IT LIVES IN THE BASEMENT (9 page)

Ar
ound eleven, John stood, striding over and into their green and white nylon tent.  When he ducked back out a few minutes later, instead of the shorts and sandals he’d been wearing, he was dressed in jeans, a white shirt that hung to below his belt, his boots and reflecting sunglasses.  Sitting at the picnic table, John noticed Cathy staring at the holstered gun on his belt.

Forestalling Cathy’s question, with his cop look and voice, he told her, “Honey,
pretty soon we’re going to have a guest and Mark and I have to go talk with him.  We’ll have lunch and a few beers when we’re done.  I’m sorry, but I have to do this.”  After over half a lifetime of marriage, John knew Cathy understood the futility of arguing with him when he was wearing his cop attitude.

Concern on her face, Cathy simply said, “Okay, John, but remember today is your birthday
, and you’re supposed to be on vacation.  Is this about a case?”

John nodded.  “Yes, honey.  Maybe the biggest case this country has ever seen.”

Looking nervous, she asked, “What is it?  Drugs?  Gangs?  Serial murders?  What, honey?”

He smiled at her.  “You know I can’t talk with you about the case yet.  Please
, just hold on for a while.  I’ll tell you when I can.”

Stepping around him
, she started rubbing his shoulders.  “I know, I know.  But sometimes an old lady gets curious and a little nosey.”

Hearing a vehicle approaching, John glanced up, watching Alvarez dri
ve across the graveled, visitor parking lot in his big, green Blazer.  Standing and facing his life partner, he kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose. “Curious?  Yes.  Old lady and nosey?  No.”

Smiling with love, Cathy watched John’s tall, lean figure as he walked toward the visitor’s lot.

Trying unsuccessfully to nap in a chair in the shade, when Mark heard John’s receding footsteps, he struggled from the reclining lawn chair and followed.

Both wives watched as their husbands talked with the man in the green Blazer, frequently pointing across the lake.  Then John climbed into the front seat
, while Mark got into the back.  Soon the Blazer was gone from sight.  A short time later, eating lunch in the shade, neither Cathy nor Sharon noticed the three men wading through the tall weeds in the field directly across the narrow end of the lake from where they were camping.

Wading
slowly in the knee-high green weeds, the men stopped next to a small pool of shining water.  Detective Sergeant Pete Alvarez was a short, painfully thin man.  The Sergeant was picking around in the weeds, using a magnifying glass, Mark standing fifteen feet away, holding the Sergeant’s big, overstuffed briefcase.

Crouched
in the high, stifling grass, magnifying glass in his right hand, Alvarez observed, “Ah, just a deer, John, tracks and hair all over.  The deer must have slept in this spot recently.  And this track no doubt is rabbit.  This one is either a skunk or a coon.”  Standing upright, sweating and frustrated, he asked, “Damn John, where did you see the creature?”

Carter pointed and replied, “As near as I can tell, right there, where you’re standing, Pete.  It didn’t m
ove much, walked out about where you are, sat for an hour or so, did its business, screamed and left.  Right there.  I’m positive.”

Dropping to hands and knees, the short, thin Sergeant almost disappeared as he probed more carefully through the weeds.  In a few minutes, Alvarez
excitedly yelled, “My case, John.  Where is my case?”

Mark began trudging through the tall grass toward the Sergeant, holding the big, heavy briefcase out in front of him.  When he was a few feet away, Alvarez yelled at him, “Do not move
.  Do not step here, please.  Come to me over to my left more.”

Stopping in mid stride, Mark glanced down to where the Sergeant pointed, seeing nothing but more weeds, lots of k
nee-high, green weeds.  Moving around as instructed, he handed the suitcase-sized briefcase to the thin man, who opened the case, took out an even larger magnifying glass and some tweezers made of bamboo.  The Sergeant went back to hands and knees, as Carter took the case and waited, saying nothing.

Standing there, sweating in the oppressive heat, flies buzzing all around, Carter could barely stand the stink wafting off the slimy pool.  The stench reminded him of overripe, dirty diapers.  He tried breathing through his mouth, but now he could almost taste the smell.  The taste/smell made him want to gag.  Glancing over at Mark, he saw Mark was having the same problems.  He looked a little green around the gills.

