Dead Silver

by Max Florschutz

  “Positive,” I said, pointing at the few remaining flecks of hay I could glimpse. “The only hay in there has been walked on. There’s nothing new, and the pen hasn’t been cleaned, either.”

  “Alright, so let’s feed ‘em.”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not that.” There was a faint prickling between my shoulder blades—a sort of long, drawn-out scratch that started low and began to slowly make its way up my back, the hair on the back of my neck rising with each inch it climbed. I took a step back from the pen, stretching my senses out but still seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

  But something was wrong. No one left their animals to starve. No one kind, anyway. I’d never met the old lady who lived here, but neither Mrs. Salas nor Rocke had led me to believe she was anything but a sweet old lady.

  Rocke stepped back from the pen and closed his own eyes, letting out a quick breath. Then he opened them and shook his head. “I’m not picking up anything, either,” he said.

  “Well, could she have taken a vacation?” I asked with a shrug. It was possible that we were both just overreacting, and I tried to focus that thought and force myself to relax as I moved towards the food shed. That along with the task of picking up some hay for the hungry animals behind me helped a little, but I still couldn’t get the hairs on the back of my neck to go down. It wasn’t some skill I had from being a shaman, just plain old gut instinct. And even as Mrs. Fimble-something’s goats tore into the hay like preschoolers into a candy piñata, I couldn’t get myself to relax.

  “Hawke?” Rocke’s call almost made me jump.

  “Yeah?” I asked as I turned towards him. He was staring at the back door of the house, the half-grin washed from his face by something far more serious.

  “Was the back door open when we came by yesterday?”

  What few hairs on my neck I’d managed to smooth shot back to full attention as my eyes darted to the door. Sure enough, it was open just a crack, as if someone had pulled it shut but let go of the handle before they were done.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, slowly shaking my head, my voice low. “I didn’t look.”

  Rocke nodded, a grim look on his face as he reached inside of his jacket. A moment later he was moving towards the door with quick, controlled steps, a glossy, black-barreled pistol in his hands. I flipped my staff to my right hand as I followed him, pressing my body up against the left side of the doorframe with my staff at the ready, Rocke directly across from me with his own pistol up. I’d seen enough TV to have a basic idea of what was coming next, and Rocke raised an open palm at me. Wait. I nodded.

  Rocke returned the nod and switched his attention to the door. He reached out slowly, pressing the back of his hand against the wood of the door just above the doorknob and giving it a little push. The door swung open with a faint wooden creak, and I peeked around the doorjamb, my staff held reflexively in front of me.

  I saw the hand first, splayed across the floor, bony fingers limp and wrinkled. The glass came into view next, shards small and large scattered around the arm. Then the door was fully open, and I could see the whole tiny body, weak and frail on the floor. Its aged skin was tight and drawn-out like old, sun-dried leather from what had to be days’ worth of slowly baking inside the house. She lay on her side, head pulled back at a tight angle that exposed the full length of her throat and the ugly, bloodless gash that cut across it. Her eyes were open, staring up at us as if asking why something like this had happened to her.

  I turned away, fighting revulsion as Rocke slipped his gun back into his jacket. My staff was the only thing keeping my weak legs from giving out beneath me. Rocke slapped me on the back and I waved him away. My insides were trembling, nauseated with sickness and a rot that seemed to worm its way through my whole body. Rocke said something behind me, and I glanced back to see him speaking into a phone. He’d called the police.

  I’d never met Mrs. Fimmlewit. And now, I realized as I forced the nausea away, I never would.

  Chapter 15

  The rest of the evening was a blur of police lights, reporters, and an endless parade of questions that by the next morning had blended into a congealed glob inside my mind, a mix of sounds, colors, and memories all centered around one inescapable fact: Mrs. Fimmlewit had been murdered.

