The Testimony of Jacob Hollow
by Joe Joiner
Chapter 8
Creatures of the Night
"Time has accelerated," Winston was explaining. "I do not know why or how, but I can assure you we were not in here the entire day."
"How can that be?" Jenny argued. "Days don't just get shorter."
Troy and I both glanced at Winston and waited for him to explain things. He responded by taking off his glasses and cleaning them with that damned handkerchief. "While I am quite willing to thrill our group with my theory of recent events, I must insist we find safer ground, unless the rest of you wish to remain here for the duration of the night. I expect our pet poltergeist would enjoy having us to toy with."
Nikki wiped her eyes. "I don't want to stay here. I want to leave now."
Troy was nodding. "None of us do, Nikki. Okay, group, suggestions?"
"Can we make it back to Ripley's?" Hank asked.
Again all eyes turned to Winston. "I suspect it will be fully dark before we get across the street," he said.
"That's it!" Jenny said with a snap of her fingers. She pointed across the street. "Harmon's General Store," she said. "It only has two doors, one in front and one in back, so we can barricade ourselves in. There should be plenty of food and other things we can use there too."
Troy agreed. "I can't think of anything better." He unslung his rifle. "Get ready, kids," he warned. "Shoot anything moving that isn't us."
The mist rose up from the hills outside of town and slowly crept toward the coastline, trapping us within like a vise. It crawled over abandoned vehicles and other smaller lumps that I didn't want to look at too closely. I could smell seawater and decay, and mixed in with that there was something else. Some other scent underneath the other odors that was very faint. An oily smell, mechanical almost. It was kind of like that sharp ozone tang that electric motors give off when they're hot. Mixed in with the scents I felt something else, and I don't think the others noticed it. Maybe it was because I was sensitive to the sight, sound, and feel of motors and other equipment that I could sense there was a source of power operating. How far away it was I couldn't tell, but I could almost hear the hum of energy coursing through the air. I didn't say so, but I was certain that I could have walked straight to the origin of that energy as easily as following my nose to a familiar restaurant.
It seemed that the light grew dimmer as the fog advanced. We only had to cross one street, less than twenty yards, but it stretched out before us like a mile. Hank opened the door and held it as we filed out with weapons readied, Troy in the lead. Once all of us were outside Hank shut the door and made sure it was latched. He didn't want the entity inside to follow us, but I'm pretty sure it could have found another way out if it really wanted too. Call it wishful thinking, but I was hoping that maybe it had gotten its fill of bloodshed and murder with Timmy's death and would leave the rest of us alone.
Off the curb and onto the street and the fog was only a few yards away and moving fast in our direction. "Go!" Troy barked, and we went.
Whatever forces there were controlling Castle Bay made sure we weren't going to make it unscathed. The mist surged at us, which normally would have been impossible without at least some wind, but the air was completely still. In a flash we were blanketed by the vapor and unable to see more than a few feet in any direction. I heard Troy yell something about not stopping as icy tentacles seemed to grab at my arms, legs and rifle. Man, the touch of that stuff was slimy on your skin, like being caressed by Death.
I heard Jenny yelp and then a weapon fired. The staccato blast of Troy's machine gun split the quiet inside the fog and I heard something grunt. All I could think was that thing Jenny and I had encountered on our arrival attacking us. Then a small round shape darted into view and I couldn't stop myself from gasping in surprise.
It was no larger than a boy of ten, but that was as far as the resemblance went. The head was large and round and smooth. What passed for its face was right out of a horror movie. Two wide-set eyes glowed yellow above two wets slits that must have been nostrils. Beneath them was a very wide mouth filled with piranha-like teeth, and lots of them, which it bared at me as it turned and made a few tentative hops in my direction.
The torso was a misshapen mass of muscle, with bulging arms that ended in three fingered hands equipped with long and probably very sharp claws. It hopped on legs very much like those of a bird of prey, with feet that had four long toes ending in wicked talons. It would tear me to shreds in an instant if it got hold of me with its hands or feet, and I wasn't about to let it try. Every cell in my body was screaming for me to run, but somehow I managed to lift the Underwood and start pulling the trigger.
