The creature was gone. Ted cursed the sky.
John, thinking quickly, stomped over and jabbed a finger at him.
“Hey. Listen. We tried to tell you. I get that you pride yourself on being hardheaded, but you see it now? You wanna know what’s taking this town’s kids, well now you know.”
Ted said, “Why didn’t you tell me that thing was in there? You hopin’ it would rip my head off?”
“Because we didn’t know. It was waiting in there to ambush us, probably because it knew we were getting close. How the fuck would we get that thing in there?”
This was of course bullshit, but chasing the BATMANTIS??? seemed like a perfect task to keep Ted out of the way. Still, the questions being asked were the right ones—why in the hell was the thing holed up in the Beanie Wienie warehouse? John assumed either he or Dave had in fact lured the thing in there over the course of their lost weekend. But how? And more importantly, why? Did it have something to do with the silicone butts?
“Look,” John said, “here’s the truth. We’ve been stalking this thing for months. Learning how to track it. That’s why it tricked your little girl into thinking it was Dave there that night—it’s using its tricks, trying to throw you off the scent.”
“Wait, then who was Nymph?”
“They’re one and the same. That’s just another face it wears—a different type of predator, a human one. He transforms, like a werewolf. He’s a were-Batmantis. A Batmantis-man. What matters is that underneath it all, it’s just an animal. It can bleed and it can die. Find out where that bastard nests, you’ll find the kids. Let’s just hope you find ’em in better condition than they’ve been finding the dogs.”
“The dogs?”
“It eats small animals. I say you sit down and map all the houses or farms where people have lost dogs and cats and chickens. Then you draw a big circle around all them houses and draw an X in the middle of that circle. That’s where you’ll find your monster and, god willing, that’s where you’ll find the kids. If you got a good relationship with the cops, you might be able to get them to help out. Unfortunately, that’s not our situation right now. The cops want nothing to do with us and we’ve got an agency on our back on top of that. In fact, if you see black trucks prowling around somewhere, driven by spooky assholes in black robes? I bet you’ll find they’re hunting for the same thing.”
Ted said, “If I find out this is bullshit—”
“The monster that just flew out here was not made of papier-mâché and pipe cleaners. I’m telling you now, Ted, that thing is going to try to scramble your brain. That’s what it does. Don’t let it. I don’t give a shit if you believe me or not. But if you can’t trust your own two eyes, what can you trust?”
John was proud that he was able to keep a straight face through that last part.
Me
Amy and I watched John trudge back toward us, soaked to the bone. Ted’s partner had already vacated the premises, jogging off through the rain, clutching wounded ribs.
John nodded sideways and said, “They parked down the street. Hopefully they’ll head off to spend the next month trying to find that thing’s nest. God only knows what it was doing there. Unless one of you know?”
I said, “Did you see it phase through the wall? It can do that, but it still managed to get trapped in a supply room? I think it’s just an idiot.”
Amy said, “It started making noise when Ted pointed a gun at us. Maybe it was trying to protect us.”
“I would love to spend just one day in your world. I know that came out like sarcasm, but it’s not—I seriously would.”
John said, “All right, we need a game plan.”
I said, “Well, we have to figure this all out before Ted turns his attention back on us. And before the Maggie thing hatches. And before Tasker figures out how NON can murder us all without consequence. And before the manhunt for those missing kids draws the entire town to the mine. And before the biker gang blames us for all this. And before the Batmantis comes back and eats us.” I raked back wet hair from my forehead and sighed. “Anybody hungry? Didn’t they say Waffle House wasn’t closing no matter what?”
John said, “We need to go to the mine, right? I mean that’s the root of the problem.”
I said, “So, let’s say we go there and find ten ‘kids’ standing around. Then what? And don’t say kill them because Amy is going to start screaming.”
“Whatever we do, it’s better than letting the bikers find them. We’re seeing through their disguises, thanks to the Sauce, but who knows how long that will last? I say we go down there and, I don’t know. We’ve got all that sulfur. Maybe you throw it on them and it breaks the spell or something? Plus we have all those butts.”
“Would you drop the thing with the butts? You know why you bought those? So that you could bring them up every five minutes.”
Amy said, “What butts?”
We piled into the Jeep. I was in the passenger seat and had the sudden urge to pull down the sun visor, even though the morning sun hadn’t showed up for work in a month and was clearly trying to get fired.
A note fell into my lap.
John’s handwriting.
Amy asked, “What does it say?”
“It says, ‘Don’t let the Batmantis out.’”
20. THE ASS LETTER
John wanted to stop by his place to get gear for the mine mission and possible Millibutt showdown, but instead we wound up spending half an hour carrying electronics and furniture up to the second floor. John had some standing water in his yard and garage, but the house itself was up another few inches above the waterline. Still, it felt inevitable—Amy had pointed out that even if the rain stopped, runoff from higher ground would push the flood into his living room. It was going to be like that everywhere; there was just no place for the water to go.
I said, “What if it doesn’t stop? What if the water just keeps coming, like those floods you see on the news where it goes over the rooftops?”
John said, “Then it’s all up to the insurance, I guess…”
“No, I mean … like yeah, I’m worried about your stuff but in terms of the town, what happens? All these moldy waterlogged houses. Would people finally just leave? Just, abandon this place?”
“Dunno. I don’t know why people stay here now.”
“Why do we stay here?”
Amy said, “It sounds like you’re rooting for the flood.”
“I kind of am.”
“You could put an end to the whole thing if you’d just buy some boots.”
John said, “I’m going to dig around in my garage to see what I’ve got in the way of enchanted weapons. Look around for any more cryptic notes.”
John left and I looked in the fridge; I didn’t find any notes but did find a piece of leftover pizza. I took a bite of it and said to Amy, “Am I crazy or does it smell like perfume in here? You think John’s back on the girlfriend wagon?”
Amy, as if resuming a conversation she was having in her head, said, “What would you do if it was your last day on earth?”
“Amy, I’m not worried about this thing killing me, I’m worried about it filling the world with weird monsters. Do you have any idea how many calls we’d get? Tell you what, I’m just canceling my phone altogether if that happens, live like it’s 1995.”
“I mean, just as a hypothetical. You’ve only got twenty-four hours left, how do you spend it? Like, say the doctor said you just had one day to live.”
“I’d spend the last day trying to find another doctor. Or researching a cure. There has to be something left to try. I mean, why would I be putting so much stock in some doctor’s opinion? You remember Dutch Vogless, from high school? He’s a doctor now, in Indianapolis. He was a dipshit. Fuck that doctor.”