by Anthony Izzo
Clarence scratched his ear with the pen. “That new one a woman, Chief?”
“Yeah. And don’t go getting any ideas. I want to check her out first.”
“You ruin all my fun.”
“My heart really bleeds for you.”
The phone on Linda’s desk rang and she picked it up. Rafferty heard her say, “Lincoln Police, can I help you?”
Rafferty’s ears perked up. Linda wrote down the information, then told the caller an officer would be out to investigate. She thanked the caller and hung up the phone.
“What’s up?” Rafferty said.
She pushed her glasses up on her nose and held the note she had scribbled at arm’s length. “Call from a Richard Havermeir.”
“And?”
“Disturbance reported over by Folsom Furniture.”
“What kind of disturbance?”
“Noises. A woman screaming, and an animal howling. Mr. Havermeir said he also heard glass breaking.”
“Okay.”
“Need any backup, Chief?” Clarence said.
“Is the Pope going to hell?”
“Probably not. Well, no.”
“Then there’s your answer.” Clarence was a good cop, having cracked a few heads at Rafferty’s side over the years, but sometimes he asked too many damn questions. “Check on the kid in the cell. If he gets out of line again, you know what to do.”
“Got it.”
Rafferty headed for the front door. As he passed Linda’s desk, she shifted in her seat. Nervous. That never failed to amuse him.
CHAPTER 2
Matt’s ankle throbbed and the flesh felt hot and swollen, but he pushed himself up the stairs until he reached the platform.
The office with the plywood walls was ten feet in front of them. It looked like a makeshift construction job, with rusty nails jutting out of the boards and an unfinished wood door with rough-looking grain. A white piece of paper with black magic marker read Carl Jablonski, Warehouse Supervisor. Either Jablonski didn’t warrant an engraved sign or Folsom was too cheap to spring for one.
Pressing their backs against the office wall, they shuffled around the office on the two-foot ledge. A waist-high railing ran around the catwalk, but even with that safety measure, one slip could mean a fall to the concrete floor.
They’d just rounded the corner when Matt heard it. A clicking sound, which grew faster, like beats of a metronome, as its claws grabbed at the floor. Matt didn’t want to look back, because he knew it was gaining. “Faster,” he said.
Jill took long, quick strides, unfazed by running on a catwalk ten feet in the air. Compared with her fluid movements, Matt thought he must have looked like an arthritic rhinoceros.
He heard the thing shriek again, and the noise shot through him, cold fingers tickling his spine.
Matt spied a window ahead and thought they could reach it in time. He had no idea what was on the other side of the window. He hoped for a ladder, but he didn’t expect that any more than he expected their pursuer to give up and go home for the night.
The catwalk rocked and teetered sideways. Their attacker had reached the platform.
“Don’t look back,” he told Jill.
She was already way ahead of him, under the window and drawing the crowbar back to smash it out. She busted the window, the glass cracking into jagged splinters. Winding up again, she busted out the shards and then poked out the remaining glass in the frame. She stuck her head out the window, peeked back in and said, “There’s another roof about five feet below the window. I’ll go first.”
“Wait—”
In one smooth movement, she pushed herself up on the sill and swung her legs outside. Her butt on the sill, she pushed off and slipped out of view.
He heard her hit a solid surface with a soft thud and looked out to see if she was okay. She stood on the rooftop and waved him on.
“Your turn,” she said.
He set the tire iron on the windowsill and pushed himself up. Not much time left. Behind him, metal bucked and shook.
He threw one leg over the sill, straddling it. That was when it grabbed him.
The clawed hand clamped onto his thigh. Pain shot up his leg. The thing tugged on him, and for one awful moment he thought he would be dragged back into the warehouse. His ankle was already killing him. Matt didn’t need the other leg ruined.
He pulled the tire iron out from underneath him, the metal cool and heavy in his hand. He brought it over his head, then smashed it into the thing’s hand. It screeched in pain but held firm, yanking at his leg.
He brought the iron down on the hand once, twice, a third time. The grip loosened slightly and he jerked his leg free. It set him off balance, and he fell sideways, his shoulder smacking the rooftop first. Pain shot up the side of his neck and down through his arm.
His shoulder was numb, which was somehow more troubling than excruciating pain. Add that to the now-stiffening ankle, and he was really a mess. The creature’s hand had nearly fit around his thigh. Luckily it hadn’t clawed his leg.
“Let’s go. Are you okay?” she asked.
He rose to his feet. “For now. I don’t think it can fit through the window.”
“Do you really want to find out?”
“No.”
He heard thuds against the brick. Mortar puffed and flaked as the creature pounded on the wall. A steady stream of hisses and grunts came from inside the warehouse. On its third attempt, a brick popped out and hit the ground, and it shrieked as if in triumph.
Matt knew they were strong, but pounding through a brick wall? It was time to bail.
They scurried across the roof to a ladder bolted to the building. He looked over the side, saw they were only one story off the ground and started down the ladder. Jill asked if he wanted a safety harness this time. That was just what he needed, someone with a sense of humor.
He hit the bottom and she followed.