It was a stupid thing to do, really. I had no idea where my companions were and I could have hit any of them with a stray round. Luckily the thing was so close to me I couldn't have missed, even with the fog and diminished light. I squeezed off a dozen rounds and watched as the shots punched a line of holes up the torso to the head. The bullets to the body drove it back several steps but didn't knock it down. However, at least a couple of shots hit the head, which caved in and burst, throwing green goo and little white worms onto the street as it dropped like a felled tree.
Nikki's shotgun boomed close by, and I heard several dull thuds as more of the creatures were scattered across the pavement. I grinned in spite of the seriousness of the situation. With that gun in her hands she was a force to be reckoned with.
There was no time for me to bask in the triumph of the kill I'd made. Another one loped out of the mist and snarled at me over the body of the dead one. "Ah, crap," I moaned, and almost got to pull the trigger. The world went crazy before I could.
The fog had muffled all sound, making even voices muted and hard to hear. For some reason I heard Winston's voice. I knew he wasn't anywhere near me, but I heard him as clearly as if he'd been right next to me. I don't know what he said, but his voice had taken on a deep tone that resonated with raw power. I heard words in a language I didn't recognize. Suddenly there was a blast of brilliant white light that drove back the fog and incinerated a crowd of the ugly monstrosities that had surrounded us. They shrieked and fell into smoldering piles of dust. I didn't take time to count, but in that blinding flash I guess maybe two-dozen of the little nasties got vaporized, including the ones already killed by gunfire. It was like a miniature atomic blast and there was no indication of where it had come from. Had Winston done that?
We all spent a second staring at each other with wonder before Troy shouted, "Let's go!" He led the charge to the opposite sidewalk and the door to Harmon's. It was no surprise to find it unlocked and we stormed in, knocking over stacks of canned goods and a display of Wonda-Mops that clattered to the floor.
Hank was the last of us inside and together he and Troy slammed the door and threw the deadbolt. "Jesus H. Christ!" the big man swore. "What the hell were those things? They looked like Biocyte crossed a linebacker with a chicken." He turned to Holcroft. "What the hell did you just do out there?"
Winston was his old natty self. "I saved our lives," he said. "You can all thank me whenever you feel recovered."
I wondered if Troy would sock him one for being a pompous ass, but instead he shrugged and smiled. "Well done, Winston. We owe you one. What was it that you did? It might come in handy later on."
Holcroft came as close as I had ever seen him to smiling. "Let's make sure we are safe here for the night," he said. "Then I will explain my actions."
The store was empty of life, but evidence that we were not the first people inside was everywhere. It was unlikely that zombies or ghouls had done any nighttime shopping, so the only thing that could explain the serious depletion of merchandise was that other survivors in town had been risking daylight raids. I had expected the place to reek with spoiled food, but instead the air was slightly stale as is usual in places where there's little or no circulation of the air. A quick investigation found the freezers of meat empty. Nothing whets the appetite like sheer terror. I guess the townsfolk went looking for salvation in top round sirloin. We did find a few puddles of melted ice cream, but for the most part the dairy items had been cleaned out. We were left with a few sacks of slightly hard bread and a lot of canned stuff.
Together Hank, Troy and me managed to move a big soda cooler in front of the door. Since we were all out of breath after manhandling it, the odds of anything outside tossing it aside to get to us were pretty slim.
Troy and Hank disappeared to go secure the back door and came back looking pleased. They announced that they had found a sturdy fire door with a steel bar that held it firmly shut. It had even been padlocked. Nothing would be getting in that way. With safety no longer a concern we set about making something to eat. My stomach told me it about noon, but outside it was deepest night. Occasionally a shadow would move in front of the big windows, but Troy was reasonably sure that if they hadn't broken in by now they probably weren't going to. I hoped he was right.
