Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1) (8 page)

“He’s working with someone else,” I said. “It’s got something to do with the new mall.”

“Oh?”

“Whatever killed people is preventing them from doing something, but I’m not sure what. I don’t think this guy knew.”

“That’s not very helpful.”

“I also have his mother’s killer onion gravy recipe,” I told him. “Sorry. For all, I know he spilled his guts, but the ‘spirits’ have different priorities than me.”

“Their priorities include onion gravy but not attempted murder?”

“I think occult stuff bores my spirit guide, to be honest.” Sparks was done with this particular dead man. He was clinging to the bottom of the pendant and swinging it back and forth.

“That’s something, anyway,” Earl said. “I do like onion gravy.”

“Are the Fry’s tunnels extensive?” I asked.

“Yup. They’re all over town. Why?”

“Mr. Smith wanted to go underground. Maybe he thought there was a tunnel to the mall, and he was looking for a map?”

“That could be,” Earl said. “If so, why wouldn’t he buy the old man’s clothes before you arrived? It’s not like Cici doesn’t want to get rid of them.”

“It was just an idea.”

***

It seemed to take forever to answer questions and get the cultist’s body to the morgue. Steve confirmed that it was a coworker and that Damien Smith was his real name.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said when we were done and on our way to the morgue ourselves. “I swear, I thought this was going to be an easy job.”

“Did you know the higher ups in your company dabble in the occult?”

“No way,” he said, shaking his head. “We are building a
mall
for God’s sake. It doesn’t get much less occult than that.”

“Then I forgive you,” I said. “As long as you don’t do it again.”

“You can move in with me if you feel unsafe at the hotel,” he offered. “I’m renting a house while I’m here.”

“That’s okay. I’m probably safer where I am. I get the feeling that no one’s going to sneak up on me in the middle of the night while I’m sleeping there.”

“That’s true. Honestly, the real reason I moved out was because one night I stayed out past their curfew and woke up in the parking lot.” I laughed.

“So the sleep effect extends outside the building?”

“Yes. All the way to the middle of the street out front and a few yards into the marsh behind them.”

“I’ll bet that causes accidents.”

“I suppose the locals are familiar with it, and tourists don’t go back there much.”

The medical examiner wasn’t in a good mood. He told us not to touch anything before he pulled the bodies out. He started to unzip a body bag, and I put my hands out to stop him.

“Just open it a few inches please,” I said. “I really don’t need to see it.” A few inches was enough to interest Sparks. He hovered over the body for a few seconds. He fluttered over to me and hovered right in front of my eyes, forcing me to cross them if I wanted to look at him. His eyes, normally wide, had opened even wider until they were taking up half his body. It meant he’d learned something he found exciting.

“What is it?” I asked him.

This was a man who once melted a pot trying to boil ramen. He’d taken a construction job one summer to buy a car and had liked it. His goal was to be a foreman, maybe even own his own company someday. His favorite meal was vegetarian pizza and beer. He wanted a dog, but he worked such long hours he couldn’t take care of one. Maybe he could settle for an aquarium or a hamster. Hamsters were easy to take care of, right? Oh, and one of those weird plants that were all over the construction site had come to life, knocked him down, and yanked his guts out.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked me.

“Not really,” I said. It was easier to maintain professional detachment when the deceased was an asshole like Damien Smith. “He was killed by some kind of plant monster.”

“No kidding?” the medical examiner asked.

“I didn’t look around last time. Were there any weird looking plants? Like tall, mangy ferns?”

“There might have been something like that,” Steve replied. “If the culprit is plant monsters we can kill them, right?”

“Will I look crazy if I put that in my report?” The medical examiner asked. “I’m used to unusual causes of death, but ‘plant monster’ might be crossing a line.”

“Damned if I know, and probably,” I said. “Try spraying weed killer and see what happens.”

“They might be endangered though,” Steve said. “If they are we’ll have to move our location.”

“What are you talking about?” Steve got a long-suffering look on his face as if I was the one who was babbling.

“If it’s a new species no one has ever heard of before it’s almost certainly rare. And even if I were that sort of land developer, too many people are investigating this for me to cover it up.”

“Hell man, they’re monsters,” the medical examiner said. “Assuming this kid is telling the truth. Killing is what monsters are
for
. I’m sure if you tell them how close they came to becoming fertilizer even the tree-huggers would agree to look the other way when you pull out the chainsaws.”

“We’ll see,” Steve said. “We’ve been there for weeks and this is the first incident. I’m sure we’ve got time to think about it.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Not to be the hysterical psychic or anything, but do you know the life cycle of carnivorous plant monsters? Maybe they only wake up in the fall. Call that geologist you hired and tell them not to go out there.”

“It’s too late for that,” he said. “I told you he was going over there with Tony while we did this. They might even be done by now.”

“Call them anyway.”

***

Steve tried, but they were out of range. And, it hardly needs to be mentioned, dead. The state police seemed annoyed that I had such a good alibi for my entire morning. From breakfast onward I’d been in the presence of law enforcement. Now the FBI were going to be called in. I wasn’t sure what made this their jurisdiction. I hoped they were more objective, and less impulsive than the state police.

“I suppose this works in our favor, but I can’t feel happy about it,” Fiona said at dinner. She’d insisted that I come over, along with Earl.

“Of course not,” he said. “This won’t be the end of it, I’m sure.”

“Steve seemed to think it would be,” I said.

