Jeremy moved carefully, his eyes scouting around for any sign that there might be other critters of a similar nature nearby. His cousin Nina had once tried to pet a young bear cub in the woods when she was only a few years older than him. Happily for her, the mother bear only knocked her aside and tore a few long wounds down her side as opposed to breaking her into several small and manageable chunks. When in doubt, learn from the mistakes of older relatives.
He used the stick to touch the thing gently and it stirred, mewling pitifully. When he’d finally decided it was safe, he moved in closer and touched the pale creature’s skin. It was chilled. The poor thing was as cold as the autumn air and shivered at his touch, rolling its eyes at the first touch. The thin ribcage expanded and contracted against his hand. The thing reached out with its forepaws and clutched to him, seeming almost desperate for contact. Its mouth opened wide in a yawn, revealing needle fine teeth in a long and nasty row; it pulled closer, the eyes held tightly closed.
He stroked the thing’s back, surprised to find a thick mane of fine white fur there, each hair almost as thin as corn silk. The breaths coming from it were faint, fast and irregular. Also, it sort of smelled bad, but he knew what he would do with the whatever-it-was as soon as it made that little mewling noise.
Being allowed to walk home alone was a big thing to Jeremy. It was a privilege he wanted to keep, but not at the expense of an injured animal. He scooped the strange thing into his arms and turned to the left, heading away from home and across the empty two-lane road. If he walked fast, it would only take him a few minutes to reach his destination.
The All Creatures Great and Small Animal Clinic was a working veterinary hospital that dealt not only with cats and dogs, but with the farm animals for most of Melmouth County. Unlike most animal clinics, the establishment was open day and night, year round. When farmers need help at three in the morning to take care of a prize-winning heifer, it doesn’t do them any good to wait until nine in the morning. Even though the actual facility was closed at five PM every night, the doctors remained on call. None of which meant a solitary thing to Jeremy, who merely wanted to get there before the doors were closed.
He pushed past the glass front door and into the main reception area of the clinic, where a portly woman with three small poodles sat, her face pinched into an expression of impatience. He knew her well enough; Cloris Waterson was the grandmother of one of his good friends, Busby Dane. Busby was a good guy, even if he had a goofy name. His grandmother, on the other hand, had never smiled in her life as far as Jeremy could tell. Today was no exception.
The three balls of fluff at her feet started yapping frantically the second the door was opened. They were short, round, and fluffy, covered with kinky white and cream fur and absolutely convinced, at least if their barks were any indication, that they were at least the size of Dobermans. None of the three were on leashes, but frankly, they didn’t need to be if it came to protecting people from their savagery. On a good day they might be able to reach a grown man’s ankle with their teeth and if they weighed more than a pound apiece, Jeremy would have been surprised.
By the time Jeremy had actually entered the lobby of All Creatures, they were cowering in the corner and making whistling noises as they huddled together. One of them cowered even more than the others, and promptly wet the floor. Cloris Waterson glared at him for a second and then went back to her three dogs, trying to calm them. They were having none of it, preferring to find safety in the corner rather than deal with Jeremy. Or, he realized, the creature in his arms.
He recognized the veterinary assistant who came through the double swinging doors behind the counter, and his heart sank down to his stomach. Her name was Kelly Phillips, and she was, in simple terms, a stupid bitch. Kelly was a liar, a pig, a cow, and he meant that in the worst possible way. She was mean and nasty, but she hid it well behind a plastic smile. He almost turned around when he saw her frizzy brown hair and the matching smear of freckles on her plump face. Unfortunately, she saw him and that ruined the idea of a clean getaway.
Well, that and there wasn’t really any other place he could take the thing in his arms.
Kelly’s thin lips drew back in a smile that showed more teeth than should have fit into a human mouth. “Hi, Jeremy. What did you find this time?” It might seem like an odd question, but Jeremy had brought in several strays over the years—albeit normally with his mother leading the way. Every encounter he’d ever had with Kelly Phillips had been on an occasion when he was handing over an injured animal. Most of them had ended with the wounded critter being put to sleep. That was another reason why he hated her.
