“Austin!”
Mac flags him down at the entrance to the library, raising her voice enough to get an over-the-glasses look from Channery. She grins sheepishly. She looks disheveled, her hair all swept to one side, the collar of her uniform shirt askew. Everything about her indicates she should be exhausted, but she’s still standing, and she looks chipper doing it. It’s not even worth thinking about where she gets the energy.
“Did you find anything?” she asks, bringing her voice down to a loud whisper. It strikes Austin that maybe she thinks it’s a normal volume for a whisper to be.
“I did,” Austin says, gesturing to the book tucked under his arm. “Actually, I have a lot to tell you. I talked to the other guy staying at the motel last night.”
“The guy in 106?” Mac asks, her eyebrows shooting up. She looks positively delighted. “What did he say? Did you get, I dunno, a vibe off him or whatever?”
“He’s weird,” Austin says, wondering exactly how much he should let on that he suspects Walker. It sounds like whatever the thing in the forest is, it usually manifests in animals, but that still doesn’t explain the way Walker keeps showing up unexpectedly. Or why he was the woods when Austin was talking to Jeffrey and Myra.
“Funny weird or bad weird?” Mac asks.
“I’m not sure yet,” Austin admits, honestly. “He didn’t seem to really care about the animal attacks, but I think he also saved my life last night. So it’s up in the air?”
“He saved your life?” Mac asks, her voice cracking as she picks up the lede Austin wishes he had buried a little deeper.
“Yeah,” he says, a little reluctantly. “I was chasing whatever got Lorraine, I think - and it’s definitely not a dog. I don’t know what the hell it was, but it was too big to be a dog. Like a guy wearing a dog as a costume, or something.”
Mac makes a face, and Austin can’t say he disagrees with her.
“Ew,” she says. “But it didn’t hurt you, right?”
“Nope. I chased after it, and I almost caught it, but it got away and ran into the woods. I fell on the pavement, but I’m okay.”
“Well, good,” Mac says. “So what’d you come to the library for?”
“I had a hunch,” Austin says, because it’s a lot easier to take the credit than it is to explain his dead father who follows him around had a hunch. “I wanted to see if anything like this has happened before in town. I think the construction worker who was injured at the site a few weeks ago might have woken something up. Like, summoned something with his blood. Sometimes blood sacrifices will do that, even if they’re unintentional.”
He half expects Mac to look at him like he’s insane, or to callously dismiss what he’s saying, but she actually looks interested. Thoughtful, too, like she’s internalizing all of it.
“Well?” she prompts him. “What did you find?”
“It’s happened before,” he says, opening the history book to the page he stuck a paper library bookmark in, to show her the chapter Channery found for him. “All of it. If we don’t figure out a way to stop it, people here will start attacking each other, instead of just animals attacking people. I think this thing - whatever it is - gets stronger the longer it’s awake, and at first it can only control animals.”
“Oh, wow,” Mac says grimly, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “How do we stop it?”
“Getting the construction and everything out of the woods, stopping it completely, seems to work most of the time,” Austin says. “But it just goes dormant again. I don’t know if we can kill whatever this thing is for good.”
Mac raises an eyebrow. “There’s a way to kill anything if you try hard enough.”
“Well, I haven’t found a way yet.” Austin tears his eyes away from the book, looking to Mac. “I can try and look into it more, but we also might not want to kill it. It might just think it’s defending its territory, or something like that. Some spirits are territorial, but not necessarily evil.”
“Good point,” Mac says. “But if it turns out to just want to murder us, I’m open to the idea of getting rid of it. Just saying.”
“Me too,” Austin says, with a sigh. “Just be careful, if it ever comes down to confronting this thing in person. If it’s old enough to have messed with the people who originally built Antlers, it’s definitely intelligent. It knew where to find my room, and almost got the jump on me last night. And it’s been getting stronger for the past couple of weeks.”
“Right, right,” Mac says, waving away the concern. “We’ll be fine, Austin. You saw me take down that buck yesterday.”
