Wolfwraith by John Bushore

sucked a tooth, distorting his lip below the nose. “Have you seen those titties bounce? She’s found herself a new boyfriend...” He made an obscene gesture with his fingers. “Prob’ly busy screwin’ him silly. I’ll bet she hopped into some guy’s Mercedes—livin’ the high life up on the resort strip.”
    “That’s a rotten thing to say about a girl you don’t even know,” Jonesy said. “What makes you think such a thing?”
    “Hell, you’ve seen her,” Slocum drawled. She wears those shorts...whooee...don’t hardly cover her butt cheeks and a little top showing off those fine titties of hers. I don’t know which is best—the way her ass rolls or how her tits jiggle.” He cupped his hands in front of his chest and bounced them up and down. “She’s lookin’ for it—you can bet on it.”
    “What do you mean, looking for it?” Shadow asked. “She’s no different than any other girl on the beach. That’s what they all wear.”
    “Are you kidding?” The other man leered. “They’re all lookin’ for it.”
    “And your mind is always in the gutter,” Mark replied.
    Slocum grinned maliciously. “Not that you’ll ever get the chance, old man, but are you saying you wouldn’t take a little young stuff?”
    “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Slocum.” Mark scowled. “You’re married yourself and you shouldn’t even consider fooling around.” He turned and stalked away to his truck.
    The other men got into their vehicles and drove away, as well. Shadow had been assigned the southern section of the beach, from Wash Woods south to the North Carolina line, the least visited area of the park.
    When he reached Wash Woods, he turned off and followed an old abandoned road—now covered with drifts of loose sand—that ran between the dunes and the woods. The rangers had kept it mostly clear over the years for their own use. He put the truck in four-wheel drive and slowly drove to the state line, watching both sides for anything unusual. When the track ended, he crossed over to the beach and returned north along the coast. The beach and the adjoining dunes were deserted. He might have believed he was in an earlier century if it were not for the police helicopter passing overhead a couple of times.
    Every once in a while, he left the truck and climbed a dune to look inland. There had once been a small settlement here, more of a collection of hardscrabble farms than a real town. It was called Wash Woods since the ocean often sloshed over into the bay in severe storms. The only employment in the area had been at the coastal life-saving stations up and down the coast, but the stations closed in the mid 1900’s and people began to leave the area. Wash Woods was mostly abandoned by the time the park had been established and the state had bought out any remaining inhabitants. All of the wooden buildings had collapsed over the years and been covered by the shifting sands. The movement of the sand was whimsical, though, and it wasn’t unusual to find abandoned cars, brick foundations, tin-roof sections, toilets or other signs of past human habitation protruding from the dunes.
    There was no sign of the girl, so Shadow decided to look in the dunes. He couldn’t search them all, but there was a nearby trail leading to an area he hadn’t searched, the Wash Woods cemetery.
    Shadow left the truck and climbed the side of the dune by a trail marker. Atop the second row of sand hills, he went up the steps of an observation tower, built as some boy scout’s Eagle Project. He scanned the area, but saw nothing out of the ordinary and was about to go back down when he caught a glimpse of something red moving through the trees to the west. He watched for another minute. When it didn’t show again, he left the tower and resumed his walk to the cemetery, a site he had visited only once before with Jenny Ostrowski. Every so often, reaching into a bag in his shirt pocket, he’d pop a jellybean into his