  It hadn’t taken long after Rocke’s call for the first police cars to arrive, sirens blaring as they skidded to a halt next to my Rover. Both Rocke and I had been politely instructed to wait in front of the house as the first officers had gone in, only to suffer much the same reactions as we had. Shortly after that, the reporters had arrived. I still wasn’t sure how they’d heard about the incident so quickly, but within minutes of the cops’ arrival, there was someone in front of the house pushing against the police tape, waving around a recorder or a cell phone or something. I hadn’t really paid attention at the time.

  Eventually, we were asked to follow a couple of officers to the police station, where we were questioned individually about everything from who Mrs. Fimmlewit was to what we had been doing on her property. I answered the questions as best I could, still a little shocked by the suddenness of the whole event.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d seen death. The last time I’d worked with Rocke, we’d faced off against a necromantic abomination known as a Horror—an animated, stitched-together collection of human body parts collected from various unwilling donors. But in that case, I’d only ever really seen the result. What I’d seen with Mrs. Fimmlewit had been the fallout of the murder itself. There was no mistaking it for a suicide or accident. The broken glass had come from a nearby picture frame, broken at some point during the struggle, and none of the shards that Rocke or I had seen showed any signs of blood, which meant her neck had been a deliberate target on part of the murderer.

  After being questioned for several hours, the police had been satisfied enough with what we’d related, and they’d let us go, once again with a request that we not leave town. But all through the drive back to the motel and my attempts to fall asleep that night, I still couldn’t get her face out of my mind. Or the wound on the neck, a wound that had looked an awful lot like the one I’d seen on Felix’s cow. The officers that had questioned me had been thrilled with that observation.

  Eventually, the frantic events of the afternoon and evening blended together into one giant mass, and I drifted off, dreaming of police officers in goat pens that asked me about mineshaft openings, vets that examined wounds on Mrs. Fimmlewit’s body, and other oddities both alien and familiar at the same time.

  It was my phone that ultimately pulled me back to reality, its faint buzzing tugging at my mind and gradually bringing my awareness to attention. I blinked a few times as I pulled myself into a semi-conscious state, then rolled onto my side, balling my pillow beneath my head with one fist as I stared at the blinds. There was no sign of light peeking through the cracks yet, which meant it was definitely early.

  I glanced at the bedside clock, but my vision was still blurry, glued with sleep. I blinked a few times, rubbing my thumb and forefingers across my eyelids as my phone began to buzz again. Whoever was trying to contact me was clearly in a hurry to get a response.

  The buzzing stopped as soon as I’d picked up my phone, the screen already dark and awaiting its next stimulus. The glaring red numbers on the bedside clock beside me read 5:21, and I let out a groan as I rolled back. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been tossing and turning before falling asleep, but from the sandy feeling beneath my eyelids, I’d been awake far too late to be up this early.

  This had better be important, I thought as I unlocked my phone and stared at the six waiting text messages in my inbox. If this is something that can wait until later, I’m going to roll over and go right back to sleep. The message list came up, all six of them from the same sender: Eve.

  Eve? Eve … who’s Eve? It took my clouded mind a moment to place the name as I sorted through the last few days. Right, I thought, the name clicking as the image of a h
eavyset woman in a carefully pressed collared shirt leapt into my mind with startling clarity. Eve. Evelyn. Evelyn Harper. The newspaper.

  I tapped her name and looked at the most recent message. Call me ASAP! it read, with no other explanation or subtext. I flipped to the next most recent. Come on! Call!

  There was a theme here. I scanned back through the next three messages, all variations on the same theme. Call. Call. Call. No exposition. No reason. Nothing.

  Finally, I reached the last message. Or the first message, depending on the perspective. It was time stamped just six-minutes ago. She’d been sending me a message a minute.

  Then my phone buzzed, all my careful scrolling erased as my phone automatically snapped to the latest message.

  Come on already! her message read. Call! It’s not that early.

  On what planet? I wondered as I started scrolling my way back to the top. Whatever it was, she clearly thought it was important. If I decided she was right, I’d call her back. If I decided it wasn’t, then my phone was going to spend the rest of the night wrapped inside my luggage where it couldn’t bother me. I reached the top message and ran my eyes over the text.

