The Night Monster

by James Swain

  The children nodded as one.

  “Good. Which one of you gave this bag of candy to Bobby?”

  Their faces turned expressionless. I scanned the room, and settled on a little boy with curly blond hair who wasn’t making eye contact with me. His desk was adjacent to Bobby’s, and I decided he was the culprit. I didn’t like traumatizing kids, but I had to get to the truth. Crossing the room, I knelt down in front of his desk.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Stuart,” he said, staring at his desk.

  “Look at me, Stuart.”

  Stuart lifted his eyes, which were moist and met my gaze.

  “Did you give this bag of candy to Bobby?”

  Stuart hesitated, then nodded reluctantly.

  “Didn’t your regular teacher tell you not to do that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Bobby saw the candy in my lunch bag, and got all excited. He said that if I gave him the candy, he’d recite all the lines from the latest Indiana Jones movie during lunch.”

  “Can Bobby do that?”

  “Bobby knows all the lines from the Indiana Jones movies and from Star Wars and a bunch of TV shows. He’s super smart.”

  It was not uncommon for autistic children to have amazing memories, and I could see Bobby pressuring Stuart to give him the M&Ms.

  “Did you see Bobby eat the candy?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Stuart whispered.

  “Is that when Bobby started acting strange?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry if I made Bobby sick. I didn’t mean to.”

  In order for autistic children to mainstream, their parents often removed sugar and dairy products from their diets, which helped calm them down. Stuart’s bag of M&Ms had hit Bobby’s nervous system like a bomb, and Bobby had gone on sensory overload and decided to run. Grabbing Bobby’s knapsack from his desk, I walked to the front of the classroom where Buster lay on the floor. I placed the knapsack in front of my dog’s face, and let him get a good whiff. Buster rose from the floor and walked to the back of the classroom. I was right behind him.

  Buster stuck his face against one of the windows that faced the playground. The latch was unlocked, and I pushed the window open. The opening didn’t look large enough for a child to climb through, but I knew from past experience that autistic children were capable of just about anything when they were on tilt. I turned to face Officer Gordon.

  “How big is the school property?”

  “Twenty acres,” Gordon replied.

  “What does it back up on to?”

  “Mostly woods.”

  “I’m going outside to look around. I’d suggest you round up the teachers and maintenance men who are searching for Bobby, and do the same.”

  I headed for the door. Scaling a fence was not difficult for most young boys, and Bobby could have gone just about anywhere. Our chances of finding him grew slimmer by the minute. A thought flashed through my mind, and I turned back to Gordon.

  “Do the woods have any freestanding water?” I asked.

  “Yes, there’s a large pond.”

  “Is it visible from the school grounds?”

  “In some spots, yes.”

  My shoulder banged the door as I raced from the classroom.

  CHAPTER 3

  ater has a magical effect on autistic children. It calls to them like a siren’s song. I found this out the hard way when an autistic little boy who’d disappeared from his home was found on the bottom of his next-door neighbor’s swimming pool. It was a lesson I’d never forgotten.

  I ran across the playground with Buster on my heels. The morning air was still and hot, and sweat poured down my face and burned my eyes. As I came to the fence that encompassed the property, I noticed a piece of torn fabric hanging in the twisted barbs across the top, and felt myself shudder.

  I scaled the fence, and landed on the other side. Buster began digging at the ground in an attempt to join me. I couldn’t wait, and plunged into the woods.

  There was no discernible path, the underbrush thick with weeds and exposed tree roots. More than once I nearly fell, only to right myself as I began to go down. In the distance I heard a thrashing sound accompanied by a boy’s muted screams.

  “Bobby! I’m coming!” I shouted.

  I charged toward the sound, the tree branches tearing at my face and arms. On the ground I spotted a child’s sneaker, and it gave me an adrenaline burst that propelled me through the dense trees and into a small clearing fronting the pond.

