Savage Species

by Jonathan Janz

  When the handsome but soulless feds finish talking to her, rather than lunging forward to take their place, the cop hangs back a bit longer, studying the pictures on the mantel, seemingly in no real hurry.

  The housewife can bear the silence no longer.

  “Have you heard anything yet?” she asks him.

  He speaks without turning. “Nothing.”

  “Shouldn’t you be out there?”

  “There are plenty of people looking.”

  The housewife finally snaps. “You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re doing, do you?”

  He turns to her, no anger in his face. “Yes, ma’am. I just think they’re going about it wrong.”

  The housewife stands, goes into the kitchen to get herself a beer.

  She hears him come in behind her. “Want one?” she asks.

  “Better not,” he says.

  Twisting off the bottle cap, she takes a swig and turns to look at him: the loose jowls, the mournful eyes, the mouth that always seems about to smile sadly. He’s holding his hat before him in a way that’s somehow endearing, like a polite little boy apologizing for breaking a neighbor’s window.

  “You think I’m crazy too,” she says.

  The merest ghost of a smile. “What makes you think they believe you’re crazy?”

  “They talk to me like I’ve escaped from the group home. Ever since I told them what happened.”

  “It is pretty hard to swallow.”

  “The hysterical housewife, deranged with grief—”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She looks away, guzzles some beer. She burps loudly and wipes her mouth, wondering how her daughters are doing with Chris’s folks. She needs, just about more than anything else, the comforting noise of her daughters fighting over the Trikester that Kate had outgrown and that went to Olivia, except Kate didn’t like seeing Olivia on the pink tricycle she used to ride. Then Olivia’s high-pitched screaming would pierce the day, and Charly would storm outside to officiate and mete out punishment. It drove her nuts, keeping those two from killing each other, but right now it was exactly what she needed.

  That and her baby boy.

  The sobs grab hold of her like the hands of some cunning strangler. She drops the bottle in the sink and bends double, the storm of tears racking her weary body. She feels the cop’s soft hand on her shoulder, but where the hell is Eric? Every time the feds question her he’s in another room, and she still hasn’t gotten an answer about where he was last night when Jake was kidnapped.

  The cop’s arm encircles her shoulders, draws her against his kneeling body. Her equilibrium fails and she sinks toward him, and then they’re sitting together like that on the kitchen floor when Eric walks in. His face is already red with anger; she doesn’t even kid herself it’s because he’s been crying. She wonders if on some level he’s worried about their son. Or maybe his selfishness doesn’t even allow the occasional slip into normal human behavior.

  “What’s going on?” Eric demands.

  Charly returns his stare, wondering, Does he actually think I’m having a romantic moment with this chubby sheriff?

  Next to her the cop says, “I thought she needed some help, Mr. Florence.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asks Eric.

  “The cocksucker’s here.”

  She frowns. “What?”

  “What do you mean, what? Bledsoe. That cocksucker Bledsoe just pulled up.”

  Though she knows Sam can’t do a thing to help get Jake back, for the first time since the creature stole him from his crib, Charly feels a surge of hope.

  Eric starts to go out.

  “What are you going to say to him?” she calls after him.

  Red-faced, he rounds on her, “I’m going to tell him to get his ass off my property.”

  “He didn’t do anything wrong,” she says, rising.

  “And you can shut your goddamned mouth.”

  The cop, who has risen with her, suddenly seems to grow in stature. “Don’t speak to her like that,” the cop says.

  Eric utters a breathless little laugh, as if Kate or Olivia had just deigned to challenge his authority. “Listen, fatass,” Eric starts. “It’s none—”

  “You want to explain to your wife why you and that girl were in the car last night?” the sheriff says.

  Charly feels her mouth drop open. She stares at the cop, who blushes.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. That was a terrible thing to say, especially right now. It’s not my place—”

  “Now you start in,” Eric says. “Just like those FBI guys. Look, do any of you have any idea what it takes to run a basketball program? She’s an assistant, for chrissakes, she was diagramming plays—”

  “At two in the morning?” Charly asks.

