“Sam, it’s me.” Her fingers closed around the doorknob in a white-knuckled grip. “Open up. Let me in!” Away from that thing.
Sam unlocked the door and hastily stumbled backward. Katie wasted no time in locking the barrier behind her. Her son’s face was white.
“Mom?” His voice quavered.
Try as she may to conceal the terror firing along her nerves, Katie knew it was evident on her face. She’d only caught a glimpse of the creature, but that fleeting second had been more than enough.
“It’s going to be okay, Sam.” She hugged him close. With one arm looped around his back, she snatched the phone from the end table and used her thumb to dial the sheriff’s office.
“Hello, this is Katie Lynch.” Her voice tumbled out in a breathless rush before the officer even finished speaking. “Please send someone to my house on Red Hollow Road. I’ve just seen the Mothman.”
Ryan discovered the news the following morning when a junior officer told him about Katie’s late night call. Anxious to visit and learn the details himself, he hurried through a stack of paperwork.
An hour later, he fidgeted from foot to foot on her front porch, waiting for her to answer the doorbell.
“Ryan.” She seemed surprised to find him there. Dark circles lingered beneath her eyes, and her blond hair was scooped back in a messy ponytail. She wore a pale blue robe with flannel pajamas.
“Hi.” He fought the urge to wrap his arms around her. “I, uh, heard what happened last night. Can I come in?”
She nodded and stepped aside. In bare feet, she was considerably shorter than he was.
“Sam still sleeping?”
Another nod, accompanied by a soft sniffle. “He was up late. We both were.”
Ryan was at a loss. “Want to tell me what happened?”
Her gaze met his. Whether in gratitude or petition, he wasn’t certain.
“Let me change and I’ll make coffee.”
Later, seated at the kitchen table, Katie relayed her story. In the short span it had taken her to change into jeans and a sweater, her composure had returned. Ryan listened without interruption, perhaps the wrong course to take given the censure that crossed her face when she was through.
“You don’t believe me.”
“Katie.” He took her hand. “I do believe you. Are you forgetting Caden’s seen the Mothman several times? He’s got scars branded across his forearm from that thing’s grip.” Gently, he traced his thumb over her knuckles, hoping to put her at ease. “The important thing is it didn’t hurt you.”
“I know.” Her tone softened. “But I worry about Sam. He’s already having nightmares. What if it comes back?”
“That’s not likely.” Everything he knew about the Mothman indicated the creature was solitary, preferring the remote acres of the TNT. Several months had passed since the last flurry of Mothman sightings. Before that, the monster had lain low for a span of almost fifteen years.
“I don’t think you need to worry.” The statement was a shot in the dark, but Caden would tell him if there was something to be concerned about. Not for the first time, Ryan wished he better understood his brother’s connection to the cryptid, but that inexplicable bond was something Caden avoided discussing.
Ryan shoved his coffee aside. “I’m more worried about the van. I wish you’d gotten a better look at it.”
“I know.” Katie bit her lip, anxiety crossing her face. “It was too dark to see. It might have been green or blue. Even black or dark gray. It was hard to tell.”
“And you’ve never seen it around before?”
She shook her head, glancing briefly at her hands. When she looked at him, her gaze was clear. “Ryan, do you think there’s something odd going on?”
Confused by the question, he hesitated. Afternoon sunlight streamed through an adjacent window, herald of a gorgeous autumn day. Sitting in Katie’s cheerful kitchen with its whitewashed maple cupboards and ivy wallpaper, it was hard to imagine anything remotely sinister had lingered outside during the night.
“What do you mean?”
“Everything that’s happened lately.” She studied him closely. “Think about it. Jerome…the mysterious deputy no one seems to know about…Rex and those other animals disappearing…all the strange lights in the sky.”
He’d never been one to embrace flights of fancy. “Fanned by a lot of gossip and speculation.”
“Ryan, be serious.”
“I am.” The last thing he wanted to do was feed her fears. “Animals disappear. That’s part of life in a rural community. As for the lights, a lot of those were sighted near the airport. Factor in the Air Force bases up and down the east coast, and you’ve got opportunity for unusual lights in the sky.”
Her gaze sharpened with a defiant edge. “What about Deputy Brown?”
“I don’t know.” Realizing he fought a losing battle, Ryan sighed. “Look, Katie, all I’m saying is that it’s easy to jump to the wrong conclusion. You should have seen Jerome’s place when Caden and I were there. It’s filled with conspiracy stuff. UFOs, the Mothman…things I never even heard of. Look at this.” Twisting, he reached into the pocket of his jacket slung over the back of the chair. He’d taken Jerome’s battered paperback copy of UFO Sightings and Stories on a whim, thinking he might be able to help the man if he could get inside his head. But the book was a farfetched collection of tales and speculation that made Parker Kline seem sane.
“This is the kind of stuff I’m talking about.” Ryan passed her the book. “I only flipped through it, but it’s crazy. People swearing they’ve seen UFOs or monsters, believing in other dimensions and interplanetary travel. I like Star Wars as much as the next guy, but this shit, uh—crap—is seriously flawed.”
Katie paused in examining the book, running her finger down a page. “It looks like Jerome made a lot of notations in the margins.”
“Yeah. I’m starting to think the guy is more out there than anyone realized.”
“Can I keep this?”