“Griffin’s right,” Decamp said. “Much as I’d like to go to the bluff myself, my leg has sidelined me. It might be best if you stayed here too, Charon. I’ve got plenty of room.”
“I’m not crazy enough to insist I go with you guys,” Charon said. “An action hero I’m not. But I hate to impose, Carter.”
Decamp grinned. “Don’t be silly. You can help me with my research here. You’re certainly knowledgeable enough.”
“Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“How are you at making coffee?”
“Let’s go with passable.”
“We’ll start there then,” said Decamp.
***
Arcudi and Dillon stared at the wall of caves and sighed. So far their shift had been about as exciting as watching cement dry and about as productive. Dale Arcudi was not exactly into the whole notion of high adventure, but a little something to change the pace would be nice. They’d spent most of the late night and a good portion of the early morning trying to keep themselves from going stir crazy and if he had to hear one more of Nick Dillon’s tales of wanton women he was very likely going to take up Russian Roulette as a new hobby. Seeing as he carried a pistol and not a revolver, it would be a very short time playing the game.
Nick stretched and sighed and walked a circuit around the squad car. Here it came. “I ever tell you about the time Brenda McMillian and me were gonna go camping up this way?”
“If this story involved you and Brenda bumping uglies you can just stop now.” Dale shook his head. “I know Brenda and I dated her sister and I’m betting you never once got your hand up her skirt.”
Nick sniffed. “As a matter of fact, she was wearing hiking shorts that day.”
“You assholes need to shut up! I’m trying to sleep. It’s a big night and I need to rest.” No cars had come up the road. No motorcycles, no nothing. The only people around for at least a quarter mile should have been the Crawford man and his maid and neither of them sounded quite that crass. Dale put his hand on the butt of his pistol and turned to face the source of the rude voice, doing his best to hide the fact that he was unsettled by the unexpected words.
He stared Frank Blackbourne square in the chest. He had never seen Frank Blackbourne, but the man matched the description the sheriff had put out. The man was huge, maybe even bigger than Carl Price had said he was and while he didn’t normally work closely with the sheriff, he didn’t seem the type to exaggerate. Six-nine, six-ten even. And broad as a barn.
Arcudi called over his shoulder. “Back up. Now.” He wasn’t telling his partner to back away; he was telling him to call for back up while he distracted the extremely unpleasant man in front of them.
“On it.” Nick broke the rules. The sheriff preferred phone calls but there were always exceptions. Frank Blackbourne was supposed to be considered an exception.
While Dillon made the report Arcudi held out a hand. “You need to stop right there. This area is currently off limits.”
“Ain’t off limits. I’m here ain’t I?” The man’s skin looked angry and bruised, as if he’d been beat senseless a few times. The expression on his face said that if he had been knocked around, all it did was annoy him. That wasn’t exactly a comforting notion.
“Stand down, mister!”
“I said y’all need to shut up and I meant it!” The bruiser took another step forward and Dale drew his weapon. No way in hell was he letting the man grab him. He’d seen the damage done at the offices.
“One more step and I’ll shoot you in your ugly damned face.”
Frank Blackbourne lunged forward and swatted at him. Dale ducked and slipped to the side. He was not the biggest man in the department, but he was very fast and he was good at dealing with unruly types. Despite his threats, Dale also believed in using non-lethal force. You couldn’t take back a kill shot.
When Blackbourne’s arm was right around where Dale had been a second before, he stepped in closer and drove his fist into the man’s stomach. Dale’s fist pounded into Blackbourne’s solar plexus and the brute grunted. Good, that was good. That should take the wind out of his sails.
Apparently no one explained the rules to Blackbourne. He moved forward and rammed into Dale with his considerable mass. Arcudi was lifted off the ground and hurled a good fifteen feet before he bounced across the asphalt. He wasn’t hurt nearly as much as he was shocked by the sheer strength of his opponent.
