“Thanks.” Randall felt uncomfortable as she slipped her wallet back into her jeans. “Um . . . hey, if you’re not busy this weekend—”
A delivery driver burst through the door, interrupting her. “I know, I know, I’m sorry!” he said to Jill.
“Where the hell have you been?” Jill came around the counter to him. “I have five orders here that should’ve been out the door twenty minutes ago.”
“It’s the traffic in Falls Church.” The college-aged man slid two waiting boxes into his insulated delivery bag and turned to leave again. “The police had roadblocks up earlier. I-66 is fucked-up, too.”
“Then here, take these orders instead. They’re closer, and . . .” Jill turned as the detective ran out the door. “Well, damn. She didn’t even take her food.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Sergeant Lively could be a prick sometimes, but he was generous with his coffee thermos and powdered donuts. Leaning against Lively’s cruiser, Randall and Officer Heager reached through the open window for the food and scarfed down most of it.
Around them in the Putt-Putt Golf’s parking lot, cops put on Kevlar vests and loaded their rifles. They were preparing to cross the street southward into Fairview Park. It wasn’t the same park where Randall lost the creature that morning, but it looked just as dense and packed with hiding places. Sergeant Lively strutted among them like he had rooster feathers up his ass. It was already ninety degrees, making their faces shiny with sweat.
“Couldn’t believe it,” Heager was saying. “The moment I fired—bam!—it was like a starter pistol to that thing. . . .”
Randall nodded as he prattled on. He’d been on duty for eighteen hours. His hands shook as he shared the thermos cup with her. His uniform’s new wrinkles and sweat stains marred the starched smoothness that had been on display when he helped her interview Daniella and Margaret Connolly at the hospital.
“. . . Jumped right off the bridge and onto the subway tracks. Took off hellbent-for-leather running to DC. Now I-66 is going by on either side of the tracks, right? People couldn’t drive for rubbernecking. Bam bam bam!—accidents all over the place—cars skidding out and broken glass everywhere.”
Randall had to chuckle, despite the horror of the story he was telling her. Heager was like a kid sometimes—going off about the latest superhero flick or ogling weapons requisitions like they were Christmas presents—and his enthusiasm came out when he was tired.
“And no one’s seen the animal since?” she said.
“Not unless you count the jogger it raped on a bike trail a few hours ago. Bam!—slammed her into a tree so hard it broke her neck. She might’ve died at the hospital. I haven’t checked.”
Randall stared at the ground and contemplated the madhouse that must be the ER right now. The comfortable media silence she’d enjoyed was about to end, if it hadn’t already.
“What’s the press saying? Anything?”
Heager’s eyes sparkled with a kind of glee. “They’re calling it the ‘Beltway Bigfoot.’”
“What?”
“Uh huh.” He didn’t seem to notice when he sloshed coffee onto his feet. “Someone with a cellphone video camera recorded it jumping onto the Metro tracks. Channel Four’s already made it into a logo for their coverage.”
“Jesus. What’re they saying about the girls in the hospital?”
“All they know is some primate-like animal is running around attacking people. Nothing about the rapes yet. They don’t even seem to have gotten wind of this little operation . . . yet.” Heager nodded at the cops lining up at the end of the parking lot, ready to cross the road.
Sighing, Randall dusted powdered sugar off her hands. “I wish I were going. I owe that fleabag for what it did to me last night.”
“The kid who saw it come through here said it looked pretty ragged. I figure if it’s even half as tired as I am, you’ll get your chance.”
“You should go home, get some rest.”
“You kidding? I’m too excited to sleep.”
Careful, Heager, she thought. I’m starting to like you. She leaned back against the car and grinned. “It, it, it. Do we even know it’s an ‘it’? It looked awfully male to me.”
“Okay, ‘he.’ You mean you notice those things now? Maleness, I mean.”
“Don’t press your luck.” Randall took the coffee cup from his hand, emptied it onto the parking lot, and screwed it back onto the thermos. “C’mon. Eric Gensler lives near here. Let’s drive over and talk to him.”
