“Shit,” he said and stared into the fog surrounding him. He’d have to walk to the front, through the parking lot and a dark alley. The fog was thick, the sun had not yet risen, the air cold and heavy. Vernon Schultz, Truck’s father, would have called it good hunting weather. A garbage truck rumbled down a street in the distance.
“Double shit,” Truck said and stepped away from the back door. He was immediately surrounded by a strangely dark and dense fog. Fucking Hound of the Baskervilles, Truck thought as he walked through the parking lot. He could make out the dim shapes of cars. Shrouded in fog, the cars looked like large animals, monsters even, ready to pounce. Truck laughed nervously, and heard his laughter echo loudly across the parking lot. His own pickup sat in the best space. He briefly thought about driving the truck to the front, but then remembered he’d left his keys inside the studio.
“Triple shit,” he said as he thought about the Indian Killer and perfect hunting weather. Truck wondered how it felt to kill a man. Truck himself had never been able to kill a deer, let alone a man.
“There,” Vernon Schultz had whispered to his son as they sat together in the hunting blind. A doe had emerged from the fog just fifty feet away. The twelve-year-old Truck took aim, watching the deer daintily step across the cold ground, but could not pull the trigger.
“Now,” whispered Vernon, but Truck couldn’t shoot.
“Now,” Vernon said, much louder, and the doe, suddenly aware of their presence, bounded back into the fog.
“Oh, damn,” said Vernon and gave his son a gentle nudge. “Couldn’t do it, huh?”
With tears in his eyes, Truck looked up at his father.
“Next time,” Vernon said.
“Next time,” Truck said as he made his way through the foggy parking lot outside the KWIZ studio. He wondered how the Indian Killer had found the courage to cut a man’s throat. Truck shivered out of fear, though he told himself it was because of the cold. He knew the alley was close because he could smell the garbage Dumpster. Something made a noise out there in the fog, and Truck had to resist the urge to run. The flight instinct.
“Darla?” Truck asked, wondering if his assistant had realized he hadn’t come back from his smoke break. No response, but he had heard footsteps, then a painful scratching noise, as if two pieces of metal were being rubbed together. Truck walked faster, stepped into the alley, and felt a powerful claustrophobia. He couldn’t see the walls of the alley, but he knew they were there, just beyond his reach. He could see neither the parking lot behind him nor the street ahead of him. He realized he’d blundered into an enclosed space. Panicked prey, he thought, a hunter’s dream.
A large bang caused Truck to drop to one knee. He couldn’t tell whether it had come from behind or in front of him. The fucking fog has never been this bad, thought Truck, never, not once. He’d always thought fog was a minor nuisance, at worst potentially dangerous, but this fog felt specific and alive. This fog had sharp teeth. Truck slowly rose and stepped toward an alley wall. He touched the damp stone with one hand and felt some relief. He’d begun to wonder if the world had ceased to exist outside the fog. But he knew that wall and trusted there was another wall on the opposite side of the alley. He’d driven and walked between these walls for years. He could smell the Dumpster, and he knew there was a NO PARKING sign on the opposite wall. Truck was afraid.
“You got to kill them with one shot,” Vernon Schultz had explained. “If you just wound them, all their fear rushes through their bodies, gets into the meat. All that good meat will get filled up with fear, son, and that just tastes awful.”
With one hand on the wall, Truck walked down the alley. His fear rushed into his muscles. His legs and arms ached. His head felt heavy and full. He knew he could just lie down in the alley right there and fall asleep. He kept walking, and each step seemed to take forever, as if the street beyond the alley was hundreds of miles away.
A sudden flutter of wings above him. Truck wondered what kind of birds flew in the cold and fog. Bats? Owls? He knew the Indian Killer had sent him two owl feathers, along with a piece of Mark Jones’s pajamas, but the police had refused to tell him what these things meant. He knew it was more than just a signature. It was some kind of Indian voodoo. Truck didn’t believe in magic, but he believed in evil. The Indian Killer was out there somewhere, perhaps in that alley with him, and Truck wished he were carrying a pistol. He knelt down on the ground and searched for a weapon: broken bottle, stick, stray pipe, rock, anything. He found only newspaper and paper sacks.
“I know you’re there,” Truck shouted into the fog. “And I’ve got a gun.”
No response.
“I’m walking through,” Truck shouted. “You better just get out of my way. I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
Silence.
“Here I come,” Truck shouted as he walked down the alley.
“You got to hang the deer meat up high,” Vernon Schultz had said. “The bears will get at it, or the dogs, or the wolves. You got to hang it high, and you got to camp upwind from it. A half mile away, at least. You don’t want to be between that meat and some hungry bear, son. Hang it up there high.”
Truck held his head high as he walked down that alley, deeper and deeper into the fog.
3. Last Call
1. Mark Jones
SILENTLY SINGING AN INVISIBILITY song, the killer walked past the police car parked outside the Jones’s house. The officer was reading a Tony Hillerman novel and never looked up as the killer passed within two feet of him. Carrying the sleeping child, the killer stepped through the front door and into the living room. Fully clothed, Mr. Jones was asleep on the couch. A stack of beer cans on the end table next to him. An infomercial soundlessly playing on the television. Tall and muscular, but weak and vulnerable in sleep, Mr. Jones was an easy target. The killer could have torn his eyes and heart out and eaten them.
Mrs. Jones was asleep in the master bedroom. Wearing pajama bottoms, her breasts bare, she was curled into a ball. She was sucking on her thumb, her face drawn and crossed with new lines. Even as he slept in the killer’s arms, Mark Jones must have known his mother was close. He must have smelled her, heard her breathing, felt her presence. The restless little boy dreamed of his mother and twisted in the killer’s arms. Mrs. Jones stirred, but didn’t wake.
Carefully, the killer leaned over the bed and set Mark down beside his mother. In her sleep, Mrs. Jones draped an arm over her son. Perhaps she thought it was her husband. Perhaps she was dreaming of Mark. The boy nestled into his mother’s arms. The killer could barely breathe, and wanted to lie down with the mother and child. The killer wanted to press against the mother’s breast and suckle. Then, ever so gently, the killer leaned over the mother, and kissed her cheek. She smiled in her sleep.
The killer quickly left the room, walked past Mr. Jones in the living room, and out to the patrol car. The killer had plans. The officer had fallen asleep with his mystery novel dropped into his lap. Though the window was closed and the door locked, the killer could have broken through the glass. A shotgun, radio, pistol in the holster. The officer was young, inexperienced, on a rookie’s detail, babysitting a house. Standing beside the patrol car, the killer stared back at the house. The killer took two owl feathers out of a pocket and fastened them beneath the patrol car’s windshield wipers. Then the killer ascended into a tall tree to wait and watch.