Head Full of Ghosts

Chapter 9 - Your Screams Are Music to Me

"Come on, Alan, we'll get to it when we get to it."

"We can get to it now!" Alan waved his rifle in the general direction of the back of the liquor store. The boards that had been put in place over a small hole in the back wall were half torn away, but thankfully the men had all stopped their onslaught on the place once Mills showed up.

"It's not safe until we've cleared the entire area."

"It's perfectly safe. Nobody's seen hide or hair of those damn things in ages."

"That's not true. Shane DeWitt..."

"Yes, we all know about Shane stinkin' DeWitt!" Alan snapped. "But if that's the last time anyone saw the damn things then there's nothing out there worth fearing!"

"We have a procedure about how we go about adding new territory to the safe zone. We can't go about changing those procedures just because you want a damn drink."

"Screw your procedures. We don't need to add the whole shop to the damn town. We just tear a hole in the wall, empty the store, and fill the hole again."

There was a chorus of cheers at that from the men surrounding Alan.

"We've been over this! That can compromise the entire building's structural integrity. It could create a weak point in the wall, and I won't allow that. It's. Too. Risky." There were some grumbled complaints at that, but no one offered a real argument. "Now, put down your..."

Mills' voice trailed off as he heard the sound of running steps approaching. He whirled around, one hand on his gun, flashlight searching the growing darkness for the source of the sound. Instantly he knew something was off about the running, though, because the foot falls were too soft and the running too rapid. He relaxed a bit when he finally saw the figure and realized that it was Zahra.

"Zahra, what are you doing out here?"

She stopped only a few feet from him and bent over, hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

"Sheriff... come... dog fights..." she gasped between breaths.

Mills stiffened at the words. The fights weren't exactly a big secret, but he still generally tried to keep the children of the town from learning anything about them. Zahra had always been a bit of a loose canon, though.

"Now, Zahra," the sheriff began, working up a speech to ease the pain of her learning about the fights, but to his surprise Zahra was already straightening and shaking her head.

"No, Kevin! The new guy. He went into the fights and then people came running out screaming."

The sheriff could feel his skin go cold. "Dammit, Jensen," he muttered under his breath and then he was off running, having forgotten all about Alan and the liquor store.

He needn't have worried, though, because this information had piqued the interest of Alan and his friends, and they all followed hot on the sheriff's heels.

They covered the ground in only a matter of minutes, but by the time they got there, it was already all over.

Mills stepped into the back room, now completely empty except for several dogs, Jensen standing around looking completely freaked out, and a handful of men rolling around on the floor, groaning in pain as small pools of blood formed on the ground around their bodies.

And Kevin, calmly sitting on a chair, softly petting an earless dog that had it's head in his lap while he stared off directionless into space.

"What on God's green earth happened here?"