by J P Barnett
Trying to sort out his feelings about Deirdre, Jake collapsed onto the couch and reached into his pocket to retrieve his cell phone. Without thinking, he brought up the text app and sent a text to Shandi.
Ok. All done. No juicy details. You know Dee. She was always an odd one. What’s up?
Shandi did not respond.
Chapter 18
Shandi shoved her phone into the drawer of her bedside table. She needed something to make her feel normal in all the chaos; something to beat back the fear and worry. She’d wanted to turn to Jake, and the fact that Deirdre had taken him from her made her angry. What right did Jake have to come back into Rose Valley and make her feel like a stupid little girl again?
The house reverberated with Macy’s current favorite love song. It had played no fewer than a dozen times over the past hour. Shandi felt quite certain that music had been better in her youth, but of course Macy disagreed. Shandi was the mom. She could have forced Macy to turn it down. Shandi opted not to interfere, though. She remembered the emotional turmoil of that age. All too well, at the moment.
What she actually needed came in a bottle. That would make her feel better. Or put her to sleep. She would settle for either one.
In the kitchen, she pulled open the cabinet door to discover all the wine glasses dirty in the dishwasher. Trying to dismiss the nagging notion she might have a problem, Shandi grabbed a disposable Solo cup instead. Classy, she thought. Very classy. She filled it halfway with wine.
The song ended. Peace. Quiet. For about ten seconds until it started up again, with its upbeat lyrics and light, springy music.
Shandi decided to enjoy her wine on the back porch. The warm night air enveloped her as she turned her eyes to the beautiful clear sky. The moon cast a happy glow over the trampoline Macy hadn’t used for years.
The night was hot though calm, allowing her to clear her head. It had been an insane day in Rose Valley, and she felt like she somehow sat at the center of it all. She knew that she couldn’t really claim that honor. Certainly, Dub and Marie felt more directly the shock of an evil beast terrorizing their town. Cam surely had his hands full. But being regaled with the paranoid ramblings of nearly every citizen in Rose Valley took its toll on her.
It had only been one day since the football game, and things would only get worse from here.
She closed her eyes and sipped her wine, trying as hard as she could to put the beast out of her mind, but the brief serenity of the night shattered with the screams of Macy echoing into the backyard.
The music suddenly stopped.
“Mom!” Macy’s frantic voice echoed into the night air, followed by her terrifying, throaty scream.
Macy sounded impossibly close, almost like she was outside. Had she opened her window? Shandi rushed towards the door, having no doubt that Macy’s screams were urgent and important. Before she made it inside, something emerged from around the corner of the house.
Not something. The beast.
Shandi ran inside and latched the lock, knowing that a glass door wouldn’t protect her from the force of nature on the other side. Macy stood behind her, her screams dribbling off into terrified whimpers. Tears welled up in the corner of her eyes, and she clamped a hand over her mouth.
The beast stood on the porch, looking at Shandi through the glass. Its eyes locked onto hers, barely visible through the long brown hair framing its face. Though she suspected it before, she knew for certain now, a man—not a beast—leered at her through the glass door.
His body heaved up and down, as if breathing proved more difficult than it should have. He did not advance towards Shandi. He only stared at her. His eyes did not glow. He did not have wings or horns. His fingernails were abnormally long, but not sharp. Hair coated most of his body, thickest around his scalp and beard.
He stood with a strange slouch, his biceps wide as tree trunks, his chest like steel. In his hand he held a stuffed animal. He squeezed it with such force that white clumps of stuffing oozed from the seams. Shandi recognized it as one of Macy’s.
“Macy. How did he get that?”
Macy answered through her sniffling. “M-My window. It was open. Scallops was on the bench.”
That explained Macy’s scream.
Shandi kept her eyes locked on the beast’s, seeing only the feral needs of a wild animal.
“M-Mom,” Macy said from behind Shandi. “We should g-go. We should run. W-we should call daddy.”
