Terrick rose from a crouch, peering over the edge of the scoured aluminium sink now full of glass and debris. “You're gonna go out there, aren't you?”
“We can't hide here and do nothing,” Clare argued. “Right is right.”
“Damn if they didn't put some sorta superhero juice in you along with insulin.”
Clare chuckled, the sound far richer than any she had made in over a week. “Maybe they did. I'll have to get me some more. Come on.”
Clare leaned in the direction of the ruined door and found Terrick's arm blocking her.
“Not that way. Go out the front. If the shooter's got a bead on us, let's make him work for his prize.”
Clare turned without comment. At the front door, Terrick took the lead, his gun held by confident hands low in front of him. Clare had no doubt about his reflexes.
They edged out of the house, back down the track between the pines, taking a route to the left of the kitchen. Clare kept watch to their right, looking for any sign of movement and praying there was none. They reached the threshold of the road. Terrick paused, watching.
“What is it?” Clare whispered, unable to see past the sheriff's much larger frame.
“There's a set of tyre tracks comin' from that big white house next door. Go.”
Terrick dashed to the cover of the foliage in the middle of the looped road. Clare followed on his heels, squeezing in behind him, wedged between a tree trunk and the rusting post of the basketball net she had seen when last on the road.
“He was in those woods, between the two houses,” Terrick said in a low voice. “That's the only place he could have kept watch on both sides. Look, up there.” He pointed.
In the midst of the pines a space had been cleared and a rudimentary attempt made at nailing wood to one of larger trunks. “Was he in that treehouse?”
“Looks like it. Those tyre tracks come from near there.” Terrick stood up.
“What are you doing?”
“He ain't there no more. It was him that drove off. The question is why?”
“It's a very random place for a shooter to wait,” Clare agreed.
“Or a very specific one if he knew there might be company. Come on.”
This was madness. Walking out in view of someone intent on shooting them was not how Clare had planned on spending her time waiting for the green light. She concluded Terrick was right. As they passed through the dappled shade of the driveway, moisture dripped from above, hitting her head. She wiped the wetness away, not compelled to absorb it. Clare felt somehow invincible, as if nothing could faze her. It was why she'd opened the door in the first place. Even the total silence that had resulted failed to discourage her. The wildlife had been frightened off by gunshots. Curiosity was also a factor. This place held answers.
Terrick kept his gun ready as he stalked the driveway. There was no hiding place. Clare followed close to him, expectations high. This house was in total contrast to its neighbor. White, clean and majestic with a tall chimney rising above several wooden gables, it was well maintained. A garage stood open with space for several vehicles inside.
“The front door's open,” Terrick noted.
Clare made for the house. Terrick hurried to get in front and only managed to reach her heels as she pushed the door wider. He grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around to face him. “You want to take the gun? No? If not then let me…”
His voice trailed off as he regarded the scene behind her.
Clare turned back. “What the Hell?”
Above polished mahogany floorboards, separated by low-hanging globes of light, were mounted row upon row of antlers, stretching hungrily toward the center of the hallway as if their owners were ready to clash in rut. Among the antlers were interspersed sometimes the heads and sometimes the entire bodies of smaller animals, warped into hideous positions by whoever had stuffed them.
“It's a taxidermist's dream,” Clare said, unnerved by the horrors staring down at her. “Foxes, wolves, owls, bats. Dear God, what is that?”
“Some kind of stoat or weasel,” Terrick supplied.
They both stood staring at the creature for a moment. Jammed into the skull of the grinning animal were what looked like doll's eyes. The effect was frightening.
Floorboards creaked above. Somebody was still here; the woman that screamed? Clare stepped back, feeling a prod in her back. Turning, she found a skull, empty eye sockets glaring at her from waist height, twisted horns spread wide. Directly below, a duck was mounted with horns, its head twisted and beak appearing to scream. Next to it a rabbit had been mounted in a similar pose but looked even more wrong. Clare couldn't figure out why until she took a step down the hall.
