Wings In Darkness

by Gregory Kay

  That might have been true if she was simply an eighty-pound bag of cement, but Fiona had limbs that were desperately flailing. She landed in his arms, just as he’d planned: his right arm across her upper back, his left behind her knees. What he didn’t count on was the camera dangling from the strap around her wrist that hit him hard on the forehead just below the hairline, the forearm that hacked him across the bridge of his nose, or the heel that kept going as her leg folded, whipping around and slamming into his left kidney. The latter hit just right and made his back arch and his knees buckle, and he lost his own balance and sat down hard with Fiona on his lap.

  She looked at him, about to express her sincere gratitude, when she saw a second scarlet rivulet starting near his scalp, where the camera lens had split it, and go threading its way down through his right eyebrow, and still more trickling from his nose and mouth, and it horrified her to the point of tears.

  “Oh God, Luke! I’m so sorry!”

  “It’s okay,” he assured her in a pained voice, then groaned and asked, “Could you please get up? I think I’m sitting on a piece of broken glass.”

  After she retrieved the first aid kit from the cruiser, it took her almost five minutes to get the bleeding from his scalp stopped; his nose, with the perfect imprint of the zipper pressed into its tip, and his lip quit hemorrhaging on their own, about the same time his kidney stopped aching. Then the argument began.

  “Damn it Luke, I’ve got to get that glass out!”

  “It’ll be alright...”

  “It won’t be alright! This road is filthy; look at all the crap lying around here. There are used rubbers and everything else!”

  “Look – “

  “Look nothing! The longer you keep it in there, the more chance of infection you’ll have.” Shaking her head, she added, “You won’t even be able to sit down to drive the damned car!”

  “But – “

  “But nothing!” she shouted, “This whole thing is my fault, and I’m not going to shut up until you turn around and take ‘em down!”

  Luke knew she was right, but he also knew it was embarrassing as hell to lean on the cruiser’s hood with his pants down and his bare ass sticking out while she knelt behind and dug fragments of glass out of his right cheek with a pair of tweezers, and he said as much.

  “Oh don’t be such a baby! Now hold still; it’s not like yours is the first ass I’ve ever seen.”

  Part of the problem was that she felt so low for hurting Luke – Hell, I've nearly killed him twice in five minutes! – and it was showing in her temper. The other part of it, though, was that, while she had, in fact, seen a few male asses before, she had never seen a more handsome one than this muscular specimen. That made her feel vulnerable again, because she suddenly wasn’t at all sure she could trust herself around this man, despite the firm decision she had already made to keep her distance. It wasn’t his ass or his body as such; it was him, the total package. After all, it wasn’t everyday that someone would throw himself underneath her to save her from getting hurt – or worse – and end up hurting himself in the bargain while she came out unscathed, like the perfect little princess. That guilt and those thoughts distracted her just enough to make her press a little harder than she meant to.

  “Ouch! What are you doing back there? Drilling for oil?”

  “Sorry...there. I think that’s the last piece.”

  “Am I interrupting anything?”

  She had just put the final Band-Aid on, and both their heads jerked up at the sound of the unexpected voice from behind, and they saw Harry in uniform leaning casually against a tree with his very best, thoroughly happy ‘Who’ smile, and Luke and Fiona both went bright, bloody red.

  “It’s not – “ Luke exclaimed, jerking up his pants.

  “We weren’t – “ Fiona sputtered, scrambling to her feet and knowing exactly how it must have looked.

  “Sure, sure,” Harry teased, “I saw your cruiser, so I parked about a hundred yards up the road and walked down. It was like watching an S&M porn movie.” Winking, he added, “She’s the dominant one; I could tell right off, even before she kicked your ass and made you like it.”

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Well, let’s just say I got here in time to watch her climb up, sit on your shoulders and rub your nose in it.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you say something?” Fiona shouted angrily, and Harry shrugged.

  “What, and miss all this? Besides, I could tell the deputy here had everything under control.”

