51: The Series

51: The Storm Chapter 10

As they drove to the location where the creature had been reported, Lindsay began receiving text messages telling which schools were closing early because of the storm. Just as they reached the scene, she received one saying that Dillon’s school was closing at 1 p.m. She did not want him to be at the house alone because of the storm, but she also did not want him at her department after this morning.

She pulled into the driveway for the address Cat gave them. It was an old house that had been empty for as long as Lindsay could remember. It was at least fifty years old and had mostly fallen in on itself. Lindsay watched as Wren and Viktor pulled their cars in beside hers and parked. She got out first and listened for a moment. All Lindsay could hear was the rain falling and hitting her hat. She took it off and threw it back in her car. If it meant she could hear, she would take the wet hair.

Lindsay slowly moved toward the front of her car and stopped again to listen, her hand on her gun. She could hear something moving but could not locate it. Wren slowly moved toward her, being as quiet as possible. Viktor stood beside his car and began walking toward the old house as if he were not concerned about the situation.

“Viktor, you need to stop,” Wren told him quietly.

Viktor continued to walk toward the old house. “Agent Gold, there is nothing here, and nothing like that will be. It does not exist. It was probably just someone playing a joke,” Viktor told him as he walked in front of Lindsay and Wren.

“Viktor, stop!” Lindsay ordered. “Be quiet!”

As Lindsay spoke, they all heard a low growl come from the trees behind the old house.

“Viktor, slowly step back toward me,” Wren instructed him.

He slowly took a step back toward Wren. As he did, Lindsay caught a movement near the back of the house.

“Movement. Back left the corner,” Lindsay said.

“See it,” Wren answered.

“Victor, keep stepping back toward Wren,” Lindsay told him.

Viktor began to take another step back just as something came out from behind the remains of the house and right at them. Viktor was still closer to the house and trees than Lindsay and Wren, and he was directly in its path as it ran toward them. Lindsay drew her weapon, took one step forward, and fired three shots. It crashed into Viktor, and they both fell to the ground, not moving.

“Viktor!” Wren yelled.

Wren was the closest and reached them first. Viktor was trying to push the thing off him when they approached him. Lindsay helped move the creature to the ground beside him. When they did, they could see blood on his uniform.

“Viktor, are you hurt?” Lindsay asked as he began to stand up.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said, looking down at his shirt. “What is that thing?”

“I think it is best if you don’t know. Do you have a clean uniform at your house?” Lindsay asked him.

“Yes, but…,” Viktor began to say.

“No, buts. Go home and change your uniform, then go back to the sheriff's department. If anyone asks, you had to change after moving a deer out of the road. Do you understand?” Lindsay asked him.

“Yes,” he answered, looking at the thing lying on the ground.

“Good, go do it now,” Lindsay said.

She watched him get into his patrol car and slowly begin to back onto the road, then turn toward town. Lindsay turned and looked at Wren, kneeling beside the thing on the ground.

“What is that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered without looking up.

“You don’t know! How could you not know? Isn’t it your job to deal with all of this garbage that has been going on?” she yelled at him.

“It is,” he answered as he stood up.

“Then, how could you not know about this?” Lindsay asked.

“I wasn’t told about this one,” Wren told her.

“Not told! So, let me get this right. You are in charge of whatever is running around in the woods, but you haven’t been told what those things are,” Lindsay said, then laughed. “Unbelievable! I almost had to tell Cat and Yuri that their brother was killed because you have not been told what is out there. Oh, and even if you have been told, you can’t tell me.”

“When the incident occurred, they gave me a list of what had gotten out of the containment areas,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the storm.

Lindsay looked down at the thing lying on the ground. Wren had finished rolling it over to look at it. Lindsay had fired three shots and had hit it three times. It had been dead when it fell on Viktor, knocking him down. Even in the heavy rain, she could smell it and its blood. It was now soaking wet, but she could tell it had almost black fur and was the size of a man. It had a very dog or wolf look, but it did not look like any she had seen before. It had come at Viktor on two legs, but it looked like it would have been just as comfortable on all fours.

