Man or Animal... (Part -I)

Man or Animal... (Part -I)

A Story by Christopher Paul

November 5th

 

The sky grew dark, the sunlight dim and the sound of thunder and lightning grew loud. Some people hurried home while some ran out; pulling the clothes they left to dry and anything else as they knew a storm was coming. The trees in and around the town swayed hard against the wind that was picking up speed. People got into their homes and shut their doors, locked their windows and settled their curtains. A storm, in the town of Saint Hill was rare.

 

At the edge of the town, on a little hill stood the old Wilson Observatory. Run down and abandoned for over 6 years after a tragic accident. No one had any use for it now. It just stood there and over the years had become haunted, in children’s ghost stories. On its roof stood a figure. A man in a white lab coat with a pair of binocular in his hands held at his eyes, looking at the dark clouds approaching through them. He removed them from his eyes, adjusted his glasses and steadied his foot. A man of average height and slim. Dark rings under his eyes, an un-kept beard along with messy short brown hair. His hands were covered with bandages. His coat’s pocket had a note pad with a few pens of different colours. His coat was fluttering in the strong wind and made him unbalanced.

 

“C’mon, c’mon” he muttered impatiently.

 

He turned around. At the center of the roof was a long steel pole, around 25 feet long, pointing towards the sky, bolted to the roof with big metal clamps and held steadily with 10 thick and strong metal cables. The man tapped the cables, all were tight. He looked up at the rod. It was quite steady but with a little movement. Looking at the clouds again he pulled out a small pocket watch and looked at the time. It was 9:38.

 

“Good” he said.

 

He opened a hatch on the roof that reveled a ladder leading down to the floor below. He held the hatch door with one hand as he placed his foot on the ladder. He found it hard holding up the hatch door as it was facing the strong wind. After using quite some strength he got on the ladder and closed the hatch door from inside.

 

November 18th

 

“Looks like another animal attack Martha”, called out Mr. Shawn from the living room reading the morning newspaper.

 

“Did they say what it was this time?” asked his wife from the kitchen. “Nope, still clueless” he replied.

 

“It was Mr. Dawson, Charles Dawson, lived near the post office”, he read out. “Don’t think I ever heard of him. It says, they found his car parked in the driveway, window broken, windshield cracked, huge claw marks on the seat and door. Blood inside and outside, lots of it, but no body” he continued.

 

“These animal attacks have become more serious haven’t they?” his wife said standing near the door. “What do you think it could have been?” she questioned.

 

“I don’t know dear” he replied.

 

 “Maybe a mountain Lion, Cougar or Tiger” she said.

 

“Oh! Now don’t be silly, this isn't Africa where Lions roam freely and as for Cougars and Tigers, yes, maybe but they have never been spotted or even heard around this town for years. If it could, then I think it could have been wolves. They have been seen in the wood, heard howling at night”. He said.

 

“Well whatever it is, you better be careful coming home from the office at night.” His wife said as she returned to the kitchen.

 

“Think I should take a trip to Jim’s, buy a few more bullets. But now where did I keep my revolver” Mr. Shawn muttered to himself.

 

In the middle of the town, at the police station a copy of the same newspaper was slammed on a desk.

 

“Can someone tell me why I hired you baboons?” Capt. David yelled at the staff

 

“Stella!” he called out. “What’s the progress on the missing people?”

 

“We’re still working on it” said the newly appointed deputy.

 

“What do we know about it right now?” asked the angry Capt. 

 

“Nothing, Sir” said the deputy lowering her head.

 

“That’s right you've got NOTHING!!. Not a damn thing. Two weeks, seven people missing and you've got NOTHING!!” he yelled louder.

 

Silence fell around as everyone stopped what they were doing.

 

Calming down he asked in his normal voice “So what did that animal expert say?”

 

“He’s still studying it. He can’t tell anything right now, Sir!” said the deputy nervously.

 

“WHAT!?” said the Captain getting irritated again. “Why is he a damn “ANIMAL EXPERT” if he can’t tell what animal did this? It’s been four bloody days. For god’s sake there are huge claw marks”, he said.

