Swim Like Hell: A Visit to Superstition Bay Read online

  Swim Like Hell

  A visit to Superstition Bay

  Benjamin LaMore

  For Jennifer, my inspiration.

  For Connor & Diana, my motivation.

  For Mom.

  Part One

  “Everything you can think of is true.”

  Tom Waits, “Everything You Can Think”

  Prologue, Part One

  “Ian, slow down,” Zack said through gritted teeth.

  I kept my eyes fastened on the road ahead, jaw clenched to the point of pain, not trusting myself to say anything. I strained to see through the blinding snowstorm beyond our windshield, waiting for our destination to finally heave into sight.

  The blizzard had struck only two hours ago, but already there was almost three feet of accumulation and no end in sight. The world was gone, swallowed by the pelting swirls. Where our headlights cut through the storm the snow appeared as two nearly solid shafts of brightness, our red-and-blue flashers cast an unwelcome beauty off the refracting flakes. Where the beams cut off the darkness pulsed as the snow beat its way through the air, flexing the night around us. There was no need for the flashers – we were the only ones foolish enough to be out driving in a whiteout – but I left them on anyway.

  We were going way too fast for the weather, tires threatening to slip out on the half-buried streets, barely in control. I wrestled the Bronco’s wheel, straining my forearms as the wheels mercilessly hammered the road. Zach’s eyes were locked wide open as he stared out into the storm, as if he had somehow imparted some of his resolve into the tires themselves, urging them to cling to the road with a life of their own.

  “Ian, slow down,” he repeated. “We can’t help them if you wrap us around a tree.” I didn’t have to look at his face to know he was scared, and not just from my driving. I didn’t even have to hear his voice. He’d heard the chaos in the background of the phone line as well as I had.

  And he’d heard the screams as well as I had.

  I stared down at the radio under the dash. The watch commander had ordered radio silence after I’d called in what I’d heard.

  “Try them again,” I said. I had already unlatched my seat belt a mile ago, a foolish risk given the driving conditions. My right thumb had already popped the hood of my holster, the butt of my .45 growing warm in my palm as I hugged the road with one hand on the wheel. Zack must have sensed that arguing with me was only going to waste time and breath, because he picked his cell phone off his lap and hit redial. A few seconds later he set it down.

  “Still nothing,” he said. “Service is down. We’ll be there in less than a minute anyway.”

  “Where are the rest?”

  “Maybe ten minutes behind. This fucking blizzard.”

  Ten minutes. I closed the holster, popped it open, closed it. Popped it and left it open.

  “Ian, you listen to me,” Zack said sternly. He’d gruffed up his voice, adding to it his years of experience. He did that sometimes, to remind me that, even after six years working together, I was the Junior Partner. “We pull up, I grab the shotgun, we check the outside. Then we go in together. We do it right. You got me? Whatever’s going on, we’re gonna get it done and not trip all over each other. Don’t want to go shooting anyone.”

  I didn’t disagree with him. I didn’t agree, either. I’m sure he noticed.

  “We’re here,” he said, killing the lights, popping the comfortable bubble of light they’d cast around us. We coasted into the parking lot relying on the ambient light cast from the lamps by the restaurant door. We pulled to a stop ten feet from the door, the snow crunching under the tires.

  The Coachman’s Rest, an authentic log-cabin restaurant, was barely visible through the whiteout. The lot was empty save for one snow-plastered Dodge. The restaurant had closed early due to the looming storm – Becky Potts, owner and head chef and Jason Ward, the busboy, were always the last ones to leave. Becky and I had graduated together, and since neither of us had left town after high school we were constantly running into one another. Small town life’s like that. Pretty girl, but being the only redhead in town brought her a lot of attention. Never let it go to her head, though. It had been Becky’s voice I’d last heard over the phone, before the words ended and the screaming started.

  The car had barely lost momentum when I jumped out the door, the outer layer of my parka instantly mortared with white powder, my .45 SIG-Sauer leaping into my hand with a will of its own. I didn’t argue with it. I looked over the outside of the building through almost zero visibility, feeling the bitter cold crisp the skin of my face. From what I could see there was no sign of trouble – nobody running and screaming, no fires burning, no maniacs flailing about with machetes.

