“Sorry,” I said. “How long is this going to take?” I peered at my watch in the flashing yellow light from the tow truck.
Rick did a quick inspection, and then checked underneath the Corvette. “I’d say ’bout fifteen, twenty minutes. Maybe more, if I have any problems hookin’ ’er up.” He went to his truck and returned with a work order attached to a metal clipboard. “Just need to get some info from ya’.”
I handed the man my driver’s license. “Where we towin’ it to?”
“Police impound. I’ll figure out the transmission issue later.”
“Uh-huh.” Rick wrote some information on the form. “And how ya’ paying? Cash, check, credit?”
“Charge it to the Austin Police Department.”
“Pardon me fer sayin’ so, but this ‘Vette ain’t got no exempt plates on her.”
“Just put it on the department’s account. It’s okay.”
“Whatever ya’ say, buddy.” The man handed me my license along with the clipboard. “Sign here.”
I signed the document and gave the clipboard back to him.
“Anything else?”
“No sir.” Rick ripped away the bottom copy and handed me my receipt. Then he went to his truck and lowered the flatbed, positioning it behind my car.
While Rick worked on securing my car to the flatbed, I took up my phone and read a few articles on the Austin American Statesman’s mobile website. A couple of raindrops landed on my face, and I heard a faint rumble of thunder.
Rick checked the chains attached to the rear end of the Corvette and then pressed a button to pull the car onto the flatbed of the tow truck. A couple of minutes later, Miss Jimenez rolled up in her Mercedes Benz and tapped her horn. She parked the car at the side of the road and lowered the passenger side window.
“Did your car break down?” she asked, her voice barely audible above Celine Dion’s singing on her stereo.
“Transmission blew up on me. What kept you at the youth home so long?”
“We had some problems with Cody.”
I put my phone away and approached her car. I rested a hand on the frame and peered inside. “So, what happened?”
“After we got the paperwork taken care of, we escorted Cody to his room.” Miss Jimenez lowered the volume of her radio. “His roommate told Mr. Hadley that he didn’t want to share a room. Of course, that didn’t help with Cody’s adjustment to his new home.”
“Temporary home,” I corrected, with emphasis.
“Yes, of course.” Miss Jimenez relaxed an arm behind the passenger seat and said, “I’ve been Andrew’s social worker for the past few years, so with a little sweet talking, I convinced him to help Cody fit in.”
“And how did Cody feel about that?”
“He was apprehensive, of course. But he accepted the formal introduction. He even shook hands. Andrew’s a good kid. It wasn’t long before he had Cody thumbing through comics and baseball cards.”
“So, was that it?”
“No. After we got the boys settled in bed, I spent about half an hour talking to Jerry about regular business, and then started my way home. I didn’t even get a mile down the road, before he called me.”
The hydraulics from the tow truck quieted, and then Rick worked on securing the front tires.
“So, what happened?”
“Cody was in bed, tossing and turning, screaming—and speaking in tongues.”
A chill went up my spine. He’d done the same thing at the hospital. “Speaking in tongues? Like German, or some other language?”
“No, I’m telling you, it was as if he was speaking some ancient dialect. I do remember one thing, though.”
“Forneus?”
Miss Jimenez cocked her head. “Yes. How did you know that?”
“He did the same thing the other day at the hospital. Only difference was, it sounded German. Then he started mumbling in Spanish… or maybe it was Italian. Forneus is what stood out, though. He said it at least a couple of times.” I glanced over my shoulder to check on Rick’s progress. He was still struggling with one of the belts, as lightning streaked across the sky. Great. More rain.
“Cody woke up screaming,” Miss Jimenez continued. “He was drenched in sweat. I’ve never seen a boy with such terror on his face before. I told him he was safe, that it was only a dream. He cried and told me that… that it was the devil’s nightmare. He repeated it twice.”
“Did he tell you about the dream?”
“No, he wouldn’t tell me. He wanted me to take him home to be with his mother.”
“Car’s all set, Mr. Sanders!” Rick yelled from the tow truck.
“I’ll be there in a sec,” I yelled back. I asked Miss Jimenez if she could meet with Mr. Hadley and me in the morning.
“I’ll call you. Are you sure you don’t need a ride?”
“Thanks, but I’ll let Mater over there give me lift.”
“Okay, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I stepped away and watched the car pull away and head towards the highway. I then called Dispatch and informed the operator that I was having my car towed to the police impound lot. “I also need a vehicle to drive until I get the transmission fixed.”
“Ten-four. We’ll have one ready for you.”
“Looks like we in fer some more rain,” Rick said, while gazing skyward.
“Yeah, I guess so.” I stepped around the tow truck and pulled on the passenger door handle. “Hey, could you unlock the door for me?”
“Already open. Just smack ’er coupla times. It’ll pop right open.”
I balled my hand and hit the door with the side of my fist. When I pulled the handle, the door still wouldn’t open. The tow truck was a piece of junk.
“It’s still not opening!”
Rick walked around the front of the truck and grumbled before hitting the door a few inches above and then a few inches to the right of the door handle. After a firm tug on the handle, the door popped open.
“See? Now was that so hard?”
