48

THE FOG HUNG OVER Warren Sprague’s empty field like a death shroud, cloaking everything in a damp grey mist that writhed and twisted on unseen breezes as if possessed. As Mike McMahon parked the Explorer, the hulk of burned brush, limbs and small trees—remnants of last night’s bonfire—loomed out of the mist, thick smoke still curling off the blackened top.

The silence was oppressive, broken only by the sucking/crunching sound of the two men’s boots as they walked over the partially frozen ground in the early morning stillness.

“How do you want to do this?” Professor Dye asked, his voice sounding thin and reedy, swallowed up by the mist.

“Well, splitting up would allow us to cover more ground faster, and we do have the walkies, but under the circumstances I don’t see how we can take that chance,” Mike replied.

They stopped and warmed their hands at the still-hot remains of the bonfire. “I guess we just start on the western edge of the field and work our way clockwise, walking along the boundary where the field joins the woods. Hopefully we’ll uncover evidence of what went down here last night. There has to be something, we just need to find it.”

Mike started off slowly toward the edge of the clearing, the forest still pitch-dark beyond the ten feet or so adjoining the field. The steam rising from their Styrofoam coffee cups mixed with the cool, damp air, trailing behind them as they moved like smoke from an old-time steam engine.

“I feel completely useless,” the professor said softly. “I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”

“Anything,” Mike replied. “You’re looking for anything out of the ordinary. It might be a piece of cloth torn off a jacket or a shirt and left hanging on a branch. Or it could be something as obvious as footprints leading into the woods or maybe blood or some other sign of a struggle. I can’t say for sure what it might be, but I guarantee you’ll recognize it if you see it.”

They approached the edge of the clearing, the massive Douglas firs towering majestically in front of them, materializing out of the gloom like gigantic sentries lined up to protect some unknown treasure hidden inside the forest. Mike shivered, not only from the damp cold but from a rising sense of disquiet, from the feeling that Sharon was somewhere close by, probably dead thanks to his miscalculation but maybe, just maybe, still alive, injured and in desperate need of help.

Mike reached the edge of the forest and turned south. He began inching his way along the vague demarcation between plowed field and virgin forest, saying nothing, his concentration intensely focused on the task at hand. Professor Dye followed close behind. Mike knew the older man still felt like a useless appendage, but he had other things to worry about at the moment.

***

FORTY MINUTES INTO THE search, Ken Dye began to gain a sense of appreciation for real police work. Unlike on television shows and movies, in which the good guys seem to spend the majority of their time shooting it out with the forces of evil or speeding through congested cities locked in thrilling car chases, the bulk of real-life police work seemed to consist of the patient examination of often uncomfortable crime scenes, searching for evidence without any idea what that evidence might be, or even whether it existed at all.

He had passed Mike and was methodically working his way down the line of trees thirty feet or so in front of the chief. Whether because he was naturally more impatient than the trained law enforcement officer or simply because he didn’t know what to look for, the professor found himself moving more rapidly than Mike and had tired of cooling his heels behind him. The lack of intellectual stimulation had given him too much time to think and the resulting images filling his head were less than reassuring.

By midmorning the daylight was not much more prevalent than it had been at dawn. Professor Dye wondered absently if he would ever see the sun again—not this pseudo-sunlight, which felt more like dusk and didn’t really get the job done, but strong, warming, good-cheer-inducing solar activity. His eyes were beginning to tire from the constant strain of searching and he found his mind wandering.

He picked his way a few feet into a small break in the trees—perhaps six feet across and slightly less overgrown than the rest of the tangled mass of brush and uncontrolled undergrowth—and tripped over a fallen tree branch. He stumbled to his knees and swore under his breath, annoyed and now wet and cold as well. Without a conscious thought, the professor reached back and grabbed the branch to toss it into the woods and out of his way.

The texture of the branch was spongy and for the first time Professor Dye actually gave it a look. Seconds later his coffee came up, gushing out of him in a rush of stomach acid and unidentified, partially digested food, splashing onto the frozen ground as Ken Dye retched and vomited. The acid burned in his gullet and he fought another round of nausea.

He didn’t want to look at it again. He refused to look at it again. He couldn’t stop himself from looking at it again, from glancing down in horrified fascination. This time, in an unexpected display of self-control, he managed to avoid puking up anything else, not that there was much left in his stomach, anyway.

Lying on the dirty snow, where he had dropped it in his initial burst of panic and fear, was a severed human arm.