by Greg Taylor
Turning a corner, the woman sensed a large cavernous area up ahead. Approaching the cave-like expansion at the end of the tunnel, she entered cautiously. She didn’t want to spook the mark.
Several mounds of discarded, left-behind coal dotted the cavern. Sniffing audibly like an aroused animal, the woman zeroed in on one of the mounds. She walked toward it, circled around to the other side, and discovered …
Nothing. The woman’s luminous blue eyes narrowed as she studied the area, the only sound being the drip, drip, drip of water from the ceiling overhead. For a second time, the mark had mysteriously bolted from his hiding place. Strange behavior, to be sure. But the mark couldn’t be far away. The lingering scent left behind by the man—the woman knew the mark was a “he” just from the smell—indicated that he wasn’t long gone.
Eager to continue the search, the woman exited from the chill of the cave into the warm, humid night. Her eyes suddenly zeroed in on something moving through the underbrush. In a movement so swift it defied reality, she grabbed a rodent from the ground and stuffed it into her mouth. The rodent’s tail was briefly visible, wagging in desperation, before the woman sucked it in like a strand of spaghetti.
The woman’s midnight snack was not typical. The approaching new moon—only two days from now—was what had caused the disgusting urge to chow down on a forest rat. The guttata always went a little off course this time of month. The hormones were jumpin’, it was difficult to concentrate on much of anything, sleep was out of the question. So the spew-inducing, furry hors d’oeuvre the woman had just eaten—swallowing it whole in a single gulp—was simply an impulse. She couldn’t help herself.
Besides, it gave her a hit of protein to fuel her ongoing and very promising search for the missing mark.
8
The morning after Toby had successfully pulled off a getaway to join Annabel for what turned out to be an uneventful stakeout, he stood in the driveway with his dad. Steam rose lazily from the asphalt drive, the early morning sun evaporating the moisture from the previous night’s rainfall. Toby’s mother, sister, and her young friend were already in the car, which idled at the curb.
“You have no idea how much convincing I had to do to sway your mother on this one, Toby. Especially after the incident at the hospital last night.”
“I think I do. Thanks, Dad. I appreciate it.”
“All I ask is that you earn my trust over the next week. No funny stuff. Deal?”
Toby nodded. His father gave him a pat on the shoulder, walked to the car, slid behind the wheel, and drove off down the street. Waving to his departing family, Toby felt guilty. Here he’d been doing one thing after another behind his parents’ backs, and now he had promised his father there would be no “funny stuff” for the next week. Of course, there would be funny stuff! What particular variety, Toby didn’t know, but that was practically all he’d been doing for the past month or so. Funny stuff.
All Toby could hope at this point was that his well-intentioned transgressions would be worth it, in the end.
That night it was Toby and Strobe’s turn for the sunset-to-midnight stakeout shift. Earlier, an unusually tense Harvey had stressed how important it was to keep up the stakeouts, boring though they may be. The new moon was in less than twenty-four hours. If Chris Child didn’t show up within that time frame, that was it. They would have to wait another month for a chance to follow him to the monthly Gathering.
That would give their foes a possibly unbeatable advantage in the treacherous cat-and-mouse game that was being waged between the two camps. That was the last thing Harvey wanted to give his enemies, so he was urging everyone to be on their toes.
The first hour of Toby and Strobe’s stakeout was quiet as the two took turns with a pair of binoculars to study the Child house below. Toby had tried to engage Strobe in conversation a couple of times, but so far, no go.
“What’s wrong, Strobe?” Toby asked after another silent half hour had gone by.
“Nothin’.”
Toby knew that wasn’t true. He could tell something was troubling his stakeout partner. He considered leaving the moody guy be, but wasn’t sure if he could handle another hour and a half of silence.
“You’re way too quiet for nothing to be wrong. C’mon. Talk to me. I’m your wingman, after all. Whatever you say goes no further than here.”