✽ ✽ ✽
The roadblocks were gone and traffic moved smoothly, so Margaret reached Fairview Parkway within minutes. But as she turned onto the parkway, she looked in her rearview mirror and saw police cars still parked at the miniature golf course. She thought—absurdly, she knew—that there must be a manhunt on for Eric since his house was so close. She took her first left into a townhouse development.
Although she was sitting still in the driver’s seat, her heart thudded as if she’d jogged the whole way here. This is stupid, she thought. Now turn around and go to the hospital.
So naturally she continued deeper into the residential area.
Another turn took her onto a small court. It dead-ended at a grassy area sloping gently down to the lake, which glistened in the summer sunshine. On her right sat a row of townhouses that overlooked the water. The owners had no doubt paid handsomely for the privilege. Beyond them towered a lone glass office building much like the CalPark Fertility Clinic’s.
Last weekend, between being snowed over by Eric’s confident, friendly manner and reminding Daniella to respect her curfew, Margaret had only had a moment to see the boy’s car. But she saw enough—especially the rear bumper hanging off—to recognize the dark blue station wagon parked on this short street. It disgusted her now to note the Sex Pistols bumper sticker and to see the toy vampire hanging from the rearview mirror.
All right, Margaret, you’ve seen enough. Now get out of here.
She double-parked behind the beat-up station wagon and got out. She had no idea what she meant to accomplish—but she was breathing raggedly now, her heart beating so hard that it felt like it would come out of her mouth.
I’ll leave in a minute. I just want to . . .
Want to what, exactly? Tell his parents and neighbors what a monster he was? Vandalize his car (not that he’d notice it)? The boy was in jail by now. So it was wrong, immature, and foolish of her to come here and—
“Eric!” a young man’s voice called from behind the row of houses. “Eric, come on, bro. What did you do, fall in? Get back out here, and help me with this thing.”
Margaret’s mouth dropped open. She started shaking. Eric? Why wasn’t he in jail?
“Eric! Man, will you—”
“Dude, stop shouting!” another male voice answered—a younger voice. It went on to say something Margaret couldn’t make out.
Clenching her fists at her sides, she walked through a break in the houses to circle around back. Her legs felt numb, as if they belonged to somebody else.
On the other side, the townhouses overlooked the lake, which was bounded on all shores by trees and more houses. Fairview Parkway hummed with traffic in the distance. She could see the parking area where she and Daniella had watched the meteor shower. A police car perched there now.
Wooden partitions separated the backyards, which all emptied into a grassy lakeside area with a jogging trail. Foul, atonal music—certainly not her generation’s rock ’n’ roll—emanated from one of those yards. Margaret followed the sound.
She came upon two shirtless young men, sweating as they strained against a half-excavated tree stump on the corner of their property. She blinked and recognized one of them as Eric Gensler.
“Man, you’re pulling the wrong way,” said the one with the crewcut. He was bigger and older than Eric and sounded like the first voice she’d heard.
Sweat dripped in rivulets through the dirt on Eric’s back and face. “Well, what directi
on should I pull? I’ve tried every way, dammit.”
At that moment, Margaret stepped forward and interrupted: “How about pulling in that direction?”
Both young men—but still boys, the older one couldn’t be much more than college-aged—looked up in surprise. Margaret smiled as she pointed at the police car across the lake. “Right over there, Eric. I’m sure they’d like to talk to you.”
Eric’s eyes went wide as terror swept over his features. He was up to his knees in the hole they’d dug around the tree stump, so when he gasped and reeled backward, he fell on his butt. He hurried to climb out.
Margaret chuckled softly. She felt like Jesus Christ descending from on high to smite a sinner.
The other one said, “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the mother of the girl he raped last night. That’s who the hell I am.”
“You’re what?”
Eric retreated a step before appearing to compose himself. He stood up straight and brushed his hands together, slapping dirt off his work gloves. “Don’t listen to her, Shawn. There’s two sides to every story.”