Nick wasn’t as shocked. Nick was also, despite being the junior member of the team, a good deal larger. Nick played football the way some kids played video games, which is to say often and very well. He moved toward Frank Blackbourne and came in low, catching the man at knee level and staggering him. Blackbourne stumbled a bit, but he did not fall. Instead he brought his knee up into Nick’s face and roared incoherently, his face reddening and his eyes rolling wildly. His knee caught Nick dead on.
Nick’s skull shattered in the impact. That was the only way to put it. Nick’s head snapped back and much as Dale wished it were an illusion, the shape of Nick’s familiar features was completely wrong as he rolled away from the impact. Nick dropped to the ground and twitched uncontrollably. And Dale?
Dale Arcudi drew his Glock and fired again and again. Each bullet hit his target, and Frank Blackbourne stared bloody murder at Dale with each impact. What he should have done was he should have fallen on his ass and bled out. He maybe should have even screamed a time or two and possibly let out a few rude bodily noises╤ like the ones that were coming from Nick, but best not to think about that╤what he should not have ever done, or even seriously considered, was walking into the bullets and snarling.
Wounds opened in Blackbourne’s chest and leg and face, each spot where a bullet hit clear to see. The man moved into the impacts and grew, swelling unevenly as he staggered forward. His left leg exploded, the leg of the jeans he was sporting split with a loud bark and revealed skin that was pale and mottled with darker colors, hairy enough to look like it belonged on an animal and continuing to swell and bloat even as Frank Blackbourne stepped forward again. The old boot on his foot blew out. And then the man’s stomach expanded. It should have maybe looked comical, because his stomach sort of slopped over the side of the pants that were now far too snug, but the skin that came out was wrong. It was wrinkled and gray and looked almost like an elephant’s hide. Only with other things buried in the mass. There were eyes looking from that fold of flesh, and a dark, angry slash of a wound that was filled with uneven teeth and gums that were almost black. The tongue that lapped out for a moment was too much and Dale pulled the trigger a few more times, but he didn’t bother to aim. He as too busy looking at the mouth of the thing coming his way.
Damned if it wasn’t talking.
“You need to shut yer hole, boy. Youuu need to learn how to listen when I’m speaking to you before I start losing my temper. You’re making me feel a mite like whooping yer ass!”
“You fucking kidding me?” he was speaking. He hadn’t meant to, but the words came out.
Sirens. They were coming up the road at a hard pace, the lights and sirens screaming and that was good because Frank looked away from him for a moment and Dale remembered that he had extra clips.
His hands were shaky and his left eye was twitching, but he did it. He ejected the spent clip and fumbled the new on in place while the thing that had been Frank Blackbourne looked toward the road up above.
He was getting bigger. Not taller really so much as broader and messier. The rest of him was swelling and the discoloration was continuing. Frank’s chest had expanded and the rest of the╤did he dare call it a face╤on the man’s torso was revealed. A collection of eyes that looked malformed and watery, that slash of a mouth that was too damned big. By all rights whatever internal organs Frank had should have been spilling from inside of his body in a wave. Instead that damned hole was still jabbering away, going on and on about the noisy car and the need to sleep before tonight.
Dale aimed at
the eyes on the warped face and shot four times. Four holes, two of them actually taking out eyes, and just like that, he had Blackbourne’s undivided attention. Black blood and some sort of thick yellow substance spilled from the blown out eye sockets. Blackbourne’s real face, the one above his thickening shoulders, turned to look at Dale and he roared again, even as his entire face swelled and reddened.
The hands that reached for him looked as big around as car tires. They also had thick fingers with rough nails that caught Arcudi’s arms and held them easily.
Dale kicked out with all he could manage. It wasn’t strategy; it was panic. He hauled his feet back and up and smashed them into the vile face on the nightmare’s stomach, screaming like a teakettle the entire time, because, damn he was scared. One foot up, the other down, repeat as necessary and wish to hell that he was getting anywhere at all.
The feet slammed into flesh that felt hard and looked flabby and scabrous and smelled like something had died in there and Dale took in a deep breath so he could scream some more.
