Supernatural Fresh Meat - By Alice Henderson Page 0,92
restlessly, unable to lie still. As the family watched in desperation, he slowly stopped moving altogether. When the village doctor examined him, he found him filled with the organs of other people and had no idea how he could have walked back to the village.
At night, villagers could hear the aswang flying overhead. Wing beats that sounded far off actually meant the creature was close by, ready to strike. Bobby filed that information away in case it came in useful. An old man had rushed out of his house to shout at what he thought was a retreating aswang, and it descended on him, sucking his full stomach right out of his body.
Bobby turned over more pages in the folder. Marta had even managed to dig up an article from the Point Reyes National Seashore bulletin published by the National Park Service. An historical piece, it covered an early shipwreck by Chimney Rock near Drake’s Bay. A Spanish three-masted ship carrying colonists and a few missionaries had crashed up on the rocks in 1863. Only a handful of survivors lived to relate the tale of bad weather. Some talked of a ghost living aboard the ship who would suck the life out of the mariners on stormy nights. The article included a grainy black and white photograph of the survivors, huddled in blankets on the beach. In the near-background, rowboats recovered more passengers and some of the cargo. In the distance, dashed against the rocks, stood the remains of the ship, its skeletal masts reaching up toward the bluffs of Chimney Rock.
Bobby aimed his headlamp at the photograph, scanning the faces of the sailors and passengers. A nun shivered inside a blanket. A tough-looking sailor stared to the left of the cameraman, a haunted look on his face. Another man peered out from a wide-brimmed hat that was pushed low over his forehead. His face was darker than the others, with deep-set eyes and a square jaw. Bobby peered closer. Something was familiar about him. The photo didn’t have very good resolution. He pulled out the magnifying glass on his lensatic compass and held it over the face.
It was Jason.
Gathering up the folder, Bobby rolled over on his side in the sleeping bag. The wind howled at the tent door, flapping the material. The storm showed no signs of slowing down, and already the snow had drifted around his tent. He’d read through the rest of the clippings. Most described grisly murders of people found without organs, or with extra organs sealed up inside them. They happened in small towns along the coast in the 1860s, eventually moving into San Francisco. He’d only found the one photo of Jason, but it was enough.
“Sam!”
He heard him stir in the neighboring tent.
“Yeah?”
“Dean’s really in the drink this time.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know who the aswang is. It’s not Grace.”
“Then who?”
“Jason.”
“What?”
“Check this out.”
Bobby unzipped his tent and handed the article over to Sam. He heard an answering zip and felt Sam take the photo. In another moment, light from Sam’s headlamp flooded the dark.
“Oh, my god. It’s him. And look at the date! 1863.”
Sam read over the article.
“What I want to know,” Bobby said, propping himself up on one elbow, “is how the hell he infiltrated a hunter’s bar?”
“He did a damn fine job. I believed him.”
“Me, too.”
“He knew dad. Or said he did.”
“And Bill Harvelle, and Ellen and Jo.”
“Even Ash and his mullet,” Sam added. “He was good.” Sam went quiet for a minute. “Dean has no idea.”
“Maybe he knows by now. We haven’t talked to him for a long time.”
“How long did you say it would take us to get to the resort?”
“Maybe we’ll reach it tomorrow, if the weather stays this good.”
“We’ve got to pick up the pace, Bobby.”
Bobby knew Sam was right, but unfortunately, they were already pushing themselves as much as they could. The weather held them at its mercy. Showing up a little late was better than not showing up at all because they were buried under ten feet of snow. But that didn’t make him any less impatient at how long it was taking to get up there.
SIXTY-ONE
Dean lay in the darkness, ears tensed for the slightest sound. He hadn’t heard Susan cry out for hours. Maybe Jimmy was right, maybe she’d gotten out. The venom had made him doze off a couple of times, he was pretty sure. He’d lost all sense of time, and the coldness of the trash-littered floor had seeped into his