Dead Roots (The Analyst) (21 page)

“Tom, look at all this shit,” Dawes said in disgust, motioning at the splatters of blood on the trees and grass. “Whatever lost this much blood didn't fucking escape.”

Tom shrugged, discarding his cigarette. Dawes scoffed in irritation.

“I don't like any of this,” said Dawes. She stood back up and began a hesitant approach into the woods. Tom took another glance around as he followed her. “People disappearing, weird fucking shit all over the place... something is wrong.”

“Like what?” Tom asked.

“I don't know. Something I don't like.”

Tom kept his mouth shut for much of the walk from there. He followed Dawes through the trees, taking long, deep breaths and counting the seconds in and out. He didn't like forests.

Their map led them past a small brook, at which Dawes noticed a set of footprints. Tom noted another hole similar in shape and width to the one from earlier, near the prints. Dawes either hadn't seen it, or had disregarded it as a simple animal warren.

“Size thirteen boots,” Dawes remarked. “Probably our boy.”

She and Tom followed the prints down the length of the brook. Tom noticed that the further they went, the tracks seemed to change. They were closer and closer together, until finally it looked as though the boots had been dragged along the ground at a shamble. Tom's hand played at the handle of his pistol, affirming for himself that it was still there. He checked unconsciously for the pack of Xanax in his left pocket as well.

“Think I see him,” Dawes piped up. Tom looked ahead. There was a figure standing a short distance away by the edge of the brook, obscured by some trees. It was facing off in the distance, its face hidden by the high collar of a fluorescent hunting jacket and a large-brimmed cap. The figure was standing still, its arms at its sides. Tom noted that one arm held a large, black hunting rifle at a lazy angle. Tom grasped the handle of his gun as they approached.

“Hey there,” called Dawes. She waved her arm to signal their approach. There was no response. She waved in a wider arc. “Hey, over there. Roy? Police,” she yelled briskly.

Tom stopped in his tracks when he saw the figure turn its head. He'd seen too many of these situations not to know what was coming next.

“We have a few questions,” Dawes added as the figure turned to face them. Tom saw the man lifting the rifle in his hand and sprang into action. He leapt forward and tackled Dawes to the ground. They both hit the dirt roughly.

“
Ow!
Shit, Bell, what the fuck are you--”

A gunshot cut off the rest of her protest. She stiffened under Tom's weight. He pulled out his pistol and unhooked the safety. Another gunshot sounded just as he lowered his head. A chunk of the tree blew off into splinters just above them.

“
Shit,
” Dawes screamed. She scrambled out from under Tom and bounded off into the trees. Tom went in a different direction, leaping over the narrow brook and ducking behind a tree. He watched the hunter follow Dawes with long, deliberate steps, taking pot shots at her with his rifle. She took shelter behind a fallen tree trunk, chunks of which flew off into the air as the gunman bore down on her.

Tom aimed his pistol, and waited for the hunter to walk between a gap in the trees. He exhaled and fired, scoring a hit to the man's shoulder. The hunter flinched, unfazed. Tom waited a few seconds and fired again, hitting the elbow and sending the forearm flopping uselessly at his target’s side. The rifle's barrel took a sharp dive towards the ground just as its barrel discharged. He had the hunter's attention, now. The hunter turned to face him, eyes hidden behind large sunglasses.

“Over here, cousin-fucker,” shouted Tom. He jumped out from his cover and waved his arms in the air. The hunter lazily lifted the rifle with his remaining arm, and fired a shot that made a dent in a tree several feet away from Tom. Nonetheless he took cover again. The next shot sent the rifle flying out of the hunter's hand from recoil. Rather than retrieve it, the hunter started to take heavy steps towards Tom, disarmed.

Tom stepped out from cover and exhaled. He fired at the hunter three times, missing once and hitting him in the chest twice. Despite this the hunter did little more than flinch and stumble as he kept his stride, his boots splashing into the brook. Tom was formulating a new plan when Dawes appeared from the woods. She leapt onto the hunter's back and twisted his weight until they both hit the ground.

