B-Movie Reels (27 page)

Ned wasn’t sure where to turn; nowhere was safe. Even if he fled, he was in full view of the woman. He could run back into the lake and hide in the fog and have a chance at locating the axe, and whether it would do harm to the creature or not, it was the better option next to becoming one of the corpses on the dock.
 

He raced into the fog, making his decision.
 

“
Shraaaaaaaaahhh!
”

The scream pierced his ears, and he cupped them, it was so painful. He raced blindly and every muscle was jolted by the cold once again, running right back into the freezing intensity. Black in every direction, he sensed movement from above. The eyes zipped over him in red electric streaks. A lance carved a line across his shoulder, and he folded to the ground in horrible pain. He touched the wound; it was deep enough to require stitches. Blood bubbled forth, and he grew weary as the fluid turned cold against his back.
 

Keeping mobile, he scrambled and weaved in every direction, though stepping as quietly as possible even though the creature had the clear advantage floating above him. Eventually, he slipped back to his knees and had to catch his breath. So cold, it was sucking the energy from him. He hacked up phlegm to clear his throat and nasal passages. Tears froze in their ducts and his eyelids kept sticking shut. He couldn’t conceive of making another move, becoming so weak. He hugged his body and waited for the creature to execute its next attack.
 

2

Sheriff O’Malley sped faster down the road and studied the woods at each side of him. The blue, red and white lights flashed across the darkened corners and animated the surroundings. Ice caked the road along with the miles of woods glimmering in every direction. This time, he wanted to face the blue eyed man or the flying creatures and take them on. Guns at each hip and more stacked in the passenger seat, he was ready to put those long hours at the target range to use. He could hit anything at one hundred feet with the naked eye.
 

He tried to contact someone else on a different line on the CB radio, but all he got was static. Every means of communication was either put out of commission or failed to work. The CB didn’t crackle with static; the line was dead. He was a man of logic, and whatever the reasons for the interference, there wasn’t time to investigate. His job—now his sworn duty since Tabitha and his deputies were murdered—had been changed.
 

Kill what threatened Anderson Mills.
 

He sucked in a nervous breath and scanned the trees. Again, darkness met his inspections.
 

“
Shraaaaaaaahhhh!
”

He slammed the brakes, skidding ten yards before performing a twisted stop. He gathered the 12 gauge and the 9 millimeter and stormed out of the vehicle, ready for action.
 

“Where are you?” he whispered. “Come on out. I’m not afraid of you.”

He studied the sky and caught the flicker of red, a bulb on the brink of burning out. The sheriff lunged into the woods, but before he stepped off the road, the shape of the blue eyed monster materialized from the other side of him. He aimed the 12 gauge and paused. The man limped toward him drunken like one of the locals from Barleycorn’s Pub after last call. His head was mashed in from the time he hit it with the mallet. The blue eyes continued to stare him down, a threat.
 

He reached his hands outward.
 

The last time, icicles shot from the skin.
 

“Stop that or I’ll shoot!—no more warnings!”

The man didn’t heed the words.
 

The barrel blasted, and the man’s leg snapped from the knees and the tower crumbled. He landed back-first against the road, and the icicles blasted from his hands and disappeared in the air only to come back down and pierce its body. A bass-throb rumbled through the ground as it bellowed in agony. The sheriff didn’t waste a precious second and emptied round after round into the felled figure.
 

The body convulsed with each hit. He dismantled the man piece by piece with the bullets until each arm and leg had been removed from the torso. Instead of blood, red slush oozed from the wounds. He was about to shoot the head off too when the man expelled a breath and a blast of snow blinded him. The wind wrenched the gun from his grip and he was blown feet into the air. Leaving the ground, he landed against the hood of his car with the flop of sheet metal.
 

“
Argggh!
”

He was paralyzed for a moment, and maybe he’d broken a rib, and what else, he didn’t know. He slipped from the hood and landed on his side, in agony. The torso didn’t move on the street. He wasn’t in immediate danger now that the creature was immobile. He thought for moments on how to dispatch the man. The blast of snow came from his mouth; the orifice had to be closed, he decided.
 

How about burning it?

He didn’t have gas, but there were road flares in his trunk. The sheriff fumbled with the lock and lifted it up. He opened a box and approached the figure with a flare in each hand. The sheriff struck one, the sizzle and flash of green illuminated the fallen man in strange hues. He shoved both of them into its mouth and ducked in case it tried to attack again. The monster’s head glowed a fluorescent green. The sheriff made out the shape of the skull underneath the skin, and he couldn’t help but watch as the head imploded. It melted, its nose becoming a sinkhole, as the stink of false flesh carried thick.
 

The rest of the man went up similarly, the body melting until it curled into a blackened stump of a human form. It happened so fast—under a minute—that he realized it didn’t have insides and the bones were so hollow they went up into smoke. He thought back to the man they dissected in Green County named Jorg. The butcher didn’t own working organs and the bones were cartilage. The connection was more than strange; it was downright harrowing. Logically, the two of them couldn’t exist.
 

A better truth: they weren’t human.
 

Agony caterwauled from the woods, and another shriek of the flying vampires followed. The touch of the last woman, the way she stroked him, it delivered a shutter of remembrance. He’d let the black demon pleasure him. He was foolish—and yet strangely human in his mistake. The women were too dangerous to arrest. They were better inspected when dead.
 

He raced into the woods and awaited another one of the women’s callings. The red eyes flashed for a split second in blink-speed fashion. The trees were melting and drops sounded from every direction. The blue-eyed man was dead, he reasoned, and now the damage he’d done to the land was being reversed.

“
Shraaaaaaaah
!”
 

Ba-BAM!

