Crimson Shore Page 23

  “Get us in a cell, then. It’s coming!”

  “What’s coming?”

  “It’s a demon from hell, ripping people apart!”

  Listening, Gavin felt a sudden freezing in his vitals. The monster. No. Impossible.

  “Ripping people apart, and…!” At this the woman doubled over and, with a retching sound, lost her dinner all over the floor of the station.

  The chief backed away with a disgusted expression. “We have an ambulance coming, Rose. Just hang in there.” He looked at Gavin. “What should we do?”

  Gavin stared at him. There was no doubting the woman’s sincerity. Rose Buffum had all the imagination of a fencepost—she wasn’t the kind of person to be seeing things. The chief knew this, too. The skepticism was quickly draining from his face.

  “We holster our service pieces and go out there,” Gavin answered.

  “Don’t leave me!” Rose cried.

  “Go out there?” Mourdock said uncertainly. “The two of us?”

  “We’ve got to find out what’s going on.” Gavin had to see. It couldn’t be true…

  “Put me in a cell, then,” Rose screamed. “Lock the door!”

  “If that’ll make you feel better.” The chief escorted her into an adjacent cell and locked her in, giving her the keys. Then he turned. “All right, let’s see what’s going on.”

  Gavin fetched his Glock and his holster, buckled it on.

  “Check your flashlight,” the chief said.

  Gavin checked the big flashlight hanging on his belt. Then he followed the chief out into the darkness and looked down Main Street. In the dim light of the houses, he could see two shapes lying in the street.

  Bodies. So it was true. He felt a sickening lurch. And now he could hear, over the roar of the storm, a faint scream from halfway down the street; a sudden flare in a house window, the curtains leaping into flame, the glass shattering, the screams from within suddenly louder—and then abruptly cut off in a loud gargle.

  “Oh, Christ Jesus,” the chief said, staring.

  And now from out of the burning house leapt a figure, silhouetted in the firelight: a tall, pale, stringy thing with a massive overhanging jaw—and a tail.

  46

  Walt Adderly, proprietor of the Captain Hull Inn, sat at the bar of the Chart Room, listening to Benjamin Franklin Boyle regale the regulars—yet again—with the story of how he found the corpse of the historian. The normally taciturn Boyle was in an expansive mood, rolling his eyes theatrically, gesturing with his mug of beer, and in general putting on a good show. He’d had more than his usual pint, his skinflint habits thrown to the wind on this special day. Like many seafaring men, Boyle was an accomplished storyteller, and it seemed the crowd just couldn’t get enough. The power had gone out an hour before, which somehow only added to the festive mood. Candles had been brought out and set up along the bar, the patrons drinking and celebrating the bizarre end to the murder mystery. As the drinks and conversation flowed, there was a general feeling of relief that Exmouth had returned to normal. Naturally, most were shocked by the involvement of the Dunwoodys, although there was a minority that opined as to how they’d “never trusted that family.” Adderly himself had never had a problem with his longtime bartender, Joe Dunwoody, aside from the stealing of food. He even felt sorry for him in a way.

  Boyle had just gotten to the point in the story where he was about to turn over the corpse with his clam rake when the front door to the Inn slammed, hard.

  Adderly looked toward the sound as Boyle fell silent. He leaned back in his chair, then called out down the dark hall to the front parlor. “Come in, friend, and get yourself out of that filthy weather!”

  Boyle returned to the story. He was flush with the attention and the beer.

  But no one appeared from the direction of the front parlor. Adderly held up his hand for silence. He looked back down the hall. “Come on in, don’t be shy!” And then, in a sudden impulse of generosity, he added: “Round’s on the house!”

  This announcement was greeted with a murmur of approval all around. Boyle turned to the bartender and twirled a finger. “Fill ’er up!” He suspended the story while Pete, the backup bartender, began refilling everyone’s mugs.

  A loud crash came from the dark hallway. It sounded to Adderly like someone falling down. Apparently their new visitor, whoever it was, already had a head start on the celebrations.

  “Hey, Andy, that guy out in the hall needs a little help,” Adderly said to the man perched on the stool closest to the door.