  Luke caught her arm and held on tight before she could lunge after the unconcerned trooper. Glaring at his friend, he said, “You do know I’ll get you for this? If it’s the last thing I ever do...”

  “If you do, I’ll tell everyone my version of what happened. I expect they’ll be on my side too.”

  Sighing, the deputy asked him what the hell he wanted, and Harry’s pleasant expression dissipated just a little.

  “You – both of you – might be interested in this, considering what you’re looking into. We may have a cattle mutilation.”

  Fiona’s mental antennae instantly perked up. She knew about the mutilation phenomena, of course, but hadn’t expected it here. Still, it was often related to the sightings of UFOs and cryptids, which, in theory at least, this Mothman was. Thinking of that, she looked back up at the limb.

  “I wish I could have gotten some samples from that. Luke, do you think we could come back with a ladder or something...”

  “Sure,” he said, somewhat relieved there would be no more tree climbing at the moment, “but I can do even better than that. My neighbor has a pole saw.” Seeing her blank look, he added, “It’s like a chainsaw on the end of a long pole. I’ll borrow it, and we can come back and take the whole limb with us if you want.”

  “I’ve got to go to Charleston later this week anyway,” Harry put in, “so, if you want and Luke will authorize it on the department letterhead, we can bag that section for evidence to see if there’s any DNA, boot marks, or anything else there.”

  Fiona was still more than a little angry with the trooper, but she knew he was doing her a huge favor and she felt obligated to thank him, albeit a bit grudgingly, but he waved it away.

  “You’re welcome. So, if you all are done playing Tarzan and Jane and patient and doctor, let’s go play with a dead cow now; what do you say?”

  Both of them told Harry exactly what they had to say and in no uncertain terms, all of which only fed his satisfaction even further.

  “By the way, Luke, I don’t want to make you self-conscious or anything, but you’ve got an absolutely perfect zipper-print on the end of your nose.”

  While Harry walked back to his own cruiser, Luke opened the door for her and Fiona got in the county Charger.

  “Is he always like that?”

  “No,” Luke assured her sincerely, “usually he’s much worse.”

  Her head turned to look at him and she saw he was sporting a faint but very real grin of his own through swollen, battered lips.

  “You made a joke!”

  He nodded.

  “Yes, even we stuffy old deputies do that once in awhile.”

  Looking down, she said, “I wouldn’t have thought you’d feel like joking after what happened. I know you must really hate me by now.” She suddenly realized that thought cut her to the quick, but she didn’t know why, or else wouldn’t admit it.

  “Why on Earth would you think that?” he asked, and the genuine shock in his voice surprised her.

  “Well, let’s see;” She started counting off her transgressions on her fingers. “I’ve fallen on you, busted your head, your nose, your mouth, bruised you all up, got broken glass in your butt, and embarrassed the hell out of you in front of your friend.” Her voice kept getting louder, and she couldn’t seem to stop it. “I’ve lost my temper with you half a dozen times and acted like a complete bitch when you were only trying to help, and I’ve been a great big pain in
the ass! That’s why.”

  Pursing his lips in thought, he said, “That’s funny; I was just thinking this was the most fun I’ve had in years.”

  Looking at Luke sharply as Harry blew by them with a wave in the State Police car, she was surprised to see that, to all appearances, he was telling the absolute truth, and she could only shake her head.

  “You must not get out much, do you?”

  Putting the cruiser in gear, he frowned in thought as they started rolling.

  “No, I guess I don’t.”

  That admission came as a surprise to Fiona, who couldn’t understand why a man like him wasn’t more socially active.

  I mean he’s handsome and in great shape; he’s impossibly patient, he’s got a good sense of humor, he’s...oh, shit! I’m listing his virtues now! I’d better stop because I really can’t afford to go there. I’m not ready yet, not after what that son of a bitch Cliff did to me, and it’s not like anything could really work out between us anyway...

