Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (76 page)

Parker read on silently.

Rabies in humans is considered one hundred percent fatal, since once symptoms appear, there is no known cure and death is inevitable. Even treatment administered after exposure and before the onset of symptoms is not completely reliable and neither is pre-exposure inoculation. However, there has been one known survivor in hundreds of thousands of confirmed cases. A twelve
-year-old boy in Indiana, bitten on the hand by a rabid bat, survived after months of intensive hospital treatment.

Transmission of the virus to humans may occur from any warm-blooded animal, including birds, cattle, and horses, but especially from raccoons, skunks, wolves, coyotes, bats, wildcats, domestic cats, dogs and even other humans. The virus may enter the body from any open wound or scratch or mucous membrane, from the bite or even the lick of an infected animal. In one instance, the virus was transmitted to a couple of spelunkers in aerosol fashion from bat urine in a cave.

Human rabies symptoms usually appear within five to fifteen days. However, in unconfirmed cases, the onset of symptoms has been reported to have occurred in as much as a year after infection or in as little as four days. In a few rare and questionable cases, the onset of symptoms was claimed to have occurred within twenty-four hours. It is thought the amount of infection and the proximity of the bite to the brain of the patient are the biggest factors determining the length of time before symptoms occur.

Parker frowned, thinking of his neck wound.

Symptoms generally occur in three stages, but they are not always clearly defined. Initially, there may be fever and swelling around the wound. Soon after, there may be times of body fever, headaches, and nausea. A loud and irritating ringing of the ears may occur. The patient may attack others and tear clothing in fits of anger. The male patient sometimes experiences a painful erection. All human patients seem to have a fear of water, or hydrophobia, and experience excruciatingly painful convulsions of the throat at the sight or even the thought of it (unlike popular belief, this symptom is rare in canines). The tongue might swell, and the body’s joints are likely to become extremely stiff and achy. Paralysis is followed shortly by death in the final stage.

Julie set her magazine on the nightstand on her side of the bed, switched off the light and rolled over to Parker. She snuggled her head on his shoulder. Her hair was soft and smelled fresh and clean. Her hand moved slowly and gently from his stomach to just underneath the waistband of the boxer shorts he wore like pajamas. “How about putting that down and holding me instead?”

Parker smiled, dropped the thesis to the floor and turned off his light. After much tenderness and considerate love making, they fell asleep.

*-*-*

The dark figure crouched close to the five-foot chain-link fence that surrounded the Parkers’ backyard. He looked up at the unlit, second-story master bedroom window with his right eye, a black patch covering his left. Deep, jagged scars disfigured that side of the small Oriental man’s face. He was dressed all in black.

“Patience, my friend,” he whispered, his fingers squeezing the heavy wire fence.

Yankee stood, tail wagging, nuzzling the man’s fingers. He whined, chimpanzee-like, begging for a scratch behind the ear.

The man looked at the dog and smiled. He pushed away from the fence and trotted down the street, head and shoulders hunched over.

*-*-*

Tony Parker’s eyelids rolled back to brightness. White, white, everything was white. A sheet covered his face.
It must be morning
.

His neck throbbed, painful and deep. He felt of it gently without disturbing the sheet. The wound had swollen to enormous proportions. It throbbed hard, and he could feel it in his fingers. It was hot, burning.

Parker grimaced. His frown began to exaggerate over his face, wrinkling his nose and curling his lips, exposing large, inhuman teeth—carnivorous, long fangs. He could feel his face distorting, bones expanding, nose growing. It stretched out from his face into a snout. Thick dark hair began to sprout over his face and hands. His eyes yellowed. His ears grew pointed. His fingernails curled into large dark claws.

He tried to speak but growled instead, confused, scared.

He felt mad, enraged, but didn’t understand why. He had an overwhelming hunger. He wanted meat; fresh, raw meat—a fresh kill, bloody and raw.

Someone entered the room. They rustled beside the bed.

He could see shapes through the thin sheet. A woman stood holding a baby in one arm, smiling with her finger to her lips while looking at a young boy. They were familiar, yet he couldn’t remember them. He was confused, disoriented. Julie, he remembered. Her name was Julie, his wife. His children, Audrey and Nicholas, were with her. It meant nothing.

“
Shhh
,” she whispered. “Let’s surprise Daddy. We’ll scare him.”

Parker’s lip twitched as it curled. He licked his snout.

They moved closer to the bed. Nicholas giggled with excitement. They leaned their heads close to Parker’s sheet-covered face.