There were a few injuries. I wasn't so much as scratched, the same as Joshua and Winston. The others hadn't fared as well. Nikki had a nasty cut to the back of her left hand, and Jenny sported a hand-shaped bruise on her upper arm. Troy's duster had three long cuts down the back. The heavy leather had probably kept his spine from being ripped out. Hank's flannel shirt had been torn into rags, and underneath the gray hair on his chest were several cuts and bruises. He'd taken the worst of the assault but acted like it was nothing, even going so far as to brag about how he'd dispatched the critter that had torn his best shirt. "Fed that boy a meal of hot lead, and gave him a full stomach!" Then he took a nip from his flask and winked at me as he went to find replacement clothes.
I spent a little time nosing around in the magazines where I found the same edition of the paper that we had seen at the office, and a lot of old issues of Sports Illustrated and People. All the magazines were last month's editions. If the mail trucks were trying to get through then the postal service was going to end up missing a lot of carriers. That made me wonder just how long events in Castle Bay could go unnoticed by the rest of the world.
By the time I had rejoined the group they'd all calmed down somewhat from our encounter outside. Wounds had been bandaged, and I bet they were all glad then that we'd made the detour to the hospital. Nikki seemed to be the worst off. The gash on her hand was deep and blood was slowly saturating the bandaging. That was the really weird thing that I first noticed then and many time afterwards. None of our wounds ever closed in Castle Bay. It was like the earth thirsted for our blood, milking us dry. It sure made for unhappy thoughts, since Troy had said that there were things out there that could smell blood and follow a trail of it. I wasn't willing to test that theory.
Someone had produced a camp stove and had found a good-sized pot. Canned stew was bubbling and my mouth started watering. For a brief time at least the stench of the town wasn't present. I accepted a bowl and sat down on a folding chair.
I believe it was Mark Twain that said, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt." I decided to just eat, keep quiet and listen to what they were discussing. Besides, Nikki wouldn't look at me and my pride wouldn't let me make the first move toward making up. I'd be there when and if she came around. I was a little ashamed of myself for not trying to help Timmy, but thinking back on it, what else could I have done besides get in the way?
Holcroft waited until we were all finished with our stew and the bowls and utensils collected. He started by patting Nikki on the arm. "You do have my condolences, my dear. I am sorry for his death." God, how low could he get? Sympathy was one thing he couldn't pull off, and Nikki saw right through him. "Are you?" she asked him, brushing his hand off her arm with disgust.
"Of course," he replied, as if he could not comprehend why she would even ask that of him. "It was a horrible way to die, especially for one so young and bright. Absolutely brilliant, that boy! No spine, mind you, but good with books and dead things." He must have seen the question on my face. "Timothy proved invaluable after we first found him. He was an astute pupil, as his studies and knowledge of the Latin language proved to me. He was also very helpful when we first began to suspect what was happening in town."
"How was that?" Had I misjudged the kid?
"Timothy was a horror comic aficionado, and also a fan of old Hollywood monster cinema. There was a wealth of information in that boy's mind." I pictured what I had nudged under the press across the street and morbidly wondered what was in his mind now. Dust bunnies? Rats? Ugh, I was grossing myself out.
"Enough commiserating, Winston," Troy said. "What's done is done. Tell us what those things were out there and what you did to stop them."
I thought Nikki might say something to him for that, but she kept her head low and eyes closed. Seeing as he had everyone's attention, Winston started talking. "Since I began reading the Mortis Arcanum that Mr. Hollow discovered, I have found many things I had been confused about made clearer. For starters, those creatures outside are not the result of some genetic engineering experiment at Biocyte. They have a long name in a forgotten language, but for all intents and purposes we may as well refer to them as mist demons."
"Mist demons? You're saying those things are demons?" Hank was incredulous.
"You heard me correctly, Mr. Dupree. Whether they are actual denizens of hell I cannot say, but they match the drawing in the book, which says that they come from the deepest and darkest pits of the abyss. We were fortunate to escape. According to the pages they have an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Light is the only thing that can harm them."
"Yeah, we saw that," Troy said. "So where did they light come from?"
Winston coughed into his hand and I could swear he was embarrassed. "Also from the Mortis Arcanum. A rather simple banishment spell. I wasn't sure it would work, as it requires the faith of the user to be strong. Since I do not subscribe to any religion, I thought it would be a waste of breath."
"Magic?" Troy scoffed. "You're saying you used magic?"