He did his best not to sound sullen when he saw her. He even managed to force a small smile, but Jeremy would have handed over his meager allowance to have anyone else from the clinic instead of Kelly. “Hi, Kelly. I found this little guy on the side of the road and thought I should bring him in. He looks mostly starved to death.”
Kelly waddled in his direction, her eyebrows knitted together and her mouth pouching out in a look of either intense concentration or constipation. She acted so kind and gentle as she pulled the strange creature from his hands. He knew better.
She looked at the small white animal and her frown grew deeper. “I have no idea what this is…”
Well, Jeremy not knowing was one thing, but she was allegedly a trained expert. That took him off guard by a bit. “You don’t know? I thought you guys knew every animal there was.”
That did it. Kelly’s pleasant façade went the way of the dodo bird in an instant, and the smile she put on her face was about as warm and friendly as frozen vinegar. “Well. I’m just an assistant. But I’ll make sure Doctor Hastings takes care of your little friend.” Before he could respond, she’d spun on her sensible-shoed heel and moved past the double doors into the territory marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Jeremy felt his heart sink and almost dared the impossible. He almost made himself go after her.
Unfortunately, he was still at that age where the idea of open defiance of an adult was not easily managed. Uncertain as to what he should do, he looked to the only other adult in the area. Cloris Waterson set a scowl of disapproval on her face and made a tsking noise. “Really, young man. Don’t you think you’d be better off not messing with strange animals? You never know where they’ve been. Heaven’s sake. That nasty little thing might have rabies.”
He might have made a comment—might, in fact, have told her that he thought she was as stupid as she looked and as heartless as she was old—but he realized that he had to get home and fast if he wanted to keep his new privileges. And then there was the fact that the old woman was scarier than the average bear.
Instead of dashing to the rescue or making a snide retort to the old woman, Jeremy chose discretion. He nodded to the woman and left the premises.
That made him a very lucky boy.
He got to live through the night.
III
Kelly Phillips would have been surprised to find out how Jeremy Koslowski felt about her. Then again, she had never really understood how perceptive children could be. She tended to think of them as merely smaller versions of adults, and therefore not very bright. If there was one truth about the veterinary assistant, it was simply this: she thought she was much smarter than the average person. Not shockingly, she was mistaken. There was a certain, almost animal, craftiness to her, and it was true that she spent her time manipulating several men in town, but to be honest, the men she had wrapped around her finger were not exactly the brightest and best that Beldam Woods had to offer; and while she could do her job, she wasn’t exactly the Employee of the Month at All Creatures. She was just someone who was willing to work for a little less than a lot would have accepted and she didn’t bitch too much about cleaning out the animal cages.
Kelly did not like her lot in life, and she was the first to admit it, at least to herself, when she was alone and on her third beer. She wasn’t overly fond of the job, but she did it, and while it h
ad once been her dream to be a veterinarian, she had long since let that ambition fade away, just as surely as her favorite pair of cotton panties was now a pale sky blue instead of the turquoise they’d been a few hundred washings ago.
She didn’t really much care for animals. Not any more. In her defense it had nothing to do with them being burdens. It had to do with working around them for too long. Most of the animals she saw were ill, and while a lot of them recovered, more than a few had to be put down. For that reason she’d lost her earlier romanticism about healing Nature’s wounded and hardened herself to the realities of day to day life in a vet’s office. When they had to be put to sleep, she was often either there for it or the one doing it.
But she had a suspicion that things were about to change for her. The butt-ugly little thing she had in her hands was going to see to that. At least if her luck held up.
One of the main reasons that Kelly was in the office today was because Doctor Hastings was off at the Willingham place, looking over the birth of a foal bred for money and little else. The Willinghams wouldn’t let one of their thoroughbreds risk being born without a vet present, and they had enough money to make sure it worked out that way. Her main reason for being at work today was to make a little extra cash and tell people like the old toad out front that they would have to wait for a while, and please be patient. That was just fine and dandy. It worked very well indeed, because she was pretty sure Earl Van Dusen would pay a nice sum of money for the thing she was getting ready to put in a travel cage. Best of all, he’d pay for it dead or alive.