  The pond was several acres in size, its water dark and menacing. Twenty yards from where I stood, a boy’s head bobbed up and down. Bobby Monroe appeared to be sitting down in the water, his arms thrashing helplessly. Something beneath the water had latched on to him, and was pulling him down.

  Knowing what had gotten him, I dove in.

  Back when I was growing up, there had been as many alligators in south Florida as there had been people. Over the years the gator population had thinned out, but there were still plenty around, and every once in a while they attacked someone.

  “Bobby!”

  Bobby twisted his head at the sound of my voice. His eyes were filled with terror, and he was swallowing water. He was trying with all his might to stop from being pulled to the murky depths. If the gator got him down to the bottom of the pond, he’d roll the boy until he drowned, then turn him into a meal.

  “I’m coming! Hold on!”

  I’d swam competitively as a kid, and still swam whenever I could. I powered my body across the water, my eyes never leaving Bobby’s face.

  “Keep fighting!”

  Bobby’s head dropped beneath the surface, then came back up. He spit out a mouthful of brackish water while staring at me helplessly. His arms were no longer thrashing, his body rigid and still. He had given up. I lunged through the water and shot out my arm, only to see him vanish before my eyes.

  I am part Seminole Indian. I tell you this because as a kid I visited my relatives on the reservation, and watched men in the tribe wrestle alligators in front of tourists. I’d seen enough of these battles to know that there was an art to grappling with a gator, and it centered around getting your hands around its jaws and not letting go.

  I dove beneath the water and swam straight down. The water was dark and I couldn’t see a thing, but I could feel the gator’s tail thrashing the water. I followed the thrashing until I had the tail in my hands. Grabbing a gator by the tail wasn’t very smart, but I knew the gator was preoccupied and wasn’t about to let Bobby go.

  I got both my hands on the gator’s tail and pulled it close to me. Then I put the gator into a bear hug. The scales on its back were rough, and tore through my clothes and into my skin. From tail to nose it felt about six feet long, maybe two hundred pounds. He was a big one, and filled with fight.

  I squeezed him hard and got nowhere. Then I released one of my arms, and with my fingers tried to poke him in the eye. I’d seen this on the reservation once, and knew it was a surefire way to get a gator to open its mouth.

  But that didn’t work this time. I could stay underwater for over a minute, but I doubted Bobby could. He was drowning and I needed to do something fast. With my free hand, I drew the Colt 1908 Hammerless resting in my pants pocket, and shoved its barrel against the gator’s side. I’d never shot my gun underwater before, and had no idea if it would work. Only I was desperate and willing to give anything a try.

  I squeezed the trigger and heard the gun discharge. The gator twisted violently in my grasp, and then the fight started to leave its body. Shoving the Colt back into my pocket, I used both hands to remove Bobby’s leg from the gator’s jaws. The boy had gone limp, and I prayed I wasn’t too late.

  I came out of the water with Bobby draped in my arms. Officer Gordon was standing at the edge of the pond with Buster by his side. Gordon had his walkie-talkie out and was calling for an ambulance. My dog was covered in dirt—he had dug his way beneath the fence.
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  “For the love of Christ,” Gordon said.

  I laid Bobby facedown on the ground. He was still breathing, and I whacked him on the back until he spit up the water trapped in his lungs. Then I rolled him over.

  “Hey, kiddo,” I said.

  Bobby looked anxiously at me. He had curly black hair and the wholesome good looks every parent wishes for their child. His right foot was bleeding, and I removed his sneaker and sock to have a look. His sneaker had done a good job of protecting his foot, and although he was cut in several places, none of the cuts were very deep, and he still had all his toes. I grabbed his big toe and gave it a wiggle, and drew a smile out of him.

  “Hi, Bobby,” I said. “My name’s Jack, and this is Officer Gordon, and this is my dog Buster. We’re going to take you to the hospital. Okay?”

  Bobby did not respond. He was a hard kid to read. I glanced at Gordon.

  “Want to do the honors?” I asked.

