“What the hell,” I muttered and jogged off after them.
* * *
Thankfully, the drizzle stopped shortly thereafter, and for the next two hours we jogged around in the dark. As much as I like a good workout, I have to admit, I was starting to think it was all just a big snipe hunt—that at some point assholes with cameras were going to pop out of the bushes and tell me I’d been pranked. I’m pretty sure I’d shoot the first son-of-a-bitch who started laughing.
I have to give the pig some credit though. He was either the luckiest animal alive or the smartest. The damn thing managed to avoid every single cop patrol, dashing from tree to tree and stopping to look back, making sure we all caught up. And then he was off again.
The three chefs dropped over a low hill after the pig, and as I crested it, I realized we were at the turtle pond. I spotted Ennio’s considerable girth passing through a bush and followed him through it. When I came out the other side, I saw the others standing before a low culvert with a row of thick steel bars blocking it. The bars were about eight inches apart, and I couldn’t see the pig. I stepped up to them and heard them whispering. I could just make out Charlemagne snorting a short distance inside the tunnel as it approached, and it finally came into view just beyond the bars.
“Dead end, eh?” I asked, catching my breath.
“Not exactly,” Ennio muttered. “I was hoping we’d find the thing out in the open.” He sounded like he just got nominated to jump into a meat grinder.
“You’re saying it went in there?” I asked. I couldn’t see how something nearly two meters wide could make it through an eight-inch gap. “There’s no way,” I added, shaking my head.
“Look at the ground,” Francois said.
I pulled out my flashlight, pausing a moment to see if I could see or hear any of the police patrols. Satisfied, I knelt down in front of the bars and shined my flashlight. There was a swath of glistening, viscous fluid on the ground nearly two meters wide leading right up to the bars. The trail narrowed at the bars, and whatever had left it passed between them. I could see it widen beyond the bars, right back to its original width.
I reached down, tapped my finger in the slimy stuff and rubbed it between my fingers. There was a sharp tingling sensation and then my fingertips went numb.
“What the—?” I said, and rubbed it off on my pants.
“It’s toxic,” Francois explained. “Probably some sort of anesthetic to stun its victims.”
“We didn’t expect that,” Yoshiko added, and for the first time there was a bit of fear in her voice. “Some species are known to use it on their prey as well as a defense.”
“Okay,” I growled. “That’s enough of this secrecy bullshit. I’m not taking one more god damn step until you tell me what the fuck we’re dealing with.”
Ennio gently placed his hand on my shoulder to calm me down. “At first we thought it was a snail.”
The words crashed into my brain like a sledge hammer.
“A fucking snail?” In that moment, I was really hoping guys with cameras would jump out of the bushes.
“Okay,” Ennio added almost defensively, “a really big snail.”
I had the sudden urge to yank what was left of my hair out by the roots.
“Look, assuming I believed you—which I don’t, by the way—there’s no way a snail two meters wide could get its shell through those bars!”
“Exactement,” Francois added slowly. “So, this is something else.”
“Correct,” Yoshiko added with grim resolve.
For a moment, I considered whether or not I could shoot them all where they stood, fudge the report, and claim it was self-defense. What little reason I had left smacked some sense into my brain. “So,” I took a long breath to keep from screaming at them, “for argument’s sake, let’s assume it’s not a snail. What do you think the thing is?”
The question hung between us. Yoshiko and Ennio cast expectant glances at Francois who stared at the tip of his combat boot as he twisted it in the dirt like a kid. Finally, he looked up at me and said, “It must be a slug … approximately twelve meters long.”
At first all I could do was stand there blinking at him. Images of a twelve-meter slug slithered into my brain, and the rational part of me did everything it could to smash the image into a puddle of goo.
When I could finally use my vocal chords, I asked, “Are you serious?”
“It is the only explanation,” Francois replied. He raised his hand and started ticking off fingers as he made his points. “The mucus, the feeding, its need for moisture, and its ability to slither through these bars. And Yoshiko is correct. There are some species with poisonous aspects to their mucus.” He raised his hands in a ‘what else’ gesture. “It is either a monstrous slug or an alien that resembles slugs.” He hit me with a steely look. “Take your pick. And if it is a slug that can hunt and kill humans, then it must be considerably faster then what one would expect from any normal invertebrate.”
