Irish Mist - Sean's Story (Mary O'Reilly Short Story) (3 page)
Read Irish Mist - Sean's Story (Mary O'Reilly Short Story) Online
Authors: Terri Reid
His grandmother took his hand into her own and studied the wound. “Aye, ‘tis so narrow you wouldn’t know it was a cut, just a wee scrape that didn’t break the skin. A fairy cut no doubt.”
“What?” he asked, meeting her eyes.
She wasn’t teasing. She wasn’t telling a story. His grandmother actually believed he’d been cut by a fairy’s knife. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? There were no such things as little people. No such things as fairies. No such things as…
“Well, Sean, you’ll have to make due with grilled cheese,” his father said, as he entered the room carrying a plate filled with food. “Will that work?”
Sean nodded absently. “Yeah, da, that will be great,” he said.
“What’s wrong?” his father asked, looking back and forth between Sean and his grandmother.
Knowing how his father felt about fairy tales, Sean decided not to tell him what his grandmother had just suggested. “What happened to me?” he asked.
Timothy pulled over a TV tray and set Sean’s food on it, then he pulled up another chair and sat alongside his mother-in-law. “Well, the doctor said there’s a vine in the woods that has some pretty nasty thorns on it and the leaves are actually a hallucinogen. He figures you got caught up in the vines and struggled to get out and the plant matter got into your wound, causing your hallucinations.”
“What hallucinations?” Sean asked.
Timothy chuckled. “You kept talking about a monster with long claws and a red-haired girl with a sword. It would have been pretty funny if we hadn’t been so frightened for you.”
“Yeah, pretty funny,” Sean agreed half-heartedly, glancing over to his grandmother who met his eyes and shook her head quickly.
Taking a deep breath, Sean nodded to her and turned to his dad. “Good thing the doctor knew what he was talking about,” he said. “Or else the rest of you might have thought I was crazy.”
“Yeah, I’d hate to have to lock up my own son,” Timothy teased.
Sean picked up the sandwich and took a bite. “Yeah, me too,” he murmured, “me too.”
Chapter Six
(present day)
The Grant Park Garage was nearly deserted, except for a few vagrants who were looking for a place to shelter from the cold Chicago spring rain. Sean hitched up the collar of his jacket as the wind blew rain down from the sidewalk above. Watching water run in rivulets down the stairs and across the cement into the drainpipes as he walked down the stairs, he wondered if the rain was ever going to stop. This was the sixth day of rain and he was wondering if he’d grow webs between his toes.
The crime rate had dropped during the first few days. What self-respecting criminal would want to break in weather like this, leaving muddy tracks and footprints all over the place? But after a few days, cabin fever set in and the domestic disturbances calls had tripled. People were just tired of being stuck indoors with each other. Besides, neither the Bears nor the Bulls had made it into the playoffs, and both the Cubs and the Sox were already being beaten in the Cactus League games. There was not a lot to be happy about in the Windy City.
But Sean O’Reilly wasn’t interested in sports or weather. He was only interested in one thing, a serial killer loose in his city who had brutally slaughtered seven people in the past seven days. What little remained of the victims had to be identified by either dental records or, in two even more disturbing cases, DNA. This guy was an animal and the sooner they caught him and tossed him in some dark, lonely place for the rest of his life, the better, as far as Sean was concerned.
His walked silently, years on the force had taught him that the element of surprise was often his best weapon. And now, moving stealthily was second nature.
The air was cold and damp and smelled of mold and rotting garbage with an underlying hint of urine. Despite that, he’d always liked the feeling of the garage, like an ancient castle, solid and unyielding. There were only a few cars down here. Sean paid a monthly fee and liked being down in the bowels of the city. He thought it was an appropriate place for a cop to park. Kind of like his own personal Batcave.
Walking down the center of the garage, he passed from one section to another, the thick concrete walls and faded black paint on the floor the only thing that distinguished one area from another. Then he noticed the vapor hovering above the garage floor, like a thin barely perceptible mist, it was moving towards him from the far end of the garage.
Must have something to do with all this moisture,
he thought.
The concrete wall in the next section was surrounded by another dark puddle. He started to bypass it, turning and walking around, when he realized it wasn’t rain water. It was blood.
Pulling out his radio he swore softly when he realized there was no connection this far down in the garage. Now he had to make a choice, turn around and get back up or continue on and finally get a chance to catch the bastard. The choice was easy.
Sean slapped the radio back into its holster and pulled out his gun. He was going to catch the killer.
He slipped past the wall and he stomach turned as he spied the remains of the latest victim. There was a sparkling gold high heel shoe in the middle of puddle. The victim had been a woman. There was nothing he could do for her now, but her blood was still putting off steam in the cold spring air. She hadn’t been dead for long and that meant the killer couldn’t be too far away.
