by Gina Ranalli
“Right,” he grumbled. “That.”
“Well, not to defend their actions, but it was getting dark and those things were everywhere. Sounds like they really didn’t have much of a choice.”
Collie glared at her. “You know if it had been us we would have gone back in and pulled her out! They didn’t because they don’t live here! We would have risked our lives for one of our own, but they don’t give a rat’s behind about anything other than keeping their dang secret!”
Casper didn’t reply. Instead, she took an intense interest in the parking lot beyond the glass doors and the depths of her coffee cup.
Opening his mouth to rage further, Collie abruptly shut it again when the power cut out, casting them into darkness for what seemed like a long time, but was probably less than thirty seconds before the emergency lights kicked on.
“What the devil?” he grumbled, looking around.
Casper sighed. “They said they wanted to cut the power to keep the town dark.”
“Yeah, that’s just great. So those things can have free reign and just go wherever they please.”
The deputy put a hand on his arm. “It’s for the safety of the town, Collie. Those things are attracted to light.”
“Well, I don’t like it!”
Both their radios crackled to life with Burke’s voice. “Sheriff Collie? Deputy Casper? Anyone out there?”
Collie made no move to reply, so Casper grabbed the mic attached to her shoulder. “We’re both here,” she told Burke.
“What’s your twenty?” Burke asked.
“We’re at the hospital. What’s up?”
“Something bad is going down over at the high school. Calling all units to head over, double time.”
Collie and Casper exchanged a glance, dread making Collie feel uneasy.
“Ten-four,” Casper said into the mic. To Collie she said, “You know, my mama raised me to always talk like a lady, but I gotta say, this sucks.”
“Remember what you asked me a minute ago? About it getting worse before it gets better? Get ready for worse.”
They both tossed their coffee cups in the nearest trash receptacle and left the hospital, making their way through the dark parking lot, both of them casting nervous glances skyward until they were safely in their squad car.
Further radio contact with Burke told them the details of what they were getting into were sketchy at best. All they knew for sure was that a crying teenage girl had dialed 911 and eventually told Burke she thought her friends were dead. When questioned about her location, she said that a “bunch” of them had been partying on the deserted football field, but something had attacked them and she had run for cover in the nearby woods, which was where she was calling from. Before he could get any more details, the line had gone dead.
“This is no good, guys.” Burke’s voice was on the verge of breaking. “No good at all.”
Both the sheriff and the deputy stared grimly ahead, glancing away from the road only to look at the glowing green clock on the dashboard. Much to their despair, it was not quite 9 p.m.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 29
Hogan stood in the hospital hallway, talking on his cell to Robert Druhan, the director of Project Azure House, while Swanson sat in a chair beside the bed that held the teenager.
The kid was pretty unhappy and in pain, but what he seemed most distressed about was the fact the doctor had to shave his head in order to stitch the long wound on top of it.
Jason lay on his side, sneaking glances at Swanson whenever he appeared to think she wasn’t looking at him. His back wound had also required stitches, and he was scheduled for surgery on his foot in the morning. He was trying to play tough, denying to his parents he’d fainted out in the woods, and Swanson let him tell them whatever he’d wanted to.
She also ignored the way he looked at her, as if he was trying to picture her naked, and just went on with her interview.
“Why didn’t you tell your parents about seeing the creature come out of the cocoon last night?”
Luckily, his parents had already left the hospital and wouldn’t hinder his honesty with her. At least, that’s what she was hoping.
“They would have just thought I was nuts. You know, the stoner kid having another baked fantasy.”
She nodded. “Marijuana is not known to cause hallucinations.”
“Tell that to the rednecks in this town. I may as well be smoking meth.”
“Swanson.” Hogan poked his head in the doorway. “A word.”
She excused herself and joined Hogan in the hall. “What’s up?”
“Druhan says everything is under control on their end. I guess they had some trouble with a video making it onto the Internet, but that’s been resolved. Easy peasy.”
Swanson looked up and down the dimmed hallway, making sure no one was within earshot. “So what’s our next move? Is he sending a team out to actually catch one of those things or are we supposed to go buy butterfly nets?”
Hogan shook his head. “That would be a negative. He wants to know where they came from first.”
Folding her arms across her chest, she said, “Well, yeah. That’s the ten-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?”
“Probably more like millions. Where is Dr. Quirk?”
“Down in the morgue with the dead one. I think she’s actually dissecting it.”
Hogan looked worried. “I hope she’s being careful.”
“Of course she is. It’s the medical examiner I’m concerned with.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Just a feeling. Like it might be hard to get her to cooperate.”
He shrugged. “When all is said and done, that’s Druhan’s job. Remember, we’re just here to get the answers about the creatures themselves.”
“We’re not doing a very good job of that, are we?”
He pushed his glasses up his nose. “We’re working on it. What did the kid say?”
“Not much. I have a feeling he’s about a minute from asking me to the prom.”
Hogan laughed. “Maybe I should talk to him.”
