And felt a tremendous stinging sensation in her legs. Then, much to her shock and surprise, she fell on her face, breaking her nose.
The creature struck, lightning-fast out of the water, lunging, two feet above the ground, jaws wide open. The prey didn’t move, making it easier to take.
“What’s happening?” Jensen said.
“Nothing. The blonde’s just stretching. We passed her.”
A bead of sweat dropped off Jensen’s nose and landed on his forehead. Her heart was pounding.
The monster snapped its jaws shut, slipped into the water, swallowed, and moved on.
Marilyn was several paces past Jenny, still worried about eternal hell fire when she heard a grunt, followed by a thud. Then a scream.
As she turned to look, a thought flashed through her mind: the ground has opened up and swallowed Jenny whole, taking her straight to hell for having defiled a church.
That wasn’t entirely true; most of Jenny was still above ground. Her legs, however, from mid-thigh to ankle, had disappeared and could have, for all Marilyn knew, been sucked down to Hades. Jenny’s feet lay on the ground five feet behind her torso; red meat, white bone, and tan skin protruding from little booty socks and expensive sneakers. She was on her stomach, clawing at the ground and grinding her thigh-stumps into the dirt. Blood gushed from her crooked nose and ran down her mouth and chin to her neck. She was working her jaw up and down, blowing blood bubbles. Jets of blood rhythmically squirted from her thigh-stumps, making black mud. She stared at Marilyn, wide-eyed and confused.
“Help me, Marilyn,” she bubbled. “I can’t get up. My legs won’t move.”
Marilyn covered her mouth and screamed.
“Whoa!” Lawless shouted. “It got her! It got her! It took her legs! It’s Weston, just like Weston!”
“Who? Who got attacked?”
“The monster took the blonde’s legs and she’s ... she’s ... Oh no...”
Then the vision was gone and the ceiling was once again a ceiling.
Marilyn continued to scream into her hand, knowing nothing but terror, seeing nothing but ruin. She froze, unable to run for help, unable to assist her friend, unable to even take her hand away from her mouth so someone could hear her screams.
The severed nerves in Jenny’s legs had recovered from the shock of being bisected by the creature’s razor-sharp teeth, and she wailed, “Oh my God, Marilyn! I think I broke my legs. Oh my God, help me!”
Waves of the most intense pain she could imagine spread through her body from her legs; she howled, grabbed handfuls of gravel and sand. The pain terrified her. She screamed and was frantic for something to do, to find some course of action to slow the waves of pain that threatened to kill her.
She rolled onto her back, screaming and moaning, and looked down, expecting to see her long beautiful legs, legs men stared at and lusted to part, bent at odd angles, perhaps even bleeding.
What her eyes focused on instead were her tennis shoe-clad feet, ankles pointed straight up, five feet away. She stared at them, knowing they were her feet, but not understanding what they were doing over there when she was over here.
Then she saw that her legs were gone, and she passed out.
Marilyn finally thought to drop her hand. She screamed into the evening air, loud enough to carry four blocks. She screamed again, louder.
All she thought or knew to do was scream.
She screamed until the man who owned the house next to the canal peeked over the back fence; until he dialed 9 1 1 on his cordless phone; until he resumed peeking over the fence at the screaming woman.
She screamed until the dogs in the neighborhood howled back, sensing her pain, joining in raising the alarm.
She screamed until a man training for a marathon found her; until he vomited when he saw Jenny lying in the dirt, apparently dead.
She screamed until an elderly couple, out for their own evening stroll on the canal bank, came to investigate; until the old woman covered her eyes and started to cry; until the old man tried to comfort Marilyn, but she pushed him away.
She screamed until her voice gave out and she could only cry.
When the police arrived her throat was too raw to speak and she was too upset to write. An ambulance took her to the hospital where she underwent treatment for shock.
Jenny had bled out and was dead.
Detective Dave Baskel’s Internet search for big snakes was interrupted. He took one look at the dead woman and dialed Lawless’s cell.
“It’s over.”
Lawless tried to sit up, but the room spun so he stayed on the floor.
Jensen sat on the couch and rubbed feeling back into a foot that had fallen asleep. How long had the vision lasted? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Five? She should have been paying attention.
“What good did that do?” she finally asked. “You got to see a woman die, but you couldn’t do anything to prevent it.”
Trying again, this time Lawless stood and shuffled to the couch. His face and shoulders sagged.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I feel like shit. I can’t believe I just saw that.” His eyes were red.
They were quiet for a minute, then she said, snapping her fingers and jumping up, “I have an idea.” She grabbed a pen and a pad of paper. “Let’s go through the vision, from start to finish.”
“What for? It’s over. She’s dead.”
“Maybe we overlooked something. Come on, lets try it.”
They started at the beginning, his head on her lap, and worked through the vision while she took notes. He was surprised at how much he remembered.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s do it again, but this time I want you to sit up, look me in the eyes and let me ask some questions.”
“Why?”
“Maybe there’s something you saw, but didn’t notice.”
Their eyes met, and he was sucked in.
“Pay attention to your surroundings, not what people are saying. Got that?”
“Got it.”