  Zach grabbed the shotgun and, side by side, ran up to the entrance, eyes searching for movement through the snow. I stopped at the door, gun pointed safely at the floor, glancing through the small portholes caved into the old oak. When I was sure there were no surprises waiting for me on the other side I cracked the door and we slid inside, quickly closing the door so as not to alert anyone inside that I was there. I looked past the cash register into the dining area.

  What I could see of the room beyond looked like a war had been fought there. The amount of damage was incredible given the short time since the 911 call. Half of the lights were out, chandeliers torn from their mounts, lamps shattered. Tables and chairs were strewn about like forgotten toys in the haphazard darkness, their contents carelessly discarded on the floor.

  And then there was the body.

  My heart tried to vomit itself out of my chest, but I locked it in. I had been a cop for six years, but I wasn’t fooling myself into thinking that made me anything special. I worked and grew up in central Vermont. The only dead body I’d seen through work-related means was old Clive Willis, whose heart had given out while watching a John Wayne movie on TV. I nudged Zach and pointed. He saw and nodded, and together we slid into the darkened room.

  “It’s Jason,” I whispered, scooting over next to him and dropping to a knee. Even in the dark I could see that his head was tilted at an unnatural angle, his chin pointing way too high. His neck was a cavity of blood, glistening black in the half-light. Most of his throat was gone. I couldn’t have checked for a pulse even if I’d thought it would help.

  “My God,” Zach choked. He swallowed hard enough to hurt, and the shotgun wavered in his grip.

  He held up a palm, signaling me to wait. Seven minutes, he mouthed.

  No way. Becky was still in here somewhere, and we had no idea where. Waiting another seven minutes for backup to arrive was unthinkable. We didn’t even know what had done this, though the only thought that came to mind was a bear, but I’d never seen or heard about a bear causing destruction like this in so short a time. It might ransack the kitchen, might even run down a person if it needed to, but it wouldn’t destroy the entire room. Plus, though the thought drove my mind a little closer to the snapping point, Jason was pretty lean and not much had been taken from him. If it had been a bear it would still have been working on him when we busted in. I stared hard at Zack and shook my head slowly, my eyes never leaving his.

  His scowl became epic, but he didn’t press. He huffed and scanned the room, working up a Plan B. He indicated us, then pointed at the fifties-style swinging doors on the far side of the room that led to the kitchen. I nodded impatiently and we started off, praying my wet shoes wouldn’t squeak on the linoleum.

  A fit of shivering threatened to overwhelm me. It was colder now. No windows were open, and I couldn’t pick out a draft of any kind, but I could almost see the temperature dropping. I thought for a moment th
at it was my nerves, but when I exhaled I could see a thin white plume of breath hanging in the air before me.

  Think. Concentrate. That scream, rendered tinny and staccato by the phone. I stepped over Jason’s body and followed Zach around the corner of the bar, sliding deeper into the dining room, SIG leading the way.

  I heard it then. A tiny scrape from farther in the room, something shifting weight on the carpet, answering me. We weren’t alone. I eased my finger onto the trigger, slowing down as I tried to pierce the darkness in the room. The flickering lights kept my night vision from coming in and there was an abundance of shadowy hiding places. I used my left hand to pull a flashlight off my belt and held it beneath my gun hand, wrist crossing wrist so they both pointed the same direction as I took tiny step after tiny step.

  My mind was on fire, panic threatening to overwhelm discipline. Something was in here, but what? Where?

  Another sound. A faint crunch, something crisp and wet giving sudden way. My head snapped to the left. It came from that way, I was sure. Zach, apparently having missed the sound, pressed slowly into the kitchen but I took a second to peer around the corner of the bar and into the open…

  And froze.