  Andy Gorman got off his stool, picking up one of the candles. “Don’t resume till I get back.”

  “No problem,” said Boyle, burying his lips in the frosty brew.

  Shielding the candle, Gorman walked out of the bar and down the hall, a wavering point of light in the darkness.

  A moment of silence—and then a piercing scream came from the hall. Adderly almost dropped his own mug in surprise and swung around, staring down the black corridor. Everyone rose at once. Gorman’s candle seemed to have gone out: the hall was black. The storm shook and rattled the old structure.

  People exchanged glances. “What the hell?” someone said after a moment.

  “Andy? Andy!”

  At that moment, a smell rolled out of the hall: a stench of death and rot and fecal matter that overwhelmed Adderly’s nostrils. All was silent; no one moved. And out of that silence, over the rattle of the storm, Adderly heard the rapid, breathy sound of animal panting.

  In his room on the top floor of the Inn, Pendergast sat up in bed. He listened intently, but the scream from downstairs had abruptly cut off and he heard nothing more save for the storm. The celebratory noise from the bar had also ceased.

  He slipped out of bed, swiftly donned his clothes, grabbed a flashlight, and strapped on his Les Baer. He ran down the hall, descended one flight, and then—after the briefest of pauses—grasped the doorknob to Constance’s room. When he found it locked, he rapped on it.

  “Constance,” he said. “Please open this door.”

  No response.

  “Constance,” he repeated. “I’m very sorry for what happened, but this is no time for melodramic gestures. Something is—”

  Even as he spoke, he heard a sudden chorus of cries erupt from downstairs, a cacophony of shrieks mingling with the sounds of a ferocious stampede, the crashing sound of chairs being overturned, glassware breaking, and feet thundering on the wooden floor.

  Without waiting any longer, he turned his shoulder to the door and, in one blow, broke it down.

  The room was empty, the bed still made. There was no sign anywhere of the flashlight he had given her.

  Pandemonium had broken out downstairs. He scrambled down the stairs, pulling out his weapon as he did so, to arrive in the front hall. His flashlight revealed the front door yawning wide and swinging in the howling wind. A body lay sprawled over the threshold.

  He turned and ran down the hall into the bar, where a scene of extreme violence greeted his eye: a second eviscerated figure lay on the floor, while half a dozen others were crouching, terrified but unhurt, behind the bar.

  “What was it?” Pendergast rapped out.

  “God help us, help us!” a man shrieked, triggering a storm of wild importuning from the huddled group, with the words monster and demon and ape and hound mingling unintelligibly with the cries of the terrified patrons.

  “Where did it go?” Pendergast said.

  A man pointed out the door.

  Pendergast turned and raced back down the hall and out into the storm, leaving the patrons crying futilely after him for protection. He could see bare footprints crossing the porch and the sandy walk beyond, already being erased by the rain. He hesitated, peering into the storm in the direction the creature had gone: southeastward, into the salt marshes. Whatever it was, it had wreaked havoc and then escaped.

  His mind shifted. Constance was missing. She hadn’t retired—she must have left the Inn some time ag
o, perhaps immediately after the abrupt conclusion of their conversation. He passed a hand across his forehead.

  Where did they go? she had asked. What happened to them? The only place south of the site you discovered in the marshes is Oldham.

  That, Pendergast felt certain, was where she had gone: Oldham, the long-abandoned town that, for reasons he could not fathom, she had focused on. Not two hours before, she had all but implied that the heart of the mystery remained unsolved. Even as he considered this, he felt a twinge that perhaps he had dismissed her concerns too readily—that her intuition had told her something that his own cold analysis had overlooked.

  The killer was barefooted, in a storm, with the temperature dropping into the forties. That fact, more than any other, profoundly disturbed him, as it indicated there was something about the case he had missed completely—something fundamental—just as Constance had insisted. And yet, even as he pondered the mystery of the bare footprints, he couldn’t find even the glimmer of a solution.

  With a burning sense of chagrin, he set off into the storm, following the faint and quickly disappearing marks in the sand.

