by Gregory Kay
Cliff was so perfect; not just physically, with his athletic body, six-foot-two frame, movie star features, and GQ model wardrobe, but also because he gave her the space she needed, accepted that she had a career of her own as a journalist, and never seriously complained when that career required her to work overtime or cancel a date. As part of the most prestigious brokerage firm in the city outside of Manhattan, he understood, just as he’d expected her to understand when he was unable to keep a commitment.
“It sucks canal water, Babe,” he would always say, whichever one of them had to call off, “but I guess that’s why they call it work.” She couldn’t argue with that, even though their schedules had been so much at odds lately that it had been ten days since they had spoken to one another outside of daily phone calls, texts, and internet chats, each one full of desire to get together ASAP.
And he’s the only one who would dare call me ‘Babe.’ The thought pulled her smile even wider.
Even her mother said he had been good for her; she had said it several times, in fact, practically every time Fiona was near the grandchild-hungry woman. Her father hadn’t shared her good opinion, however; he’d disliked Cliff from the first time he met him. He was firmly determined that her boyfriend was a no good son of a bitch, and smarmy too, but then, he’d felt that way about every boy his little girl had ever dated, minus the smarmy part. Cliff was the only one who ever rated smarmy.
After pausing to give her hair and makeup a quick final check in the elevator’s mirrored wall, she stepped off, the apartment key he had given her weeks ago already in her hand. Thinking of Cliff made her warm at the juncture of her legs, and that, in turn, made her aware of the faintly irritating rub of the new panties. Besides the new dress she couldn’t really afford, she had bought some sexy lingerie just for tonight’s surprise, complete with the type of ‘butt-floss’ thong she never wore, and she was going to give him a birthday party neither one would ever forget.
Quietly turning the key with a mischievous smile, she threw open the door and called out, “Surprise!”
It turned out to be quite a surprise for everyone concerned; in fact, it was hard to tell who was more surprised: Fiona, the naked Cliff sitting on the couch, or the equally nude blond kneeling on the carpet in front of him and bobbing her head up and down between his legs, with her very-well-developed bare ass displayed picturesquely, pointed directly at the newcomer.
Even though Cliff was generally a smooth operator, “It’s not what it looks like!” was all he could think to say.
Fiona couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all; instead, she reacted. The umbrella tumbled unnoticed from her wrist, and the woman started to look up just in time to catch the lower half of the painstakingly-baked cheesecake right in the back of the head, exploding the thin cardboard box and leaving the top half to spatter on her boyfriend’s face and chest. He was still shouting, “Wait! I can explain!” when Fiona slammed the door so hard she heard a picture fall inside.
Cold and numb in her soul, she walked quickly and mechanically, her legs moving like scissors, down the elevator and past the doorman, whose professional smile went flat and concerned when she passed. She didn’t ask him to hail a cab for her; she didn’t trust herself to speak to anyone she knew even slightly. Instead she walked out into the pouring rain, sans the umbrella she had forgotten upstairs and would be dead and damned before she returned for it, flagged a taxi down herself, got in soaking wet, and mumbled the address. The turbaned driver had nothing to say, for which she was thankful.
Fiona thrust a handful of bills at him after the ride and he pulled away, his cab bumping through the large water-filled pothole he had stopped his front wheel just shy of. Distracted, it took her a second too long to get out of the way, and the next car hit it going at speed, causing a miniature tidal wave of oily water to wash over her, soaking her from head to foot, washing away any dry spot she might have had left. She simply turned away and started walking. She managed to wait until she was back inside her apartment and stripped out of her wet clothes before she did something she hadn’t done in many years. Throwing herself facedown across her bed, she cried herself to sleep.
SUNDAY
CHAPTER 2
Mason County, West Virginia
“Sorry to disturb you, Colonel, but there’s been a confirmed breach in the wall involving a garuda incursion and civilian involvement.”
