Double Blind

by D P Lyle

  Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it. She wiped sweat from first one palm and then the other and took a deep breath. Don’t panic. Make every shot count. Four rounds left, but she would probably only have time to get off two, maybe three. God, let the first one be perfect. Let one of them fall quickly. One, she might have a chance; two, no way.

  They burst out of the brush and abruptly stopped. Their eyes flashed, their lips curled back from their fangs, and drool dripped from the corners of their jowls. They moved forward slowly, heads low, separating to flank her.

  She directed the .357 toward the one to her right, willing her shaking hands to steady themselves. As her finger tightened on the trigger, something burst from the trees, howling and snarling. The dogs turned, but gave no ground.

  A huge creature, thickly muscled, face covered with a dense dark brown hair, leaped on the first pit bull. A thick, gnarled hand clutched the dog’s throat and lifted it into the air. The other hand twisted its head. A sharp crack truncated the dog’s yelp. The creature tossed the limp animal over the side of the embankment.

  The other pit bull hurled itself at the creature, but was met with clubbing blow to the head. It fell in a flaccid heap.

  The creature turned to Sam. It was huge and wore filthy, ragged jeans and a shredded green and brown flannel shirt, which fought to contain massive shoulders and a heavily muscled chest, it too matted with dark hair.

  Its voice, coarse, raspy, came at her. “Run.”

  Sam stood, but couldn’t move. The creature before her was a man, yet not. “But...” she began.

  “”Run,” he repeated with more urgency. “They’re coming.”

  She heard the sound of the men, thrashing through the trees.

  Sam moved past the beast. Its musty smell burned her nose. “It was you, back there, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And at the lab?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who are you?”

  “No time now. You must run. Finish what you’ve started.” He pointed to her left, down the mountain. “I’ll delay them, but you must get to the State Patrol.”

  “How did you know...?”

  “Run,” he growled.

  She did.

  *

  Burt stood near the base of the escarpment and looked down at Murph, who knelt by the corpse of one of his dogs.

  “She killed Thor,” Murph said, with a mixture of sadness and disbelief. He rolled the limp animal over, its head lolling to one side.

  “Where’s the other one?” Wade asked.

  Murph stood and slipped two fingers in his mouth. He emitted a series of three sharp whistles. Silence. Again, Murph signaled his dog and again no response.

  “There,” Burt said, pointing up.

  From the ledge, a large bearded man in a ragged flannel shirt looked down at them. Wade fired, but the man ducked. Then, they heard him rustling in the brush, moving away, back up the slope.

  “Eloy,” Burt said. “Move to the east. Cut him off.”

  Eloy circled the escarpment in the direction Burt indicated, while Burt, Wade, and Murph took up the pursuit, charging straight up the slope. Hollis went to retrieve the horses.

  As Burt topped the rocky ledge, he saw the other dog. The left side of its face was crushed and covered with blood. Murph stepped up behind him.

  “Good God,” Murph said. “What the hell did she do?”

  “It wasn’t her,” Burt said. “It was him.” He nodded up the hill in the direction the man had gone. “Let’s go.”

  They raced up the hillside, searching for the fleeing man, but found nothing. Soon, they stepped out into the open air, above the tree line. Hollis came toward them, leading the horses.

  Murph took his horse’s reins. “I’m going to go get my dogs. They should have a proper burial.”

  “I’ll help you,” Eloy said.

  They mounted up and slipped down into the trees.

  “What’s going on?” Hollis asked.

  Burt told him what had happened. “It was him. No doubt.”

  “Who?” Wade asked.

  Burt frowned at him. “You know very well who.”

  “I thought he was dead?” Wade said.

  “Apparently not,” Burt said.

  “You saw him?” Hollis asked.

  “I saw enough. He’s even bigger. More grotesque.”

  “Jesus,” Hollis said, his eyes scanning in every direction. “Where did he go?”

  “Don’t know.” Burt lifted his hat and forked his fingers through his hair.

  Wade looked back down the slope. “We might be able to catch Sam before she gets to her vehicle.”