“You're under arrest for the attempted murder of two law enforcement agents,” Dawes said in a winded voice as Tom approached at a jog. The ratchet of a pair of handcuffs sounded. She had subdued the hunter, his hands now bound uselessly behind his back. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say—”

Dawes was interrupted by a loud, sick groan. The hunter vomited a torrent of red and pinkish slime. She planted her knee in his back, sighing.

“Fuck, he must be on drugs,” she said.

“No-- get away--” Tom tried to cry out a warning, but he couldn't articulate the words.

Tom heard a familiar wet, snapping, crunching sound. The hunter's bound arms jerked violently as they popped free from their sockets.

“Knock it off,” Dawes demanded, putting her weight further into the hunter's back. “Knock it--”

The hunter's head turned... and turned... and turned. Bile dribbled from his lips. His head had wrenched all the way around to face Dawes. He choked out a threatening scream that was muffled by the chunks of gore clogging his throat and mouth.

“What the
fuck?
” Dawes screamed, finally trying to get up. Her struggle came too late. The hunter's hands, bent backwards at the elbows, sprung out to grip her neck. His legs lifted up and wrapped around her like a second set of arms. She found herself being held to the ground and strangled.

“Tom. Tom,
help me.
”

Dawes flailed her arms, grabbing at the hunter's face. She succeeded only in knocking off his hat, revealing a gaping hole in the top of his head. The inside of his open skull was visible. There was no brain. His sunglasses fell off to reveal empty holes peering into his spent shell of a head.

“
Fuck,
” Dawes screamed. Tom found his legs and sprang into action. He knelt down and pushed the two of them over. He started patting the hunter down.

“Bell, what are you
doing?
”

Tom found his mark: a thick hunting knife in a rubber scabbard on the hunter's hip. He pulled it out and plunged it into the hunter's shoulder. He worked his arm back and forth to separate skin and bone.

The hunter vomited more gore and bile onto Dawes. She could do little more than scream. She dug her nails into the hunter's handcuffed hands, breaking the skin. Tom sawed away for half a minute before finally seeing results. Thick, jelly-like blood spilled from the severed arm and shoulder wound. Tom found his hands caked with the stuff.

“
Faster,
Tom.”

“Just calm down,” said Tom, trying to keep a level head himself. He discarded the hunter’s arm and placed his knee against the other, accidentally bumping into Dawes’ face. Vomit sloshed against his ankles. He placed the blade against the hunter's wrist and began to saw. The hand came off easily, leaving only the legs.

Dawes threw the hand from her neck and reached for her pistol, pushing Tom out of the way. She pushed the handgun's barrel hard up against the hunter's neck and fired. She emptied the clip.

For a long moment Tom wasn't sure if it would work, but slowly the hunter's leg lock loosened. Bile and blood cascaded from the neck wound.

“What the fuck. What the entire
fuck,
” cried Dawes. She stood up and made a feeble bid to wipe the bile and blood from her chest. Before Tom could wipe his forehead in relief, Dawes screamed again. A hand appeared on the ground, attached to what Tom could not call an arm, but more a flesh-colored appendage, a tentacle. It gripped the hunter's ankle, causing Tom to jump back.

The tentacle retracted like some foul fishing line, its length disappearing into another conspicuous hole in the forest floor. The hunter's body dragged along in the dirt. Dawes could do little more than breathe out several panicked, shallow screams.

Tom raised his handgun in anticipation. They both watched the hunter's body contort and squish together as it was dragged down the too-small hole, like a massive slug being sucked down a drain. Congealed blood splattered on the ground from the hunter's open wounds. Soon there was no evidence that he had even been there, save for the chunks of bloody muscle around the hole in the ground, and the severed arm lying impotently on the forest floor.

Tom heard Artie's voice call out from the trees.

“
Tom.
Tom, we heard gunshots, are you alright?” Artie called, the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Artie looked out of breath. Keda was with him, keeping up with a light jog.

“Yeah, just had a... something,” Tom said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “We're fine. Everyone's fine. Officer Dawes, are you--”

Tom felt his heart sink into his stomach. Dawes had raised her handgun, pointing it squarely at his face. She pointed it at Artie and Keda as she heard them approach, the barrel shifting targets as her arms shook. Tom put his hands up, dropping his own handgun to the ground.