Shandi didn’t have her phone with her. Macy must not have had hers either, or she would have already been calling. Neither of them could stomach letting the beast out of their sight right now. Shandi felt certain that if she turned her back to him, he would descend upon them. In truth, Shandi possessed no script for how to handle this situation. She searched for a way to deescalate, but could come up with nothing that didn’t end in bloodshed.
The beast’s mouth turned up into a snarl. His eyes focused. In a snap decision of pure instinct, Shandi turned and ran towards the front door, grabbing Macy along the way. Halfway there, she heard a loud thud and cracking glass. Macy screamed again.
Shandi grabbed the keys hanging on the wall and jerked Macy through the door. Neither of them wore appropriate outdoor clothes, nor did they even have shoes on.
She didn’t know if the beast lurked behind them in the house or would meet them in the yard. She hoped the former.
She let go of Macy, who understood fully what she needed to do. They both fell into the car, slammed the doors, and Shandi started the engine. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, felt his wild primal eyes following her.
She threw the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway. Once she got her car aimed in the right direction, she floored it. In her rearview mirror, the beast loped behind them. She looked at the speedometer as her car groaned up to forty miles per hour. Somehow, the beast galloped impossibly fast, managing to keep pace.
“Come on, come on,” Shandi cried to the car. “Go faster, you piece of crap!”
It accelerated slowly. To fifty. Then sixty. The beast started falling behind. Macy cheered. Shandi kept her foot on the pedal. The beast stopped in the road, howled, then disappeared into some trees on the side of the road. Shandi relaxed her hands on the wheel.
She should have driven to the Sheriff’s Department. Or to her mom’s house. Or to Cam’s. But by the time her mind caught up with her actions, she realized that she headed towards none of those places. Macy either didn’t notice or didn’t question it. She did, however, belatedly put on her seatbelt.
Shandi’s head began to clear, but she still felt her heart racing in her chest. Rather than turning around and doing the logical thing, Shandi chose to continue toward her destination.
Without thinking about why, Shandi exploded at Macy. “Why the hell was your window open? It’s a hundred degrees outside and there’s a homicidal monster on the loose! Are you crazy?”
“I’m sorry. I-I-I. Wes. Wes was coming over,” Macy said as she started crying. “I’m so sorry mom. I didn’t mean to. Please don’t be mad at me.”
Shandi’s heart softened. Though she didn’t like that Macy intended to sneak a boy into her bedroom, right now it seemed utterly unimportant. She reached over and stroked the back of Macy’s head. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I yelled at you. When we get to a phone, you need to call Wes and tell him not come over.”
Macy’s crying intensified. “Oh no. What if he goes over there and that thing gets him?”
“I’m sure Wes’ll be fine. The beast chased us away from the house, remember. He probably won’t go back.”
She didn’t really know that and shuddered to think of the beast rummaging through her house. So far, the beast had followed no discernible pattern. For all she knew, he would take up residence in her bedroom. If he did, she had no intention of being the first to find out. She would make sure someone crazier than she scouted the house before they went back.
She took a deep breath and slowed down as she
approached their destination. She suddenly regretted coming here, but as soon as she passed through the gates of Watermelon Ranch, she felt safer. This ranch provided no tangible security benefit—the beast had mutilated a sheep on this very property, after all.
“Mom? Why are we here?”
As she pulled the car up beside the old truck she’d spent so much time in as a teenager, Shandi didn’t know that she had a good answer. In fact, she worried greatly that she would walk into an awkward and uncomfortable situation. She briefly pictured Jake and Deirdre answering the door naked, shocked to see her.
“I don’t know, baby. It’s just where I thought we needed to be.”
Chapter 19
What the hell was she thinking? If she had pulled that trigger, it would have ruined everything. Steve and Cory would have heard the gunshot. She would have had time to get away, but they would have easily pegged her for the murder. Not to mention the horrible, gruesome mess she would have left behind. Even if no one had heard the gunshot, she would have had no hope of cleaning it up. She had never shot anyone, but she knew enough to know that if she had shot Jake in the back of the head, there would have been brain matter in places that no one could ever clean.
