by Jason Davis
****
Carter was in his squad car and in uniform, so he couldn’t really go up there and act as though he were just a customer. That was his first plan, but he nixed that one as he eased his car into the handicapped space closest to the store. He really didn’t think anybody would object.
How would he get in there? Really, his only plan was to walk up to the door. He’d never thought of himself as a hero, and he sure didn’t want to become one now because heroes often found themselves dead.
Okay… Let’s run down the options. What are the facts?
The silent alarm was activated. It wasn’t something that could just be tripped, so someone had to have pushed it. From inspections he’s been on, he knew that meant a manager had to put in the code. It wasn't meant to be hidden, either, so someone had hurried to the key pad and could have been seen doing so.
If it were a robbery, staff was supposed to just give in to the robbers. They were supposed to give the robbers the money, take mental notes of what the thieves looked like, then call the police once the criminals had left. Whoever was working hadn’t done that. Instead, they had triggered the alarm, but he wasn't aware of any phone calls to the police. Also, they weren’t answering incoming calls.
No fire alarms had been tripped, so there was little chance it was a fire. People hadn’t fled the building and stood outside. So what was going on in there?
“Kalwalski and Daniels are here,” he heard Samuels’s voice crackle through the radio.
“Send them both down, and have them stay in their cars. I’ll call them on my cell and we’ll conference call in…unless they thought ahead and brought radios.”
“Sorry… Hadn’t thought about it.”
“Okay. So, we’ll have to use cell phones.”
He called Daniels first, then added Kalwalski to the three-way call. “Keep silent, stay in your cars. I’m going to walk up to the door to see what’s going on.”
“I hope this isn’t some false alarm. Was right in the middle of a fight with Lacy when I got the call. She wasn’t too happy about me showing up on my day off,” Daniels said.
“Hey, now, I’m missing a rerun of UFC, but you don’t see me complaining,” Kalwalski joked.
“Cut the chatter,” Carter said, then dropped the phone into his chest pocket on his uniform. The line went silent.
He opened his door and stepped out. The day was already too hot for the thick material of his uniform, and he felt his undershirt starting to cling to him. He suddenly realized that he had forgotten to put on his bulletproof vest, feeling very vulnerable without it.
Of course, he normally went without it, even though the city had made wearing it a requirement two years ago after that shooting down at The Getaway, the town’s sleazy hotel. However, some in the town were hourly visitors. He always thought it was such a nice coincidence that it was not even a mile away from the strip club, the truck stop just off the highway, and the adult bookstore.
The Getaway was far enough out of town, though, just on the fringes of his jurisdiction, that he just let it be. Who was he to judge? But when a shooting happened there two years ago, the vests that had been strongly recommended before became standard issue.
It chaffed his nipples and made him feel uncomfortable enough that he didn’t wear the damned thing most nights. Now his chest seemed like there wasn’t enough there to protect him, and the hot summer day somehow seemed to blow an icy breeze that sent a shiver down his arms.
He took a glance back at his car, then at the squad car sitting in the corner of the lot. He saw the two other cars parked nearby and knew his men were sitting, watching. He felt their gaze, but he also felt more than that. More eyes seemed to be on him. Was it the people in the store? He wasn’t sure, but it felt like there was something looking at him, studying him, taking a mental note of him as he approached. Damn, why did he feel like he was about to let some genie out of the bottle?
Hello, Pandora. I’m here to open your box.
He had a flash of the dead bodies from last night, and a darkness tried to shadow his mind. A nightmare that he couldn’t remember, something that had come to him in the little sleep he had gotten. Something about a dark man, surrounded by spiders, laughing at him. So many spiders, all swarming toward him.
His mouth went dry and his chest tightened. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. The world around him spun and the lights faded. His legs buckled, and he staggered just before catching himself.
“Come on,” he mumbled, taking a deep breath. He closed his eyes and blew it out. The sensations let go, and he could stand straight again.
Opening his eyes, he looked at the doors. He saw the lights on inside. It was darker in there than outside, but he could see the dim glow of them in the back of the building.
He saw the sales ad for the current week just taped to the door, some large screen television and a tablet computer were featured on the front cover. Too cheap to actually put something in a nice presentation, they just had the newsprint taped there.
The large glass doors whooshed open as he neared them. Something was wrong. At first, the darkness inside the building mixed with the sun blindness from the bright outside distracted him. He couldn’t see what was wrong, but he could smell it.
The air from the overworked air conditioner blew out at him, the hum combining with the whirring above the door. It sounded like they were about to give up and quit against the already stifling heat, but they only helped blow the smell out to him. The mechanical smell did mix with it, but underneath, he smelled something else, something that he associated with death. That stagnant odor he often smelled when visiting his mother in the nursing home. To him, it meant old and almost dead. It was...
He wanted to gag from it. Feces. He could smell the strong odor nearby. There was something else mixed with it, something that had a metallic smell.
His eyes adjusted, and his mind calmed. His hand that had been hovering over his gun belt snapped the strap off and rested his hand on the butt of the revolver, already feeling a little more comfortable.
