“I’ll be just fine, Mom. You worry too much.”
“I know, I know. You sure everything is ok?”
“Yeah, everything is fine. I’m just worried about the doctor’s appointment on Monday.”
Andrea brushed some of Jessica’s hair off her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. “Oh honey, you have nothing to worry about. I’m sure it will go just fine.”
“I hope you’re right,” Jessica said. And after a pause: “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, honey,” Andrea said. She put an arm around Jessica and stroked her hair—something that always calmed her down when she was little. They watched Tofu gobble up the remains of his dinner, Jessica’s head resting on her mother’s shoulder and Andrea stroking her hair. Outside, the clouds were beginning to break following the afternoon storm. The sun was visible, heading on its western path toward the horizon. In less than two hours time, it was going to make for another stunning southwestern sunset.
Chapter 47
Jessica tucked Tofu into her room with a fresh can of Fancy Feast. She arranged her pillows under the covers to make it look like she was asleep—a childhood classic—and shoved her keys and phone into her pockets. She looked out her bedroom window and was relieved to see that Claire’s Malibu was already parked out front. She must have been waiting down the street for Mom to leave.
Jessica pulled her bottom drawer out and reached under a pile of teenage-era clothing for the last thing she needed. She tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans, shut her bedroom door, swish-clunked her way down the hall, and hurried out the front door.
The sky was beginning to show hints of pink in the dwindling rain clouds that still hung lazily overhead. Sunset had arrived. Jessica hurried down the driveway to the idling Malibu. She got into the passenger seat and the car shot forward as Claire jammed on the gas. Jessica’s body rocked back as the Malibu accelerated.
“Geez, Jess, cutting it a little bit close, huh?” Claire asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My mom wouldn’t leave. She kept asking me if I wanted her to stay.”
“What did you tell her?” Claire looked up at the sky, which was brightening with splashes of orange, yellow, and purple.
“That my ankle hurt and I was tired. I said I was going to bed early.” Jessica grabbed at the door frame to steady herself as Claire peeled around a corner and turned onto the main road. “Jesus, Claire, slow down.”
“Slow down? It’s sunset!” she exclaimed. “It’s going to be dark soon. We need to get there and get inside, like now.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jessica said. She glanced at the brilliantly colored sky. “How long to get there?”
“I dunno,” Claire said. She turned on her signal and drifted into the left lane. She passed by a maroon van with windows that were smeared with smudgy child-sized handprints. A tired woman sat behind the wheel, her head jutted forward and a blank expression on her face. “Maybe five to ten more minutes, as long as there’s no traffic. You’re lucky you live so close.”
“I suppose. Only lucky if we can stop it. Not so lucky if it comes hunting in my neighborhood next.”
Claire sailed down the road, running a yellow-going-on-red traffic signal as she veered onto Orion Street. “And you’re sure you know how to get in? You looked it up?”
“Yeah, there are a lot of YouTube videos on how to pick a lock. You’d be surprised how easy it is.” Jessica reached into her back pocket to make sure the lock picking kit was still there. It was. “I practiced at my apartment. I’m getting pretty good at it.”
“Is that where you had it delivered?”
“God yes. That’s one Amazon package I did not want to explain to my mom.”
“Good call,” Claire said, keeping her eyes on the road. The speedometer crept past sixty miles an hour as the Malibu careened down Orion Street. Wasp Canyon Road was only a couple of miles away.
The clouds exploded with vibrant hues. Pinks and purples swirled together on the curves of the remaining clouds, and orange streaked across the horizon where the sun was about to disappear.
A sign appeared for Wasp Canyon Estates. Claire slowed the Malibu—although not much—as they entered the intersection. Tires squealed as she turned left onto Wasp Canyon Road.
“Ok, Claire, slow it down now. You’re gonna get us killed.”
“I’m going to get us killed? Do you remember whose idea tonight was? Because it sure as hell wasn’t mine.”
