The Beast of Barcroft (14 page)

F
RIDAY,
N
OVEMBER 21

Lindsay's gaze shifted back and forth from the window to her watch.

“So, when are you going to come work for me?” asked Richard.

“And be sexually harassed full-time?”

“Well, since we're talking benefits, there's also dental.”

“Why didn't you tell me this stuff was real?”

“Why didn't you tell me you were gay?”

She stared at him. There was no way he could have known.

“That's none of your business.”

“Come on,” he said, “I debunk myths for a living. You should tell your friend though. He's in love with you.”

“Why are we talking about this? Ben is over there with some Native American ninja who shows up out of nowhere and now I'm an accessory to breaking into a house and God knows what else…”

“Lindsay.” Richard's lopsided grin softened into something less predatory. “There are not many people I have a great deal of respect for. The number of people I respect and
trust,
that's an even smaller number. And even then, I take no chances. I ran a background check.”

“That is a complete invasion of my privacy, Richard.”

He waved her off. “It only confirmed that you are someone I respect and trust. You volunteer with children, for God's sake. I know you're in a relationship with a woman whose mother tolerates you only because she thinks her daughter is going through a ‘phase.' And the woman herself? This Faith?” He said her name as if it tasted bitter. He sipped his drink to wash it away. “Really, Clark?”

“What?” said Lindsay defensively.

“Tits on a stick.”

“She's…she's…”

“Oh, stop. I'm the last person to judge someone who likes the eye candy, but really, you'd actually have a much better chance of happiness dating young McKelvie than this bim, but I digress…I know about Baltimore too.”

She looked at her feet, her face burning.

“I know all of this because I genuinely want you on my team when situations like this arise.”

Lindsay was speechless. She knew nothing about him and he knew everything about her. Rather than berate him though, she was more curious than infuriated. “What are ‘situations' like this?”

His grin returned. “Extreme cryptozoology.”

“You just want trophies.”

Richard shook his head. “I am a conservationist, as much as you if we're talking about your average cryptid. An undiscovered tree frog in the Philippines or even the Loch Ness Monster, I will marvel at them right alongside you. But the things that go bump in the night? The things that drag pretty girls into drainpipes? That's
folklore,
my dear. And for the truly malicious specimens, like our skinwalker here, I'd feel much more comfortable if they were mounted on my mantel instead of chewing up neighborhoods. So would you, I'd wager.” He spread his hands as if showing invisible playing cards. “Extreme cryptozoology.”

“Why? Why you?”

“My God, could you imagine my speaker's fee then?”

Lindsay made a face.

“You showed me yours, true enough. Come work for me and maybe I'll show you mine.”

“This thing, what will it—” A momentary change in the light distracted her. A shadow overhead, through the skylight, followed immediately by a thump. They both stared at the ceiling.

“What the hell?” asked Lindsay. “What about the ash?”

“Apparently, it doesn't work for an air approach.”

“It can fly now?”

Richard stepped to the window. “It's spent time as a cat, yes?” He pointed to the windows and the tree beside the house. “More than likely, it was waiting in that the whole time and jumped over. Or it was already on the roof. I better call the boys and give them a heads-up.”

Lindsay felt a chill. It had gotten the drop on her again. “Shouldn't we get the hell out of here?”

“I'm not taking my chances running across open ground with that thing. Even though we're not who it wants, I see no reason to tempt it. Trust me, this is the safest place to be right now.”

A shunting sound came from both overhead and inside the house. Richard looked at Lindsay.

“Window,” she whispered.

F
RIDAY,
N
OVEMBER 21

Ben, following just behind Alex, called out directions through the house. If the medicine man was repulsed by the reek of urine or if his eyes stung at the wood smoke, his steps did not slow, and though it burned Ben's eyes and throat he followed. The rats fled before them. Just before the kitchen, where she had surprised him before, Ben yelled “Wait!” and grabbed Alex by the arm. Ben sneaked past him and peered around the corner to find the galley kitchen littered with trash bags but nothing else.

“Clear,” he said.

They turned toward the black opening to the basement. Flashlights in hand, they descended.

As they reached the landing, they were ankle-deep in refuse. It sounded like they were wading through a pile of leaves, with the occasional hollow crunch of an empty plastic bottle. In the nearest corner, empty cardboard boxes were stuffed inside one another and stacked to the ceiling. It had not been this cluttered when Ben had last been here. Judging by the volume of wrappers and trash, the woman had reached the dregs of whatever supplies she had. They rounded the corner at the landing and entered the full basement.

They found a small, dying fire in the center of the room, smoldering outside of a fireplace. It looked alien to Ben, a signal of something terribly wrong. Of desperation. Hungry, freezing men crossing wintry plains and burning carriage wheels to survive one more night. Cauldrons tended by blind witches in caves warning of ill fortunes and exacting a horrible price for the privilege.

Dozens of glowing points dotted the leaning boxes and broken furniture and scattered chaos, like the twinkling skyline of a dilapidated city—rats just beyond the firelight.