"Indeed, Mr. Williams. Why should that surprise you? You have seen the darker side of magic in the ghouls and hellhounds that have attacked us. The universe is a constant balance of light and dark, good and evil. One cannot exist without the other. Even though it has been absent from the world we know for some time, perhaps the recent events here in this remote part of the country have reawakened something lost for an age."
In spite of his doubts I could see that Troy believed what he had just heard, and who could blame him? Hell, I didn't like Winston any more than he did and I believed the man completely. "So how did you make it work without faith?" I heard myself ask him. All eyes were on me again, Nikki's included. Wasn't I supposed to be keeping my mouth shut?
If I thought he was going to make me look stupid I was sorely mistaken. He even seemed impressed by my question. "A legitimate query, Mr. Hollow, but I do not have an answer for you. Perhaps I was wrong in my interpretation of the writings. It might be possible that it only requires the user to have faith in himself and believe that he can cast the spell."
Now Troy was interested. "Are you saying any of us could use that?" Always the army ranger, he was looking for the next weapon in his arsenal. "What was it exactly?"
"You'll forgive my impertinence, Mr. Williams, but I don't think you could do it. It requires a rather difficult series of words in a language you are completely unfamiliar with. As for what it was, I'm not exactly sure. Perchance it was the power of white magic, maybe even the light of God, if you believe in that sort of thing, whereas I do not." At that point Winston did something I'd never seen him do before then. From inside his jacket he produced a small silver case and removed a slim cigarette from it. A match followed the cigarette from the case. "If you will all pardon me, the ordeal has left me somewhat drained. I will of course enjoy my little indulgence away from the rest of you. Excuse me." He walked away with the bearing of a man who is completely assured of himself and utterly comfortable in any situation. I heard the match sizzle and saw a puff of smoke rise above his head before he turned around the end of the aisle and was lost to sight. A strange odor drifted back to us.
Hank took a whiff and frowned. "Weird tobacco," he muttered.
Troy was scraping the pot with a piece of bread for the last remnants of the stew. "It's a Turkish blend," he explained around a dripping mouthful. "They mix it with opium so it has a slight narcotic effect. They're highly addictive and illegal here, so that makes them very expensive."
No one asked Troy how he knew that, maybe because he was ex-army and had probably encountered the smokes overseas. Winston's habit didn't bother me so long as kept it to himself. He had been polite enough to remove himself from the group prior to blazing up, so I couldn't fault him. Still, if they were a narcotic as Troy had said, could we count on Winston in another tight spot if he was stoned?
I leaned the chair back against a cereal display and tried to slow down the whirlwind in my mind. I was beginning to accept that I would probably never leave Castle Bay. The great job was now nothing more than a pipe dream I once had. The girl I had fallen for in the last couple of days now hated me, and in all likelihood I was going to die a hideous and painful death. With all I'd been through the last few days I was beginning to wonder if maybe I hadn't dreamed my life in California. It seemed like the world had always been filled with evil creatures, and eventually they would get you, one way or the other.
Then I remembered the note we'd found. The group had wandered off, leaving me alone in my reverie, so I took it from my pocket and unfolded the paper. THEY ARE AT GRAVE'S END. What the hell did that mean? I began to mull it over. We'd grabbed the note without looking for anything else. Had we missed something important, some clue that could help us get us out of this mess? Then a moment of madness came over me as I considered making the trip back to Earp's. I mentally kicked myself for being an idiot. How was I going to get two blocks in the fog?
It was starting to bug me. We'd missed something. I was sure of it. Some vital piece of information we'd overlooked in our hurry to leave. Come sunrise they'd all want to continue on to Biocyte, but I knew we had to backtrack a bit. All I had to do was convince Troy and the rest would go along. At least, that's what I hoped.
After a minor search I found Troy and Jenny in the manager's office. I'd heard them talking so I knew I wasn't going to be interrupting a stolen moment of passion. It didn't make facing either of them any easier though. I cautiously knocked on the door and got their attention.
"Hey, guys, got a minute?"