“Be my guest.” She gestured towards the room. “I need coffee. Want some?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Swanson smiled and wandered off down the hall while Hogan entered the hospital room.
When she found the coffee machine on the same floor, she discovered it wasn’t working due to the power being out. She wondered if there would be coffee at the nurse’s station, but then decided her best bet would be the cafeteria on the second floor. Heading for the nearest elevator, she heard a woman scream from one of the patient rooms.
Backpedaling, Swanson stopped in front of the room she knew housed the injured Officer Luke Clark. From the doorway, she saw him sitting up in his bed, a nearby nurse cradling her left hand against her chest.
The woman looked over at Swanson, tears just beginning to spill down her cheeks. “He . . . he broke my hand.”
Swanson stepped into the room, her face dark with concern as she looked from the nurse and back to Clark.
His face was destroyed, three wide gashes running diagonally from chin to jaw line had been stitched, but still it was obvious he would be horribly scarred for life unless he came across an extremely talented plastic surgeon. His left eye was covered with thick bandages and it was only when he reached up to pull these bandages off that Swanson saw the other bandages, blood-stained, scattered over the top of the bed and on the floor beside it. He had ripped them off, she figured, which explained why the wounds on his face were uncovered.
Swanson shot the nurse a questioning look, but the woman paid her no mind and quickly ran from the room, shouting for help.
Turning her attention back to the man in the bed, Swanson asked, “What are you doing, Officer Clark?”
He gave no indication he’d heard her and dug his fingers under the bandage over his eye, ripping it away.
What he exposed made Swanson
gasp in surprise and disgust and she took a step back from the bed.
His eye was no longer human.
It appeared to be made of something resembling glass—black and shiny—but lighter near the center where it faded to a dark gray. The flesh around the eye was an angry red and puckered as if it was drying out and pulling away from the eyeball itself.
Too shocked to do much of anything, Swanson could only stare as the man next busied himself with trying to open the gashes on his face, brutally picking and yanking at the thick black string of the stitches. Once he popped a few loose, he worked his fingers into the wound and began to pull it open, spilling fresh blood all over the bottom half of his face and chest.
Gathering all the breath she could into her lungs, Swanson shouted for a doctor to come quick. To Clark she said, “Sir, stop it!”
She was tempted to physically try restraining him from causing further damage to himself, but, that eye . . .
Instead, she drew her sidearm and pointed it at his head.
For some reason, this action caught his attention and though he continued to rip apart his face, he turned to look at her with his one remaining human eye. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead vomited a thick, clear mucus in her direction.
Had she been standing right beside the bed, the stuff would have hit her square in the face. Luckily, she was far enough across the room that it splattered near her feet without touching her.
She cursed as a doctor hurried in, brushing past her, rushing to the bedside. “Don’t!” she warned, but not quickly enough.
The same vile vomit spewed from Clark’s mouth once more, much of it catching the side of the doctor’s face.
The doctor paused, but only for a millisecond before attempting to restrain Clark.
From her position, Swanson saw the sheet covering the lower half of Clark’s body blooming red and black over his belly.
The stomach wound, she remembered.
The doctor screamed in pain as Clark gripped both his hands and snapped all the fingers at once.
A rapid succession of pops and snaps forced her to shout, “Step aside!” She had every intention of putting a bullet into Clark’s skull, but the doctor paid her no mind and in the next instant several doctors and nurses had flooded into the room, shouting orders and advice to one another.
The more people that came in and gathered around the bed, treating both Swanson and her gun as if they were all but invisible, she knew the trouble this town was in had just doubled.
Dashing back into the hall, she pulled her phone free from her pocket and dialed Hogan. When he answered, sounding cheerful enough, she flatly said, “We need to quarantine the hospital immediately. And, Hogan? Get out of that kid’s room right now.”
Chapter 30
Collie and Casper arrived at the high school seven minutes after receiving the call from Burke.
They ran towards the rear of the building to the football field, weapons drawn.
The field itself was the most expensive thing in all of Lockwood. It had cost a fortune and put the town in debt for several years, but it had paid for itself with the increased spirit of hometown pride it inspired when the team won state championship back in 1984, when Collie himself had been a linebacker and a senior in high school. It wasn’t the fanciest field ever laid, but it served its purpose and served it well.
Now, Casper led the way around the south-side bleachers and towards the middle of the field itself. It wasn’t too dark to see, but the officers pulled flashlights from their belts nevertheless, casting the beams towards the center of the field.
At first, it was impossible to say for sure what they were seeing. Mounds of clothes, maybe. But as they moved closer, it was painfully clear they were approaching four—no, five—bodies.
Casper put the back of the hand that held the flashlight to her mouth, suppressing a gag.
The bodies were in pieces.
Shredded flesh, clothes, and pieces of bone and scalp were strewn from one side of the field to the other, all across the fifty-yard line.
Only careful study could tell the boys from the girls and neither officer felt inclined to look that closely at the moment.
