Bottom Feeder

by Matt Cole

  “You don’t understand, I’ve seen it! It made me do things…”

  “Do things? What sort of things did it make you do, Mike?” Deena asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about them. But you have to listen to me. If that monster has your friend, then she’s either dead…or will be soon.”

  “Dead? Arlene’s dead? Is that what you’re saying?” Deena’s voice was raised now.

  “This monster uses the liquid to soften its…” Mike Leopold paused.

  “Its what?” Deena pressed.

  “Food.”

  Deena sighed and slouched back into the couch. “How do we stop it?”

  Now, finally, someone believed him, Mike Leopold thought.

  “Fire didn’t work, so I don’t know,” he admitted.

  “So you did set the fire that destroyed the house and killed your family.”

  Angered flashed in Mike Leopold’s eyes. “I did not kill my family! You have to believe me.”

  “But you just said…”

  “I said I set the house on fire, but my family was dead before that.”

  Deena’s heart sank as she stood. What had happened that night to cause Mike to burn his house down with his family inside?

  Chapter 16

  Arlene, still naked, found herself in a deep, dark hole lying next to a gelatin blob that appeared to have the silhouette of a woman inside it. She was cold, hurt, and scared senseless. Her vision seemed blurred as she thought she saw gray, dank worm-like limbs lumbering among gray, dank stones, with manners as oppressive as the architecture. Even as a child Arlene detested dirt; she had never reveled in filth.

  She was then grabbed by the scruff of the neck and hustled along at so fast a clip—for her, anyway—that she had to almost run along with the pulling of the gray worm limbs. More than once along the way down the tunnel that led off the hole, impatience prompted her attacker to yank her completely off the ground and carry her for a bit. Each time, though, she was not lowered so much as dropped. The tentacle around her neck wouldn’t let her fall, but the stumbles were painful. She knew these humiliations were deliberate, to put her in her place and make her more tractable; that didn’t make them hurt any the less.

  There were more tunnels, but as she continued her descent, the way became more difficult. Not only by design, it was more a function of age. The deep substructures were far older than the ones above. She had to focus all her concentration here to keep her footing; if she fell, she suspected she wouldn’t stop before hitting bottom. Fortunately, the tunnels themselves were so worn and slippery from a slick coating of watery slime leaching off the tentacle that pulled her—that her attacker had troubles enough keeping itself from losing its grip.

  Arlene lay in isolated pools of light, with only the slightest hints of what stood beyond. She could taste salt on the air, stale though it was, and feel a damp so profound it would guarantee sickness in any long-term resident of these tunnels. At least human residents. She shivered and began to pray silently.

  After garnering the courage to look around she noticed the walls were mostly flat stone. She screamed, but it was lost in the underground tunnel. The volume of the scream should have echoed through the tunnel. Until now the sound had been deadened, consumed.

  “Who’s there?” she asked.

  There was no sign of life—or unlife, for that matter—about her that she could tell, none of the vermin—rats—that make their home in these dank, deep places, not even the faintest residual trace. As for the tentacle that had pulled her down these tunnels, it too was missing.

  * * * *

  “You got anything leads on those missing women, yet?” Dauphin County Sheriff Lindsey Hill asked as she passed by Gary Chapel’s cubicle. Dressed in a leather jacket, boots, and gloves, Sheriff Hill was headed outside, her black Rottweiler in tow, the brim of her battered Stetson in the fingers of one hand. She paused at Chapel’s desk.

  “Nothing solid, boss.”

  “Don’t want to hear that, Detective.” Her jaw slid to the side and her eyes sparked in frustration. Chapel supposed that once she would have been described as tall, blonde, and pretty. And probably not that long ago. Hell, he thought, he’d tap it if she wasn’t his boss. But these days, with winter raging and disabling the county and a rash of missing women, Sheriff Hill was borderline gaunt, her face craggy, her hair shot with gray, her expression hard-set and serious.