“Claire, I’m sorry—”
“It’s ok,” Claire said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “I just didn’t think getting in before dark was going to be the hard part. I don’t want to be standing out there when that thing shows up, and you’re still trying to fiddle with the damn lock.”
“We talked about this. We couldn’t get here until sundown because there are still reporters lurking around and they might see us.”
“Reporters aren’t the thing I’m worried about that might be lurking around.” Claire watched the right side of the road, looking for the gate that marked Jasper’s driveway. The sky was alight with color and all the cacti had taken on a rosy hue that would normally be beautiful, but instead felt eerie and surreal.
“There it is,” Jessica said. The top of Cameron’s front gate appeared in the distance.
“You sure that’s it?” Claire asked.
“Yeah, I recognize it from Google Maps.”
Claire slowed the Malibu to a crawl. “All this rushing to get here and now I just want to turn around and haul ass in the opposite direction,” she said. Claire stopped the car in front of Cameron’s gate.
The gate was ten feet tall and made of wrought iron. It spanned the driveway, although there were no walls attached to it. Instead there was a plethora of cacti, spread tightly across the front of the property and making a wall of their own. Chollas, prickly pears, and saguaros lined the road, all bathed in soft pink from the setting sun. A person could possibly make their way through the spiny fortress on foot, but a car didn’t stand a chance.
The gate was slightly ajar, a chain carelessly draped over each side but not attached with a padlock—one could easily take the chain off and toss it to the ground. A careless cop, scared to be left alone in the dark to secure the gate, probably tossed the chain on as best he could, then hightailed it back to the safety of his vehicle. Why should he have to get torn apart to secure a gate to a house that wasn’t even occupied?
Claire nudged the gate with the Malibu’s front bumper. The gate creaked and began to separate, the chain slowly dragging link by link across the iron. Eventually the chain fell off and landed on the hood of the Malibu. It made a loud clang that caused both girls to jump. The chain scraped along the car’s hood and slid off, landing in the dirt on the left side of the driveway.
“Eek, you think that’s gonna leave a mark?” Jessica asked.
“On this old thing? By now I just consider all the bumps and scrapes as added character.”
“Well, I think some character just got added to your hood.”
“Something to remind me of all the fun we’re gonna have tonight.” Claire tapped the gas, and the gate groaned as it opened wide enough for the Malibu to pass by. The gate’s clasp dragged along the right side of the car, sounding like one long, sharp claw cutting across the metal. Dirt crunched underneath the Malibu’s tires as Claire crept forward along the path.
Jessica turned and looked behind her. The gate was swinging closed again, stopping at the same slightly ajar position it had been in before they went through. Only now the chain that had been draped across the bars was lying in the dirt on the side of the driveway. She turned forward in the seat again, surveying the long expanse of driveway. It was unpaved, with a generous amount of potholes and divots. It would need to be redone once the rainy season had passed—but who would be there to do it?
The brilliance of the sunset was fading from the sky when the house finally came into view. White walls swept upward in
to a towering arch which covered an elaborate pair of wooden doors. The wood looked thick, solid, and expensive. Metalwork etched through the wood in an intricate pattern. A metal ring hung on each side, made of the same metal that decorated the wood.
Two saguaros stood on either side of the double doors where the archway began. Each one had many arms, reaching out and upward toward the sky. Must be hundreds of years old, she thought. Jessica remembered her dad telling her how a saguaro does not grow its first arm until it is at least a century old. These two saguaros must have been brought in from elsewhere, and set up as guards to tower over the front entrance.
Claire pulled up to the archway and killed the engine. Dusk was setting in and the beautiful colors of the sunset had faded to a dull, lifeless gray.
