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  Turning to the sandwich section of his mental menu, Trip ordered one of his favourites, a triple-decker clubhouse on white bread, saying, “And could you ask Norm not to skimp so much on the mayonnaise this time? At least four tablespoons, please. And no crusts! Oh, and one more thing, no lettuce or tomato, either, thanks.”

  “One triple clubhouse! Certainly, Trip,” Mattie smiled. She turned and hollered over her shoulder toward the kitchen cutout where Norm was busy prepping something or other, ”Albino club, Norm! Slop it, crop it and drop it!”

  Smiling at Mattie’s description of Trip’s sandwich tweaks, Austin ordered the closed-face, hot roast beef and gravy sandwich with mashed potatoes of which he was so fond. Patricia used to cook the most tender, mouth-watering prime rib that he had ever eaten. But now, with just him and Alex to feed, it was rare he would attempt cooking a roast, and when he did, it was never with the same level of succulence as Patricia’s.

  Due to this prime-rib shortage in his life, he always looked forward to ordering roast something-or-other whenever he ate out. As Alex always said to the servers when he was out at a restaurant with his dad, “Just give him the roast beast,” knowing no matter what the beast was, his dad would most likely have some. It seemed that locally, Frostbite Fred’s was about as close as he could come to tasting food that was like some of the excellent home cooking he missed so much. At Fred’s kitchen, Norm, along with their whiz-kid, meat smoker-extraordinaire, Max Renaud, the meat never came out of the kitchen anything less than melt-in-your-mouth tender. He was a sucker for the way the in-house baked bread sopped up the thick, rich gravy that covered Max’s succulent roast beef sandwich. The thirst of the patrons for the micro-brewed beer was one thing that kept the business afloat, but also, it was the excellent food prepared by the wizards in the kitchen that kept the people coming back.

  After a short wait, Mattie dropped the generously-sized plates of food off to the boys. She said, “Enjoy, boys!” then walked away, smiling. It always seemed that once she’d placed the food in front of her customers, they grew silent as they savoured the delicious meals before them. As most people do, she noted, they preferred to enjoy their food while it was hot rather than chatting about topics they could easily discuss later.

  Twenty minutes and a piece of apple pie later, Austin felt a contented burp threatening to erupt from his mouth as he paid the bill at the till. He said to Trip, “I’ll get this, and you can spring for lunch next time, buddy.”

  “Thanks, boss!” Trip said, trying to scoop the last bit of ice cream from his à la mode pie off of his plate with a spoon.

  “Give my compliments to Norm and Max,” Austin said to Mattie. “You can tell Max the roast is delicious as always and so tender that it seems like it’s been pre-chewed! But I mean that in a good way! And Norm’s bread? Two words: Mind and blown.”

  “Thanks, Austin, I’ll pass that along.” Turning to Trip, Mattie said, “And I guess I’ll be seeing you tonight for the game on our big screen?” She was referring to the television broadcast they would be playing of the hockey game that evening between the Vancouver Canucks and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

  “You can count on it, Mattie,” Trip said with a smile, though his stomach was full from lunch, his taste buds came alive at the thought of sampling some of the micro-brewed goodness that she and Norm kept on tap at the pub.

  Bidding goodbye, the men exited the building, feeling the now-familiar damp caress of the fog wash over them.

  “Man, is this clammy crap ever going to let up?” Trip asked as they walked to the truck. As he spoke, he searched for something in his parka pockets.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, buddy,” Austin said, climbing into the passenger’s side of the truck. “They’re calling for ice fog down at the valley bottom once the temperature inversion clears in a day or so.”

  “Ice fog? Oh great! It just never lets up!” Trip knew that once that extra frosting of ice hit the local roads, it would be slicker than a kindergartner’s nose on the first day of school. He also knew that he and Larry would have to be extra vigilant in their sanding duties. Suddenly, his eyes lit up when one of his hands located the object of his parka pocket probe.

  “Okay, let’s get back to town and get the rest of these signs up,” Austin said.

  “You got it, boss,” Trip said, pulling out a king-sized Snickers bar. He ripped the wrapper off and took a huge bite, then offered it over to Austin, holding it under his nose.

  Austin smiled slightly, saying, “No thanks, buddy. But I appreciate your thinking about me.”

  “Whazzat?” Trip asked around a mouthful of chocolate, nougat and nuts.

  “Nothing, warp factor one, Mr. Williams!”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” Trip said, tearing off another considerable chunk off the chocolate bar. He chewed for a couple of seconds while he adjusted the seat belt around his ample belly. Once satisfied his safety harness was secure, he jammed the tail end of the candy into his white-bearded mouth and placed the truck into gear.

  As they slowly edged forward into the fog. Trip held the steering wheel in one hand while rummaging around in his parka pocket with the other, presumably on a quest for something more to eat.

