Creep

by R. M. Greenaway

  Montgomery reached for a pen and jotted a note, a scribble that looked to Dion destined for the trash bin. “All right, then.” He tossed aside the pen and placed the note on a stack of documents on his desk. “Done deal, I’ll go see him, ASAP. Now, sorry to kick you out, but I’m kicking you out.”

  “When’s ‘ASAP’? I think it’s pretty important, considering what we’ve got here. So if I were you —”

  “Well, you’re not me, are you?” Montgomery was on his feet. “The case is in good hands, trust me. I’ve made a note to go see Mr. Starkey, and even though I really don’t need to spend the night listening to werewolf stories from half-baked —”

  “But you have to agree with me, there could be something there. Starkey said if we go into the woods, we die. Randall went into the woods, and she died. He may be a lunatic, but on the other hand, sometimes it’s the lunatics —”

  “All right!” Montgomery shouted. He slapped both hands on his desk, startling Dion and everyone else within earshot. “All right, I hear you,” he said, more quietly. “Now, as I recall, you’re suspended until further notice, so go on home and do whatever you do when you’re suspended, and let me take care of business on this end. Comprende?”

  Dion did comprende, but didn’t move.

  Montgomery had lowered his head as well as his voice. “My hands are a tad full right now. Do you know Boone went on a killing spree? He didn’t stop at Jackie. He wiped out his entire family. Do you know that?”

  Dion didn’t know that.

  “So excuse me if your point of focus seems a little, I don’t know, trite. We’ve got all the bases covered. Believe me. We do.” He finished with a more aggressive get-lost motion, both hands flapping at air.

  “I need to get some commitment from you on this,” Dion insisted.

  “You’re in no position to get anything from me, Cal.”

  “I think I am. And if you’re not going out there, I intend to check it out myself.”

  Montgomery pinkened, then seemed to calm himself. He held up a hand, stop. He gestured politely toward the exit. “Come along with me for a moment.” He led the way out the fire door, up the stairs, down a short corridor, and around a bend, into one of the less-used men’s rooms. The door self-closed behind them and Montgomery became a stranger, advancing on Dion in two fast strides, ending just short of a body-slam. “Listen, you fuck,” he bellowed. “I’m not sure what kind of leverage you think you have on me, but get this straight. I loved Jackie Randall as a fellow officer. I’m sorry she’s dead, but she was barking mad. She had nothing on Tori, and in case you plan on continuing this little mission of hers, which I have this uneasy feeling you intend to do, don’t even start. Because I’m onto you, constable.”

  Behind Dion was a cold white ceramic wall, and a hand dryer. The hand dryer banged into his back.

  Montgomery was still raging at him. “I told you I could make your life easier, but maybe you don’t realize just how fucking hard I can make it. I can sink you. So stay away from Tori, stay away from me, keep your paranoid delusions to yourself, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll get along until I can get transferred out of this shithole you call home.”

  “What paranoid delusions should I keep to myself?” Dion said.

  Montgomery shoved him and began to swear.

  Dion’s boot soles skidded. He tried to right himself and bring his fists up in self-defence, but was grabbed by the jacket front and given another bone-jarring slam against tile. The words leaving the corporal’s mouth were filthy and savage. Dion shot back words of his own, just as crude, as he twisted free of Montgomery’s grip.

  They stood apart, glaring. Montgomery lifted a warning finger for his last word. “You’re on shaky ground. You’re not liked around here, you’re not trusted, and it would take nothing for me to give you the big push. I’ve made notes about your conduct, and they’re sealed in my safety deposit box with instructions to my solicitor. Now, if I get any grief from you, you’re going down with me. Understand?” He repeated it in a roar. “Do you understand me?”

  “I understand you,” Dion said. And with a rush of amazement, he thought he really did.

