Ducking down low to stay out of the cabin’s light, she crept to the front door. Squatting next to it, she reached one shaking hand up to the handle.
Noah arriving at the cabin, full of despair, sobbing…
Leaving the safety of the Jeep, tentatively approaching the front door, determined and full of terror…
Reaching in through the broken pane of glass in the door, letting himself in. Planning to lie in wait behind the bedroom door, intentionally leaving his car in plain sight so the creature would know he was there and be braced for a confrontation, perhaps get his heart pumping so that when Noah cut him, the blood would flow that much more freely into Noah’s waiting mouth…
Noah imagining himself manifesting the gleaming spikes from each arm, impaling the screaming creature against one wall of the cabin, then detaching the spike so the creature could never rise again…
Madeline released her grip on the handle and exhaled, clearing her mind. Bracing her back against the cool wood of the cabin’s wall, she remained in shadow. She studied the front door of the cabin. She saw the broken pane but didn’t know if Noah had entered already, as he’d intended to do in the vision. She would have to touch the inside doorknob to know that.
Silently, heart threatening to beat right out of her chest, mouth gone dry, knees trembling, Madeline approached one of the front windows at an angle. Trying to remain out of sight, she stared in from one far corner, keeping her distance from the pane.
She didn’t see anyone, just the empty front room and the kitchen beyond.
She strained her ears.
The wind in the boughs.
A bat emitting a high-pitched squeak as it hunted moths in the tree canopy above.
Crickets singing.
The roar of a distant waterfall.
Stepping forward, she pressed one ear against the wooden wall of the cabin. For several long moments she remained there, straining to hear anything within.
She heard nothing.
Ducking beneath the window, she crept toward the front door again, her feet shuffling in the soft bed of pine needles. She waited a moment, wide eyes searching the darkness around the cabin to be sure she was alone.
Then, standing up slowly, back pressed against the wall, she peered in at an angle through the windows in the front door. She saw tile and a well-worn welcome mat.
Biting her lower lip and holding her breath, she snaked her hand in through the broken pane, fingers groping for the doorknob on the other side. Her hand closed around a cold, metal knob.
Noah unlocking and opening the door. Walking inside.
Exploring the cabin. Finding it empty. Returning to relock the front door and then lie in wait in the bedroom.
An agonized scream rang out, clipped off abruptly by a strangled choke.
Startled, she withdrew her hand, cutting it accidentally on the broken glass.
She recognized the scream, had heard it that first night on the mountain and later at this very cabin. Another long shriek pierced her eardrums, followed by wretched sobbing and pleading before the screams began again.
It was Noah. And this time, she feared, he was not going to live.
Remaining where she stood, she summoned up the dregs of her courage. Then she opened the door.
23
LEAVING the door open, Madeline entered the cabin.
In the bedroom, Noah’s anguished screams reached an intolerable pitch. She wondered how anyone could cause such agony in another being, especially how someone could enjoy doing it.
And she had no idea how to go up against someone like that.
She pulled out her pocket knife, which suddenly looked too small. Extending the large blade, she gripped the handle in one hand. Then, eyes darting over an assortment of kitchen objects, she looked for anything else she could use as a weapon. Her eyes fell on the well-worn chairs with the aluminum frames.
Not waiting to lose her nerve, she tiptoed into the kitchen. From here she could see into the bedroom, but the door was mostly closed, and through the crack she only saw part of the rumpled bed.
Fingers closing around the frame of a chair, she lifted it and moved swiftly to the bedroom door as another shriek reverberated in the confines of the cabin. Windows rattled. A spoon on the Formica counter vibrated to a new position.
Madeline readied herself and kicked the bedroom door as hard as she could. It thrust open, slammed against something meaty, then gave way again as the mass fell away to one side. She burst into the room, eyes taking in the situation as her shaking hands gripped the chair and knife with clammy fingers.
Drenched in so much blood that she could barely make out his features, Noah hung from a hook on the opposite wall, white shirt in ribbons around his waist. Madeline blinked. No. Not a shirt. His skin. He had been flayed alive. Visions of the Sickle Moon Killer leapt into her mind-his euphoria in cutting and eating his victims-the scene was intolerably familiar to her.
“Madeline,” he breathed, peering at her with eyes delirious from pain.
On the floor lay Stefan, in what Madeline had come to believe was his original form, a muscular, olive-skinned man with shoulder-length black hair. Noah’s blood covered his hands, and he gripped the same flaying knife he’d used on the train. She’d knocked him over with the door.
She stepped forward, bringing the chair down as hard as she could on his head. His hand went limp from the shock of the blow, and she kicked the knife out of it. Then she stabbed her pocket knife into his heart. Grasping the handle, he pulled it out, and she brought the chair down again, knocking the pocket knife out of his grasp. It skittered across the floor, landing under the dresser.
His hand lunged out to retrieve the flaying knife at his feet as she brought one leg of the chair down onto his hand. The sharp metal leg drove deeply into his flesh there, and she heard the distinct snapping of bones. Not having time to grab it herself, she kicked the knife across the room.
Stefan rolled over on his back, taking her in.
She brought the chair down hard into his face, one leg entering his eye. He screamed, thrashing, his legs kicking her where she stood. She stumbled, fell to one knee, her weight slamming down onto the chair. For a brief moment Stefan lay nailed to the floor, the leg of the chair embedded deeply in his skull.
Metamorphosing, clawed hands reached up and grabbed the chair leg, gripped it firmly, and wrenched it out. He cast the chair to one side with Madeline still leaning on it, and she rolled harshly to the side, banging her head against one leg of the bed.
In an instant Stefan was on his feet, standing over her. She rolled over, clutching her head and stared up at him in a daze from the blow. He lifted a leg and drove it down on her knee. She heard a sickening pop and excruciating pain flooded through her. She grabbed her ruined knee, struggling to sit up. His clawed hand closed around her neck and forced her to her feet.
Her knee screamed in protest as her weight hit it. Stefan stared at her in fury, one eye destroyed and streaming with blood, the other glowing fiery red and widening into a luminescent disk.
She brought her fists up in a flurry of powerful blows, connecting with his gut, solar plexus, throat, and ruined eye. Then she drove her thumb into the eye socket and, screaming, he released her. Her knee buckled, and she stumbled but regained her balance, staggering back against the metal bed frame. She grabbed the metal eagerly, trying to remain standing.
The chair lay just to her left, and she grabbed it again before Stefan had a chance to recover. Swinging it high in an arc over her head, she leaped forward and struck him once again on the head, then brought it up, uppercutting his chin and then shoved it forward, driving him against the wall. The same sharp leg that had claimed his eye now slid into his abdomen.