  47

  The house burned brightly as Gavin stared down Main Street. This couldn’t be happening. He could see, in the light of the fire, the bodies in the street: people he knew, friends and neighbors. The door to another house stood open…and he had a terrible feeling there would be another body inside it, as well.

  That…demon had rampaged through town in minutes and had then seemingly vanished, leaving behind a scene of mayhem. How could this have happened?

  He heard the chief calling the Lawrence PD on his radio, requesting a massive SWAT team presence. His voice was almost hysterical. “We’ve got a maniac on the loose here, multiple fatalities, I can see at least two bodies from where I’m standing… Yes, ma’am, damn it, I said two bodies! We’ve got a house on fire… Send me everything you’ve got, everything, you hear? The whole 10-33 arsenal!”

  Gavin tried to get a grip. He had to think, think. This was unbelievable, a horror beyond all horrors…

  “Gavin!”

  He turned. The chief was staring at him, face red and perspiring despite the cold. “It’s going to be an hour before Lawrence can get choppers in the air. The first responders will arrive by vehicle… Are you following me?”

  “Yes, yes, Chief.”

  “We need to split up. I’m going to take the squad car and wait for them by the bridge, guide them into town. I want you to head down Main, search the houses. Starting with that one with the open door.”

  “Without backup?”

  “The killer’s gone, for chrissakes! We’ve got local Fire and Rescue coming in ten minutes, we got SWAT teams in twenty, choppers in an hour. You’re going to have plenty of backup. Just reconnoiter, provide first aid to the injured, secure the crime scene.”

  Gavin didn’t have the ability to argue. The chief, the son of a bitch, the coward, was going to wait at the bridge, locked in his car where he would be safe, while asking his sergeant to put his ass on the line, going alone and blind into those houses.

  As he opened his mouth to protest, he had a further thought: splitting up might actually be a good thing. Gavin realized he had something a lot more important to do than tally up bodies, and in order to do it he needed to ditch the chief.

  “Right, Chief. I’m on it.”

  “Good man.” The chief turned and headed back toward the station house, while Gavin made a show of walking down Main Street, taking stock. Even as he did, he could hear the Search and Rescue sirens going off, calling in volunteers. They would be on the scene in minutes…and if he was still around, he’d never get the chance to try to figure out what had happened and get things back on track.

  Glancing behind, he saw that the chief had disappeared into the station house. He turned and ducked between two houses, into the concealing darkness. Pulling out his flashlight, he broke into a run. Oldham was maybe five miles away. It was, he told himself, no more distance than what he habitually jogged in the morning. Giving allowance for crossing a nasty section of marsh and tidal flats on Crow Island—thank God it was low tide—he could be there in no time.

  48

  Chief Mourdock slid his bulk into the squad car and exited the station garage, lights flashing, siren wailing. He had a vague idea that the sight of the squad car in full siren would be a comfort to the people cowering in their houses.

  He felt completely flummoxed by what he had seen. Rose Buffum had spoken of a demon, a monster, but of course that was crazy. It had to be a Jack the Ripper type, a homicidal lunatic, who had come into Exmouth and gone on a rampage. Things like that happened in the unlikeliest places. It was just some random horror.

  And yet those splayed, torn bodies…

  At this thought he felt a cold, paralyzing fear, so powerful he gasped aloud. Six months from retirement…and now this, on top of the Dunwoody murders?

  Fuck it. He would get to the bridge, park, lock the squad car, and wait for the SWAT teams and backup to arrive from Lawrence. At this time of night, in the storm, the roads would be free of traffic. They’d be here in no time.

  …But what if there were downed trees? What if the roads were blocked? What if the power failure delayed them?

  The fear stabbed like an icicle probing his guts. He reassured himself that all he had to do was wait for the SWAT teams to arrive and take over. They would push him aside, relieve him of all responsibility and decision making. Then, whatever happened, it wouldn’t be on him.