The officers stood still, only daring to look at the carnage with swift, sideways glances. Collie turned away and vomited up the small amount of coffee he’d consumed and Casper nearly joined him. The only thing that kept her from doing so was the knowledge of the girl in the woods, probably just opposite from where they currently stood. Perhaps she was even watching them at this moment.
She took a moment to steady her breathing, and by the time Collie had risen back to his full height, wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve, she began to march across the field, putting the slaughter behind her.
“Casper!” Collie hissed. “Stop!”
Refusing to even acknowledge him, she kept going and would have stomped her way right into the forest had he not caught up with her and touched her shoulder.
Finally, she ceased her forward march and looked at him from under the brim of her hat. “We didn’t sign up for this, Collie,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Neither did those kids or anyone else in this town.”
He gave her a bewildered look for a moment before replying. “You walking straight into Death’s jaws isn’t gonna help anyone right now, Deputy.”
“There’s a girl in there!” she cried. “A child! What if it was ours?”
Even in the dark, Collie visibly blanched. He stared at her and finally licked his lips. “We’re not talking about that, Jill. We swore we never would.”
“You swore, you mean,” she said bitterly, knowing now was definitely not the time or the place, but she was upset, dammit. Why couldn’t he just let her be upset?
“Help!”
They both looked across the field at the shadowy figure emerging from the forest, an incredibly small shape in the night, running towards them for all she was worth.
“Help!” the girl screamed, long blonde hair streaming out behind her. “Help me, please!”
Again, it was Casper who moved first, but Collie didn’t have to stop her this time.
The dark swarm bursting from the woods stopped her, darker than the girl, darker than the night sky. There must have been two dozen of the creatures swooping low, aiming for the girl as she ran towards her would-be rescuers.
“RUN!” Casper screamed. “COME ON! RUN!”
But it was useless. There was no more running in that girl’s future as the mothmen plummeted from the air, slashing with their talons, splashing red in the dimness.
So much red.
The girl fell and didn’t get up, but Casper’s own shouting had been noticed by the creatures and what seemed to be a wall of shadows was now rolling towards her and Collie.
Casper dropped her flashlight and took her own advice, knowing bullets would be virtually useless against so many of them. They’d never be able to shoot them all and if they tried, they’d be dead.
Right on her heels, Collie panted, “Go, go, go!”
They made it to the bleachers and took cover, peering out from between the benches.
Casper gasped when she saw several of the things land gracefully on their feet and start to run towards her and Collie’s hiding place.
It was a nightmarishly surreal sight and she whispered, “Oh crap!”
Collie extinguished his flashlight and tossed it aside. Grabbing her arm, he said, “We have to get to the car.”
“We don’t have time. They’re nearly on us!”
“Go! I’ll cover you.”
“Like hell.”
They looked into each other’s eyes, both as stubborn as nails, and then she nodded, relenting. They raced out from beneath the bleachers and made for the front of the school.
Silently, their pursuers closed the distance. They moved like ghosts like phantoms, and Casper knew she couldn’t die this way. She pumped her legs for all she was worth; her hat flew from her head and she felt a whoosh of air
ruffle her hair and cool her sweaty scalp. A few strides in front of her, Collie ran, ducking instinctively as one of them passed over him, swiping down with its curved, deadly talon, missing his hat by inches.
Thankfully, they had left the cruiser doors open and Collie raced around and dove inside just as Casper did her own diving. Their skulls cracked together, dull pain with a surface sting, and then they were up and struggling to slam the doors.
One of the creatures landed on the hood, its weight barely registering with the cops inside, and peered through the windshield at them, its shining orange eyes bright and blazing as it tilted its head with curiosity.
The officers sat staring back, breathing hard, shocked they’d made it at all, but still just as fascinated with the creature as it was with them.
A thin arm slashed forward and the talon, perhaps the heaviest part of the creature, stared through the windshield inches from Casper’s nose.
More creatures joined their brethren, landing on the hood, roof and trunk, surrounding the cruiser on the ground.
“Drive,” Collie said, sounding oddly calm.
He didn’t have to tell her twice. Casper threw the still-running cruiser into reverse, slamming several of the creatures as she did so. The ones on the car simply took flight, hardly losing their balance at all.
The cruiser plowed into two more of the things, exploding pieces of them into dust that settled on the hood and blew up against the windshield.
“Where to?” Casper asked, turning the wipers on. They smeared the dust across the glass, but thankfully did a good enough job that she could still see.
Collie took a long time to say anything and when he did, it wasn’t an answer at all, but a prayer. “God help us all.” he whispered.
Chapter 31
Laying in his hospital bed, Dan Helpen dozed off and on in a drugged haze, but when the screaming began he came fully awake with a start, disoriented for a moment, dimly aware his hand hurt.
“Bruiser?” he mumbled, trying to sit up.
Blinking, he saw where he was and remembered everything. He held up his hand. It was so thickly wrapped with bandages that anything could have been wrong with it. It could have been reduced to a bloody stump for all he knew.