out into the woods and got lost. How far could he have gone?”
“Yeah,” Vickie said in a trembling voice.
Erik knew she was thinking the same thing as he was. The pastor had told them these woods went for miles. Still, how far could a little boy go in such a short time.
Together they stepped tentatively into the woods, using the flashlight beam to guide them. The moon had come up, a yellow half moon lying low on the horizon, but its light couldn’t penetrate through the treetops.
“Look,” Erik said, sweeping the ground with his flashlight. “A path.”
He knelt down and studied the dirt; though he was no Indian scout, it was quite obvious to him that someone had passed this way very recently.
“He’s been here,” he said, confidently, though he really had no way of knowing for sure if it had been Todd’s sneakers that had disturbed the dirt.
“If he stayed on the path it should be easy to find him,” Vickie said.
“Yeah. It’s got to go somewhere, right,” Erik replied. He laughed nervously.
The darkness hung heavy as a quilt by now, filling the forest with mystery and strangeness. Erik called his son’s name as he walked, as much to bolster his own courage as anything else. Though he hated to admit it, something about being in the woods at night frightened the hell out of him. Despite his dream of living in the country, he remained a city boy at heart, and didn’t know or understand very much about nature. Although a downtown street posed far more danger at night than a rural forest, he was much more at home there than he was here right now.
Growing up in the city had made him street smart. As one of the few academically talented kids in an inner city school, he’d quickly learned how to defend himself. He’d studied a bit of the martial arts, joined the high school wrestling team, and worked hard at building an image of toughness while earning high grades.
At least he knew what to fear from the city—and how to handle it. He knew that the scum who prowled the city streets preferred easy prey to someone who might fight back. As a result, he’d been left alone.
But here in the blackness of this strange forest, his fear was vague and undefined, somehow sinister and mysterious. Although he knew he could be no more than fifty yards from his back yard, he felt as if he had crossed the boundary into some ancient, primitive world where the rules he learned to play by didn’t work.
His concern for his son increased with every step he took. Since the path was too narrow for two people to walk side by side, Vickie followed behind him, clinging to the back of his shirt like a child holding onto her father, while he led the way, holding the flashlight beam low over the path ahead of them while pretending to be totally in control of the situation.
The path gradually narrowed even more until it disappeared entirely. Erik found himself standing in the underbrush looking out at an endless forest that seemed like it went on to the ends of the earth. He remembered what Pastor Mark had told him, and vaguely remembered from the plot map that the real estate agent had shown him that these woods did continue all the way to the Connecticut border, several miles away.
“Todd!” he screamed. “Todd! Can you hear me? Are you out there, Todd?”
He was almost frantic now, and his voice betrayed his panic.
“Maybe we should go back and call the police,” Vickie suggested. “Before we get lost, too.”
She was the calm one, now, and her tone settled him down a bit.
“They don’t have police out here,” he reminded her. “They have a sheriff.”
“Maybe we should call him. Or 911.”
For once, Erik wished he owned a cell phone.
“Who knows,” Vickie said. “Maybe he’s back home right now wondering where we are.”
Erik sighed deeply. “I told him not to go into the woods.”
Part of him wanted to press on, while another part of him trembled in terror when he thought of going deeper into these woods. Another part wondered if Vickie were right, and Todd was home waiting for them. Wouldn’t that be a kicker, he thought, imagining Todd home watching cartoons.
“You should have stayed home,” he said to Vickie.
“It’s too late now.”
“Maybe you could go back,” he said feebly.
“We’ve got to stick together now,” she replied. “Besides, there’s only one flashlight.”
“Yeah. We should have brought two.”
“We only own one,” she reminded him. “And it’s a good thing we unpacked it last night or I never would have found it.”
He shrugged, then realized she couldn’t see him. His mind was a battle of confusion. Vickie might be right. Todd might be home, even now. But what if he wasn’t? They couldn’t just walk away and leave him out here. He’d heard somewhere that in missing persons cases, the first few hours—the first few minutes, even—were critical. He might not just be lost—he might be badly hurt. He couldn’t turn back now.
Besides, there had been that scream.
I think we should go on,” he said quietly.
She squeezed his hand and forced a smile. Without hesitation, she followed him. He wondered if he should tell her about the scream—if it were a scream. No. It wouldn’t do any good. Although she didn’t show it, she was already frightened enough without adding to her worries.
They trudged forward, Erik leading the way and Vickie following. Erik had no idea where they were going. He didn’t think he could find his way back to the house even if he wanted to, now. He remembered hearing stories about people lost in the woods who wandered around in circles for hours within just a few feet of a road or trail, and for the first time he understood how this could happen.
As they pushed forward through the thickening underbrush, Erik began to feel an uncertain sense of loathing that guided his direction. It was nothing definite, just a gently prodding that turned him slightly to the north, almost as if it were turning him away from something.
-2-
Johnny Dovecrest knew exactly where he was going. Although he knew his gun was useless against what he expected to find, he carried the rifle and the semiautomatic pistol, just in case the scream turned out to be the result of an animal attack, or something equally mundane. While these woods might be just a few miles from the city as the crow flies, they might as well be a million miles away. Dovecrest knew for a fact that a couple of bears had claimed this area as their own, though if he told anyone they’d surely come and shoot the bears. And moose had been spotted here on more than one occasion. He was happy to leave the animals alone, since the land was rightfully theirs and man was the real intruder.
Deep in his heart, though, he knew it was happening again. He had waited for this moment for so many years, hoping against hope that it was over forever, but knowing for certain that it wasn’t. No. It was only a matter of time. That was the way it was, and he had prepared himself for the time when it would happen again. This time
