by Gina Ranalli
“She’ll probably die anyway,” Hogan replied without looking at her. “And even if she doesn’t, would you want to live in her condition?”
At that moment, for the first time since being partnered with him, she had an almost uncontrollable urge to hit him. She got to her feet, enraged, and hissed, “Who are you to make that call, huh? This woman needs our help now. I’m calling for an ambulance.” She began to holster her weapon, but Hogan’s hand shot out, grabbing her wrist hard.
“No,” he said.
She tried to pull free, but his grip was firm.
“Look up,” he said softly.
Swanson did.
Some of the cocoons above them began to sway slightly, almost as if caught in a gentle breeze, but, as far as she could tell, there was no breeze at the moment.
As the agents gazed upwards, one of the cocoons began to tear open, then another and another.
“Oh, crap,” Swanson whispered.
“Let’s go,” Hogan said, his eyes still on the cocoons.
“We can’t leave her!” she insisted.
“We have to! Unless you want to end up just like her.”
In the forest, the shadows grew longer. Night was coming soon and with it, a brand new kind of Hell.
Chapter 26
Using the edge of the shovel, Dan slowly, carefully, tried to pry the cocoon from the underside of his workbench.
It was more firmly attached than he’d expected, almost as if it was glued there.
Sweating profusely, he did his best to keep a firm grip on the spade’s long handle, slipping the blade between the wood and the cocoon, easing it between the two, inch by measured inch.
Behind him, Bruiser continued to growl at the top of the stairs, forcing him to stop what he was doing every so often to shush the dog. The last thing he wanted was to wake up the thing inside the cocoon. His memories of the previous night still haunted him and if it hadn’t been for that visit from the FBI earlier, he might have assumed the entire event was just a bad dream.
He wished he could convince himself it had been, but if he had any doubt, the proof was right here, right now, in his very own basement, demanding to be dealt with.
The thing in the cocoon shifted, causing him to let out a squeak of surprise and leap back from the bench.
He stood, perspiration trickling into his eyes, causing him to blink his stinging eyes, not daring to let go of the spade with either hand.
He waited to see what the cocoon would do, but after several minutes of stillness, he realized it was probably done shifting for the moment.
At least now he knew the thing was very much alive.
“Not for long,” he muttered and resumed trying to pry it free.
It took him over an hour, with several starts and stops, before the thing fell loose from its mooring and landed on the concrete floor beneath the bench.
Again, Dan froze, waiting to see what, if anything, would happen.
There was more shifting from within, but the creature remained utterly silent.
Dan said a prayer as he waited for it to stop moving once more. He had no idea what was about to happen, but he was pretty sure it would be messy. He briefly entertained the idea of trying to take the thing outside, maybe lift it with the shovel and place it in his wheelbarrow, then pulling the wheelbarrow out through the basement door—but then what?
He still needed to kill the thing and, what if while outside, the thing managed to escape? He couldn’t risk it. Even if it meant getting hurt himself, he didn’t want that thing flying around Lockwood and attacking anyone who happened to cross its path. The unlucky person could potentially be a child and then how would he feel?
Like absolute crap.
With fresh resolve, Dan used the shovel to carefully pull the cocoon out from under the workbench. Due to more shifting from within, this took an additional half hour, but when it was finally free and sitting in the middle of the basement floor, Dan wasted no time.
He raised the shovel over his head and brought it down with all his might, smashing it into the cocoon.
Something crunched and he smashed it again and again. The monster within began to thrash around, the sides of the cocoon bulging until they split, revealing what was inside with horrifying clarity.
The creature looked up at him from a grotesque face, its eyes round balls of reflective burnt-orange, its limbs bent and twisted at awkward angles.
Dan froze, both terrified and fascinated, the shovel raised to shoulder height, just waiting for the next blow to fall.
He backed up as the thing struggled to free itself from its self-imposed womb. It crawled on broken arms that looked more like thin insect legs than anything else. It got the upper half of its torso free and then its wings unfurled, impossibly huge.
Dan realized the wings must not have anything resembling bone running through them, snapping him from his trance. He aimed for the things head with the underside of the spade. Another crunch caused his stomach to lurch, but he pounded the monster repeatedly, completely unaware tears were now mingling with the sweat on his cheeks.
He never willingly killed anything in his life and here he was killing something in his own house, bludgeoning it to death before it even had a chance to be properly born. The mere idea made him sick, and when the skull finally caved in, he dropped the shovel and fell back, landing in a seated position on the bottom step.
He was exhausted and dazed, staring with awe at the dead creature. There was no telling how long he would have remained in that position until something soft and wet touched his neck.
Dan jumped in surprise, then chuckled with relief to see Bruiser’s big brown eyes so close to his own.
Bruiser started to go down the last step, but he grabbed the dog’s collar and gave him a firm “No!” He pet the dog once, then commanded him to go back upstairs. Bruiser looked at his master as though heartbroken, but did as he was told.
