I shook my head. “I’m left-handed—” I stopped as Murray burst through the doors. She hurried over.

  “I came as fast as I could.”

  “Are you a family member?” the nurse asked.

  Murray shook her head. “No, but I’m closer than her sister. Does that count?”

  “I only ask because she’s having difficulty filling out these forms and I wondered if you might be able to help her.”

  Murray took the clipboard and pushed me over to one of the chairs, where she sat down and began filling out the forms. “Height? Weight?”

  “I’m five-four and one-sixty. And I’m being honest.” I tried to grin at her, but it came out as a weak laugh and tears welled up in my eyes. “My arm really hurts.”

  “I know it does,” she said, setting down the admissions forms. “Jimbo told me what happened. Can you describe the creature? I know we can’t officially file a report on an invisible attacker, but in case anybody else happens to report seeing something like it, I’d like to have a record.”

  I nodded. “I’m not likely to forget it—” Pausing, I waited as a woman walked by us toward the admissions desk. She was sporting one hell of a shiner and I caught a glimpse of a tall man screaming and lashing out at her. Sometimes, I hated being so in tune that I could catch people’s thoughts when super-strong emotions were involved. Over the years I had learned how to ward myself from most of them, but now and then somebody broke through.

  The nurse was headed our way again so Murray hurried to finish filling out the forms, and I handed her my insurance card so she could fill out that part.

  “The doctor’s ready to see you,” the nurse said, taking hold of my chair. “We’ll bring her back soon,” she added to Murray.

  “I’ll finish these for her and take them to the desk.” Murray held up the clipboard, as the nurse wheeled me into the back.

  The doctor frowned as he examined my wounds. “How did you get these?”

  “Something attacked me while I was poking around an abandoned house.” I did not volunteer to describe what it was. I had the feeling the doctor wasn’t the type to entertain tales from the dark side, so to speak. He seemed all business, no-nonsense, and a little too tired for comfort.

  “What was it? Animal? Human?”

  “I have no clue,” I said. “Animal, I think. I was poking around and whatever it was, knocked me down. I was fighting it off when I fainted. Woke up a few minutes later when a friend found me.” I tried to make it as vague as possible because from just being in this doctor’s presence for under a minute, I knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t believe a thing I said. And I didn’t have the time or energy to fight off a suggestion to visit the psych ward.

  “Hmm…peculiar,” he muttered, glancing at me. “Were you on anything? Smoking anything?”

  I started to grimace, then stopped. Pot was legal now, at least in our state. That would be a good excuse for why I might not know what had attacked me. I decided to go with it. “Just a little weed,” I said, shrugging. I scrambled to think of a name that sounded potent. “Kona…berry—I think it’s Konaberry Gold.” Now to hope the doctor didn’t know his marijuana brands.

  “Hawaiian? Figures.” He sighed, setting down the clipboard. “Let me see here…you got yourself scratched up good, Ms. O’Brien.” He began to frown when he examined the marks raking my arm. “I’d say a bobcat, maybe. As for your face, you probably fell from the attack and landed on something like a corroded battery.”

  He was stretching it, but as long as he believed it and didn’t press me, I was okay with being a stoned klutz who attracted local wildlife.

  “I suppose that could be it,” I said. I was beginning to feel really queasy. “So, do you think I have an infection? I feel queasy and exhausted.”

  “If you didn’t eat much for breakfast, an attack like that could cause nausea. You’ve lost enough blood to make you feel dizzy, but not enough that I need to give you a transfusion. However, those wounds look angry. I’m going to flush them out, then give you a strong antibiotic to knock out whatever might be growing in there.”

  Visions of Alien danced in my mind and I cringed. “Whatever you need to do.”

  As the doctor began to prep me for treatment, he shook his head again and said, “Now, young woman—”

  “I’m forty-five,” I said.

  “I’m seventy-two. You’re a young woman to me,” he countered. “Maybe this will teach you not to get stoned and go poking around places where you could get hurt.”

