Robby grabs a glass beaker from one of the tall shelves and falls in behind Brady. Devin fumbles through his pockets and pulls out a small, keychain-sized, LED flashlight. Brady loses his footing and plummets to the concrete floor. Devin turns on the flashlight as more violent, animalistic heaving ricochets off the basement walls. The flashlight illuminates the area around Brady. Scarlet, sneaker-sized streaks disrupt a thick blood trail in the spot where Brady slipped. It’s part of a longer blood trail that leads beyond him down a short hallway and smears on the face of a cinder block half wall leading into a crawlspace. As the light from the flashlight envelops him, Brady vise clamps one of his hands on the other and grimaces. The shard of glass sliced deeply into his hand during his fall, and an oil strike of hot blood wells between the spaces of his fingers, a crimson rain shower pouring from his limp fingertips. Robby places his hands underneath Brady’s armpits and hoists him to his feet as the horrible heaving continues to emanate from the crawlspace a few paces in front of them.
“Let’s go!” Tee screams from the third step of the staircase.
As Robby drags Brady to the staircase in loop-armed fashion, Brady wriggles free of Robby’s grip and shouts, “No! Not without Wadlow!” Brady lumbers toward the crawlspace opening, careful to secure his footing first this time. “Professor Wadlow!” He wails in desperation as the horrid possibilities of Professor Wadlow’s undoing swirl through his head.
Devin sidesteps, clearing a path for Brady. As Brady passes, Devin swivels his body around, lighting the short, albeit bloody path in front of him. As the boys close in on the opening, a deep, menacing growl halts Robby’s advance and sends Tee bounding the staircase. The soundtrack of Devin’s heart flips from an up-tempo Beatles song to the full fury of pre-stardom Metallica, but after a moment of hesitation, he forces himself to move in concert with Brady. Brady stops at the half wall, eyeing the black chasm before him. The swirling darkness consumes everything. A death trap. But can’t leave. Gotta save Wadlow.
“Latravious!” Brady howls into the black void as Devin surges up from behind him, shining his light into the opening of the crawlspace. The light reveals blood-soaked, bare earth in the immediate vicinity of the opening, but the small halo of light the cheap flashlight produces gets consumed by the heavy blanket of darkness a few feet away from the entrance.
An answer returns from the depths of the crawlspace in the form of a furious snarl. Devin rests his hand on Brady’s shoulder as they lean in together and strain to peer into the cavernous recesses of the crawlspace. Moments later, a rapid shuffling hooks their ears and yanks their heads to the left in unison. Devin sends cease and desist signals to his trembling hand on Brady’s shoulder, but it goes unanswered. Synapses fire, but the lines remain severed. The body’s natural compulsion to protect itself with the well-placed instinct of fear, honed through eons of trial and error, rules the moment, overriding the instruction sent from his mind. His body disobeys the anomalous command, sticking to the hard-wired phantom commands built into his genetic code. And in this moment, Devin’s body instructs him to flee.
Another snarl, this time closer, calls out from the darkness. The trembling slips down Devin’s body and settles into his foot.
“Fuck! What is that?” Robby looks on from a considerable distance.
Heavy animal panting moves closer, stopping a couple of feet shy of the edge of the pale, LED light halo. Brady leans farther into the crawlspace and by virtue of Devin’s vise grip into Brady’s shoulder, Devin and his flashlight get incidentally dragged in closer as well. The momentary extended reach of the light catches the phosphorous-yellow gleam from a set of eyes, looming on the edge of the halo of light.
“Shi-it!” Devin shudders as he retreats a step, and the yellow eyes dissolve into the black. As Brady strains to identify anything moving in the foggy black, the soft trickle of creeping footsteps ring out like warning shots from a few yards away. As his ears lock in and track the movement, Brady realizes that whatever’s doing the slinking employs an intelligence in doing so. Where the light penetrates the deepest, it moves in a deeper arc to remain undetected. It’s stalking them. A sudden surge of goosebumps prickles Robby’s skin, and a shiver passes through his shoulders.
“Go. Now.” Robby’s voice quakes.
“Latravious!” Brady shouts.
