The video slowed to the image of the lobby elevators in slow motion. Nick moved closer to the monitor as a blurred image emerged from the far-right elevator.
“Look familiar?” Lynn asked curtly.
He nodded.
“The tape has all ready been enhanced to the max, and this is the best we can get.”
Nick recognized the hazy gray outline behind the blur. “A bulky, cowled robe,” he whispered. In his excitement, Nick momentarily forgot about Lynn’s possible treachery and escaping this facility. Years of frustration drained from him like the shedding of ponderous weights. He had to hand it to Lynn – she had triumphed where he had failed. He came in second again. “Good work, Lynn. Really fantastic detective work. I can’t believe I overlooked the security tape angle.”
She reveled in his embarrassment. “Me neither. I read your report and it just clicked.”
He stopped. The smile flattened. “How did you get this tape?” he asked, once again suspicious. “The murder case is over ten years old, and hotels seldom keep old security tapes.”
Her head snapped up. “God, you’re still a cynical bastard! If you must know, I tracked it down at the San Francisco police department. Seems you FBI folks treated our boys in blue rudely, and they decided not to share the tape, unless you pressed the issue.” She grinned. “And besides, the little boy blues looked at the tape and thought it was worthless. Everyone but our blur was identified and interrogated, but they all had verifiable alibis,” she explained. “Satisfied?”
He backed off. “I guess.”
“What the hell’s the matter with you, Nick? I bring you and you alone in on this, and you’re not playing ball with me. I could’ve left you out of the loop, and watched you continue your wild-goose chase until the day you kicked the bucket.” She paused. “But for old times sake, I decided to bring you in on this with me,” she said, her hands cupping her breasts dramatically.
“No you didn’t.” He laughed humorlessly. “You read my report, but there wasn’t enough in there to point you in the right direction. You found out you needed me, Lynn. I bet that really hurt, didn’t it?”
She sneered coldly.
He tapped his temple. “There’s more up here than I trusted to a written report. Reports can wind up in the wrong hands.”
“All right, so I needed you,” she conceded. “Happy?”
“A little.”
She rolled her eyes. “God, I suppose you want an apology now.”
“There’d be a better chance of the Creeper walking in here than that happening.”
After watching a surveillance tape of another Creeper crime scene, and identifying the now familiar blurred image, Lynn left the table and disappeared into the darkness beyond the heavy steel door to the left of the electronics panel. She returned quickly with a bottle of expensive scotch and two glasses. She plucked a pack of cigarettes off a computer station desk, tapped one out, and lit it. A plume of smoke drifted up to the ceiling vents and was quickly sucked away.
“Want one?” she offered.
“Sure. Yours.” Nick took the cigarette, leaned back in his seat, rubbed his eyes, and launched a chain of smoke rings. He contemplated the nightmarish events of the long day, both real and surreal. He stifled a yawn. Sitting beneath the antiseptic lights above the safe house control area, the inexplicable events of the day felt like a faraway dream.
Lynn lit another, and poured two fingers of scotch into each glass. She handed him one, and clinked her glass to his.
“To a successful investigation,” she said. “Our investigation.”
Nick took the glass and raised it to his lips, but before he could toss it down, his fingers were suddenly stone numb, and the glass slipped and broke on the floor. The cigarette tumbled from his other hand, and sizzled as it hit the scotch. His eyes strained in their sockets in shock, and his throat erupted into a rapid choking spasms.
Instead of helping, Lynn stood back and watched him struggle. Finally, he regained his composure, although he was still breathing unevenly.
Lynn appeared more concerned about the broken glass than Nick’s health. “You all right?” she asked finally, slowly lifting her eyes to his watery ones.
“I don’t know what happened,” Nick replied hoarsely.
“No big deal. I’ll get you another glass.” Lynn returned to the room behind the heavy steel door.
Nick bent and studied the glass fragments. They were bone dry. So were the tiles and the cigarette. How could that be? He had seen her pour the goddammed scotch into the glass, practically under his nose! He stood there considering the situation. Like the other events of the day, it was incomprehensible.