Jessica and Claire got out of the car at the same time, shutting their doors in unison. They looked at each other from across the scraped hood of the Malibu, and then up at Cameron’s house. Without saying a word, they walked up to the front door. Jessica dropped to her knees and pulled the lock picking kit from her back pocket. She inserted the pick and followed the steps the same way she had seen the 15-year-old boy on YouTube do it. Claire surveyed the driveway and surrounding desert for any signs of movement. The wind had died down, and not even the mesquite trees rustled in the stillness of the darkening landscape.
There was an audible click as Jessica hit the final pin in the mechanism, and the dead bolt rolled away. She stood up, brushing the dust off of her knees, and looked at Claire. Claire turned her eyes away from the deepening gloom of Cameron’s front yard, looked at Jessica’s hopeful expression, and nodded. A silent communication passed between them—the time to turn back had come and gone as they looked at each other under the grand archway of Cameron’s empty estate. An archway he would never get to pass underneath again, and a beautiful home he would never get to return to after his final hike in Wasp Canyon.
Jessica and Claire turned and faced the front door, their backs to the descending twilight. Jessica reached out and turned the etched metal door knob. The front door shuddered, and then creaked open on metal hinges in desperate need of maintenance following the recent spike in humidity. Darkness hovered beyond the door, and twilight was giving way to night behind them. Jessica stepped over the threshold, and Claire followed. Once inside, Jessica turned and shut the heavy wooden door into its frame. She turned the dead bolt, and heard it lock into place. Here we go, she thought. She said a small prayer: Hi Daddy, it’s Jess, please let us get through this mess.
Jessica and Claire took each other's hands and began walking forward, the darkness of the house swallowing them.
Chapter 48
Moser sat at his dining room table, picking at his wife’s meatloaf with little interest. He wasn’t hungry—hadn’t been all day. If he really wanted to be honest, he hadn’t been hungry for weeks now. Something about seeing people filleted into bloody piles of meat could really damper the ‘ol appetite. He poked at the asparagus with his fork, pushing the spears together and then pulling them apart. The congealing butter surrounding the asparagus smeared across the plate like syrup. Moser couldn’t bring himself to take another bite. The butter reminded him of the sticky, thickening blood inside the body cavity of Taylor Kilburn—the way it came together into an oily molasses. He pushed the plate away and turned his attention to the kitchen’s bay window. Outside, the sun silently slipped below the mountains.
☼ ☼ ☼
Lynette Moser had noticed the change in her husband’s appetite long before the night of August 17th. Since the start of the month, Carl’s hearty love for food had dwindled, and then disappeared altogether. Carl had had tough cases before—plenty in fact. But this complete aversion to food was unheard of in the Moser household, regardless of the rigors of Carl’s career.
Lynette always kept out of Carl’s affairs when it came to his police work. Although her involvement—or lack thereof—was never discussed, it was a silent agreement that went along with their wedding vows. Carl never brought the stresses of work home with him, and their talk around the dinner table had always consisted of the kids, travel, and projects Lynette wanted to do around the house. Until now. Now there was very little talk around the dinner table, if any. A dark cloud had swept into their lives, and it arrived at the same time as the monsoon clouds.
Lynette knew something was wearing on her husband—the way a wife always knows when something is burdening the man with whom she shares her bed. What may seem like subtle symptoms of stress to others felt like screaming sirens to her. Decades of marriage could do such things. At some point in a marriage your spouse begins to know when you are stressed before you even do yourself. And Carl was more stressed than Lynette had ever seen him before. He puttered about the house, barely ate, and his sleep was fitful and filled with dark dreams. Carl never mentioned these nightmares to her, but after many years of hearing his peaceful slumber and methodical snores, Lynette knew when her husband’s sleep was troubled.