And then he tried pulling back his left leg only to find that it ended just below the knee. That fast the thing he was kicking bit down and tore away his leg. The pain was beyond massive and Dale’s mind decided the best way to handle the sudden change was to shut down.
That was a mercy.
***
The second squad car pulled up just exactly at the same time that Frank Blackbourne physically ripped Dale Arcudi in half. Kyle Hudson, in the passenger’s seat, watched it happened and let loose with a scream worthy of the very best voice actors in Hollywood. If they’d lived through the situation, it’s even possible that his partner, Alan Willingham, might have told people that for one moment there Kyle drowned out the sound of the sirens and that would have been the truth.
Instead Frank decided he’d had enough of the noises and climbed the semi-sheer face of the stone wall that held the caves and attacked the noisy vehicle. Hudson and Willingham were both screaming when Blackbourne came over the side of the cliff’s surface and grabbed the car. He braced himself with both legs and lifted the car over his head before he hurled it over the side.
The car’s sirens lasted a few moments longer than the men’s screams.
***
Deputy Bradley Reid was reasonably sure the hole hadn’t been there when he had passed the same spot a mere fifteen minutes earlier. Couldn’t have been, really, because it was actually in the middle of the old dirt path that the county called Ruskin Road. Not that it was much of a road. Sheriff Price had wanted every possible route that led up to the top on Mooney’s Bluff covered, and as a result Reid’s Captain had assigned him to watch this overblown cow path.
And now there was the hole. It was maybe three feet in diameter and there was a big ring of dirt thrown up around it. What the hell could have made a hole that size in the time it had taken Reid to walk down to his cruiser and back? Perhaps, Reid thought, I should call for backup. Oh yeah, that would go over big time. Need someone to come down and help you watch that hole, Bradley? Maybe keep it covered while you have a look? He would never live that one down. The other deputies would be making hole jokes for years and there were a lot of possibilities for jokes with the word hole in them.
Bradley sighed and unhooked his flashlight from his belt as he walked toward the hole. It wasn’t long until dark and the shadows were already deep on this side of the bluff. Reid examined the ground around the pit as he approached. No signs of footprints or other markings. What did that mean? No one could have dug a hole like that without leaving a trace. Maybe it was some sort of natural phenomena. A sinkhole of some sort. If the ground had collapsed, that would explain how the hole had appeared so quickly. But what about the ring of dirt? It looked almost as if the hole had been dug from below. Giant gophers maybe? Yeah. Right.
Reid stepped up to the edge of the hole and shone his light down into the darkness. Damn, the thing was deep. It looked like it might branch off to one side too. A tunnel? Was whoever they were supposed to be keeping off the bluff trying to dig their way in? As Reid was speculating, a bone white face appeared out of the tunnel and looked up at him. Reid was so startled that he lost his footing trying to scramble away and fell at the lip of the hole.
He landed on his back and immediately flipped over, trying to get to his feet. Something caught hold of his ankle and Reid uttered an involuntary shriek. His brief glimpse of the white face had shown him something that he had no desire to get a closer look at, but still he twisted, staring wide eyed toward his feet. The thing he had seen had its upper torso out of the hole and was gripping Reid’s foot with powerful fingers that ended in claws. It was looking at Reid with two wide, round eyes, which seemed to glow with an unwholesome inner light. Reid shrieked a second time and the thing smiled at him, opening its mouth far too wide and showing far too many sharp yellow teeth.
As Reid fumbled with the flap on his holster a second of the creatures lifted its upper body out of the hole and grasped Reid’s other leg. Together the two pale things began dragging Reid into the hole. Reid was screaming nonstop now, still trying to get his gun clear. One of the two creatures opened its crescent moon mouth wide and bit down on Reid’s calf, tearing a huge bloody chunk of flesh and muscle away. Reid felt bile coming up, burning a throat already raw from screaming.