  Thirty-Three

  WOLF TRAP

  The room was small and dark, populated with dead animals, loops of rope, black steel contraptions. A wolf crouched as if about to spring, but it never would. Stefano sat in a tight corner next to the mounted corpse, his wolf head unclipped and thrown aside, arms hugging his knees. In light of what he had found here, he wondered if Chef was not the good person he thought she was.

  Wolf-killing bitch.

  His face was dirty, dusty, and tear-streaked. His hands ached as if every tendon had snapped. He was trapped in this half life, not wolf, not human. He had caused such mayhem, but accomplished nothing. Couldn’t even deal with small prey, barely more than a squirrel. Clamping his teeth into Troy’s flesh had not subdued the boy, but made him thrash frantically.

  The experience of the bite was the most shocking surprise to Stefano. It had been horrid. The flesh felt soft yet gristly under his molars, nothing like what he expected.

  What had he expected? Boiled ham? No. Caribou flesh ripping away in his jaws, that’s what, delicious and bloody. He had released, gagging, and Troy went running and tumbling downslope like a small crashing avalanche. Stefano had thrown up. The strain of heaving set off a nosebleed. He had climbed up to the street, not taking the time to stash the skin. Knelt at the curb, shivering, polluted, and for the first time in his adult life, he had let go and cried. A car zipped past, faces staring out at him. He had half staggered, half crawled down the block to the house of Paul and Colette, where he had surprised Colette down in his room, his own private space, looking through his things.

  He hadn’t wanted to kill Colette. Why had she chosen that moment to come down? Was she looking for the rent he wouldn’t be able to pay this month, or ever again?

  No, she was talking about the teeth in her oven, staring at his skin, asking what was going on. Why had she decided to look at his paintings now, this worst night of his life? And why had she chosen that moment, after all these years, to tell him what she thought of his art, raising her voice to call it odd and disturbing.

  Odd.

  Disturbing.

  He had chased her upstairs and cornered her in the library where she and Paul spent their days, reading and listening to music, surrounded by photographs of Anastasia before the accident, Anastasia smiling and bowing, Anastasia in chiffon, sitting at her piano, posing with her tiny violin. Really, the peak of perfection would have been to crush Colette’s nose against one of those hallowed Anastasia pictures, but due to time and space, it didn’t work out that way, and instead he had pushed her face into Sergei Rachmaninoff and family, asking her in his half-human shout if this was Odd and Disturbing, too?

  Paul rushed to her rescue, stronger and livelier than Stefano had ever seen him, pelting Stefano with objects, paperweights and tea mugs, books and lamps, a water jug, which shattered on the hardwood floor, followed by smaller missiles — a cellphone, pens and pencils.

  Stefano had taken refuge in Anastasia’s room. Paul followed, and there they had fought to the death, as Anastasia in her machines stared on.

  Finally there was Anastasia to set free, and the effort had almost finished him off.

  It seemed so long ago. Now he was at the only place in the world he thought would be safe, Chef’s house, where he found the back door shabbily locked. A forceful shove with his shoulder and he was in.

  He had been waiting for a long time. He wished she would come home. He was cold and uncomfortable. His fur was matted and damp, soggy in the hindquarters from his struggle with Anastasia and the long trek home. Above all, he was thirsty. The thirst had begun as discomfort, but now he could think of nothing else. His tongue scraped at the roof of his mouth, his saliva too thick to swallow. It was not human blood
he thirsted for, nor caribou, nor even water. What he wanted was orange juice. OJ by the gallon.

  When he could take it no longer, he rose to his feet. He was shaky in the knees, his limbs stiffened from too long spent in a fetal curl. He shuffled out of the room, touching walls. “Got to get something to drink,” he told the dusty animals as he left them behind. He bit and pulled off one front paw, then the other, let them fall, and sidled toward the stairs leading down to the main floor.

  He was standing in the unlit kitchen, preoccupied with the contents of her fridge, hand on the handle of a large glass juice jug, when she approached, moving silently on stockinged feet from the front foyer. They both yelped, and their words tangled.

