Chapter 4
It was the first week of October, and Jenny Simmons was already over her fall fitness plan.
The pool was always full of people, and chlorine gave her a headache.
Zumba was confusing. She felt silly jogging, and running only made sense if people were chasing you.
And she hated bicycles. All her expensive gear made her look like a Day-Glo shoebill, or whatever that creepy-looking bird was called that she’d seen on the internet. The one with the murder face.
Because that’s what she had when she jogged—murder face. Being an adult sucked.
But her brother had made a bet with her that she would drop the new fitness plan by November, and she wasn’t about to give him fifty dollars or the satisfaction of being right, so today she was walking.
Walking didn’t require expensive gear, Day-Glo anything, and she didn’t feel stupid doing it.
She’d borrowed her neighbor’s dog, a monster of a thing named, for some reason, Frodo.
Canine Frodo was a mastiff, and therefore wasn’t short at all, so his name made no sense to her.
Still, she felt safer walking with him, and it helped out her neighbor, Libby, because she’d just had knee surgery.
Jenny liked Libby because she always said hi, she never threw parties, and sometimes she made cookies.
As far as Jenny was concerned, she’d struck neighbor gold.
She took Frodo to the park, hoping that walking among the trees would make it feel more like adventure and less like exercise. With Frodo at her side, she also believed she was less likely to end up on one of those shows like Dateline or as the topic of a true crime podcast.
It was chilly out, but the sky was a bright, vivid blue, cloudless and perfect.
Light shone down through the leaves, red and gold among the evergreens.
She wished she’d thought to bring a hot chocolate or apple cider, because right now, with the crisp bite of fall in the air, everything felt just about perfect.
Jenny was patting herself on the back right up until Frodo saw a rabbit.
For a split second they stood in a frozen tableau—Jenny, Frodo, and the small brown bunny. Then the rabbit bolted. Frodo, all 170 pounds of him, tore off after the rabbit. Jenny tried to hold on to the leash, she really did, but she wasn’t quite quick enough or strong enough.
She watched in dismay as Frodo ran deeper into the woods. “Frodo! Frodo!”
He didn’t even look back. In a second, he was out of sight, and Jenny was all alone.
She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t really want to go back to her neighbor and say, Hey, I lost your dog. People got really upset about that kind of thing.
Jenny ran after him. Maybe he’d lose the rabbit and stop?
Or catch it and stop. An image of a bunny, torn apart, with glassy black eyes and blood-matted fur appeared in her mind, and she shuddered.
She really hoped Frodo wouldn’t catch it.
Jenny didn’t like the sight of blood, and the rabbit had been tiny and adorable.
The woods, so bright and welcoming before, were suddenly unnerving. And quiet. In fact, she hadn’t seen anyone in a while. Maybe she’d taken a wrong turn, mistaking a deer path or something for a walking trail?
Jenny shivered, checking her phone. Plenty of bars. She could call if she needed help. She wasn’t completely isolated, then. She jogged after Frodo, calling his name. What if something happened to Frodo?
What if something happened to her?
After a few minutes of running, she was sweating and hot, so she stopped to take off her jacket. She’d passed the spot where she’d last seen Frodo, and there were no obvious signs—to her, anyway—that he’d gone a certain direction.
Wait. There. Off to the right. Something crashing through the bushes. Jenny took off at a careful jog, digging her keys out of her pocket and making a fist with them, the blades of the keys sticking out, just in case.
The sound stopped, but Jenny kept plowing forward. What else was she supposed to do?
Suddenly the forest gave way and Jenny found herself at the edge of a pond.
She frowned. She didn’t remember there being a pond, which meant she’d definitely gone off trail.
It was a big pond—or maybe a small lake?
Jenny wasn’t quite sure what the cutoff was between the two.
It was large enough that she’d hesitate before agreeing to canoe to the other side or something.
Lots of scenic majesty, but no Frodo. Maybe if she climbed the hill, she’d see him? If she called for him up there, the sound might reach farther. Cheered by this thought, Jenny hauled herself quickly up the hill. Once she was at the top, she started hollering for Frodo.
After several long minutes, she finally heard a bark.
It was far off, but she was pretty sure it was him.
She kept yelling, looking for movement around the lake.
She didn’t see any, but—something flashed in the water.
She was sure of it. Jenny frowned, putting her hand over her eyes, creating a makeshift visor.
