Lindsay Buroker - Torrent

“For someone who makes monsters? I don’t know-I didn’t see those classes under any of the degree paths at ASU.”

He did that head tilt that seemed to mean he was trying to figure me out.

“So if you didn’t make it, what are you and your buddy doing here?” I asked. “Why do you keep showing up when it kills someone?”

He could have asked me the same question, but he didn’t. He probably knew we were clueless. “We can track it.”

“Oh? Do you know where it is now?”

“It ran up a dirt road over there.” Eleriss pointed in the direction that the first people had been killed.

I knew the road. We’d hiked up it to a trail that led to a lake. It’d been a nice hike, and there was no way I’d do it again now.

“Are you trying to kill it?” I asked.

“That is not currently within our power.”

“Then why follow it?”

“We seek to find that which can destroy it. Also, we seek to protect humans from it.” Eleriss gazed toward the woods where the husband and wife had fallen. “We are failing thus far.”

“Join the club. That which can destroy it-you want to kill it then?”

“That is desirable, yes.”

“Maybe my friend and I can help. We’re good at research. Simon over there has GPS apps that can find all sorts of things and lead us to them.” I decided not to mention the broken shovel haft.

“You would be wise to leave this place. Your Alaska would be a good destination.”

“That’s a little cold for my desert blood. Besides-”

“Ma’am?” a man asked from the side, startling me. It was the police officer who’d been talking to Simon earlier. Simon stood by the patrol car, a sheepish expression on his face. Ugh, they must have caught him practicing his photography skills.

“Yes?” I asked.

“We’re going to need you to come downtown to answer some questions.” The officer’s eyebrows twitched. “Again.”

Double ugh. The left hand had been talking to the right hand. He eyed the arrow I was holding, but all he said was, “This way, please.”

I pointed to the van. “Mind if I park this back in our spot? It’s in the way here.”

He considered me for a moment-deciding if I was a flight risk? “Good idea. Make sure you get those headlights fixed too. You can get a citation for that.”

A half million sarcastic comments came to mind, but he walked away before my mouth could get me into trouble. More trouble, I amended as I watched someone guide Simon into the back of the patrol car. I wondered why nobody had come up to Eleriss, wanting to question him. I was reluctant to leave in the middle of our conversation. However, when I turned back to where he’d been standing, he was gone. His Harley was gone too. How had he managed that without me hearing it start up?

“This night is getting weirder and weirder,” I muttered.

The fluorescent lights of the police station stung my eyes after the midnight darkness outside. When we walked in, I expected to be taken to a concrete room with nothing except a table, two chairs, and a one-way mirror while Simon was tossed into an identical room next door. Once there, I assumed they’d question us separately, trying to get us to contradict each other and maybe throwing in some Prisoner’s Dilemma tactics. Apparently I’d been watching too much TV. Or maybe those things only happened at big city police stations. Instead, the officer who’d driven us there ushered us to a corner of the waiting room with instructions to, “Hang tight.” He walked back outside, leaving us to our own devices with no one except a yawning young officer behind a desk to keep an eye on us.

“Thanks for parking the van,” Simon said.

Aware of the cops in the front seat of the car, we hadn’t spoken during the hour we’d waited in the back while the police dealt with the bodies and the chaos of the campground. Simon had been typing on his smartphone the whole time while I’d watched in mute horror as a female officer came to get the kid out of the trailer and lead him away, picking him up at one point to keep him from running into the woods to find his parents.

I’d decided to hold off on messaging my own parents, though the whole event had made me want to hear their voices. But it’d already been late, and I hadn’t wanted to explain why I was calling from a police car. No need to worry them until I found out if we were going to be charged for something.

“No problem,” I murmured. “I mostly wanted to put the arrow in the van, so nobody would think to stick it into an evidence room.”

“They weren’t amused when I tried to play investigative photographer and sneak in close for a last couple of pictures.” He tapped his phone. “I finished writing up a blog post though. Tomorrow when this hits the news and people start searching for monster sightings, our website should pop up.”

I glared at him. “I told you not to put this stuff up there.”

“Someone’s going to cover the story anyway. Why not someone who was actually there and saw what happened?”

“Because you want to cash in on it. That’s our professional business site, damn it.”

“One that will make our business more money if it gets more traffic. Do you want to live on peanut butter and jelly and sleep in a van for your entire life?”

I dropped my head into my hands. After the long and eventful day, I didn’t have energy left to argue with him over this. I hoped the authorities got to the bottom quickly, and our lives returned to normal. Though a part of me wanted to speak with Eleriss again, especially given that he’d almost been… amiable. Weird and obscure, but amiable. Maybe he’d tell me about that device in the bedside table.

“What did you mean evidence?” Simon asked after a while.

“Huh?”

“You said you didn’t want your arrow thrown in an evidence locker. Was there something on it?”

“A smudge. It might be dirt, but…” I shrugged. “I cut off the tip and stuck it into an envelope addressed to Autumn in Flagstaff.” I patted my pocket. “If we get out of here without trouble, I’ll mail it as soon as we walk by a box.”

“Autumn… which one of your friends is that?”

“The one who used to insult you all the time.”

“You’ll have to be more specific than that. Not all of your friends appreciated my unique characteristics.”

“She’s the archaeology student who graduated at the same time as I did and who works at the same firm as I… would have.”

“Would have?” Simon asked. “Technically, you did work there, didn’t you? For a day?”

“It was three days, thank you.”

Though after the first day of cataloguing rocks at the cultural resource management center in Flagstaff, I’d been certain the job wouldn’t work for me. My professors had all warned me that real archaeology wasn’t anything like they showed in the movies, and I’d been prepared for days upon days of sifting through dirt without finding anything significant, but tedious and repetitive office work in a room without windows? With no field excursions on the calendar for the rest of the year? I couldn’t handle that. But I hadn’t been able to find any other openings in the field-I’d been lucky to get that one as a kid fresh out of college-and none of the archaeologists I’d talked to had been leading the lives I’d imagined anyway. I’d called Simon and asked if he thought I’d be nuts to quit, but he’d always had that entrepreneurial streak, and he’d come up with Rust amp; Relics right away. I wasn’t making any more than I would have at that entry-level job-and some months it was less-but we had spent a fun summer exploring the state and scampering all over the mountainsides, hunting for old treasures. Despite the sneers of my peers, it suited me. Or at least it had until the bodies started showing up.