Mark holstered his weapon. Harmon slipped to his knees. The crooked sticks that were his fingers were visibly fragile. They were greening, if that was a word; they appeared infected, no doubt trapped in the early stages of the same infection that had claimed his arm.
Harmon cringed in pain. Mark heard a slick sound, a sand-papery slither, and when it came again, he stepped back in horror. Something wormy snaked across Harmon’s throat. Inside his throat. Another chased it.
Mark felt the fear, the utter despair, in that sad, sorry eye. He took a step closer and reached out with an open hand. For a long moment it floated aimlessly, like a dead man drifting in a gentle current.
“Take my hand,” he said, and the man that some called Crazy Harmon finally did, with fingers that felt almost human.
~
Grasping that hand—it was like holding a handful of coarse moss—Mark could only wonder if Harmon Wyatt’s condition was contagious. But mostly, he wondered how much abuse a human body—a human mind—could take.
Harmon steadied on his feet. He took a moment to gather himself. “Don’t hafta stare.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” Mark cut himself off. “Do you remember me?”
Harmon nodded.
“What happened to you, sir?”
“Just Harmon.”
“My God, man … what the hell happened to you?”
Harmon slowly raised his hand. It trembled as he exposed the palm. That deep green moss ran from the tips of his fingers to his wrist and beyond. Leafy shoots sprouted from the center. Butter-green spores clung to them. One of them burst open, spraying an oily goo.
Mark backed off before the spray struck him. He recoiled. A wormlike creature crawled out of the spore. It had shiny black skin. It was no more than a half-inch long, but it bit into Harmon with an unsettling slurping sound. It bore into his flesh and wormed its way into him.
Harmon grimaced. He bit down hard on his lip, steeling against the pain. When it was over, he regarded the cop with a hint of a grin. “Not what you expected to find, I’d say.”
Mark said nothing.
“You come on foot?” Harmon said. “Didn’t hear no snowmachine.”
“I walked when the road ended. Followed your tracks.”
Harmon laughed heartily.
For a moment, Mark forgot what had become of him. The sound was deep and healthy, entirely sweet to the ears. “What’s so funny?”
“Led you right to me.” Harmon examined his hand. “Wasn’t this bad when I got up.”
“What happened—”
“Shhhhh.” The woodsman turned to the woods. His nostrils flared.
“What is it?” Mark said.
“Quiet,” Harmon whispered sharply. “Sweet Jesus, shut the hell up.”
They watched the forest. They could have been two kids outside a candy store waiting for it to open.
Mark whispered. “I don’t hear anything.”
Harmon sniffed, sampling the air like a fine wine. “You try.”
Mark gave him a look.
Harmon shook his head. “You think you know so much.”
“No … I just don’t see the point.”
“Smelled you comin’.”
“Why’d you attack me?”
“Don’t like people sneakin’ up on me. Do you?”
“Sorry about that.”
“Not as sorry as you mighta been. Now, you gonna humor this old man?”
Regardless of the irrationality of it, Mark sniffed the air weakly.
Harmon grunted disapprovingly.
Mark sniffed again, deeply this time. The air smelled musty. But no, that wasn’t quite right. What it was exactly, he couldn’t say.
Harmon stared, his eye like a full moon.
“I don’t smell anything,” Mark said. He did, but what he smelled wasn’t some thing. Not an animal, not a human, not the sweat on his brow. He smelled deadness. It was as if someone had stuck a plastic bag over his head and had sucked all the air out. There was nothing to smell. Except there was. It was crazy, just like it was at the Finley farm.
Harmon kept his eye on the woods. The sun had begun to slip toward the horizon. “We both know why you’re here. You come all this way to sniff out somethin’. Maybe you can’t smell it. But sure as shit you can feel it.”
“I don’t—”
“Bullshit. You’re more scared than me.”
Mark felt the eyes haunting them. Tracking them. Soon it would be dark. And then—
“It’s watchin’ us,” Harmon said. “Always watchin’.”
“For Christ’s sake, what’s watching?”
“Ain’t no shame sayin’ ya feel it. Just plain stupid if ya don’t.”
“All right. Yes. I can.”
Harmon nodded. He almost seemed pleased.
“What is it?” Mark said. “What the hell is it?”
“Need waterin’,” Harmon said, and he headed inside.
Mark followed him to the back door, only to have it closed in his face. He waited patiently, and when the door finally opened, Harmon Wyatt stood before him, his stick-fingers clutched around a bottle.
Harmon chugged half the beer and belched. He looked past Mark and pointed the mouth of the bottle toward the woods.
Mark turned quickly. He was certain someone was creeping up on him. The man was right. He didn’t like that at all.
He stared at the trees. The birches stood tall and thin, like skeletons.
The hair on his neck stirred. Something was staring back. And while he could not explain it, it felt as if those eyes trained on him were far older than the forest itself. Something ancient. Maybe as old as time.
“Is it out there? In the woods?”
The woodsman took another swig. He chuckled hoarsely, almost comically, and slipped back inside. The door shut behind him.