He saw what looked like a partial footprint in the puddle and turned to see the track led further into the garage. He flicked off the safety. He was going hunting.
He noiselessly jogged in the direction the killer’s path led. Moving through each new section, he stayed close to the vehicles for cover, listening for any noise that might convey the killer’s whereabouts.
Finally, as he moved to the last section, he heard the slow shuffling footsteps of the killer.
He must have been wounded
, Sean thought,
to be moving so slowly
. He crouched low, his gun drawn and darted alongside a panel van parked in the far corner of the garage. He inched his way alongside and peered through the driver’s window into the shadowed section ahead. He saw a shadow. The guy was a freaking hulk!
That’s okay, the bigger they are, the harder they fall
.
He sprinted forward. “Police! Freeze!” he screamed, his voice echoing throughout the garage.
Then he saw it and his blood ran cold. There it was; the creature from his nightmares. The bear-like creature with the long claws that had haunted his dreams since he’d been a boy. The scars on his arm started to burn and for a moment he was twelve again and terrified that he was going to die.
It turned and looked at him, blood, still fresh, dripping from its teeth. The victim’s blood. That was all it took to bring him back to reality. Tonight an innocent woman had been killed by this creature and others had died the same way. This wasn’t Ireland, and this wasn’t some damn enchanted forest. This was Chicago. This was his city. And he wasn’t going to let some oversized beast get away with murder.
“Hey, Magilla, I’m not twelve anymore,” Sean growled through gritted teeth. “I said it once and I’m only going to say it one more time. Police! Freeze!”
The creature started to lunge and Sean lifted his gun and shot it in the heart. The impact knocked it back a few feet, but it regained its footing and came at him again.
Sean shot again, and again, and again. He emptied the entire magazine into the beast, but it only slowed it down. He was out of ammunition, so he pulled out his Taser. He set at the highest possible setting and aimed at shot. The probes attached themselves to the creature’s chest and Sean shot 50,000 volts of electricity into its body.
The creature roared, grabbed the lines and ripped them from his chest, pulling the Taser out of Sean’s hands. The gun clattered to the ground.
Sean reached back and pulled out the final weapon in his arsenal, his wooden nightstick. He moved into a hand-to-hand combat position, his stick in his right hand, and faced the creature. He knew he needed to stay away from the talons, and he prayed he could find some spot of weakness before he became victim number nine.
The beast approached him slowly, its black tongue darting in and out along its elongated jawline. Its yellow eyes never blinking, staring coldly into Sean’s soul. He remembered those eyes. He remembered the last time he faced the beast clearly now. He remembered thinking he was going to die.
He lifted his right arm up and waited. He needed it to be close enough to try to get past it and attack it from the rear. It moved closer. Sean feinted to the left and dashed to the right, but the creature quickly mirrored his movement. He tried moving to the left, but the creature moved just as fast, blocking him and forcing him past the section wall and towards the corner of the garage.
Sean knew the only way out was through the beast. And he knew he was out of options. He screamed at the top of his lungs and ran toward the creature, his right arm and nightstick raised defensively. The creature bellowed back and raised its arm, talons clicking into place, to attack.
Another glimmer of light. The soft sound of air being pushed and the beast froze in its tracks. Sean jumped back and watched as the head tottered on the stump of neck that protruded from its body and then fell with a crash to the ground. It split in half and then crumbled to dust.
Sean looked up from the remains of the creature and saw her. Once again wiping the green ooze from the blade of her broadsword. But, she wasn’t a girl any longer. She was a woman. A tall, strikingly beautiful woman.
“You,” he stuttered.
“Aye, and here you are trying to fight off a Heldeofol with naught but a stick again,” she said, shaking her head. “Did you learn nothing from your last experience?”
“You weren’t a hallucination?” he asked.
She smiled brightly at him. “Aye, Sean the Brave, I’m only a dream.”
And then she disappeared.
About the author:
Terri Reid lives near Freeport, the home of the Mary O’Reilly Mystery Series, and loves a good ghost story. She lives in a hundred year-old farmhouse complete with its own ghost. She loves hearing from her readers at
[email protected]
Other books by Terri Reid:
Loose Ends – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book One)
Good Tidings – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Two)
Never Forgotten - A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Three)
Final Call - A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Four)
Darkness Exposed - A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Five)
Natural Reaction – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Six)
Secret Hollows – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Seven)
Broken Promises – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Eight)
Twisted Paths – A Mary O’Reilly Paranormal Mystery (Book Nine)
The Ghosts Of New Orleans -A Paranormal Research and Containment Division (PRCD) Case File
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