“This is not acceptable. I cannot have this in my county and not know about it. Do you realize you agreed for Dillon to go camping only about a mile from where we are standing right now?” Lindsay asked, yelling at him. She was so angry that she was crying. The tears were streaming down her face, and she hoped the rain hitting her hid them.

“Linz, if I had known this thing was here, I would have been out here hunting it down myself! I would never let anything happen to you or Dillon! Never!” he yelled back at her.

“Call your team and get this cleaned up. I will be at the department TRYING to do my job. You might remember the part where I am sworn to serve and protect, and this…” Lindsay yelled, pointing at the creature on the ground. “This makes it very hard for me to protect. You asked me this morning if we were good! No, we are not good! We are not even close to good!”

Lindsay walked away from Wren and got into her car. As she put it in gear, she saw him still standing in the rain, watching her leave. She loved him with all her heart, but now she did not know if she could trust him. Lindsay looked at him one more time, then backed out onto the road and headed back toward the sheriff’s department.

The rain had picked up and was now so heavy that she could barely see the road before her. As she rounded a curve, she saw Viktor’s patrol car pulled to the side of the road. She pulled in behind it, exited her vehicle, and approached the driver’s window. She could see Viktor sitting with his hands over his face. She tapped on the window, and Viktor jumped. He rolled it down and looked at her.

“Viktor, are you alright?” she asked, standing in the rain.

“Yes, ma’am. I think it may take me a while to understand what happened,” Viktor answered.

“Do me a favor. Don’t try to understand any of this. You will sleep better at night if you forget about all of it. I’ll follow you into town,” she told him.

Lindsay turned and went back to her car. When she got in, she turned the heater on high. She was soaked to the skin, cold and shivering. She could not tell if she was shaking because of the cold or the adrenaline from what had just happened. Lindsay watched Viktor put his car in gear and pull back onto the road. She followed him into town and watched him turn onto a side street, going toward where he was staying with his sister, as she continued to the department.

Lindsay parked her patrol car and went into the building. Cat looked at her but did not say a word. Lindsay saw Little Bob near his desk, putting his raincoat on an empty chair. She went into her office, slamming the door closed behind her. She removed her coat and put it on the back of a chair. When she did, she saw her uniform shirt was so wet. Water was running down her arms and dripping off her fingers. Lindsay took it off and wrung it out in the trashcan beside her desk. She also removed her ballistic vest, hoping it would dry a little before her next call.

There was a knock on her office door.

“Go away,” she yelled, without looking to see who it was.

“No,” little Bob yelled back and knocked again.

“Fine, get in here and close the door behind you,” she yelled.

Little Bob came into the office, closing the door behind him. He looked at Lindsay and cautiously asked, “Are you alright?”

“What do you think, Bob?” she snapped at him.

“Hey, I’m on your side. I only want to make sure that you’re OK. If you aren’t, then I will take care of things, and you do whatever you need to do,” Little Bob told her.

Lindsay looked at him and could see he was concerned about her. She unrolled her hair from the bun it was in and wrung the water out of it before she plopped down in her chair.

“I’m not OK. Something came out of the woods and almost killed Viktor,” she told him. She held up her hand before he said anything. “Don’t worry, he’s fine. He went home to put on a clean uniform because I shot it, and it fell on him.”

“It?”

“It. It was some dog thing that walked upright like a movie-style werewolf. It came out of the old abandoned house that’s near mine. It charged right at Viktor. I shot it three times in the chest before it got to him. It dropped dead on top of him and pinned him down.”

“Jeez,” Little Bob said, leaning back in his chair.

“Oh, it gets better. Agent Gold says he did not know that it was there. According to what he told me out there, it wasn’t on the list of things he was given.”

“You don’t think Wren would lie to you, do you?” Little Bob asked.