The recent animal maulings were the cause of her husband’s nightmares. Lynette knew of the dog attack Carl had suffered as a child—it was hard to avoid since the scars still lingered on his left shoulder all these years later. Carl told the story to her once, speaking in a mechanical tone that bothered her more than the story itself. He never spoke of it again, and she didn’t press the matter. But—as a wife always knows—she knew the attack bothered him still. Not just by his reluctance to discuss the matter, but by the way he shied away from his children’s’ television programs when they involved animals attacking humans. She could see the unease in his face, the rigidity of his spine, the stiffening of his chin. And then the excuse would come—whether it be showering, yard work, or meeting the guys for a beer at the local watering hole. Lynette would smile and say “Of course, dear”—secretly excited when the chosen excuse was yard work—and then go back to her household duties, acting none the wiser. Inside, she knew better though. Inside, a wife always knows.
☼ ☼ ☼
The electric oranges and sultry pinks of the evening's sunset faded away. The last light of the day hovered on the horizon, about to give up to the darkness that had crept across the sky. Stars were visible through the parting clouds, and the moon, nearing the peak of its cycle, cast a silvery glow on the landscape.
The beauty of the desert’s twilight was lost on Moser. He barely noticed when his wife removed his plate of uneaten meatloaf. All Moser could think about was the darkness—the overwhelming, suffocating darkness that took over the land. There was no stopping it. The darkness was like a tsunami of black dread that spread across the world and washed away the safety of the light. And with the darkness, dark things came with it. Predators of the night: owls, snakes, wolves, lions . . . and something else. Something that was the stuff of legends, but had snuck into reality under the cover of that same darkness. Yes, when the darkness came, the teeth and claws and snarling came with it.
She must be there by now, he thought. A young girl still scraped and bruised and broken from the first time she encountered the thing of legends. She was there, in that dark house near that dark canyon, trying to make a difference. Trying to save people. Trying to save children. And here he was, sitting at his dining room table, being silently judged by his wife—who didn’t know Moser was very aware of her silent-judgment face. For all that a woman knows, a man knows, too. A slight shift of the eyes, or the vague yet tell-tale signs of disquiet—those things are picked up during all those years of marriage. Entire conversations could be made with a few expressions—for better or for worse. And right now his wife knew damn well what was bothering him, and he knew damn well that not a word would be said on the matter, because they both knew damn well that he could not talk about the teeth and the claws and the darkness. Especially not when that darkness was pressing upon the kitchen window the way that it was.
Moser had made his decision while he was poking at his cold, congealing asparagus. He already knew it in his gut—he was just
waiting for his mind to catch up. But instead of acting on it—partially out of stubbornness, but mostly out of fear—he stared out the window at the blackness beyond and thought about Jessica Cleary. About her describing the initial attack, about her waiting for hours at the police station, about her in the interview room insisting that a chupacabra was on the loose, about her hurt expression when he didn’t believe her. And most of all he thought about her calm, determined voice on the phone as she told him of her intentions for tonight.
So instead of sending a squad car to the Jasper residence to pick her up for trespassing, Moser had told no one in his department about her intent on breaking and entering. They undoubtedly would have put a stop to it, and then no proof of the chupacabra would ever be obtained. The monsoons would taper off, and the stuff of legends would disappear—becoming a legend once again. But how many more would die before that happened?
He watched the gloom spread across his backyard. Before long, the tree branches would disappear against the inky sky. Moser wondered when exactly he accepted that monsters were real—that something really does go bump in the night, and that that bump might be a trap to lure you out to a gruesome end. He supposed he believed Jessica’s story to some degree ever since he spoke to her at the station—after which he spent the night googling articles about chupacabras and stealing glances at his sleeping wife to make sure she couldn’t see what he was looking at in the dark. All he knew for sure was that he now believed Jessica’s theory—and that her plan to obtain proof of the chupacabra might be the only viable course of action. Trying to convince a practical police chief that a fairy tale monster was stalking the countryside had gone badly—just as he suspected it would. But he had to try. And now there was little time to act before more people were dead. If he could provide them with undeniable proof, maybe they could finally come together and put this fucking thing in the ground. And let him back on the damn case. This was his case—and he was going to be the one to close it.
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