25 Hour Watch

Ch. 1 – Roar

Ch. 2 -Growl

Ch. 3 – Pant

Fog cannot be cut.  It cannot be sliced, parted, or moved.  The solid wall of mist and condensation retreated in front of Frank, always one step ahead, still snaking around to close in from behind.

Branches heavy with condensation sagged and bobbed, the forest around him alive with movement and silent to the life of the early morning hour.  Each footfall carefully placed, as Frank landed and listened, step by slow step.

It was a smell, a feeling, that alerted Frank.  Something was off.  The smell of blood and decay, a tinge of saliva and feces.  The fog shifted forward, revealing bones.  Most were gnawed clean, some broken for the marrow.  There were piles, Frank guessed just under a hundred, mostly animals.  Most, but not all.

Frank moved through them, his feet tracing marks clawed into the soil.  Long lines of three tearing the turf and straining the ground with red.

“REET! REET! REET!” The tree to his right called to him, a shriek Frank had never heard before, from any creature.

“Tttk.  Tkkk. Tkkkkkkk.”  A tree to his left clicked at him from around it’s stump.

He heard the breaking of branches to his right; panting that slowly moved down the tree and toward the sliver of prated fog and bone where Frank stood.  It was rhythmic.  Bark was peeled, ripped, from the base of the massive pine to his left, the dull scratching of claws joining in song with the pants and snapping branches.

The next measure of the song simply held a rest.  Quiet.  Frank felt his heartbeat interject into the symphony.  A metronome.  The crescendos, subitos, and  decrescendos of the song he was now writing with these animals in the forest waiting to be called on by the conductor.

Two sets of eyes leered at Frank from both sides, studying the man through matted brows.  They hunched on all fours, ready, waiting.

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He wasn’t even hungry, so if he ate them it would just be out of boredom.  David was usually a fan of doughnuts, especially the kind with sprinkles that Eric called “little kid doughnuts.”  His appetite had been non existent recently.  Mixed with the fact that he didn’t appreciate being locked in a room by himself, left to wait with his thoughts occupying the empty chairs across the unremarkable wooden table where he sat, and there the doughnuts sat untouched and exposed in their cardboard box.

There was something cliché about it all.  David thought he’d seen a movie, maybe a few movies, where the bad guy sat apprehended in an empty room, a box of doughnuts on the table as the authorities contemplated what to do, how to break him.  Put him in a room and lock the door, the doughnuts will keep him busy enough.

But David wasn’t the bad guy.  Which made him resent the frosted pastries.

David diverted his attention to the room around him.  He hadn’t been in this building for years, and he wasn’t sure he’d even gone in this room.  The police department destroyed, they’d rushed to the high school, set up in the library with David tucked away in and old  microform room, a large wooden table centered on the tile floor.  The room had no windows and one door that locked.  David was asked to stay here while they sorted things out.  He hadn’t bothered to check and see if the door was locked.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

The door handle heard his thoughts and began to turn, dipping toward the floor.  A tall, dark haired woman in a suit lead the way into the room, followed by Eric and a  bald man with a holster.

“David, I’m detective Ford.”  The woman extended her hand to David, who took it politely, standing slightly.  David had seen her briefly when he arrived at the library.  She had been ordering people around authoritatively.  David blamed her for his seclusion.

“You didn’t eat any doughnuts?”  Eric asked, concern on his brow.

“I’m not really hungry.”  David mumbled, crossing his arms and leaning against the back of his chair.  Detective Ford moved to a seat across from David, the man with the holster sitting next to her while Eric moved to the chair beside David.

“This is Detective Anderson,” the woman gestured to the bald gun-toting man, “we’d like to ask you a few questions about what happened last night.”

Last night?  David hadn’t realized it was daytime already.  He’d given statements, written, verbal, and dictated, to three different officers, not including his slightly emotional recount to Eric.  He relived it in the hours tucked inside the microform room, archiving it in his mind.  He was not in the mood to go through it again, especially to the authority figures who had brushed him aside.  “Can you people not read?”

“David…”  Eric sounded concerned in his admonition.

“I’ve given you guys my statement.  I’ve been patient, considering that I just witnessed a monster clawing itself from a man’s scalp, and in return I’m schluffed off to sit alone with some old, forgotten newspapers.  I’m done answering questions right now.”

Detective Ford looked genuinely apologetic, she was either a good faker or a good sympathizer.  “David, I’m sorry.  We’ve had a lot to sort out.  I’ve read your statements and spoke with Lieutenant Mills,” she nodded toward Eric, “there are just specific details that we’re still curious about.”

“Like what?”  David asked in his best cooperative tone.

“How did you escape?  And where did the beast go?”

“I had a bit of a head start.  I didn’t freeze completely anyways… It got my shoe, tore it off my foot and I guess that distracted it long enough for me to get to the bathroom and lock the door.”

“And it didn’t break through the door?”  Detective Anderson asked.