  And still, he thought, the most interesting woman he’d met in a long, long time.

  Hill, like Chapel, was not satisfied that the women were “just prostitutes” as many in the law enforcement field were classifying them; therefore not worth a whole lot of energy was being spent to find them.

  “I really was hoping for more,” Sheriff Hill said. “Keep working those leads, something is bound to turn up.”

  “I will, trust me, but other than the real estate lady’s car found the other day, there hasn’t been much new to go on.”

  “I think that is the lead and person we should focus on,” Hill replied. “The other women aren’t garnering much attention from anywhere else because of their sorted pasts, but this woman, Arlene Balleza, was a pillar of the community. It is not in her to simply disappear without a trace. No doubt about it, she holds the key to this investigation.”

  “I get that impression too,” Chapel said. His eyes darkened.

  “Don’t just sit there. Find her. Send someone to check her place. Talk with those who knew her. There should be a deputy out in that direction. Check it out.”

  “I’ll handle it myself, boss,” Chapel said. He was already shutting down his computer. “I’ve wanted to get away from the desk anyway. I’ll run by her house, her office, and see if anyone has anything that may be useful in locating her.”

  “You sure?” Sheriff Hill asked.

  “Absolutely.” Rolling his chair away from his desk, he reached for his service weapon, shoulder holster, and jacket.

  “Good.” Hill glanced at the clock. “And have someone go out and talk to Mike Leopold.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “People say he’s crazy, but supposing it takes someone crazy to solve these crazy cases?” Her gaze was steady as it held Chapel’s.

  “I will.”

  Sheriff Lindsey Hill squared her hat on her head. “Let me know as soon as you find out anything. Have you kept tabs on dispatch? Seen if anymore calls came in? Always good to know as soon as something happens with cases like these.”

  Rubbing a hand around the back of his neck, Chapel shook his head. “This is the craziest case I’ve ever worked. None of it makes sense. There are no bodies. Just hookers disappearing; no one knows anything, no one sees anything.”

  “Until a local real estate lady disappears,” Sheriff Hill added.

  “But again, she apparently had an accident. The other women disappeared or ran away for all I know.”

  A muscle tightened in Hill’s jaw. “I forgot. Un-fucking-believable! How in the hell could I forget such an important clue?”

  Sheriff Hill angrily walked back to her office, returning with a scribbled, hand-written note on a post-it pad. She handed it immediately to Chapel.

  “Tests on Arlene Balleza’s car came back,” Sheriff Hill said. “And it was…”

  Chapel looked up and interrupted. “…no accident. The tire was shot out. Hot damn! A real lead. But I don’t see how it relates to the other women, yet.”

  “The Feds are running ballistics on the bullet. The blood appears to match that of Mrs. Balleza’s blood type, but we are double checking the results,” Sheriff Hill said, still disgusted with herself.

  “This is great,” Chapel said. “I mean not for Mrs. Balleza, but for me; I mean us, the police, it is a solid lead.”

  “All right, now go and find out more about this real estate agent. Why would someone take a shot at her, causing her car to overturn in the canyon like that?”

  “I will,” Chapel promised, sliding his arm through his shoulder holster and strapping it on. H
ill slapped the top of the cubicle wall and started toward the door. Gary Chapel was not far behind her.

  * * * *

  Following the disappearance of Arlene, Deena was back on the road early the next morning, shortly before seven. The night had been dismal as she and the Swaders waited nervously inside Arlene’s house for some news on her. Steve had called, but had decided not to join them as he felt as if he did not belong, even though it was his house. Deena suspected that he figured they blamed him somehow for Arlene’s disappearance. It had drizzled overnight, and so Deena had to deal with the awful business of slick roads as well as a heavy heart.

  Detective Gary Chapel met her at the door. He appeared to be anxious.

  “I think we may have a lead on your missing friend,” he said over the chill in the air and the rush of cars driving by.

  “I’m waiting,” Deena said in reply.