  With a concerned smile, Austin made a mental note to drop Trip’s cruller ration from six doughnuts to three in the near future.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  High above the fog, the daylight slowly faded, the sun melting behind the snow-capped mountains. In late January, Lawless missed out on quite a bit of sunlight due to the angle of the sun and the closeness of the surrounding valley. By three o'clock in the afternoon, the sun was down behind the mountains, taking the remaining daylight with it. There were several spots in the valley that didn’t see sunlight all winter long and remained in the shadow of the glacier the entire season, making for a permanently slippery situation on the roads in those areas. The fog, while varying greatly in consistency throughout the day, began to settle in for another dark, impenetrable evening.

  Austin sighed and tore his gaze from the insidious grey mist wafting outside his kitchen window and looked back to the task at hand. Ripping the top off of a small white pouch, he placed it on the countertop next to one he’d already opened near the stove. Tonight was another quick throw-together dinner for himself and his son consisting of a true Canadian favourite, Kraft Dinner macaroni and cheese, or KD as it was known in Canadian parlance. To make the upcoming meal a bit more nutritionally sound for the boy, he’d added some frozen mixed vegetables and a half dozen all-beef hot dogs. After adding the prerequisite milk and a dollop of butter, he sprinkled both pouches of the orange powder over top of the mixture and stirred it all together.

  This had to be a quick meal because he had to get Alex to hockey practice for six o'clock and then get himself over to the conservation office to meet Christine right after that. He was very curious to see what she had put together and looked forward to going over the map of the area so that they could try to chart the bear’s territorial advances.

  “Okay, buddy, the food’s on the table!” Austin hollered into the living room.

  Alex was finishing his homework while watching a game between the Boston Bruins and the LA Mighty Ducks. Austin didn’t know how the boy managed to get his homework done while watching something as fast-paced as hockey, but get it done he did, and done correctly, so Austin didn’t mind. His son had been on the honour roll for the past year now since his mother passed away. It was like he felt compelled to do better in school to honour his mother’s memory, or so it seemed to Austin. And that was just fine with him since it made his life so much easier knowing his son was excelling in school, handling the mourning of his mom’s passing in such a constructive and healthy manner.

  “Be right there, dad!” Alex called back. Zipping his backpack, the boy walked through the arched kitchen entrance a moment later. He hung the pack on a hook at the door to the garage. Come Monday morning, he’d know right where it was and wouldn't have to panic
, running around the house looking for it like the proverbial decapitated chicken his dad was always going on about.

  The boy was growing like a weed, Austin observed. Only six months ago, he’d been four inches shorter than he was now, and Austin had been buying clothes for him like they’d been going out of style. At first, Austin had thought that perhaps it was the washer or dryer shrinking the clothing. But it soon became apparent that the real cause of the ‘incredible shrinking clothes mystery’ was because his son was in the middle of a huge growth spurt. At fifteen, Alex was just two inches short of Austin’s 6’3” height. In hockey, other players on the opposing teams who were a little later to blossom than Alex were no match for the boy’s size and speed. It allowed him to basically cruise through the smaller kids like an unstoppable force of nature. And as captain of his hockey team, he played a fantastic game to boot. Austin wouldn’t be surprised to see his son in the NHL some year if his performance was anything to judge by this early in the game, no pun intended.

  Austin loaded up Alex’s plate with almost one and a half boxes of the KD and most of the diced-up hot dogs. The boy would need all the fuel he could get tonight for his upcoming hockey practice. And it wasn’t just before hockey that the boy pounded the food back. Along with his growth spurt, the boy’s appetite had increased exponentially with his size, and he now easily out-ate Austin regularly at the dinner table. But that was okay; it made Austin proud and happy to see his son shovelling the macaroni and cheese into his seemingly hollow legs, growing bigger and stronger each day. After about three minutes, the feeding frenzy appeared to be over, and the boy’s plate was clean.

  With a smile, Austin said, “Remind me never to get between you and your dinner plate, okay, buddy? I wouldn’t want to lose a hand or something!”

  Alex smiled back and said, “Ha-ha, you’re a regular Russell Peters, Dad!”

  “Thank you; I’ll be here all week and please don’t forget to tip your waiter!” He held his hand out as if expecting a tip, and Alex gave him a low-five palm slide instead. “Close enough,” he said, laughing.

  With dinner out of the way, Alex grabbed his hockey gear and stuffed his large, black hockey bag into the back of their Honda Pilot. As he did that, Austin quickly picked up the mess in the kitchen then threw on his jacket, following his son out the door to the garage, locking it behind himself.

  The drive from their house to the Lawless Community Sports Complex was usually only fifteen minutes, but the fog, once again, decided to compound things and ended up adding an extra ten minutes of travel time. By the time they arrived at the downtown sports arena, it was only a couple of minutes before six o’clock.

  When business had started turning around in Lawless thanks to the new casino, the mayor and city council approved an upgrade to the sports complex. It now housed an Olympic-sized swimming pool with water slide, conference rooms and a full-sized NHL hockey rink with seating for almost two thousand people. Usually, Austin would have loved to stay and watch the practice, but he needed to meet up with Christine within minutes.

  “Sorry I can’t watch tonight, buddy, but work beckons. As I mentioned, I have to go over some things with Christine.”