  “Too late,” Burt said. “She’s down by now.”

  “But, she’s going to call in the State Patrol,” Wade said. “If she does, we’re dead.”

  “Maybe not,” Burt said.

  The two men looked at him.

  Burt eyed Wade. “You head back down and call Captain Baker. Harold’s a reasonable guy most of the time. Tell him that Sam Cody got a little excited but that you have everything under control. That might satisfy him. Especially since the CBI doesn’t much give a rat shit what goes on out here.”

  “That might work,” Wade said. “At least it might slow them down a bit.”

  “And, if the rest of us can find him and Billy,” Burt said. “Make them disappear. It’ll be her word against ours. And she’ll have no proof of anything.”

  “What about the journals?” Hollis said.

  “We’ll worry about them later. Right now we have to find him.”

  “This is getting out of hand,” Wade said. “Framing Billy’s one thing. Hunting and killing two men is another thing altogether.”

  “Isn’t it a little late to worry about that?” Burt asked.

  Wade sighed. “I just don’t like it.”

  “But, you like the money don’t you?” Burt said. He hated Wade. Always had. He simply tolerated him because he was the Chief of Police and thus a useful commodity.

  “Burt, sometimes you can be a real shit,” Wade said.

  Burt smiled thinly. “Only when I have to be.”

  “Well, I hope those pockets of yours hold a couple of well-placed people over in Denver. We might need them.”

  “Will the Governor’s mansion do?” Burt said.

  Wade shook his head. “You continually amaze me.”

  Burt looked toward the north where thick clouds hung beyond the mountains. Though still too far away to hear thunder, flashes of lightning could be seen flickering in the cracks between the towering thunderheads. “We better get going and find these boys before that storm gets here.”

  *

  Billy ran. As far and as fast as he could. He passed several mines before climbing up and into one of the many unnamed holes that had been dynamited into the mountain. He settled in the shadows a hundred feet from the entrance.

  He realized he had nothing. No jacket, no sleeping bag, no food. No medical supplies. He had dropped everything, when they started shooting.

  And he still had not found the man he searched for. The one person who could clear him. Or kill him.

  Or kill him? That thought hadn’t crossed his mind. If he were dead, the real killer could simply walk away. No one would look for him. Case closed.

  He examined his shoulder, which had begun oozing blood again. Only a little, but enough to soak through his bandage and his shirt. A chill swept through him, followed by a wave of nausea.

  What was he going to do? Without food or medical supplies or dry clothing, he couldn’t remain here in the cold and damp for long. A fire was out of the question. He might as well wave a red flag. If Burt or the mysterious killer didn’t finish him off, his wound and the elements would. He wrapped his arms around himself, searching for warmth.

  He heard the approach of scraping of footsteps. A thick, hulking shadow moved into the mouth of the mine followed by a stinging odor.

  The massive form spoke. “He
llo, Billy.”

  Chapter 47

  Billy pulled the wool blanket tightly around his shoulders. His shivering abated somewhat. Morgan Russell, or at least the creature he had become, had led Billy through a maze of interconnecting passageways to his “home,” a cold, damp alcove off the main shaft of the Glenross Mine some 300 hundred feet from its entrance. It appeared as though the miners had begun chasing an ore seam but ran against a wall of impenetrable hard rock and abandoned the effort, leaving this 50-foot square side channel.

  The gas lantern Morgan had placed in the center of the floor cast a meager light, giving a tomb-like aura to the cavern. Water moistened the walls and dampened the air. A sleeping bag lay on a tarp in one corner, a two-burner gas stove in the other.

  Morgan gave him a bottle of water to drink. He had no real food to offer. Only a chunk of cooked, dry horsemeat, which Billy declined.

  While Morgan removed the dirty bandage from Billy’s wound, cleaned dried blood from his shoulder, and layered on fresh gauze, Billy studied him. He was not the Morgan Billy remembered. Not even close. His head was broad and square as was his chest. His eyes sank beneath thick brows that rode low on a bulbous forehead. His hair and beard were ropey with dirt and grime. The fingers that worked at his shoulder looked like fat sausages tipped with curled yellow nails. The odor that surrounded him stung Billy’s nose.

