Jan 2, 11:45pm

  Fish and Wildlife agent Freddy Spencer was finishing up a sweep of the west end of town when a call came in over the radio. He ignored it. His head was pounding so hard he could barely keep his eyes open. Every bump in the road, the sound of the engine running, even the act of turning the blinkers off and on was a struggle for him not to moan in pain.

  It was amazing, Freddy thought, how someone could have a hangover almost 48 hours after a party. But his bloodshot eyes and sore throat painfully confirmed that it was possible.

  The radio squawked again. “Is there a reason that you haven’t called in for the last hour?”

  On the other end of the line, the section dispatcher waited as patiently as she could for him to respond. Freddy pulled over to the side of the road, slipped his hat off, and rested his head against the steering wheel. He prayed for a few moments of quiet, but the dispatcher wouldn’t give up. “Come on, Freddy. You know you’ve got to check in.”

  Freddy closed his eyes and began halfheartedly searching for the mic. After blindly massaging most of the truck’s interior, his hand eventually ran over the CB by accident. He lifted the receiver to his very dry mouth. “I’m fine, Rosie. I’m just not feeling that well. Think I’m coming down with the flu or something.”

  “Really,” Rosie asked in a thick New York accent, “the flu, huh? It is that time of year, I guess. You must have caught it over at Millie Dwyer’s house, huh?”

  “Millie’s?” He tried to sound innocent, but Rosie knew him too well. Freddy could imagine her waiting, microphone in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other, for him to say something she knew was a lie. Like a tiger hunting her prey, she should have been the one out here tonight trying to catch poachers, not him.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, from what Sheriff Meadows told me down at the diner this morning, there were a whole lot of people over at her house the other night. She was having a wild New Year’s Eve party. So wild that two units were called out to control the crowd. But why am I telling you this? You were there, weren’t you?”

  Flashes of Jack, Hennessy, and vodka flooded his mind. The party ended yesterday, and a day and a half later, Freddy could still smell the alcohol sweating through his pores. He knew a lie was preferable but pointless. Rosie already knew the answer to her question. She always did.

  “Yeah,” he cleared his throat. “I think Millie did have a party a couple of nights ago. I might have stopped by.”

  “And now you’re a little hung over… huh?”

  “Yes.” Every muscle in his six-foot-one frame was as sore as they had ever been. Even Coach Sprull’s two a day’s back in high school football never racked his body this much.

  “Why don’t you bring it in, Freddy? I don’t even know why Bob’s got you running night patrols anyway. In this weather,” she paused. “Nobody’s stupid enough to be out there.”

  Freddy understood the irony all too well. “No, just me.”

  “Have you already made it down to the lake yet?”

  “No." River Road was directly on his right, but he hadn’t yet made the turn. He had always wondered why they called it River Road anyway. The damn thing led to a small lake, not a river. “I’m still about a mile away.”

  “Just swing it around, Freddy.” Rosie let her nurturing side peek through her usually steely fa?ade. “Take the truck home with you, and I’ll have Ed pick it up in the morning.”

  Freddy sighed heavily. A warm bed and eight hours of sleep sure felt like heaven right now. After all, it took almost all his energy to keep his eyes open long enough to stare down the darkened, snowy road.

  Located on the southern tier of New York State, Elmira was a mid-sized town that was bisected by the Chemung River. Snow often hit this area hard in the winter. In fact, a Canadian storm had been skirting the edge of town for about a week.

  Then, on New Year’s Day, it had finally hit.

  Normally, the town elders kept the streets pretty clear. But these were the outskirts of town, so most of the back roads hadn’t been plowed yet. Freddy had almost run off the road twice tonight. And from what he could see through the swirling snow, River Road was practically impassable.

  And that could be his excuse. He would tell his boss he couldn’t make it. Weather like this, anyone would buy it, and Rosie would help him sell it. After all, nobody would be crazy enough to come out here on a night like this…nobody.

  But even through bloodshot and hazy eyes, Freddy could see that somebody had.

  “Rosie, there’s a set of fresh tracks heading down toward the lake. Could be there’s someone out here doing some night hunting.” His head was still pounding, and his need for sleep was terrible. But as usual, his sense of duty won out. “Ten more minutes won’t kill me.”

  “Could be Mack, Freddy. You know he’s got a cabin right off the lake. That old fart is probably just down there, drunk off his ass, doing some ice fishing. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Freddy was surprised that she was out of the loop on something.