Ben's eyes adjusted to the objects surrounding the fire. The basement had been a cluttered mess before, but now it looked as if anything in the house that was flammable had been dragged down to keep the fire going. The basement had its own gravity. Like a black hole, it was devouring everything around it. Even he had been drawn back down here after that morning when he promised himself if he was ever able to see the sunlight again he would never return.

Despite the junk, the immediate area around the fire was pristine, dotted with small objects. Ben and Alex swept their flashlights around them. Apparently not all of the wood was used to feed the fire. Small, wooden carvings formed a perfect ring around the flames. Turtles, whales, ravens, and more.

“What the hell is this?” whispered Ben.

“It appears to be an altar of some sort.”

Ben approached the fire. He picked up a wooden turtle. “So these are supposed to be what, exactly?”

“Offerings.”

He looked at Alex. In the firelight, he could see the Ojibwe looking back at him. Of all the horrors in the basement, it was the medicine man's expression he liked least in that moment.

“Who is she making offerings to?”

F
RIDAY,
N
OVEMBER 21

Lindsay and Richard stared at each other for a moment until they heard small, quick footsteps piston down the stairs. Richard pushed Lindsay behind him and untied the bag with the white ash. Lindsay noticed his hands were shaking, but he poured what remained across the open doorway to the sunroom in an unbroken line. He backed up beside her and immediately stepped into a puddle of cat urine.

“Jesus, cat, hold your water. These shoes cost more than—”

The stairs groaned again, louder and longer this time. Every muscle in Lindsay's body screamed for her to run out the back door. The cat meowed incessantly and threaded himself through their legs.

Richard nudged her toward the back door. “Go.”

“You said we wouldn't make it.”

“It won't get past this,” he said, pointing to the fresh ash line, “and if it wants out it has to go back upstairs or find another exit. That's a few seconds at least. And I'll distract it.”

Before she could tell him no, a change in light caught her eye.

“Wait,” she said. “The living room.”

They both peered back into the house from the sunroom, past the kitchen, down the hallway, toward the front of the house. The smell assaulted them first, a pungent musk, thick and cloying. Like a marsh at low tide, thought Lindsay. They could not see into the living room around the corner, but it had been brighter a moment ago. Now no light came from that part of the house.

From the darkness of the living room, twenty feet from them, a hand passed over the fixture on the wall. It was large and hairy, but human, and despite herself, she screamed. Next to her, she heard an involuntary release, a noise of revulsion, escape from Richard's mouth. The long hallway to them went dark then; the only light remaining in the house now came from the small sunroom.

Richard shoved her again toward the back door, but they both stopped short when they heard the cracking. From the darkness, they heard the protestations of an animal in pain. Grunts and whines and wet sounds, punctuated with a high, sharp sound like branches snapping.

“Bones,” said Lindsay.

“My God,” whispered Richard.

The pops tapered off, replaced by a low growl that vibrated through the small house. The hair on Lindsay's neck rose and then two glowing eyes came into view, much lower than the light switch the hand had just passed over. Low to the ground. The beast remained outside the nimbus of light cast by the sunroom, but Lindsay thought she could make out its features. A low-slung head, crouched, hackles raised. The wolf that had attacked them in the car. It did not advance, but the growling became higher, rising to a whine, broken by the occasional yip.

“It's a werewolf,” said Lindsay.

“It's not.”

“It was a man, now it's a wolf. That's a werewolf.”

“It's a shapeshifter. It's a were-anything-it-wants-to-be.”

“Can we argue on the move?” She reached for the doorknob.

“Don't move,” warned Richard.

“Make up your damn mind.”

“Whatever the hell it is, it's a wolf now and wolves love it when you run. Stand your ground. Be confident.” He straightened to his full height and puffed up his chest. Lindsay did the same.

“I'd be more confident if you had that silver bullet.”

“I do. I just don't have a gun.”

“I'm never coming to work for you.”

The wolf advanced.

“It won't cross the ash.”

“Are you sure?”

“Let's stick with confident.”

The wolf padded out of the shadows and into the light. It was a uniform tawny color.
Odd for a wolf,
thought Lindsay, then she reminded herself what she was really looking at. Its hackles were up and its ears were pinned to its skull so as to be barely visible. The beast's teeth were bared. The noises it emitted dropped back to a low, incessant growl, a vibration that filled the house and bounced off the walls and reverberated through their bodies until it was unbearable, broken only by even more horrible popping and clicking sounds that Lindsay realized was the creature's jaws, its fangs gnashing against one another. One long tendril of spittle dangled from its jaw, swinging back and forth as it crept forward. The beast stopped short of the ash. It dropped its snout within two inches of the uniform line and sniffed without taking its eyes from them.

“Terrible shame, but that's far enough,” said Richard to the wolf.

He held his phone in front of him.

“Say cheese.”

The camera in his phone flashed and caught the precise moment the beast dragged its forepaw over the ash line.