Dan remained seated, eying the corpse with trepidation. What should he do now? Bury it? Call the sheriff? He wondered if he’d get in trouble for killing it and then thought better of it. Even those annoying feds certainly couldn’t blame him for his actions.
He never thought he’d be in a position that had him wondering how to dispose of a body.
Wiping his brow with the back of his hand, he decided the best and first course of action would be to get the thing outside. That would give him time to consider his options at the very least.
He had to search the basement for another tarp to wrap the body in, but he finally located one, much older than the first he’d carried upstairs earlier. He spread it on the floor near the corpse and again used the spade to push and roll the body onto it. He spread it on the floor near the corpse and again used the spade to push and roll the body onto it.
That done, he carefully wrapped the thing up as best he could, making a mental note not to come into direct contact with it.
Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Although he didn’t touch the body itself, his hand touched part of the tarp where the body had laid moments previous, coming away a dusty black.
He paid it no mind until a couple minutes later when a searing pain burned into the pads of three fingers of his right hand and he bellowed in agony, looking down at his fingers in shock.
They bubbled black and red as his eyes widened in horror. He looked at the tarp and saw his own fingerprints pressed into the black dust that had accumulated in one particular spot.
Grabbing his wrist with his hand, he raced up the stairs to the kitchen, his first thought being he needed to wash the fingers immediately.
At the sink he turned on the faucet and thrust his burning, bubbling fingers beneath it.
It was like reaching into a roaring fire and he screamed loud enough to alert the neighbors, who seemed to be at the front door in no time, banging and banging, and finally let themselves in to find him curled on his kitchen floor, cradling his hand to his chest, shivering in pain and shock.
The first joints of his fingers were all but gone, melted away, and the last thing he said to his rescuers before losing consciousness was, “Don’t let Bruiser go into the basement.”
Chapter 27
Jason swung the bat with all his might.
It connected with one of the creatures’ torsos with a thin cracking sound. The thing fell out of the air to land at his feet and lay there squirming, clawing at the ground with two curved, black talons.
Attempting to back up, Jason was too slow and one of the talons sank into the top of his right foot, tearing through his sneaker as if it wasn’t even there.
He howled, trying to pull his foot free, while another of the creatures swooped down out of the treetops, a flying shadow that slashed at his head, leaving a gash across the top of it before darting away again. Blood immediately began to run down the all sides of his head and dripped into his eyes. He smeared it away and wildly swung the bat, too terrified to take any kind of proper aim. He screamed and cried, certain his own death was imminent. The claw still imbedded in his foot, he attempted to flee, dragging the creature along as he tried to move backwards. The lightness of the creature was astonishing—it was like dragging a kitten attached to one’s pants cuff and required very little effort.
The creature that had slashed his head came back for another attack. Jason covered his head with his free arm and tried ducking out of the way, but again the thing was able to gouge him, this time across his back, shredding his T-shirt and raking what felt like a foot-long gash through his skin.
By the time Jason whirled to face his attacker, it was already gone again and the boy marveled at how fast these things were. Fast and black. Quickly, he wiped more blood from his eyes and began to panic, wondering how severe the gash in his head really was.
A third creature, then a fourth appeared out of nowhere and zipped around trees about a hundred feet above him. Biting back another scream, Jason turned his attention to the one attached to his foot, bashing it again and again as fast as he could until it stopped moving. The thing almost seemed to turn to powder under the assault of the weapon. When he was convinced it was dead, he knelt down, intending to pry the claw loose from his foot and free himself from the nightmarish ball and chain. As soon as he stooped, what sounded like an explosion made him fall backwards, landing on his butt. One of the creatures fell out of the sky, crashing into the ground with a puff of dust before quickly recovering and flying off to the northwest.
Turning to look after it, Jason saw two people—a man and a woman—running in his direction through the woods. They each held guns, aimed high, and the woman made an odd motion with her hand.
Jason watched them approach, bewildered and certain he must be hallucinating. Then it dawned on him what the woman was trying to say: stay down.
The explosion had been a gunshot. Whoever these people were, they had shot at the creature nearest him and from the looks of things, were about to get their own taste of those vicious talons.
Two of the monsters plunged out of the air, diving towards the people. Both the man and woman stopped, took careful aim, and fired. The gunshots didn’t sound as loud and scary this time, probably because he now knew what the explosion was and that it meant he was being rescued.
It didn’t make him feel much better, however, when he saw—actually saw—a hole suddenly appear in the body of one of the creatures and it failed to have any impact on its flight pattern.
Bullets didn’t affect it, then? But a baseball bat did?
It made no sense and Jason was more certain than ever he was in some dreamland comprised of various comic books he’d read.
He wanted to shout at the adults, but he was too terrified. He sat on the ground, knees drawn up to his chest, bleeding profusely from several different places. Releasing the bat, he curled his arms around his legs and buried his face in his forearms. As childish as he knew it was, maybe if he remained very still and quiet, the things would go away?
There were more pops from the strangers’ weapons, but oddly, he heard no voices. He expected shouting, cries of pain, but there was nothing and he didn’t dare look up.