  “What happened to you?” Billy asked.

  “Long story.” He applied another strip of tape to secure the clean gauze in place. “That should do it,” Morgan said. “Glad I kept these bandages around.”

  “Where’d you get them?” Billy asked.

  “Mark’s Pharmacy. The other stuff’s from Varney’s.”

  “You kill Lloyd?” Billy looked into Morgan’s eyes, which reflected the lantern light from their deep recesses.

  “It was an accident. He had a gun.”

  “Burt’s men?”

  “Self-defense.” Morgan stood and paced. “And pay back.”

  “For what?”

  “Another long story.”

  “I got the time,” Billy said.

  Morgan sat down, facing Billy across the lantern. The light accentuated the lumps, bumps, and concavities of his face. To Billy, he appeared as he imagined a distant cave dwelling ancestor might have looked.

  “Burt contacted me a couple of months after I left. After Edgar Locke’s stroke. Wanted to reopen the lab. Get into some of the genetic stuff Edgar and I had tossed around. I declined at first, but after I ran into some problems at Hopkins, I signed on. After the animal experiments went so well, I made a very stupid mistake.” He turned his palms up and shrugged.

  “You did this to yourself?”

  Morgan told him of his self-injection of the genetic material and the dramatic changes that followed and of Burt’s anger and fear that their work would be discovered. “So, Burt, Ted Smyth, and Walt Packer gave me a quarter mile head start and hunted me down.”

  “Hunted?”

  “Burt makes everything a sport, a competition. Even my life.”

  Billy listened to Morgan’s story. The chase, the gunshot, the fall from the waterfall. The first three horrific nights spent curled in the floor of a frozen mine. No dry clothes, no covers, no fire, no food. The survival-driven break-ins of Mark’s Pharmacy and Varneys. The scrounging for food from trash cans.

  “What now?” Billy asked.

  “I’m dying.”

  Billy started to say something but Morgan waved him away.

  “It’s true. And there is nothing that can be done about it.” He pushed his hair back with both hands. “But, before I go, Burt’s going to pay. He won’t walk away from this one.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  *

  Sam charged into the kitchen where Alyss and Shelby folded laundry on the table. Alyss looked up, a shocked expression on her face.

  Alyss started to say something but Sam raised a hand. “Just a minute.”

  Sam picked up the wall phone near the sink and called the Montrose CBI office again. Officer McBride, still condescending, still arrogant, still telling her to calm down, said he’d have his chief call her tomorrow. She jammed the phone back in its cradle. When she turned, Alyss stood staring at her.

  “What’s going on?” Alyss asked.

  Sam began locking the doors and pulling the curtains closed. “Burt Eagan has lost his mind and he just might show up here with Wade and try to arrest me.”

  “What?”

  “And there is someone else up there.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, but he saved my life. And he’s the one that broke me out of the lab the other night. Billy’s looking for him right now.”

  “Whoa,” Alyss said. “Slow down. I want to know...”

  “In a minute. I have another call to make.”

  Sam called Information in Denver and got the number for the CBI Crime Lab. After going through an operator and a lab tech, she reached Dr. Susan Chow, the forensic pathologist on call for the weekend.

  “Yes. I reviewed the hair fibers Chief Wade sent,” Dr. Chow said. “I faxed him a report. Who did you say you were?”

  “Deputy Sam Cody. I’m helping Chief Wade with this investigation.” Alyss stared at her open-mouthed, but Sam wagged a finger at her to silence her.

  “How can I help you?” Dr. Chow asked.

  “Your report indicated the match was near perfect. Is that indeed the case?”

  “Absolutely. No question.”

  Sam could feel her own shoulders slump. She had hoped against hope that the report was wrong. But now, she had heard it from the source.

  Yet, hair analysis isn’t as accurate as either fingerprinting or DNA testing. These results were merely suggestive, maybe coincidental. In fact, they must be. There was absolutely no way Billy killed Lloyd Varney and no way his hair could end up in Lloyd’s fist.

