The Guard

by Eric S. Brown

  “Sharps! Mrs. Wheaton has a 10-56 out at her place. I need you to head over there and check it out,” Lindsey said.

  “Copy that,” Sharps responded. “On my way.”

  Sharps sighed. So much for getting to relax at my desk filling out forms, he thought, flicking on his patrol car’s siren. Mrs. Wheaton lived just outside the northern edge of town. Everyone knew the old lady. She was a character and then some. Pushing 75, Mrs. Wheaton lived alone except for her cats and usually called into the station at least once a week with some kind of complaint or another. Lindsey always tried to be nice to her despite the old woman’s crankiness and often crass insults in regards to how incompetently the sheriff’s office was run since Wallace had been elected. Mrs. Wheaton had real issues with a woman being the sheriff.

  There wasn’t much traffic on the back roads so it didn’t take long for Sharps to reach the turn that led up to her house. He switched off his sirens as he approached it. There was no need to spook the old woman any more than she already was if her call to the station wasn’t just another ploy to get some attention. The road up to her house was gravel and not very well cared for. His patrol car bounced along it as Sharps prepared himself to deal with the old woman. He shook his head as her house came into view. In its day, the house had been one of the best in the county. Now, its walls were weathered, paint flaking in several spots, and the roof looked like it needed more than a few repairs. Mrs. Wheaton’s yard was overgrown and as ill cared for as the house itself. Sharps never could figure out why the old woman didn’t just hire some folks to come and maintain it or fix up the house. Her husband had been a big shot in town when he was alive, owning a chain of dry cleaners that ran the length of the southern part of the state and selling it before he died. Money was one thing that Mrs. Wheaton wasn’t hurting for.

  Sharps parked his patrol car and got out. The sun had reached its zenith in the sky and the day had warmed up nicely. It was a strange time of day for anyone to be reporting a prowler on their property but then Mrs. Wheaton and strangeness seemed to live hand in hand. The grass of the lawn came up over the tops of his shoes as Sharps started across the lawn to her house. It was still wet from the morning’s frost and he didn’t appreciate getting the bottom of his pants’ legs and socks soaked by treading through the overgrown grass. A small set of steps led up onto the house’s front porch. They were as ill cared for as everything else around the place and Sharps was careful as he walked up them. He was surprised the old woman hadn’t come out to meet him already. She normally did, yelling and screaming about whatever she had called him out for. He moved across the porch to the front door and started to knock on it before he realized that something wasn’t right. His knuckles stopped just short of the door’s wood as he reached out to knock on it. The door was ajar inside its frame, barely held in place by what remained of its broken hinges. It looked like someone or something had rammed against it, trying to get inside. Sharps took a step back, staring at the broken door. That was when he noticed the floor of the porch. There were broken spots all across where the wood looked to have buckled beneath the weight of something heavy. They ran all the way to the banister on its left side. And the banister at the end was completely shattered as if something had simply run through it.

  “What the frag?” Sharps muttered under his breath, drawing his pistol.

  “Mrs. Wheaton!” he yelled. “Come on out if you’re in there. It’s Deputy Sharps.”

  No answer came from inside the house. Sharps wasn’t sure if he should head on into the house or go check out the yard behind the house first. Whoever had smashed up the door and banister could very well still be around the place somewhere. Reaching out to open the door, it fell inward as he touched it, thudding onto the wood floor inside. Sharps jumped back, bringing this pistol to bear on anything that may be waiting in the house for him. Only there was nothing there. He stepped inside, taking a look around the large living room that the front door opened into. There was no sign of Mrs. Wheaton.

  “Mrs. Wheaton!” Sharps shouted. “Are you here?”

  The interior of the house was dark but he could see sunlight spilling into it from somewhere beyond the doorway that led into the kitchen area near the rear of the house. Sharps moved slowly through the living room, his nerves on edge as he neared the kitchen. The door that led to the backyard from the kitchen was shattered. Bits of it still clung to the door’s frame but the rest was nothing more than jagged splinters that littered the floor. There was blood among the debris from the door. Sharps training told him to head back to his car and call for backup but he really didn’t want to retrace his steps through the shadows of the house. Edging his way toward the shattered door, Sharps clutched his pistol in a two-handed grip, ready to use the weapon.