Yes, something reflected back at her. A washing machine, maybe? It was large, whatever it was. Jenny’s blood boiled. All this pristine natural landscape, and people were dumping trash in the lake/pond.
She wasn’t sure who she could call, but surely someone would come get it. Leaving it there couldn’t be good for the lake. Yes, as soon as she had Frodo, that was what she would do. She yelled for him again but got no response.
Then, down at the forest’s edge, right next to the tire tracks leading to the lake, she caught a movement in the bushes.
Whatever it was must have been big for her to see the rustling all the way up on the hill.
Not a bird or a raccoon or possum. Something bigger.
They didn’t get bears where she lived. Did they?
No. She was pretty sure they didn’t. It could be a deer.
Whatever it was, she needed to investigate just in case it was Frodo.
Jenny picked her way back down the hill, readjusting the keys in her fist. The bushes had stopped moving, and the forest was once again filled with that eerie silence. Jenny found herself stepping quietly, sneaking closer to the spot.
The branches rustled again as the light dimmed, a cloud suddenly appearing in the bright, crisp blue of the sky.
Jenny hesitated. Should she yell and make a lot of noise in case it was something dangerous?
That was what you did with bears, right?
Noise? Or was that only some bears? But what if it was Frodo?
Jenny held her breath as she peered into the thick undergrowth. She caught a flicker of movement far back, deep in the shadows—not enough for her to see what it was, just enough to get the impression of black hair and something pink. Was it a person in the bushes? Were they hurt?
She tightened her grip on her keys until her knuckles were white. “Hello?” Her voice came out as a breathy whisper. No one answered.
Another rustle, this time much closer.
“Hello?” The whispered question was even quieter as she stood on her toes, trying to get a better view. What was it—
A blur of movement and a huge crash as something flew from the bushes, ramming into her.
Jenny screamed as she fell backward. The ground slammed into her back so hard that pain shot through her entire body.
The keys flew from her hand, skidding over the tire ruts and landing with a plop in the lake.
She watched them go, helpless to do anything else.
The fall had driven the air out of her lungs.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. Completely and utterly helpless, unable to defend herself against—
Something cold and wet nudged her ear. Jenny tried to scream but couldn’t. She tilted her head and saw…
Frodo. His big doggie mouth curled into a smile as he panted, his pink leash and collar flopping uselessly next to him.
Relief flooded her system, and she finally, finally, sucked in a breath.
“Frodo! Come here, boy! Who’s a good boy?
You are! C’mon!” She kept her voice cheerful, coaxing him to her.
“I will give you all the treats if you come here right now and we never have to tell your mommy about this, okay?”
She reached out and grabbed his leash before rolling slowly to her feet.
Once she had Frodo’s leash in hand, she finally relaxed.
She scrubbed his cheeks, scratching behind his ears.
“Maybe next time, we’ll stick to an area without bunnies, huh?
” Frodo responded to this with a lick, drooling on her as she checked him over, plucking a few snagged twigs and leaves out of his coat.
With a firm grip on the leash, she went to fetch her keys from the water.
Luckily, they hadn’t gone far, and she was able to spot them easily as the sunlight reflected off of them in a familiar way.
“Right, the washing machine, or dishwasher or whatever.” Though now that she thought about it, the object had been awfully big for a dishwasher.
Who did one even call about that sort of thing, anyway?
She made her way back up the hill, Frodo walking happily alongside her. They paused at the top so she could take another look. Now that she was at a better angle, it seemed a lot bigger than a washing machine.
Like maybe the size of a car.
Jenny wasn’t sure if it was an emergency—it wasn’t like the car had just gone in—but she also didn’t think it was one of those things you called the non-emergency number for. So she dialed 911.
They told her not to go anywhere. She called Libby while she waited to let her know that Frodo was okay, but that they were stuck waiting for the police.
When the cops pulled up, she answered a lot of questions, some of them more than once, from a few different people. Although it was dark and cold by the time she left, she wasn’t there when they pulled the car out of the water.
No, Jenny had to watch the news just like everyone else to catch a glimpse of Edwin Stephens’s beat-up Subaru being dredged out of the lake.
The news stations didn’t show the crew removing Edwin Stephens’s body from the water, just the car. But he was there, tucked inside, his seat belt still on.
Bloated.
Skin sloughing off.
And very.
Very.
Dead.