Monsters Within by Victoria Knight Read Free Book Online

wound slightly back into the woods, ending at the place she had always known simply as the Benton Cabin. She knew that her duties as Deputy -especially when filling in for the ailing Sheriff- should have  superseded any lingering beliefs regarding the town’s rumors about the Benton family, but she found it hard to let go of all she had heard.
    Besides…it was her job. She had to go to the Benton Cabin to question Saul Benton.
    Or, at least that’s what Lester Dobbs had said.
    Kara had been at work for no more than fifteen minutes that morning before Lester Dobbs stumbled into the station. The man had a bruise on his forearm, and was holding his neck as if he feared his head might fall off of it – nothing too unusual, given the man’s prepotency to get into trouble. The fear that clouded his face – that had been rather new.
    “I need to report a violent act,” Lester had said. He’d recited the words just as he had heard them on one of those lame crime shows on television.
    Kara had humored him and listened to his story. It had started with being pushed through the window at Randy’s Roost and ended with him leaving Saul Benton’s cabin, fearing for his life. She’d not believed any of it at first but when she visited Randy’s Roost and saw the smashed window, alarms began to whir in her head., She had spoken with Randy himself, as well as visited Hank Dooling at Lester’s request; after all was said and done, she had known that paying Saul Benton a visit was no longer optional.
    Kara still didn’t buy Lester’s story in its entirety, but there was certainly something going on. The property damage enough was reason to talk to Benton, even if Randy was not planning to press charges.
    Kara turned her Escape into Benton’s driveway, mentally cursing Lester Dobbs for putting her into this situation. The man had just graduated from a nuisance to official pain in the police’s ass.
    The cabin came into sight before her. Kara blinked; it was an anti-climactic sort of moment. The place looked rustic and quaint, resembling in no way a haunted house or Satanic headquarters. It looked like the kind of cabin where you would sit on the porch on hot afternoons, drinking beer and strumming an acoustic guitar.
    Kara parked her Escape at the end of the driveway next to Saul’s car and stepped out. She looked back towards the road and realized that she could just barely catch glimpses of it through the trees. Still, while she was less than three miles away from the Red Creek city line, she felt like she was hundreds of miles from civilization.
    As she walked toward the house—no pathway, just the perfectly manicured front lawn—she felt her lunch trying to roll over in her stomach. For a dizzying moment, she thought she might actually throw up.
    Stop being stupid , she told herself.   Forget about the rumors and the gossip. Just go up on that porch, knock on the door, and do your job.
    Kara tried to imagine what Sheriff Morel would say if he knew that she was reacting like this. He’d have a laugh or two and then go up there and show Saul Benton who was the boss. Well, maybe not; although Kara had only seen Saul Benton a handful of times, she knew for a fact that the man was built like the side of a mountain.
    With all of that going through Kara’s head, she had reached the porch steps without even knowing it. Kara waited for her stomach to calm itself, did her best to focus, and knocked on the door.
     

5
                 
    Saul was stirred awake by a knock at his front door. He sat up in bed quickly, instantly on alert. No one had ever knocked on his front door other than his family when they had still lived here together. But his dad was dead and Jill was somewhere else in the United States. Unless…maybe i t wa s Jill, somehow. Maybe she’d come back.
    No, that didn’t make sense either. It was daytimeoutside. That meant this visitor was most likely human, and therefore trouble . Two unexpected