  “You do it. He trusts you.”

  Kneeling, I gathered Bobby into my arms. As I started to lift him, the boy screamed, and pushed me away. I laid him back down.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” I said.

  Bobby screamed again and punched me with his fists.

  “I hear you like Indiana Jones movies. I do, too.”

  The boy kept screaming. I heard Gordon swear under his breath.

  “Sweet Jesus, would you look at that.”

  I turned around and looked into the pond. The dead alligator had risen to the surface, and was lying on top of the water a few yards from us.

  “Watch him.” I waded into the water and lifted the gator’s head up. He was bigger than I’d thought, and looked almost prehistoric. “Look, Bobby. He’s dead.”

  Bobby’s eyes grew as big as silver dollars, and he stopped screaming. I came out of the water and went to where he lay. This time when I picked him up, he did not resist, but burrowed his head into my chest and held me tight. I kissed the top of his wet head and headed back toward the school.

  CHAPTER 4

  ave no fear, Jack Carpenter is here,” a familiar voice said.

  Detective Candy Burrell slipped through the filmy white curtain that surrounded my bed in the emergency ward of Broward General Hospital. I’d followed Bobby Monroe’s ambulance to the hospital, then decided to have the cuts and bruises on my body examined by a doctor.

  Burrell knelt down to pet Buster, who lay dutifully beside my bed. Burrell got along famously with my dog, a rare member of an exclusive club.

  “Who taught you to wrestle alligators?” she asked.

  “It’s an old family tradition.”

  “I hear you’re pretty good at it.”

  “How’s Bobby doing?”

  “He’s going to be okay. How are you doing?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “Has anyone looked at your cuts yet?”

  I shook my head. The emergency ward was filled with people with problems far worse than mine, and I’d been lying on the bed for thirty minutes.

  “I need to ask a favor,” Burrell said.

  I moved my legs and patted the bed. Burrell sat down and smiled. Since getting my old job running Missing Persons, she’d started wearing pantsuits that showed off her trim, athletic figure. She was of Italian descent, small-boned and pretty, with slate-blue eyes that electrified her tanned face.

  “Name it,” I said.

  She started to speak, then glanced at the opening in the curtain. Down the hall, a man was talking in a loud, argumentative voice.

  “Wait. Who’s that?” I asked.

  “Frank Yonker.”

  “What’s that jerk doing here?”

  “He showed up in the emergency room with Bobby Monroe’s parents. He wants to get a statement from you.”

  “About what?”

  “He wants to know what happened at Lakeside Elementary this morning.”

  When kids get injured or traumatized during rescues, their parents sometimes sued the police for negligence. Frank Yonker was a local attorney who chased ambulances for a living, and had caused the department plenty of grief over the years.

  “What’s his beef?” I asked. “Bobby ran off school property and jumped into a pond. How can the police be liable for that?”

  “Yonker is claiming that no one from Missing Persons was at the school, and that we sent you instead of sending a qualified detective to handle the search.”

  “I’m not qualified?”

  “You were thrown off the force.”

  “Not to split hairs, but I resigned.”

  “You left under a dark cloud, and the newspapers called you bad names. Yonker wants to know why you were sent to Lakeside. Once he gets a statement from you, he’ll probably file his lawsuit.”

  I leaned back on my pillow. “So what’s the favor?”

  “I was wondering if you’d slip out the back door of the hospital and get your cuts tended to someplace else. The department will pick up the tab.”

  “What about Yonker?”

  “I’ll deal with him.”

  “You want me to turn into the invisible man.”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “For you, anything.”

  Burrell patted my leg. “That’s my Jack.”

  “Can I give you some advice about dealing with Yonker?”

  She started to reply, then simply nodded.

  “Yonker is a tough character,” I said. “If he can’t get to me, he’ll work on you, and try to prove that you were negligent in the way you handled the case. You need to establish a timeline in case this goes to court. Write down everything you did this morning, starting from what time you got to work, when you got to the courthouse, and when you got the call that Bobby Monroe was missing. Have the other detectives in Missing Persons do the same.”