An unknowable amount of time passed and then someone was shaking him.
Thank God, he thought. It really was just a bad dream.
He opened his eyes, expecting to see his mom and his bedroom. What he saw instead through the drops of blood leaking into his eyes was a pretty woman with dark hair and a backdrop of tree boughs. He was lying on the forest floor.
“Can you move?” the woman whispered.
“Wha . . .?” Jason tried to sit up, but she pressed him back with a hand against his chest.
“You’re bleeding pretty bad,” she said. “Is anything broken?”
“I . . .” He blinked at her. Wow. She was so pretty. “I . . . don’t think so.”
Suddenly a man with glasses knelt on his other side, looking him over with concern.
“Think you can walk?” the woman asked.
“Yeah,” Jason replied, though he wasn’t sure at all. All he knew for certain was that he wanted to do whatever this woman asked of him.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get you up. But I need you to be as quiet as possible. Can you do that for me?”
Jason nodded and let the woman help him into a seated position. Looking around, he saw strange forms on the ground near and far. Then it all came back to him. “What happened?” he asked her.
“You passed out,” she said quietly as she stood and bent to help him up. Both she and the man grabbed him beneath the arms and gently pulled him to his feet. “How you doing?”
He mentally took a status of his various pains before saying, “Okay, I guess. I hurt though.” The adrenaline, he supposed, was probably masking most of the pain and he wasn’t looking forward to when it wore off.
“We’ll get you out of here,” the man finally spoke. “The sooner the better.”
They began to walk, Jason held between them, limping. He looked down at his foot and gasped when he saw the talon still imbedded in the top of his sneaker.
“It’s fine,” the woman said quickly though, it seemed, as if she didn’t believe that statement herself. “We think it’s best if we leave it in until we get you to a hospital.”
“Why?” Jason asked, thoroughly confused now.
“Just a precaution.”
“Who are you people?”
It was the man who answered. “We’re federal agents. I’m Hogan, that’s Swanson. Now, can we please cut the chitchat until we’re out of these woods?”
Jason nodded. None of them spoke again until they were all safely in the car, but even then, he lost the urge to speak and even the pretty woman in the passenger seat wasn’t enough to keep him upright and awake. He lay on his side in the backseat, trembling, simply too exhausted and traumatized to stay awake another minute.
Chapter 28
As darkness fell over Lockwood, pieces of the night broke free of their anchors and swooped high and low, blocking out the stars for the length of a single breath before fluttering to the nearest lamp or flame, circling over and over until something distracted them, usually a loud sound of some kind.
Any kind.
The citizens of the town, cut off from the rest of the world, mostly heeded the sheriff’s curfew and whispered among themselves. The majority of them had no idea what happened the previous night, and they had even less of an idea of what would happen this night.
Rumors fluttered about, everything from a chemical spill to a serial killer on the loose to an outbreak of plague, and in a way, all those things could be said to be true.
Steven Collie thought about all of this as he stood just inside the hospital at the emergency entrance, gazing out at the parking lot with his hand on the butt of his pistol.
A little while earlier, he ran into Agents Hogan and Swanson, who had quite a tale to tell. Dozens, they said. Dozens of cocoons in the forest not so very far from where the sheriff stood at this moment
.
He was beyond exhausted, as he knew his entire department was. He suggested to the agents that perhaps they should call in another force—the army, he thought, would have done nicely.
But, they had refused, as he’d suspected they would. His town was under siege and all they cared about was their cover-up. He supposed if it came down to it, they would be content to raze Lockwood, if that’s what it took to keep their secret.
And it was the secret itself that Collie pondered now. Why was it so important to keep the knowledge of the moth creatures to themselves? He was becoming more and more suspicious of the agents and Project Azure House in general.
Did the government have something to do with the creation of the mothmen? Were they some bio-weapon gone wrong, escaped from a lab somewhere? He could think of so many different scenarios and explanations . . .
“Here.”
Jill Casper came up beside him and offered him a cup of coffee, which he accepted with a wan smile. She stood beside him, her own cup in hand, and looked out at the night. She said, “This is going to get worse before it gets better, isn’t it?”
Collie pushed his hat back on his forehead and sipped the bitter coffee. “Yes, ma’am. I think so.”
“We can’t listen to those agents anymore, Collie. This is our town. We’re the law here. People listen to us, they respect the badge. What’s going to happen when they find out the truth?”
“What truth? That we burned down a barn that had been in an old man’s family for generations? That we basically threatened to send him to prison for the rest of his natural life if he ever breathed a word of it to anyone?”
“Yeah,” she answered dryly. “That’s part of it.”
“Or maybe you meant the part where folks keep getting hauled in here with parts of their bodies melted away? Or that the agents came across someone in the woods, alive but mutilated, and just left her there because . . .” He trailed off, not wanting to continue.
“She was sure to die anyway,” Casper finished for him. “And they had to rescue the Tremblay kid.”