Five minutes after that he was outside. Behind the brick barracks the woods began, and he slipped into them quickly, making his way along a well-worn path toward a clearing half a mile in. He’d been invited there last summer, a place reserved for those who wanted to drink, or whatever, alone, without the hassle of officially leaving the post.
Actually, the clearing was beyond the post’s boundary, which meant that its users were technically AWOL.
Not that anybody cared.
One part of these damn woods was the same as another.
He took the first sip almost before the barracks lights were blocked by the trees, gasping at the hundred-proof sweetness, smacking his lips as the throbbing began to fade. This was a great idea, and beat counting holes all to hell and gone. He took another drink, tucked the pint into the sling, and pulled out the flash. The beam was narrow, but he only needed it to warn him of pine boughs and oak branches. The trail itself had been used so often, it was practically a ditch.
He moved quickly, glancing up now and then in hopes of seeing the stars or the moon. It wasn’t that he was afraid of the woods. Not really. For a city boy, he had learned to take them or leave them.
What he didn’t like was the voice the trees had.
When the breeze blew, there were whispers, like old men talking about him behind their hands; when the air was still, the leaves still moved, nudged by night things who stayed just out of reach of the narrow white beam.
He drank again.
The woods talked to him.
He stopped once and checked behind him, slashing the beam up the trail, seeing nothing but grey trunks and colorless underbrush.
He drank, walked, and cursed when he realized the first pint was already empty. He tossed the bottle aside angrily, took out the second one, and slipped it into the sling. Later; that one was for later.
The breeze kicked into a gust of strong wind, damp and cool.
The branches danced and whispered.
Okay, he thought, so maybe not such a hot idea after all. Maybe he should just go back, lay down, drink himself into a stupor and let the sarge do his worst in the morning.
His head ached, his arm ached, his jaw ached.
“Jesus,” he muttered.
Another gust shoved him off the trail, the beam blurring across the ground, sparkling as it passed through pockets of mist.
Something moved, out there in the dark.
Something large.
Frankie swayed, wishing he hadn’t drunk so much, wishing he hadn’t taken those pills first.
His stomach felt on fire, and sweat had broken out across his brow and down his spine.
It wasn’t warm at all.
The wind had turned cold.
He heard it again, something moving toward him, not bothering to mask its approach.
His first thought was Jersey Devil, and he giggled. Right. A real live monster in the middle of New Jersey. Right. Tell me another.
His stomach lurched.
He swallowed hard and hurried on, swerving around a bush whose thorns clawed at his legs. His broken arm burned now, too, and he cradled it with his free hand, sending the beam sideways, poking at the black without pushing it away.
When he collided with a sapling that threw him to the ground, he cried out, cursed, kicked himself awkwardly to his feet and demanded to know who the hell was out there, he was a sick man, he was lost, goddamnit, and he didn’t need this shit.
The wind tugged at his hair, plucked at his shirt.
A drop of rain splattered on the tip of nose.
“Oh great,” he muttered. “That’s just fucking great.”
Something in the trees overhead.
Something in the dark just behind.
He wiped his face with a forearm, used the flashlight like a lance as he found a clear path and broke into a slow trot. It wasn’t the right trail, but it had to lead somewhere, and right now somewhere other than here was exactly where he wanted to be.
Stupid; he was stupid.
The sarge was going to kill him, Angie was going to kill him, and Howie would definitely kill him when he found his stash gone.
Something behind.
Something above.
Light rain slipped between the leaves, between the branches.
God, he thought, get me outta here.
He swerved easily around a gnarled oak, dodged the grasp of a cage of white birch. He couldn’t hear anything but his own breathing now, and the wind, and the patter of the rain, but he couldn’t stop running. Every step exploded in his arm, but he couldn’t stop running, following the sweep and dart of the beam until he rounded a thicket and the ground was gone.
He yelled as he tumbled into a ditch, screamed when he landed on his arm, and blacked out until the pain brought him back.
Rain on his face, like the touch of spider legs.
He rolled onto his knees and hand, and threw up until his throat burned. Then he rocked back on his heels, amazed that the flashlight was still in his grip. He used it to check the ditch, saw it was barely three feet deep.
And there was a road.
“All right!”
Dizzy, swallowing rapidly, he staggered to his feet and looked back at the woods.
No way. No way. He would hike until someone found him, or he found a way back to the post. If it was an MP patrol, who cared? Anything was better than this. Even the sarge.
He slipped-crawled up the other side and onto the tarmac, took a deep breath, and began walking.
The ditch ended a few yards later, the trees closing in, not even leaving a shoulder.
It didn’t take long before the pain finally reasserted itself and he had to stop, lean against a dead pine whose branches had been stripped off all the way to the top. There were several of them here, and he figured it was lightning, a quick fire; there was a lot of patches like this here in the Barrens.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, move your butt.”
Maybe a drink.
One drink.
The rain was cold and the wind was cold and he was too cold for a spring night like this. He reached into the sling, and laughed when he pulled out the second pint, intact.
He unscrewed the cap and lifted the bottle in a toast to the sky.
He drank and licked his lips.
He lowered his head and saw the outline of a covered Jeep not fifty yards ahead, parked on the left.
He grinned, waved the flashlight, and started up the road, every few feet bracing himself against one of the trees. It wasn’t the MPs, thank God. Probably somebody out to get a little with a townie. He laughed. A Jeep, while it was possible, was hardly the best way in the world.
He drank and waved the flashlight again.
The passenger door swung open, and he saw a woman’s face.
“Hey!” he called. Hiccuped. “Give a guy a lift?”
The woman’s face disappeared.
He drank and grinned, stumbled, and reached out to catch himself on a trunk.
The wood was soft.
Too soft.
He yelped and jumped back, the bottle dropping from his hand.
He aimed the flashlight unsteadily, and saw the arm reach out of the bark.
He saw the blade.
He heard himself scream.
But he could only scream once.
FOUR
Mulder freely admitted to anyone who asked that his office, such as it was, seldom complied, strictly or otherwise, with regulations. While he knew where everything was, usually, it wasn’t always where Bureau Section Heads decreed it ought to be. Controlled tornado was how one of his friends had put it; a hell of a mess was how he described it. Usually with a shrug. Always without apology. Nevertheless, despite the fact that it was in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, it served its purpose; and the fact that he still had it after all the waves he had made over previous X-File cases was, to more than a few, a minor miracle.