I could tell Jenny was surprised. I'd pretty much left the two of them alone whenever I could, so wanting to talk now was sort of unusual. "Sure, Jake. Come on in." Troy was friendly and almost seemed glad that I wasn't withdrawing after getting my butt chewed on at the paper. "What's on your mind?" He was curious but guarded, and I wondered what Jenny had been telling him about me.
It didn't matter. "We have to go back to Earp's," I said and waited for his reaction.
I was disappointed. Warily he stood up. "Did you hear us talking just now, Jake?"
What was he getting at? "I heard your voices. That's how I found you. I couldn't hear what you were saying though." Then I understood. "Jesus, do you really think I'd want to eavesdrop on you two? I gave up being a peeping tom in high school."
He smirked and the tension lifted. "Sorry, man," he grinned. "Jenny and I were just discussing that. I told her what you found on the desk."
"Are you thinking we left too fast?" I asked him. "Maybe overlooked something in the office?"
He nodded. "Looks like we're on the same track. The question is... when do we go? Now, or when the sun comes up again?"
"I wouldn't count on another sunrise in this place. We just saw a day go by in under eight hours, and the nights don't seem shortened at all." Now there was a scary thought. Winston was probably right. Pretty soon there would be no daytime at all. Castle Bay would be a town forever lost in darkness. And nighttime was when the bad things came out to play.
"So we go now," he surmised, and I felt my throat close up. Now? With those things out there?
Jenny was watching us as if we had both lost our minds, and she said so. Troy summed up what I'd already been thinking. Trying to make her feel better he agreed that he wouldn't go alone, Hank and I would tag along. She tried to insist that Winston go as well, but there he disagreed. "No, I want him here just in case something or someone tries to get in. That little light of his could come in handy when you need it." Funny, I was thinking the same thing applied to us.
I suppose he volunteered me to go because it had kind of been my idea, but at least he was the one who went to ask Hank how he felt about coming with us. Ever the Texas cowboy, Hank wasn't about to say no. "It'll gimme a chance to shot some more of those ugly thangs," he said with a southern twinkle in his eyes. "Besides, beats the shit out of just sittin' here don't it?"
So just like that it was decided. Troy, Hank and I would head back to Earp's. If we didn't return in four hours or sunrise, whichever came first; then the group was to consider us lost and go on. Joshua finally proved himself to be a help by locating the key to the back door padlock in the office, and then to everyone's surprise, he announced that he wanted to go. Naturally Troy killed the idea immediately. "No way, kid," he said in a tone that dared the boy to argue. "This isn't a game, people's lives are at stake."
He pointed at me with the tire iron he always carried with him. "Why does he get to go?" It occurred to me that Josh thought I wasn't much older than he was, so in his immature way of thinking it wasn't fair. I restrained the urge to waggle my fingers in my ears and stick my tongue out at him.
Troy moved faster than a cheetah, grabbing the iron from Josh's hand in the blink of an eye. He stared hard at the punk and chucked it away. The clatter of iron on concrete echoed through the stockroom. Once the noise had abated he stepped back. "Because I trust him," he said.
Oh jeez. It was by far the greatest compliment I had ever been paid. Now whether he said it because he meant it, or because he was trying to mend the breach between Nikki and me I can't say. What Troy didn't know, as I did; was that I was bound to let him down sooner or later. Probably sooner.
Weapons were checked and reloaded. They'd be able to secure it again after we left. Things had been quiet outside. We'd seen nothing moving in the thick soup of the fog out front for some time. I wasn't naïve enough to think that was going last. We were going to have to shoot our way back down the street and back again.
The rest of them saw us off. The back door was opened slowly, every weapon aimed at the opening in case something was there hoping for a chance to get inside. Nothing but trash and vapor waited in the alleyway. Jenny gave Troy a quick kiss on the mouth, and even managed to give my elbow a squeeze. "You three watch out for each other," she ordered. "We want all of you back."
I glanced over at Nikki but she was staring hard at the floor. Jenny leaned over and whispered in my ear. "I'll talk to her, okay?"
"Thanks," I whispered back, "but I don't think it'll do any good."
"Wait and see," she smiled with honest friendship, and I envied Troy again. A woman that beautiful should be in Hollywood, not fighting for her life in backwoods New England. It wasn't the first time I cursed Biocyte for messing up my life. Without this mess she could have been mine. Maybe.