“Does he have the authority to shut their operation down?” Fiona asked. “Even if he did could you prove, right now, that the chupacabra did it?”

“Could we please not call it that?” I asked. “That makes it sound like we’re in a cheap monster movie.”

“What else should we call it?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Someone’s going to have to go back there and catch one in action. You have to prove an animal exists before it goes on the endangered species list.”

“Why in action?” I asked. “I’m sure that thing applies to plants too. Someone could get a telephoto lens and take pictures of the leaves. I’m no botanist, and neither was the victim, but it seemed like the above ground parts of these things looked unique. Why are you going along with the endangered species plan anyway? I thought you killed monsters.”

She frowned at me.

“In my own home, of course, I do. In this case, there’s no reason for humans to be in that particular field. My goal is to keep people from being killed by the chupacabras. If I can do that without fighting them, it’s fine with me. Photographing them might work,” she continued. “The trick is still going to be finding someone brave enough.” She thought for a while. “I’m going to call a meeting for all the protestors. We can work something out.”

“What are you going to be doing?” Earl asked me.

“I’m going to be searching my new clothes for anything that looks like a key and waiting until someone finds another reason to need a necromancer for a job that is clearly meant for a biologist of some kind.” As far as I was concerned my work here was done. Steve still wanted me to hang around, although he couldn’t give me a clear reason why. As long as I didn’t have to go back to the construction site I had no problem living on his company’s dime.

“Would you like to come to the meeting?” Fiona asked. “Many of the protestors are from out of town so they won’t believe you, but you might find it interesting.”

***

It
was
interesting. The meeting was held at a rest stop several miles down the highway, in deference to the protestors who didn’t want to kill their suspensions by driving into town. When Fiona said, there was a new, dangerous species of animal loose at the construction site no one questioned her. Despite their appearances, the environmentalist group proved to have several members who were very resourceful. They’d collected all the forms they needed to document our ‘new’ life form and knew exactly what we needed to do to prove it. I wasn’t able to give much more information than that the plants had a surprisingly long reach, and there was more than one of them.

Most of the hunters and several of the environmentalists were sure only a dead specimen would be sufficient proof. The ones who’d done the research insisted high-quality photos and video would be enough for the government.

The plan they all agreed on was to approach the site directly from the road, where they thought it was still safe. One person with a video camera would start recording while another person got as close as they were comfortable with to one of the ‘ferns.’ Both people would be covered by men with rifles.

I thought this sounded like a suicide mission for the guy with the camera, so I was surprised when more than one person volunteered for the job. Some of the environmentalists argued about the guns but in the end everyone agreed that the photographer should have at least the illusion of protection. I was just glad that I didn’t have anything to do with this plot. Fiona didn’t volunteer, which was understandable. In the end, one of the environmentalists convinced the others that as the fastest runner he should be the one to get the close-up shots. He borrowed the best camera from one of the hunters. I didn’t get a close look at either man, but from his bright purple hair I guessed that the hunter was a Whateley.

They also decided that this mission needed to take place around lunch time, on the slim evidence that that was when the cops and ambulances had shown up for the second set of deaths, and none of them had been killed. Under the circumstances, I thought the half-hearted attempts at self-preservation were sickening. The only safe thing to do was stay the hell away, which was what I did. I was in the hotel bar when they executed their plan, trying not to think about what might happen.

***

It was indeed a suicide mission for both the photographer and the videographer. They did get their footage, though. The chupacabra, as everyone insisted on calling it, had a body shaped like a radish with a ring of black eyes around the top. In addition to tentacle-like fronds on top, it had long, prehensile roots. The tapered end of its body was like a syringe that it stabbed into the abdomen of its victims. What no one had counted on when coming up with their plan of attack was that these creatures could not only move over the ground as quickly as an environmentalist could run; they weren’t restricted to the construction site. The rifleman tried shooting it after it went after the photographer, but the bullets didn’t even make it flinch. In typical horror documentary style, the last part of the tape showed the demon fern shuffling back to the construction site, climbing over the body of the photographer along the way.

The rifleman was brave enough to retrieve the video camera and posted the footage on the internet before calling the police.

***

That evening I joined Steve in the bar next to the hotel.

“I was right,” he said. “The mall is as good as toast. The higher-ups said delayed, but there’s no way we can continue. There are three regulatory agencies that are already coming down on us like the wrath of God. It seems there are questions about how we qualified for some of our permits.”

“That’s rough,” I said.

“Rough? Someone’s going to go to prison for this,” Steve said. “Not me, mind you. I only took over when the original man in charge had a nervous breakdown.” That was news to me. Knowing Steve, he hadn’t thought it was important at the time. He’d take a job at the Umbrella Corporation if he liked the hours, and barely even notice that half his coworkers were zombies.

“I’m so glad I decided to look at corpses first,” I said.

“It’s funny,” Steve said. “As wild as that area is, it’s surrounded by civilization. Yet no one’s ever hinted at these creatures before.”

“What, there aren’t local legends about the killer plants?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” he said. “Not that that means anything. The tribes in this area stuck to the coast and major rivers.”

“So what’s your next step?”

“A biologist, I think. I’ve already contacted the EPA. You know, we already had all our inspections and got our permits. I haven’t had a chance to review every single one of them, but real inspectors did them. Someone should have noticed the mystery plants and made a note of them somewhere. I know nothing about ferns. I assumed that they were common.”