Savage Species

by Jonathan Janz

“Why didn’t we bring her in?” Emma demanded.

  Clevenger’s voice was tight, regretful. “I thought we’d be driving out of here.”

  “Let’s go,” Greeley whispered, his voice husky with fear.

  Emma fixed him with a fierce stare. “I’m telling you—”

  “He’s right,” Red Elk said. “Now’s our best chance. While they’re distracted.”

  Greeley didn’t need to be asked twice. He nearly knocked Jesse over as he followed Red Elk toward the kitchen. Clevenger guided Ruth across the room. Colleen came too. Reluctantly, Jesse peeled his eyes off the grisly scene in the yard, but stopped when he saw that Emma hadn’t left the window.

  “Emma,” he said, gently grasping her arm, “there’s no time—”

  “It’s so horrible,” she said, her voice thick.

  They were surrounding the car, their huge, peridot eyes sly and gleeful. They’re savoring it, he thought sickly. They’re reveling in her terror.

  And Linda Farmer was terror-stricken. One moment she was standing up in the roofless car, her squat frame jutting pitifully over the jagged back window; the next she was crumpling on the seat, knees bent in supplication, her hands pressed to her cheeks as she gibbered for mercy.

  A creature stepped nimbly onto the Buick’s hood. Another peeled away the starred windshield as easily as a moist Band-Aid. Linda began to say something when one dropped from a tree behind her and smashed the glass of the back window.

  Linda whirled, squealing, and backed against the dash. A creature lunged forward, snapped at her head, and she spun again, dancing in place, bellowing in horror at the beast that had just bitten off half her scalp.

  Jesse tried to swallow, but there was no saliva left, only a dull, painful click. He took Emma by the shoulders, said, “Don’t watch any more.”

  This time she allowed herself to be led from the window. But as they moved through the living room toward the kitchen, Jesse glanced back one more time.

  Through the dark screen door, he watched the creature on the Buick’s hood drag Linda out of the car, rip through the back of her shirt, and sink its teeth into the meaty place on her side. Linda’s stubby white legs began to kick. The creature who’d dropped out of the tree caught her foot, writhed its lips sinfully, and crunched through her Achilles tendon.

  Chapter Seven

  Charly feels curiously weightless as she steps onto the huge stump. Sam’s hand is on her lower back, steadying her, and the thrill it elicits is not a sexual one, but rather an astonished gratitude at being taken care of. Eric has rarely been chivalrous with her, and when he has it’s been for show. Sam’s fingers against the ridiculous blue poncho are firm, kind. She thinks to herself, So this is what it’s like.

  She follows his pointing index finger and says yes, she sees what he’s talking about, the grass and weeds down there pushed flat. She is about to ask if the driving wind or the rain could have done that to the grass, but then she spots the broken stalks of young trees, the deep imprints of what can only be cloven feet.

  “Yes,” she says, “I see it.”

  Sam looks up at her. “But your monster couldn’t have made that trail.”

  She frowns, wanting this to lead her to Jake, but not wanting to muddy the waters with false hope. She shakes her head no.

  Sam nods like he expected that. Then he takes her hand to help her down. He doesn’t have the long, graceful fingers that Eric has. Sam’s hands, she sees, are crisscrossed with old lacerations. Worker’s hands.

  “You sure you wanna do this?” he asks her.

  She nods, not wanting to admit it is as much to escape the house and its haunted, suffocating atmosphere as it is to accompany him on this ill-advised investigation. Sheriff Robertson is in my house right now, she marvels. Eric and that sex kitten coach as well. I must be insane to leave. What if the girls call and want to talk to me? What if the federal agents return with a lead? What if I screw up an opportunity to get Jake back?

  Sam is watching her. “You okay?”

  She tries a smile. “I was just thinking…”

  His face is open, sincere. “Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to.”

  She sucks in a shuddering breath. “You really think this might lead to something?”

  “I can’t give any guarantees.”

