“I went to see the mayor to find out what was happening, but when I got there he was in a meeting with the men from the State,” Maggie said this last word with such disdain Tammy assumed she hated the State government with a passion.
“So they are here already?” Tammy said.
“If that’s who they really are, they’re here,” Maggie said.
“You don’t think it was them?” Tammy wasn’t quite following Maggie’s thoughts.
“They were talking about the clouds, but get this, Mayor Allgood was telling them what to do. Ordering them what to do is probably a better way of putting it,” Maggie sat back triumphantly to let the news wash over someone else. Tammy just looked at her for a moment, thinking, but still she felt she needed more information. It was odd that Allgood was issuing orders to people who should be his superiors, but something else was more interesting.
“What did he tell them to do?”
“This is the best part,” Maggie said, “He wants them to tell the fire department the clouds are no longer dangerous and start hacking them apart with their axes!”
“What! They don’t know if they are safe yet or not, no one does!”
“Exactly!” Maggie said, clapping her hands together, “Now you know why I didn’t want to say anything in front of that lapdog Gough.”
Tammy’s mind was racing when she heard what Maggie knew, but everything stopped when she mentioned Gough like that.
“What is it, dear?” Maggie asked, looking at Tammy with concern.
“Mr Gough already knew what the State scientists were going to say too. He told me this same thing not an hour ago!” A scowl came over Maggie’s face and she said sourly,
“They’re in this together.” Tammy agreed, even though she wasn’t fully sure why the mayor would be risking lives in this way.
At that moment, Doc Hanrahan appeared in the doorway leading to the cells. He looked from one woman to the other and then said to Tammy,
“I’ve locked the cell door, but you might want to check if I’ve done it right.” The keys jingled as they dangled from his hands. Tammy stood up; she wouldn’t be sure either if the door was locked in accordance with the procedure here, but she would make a show of checking all the same. She got up and took the keys, “Not that he’ll be going anywhere in his state,” Hanrahan added as she took them.
“How is he?” It was impossible for her to hide her concern.
“He has a fever, but he’s going to be fine, I think. Fluids and rest, and I’ve given him something to fight the fever.”
“That’s good to hear,” Tammy said.
“A lot of what brought on the fever was shock, but he’s a strong boy; he’ll fight it off.” Tammy was glad to hear this. She looked to Hanrahan and then to Maggie.
“Why don’t you sit down, doctor,” she said, “I guess it’s time people started knowing what was going around here.”
She went back to look in on Lawrence and was glad to find he seemed more comfortable than before.
“Come on, Lawrence, the doc says you’ll be fine, but I need you to pull though quickly. I’m going to need you help real soon.” Lawrence mumbled something, but he looked to be asleep. Tammy smiled; she was glad he was going to be alright. Now it was time for her to go and tell Maggie and the doctor that it was possible up to eight people had been murdered in their quiet town overnight.
Chapter 33
Garrick recognised the doctor’s car at once outside the Sheriff’s Office and he knew Tammy had not followed his orders. He was annoyed, but then she wasn’t really an employee of the department and didn’t have to do what he said. It probably was as well she’d called the doctor; Lawrence might be in a better state to tell him what happened now. Garrick glanced to either side as the small convoy from the Clear View Hotel pulled in along either side of his cruiser. As yet he had no clue what he was going to do with these people; the only idea being someone in town might house them for now.
Everyone got out of their cars and Garrick addressed them,
“I’m going to go inside the station for a while and try to sort out a few things. Can you all go across the street to ‘Kerry’s Diner’, and tell Kerry to stick the bill on the Sheriff’s Office. I’ll be over in a little while to tell you what the next step is.” As he spoke, the guests and staff of the hotel looked over at the diner and then back to Garrick.
“Can I just go home?” Emily asked. Her face was still drained of blood and Charles Landy had a supporting arm around her shoulders. Garrick felt sorry for her and wanted to acquiesce, but something told him he wanted this group to stay together for the time being. He met her eyes with sympathy.
“Sorry, Emily, just a little longer and I’ll drive you home myself, okay?” Emily cast her eyes down but nodded. “That a girl,” Garrick added for encouragement. The group looked at one another and then started shambling off like zombies to the diner. Garrick watched them go, and once they were inside, he slipped into the Sheriff's Office.
The sight that greeted him was Tammy sitting at the centre table with Doc Hanrahan on one side and Mrs Glymer on the other. All three looked at him with concern and he felt like he was walking into some kind of intervention. As he looked back into each person’s eyes, however, he knew they were all aware of the situation. The only question was how much of the current situation.
“Sounds like you’re having a rough day, Tony?” Hanrahan said.
“I’ve had better,” Garrick agreed. He looked to Tammy for an explanation.
“I told the doctor and Mrs Glynn about the missing men, Lawrence’s story, and the murders at the hotel,” Tammy blurted out. Before Garrick could say anything, Maggie spoke up,
“Sorry to add to your burden, but there is another problem. The men from State are fake and the mayor has told them to order the Fire Department to hack at the clouds with axes to break them up. No one knows what might happen if they do that.”
