The Devil's Woods Read online

  She crawled onto the road, just as the RV disappeared around a curve. “Wait!”

  Something grabbed Kendra’s ankle, yanking her back down the hill. Her nails clawed the asphalt as the thing dragged her screaming into the forest.

  * * *

  Jessica rode in the Hummer’s passenger seat while Eric drove and fiddled with his cell phone. “Christ, I can’t get any signal out here.”

  “Can’t you go a few hours without checking your messages?” Jessica asked.

  “Just because I’m on vacation, doesn’t mean everything stops back at the office.”

  “You’re checking to see if your stepfather left any messages, aren’t you?” She could tell, because Eric had a nervous look in his eyes like he was on the verge of an anxiety attack. His addiction to his cell phone was his one vice that drove Jessica bonkers. Well, that and the fact that Blake Nelson kept controlling their life. She rather liked that their cell phones didn’t work out here. Maybe a few days without a phone would show Eric that his stepfather’s law firm would run fine without him.

  He tried to call again, and their SUV swerved into the other lane.

  Jessica grabbed the wheel. “Watch the road.”

  Eric grumbled and tossed his phone in the backseat. He twisted the stereo volume. Guns ’N‘ Roses screeched, “Welcome to the Jungle”. His fingers thrummed along the gear stick, and the Hummer edged so close to the rear of the Jeep, Jessica thought they were going to ram it.

  “Eric, ease up, you’re scaring me.”

  “Kyle drives like my grandmother.” He honked repeatedly, swerving left and right.

  * * *

  As Kyle drove down the country road, watching the endless walls of trees pass by, he tried his best to enjoy the moment. But the Hummer kept creeping up on his bumper. His brother honked and poked his head out the window. “Speed up, Granny!”

  Kyle honked and waved Eric to back off.

  The black Hummer whipped out from behind them and raced up the opposite lane. The passenger window rolled down and Eric yelled, “How about we drag like old times?”

  “No, get back behind me!” Kyle said, but the cocky motherfucker revved his engine, taunting him to race or wuss out.

  Fucking great! Eric’s drunk and wants to show everyone he’s the alpha dog.

  “Fine, pass!” Kyle let up on the gas.

  Eric honked and drove ahead.

  “Why did you let him take the lead?” Shawna asked from the passenger seat.

  “Because he’s being an idiot.”

  From the back seat, Zack asked, “Does Eric know where we’re going?”

  “Not a fucking clue,” Kyle said.

  The Hummer stayed on the left side of the road. Up ahead an RV came around a blind curve. A horn honked frantically. The Hummer veered left and the RV swerved into Kyle’s lane.

  He spun the Jeep onto the shoulder. The camper screeched past them.

  The Jeep bucked and snaked along the side of the road, branches scraping across the windows. Kyle braced one arm across his sister’s chest and slammed the brakes, tires shrieking to a halt.

  Up ahead, Eric parked the Hummer and got out. Kyle wanted to kick his brother’s ass, but right now there were more pressing matters. He took a quick inventory of his passengers. “Anybody hurt?”

  “No,” Shawna said. “But I peed my pants.”

  Zack was thrown sideways, but unscathed.

  Glancing in his rearview mirror, Kyle saw that the RV had run off the side of the road. A dog barked and a man and girl stumbled out.

  “Shit.” Kyle backed the Jeep to the wounded camper and hopped out like a paramedic responding to an emergency. Eric and Jessica jogged behind him and assisted the shaken passengers of the RV.

  “Are you guys okay?” Kyle asked.

  A blonde teenage girl nodded, holding her hand against her chest. Jessica examined the girl. Kyle and Eric rounded the front end of the RV where a man in his mid-forties stood, shaking his head and staring down at a bent front bumper and mutilated tire. He glared at Kyle and Eric. “Which of you assholes was driving the Hummer?”

  Eric said, “I’m sorry, sir. I was trying to pass my brother on a curve—”

  “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?” the man said.

  “No,” Eric denied.

  “Don’t bullshit me! I’m a cop. Your breath reeks of beer.”

  Eric said, “Okay, I had a couple earlier out on the lake, but I swear I’m sober.” Eric went into a melodramatic tirade that he often used in court to confuse the jury and draw sympathy. It was all an act, of course. Like their stepfather, Eric could steamroll anyone with his passionate rants. “I was just trying to pass on a curve and it was stupid, stupid, stupid!”

  “Settle down, son,” the man said with a calming hand. “My daughter’s okay. She’s my biggest concern. Luckily, I was only going thirty, which is the speed limit by the way.”

  Kyle said, “Sir, let us make things right. We’ll pay for the damages and swap out your tire. Do you have a spare?”

  “Yeah, it’s at the back.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Eric dashed behind the RV. He reappeared a minute later with a jack and lug wrench in hand and set about propping up the backside of the camper.

  * * *

  As Eric changed the RV’s tire, Kyle and Jessica tended to the man, Carl Hanson, and his teenage daughter, Lindsey. She only had a bruise on her forearm. She was more shaken than anything.

