Page 41 of Starved Until Sunset

“Eileen is here, and she said she doesn’t think it’s a Devil of Pinesville.”

“That’s right!” Eileen’s voice came from the background, deep and scratchy from years of smoking cigarettes before switching to a pipe. She was Ollie’s grandmother, and Cody felt a warm glow of affection at the sound of her voice. He really loved that lady. And not just because she let him park Geraldine, the 1970s Cadillac Sedan DeVille he’d inherited from the Widow Monroe, in her garage.

“How do you even know that?” Demmy said. “Can you see it?”

“I just know,” Eileen shouted back. “The Devil would never swoop down and grab anyone off the street.”

“Jesus, it’s like they were there,” Cody said, skidding around a corner behind Lucia. “Where the fuck are we? Is this Route 40?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

The radio squelched, and a male voice came on. “Car forty-two, this is car fifty-four, we’re behind you.”

“Car forty-two? Is that us?” Cody checked the rearview mirror and saw another cruiser coming up behind him, lights flashing across the fields to either side of the road. “First time I’ve been glad to see those lights in my mirror.”

“It dropped her!” Demmy shouted.

“It dropped her!” Amelia shouted to the people on her end of the call.

“It dropped her!” Lucia shouted over the radio.

“Where?” Cody strained his neck to see over the steering wheel and nearly rear-ended Lucia’s cruiser when she squealed to a stop on the shoulder of the road.

Demmy was out the door and following close behind Lucia as she jumped across the drainage ditch. Cody got out and was glad he was able to outpace the two male deputies from the cruiser behind him as he trailed Demmy and Lucia across the open field. The moon was up—not full, he was glad to see, though apparently that didn’t matter to whatever this monster turned out to be—and his shadow chased him across the uneven ground. Whoever owned this parcel of land had let it rest over the summer, because all it consisted of was hard clods of dirt and some scraggly weeds. He was glad to be wearing his work boots as he stomped apart dirt clumps and trampled knee-high weeds. Ahead of him, Demmy and Lucia were shouting back and forth, and he thought he heard water splashing.

Across the field, maybe a hundred yards away, porch lights clicked on at the farmhouse. Cody imagined some crusty old farmer coming out with a shotgun in hand, and his brain wildly tried to figure out if this counted as work time so Demmy could get the death and dismemberment benefit from his insurance.

He arrived at the bank of a farm pond. Walsh had landed in the middle of the pond and was working to get her feet under her. Lucia had waded in up to her knees and was extending a hand toward Walsh. Demmy stood on the bank, looking up into the sky.

Cody stood close behind Demmy and looked up as well.

“It just dropped her?” Cody asked.

“Not sure. But I don’t trust things that grab people and then drop them.”

“Basic rule to live by,” Cody said.

“Unless it’s playing with its food.”

“Jesus, that’s a dark thought.”

Demmy turned a frighteningly calm look on him. “After everything we’ve seen, does that really surprise you?”

“No, I guess not.”

He wasn’t sure if was the statement or the way Demmy said it that had surprised and saddened him. But all of that contemplation was wiped out by the arrival of the creature. It landed on the other side of the pond from them, wind from its wings sending ripples across the water.

“What the fucking hell is that?” one of the male deputies practically screamed, drawing his gun.

“Hold your fire!” Lucia ordered, still in the pond and just grabbing Walsh’s hand. “We’re between you.”

“What do you think it is?” Cody instinctively took a step closer to Demmy.

“I don’t know,” Demmy whispered. “Almost looks like a man. Or, at least, it used to be.”

Lucia had an arm around Walsh and was leading her back to their side of the pond. She repeatedly looked over her shoulder to keep an eye on the thing as it stood on the bank and watched them. The grassy slope around the pond was slippery, and Walsh couldn’t find her footing.

“Help her up, for God’s sake,” Lucia snapped.