Cascade Prequel (Book 1): Encounter Read online

  Grant looked over his shoulder to the patio doors and the onlookers within. He beckoned, and the door slid back. “Get the children inside!” he shouted.

  Some of the kids were already emerging and running to the house.

  The umbrella jumped, making Grant and Travis do the same, and loud buzzing vibrated through the air. The children quickened their pace, while adults ran to them.

  Travis went to work on the irregular shape under the canvas once again. “Die!” he shouted, beating it with the metal frame of the racket, each impact momentarily stopping the rapid drumming sound.

  The hidden thing thrashed about, and a spindly, spike-covered leg started to emerge from one side of the broken umbrella.

  Grant quickly shifted his weight to pin down that side even harder, and Travis smashed the racket down on the leg which cracked. A screech filled the air.

  “Grant!” shouted Iona from a few yards away. In her hand was a small axe. She quickly ran and handed it to him.

  In one movement, he swung it up and over and brought it down on the shape. The blade tore through the canvas and the creature, with a squelch, and kept on going into the soft ground.

  The umbrella vibrated a few more times, then stopped.

  Iona looked at Grant. “You’re bleeding.”

  He felt his cheek and looked at the crimson gloop that covered his fingers. “It’s nothing.” He looked back down at the axe, leaned over, and pulled it out. He then looked back around the garden. “All the kids inside?”

  Iona moved to her husband, looking at the back of his neck and forearm, both of which had streams of blood trickling from the wounds. “Yes, everyone’s safe.”

  “Go with Travis inside and close the doors. I need to see what the hell this thing is, and then call animal services. It probably escaped from the zoo or someone’s private collection. Either way, the law’s going to be involved.”

  Travis felt the back of his neck and grimaced. “If this is some nutjob’s pet from the rain forest, he’s going to wish that’s where he was living after I take everything from him!”

  Grant smiled. It was an expression he had perfected over the past four years, ever since Iona told him she was remarrying, and the new guy’s profession was a lawyer. He looked at Iona. She knew the look.

  “Come on, we need to get some antiseptic cream on those cuts,” she said to Travis, pulling him gently away.

  Grant looked down at the umbrella, which was a crumpled mix of metal wiring and torn plastic, then back up to make sure Iona and Travis were inside, then with the axe in his right hand, he slowly picked up the edge of the canvas, peeling it from the damp grass.

  Everyone was watching from the safety of the glass doors. In the distance, the wail of an ambulance echoed around the palms, slowly getting louder.

  He flipped the rest of the umbrella back, revealing the creature beneath.

  He had no idea what he was looking at.

  “What the hell are you?”

  Images of crabs moved through his mind, but this thing’s body was elongated like a praying mantis. Its legs were definitely like the shellfish though, with a spiky hard shell covering them. At its rear, which was larger than its front portion, were two beetle-like wings, and its eyes…

  He started to feel queasy and looked away momentarily before his mind drew him back. Its eyes were white and round, and despite their diminutive size, looked human…

  CHAPTER THREE

  A guitar riff faded into silence.

  “It is the eleventh of May, and I am Brad T Crenshaw, brought to you by the miracle of the internet. On today's Roswell Central, we are going to talk about the strange animal sightings and attacks that have been happening across this nation of ours. After that, we will be taking calls. So, let's just jump into it…”

  Over the next hour Brad, still in his nightgown and his feet in slippers, talked into his old mike, clicking through various screens and news reports he had previously prepared. It was information he had gathered from sources from the website he ran.

  Most events were small scale. A young boy was chased by what he described as an ‘octopus,’ except this creature moved across the youngster's lawn after him. The boy ran inside to get his mother and when they both returned to their garden there was no sign of the impossible animal. A man, while driving through the Silver Lake Wilderness on highway 10 in NY state, swore he saw a fish walking across the two-lane road, and then disappear into the trees. To make matters worse, he said it also had small arms and kept changing color. The report came from a friend of a friend as the witness was too embarrassed to reveal his true name.

