We followed him about twenty feet away and I stopped, once again squatting to look at a severed foot, still in a dilapidated hiking boot. It looked much the same. Ten feet from that, rounding out the square, was a second foot though this one was shoeless. Only a filthy tube sock hung from the big toe.
“And finding four body parts at the corners of a perfect square is what screamed murder and not animal attack in my mind,” Jensen said. He pointed his flashlight at a tree stump in the center of the square. I’d walked right by it focused on where he was leading us with his flashlight in the dark as we discovered the hands and feet. Now as I added the beam of my own flashlight to his, the head of an older man sitting on the stump of a fallen tree almost made me jump back. It had been placed on the stump. There was no two ways about it. It had been left there by human hands. No animal would have left something as tempting as a head with a juicy brain inside its skull.
“Oh, Jesus! It’s Buck Walters!” Sally cried out, standing next to me as she stared in horror at the head with its wide eyes and lolling tongue which looked like it was caught between his teeth as if he’d bitten down on it while being dismembered still alive. I felt my stomach doing a slow roll.
“Christ,” I muttered under my breath.
“Now you understand why I say it’s a murder?” Jensen asked.
“Yeah, I do,” I said, dragging my gaze away from the horrific sight. I ran my flashlight over the grass and realized that we were standing in grass soaked with blood. “This is where he was killed and dismembered,” I said.
“Yes,” the sheriff said.
I heard Sally gasp in a massive breath of air and I reached over, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and pulling her close to me. She was shaking but I noticed that she completely stopped the moment I drew her close. I felt her lean into my side, very happy that she felt I was a comfort to her.
“Do we have a forensics team?” I asked, having no idea.
She looked up at me, still leaning as she nodded. “The medical examiner is very well trained as are her guys. I’ll call them as soon as we get back to the Blazer.”
I nodded, squeezing her one last time before dropping my arm. “I want to get some pictures in case animals or scavengers come back before we can get a team out here at daybreak,” I said, glancing at my watch. “That should be in less than an hour.” I realized I was exhausted. Maybe because Vincent taking my blood had tired me or maybe because I’d been up for twenty-four hours straight was why I felt my lids drooping.
I pulled out my phone and made my way around the square, snapping pics of each body part as well as the scene itself. I made sure I got the giant puddle of blood which was now contaminated with our footprints as well as Jensen’s wife’s. Once I’d finished, we all started back for the campsite. I just knew it was going to be a long fucking day.
Chapter Seven
Prosper Woods Chronicle. Letters to the editor:
“I’ve lived in Prosper Woods for six months now. Can anyone tell me when forest creatures are going to come in and clean my house?” Signed, “Snow White was all a lie.”
Sid
Shaking my head, I watched the aftermath of the bloodbath in the woods from a distance. The moment the new sheriff came to town, I knew things were going to get dicey. I’d already known about the arrival of the vampire. Several of the construction workers who were remaking the old cabin out in the woods had popped by the store to pick up food and drinks and even the occasional case of beer. The thing about these guys was that they just couldn’t keep their mouths shut. As soon as they’d talked about installing an elevator to access the new basement room they were installing, I knew exactly what was going on.
A vampire was moving into town.
Things were bad enough around here. Floyd Reardon and his pack of werewolves were a rowdy bunch and some of them were dangerous. I’d been happy when he’d struck an arrangement with our former sheriff and installed Greg Brown to run the bar. Greg was as dumb as a sack of hair, but he had an easygoing personality and a kind heart, two things that were rare in wolves. I suppose if we had to have a wolf running the bar, Greg was the best kind to have.
But now we had a vampire setting up shop in town, not to mention our new sheriff. Things had already gotten dangerous. I’d been out in the woods, setting up spells around the town to make sure we were all safe when I’d stumbled across the carnage. It had been years since I’d seen a warning like the one Floyd’s wolves left for anyone who’d stumble across it. Poor Buck Walters. I was sure he’d gotten drunk and had been out in the woods too close to Frederick lands and chosen at random. Why had Floyd decided he should be left the way he had though?
I knew why.
Many years ago, when I was a younger witch and my powers weren’t nearly as strong as they are now, I’d stumbled across a similar scene. Vampires had slaughtered the Frederick pack and left behind a male werewolf posed just like Buck’s body. It had been a warning to whatever wolves remained in Frederick… or maybe it had just been the way those vamps got their jollies. Whatever the case, this scene was a recreation of that