Something scuffling the earth rings out a few yards beyond the halo of light. It speeds closer. Something oblong, the approximate size of a volleyball, gray and furry, rolls a couple feet past the edge of the light halo. It does one more quarter turn and comes to a stop.
“Nooooo!” Brady screams.
The pale, blood-speckled face of Latravious Wadlow lies facing his own. Stilled, pale eyes stare at him in an aimless, forever gaze. A grizzly string of torn flesh trails away from Wadlow’s head and leads into the black. Devin convulses into a dry heave. His hand clasps his mouth as his eyes follow the gory string of flesh away from Wadlow’s severed head. Where the oblong string of flesh approaches the darkness, he can make out white chest hair and the remnants of an areola. His legs begin to carry him backwards, but not before he witnesses a giant, patchy-haired paw smash down from the darkness onto the string of flesh. The protruded claws needle through the flesh like ice picks through a watermelon. Its knuckle joints contract, locking onto the raw meat, and it drags Latravious Wadlow’s tethered head back into the darkness of the crawlspace.
“Fuuckkkk!” Devin screams as his quieted voice returns in a thunderous, shrill boom. His legs motor beneath him, and in an instant, he passes a dismayed Robby, but not before his fingers latch onto Robby’s shirt. He gives Robby a yank and pulls him into a run. The small LED light bounces once off of Robby’s back before falling to the ground behind them, spinning one final twirl of light around the blood-soaked basement.
With tears streaming his face, Brady backs away from the crawlspace opening. One final approaching snarl launches Brady into a full retreat. Within a couple of seconds, he’s nipping at the heels of Robby and Devin as they race through the rooms of the house upstairs.
Chapter 47
Change of Plans
AS THE FIVE minutes or so of small talk dwindle, Angela and I exchange word-starved glances, more bored than worried at this point. Turns out that high school graduates don’t share that much in common with middle schoolers once you get past the overlap of popular television shows. Out of subject material, neither one of us tries to force it, and we both take a seat on the bottom step of Professor Wadlow’s porch.
We both jump to our feet as the door smashes into the wall inside the house. Tee bounds the three stairs leading from the porch to the sidewalk in one running leap.
“Runnnn!” he screams, eyes ablaze with terror.
“What happened? Where’s Brady?”
“Just run!” Tee screams at Angela on his way down the driveway. He grabs his bike and runs it up the driveway. Without further hesitation, I run to the base of the driveway, grab Devin’s skateboard and manage to carry it in my armpit while also pushing both remaining bikes up the hill.
“Start the car! Start the car!” Brady’s voice booms out from inside the house.
The door bangs into the wall again, and this time Robby and Devin come bolting through the opening. They gather their bearings mid-jump from the porch, and as soon as their feet strike the earth, they cut left to meet me on the driveway. As we run our bikes to the street, Brady comes roaring through the door. Angela turns the key in the ignition. Tee, Robby, Devin, and I race to Angela’s car on High Street as Brady jumps in.
“Meet at the Library!” Brady shouts as we’re passing. “Go! Go! Go!” Brady pounds an urgent hand on the dash.
Angela presses hard on the gas as Brady gazes at Wadlow’s house, eyes glistening. The inertia slams Brady’s car door shut as Angela squeals away from the curb before they zoom past us.
Chapter 48
Cat and Mouse
AS DETECTIVE HOLT turns onto High Street, a sedan whizzes past
him at a high rate of speed. He whips his head around. Chase it? Nah. Beat cop days are over. Not going back to that. A moment later a cluster of boys on bikes and one on a skateboard roar past his car. He recognizes Brooks Raker as one of the boys. Damn. They’re hauling ass. Look scared shitless.
As he pulls to a stop on the curb by Wadlow’s house, he barks into his radio. “Ivansek. You there? Over.”
“Yeah, Holt.” Ivansek’s voice crackles through the radio.
“Where you at? Over.”
“Near Jennings Pike. Over.”
Figures. Only fitting he’s as far away as possible when I need him.
“Do me a favor, would ya? There’s a silver sedan, if I had to guess, I’d say a late-model Toyota Corolla, that just pulled off High Street headin’ back toward town. I’d like to know who’s in that vehicle and what they’re up to. Also, if you see Brooks Raker and his buddies, same drill. They looked a fright, and I’d like to know what spooked them. Over.”
