Part Two, Tentatively "Howler"
Title: Howler...maybe
Word Ct: 1754
Genre: Supernatural Thriller
** ** **
Jaime ran for two blocks, not sparing a single backward glance, but certain the black overcoat was so close behind him he could hear his breath. He could, in fact, actually hear his pursuer’s breath, and the smack of his boots on the pavement.
Half a block ahead the local Metro Transit bus was stopped. Jaime flew over the sidewalk faster than he ever thought he could run and jumped through the bus’s door just as it was closing.
He stood panting and rummaging in his pockets as the driver glared at him. With the book tucked under his right arm he had to clumsily search with his left.
“Exact change,” said the driver in exasperation, swinging the lever that closed the door the rest of the way. He stomped on the gas and the bus pulled away with a surge that would have knocked Jaime off his feet had he not grabbed the pole. He was finally able to produce four quarters, two dimes, and a nickel. The driver shot him a sour, sidelong glance as he dropped the change in the box.
“I’m eighteen,” Jaime lied.
The driver grunted.
Jaime made his way to the back of the bus, taking a quick inventory of his fellow passengers: a couple of vacant-eyed middle aged men, one black and one white, both in suits that had seen too much wear, an elderly, grizzled man nodding off into his chest, old tobacco and urine stench wafting off of him in a cloud Jaime could almost see. There was a sturdy-looking woman in a heavy hound’s-tooth coat and babushka who smelled of garlic, a young mother with a fussy baby, rank with sour milk odor, a scattering of students, and a fragile-looking young man with leg braces staring out the window.
His heightened sense of smell was becoming maddeningly irritating, but none of the passengers looked familiar. That was good.
The last three rows were empty. Jaime slid into the last seat at the back on the right side where there was no window and scooted over against the wall. It occurred to him that he hadn’t even noticed which bus route he had gotten on. It didn’t matter. He didn’t care where he ended up for the moment, as long as he lost that man in the overcoat.
He had known better than to chalk up the overcoat sightings to coincidence. Milkwood was a small town. He didn’t know more than a couple of people here, and only those that he knew through his mother, in whose house he was staying. She hadn’t lived in the place for over a year herself, as she had been happily touring Europe with her new boyfriend.
When the Thing had happened, the horrifying, incomprehensible Thing, Jaime had fled Berkeley without enrolling in his Fall quarter classes, and come to hide out at his mother’s vacant house in the little Michigan suburb of Milkwood.
He had scoured online news outlets for any news out of the Bay Area, but if anyone had found what was left of the body, it apparently hadn’t made the papers.
Jaime had first spotted the overcoat man outside the market where he shopped, maybe two weeks after his arrival. The second time he had been walking through the park in the center of town and the man had been sitting on a bench, eyes hidden behind sunglasses as he read a newspaper. Something, some prickling along his arms and back, had made Jaime turn around after he passed by, and the man in the overcoat was gone. A quiet, but unmistakable inner whispering told him that danger was present. He had taken a meandering, zig-zag route home, and hadn’t actually approached the house until the certainty he was being followed had lifted.
The last encounter was moments ago when he nearly knocked the man flat on the library steps.
Jaime sat the book on his lap, took a deep breath, and opened it. The musty smell of old paper hit him first, clogging his nose, paper dust making his eyes sandy. He leafed through a few pages. The ornate font and tiny, brightly colored illustrations seething along the edges of each page gave the impression of an old illuminated manuscript. Full page black and white plates showed artwork that looked like something out of a 13th century monk’s moldy bread-induced nightmare. Snarling fur-bearing monsters and scaly serpents bared their fangs. One beast, neither man nor animal but something somewhere in between, loomed over the body of a half-eaten man, dripping gore from its jaws.
Jaime sucked in a sharp breath, the hair on his arms and the back of his neck standing up on end. His stomach clenched and his entire body jerked with the sensation of hundreds of tiny stinging insects attacking all at once, every hair follicle electrified. The impression of something sliding, churning under his skin, boiled through him again.
It was both utterly foreign and horribly familiar; a prelude to a ghastly dance he wanted no part of, but had no idea how to escape.
