IT LIVES IN THE BASEMENT (15 page)

No answer, so he tried again several times.  Still no response.

Reames said, “We may be out of range, John.  These radios aren’t made for use in tunnels you know.  Should I go back for them?  It wouldn’t take me very long.”

Carter shook his head, “No, Mike.  I don’t want anyone alone down here.  We’ll retreat a few more feet and try them again.”

The group moved as one back down the tunnel, Sagano keeping his light on that single opening in the wall. 

Pepper took off back up the tunnel with her lantern, setting it close to the opening, then returning.  “We don’t know how far back we
’ll have to go, and soon Mark’s light won’t be strong enough to show us the hole.  You guys go on back and try to reach the other team on the radio.  I’ll stay right here and keep an eye on the hole.  Go on before I lose my nerve, guys.”  She pulled her shotgun around and stood holding it, aimed at the hole, as the men moved back, Carter still repeatedly trying the radio.

At the Dorcas Street intersection, the men stopped.  Carter
said, “I don’t want to go any farther.  I don’t like leaving Pepper up there alone.  Let’s go back,”

Reames said, “John, we’re almost halfway to where we started.  You two go back to Pepper, and I’ll go find the other team.  Besides, we didn’t bring anything to dig with and that hole didn’t look big enough for anyone to fit into.  I’ll get the other team, and we’ll bring some shovels back with us.”

“Are you sure, Mike?  Maybe we should all go back together.”

“Yes, I’m sure.  We can’t all leave an
d not have someone watching the hole.  I didn’t come all this way, wading through shit, to let the damn thing get away because no one was watching the hole.  I’ll be back as fast as I can.  Mark, try not to shoot us when we return, okay?”

The two men stood watching as Mike Reames walked north, his lantern swinging from his hand.  When he was out
of sight, they turned and strode back to where they’d left Pepper . . . but she wasn’t there. 

Searching around in panic, Sagano pointed toward the sewer floor.  On the redbrick floor were a riot shotgun and a piece of the clear, plastic sound-dish.  The plastic was covered with wet blood.  Up the sewer tunnel, where Pepper had set the lantern, the area was darkness. 

Carter and Sagano quickly shone their flashlights around, looking for Pepper, or some sign of what might’ve happened to her.  In the redbrick wall, where Pepper had been standing, was one of the openings, with a matching hole on the opposite wall.  They’d both been checked when they first passed through the area.

Sagano again shone his flashlight in the hole, then gasped.  “Oh my God, John
.  Look at this.”

With both flashlights shining in the hole, they
saw a trail of fresh blood on the hard dirt, and there were two strands of hair in different colors, one reddish brown, and the other long and curly black.  Pepper had long, black, curly hair.  There were also marks indicative of something heavy being dragged into the opening. 

Sagano said in a whisper, “I’m sure those marks weren’t there before when I looked, John.  I’m positive.  Oh God
.  One of those creatures was in that damn hole, but we never listened with the sound dish.  And look there.  Isn’t that a---.”  Sagano started reaching into the opening.

Carter snatched his hand, speaking in a forced whisper, “What the hell are you doing, Mark?  Don’t stick your damn arm in there
, you idiot.  I can see it.  It’s a part of the headphones Pepper was wearing.  Jesus Mark, don’t ever do that again.”

Both men were crouched down when the booming, reverberating echo of a big shotgun, fired five times, reached them.  So loud both
men jumped up, knocking each other over onto the redbrick sewer floor.  Pellets of .00 buckshot screamed around the tunnel, ricocheting off the walls over their heads, as they quickly covered their heads with their arms, laying still, trying to become part of the smelly tunnel floor.

Before the echoes died away, Carter wondered
aloud, “Who the hell did that?  Those shotgun blasts were damned close, back at the Dorcas Street crossing.”

Both flashlights had fallen to the floor.  As Carter was reaching for one of the flashlights, Sagano gave out a loud bloodcurdling scream. 

