IT LIVES IN THE BASEMENT (12 page)

Pulling Sagano to his feet, Alvarez leaned him against Carter, who stumbled toward the Blazer as if drunk.  When Sagano was safely secured in the rear seat, Carter turned around to find Alvarez carrying the three cameras.

“We dare not leave these, John.  They, after all, are our only record of this event.  Come help me with the cage, please.”

Loading the heavy cage into the back of the Blazer was easier said than done, and in the end they turned the Blazer around, backing up to the full cage.  Even then
, it took all their remaining strength to lift one end and pull it enough to place it on the lowered tailgate, then picking up the other end and pushing the heavy cage into the Blazer.  The Tescara remained motionless through the loading and bouncing of the cage, which Carter was extremely grateful for.  He doubted he would’ve touched the cage if the creature was awake.

Alvarez turned on the headlights and began driving north away from the field, as Sagano moaned from the rear seat.  Carter turned to ask him how he felt.

“Like shit, that’s how.  How do you expect me to feel, John?  Jesus Christ.  What the hell is that damn thing?  It ran right up the tripod before I could even move.  Is it dead?”

Alvarez re
plied, “I sincerely hope not.  We have made history tonight, gentlemen.  We have captured a species that science did not know existed.  The Tescara can be beaten now, I am sure.  The tranquilizer dart I fired knocked it out.  After further study of the creature, I am confident we will learn how to eradicate them all.”

From far away, Carter heard his voice ask, “When did you shoot the Tescara, Pete?”

“At the pool, right after the creature squatted.  That is when it jumped up and ran to attack you.  The Tescara must have sensed you were there, and assumed you had attacked it.  It never knew I was there.   The dart had enough tranquilizer to bring down a charging rhinoceros, but it kept going for a good minute before succumbing to the drug.  Quite a powerful beast I would say.  Yes?”

Still in shock over the vicious attack on his fishing buddy and himself, Carter’s brain was trying to formulate an answer when a roaring, inhuman scream resounded from the cargo space in the Blazer.  The scream was instantly followed by a violent thrashing that shook the whole vehicle.  A second later
, there came a tearing, grating sound and breaking glass as the Tescara burst through the closed rear window into the night.  Carter briefly caught a glimpse of it as it flew out the vehicle, traveling close to fifty miles per hour.

Alvarez stomped on the brake
s and spun the Blazer into a power turn.  The Blazer’s headlights spotlighted a brown ball of fur bouncing along the highway, then stopping in the middle of the road.  The Tescara rose on its hind legs and screamed.  Turning, it took off running, with a pronounced limp, into the darkness.  In less than five seconds, the wounded Tescara was gone. 

Carter stared in disbelief as Alvarez whistled.  Sagano was down on the floor of the rear seat, making noises that resembled sobs.

As Alvarez started to open his door, Sagano popped up, yelling at the back of his head, “Don’t you dare touch that fucking door.  Get us the hell out of here, right now.”

“But the cage, we must see --.”

Carter placed a restraining hand on Alvarez’s arm.  “No, Pete.  Turn around and drive us to the nearest hospital.  There’s no way we’re getting out of this truck with that thing running loose.  Now get moving.”

Ten minutes later, as they drove onto the 72nd street Bridge that ran over Interstate 680, Alvarez pulled to the side of the road.  The area was lit like daylight, and he pleaded, “Please, John.  I must look at the cage.  The Tescara is far from here now.  We are safe.  Checking the cage will only take a minute.”

Carter reluctantly nodded, and over Sagano’s loud protesting from the backseat, Alvarez climbed out and quickly walked to the rear door.  The window had a few slivers of safety glass still hanging from the frame, so he brushed them aside and pulled on the handle to open the door.

The heavy stainless-steel cage was a shambles.  The one-inch thick bars were bent like so much cooked spaghetti, and an opening in the rear indicated where the Tescara had bent the big bars and escaped to and
then through the rear window.  The big cargo net was shredded pieces of woven line scattered on the floor of the cage. 

