by Paul Sating
21
“We’re almost there.” Deputy Rodgers radioed the dispatcher. “I’m not sure what we’ll need, so wait to send anyone until we get there. I don’t want to put any more people at risk.”
The deputy was breathing heavily. Serenity turned away. His anxiety wasn’t helping. Outside her window, the landscape was littered with vehicles, regular townsfolk, and sheriff cruisers. With the waste metal that filled the Scales and hid monsters.
Riddled with bodies of the dead.
“My God,” Deputy Rodgers moaned as they raced the final distance, pulling off the side of a makeshift trail. As soon as the cruiser was in PARK, he jumped out, his hand slapping his holster and unlocking it in one smooth motion.
Serenity’s shaking hand rested on the door handle. This was nuts but seemed like the only thing to do. The only way they had a chance against the Screecher was to come together. Her mother’s warning echoed in the back of her skull even as she thrust the door open and raced to the deputy’s side.
“Stay close.”
They ran the short distance to the first group of people spread across the desert floor. An EMT knelt next to a white-haired man, holding a compress against the man’s forehead. The patient’s shirt may have been blue at one point but had now turned dark purple from the blood that seeped into the cotton-polyester blend.
“How can we help?” Deputy Rodgers asked the EMT, who turned their way, his forehead beading with sweat, droplets running down the side of his face.
“Over there,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of three men, all lying prone about fifty yards away. “I haven’t made it around to everyone.”
Rodgers scanned the scene. “You’re here alone?”
The EMT shook his head. “No, Bob is over there, behind that twisted metal wall. He’s been back there since we got here. No telling how many people he’s helping.”
“Okay,” the deputy said, tugging on Serenity. “Come on.”
“I’ve got kits in the back of the unit,” the EMT called after them as they raced toward the ambulance. “Check the right-side panel. It’s unlocked.”
Deputy Rodgers waved his thanks, directing Serenity. “Grab the kit. I need to see if we have anything to respond to.”
She dashed away, not realizing until they separated by a hundred yards that she felt exposed. If the Screecher showed up, nothing and no one could help her. Making it to the ambulance and locking herself inside might be possible, but she wasn’t sure she could outrace the animal on foot. Would hiding in a vehicle prevent it from getting at her if it wanted?
But Deputy Rodgers left no choice in the matter. Back turned, he was racing away.
Thankful for the vehicles that littered her path to the ambulance, Serenity felt safer knowing she could at least dodge between them if the Screecher showed. Even if does just toss them through the air like huge boulders. The memories of Warbler Mountain were never far behind.
The rear doors of the ambulance were propped open. A small kitchen counter on the right side of the vehicle had three large drawers underneath. Serenity twisted the knob of the closest door, relieved to see three small bags inside. This had to be what the EMT needed, but she unzipped the front pocket of one to be sure. Inside were rolls of gauze, small scissors, and coiled tubes of clear plastic. She grabbed the kits.
After dropping one off to the EMT, Serenity searched for the deputy. Small clusters of people were scattered across the open expanse of the Scales. A guy who looked barely older than her hid in the shade. Serenity scurried across the sand, peeking around the corners of metal wreckage and checking wherever she heard someone in pain.
Around another corner, a man lay on his back. Dead. Serenity gawked at the way his leg wrapped behind his back, his heel nearly touching the back of his flattened skull.
Behind a small pile of scrap metal, another body, torn in two at the waist. Serenity vomited before she recognized the urge. She’d never seen inside a body that wasn’t roadkill. Lance Webster’s death was too distant to make out details like this. But this wasn’t a possum. This was what remained of someone who woke up in their bed, drove the streets of the town, and had a meal with their loved ones this morning.
The world spun.
She kept moving carefully, slowing herself to prepare for what she might see around the next corner. Face-planting into a corpse because of the sudden spell of dizziness was not on her list of things to accomplish. Pressure built in her stomach, moving up to her throat. Fear of the Screecher was obscured by the pain inflicted on this group of men seeking vengeance, making her heart race. So much agony and destruction.
“Serenity! Over here!”
Deputy Rodgers kneeled to the side of a tall structure. A man was prone next to him. Serenity raced past a rifle stuck, barrel-down, in the middle of a funnel of the sand.
It wasn’t until she’d set the response kit down that she saw who he was tending to.
Sheriff Bitterman.
Deputy Rodgers had the sheriff’s shirt open, exposing his round stomach. Rodgers pressed a hand against it. The sheriff’s eyes were closed, but he was still breathing. Even lying in direct sunlight, he wasn’t sweating.
“Get me as much gauze as you can,” the deputy ordered.
Serenity dug through the contents of the half-organized kit. A stack of white packets was tucked into a corner of the kit. Grabbing a palm-full, she unpacked them. Rodgers took several and slid them under his other hand on the Sheriff’s stomach. Gagging, Serenity tried not to look at the hole, bordered by flaps of skin. The fact he could still draw breath was nothing short of a miracle.
Seeing a shredded human prevented her from thinking clearly. “What happened?”
The sheriff coughed—wet, weak. His arms didn’t budge, legs didn’t twitch, only his flaccid lips quivered. Then they stopped. A wheezing sound, like a balloon lip pinched to release air, slowly faded.