The weeds shook slightly as Alvarez asked John to find his microscope and slides in his huge briefcase.  Carter took out a brown box and opened it.  He removed a microscope, and with it a box of glass slides.  He sat them on top of the brown box, and waited again.

The longer they stood out in the open, the more nervous Carter was becoming.  He kept running his eyes over the entire area, and every little noise made him reach for his revolver.  After exiting the Blazer, he
’d tucked in his shirt and unsnapped the safety strap on his holster.  He noticed Alvarez was wearing a shoulder holster, and he too had undone his strap before they entered the field. 

Carter mentally shook himself.  He knew he was overreacting, but the creature they
’d seen by this pool in the moonlight had terrified him.  At first he thought it was a large rabbit.  Then, the creature screamed.  He barely stopped himself from jumping up and fleeing to his vehicle for cover.  And that high-pitched scream still haunted him.  You only needed to hear that kind of inhuman scream once to know you never wanted to hear it again.

Disturbing Carter’s surveillance, Alvarez held up some co
arse, brown hairs, John squeezing the hairs between two glass slides.  Then Alvarez held up what resembled a child’s turd, which John also squeezed between a pair of glass slides, being very careful not to touch any of the material.

Alvarez adjusted his microscope so the small mirror caught the sun, stared into the eyepiece for a few moments, then sat back grinning.  “You have done it, John.”  Then he asked, “Now, finally, do you believe?”

Carter didn’t answer right away, and when he did it was a question, “Are you sure, Pete?  I could’ve been wrong you know?  It was dark last night when I saw the animal.”

Mark rebuked, “Come on, John
.  First night of the full Moon, not a cloud in the sky?  Hell, the Moon was so bright we baited our lines by moonlight.  And I saw that thing too, like you did, through binoculars.”  Sweat running down his reddened face, batting away files and swarming gnats, Mark asked, “Now, will one of you Super Detectives tell me what the hell we saw?  Some hybrid rabbit or what?”

Looking nervously around, Alvarez suggested, “Let us gather our equipment and leave this area, please.”

Relieved they were finally vacating the area, John hurriedly packed everything, closing the case and handing it to Mark to carry.  They turned to watch Alvarez, who removed a small bottle from his pocket, and began sprinkling a liquid around the areas they’d been standing and searching through.  Immediately Mark turned away, coughing, as Carter’s eyes began to burn, his nose looking for elsewhere to be.

Mark exclaimed loudly, “Jeez
.  What is that stuff?  It really stinks.”

Alvarez threw the one-ounce, empty bottle into the slimy pool, then waded through the tall weeds to join them.  “You said you have cold beer, John?  Ah, good, then let us go have some.”  Then he looked at Mark, and smiling answered, “Yes, that was shit, Mr. Sagano.  Human shit mixed with horse shit, and some human and horse urine.  A good cover for our smells, no?”

Alvarez took off across the field, John pacing him in the tall weeds.  Mark stood there, holding the big briefcase, watching their retreating backs, then to the smelly pool.  He quickly followed.

All the way back around the lake to the campground, Mark sat quietly in the rear, amid a jumble of cardboard boxes, and bags of plastic and canvas.  On the ride to the field, John noticed an old fishing pole, two long cases that resembled his rifle case at home, and a heavy tripod that took up almost one side of the rear seat.
  John and Alvarez didn’t speak, deep in their own thoughts.   Seeing Mark’s quizzical look in the rearview mirror, John knew Mark had lots of questions.  Being a prosecutor for the DA, Mark was used to waiting until the initial investigation was over before commencing with questions.  That time had come.

Back at the graveled
, visitor parking lot, they sat in the hot Blazer for a few minutes before Carter finally spoke.  “Pete, leave your truck here.  Mark, you and I have to get the girls packed and headed for home.  Whatever happens out here tonight, I’d feel a lot better knowing they’re safe at home.”

Alvarez nodded his approval, as Mark asked, “Why?  You think that thing, whatever it was, will come back?  What’s going on here, John?”

