Monster (16 page)

CHAPTER
SIX

Angela and Kevin found a food wholesaler's wareh
ouse listed in t
he l
ocal Yellow Pages. It had a Kall
y address,
not
a Balton one. Kevin said he knew where it was. It t
ook t
hem only twenty minutes
t
o find. Of course, they more
interested in what
was across the street from
i
t.

Which j
ust happened to
be an abandoned wareho
use.

It
was right where Mary said it should be. Not far
from
a stack of smelly chicken crates. Angela parked
beside them and climbed out.
Since it was a Saturday, the in
dus
trial part of town was deserted. The smell of the ne
arby
crates, though repul
sive, just increased her hunger. She
was going to have to ditch Kevin soon and go eat
the
contents of
a
supermarket. She pointed across the
alley
at
the boarded-up back door of what had been
a
f
oam
rubber warehouse.

“
Could there be the blood of four dead bodies in
there?”
she asked hypothetically.

“
Didn't Mary say the monsters wiped up all the
mes
s?”
Kevin asked.

Angela shrugged.
“
You know how sloppy monsters
are.
Let's go see what we can find. But let's get my nut wr
ench
from the trunk. We can use
i
t in place of a crowbar to
yank
the bo
ards off.”

“
All right,
” Kevin said. “We may want to bring a flashlight too.”

Angela didn't like the l
ook of the building, the fee
ling that surrounded it.
Maybe it was haunted by ghosts
that
had not left the world happy. Or maybe that was ano
ther
illusion.

“
Yeah,
”
she answered Kevin. “
And try to get a shotgun.
”

They broke into the building with remarkable ease, leav
ing
the door wide open behind them. They were quickly
happy for
the flashlight, though. The warehouse was huge. The door receded behind them to a tiny
rectangle of li
ght, their only connection to the real world. If she had thought the place creepy on the outside, inside she thought
it was
in dire need of an exorcism. Their steps echoed away from them like the footfalls of stalking phantoms. The air
was
stale. A taint smell of foam rubber permeated it, along
w
ith the odour of someth
ing she couldn't pinpoint. The rancid
stench of decay, maybe?

“
Is this a scary place or what?
”
she whispered
.

“I
wouldn't
want to come here after dark,”
Kevin agreed
, “
I wonder if there's a light switch.
”

They searched but could find no switch. Angela suspected the electricity had been disconnected long ago,
anyway.
The owners were obviously not concerned about keeping up appearances in order to show the place to potential renters or buyers. A film of dust covered every
thin
g –
the hard grey floor, the dark brown walls. But
th
eir
search for the washed-away blood would have been hopeless if it hadn't been for the dust. For the absence of
it, in
one dark corner, drew the beam of their flashlight
like a
magnet. Only a few minutes inside the
building and they
were hurrying to the clean patch of concrete
. It was
remarkably circular, as if it had been drawn as a
n a
ltar of sacrifice. Angela went down on her knees as
Kevin
held the light a
bove her head. She touched the cold
floor and peered closely.

“See
anything?
”
Kevin asked.

She
crawled forward, straining her eyes. And then, in a
jagged crack
that had probably been created by the settling
bui
lding, she saw dried dark red stuff. She motioned Kevin
to
kneel beside her. They pressed the beam of the flashlight
close
to the crack. Kevin reached out and scraped some
of the dark stuff with his nail.

“What is it?”
Angela asked, her heart pounding.

“
Looks like dried blood.
”

“
Christ
.”

“
I don
’t think it's his blood.”

“Kevin.”

“
I
know, this is bad. Good for Mary, maybe. Bad
for the rest of the planet.”

She
s
tared at him
. “
Does this make you believe Ma
ry’s
story?
”

“I w
as joking,
”
Kevin said.
“I’
m more inclined to beli
eve
that Todd and Kathy and
Jim
killed four people here
. That
makes them monsters, certainl
y. But not the superna
tural sort.”

“
Yeah
.”
Angela took the flashlight and followed the
crack further. It stretched maybe fif
teen feet across the dust-
free
circle, and it was choked with the dried blood. How m
uch
had they spilled, she wondered
,
that it covered so muc
h of the floor? “
Mary didn't see this when she came back,
” she
said.

