***
McCoy pulled the truck onto the earthen shoulder of Duncan Road and glanced up at the sky. The clouds had mostly dissipated, and judging from the position of the sun, he had two, maybe three hours before it would be time to head back. Despite his newfound resolve, he had no intention of remaining in Shallow Springs after sunset. Besides, he had promised Amanda, and she would be furious if he went back on his word.
A recently-burnt road flair signaled that he was at the scene of last night’s festivities. This was the spot where Lyle and his boys had found Ben Rollins’ car, ready- decorated with parts of Ben himself. McCoy wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for, but he wanted to look, anyway.
He got out, made sure Boo was pulled far enough off the road, and began to walk slowly around the area. There was a lingering sensation, like an aftertaste, that something bad had been there, but it was weak and fading. A few splotches of dried blood stained the pavement, unnoticeable to anyone unless they were looking for it.
McCoy walked into the roadway. There were fresh skid marks on the pavement; it looked as though someone had swerved to avoid hitting something in the road. He looked closely but could not discern what that something might have been. He pulled his cell from his pocket, saw that he had just enough signal to make a call, and dialed Lyle’s number. The sheriff picked up on the second ring.
“Did you find anything in the road last night?” McCoy asked.
“Besides the car? No.”
“Nothing blocking the way, something he would have had to stop for?”
Lyle paused. He could see where McCoy was going with this.
“No. Just the car,” he said finally.
“Then why did he stop, Bob? He didn’t pull off the road. He stopped in the road. The Sluagh are small, like children. But they don’t look like children. If I’d seen them in the way, I would have plowed through them and kept on truckin’.”
“Maybe it was dark. Maybe he thought they were kids.”
“Maybe,” McCoy agreed, but he was unconvinced. “Thanks, Bob. We’ll talk later.”
“Okay. Be careful out there.”
McCoy stuck his tongue out at the phone and hung up.
It didn’t make sense. If Rollins had come upon a group of Sluagh, he would have recognized them as not being human, and it was unlikely that he would have stopped. Even if it had been dark, and he had stopped, it was doubtful that the creatures could have overwhelmed him before he had a chance to get moving again.
He followed the skid marks. They went on for nearly a hundred feet, then stopped. Here was where Rollins had come screeching to a stop. And if that were the case, and the car was found back where Boo was parked, then Rollins must have backed up.
Why would he have done that?
Because he’d backed up to look at whatever had been in the road, that’s why.
It hadn’t been a rock or a tree: the Sluagh wouldn’t have bothered to move it, and Lyle and company would have found it when they arrived. It was possible that it had been an animal, perhaps a cow, but animals are sensitive to the Fey and it wasn’t likely a cow had been standing in the road while the Sluagh were hiding nearby.
He realized that he was coming up with more questions than answers. In fact, there were no answers at all, just a lonely, deserted stretch of two-lane road.
He walked back to Boo, certain that he would find nothing more here. He had time to check out one more location before packing it in for the day. Cane Creek Road was the closest, but McCoy wanted to visit Drover Mountain while he still had some light left. If he were going to see anything, it would probably be on that desolate pile of rock and dirt.
He turned back toward town, took the first left, and crossed Cane Creek Road. Monster Road lay before him, and Boo shuddered, as if dreading the steep, twisting drive. Freshly-fallen leaves covered the blacktop, which was already damp from the recent rain. McCoy wished for better tires as he started up the mountain.
This had never been one of his favorite places, and he had avoided it when he’d lived in the Springs. Much like Clairbourne Lake on the other end of the county, it consistently gave off bad vibes. As a youngster, even though he had the ability to see and sense the Fey and other paranormal entities, he had not been afraid of the town or most of its surrounding area. The lake and the mountain were two exceptions.
Very few people still resided on Drover mountain. The timber companies had bought up much of the land, and had acquired timber rights to the land they couldn’t buy. The town did not furnish water and sewer services to this area, and the cable TV company flatly refused to go past the foot of the mountain. Add to this the harsh driving conditions in the winter, and it made the mountain unattractive as a home site to all but the most diehard back-to-nature nuts. Even most of those had moved to greener pastures after that bad business with the loggers several years back.
If McCoy had been able to forget about the creatures that lurked in the hills, he might have been able to enjoy the natural beauty of the mountain itself. As it was, he could no more enjoy looking at the autumn scenery than he could sucking on a dog turd. Each and every tree, though breathtaking with their colorful, changing leaves, was liable to harbor a tree spirit, or dryad. Trolls resided in the shallow caves and under rocky outcrops. Fir Darrig, or shape shifters, dwelt in the hollowed-out trunks of dead trees.
It would seem a small wonder that any person could walk through these woods without suffering a horrible death, but the Fey were nothing if not cunning, and they were experts at not drawing unwanted attention. For this reason, most people would be relatively safe trampling about the forest in the daytime, even if they travelled alone. Traversing the mountain in the dark would be much trickier, but there were very few people who would attempt that in the first place.
