by Ward Parker
Why did Affird have to execute Chainsaw? He was the perfect suspect in the beach murders. Maybe they could have gotten him to confess. That would have been a huge feather in Affird’s cap. Would they even investigate this angle now?
Why was the existence of werewolves and vampires such a threat to the members of law enforcement who knew about them? Were they afraid to bring attention to these creatures because, instead of leading to a slaughter as Missy feared, it would instead lead to the creatures’ legal protection? Whatever the reason, this attitude imperiled all the residents of Seaweed Manor and Squid Tower, along with all the other freaks hiding on the fringes of society. It was an untenable situation.
She took a deep breath and tried again to relax. She stared at the empty beach and in the faint light could make out the curvy, dark line of seaweed and sargassum washed up by the tide. Most people didn’t know about the tiny organisms that lived in the sargassum as it floated like a giant carpet miles offshore. Creatures not understood by humans were fated to die with indifference.
Movement caught her eye. Someone was walking up the beach from the south. As the person got closer, it became clear that it was a man. He was dressed in black, but was easily visible in the fading darkness. He walked close to the sand dunes, studying them, looking for something.
Then he looked up and saw her. He made a beeline toward her.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. He picked up his pace as he approached. She couldn’t make out his face, but he was definitely looking at her.
She got up from the bench and started walking down the dune crossover away from the man. She would get in her car, lock the doors, and get the hell away from here. As she reached the stairs on the inland end, she glanced back toward the beach.
The man was already on the crossover, walking quickly, almost jogging.
“Wait,” he called. “I have a question.”
She jumped down the stairs and started down the winding, landscaped path to the parking lot. Her car was too far away. She would have to enter the lobby and lock herself in the bathroom or a meeting room. She should try to stop the man with a binding spell, but she was too panicked to pull it off.
His footsteps thudded down the steps behind her.
Before she broke into a run, she had to at least try to stop him. She began building the spell in her mind. And turned toward him.
“Missy! I can’t believe it’s you.”
He was so close now she could recognize him. It was ex-Father Marco Rivera Hernandez.
“Father, what are you doing here?”
“You can call me Marco,” he said.
“Tell me what you’re doing here!”
He stopped in his tracks with a shocked expression at her hostility. “I was searching for runaways or drug addicts sleeping on the beach. I do it all the time.”
“Why?”
“I counsel them and try to find them a shelter. I did it when I was a priest, and I still do it now because of the murders. Getting them off the beach could save their lives.”
She didn’t know whether to believe him or not.
“So I looked like a runaway or drug addict?” she asked with sarcasm.
He laughed. “Of course not, though I couldn’t really tell at a distance. I talk to anyone I see alone at this hour, especially women. I want to make sure they’re safe.”
“Good,” Missy said. “Do you know who’s killing these people?”
“No idea,” he said. “And for all I know, he could kill me, too.”
“Be careful. But I’m going to go now. I’m a little shaken up.”
“Sorry about that. Have a nice day.”
“He wants to ask you out,” a deep voice said.
“Don’t listen to him,” ex-Father Marco said. “He’s the demon.”
“I’m telling her the truth,” the deep voice said, “you horny toad.”
“Don’t embarrass me in front of my friend.”
“She’s not your friend. You freak her out.”
“I freak her out because of you, you spawn of Satan. Why don’t you leave me and possess someone else more interesting?”
“Making your life a living hell is actually pretty interesting.”
Missy walked away and left the two to their argument. She didn’t feel safe until her car was crossing the bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway.
28
Entities Most Foul, Part Two
Bernie stared at the bag of homemade cookies on the gatehouse desk and shook his head. He’d let them sit there all night, untouched. A note said they were from Philomena. It was just his luck.
He thought he’d made great progress by being attracted to Missy, who was way older than the kind of chicks he usually was into: the kind who posed in bikinis next to hotrods in the calendars you’d only find hanging in a mechanic’s shop. Of course, chicks like them would never be interested in him, but they set the bar as far as he was concerned. A woman closer to his own age and without any bimbo factor was a good sign he had finally outgrown his adolescent libido. But, wouldn’t you know it, Missy appeared to have no interest in him.
It was an insult added to injury that the only woman showing him any interest was almost old enough to be his mother. Philomena. Yes, Philomena.
At first, he hadn’t realized she’d been flirting with him. The kissing of his cheek, the hugs, the handsy-ness were a Caribbean-culture thing, he had thought. The cookies and casseroles were just a motherly instinct.
Her patting him on the butt at shift change the previous night—that was when it finally dawned on him what she wanted. And now he felt dirty. He also felt under siege. Schwartz wanted to drain him of his blood and Philomena wanted to . . . he couldn’t bring himself to think about it.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have a choice. Near the end of his shift, he happened to glance out his window and saw Philomena smiling in at him.
He jumped to attention and opened the door. “Hey. What are you doing here so early? It’s almost an hour before your shift. And I thought you’d never come here in the dark.”