He growled low without wanting to.
Come no closer. Get back. Run!

Nicholas giggled again and reached for the top of the sheet.

Parker growled once more.

Nicholas yanked the sheet back, and the horrible monster that Tony Parker had become leapt out. It tore into the woman’s throat, blood spraying, then ran the boy down at the doorway, tearing into his neck as the child cried, “No, Daddy, no!”

The boy lay lifeless on the floor, and the terrible thing returned for the infant.

*-*-*

Parker’s body jolted as he gasped and his eyes snapped wide. He lay on his stomach, heaving through his open mouth. The bright-red eyes of the clock radio next to the bed looked back at him with an evil stare. It was eleven thirty. The bedroom was dark.

“Tony, are you all right? What’s wrong?” Julie asked, lying with her back to him, still half asleep.

She rolled over slowly as he rose to his elbows and he looked to her. She was okay, alive. His beautiful wife, Julie, was all right. But it was so real—too damned real to be a dream.

He pushed out of bed and strode to the medicine cabinet mirror in the master bathroom, flipping on the light as he went in. He saw
himself
. The same face looked back as did any other time. Nothing different—no werewolf. It was a dream, so terrifying, yet so real. He peeled back the bandage on his neck and looked underneath. The wound wasn’t swollen. It wasn’t warm. It didn’t throb.

He returned to the bedroom, going to the window. The street below was dark. It
was
the middle of the night.

A chill shot up his spine as he looked out. Something was wrong. He couldn’t figure it for sure, but something was wrong out there. He looked down the dimly lit street. A car, a light-colored truck or van maybe, started its engine, turned on its lights and drove away. Tony watched the crimson glow of the taillights until they disappeared into the night.

“Sweetheart, you all right?” Julie asked, her voice groggy. She rubbed her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sorry. Just a bad dream.”

“Come on back to bed,” she coaxed and patted the place beside her.

Parker didn’t answer but obeyed. He sat down on the side of the bed and scratched his head.

“Come on and lie down,” Julie said and reached over and touched his side. “What was the dream about?”

“Nothing.”

Parker lay down. Julie rolled back over, and he moved in behind her. He put his arms around hers and pulled as close as he could without hurting her. Julie stroked his forearm and snuggled the back of her head underneath his chin and her hips against his groin.

“Nothing,” he whispered.

CHAPTER 4

S
ilent darkness. Light filtered through a tear in Alvin MacGreggor’s living room window shade from a bright, blue-white full moon. It cast eerie shadows and dark shapes throughout the room. The sheer curtains on the window flowed airily from the gentle breeze of a large box fan.

It was one of those hot, sticky, Kansas nights with both the temperature and the humidity more than ninety. It would be almost unsurvivable without a fan to cool the sweat-dampened skin, still nearly unbearable without air conditioning.

Eighty-five-year-old MacGreggor slept peacefully in his worn out La-Z-Boy. Overdressed for the heat, he wore light-blue pajamas, a red-plaid robe, brown slippers and had covered himself up to his chest with a tattered quilt—evidence of poor circulation.

Fluctuating lights from the graphic equalizers of a compact disc player in the corner made an intermittent soft green glow. After a lull between songs, Enya began singing
China Roses
, melodically, soft and inviting—of a
new world—heaven….

Slowly, deliberately, a huge, jet-black form moved past the dining room table and into the living room directly toward the old man. The huge shape advanced fluidly, its back and hackles, sleek and stealthy, like that of a jungle cat.

It eased to a stop mere inches from the old man’s face. A low, rumbling growl slowly erupted from the enormous animal’s throat as it revealed tremendous, white fangs.

Enya’s ethereal voice sings of China Roses….

“Jezebel? Is that you, Jezebel?” The old man wrenched his face to focus on the black image looming in front of him in the darkness.

The Great Dane gazed at him, motionless. A terrible battle raged inside her head as she remembered a human’s voice say,
Man—enemy. Kill!

MacGreggor reached out as if to a friend who had come to his sick bed. He stroked the shadow’s neck just below her pointed ear with the back of his hand.

The dark animal bowed her head and licked her chops. With large dark eyes, she watched the arm extending out beside her.

Enya sings of following a new moon….

She looked over to a well-chewed, red-rubber dog bone near the door, glanced toward her water and food bowls in the kitchen and then looked back at MacGreggor’s face. She whined softly, but then another low growl came involuntarily.
Man enemy. Kill—kill—kill!