Shuddering, Carter thought the Tescara could just as easily
have emerged facing into the Blazer as out of it.  They wouldn’t have had a chance against the stronger creature.

“The Tescara bent the bars, jumped through the window, hit the road at fifty miles per hour and got up and ran away.  I think we are lucky that it just wanted to escape, my friend
,” Alvarez said softly, which made Carter shudder again, and Sagano moan.

As they drove down 72nd street, to the nearest hospital, t
hey worked out the details of explaining Sagano’s injuries.  They decided that while Sagano was setting nightlines, he’d fallen onto a barbed-wire fence.  Carter, of course, had been cut while trying to untangle his friend from the barbed-wire. 

Considering the nature of Sagano’s wounds, the emergency personnel didn’t buy their story for a minute, so Carter and Alvarez
resorted to showing them their police ID badges before Sagano could receive treatment.  After two hours of stitches, then tetanus shots, they were finally released.  Whatever the hospital personnel thought about how they sustained their injuries, they kept their speculations to themselves.

Back in the Blazer, Alvarez said, “My apartment is close.  Let us go look at the video footage.”
 

Alvarez’s apartment was in a dingy, little building, on the second floor.  Sagano barely managed to climb the stairs.  He wouldn’t have made the climb withou
t the help of the other two men.  Stepping into Alvarez’s apartment, the unsuspecting visitors were confronted by a full-sized, stuffed Tescara. 

Carter and Sagano
stood frozen in wide-eyed terror.

Alvarez explained
, “As you can see, I put together a model of what I remembered seeing as a child in my village in Mexico.  From what we encountered tonight, I was very close.  Yes?”

Heart still pounding, Carter nodded as he stared transfixed at the stuffed beast.  The stuffed replic
a looked almost like the creature they’d encountered, but the claws were missing.  The real Tescara had three-inch claws, whereas Alvarez’s version, of Paper Mache and wire, with a shaggy brown coat, had no claws or teeth in evidence.

Before Carter could remark, Alvarez continued, “Oh course now that I have seen a live one up close, I shall have to make some additions to my model.  How long would you say the claws and teeth were, John?”

“The claws were a good three inches long, and the teeth were about two.  Sharp and pointed, each one of them.  I know.  I got a damned good close-up view of them.  Too damn close,” Sagano said loudly as he sank onto the worn sofa.

“Yes
.” Alvarez agreed.  “John, while I set up my VCR, would you get us some beers from the kitchen, please?  I think Mark could use one.”

As Carter left the living room to look in the kitchen, Sagano retorted, “O
ne hell.  Bring me a dozen, John.  And the next time you want to go camping or fishing, count me out.”

By the time Alvarez rewound the tapes and had one ready to view, Carter finished one beer, while Sagano was on his third.  The thin, brown Sergeant sat on the sofa next to Sagano.

Fiddling with the remote control, he explained, “I have set up the infrared tape first, because it is the only one that also records sound.  The images will be rather fuzzy I am afraid, being the nature of infrared film.  If we have some decent images on this film, then we will see them better on the other tapes.  Are you ready?”

By the time they viewed the third tape, Sagano was past caring.  He snored loudly into the arm of the sofa, mercifully drunk.
  The third camera recorded the identical images as the other two cameras.  Carter was glad Sagano was passed out, as they again watched the image of the charging Tescara as it scampered over Carter and ran up the tripod to leap onto Sagano.  The silent footage did not minimize the remembered hair-raising scream from the beast.

Quietly
, so as not to arouse the sleeping Sagano, Alvarez rose and removed the tape from the VCR.  He turned to Carter and asked, “Well, what now?  We have evidence of the creature’s existence, but will that be enough do you think?”

Carter drank the last of his fourth beer and opened a new one before he spo
ke, “No.  I don’t think so.  As much as I hate to say this, I think we need one, dead or alive, to show before we make this public.  What do you think?”

The thin, brown man nodded and softly responded, “Well, I do not think we will get near this one again tonight.  But at least we do know where another Tescara is located, do we not?”