“Okay. What are you walking on?”
“A canal bank.”
“Dirt or gravel?”
He hesitated. “Both.”
“Is the bank elevated?”
“Yes. About four feet.”
“Good.” Jensen wasn’t sure why that was good, but whatever they were doing seemed to be working. She scribbled “4 feet high” on the pad without breaking eye contact, hoping she could read it later.
“What do you see to your left?”
His eyes flicked left, a millisecond. “Fences. Trees. Backyards.”
“Are the fences new or old?”
His creased his brow. “How would I know?”
“Is the wood dark or light?”
“Oh. Dark. Old wood.”
She wrote it down.
“What’s on your right?”
His eyes flicked right, another millisecond. “Buildings. Maybe offices. Hard to tell.”
“Old or new?”
“Not new, but not real old.”
She frowned. “Big or little buildings?”
“One very big, like a gymnasium. The others smaller.”
“Bingo! I know where the women were walking! I drive by it every day.” She turned away, excited.
Breaking eye contact with her all at once left him disoriented, similar to how he felt when the vision ended. He rubbed his eyes. “Where?”
“Houses on the left and gymnasium on the right: they were walking on the canal that runs by Big Valley Christian School!” She jumped up and paced. “You know what this means, don’t you, why you had this vision? It means you’ll know where it’s going to strike, before it strikes.” She was pumped.
He shook his head. “There wasn’t enough time to warn them.”
“There might be next time, and maybe, if we know what canal it’s in, we can get some guns there and put a few bullets in the water. We could get lucky.”
He thought, then nodded and said, “It
’s a long shot, and it would be dangerous to the guns, but it might work.”
His cell phone chirped. He dug it out of his jacket and looked at the number: Baskel.
“Lawless.”
“Dave Baskel. There’s been—”
“There’s been another killing, I know,” Lawless cut in. “On the canal by Big Valley Christian.”
Silence on the line. “You want to tell me how you know that?” Then, “Oh, of course. You’re in your car. Sometimes I forget we all have radios.”
“We’re not in the car, we’re at Jensen’s apartment.”
Silence again. “She’s got a radio at her place, then.”
“No. No radio.”
“Then how do you know someone’s been killed?” He had put an edge in his voice.
Lawless sighed. “There’s more to the story than what we told you this afternoon.”
Now Baskel was mad. “You purposely withheld information from me? And now someone else is dead?” His voice threatened violence.
“There’s nothing we could have done to save the blonde. This isn’t exactly science.”
“You going to tell me what the hell it is, then? And how’d you know the victim was blonde? No one said blonde on the radio.”
“Her name is Jenny. I don’t know her last name but her husband’s name is Richard. Her legs were taken off, like Hank Weston’s.”
More silence. Then, menacing, “Get your ass down here.” Baskel clicked off.
Lawless looked at Jensen; she was chewing on a fingernail. “Might as well give him both barrels. We’re going to need his cooperation, fast.”
They grabbed their things and left.
“You drive,” Lawless said. “I’m not safe.”
After the attack, the creature swam east in Lateral No. 6, heading for the Main Canal five miles away. It would enter the Main Canal and follow it southeast three miles until it passed under
Homes Road. A mile after this junction, Lateral No. 3 split off the Main Canal and ran through the heart of Modesto.
It wanted to see how the hunting was in Lateral No. 3.
Wilber Cotton was only ten years old and already he hated his life.
He hated the house he lived in because no one fixed it up and he knew it was going to fall down one night when he was sleeping and kill him. His parents would be not be killed. Their potty-mouthed drinking friends who were always passed out on the sofa or on the floor would not be killed either. Only Wilber would be killed.
He hated school because it was dumb. They made you learn things you didn’t care about and punished you for not doing your homework. How can you do homework in a house where people are always playing loud music or yelling at each other? He hated getting free breakfast and lunch at school because that meant he was poor. He hated recess and pe because the games were lame and he wasn’t good at them anyway.
He hated his parents’ friends because they were always at his house drinking and throwing their crap on the floor. They were loud and drunk and would sometimes fight. Once there was a big fight in his front yard and all the neighbors came out and watched. The cops came and he was embarrassed he lived in a house where cops came. Sometimes when they fought in the house they punched holes in the walls and no one fixed the holes and the friends thought it was funny to put beer cans in them.
He hated his mother because she didn’t stand up to his father and she was always drunk and sometimes she let other men kiss her and touch her when his father was at work. A mom shouldn’t do that. He hated her because she named him Wilber like the pig and everyone called him “Wilber the pig.” No one else in school was named Wilber.
He hated his father most of all. His mother called his father “a worthless bastard drunk.” He wasn’t sure what bastard meant but it sounded like something his father would be. He hated his father because he never once did anything with him like other kid’s dads did with them. He hated his father because he hit his mom and even though she deserved to be hit because she let other men kiss her and touch her dads still shouldn’t hit moms.
He hated his father most of all because his father hit him all the time. His father hit him because he didn’t mow the lawn or wash the car or fix the roof and because he was a “worthless little shit.” Someday maybe he would hit his father back but not now because he was too small and his father would probably hit him until he stopped breathing and Wilber knew no one would help him. Not his mother. Not their friends.