  Brad was used to finding these kinds of reports and featured hundreds on his radio show over the years. Usually, he included them as a bit of light relief to all the heavier UFO and conspiracy stories he focused on. He was not an expert in cryptozoology, and never believed that giant ape-men were roaming the great forests of North America. That stuff got classified along with the Loch Ness monster and fairies.

  Still, he had to admit the country was definitely experiencing a ‘crazy creature’ flap, as he called it, and was at a loss as to what the reason could be.

  The callers were just as entertaining.

  A woman from Idaho said she had found strange cocoon type husks, each a foot long, in the woods outside the rear of her property. Her dog first alerted her to the strange sight. She told Brad she would email him images, but he replied if they are of concern to her, she’s better off contacting the Department of Agriculture and taking direction from them.

  Others talked about seeing strange behavior from their pets.

  “Little Nellie keeps barking at my rose bush in the garden!” said one elderly caller from Jacksonville.

  By the time he was reaching the end of the hour, he had heard enough, but the listening figures were up, so people obviously were interested.

  Just as he was about to close the lines, a number came up he recognized. One of his regulars. A Brandon Burford who ran a prepper’s survival shop in Oregon with his wife.

  “How're things in Oregon, Brandon?” said Brad.

  There was a slight pause and Brad’s eyes looked at his router, to make sure the lights were still blinking.

  “Something strange is going on up here, Brad.”

  “Don’t tell me, you have seen a walking fish?” He laughed a little.

  “No. I ain’t seen anything, but our ‘go-bags’ are flying off the shelf quicker than we can make them up.”

  Now it was Brad's turn to ruminate. “That happened before?”

  “Not like this. People are scared, Brad.”

  Brad looked at his old UFO clock and pushed the glasses on his face further up his nose. The show should have finished a few minutes ago, and this was a nice cliff-hanger to end it on. “Okay, old buddy. Keep in touch, but for now, I hope everyone enjoyed this episode of Roswell Central. This is Brad T Crenshaw signing off.”

  Brad tapped on the live broadcast button, placed his mike on his desk, and leaned back in his seat. He looked around his basement, finally resting his eyes on his wall of ‘strange.’ A cacophony of written notes, newspaper cuttings, and printouts from his aging printer. Most were focused on his personal passion of Ufology.

  He looked back to his computer screen and clicked through a few different pages until he got to a headline from an Australian newspaper. ‘STRANGE SPECIES OF BEE DISCOVERED IN AUSTRALIA.’ He hit the print option and a short while later was holding the same headline but printed on a piece of A4 paper.

  He walked over to his board on the wall and pinned the piece of paper to it.

  “Right, time to see what the outside world looks like today,” he said to himself.

  He walked across the room, past the racks of computers, and up the creaking wooden steps to the hallway of his home in Roswell, New Mexico.

  The early morning sun was already breaking through the small panes of glass to the left and right of his front door. He pulled it open, being ready f
or the embrace of the cool spring air but, instead, only warmth bathed him, together with the sound of his neighbor's dog barking.

  On seeing a leaflet on his front step he grumbled. Bending down he picked it up, pushing his glasses back up again, and looked at the glossy piece of paper.

  ‘Roswell’s Annual Canine Festival!’

  The small print said something about making sure you brought your dog to the arena by 8 a.m. on the twelfth.

  He walked down his path and checked his postbox, which was empty.

  “Hey, Brad!” came a man’s voice to his left.

  Brad gave a quick smile to Carl, his neighbor, who was collecting leaves from his own path.

  “What’s up with Baxter?” said Brad.

  Carl frowned. “You got me, he’s been going crazy all morning.”

  Brad held up the leaflet. “Maybe he wants to go to this dog party thing.”

  Carl turned angrily to his house. “Shut up!” he then looked back at Brad. “Like that’s going to happen.”

