by Glenn Rolfe
Ted laughed. “Yeah, right back atcha.”
Sheriff Fischer walked away.
Ted started his bike and kicked up a little more dust. He had a date with a nightmare.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sonya sat, legs crossed, on her spread-out Mickey Mouse beach towel, sweating to death under the hot summer sun at Emerson Lake. She was getting irritated waiting for Alex to finish up at his brother’s shop. She watched Kim and Heath chase and splash each other in the water and wished that Alex were here so that they could be doing the same thing.
He stopped by this morning and surprised her with coffee and jelly doughnuts from Dunkin’ Donuts—her favorite. He had driven over to Hollis Oaks to get them for her. She thought it was a sweet gesture. He told her he had wanted to do something special for her, because she was so amazing and because he was grateful to have her in his life. He didn’t stay very long after that—his brother needed him for a couple hours at the shop to do a job. They had all made plans to head over to the lake today, so he promised he’d meet them there right after he finished up.
They’d arrived just before noon. It was now two o’clock, and still no sign of Alex—not one single call. She picked up her phone to make sure she didn’t have it on Silent. The glare of the sun on the display screen made it impossible to read. She had to find some shade.
She got up, looked around and spied the only shade anywhere, which was on the other side of the beach, by the trees. She grabbed her T-shirt from the top of the cooler they had brought with them, threw it on over her hot-pink bikini top and headed over to the shaded tree line.
Nick Bruce salivated as he watched all of the hot, oiled-up bodies laid out along the only place Gilson Creek had to offer for summer fun. He scanned the crowded beach from the little look-out hidden by the trees at the end of the beach. He tried to decide which of the pretty, young things to bring up to this shaded spot with him. A long-haired blonde headed straight toward him. Oh man. If only.
Sonya Fischer stood in the shade of the trees that skirted the far side of Emerson Lake. Her cell phone rang just as she got ready to flip it open.
“What’s taking you so long?” she whined.
“I’m leaving right now. Are you guys at the lake?” Alex said.
“Yeah, we’ve been here for a while. So hurry up and come hang out with me.”
“I’m on my way,” he replied. “I’m fucking sweating my balls off here.”
Relieved and reinvigorated with excitement, Sonya said, “Okay, hurry up.”
“See you in a bit.”
Sonya jumped, dropping her phone into the sand just as someone grabbed her shoulder from behind.
“Hey, what are you doing? You okay?”
“Jesus, Kim. You just scared the shit out of me,” she said with her hand held over her suddenly pounding heart.
“I saw you taking off and thought you were pissed at me.”
“Pissed at you? Why would I be pissed?”
“Because Heath and I have been off in our own world since we got here. Was that Alex on the phone?”
“Yeah, he got stuck at work, but he’s on his way now. And I’m not mad at you guys. I told you, I get it. He’s leaving for college soon. You two should be enjoying every second together. I know if it were me and Alex in you guys’ shoes, I wouldn’t let go of him until the day he left. I’m fine, you guys just never mind about me. Have fun.”
It had bugged her that her best friend had been so tied up this summer, but what she said was true. She did understand, and probably, under similar circumstances, would have been doing the same thing.
Kim hugged her and said, “You’re the best. I love you so much.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Sonya hugged her back. They held hands as they stepped across the hot and rocky beach, back to their spot by the water.
Damn it, Nick cursed. That dumb, ugly bitch had to come over and ruin everything.
Still soured over the loss of the blonde, he recognized another person headed his way. “Joel fucking O’Brien.” Oh, this could be perfect. Nick didn’t see Wes Kaplan anywhere. Either Joel was going it alone, or Wes was elsewhere. Either way, Nick’s thirst for blood would be sated.
Wes was right. If the officer was still here and Joel didn’t see him, he was probably too busy bird watching to notice the little Mohawked dude tromping across the beach with the dark-blue duffle bag. Joel found the spot referenced in Wes’s email. There was a lookout-type area at the corner of the beach. Joel couldn’t see anyone up there.