Strobe stared at Child’s house. From where they sat, they could see the living room, eerily illuminated by the bluish light of a large TV screen.
“Did you and Annabel talk much last night?”
Toby was surprised by Strobe’s question. “During the stakeout, you mean?” Strobe nodded. “Yeah, of course we talked. Why?”
“Nothin’,” Strobe said. “It’s nothin’. Really.”
“What do you mean, it’s nothin’? It’s something, or you wouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Forget it, Tobe.” Strobe raised the binoculars to his eyes. He clearly was not interested in continuing the conversation.
Sitting cross-legged on the ground, Toby tapped his foot in frustration. “Know what? I don’t want to forget it. I don’t want to sit here quiet as a tree stump for the next hour and a half.”
“So call Annabel.”
“Know what I’m really talking about here? Having a simple conversation. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. But let me clue you in on something. Some guys don’t like to gab all the time.”
“Yeah, well, how ‘bout some of the time? I mean, you don’t like to gab, like … ever. Think about it. I’ve been working with you for practically two months and hardly know a thing about you. I don’t even know where you live. Here we’ve trained together. Gone up against the guttata together. You gave me a nickname. It seems to me we should be able to just … talk, you know?”
Actually, Toby had a pretty good idea why Strobe had asked the question about whether or not he and Annabel had talked during their stakeout. Annabel had revealed to him the previous night that she and Strobe hadn’t talked much during their stakeout. Strobe had seemed distracted, Annabel thought. Uneasy.
Toby had a theory about why Strobe had been like that with Annabel. The guy had a crush on her. Toby was sure of it. Well, no surprise there. How could a guy not have a crush on Annabel? Toby certainly did. Of course he knew that Annabel only saw him as a friend, which had given him more than a few private little heartaches.
But yeah, Strobe had a thing for Annabel, that much was clear to Toby. The guy was so cool—most of the time, anyway—but Toby had noticed those glances he threw in Annabel’s direction from time to time, especially after a particularly intense self-defense class. He was totally into her. Definitely.
“Know what?” Toby said, breaking the stillness in the small, cave-like chamber in the middle of the bushes. “I’m not gonna hound you about this conversation thing. But I need some coffee. I’ll fall asleep just sitting here like this. Want anything at the Stop and Go?”
“No. Thanks.”
Toby stood and started pushing his way through the bushes. Strobe lowered his binoculars, looked at Toby, then suddenly said, “Hidden Hills Suites.”
Toby stopped and looked over his shoulder at Strobe. Hidden Hills Suites? What did that mean?
“That’s where I live,” Strobe explained. “Hidden Hills Suites. Down on Streets Run.”
Toby knew where the Hidden Hills Suites were. It wasn’t the most desirable place to live, that’s for sure. Besides that, it was mainly for people and families who probably wouldn’t be staying in Hidden Hills for very long.
“What else do you want to know?” Strobe asked.
Toby couldn’t help but smile. “This isn’t an interrogation, Strobe.”
“No? It feels like one.”
“Okay … Listen, I have an idea.” Toby returned to his stakeout spot. “This might help. Why don’t we take turns telling each other something about ourselves. That way it won’t feel like you’re my prisoner or something.”
“In that case, it’s your turn.”
Toby looked surprised. “So … you actually want to do this?”
“Better get started before I change my mind.”
“Right … right.” Toby thought about what to tell Strobe about himself. After a few moments …
“Is it really that hard?” Strobe asked.
“I don’t want to spout off the first thing that comes to mind. I want this back-and-forth to mean something.”
Strobe rubbed his forehead as though he had a headache.
“I’ve lived in the same house my entire life,” Toby finally revealed.
“I’ve moved more than five times in the last three years.”
“Get out! Why do you move so much?”
“No questions. Your turn.”
“Okay, right. No questions.” After a moment … “I was in the Cub Scouts when I was little, but when I got to the Boy Scouts … I don’t know. I just wasn’t that into it. So I quit. I guess I’m not that much of a joiner, when you come right down to it.”
