Forest Ghost by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page A

around that you could lend me?’
    The scout leader was plump and bespectacled with a dented bald head that had been burnished by outdoor activity to the color of a shiny brass doorknob. He stared at Jack as if he had asked him a question in Swahili.
    ‘I was outside, in the rain,’ Jack explained. ‘I was helping the sheriff’s deputies to search the woods.’
    The scout leader shook his head and tutted. ‘I
warned
them something like this would happen! I warned them so many times!’ He dropped his papers on the floor and bent down to pick them up.
    ‘Anything would do,’ Jack told him. ‘Maybe a tracksuit, or a sweater and a pair of jogging pants.’
    ‘Don’t sell off any more acreage, I said!’ the scout leader went on, gathering up his papers. ‘You’ll regret it if you do! In its heyday, this camp covered more than eleven thousand acres, did you know that? Eleven thousand! Now it’s down to less than five, and the Chicago Scout Council wants to sell the rest of it off, for development! You’re playing with fire, that’s what I told them! Playing with fire! It won’t be just the local community you’re up against, or the scouts, or the staff alumni! No, sir! There are things in these woods that will fight you back, too!’
    ‘Some – ah – dry clothes?’ Jack prompted him.
    ‘Oh. Yes. For sure. By cracky, you
are
wet, aren’t you? You see that door at the end of the corridor, on the right? That’s the storeroom, for the shop. You should find some Owasippe sweatshirts in there, and some sweatpants. Leave them a note to say you’ve taken them, and your address, so they can bill you.’
    ‘Thanks,’ said Jack. But before he turned away, he said, ‘What “things in the woods”, exactly?’
    ‘What?’ The scout leader blinked at him. Tucking his papers back under his arm, he took off his spectacles and used one of the pointed ends of his boy-scout scarf to wipe the fingerprints off them.
    ‘You said that “things in the woods” would fight back, too.’
    ‘Well …’ said the scout leader. ‘Anybody who knows anything about woods will tell you the same.’
    Jack was just about to ask him what ‘the same’ actually meant when Sally appeared. She looked tired and harassed and her hair was all messed up.
    ‘My God, Jack, have you been swimming?’
    ‘Oh, very funny. I got caught in the rain. Did they tell you what we found?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, with a grimace. ‘I’ve just been talking to the undersheriff. He wants me to keep these poor people in Muskegon overnight so he can ask them some more questions tomorrow morning about their children. Most of them just want to go back home.’
    ‘Why does he need to talk to them again? The bodies we found in that pool must have been there for
days
, long before any of us got here.’
    ‘He’s just being an overzealous a-hole, I’m afraid. What exactly was their condition, these bodies, if you don’t mind my asking you? All the undersheriff told me was that they were a male and a female and it appeared to be a murder-suicide.’
    ‘Well, he’s probably right. The woman’s head had been cut clean off, and the guy was curled up under the water clutching it, like a goddamned football.
He
may have committed suicide but
she
sure didn’t.’
    Then he said, ‘Just a second, Sal,’ and turned around to apologize to the scout leader for interrupting their conversation, but the scout leader had gone. Jack could just see his coppery doorknob head bobbing away through the crowd. ‘Shit,’ he said.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Sally.
    ‘I’m not sure. I was talking to that scout leader and he said something about “things in the woods”. He said that the scout council wanted to sell off all of this land for redevelopment, but that there were “things in the woods” which would fight back, if they tried. He shot off before I could ask him what he meant.’
    Sally patted the front of Jack’s soaking-wet shirt. ‘I expect he meant the