I suddenly understood exactly what my boss Dickerson had felt. Some things the mind just didn’t want to latch on to. And without a firm grasp, the mind tended to cast the impossible aside with a big fat BULLSHIT label stamped on it. But I’d seen what was left of the bodies, and I couldn’t argue with Francois. Everything fit.
“To it,” Francois said quietly, “we are nothing more than tasty morsels.” His eyes burned with fierce determination. “But tonight, the tables will be turned, non? We shall track the beast to its lair and end this reign of terror.”
I looked at the grim determination on the faces of all three chefs and realized I was pretty much committed. “Sure, Francois,” I replied with a heavy dollop of apathy. At that point, I was ready to go along with just about anything. Of course, if we got caught and there wasn’t a twelve-meter slug crawling around the sewers somewhere, I was likely to be committed shortly thereafter. “So …” I started, unzipping my windbreaker and peeling it off. “How do we get past the bars?”
“Good question,” Ennio said quietly.
“I came prepared,” Francois said. He pulled off his backpack and set it on the ground at his feet. “I have something I’ve been saving, appropriately, for a rainy day.” Unzipping a side pocket of the pack, he pulled out about three feet of bright orange det-chord and some duct tape. My eyes went wide. The sword, goggles, and guns were bad enough, but plastic explosives were something else altogether. Francois didn’t even look at me as he asked, “Yoshiko, would you apply about four wraps to the top and bottom of two bars?” She grabbed the stuff and walked over to the bars. From another pouch, Francois removed four small remote detonators and a trigger. “Hold this,” he said and leaned the backpack against my leg. He went over to the bars and stuck a detonator in each of the det-chord wraps as Yoshiko finished them up.
“When you set those off, it’s likely to bring the cops,” I said nervously.
“Perhaps, but this is a secluded and well-hidden spot. If they come, they may not even see what was done.”
“I guess we’ll have to risk it,” I said, “Eh, Francois?” At that point, I was beyond caring. If he pulled out a bazooka, I’d just be grateful he had one.
“Exactement,” he replied easily. “Now everyone get off to the side.”
We did as he instructed, putting our backs against the concrete about ten feet away from the culvert. Francois snapped his fingers twice, and we heard a soft clattering of hooves. The pig slid out through the bars and followed Francois as he moved up beside us.
He looked at me and smiled. “Would you like to do the honors?” he asked, holding out the trigger.
I grabbed the thing with a bored expression on my face. “Sure, Francois. That might almost make this shit legal.”
He chuckled as he held up three fingers and counted down, “Trois … deux, UN!”
I hit the trigger. There was a flash and explosion—rather like a gunshot but sharper, crisper—and then we heard two steel bars hit the ground.
&
nbsp; “Voila!” Francois said, a smug look on his face. He reached into his pack and pulled out a set of night vision goggles. “Here, Alex, this should make things easier.” He handed me the goggles and waited while I put them on. With a satisfied nod, he said, “Now let us go get our monster.” He picked up the backpack, slung it over his shoulders, and headed towards the gap in the bars with Charlemagne stuck to his heels. “Allons-y!” he said, throwing a smile at us as he lowered the night vision goggles over his eyes and disappeared into the sewer line.
Yoshiko went in next, followed by Ennio, both of whom settled the goggles on their faces. With a sigh, I dropped my goggles down, hefted the MP5, and stepped into the pipe.
* * *
The goggles sheathed everything in a monochrome green, and we could all see perfectly. We moved from one sewer line to the next, hot on the trail of the relentless Charlemagne. Most of the time I heard more than saw the pig as he moved ahead of us and then clattered back to grunt at Francois a few times. Francois would say something encouraging in French and then off Charlemagne would go, disappearing into the inky-green darkness beyond. Sometimes I’d spot Charlemagne pause at intersections, waiting for us to catch up. As we neared, he would sniff the air and dart off to the next sewer line. The pig really moved with a purpose.
