Jana continued with her questions. “That’s not very comforting, Sheriff Oates. Don’t you think that it’s your job t…” Jana’s sentence was cut short by a hard upward swing. Swinging upward, claws that were unseen to both Jana and Bob made deep gouges from the side of her left breast to just under her chin; there the claws of the monster’s first and second digits gouged upward, piercing into her mouth from below. The beast then clenched its fist, bringing its fingers out of Jana’s mouth, the two claws splitting her upper lip in the process. With this firm grip, the Sheriff-Oates-thing pulled Jana to him. He opened his mouth grotesquely wide and clamped down on her face. His upper teeth were sunk into the left side of her forehead, and his lower teeth sunk into her face just to the right of her nose. There was a loud crunching sound as the beast brought its jaws together. Jana’s arms, which had been weakly struggling, shot out straight to her sides at first, then slumped.
Bob found that his muscles refused to cooperate. He watched the whole thing in stunned shock. The Sheriff-Oates-thing let Jana slump to the ground, then turned its gaze on Bob. It then crouched down on all fours preparing to pounce.
Finally, Bob’s muscles did something — he pissed himself.
Carl Price cruised down Highway 190 and noticed the Current Edition van parked across the street from the Pineywoods Hotel at Marvin Palmer’s old gas station. Bill had warned Carl, who was filling in for Chad on the night shift, not to leave his car without calling for backup, so Carl pulled up in the parking lot and used his door-mounted spotlight to look around the building. Despite Bill’s instructions, Carl was hesitant to call for backup, because he knew the person backing him up at nights was none other than the sheriff himself. Bill hadn’t been getting much sleep during the current crisis, and it didn’t seem to be helping his temper.
Carl didn’t see anything, so he decided to pull around behind the gas station. The cruiser slowly rounded the corner of the store. As the back parking lot came into view, Carl continued to use his spotlight to light up the shadows behind bushes and corners. He had no idea why the troublesome reporters would be violating the curfew, but he imagined if they were desperate enough to break the law for a good story, they would be desperate enough to hide from the law to keep from getting caught.
Carl was so intent on pointing the spotlight into various corners that he pulled right up to the bodies before he saw them. When his vision returned toward the front of the car, Jana was only some twenty feet away, right in front of the headlights. She was facing toward him. All that remained of her face was her lower jaw and part of her left cheek, but this was covered with blood; her head looked like a mass of bloody pulp with blonde hair.
“Oh, God!” Carl gasped, and started fumbling for the radio. “C–Clara, this is sixty-two, I need backup behind the old gas station on 190… and an ambulance, over.”
“Could you repeat that last part, sixty-two?”
“We’ve got someone down behind Marvin’s gas station on 190.”
“Ten-four,” Clara answered
Carl stared at the bloody mess in front of his car. Behind Jana he thought he could make out another body. Probably the cameraman, he thought. Carl pointed the spotlight in that direction, and sure enough, there was another body. This one actually seemed to be in worse condition than the one in front of him.
Carl picked up the mike again. “Clara, be sure and wake up the sheriff on this one.”
“Ten-four.”
CHAPTER 19
From Bad to Worse
Sam had returned to Austin the day before in an effort to speed up the process of getting a new team of bloodhounds and more law enforcement personnel to help patrol Newton County. As soon as Bill called to let him know what had happened, he set out on his return trip as fast as his sports car could carry him. After he arrived, he sought out Bill and found him in the squad room.
“This is bad,” Sam said as he came through the door. “Real bad.”
Bill was seated behind Carl Price’s desk. Needless to say, Bill wasn’t using the computer. The computer was on, but its screen saver was active. While winged toasters fluttered across the screen, Bill was intently searching for something in the large storage cabinet behind Carl’s desk.
Bill motioned for Sam to close the door behind him.
“You just thought we’ve had problems with reporters,” Sam said, this time it was his face that was flushed bright red. “When word that a reporter and her cameraman were killed by a strange animal in the streets of downtown Newton, Texas, reporters are going to swarm on this town like locusts.”
There was one thing that Captain Sam Jones absolutely couldn’t stand and that was being in a situation that was out of control. Throughout Sam’s life he had always had an uncanny ability to avoid such situations by either quick wits, smooth talking, or, when necessary, brute force. However, it seemed none of these assets had been able to pull him through the current crisis. Up until now he found himself barely able to keep things from falling apart. Now it seemed the death of these two big-city reporters was going to push the situation into the out of control zone, and this made Captain Sam Jones none too happy.
“I can handle one overweight ex-bimbo from Current Edition, Bill, but I’m not sure if I can keep it up when the major networks send their heavy hitters.”
While Sam was talking, Bill found what he was looking for in the bottom of the storage cabinet, under several reams of printer paper — an old VCR. Bill set the VCR on Carl’s desk, beside the computer.
“Can you hook one of these things up?” Bill asked, as if he hadn’t heard a word Sam had said.
“Yeah,” Sam said hesitantly; the question set him back a little. “Mind if I ask why?”
“That,” Bill pointed at a little video camera sitting on the edge of Carl’s desk, “was found at the scene. If we’re lucky, our cameraman may have caught whatever killed them on tape.”
The video camera didn’t solve the dead reporter problem, but it sure did make Sam’s gloomy day start to look a little better. Perhaps this was the big breakthrough they’d been waiting for.
Sam picked up the VCR and took it over to the TV that was on the top of a filing cabinet across the room from Carl’s desk. While Sam untangled the wires to the VCR, Bill pressed the button on the intercom and told Debra to get in touch with James and Emilio and have them report to the sheriff’s office immediately.
Once the VCR was set up, Sam used the remote to fast forward until they could see the front of Marvin’s old gas station on the screen.
Sam pressed play.
James followed Emilio into the squad room.
Emilio glanced up at the TV and commented, “Aw, man, I didn’t bring popcorn.”
“Oh, good y’all are already here,” Bill said, “We just got started.”
Sam pressed pause, stopping the scene at a dark view behind Marvin’s gas station. Jana was still in the shadows, only her dark silhouette was visible.
“Have a seat,” Bill said. “This tape ought to be real interesting. It was found in a camera near the body of one of this morning’s victims.”
Emilio took a seat, and James leaned up against the wall.
Sam pressed play.
Jana continued around the corner of the building. Once she was out of the shadows, she was clearly visible. She stopped and looked around. Then she turned back to Bob, apparently attempting to look sexy, said, “Bob, you got me all excited for nothing.”
“Bob, you stud,” Emilio commented.