by Gina Ranalli
“More like stubborn.”
“Semantics. Now, do you want to accompany me or not?”
He sighed, big and dramatic. “I’ll go get the flashlights.” Smiling, Regan began to load the camera equipment into her little Honda, feeling more excited than she could have ever expressed with words.
Chapter 12
The three officers stood on the front lawn of the Sender’s house watching as the unconscious woman was loaded into the back of an ambulance. An M.E. was also on the scene, examining Roger Sender’s body up in the attic. A small crowd of neighbors had gathered on the other side of the street, whispering among themselves and watching the goings on as if they were at a county fair. Whenever one of them tried to approach the Sender house, Clark politely requested they keep their distance.
“But what happened?” a middle-aged woman wanted to know. “Someone said Mr. Sender is dead.”
Clark replied, “Please, ma’am, just go back across the street and give the E.M.T.s room to work.”
The woman pointed to the M.E.’s vehicle. “That’s what they take dead bodies away in.”
“I heard it!” an elderly woman announced with authority. “I heard the shot and I saw the man who did it, too. Ran right off towards the woods just a minute or two after the shot. Skinny SOB, too. Never did see anyone that skinny before.”
“He was murdered?” the first woman exclaimed. “Officer, if that’s the truth, you are obligated to tell us exactly what happened! This is our neighborhood. We have a right to know if we’re in any danger!”
Casper joined Clark near the front of the lawn and told the women, “Both of you, back to the other side of the street right now. Next time, we won’t ask so nicely.”
Both women gave Casper disgusted looks and the younger one seemed on the verge of arguing, but in the end she must have decided it was best not to, and instead did as she was told.
When they were back across the street, Clark said, “Thanks, Jill.”
“No problem. You’re just too nice. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.”
Behind them, the ambulance’s siren began to wail again and the two officers turned to watch it depart.
From out of nowhere, a large shape darted down from the sky towards the emergency vehicle, landing with a loud thump on its roof.
Someone screamed.
In a blur of motion, both Casper and Clark had their weapons drawn as the ambulance swerved wildly into the street, the driver obviously startled.
The thing on the ambulance roof kept its balance and proceeded to smash the red and blue lights on the ambulance’s roof, all without making a sound itself.
Collie came racing forward, pointing his 9mm towards the creature while holding up his free hand in a halt gesture at the ambulance. “Stop!” he shouted.
The ambulance slammed on its breaks and the creature flew forward, skidding across the roof and over the front of the vehicle. It should have gone crashing to the street, but at the last instant, the enormous black wings unfurled, flapped swiftly and the creature was airborne once more.
The ambulance siren continued to screech in the night, drowning out the cries of surprise coming from the spectators across the street.
The thing dove at the ambulance again and, as if they were all of one hive mind, all three officers opened fire on it.
The way the thing was moving, swirling up and down in a wild pattern, hitting the target was nearly impossible, but suddenly the creature turned its attention to the officers, its ethereal glowing eyes fixing on them, seeming to forget about the ambulance, at least for a moment.
With a few beats of its wings, it shot straight up into the sky, circled back and dove down at the cops as if it was some bizarre Lovecraftian homing pigeon.
The cops stood their ground, their target growing larger by the second. It was difficult—if not impossible—to tell which one of them hit the thin torso square in the chest, but one of them did.
The creature faltered in its advance, but only briefly and though it could have been a trick of the light or some sort of optical illusion, Clark could have sworn he saw a puff of dust emerge from the gunshot wound, but then he was blinking and firing once more.
The creature took another hit and still another before it reached its target, which was Clark himself.
Still in the air, the shadow figure swiped at Clark’s face with spindly arms, raking a deep gouge into one cheek and across his nose and lips before ripping into the opposite cheek.
Clark screamed in agony, dropping his weapon to clutch at his face, which was spurting blood from what felt like a mass of fleshy ribbons.
He fell to his knees, felt a piercing pain in his abdomen and a new warmth spreading over his belly.
After collapsing sideways on the lawn, he could hear that somewhere far away people were screaming, and there was an almost deafening series of pops much too close for comfort.
And a siren, maybe.
Chapter 13
The phone lines were going crazy at the station. Call after call of reported sightings of everything from cat burglars to aliens to monsters and demons were flooding the office to the point where Burke was almost ready to throw his hands in the air and walk out.
It was pure insanity, but he had to admit that something was sure going on in Lockwood tonight. People were being woken up by thudding sounds on their roofs and for the night owls, maybe standing on the porches catching a quick smoke . . . well, their calls were what was really giving Burke the willies now.
Reports of dark, human-like shadows, moving silently across lawns and down streets, occasionally taking to the sky and fluttering around street lamps before disappearing as if they’d never been there.
Burke was ready for a smoke of his own, and the heck with the calls for a minute or two. They could wait. It wasn’t like anything urgent was happening. Just weirdness.
He stood up and stretched, paying no mind to the flashing lights on the phone. He tapped a cigarette from a pack on his desk and was heading for the exit just for a minute, enough for a couple drags and then he’d be back to listen to the creepy stories coming in. Instead, his radio crackled.
