Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman by Scott Burtness Read Free Book Online Page A

one hand while scratching his thigh with the
other.
    Throughout
the entire meal, Stanley sat entranced. Finally closing his gaping mouth, he
leaned in with a serious look.
    “H-holy
smokes, Dal. You got a tapeworm? My uncle had one. Ate and ate, never gained
weight. Finally ended up in the hospital. When they operated, it was big as a
cucumber.”
    “Uh
huh. Good story, Stan. So here’s the plan. I’ll go in on foot, take a peek at
what their set-up is, and circle back here. Meanwhile, you’re gonna hang back
and cover my rear.”
    Stanley’s
face fell, reducing him to the kid who wasn’t picked to play kickball.
    “B-b-but
Dallas. We tracked these guys together! You and me. We f-figured out their
clues. Whadaya mean I gotta hang back?”
    Dallas
rose up, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. “Besides you being worth
less than a wet fart in a fight, what if someone’s been tailing us?”
    Leaning
in for full effect, Dallas bridged his fingers on the table and spoke in an
urgent voice.
    “Look.
We can’t take any chances. You hang back, and if some little sneak has been
tailing us, you take ‘em out of the equation. You follow?”
    Stanley’s
face went from overlooked-for-kickball to flat-out terrified. Leaning back from
Dallas, he started to shake his head back and forth.
    “Oh
no. No way. I ain’t getting n-n-nobody outta no equations. I got no gun. I got
no criminal element. Not me. Even if I had a gu-gu… oh crappers…” Stanley
looked ill. “Can’t do it. Can’t be killing no one. No sir.”
    Dallas
shook his head, palms out. “Oh for Pete’s… I wasn’t… What the hell do you think
is going on here, Stanley? I meant distract him. You know, stall tactics. So I
don’t gotta worry about no one sneaking up on me from behind.”
    Stanley
lit up instantly. “Oh, I gotcha, big D.” Winking conspiratorially, Stanley
started to plan. “I’ll f-fake a break-down. Maybe stab your truck tire with
something, give it a flat. Some sneaky guy happens by, I’ll make him ch-change
the tire.”
    Dallas
adopted Stanley’s previous look of terror. “No no no! No one’s stabbing Deloris
nowhere. Christ on a stick, Stan, what’s gotten into you?”
    Chagrined,
Stanley offered up a different thought. “Oh, right. Um, new plan. We’ll t-talk
about Jeopardy . I’ll bet him five, no
ten dollars that he don’t know the answer to last week’s Final Jeopardy
question. That’ll hold him for at least an hour. Maybe two,” Stanley finished
on an authoritative note. He immediately began trying to recall the previous
week’s question, and Dallas ceased to exist.
    Shaking
his head, Dallas strode through the door and out to the parking lot, turning
his thoughts to the journey ahead.
    A
quick glance around confirmed that Dallas was alone. The few folks in Cecil’s
were thoroughly engrossed in hiking their cholesterol and stretching their
waistbands. Despite having knocked off enough food to feed the Packers’ entire
defensive line, Dallas felt nimble. A fish sliding back into water, he slipped
into the trees and moved at a gentle lope. At least a quarter mile or so had
passed before he realized a couple of important things. One, he hadn’t made any
noise. Usually, even on his best days, he was bound to crack a twig or startle
a squirrel. Today though, he felt like smoke through the trees. Two, he had no
idea where he was going. He and Stanley had done a pretty good job of approximating
where the “X” was in relation to Cecil’s. Even so, if he was looking for an old
hunting cabin a mile or two into the trees east of Cecil’s, that meant upwards
of four to five square miles he might need to search to find the place.
Disgruntled, he decided to stop running willy-nilly into the woods and think
about a direction.
    Squatting
down on his haunches, Dallas’s face screwed up in thought. Why had he run this
direction in the first place? He was pretty sure he’d followed an
east-northeast course from