“Jazbo?”

The huge Great Dane’s reply came swiftly as her fangs pierced deep into the old man’s neck, tearing the right jugular vein and then struck again in a death grip over his throat.

Vertebrae crunched like cracking knuckles.

MacGreggor’s face contorted with a frightened and frantic look as if searching into the darkness for help that would not come, salvation that would pass him by. The old man gurgled with deep red bubbles growing in his open mouth. He convulsed spastically, his life pumping from his body, gushing and squirting out into the mouth of the huge canine, overflowing and streaming down her neck. Blood, splashing off the old man’s chin, splattered into the merciless animal’s already red eyes as she held her grip until the old man convulsed and shook and shuddered no more.

Enya sings about seeing the sun…the stars.

CHAPTER 5

Lt.
Jack Simpson parked the brown, unmarked Chevy police car in front of Thelma’s Diner and gave a deep sigh. The bright, already steamy morning caused sweat beads on his dark-chocolate forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot. It had been a long night on the job.

The diner was small and made from concrete block, painted white, but neat and clean both outside and in. It was a local hangout for the city police and in the white gravel parking lot, Simpson noticed a patrol car along with an old green Ford pickup and a blue Volkswagen bug. He pushed out of the car and took slow, tired steps to the door of the diner. The smell of bacon lured strong and tempting, but he would settle for a cup of coffee. He’d unwind a bit in Thelma’s and then have a bowl of Cheerios with his three young daughters when he got home. After that, he’d get a few hours
’ sleep. He looked forward to a much-needed rest this weekend. The only thing going on was Tony and Julie Parker’s picnic on Sunday. A nice peaceful weekend.

Simpson swung the door in without looking.

A young uniformed cop caught it with a Styrofoam cup, and coffee dumped down his front.

“Oh, damn. Sorry!” Simpson said.

The lanky, baby-faced cop said nothing but gaped down at his stained uniform.

“What do you think you’re doing to my partner, Simpson?” an officer of about fifty boomed.

“Well,
Big Jim
Morowsky. How the hell are you?” Simpson held his hand out with a big smile on his face. Morowsky was a tall man, well over six feet, with a belly that had been forced too many beers and late-night leftovers.

“I’m doing great,” Morowsky said, taking his hand, “but I can see you’re still causing trouble.”

“Yeah.” Simpson looked at the young cop. “Sorry about that, my man.”

“Cox, this is the orneriest detective you’ll ever care to meet, Jack Simpson. Simpson, meet Farley Cox, first day on the job.”

“You’re shittin’ me,” Simpson said. “Hope you’re good at baby-sitting.”

“Aw, he’s not going to be so bad,” Morowsky replied. “He’s John Cox’s son.”

“Hell, Morowsky, I meant he was babysitting you!”

They both laughed.

“Watch it Simpson. I’ve still got pull downtown. One call, and I could have you back in a squad car, right alongside me.”

“You know, that wouldn’t be so bad.” Simpson grinned. He and Morowsky had been teamed together twenty years earlier when it wasn’t so cool to have an African American as a partner. Simpson said to Cox, “So you’re John
The Man’s
son, huh? You’ve got some big shoes to fill, kid.”

The shy young officer smiled and nodded.

“Hey, we’ve got to go,” Morowsky said. “Have to check on an elderly resident that doesn’t answer his door. I’ll chew the fat with you later, Simpson.”

“From the looks of it, there’ll be plenty to chew.” Simpson patted Morowsky’s gut. “Take care of old man Morowsky, Cox. He’s kind of feeble without his cane.”

“Bite me, Simpson!” Morowsky said with his back turned and then exited.

Jack Simpson smiled and swung around to the first empty booth.

“The usual, Jack?” a heavyset, graying redhead in a white dress asked.

“Yeah, thanks, Thelma.”

Within a minute, she brought a cup of steaming coffee to his table along with a spoon and a glass of ice water.

“Rough night, Jack?”

“Uh-huh….” Simpson took a tentative sip of the scalding coffee, then winced as he set it down and spooned in two teaspoons of ice. “Dead kids and drugs.”

Thelma frowned and shook her head. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Well, you just sit here and relax. The coffee’s on the house.”

Simpson gave a thankful smile, and Thelma walked away.

He was halfway finished, taking small tastes, when a static squawk came from the seat across from him. Simpson rose to see a police walkie-talkie.

