He drove three miles up the rugged fire lane, until he came to an even more rugged, overgrown trail. A mile later, at the end of that trail, he parked the Jeep in a tunnel of brush and climbed out.
In addition to the HK91, he had a sackful of other guns from Johnson's closet, plus the $63,440, which was distributed through the seven zippered pockets m the hunting jacket he wore. The only other thing he carried was a flashlight, and that was really all he needed because the limestone caves would be well stocked with other supplies.
The last quarter of a mile had to be covered on foot, and he had intended to finish the journey right away, but he had quickly found that even with the flashlight the forest was confusing at night, in the fog. Getting lost was almost a certainty. Once lost in this wilderness, you could wander in circles, within yards of your destination, never discovering how close you were to salvation. After only a few paces, Kale had m back to the Jeep to wait for daylight.
Even if the two dead deputies at the blockade were discovered before morning, and even if the cops figured the killer had come onto the mountain, they wouldn't launch a manhunt until first light. By the time the police reached here tomorrow, Kale would be snug in the caves.
He had slept on the front seat of the Jeep. It wasn't the Plaza Hotel, but it was more comfortable than jail.
Now, standing beside the Jeep in the wan tight of early morning, he listened for the sounds of a search party. He heard nothing. He hadn't really expected to hear anything. It wasn't his destiny to rot in prison. His future was golden. He was sure of that.
He yawned, stretched, then pissed against the trunk of a big pine.
Thirty minutes later, when there was more light, he followed the foot-path he hadn't been able to find last night. And he saw something that hadn't been obvious in the dark: The brush was extensively trampled. People had been through here recently.
He proceeded with caution, cradling the HK91 in his right arm, ready to blow away anyone who might try to ambush him.
In less than half an hour, he came out of the trees, into the clearing around the log cabin — and saw why the footpath had been trampled. Eight motorcycles were lined up alongside the cabin, big Harleys, all emblazoned with the name DEMON CHROME.
Gene Teer's bunch of misfits. Not all of them. About half the gang, by the looks of it.
Kale crouched against an outcropping of limestone and studied the mist-wrapped cabin. No one was in sight. He quietly fished in the laundry bag, located a fresh magazine for the HK91, rammed it in place.
How had Teer and his vicious playmates gotten here? A two-wheel trip up the mountain would have been difficult, wildly dangerous, a nerve-twisting bit of motocross. Of course, those crazy bastards thrived on danger.
But what the devil were the doing here? How had they found the cabin, and why had they come?
As he listened for a voice, for some indication of where the cyclists were and what they were up to, Kale realized there weren't even any animal or insect sounds. No birds. Absolutely nothing. Spooky.
Then, behind him, a rustle in the brush. A soft sound. In the pretematural silence, it might as well have been a cannon shot.
Kale had been kneeling on the ground. With catlike quickness, he fell on his side, rolled onto his back, brought up the HK91.
He was prepared to kill, but he wasn't prepared for what he saw. It was Jake Johnson, about twenty-five feet away, coming out of the trees and fog, grinning. Naked. Utterly bareassed.
Other movement. To the left of Johnson. Farther along the treeline.
Kale caught it from the corner of his eye and whipped his head around, swung the rifle in that direction.
Another man came out of the woods, through the mist, with the tall grass fluttering around his bare legs. He was also naked. And grinning broadly.
But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst part was that the second man was also Jake Johnson.
Kale looked from one to the other, startled and baffled. They were as perfectly alike as a set of identical twins.
But Jake was an only child — wasn't he? Kale had never heard anything about a twin.
A third figure advanced from the shadows beneath the spreading boughs of a huge spruce. This one, too, was Jake Johnson.
Kale couldn't breathe.
Maybe there was an outside chance that Johnson had a twin, but he damned well wasn't one of triplets.
Something was horribly wrong. Suddenly, it wasn't just the impossible triplets that frightened Kale. Suddenly, everything seemed menacing: the forest, the mist, the stony contours of the mountainside…
The three look-alikes walked slowly up the slope on which Kale was sprawled, closing in from different angles. Their eyes were strange, and their mouths were cruel.
Kale scrambled to his feet, heart lurching. “Stop right there!”
But they didn't stop, even though he brandished the assault rifle.
“Who are you? What are you? What is this?” Kale demanded.
They didn't answer. Kept coming. Like zombies.
He grabbed the bag that was filled with guns, and he backed rapidly and clumsily away from the nightmarish show.
No. Not a trio any more. A quartet. Downslope, a fourth Jake Johnson came out of the trees, stark naked like the rest.
Kale's fear trembled on the edge of panic.
The four moved toward Kale with hardly a sound; dried leaves underfoot; nothing else. They made no complaint about the stones and sharp weeds and prickly burrs that must have hurt their feet. One of them began to lick his lips hungrily. The others immediately began to lick their lips, too.
A quiver of icy dread went through Kale's bowels, and he wondered if he had lost his mind. But that thought was short-lived. Unfamiliar with self-doubt, he didn't know how to entertain it for long.
He dropped the laundry bag, clutched the HK91 in both hands, and opened fire, describing an are with the spurting muzzle of the gun. The bullets hit. He saw them tear into the four men, saw the wounds burst open. But there was no blood. And as soon as the wounds blossomed, they withered; they healed, vanished within seconds.
The men kept coming.
No. Not men. Something else.
Hallucinations? Years ago, in high school, Kale had dropped a lot of acid. Now he remembered that flashbacks could plague you months — even years — after you stopped using LSD. He'd never had acid flashbacks before, but he'd heard about them. Was that what was happening here? Hallucinations?
Perhaps.
On the other hand… all four of the men were glistening, as if the morning mists were condensing on their bare skin, and that wasn't the sort of detail you usually noticed in a hallucination. And this entire situation was very different from any drug experience he'd ever known.
Still grinning, the nearest Doppelganger raised one arm, pointed at Kale. Incredibly, the flesh of that hand split and peeled away from the fingers, from the palm. The flesh actually appeared to ooze bloodlessly back into the arm, as if it were wax melting and running from a flame; the wrist became thicker with this tissue, and then the hand was nothing but bones, white bones. One skeletal finger pointed at Kale.
Pointed with anger, scorn, and accusation.
Kale's mind reeled.
The other three look-alikes had undergone even more macabre changes. One had lost the flesh from part of his face: A cheekbone shone through, a row of teeth; the right eye, deprived of a lid and of all surrounding tissue, gleamed wetly in the calcimined socket. The third man was missing a chunk of flesh from his torso; you could see his sharp ribs and slick wet organs pulsing darkly inside. The fourth walked on one normal leg and one leg that was only bones and tendons.