Chapter Two

Chapter Two

When people say that everything is bigger in Texas, (all except the men) they are right.  Even the accents are bigger in Texas.  I have to thank God above that I don't have an accent.  Neither does Claudia, but then we lived in Louisiana part of our lives also.  I think the two accents cross each other out, which left us with no accent.  Fine with me.

Jonas was shaking so bad as he tried to put the key in the keyhole.  Claudia had to end up doing it for him.  I wonder what's gotten him all spooked.  I have the feeling I might end up knowing by the end of this night.  Well, this morning.  It's like four in the morning now and I'm not even tired.  I'm just full of wise cracks.  Gotta either have one or the other.  No way to excuse them both.

When the door openly slowly, we saw a glimpse of something completely wrecked.  The place looked horrible.  Paper was everywhere.  Clothes on his sofas.  Papers inside his fireplace, which was located at the far end of the room, which would have been beautiful if it weren't for the crap.

Both Claud's and my mouth were wide open.  Jonas looked at me and said, "sorry for the mess."

"You mean to tell me that you, little ole Jonas, made this mess?"

"I had to search extravagantly this morning.  So please, excuse the mess."

Claud and I just shrugged our shoulders.  We didn't live here.  At least it wasn't a burglar.

"So, where are the photos, oh nerd oh, boy?"

Claud shoved her elbow in my side.  I gasped, but didn't yell.  Didn't want to let ole nerd boy know my pain.

"Over here in this drawer.  I put them there so no one would find them incase the police decided to do a raid."

He laughed, but his laugh was more of a snort.  I laughed at his laugh.  It was funny as hell.

He took the pictures out then arranged them in some sort of order that made him feel better.  He handed them over to Claudia.  I wanted to see them first, but I'd been rude to him.  So fair.

Claudia's face was stretched out into thought.  Dammit, give me the fucking pictures.

I jerked some of the pictures away from Claudia and stared at something that should have never been.  There in this five by seven size film was a large creature that looked like a bat.  It was flying out of a cave that was almost completely hidden by a tree.  A big fucking bat.  No fucking way.

Claudia looked up, eyes wide, at Jonas and spoke quietly.  "Please, tell me that's not what I think it is."

He began to slightly nod.

"Ah shit, how long do you think it's been there?"  Claudia looked at me as if I was crazy.

"You can't possibly believe that," she slapped her right hand on the pictures in her left hand, "that thing in the picture is a large bat.  I mean, give me a break here!"

I stepped closer to Claud and took the pictures out of her hand.  "That is a bat.  Look at the wings, the feet, the ears. It's a bat."

"No way."

I placed the pictures on the table Jonas got them out of.

"Fine.  Jonas?"  He suddenly looked at me as if he wasn't expecting either one of us to notice him for a while, "where is the cave?"

"It's less than a mile away from my house going in the southwest direction."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, spare us the extra info.  Can you bring us there?"

Claud put her left hand to her hip and started tapping her foot.  She was pissed.

"What?"

"You can't believe this shit Sara.  It's so fake."

"I can assure you that my photography is the truth."

"Shut up Jonas."

I had to interrupt.  "And you call me rude."

Claudia slapped all the pictures off the table then stomped away to the buried away couch.  I laughed at her.  She glared angrily at me.

"You are acting so childish Claudia."

"Oh, and you are so much better.  You call poor Jonas here nerd boy."

We both looked at each other and just started bursting out laughing.  Poor Jonas, he had no idea what was so funny.

"Excuse me ladies, but if you two want to go out at night, I think we should go now.  Daylight should arrive soon."

"Yeah, you're right.  Let's go Claud."  I grabbed her wrist and jerked her out the door.  She knew that I wasn't going to let go, so she reluctantly followed.  Jonas led the way out the door.

We walked underneath low hanging trees with spiderwebs sprung across them.  How the hell do spiders rebuild their habitat so fast?

Jonas walked so clumsily over the fallen trees and stumps on the ground.  He is an awkward little man, isn't he?  His long skinny legs kept crumbling under his own weight.  He was about one hundred and sixty pounds, which wasn't that much, but he couldn't handle himself.  I wonder how he was such a good photographer.  Oh yeah, cameras have legs or whatever to hold them up.

When we finally got to the cave, I could tell the sun was going to come up in about twenty minutes.  We probably wouldn't be seeing any bats today, but at least I knew where their home is now.

Jonas stopped about ten feet in front of the cave as if afraid of what was inside.  When he spoke, his words were shaky and breathy.

"If you two dare, you can go inside.  I'd rather stay out here."

"Fine, coming with me Claudia?"

Her face shown a tinge of hatred in it.  "Yes, Sara.  I'm coming."

"I'd suggest you get your gun.  Wouldn't want the big bat getting ya."

"Shut up."

I laughed, but did take my statement seriously.  I reached in back of me and took my gun out with my right hand.  I'm a right-handed girl.

I started walking slowly to the cave.  Very James Bondish.  Ready to drop if something came flying out of the cave.  Claudia followed me in the same manner although she was on the opposite side of me.  Had to prepare for the worst.

Every step I took, Claudia took with me.  We were on the same level.  So very close to the mouth of the cave.  I started craning my head so I could see at the top of the cave.  I didn't want any creature, big or small, flying above me and dropping shit on my head.  Yes, shit was a big problem for me.

Claudia took a few steps ahead of me.  She had her gun in front of her in a Charlie's Angel type of pose.  I walked two more feet ahead and touched the side of the wall in the cave.  Nothing.  I walked closer to the wall and pushed my back against it.  I kept sliding slowly down the wall.  Claudia followed me.  We kept going further and further inside the cave.  Absolutely nothing.  I heard a sound to the right of me.  I quickly jerked my head.  A small stream.  It was just a stream.  Nothing too special.  We walked further and further inside the cave.  No animal, not even an insect.  Just nothing.