I, on the other hand, didn’t have the slightest fucking idea where I was, so I did my best to take comfort in the idea that at least the pig knew where we were going.
An hour later I picked up the faint odor of something distinctly unpleasant, and it got worse as we moved forward. We finally came to a large, circular area about forty feet across covered in water. Charlemagne stood at the edge of the water, swiveling his head back and forth, with Francois kneeling behind him. As I approached, I could see steel rungs set in the wall on the far side, and they led up to a manhole cover thirty feet above. We were obviously in a water retention chamber.
Water poured in from several, high, narrow drain pipes, each of them releasing their flow at about the rate of a kitchen faucet turned on low. The sewer line we’d been walking up was nearly dry, so I guessed there was a drain in the bottom somewhere.
The three chefs stepped out into water, and I could see it was about four inches deep. Charlemagne had leapt out into the water and was circling around, seemingly quite pleased with being immersed up to his belly. As I reached the edge of the water, the smell hit me full force, assaulting my nostrils. It took everything I had to keep from vomiting, and my eyes watered from the fumes. I pulled my shirt up over my nose to try and filter some out, but there was no escaping it.
“What is that smell?” I asked. My voice sounded hollow as it echoed off the concrete walls.
“It is … how do you say in English … excrement?”
“Excrement,” Yoshiko replied, smiling. The smell didn’t seem to bother her at all.
“In Brooklyn, we call it shit,” Ennio added. And he seemed to be as unaffected as Yoshiko. In fact, I appeared to be the only one suffering. Must be a chef thing, I thought.
“Shit, hunh?” I asked. “I didn’t know they did that.” Never, in my entire career, did I ever expect to be sloshing through a sewer, chasing down a monster slug, and keep from puking because its feces smelled worse than bloated corpses left too long in the sun. They sure as hell didn’t include anything like this in the FBI training manual.
“You didn’t think slugs could shit?” Yoshiko asked, the green glow of her goggles giving her an almost demonic look.
“I guess I never really thought about it,” I replied.
Ennio chimed in from the far side of the chamber, “You’re probably one of those people who think cocktail shrimp come out of the ocean looking like that. All pink and white and ready to eat.” All three of them chuckled in the darkness. I could tell they weren’t quite laughing at me, but there was the faint trace of superiority I’d heard from a lot of chefs.
“It must be from the beast,” Francois observed. “I believe we are near its lair.” He knelt down again and whispered something into Charlemagne’s ear. Like before, the pig snorted once, nodded its head, and disappeared into one of the sewer lines to the left.
Francois stood slowly. “This is a good spot.” He stepped over to the sewer line where we’d entered and set his pack on the concrete. “Now we wait.” He opened his pack and pulled out two five pound bags of salt.
“Can’t argue with that,” Ennio said as he stepped up to the sewer line where Charlemagne had disappeared. He dropped the trash bag—which he’d been carrying this entire time—onto the concrete with a muffled thud.
“Yoshiko,” Francois called out, “would you mind spreading one of these each around the entrance to each sewer line?”
“I brought some too,” she said.
“What’s that for?” I asked as she grabbed the two packages. “Seasoning?”
“No,” Francois said with a gentle smile. “If the beast attempts to cross it, it will dissolve the tissue and, I’m hoping, cause some pain. In theory, it should keep it from disappearing down one of the sewers once we spring our trap.”
“Ahh,” I said quietly. There was obviously a lot I didn’t know about slugs.
Yoshiko opened one of the packages and quickly spread its contents across the floor of the furthest sewer line.
“Hey, Alex,” Ennio said, motioning for me to come over. “I got a little job for you.” The smile on his face would have been precious if it wasn’t aimed at me.
“And what’s that?” I asked, stepping up cautiously. I had a funny feeling I wasn’t going to like this.
“It’s really simple,” he said, as he opened the bag. “Just take these and leave a line of them down that tunnel where Charlie went. Space them about ten feet apart.”
I peeked into the bag and drew back quickly from yet another unpleasant odor that wafted up.
Rotten lettuce.