  She exhales pent-up air. “Guess we might as well try,” she says.

  He watches her a moment longer, then nods.

  He begins making his halting way down the steep hillside. Trying not to trip over the voluminous poncho, Charly follows.

  Eric threw open the front door. “Robertson!” he yelled.

  He didn’t hear what he wanted to—the fat slob scrambling to his feet from the living room, where he’d probably been dozing on the couch and dreaming of glazed donuts. Eric listened but he heard nothing.

  “What’s going on, Flo?” Mel asked as she came through the door behind him. He turned, put a finger to his lips. Christ, he swore he was always having to tell someone to be quiet. At home it was the girls, yammering about the Disney princesses or a yodeling mermaid or some other bullshit. At the gym it was even worse, his team playing grabass with each other, making jokes when they were supposed to be listening. Even his assistants were like that. Too many times lately he’d caught them whispering to each other when he was addressing the team. It was one of the worst parts about having an all-female staff. Yeah, they were better to look at, and he’d bedded all but one of them. But now they thought they could push the boundaries, chatter while he was talking because they were above the law.

  Too comfortable, that was the problem. His assistant coaches had become far too comfortable, and when people got comfortable, they got permissive.

  Take Charly. At first he’d ignored the subtle way her manner would change every time Sam Bledsoe stopped by to discuss the plans for the house. Eric had been in the midst of his best season at the time, and the truth was he wasn’t home much. Still, he made sure he was there when Sam came calling.

  Eric’s eyes narrowed.

  Sam.

  Who called their contractor by his first name?

  Okay, he thought, maybe a lot of people, but they sure as hell don’t say it the way Charly did.

  “Sam called. He said he’d stop by at four o’clock.”

  “Sam’s on the phone, honey. He has a question about the basement.”

  “I like the windows Sam recommended.”

  Eric ground his teeth.

  He knew what Charly was really saying. Strip away the words and focus on her mouth as she said the word Sam. Watch how the hives bloomed on her chest like a mating call. What she really meant was that she wanted to have sex with Sam Bledsoe.

  “Sam called to ask about the kitchen lighting.”

  “Sam stopped by today, honey. He stuck it in my ass.”

  “Why are we being so quiet?” Mel asked.

  He glared at her. “Because the sheriff’s in the house, remember?” He shook his head. Man, he hated explaining himself.

  “Why’s he still here?”

  He forced himself to smile at Melanie, the one coach he hadn’t boned. Be nice to her, he reminded himself. Snap at her too many times, she’ll keep holding out on you. Thinking of the way she’d dry-humped him last night in her shoebox of a car, Eric’s throat went tight. Man, he couldn’t wait to work it inside her, feel her squirm.

  He made his expression soften. “He said he wanted me and Charly to have a break, let someone else wait by the phone.”

  “Sorry about that,” Robertson said from the hallway. The guy was fat, but Eric had to hand it to him—he could sneak as quietly as an Indian.

  “Where were you?” Eric asked.

  Robertson smiled sheepishly. “I had to make a pit stop. Hope you don’t mind my using the facilities.”

  Eric thought of the man’s sweaty, hairy ass draped over one of their toilets and decided he minded very much that Robertson had taken a shit here without asking.

  Let
it go, he told himself. Remember Charly and her boyfriend.

  “Have you asked Bledsoe where he was last night?”

  Robertson cocked an eyebrow. “Why would I do that?”

  “He was the last person to leave our house yesterday.”

  “That doesn’t—”

  “And he’s taking my wife into the forest as we speak.”

  That stopped him. “Forest?”

  Eric exulted in the man’s puzzled expression. “Yeah, the forest. You know, the one that surrounds the whole subdivision?”

  “Why would they…”

  “I don’t know,” Eric said, “but I thought we might follow them to see. What if Bledsoe knows something about my son?”

  Something rippled across Robertson’s doughy face, something Eric didn’t like. Derision, maybe? Taking exception to him calling Jake his son?

