Twisted

blood. He set down the bucket he carried and pulled a fish out. He beheaded it fast, with a long, sharp knife, and slit open the slick belly, scooping out the entrails with his fingers. He pitched the head and the guts ten feet away into a cluster of waiting crows and they began to fight noisily over the wet, sticky flesh. The man tossed the cleaned carcass back into the bloody bucket.
    Alex looked around and saw they were completely alone. The only sound was the faint lapping of lake water, the caws of the mad crows. He started to take a bite of sandwich but the sight of the birds ripping apart the slick entrails sickened him and he shoved the food away.
    It was then that he noticed a piece of paper on the ground. It had apparently been blown off a message board at the picnic area or been pulled down by the rain. He was curious and walked over, picked it up. Though the sheet was water stained he could still make out the words. The notice wasn’t from Fishery and Game, as he’d thought. It was from the county sheriff.
    He felt a fast, uneasy twist within him as he read the stark words. The notice offered a reward of $50,000 for information about the killer of four individuals in and around Wolf Lake State Park over the past six months. They’d all been knifed to death, but robbery wasn’t the apparent motive—only a few valuables were missing. The deaths were thought to have been caused by the same man who’d killed two hikers in a Connecticut state park last month. No one had gotten a good look at him,though one witness described him as in his mid-forties and slim.
    Alex’s skin felt hot and he looked up toward the fisherman.
    He was gone.
    But his tackle wasn’t. The man had simply left everything there and vanished into the woods. Almost everything, that is. Alex noted that he’d taken his knife with him.
    The notice from the sheriff’s department fell from his hand. Alex studied the forest again, a full circle. No sign. No sound.
    Alex gulped down the coffee he now had no taste for and took a deep breath. Calm down, he instructed himself harshly. Calm, calm, calm . . .
    “Don’t go, Daddy. . . . Please.”
    He screwed the thermos back together, watching his hands shake fiercely. Was that a snap in the woods behind him? But he couldn’t tell; the sound of anxiety roared in his head. Alex started along the path through rocks that led deeper into the forest.
    He got only a few yards.
    His $300 L.L. Bean boots slid off a smooth piece of granite and he tumbled into a shallow ravine. His tackle box fell open and the contents scattered onto the damp ground. Alex landed on his feet but pitched forward into a rock and rolled onto his back, cradling his leg. He cried out.
    Moaning loudly, he rocked back and forth. “Oh, it hurts. . . . Oh, God . . .”
    Then, a shuffle of feet. The scrawny fisherman was looking over the rock at him. His face wasflecked with blood from the energetic fish cleaning. Behind him the crows cawed madly.
    “My ankle,” Alex gasped.
    “I’ll come help ya,” he said slowly. “Don’t you move.”
    But rather than climbing down the short distance Alex had fallen, the man disappeared behind a tall outcropping of rock.
    Alex moaned again. He started to call out to the man but he stopped. He listened carefully and heard nothing. But a moment later the man’s footsteps began to approach, from behind—he’d circled around and was walking toward Alex through a narrow alley between two huge rocks.
    Still clutching his leg with his hands, he felt his heart pounding with the dreaded anxiety. Alex slid around so that he’d be facing the man when he arrived.
    The footsteps grew closer.
    “Hello?” Alex called in a gasp.
    No response.
    The sound of boots on sand became boots on rocks as the disheveled man approached. He carried a small metal box in his left hand.
    He paused, standing directly above Alex, looking him over. Then he said, “Too bad I went to get my lunch outa my truck just now.” He nodded at the metal box. “I coulda told you these rocks’re slipperier than eels. There’s a safer way round. Now, don’t you worry. I was a medic for a time. Lemme take a look at that ankle of yours.” He crouched down and added, “Do apologize lookin’ at you like you was from outer space, mister. Since themkillings started I check out everybody comes here pretty close.”
    Have you ever been in a fight, Daddy ?
    “Don’t you worry, now,” the man muttered, focusing