A crash thundered as brick scattered onto the roof, and they looked at each other, knowing that the assailant was out of the building and coming after them.
To their right was the warehouse. To the left was the end of the property, where a hill covered in brown weeds led to railroad tracks.
If they went up the hill, they could cut back around the front of the complex to where Matt had parked his car. If they went right, around the back of the warehouse, they would have to cut through the alley to get back to the car. The thing in the warehouse was not something he wanted to confront in a dark alley.
“Let’s go up the hill,” he said.
“Wouldn’t it be quicker the other way?”
“I don’t want to get caught in the alley.”
She pursed her lips for a moment, thinking it over. “Okay.”
He scrambled up the hill, the weeds ruffling under his feet, Jill behind him. With every step, the pain in his ankle grew; the numbness in his shoulder had turned into icy pain that ran the length of his arm.
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” she said.
“Don’t be.”
He heard the thing coming, its claws scrabbling on the pavement. It must have leapt off the building and onto the ground near the bottom of the ladder.
They came to a gravel path that wound down the hill. It was dotted with broken glass, Styrofoam cups and cigarette butts. Matt watched the path, but looked over his shoulder every few seconds for any sign of the creature. They reached the bottom, where a buckled sidewalk led back to the parking lot.
They started up the sidewalk, both of them breathing heavily, hearing the creature crashing through the weeds behind them. Reaching the car, Matt fumbled for his keys, dropped them and then picked them up. He opened the door, threw himself in, then reached over and unlocked the passenger side door.
Jill got in and Matt stuck the key in the ignition. He had a horrible second where he thought that the car wouldn’t start, like in every slasher film—when the killer was about to bear down on the heroine, cars that ran fine the enti
re movie decided to crap out at the moment of truth. But he turned the key and the engine rumbled to life.
Matt put it in reverse and stepped on the gas. The car whipped backward and the tires kicked up gravel and dust.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shape coming at the car and he gunned the engine, swerving onto Elmwood, the tires squealing. He cut off a red Mazda and the driver blatted the horn, shouting, “Asshole!”
He got the car under control and the two of them sped away at fifty miles an hour. He passed a speed-limit sign that said thirty.
The beast howled as they drove away, and the goose bumps returned to Matt’s arms.
Rafferty walked out the door and down the police station’s concrete steps. He passed the flower garden, took a whiff of the roses and daylilies. Man, did they stink. He might have to let Rolf, Bob Fidori’s German shepherd, dig them up. How did people stomach the smell of flowers?
He went around the back of the station, already sweating and wiping his brow. The temperature had been in the nineties all of August and the humidity at God knows what. Even at night it was seventy-five or eighty with no letup to the humidity. All that sweat made him feel like he had sprung a leak.
He walked over to his cruiser in the parking lot and opened the door. He was happy to see the riot gun secure in its holder, and he relished the thought of using it on an Outsider someday. He bet their eyes would get real big right before he pulled the trigger.
After rolling down his window, he started up the Caprice Classic and pulled out of the lot onto Elmwood. He accelerated to fifty, the engine humming under the hood.
Rafferty pushed the car through two yellow lights but got caught at the next one. Slowing down, he pulled up next to a black Dodge pickup stopped at the light.
Pennsylvania plates. Outsiders for sure.
The kid driving the Ram had on a denim baseball cap turned around catcher-style and wore a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Not particularly bright, wearing sunglasses for night driving. A girl of about seventeen sat in the passenger seat. She had short, curly hair and wore a pink tank top.
He scanned the pickup’s bed. Three guys and three girls sat in the back of the truck, the girls scantily clad. One had on a thin white tank top; her nipples poked through the fabric. The other two girls had on bikini tops and short-shorts. The guys in the back were shirtless, no doubt trying to impress their girlfriends with their puny physiques.
I’ll show you a real man, ladies, he thought.
He pressed a button on the door and lowered the passenger window.
One of the guys in back, a kid with sandy brown hair and a deep tan, picked up a bottle of Rolling Rock and chugged heartily.
Rafferty glared at the driver and said, “Evening.”
“Hey,” the driver said. The girl in the passenger seat giggled.
“Think it’s a good idea to drive with those shades on at night?”
“Probably not.”
“Wanna take them off?”
“Okay.” He pulled the glasses off, folded the arms and hung them on his shirt collar.
“Now how about your buddy in the back with the Rolling Rock?”
The light turned green and the driver looked anxiously at the light, then back at Rafferty.
“Stay put. There’s no one coming. Now what about the beer?”
The driver stuck his head out the window and looked back. “Aw shit, Randy. I told you not to go into the cooler yet.”
Randy, the sandy-haired kid, took another pull off of the bottle and let out a loud belch. The girl in the white tank top rolled her eyes and said, “Jeez, Randy, that’s gross.”
“Where you from?” Rafferty said.
“Bradford, Pennsylvania,” the driver said.
“And I suppose you’re all twenty-one?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“What are you doing in Lincoln?”
“We’re on our way to Niagara Falls.”
“You staying in town?”