  “Stefano —”

  “Sorry, I’m sorry, I —”

  “— what are you —”

  “I’m sorry.” The juice jug was in his hand, shaking. “I was just g-getting a drink.”

  “Yes,” Chef said softly. “I see that.”

  * * *

  “I was so thirsty,” he told her. Inside the jug he held, the juice was making waves like a restless sea.

  “Here. Let me get you a glass.”

  She put a tall tumbler on the counter next to him. He filled it, spilling some in his anticipation. She told him to sit at the table, calm down. He did as she said. As he gulped the juice down, she placed a kettle on the burner and offered food as well. He sat in silence and watched while she opened a tin of tuna. She brought lettuce from the fridge, but put it back again when he insisted he didn’t eat vegetables.

  When he was fed, when they both had tea in front of them, Chef finally spoke. She asked him what was happening, why he hadn’t come to work, and whether he was all right.

  “I’m not all right,” he said quietly. “I have a terrible problem.”

  “Yes, Stefano? Tell me about it.”

  “First, I want you to have this,” he said. He unzipped his fur, and from the inner pocket brought out a small satin-clad diary bought in Chinatown for a few dollars. Brilliant turquoise with vinyl corners. He pushed the book across to her. “It really says it all.”

  She picked it up and studied it, respectfully. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “I won’t stay long, because I think it’s happening, I can feel it, and you’re not safe around me. I’ve always wanted you for my own,” he said, and quickly lifted a hand to reassure her, as she looked alarmed. “I won’t hurt you. I wanted to say thank you, actually, I mean for hiring me, and giving me rides back and forth, and all that. I don’t think I have long to live.”

  She was looking at the fur of his arms resting on the table, his hands clasped, white knuckled but still. She reached out and placed her palm on his knot of twined fingers. “Why do you say you don’t have long to live, Stefano? What’s the matter?”

  The touch made his heart ache, and he was weeping again. “It’s difficult to explain,” he whispered. “But you see, I’m no longer of this race. I never was, entirely. But I — I’m having problems transitioning. I mean, I get to this point …” He paused, closed his eyes, and tried to find the words. He realized this was the first real conversation he had had with her, one where he was doing the talking. He forced himself to push on. “Maybe that’s a good thing, because a full and complete transformation would set me free at last, but at what cost to mankind?”

  Odd, how good he felt. How could he have ever considered harming Chef, who was the kindest person he had ever met?

  “It’s a difficult world, Stefano. Jobs are scarce and the cost of living is ridiculous, especially for young men like you. But you’re not an animal. You’re a very nice man, and a fine cook. You have a real flair for food. I’ve noticed that. I think you’ll do well in the industry. In fact, if you want, I could help you —”

  Her dreadful words were sinking in, and he stood to silence her, raising his voice and thumping his own chest. “I am not a cook!” he shouted. “I don’t belong here. I’m not one of you. Your only chance …” he could hardly talk now, sobbing between words, “… is to evict me from this world. You have to kill me. If you don’t, I will bring a terror upon you that you can’t even begin to imagine. Stop me, before I do it again. I don’t need a job. I need a bullet between my eyes. I need peace.”

  Chef had stopped sipping her tea. “You must be tired, Stefano.”

  “I am. I’m very tired.”

  “Would you like to lie down?”

  “I would like to die.”

  “I understand. But maybe that’s because you’re so tired. Things can seem awfully bleak when you need your sleep. We’ll try to work it out once you’ve rested some, all right?”

  He went with her up to her bedroom. He had prowled through it on that earlier occasion, but had never been led in like this, like a guest. He looked around with a new, cleaner interest. She said he should maybe take off the fur, and he did, explaining as he did that it was only a tool of transition. “But it must be hard for you to understand what I’m talking about.”

  “A little,” she admitted.

  Under the fur he wore his long johns, embarrassed that they were inside out, grubby, and too small, but Chef made him feel like they were perfectly appropriate. She gave him an oversized bathrobe to use, and she folded up his wet skin in a corner of the room.

