Mala grinned at Trey’s complaints, but then realized that someone was missing. Trey was obviously here, as was Darc.
But Janey was nowhere to be found.
Mala’s heart thudded in her chest, her pulse racing. Where had she gone? There was nothing left out here to hurt her, was there? The killer and her husband were taken care of. The ranger had been taken away.
The wife’s body they had found out in the woods. Apparently, she’d managed to escape from the patrol car, only to be mauled in the forest by some wild beast, in a manner strangely similar to the earlier victims, without the snapped neck, of course.
The official ruling would probably end up being a bear mauling. Especially since there were so many witnesses that could testify that they’d seen a mother bear earlier in the evening.
Mala didn’t buy that explanation for a moment, of course. Along with the whisperings of Kent’s dark proclivities, there were even quieter suspirations of coincidental “accidents” that seemed to occur to the serial killers he pursued. Strange injuries delivered in “self defense” that didn’t quite seem to jibe with the forensics. Never enough for anyone to be sure, but more than enough for many to suspect.
But what of Janey? Even with no killer lurking about, Kent’s stories of Bigfoot ran through Mala’s mind, ramping up her fears.
Then she caught sight of a tall-ish figure standing next to a much shorter one. Kent and Janey, side by side, right at the edge of the forest. They were… what were they doing over there?
It looked like they were waving at someone.
“Janey!” Mala called out to her. “What are you doing?”
Janey turned and trotted over to Mala, throwing her arms around her waist. After holding her for a moment, Janey stepped back, smiling up at her.
“Who were you waving at, you little monkey?” Mala said, smiling back at her. But Janey just shrugged.
“Just saying goodbye to the forest,” Kent answered for the little girl. “It’s been an interesting trip.”
But there was something about the way in which he said it that made Mala not believe him. A swagger to the way he sauntered over.
“You found him, didn’t you?” she asked.
He smiled at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Sasquatch. You found him.”
Kent just shrugged, shaking his head. “Nope. This trip was a bit of a bust in that regard, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, come on. There has to be more to it than that?”
“Hey,” he said. “You win some, you lose some.” And then he moved off in the direction of the vehicles, that same swagger in his step.
You win some, you lose some? Really? That’s what he was going with?
That was a bunch of manure. Mala knew Kent’s reputation. When Kent set out to do something, he did it. And if this moment were somehow the exception, he wouldn’t look like he was the cat’s meow. Mala tilted her head down to look at Janey.
“You saw Bigfoot, didn’t you?”
But Janey just stared back at her and grinned and grinned.
* * *
Trey stumbled up to the door of Maggie’s… no, their… apartment. It was about five o’clock in the morning, and he hadn’t gotten a lick of sleep.
So, not only had he not discovered Bigfoot, but now he had missed out on his beauty rest. Life was just not fair sometimes.
At least he could come home and climb into bed. Maggie wouldn’t be up for another couple of hours, at least, and so Trey should be able to catch a quick nap on the couch before Maggie left for work.
After listening to the captured Billy squawk about how his wife couldn’t take those sick kids and their animal cruelty, they’d gone through the cabin and found his wife’s outfit. Trey had to hand it to her. She’d stitched the thing together by hand, using faux fur that was pretty high end. Trey imagined with the number of hours she was out there at the campsite, creating a realistic Bigfoot costume wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
The paws had been filled with concrete and tipped with steel nails that had been filed and shaped to form the claws. That weight explained the snapped necks of the victims.
Trey shook his head as he slid the key into the lock and slowly turned the doorknob, hoping that he was being quiet enough to keep from waking Maggie. He needn’t have worried.
Maggie was already up, sitting on the couch. Turning to face her as he entered the room, Trey could see that there were dark circles under her eyes. It didn’t seem like she had slept much.
“Babe, are you okay?”
She shook her head and patted the couch beside her. That was strange. Trey had expected her to be a bit short with him, but instead she was acting almost… scared.
What was going on?
“I have something I need to say to you, Trey, and I’m not sure what you’re going to do,” she said after a moment. “I kept trying to tell you…”
“Okay,” Trey said, preparing himself for the worst. “Go ahead.”
She looked into his eyes, her own wide and filled with trepidation.
“I’m pregnant.”
The words entered into Trey’s ears, but for the longest time they didn’t make any sense. There was no way she could be pregnant. Darc and she had broken up a long time ago, and…
Wait.
Meaning drifted into his consciousness. Maggie was pregnant, and it wasn’t with Darc. It was with someone else.
It was with him.
“We’re… you… I…” he stammered. “We’re going to have a baby?”
Maggie nodded.
“I mean, like, you and me? A baby?”
Another nod.
And then Maggie was in his arms and he was holding her and kissing her and stroking her hair. Then he stopped for a second and looked down at her belly.
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I…?” he asked, pointing down. “I don’t want to crush…”
“Shh,” Maggie said, lacing her arms around Trey’s neck. “You’ve told me everything I needed to know.”
They were going to have a child. Together. A bubble of joy made its way up his body, making him want to laugh and cry and yell all at once. But then another thought popped into his head.