  Turning her head away to clear her thoughts, she saw the shadowy figure standing there, deep in the brush beside the spot where they had just been.

  “Stop!”

  Luke slammed on the brakes, causing her to rock forward against her shoulder harness.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s somebody standing there at the turnoff.”

  “Where?” he asked, even as he shifted into reverse and quickly backed up, retracing the few yards they had traveled.

  “There! He was right there to the left, back in the woods, maybe three or four car lengths.” Suddenly feeling very foolish, she added, “I don’t see him now, but he was there! I’m sure of it.” Perfectly aware of how lame that sounded as she stared at the brush that now showed no sign, she mentally braced herself for his inevitable comments about being a city girl and not knowing what she was looking at, or being overtired, or worst of all, simply being a ‘typical hysterical female.’ Whatever he said, she promised herself she would take it silently and not let her temper show; she owed him that much. Suddenly she was aware Luke had put the car in park and was getting out.

  “Where? Give me a landmark.”

  “There,” she pointed, pleasantly surprised he was taking her seriously, “by that bush with the red leaves on it.”

  “What happened to you, Luke?”

  Hearing Harry’s voice on the radio, he took a moment to grab the mike.

  “We evidently had a subject hiding very close by, observing us the whole time we were at our twenty.”

  “Hold one; I’m on my way back.”

  Without waiting for his backup, Luke turned to Fiona. What he was about to do went against all proper police procedure, but he wasn’t about to leave her helpless if...things went wrong.

  “Can I trust you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take this.” He reached for his right ankle, flipped a snap with his thumb, pulled something out, and placed it in her hand. “All you do is point it at the center of your target and squeeze the trigger, but don’t use it unless something happens to me or I tell you to; got it?”

  “Got it,” she said with a lot more confidence than she felt. Fiona had never held a gun in her hand in her life, and the snub-nosed .38 Smith & Wesson Chief’s Special gave her butterflies.

  Turning back to the woods, Luke put one hand on his Glock and called out, “You in the brush; come out now! Keep your hands where I can see them and walk straight toward me.” A pause, then, when nothing happened, “This is your last warning! Do it now!”

  Fiona gripped the revolver in both hands, keeping the muzzle pointed toward the floor and her slender finger as far away from the trigger as she could get it.

  Ohshitohshitohshit! What have I gotten myself into?

  The woods remained still, as if they were holding their breath, and Luke drew the big semi-auto and said over his shoulder to Fiona, “Remember what I told you!” before advancing toward the spot she had indicated. He moved carefully, one step at a time, his head moving slightly from side to side as he scanned for threats.

  She wanted to scream at him to wait until Harry arrived, but she was afraid to break his concentration, then the State Police cruiser was sliding in alongside them. Harry was out in a second, on the side of the car away from Luke, holding his own pistol and resting his forearms on the roof, covering his friend. His pleasant expression was still there, but it looked as though it had been painted on a mannequin.

  Luke reached the spot, turned his eyes down at the ground, circled around, and then looked out into the woods behind it, and she could see his body relaxing, although the pistol stayed in his hand when he turned and started walking back.

  “Somebody was there,” he announced, “I could see his tracks in a patch of mud, and water was still seeping into the prints, so they had to have been made within the past few minutes.When we backed up, he evidently made a beeline to the west; I heard something in the brush, but it was at least a seventy-five or a hundred yards or so away, and was moving in the opposite direction.”

  “I wonder what the hell he was doing,” Harry mused while he put his own pistol away, and Luke shook his head and did the same, even as he opened the door to his cruiser.

  “Damned if I know. We’d better get rolling though, while there’s still a little light left. That cow isn’t going to be smelling any better.”

  After he closed the door behind him, he held out his hand to Fiona.

  “I can go ahead and take that back, if you’re done with it.”

  Realizing she had been clenching the weapon in both hands, squeezing it so hard the muzzle was shaking, she forced herself to relax and, carefully keeping the barrel pointed away from both of them, handed it back and watched while he strapped it back in his ankle holster.