  Jessica fished into her first-aid kit. “Here take an aspirin.”

  “I’m fine,” Lindsey said. “I’m just worried about my dog, Chaser.”

  Kyle looked around. He had briefly seen a black dog earlier when the Hansons first climbed out of their RV. “Where’d he run off to?”

  “Through there.” Lindsey pointed to a stand of blue spruce. “I’m afraid he might be hurt.”

  The last thing Kyle wanted was for this family to lose their dog. “I’ll find him.” He led Jessica and the girl into the woods. Thirty yards in they stopped at a steep incline.

  Lindsey backed away, gulping. “I don’t like heights.” Remaining ten feet back, she cupped her hands around her mouth. “Chaser!”

  The dog barked from somewhere deep in the pines.

  Kyle and Jessica exchanged glances and then helped call the dog’s name, but Chaser didn’t return. The barking trailed off.

  “Does he usually come back?” Kyle asked.

  Lindsey said, “Sometimes, except when he’s scared. I’m worried he’s going to get lost in the woods.”

  Kyle peered down the near-vertical incline. It was a good twenty yards down to a creek full of sharp rocks. He looked across at Lindsey, who was biting her lip.

  “I’ll go find him.”

  “Are you sure?” Jessica looked over the ledge. “That drop looks pretty steep.”

  “You guys stay here.” Kyle started climbing down, using exposed roots and rock ledges to keep from falling. The hill was only treacherous at the beginning and descended more gradually midway. He slid in a few places where there were a lot of leaves, but made it to the bottom in no time. Kyle looked up at the girls and gave a thumbs-up.

  “Here, you’ll need this.” Lindsey tossed down a leash.

  He crossed a stream, using a few mossy stones as a bridge. On the other side, the pines went on for miles. It suddenly occurred to him that he was about to go after a dog that was possibly scared. He imagined a wounded dog bearing its fangs. He looked back at Lindsey. “What kind of dog is Chaser?”

  “A Rottweiler.”

  Great. “Does he bite?”

  “No, he’s a teddy bear. Please find him.”

  When Kyle was growing up in Seattle, the next-door neighbors had a Rottweiler that used to growl through the fence. It had sounded like a demon hound from hell that would have given anything to burst through that fence and rip Kyle’s throat out. Thanks to that devil dog, he wasn’t a big fan of Rottweilers.

  He hiked deeper into the
forest. “Chaser…” He whistled. “Here, boy!” Kyle worked his way through the branches until he reached a clearing where the pines began humming lightly, like organ pipes playing a single key.

  He felt strange vibrations along the ground.

  Kyle didn’t like the feeling he got from these woods. He touched a tree and his mind filled with a vision of an animal’s fangs. He heard a growl surge from the bark and jumped back. The echo trailed off. “What the…?”

  He listened, but the surrounding trees were quiet now, except for the wind rustling the evergreen branches. A vibration still reverberated through his hiking boots. It was the same sensation he felt when he entered a cemetery, as if the dead were whispering inside their graves. Sometimes when he touched a tombstone, he saw fleeting visions of the person entombed there, a glimpse of a car accident, an argument, blood seeping from a chest wound. A series of quick flashes. A story that wished to be told.

  So what was it about this patch of woods that triggered his psychic ability?

  Kyle gripped the tree again. The forest suddenly chorused with cricket chants. His eyes closed, and something from the deepest shadows released a stretched-out, feline scream. Was Chaser stalking a wild cat? Kyle let go of the tree, and the cat cries and crickets ceased as if breaking contact with the tree muted the forest. He scanned the woods. No sign of any dog-and-cat chase. But the low hum persisted.

  “Chaser!” Kyle kept searching, listening for a bark or a hiss. The pines beckoned him with ghostly whispers. He avoided touching them. He didn’t like using those channels. The deeper he ventured, the louder the humming resonated, as if an Aboriginal tribe were playing didgeridoos. Why did this forest channel so strongly? The vibrations from the ground pulsed stronger now, tingling up his legs. A crying cat wailed through Kyle’s head.

  What the hell happened here?

  The mysterious cat was crying and running. Kyle closed his eyes. It was now night inside his mind. Moonlight shone on the ground and what looked like large cat paws raced across it. Then a blur of a beast larger than a dog. Then shrieking. Huffing. Squealing. Growling.

  Silence.

  “Come on, Chaser. Where are you?” Keeping his eyes closed, he touched another tree. In his mind night turned back to daylight. He saw a brief glimpse of Chaser’s wagging tail. The dog backed away from a deadwood thicket. The barking sounded nearby.

  Kyle opened his eyes, felt dizzy for a second and then ran between the trees. “Chaser!” He reached a small clearing. The Rottweiler knocked him over. Chaser put his paws on Kyle’s chest and licked his throat.

  He saw the dog’s red nose and jowls and backed away. “Chaser…oh, sick!” Wiping his own throat, Kyle felt the congealed blood on his neck. “What have you been into?”

