Wasp Canyon

by Danielle McCrory

  El chupacabra, he thought again, and shoved the thought back into the darkness of his mind where it belonged.

  The final thing nagging at him—like a mesquite thorn tearing at his side—was the patio furniture. All of Arlington’s patio furniture had been knocked over, including a large stone table that must have been a bitch to flip. Arlington had mentioned kids playing a prank during his 911 call, but Moser didn’t think there was a chance in hell kids flipped that table. And listening to the recording of the call, it was obvious everything was not knocked over at once. Arlington had heard something, called 911, and then heard at least two more things fall over during the duration of the call. So something knocked a piece of furniture over, waited, knocked another piece over, waited again, and continued until Arlington went outside to investigate.

  Moser thought about Ava Cuthbertson’s yard and the large planters that had been knocked over. He had found that suspicious then, and he found it damning now. Something—the same something that was at Arlington’s house—had knocked over Cuthbertson’s planters to lure her outside. She had been less apprehensive than Arlington and went outside sooner, so fewer things were toppled over.

  Multiple reports from the 1987 slayings indicated that backyard items—lawn furniture and the like—were knocked over in an attempt to lure the victim outside. The wife of one victim recounted that the noise had awoken her and her husband, and when he went outside to investigate she heard him start screaming. He was found in roughly the same shape as all the Wasp Canyon victims: savagely mauled, face up, barely eaten.

  Moser's mind turned to Jessica Cleary. Not about her at the station explaining her theory about the creature, but about her on the telephone the first time he talked to her following Jasper’s attack. Four words kept echoing in his head, like a broken record playing an endless loop of sickening realization: it set a trap, it set a trap, it set a trap, it set a trap . . .

  Jessica had been referring to the large rock she had tripped over, causing her to almost suffer the same fate as Cameron Jasper. And Ava Cuthbertson. And Desmond Arlington. And Taylor Kilburn. Jessica had insisted the rock was not in the trail when she entered the canyon, nor had the body of Jasper. What Moser had brushed off as a starving animal’s desperate attempt to hide its meal might have been a trap all along. The rock, the planters, the heavy patio table. It set a trap, it set a trap, it set a trap . . .

  How smart does an animal have to be to set that kind of trap? A large, powerful, intelligent predator that apparently kills for fun? The Desert Destroyer, indeed.

  El chupacabra, his mind whispered yet again. And this time, Moser did not shake the thought away.

  Chapter 43

  Valley Palms Apartments was located two miles south of Orion Street, just past the Arizona Multiplex. The apartment complex was a simple one, the builders forgoing a labyrinth of streets for one road which made a large loop around the complex. Apartments were located on the outer side of the loop, facing outward toward the valley of Tucson to the south or the mountains to the north. A small, modest pool sat in the center of the grounds, a few palm trees towering over the shimmering blue water. Valley Palms was not known for having luxurious living spaces or favorable amenities, but the units were affordable, the grounds safe, and the neighborhood relatively quiet.

  Jessica chose Valley Palms due to its proximity to the Arizona Multiplex, the largest mall center in the city. It had an impressive shopping mall, movie theater, and restaurants for all tastes dotting the parking lot. Minstrel’s Steakhouse was one of the restaurants, and Jessica had been a server there for the past five years. Her employment at Minstrel’s began as a part-time job while she attended the university; however, career options were slim when she graduated with her bachelor’s degree in advertising in 2016. Jessica stayed on at Minstrel’s, not knowing what the next step in her life should be. Calls from the Federal Student Loan Department became more frequent, and like so many other twenty-somethings, Jessica felt like she was drowning in a new adulthood that held so many possibilities, yet so few at the same time.

  Within four months of graduating with her advertising degree, Jessica’s father’s cancer was discovered. Jessica’s interest in figuring out the next step in her life withered away as she watched with helpless dread as her father withered away as well. When he passed away on that horrible August morning in 2017, Jessica felt what little motivation she had for her future die with him. She resigned herself to serving, to Minstrel’s, and to the Valley Palms Apartments with its single road and single pool.