“I don’t know, Bob. If you had asked me this morning, I would have said no, but now, I really don’t know. I love him, but if I can’t trust him, how can I be with him? How can we even work together?”

“Don’t think like that right now. Wren will do everything he can to fix this, and you know that. There are space heaters and box fans in the storeroom. I’m going to go get one of each and set them up for you so you and your clothes can dry out a little,” Little Bob told her as he stood up.

Little Bob left her office and closed the door behind him. Lindsay knew Little Bob was right about not making any decisions right now. Wren had never lied to her before and had been giving her more information than he should have been about what was going on in her county.

Little Bob returned a few minutes later carrying the heater and fan. He set the fan up on the other side of her office near the map. Little Bob moved a couple of chairs and put her shirt, vest, and raincoat on them with the fan blowing on them so they would dry. He came back toward Lindsay’s desk and plugged the heater into the wall.

“I am putting the heat on low, but the heater fan is on high, so maybe you will get a chance to dry out a little bit, too,” Little Bob said as he pointed the heater at her.

“Thank you, Bob,” Lindsay said, looking down at her wedding ring and playing with it on her finger.

“Zee, it will work out,” he told her, putting his hand on her shoulder.

She looked up at him, “The only other time you have ever called me Zee was the night I was attacked. That makes me worry even more.”

“Don’t worry. Wren is Agent Gold. If he can make people disappear and reprogram their brains, he can fix this too,” Little Bob said, then began to walk out of her office.

“Bob, if anyone asks, Viktor went home to change his uniform because it got dirty when he moved a dead deer out of the road. That includes Cat and Yuri,” Lindsay told him.

“Of course it does,” Little Bob said, smiling as he opened the door and left her office.

Lindsay looked at her watch and realized she needed to call and check on her son Dillon. She pulled her phone out of her pants pocket and dialed the home number. It rang several times before it went to voicemail. She was beginning to worry as she dialed his cell phone number. It, too, rang repeatedly before going to voicemail. The school had let out at 1:00 p.m., and it was now almost two. He should be home. Just as she hung up the phone, there was a knock on her door. She looked up to see Wren.

She got up and opened the door for him without a word, walked back to her desk, and sat down. Wren came into her office and closed the door behind him.

“Lindsay, I am sorry. I did not know about that thing. I will go on base and pull every file of everything that has ever been there. Before this incident occurred, my job was mostly coordinating captures in other areas of the country or sitting at a desk and playing solitaire. My job was to control any situation and capture anything if it escaped, which had never happened here until now. I would never let anything happen to you and Dillon,” Wren told her.

“So, to put it in basic terms, you are a fixer. If there is a problem, you fix it by any means necessary. Is that what you are trying to say?” She asked him.

“Yes,” he answered.

“So you only have the information you were given about what they want you to know. You do understand how completely insane that is, right? They could tell you there is one little butterfly, and in reality, it could be a dozen of those dog things,” Lindsay said, shaking her head, looking down at her ring, and turning it on her finger.

“I am taking all the files on everything that has ever been there. It does not matter if it was captured, created in the lab, or if it is dead and being stored for future research. I want to know about it, and you are going to know as soon as I know. When I get the files, may I bring them here to your department? I want you to know everything I know. I think you have to know to be able to do your job and keep everyone safe the way you need to. After the weather returns to normal, I want us to meet with the man I told you about earlier. He was there long before I was brought in, and I think he might be able to help us.”

“That sounds good, and bringing everything here to the department is fine. If you do, you can put them in here. I can lock the office door and keep people out of them,” Lindsay told him. She studied him for a moment. “Why are you so dry?”

“I am Agent Gold; it is just one of my many superpowers,” he said, smiling. “I had them bring dry clothes to me when I called my team and changed in the back of the truck before they loaded that thing. Proof, I am smarter than I look.”

Lindsay just looked at him.

“OK, most of the time, smarter than I look. Looking back on things, I admit I should have done things differently.” He walked over to her and pushed her long, wet hair away from her face. “I am sorry.”

