by Anthony Izzo
She told him about the death of her father when she was young. He felt bad for her, not having a father and, from the sound of it, having a mother who didn’t approve of anything her daughter did.
“I think it’s great you’re doing what you want to be doing,” he said.
“You can’t let your parents run your life. I love my mother, but if I went to med school like she wanted me to, I wouldn’t be happy at all.”
He had deliberately been vague about his background, mentioning that his parents were deceased, his time in the military and living in different cities out west. Luckily, she had bought the line about his parents being wiped out in a head-on collision with a semi. He felt his face start to flush when he told her the lie, and hoped she couldn’t tell. Later on, when he got to know her better, maybe he’d tell her the truth about his parents.
Jill tucked her legs up under her and sat Indian-style on the couch.
“So about our encounter in the warehouse,” she said.
“What about it?”
“It’s obvious something strange happened. And you seem to know more than you wanted to say that night. So what was it? An animal? A howling psychotic?”
Matt wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, not sure if it was the heat or his nerves making him perspire. “Do you believe in UFOs?”
“Don’t even tell me it was an alien.”
“I’m not. Maybe I should rephrase the question. Do you think that UFOs or aliens could exist?”
“It’s not impossible,” Jill allowed.
“How about other things? Loch Ness Monster, ghosts, psychic phenomenon?”
“No, maybe, and no.”
“So you’ll admit that maybe there’s things in this world that are out of the ordinary?”
“I suppose so, yeah.”
Matt swallowed hard. He had never told anyone in detail about the secrets in Lincoln, and it might convince Jill that he had gone off the deep end, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t give up until he explained. Here goes nothing—or maybe everything.
“Jill, the people in this town are not all ... people. That is, they’re not what they appear to be.”
“How so?”
“Underneath the skin, there’s a beast. A monster, whatever you want to call it. As far as I can tell, they prey on people who are human.”
“So, you’re talking about vampires, werewolves, something like that?”
“Not exactly.”
“And I suppose you’ve seen one of these things?”
He detected the skepticism in her voice and thought he must’ve blown it with her. Maybe she would call the Buffalo Psychiatric Center and have them cart him to the booby hatch. “I’ve seen them.”
“When?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer her for a moment, pondering whether or not he should tell the whole truth . But he had already started the unbelievable story, so why not finish it?
“Well?”
“They killed my parents. And my little brother. The Chief of Police, your friend Rafferty, was in the lead. He helped kill them all.”
Her eyes widened and for a moment he thought she might throw him out on his ass.
“I suppose you don’t want to hear any more.”
“Matt, I don’t know what to believe. You seem very nice, but this is a crazy story. On the other hand, I can’t deny that something strange happened in the warehouse.”
“You remember telling me that you noticed a strong smell when that guy dragged you into the warehouse?”
She said she did.
“They all smell like that. In human form you can only notice it faintly. If you’re around Rafferty again, see if you detect it.”
Jill stood up and Matt though she might tell him to leave.
“I’m getting myself another glass of wine. I have a feeling I’ll need it if I’m going to hear the rest of your story. You want one?”
“Why not?”
She came back and handed him a glass of wine. Jill sat and resumed her cross-legged position in the middle of the couch.
“You just said your parents died in a car crash.”
“I’m sorry I lied, but I didn’t think telling you the bogeyman got them would be a good dinner conversation.” He shrugged. “As long as I’m telling the story about Lincoln, you should know the whole truth.”
She ran her finger around the rim of the wineglass. “So if I’m to believe this, Rafferty is really some creature under the skin and that’s why he’s harassing me.”
“Basically.”
“I’m sorry if it seems like I’m being snotty, but this is a little hard to swallow.”
“I realize that. There is another person that knows about them too. I’m supposed to have dinner with him. I’d like you to come.”
She frowned for a moment, thinking it over. “Okay.”
“You’re in danger. Anyone who’s not one of them who lives here is in danger.”
“So these things murdered your family?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to tell me about it?”
Man, this was going a lot faster than he wanted. “I’ve never told anyone.”
“You can tell me. I’m a good listener.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in these things.”
“I never said that. I’m skeptical, but I don’t totally disbelieve.”
“Okay.”
He took another sip of wine.
Harry Pierce crunched a Cheez-Doodle, spilling crumbs onto his ample belly. He brushed them off, drawing a frown from Liza.
“We’ve been married thirty years and you still sweep the crumbs on the floor.”
Harry grinned sheepishly.
They sat in recliners, an end table between them, facing the television, where Ralph Kramden was threatening Alice with a free trip to the moon. Harry had on a tank top and striped boxer shorts. It was too damn hot for anything else, pants included. He picked up his beer off the end table, took a swig and set it back down.
“Coaster, Harry.”
“Yes, my love.” He put it on the coaster. Man, that woman didn’t miss a trick after all these years. Even with her nose buried in a copy of Gun Digest, she still noticed if he didn’t put the beer can on the coaster or got crumbs on the rug.
