Quickly she rushed to the back bedroom window and looked out. His Jeep was gone. She bit her lip.
Damn.
It was suicide.
And maybe suicide was exactly what he wanted.
16
MADELINE jumped in her VW Rabbit and started up the engine. The strong smell of the fire still filled the confines of the cab. Backing quickly out of the pine needle-strewn parking space, she pulled onto the main campground road, heading in the direction of Stefan’s cabin.
She didn’t get far.
The road was blocked about a thousand yards down the road. A line of traffic formed behind a ranger’s truck, the lights of which whirled and flashed, playing over the metal of the cars behind it. She couldn’t see why the ranger’s car was pulled over, though; the hulking masses of lined-up RVs saw to that. Most were so tall she couldn’t even see two cars in front of her.
Madeline tried to see what the holdup was by craning her neck and leaning over into the passenger seat. No luck. She could only see one corner of the ranger’s truck. She rolled her window down and instantly heard someone screaming angrily. A few people were out of their cars looking in the direction of the commotion. Some had even pulled out binoculars and stood on the doorsills of their RVs. The holdup showed no sign of clearing up quickly.
Madeline’s brow furrowed. She had to get to Stefan’s cabin. And this was the only way out.
“Goddammit!” she heard the angry voice scream. It was a man’s voice, but so hysterical and raging the guy barely made sense. What could have happened? Had someone tried to feed a bear and met with his just desserts? Was he even now cradling the stump of an arm or a chewed face, cursing at the park service?
The driver of the vehicle in front of her, a heavyset man with an Oregon Ducks sweatshirt on, was deep in conversation with the RV owner in front of him.
She tried to listen in.
“I don’t know,” Oregon Ducks was saying. “Just went crazy, I think.”
She wondered if he was referring to the screaming man or the possible bear who had mauled him for behaving stupidly.
Morbid curiosity tugged at her to go look at the source of the turmoil, but she knew she’d just get in the way. If some guy was injured or “going crazy,” the rangers would need space to work.
For three more minutes she sat in her Rabbit, and still the screaming persisted, though now it was completely incomprehensible.
“Why don’t they just tranquilize the guy or something?” murmured Oregon Duck to the other RV owner. “We’ve been here forever.” He had walked in front of the other guy’s RV, had his binoculars out, and was surveying the scene.
Finally Madeline decided to climb out and see what the fuss was. She shut the door behind her, pocketed her keys, and walked up to Oregon Ducks.
“What’s going on?” she asked him.
He answered without removing the binoculars from his eyes. “Some crazy guy is down there screaming at the rangers in the middle of the road. He’s poured gas all over himself but doesn’t have a lighter. He keeps telling them they’ve got to set him on fire. Can you believe it? They’re trying to talk him down. Jeez! This is just like an episode of Real Trauma!” The man’s face positively gleamed as he took in the scene, delighting in the stranger’s ordeal.
He made her sick.
She had no idea what Real Trauma was, but she suspected it was one of those reality shows where they showed people getting eaten by sharks or falling off bridges.
“You don’t understand!” she heard the man scream. “If I can’t kill him, what fucking use am I?” The suddenly coherent though still maniacal voice was uncannily familiar.
Madeline raced forward, down the line of cars to the front. Oregon Ducks yelled “Hey!” behind her.
When she reached the ranger’s truck, she immediately saw the law enforcement ranger Suzanne, who’d helped her the night she arrived desperate and wounded from the backcountry. Steve stood next to her, both talking quietly and serenely, their hands out in supplication. And in front of them stood Noah, doused head to foot in gasoline.
His Jeep was parked off the road with a dripping hose hanging from the gas tank.
“Help is on the way,” Steve was saying.
“I don’t want fucking help!” Noah yelled. “I want a fucking match and you people to leave me the fuck alone!”
For a moment, though the voice belonged to Noah, Madeline couldn’t even believe the figure before the two rangers was actually him. His blond hair lay plastered to his face, eyes red and enraged, fingers tensed into fists at his side, neck muscles and veins bulging. He stood hunched over, glaring at them with an intense hate she’d never seen in someone before, like a force of violent energy striking out in pulsating, visceral waves. If he had a gun right then, she had no doubt he would have shot the rangers. His demeanor made her think of a rabid dog, all sense of peace and logic gone, just a snarling, snapping beast in agony, lashing out at anyone stupid enough to approach it.
“If I can’t kill him, what fucking use am I?”
She couldn’t imagine the hopelessness Noah must be feeling. He’d followed Stefan for two hundred years, finally had the perfect weapon, the only weapon, to destroy him, and now it was gone.
But this-this was an insane, hateful way to end things.
None of them had seen her yet.
Now she stepped out behind the ranger’s truck and approached them. “Noah,” she said, when she’d reached Steve’s side. “This is crazy. Please don’t do this.”
He took her in, rage-filled eyes roaming over her. In a rain of spittle he uttered low and threateningly, “You goddamn, lousy sack of worthless shit! I’d still have the knife if it weren’t for you! I should kill you before I kill myself, reach in your belly and rip out your intestines, tear your face apart, you foul, useless shit!” He advanced suddenly, and Steve stepped quickly in the way, holding out his hand in protest.
Noah went on. “I’ll take you down with me before you have the chance to fuck up someone else’s life! You’re a god-damned joke!” Stopping in his tracks, he suddenly cocked his head to one side and said in a mocking voice, “ ‘I’ll help you stop him.’ ” She remembered saying those very words to Noah when she’d returned in the middle of the night after the forest fire ordeal. She’d meant them. Her mouth fell open, his words cutting to the core. He continued to mock her. “ ‘But ooops! Gosh, did I let the creature get the knife?’ ” Then he roared in her face, rushing forward and colliding with Steve’s outstretched hand. “ ‘Yes, I fucking did!’ ” Spittle rained over her face.
The reek of gasoline was unbearable. She staggered backward, her eyes stinging as a huge lump formed in her throat. She hadn’t let the creature have the knife.
Suddenly she wondered if he was the creature, once again taking on Noah’s appearance, saying these terrible things to drive them apart. They’d be less of a threat individually. It made sense.
But one look in his eyes told her that this was the genuine article; his grief-stricken face was the same face that had relayed to her the story of Anna’s death. The creature could be convincing, but not this convincing.
He continued to scream at her as Suzanne gently pushed her back, out of his reach. “I should have fucking left you for dead on the mountain. Or better yet, used you for bait. While he was feasting on your ruined corpse, I could have snuck up behind him and finished him off once and for all.”
“Noah!” she cried, wounded and retreating. Her mind spun. The rage in his eyes took on an almost physical manifestation. The veins in his neck bulged, his lips drawn back cruelly from his teeth as he shouted.