  They had been driving for almost two minutes when she remarked, “Thank you for trusting me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the gun for one thing. I told you my father is a cop in New York?” When Luke nodded, she told him, “He would never have just handed a gun to a stranger like that.”

  The deputy shrugged.

  “Maybe New York is different, but around here, most of us tend to assume the average citizen has a little bit of sense and can generally be trusted to at least try to do the right thing.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  Flicking his eyes in her direction, he asked her, “How so?”

  “You didn’t see that guy back there, did you?”

  “Nope.”

  “So why did you take my word for it?”

  “Because it was obvious you thought you saw something, and because you’ve made it plain in the past few hours, while you may not be much of a tree climber, you’re certainly no idiot. You can keep your head and you’re not prone to hysterics even when things don’t go quite as planned.” He grinned for a second and rubbed his sore, zipper-marked nose to make his point, then the corners of his bloody mouth leveled out once more in a grim line. “Besides, I just had a gut feeling you were right, and I decided to go with it.”

  “But you didn’t actually see him yourself.”

  “No, he was gone by the time I got there.”

  “Let me ask you something, Luke, and promise me you’ll tell me the truth, with no more ‘strategic redeployments.’”

  “Scout’s honor,” he responded, letting go of the wheel to hold up the three fingers in the classic gesture, but she refused to see the humor.

  “There’s something I’ve got to know. Those tracks: were they really there, or did you just say that to keep me from feeling stupid?”

  That one earned her hand another reassuring squeeze.

  “They were there alright, just like I said. Some son of a bitch was sneaking around watching us.”

  “But why?”

  Another shrug.

  “Most likely some guy squirrel hunting or out scouting for a place to hunt deer once the season came in, saw us poking around, and got curi
ous, then got scared when he realized we saw him. The only problem with that hypothesis is that no one in their right mind would risk sneaking up on a police officer; that’s a good way to get shot. Then again, maybe he wasn’t in his right mind; he could have been some doper, even a peeping Tom, lurking around waiting for parkers and hoping to catch someone doing something worth watching. I hope he didn’t have a camera, or we could end up being stars on the Internet, what with our impromptu gymnastic routine and first aid demonstration.”

  Fiona put her hand over her mouth in a failed attempt to stifle her laugh at the image that presented, but, for some reason, a little shadow of fear still nibbled around the edges of her mind.

  “Have there ever been any...murders out here?”

  Luke made a clicking tch sound and nodded.

  “A few, at least that we know about. I’m willing to bet there have been a lot more we don’t.” He gestured at the surrounding woods. “It’s a lonely place, and if someone made even a half-hearted effort to hide a body or anything else out here, the only way it’s likely to be found is by pure chance.”

  “I guess that’s why you took that guy being back there so seriously then?”

  “Partly,” he told her, and she asked, “What’s the other part?”

  “You; your safety is my number-one priority. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anything happen to you, not on my watch.”

  “Doing your duty, huh?” Fiona asked him, feeling somehow slightly disappointed in his answer, but her mood instantly perked up when Luke looked over at her and that grin came back, this time with the faintest hint of a wise-ass smirk at its corners.

  “Partly.”

  She blushed and looked down at the floor.

  “They have left, Colonel.”

  Colonel Davis held the receiver to his ear, managing not to wince at the sound of Smith’s voice. Even though he had done horrible things for his country in a dozen other countries without flinching during the course of his career, the tone, cadence, and overall speech patterns of Smith and his...people… had a subtle sense of wrongness to it that gave him goose bumps. It was a feeling like being watched by someone you couldn’t see, and he knew that comparison wasn’t too far from wrong. They saw too much, knew too much, and their comparatively minor inability to use contractions just added to the strangeness. Under normal circumstances, even the most bizarre, out-there weirdo could be gotten used to over time, but this bunch got stranger and more unsettling the longer you knew them.