Earl was big, homely, and about as bright as a penny that sat in a sewer for two or so years, but he was also loaded and well-connected with all the right people. There was, for reasons she did not know or care about, an abundance of strange flora to be found in the area. Melmouth County, and most especially in the swampy regions near Beldam Woods, had provided over seventy-four different and unique forms of life over the years, and of the dozen or so found in the last decade, Earl Van Dusen could fairly be said to have discovered right around twelve. Earl made a living at that and at a few other things as well. Mostly Earl made a living doing whatever struck his fancy. Amateur Cryptozoology was only one of the feathers in his cap. Finding interesting specimens paid well, because he knew the right people at the University over in Rhode Island. One of his mushrooms had earned him enough scratch to buy his used car with cash. And that was just a mushroom. Imagine what a living animal might bring in. Especially, if she got the majority of the money and he got a ten percent fee for working as the go-between.
She set the animal down just as it started getting all squirmy. One of the long-fingered paws reached for her hair and she pulled back a bit. The thing rolled onto its back and craned its head around until it was looking at her. She took the time to really look back, studying it from the feet all the way to the crown of its head. First off, it almost looked a little like a monkey, but none she’d ever seen before. The proportions were about right though. It had band legs, long, articulated feet, and hips that allowed it to either move on all fours or stand upright with a little effort. The arms were longer than a human’s and would work about right for letting it move on all fours naturally. It had no tail, which was a bit weird as monkeys went, but that was okay, too. The weirder the better, in this case. The torso was powerfully wide. If this was a baby, she’d hate to meet an adult of whatever breed it was. At even close to the size of a human being, the thing would probably be as strong as a gorilla. Fortunately, it was more likely to be about as big as a five-year-old at its best size.
Kelly unwrapped a stick of chewing gum she pulled from her pocket and popped it into her mouth, savoring the cloying sweetness. She was pretty sure she’d remember if she’d ever seen anything like this before. At the very least it should be worth something for the lack of pigmentation.
The neck on the thing was too thin, lending her a little support to the idea that it was an infant. The head was large and obviously feral: the eyes were set forward and the nose was almost like an ape’s, barely more than folds of flesh around the nasal cavity, and the jaws were powerful and wide, holding a lot of teeth. Most likely it was a predator. Hell, one look at the thick claws told her it wasn’t exactly going around and picking berries.
She blew a bubble and let it pop on her face. “We’re gonna have a good time, you and me. I’m gonna put you in this case right over here, and we’re gonna go see my friend. You’ll like him.” She spoke in a singsong voice she normally saved only for the animals she’d be putting to sleep. In her mind it was a soothing sound. Damn near anyone who knew her could have told her otherwise and not lied.
She put the travel cage down next to her new moneymaker and made sure there was a little newspaper inside. When she finally picked the creature up it lolled its head to the side for a moment and then opened one of its closed eyes. The pupil was enormous and dark, like a lemur’s, and the iris was the strangest shade of gray. Kelly stared, fascinated, for almost half a minute.
And then the little monkey thing smiled at her. Not a nervous not-sure-if-you’re-going-to-eat-me smile, but a baring of teeth that showed her just how many fangs could be fit into a small body.
It made a sound like a dog coughing up something that went down the wrong way and then both of those thin, almost frail-looking arms whipped around and grabbed hold of Kelly’s lower jaw. One hand grasped her chin, the fingers hooking around and the nails she’d have sworn were meant for slicing into flesh did just that, burrowing into her skin and drawing back in a flash, leaving four trenches of raw meat and blood behind. Kelly opened her mouth to cry out, the pain sudden and fiery, and that was when the monster hooked talons deep into the soft inner flesh of her lower jaw, scraping past teeth and cutting in far enough to graze the bone.
