Chapter Three
The car bumped along as Nicole traveled down the pitch-black farm road. There was no light for miles.
Even though she lived in a small, rural town, Nicole had never much liked being so far outside of civilization. There was just something about not being able to see around her that made her sweat a little. That likely affected her going into law enforcement.
It was what she’d wanted for years, ever since she was a teen and had flagged down a female deputy on the side of the road in the middle of the night. She and her friends had been on their way to the big city when their tire had blown out so badly that it bent the rim. The loud pop and the car shuddering to a stop just inside a ditch terrified them.
In the dark they waited for someone, anyone, to come along and help them.
Unfortunately, the first person to stumble on them hadn’t been a person that any of them would have talked to normally. The man stumbled out of his car reeking of whisky and staring them up and down in a way no teen should be looked at by a man.
The drunk offered them a ride, but it was Nicole who spoke up first, saying they would be fine where they were. They would just wait.
The man’s whole demeanor changed in seconds. Before he had been friendly, despite the lewd way he stared at them, but that vanished. He stalked over to Nicole, who stood in front of her friends.
Nicole had squeezed her hands so hard to keep from shaking that her nails broke through the skin.
Up close, the man’s breath stank worse than before. To this day, she couldn’t stand whisky because of it.
The man stared down at her, his eyes bloodshot as she tried to keep her calm. Then he smiled. Not like he had before but with cruelty and hate. In one moment, everything had changed. She wasn’t so certain any of them were going to make it out of there alive.
The man reached out to grab her by the shirt when red and blue lights flashed around them. His hand dropped to his side, and Nicole breathed a sigh of relief as a female deputy stepped out of the car and told the man to move back.
Nicole dropped to the ground, her knees no longer able to support her as she watched the deputy wrestle the man to the ground, cuff him, and place him in the back of her car. It was empowering to see such a thing after she had been so terrified before.
It was exactly who she wanted to be. She never wanted to be in the position again where she couldn’t defend herself.
The deputy had seemed so calm and collected as Nicole and her friends all cried. She helped them find a way home and get the car into a shop.
It was right then that Nicole knew what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to provide that security to others and help people who needed it.
She looked around. Looking back on the incident now, she could smile. She had come so far from that scared teen. More than once she’d taken down men twice her size. She had achieved exactly what she set out to do.
Nicole had always had a plan. Five years under Frank as a deputy. All she needed to do was prove herself and then she’d be able to move on to the big city. Her test scores were good enough, but rampant sexism meant she had to put in ten times what any man did, but with a little work, she’d be able to achieve what she wanted.
To run her own department.
Something twitched in Nicole’s chest, and she frowned at her reflection in the mirror. Her long blonde hair had slipped out of her bun slightly, and tendrils cascaded over her face as she studied herself for a moment.
Nicole didn’t want to stay in Eagle Ridge. She’d not made any friends on purpose. Eventually, she would be leaving. Still, something didn’t feel right about the idea of leaving. It had been floating around the recesses of her mind for some time now, and she could never seem to pinpoint exactly why it now bothered her.
Leaving had always been the plan. Work in a small department for five years and then move on to something bigger. She wanted to deal with more in her career than fights over water and lost keys. Still it was hard to not notice the sadness that came with those thoughts.
Whatever the problem, she would overcome it. What was the point of working so hard if she didn’t achieve all her dreams?
The car rocked hard as something slammed against the side. The hollow thud of metal was unmistakable. Nicole slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt. Dust, stirred up by her sudden stop, kicked up in a cloud around the front of her car, the particles only visible because of the headlights in front of her.
Her heart hammered hard in her chest.
A deer? Usually there was blood or something.
Something was wrong. Call it instinct, intuition, whatever, but she could feel it all the way to her bones. Something just wasn’t right around her.
Again something rocked the car, but this time harder. Nicole swayed hard in her seat. She could hear the screech of metal as it happened.
“What the fuck?”