“Shit!” Colonel Harland Davis had been on the verge of waking up anyway – thirty-five years in the military tended to make a man a habitual early riser – but Lieutenant Barnes’ voice brought him off his bunk in his skivvies and straight to his bare feet on the gray-painted concrete floor. He blinked his permanently squinting eyes hard once, barely moving the rest of the leathery, weather-beaten skin that covered features so sharp and craggy his men referred to him as ‘Hatchet-Face’ behind his back. “Did it come through the gate?”
The blond junior officer standing in the curtained-off area that housed the bunks shook his head.
“No sir, but Doctor Michaels believes that last test may have opened up additional weak spots in the surrounding area.” He didn’t pause, going ahead quickly in an attempt to answer all of his superior’s likely questions before he had to ask them. Davis hated to have to ask, and was not at all hesitant in using his commanding position to make his displeasure with any unnecessary drama known. “We know there's been at least one compromised zone, since a garuda has been reported on this side; we don’t have any verification on anything else, one way or another. According to the police radio channel, it attacked a car with two teenagers inside. There are no reported injuries or other sightings at this time.”
Davis blinked once more, driving the last of sleep’s cobwebs away.
“Right. We’ll need access to all local law enforcement computers, and every bit of available information on the witnesses.”
“Windsor is already on it, sir.”
“Excellent. In the meantime, I want a patrol out there ASAP; I want to know if anything else came through.”
“Yes sir...” Barnes paused at the sound coming from the headset in his right ear. “Colonel, Windsor says Washington is on the line.” Another pause, then, “He told them you were outside briefing a patrol, and he’d send someone to fetch you.”
Davis’ thin-lipped mouth tightened in gratitude and he nodded his thanks, even though such actions were expected. Everyone had to sleep, but his bosses were not reasonable people, and it would look bad if they thought he was asleep when an incident occurred, rather than already addressing the issue. Every member of his team was a professional, and everyone understood that the first rule of any black operation is that everyone covers everyone else’s ass.
“Alright. A garuda we can handle; this is Point Pleasant, after all, and it’s happened here before. Still, we need to be ready to take action against the witnesses and investigating officers should this thing blow up enough to make it necessary: indirect action or otherwise, as is warranted. We can’t afford to let this thing become a circus like they did back in the sixties; we don’t need the attention.”
He took one step toward the facility’s control room before stopping and looking over his shoulder.
“And get Mr. Smith; tell him to hunt that damned thing down and kill it!”
“Yes sir,” Lieutenant Barnes said, professionally keeping the distaste for that last duty out of his voice. He’d worked black ops in half a dozen countries with some of the worst local elements imaginable – terrorists, torturers, serial rapists, sadists, megalomaniacs, psychopaths – but Smith was the only one who not only disgusted him; he scared him.
No more coffee; it’s five in the morning, and you won’t sleep.
At least, that was what Mason County Deputy Luke Carter kept telling himself, even though his heavy eyelids seemed to have a mind of their own, and were saying something entirely different. It was only his constant, determined effort that kept the computer screen on his shift desk in th
e basement of the courthouse annex from blurring completely while he typed in his final report, and even then, it was still fuzzy around the edges. Blinking, he pinched the bridge of his nose, pressing back toward his eyes with his index finger and thumb in an attempt to relieve the strain and force them to focus just awhile longer.
The first midnight shift of a schedule is always a bitch, and this time...What a night!
He glanced up when he heard footsteps in the hall, and recognized the slim, if not quite skinny, figure of his boss. Sheriff Pete Morris was a career cop, and, although he had definitely bucked the trend of weight gain that most cops had to work at constantly to keep in check, he'd at least had the good grace to go bald, even if he tried to offset it by wearing a neatly-trimmed regulation mustache. He was also a much sharper politician than any of his comrades in the Mason County Sheriff’s Department, which was why this was his second go-round as sheriff, after the state-mandated one-term break between terms.
“Hey, Pete; you’re in awfully early.”
The sheriff shook off his black uniform coat and hung it on the rack in the corner before answering.