  *****

  “So you’re still going?” said Grant to Iona. He was seated on the kitchen stool, near the central counter. It used to be where he had his morning coffee before leaving for the station. A small strip of bandage was stuck across his cheek. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the two plainclothes men standing in the garden talking to two officers from LA’s Fish and Wildlife agency. They looked federal, which made no sense.

  Iona moved closer to him making him look back at her. She briefly looked down the hall to make sure they were alone. “Grant. I need this. Travis’s job’s been… well, he… we need this time alone.”

  Grant suspected their marriage had been moving into rockier times, but her comments had now confirmed it. He tried to hide his joy.

  She frowned, taking a step back. “Yeah, I know, makes you happy that I’m going through a bad time in my marriage!”

  He suddenly felt guilty. Despite the fact she was no longer his, he still wanted her to be happy. “No, it’s not like that—”

  A knock came at the glass doors behind him. The two men were standing on the other side smiling. Looking at them both in their suits, he felt like it would be a mistake to let them in, but he wanted to know who they were.

  Iona walked to the doors and slid one open. “Hi?”

  “Sorry to bother you, Mrs. Sanchez—”

  Grant hid his discomfort at hearing her maiden name. After all these years it still bothered him.

  “— I’m Dr. Cornell and this is Dr. Drake. We are from the CDC. We wondered if we could have a small moment of your time?”

  An expression of puzzlement came to Grant. Maybe the weird-looking thing he sliced in half was something escaped from a lab, and not from a zoo.

  She hesitated. “Well, we’re just about to leave for LAX…”

  The taller, and older of the two men, Dr. Cornell, smiled. “We will just be a few minutes.” He leaned forward and looked at Grant. “We would like to talk to Mr. Sanchez as well—”

  Before Grant could enjoy being referred to as Iona’s husband once more, Iona waved her arm, which turned into her beckoning them inside. “Oh, no, no, this is Grant, err Grant Collins, he’s my former husband… my ex.”

  The two men stepped inside, and Iona sat on a stool close to Grant.

  “What’s any of this got to do with the CDC?” said Grant. He kept his eyes on the older man. He was pretty sure he was calling the shots.

  Before Cornell could answer, a noise came from the hallway and Travis walked into the kitchen. “Who are you?” he said to the doctors.

  “They are from the CDC, Travis,” said Iona.

  Her husband mirrored the same expression as Grant a moment before.

  The younger man pulled out a computer tablet and tapped on its screen a few times.

  “Had any of you seen the creature that attacked you before today?” said Cornell.

  They all shook their heads, while Drake tapped again.

  “I’m an ex-detective. Served in the Hollywood district for twenty years. I’ve never known the CDC to become involved in something like this before?”

  “Something like this? So you have see—”

  “No. I just mean animal attacks. Sometimes we have some swarms of bees that get loose from someone’s hives and they sting a few people. Just what was that thing?”

  “I knew it! It’s some kind of whacked insect from the Amazon or something. Probably brought up here as a pet by some dealer.”

  Cornell smiled. “Yes, Mr. Sanchez. That’s the line of enquiry we are taking as well—”

  Grant looked at the doctor's fingers. He was rubbing two of them together while talking.

  He’s lying.

  “— The insect was a rare form of Mantis from the Mantidae family of insects.” He looked at Grant. “It was a shame you had to kill it.”

  Maybe his ex and her husband were buying it, but every word that came from the doctor's mouth felt wrong.

  “That thing was dangerous. I did what I had to,” said Grant.

  “Of course. It is a shame that your son’s birthday was… affected by the creature as it was—”

  The younger doctor tilted the tablet in Cornell’s direction.

  Cornell nodded, then looked back to the others. “Anyway, we should be on our way.”

  Travis touched the back of his neck. “It wasn’t venomous or anything, was it?”

  Cornell shook his head. “Oh no, it’s quite harmless.”

  He’s still lying.

  “Good, because I’ve got two weeks of sun, sand, and one too many rum and cokes to look forward to.”

  The two men stepped back over the threshold to the patio outside.

