The teenager trotted back over to the table, looking way too peppy for six-thirty in the morning. She took out a little notepad from her apron. “What’ll it be?”
Greg said, “Two eggs, sunny side up, grits, bacon, and toast.”
“And what do you want to drink?”
“Orange juice.”
Alissa wrote the order down on her pad. Then she looked over at James.
“I’ll have two eggs over easy, grits, sausage, and biscuits. And I’ll just have coffee.”
Alissa repeated the order, had to be corrected twice, then, once she had it right, she turned and started toward the kitchen.
As soon as Alissa was out of earshot, Greg leaned over the table and asked, “You sure it’s not some murderer?”
“As sure as I can be.”
“Well, what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I need to tell Bill,” Greg started, but James interrupted him.
“Tell him what? That your buddy is some sort of psychic? He’d think we’re nuts.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
“I’m gonna tell you what I’ve seen, but I don’t want it goin’ past this table. That includes Angie. I don’t want her stressed in her condition.”
“But if I can’t tell Bill,” Greg started and was once again interrupted by James.
“You can use the information to steer Bill in the right direction.”
Greg shrugged. “I’ll try, but no one steers Bill in any direction he don’t want to go.”
James leaned back in his chair. Where do I start? he thought. After sitting quietly for a moment he leaned forward and whispered, “This thing looks into their minds.” At that, Greg gave James a wide-eyed, you-must-be-kidding look, and then leaned closer so he could hear. “It takes an image from their mind, and it seems to make itself look and sound like something its victims aren’t afraid of.”
“Makes itself look and sound like somethin’ it’s not?” Greg asked.
“Sharon’s horse couldn’t even smell it.”
“So it changes its looks, sounds, and even its smell?”
“At least that’s what I think it’s doing. In these dreams I’m looking through its eyes, so I can’t see it, but I definitely heard it calling Edgar’s cows in Edgar’s voice and it did the same thing with Sharon’s horse.”
For a while Greg was speechless; then he just managed to say, “Wow,” in a detached voice.
“Here y’all go,” Alissa said, suddenly appearing from behind Greg with the plates, once again startling him and making him jump. Not noticing Greg’s jumpy reaction, she put their orders on the table with a sweet smile, accidentally placing James’ order in front of Greg and Greg’s order in front of James.
“Thanks,” Greg said. He waited until Alissa turned around and started back toward the front before switching the plates.
They ate their breakfast in silence. James realized that telling Greg may or may not help catch this creature, but it sure lifted a weight off his shoulders. When James finished his breakfast and had sopped up the last bit with his biscuit, he looked over and saw that Greg had barely touched his food.
“You gonna eat that bacon?”
Since he was already out, James decided to open up the shop early. Just after nine Greg called the shop and told him he had talked to Carl and they had found Sharon’s body.
At four that afternoon James told Guy he was going to take off early. However, when he pulled out onto Highway 87, he turned south instead of north. James drove about five miles out of town, then took a left turn down a dirt road. He followed it until he came to Sharon Perrett’s driveway. Apparently the Sheriff’s Department had already finished up; there were no patrol cars at the house. This was good. James had no idea what he was going to tell them if they asked what he was doing out here.
James got out and walked around to the back of the house. He walked through the backyard and up to the corral, which was roped off with yellow police tape. He looked in the pen from outside the yellow boundary. It was amazing how familiar this place was, considering he’d never been here. Near the center of the pen, James could see a dark patch where the blood had soaked into the sand. After looking for some time, James walked around the pen and jumped the fence into the pasture. James walked to the back of the barn and began searching the ground for tracks. Since James had seen what had happened through the beast’s own eyes, he knew exactly where to look; however, the rain had washed away most of the tracks. It was not until James looked behind the barn, right up against the outside wall, that he was able to find undisturbed prints. This was where the beast hid from Sharon the night it killed her horse, the night before it killed her. The tracks had been protected from the rain by the eaves of the barn.
James kneeled down and looked closely at the tracks. The beast had perched on all fours while it waited here. He could see that the rear prints looked like those of the forward half of a man’s footprint, except for the oddly placed big toe that was almost positioned like a thumb. And, of course, the claws extending two full inches from the toes. The prints from its forefeet, or hands, were at first hard to figure out. There were four small indentions beside each other, with a fifth to the side. They looked like the prints of a football player’s hand when he was in the classic four-point stance. It didn’t quite look right; the indentions were too close together considering what James knew about the size of this thing, and where were the claws? At first James pondered that maybe this thing had catlike hands, and therefore retractable claws; then he saw another print almost two feet away. This print was an almost perfect hand print. It was the beast’s left hand. Almost half of the print had been outside of the barn’s eave and had been washed away, but the first two fingers and the thumb were in perfect condition. The claws on this print extended more than two inches from the fingers and almost that long on the thumb. James put his hand in the print. The hand itself was about the same size, but the fingers were wider, and about a half an inch longer; the thumb was almost a full inch longer. Then James figured out the first hand print. The reason the indentions were close together was that they weren’t prints of the beast’s fingertips, they were prints of the beast’s knuckles. It apparently folded its claws up in its palm (and on past its wrist, considering the length of the claws), and when it ran on four legs, it ran on the knuckles of its hands.
James was brought out of his intense study of the prints by the sound of a car passing on the dirt road. He thought he would be caught and had no idea how he would explain himself, but, luckily, the car didn’t stop. The close call did, however, convinced James that he’d done enough snooping for the day. He returned to his truck and started home.
That night the beast returned to Sharon Perrett’s. It loped purposely through the pasture without its usual routine of stopping to sniff the wind. Tonight it moved with a sense of purpose. The beast continued up to the outer wall of the barn, then stopped, and began sniffing the ground. It immediately found what it was looking for; a boot print. It sniffed the boot print extensively, then ambled off toward the woods.
CHAPTER 5
The Arm, the Hand, the Ring
Despite his dream of the beast investigating his footprint and the fact he knew that Sharon Perrett was dead, James felt much better after telling Greg about the dreams. Now he felt he could let the law do their job and he could get back to his, which was fixing cars. The dreams still prevented rest at night, but James was adjusting. At noon he would take a nap in the garage’s office, and when he got home he would take another. At night he would go to bed with Angie, but after she drifted off to her heavy slumber, he would get up and watch TV. Every now and then James would doze off on the couch and dream of the beast, but mostly James would stay awake until just before Angie woke up. Then he would get in bed and sleep through the last few minutes before his alarm went off. James was still not getting a lot of sleep, but at least he was getting some.