He kissed her on the mouth again, rough, mashing her lips.
They parted and she took another drink. She would do anything to get Nick.
The creature drifted with the current, concentrating on the vibrations passing through the water and over its hide, sensing.
It was learning that the very acts of hunting and killing could be so much more than just the manner in which it obtained nourishment.
When the creature had torn its prey out of its machine, it felt something it had never experienced before, a feeling close to what humans call excitement. Its species had never killed for excitement, but then they had never been on this planet before, where the prey was so easy to take.
The creature had evolved and adopted an emotion of its preferred prey.
And it was dangerously close to losing control over its hunger, close to abandoning stealth and secrecy in favor of thrill seeking and gluttony.
Drifting with the swift current, it passed on the opportunity to feed on several single humans. It was looking for something different, eager to kill in a new way.
Following its senses, it quickened its pace, anxious, craving.
At just after eleven, nine patrol cars and eighteen police officers made their way through town, heading out to the canals.
The gunner, armed with a pump-action shotgun, sat behind the driver. With the canal to their left and the driver on the spot, both officers could keep their eyes on the canal, watching for any sign of the creature. They felt prepared and determined, and were confident their shotguns could blow it away.
Everyone knew what had happened to Billy Poloosa and his patrol car, and knew that Vijay Williamson was missing, surely taken by the monster.
They were determined, but they were also frightened.
“Why don’t we go somewhere else. I’m sick of the smell of grease,” Lawless said, closing the back door.
They drove south on Tully, intending on going to the same shopping center parking lot they’d been in earlier. On a whim, Jensen turned right at the next light and pulled in behind a standalone building occupied by two chiropractors. She had received a series of treatments there for a lifting injury and knew their parking lot would be secluded this time of night. It was.
She stopped the car directly behind the building and shut off the engine. Lawless was quiet and Jensen enjoyed the break from his grumbling. She didn’t take it personally, knew it was more about frustration and helplessness. She was worried, though, about the effect one or two more visions might have on him. He was grouchy now, later he might be enraged or insane.
She wasn’t sure what to say, or if anything needed to be said.
As it turned out, there was no time for small talk and it was good she had stopped instead of driving on, for his eyes were opened again and he saw.
“Ah ...” he said, laying down on the seat.
“What do you see?” Jensen said, starting the routine while reaching for his cell phone to dial Baskel.
“It’s dark. Young boys, teenage maybe, drinking beer. Looks like they’re already drunk. The one I’m in’s having a problem standing still. Whoops! Fell on my butt. Oh yeah, another drink’s going to help. Kids are such poor drinkers, no wonder it’s illegal.”
Jensen said to Baskel, when he answered, “It’s started.”
He said, “Damn,” and she thought she could see him starting to rub his chin.
“I’m going to leave the line open so you can hear,” Jensen told him.
“Right. Good idea. We have people in place. We’re ready to go.”
“Who’re you talking too?” Lawless asked. “You’re on the phone, now?”
“It’s Baskel.”
“Oh. Whoa!”
Jensen heard Baskel cover his phone, could just make out his muffled voice telling someone, “Lawless is having another one of his, things. We may need to move some men around.”
He was back. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
Jensen held the cell phone over the back seat, a foot or so above Lawless’s head.
“What do you see around you?” she prompted.
“Canal to my right. Fences on the other side of the canal.”
“Wood fences or brick walls?”
“Wood.”
“How wide is the canal?”
“Not very, narrower than the last one.”
To Baskel, “Are you getting this?”
“Loud and clear. Any idea where he is?”
“That’s your job this time, and you know we don’t have hours to figure it out.”
She moved the phone back over Lawless, heard Baskel say something but couldn’t tell what, so she put it on speaker.
“Whoa!” Lawless shouted, waving his arms; he knocked the cell phone out of Jensen’s hand and it fell onto his chest. She grabbed it and held it up again, a little higher this time, and closer to her.
“I hope I’m a girl because one of the boys just laid one on me. Close your eyes, I don’t want to see this.”
“Yes you do,” Jensen said. “What else do you see?”
“Nothing. I closed my eyes.”
Britney put her arms around Nick’s neck again as he kissed her, this time more to hold herself up than to stop him from breaking the kiss. She jabbed and poked with her tongue, she thought, but as she was drunk for the first time in her life she couldn’t really tell what her tongue was doing.
A hand grabbed her butt. She’d seen kids grabbing each other’s butts at school dances, even in the hallway between classes, and had always wondered how it felt; it was kinda’ nice. She pushed her pelvis into Nick without knowing why. It just felt like the right thing to do.
Nick thrust back, and that’s when she felt it: Nick had something hard in his pants pocket. A stick? A flashlight? Then she figured it out, drunk as she was.
She broke the kiss and stumbled back, looking down at his crotch; his pants were bulging.
The boys howled with laughter.
She didn’t know what to do. One part of her, the little bit that was still sober, wanted to run and find the loose board in the fence. She knew it might take her a while because she wasn’t seeing too straight, but she would find it eventually.
