The Beast Cometh

by Constance Barker

  “There was an order for your usual that never got picked up,” I said knocking briefly on Fern’s door before coming in. She jumped looking startled.

  “Officer Mulberry was supposed to get that for me,” she replied with her eyes narrowing. She reached out for the brown bag full of her dinner. I smiled handing it to her and sat in the seat across from her.

  “Not exactly your style,” I said grimacing at the dead animals that seemed to occupy every available surface. “Hazel said he called in the order, but never showed. I figured I’d bring it to you.” Fern had been under more stress than ever before and I was making an poor attempt at taking some of that stress away.

  “I wonder where he went off to,” Fern sighed, but she seemed more concerned with eating than with the officer. “How’s Becky?” She asked with a grimace.

  “A little shaken and a lot guilty, but okay. I’m about the same,” I responded with a half smile. “I know there’s nothing to feel guilty about,” I said anticipating her response. “But that doesn’t change anything.”

  “I understand,” Fern replied covering her mouth with her hand as she was mid-bite. It was very unlike her to not mind her manners, so she must have been starving. “I am concerned though,” she said after swallowing.

  “Concerned?” I asked, with a minor scoff. I didn’t think there was anything that she shouldn’t be concerned about right now. “What about specifically?”

  “Well, far more than just one thing obviously.” She rolled her eyes. “But I don’t know why Mulberry wouldn’t have brought back the dinner himself. He was supposed to meet me here to eat.” My eyebrows shot up comically.

  “Like a date?” I asked, teasing my sister. She shook her head no vigorously, which was the exact reaction I expected from her even though I knew that Mulberry liked her. It was easy to tell just from observing them together. I was glad though, considering how little I trusted him. “I’m teasing, I know it wasn’t a date.”

  “More like make sure your new boss doesn’t pass out from hunger,” she snorted while still enjoying her meal with vigor. “Is it busy out there?” She asked nodding towards the outside. I shook my head no.

  “Most people went straight home from the meeting. Almost everyone has already closed up shop and the school cancelled all extra curricular activities so everyone under the age of eighteen should be home by now,” I said. It was essentially a ghost town in Stillwater right now, the only activity being officers patrolling the streets and the odd vagrant or hoodlum. “Hazel was closing up shop after I left. Becky was going home with her and I think practice some lessons, but until we know what we're up against, I’m not sure what will help us.”

  “I know,” Fern groaned. “I don’t think these lessons are going to do much to help us anyway. We don’t have enough time to learn the spells and be effective.”

  “I’m walking proof,” I said holding up my scarred palm letting out a long sigh. “So is Morgan’s ghost.”

  “Why isn’t she like our trio?” Fern asked leaning closer. “I thought the power of the comet was still lingering? That’s what created whatever killed Danny, Morgan and probably Tina.” I shrugged, I had wondered the same thing and planned to ask the ghosts if they knew anything.

  “I asked Hazel if she had any ideas, but she wasn’t sure. There’s pretty much nothing written in stone or any rules regarding this kind of thing. I think that the comet is only affecting things that were in existence when the comet passed.” Fern nodded in agreement. It was the only thing that made sense. “Are you coming home?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Fern said. “I’ve still got a lot to do here, tons of paperwork, waiting on reports.”

  “Sheriff stuff,” I said with a smile.

  “Yeah, Sheriff stuff,” She smiled with a nod. “Not exactly a great start, is it?”

  “Almost like the position is cursed,” I responded, teasing, but her expression seemed to take it to heart.

  “Do you think that maybe there’s something to that?” She asked after a moment. I could see the gears moving in her eyes. “We had expected an attack from whatever the comet brought right afterwards, but nothing happened until I won the election.”

  “Now that you mention it, that is a pretty big coincidence,” I said leaning back in my chair taking a moment to mull over the information. A knock on the door made me jump and interrupted my train of thought.

  “Come in,” Fern said loudly enough for them to hear it.