  Eric felt the familiar heat growing at the base of his neck. If this hick cop wanted to start in questioning his parenting skills, he’d teach the fat fuck a lesson, regardless of his badge.

  “Sam’s a shrewd fella,” Robertson said, more to himself than Eric. “Maybe we oughtta follow them, just in case they turn something up we missed.”

  “You ask me, you guys have missed everything so far.”

  “It’s a good thing nobody asked you then.”

  With that, the man pushed by him and out the front door. Mel shot Eric a questioning look, but he was too pissed to talk to her. He followed the sheriff around the side of the house and heard Melanie hustling to keep up.

  Good, he thought. Move that sweet ass of yours and keep your mouth shut. It’ll make my day a hell of a lot more bearable.

  They found the cave at around one-fifteen that afternoon. Sam had been staring at Charly’s profile—the delicate line of nose, the kind of full lips women get injections to procure, the cheekbones he yearned to kiss—when she gasped and said something he didn’t catch.

  “Sorry, what?” he asked.

  “Over there,” she said.

  He turned and saw it. Beyond a short sloping grade, on the other side of what appeared to be a shallow tributary, a cave yawned like a diseased mouth. Dead wildgrass overhung the rim of the cave forbiddingly. He estimated the entrance to be about six feet high, just tall enough to walk into comfortably. Within, the passage might dwindle dramatically, and if that happened, he sure as hell didn’t look forward to navigating any tight spaces. He’d never considered himself terribly claustrophobic, but when he could avoid being closed in, he did.

  “You think it took Jake there?” she asked.

  He glanced at her, saw the naked hope in her eyes. “I don’t know,” he said carefully, “but the tracks lead in that direction.”

  Her forehead wrinkled.

  “See the way the verge there is matted down?” he said, pointing at the hill that led to the cave. “If that was flat ground, you’d say it was a place where the deer slept. It isn’t the flooding either, because everywhere else on this hillside the grass is leaning, not embedded in the mud.” He nodded. “Only in that one spot there’s kind of a track, like someone skidded a good part of the way.”

  “How do you know so much about that?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know…” She gestured toward the hill. “Tracking things, stuff like that.”

  Sam eyed the cave. “My dad was big into hunting. He’d take me with him sometimes. I never got into it as much as he did, but I guess I liked going because I got to be with him.”

  She studied his face a moment. “How many kids do you have, Sam?”

  He glanced up at the leaden sky. “A son and a daughter.”

  “You and your boy ever go hunting?”

  He bit the inside of his cheek, pretended to study a leaning old maple tree that looked about a year or two away from toppling. “Once or twice,” he said. “Course, he’s grown up now.”

  “Why only once or twice?”

  He tried to smile, gave up on it. “It wasn’t really his thing.”

  “Hunting or being with his dad?”

  Sam looked at her in wonder. He couldn’t recall a woman scrutinizing him this closely before, especially one so damned perceptive.

  “We never had much of a relationship,” he said.

  In a soft voice, she asked, “When did you and your wife divorce?”

  He let out a harsh laugh, almost a bark, and smiled down at his feet. “You get right to it, don’t you?”

  “I’m afraid Eric’s going to follow us,” she said. “I don’t want to waste my chance to talk to you.”

  “You can talk to me whenever you want.”

  “We both know that’s not true.”

  Her blue eyes were a shade lighter than the poncho, but tiny flecks dancing in her irises were just about the same royal blue.

  He asked, “What makes you think your husband’s following us?”

  “He’s a jerk, but he’s not stupid.”

  “He must be stupid to take you for granted.”

  Her eyes locked on his for a long moment, and Sam held his breath. Kiss her, he told himself, and waited for his father’s voice to talk him out of it.

  But Dad was silent.

  Sam urged his feet to move forward, his arms to reach for her, but under the weight of her stare, his limbs wouldn’t cooperate. Like being in high school again—hell, junior high. Terrified of kissing a girl because she was too pretty. The dumbest reason of all.