How could half a glass of scotch disappear?
Chapter 19
Astolen, blue Ford Explorer glided to a stop a quarter mile from a hidden driveway that snaked its way through the over-grown woods to the DEA’s Virginia safe house. Chain link, topped with razor wire, encircled the compound, broken only at the driveway by a crash-proof gate and a manned guardhouse. There were neither trespass warnings posted nor identification signage denoting ownership, basking the estate in an aura of ominous anonymity.
The locals avoided the area like the plague. They’d heard enough grisly rumors about missing hikers and murdered intruders to realize that where there was smoke, there was fire. They had no idea that the unidentified tenants were responsible for the rumors.
The Explorer’s door opened and closed silently. To the Creeper’s chagrin, a fat moon bathed the area in silver fire, making him an easy target for the guard on duty. That wouldn’t do. Raising his arms in supplication, he chanted softly in the ancient language while moving above the ground toward the driveway entrance. There were no footprints in his wake. No evidence to prove his presence there.
Jeb Lawson sat in the DEA guardhouse with his feet up on the counter, staring blindly into the monotonous dark landscape and pressing the telephone ever tighter against his ear, as his girlfriend seductively described the way she was going to massage his genitals once his shift ended at midnight. His erection throbbed with each breathy word, and he closed his eyes, prodding his imagination into producing a private porno movie starring his girlfriend and his genitals. His groin ached, and despite the icy current of air from the air conditioner, his flesh was sweat slick.
The guardhouse was a black silhouette in the gloom, it’s windows shuttered to conceal the inside lights. The DEA avoided using visible security lighting at night that would only attract unwanted attention to their clandestine facility. Instead, they used ultraviolet light that their special night cameras and binoculars used to see. During an emergency, the area would be immersed in enough visible light to equal a sunny June day, but there had never been such an incident at that safe house.
Until tonight.
Suddenly, a wind roared up the driveway, sweeping leaves and pine needles into its fierce current before blasting the guardhouse. Jeb toppled from his stool, accidentally yanking the phone cord from its jack. He jumped to his feet, opened the electronic shutters, and squinted anxiously against the glass window. His rapid breathing glazed the window, and he had to keep wiping the glass clean with his shirtsleeve.
Nothing but darkness and wind. He checked the ultraviolet camera monitors, but there was no one in sight. Jeb laughed uneasily as he glanced down. His erection was history, and his hand now tightly clutched his holstered automatic. Talk about jumpy, he thought. Get a grip!
The small building trembled against the violent gusts, and the inside fluorescents flickered. Jeb phoned the main house.
“Lyle,” the voice responded flatly.
“Hey, Lyle,” he said nervously. “You guys feeling this storm?” He heard Lyle’s muffled voice, as he spoke to someone with his hand over the speaker.
“Jeb, what in hell are you talking about?” Jeb recognized the other voice as Shane.
“The storm,” Jeb replied. “It’s blowing the piss outa the guardhouse.”
“The
re’s no wind up here,” he snapped. “You smokin’ some shit out there or what?”
“Hey man, if you don’t believe me, get your ass out here, and check it out for yourself!” Jeb slammed the phone down. Since he was the new kid on the block at twenty-seven, Shane and his guys gave him more than a ration of grief. Well, he was tired of it, and planned to complain to Lynn Baker the first chance he got. He was a DEA agent and a college grad, and dammit, he deserved some respect!
Outside, the wind rose to a shrill scream. Jeb pressed his face to the glass again, and a whimper escaped his lips.
A tidal wave of luminous fog raced toward the guardhouse, a roiling white mouth gulping the darkness! Jeb’s knees quivered. It was time to beat a retreat back to the house with the others.
Jeb’s sweaty hand slipped off the deadbolt twice before the damn thing retreated back with a metallic crack. As his hand gripped the doorknob, he heard a faint scratching at the door. He froze. Could it be that one of the K-9’s got loose, and wanted in out of the storm?