“Tape,” Rodgers ordered, snapping her out of the trance. Four stacked rolls filled the front pocket of the kit.
Deputy Rodgers finished taping the gauze to the sheriff’s chest, then slapped his hands against his thighs, straightening his back. He took a long breath.
“There’s nothing else I can do for him right now,” he said.
The deputy’s eyes remained on his boss for a moment. Serenity was about to ask what she could do when Rodgers labored to his feet. “Let’s see who we can help.”
“We’re just going to leave him here?”
The deputy’s shoulders drooped.
She pointed at the sheriff, his chest rising and falling in low undulations. “We can’t leave him in the sun.”
“And we can’t move him either, Serenity. He’ll bleed out if we try. That puncture is bad. Real bad. He’s” —he ran his hand through his hair, leaving a peppering of brown sand behind— “he’s probably not going to make it.”
Serenity swallowed a stupid reply. She couldn’t help the sheriff. She hadn’t done anything for all those people she raced past, medical kit in-hand, and she wasn’t even sure what to do next. She was helpless and useless.
Again.
***
They spent the next three hours tending to the wounded. The survivors. Another ambulance crew—the only remaining one in town, according to the deputy—showed up during that span. Residents of Rotisserie did too. Word of the events was spreading across town, drawing those who wanted to help as well as those who wanted to look and gossip. Those types stayed out of the way whispering conspiratorially to each other while fascinated with the death and destruction on display. For one angry, frustrated moment Serenity wished the Screecher would return. Then maybe this horror wouldn’t be so interesting to those who had nothing better to do but watch and whisper. They deserved to see the monstrosity that caused this, that was out there, somewhere.
At some point, Serenity lost track of the deputy. Someone had the sense to radio into town to have cases of water and food brought out. After re-hydrating and getting a
sandwich to stop her shakes, she found enough strength to keep going while keeping an eye on others, many of whom didn’t look to be faring so well in the heat. The last thing they needed were more victims. There were already too many bodies needing tending to.
As the afternoon waned to evening, a collection point was established for the dead. Serenity counted bodies. She wasn’t sure what motivated her to do it beyond the need to understand the level of violence dispensed by the Screecher. The count was overwhelming. When the Screecher attacked them on the mountain, she’d seen a man killed.
One.
But strewn around the wreckage that was the Scales, Serenity counted no less than twenty-five among the dead.
Twenty-five members of Rotisserie who woke up in their beds this morning but wouldn’t be laying down in them tonight.
Gone, after one unwise decision to hunt the Screecher.
She squatted, trying to stop tears and failing. A man her mother’s age lay next to her, bleeding from a deep gash on his head. His arm must have been broken since someone had already splinted it to his chest. He winced with each slight movement. Serenity leaned forward and put a bottle of water to his lips, pouring slowly to counter his greedy attempt to drink it in a single gulp.
“Slow down,” she said softly. “You’re going to throw it up. Little sips.”
“Thank you,” he croaked once he’d drank his fill. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Stay still. Rest.”
The man followed her advice, closing his eyes. She laid the back of her hand against his cold, clammy neck. The dark thought that he might become number twenty-six was unavoidable.
She sighed.
“You’re doing well, Serenity, but how about taking a break?”
She spun, seeing the old man standing over her.
“Patch!”
She jumped to her feet, exhaustion forgotten for the time being, and hugged the homeless man she thought she’d never see again. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Serenity clung to him, despite his stink. She stunk too. In the middle of a miserable, hot, and suffocating evening, she couldn’t be happier. Patch was alive.
He pulled back to arm’s length. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
Serenity’s lip quivered. The softness in his voice was grandfatherly, empathetic but not directive. “I was with a deputy. We went to the reservation to find you, but you weren’t there and George—” Sobs broke her statement. “George wouldn’t help, Patch. We told him what was happening, and he wouldn’t help!”
Patch released her and pulled a bottle of water out of his raggedy pocket. He offered it and then took a giant swig after she refused. Water dribbled from the corner of his mouth, plopping onto his jacket collar. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, recapped the bottle and slid it back into his pocket. “What do you say we sit for a minute?”
“People need our help.”
“They do, but if you don’t take care of you, then you’re not going to be able to help anyone else. Come.” He moved a few feet away, putting his hand against a wall of rust-colored metal and lowering himself to the sand. “Sit with me and talk.”
Serenity wanted to scream. What they needed was action. This was the same thing every single time, whether it was Patch or George. Talking got nothing done. The evening was blistering, Patch was old and had been out here helping much longer than she had been. She was exhausted, so he had to be doubly so, Serenity reminded herself. Maybe he just needed the break. She sure could.
Her head was throbbing, foretelling an oppressive headache. Maybe a migraine. She’d worn herself down with work and worry. Patch was right, a rest was what she needed. That didn’t mean she had to be happy about the incessant need to talk things out though. Reluctantly, she joined Patch.
“How come we’re safe?” This conversation would not wander. “I’ve been here all day, and nothing has happened. No Screecher. Is it gone?”