“I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep,” she said in her lilting island accent. “So I thought I’d watch the sunrise over the ocean. Wanna join me? Two of us will be safer if a vampire comes along.”
“Philomena, you know I can’t leave my post except to go to the men’s room.”
“No one will know, man. Aren’t they all back in their condos now?”
“I’m not sure. The last thing I need is for Schwartz to catch me hanging out on the beach instead of doing my job.”
“The bad vampire still bothering you?”
“I’ve told you he wants to kill me.”
“He’ll never do that.”
“Or get me fired.”
“Ah, that he might do.”
“Put in a good word for me with Rudy, will you?” Bernie asked. “I keep asking him to reassign me to another community, but he says it’s too hard to find someone to take this shift here.”
“No wonder.”
“If Schwartz forces me out of here, do you think Rudy will put me somewhere else instead of just canning me? I can’t afford to be out of work.”
“I’ll tell him you’re a good man,” she said slipping in through the door and invading his personal space. She leaned against the wall with a forced casualness, stared at him with hunger, then moved right up against him.
“Now, show me how good you are,” she whispered in his ear.
Bernie stumbled backward and fell into his chair. He realized Philomena didn’t really come here to watch the sunrise.
“We’ve got some time to kill before the shift change,” she said, sitting on his lap.
Missy’s sandwich bag still sat on the windowsill filled with secret ingredients to keep evil at bay. He was happy no one had thrown it out but disappointed it didn’t work on horny, older women.
“Don’t worry ‘bout the window,” Philomena said, “no one will see us.”
Gurglegurglegrrrrrrreeeeeeoooooogggrrrr!
Good Lord, he thought, an historic seismic event was occurring in his bowels.
“What the hell was that noise?” Philomena stopped what she was doing and looked at him in shock.
“Sorry. That’s embarrassing.”
Another loud gurgling and rumbling from below. And the feeling a massive force of nature was threatening to break free.
“Oh God, I’m sorry, Philomena, but something’s wrong.”
She got off his lap and backed away as if he were about to explode. In truth, he was.
“Must have been something I ate,” he said.
“My cookies?”
“No. I haven’t tried them yet. But I will.”
More cartoonish sound effects echoed in his colon and he felt the stirrings that warned the dam was about to break.
“Sorry,” he said as he launched from the chair and shot out of the gatehouse, sprinting toward the bathroom just off the lobby. His trembling hands almost dropped the card key for the main building. He made it into the men’s room stall with less than a second to spare.
When he emerged twenty minutes later, feeling as if he’d lost all of his water weight, he limped back to the gatehouse in shame. Philomena had put on her uniform jacket and closed the door.
“You go home early and clean up,” she said. She was pretty frosty, as if she had hard feelings from the interrupted seduction attempt. “Drink lots of water and chicken broth. And stay away from whatever you had for dinner tonight.”
When Philomena arrived for her shift the next morning, she didn’t say hello. She didn’t even acknowledge him. It had been the same when he had relieved her at the start of his shift.
“Hey, I’m sorry about what happened the other day,” Bernie said. “My stomach usually doesn’t act up like that.”
She pushed into the booth, swiped her ID card through the sensor, and sat down in his chair.
“I hope you didn’t take it personally,” he continued. “My bowels were really bad off. I know it sounds silly but I think it had to do with a magic spell gone wrong. This chick who does a little witchcraft on the side created a spell to protect me from Schwartz. But I think it did something to my insides.”
She didn’t say anything.
“When she was casting the spell, she said something like, ‘Expel all entities most foul.’ That would describe most of the food I eat.”
Still no response.
“I’m sorry, Philomena. Won’t you forgive me?”
She finally rotated her chair and looked up at him. “No,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I disgust you. I’m an old hag. Kissing me makes you sick to your stomach.”
“That’s not true!” He considered kissing her, just to make her feel better.
But then his stomach rumbled. Loudly. She looked at him with a frown and an arched eyebrow. Pressure was building in his basement plumbing.
Bernie quickly swiped out with his card, mumbled an excuse, and headed for the bathroom before going home.
That evening, Philomena didn’t say a word when he took over guard duty.
The scream rang out about an hour before dawn. It sounded to Bernie like it came from the beach. He opened the window and strained to hear more. At this hour, there was almost no traffic on A1A and the only sound was the irregular crashing of the surf on the other side of the dunes.
There it was again—a woman screaming for help.
He reached for the phone, then hesitated, remembering being lambasted by Rudy about secrecy. Chances were, the cause of the woman’s distress was a human, but he couldn’t risk calling the police if, in fact, Schwartz or another vampire was being careless and feeding so close to home. He would have to leave his post and go out to the beach himself to investigate.
He grabbed a flashlight and went outside, locking the gatehouse. He cut through the parking lot, past the precious handicapped spot Schwartz claimed. He walked along the paved footpath that skirted the building and led to the dune crossover. The path wound through shrubbery and patches of flowers, illuminated by small ground lights. He passed the shower for washing off sand and saltwater and climbed the wooden steps of the short boardwalk over the dunes.