  “Parked at the end of a gravel road?” the cop puts in.

  “We were in the front seat,” Eric says and levels a finger at the cop, “and you need to keep your mouth shut. What’s your name?”

  “Why weren’t you here?” Charly asks.

  But the doorbell rings and Eric says, “Your boyfriend’s waiting.”

  “Tell me the truth,” she says, voice stronger than it’s ever been with Eric.

  He flaps a dismissive hand at them and goes out.

  Charly glances up at the sheriff.

  He shakes his head, “I’m sorry for blurting that out. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Larry Robertson,” he says. “Call me Larry.”

  She leans up and kisses him on the cheek. When she pulls away his blush is so deep his skin is the color of Merlot.

  She gives him the best smile she can muster. “Thank you, Larry.”

  This close, Jesse could see the peeling white paint, the sagging eaves that hung like gaudy earrings off a once-pretty actress’s aging lobes. Whatever money Red Elk had gotten from the state hadn’t been used on home repairs, that much was certain. Jesse brought the Canon up, snapped a couple shots of the house. From this range, he could get all of it in the frame and some of the woods too. The place was so deeply embedded out here in the forest, it seemed a part of it, as though the leprous white house had grown as naturally as a maple or an oak.

  “What a dump,” Colleen said.

  “Hey,” Jesse said under his breath. “Take it easy.”

  Colleen stopped on a crumbling concrete archipelago that once might have been a sidewalk. “What?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Jesse said.

  “We in church all of a sudden?”

  Jesse rolled his eyes. “Don’t you think you should show a little more respect?”

  “For what?”

  “This house is probably all he has.”

  “Then he should buy a new one.”

  Emma had gone up to the screened door, was peering inside.

  “He’s almost a full-blooded Algonquin,” Jesse explained. “His family’s lived here for generations.”

  “In this?” Colleen asked, thumbing toward the house. “You claiming this used to be a wigwam or something?”

  A shape moved behind a filmy window. Jesse shook his head, moved past Colleen. “Never mind.”

  “You’re too sensitive.”

  “Or I happen to think the Native American has been treated badly for centuries.”

  Colleen groaned. “Not that crap again. Look, have you oppressed anybody?”

  Jesse’s mouth worked a moment. “Not directly, no, but my forefathers—”

  “What forefathers?”

  Emma looked up. Someone was at the door.

  “I had an uncle moved here from Germany back in the seventies,” Colleen said. “Does that mean he should spend the rest of his life apologizing for Hitler?”

  Jesse mouthed the word shush. The large silhouette stood unmovingly behind the screen door. Emma was staring up at the figure with unusual reticence.

  Colleen went on, “I’m sorry this guy’s great-great-great grandparents got
forced out by a bunch of people who happened to have the same skin color as me, but that doesn’t mean I have to walk around with a guilt complex the rest of my life.”

  Emma cleared her throat. “Are you Mr. Red Elk?”

  The figure didn’t respond. Jesse was gripped with the strange feeling that the man was watching him particularly, waiting on him to rebut Colleen’s argument.

  “We’re from the paper,” Emma explained. “The Shadeland Truth?”

  “Shannon Whirry,” the figure said in a deep, resonant voice.

  Emma glanced back at them, disconcerted. She turned to the man standing in the screen door. “My name’s Emma Cayce,” she said. “This is Jesse—”

  “You’ve got her tits,” the voice said.

  Emma drew back. “Excuse me?”

  “Shannon Whirry was one of the biggest soft-porn stars of the nineties. She had these perfectly formed breasts. Milky skin, a little beauty mark on the side of her face…”

  “Mr. Red Elk,” Emma said, “we’ve come to talk to you about the new park. We wanted to get some insight into the history of this land and how you feel about—”

  “My favorite one of Shannon’s films was Mirror Images II. There’s a great girl-on-girl scene where this hardcore porn star sticks her tongue in Shannon’s ear and rubs her titties from behind.”

