Canals

by Everett Powers

  He’d just celebrated his thirty-second birthday, yet, like his parents, had no police record, not even a traffic ticket. The secret to his success was his strict adherence to four ironclad rules his parents had taught him.

  Rule number one: never stay in the same town you’re working in. The less the locals saw your face, the better. He’d been working Modesto for three weeks, staying in out-of-town motels, never sleeping in the same place more than three consecutive nights.

  Rule number two: never work in any one city or area more than a month. That meant moving a lot and spending more on motels and rental cars, but it was money he was willing to part with. The police worked with profiles they largely kept to themselves. They might share information with other jurisdictions on murder cases, but rarely on burglaries.

  Rule number three: always work alone. Partners had a way of turning on each other, his parents a rare exception. Thieves are thieves, after all, crooks at heart.

  This rule, working alone, applied to any relationship. During his nine working months he was a loner; no girlfriends, no one-night-stands, no drinking buddies, no anybody. He used three different fences to move his merchandise, each in a different city.

  Rule number four: rent vehicles from agencies that did not put identification stickers on their cars. Rental cars raise red flags if the police see them more than once, especially at night. He rented small, inexpensive cars from local rent-a-junker lots; they were invisible. He used fake ids when registering for the cars, different ids than those he used to check in and out of the motels, so that anyone cross-checking names would never see the same name twice.

  He enjoyed working in Central California, in part because the people were less suspicious than their cousins in big cities like L.A., a city he refused to work at all. Big-city dwellers were used to crime; many slept with loaded guns at their side or owned vicious dogs.

  He also enjoyed working the Central Valley because of the canals. Alleys were risky, regularly patrolled by police. Most burglaries were committed by junkies who used alleys to access the homes they broke into, and that’s where they usually got caught. The police rarely patrolled canal banks, he could only imagine why not. He would have. The canals allowed him to park his nondescript rental car in one subdivision, hop a wall, jog along the canal bank to an adjacent subdivision, hop another wall, and enter a house from the front, or, even better, from the back. He would also use the canals for daytime robberies, posing as a jogger. No one gave him a second look.

  He walked at an easy pace, enjoying the cool night air. There was no need to hurry, the owners of the house he intended to rob were on vacation. They’d been lazy, forgetting to ask a neighbor to pick up their newspapers. Why should they? They lived on a cozy, safe cul-de-sac, in a nice part of town.

  Burke marveled at how easy it was to see who was away, especially in the Central Valley, where people were more trusting.

  The creature came to the diversion station where Lateral No. 7 split off Lateral No. 6. It moved into Lateral No. 7, sensing prey.

  Rounding a bend in the canal, it quickened its pace; the prey was close. It detected little emotion in the psychic field near the waterway. It was programmed to change that tonight.

  It rose out of the water, soundless, saw the prey and bit its leg. The instructions for the new routine executed: instead of biting off as much as it could before swimming away, it pulled the prey into the water, then bit its leg off.

  The prey’s psychic output spiked, rewarding the creature for its restraint. The new programming instructed it to run several tests to see how much psychic energy the prey would give before it was eaten.

  Something sharp and powerful grabbed Burke by the leg and dragged him to the canal. His first thought was he’d somehow gotten his leg tangled up in a steel cable, or something. What he couldn’t understand how was that cable, or whatever it was, could now be dragging him. The pain in his leg was immense, the grip strong, so he did what he could: fell on his back, flailed his arms, and screamed.

  As he went into the canal, the vise around his leg increased its hold, then gone: he was free. He thought he would just climb out of the canal, call it a night, find the Ford, go back to the motel and change into something dry and go to bed. Maybe get a beer.

  Then the fire started in his leg and he screamed. He threw his arms against the canal wall, clawing the cement with his fingers, trying to grab onto something, trying to pull himself out of the freezing water. His hands slipped on the smooth concrete, so he kicked down with his legs, trying to push up enough to grab the top of the wall. Only one foot struck the canal wall. He kicked again, got the same result. The fire in his leg became an inferno and he screamed again. The current rolled him onto his back and he panicked in earnest.

  He looked down at his right leg, to see why it hurt so badly, and saw that it was gone below the knee. His panic cranked up a notch.

  But what he saw next came very close to stopping his heart.

  This was good: the prey’s psychic output had increased ten-fold, exciting the creature. It fed on the rich emotions.

  Were it not for the new program, its new adaptation, the creature’s instincts would demand that it now devour its prey and flee. Instead, the program instructed it to do something it never would have otherwise thought to do: reveal itself to the prey. It was not by accident that its species had survived for a million years; they were masters in the art of stealth. Their enemies could not destroy what they did not know existed or could not see. Revealing itself went against this most basic of instincts.

  But it promised great potential psychic rewards.

  It rose out of the water, revealing its ancient face to the prey. The reward the new programming had promised was realized, in greater abundance than imagined; it gorged itself on the prey’s fear.

  It opened its mouth and bared its teeth, to see how the prey would respond. It was again rewarded.

  Burke almost died of fear when a large black, thing, rose up from the canal. It floated with him for a few seconds, then opened its eyes; three yellow slashes in its forehead blinked, and he screamed louder than he ever thought he could scream.