“My mom works as a temporary restaurant manager. Comes in when they’re starting things up, trains the people, then it’s off to the next place after things are up and running. That’s why I’ve moved so much.”
“That’s interesting. See, this isn’t so bad, is it? We’re actually conversing.”
“Don’t push it, Tobe.”
“My turn, right?” Toby frowned in concentration, thinking, then suddenly smiled. “This is a good one. I was around ten years old. I was playing baseball in the backyard. I had this whole thing worked out where I could play an entire game by myself. So anyway, I threw the ball against the wall and it went flying over my head and landed in my mom’s flower garden. I went over to pick it up and this thin stake, my mom put it there for a vine to grow on or something, went right up my nose.”
Strobe looked at Toby, deadpan.
“It was really bad. My dad had to take me to the emergency room. The stake had gone all the way up to my—”
“Hold it right there. I’ve heard enough about this one.”
“Yeah, well … top that, huh?”
Strobe didn’t hesitate. “When I was around nine, my dad and I were playing baseball behind our apartment building. He had a heart attack and died, right there in front of me.”
Toby couldn’t believe what Strobe had just told him. It was the absolute last thing he expected to hear.
“Actually, he didn’t die right away. In the meantime, though, I just stood there like an idiot, staring at him.”
Toby struggled for something to say. “I’m sure …”
“There wasn’t anything I could do, right? That’s what my mom always says.” Strobe looked away, off into the darkness. “Anyway, that’ll teach you to start up a conversation with me, huh? If we’d gone back and forth a few more times you might have found out how I spent half a year at a detention camp for stealing a car, among other things. When I was twelve.”
Strobe looked at Toby, then nodded abruptly, indicating that this particular conversation was over. Toby sat in the darkness, at a loss for words. Strobe’s revelations had been like a sharp jab to the stomach.
Demons.
The word just popped into Toby’s head. There were the outer kind, of course, the kind they were fighting. Toby now knew Strobe had a few of the inner kind to deal with. Which explained a bit about why he was the way he was.
“You see that?!” Strobe suddenly asked. He was already grabbing his backpack.
Toby had seen it. He was too shocked to speak. A large figure had just darted across the backyard of the Child house. The figure didn’t look human. Matter-of-fact, scurrying across the yard on all fours, it resembled the guttata hanging in the Killer Pizza classroom!
9
Toby and Strobe burst from their hiding place and ran down the hill toward the Child house. Toby lost his footing halfway down, rolled the rest of the way, and took out a few bushes before flopping to a stop at the edge of the backyard.
Strobe yanked Toby to his feet. The two stood shoulder to shoulder and scoured the now deserted yard, their hyper in-and-out breathing the only audible sound in the quiet night.
“That was a guttata,” Strobe said as he yanked on his backpack.
“Couldn’t have been Child, then. Harvey said he’d return in human form.”
Strobe snapped down his NVGs and pulled his crossbow out of his backpack. “Let’s go get it, whatever it was. I’ll take the left side.”
Toby started for the right side of the house as he pulled on his backpack. A high hedge separated the Child house from the house next door, creating a narrow alley along the length of the house to the front yard.
Toby walked cautiously down the deserted hedge-alley, staying close to the house as he watched for any sign of movement in the darkness ahead. He was snapping an arrow cartridge onto his crossbow, when—
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Toby jerked his head up to look at the roof, where he had heard the sound of pattering feet. He turned his back to the alley as he retreated to the backyard for a better look at the roof. I hope Mrs. Child has those upstairs windows locked!
Toby was almost to the backyard when a brittle rustling sound interrupted the silence in the alley behind him. He whirled around, then stumbled back in horror at the sight that greeted him. Something had just stepped from the shadows into a small pool of light that shone from a nearby window.
That something was “Chris Child.”