It had occurred to her when she was confident and pulling him by the hand, that she could have slept with him. Led him into the bedroom, shimmied off her clothes, and pressed her lips against his. He wouldn’t have refused her. Then, after she had worked him into a euphoric coma, she could have put a pillow over his head and held it firmly against his face until he stopped breathing.
She didn’t do that, though, because she couldn’t entertain the idea without feeling nauseous. It wasn’t Jake. He was an attractive man. Deirdre just couldn’t imagine herself naked with anyone. The very thought of it turned her stomach. She didn’t fear nudity. She saw all manner of naked bodies, both living and dead, as part of her job, but the intimacy of sharing herself with someone else felt like a violation of her very being. Even for a cause as important as this, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
And so, she found herself at an impasse. Her conviction to kill Jake was as strong as it had ever been and still imminently necessary. She knew that things in Rose Valley were going to get worse if she didn’t carry through. No one knew that yet except her, of course, but that didn’t matter. Every death that The Beast wrought on the town would be a death that she had to feel guilty for. The Beast hadn’t murdered anyone yet, but he would. It was inevitable.
She had endless drugs at her disposal, many of which would kill Jake peacefully. A less-educated person may have gone that route. An average person may have felt confident that they could choose a cocktail that would be both deadly and untraceable, easily slipped into a shared meal. She could probably get away with it. The coroner might not think to check some of the more exotic possibilities, but there were no guarantees, and Rose Valley’s very own roving reporter had a habit of not letting things go. If Deirdre lost control of Jake’s dead body, then she’d also lose control of the trail of evidence leading back to her. She couldn’t take that risk.
She had been acting too impulsively, but now it was time to approach this problem like the scientist she was. She would see Jake again at the clinic. It would just be the two of them in a remote outbuilding, half a mile away from the main campus. Dozens of research cadavers were cremated at Arrowhead every month. With control of her environment, she could kill him and cremate the body before anyone suspected a thing.
Deirdre pushed down feelings of shame and embarrassment. She’d handled this so poorly. The voice of her dad echoed in her head: Every mistake is an opportunity to learn. Now she knew to look for the signs of emotional compromise and force herself to approach her next attempt more logically. Of course, she would never need to murder anyone else. She wasn’t a serial killer. She just had to fix this one mistake.
Chapter 20
Jake sat up and stretched his arms. His back ached, and the circulation in his left leg had been cut off. The years of being able to comfortably sleep on an old, rickety couch had long passed. Such a feat proved to be an especially bad idea for someone recovering from a painful accident. He shook his leg.
“Mornin’, Mr. Rollins.”
Jake jumped at the sound of her voice. He knew of his houseguests, of course, but still startled to find her in the room with him. “Good morning, Macy. You can call me Jake, by the way. How’d you sleep?”
She sat at the kitchen table, playing with the ends of her fiery red hair. “Didn’t. Not much, anyway. Thanks for letting us sleep here.”
He rubbed his leg. “No problem. Happy to help.”
“Need help up?” Macy said nonchalantly.
“Nah. I’m just an old man. I’ll get there.”
Macy giggled. “You’re not that old, Mr. Roll—Jake. Same age as my mom, right? She’s not old. She’s a ‘spitfire.’ That’s what they say around town. Everybody’s scared of her.”
Jake smiled. “They’re not wrong. Everyone’s scared of your dad, too. You have a couple of intimidating parents.”
Macy looked up at Jake as he finally made it to his feet. “Daddy’s not scary. He’s just good at his job, so people do what he says.”
“Yeah... Does your mom let you drink coffee?” Jake said as he hobbled to the kitchenette.
“Please. I’m seventeen. I drink worse things than coffee.”
