by Dan O'Brien
The Lauren Westlake Mysteries: Volume I
Dan O’Brien
Copyright © 2015 by Dan O’Brien
All rights reserved.
Bitten
Chapter I
Madeline Leftwich sat at the train station every day at exactly thirteen minutes past midnight. The faded brown bench on which she sat did not often have consistent occupants as transients and hobos were sparse this far north.
But there she sat, hands crossed over her lap. The floral pattern of the thick skirt she wore was handmade, buckles and clasps galore adorned the uneven cut and fold of the garment. Her face possessed an absent quality, not that characteristics were missing, but instead a vacancy of spirit. That bench meant a great deal to her. This was the very place that childhood was left behind.
It had been exactly thirty-nine years since her mother had placed her on that very bench, brushed back her hair, and told her everything was going to be alright. She had said she would be right back. A promise to a child is a sacred thing. Even as an adult, Madeline could not tear herself away from the compulsion to come wait for her mother every day at that exact moment she had left her. The whistle blew each night as the passenger train rolled into town.
Cold air rained down upon the open station. Often, there would be sheets of ice that would expel from the track, lining the waiting area just beside the tracks on the concrete platform. Attendants had grown accustomed to her presence. Some even offered her coffee in the wee hours of the morning when they had no other friend. This night, however, she was quite alone.
Heavy bleating of the distant train horn filled the night, filtering through a cloudy fog. The susceptible and otherwise occupied Ms. Leftwich was not yet privy to the gossip of the town. Murder, a topic of great concern no matter the venue, would be especially virulent in such a small community. Distance revealed a dark object hurdling through the night, steam and precipitation sluicing from the hot steel that cascaded across the hours of darkness.
The station was empty. A half-lit banister showed the narrow, icy path that crawled back out to the blacktop just outside the front of the station. She watched the train collide with the open air of the darkness, the squeal of the tight brakes announcing its arrival with startling clarity. Heavy doors opened; artificial light spilled from the side of the train.
Madeline watched the open door––waiting. Seconds passed into minutes, yet there was no sound external to the cold nature of Minnesota. Winter had a feeling, a symphony all its own. Groaning trees fought against the arctic grip of snow and ice. Lakes moving in the distance, far beneath the heavy weight of the ice that had taken residence upon them, filled the night.
Someone stepped out. Her coat was wrapped tightly around her lithe frame, her sandy blonde hair tucked beneath a brown wool cap. The scarf around her neck was braided and frayed; as if it were sewn by someone she knew well, not the simple manufacture of mass production. Brown eyes watched the empty train station with great interest and a precision that marked her immediately as more than a mere observer.
A bulge at her side revealed a weapon. The simple black bag that was slung over the shoulder of the long brown trench coat made her appear to be a woman on the run, or perhaps one who simply liked to travel light.
Seeing the frail figure of Madeline, this sole occupant of the midnight train station, she made her way toward the sitting woman. Her voice was sweet, her tone full of purpose. “Excuse me, ma’am. Is this Locke? Locke, Minnesota?”
Ms. Leftwich watched the woman with wide eyes, pooling with tears. She was severely confused. Was this her mother? Had this been the person she had waited so long to see? She hesitated. This woman was younger, younger than she was. Was this possible: a mother who was younger than you?
“Ma’am, I…”
“Mother?” queried Madeline Leftwich, her voice rising shrilly.
“Pardon me?”
Madeline did not stand, but instead shuffled her purse at her waist. “Are you my mother? You left me here a long time ago. Said you would be back, said you would be back soon.”
Staring into the vacant eyes of Madeline Leftwich, it took the woman a moment of complete incomprehensibility to see that there was not much left. Where there might have once been potential for a woman were the remnants of some sad description of what could laughingly be called life.
“No. I am very sorry. I’m not…”
Madeline stood now, her features scrunching in anger. “Why would you lie to me? Why would you leave me here? Why?”
“Ma’am, my name is Lauren. Lauren Westlake. And I am neither your mother nor a trained therapist. Can you tell me if this is Locke?”
Madeline interrupted, her face flush. Her words were filled with venomous rage. “Don’t pretend I’m a child. I know where I am. I know who I am. Just because you are my mother, doesn’t mean you can leave me behind.”
Lauren Westlake looked at the woman in a mixture of shock and horror. She resisted the urge to physically restrain the woman, concerned about the reaction she might have. “What is your name?”
Madeline’s face was the very picture of surprise.
“You don’t remember your daughter’s name?”
Lauren was uncertain how much further this charade should be carried, whether or not disengaging from the woman would be simpler. Looking at the woman carefully, she noticed that her clothing was handmade. The name Madeline was sewn into the breast of her outmost jacket. Stifling an irritated sigh, she continued. “Madeline. Your name is Madeline.”
And then as quickly as the madness had come, it dissipated. “Why are you talking to me?”
