by J P Barnett
Shandi and Deirdre kept arguing. Jake couldn’t pay attention. He had to focus. It took all his concentration. He tried to think of everything that the beast would need to understand his meaning. He thought of the backdoor to the house, where the beast had smashed in the last door. He thought of the stuffed animal Shandi had mentioned. He called the beast’s name. Billy echoed through his mind. He didn’t know if the beast even knew his own name anymore.
Though it was labored and difficult, Jake focused harder on pushing himself into a meditative state. The minutes melted away. Jake lost track of how long he focused on calling Billy. Every time Shandi or Deirdre distracted him, he pushed it away and went over all the details in his mind again. He pleaded for Billy to save him with all his waning strength, but nothing happened.
Jake gave up hope, realizing that his pleading would not save them. His efforts better served them by teaming up with Shandi to overpower Deirdre in some other way. Jake opened his eyes again and looked up at Deirdre. Her fingers tensely curled around the trigger, threatening to shoot Shandi at any moment. He took stock of his strength and wondered if he would be able to get himself over to Deirdre, to at least trip her and knock off her aim.
Though already overflowing with fear, Jake suddenly felt a new wave of it surge through his mind. It felt foreign, not like his own fear, but like an empathetic understanding of someone else’s. It took him a few seconds before he found the truth of the situation. The beast had arrived. He knew it. He felt it.
When he looked up again, Billy hulked in the doorway behind Deirdre. Jake looked to Shandi, her eyes wide with fear. Yes, the beast was here.
Billy’s massive frame surprised Jake, even though he had seen it in videos and pictures. The overwhelming fear made room for a small amount of fascination. He had brought this monster to them. He could direct Billy. He could save them.
Deirdre noticed them both staring at the doorway. At first, she seemed reticent to turn around, clearly wanting to keep the gun on Shandi, but as their eyes got wider, and the fear on their faces became more apparent, she couldn’t resist.
Deirdre let her arm fall to her side as she turned, somehow sensing that a gun wouldn’t save her. The beast let out an inhuman growl, chilling Jake to his bones. Time seemed to stand still. Jake’s heart pounded, and he regretted that he brought Billy here. He didn’t want to be responsible for Deirdre’s death. She spun back around, took two steps forward, and pulled the gun straight up to Jake’s face.
He panicked, pushing away his regret and scrambling to save himself from death. He couldn’t stop a bullet, but maybe he could stop Deirdre. He shut his eyes and forced himself to conjure the image of Deirdre in his head again. He tried to imagine her how she appeared right there in that moment, but his mind only presented Dee, from high school, with her effervescent smile and tireless drive.
Jake’s eyes snapped open. The beast pounced. The gun fired. Deirdre screamed.
Chapter 37
By the time Deirdre pulled the trigger, the beast already reached across his body and grabbed her arm. The bullet missed Jake’s head by inches. As Billy spun her around, the gun flew out of her hand and clattered across the floor. Shandi scrambled over to it, scooped it up, and pointed it at the beast. She knew it wouldn’t help her, but she felt safer having it in her hands and not Deirdre’s.
The beast enshrouded Deirdre’s face in his massive hand, muffling her screams. Her body kept twisting, as he continued pulling on her arm with an ungodly force. A horrible, sickening crack echoed through the room, and the screams stopped suddenly. The beast tossed Deirdre aside like a rag-doll, her body crumpling to the floor in an unnatural tangle of limbs.
Shandi forcefully stifled the urge to scream. The beast turned towards her, not immediately descending on her. She suddenly realized that the gun presented a threat to Billy without offering any real protection to her. Pointing it at him would only serve to make her a target. She sat it on the ground next to her and slowly stood with her hands up. She didn’t know if he would respond to that body language, but it seemed as reasonable as anything else.
She glanced at Jake, saw his eyes closed and felt her heart thump in fear that he had passed out. His hand twitched, indicating that he still lived, and she suppressed the need to drop down beside him. Maybe he just didn’t want to see what had happened to Deirdre and what might happen next.
