He tore mindlessly through the thick pine forest, heedless of the direction he was headed or obstacles in his path, aware of only one thing — the terrific crashing and snapping of branches behind him that made it horrifyingly obvious he was being pursued. He’d hit Feverbridge twice, but the shots hadn’t slowed him down — at least, not by much. The man’s plan was now all too clear. Albright had been correct about the unnaturally slow progress Feverbridge had made as he was being tracked, about how he was apparently doubling back on himself: despite his maddened state, he was aware that the two of them knew too much about him — and so he had laid a trap, waiting to ambush and kill them both.
Logan ran and ran, oblivious to the pine needles that raked his face and the branches that tugged at his limbs. Once he stumbled, but somersaulted forward back onto his feet and kept going without interruption, aware that at any moment he might feel those frightful nails tear across his back.
All of a sudden, the trees parted and a structure reared up ahead of him, spectral in the moonlight: the Phelps Fire Observation Station. The crashing sounds were still coming on, but he seemed to have put some distance between himself and Feverbridge. If he could get to the observation building at the top, he could use it as a blind and shoot Feverbridge when he came into the clearing. Immediately, he ducked between the metal struts that made up the sides of the tower and began climbing, two at a time, the exposed stairs that rose between them.
He made the first landing, started up the second switchback, then the third, before he heard a maddened roaring from below. A patch of thin clouds was now passing over the moon, but he could still make out the form of Feverbridge, crouching at the edge of the clearing below him. He half limped, half leapt for the staircase and began climbing with frenzied speed.
With something like despair, Logan realized he had made a tactical error. He still had two more switchbacks to go before reaching the top — he’d never make it in time. He pointed his gun at the climbing Feverbridge, squeezed off a shot — but the man-beast shrank away and the bullet ricocheted harmlessly off metal. He shot again, and this time Feverbridge grunted as the bullet bit through part of an ear — but it did not slow his frantic climb.
Logan looked around in desperation. There was only one chance. Without giving himself time to reconsider, he leapt from the open staircase onto the metal skeleton that made up the external structure of the station. He hit it with a bone-jarring impact; one hand slipped off the metal framing, but he quickly grasped it again. There was a bellow of anger from below and to one side. Ignoring this as best he could, Logan maneuvered his way crablike along the beam until he reached a corner strut, then began sliding his way as quickly as he dared back down to the ground.
A terrific bang overhead told him that Feverbridge had duplicated his maneuver.
He hit the ground with a dreadful thump, then raced across the narrow clearing and reentered the pine forest, hoping against hope that Feverbridge had not seen the direction in which he’d run.
Another nightmarish dash through the pine forest began. Logan’s sides were burning, and his ankles hurt from the heavy landing he’d just endured, but desperation lent new strength to his limbs. Once again, the crashing noises started up behind him, and with dismay Logan realized he had not ditched Feverbridge, after all.
He lost track of time, entering a kind of trancelike state in which all his concentration was bent on escape. He veered sharply, first left and then, a few hundred yards later, right; he was aware of tripping over another exposed root and falling flat on his face in the pine needles, losing precious time. The pain in his side became like fire, and each intake of breath was a small agony. But the frenzied bellowing from behind, the snapping noises of branches being thrust violently aside, forced him on.
…And then the trees fell away behind and he found himself on the top of a rocky outcropping, boulder-strewn flanks stretching away to the left and right. Nearby a stream bubbled up out of the rocks, falling away over the edge of the cliff and forming a waterfall that crashed onto the stones far below. Logan looked around as he gasped for breath. Although the clouds were still thickening, the light of the full moon was unimpeded, and it lit up the landscape below and beyond with a spectral illumination. Logan knew this spot: he was standing atop Madder’s Gorge, where Feverbridge had first killed the lone backpacker, half a year before.
A snapping of twigs behind him and Feverbridge emerged from the shadow of the trees. With a low snarl of triumph, he leapt forward. Logan raised the gun but Feverbridge swatted it away with the back of his hand and it went tumbling over the cliff. Logan stepped backward as Feverbridge advanced. He was bleeding from the gunshot wounds; two had merely grazed him, but the third had clearly been a direct hit to his left thigh. Despite the extremity of his own situation, Logan couldn’t help but marvel at the man’s ability to cover ground so quickly, given a wound like that.
A half smile formed on Feverbridge’s distorted mouth, and the little red eyes glowed with victorious malice. The hand that had swatted away the gun clenched into a fist; it came smashing down on Logan’s shoulder with unbelievable strength and Logan immediately crumpled to the ground. Now the fist opened, fingers flexing as before, nails gleaming in the moonlight. With a howl of bloodlust, Feverbridge raised his arm, preparing to tear out Logan’s throat.
Even as he did so, out of the night came a sudden, shouted word of command:
“Stop!”
40
Logan glanced over. It was Laura Feverbridge, advancing on them, moonlight glinting off the shotgun in her hands. In his preoccupation, struggling with the thing that had been Laura’s father, Logan had not noticed her approach.
Feverbridge, too, turned toward her with a snarl. He advanced a step, snarling again. But then it seemed that recognition burned its way through the madness that had overtaken him, because he raised a hand over his face — perhaps to shield himself from Laura’s terrible expression, perhaps to prevent her from fully seeing the change that had come over him. He retreated, one step, then another, and then his foot slipped on the edge of the cliff. He reared forward away from the edge as a group of thicker clouds began to scud across the bloated moon.
“You lied to me,” she told her father in a voice choked with anger, betrayal, and grief. “After all the effort, all the deception, all I’ve done for you — you’ve been lying the whole time.” She brushed away a tear with an angry gesture. “I found the journal in your private lab. I read your notes. Jeremy was right. Instead of trying to find an antidote, you’ve been secretly working to concentrate the serum — and you’ve been reinjecting yourself with it. Whenever we found a promising new avenue of research, you’ve paid lip service to the advance, pretending to be excited — and then you’ve subtly managed to undermine it. Every time. When I think of the hours, days, months I spent, worrying about you, trying to help you — all wasted, totally wasted!”
Logan tried to rise, realized from the sharp pain in his shoulder that it had been broken by the single, brutal blow from Feverbridge, and sank back. Feverbridge himself had gone still, staring at Laura. Exactly how much he could understand in his current state, Logan could not be sure — but he sensed the man-thing comprehended most, if not all, of what she said.
“And Jeremy was right about the other thing, wasn’t he? You don’t see what’s happened to you as an affliction — you’ve started to enjoy it. All those full moons you said you spent locked in your private room so I wouldn’t be burdened with the sight of your transformation — that violent impulse you said we managed to nullify after you murdered an innocent man in this very spot — those were lies, too. Weren’t they? Weren’t they?” Her whole body trembled with emotion; the shotgun shook in her hands. “And what’s even worse, the killings have been accelerating. They aren’t months apart anymore — they’re days. You killed those two hikers. You killed our very own lab assistant. You killed the ranger, Jessup, who’d begun to have suspicions of his own. Each murder more brutal than the last. And now you’re trying to kill Jeremy, as well — Jeremy, who only wanted to help!”