Serpentine

by Napier, Barry

  The water grew darker and darker and there was nothing else.

  In her final conscious moment, Kelly felt something brush against her back. She secretly hoped that it was Jeremy, reaching out for her…a simple and foolish dying wish.It was a wish that came true, though. Jeremy’s hand did indeed slide across her back as she died. That hand, however, was attached to a mangled wrist and nothing more.

  NINETEEN

  It was just after nine thirty in the morning when Scott Miles parked his rental car behind the painfully generic county police car. There were three police cruisers parked in the small field, but the cops themselves were all standing on the other side of the gravel road, looking out to the lake. There were seven in all, five by the edge of the lake and two standing by a truck that was parked alongside of the road. They looked to be examining something on the driver’s side door.

  As Scott parked, all seven of them turned their heads in his direction. One of the policemen started immediately towards him, waving him away. Scott opened his door and reached for his ID before the man—the local sheriff, he assumed—could get good and pissed off.

  Scott flashed his ID just as the cop reached the car. “Sorry to get you moving,” Scott said. “My name is Scott Miles. I’m with the FBI.”

  The sheriff paused for a moment, clearly baffled. “Why in the hell are you out here?” he asked.

  “Two teens are missing, correct? Likely dead?”

  “Yeah,” the sheriff said, looking back out to the lake. “We know one of them is dead because we found his arm and right foot. But we’re guessing that this is just an animal attack. Everything we can see points to it. No need for the FBI to get involved, with all due respect.”

  “Normally, I’d agree,” Scott said, now also training his eyes out to the lake. “But there are some other things to be considered.”

  “Like what?”

  Scott eyed the sheriff, trying to size him up. He looked to be about fifty and showed all the signs of being a stereotypical southern hard ass. Scott had no doubt that if he didn’t get to the point soon, this man would lose his cool and start raising hell. That in and of itself would not bother Scott at all. But it would make this process much harder. So Scott levelled with the man as best he could.

  “I’ve been here at Clarkton Lake for a little less than a week. I’ve been listening to the chatter on my police band radio. I know about the abandoned fishing boat floating thirty yards off of the shore in a little cove two miles away from this very spot. The boat belonged to a man named Brett Yates, did it not?”

  “It did,” the sheriff said. He was impressed and a little off his game now, and he did nothing to hide it.

  “Mr. Yates has been missing for a few days, right?” Scott asked.

  “Eight days. Yeah.”

  Scott left it at that although he knew more. He knew that Yates had been reported missing by his family five days ago and, from what Scott could decipher from conversations on the police scanner, the discovery of the boat was causing the PD to assume the worst.

  “And what about the dock repairman that died at the Carter residence three days ago? Another animal attack?”

  “That’s the theory,” the sheriff said. “We’ve called the game warden and she’s out looking for any leads right now.”

  “What sort of leads?” Scott asked.

  The sheriff looked to the ground, as if embarrassed. “Alligators. Maybe a bear or wolves.”

  “You don’t sound too confident,” Scott said.

  “Mister, I’m not. I don’t know what in the hell is going on. But I know we need to find out soon or word of this is going to get out and we’re going to have a very scary summer.”

  “Could you please get me in touch with this game warden?”

  “Absolutely,” the sheriff said, pulling his cellphone out and immediately scrolling through the numbers. “If you can help us get this under wraps before more people die, I’ll do anything you ask.”

  Scott saved the game warden’s number into his phone and then looked to the pickup truck the two officers were still studying.

  “You mind if I look around a bit?” Scott asked.

  “Help yourself.”

  Scott did just that. He walked to the truck, standing behind the officers as to not get in their way. There were a few small splatters of blood along the edge of the opened door but nothing else of note. He then turned around and looked at the area behind him. Ankle-length grass covered an area of about five feet before it dipped down slightly towards an area where the grass tapered off and gave way to a small slip of sand that served as the bank.

  The trundled path that had been pressed into the grass was easy to spot. Scott walked to it and hunkered down for a better look. There were a few more splatters of blood along the path, but it was not the blood that bothered him…not specifically. What made his stomach feel as if it were going to bottom out was the fact that he’d seen a path identical to this on the day he had first arrived at George Galworth’s house.

  Only now it was much bigger. The width of the thing had easily tripled in size.

  Scott stood back up and saw that the sheriff was standing to his left, slightly behind him. He was also looking to the path that had been etched in the grass and the look on his face was a perfect accompaniment to the fear that was beginning to spread through Scott.

  “Did the game warden see this?” Scott asked, nodding to the path in the grass.

  “Yeah. And when she saw it, she looked just like you do right now.”

  “Did she say anything about it?”

  “No,” the sheriff said with a nervous chuckle. “As a matter of fact, she stayed quiet. She just said she’d get back to me.”

  That was all Scott needed to hear. “Thanks for your time, Sheriff,” Scott said, walking quickly back to his car.

  “How about you?” the sheriff asked.

  “What do you mean?” Scott asked, already opening his door.