  A grunting noise came from house’s backyard. It was a deep and guttural sound. There was nothing human about it. Sweat broke out on Sharps’ skin as whatever was outside grunted again. Creeping closer to the smashed back door, Sharps looked through it into the backyard. His eyes bugged as Sharps saw the thing. It was kneeling over Mrs. Wheaton’s body. The old woman was clearly dead. Her guts spilled out of her torn-open stomach and blood smeared her hands and the cheeks of her face. Mrs. Wheaton’s head lay cocked at an unnatural angle atop her neck. Her eyes were open, staring up at the sun, lips twisted in the remnant of a scream. The creature was stuffing red-slicked strands of her entrails into its mouth. Brown hair covered its body from its head to the toes of its large feet. The creature’s arms were overly long like those of an ape’s. Claws at the ends of its fingers gleamed in the sunlight. Its lips made wet smacking sounds as the creature enjoyed its meal. It stopped what it was doing suddenly, sniffing the air, and turned its head toward him. The creature’s eyes were a sickly shade of yellow that seemed to glow even in the light of the midday sun. Raising up to what had to be at least a nine-foot height, the creature let the old woman’s entrails slip from its hands as it faced him.

  Sharps didn’t hesitate. He opened fire on the thing, his pistol booming over and over in rapid succession. His first three shots struck the creature in its stomach. They drew blood but didn’t fully penetrate through the thing’s dense muscles there. Adjusting his aim on the fly, Sharps fired two more times at the creature’s face. The creature moved so fast that it was able to bring up its right arm into the path of the bullets. They hammered into it as the beast snorted, shaking its head, and then sprang at him. Sharps heard himself yelp as he dove further back into the kitchen. The beast came bounding straight into the doorway and through it. The frame of the door and parts of the wall gave way before its fury, sending bits of wood flying as the beast entered the kitchen. Sharps took another shot at the creature. His bullet slashed along the side of its hair-covered cheek, grazing the flesh there. The beast lashed out in anger, knocking the refrigerator near the door over to send it crashing onto the floor. Its yellow eyes burned brighter in the shadows of the house as the creature reared its head back and gave a roar that seemed to shake the entire kitchen. Sharps turned and ran, his legs pumping beneath him as he sprinted through the living room, heading for the house’s front door. He heard the beast tearing through the house after him. Sharps bolted out of the house at a full-out sprint, leaping over the steps that led down from the porch into the yard. He landed awkwardly. His right ankle snapped from the weight of his body coming down on it at the wrong angle. Sharps hit the ground hard, rolling through the overgrown grass. He could feel that his ankle was broken and gritted his teeth against the pain as he brought himself up into a fire positioning, his pistol aimed at the beast that came bursting out of the house after him. The doorway splintered, sending shards flying and chunks of the surrounding wall clattering onto the porch. Sharps put a round into the beast’s forehead. The impact of the round stunned the creature as Sharps fired two more rounds into its chest before his pistol clicked empty.

  The beast recovered quickly and came running across the yard as Sharps tried to heave himself
to his feet despite his broken ankle. His patrol car was so close that he could almost reach out and touch it. It was his only hope of escaping the monster that was after him. With a fierce roar, the beast reached him, yanking him up from the ground. It carried him forward with it, ramming him into the side of the patrol car. The metal of its door dented inward as his body was crushed and compressed against it. Bones snapped like twigs beneath his skin as his shoulders and neck were utterly shattered by the impact. The beast let go of his corpse, allowing it to fall onto the gravel of the drive.