  “Sorry, forgot that your house was also vandalized,” Chapel replied. “Have you been back since?”

  Deena shook her head.

  “Allow me,” Chapel said, opening the door and poking his head inside. “I think you’re going to be very pleased.” When he finally presented the house by opening the door, it was with a flourish.

  Deena was not very pleased, but she made an effort to appear so. Such was her gratitude to those men who had worked hard to restore the house for her. But there it was and she wasn’t even inside the door yet—the smell. It hit her like a truck. She had been away from it for so long she was overcome with nausea immediately. It was then that Detective Chapel got a whiff of it too as she hacked and gagged, pulling his jacket lapel over his nose as he struggled to pull the door shut.

  He helped Deena take a seat on the steps.

  “What is that smell?” Chapel asked.

  “I wish I knew, I think,” Deena said with a smile. “Maybe I don’t want to know.”

  “I’m a cop; I have to know.”

  “Be my guest. You’re more than welcome to figure it out.”

  “First things first,” Chapel announced. “There is a witness who thinks they may have seen your friend, Mrs. Balleza, the night of the crash.”

  “What? Where?”

  “We have uniformed officers checking it out now,” Chapel said reassuringly. “We just may locate her yet.”

  “That doesn’t sound all that hopeful.”

  “Sorry, I’ve been working a rash of disappearances lately and would love to be able to solve them,” Chapel explained.

  “How does Arlene fit in with the rest of the disappearances?”

  Chapel shook his head and stood. “That’s the thing! She doesn’t at all. The others, all women, were mainly prostitutes.”

  “That is definitely not Arlene.”

  He looked at Deena for several moments. There was a blank expression on his face as though he had not heard her response. Then suddenly his face flushed and he was smiling. “I didn’t mean to infer that Mrs. Balleza was a…”

  “Oh, no. Sorry. You didn’t.”

  There was an odd and long pause. Neither of them spoke. Deena looked around and Chapel wrung his hands, then blew into them to warm them up.

  He broke the silence. “Look. I don’t think you want to stay here right now, what with the smell. So why don’t I call out a team to investigate the smell and we go and get a hot breakfast in town?”

  Deena immediately thought the cop was hitting on her. What if he was? She wasn’t married anymore. What the hell, she thought.

  “Sure. That sounds wonderful.”

  “Great. Do you want to ride with me?”

  Deena looked at the undercover vehicle and smiled and shrugged. “Why not?”

  They piled into the sedan and drove off with only the sounds of his police scanner and radio to fill the void of talking.

  At the scene Deena was shocked at the sight of her friend, Arlene Balleza, and her condition. It was a wonder anyone could have survived the horrors the police suspected went on in the basement.

  After escorting Arlene to the hospital, it was Deena who along with Maggie Swader drove her home to continue her recovery.

  Chapter 17

  Arlene awoke to sunlight streaming through a high hole she hadn’t noticed in the darkness of the tunnels. Her location had changed. She had been moved overnight. She felt rested, for the first time since her accident and kidnapping. She wondered whether the creature had used its own strength or somehow moved her in another way. She stood and stretched, and even then the complaints of her cuts and bruises were diminished, if not entirely absent. Time was lost for her. How long had she been down here? She felt good, and ready for what fate had in store for her.

  As she stepped forward, glowing red lines flashed across her vision. She paused, trying to sort out a vague sense of imminent danger and make sense of her surroundings.

  She felt a presence behind her an instant before she heard the soft slithering of leathery flesh on the hard ground, and she spun and ducked away. A blur of shadow in the streaming sunlight slashed past her, and a blackish, boney appendage cut across her arm, drawing a thin line of blood that burned even as icy cold spread from the wound. The shadowy monster spun to follow her, relentless in its attack. She yanked the chain that still hung from her leg and on her back she dodged again and her eyes struggled to pierce the shadow that cloaked the beast.