At last, Margaret noticed the similarity between their features. To Shawn, she said, “You’re his brother?”
“Yeah.”
Shawn climbed out of the hole, sweeping dirt off his arms, and switched off the blaring boombox (thank God). He stood a full head taller than Eric and was so heavily muscled that it was a wonder he needed help yanking out the trunk at all. Belatedly, Margaret realized she was in deep shit if Shawn was anything like his brother. With the exception of the police car on the opposite bank—which looked empty, anyway—there were no witnesses.
Rather than let her fear show, she summoned more anger. “Tell me, Shawn, do the men in your family always put their dates in the hospital?”
“Hospital?” Eric said. “I didn’t put her in the—”
“Yes, you did!” Margaret screamed. She advanced on him, pointing at his face. “You threw her into a brick wall, and you raped her! God damn you!”
Shawn turned to stare down at Eric. “Is this that chick you were telling me about? The fuck did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Eric’s voice scaled high into a whine. “We got a little . . . rough in the car, but then she ran out. I didn’t see her anymore after she left.”
“A little rough?” Margaret said. “Is that what you call it?” If she had a gun, she would have shot him.
Shawn shook his head, still staring at Eric. “I don’t believe this.”
“My little girl has a fractured skull because of you.” Margaret advanced until she poked her fingernail into his chest, making him retreat another step. “You almost killed her, you lowlife.”
“Mrs. Connolly—really, we had an argument, and then she ran away, and if anything happened afterwards, I—”
“Yeah, but you ripped her shirt off, didn’t you? Right down the back.”
“That was an accident. My hand caught in the back of her—”
“You ripped her shirt off?” Shawn said. Now he was the one advancing on Eric.
Eric withered in the crossfire, tears rising in his eyes. “It was an accident! I didn’t attack her. My god, Mrs. Connolly, what the f—”
She cut him off with a slap across the face. Only then did Shawn intervene by stepping between them.
“I didn’t! I didn’t rape her!” Eric rubbed his cheek. Tears were running freely now. “Shawn, you gotta believe me. I would never—”
“You bit her, you liar. My baby has bites on her neck from that filed-down tooth of yours.”
“I didn’t!”
“Well if you didn’t, then who did? Huh? Huh?”
Shawn blinked at Margaret in shock. Slowly, he lowered his arms, not trying to restrain her anymore. He gaped at his brother.
As if in answer to Margaret’s question, a dripping, dark form rose from the lake a few yards away.
When Margaret saw what hung between its legs, she started screaming.
✽ ✽ ✽
Randall had driven her own black Hyundai Elantra straight to the manhunt staging area at the Putt-Putt, but she piled into the passenger seat of Heager’s police cruiser for the ride over.
“So I take it we’re not going there to arrest him?” Heager said as he pulled out of the parking lot. Behind them, traffic stopped as a phalanx of heavily armed officers crossed Lee Highway into the park.
“I don’t think Gensler’s the rapist anymore,” Randall said. “Do you?”
“Nope.”
“I just figured questioning a potential witness is better than standing around watching Lively preen himself.”
Heager nodded. “I hope they capture that thing alive.”
“Me too. We need to figure out what’s happening to all those pregnant girls.”
Heager glanced at her as he turned into a residential neighborhood. “The media’s gonna shit when they get wind of those pregnancies, you know. It—him, whatever—it won’t be the ‘Beltway Bigfoot’ anymore.”
“How about ‘rapist werecat’?”
“‘The Big Fucking Dick.’”
Randall giggled. “That’s not funny.”
“You just laughed.”
“I’m tired. It makes me giddy.” She pointed. “There. Turn right.”
Gensler’s townhouse development sat by a manmade lake, on the far side away from the park the police were searching. Even so, a cop was walking door-to-door, warning residents to stay inside.
Randall waved at him as they passed. “It’s probably overkill to alert this neighborhood. If that thing’s truly like a cat, it’ll hate the water.”
Heager parked behind an Isuzu Amigo the color of Randall’s puke from that morning. In front of it sat a Honda station wagon covered in stickers and with its bumper hanging off.