Austin chews his bottom lip, fiddling with his lip ring between his teeth. Maybe Mac is just trying to put on a brave face to cover up the fact that she’s never had to deal with anything like this before, but there’s a sincerity behind her words that wouldn’t be there if she didn’t really believe them. It’s worrying. No one in town is well-equipped enough to take down a spirit like this - not even Austin. So what’s going to happen when things inevitably come down to that?
“I’m going to keep looking for a way to at least contain it,” he says quietly, avoiding Mac’s gaze. Seeing her grin so easily like that makes the anxiety in the pit of his stomach a little more noticeable. “Did you get the blood on the buck’s antlers tested?”
“We had to send it out for analysis,” Mac says. “The results won’t be back for a while.”
“And the other victims? You talked to them, right?”
“Yeah. Though they weren’t very helpful. It was dark, all they saw was a big furry animal thing, you know the drill.”
Austin continues to chew his lip, thinking. “Did they say where they were attacked?”
“One was on her way back to the motel from eating dinner at the diner. And the other was…” Mac pulls a small notepad out of her jacket pocket and flips through it for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth as she scans the pages. “Walking to the convenience store at around one in the morning. Said something big and furry came barreling out of the woods and bowled him over.”
“That tracks,” Austin says. “So far the only big attacks have been at night. I think this thing likes to hunt in the dark, until it’s strong enough to possess people.”
“That makes sense,” Mac agrees, tucking her notepad away. “So it’s just biding its time, right? You said it was smart.”
“I don’t know that for sure,” Austin says quickly. He could just be ascribing intelligence to the dog-thing that attacked him, but something in his gut is sure that it knew where to find him. That it chose to target him, to get rid of him, probably because he’s been working this case. Walker would have been the easier target if he was still down by the soda machines, but the dog-thing went out of its way to Austin’s room. As if it remembered what the buck had seen.
“You’re some kind of psychic, right?” Mac asks. “I say trust your gut.”
“Not that kind of psychic,” Austin mumbles, though his gut instinct hasn’t failed him yet.
“Well, regardless,” Mac says, the smile reappearing on her face, “it’s a pretty solid lead. I’ll talk to Monty about getting together a search party to go out in the woods, see if we can find anything weird.”
“I can look into it if you want,” Austin offers, looking down and scratching the back of his neck. The prospect of spending more time around the motel and the woods is a little scary, but he wants to get this squared away as soon as he can. Plus, if he runs into Walker again, there’s a chance the other man might slip up and reveal why he’s been acting so off.
“No way.” Mac shakes her head at him. “You need to go home, or - back to that guy you’re staying with, and get some rest. You look like you’re dead on your feet, and it’s no good if you pass out in the middle of all this. Let someone else handle the motel stuff for now, and we’ll catch you up in the morning, okay?”
She’s right, Austin realizes, a little surprised at how perceptive Mac is. He hadn’t noticed up until now, but he’s tired, and his body is once again feeling the toll of being dragged across pavement last night, sore all over. The sun is getting an early start on setting outside, which means Otter will probably be home. A lot has happened in only a couple of days - it might be good to slow down for a bit. And eat something, Austin realizes, his stomach growling.
“Okay,” he says. As an afterthought, he holds out the history book to Mac. “You should take this with you. It’s not a lot, but it might help. Just...read it, at least. And - actually, let me give you the address of the guy I’m staying with, in case you need anything. Do you have a pen?”
“Sure,” Mac says, producing one from her pocket. Austin takes it gratefully and scribbles down his name, Otter’s name, and Otter’s address and apartment number on his library bookmark, then tucks it back into the history book.
“Here,” he says, finally handing over the book over.
“Thanks, Austin. I’m sure this’ll be a big help.” Mac takes the book from him with a grateful smile, and turns to go. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Austin says. His stomach churns - either anxiety or hunger, he can’t tell which. Hopefully getting back to the apartment and seeing Otter will solve one or both of those things. “See you tomorrow.”
if mac has a million fans i am one. if mac has a hundred fans i am one. if mac has ten fans i am one. if mac has one fan then it’s me i’m that fab