Evil Harvest

by Anthony Izzo

  She expected a look of surprise or possibly resignation on his face, but he smirked instead.

  “Rafferty would believe you because he’s out to get me already. But then again, you’re not one of us. He might not believe you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Give me some of that and I’ll tell you.”

  He nodded his head to indicate the heroin.

  She thought for a moment. If she gave him the bag, he might crack and spill his guts. But he could also try and run or refuse to talk once he got what he wanted. Screw him. “What did you mean by ‘one of us’?”

  “We live everywhere. Lincoln’s full of us.” He started to stand up and she feigned another kick. He sat back down.

  “Tell me what you mean by ‘us,’” she demanded.

  “Hunters. We feed on you.”

  “So you’re telling me you’re some sort of vampire?”

  “Vampires drink blood. We consume the flesh.”

  The guy was putting her on, stalling so he wouldn’t have to answer questions about what he was doing in the house. “Enough of this crap. Did you kill the woman who lived in this house?”

  “No.”

  “You’re lying. Do you want me to go to the local authorities? Talk to Rafferty about finding you here?”

  “No!”

  When she had mentioned Rafferty before, Dietrich had said that he was out to get him. And now he seemed frightened by her mentioning the police chief again. Maybe this would be her ace in the hole. “So you don’t want me to go to Rafferty?”

  “No. He’s got it in for me. Something happened and if he finds out I ...”

  “Finds out you what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s it. I’m taking you down there right now.”

  “Don’t!”

  “You killed the woman in this house. Her name was Rhonda.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Do you want me to bring in Rafferty?”

  “He’ll kill me.”

  “I’ll take you in now. Did you kill her?”

  “Fuck you! I didn’t kill her.”

  That was it. She needed a freehand, and she wasn’t dropping the gun. Donna let the flashlight fall to the floor.

  She pounced on him, pinning him on the bed, one hand around his throat and the other pointing the Beretta at his forehead. She was dangerously close to the edge, her heart hammering, adrenaline racing through her body like rocket fuel. “Did you kill her?”

  Instead of answering her, he inhaled deeply. The air made a snuffling, rattling sound as it passed through his nose.

  “If Rafferty doesn’t kill you, I might. Did you?”

  “You smell good.” He sniffed again. “Nice scent.”

  In her haste to get him to confess, she had forgotten how he had stopped on the stairs and sniffed the air like he was on the trail of something. This was getting weirder by the second.

  “I killed that whore. It was fun.”

  His voice sounded deeper, as if it had dropped an octave.

  “I’m taking you to Rafferty.”

  She began to slide off of him, gripping his arm and trying to pull him off of the bed, but he tugged back. She couldn’t move him.

  “Get off the bed. I’m done playing with you.”

  He gave her the same smirk he had when she’d first mentioned Rafferty.

  Thrusting his arms out, he pushed against her chest, throwing her backward into the closet doors. He was stronger than he looked. She regained her balance and leveled the pistol at him.

  “Smell nice. Female.”

  She thought her eyes were fooling her, but Charles Dietrich appeared larger. The ceiling seemed closer to the top of his head, and his red T-shirt strained at the shoulders.

  He closed his eyes and bit down on his lower lip. “Ahhhhgggg ...”

  His shoulders expanded, as did his chest. She watched with horror as the arms lengthened and the muscles grew thick and ropy. Hairs, black and coarse, sprouted from his arms.

  Donna’s head hurt from banging it against the closet door, but her pain took a backseat to the spectacle she was witnessing now. Her mouth agape, she couldn’t take her eyes off of what she was seeing. Part of her mind told her to run, to get the hell away from here, but she couldn’t stop watching.

  Now Deitrich looked down at his own body, then back at Donna with a look of panic on his face. The shirt had stretched to the point of tearing, and the seams gave with a scccrrch noise. He rolled onto his side, clutched his head. She heard the grinding and popping of bones and joints, then a squelching sound as claws split the skin of his fingertips.

  She backed away, still watching.

  The thing that had been Charles Dietrich rose from the bed. His clothes lay torn, strings hanging from the split material. Dietrich must’ve gone around six feet tall, but this thing was a good six five despite its hunched back. The raw, gassy odor of sulfur filled the room. The Dietrich-thing opened its mouth, revealing rows of teeth designed to shred.

  Snap out of it!

  Instinctively, she raised the Beretta and fired, striking it in the shoulder. Black goop popped from the wound. It looked at the wound the way a person might look at a fresh mosquito bite. The creature grunted, took a step forward and slapped the weapon out of her hand, sending it skittering under the nightstand.

  She knew now that this was what Rhonda Barbieri had seen during the last minutes of her life.

  Matt sat on the couch in Jill’s apartment, sipping ice water while she popped in the tape and hit Play.

  White noise hissed from the speakers, followed by Matt’s voice.

  “State your name for me, please.”

  “Charlene Matthews.”

  “And the date?”

  “December eighth, nineteen ninety-two.”

  “Ms. Matthews—”

  “Call me Charlie.”

  “Charlie, can you tell me about your camping trip?”