  My mind locked in horror. I saw, in a hideously well-placed pool of light that streamed through a window, a figure hunched over a second body. Clearly not a bear, but a man. His back was to me, but he was still plainly visible. He was naked, with oily hair hanging limply past his shoulders. Slender, smaller than me but with broad, powerful shoulders, with skin the color of old ash.

  And I saw the body he was crouched over. The disheveled bun of auburn hair.

  “No,” I whispered.

  He heard me. His head snapped around at the sound of my voice, the street light casting empty shadows over his eyes. With a cloud of breath that sounded like a hiss, he pivoted smoothly on the balls of his feet, angling himself towards me.

  The SIG was up before I knew it, the barrel leveled at the center of his body. He stopped in mid motion, a slice of shadow coiled half erect in the wan light, and regarded the gun. A string of hair like a dirty mop dropped over his face but I could see with horrible clarity shreds of meat dangling from his mouth, black blood running freely down his face and splattering across his chest.

  There was a whole battery of things I should have said at that moment as the arresting officer. Freeze. Down on the floor. Don’t move. Any of them would have been fine, according to the letter of the law.

  Instead, I just shot him.

  I saw him buckle and knew that I’d hit him square in the chest. Once, twice, and he fell backwards, landing heavily on the worn carpet. I stood over his fallen body, aimed down, and fired again. Three, four, five times. After seven rounds the slide locked back. The gun was empty. I dropped it, feeling as empty inside as the spent magazine, and followed it to the floor, crawling like a half-crushed insect back to her side.

  She was dead, there was no mistake. Like Jason, the front of her body had been torn open, the carnage blessedly hidden by shadow. Her eyes were closed, her face peaceful, blissfully unaware of what had been done to her.

  “Sweet Heaven,” someone whispered. I looked up and saw Zack standing over us, shotgun at the ready.

  “She’s gone,” I whispered. I felt my breath hitching, felt a thick roaring in my head. I didn’t know if I was going to puke or pass out.

  “You were close?”

  I shook my head numbly. “Not really. We went to school together. We’ve seen each other around, but that’s it.” I knelt next to her.

  “Ian, I…” Zack said, stepping forward.

  An ash-white shape tore the darkness, vaulting over me with cheetah speed. It hit Zack like a truck and swarmed over him, arms flailing, black blood spraying. Zack screamed once, reeling back, trying to fend it off before losing his legs to a capsized bar stool. He went down, the thing that should have been dead atop. I saw its head snap like a snake and, just like that, the screaming stopped. It had taken less than five seconds.

  “NO!” I screamed. I lunged forward and grabbed Zack’s shotgun. I came up to a crouch, the butt braced on my hip, and the thing turned back to me with its mouth open.

  The fractured light allowed me to see clearly it for the first time. His eyes were pits of black flesh, his pupils red slashes in the dark. He had no lips, just ragged strips of flesh where they had been chewed off. There was no nose, only a rotted hole in the middle of that horrible face. Without lips the mouth was impossibly wide, and I could see far too many teeth glittering, hideously framing the gaping maw. They were triangular. It wasn’t a trick of the light – they were triangular, like a goddamn shark’s.

  What the hell was it?

  A thin rasp hissed from its throat, a sibilant cough, and it came at me in a blur of darkness and teeth. My finger convulsed on the trigger. The shotgun roared, spouting a huge bloom of light and heat that ended squarely in its abdomen. The thing reeled, caught its footing… and stood tall.

  The skin of the torso was unmarked. Seven .45 caliber rounds, and one point-blank from a fucking shotgun. The thing wasn’t even wounded.

  I fired again but had no idea if I hit. It was on me like a nightmare, the shotgun ripped brutally out of my hands. It grabbed me by my shirtfront, fingertips puncturing my department required ballistic vest with ease. It lifted me into the air and heaved me one handed, like a shot-put. The room spun, the bar flew under me, and then I hit the wall with a monstrous crash and tumbled to the floor.

  In the movies the hero gets thrown into a wall, gets up and continues kicking ass. I groaned, writhing in agony, then forced myself to painfully climb the bar like a ladder. As I did I found my collapsible PR-24 on my belt, drew it and snapped it open.