“Just for tonight. We’re going back to our hotel.”
“What hotel?”
“The Sun Motor Lodge.”
“If you say so.”
Rafferty looked at Randy in the back of the truck. The kid had a crooked smile on his face, as if he were waiting to deliver the perfect retort to Rafferty if called upon to do so.
“Hey, sport.”
“Me?”
“No, your fairy fucking godmother. Yes, you.”
That got his attention.
“Dump the beer out. Now.”
“I ain’t driving.”
“Dump it.”
“This is bullshit.”
Rafferty felt the heat start to flush under his skin and he took a deep breath to get it under control.
“Pour the beer out or you’ll all spend the night in jail.”
Randy rolled his eyes in disgust. Rafferty had to be careful, because he could feel the Change rising inside of him, the prickly heat under his skin and the redness that seeped into the corner of his vision like a spilled bottle of ink.
He could change forms, rip open their throats, slash their bellies open and eat their guts, claw their eyes out....
Get ahold of yourself. No kills before Harvest.
He closed his eyes, kept them shut for a second. The redness dissolved, the flushed sensation melted away. That was better. “Do I have to pull you over?”
“Just dump it, Randy,” the driver said.
Randy blew air out his nostrils in disgust and poured out the Rolling Rock, the beer lapping against the pavement.
Rafferty leaned over the passenger seat and pointed at the driver. “Your pal Randy’s not too bright. You’re all lucky I’m on my way to a call or I’d bust all your asses. For one thing, I don’t think any of you are twenty-one. Now get where you’re going, and if I see you little shits on my way back you’re all gonna spend the night in my hotel. Got it?”
“Yeah man, we got it,” the driver said.
“We got it, all right. And if we’re lucky we’ll get it some more at the hotel,” Randy proclaimed. This time all three girls in the back giggled.
It was time to teach these smart asses a lesson. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Rafferty put the car in park, turned on the flashers; the lights strobed red and blue against the black Dodge Ram. He got out of the car and went to the driver’s side door of the pickup. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife, then clicked it open. The kid who was driving looked like he had just seen the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future all at once.
“This is for your smart-ass fucking friend.”
Rafferty pressed the tip of the knife against the side of the truck, dug it in and ran the blade down the driver’s side. It left a thin white scratch the entire length of the truck.
“Aw, man,” the driver said.
Rafferty walked to the driver’s side door and looked at the kid behind the wheel. “Stay off of my road.”
Rafferty stomped back to his car and got in. Turning the gumballs off, he pulled away from the truck. He took a look in the rearview mirror and saw the driver standing on the road, yelling and pointing at the kids in the back. No doubt he was chewing out his friend for causing so many problems.
Two minutes later, Rafferty pulled up in front of Folsom.
Grabbing his flashlight, he got out of the cruiser and walked to the doorway. The steel door was open, and the inside lock was busted. He pulled his revolver from his holster, shone the light inside and saw a pile of kitchen chairs and a splintered pallet blocking the entrance. The chairs’ legs had snapped like toothpicks and the pallet lay busted in half, the wood all jagged shards.
There came a thud and a clang from around the back of the building, the sound of metal hitting metal. Was somebody hiding on him?
He shone his light down the alley between the two buildings and saw only murky brown shadows. Revolver in one hand and flashlight in the other, he crept down the alley until he reached the
rear of the buildings.
He was in a courtyard. The rest of the buildings in the complex butted up against the concrete slab on which he stood. To his left was the warehouse, a green-and-white sign reaching BUILDING 57 hanging on the wall. Behind the warehouse was a blue Dumpster with the name BROWN RECYCLING painted on the side. A cloud of flies buzzed over the container.
He lifted the Dumpster lid with the barrel of the revolver and found only maggots squirming on a grease-covered piece of cardboard. Apparently he had missed whatever happened at Folsom. He was ready to go back to the car and tell Clarence to get down here. Put old Red to work, have him haul some chairs out of the way.
When he turned to leave the alley he heard shuffling coming from the other side of the Dumpster. Shining the beam, he hunkered down and moved to the front of the container.
He pointed the revolver in the direction of the noise. “Come out of there. Put your hands where I can see them.”
A man stepped out from behind the Dumpster and Rafferty’s flashlight beam lit up his face. He was thin and pale with white-blond hair and had full, almost feminine lips. The lips were an unusual feature, but not his most unusual. The man was naked except for a collapsed cardboard box wrapped around him like a towel.
“Nice outfit. What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know why you’re standing naked with a cardboard box around you at a furniture factory in the middle of the night?”
“Well—”
“What’s your name?”
“Charles Dietrich.” The guy lifted the box a little, as it had begun to slip down further on his body.
“Hold still,” Rafferty said.
Rafferty stepped toward him until they were standing nose-to-nose. He sniffed, taking in the rotten fruit smell of the trash, Dietrich’s underlying body odor, and underneath that, underneath his skin, the smell of Rafferty’s own kind. A hint of sulfur. It would smell like skunk or rotten eggs to most people. But you had to get up close, within kissing distance, and really take a good sniff to notice it.