  “Do you have any ideas?”

  “No,” Scott said. “No, I don’t.”

  Yet as he got into his car, he was thinking about the deeper parts of the ocean, where a darkness so black exists that men couldn’t begin to imagine it. He then thought of the pictures he had seen of the interior of the sub that George Galworth had been stationed on and tried to imagine something that could have caused such a scene living in this quaint little lake.

  When he exited the field and pulled back out onto Kerr Lane, Scott realized that this might be out of his control. He might be too late to stop this and that was not the sort of news he wanted to deliver to Roger Lowry.

  With a hand that wanted to tremble, Scott pulled out his cellphone and dialed up the game warden.

  TWENTY

  The game warden was a stout woman named Susan Lessing. When she met Scott at a local diner called The Anchor, she smelled of cigarettes and looked like she was both mad and tired. Given recent events in her area, Scott couldn’t blame her.

  She met him in the back booth, as he had requested. When she sat down, he saw relief pass over her face, like someone that was finally able to sit down after running a marathon. Scott assumed that Susan hadn’t been able to get much rest over the last few days.

  “Agent Miles, right?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, extending his arm over the table. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Are you?” she asked. “You were very vague on the phone and I’m not quite sure why you needed to speak with me. The local sheriff is a nitwit, but he should have been able to get you all the information on the murders that you need.”

  “The murders are just that,” Scott said. “Murders. They can’t be prevented. I’m more interested in stopping the thing that is doing the killing.”

  “I’m working on trying to figure out what that is right now, Agent Miles.”

  “That’s why I contacted you rather than working with the sheriff. I already know what’s doing the killing. I want to share the information with you, but
it’s highly classified and I have to ask that once I tell you everything I know, you can’t tell anyone. Not your husband, not your pastor, not your best friends. No one. I’d have to have you sign a document to verify your agreement to this.”

  Susan Lessing eyed him suspiciously and he could feel the scrutiny in her gaze. She was trying to figure out if he was lying to her or not.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” she said. “What is it?”

  “A group of marine biologists and a small think-tank within the bureau are almost positive that it’s an unknown creature that lived somewhere within the Aleutian Trench. It got here after hitching a ride in the body of a marine biologist that was part of an expedition that was attacked by a much larger version of the creature currently residing in your lake.”

  “What do you mean in the body?” Susan asked. There was fascination on her face that, quite frankly, scared Scott a bit.

  “No one is sure, but we think it works like this: somehow, the eggs of the creature get into a host—a human body. The eggs are quite small and black, not much larger than a flake of pepper. Once inside the body, one of the eggs sort of latches on and starts to grow rapidly. After that, the embryo develops. The period of gestation is somewhere between five and seven days. Based on what we’ve seen, the creature hatches inside of the human body and then comes out through the mouth.”

  “That’s disgusting,” she said. “And you’re certain of this?”

  “I’m certain of nothing,” Scott said. “But I’ve seen the photographs from the scenes of the deaths as well as footage of a ruined vessel that barely made it out of the sea in one piece. One of the men on that expedition had a summer home out here. His name was—”

  “George Galworth,” Susan interrupted.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “It’s a small town, even when the vacationers are running the place. I meet most of the folks that come in through here during the summers. George is easy to remember because of his profession. He’s the only marine biologist I ever met.” She paused here for a moment and then frowned. “He’s dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you think this thing is responsible for the other deaths over the last few days?” she asked.

  “I’m almost certain of it. I came from the most recent scene less than an hour ago. I saw a trail in the grass that resembles the same one I found behind George Galworth’s house several days ago.”

  “The one that looked like a big snake?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But the one I saw this morning is much bigger than the one I saw at George’s place. This leads me to believe that the thing is still growing just as fast as it did while gestating in a body.”

  “So how do we catch it?” Susan asked.

  “I’m trying to get creative. As you might imagine, a case like this has a tight lid at the FBI. It’s especially hush-hush because the doctors that cleared the survivors of the expedition to the Aleutian Trench knew that there was something in them. They let them go because they thought it would be a great research opportunity.”

  “That’s messed up.”

  “It is. But this isn’t the time to question the morals of the people I work for. I need to stop this thing and I have very few resources. If you could help me, I think we might be able to find it and kill it.”

  “What can I do for you, then?”

  “I need to rely on your knowledge of the area. Based on what we know about the creature, it’s assumed that it likes confined areas that are extremely dark and quiet. I need to know where there might be an abundance of nooks and crannies. Also, the thing that makes this creature so dangerous is that it appears to prefer areas near the shore. My guess is that this is strictly for easy access to food.”

  Susan was quiet for a moment and Scott could all but hear the gears in her head going to work. After ten seconds or so, she said, “I know of at least eight places that fit all of those descriptions. Nooks and crannies close to the shore.”

  “What sort of access do you have to trail cams or security cameras?” Scott asked.

  “Not much in the way of security cameras, but I can get you just about as many trail cameras as you’d need.”