The deputy peered out into the darkness around her. Maybe it was the bear from her reports. The one that was supposed to have moved on. She was at a remote location that would be the perfect spot if a predator were waiting to pick off stray drivers. Though she hadn’t really heard of animals attacking cars outside of polar bears up north.
Nicole placed a hand on her gun as she stared out into the darkness.
If it were the beast that had killed one man and countless animals, not only was she in serious danger but so were the local families who had been given the all clear. This animal had already proven it would kill a human. She wasn’t about to let it get to another. Maybe even a child.
Her hand shook a little as she reached out to the handle on the door. There was nothing wrong with being afraid. She’d learned that from Frank over the years. It was all about what you did with that fear that really mattered. As a deputy, it meant she pushed it way down and put the lives of the people around her over her own. That was just a part of the job.
Nicole took a deep breath and opened the car. She pulled her gun from its holster and readied herself as she stepped out into the darkness.
The deep quiet unsettled her. It was like even the cicadas were too afraid to make a noise. No animals scurried around the forest floor. Not even a bird or frog. The only sound was her own breathing and the hammering of her heart in her chest.
Nicole made her way to the front of the car, feeling somewhat better being surrounded by light. She could see the large logs down the way that lay in the road. They were the whole reason for her even coming down there. It was clear they had been dragged there by someone, and she wondered if a man or animal had done it. Could a bear plan something like that?
Down at the driver side tail end of her police car, she spotted four scraped lines that looked almost like claw marks. The paint had flecked off, revealing the bare metal below. She glanced over to the passenger side, where the first impact had taken place. A large dent lay visible past the back passenger door.
Something had attacked her car, but there wasn’t even a sign of it anywhere. Bears weren’t that fast.
Nicole looked around for the animal, but nothing lay on the ground. She lowered her gun. Maybe whatever had caused the dent and claw marks had wandered back into the woods injured by the impact. There wasn’t any blood on the ground, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t hurt. Internal bleeding was always a factor when it came to being hit by a car.
A low, deep rumble filled the air around her. For a moment, Nicole thought it might be thunder and looked to the sky expecting more rain like they had been getting for the past several days. The moon shone in the clear sky.
Nicole breathed out. Her breath billowed in a cloud of air. She frowned and shivered at the sudden cold that enveloped her. It had been a pleasant enough night just moments ago, and now suddenly it was freezing cold.
The chill penetrated deeply into her bones as thick fog filled the air around her. There was almost no wind, so she didn’t understand what was even pushing the fog into the area.
Nicole glanced up to the sky again. After only a few moments, the fog nearly blocked out the light of the once bright moon overhead. She looked back to the lights from her car. Frost was starting to creep up on the windshields. That made no sense.
She had seen a lot of strange weather in her time but never anything like this.
Another low, deep growl raised the hair on her neck. Nicole placed a hand on her gun again, uncertain just what the hell she was going to do. It wasn’t like she could just go blindly firing into the woods. That was how innocent people got hurt. The strange weather complicated the situation.
The rumble grew in volume. It seemed to vibrate off her very bones and made her stomach churn.
Then there was silence. The sort of still calm that only happened just before a storm.
“Get down!” a man yelled.
Nicole had only a moment to register the dark man charging toward her through the frost before his warm body slammed into her own, and they tumbled to the ground, him covering her as he did so.
Frigid air blasted above them as something screeched over them.
Nicole stared off in the direction the dark blur disappeared, but she couldn’t quite focus on what had just happened. All she really knew was that there was a man lying on top of her, and it wasn’t wholly unpleasant.
She turned her head to find blazing blue eyes and a face so familiar she recognized every line there.
“Are you okay?” the man asked.
The man stared down at her in concern, his deep blue eyes staring into her own. For a moment she wasn’t even certain what to say until he moved slightly, reminding her of just where they were. On instinct, she went into action. In one swift motion, she flipped the man onto his stomach and pulled both his hands behind his back, slapping on the cuffs faster than she thought possible.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” Nicole shouted, “but you’re under arrest until I get some answers.”