  “Mack’s visiting his kids in Pittsburg, Rosie.” Thick clouds in the sky made seeing anything past fifty yards a crap shoot. At a hundred, the tracks, not to mention the road disappeared ominously into the darkness. “Ten minutes, Rosie.” His mind was made up. “I’ll keep in touch.”

  Freddy eased the Dodge on to River Road. Trying to be careful, he shifted into the lowest four-wheel drive setting the truck had. At first, the road was relatively well maintained and passable. All he had to do was keep the vehicle inside the freshly made tracks.

  But after about a hundred yards, the open pasture fields on either side were swallowed up by a mixture of maple and pine trees. From here, the going became more treacherous. It would remain that way until the frozen road opened onto Lake Jasper. And if someone was down here hunting, that’s where they would be.

  During the winter, most of the small streams froze solid, leaving Lake Jasper as one of the few watering holes available to the whitetail population. Since deer favored making their beds close to water, the lake became prime hunting real estate.

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  Unfortunately, at least for the hunters, the land surrounding the lake fell within Maple Hill State Forest. Federally protected, hunting of any kind here was strictly prohibited.

  Over the last two years, Freddy had run many a hunter out of this area. But why would anybody be out here on a night like tonight? With the temperatures hovering just below freezing and five inches of fresh snow on the ground, this was snuggling weather, not hunting weather. To combat this reality, his mind momentarily drifted to a happier place.

  Then, something small darted out from the tree line.

  Freddy slammed on his brakes out of instinct. But, as anyone north of the Mason Dixon line will tell you, slamming on the brakes in the middle of a snow-covered road is a recipe for disaster. So, it was not surprising that his tires lost traction almost instantly, and the Dodge slid sideways off into the edge of the woods.

  “Freaking rabbit,” he cursed under his breath as the truck impacted with a small pine tree and came to a sudden halt a few feet away from the road. “What the hell’s got you spooked?”

  Just then, a second rabbit darted into the road, followed closely by two foxes and a wild hog. So close, Freddy would have sworn they were chasing it. He slid over onto the passenger seat and rolled down the window. The night air stung his sweaty face. “What’s got you guys so worked up? Are you running from something?”

  Behind the seat, Freddy kept a powerful halogen spotlight. He grabbed it, pointed it into the forest, and switched it on. An intense beam of light flooded the nearby woods, but nothing else moved. Overhead, Freddy could hear scores of birds fluttering in the darkness toward some unknown destination. And wherever they were going, they were sure trying to get there in a hurry.

  Must be a couple of them, he thought. Two hunters could be making enough of a racket. “Rosie,” he radioed back to base. “I’m going handheld for a while. It looks like we might have a couple of poachers.”

  The dispatcher wasted no time responding. “Be careful, Freddy. If someone is down there, they must be pretty motivated. Could be they’re drunk off their asses carrying loaded weapons. Watch your back.”

  His thoughts exactly, “Will do.”

  Spotlight in hand, Freddy hopped out of the truck. In the distance, he could hear what sounded like the low hum of a gas generator. That didn’t surprise him, though. After all, Mack’s cabin had a small one for running space heaters in the winter. But the direction was wrong.

  Mack’s cabin was on the opposite end of the lake.

  The spotlight didn’t penetrate more than a couple of dozen feet into the growth of trees. So, Freddy’s forward progress was slow. Also, he had to duck down every few seconds to try and see beneath them. Luckily, he had spotted an opening through the dense foliage when his light started to fade in and out. Freddy shook it, trying to bring it back to life, but all it did was flicker.

  The hum in the distance grew louder.

  Out of nowhere, the spotlight shocked him. Surprised, he cursed as it fell to the ground. Half buried in the snow, it continued to flicker on and off for a couple of seconds before going completely dead. Suddenly, what sounded like a large inhale of air enveloped him, and the normal sounds of the forest disappeared for what seemed like ten seconds.

  During that time, Freddy just stood there, scanning the darkness. Until, in the distance, something caught his eye. A soft glow of white light burning brightly somewhere ahead of him. But, before his mind could adjust to the strange sight, the light was gone.

  “Shit,” Freddy never had a hangover this bad before and he couldn’t help but wonder if this was all just a hallucination. He tried to picture Millie’s pretty face. Was she that pretty? The pain coursing through his body put a great many things in doubt.

