Getting some work in before the weekend really starts.
Behind me, Mary was standing guard on the door. I could hear her breathing, which would have told me things were serious if I hadn’t already known. She’s got an amazing sense of smell, but to use it she needs a lot of air going through, and it’s hard not to notice that. If she was smelling something that justified making a potential scene…
“One more in the house,” she told me. “Maybe the other two are in the shed. Somebody spilled a ton of compost in there recently.” She flicked eyes over at Jimmy. “Can you get him moving?”
“Yeah,” I replied, ignoring her tone. Mary was just being very focused, that’s all. “Deputy! JIMMY! Look at me.” That got his attention, which was very good news. “Here’s the short version. Monsters exist, a really bad one just ate the people living here, now they’re monsters too. We have to put the ones down here, right now, and fast. Got me?”
I got a jerky nod, which was fine. Jimmy had a lot of hormones going through his system right now, including a few medical science wasn’t familiar with. Luckily, those hormones were the monster-killing ones. “Great. Reload while we move. The longer they survive, the tougher they get. Two-and-one might not knock down the next one.”