“Who the
fuck
are you?” Dawes screamed. Keda and Artie raised their hands. “What the fuck is going on?
Who are you?
”

6

“Creeping Wind”

“Okay, so Invisible means...”

“Invisible, or Subjective entities have taken residence in a person or a place in the material world, but can't directly affect it. They can speak to people and induce visions, most of them can read minds, but they can't physically harm anyone or move anything. Their influence can't be perceived by anybody except the people they target.” Artie dragged off of a cigarette and punctuated his explanation with a sip of beer.

.“And Visible means the opposite of that,” Dawes grumbled, her speech slurring. Dawes was rubbing her forehead fervently as she took a gulp from her fourth beer of the evening.

“Right,” Tom began. His fresh cigarette hung from his mouth. “Visible, or Objective, means one of two things. The creature has either found a way to affect the physical world directly, meaning it's crossed over completely and independently of a host-- or the given target has a mental resolve that stops the entity from affecting their mind, usually without the entity realizing it. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens most commonly when someone takes certain narcotics or medications-- benzodiazepines for example. Heroin is another one.”

“And that's a bad thing?”

“Sometimes. It varies from creature to creature. Some things we want to force into the physical realm, so we can deal with them directly on our own terms. Other things can do a lot more damage that way, so we try to go to them on the Subjective level.”

“And you gave me a bar of Xanax,” Dawes said wearily. “So that's bad? Something might attack us right now?”

“Extremely doubtful. Between Artie and Keda, we can trust one of them to notice if something is nearby. And even then, they only put a sort of armor around a person's psyche. They’re not a hundred percent effective and less violent entities will back off rather than becoming vulnerable. But as a precaution, the half-life of most benzo tablets is six hours, so you should stick near us until then.”

“So what are we dealing with here?” asked Dawes after another gulp, her head slumping forward.

“We're not sure yet,” Artie explained calmly. “Our investigations have us thinking that it's started as a Subjective threat, and at some point it crossed over.”

“Or maybe it can do both,” Tom added. “Starts Invisible then physically torments the target. Or maybe its activities just leave a Visible residue-- the mold in Susan Bailey's closet. We don't know.”

“You've lost me,” Dawes groaned. “How the hell do you keep track of all this? How do you know what to do?”

“Well. We've been at it for a while,” said Artie through a gap-toothed smirk.

 “What we do know is it seems to have a thing for closets. Keda's on the phone now with Margaret. She'll be checking to see if she can match the M.O. with anything the department has encountered before,” Tom said coolly.

“Who’s Margaret?” Dawes asked with a pursed lip.

“Margaret is our boss,” Tom explained. “She works at the Department headquarters in L.A. keeping records and intel, that kind of thing. Used to be a top notch Operator.”

“Uh huh,” Dawes said through another gulp of beer. Tom blew out a sigh of cigarette smoke. Dawes retreated into her drink.

Keda's angular face reappeared at the table. He sat down and folded his hands on the table in front of him.

“Margaret thinks she has an ID,” Keda said. Tom raised his hands in relief.

“Fantastic. What are we dealing with?”

“She wants you to call her.”

“Right now?”

“Yes,” Keda said calmly.

Artie made a whip-crack noise with his mouth as he sipped more beer. Tom rolled his eyes and stood up while he dug around for his phone.

********

Cool, late afternoon air brushed Tom's face. He stood on a deserted corner. Looking around the town, he noted that was the only kind of corner there was. A boarded-up pharmacy dominated the other side of the road.

Tom flipped open his phone. He pressed the speed dial for Margaret and waited. He lit a cigarette and leaned against a closed dumpster behind the bar.

“Margaret,” the voice on the other end answered.

“Hey, Maggie. It's Tom.”

“I have some info for you,” she stated simply. Tom noticed with some anxiety that she wasn't chiding him for calling her Maggie.

“I'm listening.”

“Artie and Keda did some digging into that sample you left behind. I passed the particulars onto one of our mediums.”

“And?”

“Tom... Niku no Ki Akebara. Do you recognize that name?”

Tom's breath froze up in his chest. The world around him suddenly felt a lot smaller and less significant. He flexed his hand consciously, taking deep breaths to stay his panic.