  Cornell gave one final false smile. “We’ll let ourselves out.”

  Travis looked at Grant. “Now you got something else to put in one of your stories!”

  Grant knew it was an insult, but just nodded and gave the usual smile.

  Travis continued. “Right. I’ve got our luggage already in the car.” He looked at his cell phone, then at Iona. “Flight leaves in two hours. We need to be going.”

  Grant slid off the stool. “I’ll get Ben.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Ben looked out of the car’s passenger seat at the multi-million-dollar homes passing by. He would have been playing ‘Jelly Martians’ on his tablet but he was stuck on level eighty-nine and looking down was just going to give him travel sickness anyway.

  To his left, his father threw a hand up from the steering wheel. “Where’s he going! I told him to stay away from the main… no… They’re never going to make their check-in. What is it about your stepfather that makes it impossible for him to listen to anyone else?” Grant briefly looked at his son, not really expecting an answer.

  The top-of-the-line SUV ahead of them pulled out into a four-lane road and into traffic. They followed then slowly came to a stop. Silence returned to the car.

  Ben could feel his father wanted to talk to him, but for some reason was having trouble finding the right words. It had been that way for a few years now. Ever since ‘LA law,’ the name Ben secretly gave his stepfather, moved in, his actual father seemed to have developed an inability to communicate properly. It was as if he always felt he needed to find the exact right words, otherwise, something terrible would happen. Ben never understood, but then his father was a grown-up and ‘grown-ups’ were weird.

  “How’s little league going?” said Grant as he eased the car forward a few more yards. A car honked its horn a few vehicles ahead making him frown.

  “Umm… I stopped that after last season. I told you, remember?”

  “Oh, right, yeah.”

  More silence.

  Grant thought about mentioning the weird creature but didn’t. Better to not dwell on it. “So I’ve got your room real nice. There might even be another present in there when we get back…” He looked across to Ben. His eyes were wide. Grant smiled. “I’ll give you three guesses what i
t is, and if—”

  “Nah. I’d rather find out when I get there. Anyway, I think I know what it is…”

  Grant laughed. “Oh, is that so!” He reached out with his right hand and ruffled his son’s light brown hair. “You got no idea!”

  The traffic ahead eased a bit, and they managed to cross a junction moving south and get to an almost acceptable speed.

  “So… what do you think it was?” said Ben.

  Grant began to think of his reply but was distracted by the moving truck on the side of the road. He had already seen a number today. He wondered if he was just noticing them more for some reason. Like if you see a film about insects, and then become itchy. Something though, that was undeniably off, was how the men were loading the truck. They were literally throwing their items into the back of it.

  He passed it by and looked across to Ben. “Umm, well there were some doctors there—”

  “Doctors?”

  “Not medical doctors… or at least I don’t think they were, no, these were other kinds of doctors, anyway, they said it was an insect from the Amazon.”

  Grant followed the SUV, turning right then left onto ‘Overland Avenue;’ the route he originally wanted to take.

  “It was scary…”

  “Yeah, it was. Who would have thought an insect could grow that big!” Grant smiled.

  Seeing his father's relaxed attitude made Ben relax a bit as well. He smiled.

  Soon they were passing under the 405. Grant noticed it was just as gridlocked as it had been earlier. He started to feel hot and lowered his window. “You want your window open too?”

  Ben nodded.

  “It’s warm for March. Probably something to do with pollution.”

  It wasn’t long before they were on the main road into the airport, which surprisingly was fairly clear. As they drove closer the control towers rose up in the distance.

  “Look, cool helicopters!” said Ben, pointing to one of the runways.

  Two twin-engined Chinooks sat with their blades static just a mile from them.

  Instinctively, Grant reached forward and turned on the radio. It was already set to his favorite station, ‘LA grooves’ a selection of mid-70s and 80s soul and RnB tracks. But that’s not what he wanted to hear right now, and he let his finger dwell on the button nearby. The channel display rose, with accompanying white noise, until he stopped when he heard a female voice.