“I know you are, and I’m sorry I yelled at you. I shouldn’t have done that, no matter how angry I was,” Lindsay told him.

“Are you kidding? I’m just happy you didn’t shoot me. I have to say that it was impressive. You drew and fired three shots before Viktor, or I could even react. Are you sure that you are completely human because, after this, I am beginning to think that you’re not,” Wren said with a little smile.

“I’m human, as far as I know. There are times when I do wonder like today. Between that and Bow, I really wonder,” Lindsay told him. “Hey, let me try to call Dillon again. If he doesn’t answer, can you go get him or at least check on him?”

“Sure, I can go get the files anytime. I do have the key after all,” Wren told her, sitting across from her.

She picked up the phone on her desk and tried calling her house, but again, there was no answer. She called Dillon’s cell phone, and it went straight to voicemail. She hung up the phone and looked at Wren, shaking her head.

“I’m going, and don’t worry. I’m sure Dillon is fine. He’s fifteen, so he probably has his music turned up and isn’t hearing the phones,” Wren said as he got up and walked toward the door.

“Thank you, and I do love you,” Lindsay told him.

“I love you too,” he walked back over to her and kissed her. “I will fix this.”

Wren turned and walked out of her office. Lindsay watched him as he did, feeling better after seeing him. Somehow, he always made her feel better about things, even what had happened earlier. She began to stand and heard the door chime; thankfully, it was Viktor coming in. He turned and walked toward her office.

“Sheriff, is everything alright?” Viktor asked as he stepped just inside her office.

“Of course, it is. Why do you ask Viktor?”

“When you spoke with me while I was in my car, I thought you had been crying. I’m sorry it was my mistake,” he said politely and began to turn.

“Viktor, come in and close the door for a moment.” She waited for him to step in and close the door. “You weren’t wrong; I had been crying. It was because I was so angry about what had happened out there. If we all would have been given more information, most likely, none of that would have happened,” she told him.

“I understand completely. I once had a captain who would become so angry that when he would yell at someone, tears would stream down his face. It will be our secret. That and what happened out there,” Viktor said. “May I go now?”

“Of course. I need to recheck the weather and maps anyway,” Lindsay told him.

After he left her office, she pulled up the latest weather maps. It was not looking good. The temperatures that night would most likely fall below freezing, and if it kept raining, it could lead to an ice storm and power outages all over the county. The state highway department was taking care of blocking most of the roads that were becoming flooded due to the steady rain, so at least that was one less thing about which her department had to worry. As she looked over the new weather forecasts, the phone on her desk rang.

“Sheriff Gold,” she said when she answered.

“I thought you would be at your desk,” Wren said. “Dillon is here with Nim and Rebecca Jones. They wanted to know if they could all stay at the house because Abigail said they either had to be at our house or the church. If it gets too bad, Nim will drive them over to the church to help Abigail, Joe, and the rest of the kids at the shelter.”

“That is fine with me, but they had all better have their phones on and have the house phone where they can hear it. And they had better answer if anyone calls to check on them,” Lindsay said.

“I will let them know. Do you need anything from the house since I doubt you will be leaving your department anytime soon?”

“Some dry clothes. Just grab some of my sheriff t-shirts and some BDU pants. Don’t worry about the regular uniforms. They are horrible when they get wet.”

“I will do that and get some dry clothes for myself, too. I have the feeling that I won’t be getting a lot of sleep either. I know you, so do you want me to grab a sleeping bag for you to roll out in your office?” he asked.

“I guess great minds do think alike. I threw one in the backseat of the patrol car last night, but if you can grab some extras, will you? I have the feeling that I will have deputies and dispatchers sleeping here while the roads are flooded,” Lindsay said.

“I was planning on it, and I will grab some extra clothes just in case someone else needs them. Is there anything else that you can think of?” Wren asked.

“A box of ammo. I’m three rounds short.”