“Roger that, good buddy,” Ivansek blabbers like a child mimicking a trucker.
The remark elicits a scowl from Holt. He squeezes his radio talk button, his tightening iron grip squeezing the plastic to near its breaking point. Not over the open radio. Last thing I need. Kasey Norton prying into discord in the department. He draws a deep breath through his nose and loosens his grip.
“Just see what you can find out, will ya?” Holt growls. “And report back.”
Holt studies the property outside of Latravious Wadlow’s house. The front door hangs open. Considering Wadlow’s social preferences, or lack thereof, it strikes him as strange. Holt retrieves his service weapon from his holster and plucks out the cartridge. He examines the clip, satisfying himself that it’s full and ready before popping it into his weapon. No way Latravious left his door open. After exiting his car, he slinks to the porch, gun drawn and readied. This time he minces with methodical deliberation, finding the steadiest boards on the porch, determined to make a much more unannounced visit.
Taking a deep breath, he pushes the door wider with the tip of his shoe. The weathered bolts groan on the hinges as the door retreats inside the house.
“Harper Pass Police,” Detective Holt mutters, not a decibel louder than required to satisfy his legal obligation.
With those quick words, he enters the house. Gun drawn, he moves in silence on the balls of his feet through the living room and into the kitchen. The house looks the same as he remembers from his recent visit. Holt scans the kitchen. A large glob of cat food smeared on the floor contains a partial shoe print. He crouches, examining it. That pattern. Looks a whole hell of a lot like one of ‘em from Shiners’ Gorge. Holt holsters his weapon, pulls his rarely used cell phone from his jacket pocket, sets a quarter beside the print for scale, and snaps off a quick picture of the print.
As he checks the image to ensure he’s captured a crisp photo, he notices a small red speck on the floor a couple of inches from the shoe print. The hundreds of crime scene photos he’s viewed tell him it’s blood. Lowering the phone from his eyes, he confirms his suspicion. A solitary droplet of blood specks the worn linoleum floor. Using his working but rudimentary knowledge of blood spatter forensics, he determines that the lack of elongation to the droplet seems to indicate it’s from a wound sustained elsewhere. And it’s fresh.
Holt studies the partial shoeprint. It’s the approximate size of a child’s foot. He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to visualize the shoes Sammy Needles came into the interrogation room wearing. A menacing snarl emanates from the bowels of the house and interrupts his meditation. Holt’s eyelids spring open, and he swivels his head in that direction. Parallel gouges, resembling claw marks, near the doorjamb on the edge of the kitchen greet his eyes. That’s no cat. Too big. No dog either. Shit! Exotic pets? Frank Gibbs. That’s what he asked about. In one fluid motion, Holt returns his cell phone to his pocket and retrieves his service weapon from its holster.
As Holt proceeds with caution into the adjacent room, he spots more claw marks and more blood droplets. He follows the blood trail to a basement door, which hangs a couple of inches ajar on its hinges. With one quick heave, the door opens, and he’s aiming his service weapon down a wooden staircase leading to a shadowy basement. An infuriated snarl greets his first step. As he looks down to secure his footing, he finds two more blood droplets on the stairs. Should’ve called it into the station. Ivansek knows where I’m at. Damn! Wish it was Morrow. No turning back now. Wish Morrow was here to watch my six. Can’t radio. Give up my location. As he descends the staircase, obscure thoughts race through his head. A tiger? In Harper Pass? Maybe. And this measly 9mm won’t do shit to stop that. Kirsten might really off herself if that happens.
“Holt, got your sedan.” Ivansek’s voice blares through Holt’s radio as he reaches the base of the stairs.
“Shit,” Holt mutters as he frantically seeks out the volume button on his radio, lowers it, and collects it from his belt. A scuttling grabs his attention, and Holt trains his weapon and eyes in that direction, straining to see through the darkness.
“Who’s in it? Over,” Holt whispers into his radio, unable to resist the bait of satisfying his own curiosity versus cloaking his position with silence, but he never breaks eye line from the sound’s point of origin.
“Brady Palmer. Oh, and Angela Mitchell.” More noises shatter the still of the basement.