“A cat, huh?” Heager said. “I’ve never seen a cat with a dick that big.”
“You mean you notice those things now?” Randall got out of the cruiser.
Heager followed her out, grinning with whatever he was about to say—but before he could deliver a comeback, a chorus of shouts interrupted them:
“You bit her, you liar. Daniella has bites on her neck from that filed-down tooth of yours.”
“I didn’t!”
“Well if you didn’t, then who did? Huh? Huh?”
Randall thought the first voice might be Margaret Connolly’s. They were coming from the back yards of the townhouses. Randall and Heager exchanged a look before hurrying in that direction.
When Margaret started screaming, they broke into a run.
✽ ✽ ✽
Margaret couldn’t process what she was seeing. Was it a man or an animal?
The thing that had just emerged from the lake and which now walked toward her and the Gensler brothers reminded her of a mythological satyr: pointed ears, backward-bending knees, dark brown fur except for a white patch on its chest, and a manlike, smiling face. It was easily over six feet tall. She thought it was somebody in a costume until she saw its swishing tail.
But what caused her to start screaming was its enormous genitalia. Even flaccid, it was freakishly huge. The discolored penis hung like a thick section of Burmese python.
At the sound of her voice, Eric snapped out of his paralysis. He looked between Margaret and the advancing man-animal—his cheek reddening with the slap she’d just delivered—and grabbed her arm with a gritty work glove. “Let’s get out of here!”
The creature growled and leapt at them.
Eric yanked her out of the way—straight into his brother—and the three of them went sprawling. The creature landed like a four-legged animal before standing up. It seized Margaret from behind, under the armpits. She screamed again as it lifted her from the tangle of bodies. Two people were running toward them with guns drawn.
“Help me!” she said—and then the creature bit her left shoulder.
Its fangs felt like a cluster of hypodermics. She went rigid as blood gushed from the
wound, then opened her mouth to scream.
The monster interrupted her with its own screech as it spun her around to face the newcomers. Margaret recognized Detective Randall, thick hair sticking to her cheeks. The uniformed male cop was Officer Heager, who’d taken Daniella’s statement.
“Oh God,” Margaret moaned as the creature withdrew its teeth.
Randall and Heager crouched a few yards away but didn’t fire. “Put her down!” Randall yelled—as if the thing could understand.
Margaret would have laughed if she weren’t busy keening with terror and flapping her limbs in the air like a rag doll.
As Eric and Shawn Gensler scrambled out of the way, the male cop holstered his weapon and charged.
“Heager, no!” Randall snapped—but he was already reaching out, head lowered for a tackle.
The creature was ungodly fast. The moment before Officer Heager reached them, it pulled Margaret aside, pivoted on its heel, and lashed out with its free hand.
Long nails connected with Heager’s throat the instant before he slammed into them. But Margaret didn’t see the aftermath because the animal was already turning her with the force of impact, sidestepping and using the officer’s momentum to spin them around like figure skaters. Her legs lifted horizontally before the monster released her and flung her away one-handed.
She log-rolled once in the air and smashed into Detective Randall. Her breath exploded from her lungs as they fell in a heap. Randall’s gun splashed into the lake.
Blinking in shock at the sky, Margaret made fish noises as she struggled to catch her breath. But it was all over now. It had to be. That thing would take the opportunity to run.
A powerful hand seized her by the throat and lifted her.
“Oh shit!” one of the Gensler boys said. “Where’s that fuckin’ axe, man?”
“No, call 911!”
Now she really couldn’t breathe—not at all. The world grew fuzzy as the animal held her aloft and choked her. She kicked, but her feet didn’t even reach the ground. Detective Randall hung from the other hand.
Oh God, I’m going to die. Daniella . . .
Its fanged mouth and yellowed eyes filled her vision. Hot breath washed over her face as it pulled her close and licked blood from the bite wound on her shoulder. Even through the thickening fuzz of strangulation, Margaret saw its nose wrinkle in disgust.
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