As Billy took a step toward her, Shandi froze in place, afraid that if she ran, it would trigger a predator instinct in him that he wouldn’t be able to ignore. She needed to show him that she did not fear him.
“Billy. It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” she said, her voice far weaker than she had hoped.
He looked deep into her eyes. She could see more there now, recognition at his name, perhaps, though she might’ve been imagining it. He kept advancing on her. She forced herself to stand her ground, unable to control the forceful shaking of her limbs.
He stood directly over her now. She slowly tilted her head back to look at him, reminding herself that this creature had once been a man. He had done horribly gruesome things, but those atrocities could hardly be blamed solely on him. Arrowhead had done this to him, sentencing him to a life of pain and agony. She could only hope that he could still recognize and appreciate sympathy.
In an instant, he spun and ran out the door, stopping to let out one of his inhuman howls as he crossed the porch. Shandi breathed a sigh of relief and moved back to Jake. His eyes fluttered open now, but he looked drained.
Before she could talk to him, a gunshot rang out. Then more. She heard the beast growl. She jumped back to her feet and ran out onto her porch to see Cam shooting at the beast from the other side of his Suburban.
“Cam. Stop!” she yelled.
It didn’t matter to her in that moment that she stood on her front porch in jeans and a bra. Cam looked up at her with surprise, giving the beast time to run. Only once Billy had moved far enough away did Cam scuttle to the front porch and grab Shandi’s shoulders.
“Are you okay?”
She pointed towards the door and responded with a single, shaky word. “Deirdre.”
Cam rushed inside. Shandi followed. Cam quickly glanced over at Jake, but then went to Deirdre and knelt beside her. As Shandi took in the way that Deirdre’s head sat, she knew the beast had killed Deirdre. No one could be twisted up in that way and survive. Cam put two fingers to her throat. The look on his face confirmed it. Deirdre would no longer present a threat.
He looked back at her. “Did the beast do this?”
Again, Shandi nodded. Cam moved to Jake and studied Shandi’s blood-soaked shirt wrapped around Jake’s arm. He looked into Jake’s eyes and patted his cheek. “Stay with me, Jake. You’ll be fine.”
Cam shouted something into the radio on his shoulder, helped Jake to lay down on his back, then found a footstool in the kitchen that he used to prop up Jake’s legs. Shandi felt immediately grateful that Cam had shown up when he had. She found herself unable to act. She wanted to go to Jake, to comfort him and hold his good hand, but instead she just sank to the floor and stared off into the distance. Cam would have to handle it for now.
Soon, EMTs flooded into her house. Most of them went to Jake, some to Deirdre, but one came to Shandi. She felt guilty taking the attention of someone who might be able to help Jake. She felt fine. She just needed to collect herself. She waved the EMT away and got back on her feet. He forced a blanket over her shoulders and she accepted it.
She watched as they gingerly removed her shirt from Jake’s arm. She winced at the blood, unsure whether losing that much blood meant a death sentence. She wouldn’t be able to get to Jake now. She could barely see him in the sea of medics. She didn’t remember what Cam had ordered into his radio, but it seemed to have gotten every EMT in Rose Valley to her house.
One of the medics looked at Cam. “He’s going to be fine. It looks bad, but it’s mostly superficial.”
Cam clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks
, Brian.”
That didn’t compute to Shandi. Jake looked far too weak for it to just be a superficial wound. Something drained his energy, and if not the gunshot wound, then...
The beast. Jake brought Billy to them, and most likely Jake saved her by sending Billy away. Could that have taken a toll? It seemed reasonable. Shandi felt an overwhelming sense of relief as she started to accept the EMT’s promise. Jake would be fine. Only Deirdre would die tonight.
Cam stood up and disappeared into Shandi’s house. One of the medics brought in a gurney and started strapping Jake to it. Healthy or not, Jake seemed destined for another visit to the Rose Valley emergency room. She would go with him, of course, and for that she would need a shirt.
