The Complete Universe of Horror Trilogy by Charles L. Grant

Author:Charles L. Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: vampire, horror, werewolf, grant, trilogy, mummy
Publisher: Bob Booth

Chapter 9

For the first time in his twenty-four years of hunting and tracking in and around the hills of Oxrun Station, Charlie Notting was lost.

One moment he knew exactly where he was, to the inch how far he was from the Tripper farm below Pointer Hill, and the next he didn’t think he could find his ass with both hands and a giant lantern.

It wasn’t frightening, it was humiliating, and if anyone so much as said a single word about it, he was going to blow his stack and turn in his badge. It was humiliating, and it was painful.

He had spent most of the day doggedly trailing after Barrows and his sons, listening to the fat man snap his damned suspenders as he bitched about Stockton, bitched about the drought, bitched about the trees he took as a personal affront slowing him down. It seemed as if the entire world had decided that Donald Barrows was going to be made a fool of, and Barrows had decided that the world was going to pay.

It was hell, but Charlie also listened to the way the man expertly, uncannily read the few tracks they had found, could tell the weight of the animal they’d come across, its direction, its age, all in such an off-handed manner he had initially believed Barrows was making it up. It was a school he’d attended with his own father, but nothing like this; the man was unnatural and made him feel as if he’d never known a thing about the woods, or about hunting.

What made him complain so much was the complete lack of wolf tracks, or anything remotely resembling them.

Not a single one, not even in the field where they found Tripper’s horse.

It was Barrow’s idea to begin on the far side of the crest of Pointer Hill, down near the quarry; if they discovered nothing of interest, and if the Tripper boy wasn’t hiding in one of the caves there, they would sweep up, over, and down into the valley. And if that proved fruitless, he proposed they follow the train tracks to the north rise and start again at the iron mines.

They hadn’t gotten that far.

Barrow’s youngest took a fall at the quarry and turned an ankle so badly Charlie thought it was broken; the next one received a nasty blow to his forehead when in his eagerness to prove himself as good as his father he forgot to duck under a low-hanging branch while running full-tilt down the slope. Two sons to take two sons back, and Barrows called a halt, broke out bread and ale, and they wasted another hour under a hickory, speculating and getting nowhere.

Then the clouds rolled in, and Barrows told him to stick around, he had an idea.

That was four hours ago.

Charlie, in his waiting, was so exhausted he fell asleep. When he awoke, disorientation unnerved him until he remembered where he was, and why. Immediately, he grabbed up his Enfield and started off on his own, calling for Barrows, receiving no answer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.