  Just picked up something interesting on my scanner, the message read. Call me ASAP.

  I let out a sigh as I dropped my head back against my pillow. Just enough information to tease me, not enough to let me know whether my call was going to be worth the time it would take. But something told me if I didn’t call, I’d just be facing another array of endless buzzes. Why she hadn’t just called me instead, I wasn’t sure. But since I wouldn’t find out unless I called her …

  I shook my head, burrowing further into my pillow even as I pulled Eve’s number from the message and told my phone to dial it. Worst case scenario, it would be something that she could have told me over a text, and I could go back to sleep. Best case scenario … Well, the best case scenario would still be going back to sleep, but with something I could pass along to Rocke when I woke up.

  The phone rang at least three times before a faint voice at the end answered.

  “Eve, hi,” I said, trying to stifle a yawn and doing a fairly unsuccessful job. “This is Hawke. You really wanted me to—”

  “Hang on, I can’t miss this!”

  “What? Hello?” There was a scratching sound from the other end of the line, followed by faint voices just quiet enough to be indistinct. I would have sighed, but I settled instead for letting my yawn finally escape, hoping my contact would be back on the line by the time it ended.

  “Hello?” I asked again as got my breath back. “Eve?” No response, but now I could hear a third voice in the background, this one a bit louder and more distinct than the other two. There was a quick “Zip it!” that I assumed was from Eve, and the third voice cut out.

  “All right Eve,” I said, pausing for another, smaller yawn. “If you’re this enthused to talk to me, I’ll assume you can give me a call back—” I stopped speaking as the phone rustled again.

  “Hey, Hawke?” Eve asked, not even waiting for an answer before she started speaking again. “Look, I’ve got some information that you’re going to want to hear—oh, hang on! They’re talking again!” A faint static squelch echoed through the receiver, I shook my head as my beleaguered brain finally caught up with what I was hearing. The two voices weren’t faint, I was hearing them secondhand through a radio of some kind on Eve’s end of the line.

  “Okay,” Eve said a moment later. “Sorry, I’ve got to make sure I’m hearing this right.”

  “Hearing what right?” I asked a little testily. “And don’t you ever sleep?”

  “When I’m dead, Hawke,” she said with a chuckle. “Look, I know you’re digging for chupacabra stories, but I figured I’d give you this one for free. As a favor.”

  “Uh-huh.” I started rubbing my forehead with my fingers, letting my eyes drift shut while only partially listening to her.

  “—not just a chupacabra. They’ve got another missing persons case.”

  That sent a slight spike of adrenaline through me, and my eyes widened as I sat up. “What? Who?”

  “I don’t know yet,” she said, and I could hear the burning desire to find out in her tone. “The police found an abandoned car on the side of the road near Franklin’s Garage, near the center of town,” she said. “The owner’s phone was lying nearby, and no one’s been able to locate her since they found her car about an hour ago.”

  “All right,” I said, my brain finally picking up a little speed. “Are you telling me this because she might have been taken by the same person who grabbed my friend?”

  Eve let out a short laugh. “That’s the bonus, with a favor. The real reason I’m telling you—wait a second!” The faint voices came on again, then stopped after a few seconds.

  “False alarm,” she said as she returned once more. “Look, I’m telling you because there’s been another chupacabra attack. The car they found? The lady also owned a dog, and it was dead in the front seat. Blood drained through a cut in its neck. Sound familiar?”

  That got my attention. “Yeah,” I said, giving my head a quick shake to try and clear the cobwebs from my mind. “Do you know any more? Did someone just knife the dog?”

  “No,” Eve said. “When I mean drained, I mean the blood is completely gone. Just like the other cases that have been popping up in the last few weeks, at least according to the cops I’m listening too.” There was a pop of faint static. “So, you owe me twenty, because this one’s solid. Plus a favor for the bonus. If the dog’s connected to the disappearance, whoever took your friend might have something to do with these chupacabra attacks.”

