"Not good, Sheriff."
That was the situation, according to the arresting officer. He had a young man in cuffs sitting on the ground against the body of an old model, rusted out Chevy. Another group of officers were clustered together at their vehicles, talking and looking toward a small, dilapidated building. There was a sizable hole in the brick facade.
"Doug? What's going on out here?" The voice behind him made Doug Waters sigh in relief. Now he could get back into the territory he knew - dealing with crime. Jesse Caldwell, Social Services Specialist extraordinaire could sort out the "personalities" involved.
"Jesse, thanks for making the drive," he said - gratitude more than apparent in his voice.
"Are we still in Wheaton County?" she asked, only half-joking. They stood, a motherly figure and the aging sherrif, in a field of old vehicles, weeds and litter cluttering the grass around sun baked fenders and random engine parts.
"Barely," he mumbled in response to her question. It had taken two dirt roads and crossing a cattle guard to get out to the "Vintage Vehicle Viewing Museum", but the ruckus had obviously caught enough attention to actually get them here.
"Did I ruin your Sunday?" he asked, going for easy banter with a woman he really wanted to get to know better.
"Well, I guess if somebody was going to, I'm glad it was you." Jesse smiled a little, blushing like a girl still in her twenties.
Sheriff Waters was just getting up the nerve to ask about coffee at a certain cafe when a deputy interrupted their "moment."
"Doug, I can hear it again...movin' around in there."
"Tell me you didn't try and go in there," Sheriff Waters sighed, burdened with to many cocksure kids in volatile times.
"You bet your ass I didn't."
Well, at least there was that. Maybe too many video games and shoot 'em ups put some sense into them rather than the other way around. There might me a chainsaw wielding gorilla or something in there after-all.
"They said Mrs. Reed's still in the hospital, right?" Jesse asked as she and the sheriff made their way to the building.
"I'm guessing," he said, "since last I heard she was near-in a coma or something. Neighbors say she suffered a bad stroke few weeks back and they haven't seen anybody out here since. Thing is, center got a 911 call early this morning - mostly static, but it was alive line. So we sent a patrol out and next thing you know, couple of my boys see the side of the building just explode outward." They had started picking their way through the debris of brick and wood toward the gaping hole. "They picked up that guy about 20 feet away," he said, referring to the cuffed individual. "He said he was trying to crawl in a window when he got thrown, uh, out, with the wall following suite."
"Doug, what am I doing here?" Jesse asked, leaning into the dark building through the irregular opening.
"Well, neighbors also say there's some kind of person been wondering around the pastures at night. This is the only place with a building on it and there haven't been reports from the farmers that their houses or barns were invaded, so I took a wild guess that there might be someone else here. Someone who wired up an explosion to keep our friend over there out. And to tell you the truth, if it's someone holed up and wandering around at night...well...I couldn't for the life of me think of who else to call."
"Degenerates Are Us, Doug? Is that it?" Jesse crossed her arms, expressing slight indignation.
The sheriff snorted. "If that's all I thought of you, Jess, you'd still be enjoying your after-church-lunch right now." With that, he stepped out of the bright morning light into the dusty darkness and clicked on his flashlight. "Whoever's here is probably scared enough and I thought maybe you could come down and talk 'em out of here without us having to go in and drag someone out."
"Some of your officers talk like they saw something, like a phantom or ghost."
At that moment, just as Jess was following him into the dark, a pale figure crossed a doorway on the edge of the light. She had to do a few moments of breath holding to keep herself from running. Doug swung the flashlight around, the beam dancing off of chrome. They were in some kind of "showroom" of the museum and had to work their way around several old machines to get to the door. Doug didn't hesitate in shining his flashlight around the corner, braver than Jess would have been by far. There was a short hall and a closed door in the direction the figure had gone.
No, not closed they discovered as the light revealed a darker line where the door had been left slightly open. From that dark aperture, a sudden gleam off a mirrored surface sent Jessie's heart skittering like a mouse running for cover. She felt the sheriff jump as well, but the more experienced man recovered quickly and went forward to push the door open.
In the darkened room beyond, there was a small pool of light from a battery powered lantern and the faint outline of a figure just beyond the light.
"Hello?" said Jessie. "Hey, my name is Jessie. Are you okay in here?"
Silence.
"Hey, if you're afraid, you don't need to be with me." She moved past the protective form of the sheriff and held up her hands in a placating gesture.
"I'm not afraid," said a clear, quiet female voice.
"What's your name?" Jessie asked, reaching a hand into the weak lantern light toward the figure.
"Skies," said the woman. A hand, white as chalk, hesitantly grasped Jessie's.
"Is that a name or a nickname?" she asked, slightly pulling Skies into the light.
Pale, pink eyes moved between Jessie and Sheriff Waters. The pale hand drew back to push a strand of milk white hair away from the waxen face, then moved to clutched a pair of sunglasses as if she thought they might be taken away.
"It was an accident," Skies said, ignoring the previous question. "He was breaking in and I just wanted him to leave."
"You're not in any trouble right now miss," said Sheriff Waters, finally finding his voice. He went into business mode to compensate for the momentary shock "What's your real name?"
"Jeahana Reed," she said, looking at the floor as if admitting her name was some king of unacceptable behavior.
"You haven't been out here alone since Caroline got sick, have you?" Jessie asked, noting how the t-shirt and jeans seemed to hang on the small woman's thin frame. Even the white cotton of the simple shirt seemed dingy against the pallor of Skies' skin.
"Aunt Carrie said to watch the place while she was gone. She said she just had to go to the doctor and would be back soon."
"How long has it been since you ate?" asked the sheriff, looking around and seeing nothing but shelf upon shelf of books.
Skies shrugged. "It was okay until the lights and water turned off. Then I just read up on herbology and went out a night."
Sheriff Waters was out of his depth. "You read about what?"
"Hey Doug," Jesse interrupted. "Why don't you go tell the folks outside everything's all right and see if we can't clear some space to take Miss Reed into town."
"Mitch, go clear 'em back," Sheriff Waters said to his deputy. The small band of police had been joined by a couple curious farmers. They shuffled back from where they had been beginning to inspect the damage to the building; all except the young man in cuffs on the ground and his warden.
"What's with him?"
The bored police officer looked down and nudged his charge who seemed to be peacefully napping in the sun. "He was in a state when we got out here, talking about lightening from a clear sky. Guess he's sleeping it off."
Doug Waters sighed, feeling like a long-suffering parent, and gestured to the figures of Jessie and Skies to come out. Even the birds seemed shocked into silence at the appearance of the small, albino woman with her mirrored sunglasses and mane of long, snowy hair. Everyone just stared. Skies got as far as the rusted out body of the Chevy before stopping and staring back.
"It's all right," said Jessie. "You don't have to be afraid."
"You're afraid," said Skies, putting her hand on the old car as if to steady herself. "You're afraid for me." She rubbed her hand over the peeling paint on the hood of the car. It was almost as if she were talking to the old machine rather than Jessie.
Then she did something no one would forget for a long time. She looked down at her hand and seemed to trace a line to the man sitting on the ground.
"He's hurt," she said, softly, clearly. "Glass..." Skies abruptly took her hand from the old car, turned and walked to Jessie.
Sheriff Waters watched them get in the Jessie's SUV and start on their way before going over to the man by the car. He shook him a couple times and only received a low moan in response before the young man slumped sideways, revealing a congealing pool of blood in the long grass.
More to come...