Bad Men

The man turned.

Dupree gave him a second warning.

The man laughed, then raised his gun and fired in the policeman’s direction.

Dupree pulled the trigger and blew him into the marsh.

Braun’s lower body took the force of the blast, and he fell backward, his feet slipping from beneath him. The trees tilted crazily and he was lost for a moment in snowflakes, suspended between the path and the blackness below. Then his back hit the water and his head disappeared into the murk. He tasted rot and decay, and even as the pain began to separate body from mind, life from death, he attempted to raise himself up. His face cleared the surface and he spit mud and vegetation from his mouth. He tried to open his eyes, but his vision was blurred. He could see the shape of the cop, Dupree, the gun held to his shoulder as he approached him along the path, and he could sense movement in the marsh to his right and left as the black beings converged upon him.

The cop was right above him now. Braun was dying. He could feel it as a gathering darkness, punctured by slivers of red, like wounds in burnt skin. It was coming slowly, too slowly. The things in the bog were faster. They would get to him first, and Braun didn’t want that. He didn’t want to go that way.

With a last surge of effort, Braun raised his gun from the water and died in the shotgun’s merciful roar.

Moloch cleared the trees first and stood looking at the remains of Carl Lubey’s burning house. The garage door was open and he could see the truck inside, the hood gaping, the shape of the cab behind it making it seem like the flaming skull of some great bird. Scarfe and Dexter took up positions at either side of him. Nobody spoke for a moment.

“Looks like our ride’s gone,” said Dexter.

Scarfe shielded his face from the heat of the flames and thought about ru

There was a rustle of bushes to Scarfe’s right and a female cop appeared. Her gun was in her hand. Scarfe looked at her, then Moloch and Dexter followed his lead.

Scarfe recognized Macy at the same instant that she recognized him.

“Aw, this is just great,” said Scarfe.

Dexter didn’t even wait for the cop to speak. He just started shooting.

I was too slow, thought Macy, dumb and slow, but the black man had moved so fast, forcing her to run. Then the others had joined in, and the forest around her was now alive with falling branches, shredded leaves, and the hiss of bullets melting snow. Macy hit a rock with her foot and went tumbling down the slope at the rear of Carl Lubey’s property, wrenching her ankle painfully before at last coming to rest among a pile of trash and discarded metal. She was in Lubey’s private dump, and it stank. Macy got to her feet, but her ankle almost instantly collapsed beneath her weight, so she leaned against a tree for support. Above her, she heard the men moving, but the trees on the slope shielded her from the light of the fire.

There was another blast of gunfire. Macy pressed her face hard into the tree and drew her body in as close as she could to the trunk. A bullet blew bark inches from her face and she closed her eyes a second too late to avoid being momentarily blinded by a spray of wood and sap. It got into her mouth and she coughed, trying desperately to mask the sound with the sleeve of her jacket.

But the men heard her.

A thrashing came from the trees above as one of them began to descend.

Macy, hurt and afraid, headed into the forest.

They sent Scarfe.

According to Moloch’s map and the late Carl Lubey’s directions, they were pretty close to his wife’s house. Scarfe could take care of the cop while they got the woman. They would wait for Scarfe at her house, then find a car and head back to the boat.

It sounded simple.

Even Scarfe thought it sounded easy, except he had no intention of coming back to the woman’s house. Scarfe wasn’t really a killer. He’d never killed anybody, but he was pretty certain that he could do it if he had to. The cop knew who he was. If she got away, Scarfe would be in serious shit. Maine didn’t have the death penalty, but he’d die behind bars as an accomplice to murder if the cop lived to tell what she’d seen. Scarfe was a weak man and a coward, but he was quite capable, under those circumstances, of killing a cop.

The ground was now rising beneath Macy’s feet, the slope gradually becoming more pronounced so that she could feel the effort of the climb in her right leg. She was trying to keep her weight off her left foot, although the pain was not as intense now. It was a pretty bad sprain, but at least the ankle wasn’t broken. That said, her pursuer was gaining on her. She couldn’t see well enough in the snow to pick him out but she could hear him. There was only one, but uninjured and perhaps better armed than she was.

Ahead of her, a tall structure blotted out the descending snow: the island’s main observation tower, the one she had explored during her introductory tour earlier that day. Watching for rocks and stray roots, she made her way toward it.

The rusted iron door stood partially open. She had slipped the bolt earlier, she recalled, and had wrapped the chain around it. Someone had been there since then. From behind came the sounds of her pursuer. She couldn’t keep ru

A moth was bouncing against one of the windows. She looked up and in the faint light saw more of the insects fluttering around the room. One of them brushed against her face and she slapped it away, feeling it against her palm and then instinctively rubbing her hand against her leg as if she risked contamination from its touch.

A noise came from somewhere above her. It sounded like boards creaking beneath the weight of a footfall. Macy’s bowels churned. She shouldn’t have come in here. The realization hit her with the force of a fist. Everything about the place felt wrong. She was like a rat caught in a maze with no prize at the end of it, or an insect teetering on the edge of a jar of sugared water.

The sound came again, clearer now. She imagined that she heard someone crying. It sounded like a little girl.

“Hey?” called Macy softly. “Hey, are you okay?”

Scarfe saw a gray shape in the shadows, moving close to the ground. He raised his gun, then pivoted swiftly to his right as he registered a second presence in the trees, then a third behind him, the shapes in a state of constant movement, circling him from the shelter of the forest.

“Who’s there?” he whispered, more to himself than to anyone else. Then, louder: “Who’s there?”

The sound of the wind in the trees was almost deafening. A mist appeared to rise before him and he thought that he could discern figures and, for a second, even faces. Then the figures spread out, moving faster, trying to surround him.