  The figure lunged again, and Arlene tried to bring her arms to block the blow. Her left hand, though, was numbed to whatever toxin coated the worm-like creature’s boney limb, making her grip on the chain unsteady. She banged her elbow against the wall as she maneuvered in the tiny cave, and the blackish appendage slipped past her guard and toward her neck.

  Her attacker’s face—at least what Arlene believed to be its face—was close enough that she could see through the veil of shadow. My Lord what is this thing?

  Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the point of the beast’s boney tentacle touched the skin on her neck and pressed inward. Then a burst of blinding white light drove away the shadows and threw her head back hard against the earthen ground as a pain thundered inside her head.

  The cut on Arlene’s arm was on fire, even as her head grew increasingly numb and cold, and the toxin spread up into her shoulder as well. Her heart pounded in her chest, which she knew would just send the poison coursing more quickly through her veins.

  Do not fight it. This beats the alternative of death.

  Arlene was not certain that statement was true. She shrugged in her response. As if in response to her reaction, a sharp jolt of pain stabbed through Arlene’s chest.

  She fumbled with her numb left hand, reaching for the chain, then shifted it to that hand and reached for anything else she could find nearby. Arlene’s fingers touched the smooth shape of a stone and she grabbed it with her fury and hatred; somehow she found the strength to leap out and onto the beast.

  She struck with the stone in her hand and swung the chain at the creature.

  “I’ll kill you!” she screamed.

  Yes, feed the rage inside you. Even if you do not become my new herald, your anger, hate, and rage will only sweeten your taste for my feeding.

  Chapter 18

  Who you are now is who you were destined to be and who you are to be my herald…

  The cold, clear voice of the beast echoed in Arlene’s mind as she lay lost in a world of darkness and time. Pain seared along her every nerve, power too great for her body to contain.

  She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. The air, heated by the earth’s core, seared her throat and lungs, but she focused her thoughts.

  She tried to stand and managed to on wobbly legs. Arlene stepped forward, but her legs faltered under her weight and she toppled onto the floor. She was vaguely aware of sounds and what could only be described as a kind of language—not one she was familiar with nor any human could be—chattering in confusion and alarm, but she couldn’t lift her head to look. Her face pressed against the cold stone, she could see only the darkness o
f the cave.

  Blackness swallowed her vision, but she thought she saw two smoldering red flames looking into her eyes before the darkness claimed her.

  * * * *

  Arlene heard the sound of a great kettle drum, a single, pulsating beat that echoed once, like distant thunder. She was walking on a stone floor. Shadows flitted and hazy memories, along with indistinct visions that refused to resolve into defined shapes, sliding away from her gaze. She had a vague sense that Steve was nearby, but her voice and her footsteps echoed in the great earthen cave and drew no answer.

  Another pulse, another beat of the drum, louder, startled her. There wasn’t supposed to be another beat, she felt, though she couldn’t quite understand why she believed that. She stopped walking and looked around; behind her, and up past the opening to a tunnel, another beat and pulse came.

  The next beat was softer, as though Arlene was soaring up and away from the great pulse and drum, but now it was a steady pulse, and she could feel it in her chest even after she could no longer hear it. She opened her eyes.

  She lay on her back on a cold, hard stone floor. Something was kneeling beside her, leaning over to peer at her face with blank white eyes. The creature had no discernible face, just an expanse of grayish-black skin with the merest hint of a nose and a lipless gash for a mouth, all surrounded by wild shocks of whitish-gray clumps of hair. Her first thought was that this was some sort of demon from hell whose task was to receive her into the realm of the dead, for the cave she was in seemed fitted for hell, the shadowy realm where souls were said to pass when their mortal life had ended.

  She began to pray to her lord and savior.

  But she felt quite alive, her heart beating strong and steady in her chest. And the faceless thing had broken into what could only be described as a smile with limited warmth, which made its white eyes sparkle.

  Arlene, it is time to start your new role in life…

  The voice was familiar, but…

  Time flashed, memories came and went…

  Arlene’s mind was beginning to clear, and memories washed over her.