Blood Born

by Matthew Warner

  The goatee answered, “The, ah . . . bigfoots.”

  “No.”

  “Unfortunate. I have activated ESF-8 and LRN elements to assist our analysis. We would have preferred more than simple blood specimens.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.” Randall turned to Sergeant Lively to keep from losing her temper. “I saw a pair of them headed east across Gallows Road.”

  Lively nodded. “We’re on it. Witnesses saw others headed in different directions. We have K-9s and helos out searching for them.”

  “I have summoned additional manpower as well,” the goatee said.

  “Randall, this is Mr. Gastineau from the Department of Homeland Security.”

  Homeland Security? Randall was too surprised to speak. She shook the offered hand.

  “I understand you have been aware of the abnormal pregnancies for quite some time,” Gastineau said.

  “No, I don’t think you do understand.”

  “Randall,” Lively warned.

  The muscular FBI agent cleared his throat. “And at what point were you planning to notify federal law enforcement of this?”

  “At the point this became a federal case,” Randall said.

  Everyone started to speak at once. Lively interrupted: “Gentlemen—ladies. Please. There’ll be a time and place for this later. Right now we need to deal with what’s happening.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” a new voice drawled. “The task at hand is always paramount.”

  Randall turned to find Detective Charles Baker reaching out to shake the two feds’ hands. His too-wide smile showed both his upper and lower teeth. Oh, fucking wonderful.

  “And you are?” Gastineau said.

  “Charles Baker, the third. Homicide.” He’d already replaced his coffee-stained button-down shirt with a clean one, and put on a tie and sport coat. Probably kept a spare change in his car in case he ever needed to brownnose someone. Randall found it appalling.

  As the introductions continued, she took the opportunity to step away. She had no idea if anyone had checked on the pregnant girls, and these idiots were holding her up. Luckily, that meant going to another floor. But first . . .

  “Margaret. What the hell happened to you?”

  Margaret Connolly lowered the ice pack and looked up. Her eyes were swollen and red. She tried to speak, coughed, and tried again.

  Randall crouched down. “What? Did you get choked again?”

  The woman’s voice came out as a croaked whisper: “They’re gone.”

  “Yes, they’re gone now. You’re safe.”

  Margaret shook her head, face pinching with grief. She started crying, so Randall patted her back.

  Margaret seized her shoulder and pulled her close. “Daniella . . . gone. The others . . .”

  Randall rocked back on her heels. What? She had assumed the bigfoots made it no higher than the ground floor.

  Oh, no.

  The attack down here was a diversion. Why else did they suddenly run off? The creatures upstairs got what they came for.

  Her radio hissed to life a moment later, confirming her suspicions.

  Randall bolted for the stairs.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  As Detective Randall charged off, Margaret leaned back against the reception desk and cried.

  Too late—my daughter’s gone. I’ll never see Daniella again.

  Next to the coffee stand across the lobby, a mixture of uniformed officers and men in business suits gabbed away like they were at a cocktail party. They weren’t wearing radios like Randall and apparently hadn’t heard the transmission about the pregnancy ward upstairs. Or maybe they didn’t care. One of the suits smiled and shook hands with an FBI agent like he was running for office. Beside them, a gift shop’s broken window displayed diaper bags, balloons, and flowers.

  The hand-shaker looked up as the stairwell door banged shut behind Randall. Then he spotted Margaret. He approached her.

  He pulled out a notepad and shiny pen from an inside pocket. “I’m Detective Baker, homicide. What’s your name?”

  Margaret’s throat was nearly swollen shut from where the monster had clotheslined her upstairs and from being choked behind Eric Gensler’s house a mere six hours before. She tried to answer but could only cough. It was a wonder she managed that much.

  “Pardon?” Detective Baker said. He didn’t stoop down and look her in the eye as Randall did, but stood over her like he was surveying a homeless person for the census.

  Behind him, another man in a business suit—this one overweight and carrying a clipboard—hurried up to a goateed old gentleman and spoke urgently.