But he loved that about her, the sassiness, the fire. The two of them had some incredible arguments over the years, Liza once going so far as to throw his clothes out the upstairs bedroom window and telling him never to return. He came back, they apologized and made love on the kitchen floor.
The passion had never died and even though lovemaking sessions were far and few between these days, he loved her more than ever.
He had been dancing around the idea of bringing up his meeting with Matt Crowe. Now he finally got up the nerve to mention it. “I found someone else who knows about Them.”
“You told someone?” She set the magazine on her lap. “Harry, are you nuts?”
“I thought he might be one of them, so I checked him out. He came into the store and I wound up grabbing him and checking him out. He was clean. And he already knew.”
Harry grabbed a handful of Cheez-Doodles and popped them in his mouth. And then he sprang the rest of the story on his dear wife. “I invited him for dinner.”
“And I suppose you’re cooking?”
“You know me, Liz. I could burn cornflakes.”
She slid up on the edge of the recliner. “Do you trust this man? What if he’s working for Rafferty?”
“I’ve got a good feeling about him.”
“I hope you’re right. Just in case, I might be packing under my apron,” Liz warned.
“I love it when you talk tough,” said Harry.
“I’m not kidding. Lord only knows who this man is. I wish you hadn’t said anything about the beasties.”
Liza always called them beasties.
“He used to live here, Liz. And besides, I sold him some weapons. I think he’s pla
nning on defending himself.”
“I’m still packing. Maybe the .357.”
“That’s my Liza. They’re planning to Harvest,” he said abruptly.
She slapped her magazine down on the table and stood up.
“Are you sure, Harry? I know you suspected, but can you be sure?”
Harry set the bowl of Cheez-Doodles on the table and put his footrest down, drawing a groan from the old chair. He went to the kitchen, where his pants hung on the back of a chair.
After returning from the kitchen, he handed Liza the hot pink flyer, scratched his belly and flopped back into his recliner. “I found that on a pole outside the shop.”
Liza scanned the flyer. “Their meeting’s in October,” she said, her brow furrowing.
“That’s when it’ll go down,” he said.
“My God.”
“I drove around after I left the shop. Those things are posted all over town, and they all say ‘members only’ on them. If only the nonmembers knew what the members really are.”
“We have to do something, get out while we can. There’s going to be damn near an army of them.”
Harry shook his head. “We’re not going anywhere yet. Not until I talk with Matt.”
“Harold, you barely know him.” Liza shook her head in exasperation.
“Just let me talk to him, okay?”
“Always playing the cowboy, aren’t you?”
“You’re the one talking about packing a cannon under your apron when he comes for dinner,” Harry said.
Liza sat back in the recliner. “You’re an old fool, Harry. But you’re my old fool and I love you.” She picked up the magazine. “If you want to play hero and get yourself killed, do it without me.” She gave the magazine a flap and resumed reading.
The ice queen had spoken. The conversation was over, and Liza simmered in the chair. She would get over it. Liza always did.
CHAPTER 9
As daylight began to fade, coppery sunlight filled Jill Adams’ living room; it wouldn’t be long before the shadows started creeping in. She wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but having Matt here made her feel better. With a rogue cop who had more than a passing interest in her roaming the streets, and Matt telling stories of creatures of the night, she was a little uneasy.
She chided herself for being afraid, but she couldn’t help it. “Go ahead, Matt, tell me what happened.” She reached over and patted his hand as if to give him reassurance that she wouldn’t mock him or laugh at him, although she was still skeptical, as anyone with a full deck of cards would be.
Matt sat upright in the recliner, his drink resting on his lap, hands clasped around the glass so tight that the knuckles were white. He stared straight ahead, the sweat beading on his forehead and dribbling down into his eyes. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, exhaled and began the story.
That Memorial Day had begun with great expectations, with the start of summer just around the corner. Matt’s mother and father planned a picnic at Emerling Park, and it was close to eighty, unusually warm for that time of year in Lincoln.
His mother made fried chicken and pasta salad, packed a bag of fresh apples and had made Matt’s father go to Tops Market that morning for a loaf of crusty Italian bread. Six-packs of Pepsi and pudding cups rounded out the meal.
John and Maggie Crowe, Matt and his younger brother, Mike, had headed out in the family Bronco for Emerling Park, which was situated on the edge of a ravine ten miles out of town and was a popular spot for campers, hikers and picnickers. At the bottom of the ravine was Lincoln Creek, rippling over jagged rocks and surrounded by dense firs.
They had arrived around eleven, his mother and father unloading the Bronco and setting up on a picnic table under one of the shelters.
Mikey had tugged on Matt’s arm the moment they got out of the truck, pestering him to play catch, practically putting Matt’s baseball glove on his hand for him. The little turd had gotten a new mitt for his birthday in February and had been itching for the snow to melt so he could try it out. Matt gave in, and the two of them jogged over to a spot not too far from the shelter to begin their game of catch.
