Going it Alone

At work, I went on with my day-to-day assignments as usual. After hours, I dove even deeper into my own personal investigation. Every waking hour was spent reading, writing, and occasionally interviewing local residents. I drove down to each of the five locations where my chosen group of women had last been seen and spoke to anyone who would give me the time of day.

I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I was quickly creating a reputation for myself as a nosy new reporter from the big city. I also learned that Wayne wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to discuss the disappearances. The few who did agree to talkwere adamant that all of the missing women were connected somehow and that excited me. Some were clearly having fun at my expense, sharing theories about UFO abductions and yetis coming down from the mountains and stealing women for brides. Another story I was told then was that the women were victims of angry forest entities known only to the indigenous people that used to occupy the land of Cold Hollow. But the fact that there were so many theories and rumors told me that people had been talking about the disappearances, and that they weren’t satisfied with any official explanations. That told me that my instinct were correct; there was a story here that needed to be uncovered.

Soon my research materials and notes began to take over my dingy little apartment. I removed all the pictures from the walls so I could use the space like one giant bulletin board. I tacked up maps of the area, photos of the missing, and endless scraps of paper with half-legible notes scrawled during my many restless nights. At first it looked like a scene from a detective show, but later it came to look like a scene from “A Beautiful Mind.” It became difficult to walk from the living room to the bedroom without having to step over piles of books.

Eventually, the mess I lived in, and the fact that I wasn’t much of a cook, caused me to spend many of my mornings before work at the Cold Hollow Café. It was a classic small-town diner patronized by farmers and other old-timers that mostly kept to themselves. It was a good place to clear my mind for the day ahead. Best of all, the food was cheap and the coffee refills were free.

It wasn’t long before my new habit was noticed by the morning shift waitress. “You’ve got a nine-day straight record coming in here, you know that?”

I looked up from my notebook and was met with a syrupy sweet smile.

“Is that right?” I asked rhetorically, in an effort to be polite while I tried to cling to the thread of thought I was pulling on.

“Well, the only reason I noticed is because you’re always sitting there writing,” she continued, ignoring any cues I tried to send with my body language. “I figured you must be a novelist or something.” She poured some more coffee into my cup that was already three-quarters of the way full. “I’m Cindy, by the way.”

Cindy had been my waitress every morning since I started coming to the cafe and she would be for nearly the entire timeI lived in Cold Hollow. She was pleasant, maybe even a little sexy in that way that some middle-aged country waitresses can be. “Cindy, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Kelly. I’m actually a––”

“A Reporter! That was going to be my second guess,” she said proudly. She must have been in her mid or maybe late-forties. The smell of perfume and cigarette smoke wafted off of her whenever she was nearby and her hair was stiff with hairspray. She certainly wasn’t my type, but there was something really comforting about her presence.

I laughed a cordial little laugh. “You got me,” I said and held up my hands in surrender. “I appreciate you being sweet about it. Reporters aren’t the most welcome bunch around here, are they?” That’s when it occurred to me. Next to bartenders, one of the best sources of information in any small town had to be the waitresses at the local diner. I still had no idea why Wayne didn’t want me covering the missing women. Maybe Cindy could offer clues.

“Well, I don’t know much about Wayne ‘cept that he’s divorced and pretty much keeps to himself. I will say that you’re not the first person to mention that the locals sure know how to put the cold in Cold Hollow. It ain’t exactly the innocent winter wonderland most folks pretend it to be, that’s for sure.”

Cindy took a seat across from me in the booth. There were only a couple of other customers sitting at the bar near the front and they already had their food.

“Well, Cindy,” I said. “Now you’ve really got my attention. Tell me more,” I said as I pushed aside my plate and readied a new page of my notebook. I couldn’t say for sure, but I had the distinct feeling that we were flirting.

Cindy nonchalantly glanced over her shoulder before she spoke. Her voice was low and she spoke softly as she leaned over my eggs. “Have you heard of the Hound of Cold Hollow?”

My excitement and sense of intrigue quickly faded away. Cindy was evidently just peddling more monster stories to me. I put my pen down and fidgeted with my empty coffee cup. “Ah, no. No, I haven’t.”

“People don’t really talk about it much, but there’s this legend the old-timers used to tell about a werewolf that stalked the Cold Hollow Mountains, crossing back and forth across the border for the last three hundred years. Every seven or eight years or so there’s a sighting and everyone gets all bent out of shape about it. Big black wolf standing on its hind legs. Huge. Bigger than a normal wolf, and with red glowing eyes. Someone will spot it up on the mountain or in the woods or something.”