Looking at Sagano, Carter said with resignation, “Yes Pete, in the house on 18th street, where all this started for me.  I guess I should call some friends and organize a search party.”

By the time Sagano awoke, stiff and sore, the other two men had been on and off the phone for
hours.  They called people who were asleep, but once Carter explained to them what he needed, sleep was the furthest thought on their minds.  The only detail that remained was to set up the time.  Alvarez was insistent they meet the next night, because of the full Moon.  They knew the Tescara moved when the Moon was full, but no one had any idea what they did, if anything, when the Moon wasn’t full.  But Carter was pretty sure they were still feeding, even when there wasn’t a Moon.

The time was shortly after ten in the morning when they drove into a fast-food place for biscuits and coffee.  The scant breakfast was all they wanted, and Sagano didn’t even finish his one small biscuit.

“Mark, I think you should go home and leave the search for the Tescara to us,” Carter told him.

Sagano lifted his head to look at his brother-in-law. He had thirty-seven stitches throughout his face and neck
.  The rest of his face had a crisscross of small butterfly bandages.  He looked like hell.

“My ass
,” Sagano exclaimed.  “That creature attacked me, remember buddy?  You’re not the one with a head covered with catgut and tape.  I’m involved in this until it’s over.  Ah, by the way guys, how are we going to capture or kill the beast?”

Carter turned to face him as he spoke, “I called a few friends that already have some experience with the house on 18th street.  I can’t bring somebody into this operation col
d.  They have to be the few people that at least know something about the Tescara, though they’ve never seen one yet.  So far I have Mickosky and Daniels, neither of them knows much, but they were in the house before Flynn disappeared, then there’s Pepper Kaslowski.  Her partner back then is on vacation, and I couldn’t contact him, so that’s three cops we’ll have with us.

“Oh, and I called the landlord, a guy named Carl Santantovich.  He’ll only be there to give me the key, I don’t want him involved.  I told him we’re doing a continuing investigation.  He’s still pissed from the last time.  Since then he can’t even get the wetbacks to rent his place.  The house has been empty for over a year now.  And my old friend Mike Reames will meet us there too.”

Sagano asked, “The guy that was your Captain and recently retired?  Why’s he involved in this?  He must be sixty-seven or so by now, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, about that age I guess.  He’s a friend, and was also a good friend of Flynn’s.  He wants in Mark, and he’s got guts, experience and a gun.”

The gun part seemed to convince Sagano.  As they drove slowly south, he asked, “Speaking of guns John, ah, what kind of weapon do I get to use tonight?”

Alvarez looked at Sagano in the rearview mirror.  “Tonight?  There w
ill be no tonight.  We go today, in just an hour from now.  Our search party will be there by eleven thirty at the latest.  As for you, I can give you your choice.  I have several weapons in my Blazer, and one of John’s people is at the lake retrieving the rifles we left last night.”

Sagano looked back at Alvarez in the mirror and asked solemnly, “Yeah, okay, you got an eight-gauge automatic shotgun with you?”

Carter shook his head, “Afraid not Mark, but Pepper will be bringing some twelve-gauge riot-guns.  Will that do?”

“How the hell should I know?  You guys are the exper
ts on these damn things, not me.  But from what I remember last night, if it’s able to break out of a cage, hit the road traveling at fifty miles an hour and get up and run away, then I don’t think we’re going to bother it much with our guns.  Is there somewhere I can get a machine gun, do you thing?  What about some grenades?”

Alvarez snorted and replied, “Or maybe a big atomic bomb for you?  We stopped one last night, however brief a time, but we did stop the creature with a tranquilizer.  I think we can stop one again, and keep the Tescara sedated until we have it safely contained.”

Sagano threw his unfinished biscuit out the window as he replied in disgust, “And how the hell do you figure on keeping it safely contained, Pete?  That cage of yours should’ve held the bastard, no bigger than it was, but your cage sure didn’t.  So where?  You gonna take it to the damn zoo or something?”