  He slapped and kicked at the water, trying to distance himself from the thing. Fear galvanized him, flooding his body with adrenaline. His mind momentarily shut down the pain pathway in his spinal cord so he wouldn’t feel the throbbing leg; he couldn’t afford the distraction.

  He bumped up against the canal wall and flung his arms behind him, trying to crabwalk up the wall. His hands slipped. Panic threatened to consume him and he searched frantically for a possible solution, some way to survive, to get away from this impossible thing.

  The creature opened its mouth, revealing eight-inch-long silvery teeth that flashed and sparkled in the moonlight; jagged and wicked: he understood how he had lost his leg, and he knew he would not be leaving the canal alive.

  His mind slipped toward insanity.

  It could no longer deny itself some of the prey’s flesh: it bit an arm off and pulled back to observe the reaction.

  He screamed and screamed. Then, almost without him seeing it, the monster bit his left arm off. Blood squirted out in rhythmic bursts.

  Survival instincts took over again and he kicked and flailed with his remaining arm and leg. Weak from blood loss and fear, the will to live was all he had left. He pictured his parents on a white sandy beach, cool drinks in their hands, congratulating him on his successes. If he could somehow escape this madness and get help, he could still survive. His parents would take him in and he could live on the islands as he had planned.

  After a minute of splashing and flailing, he gave up.

  He was so tired. He just wanted it to be over, so he allowed the current to pull him under.

  The prey floundered in the water while the creature fed on its desperation and fear. The prey’s movements slowed, followed by an abrupt drop in its emotional release. It stopped splashing and slipped under the water. The creature wanted to finis
h its meal, slice its teeth through flesh and bone and feel the prey’s blood wash down its throat, but the new routine would not permit it.

  It grabbed the prey in its jaws and dropped it on the canal bank. Its sharp teeth could not help but sink into the prey’s flesh, but the wounds were not fatal. It hovered, baring its teeth, waiting to see what the prey would do.

  Once again, it feasted on the rich emotions.

  Just as Burke slipped into the water, welcoming the calm death would bring, he was lifted into the air by what felt like a giant pinchers made of knives. Sharp steel pierced his clothes and skin, penetrating an inch into his flesh. He screamed in new agony.

  The creature dropped him onto the ground and he screamed and thrashed. It backed off and watched him, baring its bloody, silver teeth. Almost insane now, he thought it was smiling at him and a glimmer of hope pierced the pall of dread that cloaked his mind. Incredibly, he thought a miracle was going to happen: the beast was letting him go. If someone had heard his screams — surely all of Modesto must have heard him — the police would be on the way and he might be found in time, before he bled to death.

  He stopped screaming; the image of a white beach entered his mind. He smiled.

  The beast opened its mouth and came at him. He kicked at it with his one leg, meaning to give it at least one good blow before it finished him off.

  The creature was pleased when the prey filled the air with physical vibrations and rich emotions, but it was time for another provocation.

  It reached down to bite, and the prey struck at it, so it bit the prey’s leg off. It rose again to observe, glutting itself with the emotions the prey so willingly gave as well as its flesh.

  The new routine noted the prey’s response and rewrote itself.

  The metallic glinting teeth clamped down over his leg and bit it off, the thick muscle and bone providing no resistance.

  Terrified, he pushed at the ground with his arm, trying to move all that was left of him away from the hellish creature devouring him limb-by-limb. Blood leaked from his hip, no longer in spurts; he had lost so much blood his heart had little to push through his arteries.

  Too weak to scream, he gasped for air and made one last move to try and save his life. He flopped onto his stomach and began a one-armed crawl toward the brick wall.

  He felt a now-familiar, immense piercing pressure around his waist; as he rose into the air, he thought he heard sirens.

  It watched the prey’s pitiful attempts at escape and sensed its death was imminent. The creature did not want to devour dead flesh, for it lost some of its sweetness after the life-force left, so it bent down and picked the prey up in its jaws.

  As it was about to bite the prey in half, it felt a small but piercing vibration. It could not identify the vibration but knew it was out of place; it needed to leave soon.

  After it finished feeding.

  It bit the prey in two and let the top half fall to the ground.

  The sirens were too late to give him hope; the beast had him in its jaws. After a moment of hesitation, it parted him mid-waist.

  He, the half his head was connected to, fell to the ground, landing on his one arm; a bone snapped but he was past feeling. In his last moments of consciousness, and life, he saw his intestines spill into the dirt.

  A curtain fell over his vision, but did not beat the beast.

  Lusting for more flesh, it swallowed and moved to strike again. The program — the “new” routine was no longer new, it was now permanent — caused it to pause, noting and feasting on the new emotion the prey was releasing: submission. It was yielding up its life and flesh.

  The creature picked the prey up in its jaws, tossed it into the air and swallowed it whole.

  Slipping into the water, it swam east into town. Sated, it could tolerate the psychic din of the many potential nearby prey.

  Billy Poloosha and Vijay Williamson took the call from dispatch: several people had reported hearing screams in the vicinity of

  Kampen Street in north Modesto.