  “Sorry to bother you, but I need a couple signatures from you,” a young officer said with a shy smile. She seemed that she was new enough to have not gotten any of the bad habits the previous Sheriff had given so many of the officers in the department. I took that as my leave and gave Fern a quick salute before heading out and gave the officer a friendly smile as I passed.

  It really was eery outside, the entire population of the town seemed to have disappeared. Even the outside of the station, which was normally full of activity, was quiet. My car felt louder than normal as I forced its old door to creak open and coaxed the engine to life with a few sputtering turns of my keys.

  “You know, in some places it’s considered animal abuse to leave your pet in a car for a long time,” Moody groaned as she stretched herself out from an obvious nap.

  “That’s only when it’s hot out and I wasn’t gone that long anyways,” I retorted. “Fern might not make it home, she’s swamped.” To this Moody hissed in displeasure.

  “You mean I’m stuck with just you and the ghosts?” She asked horrified.

  “That’s what it looks like,” I replied sticking my tongue out at her.

  “You smell terrible,” Moody said sniffing the air.

  “That’s rude,” I said, sniffing myself. I had showered already, right after leaving Morgan’s body. Becky and I decided that it was best for me to leave the scene, considering that I had already mysteriously stumbled on one body, we didn’t want to draw any suspicion. “I smell fine,” I concluded after a final sniff.

  “You smell like dog,” Moody said, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Moods, I think that schnoz of yours is broken. I haven’t been anywhere near animals other than you today,” I said shrugging. Maybe she could still smell the forest on me. Fern’s leading theory was a man with some kind of canine attacked the kids, or I guess four men and a dog or four dogs and a man. Some supernatural version of that at least. Moody eyed me incredulously. “I swear it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Fern jumped from her seat as if someone had replaced it with hot coals. There was chaos and pandemonium outside her office all of a sudden, and that juxtaposed with the dreary silence of the last few hours was enough to terrify her. She heard shouting and the urgent moving of feet towards her office. Deciding it was best to be quick on the draw and not appear as though she had been sleeping in her office - which she hadn’t been, she had just closed her eyes for a moment or two. She headed for the door but by the time she reached it, an officer was already rushing in, not bothering to knock.

  “There’s been another one,” she said, it was the same young officer who had her sign papers earlier. “Another murder, in the town center this time, it’s barely a few feet from our door step.” Fern looked at her in horror.

  “How did that happen? Aren’t there patrols out?” She asked already walking out the door. The chaos in the station was almost comical considering how few people were actually there. Most were still patrolling, or in shifts at the campsite. There was just a handful of cops running around trying to secure the crime scene before there was too much damage done. She scanned the room, looking for Officer Mulberry who she knew was meant to be working. She didn’t see him anywhere in the room.

  Fern saw the body as soon as she went outside. It was placed conspicuously in the middle of the road, centered with the entrance way to the station. She also recognized the body. It was Willy, a well known vagrant around town. He had been booked more th
an a few times on drunk and disorderly, but didn’t have a violent bone in his body. He was ripped to shreds, and it was clear that it happened very recently. It was an even more violent kill than the two teenagers that were found. This was a message to Fern, a message about her becoming Sheriff. The placement of the body was enough, the victim was even more. Fern often clashed with the former Sheriff on the right way to deal with Willy. He had just wanted to throw him in the drunk tank every time, but Fern had always felt there was something more they could do to help him.