Once the door was quietly shut Troy used a compass to get his bearings. "Okay, Earp's is due south three hundred yards and then across the street. No dicking around, guys. We have to make tracks and we have to make them quietly. The less noise the better, got it?"
We got it.
Try walking blindfolded through a room you know. You're going to bang your knees no matter how confident you are of your surroundings. Now imagine that even with your eyes wide open you can only see a couple of feet in any direction and you're unfamiliar with what's around you. That's what we were facing that day. Shapes loomed out of the mist, dumpsters, bursting bags of trash, boxes and the occasional vehicle. Troy moved as quietly as ever, his military training taking over. I don't think he would have admitted it, but he was back in his element and he was having fun. Fine by me as long as he didn't suffer a flashback and start thinking he was in Desert Storm, or something.
The ex-ranger came to a sudden halt by a pile of empty boxes and Hank and I followed his cue and froze. We heard them long before we saw them since they weren't really trying to keep quiet. They looked human, but they were in sorry shape with their bare feet and ragged clothing. They didn't move like the undead ghouls that seemed to be dogging our footsteps. Instead they were wide-eyed and scurrying along like animals. They growled and grunted at each other in some primitive form of communication. The sight of them was disturbing. A couple of them realized we were there and stopped long enough to sniff the air before loping off. Thank God, because I didn't want to shoot a human being, no matter how crazy they were acting.
Who were they? I don't know, probably some locals, but they wanted nothing to do with us. Considering their state of mind, I wanted nothing to do with them! Neither did Troy. He just shook his head as if to clear away the illusion of what we had seen and started us moving again. I tried not to think of what could have turned people that way. It was like they had de-evolved.
Whenever a gap between buildings would appear, Troy would hunch down close to the ground to listen while we kept our rifles pointed aimed over his head in case of a frontal attack.
I had no idea how far we'd gone when I first noticed the noise behind us. It was furtive and stealthy, but I heard movement. It was distant enough that I didn't worry too much, but anything on our tail had the potential to be very bad news. "Troy?" I whispered.
He didn't even look back. "I hear it, Jake. Be cool, we're almost there." He suddenly turned and led us between two buildings I hadn't even seen. Past a row of empty and disarrayed crates and we reached the front. Through a gap in the mist I saw the front door of Earp's across the street.
Had we really come that far? It didn't seem like we'd been gone that long. I waited for Troy to lead us to our goal, but he was staring intently down the street toward the store. Hank peered over his shoulder and I saw him whisper the question we both wanted to ask. He waved us back and put a finger to his lips. The three of us crouched down and tried to turn to stone.
Again, we heard the things long before they slid into view. At first I thought it was the group of feral folk, but what actually slid into view defied explanation. I had seen slugs before, had even salted them as a child before I knew better, but never before had I seen one the size of a school bus. There were three of them, moving slowly side by side and leaving a trail of faintly phosphorescent slime behind them. They were so big they took up the entire street. Amazingly, the fog parted before them like a curtain, giving us a clear view. Their long wet bodies undulated in unison, the thick heads swaying slightly above the ground. Any metal object they encountered vanished underneath their bulk, and reappeared a hissing and smoking ruin. I watched amazed as an overturned Cadillac disappeared briefly and reemerged as a pile of melting slag. If the slime was acidic enough to eat through steel, what would it do to us if we tried to cross the road? The slug closest to us paused and its eyestalks rotated to either side of the long head, and I realized it was looking down at a corpse lying half on and half off the sidewalk.
I tried to remember if we had seen any dead bodies when coming up the street earlier, but couldn't recall. I was becoming inured to the sight of death, so even if I had seen a dead body, I might not have even noticed it.
The slug had noticed, however, and by the sudden increase in the rippling along its foot, was excited by the discovery. The head lowered and I saw the tiny slit of a mouth open wide. I was both sickened and fascinated by what was about to happen. Then the corpse moved.