“Excuse me. I…”
Madeline looked at Lauren strangely and stood, gathering her belongings. She moved past Lauren and out into the night as if the interaction did not even happen. Lauren watched her go, scrutinizing the entire exchange in her own mind. Shaking her head, she adjusted the bag at her back and moved forward past the dock of the train station and into the cold area just above it.
Ms. Leftwich was nowhere to be seen.
As far as Lauren was concerned, that was for the best.
The night was cold. A heavy veil of fog seemed to grow like a behemoth. She looked down the lane and saw only two endless views of darkness. The blacktop was crystalline, frozen precipitation having created a surreal sheet that seemed as if it would be better suited for ice skating than vehicular travel.
“Not exactly a warm welcome,” she muttered, drawing the top of her coat closer to her face. There were muffled sounds in the distance, voices that were muted; sounds that could originate from only one kind of establishment: a bar. Lowering her head and pulling the strap of her bag tight, she soldiered on.
MADELINE HAD MADE A HUGE MISTAKE that night that would cost her life. Each night that she sat alone at that train station she would wait for the sun to rise and then scamper home, ashamed. This night, however, her emotions had gotten the better of her. And it was in these woods that she would now find herself in the presence of a particular creature of the night, one that would come to haunt and terrorize the inhabitants of the small town of Locke.
The moon overhead stung the fog, driving the ethereal wisps from its view. Wide and threatening, it looked peaceful when viewed in the company of others, in the arms of a lover perhaps. To Madeline Leftwich, a woman lost in her own mind, it was a portent of doom.
Thick branches grew over the sorry excuse for a path that she walked each day. By daylight the intricacies could be gleaned, but at night it was a haunted maze littered with obstructions and potential trip falls.
Her shoes were a dark
fabric. Not the kind of material used when hiking through the woods at breakneck speeds, though that is what Madeline would need that night. When she paused at the center of the trail to make sure she wasn’t being followed, the dead silence of the night became a far more frightening sound.
“Who is there?” she half-whispered, her voice cracking.
A branch snapped, frost claiming yet another soldier.
Another sound echoed in the night; this time much heavier, like weight lingering as a fledging branch gasped for its last breath before being trampled. She pulled her bag close to her chest, her face twisting in fear. Her eyes were wide as she searched the night frantically. “There is nothing there,” she whispered, tearing her eyes from the tree line.
Continuing forward, her steps were quicker, more deliberate. The woods around her thinned the faster she walked, white-speckled pines giving way to broken branches along a road of depreciating value. The trail widened in places, enough that little pockets of dirt and soil were pushed up from use.
As if something were urging her forward, she began to run slightly, her breath expelled in heavy puffs of condensed air. She wheezed then, a panicked, hiccupping sound that erupted deep from within her chest.
And that was when she heard the first growl. There was something wrong with it. It sounded like an animal, the guttural low pitches. However, there was something human to it, a strange gargling sound.
Her feet were not as sure beneath her as she thought. The tips of the fabric shoes dug into the hard soil, making her wince in pain. Biting her lip hard, she forged forward, stumbling into an open area of the trail.
Trees crowded the edges of her vision and the clearing. The trail continued on the way she had been trampling and then split into two smaller trails yet. The fog hung ahead of her, pulling away as if it were an entity all its own.
Silence permeated the area.
And then the growl came again. It sounded hungry, desperate, the pinnacle of auditory fear. “Who is there? What? Why are you hiding?” she whimpered. “Please. Please.”
It seemed to come from all around her, enveloping the cold night air. The fog stirred; deep in its belly a shadow formed. Tall and hunched, it was a mass of darkness shaped like a man. Heavy in the shoulders, spines seemed to rise unevenly from the arms and body. The head was lowered and the knees bowed as if it were ready to pounce.
Yet it did not. It stood, chest heaving, safely veiled by the fog bank. Hands that seemed to melt into long thin claws were obscured by the swirling mass of miasma ebbing and flowing within.
She was speechless.
Her mouth opened: no words.
Her mind raced. Panicked thoughts flooded her mind, erasing judgment and reason. Muscles constrained and joints locked, she watched helplessly. It took a single step forward, the heave of its heavy chest frightening.
Madeline Leftwich was not a god-fearing woman. In point of fact, until that moment she had not given much thought about death. Never had she thought about whether she wished to stay in this world: alive, mortal. Now, when confronted with something drawn from nightmares, her pulse raced and she realized, with a desperate certainty, that she did indeed wish to live.
The rain trickled then, a fat droplet striking her across her hair. Her feet hit the ground hard, her pulse racing as she abandoned her bag. Churning, her feet dug into the hard winter earth. Her breath sputtered in front of her in rapid fits of exploding clouds. She whimpered as she ran, tears running down her face as trees slapped her hard across her cold, sensitive features; some left bruises, others broke skin.
The forest was now alive with sound.
Creatures hooted and hollered in the night.
They knew something was happening.
She could hear herself breathing.
She would not last much longer.
Her foot caught something lodged deep into the frozen ground. The world spun in circles as her back collided with the unforgiving earth. The groan that escaped her lips was foreign.