  Jesse was just able to manage an offended expression when Emma turned to him.

  Colleen, however, wasn’t hiding her amusement. “I remind you of anybody?”

  The door opened a bit and Jesse beheld the tight white underwear, the gnomish belly hanging over the waistband. Red Elk’s skin was dark, his frame large and intimidating. Jesse put him at about six-three, two hundred and forty pounds.

  “A soft-porn star?” Red Elk said, scrunching his nose a little. “Nah, you don’t have the body for it. You do kind of favor a young Rosie O’Donnell, though.”

  Colleen’s grin evaporated. “Thanks a lot.”

  “You asked.”

  Emma shook her head. “Mr. Red Elk…are you available for an interview?”

  He appeared to size them up. Then he gave a little shrug. “You can come in if you want.” He receded into the house. As he went, Jesse saw the tighty-whities shifting with the man’s buttocks.

  Emma held the door open for them.

  “Real charmer,” Colleen said as she stepped inside.

  Chapter Eight

  “You won’t even know I’m here,” Sam said as he moved around the side of the house. Eric was stalking him, less than three feet away. Charly and Sheriff Robertson jogged after them.

  “You’re a really stupid guy, you know that?” Eric spat.

  “If the sliding door is sticking on you,” Sam said, “I need to fix it.”

  “My son was kidnapped last night,” Eric said, the tendons of his neck jumping.

  “Which is why I’m staying out of your hair,” Sam said. “Of all the issues you raised, this is the quickest fix.”

  “Are you fucking deaf?”

  Charly had seen her husband in a rage before—heck, on the sidelines it was never a matter of if he’d blow up at the refs, but when; Eric had a reputation as one of the fieriest young coaches in the nation, a label in which he seemed to revel—but she’d never seen him strike anyone.

  That’s why she was so startled when he punched Sam in the back of the head.

  Sam stumbled, the toolbox he carried clanking loudly, but he didn’t go down. She was sure he’d whirl on Eric and beat his face in—in fact, she yearned for it—but rather than retaliating, Sam kept moving as if he’d never been struck.

  “Stop it, Mr. Florence,” Larry Robertson called. He was badly winded already, his voice strained.

  “Stupid fucker,” Eric growled. Charly reached out to hold her husband back, but before she could he planted both palms in the middle of Sam’s back and shoved. Sam fell forward in a heap, the red toolbox tumbling in the grass beside him, its hasp coming undone.

  Sam pushed up onto his hands and knees and said, “Listen, Mr. Florence—”

  But before he got any more out, Eric slashed down at him with a balled fist and cracked him in the side of the face.

  Robertson finally reached the pair. “That’s enough, Mr. Florence.”

  Eric spun away from Robertson and cocked an arm back for another blow. But before he could level it at Sam, Robertson threw a shoulder into him.

  Charly watched in satisfaction as her husband went down in an awkward heap.

  “What the hell?” Eric shouted at Robertson.

  He looked stricken, like a little boy who’s just received a smack on the butt for smarting off. She hoped Robertson would leap onto Eric’s prone form and deliver a sound trouncing, but the sheriff merely went over and helped Sam to his feet.

  “You okay?” Robertson asked.

  Sam nodded, but Charly saw the trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth.

  “I own this property,” Eric said and pointed at Sam. “He’s a trespasser, and I can damn well deal with him how I please.”

  Robertson eyed Eric coldly. “For one thing, you’re not the only one who lives here. The missus has rights too.” He looked at Charly. “You want Mr. Bledsoe to leave?”

  “No,” she said.

  Eric made a scoffing sound. “Big surprise.”

  “Secondly, just because someone is on your land, that doesn’t give you the right to assault him. Which means I just witnessed an unprovoked attack. Do you want to press charges, Mr. Bledsoe?”

