My guess is he’ll park the truck in the woods somewhere nearby and return to the hunt.
I look at the Logan Family Lodge, hating it, hating them. I’m right here, right next to what should be safety. It’s bizarre, but as disgusting and evil and terrible as the Wolfman is, I can’t help but feel he’s unable to control himself. It seems to me he makes up bizarre excuses to make it okay for him to kill and rape, because he can’t stop himself from killing and raping. Whether born or made, the Wolfman is more creature than human. He’s a monster. These people pretend to be decent people, with their fancy mountain cabin and their all-American good looks, but their core is just as rotten as the Wolfman’s.
Then I realize my back’s up against a wall. Figuratively, but also literally. On the other side of that wall is the Logans’ car. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to steal my second vehicle of the day. I decide that I won’t ever give it back, either.
I check the perimeter of the garage, and it’s apparent there’s no easy way in. I’ll have to break the glass in the side door, reach in, and unlock it. That’s going to suck, mostly because they might hear it and do Lord knows what.
But what choice do I have?
Time to grab a nice, sturdy stick from the woods.
The panes in the door are small squares, and hopefully they won’t make nearly as much noise as the window in the Wolfman’s cabin. That sound shocked the hell out of me. I watch the windows of the Logans’ house for a while. There’s no movement; it’s impossible to tell when might be a better or worse time to do this. Ultimately, the idea of Wolfman somewhere nearby gets me to push the stick through the glass.
The glass is cheap, thin, and doesn’t make much noise.
Pausing, I wait to see if anything happens inside the Logan house. After counting to five, I reach through and open the side door. The autumn moon helps me out. The light is dim, but it’s more than enough to see by.
Inside the garage is a brand-new Lexus SUV. Clearly, they need an SUV for their adventurous mountain lifestyle. On the plus side, they are neat and tidy to the point of OCD, and it doesn’t take long for me to determine there are no keys inside the garage. In the soft light I see the car, a leaf blower, a trash can, and interestingly, some inflatable tubes. There must be a nice-size river somewhere nearby.
I am getting closer to civilization.
The Lexus is locked, and a blinking red light tells me the alarm is on. I shake my head. Out in the middle of nowhere, they have their house locked, their car locked, the car alarm on, and the garage dead bolted. What do they think? Somebody’s going to come steal everything they own or something? Granted, there’s a sexual predator down the road, but they didn’t know that when they parked the car this morning.
Increasing my aggravation is the continued smell of food. I can’t get away from the smell of meat and corn on the cob. At this point it’s cruel and unusual punishment, the scent of the Logan dinner.
Then I register what I’m looking at.
A trash can.
If I know the Logans, and at this point, I feel like I know the worthless sons-a-bitches pretty well, they’ll have thrown away a lot of perfectly good food.
I pop open the trash can lid, and the smell of food intensifies. The reek of garbage is there too, but all I care about is the food. Tearing open the tidy white plastic trash bag on top, I hit the mother lode. There’s balled-up napkins and other gross things, but I don’t even have to dig to pluck out an uneaten half rack of ribs.
They’ve thrown away ribs!
Sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor, I tear into the meat. It’s beef and it’s fresh. They must have thrown it away right before I got here. The power of food overwhelms me. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten, it feels like a whole new experience. It absorbs me completely, takes over me. All I want is this food, to eat every single morsel on every single bone. Fear, rage, pain—all of it is hidden by hunger and the act of satisfying that hunger.
Even as I eat, I can’t believe I’m eating something so good. My family has money, but maybe because we’re country people, we know better than to throw away food. Especially quality beef ribs like these.
The bad thing about ribs, they require a lot of work for not so much meat. When I finish the half rack, I dig back into the trash bag and find something even better. A whole baked potato, still wrapped in tinfoil. Returning to my seat on the floor, gnawing on the potato, I think of nothing but getting as much food down my throat as I can. This potato doesn’t taste as good as the ribs; it’s plain and dry. But it’s a big chunk of food, and it’s a ton of carbs.
Protein and carbs, some sugar from the barbeque sauce. Simple things transformed into a magical potion that can give me energy, give me strength, let me live to see another day.