  I tuned him out at that point as he called a nurse in and they began to treat my wounds.

  Chapter Eight

  Once I was back at Harlow’s house, she installed me on the sofa, cautioning me to call for help if I needed to use the powder room. I didn’t feel dizzy anymore, but I felt exhausted. Murray was making dinner, Joe was hovering over me, James and Jimbo were out examining the well. The cops and coroner had finished with their work.

  I shifted, uncomfortable and in pain. The actual cleaning of the wounds had been more painful than getting them, but now I was on a heavy dose of antibiotics, the scratches had been medicated and dressed, and I felt like a steamroller had hit me. The doctor had told me to take ibuprofen for the pain, instead of smoking weed. I had just nodded and let him ramble.

  “So, first off, what was that thing and how do you think it related to the girl’s death, if at all?” Murray asked, carrying a TV tray over so I could eat dinner while lying down.

  I propped myself up, wanting to protest so I could eat at the table, but the fatigue from the attack was growing and I realized that I was just too tired for much of anything.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it pushed her over the side, or threw her down there. I don’t even know what it is, or whether it was around when she was alive.” My mind flickered back to the tunnel Jimbo had seen. “Did the cops mention anything about that tunnel?”

  Jimbo shook his head. “No. Up here, they don’t seem excited enough to check out anything they don’t have to.”

  “That’s not fair,” Murray said, peeking her head around the corner. “The Whatcom sheriff’s department is underfunded. They get a lot of accidents up here from the farming community, as well as from the good ol’ boy hunters who can’t tell the difference between a large bulk and their best bubba. Hell, even my aunt, White Deer, can take down a stag better than most of the bros out here. Add booze to the equation, which they usually do, and it makes for an emergency room full of idiots.”

  “True enough. I can tell you, among the Klickavail Bikers, we do our best to make certain our members aren’t doing stupid shit like playing Russian roulette or stabscotch.” Jimbo shrugged.

  “What’s stabscotch?” I asked.

  Jimbo pressed his hand flat against the coffee table, spreading his fingers as he pulled out a knife. “You know this game?”

  I nodded. “Got it. Yeah.” I paused, then said, “I want to explore that tunnel down in the well. I know that creature came from there. I wonder—was it there before the well was built?”

  “No,” Joe said. “You are not going down in that well.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him. “You know very well it’s useless to tell me not to do something. In fact—”

  “It only acts like a dare. I know, I know. But for once, I wish you’d listen to reason.”

  I shifted, wincing as I sat up. The pain was rough, but then again, the wounds were fresh. By tomorrow I’d be stiff but not nearly as sore. I hoped.

  “Listen for a minute. That creature has been here a long time. My gut tells me it was responsible, at least in part, for that little girl’s death. Do you really want Eileen wandering around and coming in contact with it? You saw what it did to me. Think what it could do to a seven-year-old.” I stared at him, letting my words sink in.

  Joe let out a long sigh. “I get it. But promise me you won’t go off on your own. Take Jimbo or Murray with you.”

  I nodded. “I promise I won’t tackle this on my own. But we have to do something about it, or there’s a chance tragedy will strike again, and this time for Harlow and James.”

  By the next morning, I was up on my feet again. When Joe changed the dressing on my arm, the gashes were still looking gnarly, but they weren’t the same angry red, and they looked like they were starting to heal. The same thing for the gash on my cheek.

  Murray had to get back to Chiqetaw, but Jimbo offered to stay to help me scope out what that creature was and try to figure out a way to take care of it. James had a meeting in town, and Harlow headed off to buy groceries, leaving the three of us—Joe, Jimbo, and me—at the house.

  Joe was on his laptop, frowning as he combed through website after website.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Anything matching the description of that creature you saw. I’m checking out local legends, indigenous legends, urban legends, anything of the sort.” He frowned. “This area seems to be teeming with paranormal activity. There are stories of farmers around here who found their cows, mutilated. A lot of UFO reports from people who aren’t normally into that sort of thing.”

