Cryptid Frontier (Cryptid Zoo Book 7)

by Gerry Griffiths

  39

  BROTHERLY HATE

  “My God, it was you?” Roxy said, feeling her body deflate, knowing she had just killed her brother for nothing.

  “Yeah,” Kane said, “and thanks to you, the sheriff’s still alive.”

  “What, you went there to kill him? But why?”

  “With him out of the way, I was planning to move in on his wife. So, where is he now, the clinic?”

  “That’s right, you son of a bitch.”

  “Watch what you say, little sister.” Kane stepped into the front room. He looked down at Ethan’s body. “So how are you going to explain your way out of this? Looks like you screwed the pooch.”

  Roxy tapped her temple with the barrel of her pistol and began to cry. “I was trying to protect him. Even after what he did to those people out in the desert and Macy Brown.”

  “What makes you think it was Ethan?” Kane said smugly.

  “You mean...”

  “And you call yourself a detective.”

  “Damn you, Kane!” Roxy raised her pistol.

  Kane drew his Colt revolver and pumped three bullets into her chest.

  40

  THAT HAD TO HURT

  “Holy shit, did you hear that?” Kyle said.

  “It was on the TV,” Christy said, stepping out of the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn in her hands.

  “Gunshots on Wheel of Fortune?” Kyle muted Pat Sajak questioning a contestant. “That came from next door.”

  “Should we call the police?”

  “Not a good idea,” Kyle said, directing her attention to the coffee table cluttered with a bong and a glass pipe, bags of weeds, and other drug paraphernalia. “Shit, you don’t think someone went and made off with Ethan’s stash do you?”

  “Great, there goes our supply,” Christy said.

  “We have to go over there.”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Come on, before the place becomes a gong show.” Kyle got up from his recliner, rushed over to the door, and stepped outside onto the railed walkway that stretched along the front of the second-floor apartments.

  Christy placed the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and came out to join Kyle. She looked down at the gloomy parking lot below and the shadowy figures making transactions. “We should go back inside. I don’t like being out here after dark.”

  “Just come on,” Kyle said.

  They walked warily to the next apartment and found the door standing open.

  Kyle and Christy peered inside and saw two bodies on the floor.

  “I told you I heard shots,” Kyle said. “Believe me now?”

  “My God, is that Ethan?” Christy gasped.

  “Yeah,” Kyle said, stepping into the room. He knelt to take a closer look at Ethan and noticed the man clutching a Colt revolver.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Is that a cop?”

  Kyle walked over and stood over the woman lying face up on the carpet. “Man, this is crazy. It’s his sister. The sheriff deputy.”

  “What do you think happened?” Christy asked.

  “They must have gotten into a beef and shot each other. Watch the door.”

  “Why? What are you going to do?”

  “Just watch the damn door.” Kyle dashed into the back rooms. He came back fifteen seconds later, carrying a large paper sack.

  “My God, Kyle.”

  “Shut up. Let’s get out of here.” Kyle bent down beside Ethan’s sister.

  “Jesus, Kyle, now what are you doing?”

  Kyle picked the deputy’s service weapon off the floor. He waved it in the air like it was a trophy he had just won. “This is so cool.”

  “Put it back you idiot!”

  “No way, it’s mine now.”

  Ethan’s sister sat up suddenly and sucked in a deep breath, scaring the shit out of Christy and Kyle. The deputy grabbed the front of her uniform shirt with both hands, and ripped it open, popping buttons onto the carpet. Next she spread apart the Velcro straps on her Kevlar bulletproof vest. Shrugging out of it, she pulled her T-shirt up over her bra and stared down at the two welts positioned over her cleavage, another bruise above her belly button.

  She looked up, saw Kyle holding her gun, and growled, “DROP IT ASSHOLE BEFORE I TEAR YOUR DAMN HEAD OFF!”