  ****

  Deputy Bryant Holcomb sipped at his cold coffee with only hand on the wheel as his patrol car winded along the gravel road leading down from the mountain. Cold or not, caffeine was caffeine and he needed it. Sharps had bugged out while he and Fisher were still talking to the ambulance crew that had finally arrived on scene to properly collect the bodies of the men that had been killed. Holcomb didn’t blame him. He had been happy as Hades to get out of there himself. If he hadn’t stopped to do some paperwork on his car’s computer on site, he would have been on Sharps’ heels. He felt a little guilty for leaving the newbie to deal with the end of things up there but he figured Fisher could use the experience. It would be good for him.

  His stomach rumbled as he rounded a curve in the road, reminding Holcomb of just how long it had been since he had last eaten. He was planning to stop by Joe’s as he headed back to the station and grab a very late breakfast. Joe’s Diner wasn’t too far out of the way. The thought of a plate heaped with bacon and eggs made his stomach growl again. Holcomb could already smell the syrup he was going to drench them in. Since Mary Beth had passed away, he had let himself go and he knew it. You only live once though and dang it if he wasn’t going to enjoy life while he was still above ground. Mary Beth had been a health nut throughout their marriage, constantly nagging at him to eat better and stay in shape like she did. And what good had it all done her? A routine check-up had found stage four cancer in her uterus that had spread into the rest of her body. The Big C had crept up on her without warning and she was dead in three months. There wasn’t a day that went by that Holcomb didn’t miss her. He had loved her dearly. But that just proved his point again. If you didn’t live while you alive, what did it all matter?

  Sitting his coffee back into his car’s cup holder, Holcomb took his eyes off the road ahead of him for just an instant. When he looked up, something had burst from the trees at the edge of the road and was sprinting across it. He slammed on the brakes as hard as he could. The patrol car fish-tailed on the loose gravel of the road and spun sideways. Holcomb heard himself screaming as the car skidded to a halt, dropping into the small ditch on the side of the road opposite from where the thing that had come running into his path emerged from. He threw open his door and jumped out onto the road. It had all happened so fast that his mind hadn’t fully processed exactly what it was he had been trying to avoid hitting. Holcomb saw it clearly now though. The monster had stopped halfway up the bank it had been running toward and was looking down at him on the road. It stood close to ten feet tall with burning yellow eyes. Its body was a mess of shaggy brown hair and thickly muscled limbs. Holcomb had never seen anything like it before except on TV and in horror movies. His gut told him that this was the thing that had killed Mark Page and the Riggers while they had been out bear hunting. Cato’s crazy theories about Sasquatch were apparently closer to the truth than anyone had thought when he started spouting them back in June because that’s what this thing had to be… A Sasquatch.

  Holcomb and the Sasquatch stared at each other. His hand moved ever slowly toward the butt of the pistol holstered on his hip. The Sasquatch roared and came bounding down the hill at him as Holcomb drew the gun. Bringing the pistol up in a two-handed grip, Holcomb opened fire. He could see that his bullets hit the charging monster but they didn’t appear to have any real effect on it. There was a shotgun in his patrol car but there was no time to get the weapon. The Sasquatch would be on him before he could even pop the car’s trunk. Holcomb backpedaled, firing at the Sasquatch again.

  He had put six rounds into the Sasquatch without so much as even slowing it down. Holcomb screamed as the great beast reached him and turned in an attempt to make a run for it. One of its hair-covered hands slashed through the air, its claws raking across his back. Blood flew as Holcomb toppled face first onto the road. He felt the Sasquatch grab him by his right leg, yanking him up from where he had fallen. The Sasquatch spun him through the air above its head and hurled him to land roughly on the trunk of his patrol car. He thudded off of it into the dirt at the road’s edge. His leg was a mess, dislocated at his hip and unable to be moved. Holcomb lay there, gasping for breath through the pain he was in. Somehow, he had managed to keep hold of his pistol and brought it up at the Sasquatch as it moved in to finish him, pulling himself into a sitting position. He popped off a lucky shot that struck the Sasquatch’s left eye, pulping it inside its socket. The Sasquatch howled, rearing its head back even as Holcomb fired again. His pistol cracked in rapid succession as he emptied the rest of its magazine into the hulking monster. The Sasquatch staggered, more from the hit to its eye than the other rounds that were hammering into it. Holcomb was on the verge of passing out, barely able to remain sitting up from the damage his body had taken as he struggled to eject his pistol’s empty magazine and shove another one into the weapon.