“We think it was the sirens,” Sheriff Collie reported, sounding more distressed than Burke had ever heard him. “The thing went after the ambulance once it turned on its sirens and once we started shooting at it, it made a beeline for us. Bugger moved fast, too. We could barely get a line on it and even after it took a few blasts it kept coming. Got to Clark first and nearly ripped his face clean off before shoving its . . . I don’t know . . . claws, I guess, right into the kid’s guts.” Collie swore up a storm then as a chill raced along Burke’s spine. When Collie was done with his tirade, he informed Burke that Casper had gone with Clark to the hospital and he was staying at the scene for a little while longer. “I need to check with the M.E., see what she thinks about this dead SOB on the grass. Probably go back to the morgue with her.”
Finally, Burke was able to speak and informed the sheriff of all the calls that were coming in. “Sounds like pandemonium out there, Sheriff, if what all these folks are saying is true.”
“Well, we got it—pumped it full of lead—so the calls should stop coming in for a while.”
“What should I tell them, then?”
“Don’t say anything just yet. We need to know what this thing is before we make any official announcements. Just keep assuring the people that we’re on it and everything will be fine.”
Burke hesitated before asking, “Will everything be fine, Sheriff?” He felt like a child, looking at his daddy for reassurance that the boogey man wasn’t real, but he couldn’t help himself.
“I hope so. Just sit tight over there and pray for Clark. I’ll be in touch soon.”
The sheriff signed off and left Burke feeling dazed. He eyed the lights still blinking on the phones, the sound of the ringing just white background noise for him now. It was real, then. The people he worked with and respected had seen one of the creatures for
themselves.
Poor Clark. Twenty-five years old, thinking he’d have a nice cushy career in some backwoods hole-in-the-wall town, safe from the dangers of big city criminals and now look at him: ripped to shreds by some freak of nature.
Burke decided he needed to put it out of his mind and skipped the cigarette he’d been about to smoke. Instead, he went back to his desk to man the phone lines again.
Just do your job, man, he told himself. Stay focused on the work.
But doing so didn’t ease his mind as much as he’d hoped, since so many townsfolk kept telling him spooky stories. And, despite what the sheriff had said, the calls weren’t tapering off either and the worst one of all came in as it was nearing 4 a.m.
The owner of the Smokey Hill Diner had been getting ready for work, as the diner opened at the crack of dawn and did some of its best business early in the morning. He reported that nothing had seemed out of the ordinary at all until he went out to his car. Just out of habit, he’d looked up at the sky, checking for rain clouds or ribbons of indigo on the eastern horizon, whichever happened to be there. But, it wasn’t the sky he’d noticed. It was what was in the sky that had scared him enough to go back inside and place a call to the sheriff’s office.
It hadn’t been just a winged man-sized creature swooping around in tight circles and forming figure eights.
It had been three of them.
Chapter 14
Getting the creature on the stretcher proved to be more problematic than one would have imagined.
The M.E. stood over the body, watching as two E.M.T.s tried to lift the thing by its limbs and place it on the stretcher, only to have most of the creature disintegrate at their touch.
The thing just fell apart, leaving the emergency worker’s gloves covered in a fine black dust.
Sheriff Collie stood by, remembering the dust on the window sill in the Sender’s attic.
The E.M.T.’s looked up with worried expressions, questioning the medical examiner with their eyes.
She bent over the corpse, a frown creasing her brow. “It looks like there’s a skeleton under whatever this skin layer is. Very fragile by the looks of it. Almost as if it were made of . . . twigs or something similar.”
The sheriff took a step back. He was exhausted and a quick phone call to his wife had not yielded the best results. She was like an angry grizzly waiting to bite his head off the moment he stepped through the front door.
Simmons and Brown were now on the scene as well, managing the ever-growing crowd, which now included some local reporters, something Collie knew was a sure sign of misery to come. He had no way of knowing who had tipped off the press, but if he ever found out, he would almost surely go out of his way to ring said person’s neck.
Tangling with the media was the last thing they needed right now and he was about one hair away from ordering Simmons and Brown to start arresting people who stepped off the curb on the opposite side of the street. And now this damn monster was basically dissolving in front of them. What the devil was going on? He wasn’t even sure he knew anymore.
After a few attempts, the E.M.T.s were able to get the creature—or, more accurately, what was left of the creature—into the back of the M.E. meat wagon and, finally, this nightmare circus began to break up.
He gave orders for everyone to go home unless they wanted to be locked up, but it was pretty much an empty threat and the crowd knew it. They could stand on the sidewalk forever, if that’s what they wanted to do.
He told Brown and Simmons to hang out until enough of the spectators moved on, while he got into his cruiser and headed straight for the M.E.’s office.
Part of him had absolutely no desire to find out what that bizarre mistake-of-nature really was but, of course he couldn’t stick his head in the sand and ignore it. There would be reports to write, questions to answer, and now, apparently, reporters and photographers to deal with. The whole thing gave him a headache and his whole body ached with exhaustion. If only he could take a quick nap. He was certain just a little rest would clear his head and he’d be able to regain his composure and control of this whole mess.