He smiled at the two girls—a short, dark-haired girl and a blonde cutey in a hot-pink bikini—as they passed by him. The dark-haired girl giggled and whispered something to the blonde. Joel’s smile spoiled. Fuck you too, bitches.
He reached the incline that led up to the designated spot for their Full Moon Monster photo session. A strange, musty animal scent hit his nose. “Okay, that seems perfect.” He set the bag down on a flat, soil-rich patch between the two trees that looked out over the beach and lake. He unzipped the bag and began to haul out the equipment.
Wes had dropped him off to get this site set up similar to what they had just finished down at the park. He abandoned Joel here temporarily while he went into town to grab them some food. A fat, juicy burger sounded pretty damn good right about now.
Joel had three of the small black sensors set up when something heavy thumped down behind him. He slowly turned his head.
“Holy fucking Christ.” He jumped up and backed away slowly. Not happening. Not happening. Wes?
Joel hit the tree at his back, and his bladder released. The urine puddled at his sneakered feet.
The man-thing crouched on the ground before him, and licked a thick black tongue over its horrible mouth of teeth. The thing’s eyes—a sickly yellow-orange blaze—were starved. Its hands were on the ground, its fingers burrowed in the dirt. The jet-black hair upon its head stood on end; its unkempt beard seemed to do the same thing. The bestial man—the Full Moon Monster—unleashed a low, deep, guttural growl.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Melanie Murdock entered through the back door to her café. She couldn’t stay cooped up in her house alone any longer. Joe had begged and pleaded for her to hide away with her movie monsters for the night. He’d succeeded in creeping her out. She found herself jumping at every shadow, at every scrape of a branch of the big apple tree out back, against her den window, and at every minuscule creak of the floorboards.
She kept seeing Stan Springs sitting in her driveway, wearing that awful smile. She thought she saw him standing at the shaded end of the hallway, clawing at her den window and creeping around in the other room.
Joe had promised to have his deputies doing periodic drive-bys to make sure she was okay, but it wasn’t enough to ease her paranoia. She waved down Deputy Clarke on his last run by and told him she needed to go in to work. He offered to drive her.
Stan Springs hadn’t set foot in the café since Joe had spoken with him. She’d not even seen the man since the night in her driveway. Her friend Heather said she’d seen him down at Gil’s once or twice. She said he sat there drinking alone and talking to himself. Mel didn’t care, so long as he stayed away from her business.
Upon dropping her off at the back entrance to the café, Deputy Clarke assured her that he would be in the area when she was ready for her escort home.
Katie Brooks entered the tiny break room as Mel was looking through the minifridge.
“Hey, Mel, I didn’t know you were working tonight,” Katie said.
Mel noticed the barely seventeen-year-old waitress slyly trying to slip her pack of Camels into her purse. “Where else would a girl rather be on a Friday night?”
“Yeah right, I know where I’d be,” Katie said. She grabbed her name tag from the small, brown tray on the table in the center of the room.
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�Oh yeah, where’s that? Jeremy’s house?” Melanie had stepped away from the lone break-room window as she egged her young employee on. “Out on a hot date?”
Katie blushed. “No! I’m not that kind of girl.”
“Oh really? Where exactly would an innocent princess such as yourself be found on a Friday evening? If she wasn’t working at the greatest café on earth, that is?” Melanie said.
“At the beach, of course,” Katie said.
“Of course. Well, my dear, why don’t you go get your sunscreen and your beach towel, and go live out your dreams.”
Katie’s mouth dropped. “What? Are you serious? But I just got here.”
“It’s up to you, darlin’. I have nothing better to do tonight. If you want a free night—” Melanie began.
Katie hugged her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…”
“Don’t go thinking this is going to be some kind of regular thing. I want to have some Friday nights on the town too, you know.” Melanie smiled at the prospect of getting to spend those nights with Joe.
