“What happened?” Carl said, breaking what had been five full minutes of uninterrupted silence.
There was another brief silence before Emilio answered, in a slightly louder than normal voice. “You know as much as we do, Carl.”
Carl nodded. Emilio was right. Carl had already been thoroughly briefed. The question Carl had asked wasn’t really the question that he had wanted to ask. What he wanted to ask was, What do we do now? Carl briefly wondered why he hadn’t been told about everything until just six days ago, and why he hadn’t been in on all the meetings with these two, Bill, and Sam. But he knew the answer. He was a good chief deputy: he was efficient, he was reliable, and he knew his way around the computer. But once things got out of hand, Carl had always called for Bill. Sheriff Bill Oates, Texas Ranger Sam Jones, and even Game Warden Emilio Rodriguez didn’t need anyone to call on. They seemed to be born for handling emergency situations.
And as for James, Carl kept trying to tell himself the only reason James was part of those private meetings was because of his visions, but Carl knew he was fooling himself. He wondered if he had been in James’ shoes earlier in the night if he would have thought and acted quickly enough to shoot the beast’s hand, or would he have leaned against the door, panicking, until the beast had enough of his arm through the door to take off Emilio’s face. Probably the latter.
“What started all this?” Carl asked in a curious conversational tone.
James sat staring blankly at the wall behind Carl.
Emilio stopped digging in his ear. “Huh?”
“What started all this?” Carl said in a slightly louder voice; then he continued, “I mean, where did this damn thing come from?”
“Damned if I know,” Emilio said, finally giving up his digging and giving his ear a rest.
“Was it something like the drought we had this summer, last summer’s record heat wave, or was it that freeze we had three years ago, or what? Why us? Why here?” Carl asked, as if to himself.
There was a pause of about five seconds, then James spoke quietly, without taking his eyes from the wall behind Carl. “It doesn’t matter.”
Emilio turned to James. “What?”
“It doesn’t matter,” James said, without changing his volume, tone, or moving his fixed eyes.
Emilio turned to him, “James, you’re going to have to speak up. I can’t hear a thing.”
“I said, it doesn’t matter!” James said in much louder voice, practically shouting. “It doesn’t matter where the damn thing came from. All that matters is it’s here.”
Emilio reached out to touch James on the shoulder, to comfort him, but James raised his hand in a don’t touch me gesture.
There was another ten seconds of silence, then James spoke again. This time his voice was even and deceptively calm. “I’m so stupid. I should have seen it.”
Carl started to say something like, You couldn’t help it. The thing came on so fast, but all he got out was “You cou… ” before James interrupted.
“I’m not talkin’ about tonight’s attack.”
Emilio and Carl exchanged puzzled glances.
James sighed and let them in on what he had just figured out. “During the night I see through its eyes. During the day, when it sleeps, it sees through my eyes. How do you think it knew where to find my house, when Greg would be checking on my house, and where to find the dogs? Hell, how do you think it managed to escape just in time when we almost had it with the dogs and when we cornered it at the church. I was there both times. It saw us coming through my eyes. I can sometimes force myself to wake up during my dreams. Why can’t it do the same? It even knew that me and Emilio were staying here; that’s why it came tonight.” A strange smile creased James’ lips that didn’t exactly seem at home there. “I think it really hates me and Emilio. Especially Emilio.”
“I’m flattered,” Emilio said.
“I think it even knows that I see its movements when I sleep, that’s why it attacked so early in the night. It probably made sure it was in town long before I went bed.”
“What do we do now?” Carl finally asked. He almost winced when he said it, expecting the answer to be, Don’t ask us, you’re the sheriff.
James turned his eyes from the blank spot on the wall he had been staring at ever since they came into the room. He looked straight into Carl’s eyes. “I think I can kill it.”
“How?” Carl asked.
“Do y’all trust me?”
“Sure,” Emilio answered immediately, but Carl didn’t say a word.
“Carl?” James asked.
“I want to know how you plan on going about killing this thing before I agree to anything,” Carl said.
“If I told you, you’d think I was crazy. Hell, maybe I am, but I really think I can kill it. There’ll be no risk to anybody else, just me. All I need is a little help to set it up.”
Carl was going to object, but he saw something else in James’ eyes other than madness. He saw hope. James thought his plan would work, and for now, that would have to do. Carl leaned forward. “I’m all ears.”
Still looking at Carl, James said. “We don’t have much time before the beast is back in his lair, asleep and listening in on every word we say, so I’ll be brief. You’re going to send Emilio home to Midland, right?”
“Hey wait a minute,” Emilio protested, shifting to the edge of his seat.
“I hadn’t given it any thought yet,” Carl answered, “but if you’re right and Emilio is a target for that thing, then he’s not safe here, and he places everyone around him in danger.”
“Your role will be minor,” James said to Carl. “In fact, if this doesn’t go right, and I end up dead, you’ll be able to say you had nothing to do with it — the Department will be completely in the clear.”
Carl nodded. “I’m listening.”
“Tomorrow I’m going to stay away from town. I would prefer to have a patrol car so it would appear,” James tapped his head with his finger to emphasize that he was referring to what the beast would see, “like I’m on official business. If that thing’s smart enough to pull off what it did last night, I don’t want to take any chances on it getting suspicious. I also need Emilio to be at his house, alone, all day tomorrow. From at least eleven in the morning till sundown. After that you can send him off.”
James turned to Emilio. “I’ll stop by at one for a brief visit, and we’ll put on a little act for our friend’s benefit. You’ll say Carl tried to send you off today, but you didn’t want to go. Basically make up some bullshit, but be sure and mention that you will be at home all night, but you’ll be leaving the day after. I’ll mention that I’m going to be coming by to check on you at around one in the morning. At just after ten tonight I’ll show up at your house — the beast should be out and about and not listening in by then. You’ll take the patrol car back into town, and I’ll stay.”
“Leaving you by yourself. Hell, no.” Emilio said.
But another aspect of the plan had caught Carl’s attention. “If the thing is after both of you, why go through all the trouble to make it seem like Emilio’s the bait?” Carl asked. “Why not just use yourself, at your own house?”
“I think it’ll be a little less cautious going after Emilio than it would me. Look at the way it attacked him in broad daylight the other day. Besides, if it’s figured out what I have, it may be a little wary of me.”