  On August 13th, just two weeks shy of the anniversary of her father’s death, Jessica stood in her one-bedroom apartment and stared out the window at the cityscape. Tucson’s city view was not very awe-inspiring; the buildings were low and the landscape a relentless beige. But at night, as the lights began to twinkle and the beige faded away, the view could definitely draw some attention. However, in the light of day, it appeared drab and lifeless.

  Jessica turned away from the window and began pacing again, her boot muffled on the beige—going on gray—carpet in her living room. Valley Palm’s policy was to change out the carpets with each new tenant, but Jessica had now been at the apartment for over five years and the carpet was beginning to show signs of wear and age. The plush beige when she moved in was now becoming a crumpled gray. Jessica had felt like her life was becoming a crumpled gray as well, but now splatters of red were splashed across the gray, screaming at her to get up and take action. Before it was too late.

  She paced the length of the room, each time glancing at the dull city view as she came to the window. The wall clock ticked, her boot clunked softly on the carpet, and her jeans swished together as she walked rapidly from one side of the room to the other. A knock finally came at the door, interrupting the mundane quiet. Jessica rushed to the door and opened it without checking the peephole.

  ☼ ☼ ☼

  Claire was quickly ushered inside, startled by how frantic Jessica appeared. “What took so long?” Jessica asked, shutting and locking the door behind her.

  Claire made her way over to the single sofa in the room—a lumpy, burgundy thing that was more comfortable than it was eye-catching (as long as you knew where to sit). Claire knew exactly where to sit for optimum comfort, and sat down with a grunt.

  “Some people still have to work, you know,” she said. Claire already knew what this meeting was about; she had heard nothing but talk about the news all day. (Two more victims, can you believe it? We have a serial killer in our midst!) And the fact that Jessica had chosen her apartment for their rendezvous instead of her mother’s house was even more foreboding—whatever Jessica wanted to say, she did not want to risk her mother overhearing.

  Jessica grabbed a crumpled pile of papers from the kitchen counter and came over to the coffee table. Instead of sitting next to Claire, she sat down on the floor across from her, placing the stack of papers in the center of the table. Claire recognized them; they were the printouts Jessica had used during her chupacabra discussions. A blurry picture was on the top page—a night scene with a fence and an unidentifiable creature moving quickly on the other side. The poor quality of the photograph left very little for the viewer to identify, except for the glint of what appeared to be large teeth. Claire looked away, she did not need to see those teeth after all the stories she had been subjected to during her shift at Desert Beauties Salon and Spa.

  “I’m assuming you already heard?” Jessica asked.

  “Yeah, it was hard to miss. Everyone at work was talking about it.”

  “That makes four. Four people that have died because of this thing,” Jessica said as she pointed to the blurry picture. “It even got a cop, Claire.”

  Claire looked at the picture again. It was almost worse being all blurry like that—it left way too much to the imagination. If you saw what it actually was, maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as you thought—maybe the beast in your head was by far more vicious-looking than the beast itself.

&n
bsp; “It is that bad,” Jessica said, reading her mind.

  “Huh?” Claire asked.

  “The chupacabra. You think maybe it’s not as bad as the papers are making it out to be. But Claire, it is that bad.”

  “Yeah, I guess I know that already.” Claire grabbed the top page and turned it over, wishing for nothing more than those blurry teeth to stop staring up at her. The teeth seemed to have a mind of their own—just tear, shred, and destroy.

  “I’m assuming you know all the details then?” Jessica produced a copy of the Tucson Daily Tribune from the stack of papers. The front page said “Four People Now Slain in Wasp Canyon Attacks.”

  Claire nodded. “Yeah, they had a copy of the paper at work. We always have one in the lobby.” Claire looked at the expanse of articles and printouts scattered across the coffee table. “Jessica, how do you still have all these papers? I thought your mom would have—”

  “I hid them under my mattress,” she said. “You figured correctly. My mom wants nothing to do with this. And she wants me to have nothing to do with this. She just keeps saying to let the police handle it.”