In burst of fresh paranoia, Jaime looked down the center aisle. No one was paying any attention to him. He looked at his hands. They were pale and a little clammy, but short-nailed and relatively hairless. He had broken out in a steamy sweat, the leather jacket having become unbearably hot. Shoving his hair back out of his eyes, he forced himself to keep turning pages, looking at the illustrations but only able to skim the few phrases that leaped out at him.
Therianthropy…shamanic curse… Anubis…soul transmigration…
His hands were shaking and his mind racing too fast to even try to make sense of the printed words. This wasn’t what he wanted to know. He wanted Dr. Bouchard to tell him something else. Anything else. He wanted an answer that made sense to a 20-year old literature (or maybe economics) student. Something that made sense in the 21st century where and all the gods and demons and angels were dead and gone, buried by the science that was supposed to be the world’s salvation.
Maybe that information would come after this. Maybe Bouchard was taking him down the professorial, academic path: here is the history, the background information, what the ancient peoples came up with in their struggle to understand the world in the absence of science. Later there would be the next book, the real explanation, the updated version describing what modern medicine had revealed.
Jaime didn’t have a lot of time to wait for the next book.
Running his hand over a plate illustrating some kind of man-bear with antlers, Jaime felt a lump, something caught between the pages. He opened to that place, one with the chapter heading Lycanthropy, and a key slid out and landed on the red vinyl seat.
Jaime picked it up. It was an ordinary key, short, probably made of aluminum, with 308-A imprinted in the head.
His cell phone dinged, announcing a text, and Jaime jumped so badly he dropped the key and nearly the book.
His fingers felt thick and clumsy even while they were shaking. Fumbling with the key, the book and his phone, Jaime managed to open the text. It read, “714 Gleason Rd. #308-A.”
He looked at the key again, and then at the text. He had the peculiar impression that every cell in his body turned over as a new shot of adrenaline coursed through him.
The text had come from a five digit number. He typed “Who R U?”, hit send, and then in another rush of paranoia, wondered if he should have even acknowledged receiving the text. The message bounced back ‘not delivered’. Jaime raked a hand through his hair. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Someone was sending him somewhere, but just because Bouchard had pointed him toward he book, how could he be sure this message came from him?
A quick check on his phone brought up a map of Milkwood and the location of Gleason Rd. His GPS app showed him it wasn’t far. One knee began furiously bouncing, his body overloaded with a nervous energy he had nowhere to channel. Could he trust that the mystery text came from Bouchard? Was he even sure Bouchard had placed the key in the book for him to find? But if he hadn’t, who had? It would have to be someone who already knew Bouchard had referred him to Grisham’s Compendium of Cryptozoological Phenomena.
The man in the overcoat had followed him to the library, he was sure of that, but did that mean he knew about the book? Who had reserved it before Jaime had a chance to see it?
Indecision was deadlier than making a bad choice, he decided. At the next stop he stood to get off the bus and transfer to the line that would take him through the outskirts of town to Gleason Rd.
As he stepped down onto the sidewalk, something stuck in the black rubber gasket around the bus door frame caught his attention. It looked like an oversized, steel hypodermic needle with a cluster of red fibers on the end serving as feathers. The needle was embedded in the gasket, right at his throat height.
Tranquilizer dart. Stuck in the door of the bus. He didn’t have any doubt that it had been intended for him, and that he had only narrowly avoided it when he’d leaped through the door.
The bus pulled away as he was still staring at it.
Jaime swallowed, hunching over the book and looking back over his shoulder. He was in the part of town where empty store fronts intermingled with run-down industrial buildings, where pawn shops and hole-in-the-wall bars flashed their neon at noon. Trash and newspapers blew along the sidewalks. Only a handful of dusty, life-weary people were out on the street, shuffling along, looking as drained of color as the buildings
Tucking the book under his arm, Jaime jogged across the street and around the corner to the other bus stop. He peered down the street in each direction, regarding every shadowy corner in the storefronts with a deep, animal apprehension.
He felt exposed and naked standing out on the corner with nothing but the bus stop pole for cover. He had roughly 31 hours before the full moonrise. Whoever, or whatever, was waiting for him at 714 Gleason, #308-A, had better have an answer.