  “Screaming in the high-rent district, whoop-de-freaking-do,” Billy said as he turned north. He was bored. He was always bored when sober. They were a mile from Kampen when the call came in, but Billy took his time. Why rush? Screaming in nice areas of town rarely meant anything other than a party.

  Vijay, single, serious about police work, a teetotaler who kept himself in shape, cursed the day he drew Billy Poloosha as a partner.

  Billy began drinking in the sixth grade and partied his way through high school, graduating with a 2.5 GPA, the minimum needed to enter the police academy. He sobered up long enough to graduate from the academy and land a job with the Modesto Police Department. That out of the way, he started hitting the sauce again, hard.

  He married a woman he picked up at a bar, smashed out of her mind, and they now had three kids. His wife sobered up with the first pregnancy; hadn’t touched a drop since. Feeling no responsibility to stay sober for his kids’ sake, Billy’s drinking soared to new heights. He drank a case on his days off, half that on days he worked.

  After ten years of marriage, his wife, now sorry she’d ever let him take her home, had had enough and was working on a divorce, behind his back. She’d hired an attorney the week before with money her folks lent her and told him to get the paperwork started.

  When the second call about screaming came in from dispatch, Vijay gave Billy the eye, flipped the cruiser’s emergency lights on and said, “Better get a move on.”

  Billy grunted, but pushed a little harder on the gas peddle.

  They talked to the people who reported hearing the screams, then cruised the surrounding neighborhoods, listening but hearing nothing.

  “Probably just a party,” Billy said, wishing he was there.

  “Then how come we don’t hear any loud music or carrying on?” Vijay asked. “Isn’t there a canal on the other side of that brick wall? Maybe the screams came from the canal bank.”

  Billy frowned. “I doubt it.”

  “Why do you doubt it?”

  “Because I’m hungry and it’s time to get something to eat, that’s why. Don’t a couple of donuts sound good to you right about now?”

  Vijay knew it was pointless to argue with Billy’s stomach. “Tell you what, Billy. Let’s check out the canal since we’re already here. If we don’t find anything after twenty minutes, we’ll get donuts. Deal?”

  Billy grunted, and thought about donuts.

  They exited the subdivision and found the access road running next to the canal. Pulling onto the narrow road, Billy looked at the full canal and said, “Man, I sure hope this canal bank don’t give way. I got a good driving record and I’d hate to be the one guy who dumps a patrol car in the canal.”

  “The canal bank’s not going to give way,” Vijay said, turning on a powerful spotlight. He swung the beam over the road and canal.

  “It better not,” Billy said, slowing down. “They’d stick me on motorcycle duty and I’d hafta’ kill myself.”

  Vijay ignored him and studied the canal. He saw something in the dirt. “Hold it. What’s that?” he said, pointing.

  Billy stopped the car. “Where?”

  “In the dirt, there in the light. See it?”

  Billy looked. “I don’t see nuthin’.”

  They grabbed their flashlights and got out of the patrol car, leaving the engine running and the lights on. Billy inched alongside the car, eyeing the canal.

  Fifteen feet in front of their car, they found what they were looking for.

  “What the hell is that?” Billy asked, bending down and squinting.

  After a moment of staring, Vijay said, “Looks like intestines.”

  They stepped back and took the whole scene in.

  “Human?” Billy asked.

  “How should I know?” Vijay said, then pointed. “Look at that. It looks like blood.” He focused his beam on dark, damp soil.

  “Maybe it’s a sheep, or goat,” Billy offered as he
moved in to look at the intestines again.

  “Don’t step in the blood!” Vijay snapped.

  “Do you see me stepping in it?” Billy snapped back. “I graduated from the academy, same as you.”

  Then Vijay remembered seeing a report on a killing that occurred near a canal earlier in the day. His hand moved to his weapon.

  Seeing his partner touch his gun alarmed Billy. He said “What?” and fingered his own sidearm.

  “You heard about the killing on the canal earlier today?”

  Billy remembered. “Yeah.” Then, seeing the connection, he drew his weapon and took a couple of steps away from the canal.

  They continued backing away from the intestines and stained sand, swinging their lights back and forth.

  “See anything?” Billy whispered.

  “No, but I’m calling this in.” Vijay reached for the radio clipped to his uniform. “Put that gun away. You know the paperwork you’ll have to do if it goes off.”

  Billy put his gun away. He hated paperwork.

  A detective was roused from bed, Yellow Teeth, and dispatched to the canal. Unhappy about having his sleep disrupted, he took it out on the two officers. He told them to walk the entire length of the canal, one on either side, and to stay put until a CSI tech came in the morning and collected the evidence. Yellow Teeth went home and back to bed.

  It took the partners an hour and a half to walk the canal. They found nothing.

  Back in their patrol car, Billy pulled out the lunch his wife had packed for him: chili, Saltine crackers, and an apple. The chili was really a can of Alpo dog food mixed with a can of beans and some seasonings. He threw the apple in the canal but devoured the chili and crackers.

  Vijay kept his window open while his partner ate: the chili smelled like dog food.

  A tech showed up at eight and collected the evidence. Billy and Vijay went home, getting an hour of overtime each.