  The Metacomet Bridge loomed ahead, the row of sodium lights that normally illuminated it dark. He eased onto the bridge, the rain lashing his windshield, the wipers slapping back and forth. He drove halfway across and put the vehicle in park, keeping the engine running, making sure the doors were locked. When he satisfied himself that he was safe, he pulled out the mike and called the Lawrence dispatcher. He was assured that a massive response was on its way, all the 10-33 equipment Lawrence had accumulated since 9/11 being put into service—MRAPs, BearCats, heavy weaponry, stun grenades, tear gas, and two M2 Browning .50-caliber machine guns. The convoy would arrive in Exmouth in less than ten minutes.

  Until that time, Mourdock told himself, he could do nothing.

  But now he wondered if maybe it had been a mistake sending Gavin into town alone. It would look really bad if his deputy were killed, with him sitting here doing nothing. But Gavin would be safe; the killer had gone. Surely the killer was gone.

  Mother of God, he was looking forward to his retirement, his pension, his sofa, and a cold six-pack in front of the ball game.

  But the more he thought of it, the more he realized that, whether or not Gavin was killed, it would look bad—him, sitting out here in his locked patrol car, away from the town that he had been hired to protect. It wouldn’t go unnoticed by the first responders…

  Suddenly he had an idea. He could turn around, take Dune Road toward the ocean, avoiding downtown and its chaos. There was a turnout south of town, not far from the lighthouse, where he could wait. If he turned off his headlights, nobody would see him, nobody would know. Then, when he heard the sirens and saw the lights of the approaching cavalry, he could rush back into town as if he’d been on the scene the whole time.

  The vise of fear that had clamped around his chest eased ever so slightly. Cowardly? No—just looking after number one. After all, he’d put in his twenty…almost. And there was that sofa and that cold six-pack to protect.

  Throwing the vehicle into gear, he did a three-point turn, drove off the bridge, then took a right off Main onto Dune Road. To his left, he could just make out the faint glow of the burning house. Then came the lighthouse beam, winking through the storm.

  Past the lighthouse, he reached the turnout, maneuvered the patrol car around in readiness to scoot back into town, killed the lights but left the engine running. He glanced at his watch. Five minutes for the convoy. Just five more minutes and his ordeal would be over…


  A sudden blow rocked his car. He gave a shout, staring wildly out into the darkness.

  Something had slammed into the rear door on the driver’s side—a branch blown on the wind, maybe. As he fumbled to turn on the exterior searchlight, another massive blow hit the door, turning the window into a dense spiderweb of cracks.

  Abandoning the searchlight, his breath coming hot and fast, Mourdock extracted his flashlight and turned it on. Something was prodding at the fractured, rubbery window, pushing it in. A hand broke through—a bloody hand with horrible, blunt brown nails that were an inch too long.

  Mourdock screamed, dropping the flashlight and scrabbling for his weapon.

  A second hand—sinewy, pale—punched through the window and ripped out the loose glass. Then a hideous bald head, encrusted with blood and gore, pushed in while one arm simultaneously reached around, fumbling at the door with a curiously infantile gesture.

  “Noooo!”

  The chief finally got his Glock out and pointed it, firing wildly, but now the door flew open and the maniac lunged into the backseat. Oh, God, it was a monster: a hideous, naked, emaciated monster with a pit bull’s face and projecting snout, a huge rack of blunt teeth, a pink tongue, and brown eyes that glittered with homicidal malice.

  Still firing wildly, Mourdock fumbled with the gearshift, trying to maneuver it into drive…but just then a hand snaked out, plastering itself onto his face, those blunt nails curling around his cheekbones and spastically tightening.

  “Ahhmmmmmm!” Mourdock, feeling the foul-smelling palm pressed against his nose and mouth, the nails sinking deep into his flesh, tried to scream and pull away; there was an agonizing wet jerk and his voice was released in a spray of blood as his flesh parted from his skull, and then he heard a hoarse gasping sound so close he wondered where it could have come from, until he realized it had come from himself.

  Agent Pendergast had lost the trail of the killer just south of town, but he sensed, from the purposeful beeline, that it was headed for Crow Island. And now, as he crossed the road that traversed the marshes and led to the beach, he saw a police car—the chief’s squad car. The headlights were off, but the engine was running. Through the gusting rain he detected movement.