I’d barely met the guy, and didn’t like him. As I pulled myself up onto the passenger seat, a heavy gust of wind slammed the door shut. Rick opened the driver’s side door and was about to escape the rain, when something caught his eye.
“Sumbitch. How’d that get undone?”
I looked through the back window of the truck and saw that one of the securing belts had somehow gotten loose and was flapping in the wind.
“Need any help?” I asked.
“Nah, I got it.”
Rick shut the door and moved towards the back of the tow truck in the rain. He guided the heavy-duty belt in between one of the spokes on the right front wheel of my Corvette, hooked it somewhere underneath the car, and tightened the belt.
I received a text message from Dispatch:
Blue Dodge Charger, Unit 62. Get keys from Dispatch… Deb.
I texted back: Okay. Thx. Fixing to leave. – Aaron.
I had just sent the message, when I heard a loud thump from the back of the truck, and then a scream. I turned, but a flash of lightning blinded my view for a second. When my vision cleared, I could barely see anything, due to the heavy rain. Thunder shook the windows. The driver’s side door swung open. Rick reached inside and grabbed the steering wheel. He had a large gash running across the side of his face. Flesh hung from his cheek bone, revealing his back molars. He reached toward me desperately with his free hand and pleaded, “Help… me…”
I reached for his open hand, but before I could grab it, Rick’s eyes rolled back. He screamed and slid backwards out of the vehicle, slamming his head against the edge of the metal door. I could still hear his screams, muffled by the heavy rain and thunder. I pulled at the passenger door handle, but the damn thing wouldn’t open.
“Damn it!”
I couldn’t see Rick through the back window. I yanked on the door handle again and shoved the door with my shoulder a few times. The door finally flew open, and I fell out of the truck. I slipp
ed, as Rick’s screams filled my ears from the other side of the tow truck.
I reached for my gun, but felt an empty holster. “Son of a…”
Rick’s screams were agonized. He pleaded again for me to help him. I searched the ground for my gun, wiping rainwater from my eyes. I finally spotted the weapon in a puddle of water by the front wheel of the truck and rushed towards it, slipping a couple of times before I snatched it off the ground and stumbled around the front of the tow truck.
The rain slowed to a trickle, as if God Himself had turned off the spigot. All was quiet. I tightened my grip on the pistol and stopped, just short of reaching the other side. I reached inside my drenched sport coat for my flashlight, but it wasn’t there. It must have dropped out of my pocket when I’d fallen out the truck. I stepped forward and began searching the area, the eerily flashing yellow beacons on top of the tow truck providing the only light.
Moments later, moonlight broke through the clouds, revealing the carnage that, minutes before, had been Rick. It was all over the pavement, and extended twenty feet behind the truck. Something had torn him to pieces. Chunks of his flesh were scattered everywhere. I found a shoe on the side of the road that still had Rick’s foot inside it, cut off at the ankle. There wasn’t much of anything else, except for a mangled torso devoid of Rick’s head, with arms severed and nothing below the waist. His intestines had spilled out onto the pavement. Had I not been with him during the attack, the stitched first name on his uniform would have been the only means of identifying him.
The sound of shattering glass spun me around, and I aimed my gun in the direction of the commotion, before cautiously stepping forward. As I got closer to the truck, I noticed the rear window on the Corvette had shattered into a web of tempered pieces. It also bore a large hole in the middle of it. My heart raced. I stepped closer, and then stopped.
I grabbed my phone and called for backup before investigating further.
†
Flood lights lit up the area around the tow truck. Red and blue strobe lights from several law enforcement vehicles, an ambulance, and a fire truck, reflected off the wet pavement, as crime scene investigators snapped photographs and marked areas where bits and pieces of Rick’s body lay.
Three helicopters flew overhead. One helicopter shone a spot light on the fields below, searching the area for the animal that had attacked Rick. Two deputies kept reporters from crossing beyond the police tape that stretched around the perimeter.
I sat in a police car with a towel wrapped around me, my clothes soaked from standing out in the rain. I sneezed, and dreaded the possibility of sickness. That was the last thing I needed to deal with. I watched as a deputy climbed up on the flatbed of the tow truck. He unfastened a flashlight from his utility belt, clicked it on, and pointed the beam of light around the rear window of my car. He leaned closer, and then stepped back. The deputy looked in my direction and then got the attention of one of the investigators. I got out of the police car and left the wet towel on the passenger seat.
“What’d you find?” I yelled at the deputy on the tow truck.
He glanced at the reporters and then knelt down at the edge of the flatbed. He waited for me to reach him before he said anything.
“Did this guy have blond hair?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“Step up here.” He offered his hand and helped me up onto the flatbed. “You are not going to believe this.”
The deputy shined his flashlight through the hole in the rear window. Blood, pieces of flesh, and hair, were stuck to the edges of the hole. A single lifeless blue eye stared at me from just inside the window. Beyond that, Rick’s severed head rested against the back of the driver’s seat. His face had deep gashes similar to those on Jason Dexter’s face. One of the gashes crossed Rick’s empty right eye socket. His mouth was agape, and his face was filled with terror, leaving his final expression, before his head had left his body, frozen in time.
