Feral by Brian Knight Page B

Charles told Dee to make it top priority, told her to call his cell phone the second she located Jeannine Carter.
    Charles said his good-byes, promising to keep in touch, then hung up.   “She’s on it, my friend,” he said.   He threw the book onto his bed.   “I’ll read later.   It’s time to get moving.”
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    T hey took Charles’ Caddy and left town with the windows down.   The gathering clouds had cooled the day, and the rush of wind felt good.   Charles turned the radio up, listening for news of the latest murders.   Listening for Shannon’s name, hoping he wouldn’t hear it.   The police probably wouldn’t release it for fear of spooking her if she heard it mentioned on the local news, but it was hard to know what these yokel cops might tell the press.
    Charles saw the girl standing at the side of the road, half hidden in the willows on the river side of the highway.   Her face was a dirty oval; her hair long, brown and sticking up like a wild nimbus around her head.   She was dressed like a boy, wearing small boots, a blue T-shirt, and stained overalls.   She smiled at them as they approached, then tilted back and threw something large and mangled into the air.   A second later it hit the windshield with a loud gunshot crack.   It spread across Gordon’s side with an explosion of blood and fur and a large blossoming spider web of cracked safety glass.
    â€œSon of a bitch!” Charles yelled, struggling to regain control.   The Caddy weaved, tires squealing, and he brought it to a sliding halt at the side of the road.
    Gordon watched in silent shock as a mutilated cat slid toward the hood, leaving a sticky smear of blood, fur, and innards behind it.   One of its eyes had popped from a socket.   It lay against the windshield wiper, watching him sightlessly.   Maggots squirmed from the cat’s demolished head, more wiggled in the half-congealed blood on the windshield.   The matted corpse looked and smelled as if it had been dead a few days.   He fumbled his door open and puked in the ditch beside the car.
    â€œDamn it!” Charles shouted, and pushed his door open.   He stepped toward the highway where the girl half hid, giggling in the trees, but jumped back as a speeding semi shot past blowing its air horn.   “Son of a bitch!”   Charles slammed a fist on his hood.
    Gordon stumbled to his side as the truck passed.   “Who the hell did that?”
    â€œThat way!” Charles shouted when the semi was past them, and led Gordon to the other side.
    â€œWho did it?” Gordon asked again, following Charles through the bushes.
    â€œHer,” Charles said, pointing at the girl as she spun and giggled through the tall grass toward a large, dilapidated playground.   “Hey you, stop!” he yelled at her.
    She only laughed louder.   “Na- na na-na na-na , the old fat man can’t catch me.”
    â€œDamn, kid,” Charles growled, and pushed himself faster.
    Gordon struggled to keep up, his stomach tied in knots and his legs growing weaker with each step.
    Then, like nothing had happened, the girl stopped and sat at a bench near the playground.   She didn’t look back at her pursuers, just stared straight ahead toward the playground’s arched entryway.
    Charles stopped several yards behind the bench and waited for Gordon.   Together they approached the girl.   She sobbed quietly, her small shoulders quaking.   Gordon took the left side, Charles the right.   Then they stepped around the bench in front of her.   Charles opened his mouth, preparing to scold, and stopped.
    Her face was a mess of bruises and running cuts, her eyes swollen to narrow, red slits.   She screamed at them, a bubbling, frothy shriek.   Her bottom jaw was gone; her tongue lay like a giant, blood-slimed slug against her throat.   Blood pumped from the