by John Quick
Of course, she could always just come and stay with him while they worked on it. Since he was already planning to kick Brandon out, it wouldn’t be that different from her staying here- aside from the fact that her house was decent and his was nothing more than a glorified shithole, anyway. Even better, maybe he could convince her to just get an apartment with him somewhere outside of town. He had no qualms with skipping out on his lease, and if her house was about to undergo major repairs, he doubted if her landlord would have any issues with it, either. It was a huge leap to go from being broken up to living together, but it would show her how serious he was about making this work.
Despite the chill in the air, he decided to take his time with the cigarette, to let Carrie sleep for as long as possible before waking her up and dumping bad news in her lap, and then trying to spin it into something good. He crossed his arms on the deck railing and leaned on it, not minding the occasional drops of rain that struck his forehead and chest, lost in the daydream of a life together with Carrie. It was silly, in a way, to be thinking like this. Maybe even a little childish. But then again, that might be a good thing considering how tarnished his childhood had been, all thanks to Brandon.
“Yaaaaaaaakkkkke….”
Jake frowned and raised his head, staring out into the flooded back yard. For a second there, he could have sworn he heard someone calling his name. It had sounded distorted and warbling, but there had been a trace there that sounded vaguely familiar, too. The sight of still water, aside from the drops of rain sending ripples across its surface, was all that greeted his gaze. He shook his head and even chuckled a bit as he took another drag off the cigarette. He must be more tired than he thought he was to be hearing voices in the quiet of the early morning.
“Yaaaake, ssssss neeeeeee….”
He stood up straight and stared out over the swollen lake. It wasn’t just some trick his mind was playing on him. There was someone out there calling out to him. He’d heard that voice as clearly as he now heard his own heart beating away at a rapid clip in his chest.
He heard something splashing near the edge of the deck itself, and leaned over enough to look down. He nearly screamed when he found himself staring into the face of the biggest damn catfish he’d ever seen. This thing’s head was easily two feet across—if not more—and had barbs extending from either side of its thick lips far enough to double that at the very least. It was the wide-set eyes that unnerved him, though. They looked nothing at all like a normal fish’s eyes, but instead seemed to have irises and pupils just like a person’s. It wasn’t possible, and for a brief moment, he was almost able to convince himself that he was still in bed, asleep and dreaming. Then its mouth opened, and those startlingly human-sounding words emerged again.
“Ssssss Rrrannnduuunnnn,” the thing said.
Jake felt the cigarette drop from his fingers, heard the hiss as it struck one of the puddles on the deck and was extinguished. His entire body had begun to tremble in a way that had nothing to do with the coolness of the air around him and everything to do with this impossible thing that was attempting to talk to him. Worse, his mind was trying to translate its words in his mind, and it almost sounded like it had called itself Brandon. Combined with the trace of familiarity in the voice, he kept coming up with the same answer over and over again, even when he tried to shut it out because it just could not be.
He shook his head slowly, mouth working, but couldn’t make the words of denial come.
“Mmmmm huuuuuungeeeeee,” the thing said, still staring back at him; and there was no doubt in his mind that that was exactly what it was doing.
“Uh-uh,” he finally managed, his voice coming out as a croak nearly as bad as the thing before him. “No way. No fucking way. It’s not fucking possible.”
He forced himself to take a step back away from the railing, and could’ve sworn he saw the thing’s brow furrow when he did. Anger blazed in those primitive eyes, and Jake felt his bladder let go, urine spattering onto the deck along with the gathered rainwater.
“Huuuuunnnnnnggggggeeeeeeee!” the thing bellowed, making Jake jerk away reflexively and turn toward the door.
When he heard it start thrashing against the deck, leaping and slamming itself into the wood hard enough to make it creak, he let out a scream that sounded anything but manly. He didn’t care; this was no time to worry about embarrassment, it was a time meant solely to put some fucking distance between him and the thing in the water that was claiming to be his former best friend.
It slammed against the deck railing again, and Jake heard a massive cracking sound just as he saw a gap form in the middle of one of the cross-beams. He didn’t need to see or hear anything more, he simply turned and ran for the door as fast as he could, his feet skidding on the slick wood and nearly sending him sprawling to the ground. He grabbed onto the doorknob to keep himself upright, and jerked it open. He heard something slam into the floorboards of the deck, but refused to look back to see what it was. Instead, he dashed inside, slamming the door closed hard enough to crack the glass set into it. He managed to keep enough presence of mind to throw the deadbolt, then broke into a run to grab Carrie and get the royal fuck out of here.
She was coming out of the hallway at the same time he reached it, and it was all he could do not to slam into her and knock her over. Her face was already a mask of confusion, fear, and irritation as she grabbed him by the shoulders to steady him.
“What the fuck is going on?” she asked. “I heard you screaming, and….”
The thing outside chose that moment to slam itself against the full-length windows at the back of her dining room, once providing an impressive view of the lake, but now filled with something out of a nightmare. She looked over to it and then let out a terrified shriek of her own. Jake grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to face him. Some instinctual part of his mind realized she’d paused long enough to put her robe back on, and was thankful for it.