“That… that thing has two heads. Right, that's it. I don't care who these people are, they can damned-well fend for themselves; Freaks.”
She backed toward the door, and was ready to turn and escape the house of slaughter when a whimpering sounded from the stairs down at the other end of the hallway. Her words sounded suddenly hollow. Victims were victims.
“Go,” she ordered when Terrick glanced in her direction, the sound of another being in distress overcoming the urge to flee. As the sheriff navigated the trophy room Clare followed close behind.
“I hope there's another way out of this nightmare,” she muttered as they passed through a doorway and began to climb in the direction of the weeping. But the nightmare had only begun.
They reached the first floor. Clare stopped. She held Terrick back with one hand. A trail of fluid led between two rooms across the hallway. Hinges groaned. Someone was opening a window. She heard a whimper. A door slammed below. Clare's ragged breathing filled the silence. Her eyes darted around the hallway, searching desperately for the threat.
Clare panted, her hand tight on the bannister. She was weakening.
“Careful now,” Terrick cautioned and pressed past. He peered through the gap where the door to the right hinged, grunted and pushed his way in.
Clare followed, gagging on reflex when the stench in the room hit her. Something very bad had happened here. The curtains were drawn and Clare could only see outlines as her eyes adjusted.
Terrick crossed the room, throwing the scene into stark contrast as, with a violent jerk of the drapes, he let light in.
“No,” screamed a voice full of fear and panic. In the corner between the bed and the wall a woman held her hands up, shielding her face from the light. She had her knees drawn close to her chest, blood dripping down one side of her body.
“Clare,” Terrick turned her attention from the woman to the bed.
“Terrick, it's got another.” She wanted to step closer but the stench was strongest on the bed. The body of a boy lay, arms straight as if they had been pinned. His torso was warped in a grotesque parody of humanity. Legs twisted and bruised, one of them bent backward where something had wrenched at it. The belly was shrivelled ,the skin so taut around the ribs they had burst through in places. The bedsheets were covered in waste where he had soiled himself at some point during the assault.
“He's like the others. He looks like he's had the life sucked out of him. But he's not dried out. He's still fresh.”
The woman whimpered and Clare turned back to her. Shaking, she cowered from them, holding one hand over her face, the other on her bleeding side. Clare reached out to soothe her and the woman jumped.
“Get back! Leave me alone!”
Clare knelt beside her, attempting to be as unthreatening as possible. “It's okay. You're safe. Was that you screaming outside? Were you the one we heard?”
The woman nodded in a series of staccato movements. “Look what it did to my Cliff; My poor Clifford Lee.” She stared at the floor, purposefully avoiding the scene, her hand on her forehead. Every few seconds she lifted her face toward the bed and turned away, quaking.
“We need to get her out of here,” Terrick said. “This ain't good for nobody.”
The woman resisted initially but with gentle co
axing allowed them to get her to her feet and out of the room.
Clare made a decision to avoid the room with the trail of fluid, choosing a different door at random. As it happened, she chose what must have been the master bedroom. Sitting the woman down on the white bedcovers she pointed in the direction of an adjoining door. “See if that's a bathroom. Let's try and get her cleaned up some.”
In moments Terrick returned, cloths and a bowl of water in his hands.
Clare soaked one cloth and wrung it of any excess. “What's your name, love?”
She appeared totally lost. “What's… my name? I… Dana. Dana Burke.” With lucidity came a fresh bout of tears. She put her hands to her face and began to weep.
“Careful,” Clare warned. “You've a wound on your side.” She dabbed the blood away, earning several winces for her efforts.
Terrick dug through a sideboard, bringing a medical kit back with him. “Gauze, tape. Whadda you need?”
Clare daubed away more blood, reaching up under Dana's blouse. Puckered skin met her fingertips. “Not a lot. If that last shot hit her, it only grazed the skin. It's a surface wound.”