“Thank you, Mel. You are the most awesome boss on the planet.” Katie fished her purple cell phone out of her purse.
“Yeah, yeah, now get outta here before I decide that I’m the one who needs to go swimming.” She watched Katie hurry to the time clock, her phone already to her ear.
Katie punched out, mouthed thank you to Mel, waved and headed out the door.
Nick Bruce dragged the broken body of Joel O’Brien behind a large rock just beyond the electronics the man had been working on. A trail of the blood from Joel’s shredded throat traced their path.
“Yo, Joel?”
Wes Kaplan. Two birds…Nick slunk down in the shade of the trees.
“Joel? Where the fuck are you, man? Don’t tell me you actually convinced one of these country bumpkins to play with your dick? What the hell?”
Wes dropped the fast`food bag and cup holder of Cokes to the ground. His eyes locked on to the crimson path.
“Hi, Wes.” Nick’s voice was unrecognizable to his own ears. It squeezed through his throat like his voice box was constricted.
“Nick?”
“In the…flesh,” he said. Nick stepped from behind the tree. Joel’s blood covered his hairy, thick-muscled forearms.
“Are…what…you’re…” Wes said.
Nick laughed—or at least he offered something that still passed as a laugh—as Wes’s face turned white. Nick was enjoying the ghostly effect his new look was having on everyone. “Shhrr.”
Wes turned to run.
Nick flung his new body forward and threw his right claw into the back of the fleeing Crypto Insider editor.
Wes Kaplan whimpered.
Nick’s clawed hand slammed through the meat on the back of his former boss and wrapped around his spine. Blood gushed over his widening wrist. The dark hair on his arms extended. Nick could see his blackened lips protruding past his wet nose. He pulled Wes to his broadened chest. “I’m your headline now.”
Wes’s eyes stared off into the ether. His dying breath escaped his pale lips.
Nick tightened his claws over the spine until he heard the bones crack. He flung Wes’s body backwards. The carcass slammed into the tree he’d hidden behind and crumpled to the dirt.
The monstrous version of Nick began to devour his kills
The phone startled Randy Hines from another bad dream. He’d dozed off at his desk. He hadn’t caught a single wink of sleep last night.
He picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
It was the sheriff. “Randy, I need you to grab Dwayne and have Rita call Shelly in. We need to prep them for tonight.”
Randy’s hands grew clammy at the thought of tonight. “Will do, Joe.”
He hung up the hefty black receiver, wiped his palms on the tops of his knees and took in a deep breath. He’d struggled to come to grips with the beast of their past, but he had to admit, knowing they, or Joe rather, had stood face-to-face with the creature before and taken it down, made it a little bit easier to let that sliver of hope shine into his heart of hearts.
Shelly Glescoe picked up her cell phone on the second ring. “Hi, Rita, what’s up?”
“Hey, Shelly, Joe wants you down at the station by three. Some kind of meeting, I guess.”
“What is it?” she said.
“Didn’t say, just told me what to tell you.”
What the hell? “Okay, Rita. I’ll be there.”
She had no idea what this urgent meeting could be about. Had she missed something? She called Dwayne, but got his voice mail.
Fuck it, I’m not waiting until three.
Shelly Glescoe put on her uniform, grabbed her gun and headed down to the station.
Ted pulled his bike up behind his nephew’s black-and-gold Camaro. Goddammit. He’d haul Alex home by his ears if he had to. He stuck his helmet in the saddlebag and hefted his other bag of wolf-killing goodies over his shoulder.
He spotted Alex and Sonya Fischer not far from the steps to the beach.
“Alex. Sonya.”
“Did you bring the beach toys?” Alex said.
“Yeah. Listen, you’re going to think I’m a dick, but today I don’t give a fuck. You guys need to go home.”
“What are you talking about? I just got here.”
“Yeah, and there’s a pretty ugly storm coming. Look at the clouds over there.”
