The Beast of 1977 (Book 1)

Chapter 19

"What time is it?" Linus moaned while driving all too slowly down the desolate highway on a day that was nearing noontime.

Fitzpatrick looked out at the passing farmland scenery and asked, "Does it really matter?"

Linus must have sighed at least three to four times since leaving the house. The man's entire body felt as if it were carrying a load of bricks tied to his heels. No matter what, he just couldn't get the fog out of his brain.

"It's hard to believe that this thing hiked almost three miles away just to eat more people."

Stirring awake from his dull stupor, Linus glanced over and grunted, "Huh?"

"I said, I can't believe the thing hiked three miles just to eat more people." Fitzpatrick replied a bit louder.

"Yeah," Linus sighed again."

"You gotta be kidding me." Alan griped.

"Whaddya mean?"

"What's with all the damn sighing? You sound like my wife whenever she wants sex from me?"

Linus shrugged and said, "We just wrapped up a five and a half month kidnapping investigation, and you're asking what's with all the sighing?"

"For Christ's sake," Alan grumbled, "it's not the first kidnapping we've ever covered."

Linus didn't bother to look over at his partner, instead, he gazed upwards into the grey, brooding sky. "What would make a person do all of that, Al?"

"Do what?"

"Kidnap, rape and kill. He even raped the guys, for God's sake." Linus shook his head in shame. "I'm sitting here trying to figure out what sort of twisted event in this man's life could have brought him to such a point."

"Who knows?" Alan groaned. "He obviously had some kind of sick fetish that needed to be fulfilled. You mentioned it yourself back at the TV station."

"And the smell," Linus lamented. "How can any normal human being tolerate having all those dead bodies in that house and not become sick themselves?"

"After a while, even the most perverted person becomes accustomed to his or hers perversion. The man was obviously tormented."

Bruin only scanned the grazing land that passed by at 33 mph.

"I wonder if Gloria saw—

"That's enough!" A frustrated Fitzpatrick hollered.

A momentary quiet took place inside the car before Linus again sighed and said, "I suppose you're gonna tell me that I'm feeling sorry for myself, right?"

"No, it's not that." Fitzpatrick huffed. "You're shitting bricks because after all these months someone or something else got that fucker before you could. We all wanted to plug a bullet in the guy, but we missed out."

Linus rolled his eyes in the other direction, hoping that he could possibly ignore his partner's rant, but it seemed that the more he tried to focus on other matters, Gloria's pale, terrified image would cross his path in stunning full color.

"Whaddya think?" Fitzpatrick looked over.

"Think about what?"

what Brice said about the fur. Do you believe that there

"I can't see wolves tearing through a wall like a wrecking

"If I ever see the thing that could eat the way that fucker did last

had to sift through the dead bodies first before he could even place the image of an overgrown

"A wolf," Fitzpatrick sniggered. "I swear that Brice gets dumber by

"You don't think too much of Pat, do

that...well, he's a kid." Alan tossed up his hands. "An Ivy league, smarty

"Are you trying to say

I like to play it like

at the speedometer to notice for

"Damn kids are taking our jobs." Fitzpatrick begrudged in a

"Is that

"No, I also hope I get home in time this evening to watch 'Battle of

roared past them on the other side of the road. The first sign of life

"I was thinking

It took a few moments before Fitzpatrick said anything. "It's a shame that you have to actually think about

"Yeah...it is." Linus bitterly sulked with a far off expression hanging on his face. "I hate to say this, but I think you have a better chance of speaking rationally with someone like O'Dea than you do with

handle O'Dea, in small

silence took place inside the cruiser. For a few moments Linus actually believed that he had slipped into another

"Did you catch the

"Which one," Linus glanced strangely over at his

"The black lady," Fitzpatrick

yeah, she was

"I can see you with a black

of officers and reporters all milling about the yard of a red and white brick house. Without uttering a single

the radio back into the holster inside the car. "Long time no see."

"How are

his right. "We got six dead bodies. A mother, father and their four daughters. The mother was found in the living room. Her entire skull was cracked wide open. The father was found

got

girls. Two, four, seven and ten," Phelps chocked. "Something just...just

Linus asked while

She and the mother

distant pine bush and watched as the loudly weeping grandmother was consoled by a

see the bedroom." Phelps murmured. "You can hardly take two steps without...it's like something

like to take a quick peek inside, just to see what we're dealing with." Linus said while glancing nervously over

heard you found

we found what was left of him." Fitzpatrick snickered. "But, as it so

"And whatever found him made its way here." Phelps rubbed

his right hand on Phelps' shoulder and sympathetically

losing

last victim, something came up from out of his basement and tore him limb from limb, literally. He left his recorder on the entire time. We can't seem to make heads or tails of just what exactly it

"Brice, from forensics, doesn't believe it's a bear." Fitzpatrick added. "He says that the paw

said as he stepped away from his cruiser

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