  “In other words, it’s not surprising to find some creepy critter out here.” I frowned. “I still can’t shake the feeling this thing came off the astral plane and either got stuck here, or decided to make a nest.” I paused, then asked, “Can you look up unusual deaths and/or disappearances around here? See if you can come across any pattern? The girl in the well had to have been reported missing…or you would think.”

  “That depends. There have been cases where entire families buried dark secrets. If a family member killed her, the rest of the family might have covered it up to protect the killer.” Jimbo shook his head. “That happens more than you might like to think. The family either say they ran away, or some mysterious aunt whisked the kid off to Europe or some such excuse.”

  It boggled my mind as to how someone could do that, but then again, I’d been privy to too many dark secrets in the past.

  “Here—I found a list of missing persons in the area. First, Washington state is in the top five states in the nation for missing persons each year. There are currently almost seven hundred people reported missing in Washington, and…whoa…between Maple Falls to Glacier, the ratio of missing persons jumps by a disproportionate number. And the oldest cold case on record is from well over seventy years ago.” He paused, then said, “A lot of people go missing in the national parks, you know. I remember learning that some time ago.”

  “I remember hearing that,” I said. “So, was there a missing persons report from this farm any time that you can find out?”

  Joe scanned through the list on the screen, and then he said, “Yes, actually—back in 1955, a girl was reported missing. Sarah Beth Eversong. She was nine. Her parents reported her missing. The last time they saw her was when she headed out to feed the chickens. She didn’t come back, her father went out looking and couldn’t find any sign of her. They never did find her.”

  “Do some research on the Eversong family.” I crossed to the window, staring out into the brilliant day. It was bright—too bright for my usual comfort—but right now I welcomed the light. The wounds on my arm burned, but even though I was stiff, it was better than the day before.

  “Em?” Joe broke into my thoughts. “I found another mention of the Eversong family. This time it’s about Leonard Eversong.”

  “He was, I believe, the middle child in their family,” I said. “What does it say?”

  “He was convicted in 1964 of sexually assaulting a girl on the Western Washington State College campus—what’s now Western Washington University. Apparently, he was part of an underground cult who practiced summoning demons—and other beings—and though they had broken up by the time he was arrested, every member had been in some run-in with the cops.”

  “Summoning demons? Hmm…I wonder.” My phone rang, interrupting my thoughts. It was Murray—I could tell by the ringtone. I had set her number to the song “Renegade” by Styx, which made me feel older than dirt, but it was one of her favorite songs and it always made me think of her when I heard it.

  “Hey Mur,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “I got a call from the coroner. They’ve autopsied the skeleton. And…it’s odd.” Her voice shifted to a tone that told me she was confused.

  “What’s odd?”

  “Well, either the girl fell down the well when there was water in it, or she was carefully placed in there when it was dry. Absolutely no signs of damage from falling. Also, and this is just the icing on the cake—the girl was eaten.”

  I held my breath. “What the hell?”

  “They found bite marks on most of the bones, in regular patterns. The girl was eaten, Em. Gnaw the bone, finger-licking-good eaten.” She cleared her throat.

  “Eaten? You mean like in animals finding her dead body and eating her?” I sincerely hope she would say yes. The alternative was too gruesome.

  “Actually, by the pattern of the bite marks, the coroner is pretty sure that whoever ate her wasn’t just picking off remains. Do you think…?”

  “That the creature I saw ate her? What kind of teeth?”

  “Whoever ate her had extremely sharp teeth, and that they weren’t human. There was no sign of any molars, either. Most of the bite marks were extremely sharp. Which means either a total carnivore, or something we’ve never seen before. The coroner said it’s like no other animal bite marks he had seen before.”