 

“Well Capt. The expert can’t make sense of the claw marks. He says he hasn't seen anything like them, ever”, replied the deputy.

 

“So you’re telling me there’re 7 people missing and judging from the scene of the crime, probably dead and we don’t even know what did it?” asked the Captain. “For all we know it could be a goddamn serial killer. Leaving claw marks to confuse us”.

 

“Look captain” Stella said making her way to the map of the town.

 

“The first attack was here”, she placed a board pin on the map where it happened. “Mrs. Todd, the gas station attendant. Then here, Taylor Wikson walking his dog. Then by the old railway track the two unknown druggies. Then James bringing supplies into town. Then Mr. Todd who went looking for his wife and now Mr. Dawson. Notice anything Capt.?” she asked as she placed the last pin at the post office.

 

“Yeah, all at the edge of town, remote and silent”

 

“Especially at night. That’s when all the attacks happened” added the deputy.

 

“So somebody call Van Helsing. We got a Werewolf on the loose. Haha…” said officer Thomson in a vain attempt to ease the tension in the room.

 

No one laughed. The Capt. looked at Thomson with stern eyes. Then made his way to his desk. He leaned in and said

 

“There are 6,000 people in this town. 6,000 lives in our hands. Men, women, children, elderly. 7 of them have vanished. Possibly dead. So, I don’t care if it is a vampire, werewolf or goddamn bigfoot. All I care about is finding it and stopping it. Do you understand? Thomson!”

 

Thomson nodded his head.

 

The Capt. Turned around but before going he turned back and said

 

“Come to think about it, if it is a vampire, werewolf or a bigfoot, we have a hideous beast of our own that when put in front of them three, they’d die of fright”

 

“Hideous beast?” asked Thomson.

 

“Yes, your wife” replied the Capt. followed by a wave of soft giggles.

 

“Stella, I need you to organize ten teams, each team with four officers in two cars. Form a grid and have them petrol the out skirts of the town. From the time the sun goes down to the time after it rises. From 6 to 6. Divide the time and the teams so that they cover as much ground as possible”, said the Capt.

 

“Yes, Sir!”  replied the deputy.

 

Just as the Capt. was about to leave another officer rushed in

 

“Capt. I got these two guys. They have something important you gotta hear it.”

 

The officer brought two men into the captain’s office.

 

“Morning, Captain, Sir. My name’s Bill and this is my buddy Al. I work at the cemetery and he at the morgue. You see this happened two months ago. One day during my early morning shift I found a grave dug up. I thought it was one of them grave robbers. Must have come at the dead of night. I checked the grave, belonged to a Mr. Jeremy….um…something. The grave was dug up in a hurry. Coffin lid was smashed with a sledge hammer and only the skull, a few bones and the rib cage were taken. The man had no family living here so I didn’t report it and covered it up.”

 

“Okay and the point being?” asked the captain.

 

“Well Sir, I work at the morgue down by the hospital and two months ago right around the time Bill found the grave…, we had a few bodies missing”, said Al

 

“Bodies missing?” asked the Capt.

 

“Yeah! Two old ones and one fresh one that had just come in. Never even got the chance for a post mortem”

 

“And you nor the hospital or morgue thought of reporting this?” asked the Capt.

 

“Well the old one’s families went away and the new didn’t have any”.

 

“So, does that make it okay?” said the Capt. in a stern voice

 

“Look boss, I know it’s wrong but two months ago with that flu that swept the damn town, the hospitals were crowded. You know what I mean? There were more people coming in than they were going out. And with a small staff, who can you watch? Hell even I was called off my morgue duty to tend to patients. Bring medicines, cotton and other stuff to the doctors. During that time this sicko must have taken the bodies. The point is, working at the cemetery has been Bill’s family business and I've worked at the morgue for 20 years now and never has anything like this ever happened. ”

 

“Hmmm…. Can you get the details of the missing bodies?” asked the Capt.