  Warm in the soft terry cloth robe, he gazed at her as she fussed about. She set his tea on a small table, provided a box of Kleenex, and asked if there was anything else he wanted. She was beautiful. Kind. He would lay down his soul for her. “I’d really like to sleep with you,” he said.

  “But you also really need your rest,” she said, plumping a pillow. “Lie down, and later, we’ll talk some more. I’m here for you, Stefano. Believe it or not, every problem can be whittled down to a manageable size.”

  He looked down at her cloud-like bedding. “I prefer to sleep on the floor.”

  “Whatever you like, Stef.”

  He lay on his side on the rug next to her bed, and only now realized how desperately tired he was. He closed his eyes and barely registered that she was covering him with a blanket, turning off the light, closing the door.

  Only then he recalled the dead wolf in the room down the hall, and his eyes flew open in the darkness.

  Thirty-Four

  BOXER

  Montgomery’s nastiness continued to reverberate in Dion’s mind, but he wasn’t going to deal with it now. His best revenge at the moment was to go see Starkey himself. If Starkey had any valuable information to share, nobody was going to get a medal for the breakthrough except himself.

  His cellphone buzzed as he made his way through the detachment parkade to his car, and he answered as he walked. It was Farah, speaking in such a low voice that he had to strain to hear. By the sounds of it, she wanted to engage him in one of her strange discussions, which he was really in no mood for at the moment.

  “Speak up,” he said.

  “I said I’m glad I caught you, because I have a bit of a situation.”

  More situations, he thought. “I’m busy,” he told her.

  “Well, but this is —”

  “Call you later,” he said, and disconnected.

  He drove through town too aggressively. He should have known better. Kate had once tried telling him about the concept of karma, and he had tried listening. It had to do with personal responsibility, cause and effect, and then something about vibrations. In the simplest terms, a person’s inner peace and harmony bring a return of good luck, health, and prosperity, while ugly feelings attract an ugly fate.

  Karma caught up with him on his way to Lynn Valley, at a busy intersection. It was partly his fault for crossing on an orange light, but mostly the right-turning Corolla’s for presupposing he wouldn’t. There was a thud, a crunch, a scattering of plastic bits. Dion swore loudly as his vehicle settled into place. He could see the Cor
olla man doing the same. He pulled over and heard something scrape the asphalt. Driving for any distance didn’t look promising.

  He and the Corolla man got out and inspected their vehicles. The Corolla was only scuffed, but Dion’s right front quarter panel was hanging like a broken wing. They exchanged registration information, along with some advice on how to drive, and within minutes were parting ways.

  Dion pulled into the nearest collision shop, which happened to sit just off the intersection. He parked in an open bay and went to speak to the receptionist. He was told to wait a minute. He sat in the chilly foyer and used his cellphone to call the ICBC claim line. It was a protracted call, most of it spent on hold, listening to patchy Muzak. He then had to deal with the body shop mechanic and the necessary paperwork. By the time he was seated in his courtesy car, an older model dung-brown Impala, it was early evening.

  He took a moment to familiarize himself with the car’s retro control panel, another moment to remember his mission, and another to work up the enthusiasm to proceed with it.

  His mission carried him uphill to Lynn Valley, the little green-roofed house on Kilmer that had been pointed out to him by the leery character named Ray Starkey.

  The house he had seen only from a distance turned out to be a neatly kept stucco structure on a good-sized lot, surrounded by fat, erratically pruned boxwood hedges. A small blue Mazda pickup sat in the driveway. No visible house number that he could see. He parked his courtesy car at the curb, walked through the gate and up the cement walkway, stepped up onto the porch, and rang the doorbell.

  The door opened just wide enough for a face to peer out. The face was knobby and corrugated, an alarmed Ray Starkey.

  Dion introduced himself and showed his ID through the narrow opening. “I just have a few questions for you, Mr. Starkey. Have a moment?”