Carter jumped again, dropping his flashlight as he spun to where his brother-in-law was crouched on the floor. Grabbing up his flashlight, Carter shined it on Sagano, his eyes not believing what he was witnessing.  The scream faded away, and John Carter stood frozen, staring down at his fishing, drinking buddy, blood spurting like a fountain from his right shoulder, where his arm used to be, but was no more. 

Carter leaned down quickly, trying to find some way to save his friend, but knowing there was nothing he could do with a mortal wound like that.

“Oh God, Mark!  Oh Jesus, man!  What the hell happened?”

Sagano was pasty white, and his unfocused eyes would never again see the love of his life, but his lips moved, as he whispered, “Run, John.  There’s a million of ‘em down here.  Tell Sharon I . . . love . . . her.”

Carter knelt there, staring at his dead brother-in-law, not believing what had happened, when he heard raspy breathing and looked up. 

Four Tescar
a were standing on their hind legs, watching him as he knelt watching them.  One of the Tescara had Sagano’s arm in his small, hairy hands, Mark’s digital watch gleaming in the beam from the flashlight.

Carter
felt the riot shotgun under his left knee, and he flicked his eyes down momentarily to be sure.  The four Tescara saw his eye movement. 

Before Carter could drop his hand and grab the shotgun, they rushed forward.
  In a second Carter was down on the brick floor, four Tescara on top of him, two pulling off his arms, one digging viciously into his stomach, and the fourth digging its long claws into his eyes. 

His screams echoed down the dark, lonely sewer, then was replaced by grinding, crun
ching, tearing and chewing sounds.

**********
 

The local paper covered the story in great, if totally inaccurate, detail.  From the vehicles parked around the house on South 18th Street, and from the neighbors that had seen their arrival, they knew eight people, identified as Carter, Alvarez, Reames, Sagano, Kaslowski, Mickosky, Daniels and Doctor Lewis, had entered the house, and sometime later, shotgun blasts were heard echoing throughout the neighborhood.

Theories abounded, from multiple suicides, to a group of renegade cops who became judge, jury and executioners.  None of the theories could be proven by the investigators, as not one body had been found.  After the discovery of the opening in the dirt room, the sewer system had been extensively searched.  All the various holes found in the sewer walls were attributed to rats over the years.

The City of Omaha had eight people missing.  Eight people who
’d been seen, by some of the neighbors, going into the house.  The Police Department also had quite a bit of expensive equipment missing and none of the equipment was ever recovered.  And no one had any answers.  But they had plenty of questions.  Cathy Carter and Sharon Sagano were hounded mercilessly by the press, but they had nothing to tell.

The Police investigation did turn up the three videotapes and the big, overstuffed briefcase in Sergeant Alvarez’s Blazer.  They also found the stuffed model of the Tescara in his apartment.  Since he already had a reputation for being eccentric, the Police Chief, backed by the Mayor of Omaha, was able to downplay the evidence and write him off as a kook hunting for a mythical animal. 

The Police Chief’s claim was further substantiated by some of Dr. Lewis’ colleagues who stated she’d been contacted by Capt. John Carter about some unknown creature they’d found, but Dr. Lewis had scoffed at the idea of its truth.  So they had not taken the claim seriously.

So it
was that two months after the multiple disappearances, two women were in a car, parked in front of the house on 18th Street, at elven-thirty at night.

They sat quiet for a while, then Sharon spoke up.  “What was it John told you, Cathy?”

“Only that something terrible lives in the basement of this house, and to never sit on a toilet.  I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but John was very serious.”  Taking a deep breath, she asked, “You ready?”

They got out of the car together, walking to the rear of the house in the dark.  Sharon smashed the back-door window, and unlocked the door.  Inside, by flashlight,
they proceeded to the basement, where Cathy sat a small bundle on the floor in the dirt room.  A few minutes later they were gone, driving quickly south, as the whole house on 18th Street seemed to expand, then became a rolling ball of flames.

At a traffic light Cathy broke down in tears.  “I hope we killed the bastard, whatever it was
.”

