DING
The doorbell rang on inside, but it took a while before steps approached. He leaned on the doorway and took one last drag on his new cigarette, then tossed it.
The smoke dispersed as Golem waited patiently under the steps.
The door opened. A frail woman of short stature looked him up and down mistrustfully. "And you might be?"
He put on a professional smile and tried to shake off any world-weariness he might've been feeling. "Good day, ma'am. I'm Winnie Alec, licenced wildlife Regulator. I've been hired by village council to eschew the Graveler problem. I'm to assume your daughter is a victim-"
She grabbed his vest and pulled him inside, checking left and right in the street. "Who told you about my little Zoe?"
Alec found himself wrong-footed. "Ma'am. It's the council's duty to give me the information I need to-"
"Her." She scowled. "I know it was the bird woman. Every little thing that happens in this town has to go through her. Come this way." He followed her through a cramped little hall, beckoning Golem to stay outside. The woman appeared not to have noticed it. She sat him down at a little dining table. "Want some coffee? Tea?"
"Coffee's fine," he said. Hospitality was a pleasant surprise.
She put on a kettle and scooped teaspoons of coffee into a cup. "The doctor's checking up on her right now. She comes by every few hours or so."
"I'm sorry this had to happen to your girl. Do you mind me asking how severe the injuries are?"
The woman grabbed a dishtowel and wiped up the grains she'd spilled. "What those monsters did… when I saw her lying there, I thought she was… Oh god… I shoulda known it was a bad idea, moving to the middle of nowhere."
Uh-oh. The woman was starting to delve into her life story. He remembered she hadn't even introduced herself yet. "'Scuse me, I don't believe I ever got your name."
"It's Sheila. We're the Cormacs." She poured hot water from the kettle. "Milk?"
"Thanks, I go without." She handed him the cup and sat down opposite him. "I gather you don't like the folk around here?"
She looked out the window. There were red circles under her eyes. "I dunno. They're very nice. Just about the whole village came knocking on my door to introduce themselves the day we moved in. They all said 'call us if you need any help at all. They came back knocking nearly every day. They wanted to make us part of them, whatever it took. Heck, maybe I'm just not trusting."
She looked tired to him. A deep-set tiredness that creeps up on you after years of being tired. "Did they come knocking yesterday when your girl was attacked?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Yeah. They came afterward. All of them offering help. I said 'thankya' and asked to leave us in piece, not to tell everybody what had happened. Just want her to rest up nice and well. It's good that the doctor keeps coming here, though. I didn't even need to call her. She just showed up."
He tasted his coffee. It was still hot, but the bitterness pleased him. "Sounds like a tight-knit community. What happened to your girl yesterday?"
The woman paused, then took a breath. "Well, I was at home all day. Then-"
"We're all done." An older woman appeared by the stairs, a young girl next to her. The woman was in plain clothes and had a leather bag over her shoulder. Her caring, yet stone-cold expression screamed "doctor". The girl, Zoe, was even smaller than Alec had been expecting. She wore an oversized nightgown and a bandage covered her left eye. Purple bruising stained the milky skin on her arms, some of it looking close to major trauma. It almost hurt Alec's stone heart and he'd seen many things.
Ms. Cormac went over to her daughter and hugged her gently. "Oh, my poor little girl."
"I'm fine, mommy," the girl said, patting her mother's shoulder. Alec wondered which of the two looked more beaten down.
The doctor appraised him shrewdly. "You're the Exterminator we called."
Alec's eyes widened. It was a good deduction. "To my clients, I'm usually a Regulator. You must be a village councilwoman, doctor."
She shrugged. "Call a spade a spade. I take it you're here to for Zoe?"
"I want to ask her some questions. Try and get a feel for the situation."
The doctor smiled dryly. "Then I'll take my leave. I'll come tomorrow with fresh bandages, make sure the wounds are healing nicely."
Ms. Cormac thanked her and the woman left into the setting afternoon. She had looked quite comfortable in a stranger's home. Either she was a visiting doctor or it was just the village nature.