  Alex said with a grin, “Sure thing, Dad, whatever you say.” He’d heard his father talking about the new conservation officer lady several times over the last couple of days. Despite his meagre fifteen years on the planet, the boy’s’ powers of observation were well developed. He’d noted that whenever Austin started to talk about Christine Moon, he couldn’t seem to say anything negative about her. In fact, from the way he was going on about the woman, Alex could see his father was obviously smitten with her and had decided a little good-natured ribbing was in order.

  “That’s all. It’s strictly professional,” Austin protested in his defence.

  “Uh-huh, you bet, Dad,” Alex said, laughing as he pulled his hockey bag out of the Pilot’s back hatch. “All right, love ya, Dad! I’ll see you at eight-thirty!” Alex slammed the hatch closed before Austin could respond.

  Smiling, Austin saluted the rear-view mirror and said, “Aye-aye, Captain!”

  The conservation office was only a couple of blocks away, but the thickness of the fog made it difficult to see, even with the Pilot’s fog lights probing the way through the murk. He pulled into the yard next to Christine’s truck and walked to the back door of the shop. She’d told him to just walk in when he got there as she might be in another part of the building. Canadian manners overriding everything else, he still knocked on the door and popped his head inside before entering, saying, “Hello?”

  From the other side of the shop, Christine called out, “I’m over here, Austin, glad you could make it!”

  Austin stepped into the shop and saw Christine finishing work on something near a full-sized chest freezer in the far corner.

  “Thanks, wouldn’t have missed it. Freezing some leftovers, are you?”

  “Sorry?” Christine questioned, as she walked over, her brow furrowed. Then realisation dawned, and she laughed at Austin’s joke. “No, just checking to make sure our smelly little friend was still nice and solid.”

  “Yeah, he did stink up the place in here, that's for sure. And you can’t very well leave him outside on his lonesome, either,” Austin commented, sniffing the air in the shop. He was pleasantly surprised to note that it currently had a delightful lavender scent.

  “You’re right; it’s not cold enough with the door closed and the heat off. And it's also impossible to leave it open to refrigerate the room, especially with the coyotes running around the area. “

  “And let’s not forget Angus skulking around out there in the fog as well.”

  “Oh, I don't think there's any way I'll ever forget him! We definitely don’t need anything attracting any more scavengers or predators.”

  Austin saw that Christine had been busy before his arrival. On top of a metal work table in the middle of the shop, several yellow stick pins sprouted like flowers from a large topographical map of the surrounding area. Plotted on it were the Gold Ridge campsite attack, the wild turkey massacre at Geraldine Gertzmeyer’s, the garbage dumpster incident at the Casino and Ray Chance’s messy run-in with the raccoon. Even though the turkey killing didn’t appear to be done by the bear, he realised, just as she obviously did, that it had to be part of the same mystery and could see why she had decided to include it on the map.

  “This is interesting,” Christine said, pointing to a spot she had plotted near Gold Mountain.

  “What’s that?” Austin sidled next to Christine at the table.

  “Well, at this point, it looks like most of the attacks are situated around the Gold Mountain Resort, as you know. But it seems like Angus is covering more and more ground with each attack, exploring and expanding his territory at the same time.”

  Still finding it strange to refer to the monstrous beast as Angus, Austin asked again, “What was the full name of this creature again?”

  “Arctotherium Angustidens.” Christine chimed.

  “Yeah, I suppose Angus is a little easier to say.” He pointed to a spot a couple of kilometres from the resort that Christine had marked with a pin. “What’s this here?”

  “That’s where I found some claw marks up in the tree where Angus decided he was going to mark his territory. You should have seen them; they were at least a metre long. That thing must have claws like swords.”

  “Remind me to bring some clippers when we find him,” Austin commented. His ears were treated to something he wasn’t expecting as Christine laughed at his joke. The musicality of her laughter so reminded him of Patricia that he felt his heart consumed by a pang of sadness and loss. But he was working and couldn’t let himself go to that place at the moment. He took this new, complex brew of happiness and sadness that he found in his heart, packaged it up and shoved it deep down inside himself, meaning to examine it in more detail at a later date.

  Still smiling from Austin’s joke, Christine said, “Maybe
a hacksaw might be more appropriate. But seriously, if we can figure out what area it may be branching out into next, maybe we could give people a better warning and save some more lives, right?”

  “I agree one hundred percent.” Austin leaned over the map as if hoping to summon forth some sort of inspired guess as to the monster’s lair. “I certainly don’t like the way it’s getting closer to Lawless.”

  “I know, the way it’s moving through its territory, spiralling outward. If that pattern keeps up, it’ll most likely end up here in town,” Christine said, frowning. “And there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to what it's attacked, either, apart from the territorial expansion. People, garbage bins and probably more things that we aren't even aware of, yet, I’m sure. But it certainly seems like it's moved up the food chain, and people are at the top of the menu.” She stepped back to get a better look at the map.

  She continued, “Once an apex predator like this has tasted human blood, it will target people more and more and the other animals in the forest less and less. The way it’s starting to look, people are now making up the majority of this animal’s diet. And it certainly does seem like it’s being drawn toward civilisation,” Christine pointed at the city of Lawless on the map.