The 12 gauge blast lit up the night. He didn’t know if it hit its target. He neared the lake’s edge. The ice was thinning out and parts of it forked and separated. The shape of a fleeing body drove him to call out, “Hey you, get off the ice!”

The figure didn’t hear him.
 

You’re going to have to go after him.

“Damn it.”

He unloaded three more shots at the sky and then the 12 gauge went dry. He tossed it aside frustrated. The red eyes didn’t re-appear, and he assumed it was safe to tread cautiously. The first step against the ice, he rocked forward. It held strong for a moment until the gradual break increased. He chose his foothold carefully and hopped from one place to the other.
 

“This is Sheriff O’Malley, stop where you are! The ice is breaking. I’ll take you to safety.”

Wherever the hell that may be.

Nobody responded.
 

The
kerplunk
of ice in the near distance sent him into a fleeing panic. The vibration carried to his position. And the red eyes brightened nearer.
 

He removed the 9 millimeter from his holster; it almost slipped from his sweaty grasp. He kept it positioned to unload into the air, but he kept his focus on what surrounded him. “Where are you, man? Hurry before we both find ourselves in the freezing cold water.”

The two sets of eyes hovered in place enjoying his vulnerability. The two were in power, and he couldn’t do anything but pray they didn’t pounce on him before he was on dry land again where he could aim with accuracy.
 

“Over here!”

The sheriff couldn’t make out anything. The fog had dissipated but the night was still blind. “Follow my voice.”

Cracks simultaneously issued, and the sheriff was knocked to his knees. The ice turned into an island around him. The sheriff traced the nearest step to take and literally had to jump when the circle of ice he was standing on sunk into the water. He slipped underfoot on his lifeline and sprawled with his back against the sturdier chunk of ice.
 

Shit!
 

The layer cracked under his weight with a crystalline ring. He couldn’t shift or else he’d further set off the damage. The deformed shadow was stationed above him and threatened to swoop down arms first.
 

He didn’t hesitate to fire.
 

The creature tilted to the side and out of his line of vision, damaged but not dead.

He bobbed up and down. The water level hadn’t raised high enough to sink him yet. The cold bore through his clothing, wet and ice-cold. The sky tilted as he was rocked back and forth. The ends of the island were slowly melting.
 

He did his best to keep still, but soon, that wouldn’t be enough to stay alive.
 

3

“The CB connection is cut,” Kyle Redding explained to Frank Garrison in the Green County PD vehicle. He guided the vehicle to the outskirts of Anderson Mills. Two more miles, they’d come upon the bridge over Potter’s Creek that would direct them straight into town. “I’m not getting anything but fuzz. I’ve tried calling the department, and the line’s dead. Even the sheriff’s wife isn’t answering her phone. Usually Tabitha’s home at this time of night, and so is he. Either he’s putting in some overtime, or there’s something weird going on in that hick place.”

Garrison slurped the remains of his coffee in a Thermos canister. “The way things have been going in Anderson Mills, you think the whole law enforcement is on a break. Their job is easy. Set speed traps. Catch children stealing candy bars. Pull over the teenagers who’ve tanked on booze. I don’t see why they’re not answering.”

“It’s more than that,” Redding said. “I’ve known the sheriff for years. He’s thorough. If anything chaps his ass, he’s on top of it. He’s called me four times today about the butcher’s corpse. Even that visit to the lab, he wasn’t satisfied, and neither was I. This is paranormal shit. Area 51.”

“Except we’re in Kansas. There’s got to be an explanation about the corpse—what’s his name, Jorg?”

“This is something out of our league,” Redding agreed. “We’re crime scene investigators, not rogue FBI or CIA. This was a serial killer. Somebody did something to that man to make him want to cannibalize and mutilate people in a perverted fashion. Why in Anderson Mills, I’m not sure. I guess if someone’s going to perpetrate a crime of that magnitude, Anderson Mills would be a safe bet, at least easier than in a city.”

“Bodies were hanging from walls,” Garrison said. “Even at Wayne Brooks’ sandwich place, the sicko had a stack of breasts in a plastic bin. What the fuck was that about?”

Redding rolled down the window and caught a stiff breeze roll by. “Damn, it’s cold.” He checked the digital temperature gauge on the dashboard. “Thirty-four degrees, that’s fucking strange. It usually doesn’t get any cooler than seventy during the summer. It’s supposed to be sticky and humid. Ice cream couldn’t melt in this weather.”

Redding lit a cigarette, and Garrison extended his hand to take the next drag. “You’re still smokin’ menthols?”

“Cancer sucks,” Redding retorted. “Plus Cindy said when I smoke regulars it’s like kissing a turd.”

The acidic quality to the air warned Redding it was about to storm. The sky was exempt of tell-tale sounds: no lightening bolts or thunder. He recalled the forecast on the local weather station promise a dry week, not even sprinkles.
 

“What’s up with this weather, seriously?”

“Global warming,” Garrison joked. “Our glaciers are melting, polar bears are drowning, and next thing you know there won’t be a North Pole—and that means Santa Claus and his elves will sink to the bottom of the ocean.”

Redding rolled his eyes. “Shut up. I like Santa Claus.”

“It can’t be any weirder than finding Cal Unger’s body mutilated at the cemetery,” Garrison quipped. “He was torn from the inside out. It screams necrophilia. Ed Gein’s cousin is horny.”

Redding was about to explode with laughter when something at the end of the road struck him odd. “You see a bridge?”

“No.”

“Exactly. We passed the sign half a mile ago. We should be seeing it any moment.” Redding squinted harder. He turned on the cruiser’s brights. “I can’t see anything, the fog’s too thick.”

Then Redding braked hard after almost crashing into one of the steel pillars at the edge of the bridge. Stopping at a safe enough distance, he put the vehicle into park and stepped out. He immediately noticed he could see his breath. “Why’s it so cold?”