In quick order Clare had Dana bandaged, and with a fresh bowl of water cleaned up her face. “Dana, can you tell me what happened?”
Dana stared into space, her voice haunted. “I… there was someone in here.” For a moment she stared, and with juddering movements at first, began to rock.
Clare reached up with a gentle hand to touch Dana's face. “Dana, has Cliff been ill?”
Eyes wide open, unshod tears glistening, Dana turned back to her. “He was getting better. Both he and his cousin caught a virus that hit the high school. It laid them low for a week but that was a couple months back.”
This revelation sounded alarm bells in Clare's head. “Dana, who was his cousin?”
Dana closed her eyes, holding them shut with one hand as tears ran down her face. “Luke. Luke Morris.”
Clare shared a look with Terrick. “From the house across the street. Dana, what happened to Luke?”
Dana's head shook slightly from side to side. “We don't know. He took ill a week back, acting all strange, drinking loads, walking around at night. Then one morning Luke's dead and there are Feds everywhere.”
“And Clifford? Was he ill like that too?”
“He'd been off hunting with his pa and some friends. First time he'd felt up for it since the virus, but they brought him back early. He said he felt unwell. He was hungry, and thirsty. Tired, but wouldn't sleep. Just like Luke.”
With the description of every symptom, Clare's stomach knotted more and more. “…and there was no end to the drinking. He just didn't seem to fill up.”
“What about the man in here?”
A haunted look came over Dana's face. “Is that what it was? A man?”
“Was it not?” Terrick asked.
For the first time Dana seemed to recognize the sheriff. “I was out… shopping. Cliff was tired so I just let him be. I got back from the Big Y with a crate of water bottles and the kitchen door was open. I came upstairs to check on my boy and there was this… thing on him, pinning him down. All I could see were his feet sticking out.”
“What did it look like?” Clare urged. “This thing you saw?”
Dana closed her eyes, squeezing tears out as if trying to expel memories. “It was pale and fat. No not fat; bloated. And hairless. I came into the room and it turned, staring at me. It was gloomy in here and I swear… those eyes, they glowed white. Then it spoke.” Dana drew a shuddering breath. “It was no more than a whisper: 'I have his soul', it said and climbed off the bed, making for me. I ran, slamming the door behind me. I never looked back. That's when I came downstairs and shouted for help at the kitchen door. Then someone started shooting at me.” The realization came to Dana as she said the words, and she looked to her side, seeing the blood. “Oh God…”
“You're fine,” Clare said. “They only grazed you. I've patched you up. Nothing some rest won't cure.”
“Dana,” Terrick said, kneeling down to get in her line of sight.
“Yes, Sheriff?”
“I want you to give us ten minutes then dial 911. You get me?”
“But you're here now.”
“That's true. But with everybody that's going to show up, we can't investigate this properly. I need you to act as if we were never here, okay?”
Evidently confused, Dana nodded. Terrick rose and took Clare's arm, escorting her from the room.
“Get what you can, we don't have long. You do realize what this means, don't you?”
Clare nodded. “Viruñas isn't acting alone. Somebody's helping it feed.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
She took a couple of long, slow breaths to steady herself before entering the room. The corpse lay there, twisted and empty.
Clare stared for a moment. “Not that empty,” she observed, speaking to poor Clifford. Fluid wept from the patches on his upper arms. “He didn't finish his meal.”
Taking the blood glucose meter Ellen Covlioni had pressed upon her, Clare inserted a testing strip from a small pot in the pack and dipped it into the fluid that oozed from the wound. There was a strong smell of acetone in the room, particularly around the corpse. Clare tried to avoid looking at the face while she worked on the wound but she could feel sunken eyes staring at her as they would have been staring at the creature as it drained the poor boy's life away.
The meter bleeped, a red warning light coming on. The machine read 'High'.
“You poor thing; you were very ill.” Clare had done all she could and left the room. This would not be her fate.