  The Sasquatch closed on him as the magazine snapped home. Holcomb tried to raise the pistol but the Sasquatch slapped it from his hand, breaking his wrist in the process as he brought it up. Jerking his injured arm to his chest instinctively, Holcomb stared up at the monster towering over him. Blood ran freely from the mangled socket of its left eye and its lips were twisted in a feral snarl as it reached down for him. Holcomb rocked his injured body sideways trying to dodge its grasping hand and failed. The Sasquatch’s fingers closed around the lower half of his face. His jawbone gave way under the pressure of the monster’s grip. Several of his teeth came free from the gums that held them and blood filled his mouth, spraying out from between his lips against the palm of the Sasquatch’s hand. Holcomb flopped over, falling into the dirt. A puddle of red grew around him where he lay as his world went dark. Holcomb was unconscious as the Sasquatch lowered a foot onto his skull and burst it open like an overripe melon.

  ****

  Sheriff Wallace stormed passed Lindsey who sat at the call desk on the way to her office. Lindsey jumped up from her seat as she saw her go by. It was only the two of them at the station. Everyone else was still out either dealing with the killings or responding to new calls.

  “Ma’am!” Lindsey called after her.

  Whirling around with anger in her eyes, Sheriff Wallace snapped, “What?”

  “Sheriff, we’ve got calls coming in from all over the town,” Lindsey told her. “I’ve already got Sharps and Cato responding to two of them but we don’t have nearly enough people to respond to them all. Fisher is just now heading down from the mountain.”

  “Where’s Holcomb?” Sheriff Wallace growled.

  “I… I don’t know, ma’am. I haven’t been able to reach him since he called in that he was on his way back here earlier,” Lindsey stammered.

  Sheriff Wallace glared at Lindsey. “What do you mean you haven’t been able to reach him?”

  “He’s not answering over the radio or his cell, ma’am. I have tried both,” Lindsey answered.

  Holcomb was one of her better deputies. Sheriff Wallace couldn’t imagine the man ignoring calls from the station. It just wasn’t in his nature to do something like that. The fact that he wasn’t answering worried her.

  “Keep trying and let me know the second you get in touch with him,” she told Lindsey.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lindsey nodded, returning to the seat at her desk. “But what about all the other calls we have coming in? Like I said, we don’t have the manpower to deal with them all.”

  “Put Fisher on the one you think is top priority,�
� Sheriff Wallace said. “And assign the others to Cato and Sharps as soon as they are able to take them. I need a moment in my office and then I can take one myself if need be.”

  Sheriff Wallace marched into her office, slamming the door after her. Pouring herself a cup of much-needed coffee, she slumped into the chair behind her desk. The whole town was going crazy from the sound of things. Four deaths in one morning were enough to deal with already without the rest of it. And they had to take top priority as far as she was concerned. The lesser stuff could wait at least for a little while, she told herself. She needed a minute to think everything through and dang it, she was going to take it. Cato had gotten to her a lot more than she would ever admit. There was a logic to his insanity that as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t ignore. No other explanation fit as well as his did but Sasquatch…that was just crazy.

  Pulling up the file of the killing that had happened back in June, Sheriff Wallace began to look through it again. Everything lined up just like Cato claimed it had. A scowl on her lips, she sipped at her coffee. If Cato was right, what in the Hades were they supposed to do? There was no manual on dealing with Sasquatch killings. The things weren’t supposed to be real. The evidence certainly pointed to be them being real though. And it looked like there had to be more than one of the creatures running wild in her county.

  The door to her office burst open as Lindsey came running into it. Sheriff Wallace could see the utter panic in her eyes.

  “Sheriff! You’re not going to believe this,” Lindsey rasped, “but I just got a call from Joe’s Diner. Joe says there’s a monster wandering around the woods at the edge of his parking lot!”