After about twenty minutes, Maggie Crowe announced that lunch was served, and they all dug in. Even though Matt normally loved his mother’s cooking—her fried chicken especially—he told Jill the food tasted bland, like wads of wallpaper paste in his mouth. It got to the point where he actually became nauseous and couldn’t finish his lunch.
He remembered it as one of the worst meals he had ever eaten, and reflected that maybe it was a premonition that something was about to go horribly wrong.
Jill broke in, “That can’t be true, Matt. I have days where nothing tastes good either.”
“Everything I ate that morning tasted fine. And when my mother was cooking that chicken, it was all I could do to keep my mouth from watering over it. But once I got to the park and started eating, it tasted like crap over easy,” Matt said.
After lunch, Mikey asked his dad to hit some fly balls to him with the aluminum bat he had brought, and the two of them went to the Bronco and got it out. Matt had helped his mother clear the picnic table and throw out the trash. He remembered his mother asking him if he was all right, and he responded that he would be okay, blaming it on indigestion.
The aluminum bat pinged as John Crowe began hitting pop flies to his youngest son, who was doing a better than average job of catching them. It was then that his father announced that he had a surprise; after the park they were all going to Darien Lake. Now, Matt wasn’t much for amusement park rides, but his brother and father were ride maniacs. Matt planned on heading to the waterslides to scope out the girls in their bathing suits.
John Crowe got a little too enthusiastic and popped one over Mikey’s head. Mikey backpedaled toward the woods, but couldn’t shag the fly before it hit the ground and caromed into the woods. So Mikey and their dad went into the trees, beating the brush with sticks, but still could not find the baseball. Matt remembered that they had been in the woods for nearly ten minutes when he heard his father urging Mikey to run.
“The two of them sprinted out of the woods, Mikey first, Dad pushing him along as fast as he could. My father yelled for me and my mother to get to the truck.”
“Obviously he saw something in the woods,” Jill said.
“Yeah. At first my mother and me just stood there, not knowing what the hell he was talking about. My father was a sane, logical man who didn’t panic easily. There wasn’t much he was afraid of. But he came out of those woods yelling like a maniac and waving his arms like he was on fire.”
“What was it?” Jill asked.
Matt swigged the last of his wine and asked Jill if he could have a refill. She said sure, and he got up to go to the kitchen and get it, but his legs turned to noodles and he found that he was shaking when he stood up. He collapsed back into the chair, the room spinning. The wine and telling the story had taken its toll on him physically.
“I think thats enough wine for you,” Jill said. “This must be awfully hard. You don’t have to continue if you don’t want.”
“No, I want to.”
The summer night had set in outside the windows, the sunlight replaced by purple-black shadows broken by the yellow glow from the streetlights.
“You were telling me what came out of the woods.”
“At first I thought it was a bear, or maybe a mountain lion. But they aren’t common in this area. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn’t any animal I had ever seen before.”
The thing that exploded out of the woods was tall and lithe, its back hunched, with a row of spikes down the length of its spine. Its skin color was somewhere between black and green, and it had mottled yellow spots on its arms and legs. A few tufts of quill-like fur grew out of its back, along with pebble-size growths. They looked like mutant warts.
The thing was over six feet tall, Matt guessed, and it moved quickly, bounding out of the woods and pinning
his father to the ground. Mikey had stopped to look back when he heard his father fall. He screamed as the thing worked on him with its claws. Matt ran to get his little brother, but Mikey took off, past the truck and toward the ravine, screaming like a fire whistle.
Over at the picnic shelter, Matt noticed that his mother was frantically trying to pack up the picnic goods and put them in the cooler. She was shaking her head and repeating, “No, no, no,” unable to comprehend what had just happened.
Matt yelled at her to drop the damn food and get to the truck.
While the creature was finishing off John Crowe, two more of its kind charged out of the woods with frightening speed, one knocking his mother to the ground and scattering garbage on the concrete slab under the shelter.
Somehow Matt hit the ground in time to avoid the second creature’s leap at him. It rolled in the dust and get back up for another try.
Over at the picnic shelter, a creature had Maggie Crowe pinned to the table. It slashed her across the chest, leaving the table painted with her blood. Then the thing looked up at Matt and grinned through a mouth full of razor-blade teeth, as if to mock him.
He started for the shelter, having no idea how he would stop it, since he was unarmed, his only thought to save his mom. But the other creature pounced on him, pinning him in the dirt facedown. He managed to wriggle around onto his back, only to be face-to-face with a nightmare. Saliva dripped from its jaw onto Matt’s chin, a sticky fluid that smelled like rotten eggs. He gagged, his lunch churning in his stomach.
Behind him, he could hear his mother’s cries for help and the beast grunting as it tore her to shreds. The beast that had him pinned raised an arm and Matt closed his eyes, hoping that one slash would result in a quick death. But he wasn’t killed, and he opened his eyes and saw that the creature had cocked its head, listening.
It had heard Mikey, still running toward the ravine.
The thing leapt off of him, panther-quick, and chased after his brother.