"This man is here to take away the monsters that hurt you," Ms. Cormac told her daughter, holding her close.
"They're not monsters, mommy," said the girl. She looked at Alec with one big eye, unafraid.
"Let's sit down on the couch," said mommy, ignoring her daughter's words. She took them through a door and they sat down in a modest living room. As soon as Zoe took her seat, shifting carefully to avoid pain, a Herdier padded into the room out of nowhere, climbed on the couch and curled itself next to her.
"This is Happy. He's our dog," she said, smiling warmly. "He saved me yesterday. Didn't you. Didn't you, little muffin." She ruffled its ears. The dog yawned amiably.
Alec pressed his hands together. "So, tell me what happened to you yesterday."
"I got beat up by those rock-animals," the girl said, like it happened every day. Alec heard her mother mouth "monsters" silently.
He looked out through the window and noticed a padded boulder outside. Golem was resting in the yard. "Were you outside alone?"
"No. My new friend Betty came over to play, but mommy said we had to stay near the house."
"Did you stay near the house?"
"…No." Zoe turned away in shame. "I asked if I could borrow her bicycle and she said yes. Betty sat on the porch and I went to the end of the street, then I wanted to go back, but..." She nibbled on her lip. "There was a cat that meowed really loud."
"You saw a cat? What kind of cat?" Getting information out of a child could be difficult, but they seldom lied. Alec had enough experience to know every detail was crucial.
"I don't know. I didn't see it. I heard it meowing, like, really loud. I was worried it was hurt. Then Happy started barking and running to it."
"It? The meowing?"
"Yes. I got scared Happy would run away. I chased him, but he was too fast." Ms. Cormac stroked her daughter's short hair. Her face was dripping with guilt. "Mommy said I couldn't go far, but I did. I was bad. I'm sorry, mommy." There were tears glistening in both their eyes.
"It's okay, baby," mommy whispered. "It's okay."
The poor girl, thought Alec. No wonder her mother was a mess. "Did you follow your dog? Happy?"
"I tried to keep up, but I couldn't find him. I got lost and I started crying, but nobody helped me."
Alec looked at Ms. Cormac. "Aren't people around here supposed to be helpful?" The mother shrugged and shook her head.
"There was nobody there. All the houses were empty," said Zoe.
"What do you mean?" Alec asked.
"The houses had no people inside. They were old houses with no windows."
"You went to Jackal street?!" Her mother practically screeched. "Zoe, you must not go there ever again! Those abandoned houses are dangerous!" The girl threw her arms around her and uttered muffled apologies.
"I know this must be hard," said Alec. "But what happened on that street?"
Zoe was red in the face. "I... well, I saw Happy. He ran to me and barked. I thought he sounded worried and I tried calm him down, but he kept barking. Then he ran to where I came from. I tried to follow him back, but then the big rocky animal showed up." Ms. Cormac looked like she was about to faint. "It was all still, like a statue. And then there was a lot of them everywhere. I ran away on my bike, but one of them hit me. Then I was rolling down. When I woke up in my room, I thought it was a bad dream."
"It's alright now," Alec said, as much to Zoe as to her mother. "It wasn't a bad dream, but it'll soon just be a bad memory." He turned to Ms. Cormac. "Were you the one who found her?"
"I was looking for her already then," she said. "Little Betty said she took her bike and didn't come back. Then this old dog came over to us and started barking. It was so loud, so… I'd never heard it barking like that before. I knew something had happened to little Zoe right away and I don't even know how. I just got so scared. The dog… Happy, he went down the street, looking back at us and barking. He wanted us to follow."
Alec had heard of such things happening before. "It led you to her?"
"It did. We found her lying in the bushes at the bottom of this big slope. When I saw her, I thought she was…" she looked at her daughter, tears streaming down her face. She forced herself to move on. "I didn't even think about Jackal Street being up at the top until just now. This was just on the edge of the forest. I thought something…" Ms. Cormac couldn't go on anymore. She just stayed still. Zoe hugged her tenderly, while Alec respectfully faced the floor.