  Even as she got closer to the body, Fern didn’t have a vision. The silence of her ability was frustrating, almost like the comet was toying with her. Making her magic stronger but making her vision ineffective and worthless. If her visions would work, they might be able to figure out what evil the comet brought to Stillwater. It was like whatever it was blocked her visions completely. She had tested it earlier by going to the coroner's office, and they had worked perfectly fine with non-comet victims. But Danny and Morgan...nothing. It was just the ones she really needed to see that she wasn’t able to. In contrast, Mazie’s newly discovered power seemed to be operating in a multitude of ways. It was starting to feel like she could read minds her intuition was so good. Fern almost expected to feel jealous, but instead felt a pang of pride for her sister. She’d be the one to solve this one, when it was so often the other way around. Even Becky’s skill of feeling others emotions was still working. She was even honing her skill to focus on humans and not just animals. It seemed that Hazel was able to teach her a lot more than everyone else in the last few days. Fern didn’t envy Becky’s ability in the least. The last thing she wanted to do was feel the grief of the people she had to tell lost their children.

  “He wasn’t killed here,” she said absently, still mulling over her thoughts. She couldn’t really believe that her prime suspect was the former Sheriff. While she never liked him, she didn’t think he had murder in him. “He was staged here, a message to the force, a taunt. It says that we can’t stop these no matter how hard we try, we’re ineffective.” Fern thought ‘I’m ineffective’ but didn’t say that part out loud.

  “Seems like it’s more a message for you,” the young female officer whispered to her in delight. Fern went cold as ice as she turned to face the young woman. By the time she did, the woman looked unassuming, as she stood waiting to hear what Fern had to say. She wondered if she had imagined it, but her doubt was short lived when the woman flashed her a wicked grin. Four, Fern thought to herself, she now knew half of the equation. The former Sheriff and the young woman, Betty. That meant that two more officers were in on it, and she didn’t really have a way of knowing who. She hadn’t suspected Betty at all, in fact she thought that the officer hadn’t even worked with Brown long enough for him to put his claws in her. Clearly, she had been wrong.

  “Start collecting evidence,” Fern ordered, deciding to pretend as though nothing was wrong. The woman wasn’t going to attack her, surely. Their goal was to bring her to ruin as Sheriff as quickly as possible, not to kill her. She hoped anyways. Betty nodded dutifully and went about her work as though she hadn’t been behind the murder. Fern didn’t know that she had killed the man herself, but Betty definitely knew who did. Unwillingly she thought of Mulberry, he had been conveniently absent since earlier that evening. He was the only cop that she knew was missing in action during the time of the murder and he had certainly been one of Brown’s cohorts. She wished it to be untrue, but couldn’t shake the suspicion. She would need to get reports on all the officers whereabouts to be certain, not that she could trust anyone to get those reports to her and have them be accurate.

  Fern left the scene and returned to her office. Closing and locking the door behind her.

  “Fancy seeing you here,” A voice mused from behind her desk, before she had the opportunity to turn the lights on. She guessed it wasn’t enough for the former Sheriff to ruin her career, he had to make sure that she gave credit where credit was due.

  “Former Sheriff Brown,” she addressed him, hoping to annoy him with the title. She assumed she succeeded when his mouth closed with a snap. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” Fern asked trying to sound calm, cool and collected, though she was shaking with fear. This man was behind the brutal murder of at least three people, probably four but no one had found Tina yet. Not only that he wasn’t quite human due to the comet. She could tell by the way his eyes glowed in the dark of her office. They weren’t the eyes he had not long ago, these were almost neon in comparison to the previous muddy brown color. His face twisted into a smile, his teeth glowed also, as if under a black light. They were not human teeth.

  “I see you got my present,” He said, still grinning at her, but his teeth were bared. “Did you like it?”

  “No, I can’t say I appreciated it much,” Fern replied through gritted teeth.

  “I just wanted to make sure that you knew exactly who it came from.” He was still sitting in what used to be his desk chair. “You see, not long ago, the night of the anniversary of the town actually, I was also given a gift,” he started. “Around the same time that you and your friends just happened to discover where that old biddy Hazel was. From my understanding the town anniversary coincides nicely with a comet.” Fern’s blood felt like it has frozen inside of her. “This comet passes directly, perfectly over Stillwater. It comes every fifty years. Our town was founded because of the comet, and it’s said that every fifty years there are whispers of it, traces of its power.”