She dropped the blanket on the floor and navigated around the hubbub. As she turned the corner to her bedroom, she almost ran directly into Cam’s chest.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Here,” Cam said as he thrust one of her t-shirts towards her. She looked down at the faded green leprechaun on the front, trying to remember the last time she’d wore it. Maybe not since they had been married.
Shandi smiled despite the situation, and replied, “Thanks.”
She turned around and slipped the shirt over her head as she walked. Cam followed and patted her on the back in an uncharacteristic show of comfort.
Cam called out, “Brian!”
One of the EMTs walked over. Cam put his hand on the young man’s shoulder, stood to full height, then looked him straight in the eyes. “This is Jake’s girlfriend. Make sure you keep her in the loop. I don’t care what your stupid rules are. You treat her like his family, y’hear me?”
Brian nodded. “Yessir, Sheriff. You got it.”
Cam nodded back and smiled. “Good. Thanks, Brian.”
She expected Cam’s reaction to be much less gracious, especially when he had arrived to her so scantily clad. But that had always been the way with Cam. When you needed him to come through—when it really mattered—he would never let you down. She too often forgot that about him.
Brian motioned for her to follow out to the ambulance, where she climbed into the back next to Jake. The back of the ambulance left little room for her to squeeze in, but she didn’t mind. It was the least she could do.
As they rushed through the streets of Rose Valley, Shandi felt her wits returning to her. She thought about Deirdre and expected to feel remorse or horror, but she didn’t. She felt anger, then a brief flash of embarrassment, and then the resolute surety that Deirdre deserved what she got. Shandi smiled, content in the fact that Deirdre couldn’t hurt Jake anymore, and that she wouldn’t be able to convince anyone else that the beast couldn’t be saved.
Billy recognized his name. Shandi would have bet her life on it. Their plan would work. They could find the humanity in him. They had to.
Chapter 38
The sun dropped low on the horizon, threatening to abandon Rose Valley and offering the last of its rays to illuminate the dying brown fields. Three vehicles pulled up to the schoolhouse, filled with a sheriff, a one-handed deputy, a reporter, a rancher, a quarterback, a cryptozoologist, and Jake. Though he spent the morning in a hospital room, Jake insisted that he be released. The superficial wound already felt better.
Cam shared everything he knew from Deirdre, leaving Jake wondering whether his arm owed its rapid recovery to the serum. He found it strangely unsettling to have an increased healing capacity; he worried that it would mean that he would live longer than those he loved and he would watch them all die. Dying of old age seemed incredibly far away at the moment, but death seemed to be increasingly common in Rose Valley of late.
The manhunt teetered on the edge of becoming a runaway train. Either they found the beast tonight, or someone else in town would. Jake didn’t know if he could summon Billy again. The first time had been under duress and desperation in a last-ditch effort to save himself from Deirdre. Now the mission turned to saving Billy from himself. Shandi seemed certain that they could. Jake was doubtful.
The Sheriff had ordered some of his deputies to erect a cage in front of the schoolhouse. Shandi had convinced Karen and her father to act as bait. It seemed a reckless thing to do to Jake, but the cage provided at least some protection. It certainly wouldn’t stop the beast, but it might buy them the time they needed to fill him full of tranquilizer darts.
Skylar boasted unearned confidence in his darts, but Miriam disagreed with his assessments of their efficacy. Through few words, it became clear that Miriam and Tanner would rather kill the beast as revenge for Cornelius. Both refused to participate in trying to turn the beast back to humanity without a backup plan of heavy weaponry.
Shandi and Jake insisted that Steve be armed with something more heavy duty than tranquilizers, but Skylar flatly refused. He controlled the good weapons, leaving them little recourse but to obey.
As they stepped out of the yellow jeep, Dub approached Steve and Jake with hushed tones. “Hey. I wanna show you something in the back.”
Steve and Jake followed, as Cam insisted that Skylar inspect the workmanship of the cage. Pretending to need Skylar’s approval provided a guaranteed way to ensure his cooperation. Jake sensed what Dub intended to show them. When they got to the back of the jeep, Dub opened the back and slid a large wooden crate towards them.