*** * **
Word Ct: 1754
Genre: Supernatural Thriller
** ** **
Jaime ran for two blocks, not sparing a single backward glance, but certain the black overcoat was so close behind him he could hear his breath. He could, in fact, actually hear his pursuer’s breath, and the smack of his boots on the pavement.
Half a block ahead the local Metro Transit bus was stopped. Jaime flew over the sidewalk faster than he ever thought he could run and jumped through the bus’s door just as it was closing.
He stood panting and rummaging in his pockets as the driver glared at him. With the book tucked under his right arm he had to clumsily search with his left.
“Exact change,” said the driver in exasperation, swinging the lever that closed the door the rest of the way. He stomped on the gas and the bus pulled away with a surge that would have knocked Jaime off his feet had he not grabbed the pole. He was finally able to produce four quarters, two dimes, and a nickel. The driver shot him a sour, sidelong glance as he dropped the change in the box.
“I’m eighteen,” Jaime lied.
The driver grunted.
Jaime made his way to the back of the bus, taking a quick inventory of his fellow passengers: a couple of vacant-eyed middle aged men, one black and one white, both in suits that had seen too much wear, an elderly, grizzled man nodding off into his chest, old tobacco and urine stench wafting off of him in a cloud Jaime could almost see. There was a sturdy-looking woman in a heavy hound’s-tooth coat and babushka who smelled of garlic, a young mother with a fussy baby, rank with sour milk odor, a scattering of students, and a fragile-looking young man with leg braces staring out the window.
His heightened sense of smell was becoming maddeningly irritating, but none of the passengers looked familiar. That was good.
The last three rows were empty. Jaime slid into the last seat at the back on the right side where there was no window and scooted over against the wall. It occurred to him that he hadn’t even noticed which bus route he had gotten on. It didn’t matter. He didn’t care where he ended up for the moment, as long as he lost that man in the overcoat.
He had known better than to chalk up the overcoat sightings to coincidence. Milkwood was a small town. He didn’t know more than a couple of people here, and only those that he knew through his mother, in whose house he was staying. She hadn’t lived in the place for over a year herself, as she had been happily touring Europe with her new boyfriend.
When the Thing had happened, the horrifying, incomprehensible Thing, Jaime had fled Berkeley without enrolling in his Fall quarter classes, and come to hide out at his mother’s vacant house in the little Michigan suburb of Milkwood.
He had scoured online news outlets for any news out of the Bay Area, but if anyone had found what was left of the body, it apparently hadn’t made the papers.
Jaime had first spotted the overcoat man outside the market where he shopped, maybe two weeks after his arrival. The second time he had been walking through the park in the center of town and the man had been sitting on a bench, eyes hidden behind sunglasses as he read a newspaper. Something, some prickling along his arms and back, had made Jaime turn around after he passed by, and the man in the overcoat was gone. A quiet, but unmistakable inner whispering told him that danger was present. He had taken a meandering, zig-zag route home, and hadn’t actually approached the house until the certainty he was being followed had lifted.
The last encounter was moments ago when he nearly knocked the man flat on the library steps.
Jaime sat the book on his lap, took a deep breath, and opened it. The musty smell of old paper hit him first, clogging his nose, paper dust making his eyes sandy. He leafed through a few pages. The ornate font and tiny, brightly colored illustrations seething along the edges of each page gave the impression of an old illuminated manuscript. Full page black and white plates showed artwork that looked like something out of a 13th century monk’s moldy bread-induced nightmare. Snarling fur-bearing monsters and scaly serpents bared their fangs. One beast, neither man nor animal but something somewhere in between, loomed over the body of a half-eaten man, dripping gore from its jaws.
Jaime sucked in a sharp breath, the hair on his arms and the back of his neck standing up on end. His stomach clenched and his entire body jerked with the sensation of hundreds of tiny stinging insects attacking all at once, every hair follicle electrified. The impression of something sliding, churning under his skin, boiled through him again.
It was both utterly foreign and horribly familiar; a prelude to a ghastly dance he wanted no part of, but had no idea how to escape.
