“Any word on finding Deena Hopping?” Detective Gary Chapel asked, sticking his head into Detective Sergeant Patrick Townsend’s office.
“What the hell are you doing here? If the Sheriff sees you, your ass is grass. And the answer is no.” Townsend was terse.
Gary Chapel had cooled off a bit since the phone call earlier with the Sheriff and had sought to find out what he could about Deena Hopping’s disappearance. No one seemed to know what the next step should be as most of the department had been preoccupied with the sinkholes and the problems they were causing.
“You should go home,” Townsend added.
“I’ll go home when the sheriff goes home.” Chapel was bugged that, after all his hard investigative work, Sheriff Lindsey Hill felt she could tell him what he should do in a similar case.
“Hill’s still here?”
Everyone is still here, Townsend wanted to say. Nobody wanted to leave with all that was going on and more disappearances.
As if hearing her name, Sheriff Lindsey Hill appeared in the hallway and stopped beside Chapel. “I thought I instructed you to take some time off? What are you doing here, Detective Chapel?”
“I needed to pick up some of my personal items before taking your advice, Sheriff,” Chapel lied.
Sheriff Hill gave him a long look. “Tell me you’re not looking into these disappearances?”
“Of course not,” Chapel added. “That’s what you have men like Townsend here for, right?”
Townsend whipped around to glare at Chapel, who he knew had to have a bad attitude toward authority. Gary Chapel returned his gaze coolly.
“Enough of this petty arguing, Detective,” Sheriff Hill said. “I gave you a direct order and I expect you to follow it. You have ten minutes to get what you came here for and then to go home.” With that the Sheriff turned around and left.
“You’re in the shit now,” Detective Sergeant Townsend said and laughed.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Chapel responded.
* * * *
Deena lay on the cot, beaten and battered. She hurt all over, but not as much as her mind told her she ought to. Maybe she was dying. Maybe all her struggling had only left her hurting and perhaps she’d ruptured something inside her that was slowly killing her.
No. No, she didn’t believe that. There was something she had to do.
Save herself.
She was no longer going to be a victim in life.
First her marriage to Joseph, who beat her and now this…
Deena opened her eyes to almost complete darkness. The fire was nothing but glimmering red coals. She was clutching the blanket with a death grip; she’d grabbed it for warmth in a twilight state of floating pain.
She had to save herself soon or fail trying.
Had to.
She couldn’t let Arlene and her master, Deros—whoever or whatever he was—win.
Carefully, she lifted her right wrist, about all the energy she had left. It was scraped raw, through more layers of skin than she believed a human possessed. Dried blood was everywhere. Hers? Arlene, too, undoubtedly.
But as much as she hurt, as injured as she was, Deena couldn’t give up.
Setting her teeth, she slid to the edge of the cot and looked down at the welded joint. Her struggle with her bounds had taken a toll on it. An unexpected bonus for her. It looked weaker than it had before. Maybe weak enough to break?
Deena’s heart started pounding a deep, painful scar into her skin. If she could summon her strength, she might be able to free herself.
But would it be in time to save herself and perhaps others if they too were being held down here?
Determinedly, closing her eyes, clenching her teeth, Deena yanked hard on her right handcuff.
* * * *
Michael James Leopold didn’t trust anyone.
Especially strangers who appeared at his small, remote cottage in the middle of the worst neighborhoods in Strafford and yet, here was this guy—this cop—standing on his broken-down front stoop. He didn’t unlatch the chain, which he knew wouldn’t hold anyone who really wanted to get in, but the shotgun he had in the hand hidden behind the door casing would probably do the trick along with his giant mutt dog.
“Mr. Leopold, or can I call you Mike?” Detective Gary Chapel asked. His eyes were dark beneath the brim of his baseball cap that was collecting snow. “’Member me? Detective Gary Chapel…er, spoke with you the other day…and believes…”
“That there really is a monster living underground and beneath this town,” Leopold said as his hand tightened over the stock of the gun, but he kept his cool. “I remember your face when you came running out of the house over on Douty. Shit, you were scared!”
“Yes, I was.” The detective didn’t seem to be anymore. “Now the question is how do we stop it?”
“Good question,” Leopold said as he reluctantly cracked open the door and Chapel walked inside. “Stay right here, I’ll get the dog.”
“I need your help in stopping this thing,” Chapel told him. He handed Leopold a rolled-u map, a list of names, and a scratched-out town history, of sorts, on the monster in question. “I got as much stuff as I could think of. Names of marksmen. Maps of the area. Explosives. What I know of Deros.”
“Deros? Yes that’s its name.”
“I had heard the story of this creature long ago when my grandfather told it to me. Somehow I’d forgotten it,” Chapel said.
“And you think we can kill it?” Leopold reiterated.
“That is the plan, yes.”
“I’ve tried for years to find a way to stop it and to no avail, detective,” Leopold replied.
“How hard have you really tried?”
“As hard as I could—being labeled a nutcase has hindered my ability to purchase the necessary equipment for doing so,” explained Leopold.
“I can’t do anything about that now,” Chapel said. “But I am trying to make up for it. I’m here ready to do something to stop this thing.”
“No one knows about it,” Leopold reminded Chapel. “That’s the deal. You know that. What did your grandfather say about this monster?”
“I don’t recall him mentioning anyway to kill it.”
Mike Leopold laughed. “Maybe because that’s because there may not be a way to kill it.”
Chapel ground his teeth. Leopold was right, of course. The monster could have survived this long living underneath the town because it could not be killed. His grandfather, looking back now, could be considered an expert on the lore of the creature. Perhaps his father and his father’s father before that had tried and failed to kill it. Chapel’s disillusionment with all things about Deros was a by-product of his own growing fear and secretive nature. But that didn’t mean the monster couldn’t be killed!
“So are we giving up on killing it?” Leopold asked.
“Hell no,” Chapel replied. “If nothing else we need to stop it. Whether we kill it in the process is irrelevant at the moment.”
Leopold grunted in agreement. “Then let’s lay all our cards on the table and see what we have to go on.”
“Okay,” Chapel said reluctantly, clicking open a Tic-Tac container and throwing a few inside his mouth. “Let’s get to work. Time is one thing we do not have a lot of. I don’t know if you have heard but the town is being attacked from beneath with sinkholes opening up all over.”
Leopold nodded. “Got any kind of time frame on when the National Guard will be arriving?”
“No. But if I know the Sheriff, she’d make sure it is very soon.”
Mike Leopold rubbed his hands together as he dropped into a rolling desk chair that groaned under his weight. He produced a stack of papers that included maps, notes, and histories that he had collected over the years as well.
“Hopefully we can find some answer to how to stop Deros in reviewing all of our notes,” Leopold said.
“I hope you’re right.”