I scowled at him. “Why the fuck do I get bait duty?” I asked,
“Two reasons.” He held up a finger. “One, the FBI pays you to risk your life—we only get paid if we bag the beastie.” I couldn’t tell if he was being snotty or merely blunt. “And two,”—he held up another finger—“have you ever shot ballistics gelatin with a nine-milli … automatic or otherwise?”
“No,” I said. I’d always left that sort of thing up to the lab boys. The rubber-like substance was used during ballistics testing and impact trauma assessments. The stuff responds to bullets in a similar fashion as human bodies.
“I have,” he said with convincing certainty. “Our monster is likely to have the same consistency as that jelly-stuff—hard, resilient, and prone to just swallowing bullets. You shoot it with that piss-ant little MP5, and all you’re gonna do is make it mad.” Reaching up over his shoulder, he grabbed the gunstock, yanked out a pump-action 12-gauge, and chambered a round with a fast and easy CLICK-CLAK! He smiled victoriously. “I told you to bring a shotgun.”
They all smiled, and I suddenly felt like a worm on a fucking hook. My 12-gauge was securely tucked away in the trunk of my car. I thought I was being clever bringing the machine gun when I’d taken it out of the gun safe. Stupid.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Gimme the god damn bag.”
Ennio handed it over and bowed. He rose with a shit-eating grin on his face and said, “Grazie, signore.”
“Up yours,” I said, which got him to chuckling. I turned, stepped up into the sewer line, and walked in a few steps. It occurred to me that the goggles only exposed about twenty feet of pipe ahead of me. Beyond that was nothing more than a green-tinted void that looked ready to swallow me.
“If it comes down the tunnel at you,” Ennio called from behind, “don’t fuck around. High-tail it outa there and bring the thing to us.”
I was about to tell him to keep his voice down, but the whole point was to draw the thing to us. “Don’t worry,” I said instead, locking eyes with him. “If I happen to see a two-meter-wide slug in that tunnel, I’m going to break the sound barrier r
unning back here.” I reached into the bag, grabbed a rotten head of lettuce—grimacing as my fingers sunk into the decaying leaves—and dropped it at my feet. “You just make damn sure you check your target before you unload with that scatter gun!”
“Don’t get your panties in a bind, for Christ’s sake!” he said, laughing. “I’m not gonna shoot you. Who knew you FBI guys were so skittish!”
“How about you give me the shotgun and I stand guard while you slop the hog?” I made no effort whatsoever to hide the irritation in my voice.
“You’re doing just fine, chief,” Ennio called back. “Besides, you can run faster than I can.” He patted the healthy expanse of his belly.
“Shit,” I mumbled. He was right, of course, so I started down the tunnel. After ten feet, I dropped the first head and kept going. Another ten feet, another mushy head plopped down onto the concrete. Ten feet … plop. Ten feet … plop.
I was down to the last head of lettuce when I heard the ear-splitting, high-pitched squeal of a terrified pig. The sound of it poured down the tunnel, wrapped around me, and shivered along the concrete tube.
“Charlemagne!” I heard Francois shout behind me.
The squeal stopped as quickly as it started. I had no idea how far ahead the pig might be. I could only hope the poor little bugger hadn’t ended up a bacon tartar appetizer.
I held my breath, trying to hear something—anything—from within the green ochre that filled my vision.
“Alex!” someone hissed behind me. It was a distant whisper, probably from Ennio, but it was too far to tell.
I heard clattering hooves.
I slipped my hand beneath my jacket and unslung the MP5, taking a steady aim down the tunnel. With a quiet snick, I turned the safety off.
The hooves got louder as Charlemagne raced down the pipe. I couldn’t see him yet, but I knew he wasn’t alone. I could just make out a pulsating hiss that traveled with him, as if something large and wet was being dragged in spurts across a tile floor.
The clattering and hissing sounded like they were right on top of me, and then out of the gloom I saw the two, low, bouncing green dots of Charlemagne’s eyes as he came at me. Behind it some distance—you have no depth perception with night vision goggles—were two huge glowing orbs coming at me at eye level, and it was keeping up with the pig.
Paranormal Short Stories Page 4