  I sucked in a slow, deep breath. “Have they identified her? That girl in the picture? Her name was Sarah Beth Eversong.”

  “Right, and Sarah Beth was classified a runaway. The sheriff’s office will do due diligence and see what they can find.” She paused, then said, “If that creature is the one who dragged her off and ate her, we have to put a stop to it. Did Joe say he found any indication of other missing persons reports in this area?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Apparently this area has a disproportionate number of missing people. From Maple Falls up to Glacier.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll see what I can find out about Sarah Beth, but I doubt if there’s anybody in the area who would remember her. That was a long time ago.”

  “Somehow I don’t think going over to the neighbors and knocking on doors asking if they remember a missing girl is going to do much good,” I said. “Harlow was telling me earlier that most of these old farms out here have been bought up over the years.” I paused, then added, “I think we need to check into that tunnel. If this creature abducted her and ate her and threw her skeleton in the well, maybe its nest is down there.” Although I didn’t relish the idea of heading down the well, it seemed to be our only choice.

  “If you do, take Jimbo with you. Under no circumstance are you to go down into that well alone.”

  I agreed. Even though my curiosity was burning, my common sense was even stronger. I had no desire to end up on the dinner plate like poor Sarah. By now, I was positive that both the girl’s ghost and the skeleton belonged to Sarah Eversong.

  As I hung up, Joe and Jimbo looked at me expectantly. I told them what Murray had found.

  “We need to check out the tunnel,” I said, looking at Jimbo.

  He nodded. “If that thing is a people-eater, we have to stop it before it claims another victim. Who knows how many people it’s killed over the years?”

  Thoughts of Eileen ending up at the mercy of the creature filled my mind. I tried to shake them away, but Sarah was proof that bad things could happen to anybody at any age.

  “What do we need?”

  Jimbo pulled out a sheet of paper and started listing items so that we wouldn’t forget them. “Rope, water, weapons, and some form of usable fire. I doubt that we can come up with a flamethrower on short notice, but we need to have something that creates fire. We’ll also need flashlights, and a first-aid kit.”

  “I always carry a lighter on me. You never know when you’re going to need flame,” I said.

  I didn’t want to think about attacks. I didn’t want to think about anything like that. I just wanted to find whatever it was we were facing and get it over with.

  The reports of UFOs in the area made me wonder. I had never really encountered aliens of any sort, except for the Warriors of the Mountain. And the Warriors of the Mountain weren’t really aliens, per se, but a subsection of shadow people.

  One thing I had learned over the years was that legends could be real, and creatures existed beyond the realm of our wildest imagination.

  “I still don’t like this,” Joe said. “You know I’m going to worry about both of you. And I can’t go with you to be of any use.”

  “I worried about you every day when you were on call,” I said. “This world is a dangerous place, and there’s no space that’s really safe. Not even at home. When my house was invaded by the astral creature during the time I was trying to help Susan Mitchell’s ghost, I learned that even home can be a death trap. But you know as well as Jimbo and I do that Harlow and James aren’t up to dealing with this themselves.”

  Joe nodded. “Yeah, I do. I recognize that. I just wish I could help out more.”

  “You are helping. The research helps, more than you imagine.” I wanted him to feel better, but I also meant what I said. Going out in the field to take care of some astral creature wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. But without proper research, it was all the more dangerous. “Jimbo will be with me, so I’ve got some brawn on my side.”

  Joe laughed, nodding. “I guess you’re right. I just have to accept that my place in the world has shifted. I’m going to have to rely more on my brains now than my muscles.”

  “Dude, how many people have you saved over the years?” Jimbo asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve helped a lot of people, but if you mean actually saved their lives—then I’d say fifteen to twenty. Why?”

  “How many people can say they’ve saved one life, let alone fifteen to twenty?” Jimbo shook his head and slapped Joe on the shoulder. “You have done more in your life so far than most of us will ever do in terms of helping people. Now, your help is just going to be coming from a different angle.”