Laws of Nature -2 Christopher Golden (ebook reader web .txt) 📖

death, the tragedy of it, the loss, until he heard Molly's tiny gasp and glanced down to see the ravaged corpse at their feet. The girl's body was torn up, bones snapped and exposed, stomach ripped open and organs strewn about. Teeth had savaged much of her body, parts of the organs were missing.

"Oh, God," Jack whispered.

But it was Molly who really began to pray, whispering in earnest, for the poor girl's soul to pass on without memory of the torture she had endured. Jack glanced away from the dead girl to see that there were tears on Molly's face as well.

"Monsters." She turned her gaze upon Jack. "They really are monsters, aren't they? All along, I've been thinking they're just animals. We hunt them down like we would dangerous bears or wolves, but they're not just some ancient species we never knew about. They're monsters. They're evil."

Jack nodded again as he slung his shotgun over his shoulder. "We - people, I mean - can be evil, but not like this. They know what they're doing, and they love it. It's what they live for."

Molly turned away from the dead girl. "Why didn't they kill us? Why did they just leave us here? The odds were in their favor."

"Maybe they didn't want to lose any others," Jack suggested. "Keep the pack intact, y'know? Maybe they'll just wait for . . ."

"A time when we're not armed. Not ready," Molly finished for him.

Artie appeared suddenly beside him, and Jack started, swearing out loud. "Don't do that!"

"Do what?" Molly asked.

"Sorry," Jack told her quickly. "Just . . . just got spooked, that's all."

He made no attempt to hide the fact that there was still a ghost with them. But he edited his words and actions, almost unconsciously, the way he always did when that ghost was Artie.

"Maybe they had other things in mind for you," the specter suggested.

The words were ominous. Jack glanced around for the dead girl's ghost, but she was gone. His gaze came to rest on Artie again, but he could not look for long at those eternal eyes.

"What are you - "

"You don't have time to run," the ghost said. "Just wipe your prints off the guns and toss them. You're about to have company."

Jack's mouth hung agape for a second or two. Then Artie told him he should hurry. With a muttered curse, Jack turned to Molly.

"Someone's coming," he said as he pulled off his shirt. "We've gotta wipe down the guns and get rid of them."

Even as Jack started to do just that with his shotgun, Molly was shaking her head.

"But . . . we could just run."

"He said we don't have time. Too much noise. They'd catch us," Jack told her. His voice had dropped to a whisper. They had no way of knowing how close the newcomers were.

Molly did not ask who "he" was.

Jack used both hands to fling the shotgun into the brush on the other side of the chimney, then lifted the pistol and clip out and did the same thing. Molly used the bottom of her long shirt to clean her prints off the shotgun, then dropped it at her feet. Jack picked it up, using his shirt, and tossed it for her.

Molly had just pulled out her pistol and belt-clip when a flashlight beam caught them both where they stood.

"Police!" shouted a voice. "Throw down the weapon and both of you put your hands up."

Jack's heart sank. It was the sheriff. They stood over the ravaged corpse of a teenaged girl. Molly had a gun in her hand. She tossed it away as Sheriff Tackett and Deputy Vance approached across the clearing. Jack and Molly both put their hands up.

The body, he thought. A tiny sigh of relief escaped him. They had a dead Prowler on their hands, and another in the woods. Two or three more down by the school. No way could the sheriff think they were involved in any of this.

Then Jack glanced over at the edge of the clearing where they had left the dead body of the massive, red-furred Prowler, and his heart went cold and silent.

He stopped breathing.

The monstrous corpse was gone.

CHAPTER 11

The Buckton police station was a stone and mortar affair with a bit more flair than many of its 1940s contemporaries. The town hall, with which the police station shared a parking lot, was a much larger structure that made the junior building appear to be a carriage house in comparison. It was small-town America at its finest, with a memorial to locals lost in America's wars right in the center of a small green island between the buildings.

Any other night, with the stars shining above and a few lights still burning in both buildings, Molly would have thought it was quaint.

But she was not in the mood for quaint.

Unlike so many of the kids in her Dorchester neighborhood, and even some of the students she had gone to Catholic school with, Molly Hatcher had never been handcuffed before. She had never been arrested until now. A twisted, sarcastic voice insinuated itself into the back of her head. At least you did it up big, the voice said. Molly knew it was her own sub-conscious, trying to make light of her situation. But she wasn't going for it. Suspicion of murder; possession and discharge of unlicensed firearms. Nothing light about their predicament at all.

And the only weapon they had at their disposal was the truth.

Molly and Jack had remained silent on the short ride back to downtown Buckton and the police station. Their eyes met several times, but Molly found that her throat was dry and did not think she could speak even if she had any idea what to say. They rode in the back of the sheriff 's car, and the man's eyes almost burned in the rearview mirror, with the flash of streetlights strobing across the windows, reflecting into the interior of the car.

Deputy