“No, I think we go now while there’s a chance he’s on his heels.”
Ricky thought about that and then nodded.
“Alan, thank you,” Ricky said. “Get back to your family. Mom, Dad, take George and Tucker back home.”
“No way,” George said. He opened his door. “We had a setback, but you’re right. We came up here to finish the job and we should do that.”
Mary put up her window and then turned to talk to their father.
George and Ricky exchanged a glance. They waited to hear the verdict. Sometimes Ricky felt like it would never matter how old he was or how independent he tried to make himself. His parents would always have the final say.
“Take what I have in the back, at least,” Alan said. “I didn’t bring much, but take my flashlights and everything in the trunk.”
Amber nodded. She headed for the back of his vehicle while he unlatched it.
Mary put her window down.
“Your father packed some stuff too. It’s in the back seat. We’ll take the dogs and go to Amber’s. Come there when you’re done.”
Ricky nodded and thanked his mother.
“Wait,” Alan said, after lowering his window again, “do you guys need my car? Amber’s car is dead, right?”
George jogged into the garage and leaned in to Romeo’s truck. A moment later, they heard the engine rumble to life.
“No,” Ricky said. “We’re stealing his. It’s the least he can do.”
Alan nodded. “Before you call the police about him, we should get on the same page.”
“Will do,” Ricky said.
He and Amber retreated to the purple light of the garage as the vehicles turned around and pulled off into the night. They started loading all their gear into the space behind the seats of the pickup.
“Hey, Amber?” Ricky said. He lifted the folded tarp in the bed of the truck to show her what he had found.
“My battery,” she said.
He nodded.
They piled into the truck. Ricky got behind the wheel.
# # #
He pulled up in front of Amber’s car and they all turned on their lights before he killed the engine.
Ricky put down his window and Amber lowered hers. They both threw out handfuls of seeds from Alan’s bag.
George adjusted his headlamp.
“Ready?” Ricky asked.
“If we get separated. We all come back here,” Amber said.
“Got it,” George said.
They got out.
“Stand guard for a second?” Amber asked. After checking under the rental car, George and Ricky took up posts on either side of Amber’s hood as she lugged the battery back to her vehicle. She found a pair of pliers in the back of Romeo’s truck and used them to tighten the positive cable. When she connected the negative to the terminal, the horn began to blare with the car’s alarm. Amber found the keys and punched the button to stop it.
“Should we go tell the person in that house that it was just us?” George asked. He was pointing towards Jan’s dark house.
“She’s dead,” Ricky said. “Romeo killed her.”
“Oh.”
Amber shut the car’s hood and brushed off her hands.
Nobody said a word as they marched down the road towards the path. George brought up the rear and he spun around every few steps to check behind them. In the distance, some large animal screeched. The sound echoed through the woods.
“He’s waiting for us,” Amber said.
“I feel it too, but we’ll see,” Ricky said. “It could be a trick.”
“This isn’t the first time someone has come for him,” Amber said. “We know that a mob came after him when he was stealing their animals and doing his experiments. It wouldn’t surprise me if others have come through the years. It’s safe to assume that he knows how to deal with people like us.”
They formed a triangle as they stepped down from the pavement to the dirt path. Amber was out in front. The brothers took up either side and pointed their lights to the woods.
“It’s too quiet,” George whispered.
“The snow just melted up here,” Ricky said. “The season is a couple of weeks behind.”
“Still…” George said.
Amber came to a stop at the edge of the stream. She had her light pointed at a stand of trees that were just up the hill.
“I saw something,” she said. “A set of eyes, maybe.”
George’s light flicked around, chasing after nothing.
“Well?” Ricky asked.
“Stay on this side of the stream for a second,” Amber said.
“Why?” George asked.
Amber didn’t answer. She jumped from one rock to the other and then started up the slope while Ricky and George waited. She moved fast until she was fairly close to the trees. Then, without notice she turned and sprinted back towards them. Amber reached the edge of the creek and jumped without trying to land on the rocks. She turned and they saw why she was running.
The thing that had followed her out of the woods skidded to a stop at the edge of the water. There was a patch of skin hanging from its skull and naked muscle and tendons showing on the side of its face. On one side of its chest, ribs showed white through a hole in its hide. The bare tail whipped back and forth—the bones clattered like a rattle. Its teeth gnashed and snapped, but there was no growling or barking. The thing’s eyes glowed with orange fury.
Amber stabbed forward from her position and missed the monster. It tried to snap at her spear but she pulled it back too fast.
Ricky rushed forward, splashing into the stream and tried to get a different angle to impale the thing.
“Don’t cross,” Amber said as she thrust again. “It hates running water.”
George stepped into the stream but didn’t attack. He held back, watching to make sure that Amber was right.
The tip of Ricky’s spear slid off the thing’s skull and he took out one of its eyes. It reared back, looking more like a horse than a dog. When it did, Amber stabbed low and caught it in the chest. It thrashed and