  “But that’s …” I sputtered, the words tangling in my head as I forced my tired brain to form a coherent sentence. “Chupacabras don’t work like that.”

  “Then maybe they’re your mysterious abductors,” she said matter-of-factly, as if that answer made all the sense in the world. “A whole pack of chupacabras dragging people off. It’d make for a terrifying story, so I kind of hope that isn’t it. Even if it would sell a million papers.”

  “But—”

  “Look,” she said, and I could picture the no-nonsense look on her face. “I didn’t call to give you answers. I called to give you information. Now, your job is to use the information, and if you find something that makes a good story in the process, let me know before anyone else, remember? I get first rights. So good luck, I hope you find something, I gotta go.” There was a beep as the connection closed, and I dropped the phone next to me on the bed.

  Well, now what? I asked myself as I leaned back on my palms, the mattress giving under me like a soft cloud. Part of me wanted to just lie back and sink into it once more, let the cobwebs and sand inside my head drift away under the blissful blankness of sleep. But if the previous hours had been any indication, further sleep wouldn’t be that restful anyway. Besides, Rocke would probably wake me up in an hour anyway.

  But that was an hour’s worth of sleep I could get. I leaned back on one elbow, set my phone back on the nightstand, and pulled the covers over my chest, burrowing my face into the coolness of my pillow. I could worry about things in another hour.

  Except … I couldn’t. I lay there, occasionally shifting and completely unable to sleep, my mind fixed on what Eve had told me. Was it possible? Could the disappearances and the chupacabra attacks were related? It didn’t seem like something that could be, but …

  Forget it, I thought, sitting up and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. She’d said it was near the center of town, by … Frank’s? Franklin’s? A garage that started with an “F.” I’d just have to go check it out myself. I fired Rocke a quick text before standing up, only to get a response back before I could make my way to the restroom. Either I wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping, or he was an incredibly light sleeper. Probably the latter, I reflected as I answered his text. The decision was made. I had twenty minutes to shower.

  * * *

  The s
hower hadn’t quite removed the feel of grit from my eyes, but the rush of cool water had managed to flush out a decent amount of the cobwebs that had tangled themselves in my head, at least to the point where I wasn’t yawning as much as I drove towards the center of town. Rocke looked as alert and awake as ever, his eyes scanning everything as we drove. I had no idea what he expected to find. A murderer walking down the side of the street? A chupacabra digging into the ground? I didn’t feel like asking, so I left him to it.

  Although a quick Google for “Franklin’s Garage” hadn’t turned up an address, we didn’t end up needing one. Bright, flashing police lights before the sun is up tend are pretty easy to find. In no time at all, without even a single wrong turn, we found our path down the street blocked by two police cruisers and a whole lot of police tape. I pulled over to the curb and turned off the engine, glancing at Rocke.

  “Well, this is your show,” I said, giving him a small grin. “Unless, of course, these guys are animal control. Then it’s totally my show.”

  Rocke rolled his eyes. “They’re not, but come along anyway. I want you to take a look at this dog.”

  “I haven’t seen any of the other dogs that were attacked,” I said as I pushed my door open. I could already see an officer making his way towards us, hands up as if to ward us off.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Rocke said with a shake of his head. “Not if I’m right about my hunch, anyway.”

  “What hunch?”

  “I’ll tell you if I’m right,” Rocke said. “That way, there’s less chance of me looking like an idiot if I’m wrong.” He gave me a quick grin before turning to face the officer approaching us.

  “Folks,” the officer said, still waving his hands at us. “I’m going to have to ask you to please go elsewhere, this is a crime scene—”

  “Of course it is,” Rocke said, his no-nonsense tone cutting the officer off completely. “You’ve got tape up and the lights flashing. We’re here to take a look. Investigator Jacob Rocke, NSAU spook.” Rocke held his badge out so the officer could see it. “We have reason to believe that what the police force is investigating here is more Unusual than unusual, if you catch my drift. We’re here to render assistance in determining that.”