After Mary and Donna had left with their chips, candy, and diet cokes, Marge heaved a sigh, resting her elbows on the counter, chin cradled in her hands. I’d never seen her look so exhausted.
“You okay?” I asked.
She looked up at me and gave a weary smile. “I’m holding the line, Lee. Wish Hal would get back, though.”
“I’m really sorry about riling up those spiders.”
“Oh, hell, that wasn’t on you,” Marge said, waving a dismissive hand. “They’ve been here a few times over the last week or so, and I mean, Skeet is bad enough,” she said, “but that cousin of his? Trouble on the hoof.”
“Eight hooves,” I agreed. “Or whatever spiders have on the ends of their legs.”
“Claws,” Tater supplied.
“Even worse,” Marge continued, “they’re just about the only customers we’ve seen today. I was only half joking about shutting up shop—it’s been so slow this past week, we’re thinking about shortening our hours until things pick up again.”
“Arlo’s is never slow,” I replied. “You’re the only market in the neighborhood that doesn’t require a trek to the 101.”
“And yet we’ve barely broken even this week. Things don’t pick up, we’re gonna see our first month in the red in the last ten years.”
Damn.
Unlike some of the other bedroom communities like Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, or Simi Valley, our neck of the woods didn’t have subdivisions, condos, or apartment buildings. The people who chose to live here had small ranches, raised farm animals and livestock, or built extravagant homes like the DuShane place. People who valued privacy for any number of reasons, and almost everyone patronized Arlo’s. It was a regional institution, and not even the advent of Instacart, GrubHub, or Amazon had impacted their business over the years.
“I’m here to tell you, Lee,” Marge said, “something’s up, and it’s not good.”
“What do you mean?” I glanced at Tater, who shrugged. He had no clue what she was talking about. Then again, he and the rest of the crew had been working long hours on Spasm, so it wasn’t all that surprising.
“You know, people talk when they come in here,” Marge replied. “Well, I’ve been hearing about animals going missing. Some of the birds at the ostrich farm, a few cattle, other farm animals. Lot of dogs and cats refusing to go outside their houses. Stuff like that. Then, a few weeks ago, a couple of tourists from Tucson went missing. And…” Her voice trailed off.
“And…?” I prompted gently.
“And the last place they were seen was Arlo’s. Hal and I answered a shitload of questions about what that couple bought, how much time they spent in the store, whether or not they’d mentioned where they were headed—”
“And did they?”
“Point of fact, they were on their way to Solvang. Gonna do a self-guided Sideways winery tour. First they were stopping in Oxnard to stay overnight with her sister, and when they didn’t arrive, the sister called the police. Last text they’d sent her included a picture of the storefront. Guess they thought it was quaint.”
“There’s a lot of miles between here and Oxnard,” I mused. “Who’s to say they didn’t stop someplace else along the way?”
“Well, that may be so,” Marge replied, “but their car was found abandoned a mile or so north up the 101 just a bit off the freeway.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, it sure isn’t,” she agreed. “Over the last ten days, two more abandoned vehicles were found in the same general area. One was a Tesla. Owned by a techie from Silicon Valley on her way to the Google office in Santa Monica. She never showed up. The other belonged to an eighteen-year-old kid road-tripping with his friends to a concert. All of them are still missing.”
“Jeez, Marge,” I said, “I know we’re kind of isolated, but it’s not like we live in The Hills Have Eyes territory.”
“Which is exactly why these disappearances have caused such an uproar.” She sighed again. “This area has always had more than its share of weirdness, but not like this—and it gets worse. You know the Fords, right?”
I nodded. The Fords owned and operated riding stables up off Miller Trail, a couple of miles from the Ranch. Gary, his wife Rose, their son, his wife, and their kids—eleven-year-old twins who had rightfully earned the nickname, “the hellions.” A photogenic family—Gary was in his seventies, looked like an aging Western star, all weathered skin, sky-blue eyes surrounded by crinkles, and a still thick mane of silver hair. Pretty sure he was part centaur.
“Sean used to take me and Seth riding up there. Nice family.”
Well, except for the twins.
“Well, they’re missing, too.”
“What?”
“All of them?” Tater’s expression made it clear this was news to him.
“All of ’em,” Marge confirmed. “Including their housekeeper and one of their stable-hands. Even the dog is gone. The Stanton family across the road woke up Tuesday morning with their yard full of horses, all lathered up and spooked. Mark Stanton recognized a few of them, went up to check on things, and the stable doors were wide open, like it was deliberate.”
“That’s just weird,” Tater said.
“Even worse, there was a smear of blood on the stable door. Mark said it looked like someone had been holding onto the door and been dragged away. Folks are scared to go out.”
“Okay, this goes beyond weird,” I said. “Has the Kolchak Division been brought in, or just the regular PD?”
“Far as I know, just your basic cops,” Marge replied.
“Huh.”
If these disappearances were supernatural in nature, I would’ve felt something when I came home. Then again, maybe the range of my monster GPS was limited to times when I was in danger. Or we could be looking at your basic human psychopath, no supernatural connection. There were plenty of people who got off on doing horrific shit.
“I wonder if we’ve got a serial killer,” Marge said, as if reading my mind.
Tater frowned. “Well, whoever or whatever it is, you and Hal be careful.” Glancing at me, he added, “We’d better get this stuff back to the ranch before Sean starts to worry.”
* * *
Banjo hunkered down in the scrub brush at the base of the mountain. He’d been chosen by his family when he was a pup and had never known hunger or thirst. There was always a bowl of fresh water on the floor, biscuits and meaty snacks between meals.
There had been no food since he’d run away from his home. From his family. He had found some brackish water in a ditch.
His thick fur, always brushed and clean, was matted with burrs under his belly and on his tail. One of his front paws was raw and bleeding where he’d cut it on a tangle of fallen fence. His right haunch hurt, too, making him limp.
These were all bad things, but they weren’t the worst. Those were the creatures that took his family away. Things that smelled wrong. Things that bit. Things that stung. Things that tore.
Things that killed.
When he’d heard his family screaming, Banjo had wanted to help. A good dog protected his people and his home. But the smell had been sharp, burning his eyes and the insides of his nostrils. The smell meant death, and instead of trying to bite the things that had invaded his home, Banjo had fled into the night, running in a blind panic up into the hills where he’d gone to ground under a rock ledge, trembling with fear and cold until the sun finally brought warmth.
Banjo had wanted to go back home then, but he’d run so far, he couldn’t find his way back. He headed away from the mountains, approaching a house surrounded by a fence. When he’d poked his nose through a gap in the fence, however, he immediately backed away, hackles rising. Another bad smell, a place where bad things happened.
He kept going, heading farther away from the mountains, slinking down low until he’d passed the bad smell. Then he crept alongside a road, staying on the soft dirt shoulder. He finally reached another fence. There were more buildings. These, though…
These smelled safe.