Instinct, Jason Hough [acx book reading TXT] 📗

“What do you mean, ‘something’? Some asshole attack her?” Instantly there’s a hard edge to Clara’s voice.

“Not sure. She’s uncommunicative. I think… I better go check it out.”

“Shouldn’t you have backup?”

“I should, yes, thanks for the procedure reminder. Don’t think this can wait another week.”

“Sorry, I meant… I don’t know what I meant. Just be careful, okay? You may not know this about me, but I fended off a mugger once. As a result I take this kind of thing very seriously.”

I take a deep breath, realizing we’re both out of our comfort zone here.

“It’s all right,” I say. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. Last time I went after a suspect without backup it did not end well, so we both have reason to be touchy. But let’s not jump to conclusions. For all I know this woman up here was spooked by a raccoon carrying a scrap of day-old pastry. So… just stay by the radio, okay?”

“Of course!”

“We’ll be in constant contact. If there’s something to this, trust me, I will get anyone and everyone who can assist me to swarm on this place.”

Clara agrees.

Recent rain and the early arrival of fall have left the trail muddy and leaf strewn. Here and there I can see fresh footprints, presumably from the woman in the Subaru. Long strides, a sprint back to the car. And, more faintly, two additional sets heading up the trail at a casual walk. Hers and another, slightly larger. A boyfriend, maybe? Or did someone follow her?

Maybe Clara was right. Perhaps this was a botched assault of some kind. Maybe the woman in the car actually did tase the bastard, or gave him a face full of pepper spray, and he’s going to be up here somewhere nursing his ego. Been a long time since I cuffed someone, and the thought holds serious appeal.

I follow the tracks, deciding for now to keep their presence from Clara.

Off to my right comes the soft babbling of the slow, thin stream that carved this little cleft. Despite the many years since the Conaty Silver Mine closed, all the crap they dumped in it back then still designates the water as polluted, and there are signs just visible through the trees warning as much. When Greg and I escorted the government inspector, he took samples and later said the signs need to stay up. Do not drink or swim, they warn. Maybe once that notice made sense, but now? It’s too narrow and shallow to swim in, and no one in their right mind would drink the murky stuff. But, as Greg is fond of saying, “Regs is regs.”

The trail turns slightly, heading up the hillside and away from the gurgle of water. Silence creeps in again, save for a few birds up high in the taller trees. They stop their chatter as I pass, though. Quietly watching, ready to take flight if I’m judged to be a threat.

A quarter mile on I find him.

He kneels in the middle of a clearing, his back to me. A place where four western hemlocks lean together, forming a sort of natural cathedral with a central opening where sunlight pours in. In a movie the shaft of light would be illuminating him, but not so here. Instead he hides in near-darkness, and the circle of light instead shines down on a mess of camping gear spilled from an oversize backpack.

The man still wears his own pack, so the one on the ground must be the woman’s. She ditched it and sprinted in terror, but he…

He’s on his knees, facing toward the mine and away from me, arms flat at his sides with his palms turned upward, as if in meditation. There’s something very wrong about that pose. The stillness of it. The calm.

I draw my pistol, crouch, and scan the tree line. All quiet. Keeping to the edge of the clearing, I creep slowly around to the right. I go far enough to be sure because there’s a part of me—the relentlessly optimistic part—still hoping he’s just brooding over a campfire or, hell, even praying. The rest of me knows the truth, though. My gut tells me something about all this is dreadfully wrong.

When I move far enough to see him in profile, the sight chills me to the core. Then the smell hits me. My stomach heaves. I bite it back. Force myself to look.

His chest, from collar to stomach, is open and steaming in the cool air of the clearing. Ribs poke out at sickening angles from a mess of blood and muscle and torn clothes. It’s as if something has ripped its way out from within his torso. A demon unleashed.

The evidence against such a fantastic theory is all there, though, waiting for my shock and revulsion to recede. Clothes shredded by claws. Teeth marks. It’s all right in front of me. Huge paw prints in the mud finally force my brain back to reality.

A bear did this. A big one.

“Shit,” I mutter. “Shit shit shit.” My hand goes to my radio, and I almost say Greg’s name. “Clara, you there?”

I wait, my eyes darting to every noise coming through the forest.

“Here, Mary! Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I manage. “But only just. There’s a… There’s a body.”

“Oh no,” Clara replies. “Oh, honey, what now? It’s not another one of ours, is it?”

She means another resident of Silvertown. Another Johnny Rogers.

Everything about his death suddenly returns to mind, images merging with the fresh corpse kneeling before me.

Johnny Rogers, lying facedown at the base of a twenty-foot drop on the side of the mountain, legs splayed at impossible angles.

This hiker, belly torn open like a soft-boiled egg, guts dangling.

I bite back another wave of nausea.

Clara’s voice yanks me back. “Mary? Talk to me, please. Was it—”

“No, Clara,” I say. “Not one of ours. A hiker from out of town. Bear attack, I think. Listen, get Doc up here, wearing his coroner’s hat.”

“Oh God.”

“Keep it together. We’ll handle this, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Doc first.