  “That’s a great start,” Scott said. “Do you have a few hours to help me set cameras up in the locations you have in mind?”

  She laughed nervously, nodding her head. “If you’re telling me the truth, consider me at your disposal until we kill this thing.”

  Scott reached beneath the menu had brought out a sheet of paper that he had been hiding the entire time. “Before we start, I need you to sign this confidentiality agreement. I’m sure you understand why something like this is considered sensitive to the government.”

  Susan took the paper, read it, and then took a pen out of the breast pocket of her shirt. “Not just the government,” she said. “But this whole town. News like this would dry up the tourist boom pretty damned quick. You don’t have to worry about me running my mouth, Agent Miles…even though I could easily say that this can be pinned on the selfishness and irresponsibility of the men you work for.”

  She paused here, as if hoping this would bait Scott into an argument. When he remained quiet, she went on.

  “I think word might already be spreading,” she continued. “Half the town knows about Ted Wylerman already—the poor man that died while trying to fix some rich asshole’s dock. Then yesterday I got a call from a local old-timer that swears that his best friend was pulled out of a boat by something that looked like an enormous leech.”

  “Did the friend die?”

  “No,” Susan said. “The other man—Wayne Crosby—says he shot the thing two times and they were able to get away.”

  “But apparently, if the deaths of the teens from last night are any indication, the shots didn’t kill it.”

  “I’d assume not,” Susan said, scanning the document she had been given.

  She scrawled her signature on the appointed line and then slid the paper back over to Scott. He took it, folded it up and then placed it into his pocket.

  “Can you start right now?”

  “In a minute,” she said. “I need coffee first. This has been one long day and it’s not even ten o’ clock yet.”

  Scott nodded and thought: It’s only going to get longer.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Joe’s first nightmare involving the monster from the lake was a doozy. Even as it unfolded, his sleeping mind was somehow aware that it was a nightmare but he did not wake up. That’s probably because it did not start out like a nightmare at all. In fact, it started out like one of those dreams that often had Joe waking up in a flush, hurriedly checking the sheets,

  In the nightmare, he and Valerie were lying in a huge field, kissing in the grass. The night was pitch black around them. Fireflies flickered here and there, casting a golden light down into them. He was kissing her along the curve of her neck like he had seen guys do in some of those cheesy romantic movies his mom watched sometimes. Her hands were at his back, going up his shirt. The feel of her hands on his skin was mesmerizing and the fireflies seemed to glow in tandem with the electricity that seemed to flow between them.

  “Joe?” Valerie had said in a breathy whisper than had ticked the side of his face.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s here.”

  “What’s here?”

  “That thing…it’s here. And it’s hungry.”

  Joe pulled away from her. Or, rather, he tried pulling away. Her hands clenched together at his lower back and he could only pull himself up a small amount. When he did, he found himself looking down into the face of a waterlogged corpse. Valerie’s face was pale and eaten away along her cheeks, which were bloated and purple. There was mud and muck in her hair from the bottom of the lake. One of her eyes was missing and when she smiled lovingly at him, lake water and mud trickled out of her mouth.

  “It’s here,” she said again. “And it’s hungry. It won’t hurt…you’ll drown before it eats you. And dr
owning isn’t so bad.”

  She pulled him down to her and he tried to fight away. But then she was kissing him and as much as he wanted to pull away, he couldn’t stop. Her tongue was cold and rancid. When it left his mouth, it left something behind. Something that squirmed, wriggled, and tasted like fish.

  Revolted, he was finally able to pull away. When he turned to run, the leech monster was there. It was standing on its tail and hulking over him. It was at least nine feet tall and its shadow was darker than the night. Its mouth was even darker than that, opening into a squeal of hunger.

  Joe turned to run but when he did, Valerie reached out and grabbed his ankle. Her hand was cold and rotten but she displayed impossible strength as she jerked him to the ground. She then crawled on top of him and trailed kisses around the side of his face. More lake water came out of her, trickling down his cheeks and along his lips.

  He opened his mouth to scream but the thing was falling on them. It wasn’t cold, as he thought it would be, but warm and inviting. The suckers along the bottom of its body latched on to him and the stinging sensation was only brief. Valerie had been right; it wasn’t so bad.

  He felt himself being pulled across the field and towards the lake in its warm embrace. And all the while, Valerie was kissing him, whispering into his ear: “It’s hungry and it won’t stop until we’re dead…”

  That’s when Joe jerked awake in his bed.

  He came awake so fast that he nearly fell into the floor. He was covered in sweat and his heart was hammering in his chest. He looked across the room and saw Mac sleeping peacefully with Mr. Scraps tucked under one arm.

  As he glanced around the room, trying to force his panicked mind and heart to realize that they were safe in the cabin and not out in the water, the nightmare replayed in his head. He felt like had had to remember it and relive it because maybe then he could also convince himself that the monster wasn’t real. He and Valerie hadn’t really seen that impossible creature come lurching out of the lake, had they? No…because things like that just didn’t exist.