Wilber smoked cigarettes he stole from his parents when they were passed out drunk. He smoked them out back when they were inside drinking or shouting or letting people not your husband touch them.
He liked to smoke the cigarettes by the canal on the other side of the wall because he could throw the butts into the water when the end was still red and hear them sizzle. He liked it by the canal because when his father came to hit him he couldn’t because he was too drunk to climb over the wall.
It was almost dark and Wilber was sitting in his backyard. He heard a lot of sirens far away and thought maybe someone’s house was burning down. The parents and friends were drunk and laughing but later they would be yelling and fighting.
He felt good because he got his homework done after school when his mother was sleeping and his father wasn’t home. He fixed himself corn dogs and tater tots for dinner before his mother woke up because if she wakes up when he’s eating she screams at him for not fixing her anything and takes his food for being so selfish.
He has three cigarettes hidden in a Band-Aid can in the backyard in the tree by the wall. He doesn’t barf anymore when he smokes. Maybe that was good and maybe it was bad. Wilber didn’t care either way.
They discussed what they would tell Baskel on the way to the crime scene. They pushed through the crowd of spectators and media people and found him, running the show from the canal bank.
When Baskel saw them, he scowled and nodded his head at a yellow tarp covering Jenny’s body.
Lawless shook his head. “We don’t need to see her.”
Baskel grabbed Lawless’s arm and led him past the body, away from the crowd.
When they were out of earshot, he said, with a threat in his voice, “You want to tell me, Detective, how you knew so much about this crime?” He kept a firm grip on Lawless’s arm, as if he thought Lawless would make a run for it.
Lawless looked at Baskel’s hand on his arm. “You want to let go of me, Dave?”
Baskel let go, but pushed Lawless’s shoulder. “It’s Detective Baskel. Now just what the hell is going on? How did you know what this woman looked like?”
Lawless looked at Jensen, then said to Baskel, “We need your help and we need to move fast. We’re pretty sure it’s going to strike again, soon.”
That wasn’t what Baskel was looking for. “We’re not doing anything or going anywhere until you start talking.”
No time for bush-beating. Lawless took a deep breath and started in. “I have some kind of psychic connection with the canal monster. I’ve had ... visions, or events, in the past few days about it. I just had another one. I saw Jenny get killed, but I saw it through the eyes of her friend, the big one. Where is she?”
Baskel worked his mouth, but nothing came out. He turned away from Lawless and began massaging his forehead. Without turning back, he said, “She’s in shock. Ambulance took her to Memorial. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her before she left but I hear it wouldn’t have mattered. She was unresponsive when the paramedics took her away.”
Lawless shook his head. “Wouldn’t have mattered. She didn’t see the attack.”
When no one spoke for a few seconds, Jensen said, “We’re in kind of a hurry here.”
“All right, let’s hear it,” Baskel said, turning to face them. “All of it.”
Lawless jammed his hands into his pockets. “I started having dreams and premonitions when I was a kid. Circumstances changed and I stopped getting them. Nothing happened for years, until about two weeks ago when I started having
nightmares.”
He looked at Jensen for support; she gave him a nod of encouragement.
“There have been several ... extrasensory events since Sanchez was found in the canal back on Tuesday.” Lawless chose his words carefully. He wanted the story to sound as sane as possible.
“ ‘Extrasensory events?’ ” Baskel repeated.
“Yesterday, after we left Elk Park, something happened, something I’ve never experienced before.”
Lawless turned and looked at the canal, remembering his trip with the creature. He suddenly had the thought: What if it’s in the canal right next to us, preparing to strike? Chills ran up his spine as he realized, again, how vulnerable they were standing so close to the water. The monster could come at any time and kill one of them. Hell, it could probably kill several of them before they got a chance to get a shot off. He crossed to the side of the canal bank furthest from the water.
Baskel and Jensen noticed, looked into the water themselves, and followed Lawless.
“Actually, there was something before yesterday afternoon,” Lawless continued. “So I’ve had two of them.”
“Two of what?” Baskel said, looking back at the canal.
“I call it ‘riding.’ It’s as if I go ‘riding’ with the creature, but mentally, or psychically, whatever the right term is. I saw and experienced things through the creature’s eyes.”
Now that he had released the words into the air to someone other than Jensen, and heard them with his own ears, he realized how crazy they sounded. He was afraid to continue.
After a beat, Baskel said, “You know Detective, if there wasn’t a woman lying over there, missing her legs, and a woman yesterday who lost her head when she was just out walking her damn dog, I would think you were crazy as my Aunt Ruth. But with everything we talked about today, and all this shit by the canals, I’m willing to listen to almost anything, even your psychic mumbo-jumbo, if it’ll help put an end to all this madness.”
Relieved, Lawless said, “The first one was when it killed Sandovich. Then later, after Elk Park, for about an hour. When doesn’t matter, what does matter is I learned some things about it. You already know about its teeth. It can bite through anything. But here’s the thing, it’s driven by its hunger and I think it’s losing control.”
Canals Page 21