  “And where does your mom think you are right now?”

  “Dr. Wyatt’s.”

  “Did you cancel or just not show up?”

  Jessica shifted her weight on the floor, looking nervous. “Just didn’t show up,” she said. She pointed to the papers on the table. “I’m too busy right now! And it’s not like Wyatt believes me anyway.”

  “Your mom is going to find out, you know that right?”

  Jessica sighed. “Yeah I know. But . . . God! I love her to death, but sometimes she can be so suffocating.” Jessica stared at the window for a while, thinking. “It’s like one of those big tarp things that covers a swimming pool in the winter,” she said. “ It’s meant to protect the pool, but if you got it wrapped around you it would end up dragging you down while you struggled to break free. The more you struggle the more entangled you would become. Eventually, it would cover you completely and the surface would be somewhere overhead, but unreachable.”

  Claire stared at Jessica, speechless.

  “Anyway, by the time she finds out it won’t matter anymore,” Jessica said.

  Claire decided to let the whole pool tarp metaphor slide by. She didn’t need to be thinking about any more tarps—not for a pool and not to cover up a poor elderly woman’s blood. “Why’s that?” she asked instead.

  “Because this is all going to be over soon.”

  Claire leaned forward on the couch, hearing the familiar ping! of the loose spring buried somewhere under the cushions. “How do you know that?” she asked.

  “Because we are going to stop it before it happens again,” Jessica said.

  “Why now? In a couple weeks,” Claire gestured to the window, and to the clouds that were building on the horizon, “this will all be over. You said it. You said when the rain stops it stops. Well, monsoon season is almost over! We don’t have to do anything.” Desperation filled Claire’s voice, shoved up by the fear that was clenching at her chest.

  Jessica sighed, disappointed. Claire winced at the sound. Despite all the craziness, she didn’t want to disappoint her friend. She had gotten on board with this whole thing, wasn’t that enough? And it’s not like they were going to stop it. They had zero guns, and were just about as far from Rambo as you could get. They couldn’t stop a sickly bear, let alone the actual demon at hand. And that’s what it is, she thought. A demon. It certainly looks like it could be featured in some Nat Geo book from hell. By God, it could even be the cover art.

  “Monsoon season can last well into September, you know that,” Jessica said. “But that’s not the point.” She fished through some of the papers and pulled out the aerial map of Wasp Canyon Estates. She rotated it so it was facing Claire. Jessica pointed at the green crevice running between two of the mountain ridges. “This is Wasp Canyon.”

  “Yeah, Jessica, I know that already.” Claire rolled her eyes. Even so, she leaned forward to take a better look at the page. The couch pinged! again.

  Jessica traced her finger to the first—and largest—white roof. “This is Ava Cuthbertson’s house.”

  Claire recognized the circular driveway from the aerial shot in the newspaper. It looked a lot better without all the cop cars and ambulances on it. “I recognize the driveway.”

  Jessica’s finger went down the map, further south. It stopped at the next white roof. “This is Desmond Arlington’s house.”

  The fear grabbing at Claire’s chest shot up into her throat. She saw where this was going, and she wanted it to stop. Just say uncle and run out the door, she thought. Instead she asked, “Where Arlington and the cop were killed?”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Jessica moved her finger back to the canyon and started listing names as she dragged her finger southward. “Cameron Jasper . . . Ava Cuthbertson . . . Desmond Arlington . . .” Her finger stopped at the next white roof.

  “Who lives there?” Claire asked.

  “That’s Cameron’s house.”

  “Huh? But he died first?” Claire felt foolish the second she said it, her mind already making the connection. She let Jessica explain it anyway, hearing the words made it sound more real.

  “Cameron died because he was in the canyon. If he was a homebody—like everyone else seems to be in Wasp Canyon—he would be next on the list instead of first.”

  “How do you know it is going to go from house to house? Couldn’t it go a different way?”