The weather report he’d read all morning was spot on. Black clouds were gathering west of the lake. Maybe there were twenty minutes left before the rain would start to fall.
Sonya stayed quiet at his side.
“Your father know you’re out here? I’d bet not.”
“Leave her alone. Did you come out here just to bust my balls? Oh shit, wait…is this about the full moon?”
Ted watched his nephew roll on the beach.
“Oh my God. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?”
“Alex.”
“You’re out here trying to get me to go home because the wolfman is coming tonight.”
“Alex, shut up and listen to me. I’m trying to do the responsible thing here.”
“No, no.” Alex got up. His five-nine frame stood its ground. A number of onlookers were glued to the boiling scene. “What the hell is wrong with you, man? This last month, you…you’ve been out there. You skipped out on your band, you skipped out on your job. Like you give a fuck about responsibility. You’re fucking losing it and now you’re acting like an asshole.”
Ted dropped his bag to the sand and socked the boy in the mouth. Alex toppled over backwards and landed on Sonya. Voices murmured all around them.
Alex held his jaw and glared through Ted. “C’mon.” He took Sonya’s hand. They gathered their things and joined Heath Jorgensen and Sonya’s friend Kim, closer to the water.
“What the hell are you all looking at?” Ted said. He planted himself in the spot vacated by his fired-up nephew and watched the heated conversation he was having with his friends. Ted shook off his leather coat and pulled his smokes from the inner pocket. He lit up and waited to see if his jerk mode had been enough.
Joe Fischer arrived home hoping to touch base with Sonya before his long night began.
“Honey?”
The house was too quiet. He climbed the stairs. “Honey?” Nothing.
Fuck. She’d disobeyed him.
He walked into her room and over to the window. The promised rain had arrived. He watched the rain fall in fat droplets dotting the street. His only solace was knowing the night was still far away. He had time to find her.
“How certain are you that this thing can only hunt at night?”
Ted McKinney’s question whispered through his mind like a ghost. A chill ran up his spine. Where had Ted read that? In all of Joe’s studies with Springs, they
’d never run across that one. The image of Stan Springs this morning, standing at the door in his housecoat and sunglasses— Sunglasses? Something itched a murky spot in the corners of Joe’s brain. His headache was back in spades.
He tromped down the stairs and poured a tumbler of whiskey. He stared at the gold liquid and said a silent prayer. He downed the fiery swallow and stepped out into the oncoming storm.
Sitting in his truck, holding an unlit cigarette, his thoughts switched back to the interesting conversation he’d had earlier this week with Barlow Olson as the large man handed him the custom-made boxes of silver ammunition that were now sitting next to him on the passenger seat.
“You can’t just shoot these things. The silver will fuck the shit out of ’em. Drop ’em out of commission for a long-ass time, but it’s not enough.
Now, with the blade in the back of his Range Rover, Joe headed toward the station, prepared to address his troops.
He prayed to Lucy that Sonya was just out grabbing something to eat and that she’d be on her way home soon.
Dwayne Clarke was the last to arrive at the station. Joe watched him walk in and stand next to Deputy Glescoe, who looked like she was going to gnaw her fingernails clean off. No one was talking.
Joe leaned against Glescoe’s desk. His arms were folded across his chest. He turned to the rest of his squad, looking each of them in the eye, one after the other. He didn’t want to do this. He could see the confusion and concern on both Clarke’s and Glescoe’s faces. Rita was here too, and she also looked worried. The only surprise was Hines.
The man had been all over the place for the last month, making everyone concerned for his well-being. The version of Randy Hines before him now was standing up straight and looking focused. He looked ready. This was the Randy he had come to admire over the last eight years or so. This is the man who diligently served his town and had, in that space of time, been Joe’s right-hand man. For the first time since Somers and Paulson left Gilson Creek–Somers for the military, Paulson for a position in Arizona–Joe felt the weight of their absence lessen. Joe and Randy locked eyes and exchanged a quiet understanding between them. Hines nodded. He was ready.