"I broke Betty's bike," Zoe said, after a while. "Betty said it's fine as long as I'm okay, but I want to save up money to make it up to her."
The room was still again. Alec thought he'd gained all the insight he could from Zoe.
This could be very bad, indeed. The PDA territory was already breaking the boundaries of the village. He stood. "This has been invaluable. I apologize for bringing up painful memories," he looked Zoe in the eye. "What you said here will help the people of your village."
What she said next shocked him.
"Don't hurt them."
"What?" His mouth was open.
"They're just animals. Like Happy. They didn't mean to hurt me, they were scared. I could feel it."
Her mother swayed her head. "Zoe…"
"It's alright, Ms. Cormac. Little Zoe here may just be right. Kids often have a sense for animals we lose as we age. Thank you, little lady."
He drank up the rest of the lukewarm coffee, and thanked Ms. Cormac too, trying his best to remain a courteous professional.
"Come, Golem." He said outside. It didn't look pleased to be standing again, but then it was always hard to tell what it was thinking.
Alec scanned a map of Garden he'd downloaded on his phone beforehand, but found no trace of what he was looking for. He turned on the radio on his phone. "Samanthe, you here?"
After a while, a voice through the static: "I'm here." There were other voices in the background.
"I need directions to a Jackal Street."
Samanthe sounded surprised. "It's on the west side of the village. A few blocks down from the street where we parted. What about it?"
"Tell your team to set up watch in that area. But to stay clear of the street itself. And…"
"Yes?"
"Is there a way to deliver a message to all residents fast?"
"We have frequent problems with phones and connection around here – it's the lodestone in the soil, causing magnetic interference. Garden only has a population of 455 and most households own a transceiver, since it tends to bypass interference on short range. Why?
"I want to hold a village gathering, with as many residents present as possible. Tonight. They need to be made aware of the danger they are in and how they can help to end it."
There was a silence on the other end. He knew Samanthe must have been aware of the load of shit hovering over their heads. "The council has been discussing holding a gathering of the town, but we can hardly organize it so quickly. Is this urgent?"
"Yes."
"…" Samanthe was speaking to somebody on the other end. "Mr. Alec?"
"Yeah?"
"The village council is meeting in an hour. I'll levy a proposal for an emergency gathering in the local auditorium. And Alec?"
"Yes?"
"I trust you know what you're doing."
"Of course."
She clicked off. He swiped away the transceiver and checked the map. The old street wasn't marked, but there was a road dead-ending at the far western side of the village. He took off, Golem in tow.
As he turned the corner, he found the old doctor sitting on a bench. She was smoking.
"You've been waiting for me?" He said.
She blew smoke through her nostrils. "Aye."
He sat down next to her and lit his own cigarette and they smoked in silence a while.
"Two days ago, I voted against calling you here at the meeting." She said, face implacable.
Alec narrowed his eyes. He'd suspected the old lady didn't think much of him, but did not expect her frankness. "So you did."
"I know you by reputation. What you used to be."
Alec was used to cursing his past. He waited to see if he would be cursing it again.
"I'm sad to say my apprehensions were confirmed the second I saw you in that house," she said.
"I'm doing my job, ma'am. I talk to witnesses, investigate leads, then respond to threats in the appropriate measure."
The doctor didn't so much as look at him. "Right now our town has one big problem."
"The Graveler."
"No."
"Pardon?"
"Our problem is the antenna. It was smashed, and it took the landline with it. Being this far up in the Lapis foothills, we've never had good connectivity. So we use radio to talk to each other now, but the outside world is unreachable to us. A horde of beasts has ensconced our town and we have no way of sending help. No way, save for one."
"Ahh." Alec could see it now. Her animosity made sense.