  41

  TRUAMA UNIT

  It took Miguel awhile to hike back to the truck, change the flat tire, and return to the house. Camilla was waiting for him, standing on the porch while Maria and Sophia sat on the swing. A fresh bandage had been applied to Maria’s head. She looked like she had just woken up, slumped against Sophia with her eyes glazed over.

  “How is she?” Miguel asked, getting out of the truck.

  “I think she’s up for the ride,” his mother replied.

  Miguel rushed up the steps. “Come on, we’re going to get you checked over.” He lifted Maria off the porch swing and carried her down to the truck. He sat her on the seat and fastened her seatbelt.

  Camilla and Sophia climbed into the back.

  Before Miguel could get behind the wheel, Astuto appeared out of nowhere and jumped up on the seat. Miguel looked to his mother. “Is it okay if he comes?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  Astuto scrunched up next to Maria like a pet dog protecting its master.

  It was a thirty-minute ride to the medical clinic. Soon as they pulled up to the Emergency entrance, Miguel got out of the truck and rushed into the lobby. He grabbed one of the patient wheelchairs parked by the door and pushed it out to the truck.

  As it was early morning and still dark, Miguel didn’t see any harm in leaving the truck where it was and they all went inside. Camilla went up to the window and spoke with a nurse while Miguel and Sophia stood beside Maria in the wheelchair. The only other person in the lobby was a woman reading a magazine on the other side of the room.

  Miguel spotted the mischievous troll poking his head out from behind a potted plant a few feet away. “You better stay out of trouble,” he whispered.

  Astuto scampered across the floor, ducking behind a couch.

  “Poppa, I’m hungry,” Sophia said.

  Miguel noticed a vending machine next to the entry doors leading into the trauma unit. He took out his wallet, fished out two dollars, and handed the bills to Sophia. “Here you go.”

  Sophia skipped over to the vending machine. Astuto peered around the end of the couch to see what Sophia was doing.

  A nurse opened the door leading into the clinic and called out, “Vera Lobo!”

  “That’s me,” said the woman reading the magazine. She got up and followed the nurse into the back.

  Miguel dropped to one knee so he could talk to Maria. “How are you feeling?”

  Maria had been staring at the floor. She turned her head slowly and faced Miguel.

  “Did I die?”

  A chill came over Miguel. “What? No. Why would you say that?”

  “Do you recall when you told me about your father, how he suffered from sleep apnea?”

  “Yeah, but what does that have to do with you?” Miguel asked, growing concerned.

  “Remember that one time he woke up in the middle of the night?”

  “Yeah, he said his heart had stopped and he wasn’t breathing. It was like he wasn’t connected to his body. He felt no sensation whatsoever.”

  “That’s how I was back at your mother’s. I think I died.”

  “What? That’s absurd.”

  “Is it? Your mother brought me back to life.”

  “What, CPR?”

  “I don’t think that was it. I think she used one of her healing spells.”

  “Maria, you and I both know—”

  “I’m telling you, it’s true!” Tears streaked down Maria’s cheeks.

  “Then it’s a miracle,” Miguel said and squeezed her hand.

  Maria took a moment and glanced about the lobby. “So why are we here?”

  �
�You need stitches.” Miguel saw Sophia returning with two candy bars.

  “Here Poppa, I got you and me an Almond Joy.”

  “Thank you,” Miguel said. He looked at Maria. “Want to split it?”

  Maria shook her head.

  Miguel watched Astuto sneak up on Sophia. As soon as she unwrapped her candy bar, the troll reached up and snatched one of the pieces.

  “Hey, give that back!”

  The troll stuffed the chocolate in its mouth and scurried behind a row of chairs.

  Camilla walked over. “They’re ready for Maria.”

  “Did they say if I could go in with her?”

  “You can. I’ll wait out here with Sophia and make sure Astuto stays out of trouble.”

  Miguel grabbed the handles on the wheelchair and steered Maria to the doorway where a nurse was already waiting. They went in and followed a hallway to an area where another patient was lying on a gurney. By the uniform, Miguel figured he was the sheriff. A pile of bloody gauze was on the floor. The ER doctor was threading catgut to close up the man’s arm while the woman that had been in the lobby watched from a chair.

