Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night

"Follow him. Find out what the bastard wants."

"But-"

"Do it."

Woffler hung back a moment, hesitating. Then he stepped forward and disappeared into the woods. Perotta waited on the porch, watching the beam flicker and bob through the trees until it was gone, swallowed up by the woods.

Suddenly it seemed very quiet.

As he waited on the porch, he started to feel a little uneasy himself. He tried to push the feeling aside. Nobody, he reminded himself, could know they were there: nobody. Woffler had rented the cabin online, using a bank account he'd set up in the name and social security number of a dead man. They had pla

He wondered if the guy with the tattooed arms had followed them up here and was trying to pull some shit. But that run-in was almost thirty miles back, and he was sure they hadn't been followed.

He checked his watch. Ten minutes to ten. Where the hell was Woffler?

Maybe it was Woffler. Maybe all his anxiety was just an act. Maybe he hadn't really seen anything in the woods. Maybe this was all an excuse for him to run off with the artifact himself. He might have rented another car, stashed it somewhere nearby.

Perotta skipped back into the house, ducked into the bathroom, pulled the cover off the toilet tank. The knife was there all right, wrapped in its sodden velvet pouch. He replaced the cover and walked thoughtfully back out to the porch.

Could it be Lipski, after all? It didn't seem likely. Sure, Lipski knew by now they'd pulled some shit on him-they were supposed to deliver the knife before 5:00 p.m.-but how would he know where they'd gone? And it sure as hell wasn't the rich Peruvian Lipski claimed to be dealing with, the one who wanted the artifact back for his ancestors or something like that. It was way too early for him to know he'd been screwed.

He supposed it could be Lipski. But how could he trace them? Through Woffler's car, maybe? That was the one weak link. But who'd seen the car? And how could anyone know they'd end up at the lake? The only way would be if they'd been followed.

He checked his watch. Five past ten.

"Woffler?" he called out. "Hey, Woffler?"

The dark wall of trees sighed back.

He cupped his hands. "Woffler!"

His voice echoed back, distant and lost.

He shined his flashlight into the woods, but there was nothing.

"Shit," he muttered.

He turned, went back inside, took a slug of Chivas, took the longest knife he could find from the kitchen and slid it into his belt. Woffler should have taken a weapon. Stupid.

He threw another log on the fire, paced about, picked up the snifter, then put it down without taking another sip. He'd better stay sober; he might need his wits.

He sat down, stood up again. Then he went back out and stood on the porch.

"Woffler! Yo!"

Ten-fifteen. He'd been gone almost half an hour. This was bullshit.

Heart beating fast, he walked down the steps and headed toward the spot where Woffler had vanished into the trees, shining his light on the ground. It had rained recently, and the soft ground, covered with a thick carpet of tiny hemlock needles, retained the clear outline of Woffler's footprints, and those of someone else-someone with smaller feet.

"Hey, Woffler!"

In the ensuing silence, he could hear the faint lapping of the lake. He took a few tentative steps into the woods.

A very distant call came drifting back through the trees, so faint he couldn't distinguish it. It wasn't an echo. "Woffler! Is that you?"

A sound came back-a distant answering cry. But it was high pitched: almost, Perotta thought, like a scream. "Jesus," he muttered.

He shined his light ahead. The two sets of footprints went off into the trees. He swallowed a little painfully. Might as well hurry up and get this over with.

He began hiking fast, following the tracks. The trail wound between huge tree trunks, and the air smelled of pine pitch and damp earth. Once or twice he passed some boulders, as tall as he was, draped with lichen and moss.

"Woffler!"

Perotta quickened his pace. It was stupid to have sent Woffler out there in the first place. He was a city boy, didn't know the first thing about woods. He was probably lost and panicking.

The footprints began skirting a swamp. An owl hooted off in the darkness.

"Woffler, you coming back or what?"

No answer.

He shined the light around, slapped at a mosquito. The trees stood all around him like massive dark pillars. Where the ground became swampy there were thick mats of sphagnum moss. The footprints ran along the soft verge of the swamp, and then they veered in sharply, becoming holes where the feet had sunk through the moss into the mud.

"Jesus." He stopped. Why would Woffler go into the swamp like that?

He shined the light around again, and saw something white, like a mushroom, at the edge of the swamp. He took a step closer. It wasn't a mushroom, after all. It was a shell, a white oyster shell. He bent over and picked it up, then immediately dropped it again, horrified at the rubbery feel.

It fell on the moss, upside down. From this angle, he could see that blood was smeared along one side. It was fresh blood, shiny and intensely red in the glare of the flashlight. Heart pounding, Perotta picked up a stick and turned it over.

It was an ear. A human ear, severed at the stump, with a gold earring through the lobe, set with a red stone.

With an involuntary moan, Perotta took a single step back. It was like a bad dream, the kind of nightmare where something strange and terrible was happening but you were paralyzed, unable to move, unable to get away, no matter how hard you tried.

And then, suddenly, he found movement. With a sharp cry he ran wildly, blindly, through the trees, crashing through brush, clawing through ferns.

He ran and ran until he could run no more, and then he fell. He lay on the sodden ground, breathing so hard his sides burned and he moaned with each exhale, the loamy smell filling his nostrils, choking him. He clawed his way back up and turned around and around, playing the light over the tree trunks. He had no idea where he was; he'd lost the trail. And now he remembered the kitchen knife. He fumbled at his belt, drew it out.

"Woffler!" he screamed. "Where are you? Answer me!"

Nothing.

He played the light over the ground. The ground was heavy with pine needles here, and there were no footprints. Like a goddamn idiot, he'd gotten himself lost. Even if he'd wanted to, there was no way he could retrace his trail.

He tried to calm his pounding heart, get his hyperventilating under control. It probably was Lipski, after all. That was the only answer. Maybe the little shit had suspected them from the begi

Shakily, he began to walk downhill, in the direction he hoped would lead him back to the lake. If he could find the shore, he'd be able to see the lights of the cabin and find his way back to the car and get the hell out.

He saw a sudden movement, a flutter of white, through the trees.

"Woffler?"

But he knew it wasn't Woffler.

"I'll cut you!" he screamed, backing up, brandishing the knife. "Don't come near me!"

He turned and ran away from the fluttering movement, slashing through waist-high ferns. He ran and ran and then stopped again, heaving for air, shining the light around wildly, turning and turning.

Another flutter of white.

"Get away from me!" He backed up against a tree, the yellow beam of his flashlight jerking and flitting about the trunks.

"Lipski, look. You can have the knife, it's in the toilet tank inside the cabin. Go ahead. Just leave me alone."