Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
Midnight Ridge Lodge
Dammit, he wanted to keep hunting tonight. But those weirdos who called themselves the Believers were at it again.
And one of the old biddies had seen him.
Grateful he’d worn a dark hat and mask, he was tempted to jump out and scare them.
But that was kids’ games. He’d enjoyed terrorizing the girls and old biddies when he was young but he wasn’t a kid anymore. He needed something more thrilling.
Besides, he had to be careful.
So he slipped back into the shadows.
Every year around the time of the Day of the Dead, the Believers came out in droves to perform their vigils.
Cloaked in black capes and carrying lanterns, they climbed to the top of Midnight Ridge, setting out gifts to the heavens, singing and chanting and praying for all the dead who’d lost their lives on the mountain.
Tonight it was for Minnie Benton.
The voices echoed through the trees and drifted upward, a halo of lights flickering in the darkness.
He’d hidden in the shadows of the tall thick pines and oaks while they’d gathered, wiping the blood from his hands onto the old rag he carried with him in his pack when he was hunting.
Waited until they’d reached the hill, their lanterns flickering through the mist, then threw his string of kills over his shoulder, gripped his rifle in his other hand and hurried back along the trail to the old lodge.
In spite of the chill in the air, sweat trickled down his back. Dead leaves crunched beneath his boots, the acrid scent of blood and death filling his nostrils. When he reached the monstrosity that had once been his home, the darkness ate at him.
Still, he smiled as he entered the stone lodge and carried his kills to his workroom in the attic, the very room that had tortured him with nightmares when he was a child.
When he’d been locked inside, he could see the crows swarming outside the fog-coated window, pecking at the glass with their pointed beaks until he imagined it cracking and the flock swooping in and gnawing at his face.
Now he was the one torturing them.
He laid the string of dead crows on his work surface, elated at the fact that he’d frightened that damn know-it-all detective. That fucker with her had chased after him in the backyard, but his plan to escape had worked.
Just like it had at that old lady do-gooder Hazel’s house. Not that she was a good girl herself. He knew better.
He’d wanted Hazel to know he was watching and had been in her house just like he’d wanted Ellie Reeves to know he’d touched the bed she slept in at night. Keeping them on edge would throw them off his scent so he could blend in as he’d been doing for years.
They needed to know he was in charge, that they could flail and squawk just like the murder of crows had when he’d snapped their necks. Smiling, he lifted his hand and smelled the fresh blood from the slaughter.
He’d have to clean it off before he went to work the next day, scrub it from under his fingernails. But not until he skinned the birds and laid out their feathers to dry.