“We have to get the hell out of here,” he nearly screamed into her face. The thing outside slammed itself into the window again, sending a spider web of cracks racing across its surface. “Now!”
Thankfully, she didn’t argue or even ask questions; she grabbed him by the hand and raced toward the front door with him in tow. She didn’t stop until they both dropped off the front porch, landing in water that came up to the middle of their thighs. He started to force his way forward, but she pulled him to one side instead. When he turned to ask her where she was trying to take them, he caught sight of the light bar atop the SUV in the driveway of the house next door, and remembered her telling him that the acting chief was over at Leanne’s house, probably getting his dick wet after years of flirting. It was a much better plan than the aimless running he had in mind, so he grabbed her around the waist and hurried her in that direction, hoping against hope that the thing didn’t realize where they’d gone, and didn’t come after them. He had a funny feeling that if it decided to try, it would have much better luck in this water than they would.
It also wasn’t lost on him that the second he decided to try and improve his life, to ask the girl he was fairly sure he loved to move in with him, a creature claiming to be his friend would show up to torment them. Then again, if by some incredible stretch of the imagination that thing really was Brandon, he had to admit it made perfect fucking sense.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
At first, Rob thought the pounding on the door was coming from his dream, from the sound of the headboard slamming against the wall as he and Leanne went at it hard and heavy. When the dream faded and the pounding was still there, he knew he wasn’t going to be that lucky. He was also extremely disoriented to wake up and have no idea where he was, but as the sounds of voices calling for help joined in with the steady fists, he came fully awake and remembered that he was on Leanne’s couch after agreeing to stay the night at her place in case whatever killed her dog came back.
Then the panic in whoever it was hammering at her front d
oor slammed home, and he was up like a shot. He grabbed his service pistol from the floor next to him and yanked it free from its holster, then leapt up and crossed the room in three quick strides. He made sure the weapon was ready in case he needed to use it, took hold of the doorknob, and took a deep breath to steady himself before throwing it open.
It was shocking enough to discover that Leanne’s pre-dawn visitors were Jake Foley and Carrie Bryant, but even more baffling was the fact that they appeared to be mostly naked and soaked to the skin. Foley was wearing only a pair of thin boxer shorts that looked like they were glued to his body. Bryant’s robe had come loose in the front, giving Rob a pretty good look at the side of one breast and the tight skin of her chest between it and the other one. It didn’t take a detective to realize she was naked underneath, and was as soaked as Foley was from just below her hips to where the robe stopped above her knees. The air drifting through the open door was crisp, if not outright cold, which made whatever trick they were pulling even more confounding than it would’ve been otherwise.
Then he actually noticed the fear etched across both their faces, and knew that whatever was going on, it was no trick.
“What the hell’s going on?” he asked, lowering the pistol to his side. He was thankful he didn’t have the holster, as his nerves were now on edge and he wanted to keep it ready for use; for what, he didn’t know.
“You got to let us in, man,” Foley said, his voice a full octave higher than normal and filled with sheer terror. “Before that thing comes after us again!”
Rob opened his mouth to ask exactly what thing the young man was talking about, then he remembered how Annie and Chase and Leanne’s dog looked and closed it again. He stepped to the side and ushered them in, ignoring their insistent thanks, and leaned his head out to see if he could catch some sign of what was after them.
The sky had lightened some, meaning it was nearly sunrise, allowing him to see that while the rain had finally let up, the damage was already done. Water covered the front yard nearly as high as the porch. When he looked over to his truck, he could see that the water was already above the running boards along the sides, and was mere inches from the bottom of his doors. Getting out of the driveway and heading back to the station was going to be some tricky business for sure, if he could make it at all. Leanne’s driveway was on a slight incline, which meant that as he backed out, he’d be going into water that was even deeper than what he could see right now. It was possible that he could drive back down the road and into town, where the elevation was a little higher, but it wasn’t very likely. In all reality, he was probably going to be stuck here for a while.
Rather than worry about that right now, though, he shut the door and turned to look at the young couple who’d nearly beat the door down to get inside. They stood with their arms around each other, shivering as Leanne came bustling from her bedroom with towels and a blanket cradled in her arms. She was only wearing a long t-shirt and a pair of panties, obviously more concerned with the condition of her impromptu guests than with her own modesty. Ordinarily, Rob might feel compelled to point out that Foley was the one who’d been caught peeking in her windows a couple of years back, but since the boy was obviously too frightened to pay any attention to what she was or wasn’t wearing, he let it slide.
The two got themselves somewhat dried off, and then Leanne led them over to the couch, moving the pillow and blanket Rob had been using out of the way so they could sit down, then draping the blanket she’d brought from the bedroom around their shoulders so they could try and warm up as well. Both Foley and Bryant were trembling, and while Rob thought that the temperature might be a part of the reason for it, he didn’t think it was the only reason.