Jeb looked out the gate-side window, but he couldn’t get a decent look at the area outside the entrance.
The scratching became frantic.
Should he open the door, or let the stupid pooch fend for itself? He stood by the door for several moments, barely breathing. Only listening. His heart pounded in his ears. They hadn’t covered this situation in training.
The scratching was decidedly heavier now. Jeb scratched his crotch nervously. God, that was one big dog!
Was it just the wind, or had he heard a whine, too? He glanced outside again. The fog reached the gate, and oozed through the heavy armored bars a dozen feet from his little shanty. His hand squeezed his genitals.
God, what should he do?
The hell with the damned dog! He pulled out his gun and gripped the doorknob. I’ll shoot the bitch, he thought, and put her out of both our miseries; then, he would fly ahead of the fog to the house. Safety.
He managed a weak laugh. Safety. Safe house. Good one, Jeb, he thought.
His hand trembled so badly that he silently prayed that he wouldn’t shoot himself. Jeb flicked the safety off, and reached for the doorknob. A ferocious, hollow snarl outside the door fractured the night. Jeb fell back, tripped on the chair, and fell to the floor. A dark dampness spread over the crotch of his pants, as something heavy collided with the door. The hinges groaned against the doorframe, but held. Jeb raised the shaking gun toward the door, while his free hand reached up to the phone and fumbled over the telephone keypad.
Shane answered this time. “Now what, Jebby-boy?”
“Help!” Jeb screamed, as the heavy force thudded into the door again, ripping the hinges from the splintered steel frame, and bursting into the small space inside. The door flew past Jeb, missing him by a fraction of an inch.
Everything happened so fast that Jeb wasn’t able to keep up, until his head thumped on the floor like a ripe melon and rolled into the fog. From then, time stood still. The memory of a yellow-eyed leviathan smashing the lamp and pitching the shack into total darkness was still vivid. So was his recall of the beast ripping the gun away from him, along with his hand below the wrist, and heaving the phone against the bulletproof glass where it shattered into sparks and pieces.
His consciousness faded into the enveloping fog, and the ebbing memories followed him into death.
At the main house, six stories above safe house control center, Shane had heard Jeb’s scream over the phone. He had immediately switched on the outside floodlights, ordered the K-9’s released from the kennel, and rushed his armed agents into the night.
Shane trailed his men, trying to get a good look at guardhouse, but an eerie, luminous white fog enveloped it. Gunshots sounded beyond the illumination of the floodlights. Shane rushed forward, but stopped suddenly as the lights above mysteriously started sizzling and popping, one by one. Minutes later, the darkness reclaimed the night, and he bent to a shooter’s crouch, and waited for the intruders to show themselves. Ahead, the fog swirled and rolled toward the house. For the first time in his life, the experienced undercover agent tasted fear.
Inside the shanty, the Creeper felt the approach of the dogs and armed agents with his acute, supernatural senses. In a single motion, he peeled off his robe, raised his arms toward the ceiling, and released an ungodly roar. His body straightened slowly and painfully to its full height while its muscles swelled beneath the scaly hide, absorbing all his human physical traits. A long, forked tongue lolled from its reptilian jaws below blazing orange eyes. The mortal eclipse was complete. There would be no energy wasted on cloaking tonight.
It was killing time.
The dogs sensed the inhuman killing machine long before their masters. After the creature’s powerful talons diced two Dobermans, the rest scattered into the woods. The agents heard the death yelps, but couldn’t see anything in the blinding fog.
The human screams commenced.
The men were helpless in the fog against the giant creature that navigated it as if it didn’t exist. Their automatic gunfire peppered the fog, but sailed harmlessly into the forest or cut down their fellow agents. The creature’s snarls and roars were followed by gruesome, death shrieks.
