by Dan O'Brien
He couldn’t recall her name as she pushed open the door and stepped into the darkness of the house. Brandy? Rachel? Sandy? Michelle? Did it matter?
His heart raced in his chest as he looked into the open door.
Like most men, he was susceptible to the thrill and possibility of something new. He pushed the thoughts of the pale redhead who was at home waiting for him out of his mind and stared after the woman who had silkily moved into the shadows. He was ensnared by her dark lustrous hair and voluptuous figure that could not be contained by her tight dress.
Swallowing the hard lump in his throat, Carl stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him.
His eyes had not adjusted to the darkness, and the swimming fog of inebriation added to his sense of disorientation, making his stomach turn.
He heard footsteps, soft and purposeful, in the distance and thought of calling out to her, but felt like an idiot because he could not remember her name.
“Hello.” He chanced the generic greeting.
Carl inched forward, but still tripped on a bunched-up rug and stumbled into a long table with a lamp on it. He fumbled for the dangling beads just below the lampshade and pulled them, but the bulb did not turn on.
His pulse raced as excitement crawled across his body. There was something daring about following this woman into the darkness.
“Are you hiding from me?” he called out.
As he navigated the darkened hallway, the features of the home became more pronounced. The living room was expansive. A large sectional couch lay directly in front of him and was facing a flat-screen television that reflected some of the light coming in through an uncovered window at the far end of the room.
As he took a few tentative steps toward the couch, he thought he saw the back of her head. She was sitting facing the television, even though it was not on.
Odd, he thought.
Thinking it was all part of a game, he snuck forward and placed his hands around her head. She was cold. Carl held his breath as he dropped his arms and crept around the couch so he could see her. As he stepped around the couch, he felt the presence of something lurking in the darkness, a bloated shadow yet to take form.
He suddenly felt frightened.
The faint light from the window illuminated the woman on the couch. She was not the siren who had lured him down back alleys to this strange home.
This woman had no face.
Her dark hair was pulled back into a bun that accentuated the horribleness of her face. It was a crater––a yawning abyss. She sat neatly, as if she had been posed there.
Carl turned then, recalling the shadow beyond the couch.
“Hello?” he croaked.
There was no sound whatsoever.
He reconsidered his position.
Perhaps a dangerous night was not what he wanted after all.
He started to retrace his steps, his eyes finally beginning to adjust. The room took shape. The kitchen was off to the side; pots and pans hung from the ceiling on heavy hooks.
And there, in the darkness of the kitchen, the shadow took form.
A bulbous torso without color crawled along the tiled counter that separated the kitchen from the dining area. As it slithered over the bar, long claws rolled off of it like rain droplets. Digging into the floor of the home, they sounded like the heels the woman had worn earlier.
He froze in place, paralyzed.
Shiny globes emerged from the form.
Stifling the banshee’s scream in his throat, Carl turned to run. His heart raced and he could feel bile churning in his throat as he stumbled into the hall and fell on his back. Reaching his arms out in a series of sporadic movements, he clawed at the rug and chanced a look over his shoulder to see his nightmarish pursuer, but nothing was following him.
He heard nothing.
But, he felt something.
He looked around the narrow hallway and saw only darkness. Flipping onto his stomach and drawing his legs beneath him, he looked toward the front door and saw only a dim light beneath it.
Where had it gone?
Carl stood abruptly and lunged for the door. As he fumbled with the handle, he looked back into the shadows and could smell the fetid stench of death. It was at that moment that he realized why he could not see his pursuer.
It was above him.
VII
Lauren looked out the window of the Challenger as it pulled beneath the overhang of the police garage. The skies remained gray and listless as rain trickled down, sprinkling the hills around the city.
She knew it was going to be a long, irritating day when she woke up with a burning feeling in the pit of her stomach––probably caused by the delivery pizza––that was only worsened after listening to a voicemail from Lawrence that had been more cryptic than an ancient Masonic scroll.
Billy shut his door and then grimaced as Lauren slammed hers.
“Come on, sis. Treat her with some respect.”
“Her?”
“You’re surprised I call my car her?”
She smiled. “I suppose not. Perhaps I had expected more.”
They passed a few uniformed officers, who nodded and went about their day. As they walked up the incline toward the basement entrance, Lawrence’s voice boomed in the enclosed space.
“Agents Westlake,” he called.
The Siblings Stupid, mused Lauren to herself.
She turned and smirked, her best attempt to hide the anxiety that swam in her stomach and flowered in her chest.
“Detective Lawrence, I got your message. I assume it’s something important,” began Lauren.
Lawrence seemed to bounce as he walked.
Billy noticed the uncharacteristic swagger and smiled broadly. “Our good detective got lucky last night.”
Lawrence’s restrained jubilance was replaced with a grim line, though a hint of a smile remained. It appeared his joy was difficult to hide. “My personal life would blow your mind, Agent Westlake. That I can assure you.”