“From the look of the damage to the window, his head fell from quite a distance.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “How the hell could this guy’s head end up from there…” I pointed to Rick’s remains on the pavement, “… to here?”
“Don’t know. Just saying what it looks like.”
I sighed and shook my head in disbelief, but the deputy was right. The evidence supported his theory. Something had lopped off Rick’s head, and somehow it had ended up going airborne and through my rear window. It didn’t make any sense, though. It had been at least a couple of minutes after the attack, before Rick’s head had crashed through the car window.
“Could you give me hand?” one of the investigators asked. I helped him up. “Thanks. I need to take some photos… so…”
The space was very tight with the three of us on top of the truck, so the deputy and I stepped off. The deputy lost his footing on the wet pavement, and I reached out and grabbed his arm to keep him from falling down.
He thanked me and glanced towards the news cameras. “Any way we can get those out of here?”
I laughed. “You just don’t want to see yourself almost falling on your ass on the six o’clock news.”
The deputy walked away without a response.
I scanned the crowd of emergency workers and media and found a reporter interviewing Chief Hernandez. While I waited for him to finish his time on camera, a group of other reporters bombarded me with a multitude of overlapping questions.
“Detective Sanders! Detective Sanders!”
“Did you see what killed the man?”
“Do you think this was another jaguar attack?”
“There is speculation that a serial killer is on the loose. Was this the act of that same serial killer?”
“Are the cemetery attacks and this attack related?”
“What are you doing to protect residents from further attacks?”
“Have you identified all three of the boys butchered at Memorial Heights Cemetery?”
“Detective! What do you have to say about accusations that the Austin Police Department is withholding information from the media?”
In response to the last question I stated, “This is an ongoing investigation. When we have more information, and we’re ready to share it with the media, then we’ll do so. Until then, all I can say is that this was an isolated incident and not related to any other deaths.”
“Do you even know what you’re looking for? When are you going to catch this psycho that is terrorizing our city?”
“Is it even a man?” asked a young lady from the NBC News affiliate. “Have there been any reports of escaped animals? Are we looking at another Ohio incident that we haven’t been made aware of?”
“The incident in Ohio,” I said, “was the result of a deranged man releasing his animals from a known wild animal reserve. There are no similar wildlife reserves in the Austin area. The Austin Zoo is the only facility in comparison, and all animals have been accounted for.”
“What about the wildlife ranch near New Braunfels? Are the animals there accounted for?”
“Look, if I find out that any killer ostriches or gazelles have escaped, you’ll be the first to know. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
The reporters continued to flood me with questions as I made my escape. Chief Hernandez caught up with me next to the ambulance.
“You okay, Aaron?”
“I’m fine.” I leaned against the ambulance, while the paramedics bagged what was left of Rick’s body. Another paramedic pulled a small black bag from the rear of my car. The round shape of the contents made my stomach sour.
Don approached me, and removed bloody latex gloves and tossed them in a disposal unit. “Tell me you got a glimpse of the suspect that’s keeping me from watching Letterman,” he said.
“Sorry, Don, didn’t see a thing. I’m beginning to believe your theory though.”
“And what theory is that?”
“That we’re looking for a big animal; maybe even another jaguar.
” Don shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You don’t? You seemed convinced before. What’s changed?”
“No, I mean this wasn’t a jaguar. Although, based on the measurements from the wounds in this man’s chest, we’re probably looking for the same animal.”
I rubbed my face and the back of my neck. “So, what do you think we’re dealing with?”
“As crazy as it may sound, I think we’re looking for a lion, maybe even an African lion.”
My heart felt like it had stopped beating for a moment. “A lion?”
“I’m guessing someone’s illegal pet. Probably escaped within the past couple of weeks. After it killed those kids, the owner didn’t report the escape, for obvious reasons. But that’s just a theory, of course.”
I nodded at the Corvette strapped to the back of the tow truck. “What about the melon in the back of my car? How do we explain that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe an eagle grabbed it.”
“Doubtful,” Chief Hernandez said as he stepped up to us. “Eagles don’t have very good vision at night, plus it was raining. Correcto?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” I confirmed.
I liked Don’s explanation, but the chief was right. I knew about the exceptional vision of eagles, but I also knew they only hunted during the day. The only other possibility would be a great horned owl, but I doubted it would have been of any interest to the bird. I also doubted that a bird that size would be able to carry off a human head and drop it from high enough to break through the rear window of my car.
The three of us pondered the questions forming in our heads, but without any clear answers to discuss with one another. We stood there in silence for several minutes while emergency workers and crews cleaned up the bloody scene. The reporters finally left, after they’d concluded their fishing expedition for information.
The chief offered to give me a ride to the police station to pick up my replacement car. Big Al, from Big Al’s Wrecker Service, arrived at the scene to drive Rick’s tow truck to the police impound and drop off my damaged car. But both it and the wrecker were considered evidence.
“What happened to Rick was horrible,” Big Al said. But he was clearly upset about the impounding of his tow truck. “It ain’t a crime, though. An animal killed him.”
Devil's Nightmare (Devil's Nightmare, Book 1) Page 11