“It sounded like it started in on the lockers.  The noise must have attracted someone.  Probably Jim.  I just heard a lot of gunshots.  I guess that was enough of a distraction.  I just waited.  Until I heard Eric…”

“Then you didn’t see where it went?”  Ford asked.

“No.  I didn’t see much of anything.  At least nothing helpful.”  David sleepily poked at a doughnut, sending sprinkles falling to the bottom of the paper lined box.  He picked it up and began to chew, realizing how hungry he was.  “Why aren’t you asking me about it?  I mean, I saw it.  I saw how it… What it did to Jason…”

“We know.”  Anderson looked at Ford, unsure what to say and how to proceed.

“David, this may be hard to understand, but following these creatures–it’s what we do.”  Detective Ford adjusted her suit jacket needlessly.

“You mean… this, what’s happening to us–our town… it’s happened before?  Other places?”  David asked.

Detective Ford let her silence greet David’s question.  There were certain things she could not disclose, even to and eye witness.

“So, you can stop them?  Whatever they are.  You can right?  I mean if you’ve seen it before…”

“Our success rate is–less then perfect.  We’ve learned a lot about them, but we need to capture one–”

“You mean, you haven’t?  Ever?  And this is ‘what you do’ for a living?”

“David, you have to understand: these creatures are very intelligent.  They’re hard to track, their attacks are difficult to predict.”

“Difficult?  But not impossible?”

“There is a possible demographic associated with the victims, but it’s hard to explain or judge who the targets are or will be.”  Anderson explained.

“Ford, this is McDowell.” The radio clipped to Anderson’s hip cut into the fluorescently lit room.  “I’m coming in… I have something you’re gonna want to see…”

Anderson stood and made his way out of the room, “Copy Frank, we’re set up in the school library–”  the door closed leaving the three remaining.

Eric turned his attention from the door, and back toward David and Detective Ford.  “So it does target people though.  What type of people are we talking about?”

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“SINNERS!  HEATHENS!”  Reverend Michael stood before his congregation, the midday light cutting through the large arched windows behind the stage where he stood.  “We are being judged here my friends.  These demons that have invaded our town are not here to hurt us… They are here for THEM!”  He shouted, finger pointed to the wall outside the walls of his church.

A chorus of applause and shouts of affirmation spattered through the pews.

“The fornicators.  The evolutionists.  The scientists!  The homo-sexuals!  The NON-believers!  ATHIESTS!  MUSLIMS!”

The congregation erupted again.  Their Pastor’s words didn’t apply to any of them.

Mrs. Michael sat in the front row, beaming at her husband through her bursting headache.

“Those of us who have not deviated, have not wavered, we will be rewarded.  We shall inherit the kingdom of the Lord.  The rest shall face the consequences for their actions.  Their CHOICES.  Their DEVIANCE!  The path to salvation has not been an easy one my friends.  But our vigilance, our dedication, our efforts shall be judged as well!”

The congregation exploded.  Mrs. Michael’s head pounded.  Their cheers, their leering, their shouts fed her headache.  It’s appetite would not be quenched.

“Let us pray for the sinners in our community.  Let us pray that they meet the judgment they so deserve.”  Reverend Michael said with an impassioned hush.  “Let us pray that they know of God’s will as they meet the destinies they’ve been working so hard for.  Let these creatures find them as suddenly and mercilessly as the sin they were so quick to invite into their lives.”

The congregation began to clap.  Mrs. Michael shot up from her pew, hands claps against the sides of the head, pushing.  Her fingers white from the pressure exhibited.  Her mouth opened into a scream the rose above all noise, “AAAAAAAHHHHHH–RIT–RIT–RIKK–HHHHHHHHHH!”  Something called through her scream, leaving her voice to gurgle away into quick, panicked breaths.

The light pouring into the building became obscured in five of the massive windows.  Five dark shapes crashed through the glass, glittering splinters flying into the wood pews as five hairy, matted animals clawed their way across the unkempt church floors.

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They made their way through the school hallways, Frank McDowell leading the way back to the parking lot.  Ford and Anderson walked directly behind him, the Lieutenant he’d met the night before, along with the boy walking in the back, listening carefully.  The boy intrigued Frank.  David was the only person Frank knew of that these creatures had let live.  Until today.

“You’re serious?”  Ford asked, they were all practically sprinting.

Frank gave her a look as they walked, of course he was serious.

“No den, nothing.  They were just in the middle of some clearing.  Guess there’s no other predators to worry about…”

“They?”  David asked walking closer to Eric’s side.  “You found more then one.”

“There were two.  I had to kill the one.  But the other,” Frank opened the front door to the school, leading to where his pickup was parked, “I guess I managed to get the right amount of tranq in it.”

The cage in the back of Frank’s truck shook slightly, rocking the entire vehicle with it.  It was starting to wake up.

“This is amazing Frank!  It’s– it’s wonderful!”  Ford smiled.

“That’s not even the best part,” Frank smiled back, “There were two of ‘em, right?  Well, I think they’ve been mating.  Let’s go say hello to Momma, shall we?”