  “I don’t need a history lesson,” Fern said still maintaining a feigned confidence.

  “All in good time,” the former Sheriff responded. “Why don’t you sit down?” He asked gesturing to the chair opposite him. When Fern didn’t reply or sit down, he let his arm drop and crossed them in slight annoyance. “Fine, continue to stand then.” He was also maintaining a false air of calm, Fern noted as his arm was shaking with anger as he dropped it. “As I was saying, the comet has powers and they bring pain, misery, terror.” His smile widened with each awful word, reveling in them.

  “Whatever you are,” Fern suggested, which made the not quite man laugh.

  “Yes, it created whatever it is I am, and I created more. An army, willing to do my bidding. In fact, even if they aren’t willing, they don’t have a choice. I can make this entire town mine,” He said maniacally, sounding unhinged. Whatever the comet turned him into wasn’t entirely there.

  “Why are you telling me all this?” Fern asked frustrated. She couldn’t figure out why he would be detailing to her what he can do, and not out there doing it.

  “Just so you understand what position you are in,” he said matter of factly. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “What do you want from me?” She asked, understanding exactly what position she was in. The former Sheriff's information was incomplete. He didn’t know that the comet wasn’t an inherently malevolent thing, that it brought balance to the town after giving more power to its witch residents. From the speech, it was clear that he didn’t know that there were witch residents of Stillwater. She had the upper hand, regardless of how it looked from the outside. Anyone else when faced with impossible creatures would balk, but Fern herself was an impossible creature as well.

  “What do I want?” Brown shouted standing from his seat. “I want you gone! Don’t you get that? You took everything from me.” Fern would have felt bad or even guilty if the man in front of her had been deserving of what he had before, or if he wasn’t a deranged murderer. “You are a thorn in my side and have been since you joined the force. I always knew that you’d be my downfall.” Fern wasn’t going to correct him by telling him that he was in fact responsible for his own downfall by being a bad cop.

  “So this is all to get me to leave?” Fern asked. It felt like a lot of work when he could have just killed her and it would have been done with.

  “No, it’s to get you to fall from grace. I don’t want you just gone, I want you to be forced out of the town
you love so dearly by the town itself. I want you to lose everything,” he said, the threat imminent. For the first time Fern balked at his words, everything would include her sister. The speech had been nothing more than a distraction Fern realized. She didn’t waste a moment and ran out of her office. The former Sheriff cackled with laughter as she did. “Good luck getting to her in time,” He said mostly to himself as she ran to her sister.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I can’t say that I’ve ever been help captive before. It’s not an unpleasant captivity considering that I’m in my own house and my captor seems incredibly conflicted and has been decently polite given the circumstances. I knew that Fern would be on her way soon enough I could feel her figuring it out and leaving to help me. My intuition was working in an odd way, almost like it was linked to Fern. As though I was lending it to her.

  “I’m sorry about this, Mazie, I really am,” Officer Mulberry said for the hundredth time or so since he had arrived. He had pounded on her door and demanded to be let in. The noise scared the trio of ghosts into Fern’s room, which I had decided was probably the best place for them at the moment anyways. As far as I knew they were still shut in there, unless they had climbed out a window or something. I doubted it as they still hadn’t really gotten the hand of being corporeal and had more than once walked straight into doors expecting to go through them. I didn’t expect them to even think of climbing out of a window as a means of escape.

  “Then let me go,” I retorted, also for the hundredth time. We had been having the same cyclical conversation for a while. Moody sighed annoyed by this, but remained quiet and cat like. I had tried to make her go in with the ghosts, sensing trouble, but she refused to leave me. “I can’t and I can’t tell you why I can’t,” I finished in my best impression of Officer Mulberry. It wasn’t exact, but that was the gist of what he had been telling me. I wasn’t sure if I trusted or believed it, but he did seem incredibly upset.