F
RIDAY,
N
OVEMBER 21

The men regarded each other in the firelight. The basement pressed in on them, the low ceiling, the piles of debris, the oppressive stench of urine, the coal-black darkness just beyond the small radius of light thrown off by the fire. Ben had only felt this claustrophobic once before, the last time he was here.
At least,
he told himself,
I'm not alone this time
. So when he heard the cough and Alex's face did not move, it may as well have been a shotgun blast in the close quarters.

They both spun their flashlights in the direction of the noise. It was blocked by a mountain of rotted-out appliances and an old bicycle.

“Come out,” said Alex. “We know you're there.”

Another cough.

They shared another look of mutual puzzlement, then Alex moved first. Ben followed. Once around the junk, their lights found her in the far corner. She was propped against the wall, legs splayed on an old mattress. She must have pulled it down from upstairs, Ben thought. She wore the same garb from the morning she had attacked him. Same embroidered poncho, same conical wooden helmet with lank, graying hair beneath it. Her chin was against her chest, as if dozing, and the brim of her strange headwear concealed her face. The fact that she did not attack them, did not even seem surprised by their entry, unnerved him even more. It was then that he wrested his gaze from her garments and saw her hands. They were covered in seeping sores.

Not sores, Ben thought.
Bites.

“My God,” he said.

The rats, plentiful throughout the basement, were especially brazen in this corner. They pressed in on her, and only the lights and the approach of the two men caused them to retreat, although only for a moment. The Ojibwe yelled then, lifted his heavy black boot, and slammed it on the ground, scattering the vermin. They retreated just out of the flashlight's glare, ready to bedevil her again under cover of darkness.

She looked up then and Ben caught her face with his full beam. He stepped back and suppressed a yell. She was ashen yet covered in dirt, giving her a mottled appearance beneath her lank hair. Her face was covered with the same oozing punctures. Her lips pulled back in a sneer at the sight of him. It took every ounce of willpower not to run screaming from the basement.
Jesus Christ,
he thought,
she looks like a real-life zombie
.

“Jumpy boy,” she whispered.

The medicine man knelt in front of her.

“I can feel the heat coming off of her,” he said, turning to Ben. “She needs help.”

“Help? Five minutes ago she was a monster. She killed my friends! She killed my
dog
.”

“That's what you said. That's what Severance said. But something is…not right.” To her, he said softly, “Ma'am, you have a fever. You need help. Tell me your name.”

“You brought a friend,” she said in a weak voice, ignoring Alex to look over his shoulder and grin at Ben beneath the brim of her hat. That smile again. Pure malice. “The more the merrier. My friend won't mind.”

“We have to get you out of here,” said Alex.

“No!” she yelled suddenly. “I'm staying. It's safer.”

“Safer?”

“I don't think my friend…is my friend anymore. He comes to visit me every night. He circles the house, every night in a different skin. Sometimes he comes as the cat and purrs in the window so sweetly. He compliments my carvings and wants me to come outside and show him. I almost went the first night. Sometimes he comes as the wolf and whispers that he is so hungry. He sniffs the window and fogs the glass with his breath. ‘Won't you come out and bring me some food? Just a little?' Sometimes it comes in skins I have never seen before. But when he came as my Madeleine I knew he wasn't my friend anymore. He wore her skin and cried that she was so cold and alone outside. She cried and begged and tapped at the window, and I knew then that the limping man lied to me. I can't control him forever. I can never leave this place.”

“Who is the limping man?” asked Alex.

“I promised the beast this one,” she said, cutting a hateful glare at Ben. “But he said he could not get close to you. You're still here, damn you, and now he's too hungry to bind anymore.”

“Bind?” asked the Ojibwe. He looked back toward the fire, the ring of logs, the carved offerings. “Who are your people?”

Her eyes gleamed with defiance in the firelight and locked onto the medicine man's. “Tlingit,” she hissed.

“Did she say Klingon?”

“This is a potlatch then?”

She nodded defiantly. Alex stood then and backed a step.

“What you have done is an abomination.”

“He,” she said, leveling a chewed finger at Ben, “is the abomination! He and his friends! For years, this entire neighborhood just sat back and watched my girl disintegrate. As if that wasn't bad enough, but no, his little group had to kick her when she was down. They piled on!”

“This is unspeakable,” Alex said, his voice quiet but full of steel. “No Tlingit would be so stupid.”

The medicine man kicked over the circle of firewood surrounding the fire pit. He picked up the bags of food and threw them across the basement. The tiny lights of the rats' eyes scattered in pairs in every direction like fireworks. The hag began to protest but she was either too weak or too frightened by the tall man's fury and so remained in the corner. Even Ben was surprised at his companion's sudden frenzy.

Chest heaving, the Ojibwe whirled on her, his fists balled at his sides. “Why doesn't it just come in for you?”

“If you know what it is, you know it can't abide this filth.”

“What the hell is going on?” said Ben. “I thought she was the skinwalker.”

“Skinwalker,” she cackled. “You wish, jumpy boy.”

“She's not
yee naaldlooshii.
”

“Then who's the skinwalker?”

“There isn't one,” said Alex. “It's worse.”