Ken Douglas - Nightwitch

She recognized it immediately, Brad Peters, her perennial problem child. She tucked the shirt in, ran her hands through her hair. Counted to ten, and stepped out of the tent.

“ Over here,” Brad said, to Ray Harpine, then he turned and saw Sarah standing in front of the tent.

“ Brad Peters,” she said in her best school teacher voice.

“ Miss Sadler, what are you doing here?”

“ No, Brad, I’m the one that asks the questions. Remember?”

“ Yeah, sorry,” the boy said.

“ I’d really hate to think you two boys were coming up here to get into some kind of mischief.”

“ Not us,” Brad said.

“ Over where, Brad?” Sarah said.

“ What do you mean?” Brad said.

“ You said, ‘Over here,’ what did you mean?”

“ Nothing,” Brad said.

“ You didn’t mean that there was a tent over here, did you?”

“ No.” Brad said.

“ Did he, Ray?”

“ Yes, ma’am,” Ray Harpine said, without thinking.

“ I’d hate to think you boys were going to be sticking your noses into tents that don’t belong to you,” she said.

“ No, ma’am,” Brad said.

“ And I’d hate to have to call your parents and tell them I thought that. You wouldn’t want me to have to do that, would you, Brad?”

“ No, ma’am.”

“ Then go home. It’s getting late and this is no place for boys to be playing after dark.”

“ We play in the woods all the time at night,” Brad said.

“ Not tonight you don’t. Tonight you go straight home. Unless of course you want me calling your parents.”

“ No, ma’am. We got studying to do, so we’ll go to my house,” Ray said.

“ When?” Sarah asked.

“ Right now,” Ray said.

“ Then get going,” she said. She watched as they turned and crossed the clearing, heading for the path.

“ Stupid,” she heard Brad say to Ray, just before they reached the path and left her sight.

She laughed to herself. Then she heard laughter of a different kind, a primitive, high pitched, staccato laughter that froze her to the bone. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. Then she thought of the boys, so soon out of her sight, and she shivered again, because she knew they were in great danger.

John Coffee had been telling the truth after all. She had been so blind, not wanting to accept what she couldn’t understand. She had seen his eyes, and they radiated truth, yet still she refused to believe. The wolf, the bear, the old woman, and still she refused to believe. But this, this could not be explained away. She had spent too much time in Africa.

She dropped to her knees and dove into the tent, shooting her hands under the duffel back and coming out with the forty-five. She ejected the magazine and started pulling clothes out of his duffel, until she got to the two boxes of shells at the bottom, and with frantic, fumbling fingers she started popping shells into the magazine, ramming them home with her thumb.

Once full, she slammed it into the weapon and jammed a full box of shells into her hip pocket. Then she saw the spare magazine at the bottom of the duffel. She checked it, found it full, and shoved it in her pocket along with the shells. She didn’t know if a normal, lead forty-five slug could stop a soucouyant, but it damn sure could stop a hyena.

Again the hyena’s laughter ripped through the night, reminding her of the Kenyan bush. Normally the hyena preferred to feed off another’s kill, scavenging what the lion or cheetah was willing to leave, but they were not above killing themselves, and their specialty was the very young among the East African plain. Zebra colts, gnu calves, lion cubs and children. The hyena played no favorites. It was an equal opportunity baby killer.

She had to get to those two boys.

She ran across the clearing with the forty-five clutched in her hand, charging toward the path like a mother racing to save her young. And in a way they were hers. All those kids were hers, and no old woman, wolf, bear, witch or hyena was going to harm them as long as she was alive and able to raise a hand against it.

She fled out of the clearing, onto the path, without slowing her stride, her hiking boots scrunching leaves, pine needles and twigs, waking up the forest to the fact that a desperate human was charging through.

The overhead branches killed most of the remaining daylight, but there was enough for her to see and dodge the rocks and the low branches. She leapt over a fallen log, and in mid air she saw it, a black charging object. She skidded to a stop and dropped to her knees, raising the gun to fire.

She had her finger on the trigger.

The animal was bounding up the path the children had just gone down.

That meant they were dead.

She started to squeeze the trigger. Slow and easy. She didn’t want to miss.

The animal barked.

She relaxed her finger, and sighed, as Condor plowed into her side, covering her face with his wet, slurpy tongue.

“ Get up you silly dog,” she said. Every animal lover in town willing to get down and play had to deal with Condor’s slippery kisses. The big dog had been her friend ever since she’d moved to Palma. Binky Bingham had bought him as a watch dog for his pharmacy, and at that he had been an abysmal failure, but he was a huge success as Palma’s ambassador of good will. Sarah never would have been able to forgive herself if she would have hurt him.

Again the laughter swarmed through the night, seeming to come from everywhere. The dog stopped his playful tongue lashing and moved off Sarah, allowing her to get up. He growled low and pointed with his eyes to a place behind her. She scrambled back up to her knees, following the dog’s eyes with her own, and she saw it, standing less then twenty feet away, eyes blazing red, lips curled, fangs bared, snarling.

She wrapped her left hand around the dog’s neck and could feel the heat of him as he growled low, baring his own fangs and snarling back, something Sarah didn’t think the gentle animal was capable of. She raised her right hand to fire, as Condor broke free and charged the hyena with a roar that rumbled like a jet on take off, but the dog’s snarling fangs met only the trail of hot fire, because the hyena turned into a mass of flame, shooting skyward as a flash of lightning bolted across the sky, followed by the barrel boom of thunder and a slight drizzling rain.

Then the fog started to move in. Slow, steady, creepy.

“ Condor,” she called. The dog barked and came back to her.

“ Stay with me,” she said, not sure if she should go back to the tent or continue down the path. She opted for getting out of the woods as quickly as possible. She started to stand, when she heard something coming.

“ Stay,” she whispered to the dog. She was still on her knees. She raised the pistol.

Whatever it was stopped. Then she knew what it was, and it was down there on the edge of the fog, waiting for her. Not eager to pounce, happy to wait. Then Sarah remembered what John had said, about how the soucouyant would hunt a young woman, until she was crazy with terror before it attacked. It needed the fear as much as it needed the blood.

“ Come on, boy,” she whispered into the dog’s ear, drawing strength from his tense shoulders and bared fangs. “We’re going up,” she whispered, more to herself than to the dog. She looped the fingers of her left hand through the dog’s collar, so he couldn’t get away from her again.

She squinted her eyes, trying to peer through the fog, as she stood up. She started backing up the hill, one hand holding onto the collar, the other with the forty-five pointed toward the rustling sound coming from the fog.

“ I will not be afraid. I will not be afraid. I will not be afraid,” she mumbled under her breath, like a mantra, as if saying it would make it so.