  That light? He snapped back to the here and now as the sounds of the forest returned. “The light was in that direction,” he said to himself. On the ground, half buried in the snow, the spotlight flickered back to life. Gingerly, Freddy secured the device as the radio on his belt made a beeping sound.

  “Yeah, Rosie, what is it?”

  “Just checking in, is everything all right?”

  “Yeah,” Freddy trained his light from tree to tree. “I think I just saw something a second ago. It looked like someone was lamping out here. But the lights are gone now.”

  He reached up to feel his forehead. Somehow, the pain in his temples had begun to ease. So much so that his rubbery legs began to respond. “Rosie,” he started walking toward where he had last seen the light. “I just need a little more time.”

  After about twenty yards, his light fell upon a couple of squirrels lying next to each other in the snow. Intrigued, Freddy bent down and nudged at their little bodies with a small stick. They didn’t move. He removed a glove so he could squeeze one of them and it was unexpectedly warm to the touch.

  Normally, if you find dead animals in this kind of weather, they had either succumbed to a bullet or the cold. But these squirrels were neither shot nor frozen.

  To his left, about a hundred yards away, an engine roared unexpectedly to life. Startled, Freddy switched off his spotlight and squatted down against a tree for cover. From his position, he could make out a pair of headlights moving fast up the icy, snow-covered road.

  What the hell were they running from anyway, a game warden? No fine’s worth crashing your vehicle over. To make matters worse, they were nearing his truck. At any minute, he expected to hear crunching metal as the two vehicles collided. Instead, the headlights began to slow down. Whoever the driver was must have seen his truck in time to miss it.

  Once clear, they gunned the engine again and disappeared into the night.

  “Rosie,” he switched his light back on. “Whoever was out here just bugged out.”

  “Were they poaching?”

  Freddy slowly got to his feet. “I couldn’t tell. I was crouched in the tree line when they went hauling ass out of here.” He took a couple of steps and raised the spotlight. “I’m just going to make sure they weren’t burning anything out here.”

  “Be careful.”

  With his mind on that mysterious light, Freddy trudged forward into the chilly night. As he went, he noted an abundance of small game tracks, but nothing big enough to be human. Eventually, he came upon a small thicket of trees. Denser than anything so far, the only way through was to crawl on his hands and knees.

  So, that’s what he did.

  After a few feet of crawling, the trees and terrain cleared away into a small depression about sixty feet wide in diameter. It was here that he saw the first substantial evidence that something truly strange had been going on.

  A spiked buck sprawled awkwardly near the foot of a small pine tree.

  They must have been hunting out here, he thought. But why hadn’t they taken their kill with them? Freddy grabbed hold of the tines, then shifted the deer slightly to get a better look. His first observation: no blood trails. Second: no visible wounds. A rifle shot would have left both. Even an arrow would leave some tissue damage. But, from the ass end of the deer to its neck, Freddy couldn’t find any sign of a kill.

  Precisely like the squirrels, he thought.

  “Rosie, I’ve found a dead buck. But I’ll be damned if I know how they took it down. No blood trails or wounds that I can see.” He tried to make a connection between the ways the dead animals had appeared and what might have caused their deaths. “Rosie, you don’t think that anyone would be poisoning animals. Do you?”

  “Why? Poison would ruin the meat.”

  “True,” he conceded.

  Littered with intertwining paths that needed to be checked, Freddy began to look around the area for anything else strange. A few feet away, he ran across another dead deer. Then, he found an even larger buck lying peacefully next to a doe. The two animals appeared to be mates that had bedded down for the night. In fact, every deer he had come across were in a similar repose.

  And they were all dead.

  Freddy searched the area for an explanation, but nothing seemed to make sense. There wasn’t only deer lying deathly still on the ground. He also found three more squirrels, a family of possums, and two raccoons within the depression. Some lying still, while others looked like they were in the middle of running away from some unseen predator. Hell, even more strange, the possums appeared to have just fallen out of a tree.

  This carnage couldn’t be from poison, he thought. These animals didn’t eat the same types of food.

  “Rosie,” he said with a hint of fear in his voice. “We’re going to have to get Bob out of bed early tomorrow…” He checked his watch and saw that it was half past midnight. “I mean this morning.”

  “Why,” his tone caught her off guard. “What is it?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know. But whatever it is, I think he’s going to want to see it.”