“Damn.” Simpson got up, reached over and picked up the radio. “Can you put my coffee in a take-out cup, Thelma?”

Thelma glanced over. “Sure, Jack.”

She poured fresh coffee into a Styrofoam cup, put a plastic lid on it and handed it to Simpson when he met her across the counter.

“Thanks, Thelma. You’re a sweetheart.”

Thelma winked, and Simpson went through the doorway.

“Six Adam Three to Sergeant Jim Morowsky. You read me Morowsky?” Simpson asked, sitting in his parked car.

“Five Adam Seven. Morowsky. Go ahead, Six Adam Three.”

Jack Simpson thought for a second. He didn’t want the dispatcher, or any of the other officers, to know about them leaving a radio. They could get written up for it.

“Uh, this is Simpson. I think I’ve got something you might want. If you give me your location, I’ll meet you there.”

*-*-*

Morowsky looked at Cox as they pulled up to the curb in their patrol car. Cox grabbed for the empty radio pouch on his belt. He was in deep shit now. Morowsky had given him the responsibility of carrying their only hand-held radio, and Cox had left it at the diner. He remembered getting all excited when their first call came in. Morowsky let him answer it. When he was done stuttering to the dispatcher, he’d laid it on the seat as he got out of the booth.

“Our twenty is eleven thirty-seven Whiteside,” Morowsky said into the microphone. “Appreciate it Jack.” He returned the mike to its hook.

Cox looked out his side window, away from Morowsky’s frown. This was it, Cox’s first call as a Wichita police officer. Now was his chance to prove to his father and the rest of the world he was a real man, that he could be a good cop, but he certainly started the day off wrong.

He’d had a lucky break, drawing Morowsky as a partner. When the shit hit the fan, Morowsky was known to be the guy to have at your back. He was a lot like Cox’s father. John
the Man
Cox had retired just last year as one of the most decorated cops in Wichita history.

Although Big Jim’s actions didn’t always show it
, he didn’t appear to mind babysitting a rookie, especially a rookie whose father was a local hero.

Officer Cox looked at the small, white house as he opened the passenger’s side door. It seemed out of place on the big corner lot. Paint was peeling, and a number of the old shake shingles were missing, unlike the other well-kept homes in the neighborhood. The lawn was a surprise, nice and neatly cut by a caring neighbor, no doubt, but looking close, it was only trimmed crab grass and dandelions.

An elderly woman came scurrying toward the two uniformed cops as they stepped onto the lawn. Deeply wrinkled, tired flesh hung from her cheekbones and sagged in jowls, adding to the worried look that filled her face. The skin of her arms drooped on her slight frame creating the look of a bony skeleton slipped into a body too big.

“Are you Mrs. Crane?” Sergeant Morowsky asked, while adjusting his baton and pulling up his pistol belt.

“Yes. I’m sorry to trouble you officers. It’s just that Mr. MacGreggor always answers the door when I stop in on my morning walk. If I’d had a key, I would of went on in to see if he was okay, but he isn’t a very trusting soul,” the elderly woman said. “I check on him every morning. Then, every afternoon I bring him his mail and read it to him. And then I feed his….”

“All right, ma’am, no trouble at all,” the sergeant interrupted. “We’ll check it out. I’m sure he’s all right. Are you sure he’s even home?”

“The old fool had better be. I told him not to go anywhere without letting me know. He doesn’t get around that well anymore.”

The sergeant strode up and onto the wood porch. Cox followed directly behind, adjusting his baton and pulling up his pistol belt, mimicking the sergeant.

Officer Cox’s tan uniform was crisp and neatly pressed except for the wet coffee spot darkening a large area on his right side. It extended from just below his gun belt down to his knee.

The old woman eyed the spot then glanced up at the rookie’s face and back at the spot with a questioning look. The rookie rubbed it, hoping, somehow, that would make it vanish. His attention was too much on the coffee stain and not enough on the first step of the porch.

“Oh-ooph!” Cox grunted as his left toe kicked the first riser and his right toe followed, sprawling him out on the steps.

The sergeant looked over his shoulder at the embarrassed rookie. “Get on your feet, junior. We got work to do.” He rolled his eyes and pushed out an extended sigh.

Cox lifted himself and brushed off, wondering how he was going to make a good cop if he couldn’t even climb simple steps. He wanted to make it real bad. He may not become a great cop like his father, but he was going to try his hardest to be a good one.