  “Are you sure you’re not a cop?”

  “I told you I wasn’t.”

  “You better not be. I was camping with my boyfriend, Jim Sorrentino.”

  “Where were you camping?”

  “Just north of ’Frisco.”

  “Please describe what happened.”

  “Me and Jim had built a campfire. We ate dinner. We had hot dogs and baked beans. The campfire died out about nine thirty.”

  “And after that?”

  “We poured water on it, like good campers do. Then we went in the tent and started, you know, fooling around.”

  “You don’t have to get that personal if you don’t want to.”

  “No big deal. Everybody fucks, right?”

  “What happened after your encounter with Jim?”

  “Actually, we were still going at it when we heard something in the woods. It was about ten o’clock. I made Jim stop and listen and he told me I was being stupid. He wanted to keep going, but I told him to shush.”

  “What happened next?”

  “The noises got louder. There was crashing and branches breaking, like something big was coming through the woods.”

  “And?”

  Pause for nearly a minute. Exhaling of air.

  “Sorry, I have to collect myself. This part freaked me out.”

  “I understand.”

  “It closed on our tent fast. I could hear it thud across the ground. The next thing I knew it clawed through the tent and stuck its head in.”

  “Was it a bear like it said in the paper?”

  “No way. This thing was crazy looking.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  “Ugly. Mean-looking eyes. Yellow eyes. Lots of sharp teeth. And it smelled like you wouldn’t believe. I think I would’ve puked if I wasn’t so busy having the piss scared out of me.”

  “So this creature couldn’t have been any other type of animal. A mountain lion? Some sort of ape?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “What did it do next?�
��

  “It reached for me because I was closer to it. Jim and me were screaming and the thing was grunting. It tried grabbing me by the leg, but I pulled away. It raked me with its claw and cut me. I saw the blood and Jim tells me I fainted.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Jim told me the next day at the hospital that another camper heard the screaming and came running with a shotgun. He fired at the thing and hit it. It ran off into the woods.”

  “Is there anything else you’d like to say?”

  “I’ll never go camping again. You sure you’re not a cop? Or one of them reporters for the Enquirer or one of those papers?”

  “I’m not. I promise.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I can see why you’d be suspicious. Thank you for your time, Charlie.”

  “You’re welcome. I hope this helps you.”

  “It will.”

  Jill got up and turned off the tape. She rewound it and they listened to it again. After the tape had finished, Jill sat on the couch again. “What was your impression of Charlene Matthews?” she asked.

  “I think she was telling the truth. She was a little flaky, one of those New Age types.”

  “How’s that?”

  “When I interviewed her she had on hippie garb. Tie-dye shirt, lots of turquoise jewelry. She had candles and incense burning. Couple funky looking Hendrix posters on the wall, too.”

  “Some of those people are into UFOs and stuff,” Jill said.

  “I know what you’re thinking. Spacey hippie-type chick, probably fresh off a bong hit thinking she saw Bigfoot. She got pretty broken up when it came time to talk about the attack. She wasn’t lying.”

  Jill leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees and resting her head on hands, similar to the Thinker. “Matt, I need some time to think things over.”

  “Put it all together, Jill.”

  “Let me walk you down.”

  He had blown it by spilling everything to her. “Let’s talk some more.”

  “Not tonight. My head’s swimming,” she said.

  He stood up and took his tape out of the stereo.

  Jill walked him out to the truck and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

  “Give me a few days.”

  He climbed in the truck and watched her walk up the driveway, her head down. He hoped she came around, saw things for what they were in Lincoln. Whether she believed him or not, he planned to stay.

  Rafferty pulled into Jimbo’s parking lot, the bumper on the cruiser scraping against the cement incline to the driveway. He squealed his brakes and stopped in front of the gas pumps. He was feeling meaner than usual, like he could break someone’s nose for fun.

  He had come from the Greek joint where he had downed four steak Souvlakis, an order of french fries, two milk shakes and a banana split for dessert. It tasted bland and mushy to him. What he really wanted to taste, he couldn’t have. Yet. So he had temporarily satisfied his hunger with tasteless breads and meats. The waitress said she’d never seen anyone eat like that, and he had told her to hurry up and bring him the check.

  When he was in the restaurant, he noticed a teenage couple three booths down from him, holding hands and drinking out of the same milk shake with two straws. They giggled, whispered and occasionally kissed across the table. It repulsed him in the way that a human might be repulsed by watching flies crawl over food.

  Love, what was it? The females of his race only desired sex from the males. They kept up a good front in their human skins, pretending to be married couples or lovers. Had to keep up appearances, after all. But love? It didn’t exist.

  Now, he stepped out of his patrol car, his boot heels clicking on the pavement. It was a wonder Jimbo ever did any business in this place, because it was run-down, old and smelled bad, much like Jimbo.

  The look of the place really made no difference to him, as long as he got free gas.

  He entered the office, where Jimbo’s helper Carl sat with his feet up on the desk reading a copy of Playboy.

  “Evening, Chief.”

  “Where’s Jimbo?”

  “He never works nights.”