Billy scoffed.
“Are we staying in, detective?” pressed Lauren.
Lawrence shook his head and motioned behind them toward the vehicles. “Someone called in a missing person. We sent officers to the last known address and found him.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” offered Billy.
Lauren shook her head at her brother.
“How long has the victim been dead?”
“We don’t know yet. CSU is at the scene. I thought you might want to check it out yourself,” replied Lawrence, and then motioning to Billy. “You and your fellow agent.”
Billy’s smiled downgraded to a crooked grin.
“One car or two, detective?”
THREE POLICE CARS had cordoned off the street. Yellow police tape had already been walked around the length of the home. Lawrence stepped out of the Challenger, then reached back to pull the seat forward. Lauren smiled politely as she took the detective’s extended hand to steady herself while exiting the car.
Several uniformed officers stood at the edge of the police barrier, where a few onlookers were trying to get a better view of the scene. Among them were a couple of photographers and several reporters who chatted incessantly with anyone who would talk to them.
The possibility of media attention worried Lauren.
Locke had afforded her relative anonymity while she conducted her investigation, but now she was involved in a high-profile case in a metropolitan area, which could stir up problems at headquarters.
As the trio approached the police cordon, she lifted up the collar on her coat to shield her face. One of the officers there lifted the yellow tape for them and they made their way toward the house.
It was an old brownstone.
The seven steps leading to its large oak door were lined with burgundy stones set into white marble. Lauren ascended the steps slowly, carefully taking in the scene.
She was struck by the fact that the front door was closed.
“Why do you ask?”
“The door is shut.”
The detective opened the door for her. “I wanted to leave the scene exactly as it was. We were waiting for you, so CSU has not swept the location yet.”
“For me?” She paused for a moment, digesting the implications. “This has something to do with the vagrant’s death. And Marlowe’s.”
Lawrence nodded. The grim look on his face intensified as they entered the home. “It certainly seems that way. Though the circumstances around this murder are a bit odd.”
Billy looked into the open foyer and then through the double doors of the dining room. “I don’t see anything,” he mused.
“How very perceptive, agent,” admonished Lawrence as he shut the door behind them. “The body is upstairs.”
Lawrence gestured toward a winding staircase to the left of the entryway, then started up it, followed by Lauren. Billy lingered for a moment in the foyer, examining a few items on a table near the door, before joining them.
The stairwell led to a large room dominated by a four-post bed with a long desk attached at the foot of it. The body was lying face down in the middle of the floor. Standing a few paces from the corpse, a man in a thin, blue sterile suit was taking pictures. He looked up as they entered.
“Give us a few moments, Ray.”
The CSU attendant, Ray, nodded and disappeared down the stairwell without protest. Lawrence knelt beside the body and pulled out a silver ballpoint pen. He gestured with the pen. “Will you help me turn him over, Agent Westlake?”
Both of the siblings stepped forward. Lauren waved her brother forward with an annoyed sigh. Together with Lawrence, they turned over the victim. The body looked a lot like Marlowe’s; same viscous phlegm on the face, same pattern of wounds at the joints.
“What do we know?”
Lawrence stood and pressed his fists into his hips. “Middle-aged male, approximately 195 pounds, around six feet tall. We found a badge with a name on it: Carl Healy.”
“Where was the badge from?” asked Lauren.
“NeuroTech.”
“Interesting. Two of the victims are associated with our little tech conglomerate.”
Lawrence nodded.
Billy toured the room, stopping at a large window that overlooked the street. “The windows are locked.”
“So was the front and back door.”
Lauren looked at Lawrence grimly.
“Was everything locked when the officers arrived on the scene?”
The detective nodded. “That’s what struck me as odd, agent. And why I thought you might be interested. This man was murdered in the exact same manner as Ken Marlowe, but there are no signs of forced entry. Every window and door was locked and bolted when we entered.”
Billy looked at Lauren.
Lawrence caught the look and cleared his throat.
“Agent Westlake, what do you think happened here?”
Lauren surveyed the room. Simple art hung from the walls and the windows were covered with thick curtains that muted what little sunlight crept through the cloud cover above. “I’d like to look around more first before I say anything, detective.”
She continued her visual inspection. There were only two windows in the room: the large window where Billy was standing and a small one set up high on the adjacent wall. Looking up, she saw a small skylight.
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?” retorted Lawrence.
She pointed at the skylight.
“Can you grab me that desk chair?”
Lawrence obliged and Lauren stepped on it. Reaching up, she could barely touch the skylight with one of her long fingers. Pressing with all her might, she managed to open it ever so slightly before the latch caught.
“I think we found how our killer entered….”
The detective did not seem convinced. “Through a small opening in the skylight? Do you think a malicious fog killed the late Carl Healy?”
Lauren shook her head. “You asked what I was thinking.”
“That’s true, Agent Westlake.”