Trey was going to be a father.
And just like that, he slipped into unconsciousness.
3rd BODY: Just try to keep your head
PROLOGUE
Doug hated the smell of cows.
Hate was a strong word, but at this particular moment, he was thinking that maybe it wasn’t strong enough. Not all-inclusive enough to fully describe the loathing he felt toward the scents that were invading his nostrils right now. In stereo.
For that matter, Doug wasn’t too keen on the whole “fresh air” thing. But he and his friends had decided that the best way to get blitzed without having to worry about getting busted was to drive a half-hour outside of Seattle, to a dairy farm. In retrospect, Doug thought that getting busted might be preferable to being out here in the middle of nowhere.
And it wasn’t bad enough that it smelled. The air was foggy… and cold. Like witch’s tit cold, as his Uncle Bart always said. Doug’s mom would frown when Uncle Bart said stuff like that, but since he was Dad’s brother and didn’t come around much, she always kept quiet. Bart’d probably love it out here.
Doug looked over at his friends, watching as Jamal tipped the bottle back, slugging down more of the brown lighter fluid inside. Good times. Good times.
The Triad, they called themselves. A tough name for some not-so-tough high school students. Their group could be a case study in diversity. Doug, the token white guy. Huang, the brilliant Asian stereotype. Jamal, the adopted black kid who might as well be white and was pissed off at the world because of it.
All of them outcasts.
Smart, nerdy, uncoordinated. The most athletic of the bunch was Jamal, and he was on the cross-country team. Not exactly a babe magnet.
But now they were out in the middle of B.F.E., and Doug w
asn’t exactly having the time of his life. Not too shocking, for a Friday night.
At least back in Seattle, there was always the chance he’d run into someone of the female persuasion. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t have the guts to talk to any of them, but at least they’d be around. Right now, the only jugs he was seeing were ones attached to the bottoms of the cows. And damned if they weren’t starting to look tempting.
Before coming out here to wherever this was, they’d scored some alcohol back in Seattle. Not rocket science. They’d hung around outside a convenience store, waiting for just the right moment.
A homeless guy, looking for a handout, had been more than willing to go in and buy them some cheap liquor in exchange for some of his own. There was always the chance that one of these guys would get clever and decide to keep the haul to himself, but so far, they’d had pretty good success.
Now they were out here. In “nature” or whatever.
The farm was one of those organic, free-range jobs, so it wasn’t supposed to stink quite as bad as the overly industrialized ones. But at the end of the day, cow manure was cow manure. Wasn’t like it was going to end up smelling like roses, right?
Oh, and one other thing. Cows were not smart. Not even a little bit. They just stood there, watching the Triad get sloshed. Mooing from time to time, chewing their cud or whatever the hell it was they did.
Which had led to the idea that the guys should finish off their rotgut rum and then start pushing the big bovine creatures over. Cow tipping. Wasn’t that something that only country hicks did? After a lot of giggling and whispering and creeping up on the docile animals, they’d managed to get close enough to start shoving.
But after trying and failing to get even one cow pushed over, Doug was beginning to suspect that maybe it was only city folk that tried this whole thing. He turned to watch his friend, Huang, as the Asian… what was he, anyway? Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese? Some other Asian whatsit?
Doug paused for a second in his thoughts, wondering if the fact that he didn’t know made him racist. But then the bellowing of the animal in front of his friend brought his attention back to what he was thinking before. That cow looked different than the others. Why was that?
Oh, right. It had balls where the other ones had udders.
Wait.
The idea made its way through the fuzziness of Doug’s brain just about the same time as the disturbed bull turned around and started charging straight toward Huang. And then they were all running as fast as they could away from the enraged beast.
How the hell had they ended up trying to tip a bull? Was this even a dairy farm at all? The fog created by the nasty rum refused to lift, and Doug had no idea where he was headed. Just away. He felt his ankle twist underneath him and he went down. There was no pain, but when he tried to leap back up, his leg wouldn’t support him.
Fantastic. He was going to get gored by a bull out on a dairy farm in the middle of the night. Death by stupidity.
Plus, he was still a virgin. No. Worse than that. Destruction was breathing down his neck, and he’d never gone to second base with anything other than a cow.
But just as Doug was sure that his life was coming to the end at the point of a bovine horn, he felt a rush of wind that indicated the passing of the animal. Apparently, when you landed face down in a cow patty, it acted as camouflage.
Doug lifted his head, searching around, trying to figure out what was going on. Huang and Jamal were disappearing into the fog, screaming their heads off, chased by the roaring bull. The mist swirled around their passing forms as they vanished from Doug’s sight. Then, like a switch had been turned off, the screams stopped.
There was no sound. Not even from the bull.
How was that possible? Had Doug maybe been trampled and was now in a coma in some hospital, hallucinating? Or even worse, he was dead, and this was his own private version of Hell?
But the other evidences of his surroundings were still present. Doug could hear his own breathing. Smell the cow dung left on his face. Feel the tingling in his fingers from the cold.
So why couldn’t he hear his friends or the bull?