In burst of fresh paranoia, Jaime looked down the center aisle. No one was paying any attention to him. He looked at his hands. They were pale and a little clammy, but short-nailed and relatively hairless. He had broken out in a steamy sweat, the leather jacket having become unbearably hot. Shoving his hair back out of his eyes, he forced himself to keep turning pages, looking at the illustrations but only able to skim the few phrases that leaped out at him.
Therianthropy…shamanic curse… Anubis…soul transmigration…
His hands were shaking and his mind racing too fast to even try to make sense of the printed words. This wasn’t what he wanted to know. He wanted Dr. Bouchard to tell him something else. Anything else. He wanted an answer that made sense to a 20-year old literature (or maybe economics) student. Something that made sense in the 21st century where and all the gods and demons and angels were dead and gone, buried by the science that was supposed to be the world’s salvation.
Maybe that information would come after this. Maybe Bouchard was taking him down the professorial, academic path: here is the history, the background information, what the ancient peoples came up with in their struggle to understand the world in the absence of science. Later there would be the next book, the real explanation, the updated version describing what modern medicine had revealed.
Jaime didn’t have a lot of time to wait for the next book.
Running his hand over a plate illustrating some kind of man-bear with antlers, Jaime felt a lump, something caught between the pages. He opened to that place, one with the chapter heading Lycanthropy, and a key slid out and landed on the red vinyl seat.
Jaime picked it up. It was an ordinary key, short, probably made of aluminum, with 308-A imprinted in the head.
His cell phone dinged, announcing a text, and Jaime jumped so badly he dropped the key and nearly the book.
His fingers felt thick and clumsy even while they were shaking. Fumbling with the key, the book and his phone, Jaime managed to open the text. It read, “714 Gleason Rd. #308-A.”
He looked at the key again, and then at the text. He had the peculiar impression that every cell in his body turned over as a new shot of adrenaline coursed through him.
The text had come from a five digit number. He typed “Who R U?”, hit send, and then in another rush of paranoia, wondered if he should have even acknowledged receiving the text. The message bounced back ‘not delivered’. Jaime raked a hand through his hair. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Someone was sending him somewhere, but just because Bouchard had pointed him toward he book, how could he be sure this message came from him?
A quick check on his phone brought up a map of Milkwood and the location of Gleason Rd. His GPS app showed him it wasn’t far. One knee began furiously bouncing, his body overloaded with a nervous energy he had nowhere to channel. Could he trust that the mystery text came from Bouchard? Was he even sure Bouchard had placed the key in the book for him to find? But if he hadn’t, who had? It would have to be someone who already knew Bouchard had referred him to Grisham’s Compendium of Cryptozoological Phenomena.
The man in the overcoat had followed him to the library, he was sure of that, but did that mean he knew about the book? Who had reserved it before Jaime had a chance to see it?
Indecision was deadlier than making a bad choice, he decided. At the next stop he stood to get off the bus and transfer to the line that would take him through the outskirts of town to Gleason Rd.
As he stepped down onto the sidewalk, something stuck in the black rubber gasket around the bus door frame caught his attention. It looked like an oversized, steel hypodermic needle with a cluster of red fibers on the end serving as feathers. The needle was embedded in the gasket, right at his throat height.
Tranquilizer dart. Stuck in the door of the bus. He didn’t have any doubt that it had been intended for him, and that he had only narrowly avoided it when he’d leaped through the door.
The bus pulled away as he was still staring at it.
Jaime swallowed, hunching over the book and looking back over his shoulder. He was in the part of town where empty store fronts intermingled with run-down industrial buildings, where pawn shops and hole-in-the-wall bars flashed their neon at noon. Trash and newspapers blew along the sidewalks. Only a handful of dusty, life-weary people were out on the street, shuffling along, looking as drained of color as the buildings
Tucking the book under his arm, Jaime jogged across the street and around the corner to the other bus stop. He peered down the street in each direction, regarding every shadowy corner in the storefronts with a deep, animal apprehension.
He felt exposed and naked standing out on the corner with nothing but the bus stop pole for cover. He had roughly 31 hours before the full moonrise. Whoever, or whatever, was waiting for him at 714 Gleason, #308-A, had better have an answer.
*** * **