Kelly started to scream, drew in a deep breath and prepared to bellow for all she was worth. That was when one of the short legs moved in and caught her throat. The toes clenched in hard, crushing off her voice before the shout started. Instead, Kelly let out a grunt and coughed softly, her face going red. The hand on her jaw squeezed harder, and she whimpered.
Her hands did not sit idly in her lap as the thing attacked. Quite the contrary; she retaliated, her fingers gripping the wide rib cage and scraping, clawing, pulling in an effort to make it let go. It barked again and slapped its other wide, dexterous foot against her shoulder, braced now against her left arm and her throat. Kelly grunted again and started striking it across its back, desperate to make it let go.
The bestial grin spread wider across the muzzle and it barked at her again before bracing with both feet and yanking back savagely on her jaw. Kelly’s head tried to lurch forward under the force, but the other hand pushed against her forehead, talons sinking into scalp for purchase and it yanked on her jaw a second time. Something hot exploded in the left side of Kelly’s face and she felt a wave of nausea wash through her body. She thought for sure she would be violently ill, but her body seemed to have different ideas. Her knees went weak and her vision grayed for a second. Kelly stumbled back and hit the edge of the seat where she normally filled out her paperwork. She and the chair both went over in a loud clatter of legs, flesh and wood. Her head slammed into the ground and she felt something in the back of her skull crunch in a way she knew was bad. But in comparison to the pain in her jaw, the dull ache in her head was nothing.
The thing on her neck and shoulder pushed her head toward the ground again and something started leaking warmth over the back of her neck where it touched the dingy yellow linoleum. Then that dry, cool hand in her mouth pulled harder still and she could actually see the muscles in the thing’s torso coil together before the last hot flash of pain sizzled through her mouth and the bones gave way. Her flesh ripped, the muscles stretched and snapped, and the skin peeled away from her face like an orange rind away from the fruit below.
Kelly was beyond screaming, her world fading away into darkness as the shock took over and drowned her in
a sea of blood and pain.
IV
Halloween was only days away, and Beldam Woods was shaping up nicely. There were decorations in the windows of every shop on the Strip, from DeLucci’s Pizza—the best pizza place in town, despite the claims of Romano’s Pizza and More a few blocks down—to Windwood’s Super Emporium, where every large window had a mannequin in a full costume display.
Ellen McCoy, the owner of the Emporium, loved Halloween, had since she was a little girl, and made it a point to put up elaborate displays for the pleasure of everyone who cared to celebrate. Those who felt they couldn’t be bothered or who took offense at the idea of a “heathen” celebration were more than welcome to kiss her ass. A few of the men in town would have gleefully taken her up on the offer, too, if she had been serious. Ellen was a little bombshell of energy with legs that went on forever, a body that was designed to invade men’s dreams, and a very heartfelt lesbian streak, according to most of the local men. She didn’t flaunt that last part, but if the rumors were true, she’d never really much cared for the male of the species. Whether or not she was really a lesbian was the subject of many discussions at the Ugly Mug Tavern, where a good portion of the farmers and most of the blue collar types could be found on any given weekend night. There was a lot of speculation and a few men there would, if they had been imbibing for long enough, tell stories of how Ellen had rejected their advances, but not a one of them could honestly lay claim to having known her in a biblical sense.
The Ugly Mug was done up for Halloween, too, though most of the decorations were of remarkably well-proportioned young ladies in revealing costumes and sporting mugs of cold draft beer. The slogan of the year for the local microbrewery—that happened to provide the ads—was IT’S OKAY TO PLAY. The patrons often agreed with that slogan more than was wise, but most of them walked home when it was all said and done. Those that drank too much and weren’t planning on walking normally had to call a cab. Perry Wallis, the owner of the establishment, normally made sure of it. Perry was a twenty-year veteran of the Marines, and while he wasn’t exactly the tallest man in town, he was most decidedly one of the broadest. Despite a gut that was growing into the heart attack range, he still had shoulders wide enough to make all but the most belligerent drunks hesitate before arguing with him. Those that did argue were invited to leave, normally with Perry’s boot bruising their backsides. He also took the liberty of calling the local police force before he actually escorted them to the door.
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