  She started to thank Dr. Chow and hang up, but hesitated. “When will the DNA analysis be completed?”

  “What DNA? We didn’t receive a request for DNA matching.”

  “Blood? Hair follicles?”

  “No blood was submitted and neither hair sample had follicles.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. In fact, it appeared that both hair samples were cut in the same manner.”

  Sam felt a chill crackle up her spine. “What do you mean?”

  “In both the crime scene and the suspect samples, the ends of the hairs showed they had been sheered by a sharp instrument. Probably scissors or a knife. The angles and the cleanliness of the cuts were identical.”

  Fucking Wade.

  Dr. Chow continued. “As I said, no DNA samples were submitted and no testing was requested.”

  Sam shook her head, thanked Dr. Chow for her help, and hung up the phone

  “Now will you tell me what happened up there?” Alyss said.

  Sam, Alyss, and Shelby sat at the table and Sam told them what had happened. Shelby retrieved a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some cotton balls from the bathroom cabinet and Alyss cleaned the scratches and scrapes that covered Sam’s hands and arms as Sam talked.

  “And this ape man killed two pit bulls?” Alyss asked.

  “Without breaking a sweat,” Sam said.

  “He sounds inhuman.”

  “He’s no creature or monster or anything like that,” Sam shook her head for emphasis. “He’s a man. Big and scary, but a man.”

  “He’s the one I saw, isn’t he?” Shelby asked.

  “Probably.”

  “Maybe he’s prehistoric,” Shelby said. “Somebody who’s lived in a cave for a thousand years?”

  They laughed.

  “I don’t think he was quite that old,” Sam said. She flexed her hands. “He had the same kindness in his eyes that I see in Billy’s.”

  “Here we go again,” Alyss said. “You never could let a stray dog go by without feeding it.”

  “It’s my mother’s fault
.” Sam looked at Alyss. “But, that’s not the best part.” She recounted her conversation with Dr. Chow.

  “What does that mean?”

  “The hair I found in Lloyd’s hand hadn’t been cut. It had been pulled out. Should have had follicles attached. Wade sent Billy’s hair as both the crime scene and the suspect samples.” Sam ran her fingers through her own dirty, sweat-matted hair. A twig fell out on the table. She picked it up an examined it. “And the blood he took from Billy was just for show. Without hair follicles, there’s no crime scene DNA for comparison.”

  “Chief Wade tampered with the evidence?”

  “He completed the frame.”

  Alyss’ expression turned serious. “You don’t really think they’ll come here, do you?”

  “Burt and Wade and that geek Eloy might do anything. They’re pretty desperate right now. I would guess they’re more concerned with finding Billy. And this other guy. Me, they can discredit. I don’t have any hard evidence. But, Billy might be able to bring their house of cards down on their heads.”

  “Unless their frame is perfect,” Alyss said.

  “No frame is perfect.” Sam sighed and looked toward the back window. “I hope Billy’s OK.”

  “Billy’s tough,” Alyss said. “That’s what everybody says. And he knows these hills.”

  “But, he’s wounded. And he’s alone.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Alyss asked.

  “Wait.” Sam exhaled heavily. “If Captain Baker doesn’t call back tonight, I’ll call him tomorrow morning and see if I can get some outside help in here.”

  Alyss stood. “I’ll throw something together for dinner. Hungry?”

  “Starved,” Sam and Shelby said in unison.

  Sam pulled her .357 from its holster and reloaded it. “I think I’ll take a hot shower.” She laid the gun on the table. “Use this if you have to.”

  “No way,” Alyss said. “If the bad guys show up. I’ll drag you out of the shower.”

  “I’ll just be a few minutes,” Sam said. She headed toward her room.

  Chapter 48

  While Shelby opted to take a roast beef sandwich to her room and watch TV, Sam and Alyss sat at the kitchen table eating left over pot roast and potatoes. Sam’s .357 lay near her hand. Her spare weapon, the Barretta .25, rested in front of Alyss. Thunder interrupted their conversation more than once.