He walked into the morgue and was in the process of pushing open the correct autopsy room door when Burke contacted him yet again via radio.
Collie listened, his heart sinking further into his belly with every passing second. When Burke had relayed that a resident was now claiming to have seen multiple creatures at the same time, the sheriff was stunned into silence for a moment, hoping against hope the caller had been exaggerating for attention or making the whole thing up entirely.
But Collie didn’t believe it. What he did believe was that things were going from bad to worse in a matter of hours. He swore, was tempted to slug a nearby wall, but bit back his frustration and told Burke to call in the part-timers.
“Sure thing, boss,” Burke replied. “Which ones?”
“All of them,” Collie answered and signed off, pushing his way into the autopsy room where the M.E., Andrea Thibault, was already working on the corpse.
“What do you got for me, Doc?” Collie asked, looking with distaste at the thing on the table.
“Not much yet,” she said through a cloth face mask, “but since we don’t know what we’re dealing with you should either put on a mask or back up a couple steps.”
Collie chuckled. “Don’t mind if I do both.”
Doctor Thibault peered through her safety glasses and examined the outer layer of the thing. As Collie watched her work, as was usually the case when he encountered the doctor, he almost regretted being a married man. She was a real looker and sharp as a whip, with a sense of humor to boot. But her humor was nowhere in evidence today. Her voice was muffled when she said, “This thing seems . . . I don’t . . .”
“Please don’t say ‘alien.’”
She shook her head. “Probably not extraterrestrial, but who can be sure, right?”
Collie grumbled his displeasure at her remark and she continued: “My first instinct is that it’s more insect than human.”
“What? How can that be?”
“No idea. I’ve never seen anything like it and I’m willing to bet not many people have, if any at all.”
Groaning, Collie said, “What are you telling me here, Doc? We have a whole new breed of monster bug that decided to make its home in Lockwood?”
“Maybe,” she said, “but what I’m really saying is that this is beyond my expertise. We need to contact someone who deals with this sort of situation.”
“There are people who ‘deal with this situation’? You gotta be kidding me. Who? The Ghostbusters?”
“I’m going to finish my preliminary exam and then I’m going to need to make a few phone calls.”
Taking off his hat and scratching the top of his head, Collie sighed. “What about Mr. Sender?”
“Haven’t gotten to him yet, and at this point, I probably won’t. I’m going to ask Dr. Miller to perform his autopsy, if that’s okay with you?”
“Yeah,” he said, putting his hat back on. “Fine by me. Let me know what you turn up, okay?”
“You bet.”
Collie left the autopsy room and decided he desperately needed a cup of coffee. He knew there was a machine around here somewhere, but he couldn’t remember what floor it was on. An orderly passed by and he stopped him, asking where the coffee machine was.
The young man smiled at him and said, “Just around that corner, Officer,” before continuing on his way, entering the autopsy room Collie had just left.
Collie found the machine and fed it his money. What came out was basically black sludge, but it was hot and he was grateful for it, downing the whole thing in three gulps. He was debating on getting another cup when the screams began.
He dropped the empty cup and raced back in the direction he’d come from.
The screams were male and coming from Thibault’s room. Collie burst through the door to see the friendly orderly holding his right hand around his left wr
ist, screaming in agony. The left hand was black and bubbling noxious fluids, the smell so strong Collie felt bile burning at the back of his throat. Thibault was already in action, trying to drag the man to the sink as she turned on the faucet.
“What happened?” Collie shouted.
She shook her head. “He wasn’t wearing gloves and he touched the table while I was entering something into the computer.”
“He touched the table?” Collie asked, incredulous.
“The dust,” Thibault yelled. “I think he touched the dust with his bare hand. Please, Steven, get help!”
Collie nodded and ran from the room, his headache now officially a migraine.
Ten minutes later, the barely conscious orderly was on his way to the ER, leaving both Dr. Thibault and Sheriff Collie feeling shell shocked.
Still in the room with the dead creature, both eyed it warily. Finally, Collie said, “I just don’t get it. Nothing like that happened to anyone else.”
“You mean me, specifically, don’t you?”
“Well . . . yeah. You touched it, too.”
She shook her head. “Not directly.” She held up both hands; she wore latex gloves.
“But, that can’t be much protection. You saw that kid’s hand. Anything that can do that to human skin would be able to eat through thin latex.”
The doctor frowned in apparent concentration. “Maybe not. I mean, you’d think that, but it didn’t happen. So, it was either something specific to that guy or . . .”
“Or what?”
“Or maybe that dust only attacks living tissue.”
Collie gave her a disbelieving look. “You can’t be serious.”
She shrugged. “It’s a theory, and one that could be easily tested. It would be an absolutely phenomenal defense mechanism and not completely unheard of in nature. There are plenty of examples in plant life of certain species harming whatever comes into contact with them.”
He gestured at the corpse. “But this isn’t a plant! This is . . . I don’t know.”