Full Wolf Moon

39

Logan felt himself go cold at the apparition that now confronted them among the thick pines. It was, without a doubt, Chase Feverbridge — but a Feverbridge who had become an abomination of nature.

He seemed to tower over them, his six-foot-four height increased by some trick of the moonlight. His white hair was matted and caked with dirt, full of twigs and dead leaves. His skin had become a blotchy mahogany color, studded here and there with pustulant boils, and it exuded a foul, animalistic odor, sour and musky. Patchy woolen hair covered his limbs. His mouth hung open avariciously. Huge hands, with long, spadelike, chitinous nails, flexed and clenched. Powerful muscles rippled beneath the woolen shirt. Worst of all were the small red eyes that stared at them with a mixture of hatred and hunger. Logan had seen eyes like those once before: in an emergency ward, where a youth suffering a bad PCP trip was being wheeled in by the staff. The youth had been screaming and frothing at the mouth, and — though a cop had hit him in the arm with a nightstick, causing a compound fracture — he was swinging the exposed bone around like a weapon, heedless of the pain, trying to gouge the orderlies who were rushing him into the hospital.

The ghastly spectacle was like a mindless, violence-mad travesty of Zephraim Blakeney — but an order of magnitude worse. Gone was the diffident man of science; in its place stood a creature of violent needs and animal lust. The feeling of wrongness, of nature twisted and perverted, washed over Logan like a wave.

All this took place in a split second. Then Albright began to free his rifle from his shoulder. With a roar, Feverbridge leapt forward and — with a single blow of a taloned hand — rent Albright from collarbone to sternum. Albright cried out with the pain, but still struggled to free his rifle. Feverbridge reached out and grabbed Albright’s arm, gave it a vicious wrench; there was a pop like a cooked chicken leg being pulled from its carcass, and the arm dangled at a strange angle from the poet’s shoulder, dislocated. Albright screamed in pain just as Feverbridge leapt on top of him, hand raised and fingers splayed wide, readying himself for the killing blow.

Logan realized that he had been instinctively backing up in horror during this one-sided battle. Now he raised his handgun and fired, winging Feverbridge in the shoulder. The man roared out, but remained fixated on the fallen Albright. Logan fired again, this time hitting Feverbridge in the leg. Now the man straightened up, howling in pain. Logan fired a third and fourth time, but his hand was shaking and the shots went wide. Feverbridge tensed himself, preparing to spring, and Logan — without a moment’s additional thought — turned and ran for his life.

He tore mindlessly through the thick pine forest, heedless of the direction he was headed or obstacles in his path, aware of only one thing — the terrific crashing and snapping of branches behind him that made it horrifyingly obvious he was being pursued. He’d hit Feverbridge twice, but the shots hadn’t slowed him down — at least, not by much. The man’s plan was now all too clear. Albright had been correct about the unnaturally slow progress Feverbridge had made as he was being tracked, about how he was apparently doubling back on himself: despite his maddened state, he was aware that the two of them knew too much about him — and so he had laid a trap, waiting to ambush and kill them both.

Logan ran and ran, oblivious to the pine needles that raked his face and the branches that tugged at his limbs. Once he stumbled, but somersaulted forward back onto his feet and kept going without interruption, aware that at any moment he might feel those frightful nails tear across his back.

All of a sudden, the trees parted and a structure reared up ahead of him, spectral in the moonlight: the Phelps Fire Observation Station. The crashing sounds were still coming on, but he seemed to have put some distance between himself and Feverbridge. If he could get to the observation building at the top, he could use it as a blind and shoot Feverbridge when he came into the clearing. Immediately, he ducked between the metal struts that made up the sides of the tower and began climbing, two at a time, the exposed stairs that rose between them.

He made the first landing, started up the second switchback, then the third, before he heard a maddened roaring from below. A patch of thin clouds was now passing over the moon, but he could still make out the form of Feverbridge, crouching at the edge of the clearing below him. He half limped, half leapt for the staircase and began climbing with frenzied speed.

With something like despair, Logan realized he had made a tactical error. He still had two more switchbacks to go before reaching the top — he’d never make it in time. He pointed his gun at the climbing Feverbridge, squeezed off a shot — but the man-beast shrank away and the bullet ricocheted harmlessly off metal. He shot again, and this time Feverbridge grunted as the bullet bit through part of an ear — but it did not slow his frantic climb.

Logan looked around in desperation. There was only one chance. Without giving himself time to reconsider, he leapt from the open staircase onto the metal skeleton that made up the external structure of the station. He hit it with a bone-jarring impact; one hand slipped off the metal framing, but he quickly grasped it again. There was a bellow of anger from below and to one side. Ignoring this as best he could, Logan maneuvered his way crablike along the beam until he reached a corner strut, then began sliding his way as quickly as he dared back down to the ground.

A terrific bang overhead told him that Feverbridge had duplicated his maneuver.

He hit the ground with a dreadful thump, then raced across the narrow clearing and reentered the pine forest, hoping against hope that Feverbridge had not seen the direction in which he’d run.

Another nightmarish dash through the pine forest began. Logan’s sides were burning, and his ankles hurt from the heavy landing he’d just endured, but desperation lent new strength to his limbs. Once again, the crashing noises started up behind him, and with dismay Logan realized he had not ditched Feverbridge, after all.

He lost track of time, entering a kind of trancelike state in which all his concentration was bent on escape. He veered sharply, first left and then, a few hundred yards later, right; he was aware of tripping over another exposed root and falling flat on his face in the pine needles, losing precious time. The pain in his side became like fire, and each intake of breath was a small agony. But the frenzied bellowing from behind, the snapping noises of branches being thrust violently aside, forced him on.

…And then the trees fell away behind and he found himself on the top of a rocky outcropping, boulder-strewn flanks stretching away to the left and right. Nearby a stream bubbled up out of the rocks, falling away over the edge of the cliff and forming a waterfall that crashed onto the stones far below. Logan looked around as he gasped for breath. Although the clouds were still thickening, the light of the full moon was unimpeded, and it lit up the landscape below and beyond with a spectral illumination. Logan knew this spot: he was standing atop Madder’s Gorge, where Feverbridge had first killed the lone backpacker, half a year before.

A snapping of twigs behind him and Feverbridge emerged from the shadow of the trees. With a low snarl of triumph, he leapt forward. Logan raised the gun but Feverbridge swatted it away with the back of his hand and it went tumbling over the cliff. Logan stepped backward as Feverbridge advanced. He was bleeding from the gunshot wounds; two had merely grazed him, but the third had clearly been a direct hit to his left thigh. Despite the extremity of his own situation, Logan couldn’t help but marvel at the man’s ability to cover ground so quickly, given a wound like that.

A half smile formed on Feverbridge’s distorted mouth, and the little red eyes glowed with victorious malice. The hand that had swatted away the gun clenched into a fist; it came smashing down on Logan’s shoulder with unbelievable strength and Logan immediately crumpled to the ground. Now the fist opened, fingers flexing as before, nails gleaming in the moonlight. With a howl of bloodlust, Feverbridge raised his arm, preparing to tear out Logan’s throat.

Even as he did so, out of the night came a sudden, shouted word of command:

“Stop!”