment and keep her legs out of the stirrups.

A crackle of something in the underbrush drew her attention. Probably a bear checking out the possible food situation. Poor sucker wouldn’t find anything. Lacking any appetite, she’d already hung her small emergency stash from the wire that Uncle Harvey had put up years ago. She glanced at it, a small bag, black against the stars. Isolated in the night sky.

Like her. She pulled in a breath as grief pushed her down, its own kind of immutable force, like gravity. The rocky ground might feel like a feather mattress now, but around four a.m., her hips would register every lump. She tucked her hands behind her head. Tall pines speared into the night sky like dark arrows, and above them, stars filled the sky. Thousands and thousands of stars, millions…each with their own solar systems and planets.

Maybe other civilizations lived on those planets; other forms of life going on about their way. And none of them would care that Jake Hunt broke my heart. As she bit her lip to keep the tears at bay, she watched the stars and waited for the moon to rise.

* * *

Taking advantage of a straight section of road, Jake punched the Off button on his cell-phone speaker. He’d barely finished the call to Logan before the service gave out. The lodge was closer to the Masterson’s than the town, so Logan should arrive right about when Jake and Masterson did. One more man for a total of three. A shame the other two Mastersons hadn’t returned from their hike yet. He stepped on the gas to catch up with Masterson’s car.

The curves started again, and the truck tires screeched as he took a corner too fast. His shoulder hit the door. They might need Logan’s help if the shit hit the fan. What kind of a police department has only four cops and a chief? And two of them elsewhere?

Chief Jackson figured Secrist had panicked and fled, so one of the cops had headed for Secrist’s house in the mountains east of town. Another went to set up a roadblock. Jake could see the logic in Jackson’s actions. After all, Secrist had witnessed two men fighting, not a man and a woman. But he couldn’t forget Jackson’s words: “Serial killers exist in a different reality, and they’ll kill for the damnedest reasons.” But neither Jake nor Masterson would take the chance that Jackson was wrong. Secrist had taken off right after their fight. If he went after Kallie…

Please have run, you bastard.

Of course, cops from the Mariposa County sheriff’s office were on the way…would get to Bear Flat eventually. Jake’s teeth ground together. Never a cop when you need one.

And women were never where they should be. Kallie hadn’t done it deliberately, but he’d yell at her anyway for scaring him twice today. Might make him feel better. God, let her be alive. Safe.

Illumined by the headlights, a deer leaped out of the forest in front of Masterson’s car, and his brake lights flashed.

“Fuck!” Jake slammed on his brakes. As the cop car fishtailed, Jake fought his pickup out of the skid and then stomped on the gas again. Both vehicles surged forward, up the winding gravel road.

Concentrating only on the road, not on what could be happening…anywhere…Jake drove for what seemed forever as minutes and miles stretched into infinity. Finally the turnoff into the Masterson’s dirt road appeared.

The dust from Logan’s truck still hung in the air when Jake pulled up to the house behind the cop car.

Five minutes later, the three men hit the trail, flashlights flickering over stumps and branches. Masterson had his pistol. Logan had brought Thor. Jake was armed with sheer rage.

* * *

He loved the forest at night. As Andrew reached the ridgeline, the breeze cooled his sweat-dampened skin and dissipated the poison lingering in the demon’s wake. He waved his flashlight back and forth over the trail, checking the footing ahead, and studying the left side for white stones. Only a few minutes ago, he’d found his weapon in a mass of deadfall where the hefty limbs had been snapped off and scattered along the trail. One branch was the size of a baseball bat. After he’d cleaned it off, he had his cudgel-his instrument of punishment and death.

Death was the only solution. Once a demon infected a woman, it clung like a parasite until the host died.

He swung the branch now, checking the balance. Gave a nice whistling sound, felt heavy in his hand. The impact against her flesh would be satisfying. He glanced toward the east, where the moon had barely cleared the mountains. He would wait until it was high enough to give him light.

So he could watch her die.

* * *

Kallie’d started to drift off when a rustling noise pulled her awake, the tiniest of sounds, but only a fool disregarded anything in the wilderness. Part of her job included keeping her clients safe: seeing they returned from three a.m. bathroom breaks and checking they remained safely in their tents if a bear prowled through camp.

With a sigh, she rolled onto her side. Her fire had died down to sullen red coals, but the moon spilled silvery light across the clearing and sparkled on the stream. Near the trail, a shape moved in the shadows. From the size, a bear. Despite Yosemite’s policy of not feeding the wildlife, tourists inevitably did…or didn’t get their food out of reach, so the animals frequently raided campsites.

As she unzipped her sleeping bag, she saw it lurch closer. Noisier than normal. She’d watched one bear steal a backpack from beside a camper’s head without making more than a whisper of sound. This one crunched as if…

As if it wore boots. When the man stepped into the moonlight and hefted up a piece of wood the size of a baseball bat, terror spilled straight into Kallie’s bloodstream, cold as a mountain glacier.

She tried to roll out of the sleeping bag, but it had tangled around her legs. As she frantically shoved at the bag, the man raised his weapon and stormed across the clearing.

Her legs wouldn’t come free. Oh God.

He stood above her and brought the club down hard and fast.

She screamed.

His flashlight illuminating the trail, Jake ran, jumping tree trunks and brush that no one had bothered to remove. Next time pick a better-maintained trail, Kallie, he thought. God help him, please let there be a next time.

Thor ran ahead of them, his tail straight up, the white tip like a beacon. As the dog disappeared around a curve, Jake picked up the pace. He heard Logan’s harsh breathing behind him, a grunt as Masterson miscalculated a step.

Not slowing, Jake flicked his flashlight upward and managed to spot the dog’s dark fur against the black forest. Next dog they got would damned well be white.

“Almost there,” Masterson called, just loudly enough for Jake to hear. “Watch for her name.”