Jake laughed. “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”
The conversation fell into a comfortable silence as Jake went to work making coffee. Macy moved to the couch that Jake had vacated and sat sideways so that she could still see him. Shandi must have still been asleep, which came as no surprise to Jake.
After she didn’t answer his text, Jake had assumed Shandi had just gone to bed. For the second time in two days, Jake had been pulled from slumber to someone banging on his door. Once the girls had huddled in the safety of his living room, they’d used Jake’s cell phone to call the sheriff and Wes Morris.
As the coffee brewed, Jake moved on to the laundry. He transferred the clothes from the washer to dryer, both of which shared a home with the kitchen area. It had been a long time since his laundry had included female clothing. Shandi insisted that he didn’t need to wash them, but Jake did it anyway once she and Macy changed into some of his old t-shirts. He questioned whether surreptitiously cleaning clothes could be described as normal, but he felt compelled nonetheless.
“Do you think that thing targeted us specifically?” Macy wondered aloud.
Jake started the dryer and moved towards the cupboard to fetch some coffee mugs. “I doubt it. I think it just acts on instinct.”
A voice came from behind: “He. He acts on instinct.”
Jake turned to see Shandi standing in the doorway to his bedroom. She looked adorable in his oversized t-shirt, her frizzy hair flying out in a million different directions. He did not—could not—argue with her.
“Sorry,” Jake acquiesced. “He. Still trying to adjust to the idea that it’s human. It just doesn’t seem right.”
Shandi walked over to the couch and sat down next to Macy, who laid her head on Shandi’s shoulder. Shandi immediately started stroking her hair. Jake now bustled to pour three cups of coffee.
“Do you two take anything in your coffee?”
Macy pushed herself up from the couch. “I’ll do it. It’s a very exacting process. You’ll just mess it up.”
Jake took his cup, threw up his free hand, and laughed. “Fair enough. Sugar and cream’s right there.”
Shandi looked at him. She looked worn out. Tired. Beautiful.
“So, you struck out with Deirdre?” Shandi asked, smirking.
Jake blushed. He didn’t really want to talk about it with her; certainly not with Macy in the room. “I guess you could say that. I don’t think there was any attraction...”
Shandi looked dubious. Jake didn’t like it, so he added, “From either side. Did you hear back from Cam?”
He coul
d tell that she noticed his intentional change of subject, but she didn’t call him on it. “Yeah. He called back late last night. Or early this morning, I guess. He and one of the deputies checked out the house. Back door was smashed in, but that was it. Didn’t look like he came back.”
Jake sipped his coffee, enjoying the warmth in his hands and throat. “That’s a relief. More evidence that it—sorry, he—wasn’t targeting you.”
Macy returned to the couch with two mugs of coffee. She handed one to Shandi. Macy’s was khaki-colored with lots of cream and sugar. Shandi took hers black. Shandi smiled at Macy and took a sip. Macy seemed to smile directly at her coffee before taking a long drink.
“Yeah. I think you’re probably right. I still don’t know if I feel comfortable staying there. We’ll probably go stay with my mom.”
Like most generational residents of Rose Valley, Shandi’s mom lived in town. Why she hadn’t gone there after the attack, Jake had no idea. He delighted in the knowledge that she had come to him, and he knew he didn’t want her to leave. He wondered if he would actually be able to protect her, but he wanted to be close enough to try.
“You can stay here as long as you want. Seriously. Steve has a guest room over in the main house. I can stay there.”
“You sure you don’t mind?”
Her response surprised him. “Definitely not. This is a safe place to be. I’m here. Steve’s here. Steve’s a crack-shot with a rifle. He’s a good person to have around.”
Shandi sipped her coffee as she considered the offer. She glanced at Macy who focused more on her sugary concoction than the conversation.
After a few minutes of silence and sipping, Shandi looked back up at him and smiled. “Okay. We’ll stay here until we can get the door fixed. Only under one condition, though.”