Two weeks after meeting Davey and touching his blood, the transformation of Charlotte’s body was complete. She progressed beyond infected and became infectious—able to pass the mutation through her blood and saliva.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Mike
“HI MORRIS, I’M MIKE,” he said, extending his hand to the expressionless man sitting in the booth.
Morris’s voice rumbled low as he spoke. “I don’t know what Roland told you, but I don’t support poaching,” he said, ignoring Mike’s outstretched hand.
“No, I know,” said Mike, sliding onto the other bench-seat of the booth. “I told him, it’s not like that.”
“That’s what he said,” said Morris. “Roland says a lot of things. He does a lot of poaching too.”
Mike reached out and moved the maple syrup jar. Each time Morris spoke, his resounding voice rattled it against the salt shaker.
“I’m not after an animal,” explained Mike. “And I’m not going to kill it. I just want to catch it.”
“And Roland said he owed you for what you did with the Loogaroo, but I don’t owe you. Just so long as we’re clear,” said Morris.
“Perfectly clear,” said Mike. “Just hear me out, and then tell me what you think.”
Morris nodded.
Mike started at the beginning and told his story. He didn’t leave out a single detail, from the ghost of the drowned woman through to his brief incarceration. Mike ended with telling Morris the revelation he’d had in the interrogation room—that the creature was headed for where Mike and Gary had first used the paranormal amplifier at the river.
Morris simply watched him talk. Mike finished, sipped his coffee, and waited for a response.
Morris slid halfway out of the booth before addressing Mike. “I’ve got to be up that way on Thursday,” he said. “I know where that trail is. I’ll meet you where The Ledges trail splits off.”
“Thank you,” Mike said to Morris’s back.
AS HE ASCENDED THE HILL, Mike began to suspect that Morris was no longer following him. He paused at the big rock to look back. He grabbed his chest, surprised to find the tall man directly behind him.
“You scared me,” he said, panting.
Morris stared at him, still emotionless.
“I forgot to show you this the other day.” Mike pulled out his phone and pulled up the picture of the print he had taken at the crime-scene house. “There’s no way to see the scale of the thing, but it’s a pretty good picture of the footprint. I guess it doesn’t tell you very much,” he babbled, waiting for Morris to reply.
“No shoes,” said Morris finally.
“Yeah, well sure, he’s barefoot.” Mike was puzzled.
“I mean he’s never worn shoes with a toe box,” Morris said.
“Oh? How can you tell?”
“Toes spread too wide. You might see that in a third world country, but not around here,” said Morris.
“I was just thinking,” said Mike. “If the man came down this way, I’m probably stomping all over his trial.”
“Nothing has been down this way,” said Morris. “Except you.”
Mike tried to keep his doubt from his face. His last hike on this trail had been more than a week before, and he seriously doubted that any tracker could speak definitively about activity on a rocky, gravel trail.
“Okay,” said Mike. He caught his breath to the best of his ability and scaled the rock that blocked the clearing. Dropping down on the other side, he was quickly followed by the large man.
“Stop,” said Morris. He blocked Mike with his arm.
Mike thought back to the explanation he had given Morris in the diner. He wondered if his description could possibly have informed Morris well enough for him to guess that this was the clearing.
Morris skirted the clearing, placing each foot carefully, and bent close to the ground several times. Finally, with Mike watching in awe, Morris approached the small opening to the cave. When he knelt to examine the entrance, he dropped behind a rock. Mike began to creep forward to try to see what Morris was doing. He stopped himself when he remembered Morris’s last order.
“It’s okay,” said Morris, still behind the rock.
Mike approached and found the tracker studying the bodies of the decapitated bats.
“I thought those would be gone by now,” said Mike, “carried off or something.”
“Nothing’s going to touch these,” said Morris, his voice echoing slightly in the cave’s depths.
“How come?”
“I don’t know,” said Morris. “But I don’t even want to touch them.”
Neither man spoke for a few minutes while Morris shielded his eyes and tried to look into the darkness of the cave.
“Are you going in there?” asked Mike.
“Nope,” said Morris. “Nothing to see.”
“So what do you make of this?” asked Mike.
“Something strange,” said Morris. “Don’t know what yet.”
“Can you tell anything from all this? Any ideas at all?”
Morris turned his gaze to the horizon and then glanced back down to the ground, as if he were watching something move across the landscape. When his eyes touched the edge of the forest, he looked back to Mike. “Your man’s big,” he said.
“Yeah, I thought so. I told you about the footprint, right? It was right over here." Mike crossed to the sandy place and pointed down, but when he looked up, Morris was already headed back for the big rock and the trail back to his truck.
Mike scurried behind him to catch up.
“So, are you going to help me track him?” he asked.
Morris kept walking, but turned his head briefly for his monosyllabic answer. “Yup.”
THEY TOOK SEPARATE CARS all the way to Montville, where they joined up in the parking lot of a shopping mall near the highway. Morris studied several USGS maps in silence for the better part of twenty minutes while he traced his finger between the points of the murders.
“You have a street address on the latest?” he asked Mike.
“No,” said Mike. “They just said Sandham Depot, which is a little suburb north of town here." He pointed to a tight grid of roads edged by railroad tracks. Tight contour lines described the tall hills encompassing the neighborhood.
“We need to go there,” said Morris.
“Let’s go,” said Mike.
Those were the last words either man would speak for an hour. Each time Mike would open his mouth to say something, he would glance at Morris and get the distinct feeling that his conversation would fall on deaf ears. He thought that Morris’s feelings for him were something less than contempt, but perhaps bordered on apathy.
When they reached Sandham Depot, Morris drove his truck up and down several side streets. Mike finally found his tongue.
“What are we looking for?” he asked.
“That,” said Morris.
He parked across the street from a slightly rundown old house with a realtor’s sign in the yard. Mike almost missed the thin strip of yellow tape sealing the front door, but saw it once Morris pointed it out. Pulling down the street a few more car-lengths, they both saw the yellow markers set up in the back yard.
Morris located their position on the map and then repeated his silent finger-tracing until he landed on a point north of their location. He pulled away from the curb and moved through, heading towards the northern ridgeline.