"We've got a lot of old, sick folk in this town who rely on outside help. We need to contact the appropriate authorities who can get this mess cleaned up quick. Nobody's managed to get outside the village since yesterday. But one person has managed to break through and get in." She faced him. Faced him very, very sternly. "I've been a doctor for 40 years. It makes me wonder why that person has yet to do the one thing he can to save over four hundred people."
Alec took a long drag on his cigarette. The smoke dispersed in front of his eyes. "There was a village not unlike this one. It was called Rodrick's Bank, on account of it being next to this big river. Have you heard of this? It made the news."
She twitched in anger, bit her lip to keep it down. "No, Exterminator, I have not."
"Well, there was a small-time snake breeder in Rodrick's Bank, an amateur. One day, the breeder noticed one of the Ekans specimen had grown too big and had crawled out of its pit. He tried to fend it back, but it bit him. They found him dead days later, bitten at least a hundred times, on every part of the body. All his snakes were gone and there had been at least a dozen.
They left the matter to their local Rangers and not much happened in the next few months. Until they started spotting Arbok in the wild. An Arbok is what happens when an Ekans grows to its fullest size. Careful breeders know how to keep them small, but they usually have to be put down if they start growing hoods. Arbok are bad news. They're found rarely in the wild, and then only in dense rainforests. The prey in this part of the world is too small for them, and too sparse.
Why the Arbok decided to thrive in Rodrick's Bank, I can hardly tell you. It might have had to do with the hormones the breeder was injecting them with.
Anyways, the Arbok were hungry, and vicious. There were attacks on some children. None of them were killed or missing, luckily, but a few had to be taken to the hospital. I was called on the job. Left with no choice, I and Golem here started tracking them down, killing them one by one, but the Ekans were spreading. And they were breeding. We saw them daily, tangled across roads and forest tracks, each nearly as long as a child.
It was a scene from a horror flick. The situation was getting out of control. The local Rangers and I came to the decision to call the Union for help - they've got Elite Units, supposedly there to take on problems the local Rangers can't handle on their own.
But when they heard of the animals attacking humans – children - the job went straight up to the Extermination Task Force, commonly known as the Death Squad."
His mouth was dry from talking. He dragged on his cigarette and coughed up smoke.
"What are you trying to tell me?" The doctor said.
"They came. They secured the perimeter in a matter of hours, evacuated civilians. After that, they commenced turning the village and everything around it to ashes. They burned everything, alive or dead. It took barely a day. Know what the worst thing was?"
She looked at him now, eyes large in her wrinkled old sockets. "What was that?"
"The Rodrick's Bank Rangers and I returned to the scene, witnessing the sheer professional horror of it. The stench was indescribable. An ungodly mix of burning plastic, cooked meat, rotten eggs. Not a single one of us managed to keep our lunch. We found all the PDAs, predictably, burned. But there was one corpse that was unlike the rest. There were feet sticking out from a patch of rubble. We tried to lift it, but his body was stuck to the concrete like melted chewing gum. Somehow, everybody had forgotten about this one disabled old man during the chaos. He stayed inside, oblivious to the storm of fire the Squad was cooking up. That is what you'd be inviting on your doorstep by calling the authorities."
She was stunned. "No. Surely not. The state – the state would not let a team like that go on."
"Oh, there was some martialling involved. Punishments were doled, soldiers demoted, wrists slapped. But the practice remains the same as ever. It's called 'Extreme Preventive Measures' Protocol. The EPMP for short. The state sees any victims as collateral damage, paranoid of another Infestation 98. They'll do anything."
He smoked the rest of his cigarette. The doctor was shaking. He had brought her to terror. He felt bad, but that was the reality of the situation. It was one big, dangerous mess. A haystack in a sea of oil.
"What happened to the village?" She asked, after a while.
"Rodrick's Bank?" Alec said, standing up.
"Nothing. They left it as it was."
If you want to know more about the world of the Exterminator, consider reading An Exterminator's Companion, a side-story containing tidbits and lore info on the world of Garden of Gravel. The first entry delves into the biology of Graveler, their habits, intelligence and diet.