 

“Well we found the bodies. We were fishing yesterday and” Al pulled up a tool box and opened it. “We found the leg from one of the bodies”

 

Inside the tool box concealed in a zip lock bag was a foot with a morgue tag on the toe.

 

“We did a little search after that and in a few hours found more body parts. We have the rest of the bodies in the back of Al’s pick up. It’s been eaten up a lot but you really should take a look. It’s got these stitches.”

 

“Stitches?” asked the Capt.

 

“Yeah, the flesh and bone was cleanly cut. Like done by a professional but the shoulder and other joints have stitch marks in a circle. Like someone was trying to stitch the arm and legs to something. The head sir, has the lower jaw stitched to it from the other body.”

 

“My god!” exclaimed the captain with his hand over his mouth.

 

“Like someone cut the bodies into pieces and tried to stitch them up together. Maybe for some satanic ritual or something.”

 

The captain took a few deep breaths then walked up to the office door and called out.

 

“Dug, Jerry, Thomson. Get in here.”

 

The three officers came to the Capt.

 

“I want y’all to go with these men, their pickup truck has a box. Take it down to evidence.”

 

The captain then turned around to Bill and Al “Then I want y’all to tell these officers what you told me. Exactly what you told me.”

 

“Sure sir”, the two said as they were out.

 

Just as the Capt. was about to go back into his cabin he heard a female voice

 

“David!”

 

He turned around. It was a tall middle aged lady.

 

“Mary? What happened? What brings you here?” asked the captain

 

“You know my brother, right? William?”

 

“Yeah! Teaches biology at the High school. My daughter is in his class. Why? what happened?”

 

“I haven’t seen him for almost three weeks now. None of his colleagues or friends have either.”

© 2014 Christopher Paul


Author's Note

Christopher Paul
Please ignore the spellings and grammar mistakes. Just review the story. Thank you.

My Review

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Reviews

Chris. Good start to the story. I'm looking forward to seeing it through to the end. Here's a couple things for you though. A lot of what you have written is similar to my stories in the fact it has a "white room" feel to it. There's no description of the "where" which can hamper some of the visualization of the reader. I almost felt like the police captain was Jonah Jameson from Spiderman. Have him pace around the desk while chewing people out. Normally I'd be anti-vulgarity, but in this scene it fits and works to bring out a bit of the character. kudos on that.

One spelling idea that I thought you could use: Dug vs. Doug. Dug can be used as a nickname. but Doug is the shortened version of Douglas. Hope it helps.

I do like how you made it a journal timeline. If it could be used from first person point of view, that would make it delightful to work with. Be careful of ~ly words. When I read them I remove them from the sentence, if it works without, I leave it out. If I can show the ly action or feeling in another manner I do it in another manner. From above: "come on come on." he muttered impatiently. Show his impatience with fidgeting, looking around, etc. Comes out better in the end.

Again, keep working on it. Have some fun with it too!!

Posted 9 Years Ago


Christopher Paul

9 Years Ago

Thank you so much for the review. This is actually my first attempt at this type of story writing an.. read more
This made me stuck up till the end only to know it isn't finish. Please continue this I'd like to read more. It's a great story, one of those horrors. Wonderful story.

Posted 9 Years Ago


Christopher Paul

9 Years Ago

Thank you so much.
Mirra

9 Years Ago

You're welcome :-)
Nooo! I didn't know it was like a cliffhanger, now that's going to bother me all week! This is a great story, it's really interesting and I can't wait to hear how it ends! Please write quickly, I don't know I can survive without knowing the ending!

Posted 9 Years Ago


Christopher Paul

9 Years Ago

Thank you and I'm glad you liked it and I'm sorry to inform you this story is in 4 parts. So, it'll .. read more
Daaauuuummm. This is one creepy story. It's good, really good, but not the type of story I tend to read. Still really good though.

Posted 9 Years Ago



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Added on May 14, 2014
Last Updated on May 14, 2014
Tags: Fiction, monster, Creature