The traffic light changed to green, but before Sharon drove on, she said, “Nothing could live through that fire, Cathy.  Don’t worry honey, it’s over now.  Finally.”

Sirens sounded in the distance

*********************

Chapter One from ARTHUR MERLIN:  The One and Only

“I have no idea why you get so adamant about this, Dr. Tober”, says a tall, thin woman, wearing a white lab-coat and a conservative, grey, pinstriped skirt with matching expensive pumps.  Arms loosely crossed, lips pursed, she’s peering down at a man who has large, soft brown eyes, made larger by the coke-bottle lenses of his glasses.

“As I’ve told you before Dr. Burns,” the older Doctor impatiently explains, “having several psychic abilities is only theoretical. We’ve never found clinical evidence that a person can have more than one paranormal ability. And the few people we’ve found with just one ability are sad specimens indeed.”

“Commander Dobie seems perfectly satisfied with the results from William and Halvorson,” the lady says with a trace of annoyance in her soft, cultured voice.  She’s toying with a man’s gold wedding band threaded on a gold necklace around her neck. “And after all, he’s in charge of the Institute, sir.”

“Yes, quite Doctor, as he’s so fond of reminding me.” Adjusting his glasses, he picks up some reports and heads toward a door. “Should anyone need me, I’ll be in my office.”

With a heavy sigh, Dr. Burns strides stiffly to her workstation and sits, crossing her long, thoroughbred legs. Picking up a gold-plated pen with well-manicured, soft pink fingernails, she starts doodling on a yellow legal pad.

Another voice quietly reprimands her from the far corner of the room. “Ruth, you shouldn’t keep reminding Dr. Tober about Commander Dobie. You know how upset he becomes over bureaucrats and their paperwork.” This man is short and round, also wearing a white lab-coat that makes him resemble a giant cotton ball.  He has curly blond hair and sparkling, periwinkle eyes. Waddling to her workstation, he continues, “I can understand your place here, the pressure of trying to find the perfect specimen, when we very well know if such a person truly were alive, we’d never know of his existence.”

“Yes, Gordy,” she agrees with a soft, dejected sigh. “And if we did, the person would have so much psychic power they couldn’t possibly be controlled, not by us anyway.”

==========

For the past half hour I’ve been hanging around, invisible, eavesdropping on the Doctors. I call this trick my ‘Almost Mode’. Learning this ability took weeks of practice and resulted in some embarrassing moments. It’s surprising what happens when a person materializes among a group of people. I’ve caused ear screeching screams to drop-dead faints and a few times even mild coronaries. Then there are people who wet themselves over the least provocation.

==========

“Do you ever feel as though we’re wasting our time here?”  She’s still doodling on the yellow legal pad, looking as if she’d lost her best friend.

“If I felt like that, I’d have left the Institute years ago,” Gordy confides, leaning one round buttocks against her table top.  “Think of the specimens we have found so far.  Not just Williams and Halverson, but the others who showed one type of the phenomena or another.”

“I know, but every year it’s harder to obtain funding, and after twelve years, all I have to show for our research is several hundred miles of computer tapes.”  With a slight, elegant shrug she adds, “Oh, and a few tons of paperwork in boxes that no one cares about.  Our lack of results is rather depressing sometimes.”

Waddling to a cabinet, her lab partner pulls out a folder.  “I remember a few years ago a young woman very excited about this man.”  He plops the manila folder on the table in front of her.

“But I was only twenty-two back then,” she explains, ignoring the closed folder, “and Uri was my first contact with the phenomena.”   

“Yes but certainly not your last,” he replies, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Ruth glances up at Gordy with a thoughtful frown.  “Do you think it’s possible for one person to have more than one psychic ability?”  

Picking up the ignored file with stubby fingers, he slides it back into the drawer.  “Do you remember Mrs. Holmquist?”  Twirling the wedding band around on her necklace, his unhappy coworker reluctantly nods.  “Then you should remember, for a brief span, how many psychic tendencies she exhibited.”