The Uninvited (5 page)

“Come on, Tommy, Walt,” Sheriff Grant said. “Both of you get serious.”

I am serious, Sheriff,” Tommy said. “Squat down here with me and have a look at this.” The men knelt in the dusty pasture. Sabatier pointed to a series of strange markings in a particularly dusty area. “See those markings?”

Sheriff Grant squinted at the dusty tracings.
Yeah, I see them, but what the hell made them?”

“The exact species?” Tommy said. “I don't know. But I'll tell you both this—it's one hell of a big bug. I'd guess the smallest to be about three inches, the largest close to eight. And there were thousands of them, hundreds of thousands of them. Eight legs, with a mouth that can bite and chew. One big appetite. I'd hate to wake up in bed and find one looking at me.”

Without warning, Mike shuddered. “Eight inches long? What kind of bug do we have in Louisiana that grows to that length—and can bite?”

Sabatier shook his head and refused to speculate.

“I thought you had some kind of a degree in bugs?” Walt asked.

I took a lot of zoology, really entomology. But no, I don't have a degree in that field. Doctor Whitson down in Lapeer, at his private lab, now, there is the world's expert. And I mean the world, boys.”

“Yeah,” Mike said, standing up, easing the strain on his legs, “but getting to him is the problem. He's a cantankerous old coot. Tommy? Back up just a bit. If ...
bugs
,” he said it unbelievingly, distastefully, “did this to the cattle, how come we can't find any dead ones. Or live ones, for that matter?”

“I don't
want
to find any
live
ones,” Walt said.

“Well,” Tommy said, scratching his jaw, “I'd have to guess they are cannibalistic.”

“They eat their own dead?” Walt said. “Jesus!”

“What kind of bug would do that?” Mike asked.

“There are many species that are cannibalistic, Sheriff.”

“Tommy?” Mike said, a thoughtful look on his face. “Let's don't start any rumors about this thing, okay?”

“I think that would probably be best, since all we've got so far is a field full of skeletons and a lot of unproven theories.”

Sheriff Grant looked beyond the pasture, to the edge of the Lost Swamp. He was born and reared in Louisiana, and had hunted and fished and trapped the area since boyhood. There was no place in Baronne or Lapeer Parish he did not know, and know well. But on this hot morning, the dark swamp looked sinister. Evil. A law enforcement officer for years, every fiber in his being stood on edge with suspicion, and, he admitted, fear. He shifted his gaze to Sabatier.

“If the bugs would do this to cattle,” he spoke softly, “what would they do to a man?”

Walt listened intently.

“The same thing,” Tommy said.

“What kind of bug—off the top of your head, no pun intended—would eat the hair?”

Sabatier's smile held no mirth. “Well, roaches do.”

“I have a suggestion,” Walt said.

“What?” Sheriff Grant asked.

“Let's get the hell out of here.”

 

 

A violent thunderstorm hit the two-Parish area late that afternoon. It lashed its fury, whipping its winds over the land, driving humans and animals into shelter as the rains pelted the area in thick, silver sheets.

Dr. Ellis Ashley, Coroner of Baronne Parish, sat in his office in Barnwell and sipped his Jack Daniel's neat, not blinking as the raw whiskey poured past his throat, exploding in his stomach. The alcohol had no effect on him; the doctor was in shock.

Outside the clinic, the summer storm blasted through the warm night, rain splashing against the building as lightning licked across the sky. Ellis kept shifting his eyes to the sheet-covered body in his examining room. He had done an autopsy, and his findings had left him badly shaken, craving whiskey.

Ellis shuddered once, a long, hard, paroxysm. Whiskey spilled from the glass, moistening his hand, rolling off the skin, staining the polished desk. Dr. Ashley seemed not to notice, or to care.

After several moments of deep, silent ruminations, Ellis sighed and picked up the phone on his desk, punching out the numbers with slow jabs of a finger. His hands were trembling so he had to repeat the sequence several times before he got it right.

“Sheriff? Ellis. Look, I think you'd better come over to the clinic. Yes. Yes, it's very important. Extremely so. It's about that dead man your men found this afternoon. I think—I
know
—we've got a big problem on our hands.”

“The boys said he looked pretty rough, Doc,” Sheriff Grant said. “But they didn't know what happened to him. He was all swelled up, they said. They guessed fire ants. Doc.” Grant's voice was husky from fatigue. “It's been a hell of a strange day. I've been runnin' my tail off. Weird things been happenin' all over the Parish—and I mean weird things. I'm tired. So are my men. People have been disappearing. It's pourin' down rain. Can't this wait till morning?”

“No, Mike, it can't wait till morning. Fire ants did not cause this man's death. Get over here, for God's sake, get over here!”

Lightning slashed the sky. Thunder rolled and boomed in stormy reply.

The sheriff's voice was reflective. “First time I ever recall you snappin' at me, Ellis. Except when you told me to quit smokin' and I didn't. All right, Ellis, I'm on my way.”

“Ten minutes, Mike?”

“As soon as I can, Doc.”

Forty minutes later Sheriff Grant, water dripping from his yellow slicker, his hat, and his boots, stood in a spreading puddle in the doctor's office.

You damn sure took your sweet time getting here, Mike,” Ellis said, his words slightly blurry from the alcohol in his system. He lounged in his office chair, a big rawboned man with a thick shock of dark hair peppered with gray.

Sheriff Grant's eyes swept the scene: the bottle, half-full, the glasses, the Doc's lazy, half-looped way of speaking. “I knew you liked a taste every now and then, Ellis, but I've never known you to drink at work. When are you going to take a vacation? And don't give me any crap about the people needin' you. There's other doctors in town now. The people can get along without you for a couple of weeks.”

Dr. Ashley stared moodily at the bottle on his desk. He said nothing.

What's got you so upset, Doc?”

Ellis lifted his shot glass to his lips. His hands trembled. He downed the whiskey neat. “You'd better have a drink, too, Mike. Believe me, you're going to need it.” He poured a shot glass to the brim. “As a matter of fact, old buddy, old friend,” the doctor suddenly giggled, “have a double.” The giggle turned into a gruesome laugh. “I believe all your disappearances may be explained this night, too, Mike. What do we have now, three people? No, it's six, isn't it? At last count. I'm afraid, though, the explanation will not be to your liking.”

Mike looked at his friend of many years. They had grown up together, had enjoyed hunting and fishing and high school sports. Mike did not like the way Ellis had chuckled—and giggled, for Christ's sake. And that awful laugh. And he did not understand the drinking. Hell, Ellis was drunk. Mike knew the doctor was not a heavy drinker, but he was sure pouring the stuff down this night. Something was sure out of whack.

“Ellis, my wife fixed me a swell supper this evening. Roast beef and potatoes and onions and carrots. Plenty of good gravy and those big cat-head biscuits of hers that sop up that gravy like a sponge. I'm stuffed, I confess. I ate too much. Now, the kids are gone for the night—”

“Gone where?” Ellis snapped at him, head jerking up, eyes flashing.

Mike shrugged, not understanding any of this conversation. “They're spending the night with some friends. Anything wrong with that?”

Here in the Parish?”