Alvarez nodded again, answering softly, “Yes of course, Mr. Sagano.  Whether there are clouds, or even if the weather is raining, they can only perform when the Moon is full.  They must perform, they are driven by instinct.  So for two or three nights each month, these creatures must return to their chosen places and perform.  Our greatest good fortune is John found one of these creatures.”

Mark’s face wrinkled in puzzlement.  “To perform?  Uh, excuse me Sergeant Alvarez, ah, John, what the hell is going on?  What was that thing we saw?  I think it’s time you leveled with me, buddy.”

Looking first at Alvarez, Carter turned to face Mark.  “That thing is an ancient beast, animal, whatever you want to call it.  And I mean ancient, Mark.  That beast was genetically created by one of the old Gods, long, long ago, when men were still evolving.  The creature was created by what the People back then called a God named Conquite.  Conquite considered the experiment a failure.  He threw all his failures into a slimy pool, a cesspool, and somehow this thing adapted, survived and mutated into what we saw last night.  That creature is called a Tescara, and I’m afraid there are many of the damn things all over the world.

“We think, well, I guess we know, one killed my old partner, Mike Flynn.  Pete here is our only local expert, and he says all Tescara are males.  What our visitor was doing in the field last night was masturbating into that old, open cesspool.  They also masturbate into toilets.  Whatever open body of polluted water they can find.  Somehow, their sperm lives in the sewer systems until it finds the right genetic host, and
then is born.”  Feeling uncomfortable, Carter turned to Alvarez, “Pete, you can explain this better.”

Wiping the sweat from his face on his sleeve, Alvarez asked, “Mr. Sagano, have you ever felt something touch you on your anal or genital area as you sat on a toilet?”

Looking from John back to Alvarez, Mark answered hesitantly, “Yeah, I guess I’ve felt that before.  I would think everyone has at one time or another.”

Alvarez continued, “Like most people, you probably convinced yourself you imagined the feeling, but you did not.  That sensation was Tescara sperm, Mr. Sagano, and the sperm was searching for the right genetic combination for a host.  When the sperm finds the proper host, it enters the body to grow to birth size, then the unborn Tescara eats its way out of the body through the anal/genital area.  Always the birth process is the same.  The host dies horribly, in excruciating pain
, as the unborn Tescara eats its way from the body to its birth.”

Squirming
on the rear seat, Mark exclaimed loudly, “Christ.  How come I knew you were going to say that?  But this is nuts, John.  I mean, well, you know what I mean.  Don’t you?  I mean, hell, just thinking about this could make me want to get a colostomy bag for Christ’s sake.  You guys are bullshitting me, aren’t you?  Please, say you are.”

Carter explained to
Sagano.  “I know this sounds crazy Mark, but you have to believe us.  I saw a host parent for one of these Tescara a few years ago, and the mutilation to the host body isn’t something you ever forget.  Even Pete doesn’t know what constitutes the right genetic combination for a host, but he thinks the combination has to do with blood types.  But there’s more to finding a proper host than that, because these Tescara sperm will enter a human female with the right genetic combination, but never be born.  The Tescara can only be born from a male host, and there’s never been a male parent that survived the birthing process.  If you’d seen the Mexican kid’s body, you would’ve been an instant believer.  Honest to God.”

Sagano’s brow furrowed.  “Wait.  Are you talking about that kid over on 18th street a few
years back?  That’s the same place Flynn disappeared from too, wasn’t it?  Oh my God, are you saying one of those little animals we saw was born in Flynn and that’s what killed him?”

Alvarez answered before Carter could
, “No.  Lieutenant Flynn was not a host parent, Mr. Sagano.  He was a meal for a full-grown one.  They are voracious eaters, and if they have a chance, they will eat a human being in a matter of seconds.  Oh, there are reports, one I read myself they will eat anything with blood, but I believe they prefer human beings to other animals.”

Sagano stared at them dubiously, then said, “Okay, ah, well, I’m not saying I believe any of this shit you guys are feeding me.  Yeah, I saw that
animal last night, but hell; it could’ve been a big rabbit without rabbit ears.  And now you’re trying to tell me that that little animal can take on a man and eat him?  Sorry John, but I find that kinda hard to believe.  Okay, so what are you two planning to do now?”