I heard Hank gasp as the man tried to escape. It was one of the wild folk we'd seen earlier, playing dead to avoid a predator and not realizing that these didn't care if their meal was alive or not. Too late his sense of self-preservation kicked in and he was leaping to his feet, but not fast enough to avoid the gaping maw that intercepted his flight. Hank lifted his shotgun as if to help, but Troy pushed it back down. Too late, he mouthed at us.
The mouth sucked the feral man in as the poor guy let out his last breath in a scream that faded quickly in the sound absorbing mist. His head and upper torso were engulfed in seconds and the slug reared up, lifting the rest of his body off the ground. We could still see him moving feebly through the translucent skin of the slug he slid headfirst down the slug's gullet. The wet mouth slowly drew in his legs and then closed completely with a wet slurp.
The slug paused a moment, shifting its bulk from side to side as if positioning its meal more comfortably, then lowered itself back down and resumed the slimy trek along the street. The other two had not even slowed while it had consumed the man, and it seemed in a hurry to catch up to them, moving away quickly for something so large. Troy waited until the fog had closed back around them before letting out the breath he'd been holding. "Christ," he muttered, his voice soft but hoarse. "I thought it was going to smell us." That was as close as he ever came to admitting fright, and I couldn't blame him.
"What about that goop they left behind?" Hank asked in a ragged whisper. What we had witnessed had upset him too. "We can't walk through that shit, it'll kill us."
"Give me a second," Troy responded with a trace of irritability. He hated being shown the obvious, especially when it was right in front of him. His gaze shifted to one of the garbage cans next to us, and he quickly lifted the lid and scanned inside. His hand darted in and pulled out a half-eaten and moldering apple. With a quick snap of his wrist he tossed it into the slime.
Nothing. True, we could barely see it, but it didn't dissolve the way the cars had. Troy quickly launched the lid like a Frisbee. I thought he might have gone nuts. The noise of it hitting the street would bring any bad guys out of the woodwork, but then I realized that the thick layer of slime would mask the sound of impact, and I was right. It landed with hardly any sound at all, and lay there undamaged.
"Stuff needs to be fresh," Hank observed dryly. "We might be okay after all."
I wasn't so sure, and neither was Troy. The stuff had seemed to grab the lid and hold it; there had been no ricochet as we might have expected. "Looks kind of sticky to me," Troy observed. "Give it a few minutes to dry." It took more than a few. I counted to one hundred at least five times and watched Troy send several pebbles into the muck before we got the result we wanted. Finally one of the stones bounced out of sight, we heard it hit several times before losing sight of it. "Did we just see what I think we saw?" Hank wondered aloud, and I flinched at his loud whisper.
Troy shushed him and stepped out into the open. Hank and I covered him as he made a few cautious steps onto the street. When his boots didn't start smoldering he assumed it was safe and waved for us to follow. We nearly fell over each other, but somehow Hank and I managed to remain somewhat quiet as we joined the bounty hunter in the middle of the road. Then the three of us jogged the rest of the way to Earp's.
The door was still shut and unlocked and the interior pitch black. Once inside Troy sealed the door by throwing the lock, and we snapped on our flashlights. Hank was still in shock over the slugs, and grabbed our arms. "Guys, I'd really like someone to explain what just happened out there."
Troy tipped me a wink. "Big slugs. Don't you get them that big in Texas?"
I barely held in a guffaw and pinched myself to keep a straight face. "Yeah, Hank, these New England slugs don't come in the junior size like they do down south."
Now Troy was looking anywhere else to keep from laughing. Hank's expression was priceless. He couldn't decide if we were serious or not. Then common sense won over. "Awe, you boys is letting me on."
I grinned at him. "Sorry, old man. Couldn't help myself."
Troy cleared his throat. "Seriously, Hank. I wish I could tell you anything to explain those and other things we're likely to see, but I can't. Now let's do what we came here to do and get back before the rest of them get antsy."
We hooded the flashlights with our hands so the light wasn't as bright, then crept past the counter into the stockroom. The many boxes and shelves threw strange shadows as we went back to the manager's office. The owner still lay where we had left him, unchanged, if a trifle riper. We went right to the desk.
