Page 43 of Starved Until Sunset

Demmy’s phone buzzed, and he answered it. “It’s Amelia,” he said, walking a short ways off.

“Stay close,” Lucia called after him, then looked at Cody. “Both of you.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Cody scanned the night sky, listening to the hipster farm owner talk to his streaming subscribers. He shivered in the cold, and emotions spun inside him like a cloud of bats. As much as he complained about the town and how he and Demmy had been treated by those running it, he still felt protective of it, as well as the people who called it home. He considered many of them family, either by blood or circumstance, and if he could do something to keep them from harm, he knew he should and would.

But these kinds of situations inevitably turned deadly—he thought briefly, sadly, of Hap and Rufus—and he was torn, as always, between staying safely out of it and taking action.

He heard Demmy talking with Amelia as he paced a short distance away. Demmy always jumped right in with both feet, ready—sometimes eager—to help, to investigate, to save who he could. One day, it was going to get him killed. Actually, it already had. Twice.

Glancing at the sky once again, Cody kept an eye out for any airborne threat and wondered, not for the first time and surely not the last, what the hell he could do against something like what he’d just seen.

CHAPTER NINE

Demetrius was cold and shivering as he followed everyone else across the field to the road to meet the ambulance. One of the deputies stayed behind to take down the hipster’s statement and have him email a copy of his video to the sheriff’s department. They were all quiet but continually checked the night sky. More than once he heard Cody mutter, “Fucking bats.”

After Deputy Walsh had been taken off in an ambulance, Lucia questioned Demetrius and Cody. The majority of their answers boiled down to “I don’t know,” which eventually left all of them frustrated.

Finally, Lucia blew out a long breath, put her hands on her hips, and dropped her chin to her chest. She stared at the gravel shoulder as she said, “I really need help from the two of you with this. I don’t know what the hell that thing was or why it’s here, but it’s not friendly. And what the hell was up with all the bats?” She lifted her head and fixed first Cody, and then Demetrius with a steady look. “I need to protect the citizens of this town and my fellow deputies.”

“We know,” Demetrius said. “And we’ll help however we can.”

“Yeah,” Cody said. Demetrius was glad he had managed to restrain himself from a sassy retort.

“Thank you. Let’s all stay in touch,” Lucia said.

“Of course,” Demetrius said.

Lucia asked the deputy who’d walked back to the road with them to give them a ride to their truck. Demetrius let Cody sit in front since his legs were longer, and was grateful he’d done so when the deputy kept peppering Cody with questions about what they’d all just witnessed. Cody kept his responses short and noncommittal, once again impressing Demetrius. Not one sassy remark. Cody was probably even more exhausted than Demetrius, and tonight was the second time he’d been swarmed by bats.

The large tow truck had just arrived when the deputy dropped them off by their DPW truck. The deputy gave the tow truck driver directions to the impound lot, and Demetrius and Cody climbed into their truck and headed off. Cody pulled into the DPW parking lot just before eleven. Shrieky Pete’s motorcycle waited near the back of the building, and the low glow of a single light shone through a garage window.

“John must have left in a hurry,” Cody said as they climbed out of the cab. “He left a light on.”

The door was unlocked, and they stepped cautiously into the quiet, heavily shadowed garage. Their steps echoed, cold and desolate inside the big, empty space, and Demetrius shivered. The light came from John’s office area on the upper level, the soft glow devoured by shadows in the lower garage space.

“I’ll go up and see if John’s there,” Demetrius said. “I’m sure he’s heard about Spiffy and Pete by now.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll clock us out.”

Demetrius climbed the metal stairs and stood on the grated landing outside the office. The door was closed, but through the windows, he could see by the desk lamp the office was empty. The heavy clunk of Cody clocking them out sounded loud and intrusive. Demetrius turned to head back down the stairs when the door near the time clock opened, startling Cody. John stepped out, jumping when he saw Cody standing close by, and he hurriedly shut the door and locked it.

“Scared five years off my life,” John grumbled. “The fuck are you doing here?”

“We’re just getting back,” Cody said. “Did you hear about Spiffy and Pete?”

“Did I hear?” John snorted. “The whole fucking town has heard. Gonna be a zoo around here through Halloween now with all the monster lovers looking to get a selfie with the latest one..” He turned away from Cody and saw Demetrius standing near his office. “What the fuck are you doing up there? Get away from there.”

Demetrius quickly descended the steps and dodged around John as the big man stomped past him. “I didn’t go inside. I just went up to see if you were at your desk and make sure you knew about Spiffy and Pete.”

John stopped with one foot on the bottom step and glared at him. “I’ve heard, okay? I’ve heard. No one knows what the fuck happened, right?”

“Well, yeah, not really,” Cody said. “It was… “ Cody blew out a breath. “A lot happened tonight.”

“Right. So, until the sheriff comes out and says what happened out there, keep it to yourselves, got it?”

“Yeah, we’ve got it,” Demetrius said.