  “Ma’am?” Baker said.

  “M-Margaret,” she rasped. “Connolly.”

  “Spell it.”

  Numb unreality sank in as she did so. The goateed man, FBI agents, and the black police officer she recognized from the press conference suddenly hurried out the door. The heavyset man with the clipboard watched them go, rubbing his chin and looking pensive.

  “Address?” Baker asked.

  Margaret grasped the edge of the reception desk and pulled herself up. She ignored Baker’s command to stay seated. Her strained back muscles and pounding headache made her grunt. The back of her right calf, where one of the monsters had slashed her, burned and ached. She wondered if she should get it looked at.

  “Monsters,” she croaked. “They took her.”

  Baker frowned like she was gum on his shoe. “Took who?”

  Long minutes elapsed as she told him the story—minutes in which she imagined Daniella and the Asian woman being carried farther and farther away. But within that time, other cops and rescue personnel ran through the lobby, and a couple of them stopped to essentially corroborate her story. Patients were missing from the upper floors, they said, and windows were busted out.

  With renewed interest, Baker questioned her about how the bigfoots scaled down the outside of the hospital.

  Finally, we’re getting somewhere, Margaret thought. Maybe they’ll find Daniella.

  “Wait a minute,” Baker said, looking up from his notepad. His southern drawl was starting to irritate her. “These monsters kill everyone in sight. Why not you? And how come they didn’t rape you?”

  Margaret gaped at him. They were both leaning against the reception desk—she for support, and he like he was hitting on her at a singles bar. She scooted away from him.

  “Well?” Baker said.

  She tried to clear her throat to talk, but her voice wasn’t working anymore. Baker smirked, apparently misinterpreting her silence. This infuriated her, but she knew she couldn’t refuse to answer him. Except that she didn’t know what to say. Not getting killed so far was dumb luck—answering that part was easy—but as for the rapes. . . .

  She remembered how the monster at the lake seemed to compare the taste of her to Detective Randall. It dropped her in favor of the younger woman. Daniella also had a bite wound on her neck. Maybe if—

  “I see,” Baker said, scratching at his notepad. “A trip to the station might make you more talkative.”

  Margaret opened her mouth to protest.

  She was interrupted when a TV camera crew barged in through the main doors. The camera’s light blinded her as it swept the lobby.

  “Hey, hey—how did you get in here?” said the man with the clipboard.

  A woman in the lead thrust her microphone into his face and started asking questions. A third person wearing headphones hoisted a boom mike.

  “Baker!” snapped the man with the clipboard.

  Detective Baker hesitated, looking between Margaret and the man, before hurrying over. Cops raced in from the fleet of vehicles outside and helped to shoo the camera crew away.

  Margaret took a deep breath and made up her mind. While the detective was distracted, she turned and fled down the hall.

  She went as fast as she could and didn’t look back. Her back was killing her and the claw wound in her leg was making her limp, but she didn’t slow d
own until she was deep within the bowels of the building. Along the way, she turned down random hallways to elude Baker and to avoid the cops she encountered. They hardly noticed her, too intent on the victims at their feet.

  When she reached the main building’s lobby, she exited and cut around the outside—making a wide circuit on the sidewalks to avoid the arriving emergency vehicles and TV vans. She also peered into the woods, squinting in the early evening light for any sign of Daniella.

  She used a side entrance to the Blue Garage and climbed the stairs to her car. Although she’d left her keys in the ignition in her haste to reach Daniella (it felt like a lifetime ago), the car was still waiting for her. Margaret sobbed with relief and got in. She wasted no time driving out of there, bracing her sore neck with one hand.

  Police and rescue vehicles blocked the way out, so she turned the opposite way on the campus road that circled the hospital. She went around to a different exit—then floored it when she was sure she was free.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  It was more than an hour before Randall found her way back down to the lobby. By that time, she was ready for a break. She just couldn’t take it anymore—the bodies, the smell, the viscera smeared on the walls. . . .