  “I’m almost done,” the doctor said over his shoulder.

  “We can go in here.” The nurse opened a curtain to the adjacent patient area.

  The nurse and Miguel helped Maria out of the wheelchair and onto the gurney.

  “So how were you injured?” the nurse asked Maria.

  “We were in a car accident,” Miguel said. “Maria struck her head.”

  The nurse looked at Maria for confirmation.

  “I hit my head, yes,” Maria said.

  “Where’s the restroom?” Miguel asked.

  “Through the double doors, down the hall, and to the right,” the nurse said.

  “I won’t be long.” Miguel kissed Maria on the forehead and went in search of the restroom.

  He went through the double doors and saw the nurse that had been talking with Camilla, sitting at a desk behind the counter at the nursing station. A custodian was at the opposite end of the corridor, pushing a pail by the mop handle. Counting the ER doctor and the nurse with Maria, that made a skeleton crew of four people working the graveyard shift.

  Miguel glanced in the half dozen rooms as he went by and saw only one patient occupying a bed. The young man was sleeping. He had a bandage on his head and his right leg was suspended in a sling.

  Miguel hoped Maria would be allowed to leave after she was treated and the doctor didn’t insist she stay for observation and additional tests. There was no telling what the results might reveal.

  He spotted the sign over the men’s room and pushed open the door.

  42

  NO REGRETS

  Kane pulled his truck around back to the rear parking lot behind the medical clinic. He saw only three vehicles. He parked at the far end next to a hedgerow that ran along the backside of the building.

  He felt no remorse shooting his sister. Even less framing his brother, planting the Colt revolver in Ethan’s hand. After an extensive search of the apartment—and finding the drugs Kane had hidden in Ethan’s room—it would become apparent that the two dead bodies were a result of a botched drug bust. Finally he was done worrying about his brother’s inability to control himself and Roxy always breathing down his neck.

  Guess I am a cold-hearted bastard, he thought to himself.

  He sat in the cab pondering what he should do next, knowing it wouldn’t be smart entering through the front lobby with all those cameras. The rear door to the building was twenty feet away.

  Kane’s entire body suddenly electrified with pain.

  He pushed the handle down to open the truck door a crack.

  Kane knew he had little time to undress and immediately pulled his T-shirt up over his head, the joints in his shoulders cracking like thin boards snapped across a knee.

  He hurriedly kicked off his boots and frantically unbuckled his belt, undoing the snap on his jeans and yanking them off. The bones in his arms and legs elongated, stretching his muscles beyond human limits. He gripped the steering wheel and watched sharp claws steadily poking out of the ends of his thick, hairy fingers.

  The agonizing change took twenty seconds.

  * * *

  Randy Cameron knew it was nowhere near his break time but he needed a cigarette. Work was the only time he smoked as his wife called it a dirty habit and always got after him to quit. Someday, he swore to her he would; just not now.

  He pushed the bucket of sudsy water with the mop handle and walked it down the hall to the glass door leading out to the back parking lot. Like a fool, he had forgotten his employee ID badge at home. The badge had a magnetic strip, that when swiped through one of the electronic card readers mounted at the entry doors, allowed him into the building.

  Luckily, when he had come to work, he had been able to piggyback with one of the nurses after she ran her card and followed her into the clinic.

  Randy pushed the bar, opening the door and stepped outside. Because the door would automatically lock, he propped it open with the bucket.

  He rummaged in his shirt pocket and found he had only one cigarette in the wrinkled soft pack. When he went to put it to his lips, he saw tobacco sticking out of the paper in the middle. He broke the damaged cigarette in half, figuring he best save it for his next break, as there wasn’t a cigarette machine in the building.

  He dug a Bic lighter out of his trouser pocket and lit up the stubby cigarette. He leaned against the wall and took a deep drag, expelling a plume of smoke up into the night air. Two more puffs and the damn thing was burning his fingers. He dropped the smoldering butt on the walkway and grinded it out with the sole of his shoe.