Since the Fey were known for their sly constraint, it was a mystery to McCoy as to why the Sluagh had suddenly gone on a killing spree. It certainly did not benefit the Fey as a whole, because more deaths and disappearances meant more attention and scrutiny. Indeed, if he and Lyle were not successful in their efforts to stem the tide, the area would be crawling with state police, and possibly the feds, in no time at all.
McCoy entered a section of switchback curves that slowed his progress to a crawl. He glanced out of the side window repeatedly, hoping to catch a glimpse of something, but nothing moved in the woods except an occasional bird or squirrel. He couldn’t be sure where Alvin Hobbs had been when he had met his end, but he knew where Harv Stanley’s house was, so he could make an educated guess as to the general area from which he had vanished.
McCoy rounded a steep curve which was followed by a short straightaway. There was movement in the woods to his right, and a girl, naked as a jaybird, exploded into the roadway. She stopped and stared at McCoy, her eyes wide with surprise. Then she darted into the trees on the opposite side of the road.
The whole thing was over before McCoy even thought to hit his brakes. He sat there for a moment, dumbfounded, then wheeled Boo to the shoulder. He put the truck in park and jumped out. The girl had been moving fast, and she had entered the forest several yards up and to his left. He grabbed his 9mm and took off in pursuit.
Small branches slapped at him as he ran. He thought he caught a glimpse of the girl, far ahead, but she seemed to be outdistancing him at an impossible rate. He realized that he couldn’t hope to catch up to her. His best bet was to slow down and follow her tracks. Presumably, she had to tire of running at some point.
McCoy slowed to a walk. He was wheezing and gasping for breath, and this from sprinting maybe fifty or sixty yards. He was really out of shape; he could no longer deny the fact. Twenty years ago, he may have given the girl a run for her money, but now…
The surrounding woods were unnaturally quiet. No startled birds flew noisily into the treetops, which would have given the girl’s position away. McCoy circled over to the approximate path the girl had taken, and was surprised by the lack of prints or broken vegetation.
It seemed impossible that she had been able to run so swiftly through the woods without disturbing the forest floor.
On an even more puzzling note, he did not sense the presence of any Fey nearby, and he had not sensed anything when the girl had run out in front of him. This by itself did not mean much, for his senses were far from foolproof, especially when he was not alert for danger. But his gut feeling told him that she was not Fey. If that were the case, what was she doing out here? And why the stripper act? It was not overly warm due to the cloud cover and rain earlier.
He walked around for a few more minutes, but he knew it was a lost cause. If he had time, he might luck upon her trail, but it would be getting dark in a few hours. In the dark, he was likely to walk into an ambush, and that would be the end of it before he could even get started.
Reluctantly, he headed back to the truck. He was sure the girl hadn’t been running from anything; she didn’t have the look of someone being pursued. And she hadn’t meant to be seen. She had looked genuinely surprised when she’d seen McCoy in the road. So, either she was on some mighty fine drugs or she was a part of what was going on. McCoy was willing to bet the farm it was the latter.
It just kept getting more confusing. As far as he knew, the Fey had never associated with a human, much less conspired with one. Especially not a hot, naked chick like the one he’d just seen. McCoy was suddenly sure that this was more than a group of Sluagh going on a random killing spree. Something else was at work here, something that he should be seeing but was unable to.
He reached the truck and was about to get in when his cell rang. The sound startled him, because he hadn’t thought he could get a signal there. But then he remembered reading about a tower being placed somewhere on the mountain. He looked down and saw that his bars were maxed out. He pushed the talk button.
“Hey, sexy,” Amanda said. “Not up there chasing women, are you?”
McCoy opened his mouth to reply, thought about it, and remained silent.
“Are you there?”
“Yeah. Almost dropped my phone. Where are you?”
“On my way home from work,” she said. “Not all of us have trust funds to live off of. Are you still in Shallow Springs?”
“For the moment. I’m getting ready to head back. Things are screwy up here. I need to sit back and try to wrap my head around it.”
“So you don’t want any company tonight?”
“To the contrary, my dear. I need someone to bounce ideas off of.”
“They’re calling it that now?”
“Seriously,” he said. “I’ve managed to dig up a lot more questions than answers.”
“Well, I need to jump in the shower. I could come over in a couple of hours if you’ll be back by then.”
“I will be.”
“I can stop and get chicken?”
“That’d be great. See you in a little while.”
“Finn?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
“Every chance I get.”
McCoy ended the call, then immediately hit the talk button again. He needed to make a call while he had a good signal.
“What’s the word?” Lyle asked when he answered.
“I’m up on the mountain now, but I’m getting ready to head home. Thought I’d let you know.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Maybe. Listen, it might be a good idea to put some patrols around here tonight. And out Duncan Road, too.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
“And tell your boys to use extreme caution if they come up on a beautiful, naked girl.”
“What?” the sheriff asked. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“I think I know why Ben Rollins stopped in the middle of that road.”