Chapter Nine
I was sitting in the living room after dinner that night watching Devon in his crib when Derek approached me.
“Hey, can you take a walk with me? I want to talk to you about something,” Derek said.
“Sure,” replied.
Truthfully, I didn’t want to move at all. Bill had prepared a magnificent feast of ribeye steaks, baked potatoes, an amazing chef’s salad, and the most delicious clam chowder soup I’d ever had. I was so full that I felt like I was going to burst at any second. So, yea I was not a big fan of movement at that moment. But Derek seemed like he had something important on his mind.
It has been my experience that when Derek has something important on his mind it is usually something really serious, that he thinks is somehow life changing and he needs to talk about it asap with someone. It is pretty damn lame, but I indulge him because I am his best friend.
Debra said she’d watch Devon so I followed Derek outside into the cold night air. We walked towards the edge of the woods. I was waiting for him to tell me what was going on. Why was he walking me so far away? Whatever it was must have been really important and I was starting to get worried.
"Ok, what's going on?" I finally asked when we stopped at the edge of the woods. In the distance, I could see the lights from the next cabin in the resort. There were eight cabins in all. I wondered to myself if they were all the same or totally different inside. I would have liked to have visited all cabins.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Derek asked. He was getting agitated. His voice was angry and gritty.
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw you,” Derek said. He was now pacing back and forth.
“Wait, saw me where? What are you talking about?”
“I saw you coming out of the Jacuzzi room with Tony,” Derek said.
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach and I could not breathe for a few seconds.
“Ok, don’t tell anyone,” I said. “It’s going to be really bad if the others know. Tom just broke up with Beth and this is going to make it really weird for us to be here.”
“That’s all you care about? The rest of them finding out about your little tryst. What about me?”
“What about you? What are you talking about Derek?” I asked.
"I love you, Jackie. I've loved you for a long time, but you never saw me that way. I have done everything I can. We've been great friends and there is no reason that we can't take that further. I finally start to get the inkling that you might be changing your mind about me and then you go and hook up with that guy. I told you who he is and what he is about."
“Derek, you and I are just friends. Don’t you see that? I’m not interested in us being a couple. I value the friendship too much. Most relationships don’t work out and I don’t want that to happen to us because we won’t be able to go back to just being friends when it is over. And I talked to Tony about his family. That is not something he does or that his family does. It’s from the old times centuries ago.”
“Oh, I’m sure you believe everything he tells you. I felt sick when I saw you with him. What does he have? What does he have that I don’t? What do I have to do to make you see me as a man?” Derek asked.
I looked at him. I didn't know what to say. I had often asked myself why I didn't feel that way about Derek and it was just one of those things that were really hard to say. I didn't know why. I just didn't.
He was handsome, sexy, and fun, but I just never could picture us together and I valued his friendship too much to take that gamble. I thought he understood that but apparently, I was totally wrong on this. I hated that I had caused him pain. That was the last thing I ever wanted to do.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just don’t have those feelings for you.”
"Well, that is just great," Derek said. "Don't worry, I'm not going to tell on you. I wouldn't want to wreck my family's Christmas." With that, Derek started walking back towards the cabin.
***
The body was found in a grove of trees in the woods about a hundred yards beyond the edge of the lawn of a cabin three units down from the one we were staying in. Her name was Theresa Woods. She was a college student up at Mountainside Ski Resort with her best friends for Christmas. She was only twenty-one years old.
They were saying that she had been attacked by an animal of some sort. The idea was that a pack of coyotes or maybe even a black bear had wandered down from the mountains and stumbled upon Theresa when she was taking her early morning jog.
No one had heard her scream. No one had seen anything. It was the first murder in Mountainside history and the first murder in any of the neighboring towns for the past twenty years.
I decided not to go out to look at the scene. There was a crowd of onlookers like there always was when atrocities befell human beings, all looking and gasping trying to see if what was there was worse than their worst nightmares. I could attest that it probably was.
It was such a vicious attack. And so meaningless.
I could not believe that such an innocent life had just been destroyed on Christmas Eve. This was a day that most people woke up happy. They looked forward to spending the day and the night with family, friends, and loved ones. They drink eggnog and warm themselves by an open fire while they unwrap presents and listen to Christmas music or watch Christmas movies all day.
How could it start off like this?
“There is something not right about it,” Derek said. He’d just arrived back at our cabin after going out to investigate. I wanted to ask him why he went out there. He didn’t strike me as the type of person who had such a morbid curiosity.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean they say that an animal attacked her, but there was just something about it that doesn’t sit well with me. It’s almost as if there was planning involved in it. Nothing about it seems random like they are saying.”
“I’m sure it was just a wild animal,” I replied, but I was really hoping to convince myself more than him. What if it wasn’t just an animal? What if it was a… shifter?
The thought made my blood turn ice cold. I felt nausea. Was it possible that Tony might have done this? No, it couldn't be. There was no way. I refused to believe it.
“You aren’t so sure either are you?” Derek asked.
"What? Of course, I am," I replied, my voice full of doubt.
“Any idea if Tony slept in his room all night or not?”
“Of course he was, I suppose. I mean how should I know? I haven’t spent the night with him.”
“You didn’t see it out there. This girl’s body did not look like it had been attacked by just an animal. I mean a lot of the cuts were straight, not jagged like claw marks would be. Maybe someone did not want to get themselves too messy…” Derek said.
I couldn’t believe what he was saying but I could not deny that he might have been right. What if Tony had killed this girl? No, the idea was preposterous.
“You are scaring me,” I said.
"I've terrified myself. Maybe we all should be. If a shifter did this then there is going to be human evidence left behind. We don't have animal DNA. On a basic molecular level, we are human beings. The shift is more of a supernatural nature, not a physical one.”
“Well, what makes you think that there will be human evidence?”
“I was listening to the forensics team down there. They weren’t letting people too close, but with my extra sensory hearing I was able to listen to them mumbling amongst each other. They found something. I saw them pick up a torn piece of red fabric from a sweatshirt or sweatpants not belonging to the victim, and they found some human hair samples. They could tell they were human by the texture and by holding them up to the light apparently. For now, they are telling the public it was animal related so as not to panic people and mess up the town’s major business of this ski resort.”
“Where is Tony?” I asked.
“I think he went into town for something. Why?”
A few minutes later we were Tony’s room looking through all of his clothes. I felt like a creep, but I had to be sure. Derek had a way of working his way into my head to make me paranoid like him sometimes.
But he wasn’t paranoid this time. I found a red hooded sweatshirt with a hole in it folded up neatly in the drawer. I could smell that it had been freshly washed.
“We’re leaving,” I said.