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Small Town Monsters. Craig Nybo
Читать онлайн.Название Small Town Monsters
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isbn 9780988406421
Автор произведения Craig Nybo
Жанр Сказки
Издательство Ingram
Lucy nodded.
“And remember, if you need anything, anything at all,” Max pointed to the number he had written on the dry-erase board. “Think about it, Lucy.”
Lucy looked at the floor. She would take Max’s advice; she would think about it.
“Well, I’d best be getting on,” Max said. He walked to the office door, rested a hand on the jamb, and looked back at Lucy. “Got a few loose ends I need to tie up so you might hear me kicking around in the dining room for an hour or so, but I’ll stay out of your way. Good night, Lucy.”
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“Good night, Max.”
Max closed the office door behind him. Lucy opened her math book. She had a half page full of problems she had to work before she drifted off to sleep.
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Chapter 10
Clay arrived at the station late for his morning shift, bags under his eyes and needing plenty of aspirin.
“Been out with the boys again,” Kurt said from behind his paper-festooned desk, looking his deputy up and down.
“Sorry, Kurt,” Clay said, taking a key from his chain to unlock a voluminous gun-case in Kurt’s office.
“You need to learn to control yourself. And that uniform looks like you’ve been keeping it rumpled in the corner.”
“Something eating at you?” Clay asked, taking his holster and sidearm from a peg in the case and fixing it about his waist. Clay had expected a good railing for being late, but Kurt seemed unusually nasty.
“What’s wrong with this town?” Kurt said.
Clay stopped what he was doing and looked across the desk at his boss. “I’m not getting you.”
“We have a simple animal attack and everyone turns into Van Helsing, with both barrels blazing.”
“What happened?” Clay asked.
“Larry Uriarte was talking last night about rounding up some of the boys and going on a little hunt. Not to mention Buran Peoples, with a screw or two loose in that whiskey bottle head of his, ranting on about every herd in the county being
Concerning:
Clay Hickman
Kurt McCammus
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attacked by chupacabras.”
“If there is something out there, they’d get it; they know these woods like the bed of a favorite mistress,” Clay said.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting on the crazy train.”
“No, sir,” Clay said, pulling up a chair and sitting down across the desk from Kurt.
“I don’t like the idea of a bunch of armed drunks out there aiming at who-knows-what.”
“It happens every year; it’s called deer season,” Clay said.
“They’re not thinking deer. We’ve got Buren flapping on about el chupacabra and Larry running his mouth about Bigfoot.”
“Sasquatch,” Clay corrected.
“What?”
“Larry is one of the number one authorities on the subject. The Discovery Channel even sent a film crew out a few years back to get some interviews and shots of his evidence. You’d best not be saying Bigfoot around him; you’ll insult him.” Clay expected Kurt to laugh—at least to chuckle.
Kurt didn’t.
“Besides, it was a wolf attack right?” Clay said.
Kurt stood and began to pace back and forth across his office. “It’s not the wolves I’m worried about; it’s the hysteria.”
“Hysteria?” Clay’s eye-brows arched.
“Clay, what would you say was the biggest news to ever hit DePalma Beach?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Just humor me. Think it through; out of everything that has ever happened here, what is the thing that has had the most impact?”
Clay thought for a moment. “I’d say that psychopath back in the fifties; what was his name?” Clay snapped his fingers, trying to think of the guy’s name.
“Danny Slade,” Kurt said.
“That’s right. How did you know about him?”
“I had a beer with Hugh last night. It seems word of the animal mutations has traveled far and fast. The first thing on
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the old man’s mind was Danny Slade, that and werewolves.”
“El chupacabra, sasquatch, and werewolves? Damn, that’s got to be an all-star cast.” Clay laughed.
Kurt huffed and steepled his fingers at the bridge of his nose. “Something about this whole situation bothers me. This little town isn’t used to killing of any kind. I’ve seen what can happen when something evil smacks down and there is no clear suspect or motive. People start band wagoning and pointing fingers. And once the band wagon starts moving, it can roll right over an innocent scapegoat.”
“But nothing bad has happened; just a few dead sheep.”
“Come on, around here, if you kill a man’s herds, you might as well take out his children,” Kurt said. “I don’t know why, call it a feeling in my gut, but I think we need to be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?
“Do you think there’s a file on Danny Slade in that mess of an archive system downstairs?” Kurt asked.
“I reckon there is,” Clay said.
“Why don’t you go down there and dig it up for me.”
“That case is fifty years old,” Clay said.
“I don’t believe in el chupacabra, werewolves, or sasquatch. But I do believe in the evil that men do. Get me the Slade file. I gotta start somewhere.”
Clay rolled his eyes; the file room was a mess of cabinets, papers, and dust that he didn’t care to visit.
“Consider it a light sentence for your tardiness,” Kurt said, a smug smile creasing his face. “I think I’m going to head up to Artemus Slade’s place and see what else I can find out.”
“Now that old man’s a wacko.”
Kurt put a hand on each of the boy’s stolid shoulders. “Son, there are a lot of wacko’s around here. And if you don’t watch out, you’re liable to become one yourself.”
“No chance.”
“Get down to the archives and see what you can find.”
Clay huffed and headed towards the station basement.
Kurt left the stack of reports on his desk for a later time and set out for Artemus Slade’s place.
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Chapter 11
Artemus and Kurt sat across from one another at a dilapidated reading table. The smell of hoarding and mold assaulted Kurt’s senses. With stacks of old newspapers and periodicals towering like labyrinth walls in almost every square foot of the place, it seemed Artemus’s shack could go up