Pushing up on his hands and knees, Doug began moving toward the last place he had seen any of them. The mist clung to him, coaxing him to stay where he was. And maybe he should have listened, but these were his friends that he was talking about here.
He couldn’t just leave them out here to get trampled by a pissed-off cow, now could he? That couldn’t be a part of the bro code, right?
“Jamal! Huang!” he called out into the night air, his voice falling strangely flat. There was no answer.
Limping along the path that he seemed to remember them following, Doug was taken by a sense of otherworldliness. The alcohol dulled his senses. The fog had thickened to the point that he could barely see five feet in front of him. He was no longer attached to this world, but found himself in another, alternate reality. One of the worlds he and his friends visited when they played WoW or when they went old school and pulled out their dads’ Dungeons and Dragons manuals.
“C’mon, guys! This isn’t funny!” he called out again, disturbed to find that his voice trembled and almost cracked.
His heart beat faster, and he could feel the throbbing beat in his neck, pulsing against the neck of his hoodie. Trying to breathe slower, Doug pushed down the fear that was creeping up from his gut.
The distances were deceptive in his little fog bubble, but as far as he could tell, he’d limped quite a ways at this point. Was he going in a circle? There was no way for him to know for sure.
Maybe it was time to get the parents involved. Doug cringed at the thought of what his dad would do to him when he found out what his oldest son had been up to tonight. But even worse was the look Doug would get from his mom. The face filled with disappointment, tinged with just the barest hint of sadness.
But this situation had gone beyond mildly scary and was getting into the realm of terrifying. He pulled out his cell phone. The lit face said that it was 12:48 am. There was no way this phone call was going to go well.
Doug swiped across the screen to open up the phone, but then saw that there was no reception. Of course. He and his friends were smart enough to maintain 4.0 averages, but not clever enough to stay in a place that had coverage. Brilliant.
About to put his cell phone away, Doug stumbled on something sticking up from the ground and almost tumbled head over foot. Staying upright with only the barest of margins, he looked down to see what had tripped him up. The light from his cell phone screen illuminated the form below him.
At first, the huddled mass at his feet made no sense to him. Then the cold blue light from the cell lit up what was clearly the back of a shoulder. But that couldn’t be the shoulder. If that was the shoulder, then what…?
Doug gagged, and he vomited, spewing out the remnants of the rum onto the ground to the side of the form in front of him. The hard burn of stomach acid seared his throat and his mouth.
The body was facedown in the wet soil, but Jamal’s dark face was staring straight up at the sky. The neck had been snapped, and the head turned one-hundred and eighty degrees on its axis. The numbers danced through Doug’s mind, distracting him from the horror of the expression on his friend’s face.
A sob had barely escaped from Doug’s lips, when he felt two hands clamp themselves on either side of his head. A voice whispered in his ear.
“A life of the mind would have been preferable to this.”
He felt his neck wrenched savagely to the side, and there was a crack.
The agony was blissfully short.
CHAPTER 1
Tiere. Animals.
All around were animals.
They wore their faces of daytime like the good little Menschen… humans… they pretended to be, but their actions spoke of something far more bestial. Base instincts ruled them every step of the way.
These Jungendliche. These boys, how they screamed as they ran. And the stupi
d cow look on their faces as they died. They never deserved to be called Menschen.
The blade parted the skin of the abdomen and the organ sac was exposed. Just as the true nature of this teenage boy had been exposed.
There was a thrill of pleasure as the organ sac was cut and the viscera spilled out. Was this animal-like? Certainly not, as there would be no eating. No devouring of this, the inside of this beast of burden. Only exposure. Only that.
All were this way. So many beasts, wearing human masks. So much needing to be cut away. Brought to light.
The way they interacted with one another. Just walking down the street was an exercise in death-baiting. Two drivers honking and swearing at each other during the middle of rush hour. A customer screaming at a vendor that she’d been swindled.
The way they conducted their daily business. This megacorporation swallowing up that smaller, family-built company. Layoffs that put loyal workers out on the streets to build up the bottom line of some fat-cat CEO looking to expand his retirement portfolio.
The way they “loved” each other. Digital flirting with random strangers. Hookups at local bars where the only thing that mattered were the visual markers of fertility in the potential partner. Subhuman mating that left both parties degraded both physically and emotionally.
And these were all activities that occurred in the light of day. Or at least the electric glow of artificial illumination.
What happened in the darkness defied even the vilest of imaginings.
Tiere.
They would be exposed.
The secrets they thought they were hiding so well would be sounded from the pulpits, called out from the crossroads, trumpeted from the rooftops. They would writhe as the dark corners inside their souls were exposed to the shining rays of enlightenment. The cold, clear, white light of Reason would teach them even as it flayed them alive.
For that was the purpose of all that was done here, was it not? The progression of the human race?
This was not about religion. No, the more these creatures wearing human faces spoke of their gods, the more animalistic their actions became.
The 2nd Cycle of the Darc Murders Omnibus (the acclaimed series from #1 Police Procedural and Hard Boiled authors Carolyn McCray and Ben Hopkin) Page 5