The Uninvited (11 page)

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Well, perhaps after I review that—” he broke off, laughing.

“I'm not kidding you about this. Sheriff Ransonet said some of these mutants were eight inches long.”

Vic? Vic Ransonet? Hell, Al, he put a frog in my martini glass once. Come on!”

Yes, sir.”

“Oh, and, Al?”

“Sir?”

“Do keep us informed on this adventure.”

Laughter reached Al's ears. He sighed and placed the phone in its cradle. He looked at Sheriff Ransonet. “Did you really put a frog in Benning's martini glass, Vic?”

“Hell, that was fifteen years ago, when he was working out of Jackson, Mississippi. He didn't believe you, did he?”

“No. And it's my fault. I've got a reputation as a joker.” He met Ransonet's eyes. “Would you believe a tale like that?”

Vic shook his head. “No.”

“Al, your boss didn't see those things, either,” Jimmy said. “But I did. And so did Sheriff Ransonet.”

Al glanced at Sheriff Grant. “Billy Oldroyd looked like what was left of the Cole couple?”

“He wasn't eaten on nearly as bad, but you saw the pictures.” The Baronne Parish sheriff looked haggard; he had been up all night, as had the others. Fatigue was evident on most of the faces in the room.

“Have you told the Chief of Police in Barnwell, Sheriff Grant?” Al asked.

Mike Grant shook his head.
No.”

“You, Vic?”

“No. What could I say that he'd believe?”

Al nodded his agreement. “All right, I'm going to tell you people flat out. Don't expect any help from the Bureau on this one—not on what we've got so far, even if I do manage to convince them I'm not joking. So let's count it down. We've got some missing people in a two-Parish area. It seems to be confined to Baronne and Lapeer. We've checked with other lawmen around the area. They report nothing unusual. We've got three people who have been eaten.” He swallowed hard. “Eaten by something, and a herd of cattle gone. Presumably eaten by the same unknown.”

“Oh, come on, Al!” Jimmy jumped to his feet, his face flushed with anger. “Shit! You've got Dr. Ashley's report right by your hand. We've all read it. Billy Oldroyd was full of bugs. He'd been eaten by bugs. Granted, we didn't find any bugs at the Cole place, but you know damn well no human being would have done that.”

“Jimmy!” Sheriff Ransonet pointed a finger at the young deputy.

“No, let him finish,” Al said. “Let him get it all out of his system. He's upset, and I don't blame him.”

“Al,” Jimmy pleaded with the FBI man. “I saw them. I saw thousands of them.”

“I know you did, Jimmy. I believe you. But what more can I do?”

The young cop shook his head and sat down, angry.

“Are you going to inform the Police Jury?” Al asked the Sheriff.

“Fuck the Police Jury!” Vic said. “What would they do except run around in circles, getting in everybody's way, muddying up the waters?”

The ringing phone stopped all further discussion. Vic's buzzer sounded. Sheriff Ransonet listened for a moment. “I see,” he said softly. “All right, Mrs. Eagles, we'll get right on it. You just calm down, now. The kids probably had car trouble—got stuck. That was quite a storm last night. Sure, I'll get back to you just as soon as I hear something.” He gently placed the phone in its cradle.

“Now, what?” Al asked.

“That's Judy Eagles's mother. Judy had a date with Mickey Dubois last night. The kids didn't come back—at least not to her house.”

“How come she waited this long to report it?” the FBI man asked. “And why didn't the boy's parents report it?”

“She said the Duboises are out of town. Mrs. Eagles said she went to bed early last night. She thought she heard Judy come in about midnight, but her bed hasn't been slept in. She called us as soon as she discovered the empty bed.”

Vic?” Slick said softly. “You know as well as me where the kids like to park.”

“Oh?” Al glanced at him. “And where is that?”

“Down the road a couple of miles from the Cole farm,” Vic said grimly. “Slick? You and Chuck take a run out there. Look around. And be careful,” he added.

“Don't you worry 'bout that,” Slick assured him.

 

 

Hal Johnson sat in the den of his empty house, staring at the walls. He had been drinking and napping all night and most of the morning. He had prowled all the bars and motels in the Parish, looking for his wife. But she was not to be found. He had called Ruthie's house. No answer. Jane's house. Same thing. He had tried several other numbers with the same results. The man was getting angry all over again. His wife had left him. She had to have taken off with another man; her car was in the drive. He sighed. Maybe if they'd had kids it would have worked out.