“Hold ‘em there for me.” Holt turns his radio off, latches it to his belt, and retrieves his Maglite.
An audible click echoes through the darkness as bright light bursts from his flashlight in the direction of the growling. The light beam illuminates a significant pool of blood on the concrete floor and streaks of blood smeared on the face of a half wall, all indicative of a traumatic event. A trail of bloody shoe prints leads away from the large pool of blood to the staircase, but the zigzag pattern doesn’t match the one he photographed upstairs in the kitchen. Holt inspects the nearby wall. Thick arching patterns of heavy arterial spray show progressing stages of coagulation. Jesus! What the hell happened here? Holt focuses his beam on the half wall. His flashlight catches the glimmer of a pair of animal eyes trained on him. He flinches, and the eyes retreat into the darkness of the crawlspace before a testy half-growl pierces the pitch.
Holt gathers himself, summons his courage, and creeps toward the crawlspace, careful not to disturb the blood evidence on the basement floor. He trains his Maglite on the crawlspace opening with one hand, and the other death-grips his service weapon, aiming into the dark abyss beyond his light. Despite his best efforts to control it, the bobbling light beam betrays his intent and broadcasts his fear. He remembers the results of the chemical analysis and the comment Morrow made about the findings. Like some kind of Franken-goo or something. Did Wadlow genetically engineer some kind of monster in his basement? Lose control of his own creation like a real-life Dr. Frankenstein? As plausible as anything else this week. Shit. Who knows?
At the edge of the half wall, Holt shines his light deep into the crawlspace. The packed dirt gradually slopes to the first floor above him until it crests near the top of the far wall. Another growl echoes through the crawlspace, bouncing off the enclosed walls and cinder block columns, obscuring its exact origin. Holt chases it with his flashlight until the rays of his light collect on a cinder block wall. He begins a slow trace of the wall line with his light until he arrives at a corner of the structure. He pauses before continuing on. His light gives a glimpse of a thick and short-haired, long animal tail. After a quick scurry, the tail slips into the darkness. Frantically, Holt gives chase with the flashlight, but its evasive maneuvers keep it clear of his beam. Holt tries to corral his frazzled nerves. Racoons take up residence in dark crawlspaces. All the time in these parts. That’s probably it. Though Harper Pass is a small town, there’s enough wildlife to support two thriving critter-getter businesses. A cold shiver moves through him. But that tail was longer. Larger and skinnier. Like a goddamn jungle cat.
/> Holt strains to listen into the darkness. He lowers the volume on his sense of sight to focus all his gray matter on keening his eardrums like dialing in a tuning fork, enabling him to focus in on the smallest sounds, minute vibrations.
After a moment, he’s got something. Locked in, he tracks its location in his mind like a porpoise using sonar to zero in on its prey. It slinks from his left to his right, narrowing the distance between him and it ever so gradually with each step. Holy shit! Thing’s huntin’ me.
Holt detects a pause in the movement. The sensation of eyes bearing into him from the darkness beyond presses heavy on him. His heartbeat quickens. Beads of nerve-conjured sweat roll down his neck and collect in his collar. A rapid patter of paws striking the bare earth and driving toward him grabs his attention. The swift charge takes him by surprise, and bullets begin discharging from his 9mm before he can even get his sidearm raised level. Errant bullets spray up an ascending trail of dirt geysers as they strike the earth in front of him. In the melee, his flashlight tumbles to the concrete at his feet and shatters as his freed hand locks onto his recoiling firearm to secure his aim.
A large, mangy, cat-like creature bursts into the strobe effect of his muzzle flare, its menacing claws outstretched in a murderous death lunge. Holt trains his fire on it as it descends, and small explosions of bursting flesh suggest several of his shots make it home. The hollow clicking of empty trigger pulls without the corresponding gunfire ushers in renewed darkness. A millisecond later, a large thud on the earth catapults his heart.
“Shit! Oh shit!” Holt agonizes as he searches his belt for a replacement clip. Killed it! Come on! Tell me I killed it!
Groans emanate from a few feet in front of him followed by the earthen scraping of something dragging itself away from the entrance of the crawlspace. As he releases his spent clip and pops the new clip into his Glock, the noise abates. A dark hush rolls into its place like a thick fog, obscuring his senses.
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