Everything Howls by Christopher Lopez

Author:Christopher Lopez [Lopez, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press

Chapter 17

An hour after their harrowing visit with Julie, Aaron and Jeff rumbled back up Big Pine toward the station through the onslaught of snow. They sat in silence, unblinking, staring through the windshield without the slightest movement since climbing in. Aaron’s hands were iron clamps on the wheel and Jeff saw his knuckles were white as bone. A cigarette jutted from the corner of his mouth, bouncing up and down in time with the clenching of his jaw. The butt was already mushy, glistening with his saliva. The slick was making its way up the white paper, turning it transparent and showing the raw tobacco beneath.

Jeff wanted to be rid of the uncomfortable stunned silence, and at last decided to speak.

“What do you make of all this, Sheriff?”

Aaron only looked ahead at the snow-packed road, cautiously making his way back to the station. Jeff felt they needed to regroup. They needed time to mull it all over and make some sense of things.

Finally, Aaron sighed heavily, pried a hand from the wheel to take the cigarette, and turned to Jeff.

“I don’t know what to make of any of this. First Sam and Paul disappear. Then we find Mrs. Valentine murdered. And I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t imagine who could’ve done something so….”

He trailed off for a moment, lost for words. But he soon found his voice again.

“Never in a million years could I have imagined something like this would happen here. Not in Keme.

“Her head is gone and her body ravaged. Then you find little Sam Franklin, only this time there’s no body. This time all that’s left is the head. It seems pretty goddamn obvious we’ve got a fucking sicko on the loose, and he’s going around killing people and eating them—feeding on them—and now Julie tells us the wounds don’t match up?”

“Sheriff,” replied Jeff quietly, not wanting to let the darkness spread. He could see it draping itself across Aaron’s face, and he feared it. “She said she wouldn’t be able to tell anything for sure without labs. She hasn’t had time to really examine everything.”

“But we don’t have access to labs right now, Jeff. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not. This storm was supposed to be gone already and yet here it is, pelting the truck and covering the roads. Covering tracks and probably any lead we could hope to find.”

“Sheriff—”

“And as for time, I think it’s pretty fucking obvious that that is one luxury we’re fresh out of.

“So, based on Julie’s examination,” Aaron went on, “we need to work under the assumption that there are not one, but two of the sickest sons-of-bitches we’ve ever stumbled across presently running free in our town. In our town!”

Jeff winced, caught off guard by Aaron’s outburst. It had been building, he knew, but it surprised him all the same. Aaron wasn’t one to lose his cool often. Jeff could count the times he’d seen him yell over the years he’d known him on one hand. But he’d

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