  Opening the door wider, he grabbed the top of the mop handle, and pushed the bucket inside. He had only gone a few steps when he stopped, sensing something was wrong when he didn’t hear the door close behind him.

  Randy turned and nearly crapped his pants. “Ah, Jesus!”

  He stepped back, still clutching the mop handle. His heart pounded in his chest like a manic fist was attempting to beat its way out. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

  The door closed and in stepped a werewolf.

  The lycanthrope snarled, displaying its fanged teeth, thin ropey drool dripping off its chin. It was covered in a thick mat of black fur. Randy could tell by the way it moved that it was extremely strong.

  Randy’s first instinct was to run like hell, but knew if he did, the monstrous beast would be on him in a flash.

  The werewolf stared at Randy like he was a scrumptious feast and took a menacing step toward him.

  Randy grabbed the mop, kicked the bucket over, and dumped soapy water all over the floor. He wielded the feeble mop head in front of him.

  With one quick swipe, the powerful werewolf snapped the long stick in half, leaving Randy with an unimposing piece of wood in his hand.

  This time, Randy didn’t think twice; he turned and ran.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw the werewolf slipping and sliding on the wet floor. In its frustration, the beast snatched the bucket, threw it back over its shoulder, and smashed out the glass in the door.

  Upon getting its traction, the werewolf roared and loped down the hall.

  By then Randy had made it around the corner and was running like a crazy man.

  43

  STIR CRAZY

  Billy Wilkins woke up wishing he had listened to his buddies and girlfriend when they told him not to jump his dirt bike over that ditch. Now look at him. Confined in a hospital bed with a shattered tibia, his right leg suspended in a sling hanging on a long bar that stretched the length of the bed, not to mention a cracked skull with a concussion.

  And if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d heard the doctor tell his parents they were planning to transfer him tomorrow where they planned to insert a steel pin in his leg.

  Which meant no more crazy stunts. Yeah right. As soon as he was able to get back on his feet he’d be back on
his bike. Never stopped his idol, Evil Knievel, one of the best stunt riders of all time.

  Lying in bed, he was bored out of his mind having nothing to do. Hell, he couldn’t even get up to go to the bathroom. It was humiliating having to use a bedpan, especially when that pretty nurse would have to come in and empty his crap into the toilet. He still couldn’t look her in the eye.

  He glanced over at the copies of Dirt Bike and Motocross Action Magazine his mother had brought him from home, piled on the table next to the hospital bed. He must have read them a million times.

  He was going absolutely stir crazy.

  Boy, what he wouldn’t do for just a little bit of excitement.

  A man bolted into his room and closed the door.

  “Who are you?”

  “Randy, the night janitor. Keep your voice down!”

  “Why? What’s going on?” Billy asked, somewhat intrigued.

  Randy peered out the small window on the door. “Shit, here it comes!” He looked around the room. “I need to block the door.” He ran over, grabbed the footboard, and spun the hospital bed around.

  The jarring movement caused the splintered bones in Billy’s shin to grind together, causing him extreme pain. “Oh my God, what are you doing?” Billy screamed.

  “Stop screaming,” Randy snapped. He went around, grabbed the headboard, and shoved the bed across the floor, banging it into the door.

  Again, Billy screamed like his balls were on fire. Pausing to suck in a deep breath, Billy saw a face in the window. Not a human face but a wolf’s face. How could that possibly be? That would mean the animal had to be standing on its hind legs to see into his room. “What the...what the hell is that?”

  “It’s a werewolf!”

  “What are you even saying?” Billy cried. “There’s no such—”

  Then came a loud bang and the door opened a crack. A large hairy arm reached in but quickly pulled back out when Randy rammed the bed against the door.

  Billy screamed. A sadistic torturer couldn’t have inflected near the same amount of pain even if he had cleaved Billy’s shin with a machete and poured a pound of rock salt into the wound. Billy slammed his head back onto the pillow and blubbered, “Please stop.”