  Sam palmed blood off his lip. Then, glancing at Charly, he said, “No, I don’t.”

  “You gotta be kidding,” Eric said. “Press charges? This asshole does a shitty job on our house—”

  “I also suspect,” Robertson said, his voice rising over Eric’s, “that Mr. Bledsoe here could whip your skinny behind if he so desired. That he hasn’t done so yet shows me how sensitive he is to your situation.” Robertson stood over Eric. “Now you can either control your mouth, or I can take you in for striking this man.”

  Eric stared hatefully up at Robertson.

  “Good,” the sheriff said. “Now, let’s forget this happened and focus on getting your boy back.”

  He offered Eric a hand, but rather than accepting the help, Eric pushed to his feet and made for the house.

  Robertson stared after Eric sourly before saying to Sam, “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Sam said and bent to retrieve his toolbox.

  Robertson looked at Charly, and she realized how the confrontation had taxed him. His short black hair was matted with sweat, and he was still breathing heavily. If he doesn’t get in shape soon, Charly thought, he’ll have a heart attack by his sixtieth birthday.

  “I better check in,” Robertson said. He nodded at Charly. “If you think of anything I can do to help, please call me.”

  She said she would. Robertson ambled to his cruiser, and she was left with Sam.

  “I’m sorry Eric hit you,” she said.

  “I didn’t come here to fix your back door.”

  Charly returned his stare for a long moment. Then she said, “Eric was out with his assistant coach last night.”

  “I assume this assistant isn’t a man.”

  “She’s very pretty.”

  “Can’t be as pretty as you.”

  Charly felt a little sick to her stomach. She fought an insane urge to throw her arms around Sam and squeeze. Sex could come later, she thought—a lot of sex—but right now she needed comfort. Sheriff Robertson had gone a long way toward helping her feel as if she weren’t completely alone, but Sam filled that need in a much more fundamental way.

  Charly exhaled pent-up air. “So why did you come?”

  “Can you walk with me a little?”

  She frowned, glanced back at the house. “It’s sweet of you, really. But I need to stay here. Maybe I’ll go pick up my girls and bring them back—”

  “I’m not asking you on a date.”


  She tried not to look hurt.

  “I want to find your baby,” he said.

  “It’s sweet of you, but I don’t think—”

  “I spent some time today walking around the woods. The description of your kidnapper gave me the idea.”

  “And?”

  He hesitated.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “How did you know what the kidnapper looked like?”

  Sam gave her an apologetic look. “I’ve known Larry Robertson for years. He shared a couple details…”

  She steeled herself for more condescension. “So you think I’m crazy too.”

  “Not a bit,” he said. “Your story’s the only one that makes sense.”

  She watched him closely to see if he was putting her on.

  “Think about it,” he said. “They didn’t find any sign of forced entry. The dogs couldn’t pick up the scent outside. They’re focusing all their attention on the tire tracks—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “A creature like that doesn’t exist.”

  “You said it sprang out of your window.”

  “So?”

  “You didn’t say ‘jumped,’ you said ‘sprang’.”

  “What’s—”

  “When you ran to the window, you didn’t see the creature below, right?”

  Try as she might, she couldn’t fight off the flood of images:

  The monster’s horrid grin as it cradled her baby.

  The long, walking-stick legs striding toward the window.

  The monster climbing onto the sill.

  But the worst had been the appalling cleverness in the creature’s eyes. The sadistic way it appeared to luxuriate in her terror…

  “Charly?” Sam asked.

  “I thought I saw it rise into the air.”

  “Maybe it did.”

  She grunted. “It was the middle of the night, I was half out of my mind…”

  “I found a place in the woods where the undergrowth was pushed flat.”

  She stopped and studied Sam’s earnest face.

  He said, “There were branches snapped in half, saplings that looked as though something very powerful had come through.”