“No,” Patch said, watching a small group of people move a man into a shaded area behind a tall section of metal that jutted out of the ground. “It’ll never be gone, Serenity. That isn’t the nature of the Screecher.”
“You said I wasn’t safe in the desert. You said it would find me. Then, where is it?”
His eyes moved away, looking toward piles of metal scrap. “Resting.”
Never, in a million years, did she think that thing would need to rest.
“We have time, Serenity. It will rest for days after…” Patch looked around, a dark expression passing over his face. “After what happened here, it’ll need to. We’re safe if’n we don’t go getting ourselves all riled up to go looking for it.”
“Why did this happen, Patch? Couldn’t it have just left these people alone, let them explore the Scales until they got hungry or too hot and went back home? Why did it have to attack them?”
She examined him. This was an important question, not one about resting or a need for secrecy. This was about the nature of the creature.
“Because, that’s who the Screecher is,” the old man said sadly.
22
Sheriff Bitterman was number twenty-six.
Serenity learned about his passing not long after she finished her conversation with Patch.
Evening darkened, dulling the shadows cast by the scrap metal stretched across the sand, providing capacious cover for the injured and a little hope at the sun’s hiatus. The temperature cooled as the dull darkness etched on the open sky. Desert life was strange like that, wicked heat fading into comfortable, chilly nights. It worked in their favor. In fact, everything was going their way now. Those who were stable had a fighting chance as they waited for a ride to the county hospital after the urgent patients were transported.
The dead didn’t worry about the availability of ambulances.
With the oncoming night, people slowed as they cleaned up the material used to provide care. A sense of fatigue fell over the Scales once the need to scurry to keep people alive no longer existed. Focus was now on hydrating, changing only the most blood-soaked bandages because supplies were gravely limited, and feeding those who had an appetite. Few did.
Serenity was feeding a heavy man who wouldn’t stop sweating. “I’m sorry,” Serenity couldn’t look Deputy Rodgers in the eye.
He grabbed a water bottle, grumbling as he tried to unscrew the cap. Too exhausted to even open a bottle of water. He crumbled to a squat before falling on his backside and stretching out in the sand with a groan.
“Feels good,” was all he mustered.
Tiny grains clung to every inch of the deputy now, coating the side of his shirt she could see, his arms, and even half of his head. She almost brushed it off but there was so much, and he was so sweaty that wiping it away would do nothing more than coat her hand with sticky sand. She tucked it awkwardly into her lap.
Patch, who’d fallen asleep, mumbled. Waking up, he watched the deputy, who didn’t seem to notice. Rodgers stared off at some distant point. For him, someone responsible for the people of the Tri-Counties, who had just lost two of his coworkers, this had to be extra painful.
“What happens now, deputy?” she asked quietly.
He didn’t respond. She waited, looking at Patch to see if she should continue. He gave her a nudging motion.
Serenity scooted over alongside the deputy. He blinked slowly.
“Oh, hey Serenity,” he said, as if unaware of her presence.
He struggled to sit up, resting his forearms on his bent knees. He tried wiping away the sand collected there. He swiped a few times before giving up, slapping his hand against his thigh in surrender.
She didn’t want to press but figured he needed something else to think about, something that would draw him away from ruminating on the events of the day.
“Are you okay?”
His jaw jutted out when he clamped his mouth shut. Deputy Rodgers nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Yes,” he murmured to his knees.
It was unconvincing. Togeth
er, the three sat, watching the slowing ebb of activity around the Scales.
Then, his resolve regained a foothold. The deputy straightened, a sharpness returning to his eyes. “Yes. There’s a lot of work to do, a lot of people who need help. But we’re going to get through this.”
A hardness emanated from him as Rodgers sat up straighter, his jaw clenching.
“What happens with the sheriff’s department now?”
“In the Tri-Counties Sheriffs are appointed.” He shrugged. “So whenever the Commissioner gets around to it, they’ll make that decision. I’m not worried about it.”
“I know, I didn’t mean it like that. I wasn’t sure who'd be in charge now that…”
She fidgeted as the deputy studied her.
“You’re concerned about the Screecher and what we’re going to do now, right? Don’t worry, I promise you’ll be heard. I wish I’d been quicker. Then we could have done something.”
Patch tsk’ed. “Ain’t nothing you can do. This was always going to happen once those men had their minds set on it. Always going to end like this. Ain’t the first time and it ain’t gonna be the last if’n people keep acting like this toward the creature. This has to stop.”
“You know.” Rodgers, ran a hand through his hair, speckling it with brown grains of sand. “I heard stories of stories, dismissed all of them as rumors, as talk of crazy people. Never gave much thought to them, probably because I never actually ran across a citizen who’d tell me about anything as outrageous as the Screecher. Just figured it was the same as those who thought they saw UFOs or Bigfoot. Hearsay. But after this…I’d really like to talk to you about this thing we’re facing.”
Serenity scooted straighter, encouraged by the conversation. “Patch, I told him. About the meeting with George. What he told me. I’m scared, Patch. Scared and sorry about how I reacted. It’s stupid, I know. Pathetic.”
Patch’s lips thinned and curled up in the corners, a grandfatherly gesture that all was forgiven.