  “What will that prove?”

  “That you were doing your job when the call came, and acted appropriately. Do it now, while it’s fresh in your memory. When Yonker goes to interview you, hand him the timelines, and let him see what he’s up against. More than likely, he’ll go away.”

  “You think so?”

  “He doesn’t make money when he loses.”

  Burrell rose from the bed and planted a kiss on my cheek. “By the way, Chief Moody wants you to join him for a drink after work. He really appreciates what you did.”

  I climbed out of bed. Chief Moody was the reason I was no longer a cop, and I couldn’t see clinking glasses with him while reminiscing about the good old days.

  “Tell him I’ll take a rain check,” I said. “My daughter’s in town playing in a college basketball tournament tonight.”

  “Couldn’t you just have a drink with him?”

  “Why should I?”

  “You should mend fences. It’s healthy.”

  I pulled back the curtain beside my bed. The hospital bed next to mine was unoccupied. I’d found my escape route. I snapped my fingers for Buster, who rose from the floor.

  “Tell Moody to meet me at the Bank Atlantic Center at seven o’clock,” I said. “We can have a couple of cold ones in the parking lot before the game.”

  Burrell rolled her eyes. “Right.”

  I slipped through the curtain with my dog.

  “See you later,” I said.

  CHAPTER 5

  got out of Broward General without Frank Yonker spotting me, and drove to a nearby walk-in clinic. Parking in a shady spot, I rolled down the windows. Buster took the hint, and went to sleep in the back.

  The clinic was filled with screaming kids and moaning old people. I was put into an examination room and told by a nurse that a doctor would be in shortly. Having nothing better to do, I took apart my Colt on the examining table, and used a Q-tip and some cotton balls I filched from a medicine cabinet to clean it.

  I’d started carrying a 1908 Colt Pocket Hammerless my first day as a detective, and I considered it the best concealment weapon in the world. It was thinner than most handguns
, and because there was no hammer to catch on my clothing, it was an easy draw. It had gotten me out of many tight situations, and had never let me down. They say you are in love with a gun when you see one dropped on TV and are afraid it might get scratched. That was how I felt about my Colt.

  I had my guy reassembled and back in my pocket by the time a doctor entered the room. He looked Middle Eastern and spoke with a heavy British accent. I removed my shirt and pants, and showed him the cuts on my body. He asked me how I’d gotten them.

  “Wrestling with an alligator,” I replied.

  The doctor rolled his eyes.

  “Now I’ve heard everything,” he said.

  I left the clinic covered in Band-Aids. Walking to my car, I powered up my cell phone and found a message waiting from my daughter, Jessie. She’d called from the Bank Atlantic Center, where she and her teammates were practicing for tonight’s basketball game. There was urgency to her voice, and I called her back.

  “Thanks for calling me back so fast,” my daughter said.

  “Anything for you,” I said.

  “Are you coming to the game tonight? A bunch of the girls’ fathers said they’ll be there.”

  “Of course I’m coming to the game. Now tell me what’s going on.”

  “There’s been a creepy guy with a video camera lurking around the court during practice. He kept shooting closeups of the team, even when we were just standing around listening to Coach. He’s got a press badge, but something tells me he’s a stalker. I asked one of the security guards to talk to him, but the guy disappeared.”

  Bad guys trying to get close to young women often posed as TV reporters or fashion photographers. I said, “What did he look like?”

  “He was white, kinda short and thin, in his late forties. He was wearing dirty Bermuda shorts, a faded blue T-shirt, and a baseball cap. During the break, I tried to snap a photo of him with my cell phone, but he took off running.”

  “You might have scared him away.”

  “He’ll be back, Daddy.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’d bet money on it.”

  Intuition was the messenger of fear. Jessie’s gut was telling her that this guy was a threat. It was time to stop questioning and start helping.