  She also had the worst motherfucker of a headache imaginable. The headache was only partially caused by allergies, though. Her brain was bursting with the effort to contain everything. More than two creatures? Intelligent coordination? Kidnapping?

  But the most disturbing part was Valarie Thompson’s body. Dear God, she’d been partially eaten, like that girl in the Dumpster. Both breasts were just gone. The implications made her shudder. There was a baby now. . . .

  She paused to blow her nose as she reentered the lobby. She’d blown it so many times it was starting to bleed. Things had been cleaned up down here at least, except for the broken window glass scattered across the floor. All the other messes—including the bodies—were gone, and most of the furniture had been righted. A phalanx of police and rescue vehicles still filled the driveway outside. Personnel came and went, some toting stretchers. She expected patients on the hardest hit floors would be transferred to other hospitals.

  The chief of detectives stood by the doors. A squat, middle-aged man, he had a jowly face and a stomach to match. He was writing something on a clipboard and conferring with Detective Baker. Randall seriously considered turning around and getting back onto the elevator.

  But that was stupid. She wouldn’t be run out of here by a sawed-off Southern sycophant like Baker. She had a job to do. Doctors Bowen and Sharma were dead, and she needed the chief to find other medical consultants who could shed light on the leads suggested by the Frederica Wolford case. Maybe that fed, Gastineau, would have those resources—but of course Gastineau would want her to assist him and not vice versa.

  As she approached the chief and Baker, head held high, Randall scanned the lobby for Margaret Connolly. She was gone.

  “. . . And the Connolly woman said they carried the girls down onto the adjoining roof,” Baker was saying. “That suggests a southerly direction.” He spotted Randall and smiled with a corner of his mouth. “. . . Toward my crime scene by the parking lot.”

  The chief glanced at Baker’s suit and shiny shoes. “There’s thick woods over that way. Sure you’re dressed appropriately to help search it—at night?”

  “Sir, I assure you I am quite agile in the natural environs.”

  The chief nodded. “Go. Report back in an hour.”

  Baker left. He smiled as he passed Randall. “Miz Randall.”

  That’s detective to you, she thought.

  Frowning, the chief shook his head as he watched Baker go. He glanced at Randall. “We got multiple forensic scenes here, but he wants to go out and hunt bad guys.”

  Randall folded her hands behind her back, trying to stay expressionless.

  The chief returned to his clipboard. “Ah, it doesn’t matter. We know who the fuck killed these people.”

  Good, Randall thought. Maybe he’ll call off tomorrow morning’s meeting.

  “But don’t think this lets you off the hook for tomorrow morning. Baker’s an ass, but I expect better procedural adherence from you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now are you going to ask me if you can hunt bigfoots, too—or are you going to do your job and interview some of the new rape victims around here?”

  Randall gulped. “Actually, sir, I have a lead to discuss with you concerning the creatures. Baker briefed me on it earlier.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, sir. Is Mr. Gastineau still here? He may want to hear this.”

  The chief hung his head. “He went up to Maryland. There’s been another attack. . . .”

  “What?”

  He nodded, his face slack with exhaustion or shock. “At a hospital in Montgomery County. Another group of animals raided the maternity ward.”

  “Oh my god.”

  The chief stared into space, eyes dull. “They’ve been reproducing right under our noses. We didn’t even notice it. All those missing girls. Now the media’s saying two bodies were found in the Potomac River. Both were women who gave birth. Their breasts were gnawed off like—”

  “Look out!” someone screamed.

  The push caught Randall completely off guard. She fell into the chief. They landed atop the shards of broken glass.

  A bigfoot had leapt from the hallway behind her. Who knew where it’d been hiding—it didn’t matter now. The chief screamed as his hands sliced open on the glass. The monster used them both as a springboard and somersaulted through the broken-out window. It landed outside beside the shelter for smokers.