  “I know he’s not here, you moron. Is he at home?”

  “I dunno. Either home or out at one of the bars.”

  Rafferty sniffed the air. There was something underneath the smell of the grease and gasoline. He moved closer to the door that separated the office from the garage and took another whiff. He noticed Carl watching him and trying to act like he wasn’t really watching him at the same time. His eyes shifted from the magazine to Rafferty every few seconds.

  “Want me to pump your gas, Chief?”

  “In a second.”

  He knew that one of them had made the change here, possibly Jimbo. The sulfurous smell lingered in the garage, and under that, the hot, metallic smell of blood. “Gotten many strangers in here, Carl? Out-of-towners?”

  “No. Well, there was one guy. A salesman. But he was just passing through.”

  “Jimbo didn’t tell me about that.”

  “Must’ve forgot.”

  “He’s not supposed to forget. He’s my eyes for whenever someone new comes through town.”

  Although Jimbo had always reported to Rafferty when strangers stopped at the station, he sensed that the old coot never really liked him.

  “Let me pump that gas for you, Chief.”

  Carl set his magazine down on the desk and rushed out to pump the gas. He was acting so skittish, Rafferty would almost put money on the fact that there had been a kill in the garage. He would stop by Jimbo’s house and see if he could get the real story, for Carl was of little help.

  Carl finished gassing up his car and came back into the office. “No charge, Chief.”

  “I know. Anything out of the ordinary happen here lately?”

  “Uh, not that I can think of.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yep. Business as usual.”

  Rafferty gave him a hard stare, hoping he would crack and reveal some information, but Carl stood firm.

  Something had gone down in Jimbo’s Garage. Maybe the old coot had lost his temper with a customer, or maybe the urge to kill had been too strong for him to resist, but someone was dead. Rafferty knew it.

  Whatever happened, he would pay Jimbo a visit and find out.

  He got in the cruiser and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving skid marks on the concrete.

  CHAPTER 16

  Donna turned and darted out the bedroom door, slamming it behind her, hoping to slow the creature down. She heard the door being opened and slammed shut behind her.

  She reached the top of the stairs and ventured a peek over her shoulder. It was coming, but it moved slowly, deliberately. She could swear the thing was smiling at her.

  Due to its size and musculature, Donna was sure it could be on top of her in two strides. It seemed content to play with her, letting her believe she might get away, perhaps only to pounce on her and rip her to pieces at the last minute.

  She hurried down the stairs and it bounded after her. Her foot reached the third stair when it pushed her between the shoulder blades.

  God, it was quick, she thought as her ankle twisted and she skidded down the steps.

  She landed hard, smacking her ribs and knocking over a small table in the hallway. If she made it out of here alive, tomorrow would be an Advil day.

  Shaking her head, she looked up at the stairs and her pursuer. It stood with one foot on the bottom step and one a few steps higher. Its arms hung to almost its knees and it stood in a crouch, measuring her with eyes the color of swamp water.

  She got to her feet, wishing she had the Beretta on her.

  It took a step down, its nails clicking on the beige tiles in the hallway.

  To her left was the living room and dining room; to her right and slightly ahead was the hallway leading back to the kitchen. The front door was in the foye
r, but she didn’t think she could get to it and unlock it before the creature closed on her.

  It took another step so that both feet were on the hall floor. She was in grabbing distance and didn’t like it.

  “Dietrich, if you’re in there, you’re dead. Understand me?”

  The creature flashed its teeth. It was definitely a grin this time, probably meant to scare her by showing off its fangs. They were impressive; three inches long and shaped like thick needles, ideal for piercing skin.

  It feinted, pretending to reach for her, as if to test her reaction.

  She recoiled from it and then took off down the hallway toward the kitchen. It could have grabbed her if it wanted to, but it seemed content to let her escape again.

  It likes the thrill of the hunt. The bastard.

  Rounding the corner into the kitchen, she could hear its thick sniffing as it tested the air, inhaling her scent. She was lucky she hadn’t killed herself fleeing in a dark house. She grabbed the doorknob and opened the basement door. Then she went through. She slammed the door but couldn’t secure it, for the lock was on the other side.

  Hobbling down the stairs, pain flared in her ribs and at the base of her spine. Her back was going to be a sunset of bruises.

  The door at the top of the stairs banged open and she heard heavy footfalls descending the stairs.

  The window was her only hope.

  Rafferty climbed the cracked concrete stoop and knocked on the door. The house wasn’t much of an improvement over Jimbo’s service station. The numbers 1 and 9 hung on the door, the zero in between them having fallen off. The green paint was chipped and blistered, as if it were trying to remove itself from the house.

  After knocking on the door, Rafferty backed down the step, and a chunk of concrete broke off, nearly sending him sprawling.

  He muttered a curse and pounded on the door.

  “Jimbo!”

  After knocking again, he heard shuffling footsteps and then the old buzzard clearing his throat. The door opened with a soft click and Jimbo stuck his head out.

  The yellow porch light illuminated his head, revealing scaly white skin on his balding scalp. The light made his skin appear waxy, like it might run off of his face.