Frightened and defeated, she kept very still. Where she had landed proved defensible, high brush bristling with heavy branches and evergreen leaves that hid her partly from view.
The forest beat a heavy drum.
Footfalls of animals loose in the night filled the air. There was one set of footsteps that rung above the others: something primal, something large. She covered her mouth with her hand. Pressing tightly, she watched as a shadow crept across her vision.
She peered out the side of the brush.
It stood like a man.
Up close the fur was matted, uneven, missing in some places. The legs were muscular and covered in fabrics that seemed to sluice fluid. Hemorrhaging from the torso, it moved with a predator’s grace.
Its face was covered in shadow.
Madeline felt a scream rise from deep in her chest and she pressed her hand harder against her mouth. Closing her eyes, tears streamed from them. Her chest heaved, but she tried not to move, locking her body into a paralysis.
She could not tear her eyes away from it.
Turning, the face was still well hidden.
Long slender fingers, like dull blades, bounced against the creature’s legs. The clothing was torn and dirty. A smell emanated from it that could only be described as nausea in the depths of a septic tank. Lifting its head, it sniffed the air, a hood pressing against its mangled hair.
Her breath caught in her throat.
The slow turn of the creature and the bend of its legs as it lowered closer to the ground was more than Madeline could take. And before she could even remove her hand from her mouth to scream, it was upon her.
Chapter II
Lauren Westlake had not yet seen the monster that hunted the woods of Locke. Nor was she privy to some of the uncouth and less than reputable members of the community. But as she pushed open the doors of the Mill Saloon, she was aware of one thing: something was wrong in Locke.
She pulled off her hat and tucked it into her bag, flushing out her hair. The bar was as one expected, dark and smoky. There were few lights and even fewer women. Booths lined the outer walls except for the one that housed a wooden bar adorned with various hides, pelts, and horns fitted to inexpressive plaques of death.
As she walked through the open area that served as both a dance floor and a drunken staggering area, many heads turned to watch her pass. Lauren was indeed an attractive woman; as well as confident, with a sense of purpose and an intensity that might be viewed as unusual in such a small town.
Sitting down on a stool with a smile, she placed her hands on the counter of the bar. The bartender was a thick man in shoulder and girth with a heavy beard of coal hair. His shirt was too loose and his pants too tight. The thick slur of his voice hinted that the good bartender was sampling his own goods.
“What can I get ya, pretty lady?”
Lauren looked around the bar; most people had returned to their business. But some continued to stare. A particular one, dressed in a manner that attracted the attention of the drunken, masculine sort.
Looking sideways at the bartender, she replied. “Whiskey, straight.”
She watched the woman cross the room, drawing stares from every man; the cut of the shorts alone would have facilitated that. Dark red lips and piercing hazel eyes fixed on Lauren immediately. The woman crossed her arms underneath her breasts and cocked her hips suggestively.
“What’s your story?”
“Better question. What is the story with those shorts? It has to be thirty degrees outside. Are you looking to catch pneumonia?”
The woman looked at her in shock. Lauren was quite certain that another woman had never talked to her that way. Lauren reached back and grasped the dirty-looking glass and took a sip, wincing as she did so. She had overestimated her once rather stout resistance to the brown stuff.
Times certainly change.
“I’m not looking for a fight there, cupcake. Just scurry back over to whichever of these fine young gentlemen you wer
e hanging on.”
The provocatively dressed woman, however, would not be so easily deterred. “It is fair to say you some kind of out-of-town cunt then, isn’t it? You looking for trouble, bitch?”
Taking another sip of the whiskey, this one smoother than the last, she smiled. “Not in the slightest.” Touching the weapon at her side with a sweeping finger, she continued. “I have come to this wonderfully cold corner of hell that you call home to help. Last thing I need is a sad little bar fly buzzing about.”
The woman looked at her with a horrified stare. Even the bartender, normally quick to disperse from tense situations, could not tear his eyes away from the train wreck before his eyes. “Who the fuck do you think you are talking to me like that?”
Lauren drained the last of the whiskey, feeling a warm sensation trace down her spine and a familiar fog drift past her senses. “I believe I might be the bitch who beats your hillbilly ass if you do not march back to your boy toys.”
There was a moment where Lauren thought the woman might respond to her challenge, but it passed as the hard stare went glossy. It was the early stages of sorrow and tears, mostly from embarrassment and as well the deep throes of anger.
“You…”
“Yeah?”
The woman bit her lip as if to say more and then turned, flashing nearly the entirety of her womanhood at Lauren before fading back into the throng of staring drunks once more. As if on cue the bartender leaned forward, pushing another glass of dark amber liquid.
“Seems like maybe you could use another.” Lauren feigned protest. “On the house, you’re a bold one to talk to Charlene like that.”
She thought about saying something back to the bartender, perhaps dissuade this newfound tough-gal personality, but thought better of it. It might serve her well to be perceived immediately as a kind of hardass. People would certainly be less inclined to question her motives if she did not allow a lot of room for discussion.
