“Maybe Hank left a note on his desk.” Todd leafed through a few papers, careful not to disturb anything. “No, I don’t see anything.”
“He left his computer on.” Clare hit a button on the keyboard. An image appeared on the screen of a new housing project in development. “What’s this?”
Todd leaned in to look at the screen. “That’s Summit Estates. My sister Sherry and her husband bought a place up there.”
“You want to go check it out?”
“Sure, I’ll drive.”
* * *
Todd gunned his candy-apple-red Mustang Shelby up the steep hill and turned into the building site. “Did I tell you I was studying for the detective’s exam?”
“No. That’s great!” Clare patted the young recruit on the shoulder.
On each block, the houses were in a different stage of development: on some blocks, the houses were already roofed, while on other blocks, the houses were only wood frames.
Todd and Clare followed a street to a group of homes that were already occupied. As soon as they arrived at the cul-de-sac, they knew something was wrong.
“Is that Bill and Hank’s car?” Todd pointed to the smoldering wreckage on the U-shaped tarmac.
Clare bolted from the car, drawing her Glock. Todd climbed out of his side, reaching under his shirt for his service revolver.
“Holy cow, Clare! Take look at that!” Todd pointed at the headless corpse in the swim trunks lying on the pavement.
Clare looked over at the last house. “Let’s see if there’s anyone inside.”
They followed a walkway up to the front door. The door was half open. Clare stuck her head in and called out, “Police! Is there anyone inside the house?”
No one answered.
They entered the home. Todd and Clare crossed the living room, then stopped when they saw something covered with a tablecloth on the kitchen floor.
Todd lifted the cover. He gasped when he saw the bright red, chubby-faced boy with the steel skewer rammed into his ear canal.
A dog growled outside.
Clare and Todd stepped onto the backyard patio. They were shocked to see Bill floating on an air mattress next to a dead woman who was floating face down in the middle of the pool. A rottweiler was straining at its chain, clambering over a large man who was slumped on a diving board. It was trying to get to Hank, who was trapped on the other end. There was another woman lying on the grass, the lower portion of her shirt covered with blood.
“Oh my God!” Todd cried out. “That’s Sherry!” He immediately ran across the lawn.
Clare walked toward the dog.
The rottweiler glared at her. Its eyes were so red, they seemed to be on fire.
“Careful, Clare!” Hank warned. “The dog’s mad.”
“Here boy. Nice doggie.” Clare waved her hand.
The rottweiler bounded off the diving board. Clare ran toward the tree. She cut to her left like a football receiver evading a tackle. The big dog lumbered after her. She kept circling the tree, duping the animal. Soon the chain wrapped completely around the tree. Clare kept the tree trunk between herself and the savage beast. She took out her tactical knife and wedged the blade between two links, preventing the chain from unraveling, should the dog decide to backtrack.
The rottweiler fought the chain. It clamped its jaws around the chain to free itself. After breaking a tooth, it quickly resigned itself to its fate and rested in the grass.
Hank staggered off the diving board. He picked up the long pole of a swimming pool leaf skimmer. “Bill! Grab hold!” He extended the pole across the water. Bill grabbed the end. Hank pulled him over to the edge.
“How’d you find us?” Bill asked Clare once he was on the cement.
“Just a little simple detective work,” Clare said over her shoulder as she ran over to assist Todd, who was on his cell phone calling for an ambulance.
Sherry smiled up at her brother.
“Don’t worry. Help’s on the way,” Todd said.
Cindy came out from behind the shed. She ran up to Todd, wielding the steel skewer and aiming for the back of his neck.
“No you don’t, you little pixie!” Hank snared the little girl’s head with the net on the end of the pole. He led her over to the shed, opened the door, and shoved her inside. He closed the door, making sure the lock was on the clasp.
Cindy screamed, pounding on the aluminum walls.
“I bet you’re glad that’s over,” Clare said to the detectives.
“Not quite,” Bill replied.
“There’s another one. The little girl’s father.” Hank dropped the pole. He stooped to pick the shotgun off the grass. “Okay, Donald, you can come out.”
“We know you’re back there.” Bill hobbled around the side of the shed to flush the man out. “Hank, I don’t see him.”
Donald jumped down from the tree like a primal ape. He threw the mallet at Hank. The tool just missed Hank’s head.
Hercules grabbed Donald’s leg in its mouth. It chomped down, snapping the bone. Donald screamed as he was being mauled.
Hank shot the crazed dog.
Everyone turned to the welcoming sound of approaching sirens.
15
CASE NUMBER: 18-08-250
The Crossroads was jam-packed, every table and booth taken, leaving the other patrons only standing room. Hank weaved through the crowded bar, trying his best not to spill a drop of beer from the brim-full pitcher.