On the inner door, he saw a bloody handprint. Streaks of blood ran down to form a pool on the other side.
He stood between the two doors, trying to listen for any available sound. He didn’t like that he was standing with glass all around him, but now he could see inside. The light high above glowed down on the long rows of shelving. He saw the trail of blood moving away from the door, as if somebody had limped back into the store.
Yeah, probably at gunpoint, he thought.
He did not like the situation. It seemed like it was getting worse. He saw more blood on the other side of the service desk, but he couldn’t see the source. At the exit door, which didn’t automatically open, lay what looked like a woman. He couldn’t tell if she were still alive, but she looked relatively unharmed. Why had they left her to lay there?
Maybe this wasn’t a robbery. Maybe it was personal. Someone having a problem with someone who worked there.
He tried to put himself into the mind of who would do something like this. Did they try to return something the management said they couldn't take back? Hell, if that were the case, he was sure the manager regretted that decision. Still, that possibility just didn’t feel right, although all of this was just too strange to be a robbery.
The store phone started to ring. His officers were supposed to have been calling. He didn’t know why he hadn’t heard it before, but now he heard the sound echoing in what felt like the empty store.
He heard the sound of cars approaching and turned to see the large Dodge truck and the small Camry his two officers drove.
New plan. He would go out and get his deputies.
They would ammo up and try to clear the store. More than likely, the people inside were dead.
Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned. The woman by the exit door was starting to move. Carter quickly hurried over to the door, ducking low, hoping that w
hoever was in there wouldn’t be able to see him.
He reached the door and pressed against the glass, using the force to form a gap in the electronic door. He wasn’t sure if it were a fire hazard, having the door not open from either way, but it sure was a pain in the ass now. He got it open an inch and could get his fingers in there to have more leverage to pull. It didn’t take much. With a whoosh, it opened…loudly. Carter cringed at the noise. If someone hadn’t known he was coming to the aid of the woman before, they would now.
She still wasn’t awake, but her arms were moving slightly. He still didn’t understand why she had just been left there. She looked untouched. Her skin was a little pale, which he wouldn’t expect during the summer. Even the Irish didn’t quite have skin so white. He would know. He’d dated enough of them through the years.
He crouched beside her and
gently touched her head. He wasn’t sure if he should just tap her a little on her shoulder, slap her cheek, or maybe…
Carter decided it was safest to rest the back of his hand on her forehead. He figured he could make sure she wasn’t going into shock. Plus, it was not too forward a move if the woman started waking up. Her skin was cold. He reached for her neck and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Then he caught one of her flailing arms and felt her wrist. Still nothing. When he let go, it went back to moving, as though on its own.
He was confused. The woman was dead, but she still moved. He had heard of muscle twitches, usually while rigor mortis set in, but he didn’t think she had been dead that long. Plus, this wasn’t really just twitches. Her arms went back and forth, even into the air.
But she’s dead.
He looked back at her face. Her eyes, white balls of death, were open, staring at him. Her lips were blue, blood having drained out of them.
She started to roll toward him. He fell back in shock. Visions of the woman last night flashed through his head, but this time he knew it wasn’t a hallucination. Just what the hell was going on here? She was dead!
“What the…,” he said, trying to pull himself back.
Her mouth opened and closed, but it didn’t look like she was trying to form words. It reminded him more of a fish opening and closing its mouth as it swam pulling in the food as it swam. That's what she looked like. Like she was trying to pull in something.
Come on. Get your head in the game. Pull yourself together.
She was suffocating. She must have collapsed a lung when she fell. Carter pushed himself forward, shifting his weight so he could meet her as she moved toward him.
“Let me look at you,” he said, starting to push her onto her back. She fought against him, but he was able to get her to lay back. She was cold, but she was probably going into shock. Who knows how long she had been lying there without anyone coming to help her. Whoever was in there probably thought she was already dead and had just left her. But where were they? He needed to find them, but he couldn’t just leave her behind.
“Kalwalski!” He whispered as loudly as he dared. He hoped that the call hadn’t dropped since he entered the store.
“Yeah, boss?” Kalwalski answered.
“We need to get an ambulance in here. Call county and have them rush one in h-,” his voice trailing off as he heard a sound a few feet away from him. He stopped and looked up.
“Boss?!”
A woman walked toward him, dragging
her foot. Her loose blouse and tan pants were caked in the dark red of drying blood.
A beep chirped from his phone. Another call. He didn’t look at the caller ID as he quickly hit the accept button, putting the call to his deputies on hold, then nearly screaming into the phone. “Yeah, what?!”
The phone in the building stopped ringing and he was left in the silence that followed, watching as the woman stumbled toward him. He started to take in her details. She was a short woman who had once been beautiful, but her beauty had been ripped away. Marring her face were long gouges where it looked like claws had raked across her cheeks. Her throat hung open. He could actually see the trachea and part of her spinal column. Most of the blood covering her looked like it came from that area, but he saw a large tear in her pants and what looked like a bite on her thigh, a huge chunk of flesh missing.