“Lauren,” she corrected. “Otherwise, you’re going to be repeating yourself a lot. I’m Lauren, he’s Billy, and you’re Lawrence. And what we need to figure out is why two NeuroTech employees have been targeted by our killer.”
“I think the good detective is owed an explanation, Lo.”
Lauren looked at her brother irritably. She did not want to explain anything. She would prefer to keep him in the dark until she could tie everything together.
Detective Lawrence seemed unaffected by Billy’s suggestion. “There is a small café a couple of blocks from here…Lauren. I’d like to hear this explanation, as your colleague so succinctly put it.”
She hesitated, still wanting to search the crime scene. Her eyes scanned the room rapidly, settling on a thin, black notebook lying on the desk.
She marched across the room to the desk as both Billy and Lawrence awaited some kind of response. She picked it up and leafed through it. Names and dates, places and purposes: it was indeed a well-used planner. Pocketing it, she turned back to the men.
“Fine. I could use some coffee anyway.”
THE CAFÉ DID NOT DISAPPOINT. It was not nearly as close as Lawrence had implied, but it was close enough to the ocean for an errant zephyr to carry the scent of the sea. Lawrence had ordered an espresso and an egg-white omelet, while Billy had ordered a kind of dock worker’s fantasy: eggs spilled over pancakes, flanked on both sides by thumb-sized sausages and crispy bacon.
The black coffee in front of Lauren smelled wonderful.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
Lawrence took a sip of his espresso and looked away from Lauren as he spoke. “I looked up your case in Locke. Talked to a Sheriff Montgomery there. What he told me was illuminating to say the least.”
She could tell that the detective was trying to draw her out, get her to explain the ridiculousness of the story––or fill in the gaps left by Montgomery.
“What did he have to say?”
“He said you were invaluable in the capture of Briar Winston, the psychopath who mutilated so many citizens of Locke. There was also a bit of vitriol when I pressed him about a man named Dominic McManus. The sheriff was adamant that this man was responsible for everything.”
“Is that so?” she queried.
Billy continued to eat, shifting his gaze from sister to detective.
“Mr. Winston is now a resident of a psychiatric clinic in Sioux Falls. He has no recollection of the murders and says a werewolf attacked him and changed him.”
“A werewolf?” she parroted.
Billy chewed more slowly and then swallowed.
“You don’t believe in such things, do you, detective?” countered Lauren, warming her hands on the coffee mug.
“I think your suggestion that the murderer snuck in through a crack in a skylight makes me question what you believe.” He paused. “You and your brother, Billy.”
“My brother?”
She felt her stomach tighten as she looked at Billy.
His face steeled and she saw him reach toward his belt, a terrible move if there ever was one. “Billy, I told you this might happen,” she spoke quickly.
Lawrence remained motionless, smiling pleasantly. “While I was taking the time to research your previous case, Lauren, I checked out the other Agent Westlake. Needless to say, he doesn’t exist.”
“What do you plan to do with this information?” returned Lauren.
“That depends. Impersonating an officer is a very serious offense, but I have a feeling that his presence here isn’t nefarious. I think Billy wants to help.”
All of the boyishness seemed to drain from Billy and he looked his age for the very first time. He pressed his hands into the table and sucked at his teeth, summoning something to say. “I’m hunting someone down, someone bad, detective.”
Lawrence nodded, but remained quiet.
“I don’t think you really want me to elaborate.”
“I’m not certain you have any idea what I want, Billy.”
Lauren sighed.
Her irritation and fear blended into a kind of manic anxiety. “You want to close cases. You want to know why I’m here in San Francisco. Most of all, you want to catch whoever did this.”
“Quite so. However, an explanation is in order.”
“How much of an explanation?” asked Billy.
Lawrence waited.
“Are we talking about a breaking-the-Hobbit-into-three-parts-when-it-didn’t-need-to-be kind of explanation, or the cliff notes that let us know there was a dragon, a ring, and some spiders?” continued Billy with a smirk.
“Let’s go with whatever will keep me from reporting you for impersonating a federal officer,” retorted Lawrence.
“It was a werewolf,” interjected Lauren.
“What?”
Lauren drained the rest of her coffee and motioned for the waitress for a refill. “You wanted all in? That is about as all in as it gets. When I went to Locke, I was looking for a serial killer. Some kind of monster that killed in a cyclical pattern. What I found changed my life.”
Lawrence stared at her incredulously. “You want me to believe…”
Lauren cut him off. “You wanted answers. Well, this is it. I came here because I received a package containing crime scene photos and an assertion that vampires were involved.”
“Vampires?”
Billy chuckled.
The SFPD detective turned to him. “You mean pale European dudes with fangs and hard-ons for teenagers? Are we talking about Dracula?”
Lawrence looked at the siblings in confusion. “Werewolves and vampires?”
Billy addressed the detective in a serious tone. “And all manner of creeping, crawling, slimy creatures that go bump in the night.”