Claudia began to walk over to the other side of the cave.  Just to explore the walls.  Maybe there was bat poop or something.  I watched her as her hands worked the walls.  Up and down quickly.  She worked magically.  Fingers engraving the holes on the walls.  Identifying everything so briefly, but correctly.

Her head turned to me until I could see her entire face.  "Sara, there's nothing.  You wanna go now?"

"Wait, you wanna go further into the cave?"

"Not right now.  Maybe after sunlight.  I don't wanna chance falling deep into some hole."

"Yeah.  Let's go."

We turned around at the same time.  To our surprise, Jonas wasn't there.  Maybe he got too scared and ran home.  Oh well.

We treaded the same exact way back to Jonas's place that he led us through.  We still didn't see Jonas's anywhere.  No tracks, nothing.  It's more than likely that he knew another way.  He did, after all, live out here.

We got back to his house around seven in the morning.  I was beginning to feel tired.  Maybe looking at the watch didn't help me out.  Oh well.

"Claud, you wanna call a cab.  I'm getting too tired to stay here and wait for four eyes."

"Maybe we should wait.  Maybe something happened to him."

"He's a big...  I mean he's a boy.  He can handle himself."

"I'm still waiting."

"Well, fine.  While you wait, I'll call a cab.  We'll have both at one time."

She smiled then went to table and started picking up the pictures she threw on the floor hours ago.

When I got through with the phone call, I went to stand by Claudia.

"So, do you think it would be worth it to move to St. Louis?"

"Yeah, I do.  It's a nice place and Shawn lives there."  She smiled up at me.  She put all the collected pictures on the table and then stood up next to me.

"Why did you leave when Shawn was on watch at the hospital?"

I laughed.  I wasn't expecting that question.  "Number one.  I was heavily drugged with Richard.  Number two.  You would have killed me if you knew I left.  Three.  Shawn gave up so easily."

She smiled.  "Yeah, he's a bit of a sucker."

"Sure is."

I went to the door to open it to see if the cab was there.  I stared outside and saw a beautiful place.  The beautiful place I would love to leave.  I closed the door and tried to go stand near Claud again, but I heard a noise from outside.  I re-opened the door and saw something incredibly unbelievable.  There in all its winged glory was a huge bat.  In it's mouth was the head of Jonas.  The bat threw Jonas's body into the window.  The glass shot out from all sides.  Striking me in the face.  I shielded my eyes from the shards.  From the awful sight of Jonas.  I crouched down with one arm still shielding my face.  I reached for my gun.  The bat was still floating in mid air.  Mouth still holding Jonas head between its two largest teeth.  I heard bullets coming from behind me.  Claudia was blasting into its body.  The thing was only shrieking more.  I used my arm as my guide and I shot into its face.  Into its forehead.  It reared forward and hit the house.  It dropped Jonas's head on the ground and eventually fell down by it.  It dropped with a loud thud, but I kept shooting.  Claudia turned around and went for the phone.  She must have called the police.

I, being the nosy type, decided to go check out the dead specimen.  I didn't want to get too close to it just incase it wanted to go berserk on me.  I opened the door and stepped outside.  To my surprise, lying right there on the grass was a gorgeous naked dead human being.  His brown hair spilled out from under him.  He was curled up in the fetal position.  Blood was pouring out from his right side.  His body was muscular and tanned, but in the first morning's light, his skin seemed lighter.

I knelt down next to him and checked his pulse.  None.  He's officially dead.  I started to turn him on his back when I heard sirens.  The cops were here.  Yay.  Now, we get to hear the real bullshit.

The cop cars stopped about fifty feet in front of the dead body.  Claudia stood right next to me outside the door.  She stared at the body and cringed.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I know him."

"Oh really?"

She put her hand over her mouth as if trying to fight what might have been coming up.  "Yeah, he was my ex-boyfriend."  She ran to the side of Jonas's house. I followed her and decided to be nice.  I held her hair back while she threw her guts up.

A cop trailed behind us asking me questions about what happened.  I answered as truthfully as he was going to get.

His dark gray eyes forced him to play the real cop game as he stared at me.

"Sir, Jonas Burnstein lives here.  We came here to see some pictures he thought would be important.  We saw them then went to the location to which he filmed them.  We explored the cave.  When we started making our way back, we couldn't find Jonas so I decided to just give up on it, but Ms. Puky here wanted to wait for him.  So we did.  We ended up waiting for a large animal to shove Jonas back into his home."

The cop nodded and took notes the entire time.  He was a somewhat good cop from what I could tell.  He was half ass doing his job.  Maybe he was just tired.  Who cares?

"How did the creature end up being a human?"

I wanted to say, "well sir, it's a human bat flying around at night biting off people's heads" but didn't.

"It has to be a lycanthrope.  It's the only possible solution."

He looked down at Claudia, who was almost passed out on the grass.

"You agree with her?"

Claudia rolled her eyes up to him and nodded.

It's nice to know that for someone that hates bats so much, she'd agree with me on this one.  A huge ass bat running around.  What a nice thought.

"May I see the pictures?"

"Of course.  They are on the only table in the room.  You'll be surprised with what you see."

The cop nodded and then was off. 

About twenty minutes later the cab finally showed up.  We grabbed our suitcases and walked away from the cops.  Even though we were about to escape them, one of the officers told us we'd have to go to the station and back our stories up, but we were fine and dandy with it.  Hey, the truth is the truth no matter how much you hate it.