Mrs. Crane hung back in the front yard, fretting. “Oh, I hope he’s all right. He
is
a pain in the butt most of the time, but I do hope he hasn’t passed. I wouldn’t know how to fill my days without taking care of the old crank.”

Cox’s eyes widened when he heard the word
passed
. He didn’t know if he could take seeing a corpse, a
dead man
, yet. He knew it would happen someday, but he prayed it would not be today.

The sergeant gave a few taps on the door and then called out, “Mr. MacGreggor. Mr. MacGreggor, are you in there?”

Not hearing a response, the sergeant stepped to the left and peered through the living-room window with his hands to the pane. Cox looked in over the sergeant’s shoulder, but with the bright sun shining from behind, no lights on inside, all shades drawn and only a narrow space between the shade and the window frame, it was difficult to make out anything in the dark house. All he could see was his partner’s strained face in the reflection of the glass.

“What the . . . ?” The sergeant seemed stunned, his brows pulling to the middle of his forehead in a frown. He sidestepped back to the door, grabbed the doorknob and shook it.

“What’s wrong, Sarge?” Cox demanded.

The sergeant didn’t answer as he shouldered the door twice, finally breaking in. The junior man rushed in behind with his hand on the handle of his gun and heart racing.

Mr. MacGreggor lay in his La-Z-Boy as peaceful as could be—with his jugular vein ripped open. Dried blood stained the side of the chair. It made a dark spot the size of a couch cushion on the light green carpet beneath it.

“Ho-lee shit!” Cox exclaimed.

The two approached the dead man slowly, Cox taking care to keep Morowsky in between. This sight hadn’t set too well with the jelly doughnut he’d had at Thelma’s half an hour earlier. The pastry tasted sour the second time around as he tried to keep it down.

“Somebody cut his throat!” Cox blurted.

“No, this ain’t no cut,” Morowsky said, inspecting the gash. “This looks like—teeth marks. Some kind of animal.” His eyes widened, and he seized the grip of his holstered .40 caliber Glock 22 and scanned the room. “Get out! Get out and call for back up!” he shouted. “I don’t know what the hell did this!”

Cox bolted out the doorway and hurdled the porch steps. He held onto his hat with one hand and, in nervous confusion, pulled out his Glock semi-automatic with the other.

Mrs. Crane sidestepped out of his way and ran toward her porch steps next door.

As he landed on the sidewalk, Cox fumbled his gun. It flipped up, spinning. He slapped it to the concrete, trying to snatch it from midair. The gun bounced once. He met it with the toe of his right foot, kicking it across the yard and under the patrol car.

He went to his hands and knees and groped frantically under the car for the gun.

Hysterical screams came from inside the house. Then a plea, “Help!”

Cox jumped up, his search brief and unsuccessful. “Sarge?” he answered, his high-pitched voice cracking.

He ran toward the house to help his partner, nervously grabbed his empty holster, then ran back to the squad car to radio for help. The young man’s hands trembled out of control as he made the call. His face dripped sweat, and his uniform shirt, crisp and dry moments before, was dark and spotted from perspiration.

“F-f-five Adam Seven to dispatch.”

“This is dispatch,” a voice squawked the calm reply. “Go ahead, Five Adam Seven.”

“Uh, uh. . . . ” Cox knew there must be a number designation for what had happened here, but he couldn’t remember. “We’ve got a, uh, two-eleven, uh, no a five, uh—shit! There’s a dead man. Eleven thirty-seven Whiteside. His throat’s all tore up. We need help, backup, right away!”

Cox threw the microphone back into the car. He needed a gun. He had to find
his
gun. He stammered like a chicken surrounded by coyotes, jockeying back and forth around the car in indecision.

The rookie took a last, brief look under the car. No luck. He must help his partner. He approached the house in slow stumbling steps. Perspiration spilled from Cox’s pores, running from the sweatband of his cap, down his forehead and into his eyes. His jaw and lip trembled and he breathed from his open mouth. And then he froze. He froze like a statue out on MacGreggor’s lawn, so solidly that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to move even when backup arrived. They’d find him standing there, waiting for pigeons to crap on his shoulders with his partner in some sort of horrifying fix inside the house only thirty feet away. He couldn’t move. Every joint was locked. He tried to force himself but it was like when his father held him down when he was little, covering young Farley’s mouth, forcing him to stop crying. His father’s hand had remained clamped over his mouth no matter how much Farley had gasped, blew mucous out his nose, struggled for air.
There aren’t any damn monsters in your damn closet!