  Jessica pointed at the canyon again, jabbing her finger at it as if there was a bug there that needed to be squashed. “It lives in there, Claire. We’ve already established it can’t be out in the daylight. It cannot go too far from the shelter of the canyon. It comes out at night and heads in the same direction to where it has found food before: south.”

  “But during the attacks in the eighties it didn’t go from one house to the next—it jumped around. Houses were attacked all over that neighborhood. Why wouldn’t it do the same thing here? It could go across the street next, couldn’t it? Instead of south.”

  “In 1987, it was hunting in a neighborhood where the houses were very close together. It could go to any house it wanted, because there were so many to choose from.” Jessica fished out an aerial map of the town in south Tucson and laid it next to the Wasp Canyon map. “Look how close together these houses are. It was practically an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

  Claire looked at the south Tucson neighborhood. It was true—all the houses were clustered together. Backyards were slim, if there were any at all. Each house was just a stone's throw from the next. And just north of the neighborhood was the mountain range, with a dark green crevice of a canyon running through it. The creature could have easily come out of the canyon at sundown and chosen any house in the neighborhood for its next meal—and had plenty of time to get back to the canyon before sunrise.

  “Wasp Canyon Estates is different,” Jessica said, bringing the Wasp Canyon map to the center of the table again. “All these houses are very spread out. Each estate has acres and acres of land. Not to mention the mountains themselves are set back a little further from the neighborhood. I’ve measured the distance during my runs. Four miles. From the mouth of the canyon it takes four miles just to get to the start of the houses. The chupacabra can’t be so picky in this situation.”

  Jessica pointed at the canyon entrance again. “When it comes out of the canyon it will go in the direction it found food before.” She traced her finger south from one white roof to the next. “It found food here,” she pointed at the Cuthbertson house. “Then here,” she pointed to Arlington’s house. “The next time it looks for food, it will go here,” her finger fell on Cameron Jasper’s house.

  “But there is no food there, right?” Claire asked. “Since Cameron already died.”

  “Correct,” Jessica said. “But what happens when it doesn’t find food at this house? It’s not going to start wandering around aimlessly. Th
e houses on the other side of Wasp Canyon Road are at least a mile away from the houses on this side. It’s going to continue in the direction it has been going.” Jessica’s finger headed toward the next white square on the path to Orion Street.

  Claire’s eyes followed her finger until it stopped at the next roof. “Who lives there?” Claire asked.

  “That would be the McElroy’s,” Jessica said. “Husband, wife, and two children.”

  Claire groaned and leaned back on the couch, a ping! issuing from somewhere deep inside. She placed her hands in front of her eyes even though they were already closed, as if closing them and covering them at the same time would make it all go away. Her muffled voice came out from behind her hands, “And how old are those kids?”

  “One is seven, the other is twelve.”

  Claire hid behind her outstretched fingers, listening to the sound of her breath inside her hands. “Fuuuck,” she said, drawing the word out during one long, exaggerated exhale. She sat up abruptly, the ping! inside the couch going unnoticed. “Can’t you call them? Tell them they’re next and to get the hell out?”

  Jessica shook her head. “And you think they would believe me? If the police say they are fine, why would they listen to some stranger?”

  “Well, why the hell are the police saying they are fine?” Claire exclaimed. She was beginning to feel the same outrage and helplessness that Jessica had been feeling all along. Why in the name of God were the cops not doing anything?

  “The police refuse to accept any explanation that isn’t logical. That was pretty obvious when we talked with that Moser guy at the police station. I told him exactly what was doing this, and he looked the other way.” Jessica paused, looking at the white roof of the McElroy house. Finally she said, “That’s why we need to give them proof.”

  “Proof?” Claire asked. “Please God, don’t tell me we are supposed to supply the proof.”

  “In 1987 they never caught it. We don’t even know if it is the same one. I’m not sure how long they live. Anyway, the police were never willing to look for anything other than the usual suspects—mountain lion, bear, deranged person. They couldn’t find anything going off those assumptions. Which means they never found it. And seventeen people died.