The phone rang. “Hal? Sam. Have you seen Ruthie?” He sounded embarrassed.

Hal sat up straight in the chair, suddenly sober, as if a tub of cold water had been dumped on him. “No, Sam, I haven't. Beth is gone, too.”

“What! Damn it, Hal, I've been going nuts all night. I called your house a dozen times, but you didn't answer.”

I was out lookin' for Beth—prowlin' the bars. And the motels, too. Come on down, Sam, let's talk this thing around. Something's wrong.”

Ten minutes later the men sat in the den, drinking coffee. “Neither one of us has had any marriage problems,” Sam said. “And neither Beth nor Ruth have been runnin' around. I know that for a hard fact.”

“Where are your kids?”

Took 'em to their grandmother's last night. Didn't tell her anything, though. Just asked her if she'd keep them for a couple days.”

“I think we'd better call the law,” Hal suggested.

He walked to the kitchen and took down the wall phone, starting to dial the number. He glanced out the window. “Sam?” he called, urgency in his voice.
Get a couple of guns out of the closet and come here quick!”

He had spotted his wife's tennis shoe by the shed.

His friend came to his side, a shotgun in each hand. “What's wrong?”

“Beth was wearin' tennis shoes when I left yesterday morning. New ones. Joggers. I bought them for her.” He pointed out the window. “That's one of them.” He took a shotgun from his friend and began punching in shells. Sam did the same.

“What the hell is that big brown spot by the shed?” Sam asked. “Must be a quarter-acre wide, at least.”

“I don't know. But I'm damn sure goin' to find out. Come on.”

The two men walked out the back door. Toward the sounds of clicking.

“The Voleur River,” Brett told his little summer school class, “forms the top of Baronne Parish, then travels down the west side, all the way down to the bottom of Lapeer Parish. It cuts under Lapeer, then heads directly east until it almost joins the Mississippi River. Two miles from the big river, the Voleur abruptly cuts south, eventually running into Bayou Sorelle, which, a few miles farther along, runs into Lake Sanlow. Who can tell me what Voleur means?”

Surprisingly, although most of the kids had lived in Lapeer Parish all their lives, only three hands went into the air. Broussard, Duhon, and Melancon. Brett nodded at Cathy Duhon.

“It means thief, Mr. Travers.”

Brett nodded his head, thinking, I should ask them where it got its name. Should force the non-Cajun kids to learn something about their state. But what the hell? God, this is the most boring class I have ever taught. I will never, ever, teach summer school again.

“You know, Mr. Travers,” a boy said. “I been thinking—”

“That's a new experience for you,” a voice called from the back of the room.

Brett waited for the laughter to die down. “What have you been thinking, Les?”

“Well, Baronne and Lapeer are pretty good-sized Parishes, but only three bridges link the two with any others. None crosses the Mississippi. One goes to the north, one to the south, and one to the west, at the swamp's and river's narrowest points.”

“That's correct, Les. But where is all this leading?”

“Well, if something bad was to happen, like a war or something, all anybody'd have to do is knock out those bridges, and we'd be stuck.”

“In other words,” said Art Baldwin, the clown prince of Bonne Terre high—and a straight D student—
if we were invaded by creatures from the Black Lagoon, we'd all be up the creek tryin' to find a way out.”

As he waited once more for laughter to fade, Brett suddenly thought of the mutant roach he'd found that morning. He smiled thinly. Odd time to be thinking of that thing.

“Yes,” Brett said, “we would, except for the Mississippi River. That swamp that separates us from the Voleur is, I'm told, virtually impassable.”

“That's right, Mr. Travers,” a boy. said, “you haven't been here long. I got lost in that swamp a couple of years ago. If I hadn't been a Boy Scout, and learned not to panic, I'd have been in real trouble. Nothing in there but 'gators, cottonmouths, rattlers, and quicksand.”

“I have a question,” a girl spoke up. “What's a creature from the Black Lagoon?”

It's an old movie,” Brett answered, very much aware of his age. They're so young, he thought. And though I'm only thirty-five, I feel like an old man around them. Dear God, was I ever this young? He decided that in a way, he had been. But not to this extreme. Other days and other ways, pal, he thought.