  The Rottweiler barked and ran to a thick pile of limbs that looked like a giant beaver hut. Kyle hurried to the brush. He froze at the sight of a headless carcass. The rotting remains of what looked like a mountain lion lay twisted and deformed. Hundreds of black flies peppered its wet Elena sinews. The air around the carcass made Kyle gag. The lion looked as if it had been dead at least a day or two. Maybe a bear roamed this area. He looked at the burrow inside the large wooden hut. It appeared empty, but Kyle wasn’t about to wait around for the predator to return.

  “Chaser, we better get back to the road.” Kyle snapped the leash to the dog’s collar. As he hurried back with the girl’s dog, he wondered whether he should tell the others about the dead mountain lion and the strange vibrations the woods gave off. They wouldn’t believe the visions he received. Kyle could try to explain, but then everybody would think he was a freak. When he reached a stream, he washed the blood off Chaser’s nose and jowls and then cleaned his own face.

  As he walked back with the dog, he said to Chaser, “Let’s keep what we saw between you and me.”

  * * *

  After returning with the Hansons’ Rottweiler, Kyle visited with Carl Hanson, a homicide detective from Calgary. He was searching the area for his oldest daughter. Amy had gone missing six weeks earlier. He showed a photo of a pretty blonde, a couple years older than Lindsey.

  Carl’s brow furrowed with worry lines. “Amy’s attending graduate school in Vancouver. She was out here working on some kind of archaeology expedition when she and a few others disappeared.”

  Kyle got a cold chill. “Who was leading the expedition?”

  “Her professor, Dr. Elkheart.”

  “Jon Elkheart?”

  The man nodded.

  “That’s my father. He disappeared around the same time.”

  Carl’s eyes turned desperate. “Do you have any idea where they might have gone?”

  Kyle shook his head. “We haven’t spoken in months.”

  “It’s not like Amy to stay out of touch this long. When I contacted her school, the head of the archaeology department hadn’t heard from either one of the professors. He said they didn’t usually report in while they were out in the field, but he thought they were somewhere up near Lake Akwâkopiy.”

  “I’m sure they’re okay,” Kyle said, feeling a knot in his stomach.

  “I hope I’m just being a paranoid father and that Amy is working and hasn’t checked in. But I’ve been doing some research on the area. Come with me. I want to show you something.” Carl led Kyle into the RV where the two men sat opposite each other at the small built-in table. The detective opened a briefcase and pulled out a file.

  Kyle read the label upside down. Missing Persons. He flipped through dozens of pages with photos of girls. Some of the disappearances dated as far back as the 1950s.

  “Most were runaways,” Carl said. “But there were a few who’d gone camping with groups and just vanished without a trace. The majority were teenage girls. A few young women in their twenties.”

  Kyle set the sheets down. “These disappearances can’t be related to your daughter.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” Carl pointed to a map on the wall that was dotted with pins all around the lake. “I’ve talked to a lot of people living in this area. They call the forests around Lake Akwâkopiy ‘Canada’s Bermuda Triangle’.”

  Before leaving, Kyle and Carl exchanged phone numbers. The cop from Calgary shook Kyle’s hand. “Call me if you learn anything about your father and Amy’s whereabouts, and I’ll do the same. I’m going to find out where they are one way or another.”

  As Lindsey and her dog climbed back into the RV, Carl glared at Eric and spoke firmly to Kyle. “Normally, I would have your brother thrown in jail for drunk driving, but I’m going to let him off the hook this time. If you guys are going to be drinking, then stay off the road.”

  Kyle nodded, feeling ashamed. “We will, sir.”

  When the RV disappeared around a curve, Kyle walked over to his brother.

  Eric held up his palms. “Ey, I fucked up, okay? Sorry.”

  “Give me your keys.”

  Eric handed them over without protest.

  Kyle got in his face. “If I catch you drinking and driving again, I’ll report you to the police myself.”

  * * *

  As the two SUVs continued down the country road, Kyle spotted the familiar junction road up ahead. A faded sign marked the entrance to the Lake Akwâkopiy Cree First Nation Reserve. “Here we are, guys.” He steered onto a winding dirt road. His stress seemed to dissipate as familiar pines, spruce and aspens formed a continuous wall on either side. The road, curving sharply, was mostly a stretch of sun-bleached dirt patched with bunchgrass. The weeds had grown high in several places, scraping against the bumper as the Jeep passed over them.

  As Kyle drove, he shared the tribe’s history with Shawna and Zack. “Our ancestors were issued this reservation by the Crown in late 1800s. It’s just over five thousand acres. And most of the land is pure wilderness. Thanks to our grandfather, who’s been an activist against the logging companies all his life, our land is one of the few places in the world left untouched.” When they passed another dirt road, Kyle said,
“That leads to Ray Roamingbear’s cabin. He lives a half mile from Elkheart and Grandfather.”

  The main driveway declined down a steep hill between two small ponds. As Kyle rounded the last curve, the Cree village emerged from behind the branches. The sight stirred up memories from his childhood and previous visits: waking up to the smell of wet pine needles, fly-fishing in the ponds and streams, venturing into the woods with Elkheart and Grandfather to camp by an open fire. Kyle wished he had come back here more often.