  When I stood up, the monster was waiting for me. It hefted me by the shoulders of my parka and I was airborne again. I felt a wet snap in my side as I caromed awkwardly off a table. Rib, had to be. I hit the floor coughing, fresh agony spearing my side. I felt a hot coppery spackle in my mouth and knew I was spitting blood.

  The thing charged again, even more horrifying due to its complete and utter silence. I managed to lash out with one boot, catching it somewhere near the knee. It stumbled, unable to maintain its momentum, and I rolled gracelessly to my knees. I swung the PR-24 in a hard, tight arc, felt the satisfying impact as it jammed itself into its thorax. It stumbled, tautly muscled arms clutching itself, and I staggered to my feet.

  I cocked the baton back, ready to cave in its skull, but it caught the stick on the downswing and snapped the polycarbonate shaft in two. With its bare hands. I stared, awed, until a taloned claw slashed towards my face. I yelled and stumbled backwards, frantically dodging backwards as one lethal lunge after another came after my blood.

  I felt the solidness of the wall on my back. No more space to run. My shoulder screamed at me, the nerve endings on fire where the claws had sunk in. The shotgun was gone. My SIG was gone. The baton was gone, and I was wounded. I couldn’t even hurt the thing when I was sound and armed.

  I was going to die now.

  The thing seemed to sense victory. It took a loping step towards me, walking over Becky’s body as it was just another shadow. I saw her face, so gentle, so soft. She’d deserved better.

  I took a deep breath, and another. Becky. The thing came towards me, slowly, inexorably. Becky. I met its gaze and held it. Becky.

  It took another step, chest heaving. It was breathing, breathing deep. Guess I’d put up a fight after all. It seemed to be invulnerable, but evidently I’d worn it down a bit. Talk about your small comforts.

  Wait.

  It was breathing deep.

  It had to breathe.

  It wasn’t even a plan, just an absurd notion, but it was enough. I found that one little spark and clung desperately to it. Maybe I couldn’t beat it. But I had one last shot to take. I shucked out of my parka, shedding the coat like a skin, and looked at the thing in front of me.

  I clenched my fists. Raised them. />
  It seemed to laugh at the absurdity. It clacked its claws merrily, flexed them. Then it came, a silent, slashing demon, but I was ready for it. I faked an overhand right, and when it reflexively looked at my hand I kicked it in the gut with everything that I had. I’ve kicked softer trees, but it still bent at the waist, staggering. I ducked to the right and fired out my left arm, wrapping it like a noose around its neck. I clamped my left hand inside my right elbow, forearm like a bar across its throat. I locked my right hand behind its head and squeezed with all my soul. It reared and began to silently flail, and I knew I’d been right.

  It had to breathe, which meant that it needed oxygen to live. It had a head like a human being, which meant that like a human being the head would have to house the brain. Which, in turn, meant that there were arteries, veins, capillaries that would course through the neck to deliver the goods to the brain. Unless they were shut down with a good, tight choke.

  It reached up and back, the claws tearing trenches in the back of my Kevlar. I ducked away from them – I felt them tear at my scalp, my shoulders, but I never let go. I felt it stagger under me, reeling from my weight. It stabbed its claws into my arms, ten cold daggers lancing deep into warm muscle, but I never let go.

  Blood began to flow from the holes in my arms, slicking the monster’s neck. I felt my arms slipping, unable to keep their purchase as the fluid robbed me of my grasp. “No,” I pleaded, clamping down harder, but I was losing ground. The monster realized this and spun harder, slamming my spine hard into the bar. The sickening shock of impact jarred my arms loose and, the choke hold broken, I fell away from the thing like a discarded coat. I hit the ground with a wet, final thud and simply lay there. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t wipe the gelatinous layer of blood away from my face. I didn’t even have enough strength left to close my eyes.

  The monster shook itself, recovering. It glared down at me, hatred seething from its body. Its mouth ratcheted open, teeth gleaming. It wanted me to see it coming, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.