Yeah,” a boy said. “I seen that on TV the other night. A double feature. The other was about giant ants takin' over the country.” He pronounced ants “aints.”

Brett thought briefly of correcting the boy's pronunciation and grammar, then blew it off. To hell with it—let the English department struggle with it.

“Gross!” a girl said. “Ants? Ugh! What could be worse than that?”

“Giant roaches!” another young lady said.

The dismissal bell was only seconds away. Brett looked at the young lady who had mentioned roaches. “Why did you say that, Cindy?”

“‘Cause who likes roaches? Nasty things. Can you imagine roaches crawlin' all over you? Blagh!”

Amid various shudders, complaints, and vocal expressions of horror, consisting mostly of “Ughs!” “Blaghs!” and “Grosses!” the bell rang. The second period of the short day was over. Brett's third period was free. He straightened his desk, then walked to the teachers' lounge, hoping Kiri would be there. She was, and as usual, the mere sight of her brightened his entire outlook on life.

Brett had had one disastrous marriage, just before he shipped out to Nam, and that one stroll down the aisle had soured him on any type of permanent relationship. Until he met Kiri. Little by little, over a period of two years, she had wormed the story out of him. It was not a new story, did not have any new twists to it. It was just the same old story of two young people falling in love with love and not being able to make the marriage work. They parted bitterly, hating one another. Luckily, there had been no children. His wife, he later learned, had his child aborted while he was in Vietnam.

Kiri smiled at him as he filled a mug with strong coffee from the ever-present urn. “Not too much longer now, Kiri,” he said. “Few more weeks and this mess is over.”

“Going to teach summer school next year?” she teased him, knowing how he hated it and just exactly what his curt reply would be.

“Hell, no!”

She scooted over one chair, giving him room to sit beside her. “I sometimes wonder who looks forward to vacation more, the kids or the teachers?”

“I can assure you, dear, both look forward to it with equal anticipation.”

“Speaking of anticipation,” she smiled, rubbing her hand on his thigh.

Luckily, they were alone in the lounge.

“Kiri,” he said, as her hand moved up his thigh to rest lightly on his crotch. “You are absolutely the most brazen female I have ever met.”

She laughed as she squeezed his thickening penis, feeling him harden beneath her hand. “Chicken!” she said.

“It's not a matter of bravery. If I have to get up suddenly, it's going to be embarrassing. How would you like it if I reached over and grabbed you by the tit?”

“Don't be crude, dear,” she teased him.

“Crude's ass! I swear to God if you don't stop what you're doing, I'm going to drag you behind the curtains on the stage and . . . and . . .”

“Go ahead, Chicken.” She kissed him softly on the mouth. “What are you going to do?”

He told her. In very crude language, using four letter words.

“Oohh,” she said.
By all means, come to the house an hour earlier this evening. I just don't believe you can do all those things.”

Laughing, she moved away from him, down one chair, giving him time to compose himself should anyone barge into the lounge.

“You heard the latest?” she asked, her dark blue eyes sparkling at him over the rim of her coffee mug. SEXY was printed on the mug, and she certainly was.

“Other than you constantly trying to put the make on me, no. What news?”

She stuck her tongue out at him and crossed her eyes.

“God,” he laughed, “I wish the superintendent would walk in and see that pose. I repeat: what news?”

“Oh, all sorts of gruesome stuff. The Cole family was found murdered last night. But it's a big mystery. No one from the sheriff's office is talking. The FBI's in town, too. Up in Baronne Parish, Billy Oldroyd was killed, or murdered, or something. He's dead. Again, a big mystery with no one talking.”

Unexpectedly, a chill touched Brett's backbone, a sudden grip of fear he could not explain. “Billy Oldroyd? The pest control man?”

“Yes. And Mickey Dubois and Judy Eagles have disappeared. They had a date last evening. The kids say they probably went out parking, as usual.”

“Yes,” Brett said slowly. “And I know where they usually park.”

Oh?”

Out by the Cole farm.”

Their eyes touched, held. “I don't like the sound of that, Brett.”

“Yes. Well, it's big doings for two rural Parishes, all right.” He remembered that Billy had sprayed his house last month. “Strange,” he muttered.

“What is?”

Billy told me last month he was doing more spraying than he had in years, but he couldn't find any small roaches. He said he believed something was feeding on the smaller bugs. But he didn't know what.”