Shane watched the carnage from the front lawn. The hideous silhouette of the creature was visible in the luminous fog as it ripped his men apart, and tossed them aside like road kill. As the fog drifted close to Shane’s position, he snapped out of his terrified stupor, and fired at the monstrous silhouette. The fog repelled the rapid-fire bullets, and they ricocheted harmlessly off the house behind him. Shane dropped his empty gun and sprinted for the back door. He had to warn Lynn.
The power blinked as Shane activated the elevator, but he was comforted when he realized that the back-up system would kick in if the intruder managed to disable the public power circuits. He heard the whir of the motor and the rasping of the cables as it made its ascent, and he allowed himself a small sigh of relief.
His foot tapped the carpet as the elevator continued its agonizingly slow climb. God, what was taking so long? The cable creaking grew louder, and Shane knew it was just a floor away now.
“Come on, baby, come on,” he murmured anxiously. “Come to papa.”
Clang. Clang. The elevator lurched to a stop, and the doors slid open. He was saved. As he leaped inside, a shrieking wind shattered the windows, and flattened the back door. Furious squalls swirled and danced inside, sucking thousands of glass splinters into their maelstroms.
Shane’s fingers trembled as he inserted his key into the DOWN switch, and twisted. A snarl floated on the deafening wind, but Shane didn’t dare look. He needed to retain as much nerve as he could for later. The doors started to slide together. He collapsed against the rear of the elevator. He was saved!
The doors suddenly reversed, and opened again.
“No!” he screamed.
A mini-twister, it’s swirling surface gleaming with broken glass, sliced through the closing doors and stripped Shane to the bone in seconds. After the killer wind died and the broken glass dropped to the floor, the paneled walls were slimy with red stringy chunks of muscle, flesh, brain and scalp.
Shane’s cleaned skeleton tottered before dropping into a bloody bone pile, as the doors began closing again.
Chapter 20
Lynn filled a second glass and handed it to Nick.
It took a gargantuan effort to steady his hand as he lifted the scotch to his lips. “To our investigation.” Twisting away from Lynn, he tilted the glass. He didn’t want her to witness his disappearing scotch trick if it should happen again.
Nothing but cool glass touched his lips. The scotch vanished into thin air!
“Good stuff,” he lied, noticing a cloudy film staining the bottom of the glass. His gaze narrowed. It appeared to be a drug of some kind. Poison? He doubted it. She needed him alive. Needed to pick his brain. He sniffed the glass, and recognized the delicate medicinal scent as a more potent version of the date rape drug
. It was obvious that she planned to put him into LaLa Land before administering more potent interrogation drugs. After her relentless questioning, he gave himself a snowball’s chance in hell of walking out of there alive.
Lynn watched him expectantly.
That was the kicker, he thought. She didn’t bring her poker face to work today. She was as perplexed by the turn of events just as he was.
Finally, she admitted defeat. “If we’re going to be partners, you should share a fact that wasn’t in your report that will advance our investigation. Call it a goodwill gesture.”
Nick pretended to play ball. From her expectant expression, it was obvious she didn’t have a clue that he was wise to her. That gave him the edge. “You showed me yours, now I show you mine. Is that it?”
“Something like that.”
“All right.” Nick didn’t want to share a damn thing with Lynn, but on the other hand, he did want to get out of the safe house alive. He caught sight of the thirty-eight on the table. Maybe, just maybe, he could distract her and . . .”
“Well?” she pressed.
He scanned his mental case notes. Tossing her a red herring was out of the question, because her supercomputer could rapidly flush it out. Once she was aware that he was on to her treachery, she could alert the boys upstairs, and he would be history. He had to appear sincere when he tossed her a bone.
“Jill Sandlin,” he stated.
She crinkled her face. “Who?” she asked cautiously.
“Sandlin claims she can identify the Creeper.”
She examined his expression for evidence of deception, but found none. “Where can we find this Jill Sandlin?”
“I haven’t had time to run with it. It’s been a helluva day,” he replied truthfully. “Why don’t you tackle it?”
She nodded. “I’ll run the name through our mainframe network.”
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