Child’s otherworldly transformation was almost complete. Almost being the operative word. His ears had almost disappeared into the sides of his hairless head. His enlarged chest jutted out weirdly from his deformed body. The long-fingered, lizard-like hands and feet were still partly human, the old, flesh-colored skin stretched over a new, alien system of bones and ligaments.
But it was mainly the face that held Toby’s horrified attention. It was as though Child’s face had been pulled and molded to fit the contour of an elongated guttata face. His remaining facial features were a grotesque, fun-house-mirror-like parody of what Child used to look like.
The guttata in the woods had been terrifying to Toby, but this specimen was beyond terrifying. Child was something that simply shouldn’t be.
As Toby backed away, the freakish-looking creature skittered awkwardly toward him on all fours, looking like what he was. A human—former human—trying to adjust to a strange new way of walking. Fortunately for Toby, Child was still human-size and not yet at full guttata strength. Just the same, Toby wanted to avoid a tussle with the thing if he could help it. He raised his crossbow to his shoulder to discourage Child from coming any closer. The creature responded by rearing back and contorting his features in a frightening grimace.
Strike pose!
Toby had no choice. He took aim and fired. The arrow pierced Child’s shoulder, causing him to cry out as he fell back. Quickly regaining his balance, Child snarled at Toby, a look of rage inflaming his black-red eyes. Then he charged!
Hisssss! Thunk!
The crossbow arrow—looking as though it had materialized out of thin air and was now imbedded in the grass between Child’s feet—stopped Child in his tracks. The hybrid’s head twisted like an owl’s and looked up at the roof.
Toby glanced up and saw Strobe at roof’s edge, a darker silhouette against the dark, starless night sky. He was readying his bow for another shot. When Toby focused back on the ground in front of him …
Child was no longer there.
A residual shaking of branches in the nearby hedge indicated which way the creature had gone. Toby looked up to see Strobe take aim with his crossbow. But he pulled up before firing. He looked down at Toby and shook his head no.
Child had escaped into the night.
An impromptu meeting was held in Harvey’s Jeepster Commando—his official “field car”—which Harvey had parked down the street from the Child house. Harvey, Steve, and Annabel had joined Toby and Strobe within ten minutes af
ter receiving their call.
“What do you think Child will do now?” Annabel asked.
“Anybody’s guess,” Harvey said. “Coming home before completing his transformation? Definitely abnormal.” The normally deadpan, cool-as-ice Harvey was clearly disturbed at this latest development.
“I think he’ll return to his hideout,” Steve suggested. “A family reunion certainly didn’t work out for him. If that’s what he was after.”
“Doubtful he’ll come back here tonight, in any case,” Harvey said. “Just the same, I’ll take my usual shift. You three go home. Get a good night’s rest.”
End of meeting. Strobe opened the rear door of the Jeepster and he, Annabel, and Toby hopped out.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Steve said. “Get back in here. We’ll give you a lift home.”
“I’m cool,” Strobe said.
“I’m just around the corner,” Annabel said.
“Sure?”
The trio nodded.
“All right. Just be sure to keep a watch out for other guttata. They might be hovering about.”
The trio waved to the Commando as it moved off down the street, then were silent after the car had disappeared around the corner.
“Interesting evening.” It was Strobe who broke the silence.
Annabel looked at Strobe and Toby. “You two did good. Who knows what might have happened to Mrs. Child if … well, you know.”
Toby and Strobe knew.
“Either of you want a ride?” Annabel asked as she walked across the street to get her bike.
“No, thanks,” Strobe said.
“Toby?”
“I don’t have that far to go, Annabel. I’m gonna walk with Strobe.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow. Be careful.” Strobe and Toby waved to Annabel as she hopped onto her bike and rode off, then headed in the opposite direction from which she had gone. They were quiet as they walked down the middle of the deserted street.
“See ya,” Strobe said when they arrived at the first intersection. He turned left and started up the steep road that crisscrossed Finney Drive.