“I think there’s a little camp stove in the laundry room,” Leanne said, looking over to him. “And some instant coffee up in the cupboard. It’s not great, but I could still probably get some made up, if you want.”
“That’d be great,” Rob said, flicking his eyes to her briefly before returning his gaze to the terrified pair before him. “Foley, Carrie, you want coffee?”
“Please,” Carrie answered. Foley only nodded, seemingly unable to speak because of how much his teeth were chattering.
Leanne shot Rob a look that told him to go easy on them, and he nodded in acknowledgement. He could see that they didn’t need him being “bad cop” with them right now. Whatever was going on, it was serious enough to the pair of them, so he would go as easy as he could and still get the information he needed.
He waited until she disappeared into the kitchen, then replaced his gun in its holster and sat down in one of the armchairs facing the couch. Like children called before their father to answer for something, the pair locked their attention on him.
“Okay,” he said. “Now please tell me what the blue hell is going on.”
“Something attacked us,” Foley said. His voice wasn’t quite back to normal yet, but at least it seemed to have lost that panicked edge it had when Rob first answered the door. “I was on the back deck over at Carrie’s house, smoking, and the thing came up from the water. You saw how it’s flooded outside?”
Rob nodded, saying nothing for now, waiting for Foley to get his story out.
“Well, it was up to the level of the deck, and I heard something, looked down, saw this thing, freaked out, and then it tried to attack me. I started running for the door, and it broke through the deck railing and kept coming. Carrie saw it, too. It was slamming itself against the back door when we hauled ass over here.”
Rob flicked his eyes to Carrie, who nodded her agreement, then looked back to Foley.
“So something jumped out of the water, broke the deck railing, and came after you,” he said slowly, making sure he had the key points locked in his head. “You got inside, saw it was trying to break down the door, so you came running over here. That about right?”
Both of them nodded in unison. Under different circumstances, it would’ve been amusing. As it was, it just locked those facts into place.
“Okay, let me start with an easy question first,” Rob said, leaning back in the chair. “Why here?”
Foley gave him such an incredulous look that Rob had to fight the urge to lean over and slap him.
“You kidding?” Foley asked. “With your truck in the driveway? Where else would we go?”
Rob had to admit, if only to himself, that it was a fair point. “So this thing that attacked you: what was it?”
Foley glanced over to Carrie, who nodded her encouragement. That, or she wanted him to be the one to tell the story. Since it seemed like he was the one who experienced most of it, Rob actually preferred that as well. The boy let out a long, heavy sigh, then shook his head as he looked back over to Rob.
“You’re not going to believe me,” he said. “You’re just going to ask if the cigarette I was having was tobacco or something else.”
“Try me,” Rob replied. “It’s been something of a weird day, so I might just surprise you.”
Foley swallowed, sighed again, and then closed his eyes. “It was a giant fucking catfish.”
Rob felt as though someone had just punched him hard in the chest, and fought to keep the shock from his face. Any other time, in any other place, he would’ve followed that statement up exactly the way Foley expected him to. Now, however, it wasn’t the first time he’d heard something like this. Leanne had said the same thing killed her dog earlier in the night. If he thought there was any chance that she and Foley had arranged things beforehand, he would still consider that reason enough to doubt it. The history the two of them shared being what it was, it actually came out more like corroborating testimony. As much as he didn’t like to admit it, maybe it was something he needed to consider.
“A giant catfish,” Rob repeated, nodding slightly. “You’re sure about that.”
“Positive,” Foley said. “I know how it sounds, but that’s what it was.”
Rob glanced over to Carrie. “And you saw it, t
oo? This giant catfish?”
“It was throwing itself against my back door,” she replied, her eyes not dropping from his. “For all I know, it’s flopping around on the floor of my house right now.”
Rob wiped a hand across his face. He’d heard stories of fish growing to near-impossible sizes, though he’d never seen it before himself. Most of those accounts turned out to be nothing more than tall tales, “ones that got away”, or drunken boasting from fishermen he’d known throughout his life. Still, he supposed it had to be possible. After all, his father had told him many times that there were more things in the world than any man had ever seen, so there was no point disbelieving right off the bat. He’d blown the statement off every time he’d heard it, chalking it up as a by-product of the amount his father drank on a regular basis. Now, horribly, he was starting to wonder if perhaps having seen something inexplicable like that might’ve been the reason why his father had become a drunk in the last years of his life.
He glanced up and noticed Leanne standing just inside the room, a tray of steaming mugs held balanced in her hands, her eyes wide and her face pale. She’d heard what Foley said, and he could see in her eyes that she was remembering everything she’d seen earlier as well. She seemed to notice him watching her, and brought herself under control enough to continue the final few steps to the couch, where she offered the tray first to Foley and Carrie, and then to Rob, before taking her own mug and sitting on the arm of the chair he occupied.
Normally, the presence of her bare thigh so close to his side would be thrilling to him, but right now he was more concerned with the way Foley’s face was tightened, as though there was more to the story than what he’d told so far. His mind raced, trying to find the question that would break the man’s resolve and give him the rest of the information he needed.