Dub popped the top as he spoke. “This is a CZ-550 with a .585 Gehringer cartridge. It’ll shoot through a tank or bring down an elephant. Strongest weapon Mr. Brooks brought as far as I can tell. I don’t care what that nutbag says. Take it. Now. Before he comes back.”
Steve didn’t ask any questions. Jake vaguely knew that Steve possessed no experience with a gun like that. Steve might be unable to hit his mark—especially on the first try. If he missed and riled up the beast, it might do more harm than good. Jake couldn’t worry about that, though. His responsibility centered only on getting Billy there.
Steve took the gun and scurried off. Jake didn’t know where Steve intended to set up shop, but the plan called for him choosing somewhere far enough away that the beast wouldn’t immediately see him. Jake made a point of not paying attention to Steve’s direction. The less he knew about Steve’s location, the less likely he would be to accidentally draw the beast to Steve.
Dub put the top back on the box and made a show of shoving it into the very back of the cargo area, behind all the tranquilizer guns and other gear. Jake helped. Dub impressively piloted with just one hand, but it also slowed him down.
The two of them managed to get it situated just as Skylar came around the corner, his face beaming with excitement. “Ready to be a part of history? You will only be a footnote next to me, but being a footnote is better than not being part of it at all, right?”
Cam, Wes, and Shandi joined them. It seemed especially silly to bring Wes along, but he hunted Cam down and insisted in a foolish display of chivalry and pride. It displayed a sweet, grand gesture of devotion to Macy, but that didn’t make it smart. Wes boasted a strong, able body, though, and he had been toying with guns his whole life. His acumen with a firearm would far out-class Jake’s.
Skylar started unloading the tranquilizer guns, and Jake cringed every time he got near the empty rifle box. Even the mere movement of it might have alerted him that the gun no longer lived within. Luckily, Skylar never touched it.
Earlier in the day, Skylar held target practice for the townsfolk. Jake skipped because of his hospital stay, but presumably Dub, Cam, and Wes all took turns firing this weapon. There would be no room for mistakes. If Karen and her father could not calm the beast, the situation might get violent very quickly.
As each person took their weapon, Jake felt a warm brush of Shandi’s hand against his. He took it as she leaned her head on his good shoulder. Always so full of confidence and surety, Jake sensed fear behind her bravado now. He admired her insistence that they try to find Billy in that creature.
Skylar asked, “Did the rancher already take his?”
Dub repl
ied coolly, “Steve is his name. And yes. He’s already setting up his position. Thought he should get a head start.”
Skylar didn’t seem to question it or even take a count of the guns that remained. Jake breathed a sigh of relief.
“Comms check. This is Steve,” buzzed in Jake’s ear. Cam had provided radios for each of them, tuned to a channel specifically for their party. Many of the townsfolk carried radios on various channels across Rose Valley. With any luck, none of them would tune to their channel.
Cam held the button on the black radio attached to his shoulder before speaking. “Coming in loud and clear. Over.”
“All righty. I’m in position. Keep me posted,” Steve’s voice echoed again.
This time Jake smiled and pressed his button. “Ten-four, good buddy.”
Cam gave him a stern look as he crossed past them and made his way to the front of the jeep. Shandi let out a soft giggle as she took the last tranquilizer gun from Skylar. Though Cam made it clear that shenanigans would not be tolerated tonight, Jake searched for anything to keep his mind light and loose. He worried that if he couldn’t stay calm, he wouldn’t be able to deliver.
In front of the jeeps and Suburban sat a single chair. Jake expected makeshift barricades, but none existed. Previous experience suggested they wouldn’t stop the beast anyway, so Jake presumed that Cam decided that they would be pointless. It would have made Jake feel better, nonetheless.
To Jake, just sitting there felt cowardly compared to the heroics that the others geared up for, but he understood the importance. He didn’t know how to shoot a gun with any accuracy, anyway, and some part of him didn’t want to be responsible for hurting Billy. It felt like they barreled towards an incomplete solution. Was there another way?