A guy with a beard bumped into Hank, jabbing him in the ribs with an elbow. Foam sloshed over the rim. Ice-cold suds drizzled on his hand, seeping under the cuff of his dress shirt.
Hank looked over, expecting an apology.
Not bothering to look back, the guy disappeared into the crowd.
Hank managed to maneuver to the booth away from the main bar near the pool tables without spilling another drop. He placed the pitcher on the table where Jackie, Clare, and Bill sat. He slid in next to Jackie.
Bill hoisted the pitcher and topped off everyone’s beer glass.
The back door was propped open, as the air conditioner was on the fritz. They didn’t have to shout to be heard and could carry on a decent conversation, as it was less noisy in the back, except for the clacking of the billiard balls.
Hank grabbed a few pretzels from the bowl on the table. “Anyone hear how Todd’s sister is doing?”
“Todd called me. Says she’s doing fine,” Clare said. “Did I tell you Todd’s going for the detective’s exam?”
“Good for him.” Bill took a gulp of his beer.
Hank looked over at Bill. “So, how’re you doing?”
Bill held up his bandaged hand. “Three broken fingers, and the shoulder still hurts.” He squirmed on the bench seat. “It’s a little uncomfortable to sit, thanks to the kid playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey. The next pool party, let’s not forget the sunscreen,” Bill said, referring to their sunburned faces.
Hank took a sip of his beer. He glanced about the barroom and recognized the same jerk who’d bumped into him.
The man hunkered down with two other rough-looking characters in a booth next to the men’s room door.
Hank tapped Bill’s arm and nodded toward the three men. “You recognize them?”
Bill studied them for a moment. “Probably undercover from uptown.”
Clare gulped down the last dregs in her glass. She grabbed the pitcher, filled her glass back up. “Did you hear the Feds indicted another CEO of an investment firm for embezzling?”
“Good for them,” Bill said. “Greedy bastards. They screw people over and still walk away with those ridiculous golden parachutes.”
“They’re so big now, they’re calling them platinum parachutes,” Clare said.
“They should appoint me as the CEO parachute rigger. Let me pack those chutes. I’d like to see the looks on their faces when they pulled the rip cord.” Bill laughed, raising his glass for everyone to take a drink.
“Aren’t you the hars
h one?” Clare licked the froth off her upper lip.
“Think that’s harsh? I read, somewhere in some country, they lined up the managers of a company that was doing poorly and executed them in the parking lot.”
Jackie rolled her eyes at Bill. “You’re making that up.”
“No, I swear. You know what really frosts my butt?”
“Winter?” Hank grinned. He poured the rest of the beer from the pitcher into everyone’s glass.
“Very funny. No, all those poor folks who lost their 401ks. I mean, who can figure it out? The Fed comes in, bails out the banks, and what happens? The chairmen of the boards give the money to their executives as bonuses, when they’re the ones who screwed up the economy in the first place. And, if that’s not bad enough, they say the banks need a nice little cushion, just in case they mismanage everyone’s money again.”
“Maybe you should go into politics,” Clare said.
“You think?” Bill glanced at the empty pitcher. “I’d get the next one, but . . .” Bill held up his injured hand.
“Hold on a sec.” Hank looked over at the three men.
The one with the beard was getting up to use the men’s room. He was carrying a gym bag.
The other two men ducked their heads under the table.
Hank peered out the opened back doorway. The night sky was sprinkled with stars glinting around a full moon.
A loud howl sounded from within the men’s room. The door sprang open, and out stepped a werewolf carrying a short-barreled Ithaca combat shotgun. The creature fired a quick burst into the ceiling to get everyone’s attention.
Two werewolves jumped up from under the table, each with Desert Eagle .357 magnum pistols. They swept their gun muzzles about the bar, eager to shoot anyone who stood in their way.
Everyone in the bar stopped talking, as though a bustling beehive had suddenly been silenced, and turned to the rear of the bar.
A pool cue clattered onto the floor.
* * *
Hank and Bill stood over the three bodies lying on the barroom floor in a lake of blood. Each corpse was riddled with bullets, as if they’d been mown down with a fifty-caliber machine gun. The smoky bar reeked of battle.
Clare stood protectively next to Jackie, who was still seated at the booth.
“Talk about stupid,” Bill said.
“I’ll say,” Hank agreed.
“Dumb bastards, is what they were,” someone sounded off.
The detectives turned to face the forty-some other people, each of them pointing a handgun. Hank and Bill holstered their .38 snub-nosed revolvers.
Bill adjusted his party hat. “For a second there, I thought you guys were pulling a prank.”
“Just another surprise for the birthday boy,” Hank said.
“I mean, really, what were they thinking?” Bill reached down and removed a werewolf mask from one of the dead men. “Trying to rob a cop bar.”
