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Putting her in the rear view, I turned against the stiff leather seat in time to watch a medical examiner pull on gloves beside the ghastly arrow of a tail. The pelt belonged to an animal and yet my mind leaped to the sagging, flayed skin of St. Bartholomew in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. Would the spring breeze blow dandelion tufts of fur from the pelt and leave behind a man’s bruised shell? Stomach churning, I rolled the window and leaned into sunshine, unsure if I was going to puke or cry.
After a few minutes, a hand brushed my shoulder, drawing my attention back inside. “You alright, Miss Davins?”
“Does his family know?” I croaked.
“Know what?”
“That the blood on my porch isn’t the kind activists throw on paintings, at least, not ones I’ve cleaned.”
The sheriff’s grip tightened on the wheel. “Seeing as their property abuts yours, I reckon they do or will soon.”
“That was a lot blood.”
“Mr. Vilkas was a lot of man.” The colorful Dunkin' sign loomed before us. The sheriff turned in with waning cheer. “Suppose you'll be wanting a breakfast sandwich, too?”
At my stuttered reply, he ordered two medium coffees and a pair of egg and cheese croissants. We hit the road. He drove with his knees while unwrapping his sandwich. Mine cooled on my lap.
“Why my porch?”
“Tell me what you know and I'll tell you why they've come,” he said between bites.
We reviewed everything I'd witnessed up to this morning, except my nightmare. I considered telling him; maybe I’d heard something and that noise had actively influenced my dreams, but I couldn’t remember any specific sound or much of the dream apart from a primitive hunger rising through Keith’s rotted throat. Besides, Keith’s face may have been new, but he was one of several green-eyed, man-shaped monsters to spoil my dreams in the past few weeks.
We drove along neighborhoods, back roads and onto the highway, until, with the flip of a switch, the sheriff threw on his hazards. The truck rolled to a halt on a grassy stretch of highway shoulder.
“What are we—”
“Are you ready for my side, Miss Davins?” The air from speeding cars and open fields shook the vehicle as his amber eyes met mine.
My bones felt dense with leaden dread. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and told myself this was a conversation. I could handle a conversation. “Ready.”
“Your neighbor was acting president of the Talon Pack Motorcycle Club. Are you aware, however, that club members refer to Mr. Vilkas as their ‘alpha’ instead?”
“Yeah, the pack moniker and subsequent titles is their whole theme. So what?”
“They wear wolves on their jackets, Miss Davins,” the sheriff prompted in a friendly voice. But what I heard was the calculating patience of a creature with large, luminous eyes and big, sharp claws tucked under blankets waiting for a girl in a red hood to open the bedroom door. “Why might that be?”
I hesitated. In the back of my mind, the door creaked upon the anticipant dark.
“Marcy?”
“Um.” I struggled through the words. “Someone was being clever?”
“Certainly so. Why else?”
I fiddled with the sandwich wrapper, embarrassed and nervous. There were no monsters in those woods. Only men. No monsters. Men. Grandma told me right. But what came out of my mouth was, “Those weren’t men in the woods last night.”
“Yes!” the sheriff exclaimed in soft encouragement. “Go on.”
On this sunny, spring morning reality hit like a plunge into the cold darkness of an arctic shipwreck. I asked for the sheriff’s jacket, stopped short of slipping my goosebump-studded arms through and instead wore it over my shoulders for heavy, warm security. “I’ve gone mad.”
“Seeing a monster doesn’t make you crazy.” His hand fell on my shoulder. “How could you be? You’ve only got two cats.”
My laugh, insignificant and small as I felt, was still a laugh.
With a long sip of coffee followed by a weary smile, the sheriff continued. "Talon pack may ride motorcycles, but claws grip the handlebars, Miss Davins.”
“Stephen’s pelt is on my porch.” A fact I wished to deny. “Where’s the rest?”