I frowned. “Really? I’m surprised I haven’t heard anything about it in my research.”

“Well, you wouldn’t. There’s nothing much to report on ‘cept for hearsay. There’s only a few people who’ll admit to have actually seen it with their own eyes, but there’s a lot more folks who’d sooner call you a head case than start believing in werewolves.” Cindy laughed a little too loudly.

She seemed sincere and, for a moment, I wondered if I should start looking into the history of these werewolf sightings in Cold Hollow. I wasn’t at all convinced that a three-hundred year-old werewolf was lurking in the forests, but often even the craziest legends are rooted in a grain of truth. Maybe there was some connection between the werewolf myth and the missing women, I thought. That’s when Cindy’s story got interesting.

“Then there’s also all those people who just disappear without a trace. You ask me, that’s evidence of the Hound, for sure.” She tapped on the table as if the case was solved, and slid out of the booth.

“Wait, people who have gone... missing?” My excitement returned. I picked up my pen again. “What do you mean? Like, all the women who have been disappearing the last couple of years?”

“Oh yeah, them and plenty others, too. Like I said, it’s been happening for years. Oh, hang on, sugar, I gotta go and get Henry’s check for him.” Cindy left me in a daze at my table. I thought in silence and sipped on coffee for another ten minutes or so as I reflected on what she had said. Could my missing person cases really have something to do with... werewolves?

I looked at my watched and realized Wayne would be arriving at the Chronicle soon so I packed up my notes and made my way up to the counter to pay. As I waited beside the counter for Cindy, I felt a pair of eyes on me. I casually looked to my left where a man sitting two seats down at the bar was staring at me. We exchanged glances once, then twice before he finally spoke.

“Hello, you must be Miss Kane, the new reporter I’ve heard so much about.” He was an unassuming man, probably around his middle forties, with a mustache and the hairline of someone much older. I was somewhat unsettled by the fact that he knew my name but he seemed well-intentioned enough so I smiled and answered, “Yeah, that’s me. And you are?”

“Oh, my name’s Richard Fink. I heard there was a new reporter just hired at the Chronicle, so I assumed that it must have been you.”

I grinned and nodded, realizing just how small Cold Hollow was. “That’s right, I’m at the Chronicle. Word really gets around in this town, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, it does.” He laughed and took a step closer to me. His plate of bacon, sausage, and grits looked like it had hardly been touched. “Is this your first time in our little slice of paradise?”

“No, actually. I was here a couple of months ago on a skiing trip. It’s such a beautiful part of the country, really.”

“And so you fell in love with the place,” he said smiling. “Hey, can I ask what kind of stories you write? I had you pegged for an arts and culture reporter, but I’m not sure there’s much arts and culture to write about around here.”

“Right,” I smiled, “Um, no, I’m actually more of a political reporter. Well, I mean, I haven’t really written anything like that for the Chronicle yet, but that’s what I’m interested in.”

Mentioning politics changed the tone of the exchange and though Fink’s mouth kept smiling, his eyes stopped.

“Politics, huh?” he said, nodding. “Well, good for you. More young folks should take an interest in politics I think.”

“Uh, yeah,” I replied and glanced around the café, hoping Cindy would show up soon so I could escape the conversation.

“Hey, just a little friendly word of advice,” he said, and leaned in even closer than before. “If I ever see my name in any of your reporting, you can be sure I’ll cut you off at the knees.”

For a moment, I wasn’t sure what was happening. Was he joking, or had this man just threatened me? I wasn’t entirely certain I had heard him correctly.

His eyes went cold and narrowed as he stared at me hard. “Do we understand each other?” he asked, just as Cindy appeared from kitchen.

Fink turned back to his breakfast and continued on eating as if we hadn’t said a word to one another.

“Alrighty, that’ll be $5.76, sweetie,” Cindy said, breaking me out of my daze.

“Oh, yeah, right,” I said as I fished out my wallet from my coat pocket and noticed my hands shaking as I handed her a ten-dollar bill.

“Come back and see us soon,” Cindy said and handed me my change.

Fink just grinned and nodded as he chewed his breakfast.

I didn’t know it then, but I had just become a part of the story I was writing.