Chapter 6: The Last Witness
Chapter 6: The Last Witness
The road to the ridge was narrow and wild, hemmed in by skeletal trees and half-frozen underbrush. Clara drove Liam’s rusting pickup, the steering wheel jerking at every bump in the road. Liam sat beside her, his arm bandaged tightly, face pale but focused.
They hadn’t spoken much since dawn. The weight of what they’d learned sat heavy between them. Clara gripped the steering wheel tighter as the road curved sharply.
“Are you sure he’s still alive?” she asked.
Liam nodded. “Last I heard, yeah. People in town still mutter about him call him the ‘mad woodsman.’ Say he lives off rabbits and rainwater.”
“Sounds charming.”
Liam managed a small smile. “He was the first person my dad ever told about the ledger. Harold said he saw the beast shift said he saw its human face.”
Clara glanced at him. “Do you believe him?”
“I didn’t used to,” Liam said quietly. “But now? I’d believe just about anything.”
The cabin appeared like a ghost between the trees.
It leaned slightly to one side, a chimney belching out faint smoke, and a pile of chopped firewood stacked haphazardly nearby. The windows were grimy, but not broken. Someone still lived here.
Clara parked the truck and stepped out, crunching across the frostbitten grass. Liam followed, slower, still nursing his ribs. She knocked twice on the warped wooden door.
No answer.
She knocked again. “Mr. Bell?”
Footsteps approached from inside.
The door creaked open a few inches, revealing a single blue eye staring out through the crack.
“What do you want?”
Clara cleared her throat. “Are you Harold Bell?”
“Who’s askin’?”
“My name’s Clara. This is Liam Thorne. We came to ask about the night you saw the creature.”
Silence.
Then: “I don’t talk about that.”
“Please,” Clara said. “It’s happening again. People are dying. We found Jonathan Thorne’s ledger.”
The door opened the rest of the way.
Harold Bell was older than she expected maybe in his seventies but wiry and sharp-eyed, with a grizzled beard and hands like twisted rope. He looked at Liam, narrowed his eyes, and muttered, “You’ve got your daddy’s frown.”
He turned and limped back inside without another word.
They followed.
The cabin was cluttered but warm, lit by a single oil lamp and a fire that crackled in the hearth. Old books, jars of herbs, and bundles of dried herbs hung from the rafters. A pair of hunting rifles rested on a rack above the fireplace.
Harold gestured for them to sit on a worn bench near the fire. Then he poured two mugs of black coffee and handed them over.
“No sugar,” he said. “Wolves hate sweet things.”
Clara took the cup gratefully. Liam didn’t touch his.
Harold sat across from them, elbows on his knees. “I saw it. Once. Back in ’82. Thought I was going mad. Town tried to make me think I was mad. Told me it was grief, or drink. But I remember. I remember every second.”
“What happened?” Clara asked.
Harold’s eyes glazed over.
“It was the night the McCall girl vanished. She was sixteen. Sweet thing. I was out hunting near the Warden Tree, when I heard something low growling, not natural. I followed the sound.”
He took a slow breath. “That’s when I saw it. Eight feet tall, hunched, eyes like fire. But then it started to change. Right in front of me.”
Liam leaned forward. “Into what?”
Harold looked at him sharply. “Into who. A man. Naked. Covered in blood. Looked right at me before he ran.”
Clara’s mouth went dry. “Did you recognize him?”
Harold hesitated. “I did. But I never told a soul.”
“Why?” Liam asked.
“Because he was important. Had a family. Friends. No one would’ve believed me. And if I’d said something, I’d have been the next body in the woods.”
Clara’s pulse throbbed in her ears. “Who was it?”
Harold stood and walked to a shelf. He pulled down an old photograph and handed it to them.
In it, four men stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Black Hollow’s old mill. One of them wore a sheriff’s badge. Another was Liam’s father.
“That one,” Harold said, tapping a man with a thick beard and sharp smile. “Dale Rourke. Your old sheriff. He was the beast. Or he became it.”
Clara blinked. “But he died. Years ago.”
Harold nodded. “Heart attack. Or so they said.”
“But if he was the werewolf how is it still happening?” Liam asked.
“Because the curse don’t die with the body,” Harold said grimly. “It jumps. Like a sickness. When one host dies, another is chosen. Could be anyone. Someone close. Someone trusted.”
Clara felt the air drain from the room. “You’re saying it could be someone we know?”
“I’m saying,” Harold said, “it already is.”
They left the cabin just after sunset.
The forest around them had turned cold and breathless. Clara didn’t speak until they reached the truck.
“So the creature has been multiple people,” she said slowly. “That’s why it’s been so hard to track.”
Liam nodded. “The curse moves. That’s why Dad kept the ledger. He was trying to figure out who had it now.”
Clara stared at the woods. “We need to go through those names again. Find the pattern.”
Liam opened the truck door, then froze.
“What is it?” she asked.
There, tucked under the windshield wiper, was a folded piece of paper. Clara snatched it up.
Only four words were scrawled across it in red ink:
You’re getting too close.