He saw where blood had run from both wounds,
ruining her clothing. It should still be flowing, she should be dying on the floor, but she wasn’t.
“Thomas!” he heard someone yelling through his phone.
“Thomas, I need you!”
Need? He was the one who needed someone. He wasn’t sure if he needed a shrink or the army, but he was definitely out of his depth. Someone to tell him just what could turn his world upside down.
Chapter 6
Denise could only make it a couple blocks away from the doctor’s office before her hands started shaking and her sight became blurry. She was afraid she was going to hit something. She eased the car into a large parking lot. There were a lot of cars, but still spaces toward the back. She allowed the car to just roll into a space and put it into park.
Then she let the tears flow out of her. Lost and desperate emotions sprang up. She didn't want to admit that something was wrong. She wanted to believe it was all just a dream. How could any of it be real? There was no way; not in any sane world that this could be real.
So she had to be dreaming. She was still in her bed having a nightmare. Her husband hadn’t awakened her yet because maybe there really had been an early morning visitor and he went to the office. She had just incorporated it into this atrocity of a dream and now she was trapped, unable to get away from it.
He was still okay. He was taking care of a patient. That was all there was to it. She had imagined herself going down to make coffee for Luis. He had gone down alone and she was still in bed. There were no monsters chasing after her.
She wanted to believe she was still safe, that there weren’t things from horror movies chasing after her. What the hell were they? And how was her husband one of them? She could feel the place inside of her chest where her heart had once been twisting in pain.
Worst of all was the emptiness she now felt. She felt like part of her was back with him. He was still back there, and by some sick reasoning, she wanted to be back there, as well. She wanted to join him and be by his side again. That way, she wouldn’t have to know this feeling of being away from him. They could be together.
In some way, that actually made sense to her. She felt herself longing for his touch, longing herself to be back around him.
The image of him biting down into her awakened some
part of her mind that had allowed itself to rest once the car had been put into park. Suddenly, she snapped back to reality, her eyes open wide. What the hell had she been thinking? She would allow him to eat her? To bite down and actually start chomping at her skin and muscles? Allow him to feast upon her blood and flesh?
Um, I don't think so, she thought.
She quickly wiped the tears out of her eyes and looked around the car to find her cell phone. It was on the passenger seat, so she quickly grabbed it, flipping it open. She pressed a single number and heard the phone ringing.
Thomas needed to know what was going on. He was her brother. He would have to listen to her. Sure, he would probably think she was nuts, but he would at least investigate. Once he went to the office and saw them stumbling around, he would call the CDC. Maybe they could contain this. There may even be a cure. Maybe Luis wouldn’t be lost to her.
Her heart fluttered with an ounce of hope, then quickly fell back into her chest as, with each passing ring, she realized just how far-fetched that was. The tears threatened to return. She had to stop thinking about him. Right now, she just needed to get in touch with Thomas, the chief of police, and get him over there. She could worry about the rest later.
She felt her hopes die when it went to voicemail. He had to pick up. She needed him. She hung up, then quickly dialed again.
&nb
sp; Again, the digital beeps vibrated through the earpiece. Now, with more desperation, she held it close, willing him to answer.
Finally, on the fourth ring, she heard her brother’s voice. It was quick and clipped, but she heard him and just by hearing him, she knew that everything was going to be better. Just like when she was little, her older brother would protect her.
“Hey, not now. I gotta go!” he growled. She blinked. He was never like that.
“Thomas, wait! It’s important. Luis… Something’s happened to him. I need–”
“I can’t, Denny. Not now. There’s a situation. Bad. It’s really bad. I gotta let you go.”
“Thom-”
She heard the little beeps of the phone going dead. No, she had to talk to him. He couldn’t cut her off. He had to talk to her. He had to. She pressed the button again, then heard the phone start to ring. It beeped in her hands as it disconnected.
She pulled the phone away to look at the display. She wasn’t good at texting. She didn’t know if she could do it, if her plan even allowed her to. At one point, she had blocked texts because she didn’t want to deal with the damned things. Her sister had always sent her what she thought of as cute pictures, which came in as garbled on her phone. She didn’t like telling her sister that she was blocked. It was easier just to say that all texts were blocked. Plus, that way, she didn’t have to pay for a texting plan.
She didn’t get a chance to text because there wasn’t any signal. The phone was dead in her hands.
****
Thomas Carter had only been home for one, maybe two hours before he had gotten the call. He had been on duty all night, and now he was awake again. Awake, but feeling as though he were still lost in a dream. No, it wasn’t a dream. It was some kind of nightmare, and it wasn’t ending.
The headache that had been pounding since he had been pulled out of bed hadn’t helped anything, either.
Now it screamed at him…or maybe he was screaming.
He heard the woman walking toward him. The small, fragile, damaged woman with a large chunk of flesh taken out of her leg. He had watched her coming closer until his sister called and disrupted his gaze.