“If i
t had been real bloody to begin with
,”
Kevin
said, “
she might not have gone down on her hands and knee
s
when she came back.
I
guess you know what we hav
e
to
do now?”

“What do you mean?”
she asked.

“
I
think it's pretty obvious. We have to tell the
police
what we've found. It adds credibility to Mary
’s story.”

“
But Mary h
asn't told the police her story.”

“She might want to now,” Kevin said. “A modified version o
f
it.”

“No.”

“
What do you mean
– no?”

“
I don't want to go to the police with this just yet
.”

“
Why not
?” he asked.

Angela looked back towards the lighted doorway,
an
easy two hundred yards away. She was having tro
uble
breathing. The air had no life in it.

Did t
he
people scream as t
hey die
d, and did they su
ck all the life out of the air?

“
I went out with
Jim
Kline last night
,”
she said.

K
evin
plopped down on the
floor
beside her.
“
Why?
”

“
H
e
asked
me.
I
said yes
.” She shrugged. “
We went out
after t
he game. We ate and then went for a walk along the
lake.”

H
e
was
hur
t. “
Why didn't you tell me?”

“
I
di
dn't want to hurt your feelings.”

Ke
vin's face crumpled.
In the harsh shadows cast by the
flash
light it was particularly pa
t
he
ti
c
. “
It hurts my feeling
s more t
ha
t
you
’
d
lie
to me about it.”

“I’m sorry,”
she said. She wanted to touch him, to hold
him,
but couldn't in this hellish place. They
had
to get out
into th
e air soon. She didn't know why she had chosen now
in
to tell
him about
Jim
.

“Do you like him?” Kevin asked.

“
I don't know
. Maybe.”

K
evin
s
norted. “
What about what Mary says? What about
this drie
d blood? Are we just performing character
re
search
here? If
we
are
, I'd s
ay the guy gets a lousy rating.”

“Kevin.”

“
What's wrong with me?
”
he asked.

That
hurt
–
the wor
st of all questions. I love you.
Why
don’t you l
ove
me? She honestly believed that s
he would
have
preferred to ask it than
to answer it.

“The
re's nothing wrong with you
,
Kevin
,”
she
said
as gent
ly
as she could.
“
There's something wrong with me.
”

“Yeah, right.
A body overflowing with hormones
.”

She
began to cry. It surprised her. The tears just sprang
out. “
I'm serious,
”
she said.
“I don't feel right.”

Kevin quietened. He put his arm around her.
“
What's
wr
o
ng
with
you?
”
he asked
.

I’m
hungry. I need another cou
ple of Big Ma
cs
.
I
don't even
care if they
serve me the meat
ra
w. I
mig
ht even prefe
r
it.

She
sniffed
. “I
had a bad dream
l
ast night.
”

“Was I in it?”

She
had to laugh, ev
en though she continued to cry.
“
No.
I was al
one. I was far from home, in a horrible world. But
I can’t
talk about that right now. And the reason
I
went
out
with
Jim
–
I can't talk about that, either. I just want
to tell you that I do care about you. You're my
friend.
That
's all I can say right now.”

Kevin took a moment to answer. “
Are you going to
see
him again?
”

“
No
,”
she lied.

“Will you promise me?”

She studied his lovely, innocent face. Those brown
eyes
that sparkled even in the darkness of the warehouse
. She
reached over and brushed his hair aside. She
kiss
ed
his
cheek.

Yes.
I
promise you that you are wonderful
.
That
much I
know.

“
Yes
,”
she said.

He continued to
hold her eyes. He was sharp. Perhaps
he believed her. Perhaps he
didn't. But he did relax. “Why
can't we go to the police?
”
he asked.

“
I
want to do more research first.”

“On what?”

“Indians,”
she said.

“Huh?”

She let go of him and stood,
wiping her hands o
n her
trousers, the fla
shlight tucked under her chin. “
You
said
they lived here first
.
I want to hear their side of the
story.”