He paused and listened. Nothing other than the soughing of the waves. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and he moved to just before the stairs at the end of the crossover, looking up and down the beach. There was only a partial moon and in its faint light he could make out the dark piles of seaweed washed up by the tide.
No one was in sight. He didn’t want to use the flashlight and give himself away in case a predator was still around. So he remained unmoving, staring up and down the beach as his pupils opened more and he could see better. No one was around. He really ought to get back to the guardhouse.
The wet, slurping sounds came from beneath him.
Bernie froze, his heart hammering.
A faint moan, a rustling of cloth, a scratching of sand.
Right below him, under the dune crossover.
He turned on his flashlight and aimed it at the narrow gaps between the planking. Dark shapes moved beneath him. He couldn’t tell what was going on except that a shape was moving toward him. Fast.
Pain ripped across his ankle and it was wrenched sideways. Something gripped his ankle with vise-like force. He fell on his back, hitting the planks hard and was pulled toward the edge of the crossover. As he slid toward the darkness, his free foot landed on the handrail post and he pushed back against it.
Whatever gripped him let go, though he sensed from the tightness of the grip it had the strength to pull him off the structure if it had wanted to. He caught a glimpse of a bloody arm and fingers with pointed, curved nails shooting away, back under the walkway. His trousers had been slashed and blood oozed over the top of his shoe.
Burning red eyes rimmed with yellow flashed between the boards, and now they appeared on the side of the dune crossover, rising up above the floorboards. It wasn’t finished with him.
He ran faster than he had since he tried out for and didn’t make the high school track team. Despite the pain in his ankle, he made it to the stairs on the west side of the dune crossover, and turned his head.
A large humanoid creature swung itself over the handrail onto the dune crossover behind him. It crouched and stared at him with those yellow-rimmed, coal-ember eyes. Bernie couldn’t be sure it was a vampire, but it emanated coiled muscular power and malevolence. And hunger.
It began to move toward him.
Bernie leaped off the stairs, landing on the ground with a flare of pain in his wounded ankle. He didn’t know if the guardhouse would be safe but he knew his car wouldn’t start in time to make an escape, so he sprinted for the booth and collapsed inside, locking the door and turning off the interior light.
Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t Schwartz.
Bernie spent the rest of his shift kneeling on the floor, peering out of the windows, watching for the monster. It never came.
29
Great Balls of Fire
Matt heard about it on his police scanner shortly after dawn. More bodies had been found on the beach. He drove there right away, but this time the police presence was more robust and he wasn’t allowed anywhere near the crime scene. Matt had to park at the nearest public beach and walk about a mile until he reached the police tape. Affird was already there, pacing around angrily. Even the mayor showed up, surveying the scene from the dune crossover like a goddess casting judgment upon the feckless mortals.
Two stretchers with body bags were carried up the stairs of the dune crossover by the county medical examiner’s staff. They squeezed past the mayor who watched impassively.
The dune crossover belonged to Squid Tower.
Matt’s theory that Chainsaw had been the vampire-imposter killer was now dashed to pieces. Unless this was
a copycat killer. Matt needed to find out if these victims had been drained of blood. He was back to thinking a vampire was the culprit.
A tall, skinny old man was standing on the beach nearby, watching the police. He wore a wide-brimmed hat over long white hair and carried a water bottle. His skin was very pale. At first Matt thought he was one of the vampires, then he remembered a vampire wouldn’t be out here in daylight. Maybe the man was a werewolf. Or, most likely, he was simply an old man, however predatory he may be.
“Excuse me, sir,” Matt said.
“Are you a cop?” the man asked with a Maine accent laced with lots of hostility.
“Actually, I’m a reporter.”
“Not much better, in my opinion, when it comes to destroying a hardworking man’s reputation.”
Oh boy, Matt thought, this guy is carrying a lot of baggage.
“Do you know what happened here?” Matt asked, feigning ignorance.
“A young couple was murdered—that’s what happened. I was power-walking up the beach like I do every morning before sunrise. I have to avoid too much sun because of skin cancer. Those expensive sunscreens aren’t worth a dime in my opinion. Seems like every month the dermatologist is taking a chunk of flesh out of me. And then you have to go back to get the stitches out and it’s a royal pain in the—”
“Please tell me what you saw.” Matt needed to get the conversation back on track.
“Didn’t see anything at first. I heard a scream. The wind was blowing, and I could barely hear the girl’s voice. But I was approaching the spot up there where the cops are standing, and I saw three people—I think it was three—in an argument. I would have called 911, but I didn’t have my phone with me because of all the damn robocalls I get. Can you believe Russia calls me five times a day? I block each number and they keep calling anyway. What the hell does Russia want with me?”
“What happened?”
“I don’t answer. The one time I did they told me they would kill my wife if I didn’t give them my bank account number, but my wife was already dead.”