Douglas Preston - Crimson Shore

In his room on the top floor of the Inn, Pendergast sat up in bed. He listened intently, but the scream from downstairs had abruptly cut off and he heard nothing more save for the storm. The celebratory noise from the bar had also ceased.

He slipped out of bed, swiftly donned his clothes, grabbed a flashlight, and strapped on his Les Baer. He ran down the hall, descended one flight, and then — after the briefest of pauses — grasped the doorknob to Constance’s room. When he found it locked, he rapped on it.

“Constance,” he said. “Please open this door.”

No response.

“Constance,” he repeated. “I’m very sorry for what happened, but this is no time for melodramic gestures. Something is—”

Even as he spoke, he heard a sudden chorus of cries erupt from downstairs, a cacophony of shrieks mingling with the sounds of a ferocious stampede, the crashing sound of chairs being overturned, glassware breaking, and feet thundering on the wooden floor.

Without waiting any longer, he turned his shoulder to the door and, in one blow, broke it down.

The room was empty, the bed still made. There was no sign anywhere of the flashlight he had given her.

Pandemonium had broken out downstairs. He scrambled down the stairs, pulling out his weapon as he did so, to arrive in the front hall. His flashlight revealed the front door yawning wide and swinging in the howling wind. A body lay sprawled over the threshold.

He turned and ran down the hall into the bar, where a scene of extreme violence greeted his eye: a second eviscerated figure lay on the floor, while half a dozen others were crouching, terrified but unhurt, behind the bar.

“What was it?” Pendergast rapped out.

“God help us, help us!” a man shrieked, triggering a storm of wild importuning from the huddled group, with the words monster and demon and ape and hound mingling unintelligibly with the cries of the terrified patrons.

“Where did it go?” Pendergast said.

A man pointed out the door.

Pendergast turned and raced back down the hall and out into the storm, leaving the patrons crying futilely after him for protection. He could see bare footprints crossing the porch and the sandy walk beyond, already being erased by the rain. He hesitated, peering into the storm in the direction the creature had gone: southeastward, into the salt marshes. Whatever it was, it had wreaked havoc and then escaped.

His mind shifted. Constance was missing. She hadn’t retired — she must have left the Inn some time ago, perhaps immediately after the abrupt conclusion of their conversation. He passed a hand across his forehead.

Where did they go? she had asked. What happened to them? The only place south of the site you discovered in the marshes is Oldham.

That, Pendergast felt certain, was where she had gone: Oldham, the long-abandoned town that, for reasons he could not fathom, she had focused on. Not two hours before, she had all but implied that the heart of the mystery remained unsolved. Even as he considered this, he felt a twinge that perhaps he had dismissed her concerns too readily — that her intuition had told her something that his own cold analysis had overlooked.

The killer was barefooted, in a storm, with the temperature dropping into the forties. That fact, more than any other, profoundly disturbed him, as it indicated there was something about the case he had missed completely — something fundamental — just as Constance had insisted. And yet, even as he pondered the mystery of the bare footprints, he couldn’t find even the glimmer of a solution.

With a burning sense of chagrin, he set off into the storm, following the faint and quickly disappearing marks in the sand.

The house burned brightly as Gavin stared down Main Street. This couldn’t be happening. He could see, in the light of the fire, the bodies in the street: people he knew, friends and neighbors. The door to another house stood open... and he had a terrible feeling there would be another body inside it, as well.

That... demon had rampaged through town in minutes and had then seemingly vanished, leaving behind a scene of mayhem. How could this have happened?

He heard the chief calling the Lawrence PD on his radio, requesting a massive SWAT team presence. His voice was almost hysterical. “We’ve got a maniac on the loose here, multiple fatalities, I can see at least two bodies from where I’m standing... Yes, ma’am, damn it, I said two bodies! We’ve got a house on fire... Send me everything you’ve got, everything, you hear? The whole 10–33 arsenal!”

Gavin tried to get a grip. He had to think, think . This was unbelievable, a horror beyond all horrors...

“Gavin!”

He turned. The chief was staring at him, face red and perspiring despite the cold. “It’s going to be an hour before Lawrence can get choppers in the air. The first responders will arrive by vehicle... Are you following me?”

“Yes, yes, Chief.”

“We need to split up. I’m going to take the squad car and wait for them by the bridge, guide them into town. I want you to head down Main, search the houses. Starting with that one with the open door.”

“Without backup?”

“The killer’s gone, for chrissakes! We’ve got local Fire and Rescue coming in ten minutes, we got SWAT teams in twenty, choppers in an hour. You’re going to have plenty of backup. Just reconnoiter, provide first aid to the injured, secure the crime scene.”

Gavin didn’t have the ability to argue. The chief, the son of a bitch, the coward, was going to wait at the bridge, locked in his car where he would be safe, while asking his sergeant to put his ass on the line, going alone and blind into those houses.

As he opened his mouth to protest, he had a further thought: splitting up might actually be a good thing. Gavin realized he had something a lot more important to do than tally up bodies, and in order to do it he needed to ditch the chief.

“Right, Chief. I’m on it.”

“Good man.” The chief turned and headed back toward the station house, while Gavin made a show of walking down Main Street, taking stock. Even as he did, he could hear the Search and Rescue sirens going off, calling in volunteers. They would be on the scene in minutes... and if he was still around, he’d never get the chance to try to figure out what had happened and get things back on track.

Glancing behind, he saw that the chief had disappeared into the station house. He turned and ducked between two houses, into the concealing darkness. Pulling out his flashlight, he broke into a run. Oldham was maybe five miles away. It was, he told himself, no more distance than what he habitually jogged in the morning. Giving allowance for crossing a nasty section of marsh and tidal flats on Crow Island — thank God it was low tide — he could be there in no time.

Chief Mourdock slid his bulk into the squad car and exited the station garage, lights flashing, siren wailing. He had a vague idea that the sight of the squad car in full siren would be a comfort to the people cowering in their houses.

He felt completely flummoxed by what he had seen. Rose Buffum had spoken of a demon, a monster, but of course that was crazy. It had to be a Jack the Ripper type, a homicidal lunatic, who had come into Exmouth and gone on a rampage. Things like that happened in the unlikeliest places. It was just some random horror.

And yet those splayed, torn bodies...

At this thought he felt a cold, paralyzing fear, so powerful he gasped aloud. Six months from retirement... and now this, on top of the Dunwoody murders?

Fuck it. He would get to the bridge, park, lock the squad car, and wait for the SWAT teams and backup to arrive from Lawrence. At this time of night, in the storm, the roads would be free of traffic. They’d be here in no time.