“I was just getting ready to say the same thing about you.”
Luke didn’t miss the none-too-veiled hint of accusation in the Sheriff’s voice; the county – and thus Pete – took a dim view of their officers coming in well before the end of their shifts to hang around the office drinking coffee and shooting the bull on the taxpayers’ dime, instead of being out on patrol. Pete Morris was much more easy-going than his predecessor, but that was one thing he was a stickler on.
Luke grinned tiredly. That grin – not a smile, but an actual grin of varying degree – was his usual expression, Pete and everyone else knew, even if it all too seldom reached his eyes. The sheriff supposed that was a good thing; otherwise the deputy’s somewhat long features coupled with his height and haunted eyes would have looked as grim and dour as a movie undertaker’s or western gunfighter’s. It took a lot to make the grin disappear; Pete had seen it happen a few times, and it was downright scary.
“Don’t bother getting out your write-up sheet; I just brought in a prisoner about fifteen minutes ago, and I’m finishing his paperwork right now. I’ll get back out on the road as soon as I’m through here.”
“Hmm,” Pete grunted, then headed for the coffee. Holding up the pot and swirling the blacker-than-it-should-be liquid around while looking at it critically, he made a face and poured a cup anyway, before dumping the rest and starting a new pot.
“Who was it?”
“Whitey Walker; I busted him for DUI on 62, up near Camp Conley Road.”
The sheriff looked at him sharply, and saw his grin had faltered a little.
“Whitey? You and him are friends, aren’t you?”
“Yep; he’s my best friend. We went to high school together, and played on the same baseball and wrestling teams.”
Pete took a sip, and muttered, “Shit,” although whether it was describing his deputy’s uncomfortable situation or the tar-thick, stale coffee, Luke wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter, really, as it pretty much described both. “I had hoped that boy would be getting over that by now.”
Luke knew what he meant; Whitey had joined the Army and gone off to Iraq, where he had seen some things and done some things that brought him back home a radically changed man, with what the people around him euphemistically referred to as ‘issues’ that went way beyond the slight limp from his surgically reconstructed leg.
“Some things there’s no getting over.”
“I reckon,” Pete said uncomfortably. Getting over things wasn’t a comfortable subject to be talking about with Luke. “I know it’s tough, arresting one of your friends. I’m surprised you didn’t just take him home; most of the others would have.”
“I would have too, but he didn’t give me a choice.”
“That how you got that swollen place on your jaw?” the Sheriff asked, nodding at the area in question.
Luke touched his face and shook his head.
“No. I slipped in the gravel and fell against the cruiser; the light bar caught me.”
“Uh-huh,” Pete sarcastically remarked, “and when I go over to the jail and take a look at Whitey later, I’ll bet he ‘slipped and fell against the cruiser’ too; probably several times.”
Still maintaining his grin, the deputy told him, “No, he slipped and fell on the gravel, and I fell trying to catch him. He was drunk; you know.”
“Yeah, I know; I know exactly!” his boss told him with some heat, “and I know I won’t put up with some drunk redneck slugging one of my officers…friends, war wounds, or whatever!”
The grin was suddenly gone like it never existed. Luke looked him straight in the eye and his voice was as cold as his expression, with each word coming clipped and precisely enunciated, separate from the ones preceding and following.
“He did not hit me. He was drunk, and he slipped and fell. I slipped and fell picking him up and helping him into the cruiser.” He tapped ‘Save’ and closed the computer. “That is what I put in the report, and that is the way it happened. End. Of. Story.”