With a few more quick jerks, the white skinned horrors pulled Reid over the edge of the hole, biting and clawing at him as he fell. After that, Reid’s screams were muffled and short lived.
***
Late afternoon on October 31st and Griffin was alone. Charon had left a little earlier for Carter Decamp’s place. Griffin was surprised by how empty his house felt without her. Not the same sort of emptiness the place had had before though. Now it was an expectant emptiness, because she would be back. Griffin hoped he was doing the right thing. He still had concerns, but then, who ever had guarantees where love was concerned? Was he in love? It had been so long since he’d felt that particular emotion he wasn’t completely sure. He thought he was. That would do for now.
Anyway, enough of those sorts of thoughts. Time to clamp down on all emotions except one. Anger. Time to think about Jerry Wallace and the other victims of the othersiders. What Griffin needed now was a cold rage. Not the sort of anger that made people reckless, but the kind that gave them a singleness of purpose. Given his nature, it didn’t take much to achieve that.
Griffin left the living room and went downstairs to the basement. Here he crossed to the far corner where pegboards had once held his tools and lawn care equipment. Some of it was still there, but he had taken what he wanted to the apartment and given much of it away when he had left the house. He hadn’t thought he would be coming back. Not to stay. But he still used the place for storage of certain things.
Griffin reached behind the pegboard and turned a hidden latch. The pegboard swung away, revealing a recess set into the wall. Here Griffin kept a few weapons that were too big or too dangerous for an apartment. He lifted out a
Mossberg semi-auto shotgun, and then stood for a minute, looking at the weapons rack. Did he want a claymore? No. He decided on a couple of fragmentation grenades. Hell, Decamp had made good use of one. For a moment he considered an Uzi, but decided against it. He tended to stay away from machine guns for the most part. They weren’t much use in the kind of covert operations he generally took part in. If he needed that kind of firepower it meant that he had done something wrong to begin with.
Griffin put the shotgun and the grenades into a big canvas bag and threw in a Gerber hunting knife. He would add the 45. and a bunch of ammo and shotgun shells when he got upstairs. That reminded him that he needed to call Carl and tell him to bring something that would chamber .357 rounds. Decamp had provided plenty of the special bullets. For a moment, Griffin wondered where Decamp was getting that much ammo. Then he decided it was better not to know. Everybody had secrets. Lord knew he had enough of his own.
***
Carl pulled up a
t Wade’s place around the same time everything started going to hell. The report about Frank Blackbourne made the radio even as Wade was heading for the car.
“We have to go! Shit just hit the fan.”
Wade didn’t question. Instead he nodded and held out a very large canvas bag. “Pop the trunk.” Carl nodded and felt the weight of the vehicle shift when Wade set down his package. The truck was riding a bit lower right now. Between the two of them they had enough ordnance to level half of Wellman.
Wade climbed in on the passenger’s side a moment later, looking as awkward about being on that side of the car as Carl usually felt when someone else was driving. This was easier, frankly. They needed to talk and they needed to decide what the hell they were going to do when they got where they were going. Assuming Frank was still there and kicking, they would need a plan. Assuming that he was gone╤far more likely as they were a ways off╤they needed to decide how they were handling the whole situation. There was some doubt that the caves were the right place to be, but after having been inside the caves, Carl remained uncertain. It sure as hell felt like there was still something in there, down in that damned well at the center of the cave.
The sirens went on and the flashers, too. The radio was chattering constantly, letting him know that the situation wasn’t looking great at Mooney’s Bluff.
***
The busses pulled into the parking lot of the diner amid the hiss of air brakes and the rumble of diesel engines.
From across the square╤half hidden by the decorations and the growing crowd of people╤ Jolene looked at them and smiled.
“Oh, does it get better than that? Seriously?” She looked at her cousin Lorne and smiled.
Lorne didn’t smile back. He seldom smiled and when he did, most wise people ran for the hills.
“I thought there was only one.”
Blind Shadows: A Griffin & Price Novel Page 25