Obviously the guy had not been organized. Files and papers were scattered across the top with a fax machine and a computer thrown in for good measure. Troy started going through the drawers while I shuffled the papers around, not sure what I was looking for. I pushed aside bills, old invoices and ledger pages, scanning every document for anything that seemed out of place, which wasn't easy using one hand to hold my flashlight.
I found it hastily written on the back of an envelope. Scribbled in the same ragged handwriting were two words that filled me with trepidation. Chills raced through me as I read them.
Ripley knows.
Jenny wasn't going to like seeing her uncle's name mentioned. What had the old guy known that was so important? The next scribble on a sticky-note wasn't any more helpful.
Matthews blames Gerhard.
Josh? Or maybe his father? Either way it wasn't a good omen. Who was this Gerhard that he was blaming, and for what? God, mysteries on top of mysteries! I called Troy over and showed him what I had found. He scowled fiercely. "Time for me to have a little talk with Josh," he said. I wondered how many bruises the kid would end up with after their little tête-à-tête.
Hank had been fishing through the trashcan by the desk, and now held up a piece of paper stained with coffee rings and covered with symbols I recognized as runes. There are a lot of fortunetellers in coastal towns like San Francisco, and most of them had those same symbols drawn or painted in their dingy little shops. These were arranged in a series of lines, which had to mean something. One of them I'd never seen before. It looked like an upside-down capital T with both ends curling up. There was a little curl halfway up the bar, and a slash at the top angling down. "What the hell is that?" Troy questioned.
Hank wore a vacant expression usually reserved for trips into his flask. "I've seen that before somewhere..." he kind of mumbled, as if unsure of his own words. He rubbed his jaw and his hand went for the flask, but he'd left that behind and his fingers balled into a fist so quickly I heard his knuckles crack.
"Forget that," I said, holding the paper up for Troy to get a closer look. "Read what it says."
He did, and if his jaw had clenched any tighter his teeth would have started snapping out of his mouth. "Well, goddamn," he growled.
W. Holcroft - Biocyte Industries
I had to admit then that Nikki had told me she'd seen Winston on a few of her intern trips to Biocyte. Funny, but I didn't get a single twinge of guilt in spilling her secret. I was bright enough to read the writing on the wall. She was through with me. I'd failed her by not trying to rescue Timmy, and that was something she could not bring herself to forgive.
Screw her.
Troy was watching me warily. "Why didn't you tell me this before?" he said in a low voice full of warning. My answer needed to be convincing.
"I promised her I wouldn't say anything." It was a weak explanation, but he seemed to accept it for the truth. "She wanted to tell you, and at the time, it didn't seem like a big deal. So he lied about working there. I would too if my employer caused hell on earth and I managed to survive it. But this kind of changes things, doesn't it?"
"Oh yeah." Troy was holding back the anger, and I could almost see the waves of heat radiating off his head. "The question is how do we handle this?"
"You're asking me?"
He nodded. "Actually, I'm asking both of you."
Hank and I exchanged looks and shrugged together. "I say wait," Hank suggested. "He ain't done no harm so far, but they say a tiger can't change its stripes. We best keep an eye on him."
I agreed with a thumbs-up. "I can't think of a better suggestion unless you just want to shoot him for good measure." I imagined I could still smell the acrid scent of gunpowder and oil from his gun under my chin. I owed Holcroft zip.
I think Troy may have considered doing just that, but hearing someone suggest doing it made him reassess taking such a drastic action. "We'll hold off for now, but eventually we're going to have to confront him about what he knows."
"That'll be fun." I said, rolling my eyes. "He might feel it necessary to shoot his way out of a bad conversation."
"I'll handle it," Troy assured me. You know, I believed him. He handed Hank the papers. "Stow that away somewhere until we can find a way to decipher it all. Maybe it can provide a few leads."
The big Texan folded the documents and deposited them in the inside pocket of his jean jacket. "What's our next move?" he asked. "Biocyte?" I was pondering that myself.
Troy shook his head, and I held back a sigh of relief. I absolutely didn't want to go there. Just the name incited dread. "Grave's End," he said. "We get back to the group, and we go to Grave's End. I've got a feeling we'll find something there."
I had a feeling too.
Something was going to find us first.