Page 11 of Blood Moon

“F-fishing.”

“Where?”

He swivels his arm and points toward the woods. “That deep hole over by those trees.”

“What are your parents’ names?”

“M-Mose and Ada Hochstetler.”

I recall the couple and realize he lives just down the road. Tilting my head, I hail dispatch. “I’ve got a juvenile with me.” I give my location. “His brother is ten-thirty-one. Stand by.”

“Roger that,” comes Margaret’s voice.

I look down at the boy. “Don’t worry. We’re going to find your brother.”

He raises his tear-streaked face to mine. I see freckles on fat cheeks and a nose that’s runny and red from crying. He’s trying to be brave, but can’t seem to take his eyes off the woods.

“I have an idea,” I tell him. “Come on.”

When I take his hand, he follows me to the Explorer. I open the door and flick on the overhead emergency lights. I reach for the spotlight handle, swivel the beam, and focus it on the spot where Tomasetti disappeared.

“Want to toot the horn a couple of times?” I ask.

He blinks, starting to calm down, and nods. “You think it’ll help?”

“I think if Sammy hears it, he’ll come this way.” I indicate the horn. “Go ahead. Give it a shot.”

Anxious to help, the boy uses the heel of his palm and lays on the horn. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Good job.”

The boy looks up at me, his lips quivering with an almost-smile.

I’m about to put him in the back seat when Tomasetti emerges from the fog, a boy at his side.

“There he is!” Squealing, Danny launches himself at his brother, runs to him, and envelops him in a halting, uncertain hug. “Where did you go? I thought the monster got you.”

The older boy is discernibly shaking and has a scratch the size of a toothpick on his cheek. “I tripped on that branch in the path and fell.”

Danny’s eyes skim down his brother’s legs. “Did it…”

Sammy blinks hard, too old to cry, but tears on his cheeks nonetheless. “It ran right by me. So close I could have reached out and hit it.”

“Do either of you have any idea what kind of animal it was?” I ask.

Danny shakes his head with an adamance that tells me he has no desire to even ponder the question.

Sammy swallows hard, his eyes flicking from me to Tomasetti and back to me. “I’m not saying it was a monster,” he says, “but it was a monster.”

By the time Tomasetti and I take the boys home to their parents, it’s 3:00 A.M. I’ve just made the turn onto the township road east of where the boys were fishing when my cell phone erupts.

The display tells me the incoming call is from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. I hit SPEAKER and answer with my name.

The caller identifies himself as Martin Hooper, the wildlife officer for Holmes County. “I hear one of your citizens had a close encounter with an aggressive animal this morning.”

“Make that four citizens, two of whom are juveniles.” I recap each incident. “I have a photo of the wound if that will help you identify it.”

“I’d certainly like to see it,” Hooper tells me. “I’m just north of Painters Mill, Chief Burkholder. Southbound on Ohio 83. I’d like to take a look at the scene of the first attack.”