16
CASE NUMBER: 18-09-251
Hank and Bill stepped out of the captain’s office with drooping heads. They went back to their desks and slumped in their chairs.
“He reamed us good,” Hank said with an exasperated sigh.
“I’ll say,” Bill replied. “He ripped us a new one.”
“He’s just scared.”
“That’s the fifth Heavenly Donuts. Who torches donut shops, anyway?”
“A whacko, that’s who!”
“That leaves only one store.”
The captain stomped out of his office, clutching a powdered jelly donut. A strawberry blob clung to the belly of his rumpled shirt. “Hendrix! Jenkins!”
The detectives popped out of their chairs.
“I just got off the phone with the mayor. Says we don’t catch this arsonist, he’s calling the governor to send in the National Guard.”
The captain marched back into his office.
Bill looked at Hank. “Is he serious? The National Guard?”
“I hear the mayor’s big on morning staff meetings. The guy loves his Heavenly Donuts.”
“Must be why he blocked all those other franchises. When’s the last time you saw a Dunkin’ Donuts, a Krispy Kreme, or a Starbucks? Not in this town.”
“All the more reason to make sure nothing happens to the last Heavenly Donuts store. Can you imagine this town without donuts?”
Bill shuddered at the thought. “What would be the point of a cup of coffee if you couldn’t have a donut?”
“Man can’t start his day, he doesn’t have his donut!”
“This is war!”
“Damn straight!”
Hank got on the horn with the dispatcher to send every available squad car over to the Heavenly Donuts store, while Bill phoned the SWAT commander.
Everyone in the office, including the captain, charged out of the squad room, armed to the teeth.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, the last standing Heavenly Donuts store looked like a bunker under siege.
The entire building was fortified with sandbags and armed military-clad SWAT officers.
Sharpshooters assembled on the roof.
An armored vehicle blocked one end of the street, while a fire truck and a firemen brigade stood by, in case of a blaze.
Ten police cruisers were parked on the street, officers shielded behind the open doors with their revolvers drawn.
Hank and Bill set up a command center inside the small bakery.
The captain managed the operation from a seat at the front window, a tray of assorted donuts at his disposal.
“Make sure all the men get donuts! It’s going to be a long night!” he yelled to one of the officers, who immediately instructed the young gal behind the counter to box up the confections.
Soon, every cop took a break, eating donuts and washing them down with Lovely Lotta Lattes and Dreamy Creamy Mochas, until nearly every donut was gone.
Hank approached the captain. “Folks in the back say their shift is up. They want to go home.”
“Where are their replacements?” The captain wolfed down a glazed cruller.
“They’re waiting outside.”
“Let them in.”
Bill unlocked the door.
Two swing-shift employees wearing Heavenly Donuts uniforms scurried in. They went directly to the back of the store as the dayshift workers passed them on their way out.
Bill held the door as another employee came in. He was a young kid, late teens, lean and muscular, wearing a tight-fitting T-shirt with “My Body Is My Temple” on the front and a stick-on badge with “TRAINEE” handwritten in black felt pen.
The kid seemed nervous with all the police presence.
“First day jitters, eh?” Bill asked.
“Whatever,” the kid replied curtly. He strode to the rear of the store.
Bill was about to shut the door, when a young woman ran up.
“Please, I’m the night manager.”
“Come on in.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m afraid we cleaned you out,” Hank apologized, pointing to the bare shelves in the glass display case as he munched on a glazed lemon-filled donut.
“Yeah, I feel sorry for your baker and his trainee,” Bill said. “They have their work cut out for them tonight.”
The store manager gave the detectives a blank look. “What trainee? We don’t have a trainee.”
Hank wrinkled his nose. “Does anyone smell smoke?”
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank A.M. Rycroft and the Submission Team at Mighty Quill Books for selecting my manuscript and seeing its potential. Thanks to Deliaria Davis for showing me the economy of words and how to trim off the fat, no matter how painful.To developmental editor, Nina Johnson, thank you for your encouraging comments and reader’s perspective during the editing process. Also, thank you to copy editor Daniel Santiago for his fine tuning and attention to detail. To everyone that helped get this book to press, I really appreciate your hard work.
> And a special thanks to you, the reader. I hope you enjoyed In Case of Carnage.
About the Author
Gerry Griffiths lives in San Jose, California with his family and their four rescue dogs, plus a cat that thinks their house is a bed-and-breakfast. He is a Horror Writers Association member. He has over thirty published short stories in various anthologies and magazines, as well as a twenty-two short story collection entitled Creatures. He is the author of Silurid, The Beasts on Stoneclad Mountain, Down from Beast Mountain, Terror Mountain, Cryptid Zoo, Cryptid Island, Cryptid Country, Death Crawlers, Deep in the Jungle, The Next World, and Battleground Earth.
Notes from the Publisher
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In Case of Carnage Page 16