But the drunk majority was in control and it said she would do whatever she needed to do to get Nick Hall for a boyfriend. And really, how bad was this anyway? They were just kissing. It wasn’t like they were having sex.
She finished her beer, threw the can in the canal, and went to him, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him hard, pushing with her pelvis again.
Nick kissed back. Josh and Brandon hooted and she felt Nick grab her butt again. She didn’t care if Nick’s friends were watching her kiss her new boyfriend, they probably wished she was kissing them. She spun inside and jabbed her tongue as far into his mouth as she could.
A hand groped at her breasts, squeezing and pinching. It hurt, but it also felt good. Her new boyfriend could touch her breasts, he probably couldn’t get enough of her. Besides, it wasn’t like they were having sex.
The creature lifted its head to look; multiple prey stood in a group. Strong emotions bathed it, fed it. The prey were excited. It considered striking now, but discarded the thought. It could strike anytime it wanted.
It idled in the water, and watched and fed.
The officers assigned to search Lateral No. 4 were Muscle Cop, Brett Howard, and Lady Cop, Trish Stoveson. Stoveson drove and operated the spot, Howard handled the shotgun from the back. Lateral No. 4 breaks off Lateral No. 3 west of the intersection of Coffee and Briggsmore, near Memorial Hospital. Their assignment was to search it from its origin until it passed under Hwy 99, approximately three miles of canal.
They began at 9th instead of Briggsmore and worked their way back. Had they started at Briggsmore they would have found four teenagers drinking beer up on the canal, and would have chased them away.
As fate would have it, the teens were on their own.
“What I think we have here is three hor
ny boys and one girl, and alcohol: not a good scenario for the girl.”
“What else do you see? Any large trees or houses?”
Jensen was trying to keep him focused but it was proving to be more difficult this time. His attention seemed locked on the people; fatigue and emotional strain had taken its toll.
“Come on, Danny. What do you see?”
“He’s groping her, sick little bastard.”
“No, what else do you see? We need to find out where they are so we can stop the monster from killing them.”
“Right, right. Let’s see.” He paused for a few seconds and moved his eyes, searching for clues. “I can’t see anything different. Just wood fences and the narrow canal. It’s pretty dark.”
“Can you see trees?”
“She finished her beer and he’s coming in for another kiss.”
“Trees, Danny, trees! Can you see any trees?” Jensen was desperate, afraid too much time had passed.
“Stop yelling. I see trees, big shade trees. I can’t tell you what kind they are because I don’t know trees.”
She didn’t care about the trees, she just wanted him focused on the surroundings instead of the action.
“What about houses? Can you see the houses?”
“I can’t see anything. She closed her eyes again and I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
Nick pinched a breast too hard. Britney broke the kiss and said, “Ow, that hurt.”
She staggered back and opened her eyes, and the world spun. Nick was swaying, back and forth, and when he finally stopped, there were two of him.
It was then she realized that both of Nick’s hands, all four of them, actually, were over there but her breasts were still being squeezed and pinched and her butt grabbed. She looked to her left and saw Josh, drunken grin on his face, saying something she couldn’t understand, feeling her up with his hands. He kissed her on the mouth and rammed his tongue down her throat. Someone laughed and she shoved Josh away.
“Shtop that,” she slurred at Josh. He stayed back but continued grinning and laughing.
Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around; she stumbled and Brandon caught her and lifted her to his mouth, kissed her quickly and pushed her away.
She turned to Nick and said, “Nick, they’re kishing me! You can’t let them kish your firlgrien ... girlfriend.”
Nick threw his head back and laughed, and she noticed something was different about him. Something was sticking out of his pants.
“You want to be my girlfriend, Britney? You want me to like you?” He walked toward her as he spoke.
“Yesh,” Britney answered, staring.
“You like it?”
She didn’t know if she did or didn’t. What were girlfriends supposed to say when their boyfriends asked them that question?
“If you want me to like you and be your boyfriend,” he spat the word out, as if saying it left a foul taste in his mouth, “you know what you gotta do ...”
Oh, that, Britney thought. Sarah and Kristy were right. Well, if Jenny Johnson and her friends had to do it to keep their boyfriends, and they were way prettier that her, she should have known she would be expected to do so as well. Whatever was necessary, whatever he wanted.
Stoveson and Howard passed the footbridge in Elk Park. Knowing what had happened here, they were on edge.
They lingered, staring into the illuminated canal, half expecting a giant snake to leap out of the water and attack them any second. All kinds of thoughts passed through their minds. A few made it to their mouths and out into the air.
“You think maybe it has a nest around here?” Steveson asked Howard.
“I don’t know shit about snakes,” he answered.
“Where do you think it came from?”
“If it’s that big and that dangerous, it has to be some kind of military thing. Maybe some kind of genetic mutant weapon they were working on that got away.”
“Sounds like a bad movie plot. Maybe they could get Matthew Broderick to do it as a follow-up to Godzilla.”
“Who?”
She tried to think of another movie with Matthew Broderick, something he might know. “The guy in Ferris Bueler’s Day Off, you know, the guy married to Sarah Jessica Parker, the Sex In The City chick.”
“She’s married?”
