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It was worth all the name-calling.
Chapter Fifteen
It had been month s since I stepped foot in Devil’s Run, and it hadn’t changed much in the time I’d been away.
It wasn’t the blink and you’ll miss it blip on the map that Windy Ridge had become, but it was still a rinky-dink town in the sticks. Damnation County had become an unincorporated area when I was just a teen and the majority of the businesses like banks and the post office had moved on to sunnier climes.
Devil’s Run was the unofficial county seat because it was the largest town we had to offer, and the citizens seemed to think that meant something. You were regarded as something of an outsider until you’d been in the area for a few years. That meant Arnie wouldn’t have been a pillar of the community even if he wasn’t a jealous, serial philandering, jerkass son of a bitch. And because hewasall those things, he’d been shunned, forced into a small, barely maintained house at the edge of town. Given his reputation, I couldn’t blame them one bit.
Dean glanced around, lips pressing into an unhappy line as he took in his surroundings. A lot of the buildings here were overgrown, the natural grasses overtaking what had once been manicured lawns. Most of the houses we passed were in dire need of a power wash, stained as they were by time and the elements.
“This place looks even worse than I remember,” he said. “It was never pretty, but I don’t remember it looking this bad.”
I felt irrationally defensive. Windy ridge only looked better because I could go into town and get supplies on a regular basis. Devil’s Run only had one person who looked remotely human, and she was a seventy-two-year-old Sunday school teacher who only left her house to go to Sunday services, which apparently were still continuing in Devil’s Run.
They couldn’t do much about the grass overtaking the place. Lawn maintenance required mowers, which by extension required gasoline they didn’t have. Some of the creatures here could graze, but not often enough to combat the ever-growing grasses and weeds. As an aside, Sicily had noted that most of the monster population skewed heavily toward predators. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she was determined to get to the bottom of it.
We skirted several thistles that bobbed in the wind and stepped into the square. A few teenagers (who mostly looked like farm animals dressed in clothing) were lazing on the steps of the courthouse, passing around a bottle in a brown paper bag. I couldn’t tell from here, but I was guessing from the shade of the bottle it was some brand of whiskey stolen from a parent’s liquor cabinet. Another was smoking something that I’d bet was a joint. It was all mostly for show, a bunch of high schoolers trying to impress their friends and scandalize any passersby. Still, I caught Dean glowering at them from my periphery.
“They’re all underage,” he muttered. “I ought to cuff them.”
“We have bigger problems,” I reminded him. “Besides, the alcohol and smoke doesn’t affect them, so the only thing they’re doing is swigging a bunch of nasty liquid and stinking up their clothes. It’s not like they’ll be driving drunk. If you try to arrest them, they’re just getting the attention they want.”
Dean faced forward again, scowl still in place. His stride lengthened and he half-jogged to keep up with my rapid pace. I was as agitated as he was, frightened and angry about what we were about to face.
Devil’s Run was in even more danger than Windy Ridge if things went sour. Boone and Ol’ Ned were following close behind, ready to fan out so we could surround Arnie in case he decided to light himself on fire again. We were all armed with fire extinguishers, and had them at the ready, just in case. I really, really hoped we wouldn’t have to use them.
I could taste the tension on the air as we approached the edge of town. It wasn’t just a keen ability to read the room anymore. I could literally smell and hear the changes in people’s bodies. The stink of sweat that dewed on the forehead and pooled under the arms and the backs of their knees, and the pounding of their hearts. Ol’ Ned was probably the most nervous, owing to the fact that he’d literally had his hide tanned by this monster. He was still walking funny but had insisted on coming, just to get a little revenge on the son of a bitch. If I’d been in a better mood, I’d probably have found it funny.
But this wasn’t an ordinary day (or night as the case may be), and this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill monster. Up till now, everyone had been content to go about their business. The worst I’d had to contend with post-Fog were crazies and the exploits of Karen Dooley. One was dealt with by our monster hunting gang. The other was usually solved by trussing up the she-devil with whatever happened to be handy until she could behave herself.
This changed everything. Someone was out there planning premeditated murder and that was one subject we’d never dealt with before.
Arnie’s house was ugly, even by the town’s lax standards. The paint had almost completely chipped off, his front gate was askew, and he’d managed to reduce one-half of his railing to slag at some point. He’d boarded up the windows so only a few slivers of moonlight could make it inside.
Were hellhounds nocturnal? Our books hadn’t said as much, but it made sense. The fire at the Thatcher house had been burning for a while before we’d arrived and the hellhound hadn’t shown up in Windy Ridge until dusk. A hellhound wouldn’t need light to see by, but it had to be able to control the heat and light, or it would set everything it touched ablaze. Someone would have come looking for us by now if Arnie was running around, causing wildfires.
I approached the door first, much to Dean’s displeasure. I shushed him though, just in case Arnie was waiting on the other side of the door with a shotgun, ready to blow us away. I heard a rapidly beating heartbeat on the other side of the wall, which meant he had to be home. And if he planned to shoot, I was the best choice to take the blow. I had the strongest constitution, whereas Dean would bleed out quickly. There was also the chance that, being as fast as I was, I could avoid the shot altogether, pushing my friends and allies out of the way before Arnie pulled the trigger.
The door was open a sliver, and a street lamp cast a slice of orange fluorescence onto the bare wooden floor. It was dusty, as though it hadn’t been cleaned in a long, long while. Or ever. I nudged it open a little further but didn’t peer around the door. The light would make me a handy target. I pressed my ear to the wood instead, listening for the cautious approach of a gunman. I didn’t hear any footfalls, but I did hear a scrape of something metallic across the floor. My mind treated me to the image of Arnie wielding an ax, ready and willing to reenact something straight out of The Shining.
“Arnie, are you there?” I called, trying to keep my voice even. If he thought we were onto him, things would get messy fast. “My name is Twila and I just wanted to check in on you.”
No response.
“We think someone is targeting you and a few other men,” I continued. “Do you mind if we come in and talk to you about it?”
Still no response, but there was a barely audible groan. I pushed the door open a little further and saw a bare foot in the gap. It was crisscrossed with cuts and the ankle looked swollen and shiny with burns. My heart kicked into a higher gear.
“I think he’s hurt,” I said.
“That gives us probable cause,” Dean responded.
“Probable cause? Who do you have to answer to?” I asked with a frown.
He returned it. “I know I don’t have to answer to anyone, but it makes me feel better to know we aren’t breaking and entering.”
I wanted to laugh. What a silly thing to worry about in light of what we were facing.
