The Pale Man Rises

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

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Within several minutes the shaggy-haired man himself moved onto the path beyond the outfield fence. Twice this night he'd lit upon trails that marched through the forest. He was feeling like Dan'l Boone. He was a regular trailblazer he thought and smiled at the image in his mind in which he was draped in fringe with a coonskin cap atop his head.

He wondered if this trail was an extension of the first one that led from the home where he'd croaked the old couple or if this was a totally separate one? It didn't matter, it was just his way of coping with what was to come. He realized the river was just ahead because now the sound of its rolling flow was apparent even to him.

The sound intensified with each step he took and he could also see where the path opened onto the broader spaces of the river's beach. The path was soon at an end and the river's bank was there before him. He could see the others at the water's edge pushing off in a boat. Just to their left extending perhaps thirty feet over the water was a wooden pier.

He almost ran forward to it. He knew for certain now, knew that the dog was the vile, evil stranger he was after and was far more amazing than he could have ever imagined. He considered clicking on the flashlight, which he still held tightly in his right hand. If he did he wondered if the dog would desert the boat and come for him.

The two men began paddling off stroking briskly with the oars. They were leaving post haste and he'd been too cowardly to carry forth. What was restraining him? HE WAS YELLOW–YELLOW TO THE CORE! He had been all along and at last had to face that reality. He eased toward the pier as he watched them moving off to the middle of the river. When he recognized that they were a comfortable distance from the shore he moved on and clumped onto the wooden slats of the pier.

He would see them off he decided, he would stand there like some character in some soapy romantic novel staring longingly after the one who'd won his heart but now had to depart because of some plot twist.

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He cursed himself for his cowardice and was determined at the least to bid the evil creature farewell and to let him know he had been nearby all along and was very admiring of him, of his evil. Midway the pier he pushed the button of the flashlight to the on position and began scanning the river before him. Within seconds he spotted the boat as it was moving off quickly. It was headed down stream going west.

If successful it would stay on this course briefly for several miles and then would begin to circle down below the town of Dayton. It would now go south once more only to circle back east, then south yet again meandering irregularly until it would join up with the Cape Fear River just above the city of Sayerville in the county of the same name minus the ville. The Cape Fear was ascending the state going northwest where it would eventually flank the city of Greensboro and would at last quit between that city and the city of Winston-Salem.

He held the light as steady as was possible for truth was he was still quite frightened of this most unique of demons.

"Hey Edgar Winter–man you're a dawg–I mean it man you're a real fuckin' dawg!" He was boldly yelling, but his voice would falter often and one could easily detect his fear.

The dog that sat on the aft seat of the boat like an Egyptian hieroglyph marching along a pyramid wall reacted as soon as he heard Luther mount the pier. He turned back toward the sound and if it was possible for a dog to smile or even a copy of the same fashioned by some strange shape shifter, then this was what he was doing.

"Ah our friend." He said softly as Virginia Dare. The dog's amber eyes with their coal black pupils shone through the dark fierce and magical.

The light from Luther's lamp was now harsh in the beast's face and he quickly turned about. He made a sound that Lewis, who was in the middle of the boat and doing the bulk of the work with his oar, thought was a cry of pain.