“What’s that?” Stoveson said, suddenly moving the light.
Howard followed the beam with the shotgun: something dark floating in the water. He pulled the trigger and the gun roared, blowing a tire up onto the bank.
The blast echoed through the patrol car, making their ears ring.
“Damn,” Howard said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stoveson said. “Baskel said not to worry about wasting shells as long as we’re shooting into the water. Better we fire a few extra times than one too few.” She started the cruiser moving again.
“Yeah, but now we’ve got paperwork to do,” Howard said.
The creature lifted its head, sensing a new surge of vibrations coursing through the water: one of its prey’s machines. The machines did not threaten it so it ignored the vibrations and turned its attention back to the group of prey on the canal bank.
The emotions they emitted were not new, it had sensed them before while swimming in and around its prey’s residences, but because the prey were right next to the water the emanations were much stronger, almost overpowering.
It sank back into the water and closed its eyes. Its hide, dry from prolonged exposure to the air, needed to rehydrate. Shutting down its visual sense intensified its ability to perceive psychically. It fed on the strong emotions, energizing itself.
Rehydrated, it sensed it was time to strike.
It slowly rose out of the water.
“Okay, we’re back in business. Let’s see what the perverts are up to now.” The girl had opened her eyes again and Lawless could see the boy who seemed to be the leader, standing in front of him.
“Ah jeez, ah no. It’s starting. He pulled his thing out and he’s showing it to her. Ah...”
“Come on Danny, what else do you see?” Jensen pleaded.
“The new thing is it looks like she’s going to get raped. Nothing else has changed. Wait, one of the other boys spun her around and is kissing her.”
Upon hearing the girl was looking in a different direction, Jensen said, “What do you see now? Tell me about the houses.”
“Big house. Two stories.”
“What color? What’s the roof look like?”
“Whoa. Someone else spun her around. She almost fell down. The other little prick is having his turn kissing on her. She’s so drunk she’s slurring her words. Oh man, what a little ... He just gave her an ultimatum: blow me or I won’t like you. Kick him in the balls! Ah, man! Don’t make me see this. If he lives through this I’m gonna’ kick his little ass. Ah, jeez, no.”
It wasn’t so bad, Britney thought. It wasn’t the tastiest thing she’d tried but it wasn’t as bad as her mom’s fried liver. She stared at his jeans, unable to close her eyes for fear the world would turn upside down.
She could do this, especially if it got her Nick.
He grunted and she heard the other boys cheering and Nick yelled and...
It was finally over.
She looked up at Nick and said, “Sho, are rou my foybrien now?”
“My friends have to like you, too,” Nick said, looking a little like her dad after Thanksgiving dinner. “You have to make Josh like you or I won’t be your boyfriend.”
She felt someone nudge her left shoulder, Josh.
“No, Nick, pleash, I don wan—”
Josh forced himself on her while Brandon and Nick watched.
Josh looked down at Britney, who by now had tears running down her face, and yelled, “Oh, yeah! Oh yeah!”
Then her head and both his hands vanished.
“Oh shit! Oh shit!” Josh yelled, looking at Britney’s headless corpse, seeing twin jets of blood spurt ten
inches into the air from her severed neck. He staggered back and she toppled forward and landed on his shoes, flooding them with warm blood. He screamed.
Then he felt a terrible stinging in his arms and crotch. He looked at his arms and saw blood pumping out, waved his stumps about and screamed.
Nick stumbled back and tripped over the bag of beer, falling on his butt, staring at Josh. All he could remember was a dark flash, a blur from the canal. And then there was blood everywhere.
Catching movement to his right, he turned and saw what looked like a huge snake hulking over the edge of the canal, blood dripping from its jaws. It opened its mouth and bore its teeth at him. They glinted and sparkled.
He screamed and shot up, turning and spinning in the sand, struggling to right himself. Now running, he looked over his shoulder and saw the thing move laterally through the water until it was ahead of him. He tried to stop and reverse directions but his feet slipped in the sand.
The monster’s head shot forward and struck him with tremendous force, knocking him ten feet through the air. He landed hard, heard something crack in his side, followed by a sharp stabbing pain, then bounced and landed on Britney’s corpse, pinning her quivering, jumping legs.
Brandon, who up until now had been frozen with fear, did an irrational thing: he jumped over Nick and Britney and ran at the monster. The monster hit him with its head as it had hit Nick, breaking his right arm and knocking the wind out of him. He flew back and landed on top of Nick, cracking another of Nick’s ribs.
Josh was going into shock and lost his balance and fell back off the canal bank. He landed on his back with a thud, blood still pumping from his arm-stumps and crotch, though with less force. He did not, could not, get up. “Help me...”
The monster’s head appeared over the edge of the canal and hovered above him. It blinked its three eyes and he screamed, “Oh God! Oh mother!” It opened its jaws and he screamed again and threw his bloody arm-stumps in front of his face for protection and the thing lunged and ate them. Terrified, he screamed louder and kicked at it with his legs and it ate them, too, before backing away. It looked at the dying boy, turning its hideous head one way, then the other, then went at him one last time and took his head.
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