Outside, Terrick waited. “Confirmed?”
“Yeah, this kid's readings were off the charts.” Clare held the meter up for Terrick to see. “Ellen said if the meter reads 'high' it's run beyond the range of numbers programmed in. Your blood sugar's at a level you need immediate medical aid. Poor boy. Sometimes the body just rebels and you've got little to no hope. Even without a monster hunting you down. That's five now. One more and we lose the chance. The creature's gonna move fast. Clifford wasn't drained. There was still fluid seeping from the wounds. It was disturbed by the mother before it had completed its feed. Terrick, we need to move faster. We can't afford to wait for them to set an evacuation in motion. By the time that happens, it may have struck for the final time.” Clare leaned toward the bedroom. Dana was repeating the same words over and over.
“No soul in those eyes. No soul in those eyes. No soul… No soul…”
“I think her cork has popped,” Terrick said. There was no attempt at humor in his voice; Terrick meant every word and the world was a poorer place for it.
“We can't leave her like that, alone.”
Terrick folded his arms, leaning back and balancing his shoulders on the flowered wallpaper of the hallway. “I'm open to ideas.”
“You aren't gonna like it. We may well be broadcasting our whereabouts.”
“This is, as they say, your party. Remember we may be on borrowed time. We've escaped Harley's men in Ashby, but that's bound to have been reported. We've left prints everywhere here. The agents who cleared the first house appeared from nowhere and rapidly so. They may already be on their way if they haven't been redirected into Worcester. We got lucky here, Clare.”
This gave Clare a moment to pause for thought. “What car did the shooter use to escape? He was keeping watch on the road, yet the sound of a vehicle originated back by the house. Why did he need to escape so quickly? Why not leave the way he arrived?”
“You said the creature hadn't finished feedin'. Perhaps it was being led to its next meal.”
“Perhaps. We've got an idea of what Viruñas may look like when exposed if it looks like the legends. But what about when it's not feeding? The lore said it walks among us, a normal man. Don't for a second assume that this thing crawls off into a hole for a decade. It could be hiding in plain sight. What if it needs to complete feeding in order to r
eturn to normal? This could be a way of prolonging its life.”
Terrick appeared doubtful. “Could it hide that for so long?”
Clare grinned. “There's a few days every month where I'm somewhat different, you know. The point is the same. It may be just a biological condition.”
“Stop it feeding and it doesn't return to its human state. Then you just look for whose missin'. It's a needle in a haystack situation, girl.”
Clare led the way outside. The sun was well past its peak now. What was taking them so long? A dull ache had returned to her midriff and she was beginning to feel thirsty again. She didn't have long left before she was back to square one.
She stopped at the open garage door. Made of heavy oaken planks, the garage was more like a giant musty-smelling wooden cave, housing a collection of imposing four by fours. One was missing. Dana's car sat beside the gap, engine idling. Clare reached in and turned it off, removing a couple of bottles of water from the passenger seat. The unfortunate boy wouldn't be needing them.
“You want to get the ball rolling?” Clare tipped her head in the direction of the missing vehicle.
“We won't have long,” Terrick's voice was a clear warning. He dialed a number and waited. “Deputy White. I want you to run some names for me. All vehicles registered to Dale and Dana Burke, Laurelwood Road. Yes, I'll hang on.” He covered the mouthpiece. “Somethin's up. I can hear a lot of action in the background.” He removed his hand.
“Okay. Got it; A one-eight-seven.” He put the cell in his pocket. “Let's get out of here. Once Marcus started referencin' this address those Feds were out of there like a shot.”
“What did they say?”
“I'll tell you in good time, girl. Car first, then escape, then we talk.”
Clare began to flag even as they hurried to the waiting Chrysler. She had pushed herself too hard.
Terrick's face was a mask of concern as he helped her in. “They'll be here any second. Hold on.” Terrick turned right up the private drive of one of the large houses. When they reached the house he veered to the left.
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