James Smith - The Flock

Ron finally smiled at the little man. "I'm just here on minor business, actually. I'm going to scout the area here and see what kinds of populations the local forest currently serves as home. Nothing sinister or dramatic, I promise."

"What kinds of creatures, Mr. Riggs? Giant snakes, maybe?" Dodd stepped back and lifted the camera to his face. Before either of the other men could complain, he had at least two shots of them there in front of the security building.

"Stop that, Dodd. I mean it." Tatum was pointing at the reporter and was rewarded with having a shot taken of his menacing posture.

"You can't stop the Press, Tatum. You know that."

Tatum was at the end of his patience. He put his hand on Ron's shoulder and nudged him toward the door. "Let's go inside, shall we? Where we'll have some privacy."

Dodd called out to them as they went in. "Riggs. I'm at the Executive, down the street. Give me a ring or leave a message with the front desk. I'd like to talk to you."

And then Riggs and Tatum were inside, walking down a neat, pale yellow corridor with doors on each side leading into offices from which young secretaries and junior clerks emerged and vanished as the two men went toward an elevator at the end of the hall. Once in the elevator, Tatum breathed in, held it, then released, calming himself.

"Do you know what they've been calling Salutations in that rag he writes for?"

"Um. No. I have to say I don't read that paper."

"Jurassic Park. They're calling us Jurassic Park."

Ron, in spite of himself, laughed. He looked guiltily up at Tatum. "I'm sorry. But you have to admit that it's funny."

"We have some trouble with alligators, a couple of people are snakebit. Next thing we see, the National Inquirer is calling us Jurassic-freaking-Park and claiming we've got a monster living in the forest around the town." Tatum squinted his eyes, an expression of exasperation, then seemed to recover a bit. "Sorry. But that guy gets on my nerves."

"No offense. I can see where you're coming from." Still, if Dodd was writing that stuff, he at least had a good sense of humor.

They came to the third floor. "This way," Tatum indicated with a wave of his arm. "The office up here has a truly impressive view of the area. You'll see." They went through a door at the end of the short hallway, and Ron noted that the third floor was much smaller than the two below it. He hadn't noticed from the parking lot.

As Tatum had promised, the office did afford an impressive view of the town and its environs through the wide window set in the north wall. The town's roads led into a residential area a few blocks north, then vanished at the forest that stood like a frozen green wave. Off in the distance, Ron could make out what looked to be a patch of longleaf pine savanna, a truly rare environment in America. To the left, and west of the town, he noticed a series of buildings that looked completely out of place, almost what appeared to be a fort of some kind, although a modern one.

"What is that?" Ron asked, pointing at those odd buildings.

Without turning to look, Tatum answered. "That is what we've taken to calling the Eyesore."

"Eyesore?" It did look terribly out of place, and was not characteristic of the rest of this carefully planned community.

"Holcomb's place. Vance Holcomb."

"Ah. I'd heard about the…situation with Holcomb."

"You'd think a man with a few billion dollars could find something better to do than sit out here and cause problems for this company. Pointless problems, too, I might add. Salutations USA is as concerned with protecting the environment as any other American organization. We've done our utmost to minimize the impact of modern living on the natural world around us." Tatum moved behind the big desk that sat facing away from the view. He indicated a padded leather chair for Riggs.

Both seated, Tatum continued.

"You know the drill," Tatum said, this time with a bit of coldness in his voice. "We've had several more dogs vanish. Mainly in Phase Three, eh," he turned and shrugged toward the houses that bled into the forest to the north, "over there."

"Has anyone seen anything?" Riggs stood and went to the window to look out at that neighborhood. Most of the forest was that same pine-oak mix. But there was that savanna area beyond it and past that he could see some truly impressive cypress trees rising up in wetlands beyond.

"Nothing. No one has even heard a dog struggling with anything. No yelps or barks. Dog there one minute, gone the next."

"I doubt it's a gator," Riggs said.

"Why do you say that?" Still seated, Tatum was looking in the same direction as Riggs.

"That area is too high and dry. No streams, no swampy area there. And you said some of the dogs vanished from fenced yards. Gators can dig like nobody's business, but you'd see the sign, of course. And that neighborhood's elevated, too. I'd almost call it a hill. What passes for a hill in this area. An alligator would have to be terribly hungry to go up there, and from what I can tell from looking around, and from the environmental impact statements I've read, there's plenty of food in the gator habitat to keep a sizable population well fed and in place. I think we can rule out alligators. So no need to call in one of our licensed trappers, just yet."

"Well, that's a relief. I'd hate to see Dodd take that one to town. Can you imagine what he'd write? And the last thing I'd want to see is a photo of some trapper hauling off another one of those big alligators in the bed of his truck. Christ. That last one was a fifteen-footer. Damned dinosaur was what it was. Ate two dogs, that one." He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose. "What else, then?"

"Well. I won't know for sure until I check. One of the impact statements I read mentioned a panther track."

"Panther?"

"Florida panther. Felis concolor floridanus. Mountain lion. Cougar."

"Oh, Jesus."

"But I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"We're too far north, for one thing. There aren't but fifty or so of them left, and most of them live in or near the Everglades. Every once in a while one strays north, especially since the Department began seeding the area with transplanted panthers from Texas, to beef up the bloodlines because of inbreeding. But I don't think it's a panther. They're very afraid of dogs. More likely to run from one than eat one. Still, they do weigh over a hundred pounds, and killing a dog wouldn't be that difficult for a healthy panther.

"But, no. I think someone would have heard something. At least one of the dogs in the neighborhood would have caught wind of a panther. And there's been no sign of struggle or of blood. I can't see a panther operating like that. Nope. Doubt it's a panther."

"Then what?"

"Could be bear, I guess. But I'd rule that out for many of the same reasons, although I know these woods have a healthy bear population. A bear coming in to eat a dog would just make more of a fuss, I think." Ron gazed off into those woods, peering even beyond the longleaf savanna.

"Then there's coyotes. They've been known to lure dogs out into the bush and then ambush them and eat them. But I haven't seen any credible evidence that there are any coyotes in this part of the state.

"So…barring the dogs just wandering off into that wilderness and getting lost…"

"Yes?"

"I'd have to say a snake."

Tatum stood and took a few steps away from his desk. "A snake? You mean, like Dodd is writing about? A giant snake? Are you crazy?"

"Well, look at it this way. The dogs don't even raise an alarm. They're in the yard one hour, gone the next. No one sees anything or hears anything. No blood. No tracks. In the past, people here in Florida have either lost large pet snakes, or released them when they got too big to handle. Pythons, usually, but there are a couple of Anacondas on record as having been recaptured around the state. One near Big Springs State Park was a twenty-footer. It had been chowing down on the local dogs when it couldn't find enough raccoons to eat."