Garrick was silent a moment on hearing this; his brain exploded everywhere and plenty of curse words zinged around looking for a way out.
“Where are they right now?” he asked through gritted teeth. Allgood was going to pay for this.
“We don’t know, but if you raise Deputy Gough on the radio he might be able to tell you,” Tammy suggested.
“Deputy who?” Garrick said, astonished, sure he’d misheard.
“The mayor made his assistant a deputy while you were up at the hotel,” Tammy replied sheepishly. Garrick shook his head in dismay. He was going to have to go out and find them right away. But first he was going to have to let Emerson Police know about Clinton Scarrow, not to mention the people in the room right now.
“It looks like the whole town is in this together by now,” he said, looking at the three of them. “Clinton Scarrow is the main suspect for the murders up at the hotel. He was going under a different name, but the description fits him and his car is up at the hotel.” Tammy drew in a sharp breath; she’d always known Scarrow was bad news, but she would never have thought him capable of murder.
“He’s been going down a dark path for a long time,” Hanrahan said sadly. Maggie had only recently had her first experience of this man and she shuddered involuntarily; had he been looking for victims that morning she spoke to him outside her house?
“Never thought it would go this dark though,” Garrick said and sighed. He’d been in high school with Scarrow and it was weird seeing the opposite trajectories of their lives now. He sat down at the phone and then realised Anderson’s office was where he should sit now. Everything was so weird. He got up and went to the door and turned to those in the room. “I need to house a few people who were staying in the hotel. If any of you can come up with some ideas on that while I make a call, I’d be very appreciative.”
“I can take some,” Maggie offered at once.
“So can I,” Tammy said. Hanrahan nodded, but Garrick wasn’t sure if that meant he could take someone too. It didn’t matter right now; they could figure it all out in a while.
He went into the office and closed the door behind him.
It felt good for the moment he stood there with a door between him and the whole world outside. This was a morning he wouldn’t forget in a hurry. The image of the slain couple came to his mind as he sat down and reached for the phone. Then Danny’s dead eyes arose and Garrick shut his own eyes at the memory. He dialed the number.
The images rushed back; so pervasive that it was a few moments before Garrick realised the line was not connecting. He hung up and tried it again and once more there was nothing. He tried the operator, but there was no connection there either. Next, he dialed his home number, the first one he knew off the top of his head and that did ring. He was about to hang up but then thought better of it and waited for his wife to pick up.
“Garrick residence?” Jenny Garrick answered. Garrick hated the way she did that, but he ignored it this time.
“Jenny, it’s me,” he said hurriedly.
“Oh hi...”
“I need you to lock all the doors and stay inside until I get home later, alright?” he cut her off.
“Is everything alright?” she asked, the fear thickening her voice.
“It will be,” he answered. “Just lock the doors and stay in okay?”
“Okay.”
“I have to go, but I’ll swing by sometime this morning,” Garrick said, and he hung up as she said goodbye. He tried the outside lines once more. No luck; someone must have cut the lines, leaving only the local circuit. There was only one person he could think of who would benefit from doing that - Clinton Scarrow.
Anger boiled inside Garrick as the current situation unfolded like a list of errors in his head. Right now, he should be out looking for Scarrow, but he was alone. The only deputy he could ask for assistance had no police training whatsoever and probably less common sense, and now the mayor was wilfully putting people's lives in danger to see if he could get rid of the hardened clouds before tourist season began!
Garrick stood up and stormed out through the room towards the door.
“Where you going, Sheriff?” Tammy called after him.
“I’m going to arrest the mayor!” he said, slamming the door shut behind on his way out.
Chapter 34
Garrick’s car engine was just firing to life when the phone in the Sheriff’s Office rang out. The line had been quieter than Tammy had expected this morning and she jumped at the sound.
“Sheriff’s Office,” she answered and at once heard the sound of dogs barking loudly; she moved the phone a little from her ear.
“This is Doctor Hanrahan’s Surgery, is Doctor Hanrahan still over there?” the voice of Selma Blythe asked.
“Yes, I’ll get him for you now,” Tammy said, and she called to him, “Doctor, it’s for you.” Hanrahan nodded and walked over in his usual steady way, a man who never looked like he was in a hurry.
“Hello, Selma, what’s the trouble?” he said into the receiver.
“It’s the dogs, Doctor, there’s something wrong with them. They seem to be in pain,” Selma said, sounding as distressed as he’d ever heard her, though others would perhaps not have noticed so proper was she in her manner.
“All of them?” he asked.
“Yes, they all started around the same time too,” Selma replied.
“I’ll be right over,” he said.
As Hanrahan gathered up his bag, he felt the eyes of the two women on him. This was the kind of thing he would have only shared with Sheriff Schall had he been around, but in the new spirit of cooperation that seemed to be fostering this morning he decided to let the women know what was going on.
“There’s something wrong with the dogs over at the surgery,” he told them. They’d both heard about the dogs there, but neither had been sure it was true until now.
“That means the clouds are still dangerous, even when they are hard!” Tammy cried.
“That’s the most likely thing,” Hanrahan agreed, “But we still don’t know for sure until I can run a few tests on them.”