  Charly lowered her eyes, then turned toward the cave.

  Sam silently cursed himself.

  She nodded at the sooty maw, the arch of veined limestone within. “We going in there?”

  “The tracks lead that way.”

  They headed down into a shallow swale, the sticks and leaves that eddied there reminding him of that old Mickey Mouse cartoon he used to watch with his kids, the one where Mickey made a broom carry water for him.

  Charly asked, “Is this safe?”

  “I didn’t even know the cave existed. Maybe no one does.”

  “Won’t it be too dark?”

  “I always carry a Maglite in case I need to get in someone’s crawlspace.”

  She grinned. “Is that code for something?”

  Sam blushed.

  The runoff from the creek trickled past their shins, but it didn’t get any deeper. They stepped onto dry land and moved toward the cave. Sam reached out, put a hand between Charly’s shoulder blades. The first time he’d done it, she hadn’t slapped him, so now he touched her any chance he got.

  She’s married, remember?

  Sam grinned. Thanks for the reminder, Dad. I thought you’d abandoned me.

  You need to abandon trying to get in her pants.

  At the rim of the cave, he stopped and plucked the flashlight from his soggy jeans.

  “Bledsoe Construction,” she read.

  He held up the Maglite. “Impressive, huh?”

  “You paid to have that done?”

  “Kind of pointless,” he agreed. “They gave me a couple free ones when they stenciled my truck.”

  He clicked on the Maglite and ventured into the darkness. He swept the interior of the cave and saw it went back a good ways.

  They’d moved a few steps in when she said, “Earlier.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you like what you saw?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you were staring at me outside the cave.”

  A sweltering heat ignited at his hairline, around his collar. “Hey, look…I’m sorry I—”

  “Do I look angry?” she asked.

  “Not really.”

  “So stop apologizing.”

  “All right.”

  She got moving again, and he shined the Maglite at the ground ahead of her. The air in here was fetid, no rainfall to start a breeze. Sam smelled wet rock and something that reminded him unpleasantly of semen. This wasn’t a pretty place to be taking a lady, he thought, especially one he wanted to impress.

&
nbsp; You’re not trying to impress her, remember? You’re trying to find her son.

  He examined the sandy cave floor and made out the faintest intimation of a footprint. The print was abnormally slender and stretched, the toes as long as Sam’s fingers.

  The Maglite’s amber glow happened on something else. Sam froze.

  “What?” she whispered.

  He hunkered down beside her and studied the impression. He thought at first it was a rut carved into the gritty floor by a steady stream of water. But when he used a sharp stone to rake a perpendicular line through the rut, he discovered it was freshly made. He stood and held the Maglite aloft so its glow would encompass a larger area. The line joined with another, this one running nearly parallel with the first. Sam counted three more. Other than a slow drip of water from somewhere ahead and the muted roar of the storm behind them, the cave was silent.

  “Sam?” she said, gazing at the cave floor.

  “Yeah,” he answered, his voice nearly a croak.

  “Does that look like a giant handprint to you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s what it looks like.”

  She reached up, took his hand in hers and pointed the Maglite a few feet deeper into the shadows. More lines.

  Another handprint.

  “Your kidnapper could’ve made that?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It was tall, but it wasn’t that tall.”

  “But the shape…”

  “The same,” she said in a small voice.

  “You okay to go on?”

  He heard her swallow, sensed her nodding.

  “You stay behind me,” he said.

  Wordlessly, he moved forward. He felt a finger hook one of his belt loops. Her touch sent spires of warmth pirouetting through him.

  Sam waded deeper into the dark. The cave floor began to slant downward.

  “Stay close,” he said. Her poncho rasped against him.

  Sam reminded himself not to enjoy it too much.

  Chapter Eight

  Red Elk’s face was ghastly under the bug light. He was saying something to Greeley, who was shaking his head and looking like he was about to cry.

  Red Elk turned to Clevenger. “You get this mouthy prick down there. I don’t have time for this shit.”