Too often on those few times he ventured out in hunger he'd nearly been seen by the humans living in the surrounding towns and villages. And since the explosion he'd survived in Boston a year ago, his was a face not soon forgotten.
Maldecido.
The word hissed at him from somewhere distant. Not the night outside, but from deep out of his past, in the language of his mother's country.
Manos del diablo.
Comedor de la sangre.
Monstruo.
Even through the fog of his tormented mind, he recognized the epithets. Names he heard from his earliest childhood. Words that haunted him, even now.
The cursed one.
Devil's hands.
Blood-eater.
Monster.
And so he was, more now than ever. Ironic that his life would begin in hiding, skulking like an animal among the night-dark woodlands and hills...only to end much the same way.
"Madre de Dios," he whispered as he made a feeble, but failed grab for the detonator. "Please...let me end it."
Dylan had barely set down her empty pilsner glass before another full one came to rest in front of her. It was the third round for the table since she'd arrived in the tavern and met up with her travel companions - this latest serving delivered with an extra-wide grin from the young man tending the bar.
"With my compliments, ladies," he announced in thickly accented English, one of the few locals in the rural village who spoke anything more than Czech or German.
"Oh, my goodness! Thank you, Goran," Janet exclaimed, giggling as she surrendered her empty for a fresh glass of frothy amber beer. "What a dear you are, telling us all about your lovely town and now bringing us free drinks. You really don't have to do this."
"My pleasure," he murmured.
His friendly brown eyes lingered the longest on Dylan, which she might have taken as a bigger compliment if her companions weren't all qualified for AARP membership. Dylan herself probably had five to ten years on the boyishly handsome barkeep, but that didn't stop her from working his obvious attraction to her best advantage.
Not that she was interested in drinks or dating. It was Goran's talk of the surrounding mountains and their various lore that held Dylan captivated. The young Czech had grown up in the area, and had spent a good amount of time exploring the very range where Dylan had been climbing that morning.
"It's so beautiful here," Nancy told him. "The tourist brochure didn't lie; this truly is a paradise."
"And such a vast, unusual terrain," Marie added. "I think we'd need a whole month to see everything out there. Too bad we have to return to Prague tomorrow."
"Yes, that is too bad," Goran said, directing the comment at Dylan.
"What about caves?" She'd been trying to gather details for her story without being too conspicuous, knowing that the locals probably wouldn't appreciate the fact that she'd ventured off the established trails to climb the mountains on her own. "I saw a few caves marked on our map, but I imagine there's a lot more out there. Even some that haven't been uncovered yet, stuff that's not open to the public?"
The young man nodded. "Oh, yes. There are maybe hundreds of caves and several abysses too. Most of them are still being documented."
"Dylan saw an old stone coffin in one of the caves today," Janet blurted innocently as she sipped her beer.
Goran chuckled, his expression dubious. "You saw a what?"
"I'm not sure what I saw." Dylan gave a nonchalant shrug, not wanting to tip her hand if she had truly discovered something significant. "It was pitch-black inside, and I think the heat was playing tricks on my mind."
"What cave were you in?" the young man asked. "I know it, maybe."
"Oh, I don't remember where I was exactly. It doesn't really matter."
"She said she felt a presence," Janet piped in again. "Isn't that how you described it, honey? Like a...a dark presence coming awake while you were in the cave. I believe that's what you said."
"It was nothing, I'm sure." Dylan shot a pained scowl across the table at the well-meaning, but aggravatingly chatty older woman. For all the good it did. Janet gave her a sweet little matchmaker's wink as Goran leaned down next to Dylan at the table.
"You know, there used to be talk of evil in those mountains," he said, his voice lowered to a confidential, if amused, tone. "Many old legends warn of demons living in the woods."
"Is that right?" she asked drolly.
"Oh, yes. Terrible beasts that looked like humans, but were not human at all. The villagers were convinced they were living among monsters."
Dylan scoffed lightly as she lifted her glass. "I don't believe in monsters."
"Neither do I, of course," Goran said. "But my grandfather does. So did his grandfather before him and all the rest of my family who farmed in this area, going back hundreds of years. My grandfather owned the property at the edge of the woods. He said he saw one of these creatures just a couple of months ago. It attacked one of his field workers."
"Is that so." Dylan glanced at the barkeep, waiting for a punch line that didn't come.
"According to my grandfather, it was just after dusk. He and Matej were bringing some equipment into the barn for the night when Grandfather heard an odd sound coming from the field. He went to look, and saw Matej on the ground. Another man was bent over him, holding Matej's neck to his mouth - bleeding him from the throat."
"Good Lord!" Janet gasped. "Did the poor man survive?"
"Yes, he did. Grandfather said by the time he ran back inside the barn to get something to use as a weapon against the creature, Matej was lying there alone. There were no marks on him except a bit of blood on his shirt, and he had no memory of the attack at all. The man who attacked Matej - or the demon, if my grandfather's account can be believed - has never been seen again."