“I’ll go over there with you,” Maggie said, “I’ve always been good with dogs; I’ve even been called a bitch myself a time or two!” The joke was so unexpected that for a moment it was greeted with utter silence, but then all three burst out laughing. It was a most welcome relief for all of them. Everything had been so tense since the night of the clouds falling on the town.
“You two get going,” Tammy said when they had all calmed down. “I’ll call Sheriff Garrick and let him know about this.” She went to the radio as Maggie and Hanrahan went out to his car.
In only a few minutes they were at the surgery and they could hear from outside the anguished howls of the dogs. It was the worst noise Maggie had ever heard, and it reminded her of the man she’d seen die only streets away from her home.
“Those poor creatures,” she said with tears forming in her eyes as they rushed to the building.
“This doesn’t sound good at all; they must have gotten worse on our way over here.”
The noise once they were inside was almost deafening. Selma had retreated to the Doctor’s Office with the door closed, and she jumped in fright when Hanrahan and Maggie came in looking for her. Each of them had their hands over their ears and had to shout almost face to face to be heard.
“How did it start?” Hanrahan roared to Selma.
“One by one, in only about one minute!” she shouted back, something Hanrahan never thought he’d live to see. This was about all the information that would be of relevance to him for now, and Hanrahan went back to look over the dogs.
It was a pitiful sight. All eight dogs roiled around within their cages and their howls of agony were unbearable. They looked on him with their sad eyes, and he’d never seen anything to break his heart to such a degree. If he could have put them all out of their misery with a click of his fingers, he would have done it in one second. As it was, the best he could do was morphine injections in an amount they wouldn’t survive. The only problem with that idea was how he was going to explain the use of the drug to the State Medical Board.
“To hell with the board,” he muttered to himself as he turned to go get the syringe and little bottles of morphine. Maggie and Selma had come out and both had tears in their eyes and their hands over their ears as they looked on the dogs. Hanrahan was giving them a nod of understanding, communicating he was going to put them out of their misery when he saw a sudden change in Maggie’s eyes. The change was from pity to horror and it struck him cold in his heart. He turned slowly to follow her gaze and his jaw dropped.
The first dog that had been brought in was now flopping around on his back with his legs in the air. On his stomach something large writhed and moved around pushing and straining against the skin. There was something alive in there! He glanced at the other dogs and saw that they too were turning onto their backs like some kind of choreographed performance. The pulsating of their skins started then too.
From the new frantic howling’s of pain from them all, Hanrahan’s first thought was that whatever it was inside them (it must have been the size of a large hamster) was eating them from the inside, but as the skin stretched more and more he knew whatever was in there was about to come out! He looked at the bars of the cages; whatever came out of them might not be contained in the cages.
“There’s something coming out of them!” he shouted to the two women. “Get out of here!”
Neither Selma nor Maggie could move at that moment any more than Hanrahan himself. His words were lost as the first sickening sound of tearing skin rose into the room. They watched as the first dog’s chest distended and then ripped slowly open like some thick fabric. Selma screamed as blood poured out, and suddenly the dog stopped whining and dropped dead. Ripping noises began to fill the air as the same thing started to happen to all the dogs. Each one’s wailing, pained voice silenced one at a time, leaving the room eerily silent save the hideous tearing noises.
“What is it?” Maggie asked when the use of
her voice returned. No one answered.
All eyes were on the first dog now, fear overcoming the shock. Maggie involuntarily took a few steps back towards the door. All of the dogs were dead now, but their under bodies facing the air moved unnaturally as the blood continued to flow and the tearing horror went on.
Suddenly there was a low pop and a rush of air, and something white sprayed all over the bars of the cage and out onto the surgery floor. Maggie looked on in terror as tiny white spiders started rushing from the liquid in all directions. The other dogs popped open and sprayed their parasitic contents all over too. In a few seconds there were thousands of these little things emerging rapidly from the ooze they’d been housed in.
Now all three people in the room were screaming. Maggie instinctively jumped up onto the window ledge, but Selma and Hanrahan were not so fast. The spiders moved up both of their legs like rising water as they slapped and jiggled about trying to loosen them. Some were inside their clothes and some without, and Maggie cried at the sight knowing instantly there was nothing she could do to save them. When Hanrahan and Selma started a newer shrill screaming, she knew things were biting into them.
Maggie looked away and in doing so saw the tide of spiders on the floor change direction and start heading for Hanrahan and Selma too. Could they smell the letting of blood or was it the shrill screaming that drew them? She didn’t know and at that moment it didn’t matter; what did matter was that she had a chance to get out the window while the bulk of the spiders crawled over and devoured Hanrahan and Selma, both of whom were on the floor now writhing around in agony. It was the worst feeling of her life to climb out and leave them to their fate, but she knew in her heart that if she tried to save them, she would only end up dead too.
Mercifully the screaming ended abruptly, but she didn’t turn to see anymore. Just as Maggie was about to step down to the ground outside, she saw hundreds of the spiders begin to come out under the wall below her and flood onto the lawn. She was stuck. Tears warped her vision and she wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. As she blinded the last liquid away, she saw a possible escape route. The roof.
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