  Randall rolled off of her boss and drew her gun. Cursing, the chief scrambled to his feet as the creature charged back in.

  The bigfoot tore his throat out.

  But this gave Randall the time she needed to line up her gun sights at center-body mass. The bigfoot tossed the chief’s body aside and faced her—cat ears flattened against its skull, tail puffed out, its bloody front claws rising in preparation to spring.

  Randall dealt it two in the chest.

  It teetered, its flaccid python-segment of a penis swaying against its thigh, then pitched forward into the glass. Randall was still sitting on the floor, aiming over her toes—and incredibly the monster was still alive. It raised its head and snarled. Then it sank a clawed hand into her thigh.

  Randall yelled and shot it between the eyes.

  The fur behind its head jumped as the bullet exited. The monster slumped to the floor.

  Its hand was still latched onto her pants. Randall raised a foot and kicked the monster’s head and shoulders until the hand tore free.

  Cops with guns drawn converged on her from the hallways and outside. “Holy shit. Are you okay? Detective? Are you okay?”

  Randall stared at them. Her ears rang from gunfire. She didn’t know whether to cry, scream, or just answer that she was fine.

  She passed out instead.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  For the rest of the night, Randall felt like she was at a military hospital in a war zone rather than a civilian one. The Emergency Department, cafeteria, and every available hallway became triage centers as victims were discovered throughout the building. With her thigh throbbing under the fresh bandage, she felt like a wounded soldier.

  Worse, reports were flowing in about more creatures emerging from their hiding places in storm sewers and public parks. The radio on Randall’s hip squawked constantly with reports of rapes, home invasions, maulings, and secondary incidents such as car accidents. Not surprisingly, the most frequently reported incidents were neck bites. The monsters were taste-testing, looking for fertile women.

  At first, these attacks were limited to just those women caught outside. It was a warm night, and there were dozens of outdoor parties going on. But soon the creatures were simply crashing in through the windows and doors of those places where they sensed the presence of females. Randall he
ard reports about monsters raiding houses to bite every woman in sight and kill the men before leaving again. The odds were that they would eventually find fertile women—and they did. In those cases, they either raped the women and left them behind, or more often, raped them and carried them off. Bands of civilian men had formed vigilante groups to hunt the creatures.

  Victims flooded in, driven in ambulances or their own vehicles. On top of the regular ER patient load of heart attacks, strokes, and drug overdoses, the unfolding disaster quickly overwhelmed the hospital’s resources.

  Again, Randall wondered if this had all been coordinated. Or maybe the animals had just smelled the general disorder and decided the time was ripe. She didn’t know which scenario disturbed her more.

  At least Mr. Gastineau’s lackeys weren’t leaving them out to dry during all this. Randall learned from ER Nurse John that the feds had activated what was called an “ESF-8,” or Emergency Support Function Annex number eight for Public Health and Medical Services. She couldn’t imagine what kind of militaristic elements were coming online to deal with the bigfoot threat.

  “Normally, I’d call that a waste of taxpayer money,” John said as he worked in a trauma room. He was jamming IV shunts into the back of a patient’s hand—a college student who’d been jumped while walking home from a party. The girl lay on the stretcher, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. Bloody gauze was wadded between her legs where a bigfoot had raped her. On the sink, a fresh PERK kit waited for a forensics nurse to come by and use it.

  Randall flipped to a blank notebook page and prepared to take her twelfth witness statement of the night. Every victim so far had said her last menstrual period was two weeks ago. “Well, as long as the feds get here soon and take some patients off your hands.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” John winked at her. “Hey, you want to go out tomorrow night?”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Randall wasn’t doing so great herself. Seeing her boss slaughtered had sapped her energy, and her allergies and headache had only worsened. She also felt like she was wasting her time here as the lead suggested by Detective Baker about the fertility clinic scientist clamored for her attention. But with the chief dead and Sergeant Lively out-of-pocket, she was effectively in charge of the sex crimes investigation at the hospital and couldn’t leave.