“Alright, alright!” Pete threw up his free hand. He knew it was time to give in, because he recognized the stubborn note in Luke’s voice that told him loud and clear his deputy wouldn’t change his story if you threw gasoline on him and threatened him with a lit match. Besides, the sheriff was a good judge of men, and he was never entirely comfortable with the idea of pushing Luke Carter too far. His deputy was four inches over six feet, which gave him a deceptively slim appearance, since he actually weighed in at about two-twenty-five, according to his personnel file, and most of that was muscle. Luke’s stubbornness worried Pete far less than the darkness the man carried around inside himself, a carefully but imperfectly concealed brooding black hole that would have automatically made people think of him as ‘tall, dark and handsome,’ even without his dark hair and eyes. Despite his good nature, dry humor, and the odd, unique grin he usually wore, everyone knew he’d been through more in his life than any one man ought to be saddled with, and if he ever snapped, even without the Glock he wore on his hip or the impressive collection of weapons in his gun cabinet at home, he’d do a hell of a lot more damage with his bare hands than someone like Whitey Walker ever could.
The sheriff didn’t think that was ever likely to happen, of course, or he’d have found a way to get rid of the man, Civil Service and the deputy’s own not-inconsiderable political influence or not. Luke was almost notoriously even-tempered, and if he posed a real potential danger to anyone, Pete had no doubt it was only to himself. Regardless, he knew it was never wise to push a man who sincerely believed he had little or nothing left to lose, and since there was obviously nothing to be gained by pursuing the current subject, he decided it was best to change it. “I heard you had another commotion tonight.”
With the conversation back on safe ground, Luke’s grin returned, he rubbed his eyes again and said, “Word travels fast,” making the sheriff laugh out loud and waved a hand at the east wall, indicating the town beyond it.
“It’s Point Pleasant; what do you expect? Not much else to do around here besides gossip.”
“Well, they’ll get their fill of talking this time. We’ve got a report of another Mothman sighting last night.”
“Just Mothman, huh?” He took another sip of stale coffee. “It’s like jungle drums in some old movie; everybody is calling everybody, and the story just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Larry Jackson called me and got me out of bed, yelling and screaming, swearing up and down that Al Qaeda have done gone and invaded Mason County.”
“So terrorists are invading here, huh? They sure must be scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
Pete chuckled and took another drink of coffee, pulling another sour face in the process, and glanced at the pot to see it if the fresh batch had run through yet.
“Oh, don’t worry; it gets better! No sooner did I get rid of him than o
ld Mrs. Pearson called. To hear her tell it, the Devil himself is flying around on a broomstick, and done ate up two or three people.”
“It might as well be; hell, it might be for all I know. You’d better sit down.”
Pete grabbed the nearest chair and sat; he had learned long ago, whenever somebody said that, the smart thing to do is take them at their word.
“That bad?”
“I don’t know. Johnny Robinson and Allie Parks claim they saw a monster out in the TNT area about eleven-thirty or twelve o’clock last night. I’d just come on shift and hadn’t even gotten out of the office yet when they came in.”
The sheriff whistled; he knew very well who Luke was talking about.
“I figure that monster will be Alison’s daddy once he finds out she went parking out there, especially at that time of night. Joe is pretty darned strict with that girl, and he’s liable to beat the shit out of Johnny.”
“I know,” Luke said with a nod, “and that’s one thing that makes me think they’re telling the truth, at least as they see it. If she’s willing to risk getting her hide tanned to make a report, and Johnny’s willing to take a chance on somebody like Joe Parks kicking his ass clear up between his shoulder blades...I reckon there might be something to it. Besides, this wasn’t just a sighting; this appears to be an attack.”
Pete had just started to lean back in the chair, but abruptly reversed direction and slammed it forward with an audible bang of the front legs on the tile floor. Unless you counted run-of-the-mill fist fights and bar brawls, Mason County was not a violent area, and, the safety issues aside, when violence did occur, both the citizens and the politicians tended to look to the sheriff for answers, and he’d damned well better be ready to give them if he knew what was good for him.
“What the hell happened?”
“They’re both alright,” Luke reassured him, his raised palms indicating that his boss could safely calm down a bit, “but they’re pretty shaken up. They say they were parked out there just off the connecting road from Camp Conley to the Fairgrounds Road, when something jumped on top of their car.”