14
The next morning, Emory jolted out of bed when he heard his name being spoken downstairs. A booming voice wiggled through the vents after a loud, noxious pounding at the house’s front door.
“Sorry for the intrusion, Regina. I’m here lookin’ for Emory Griffin,” the masculine voice said.
“Sergeant Adye,” she said, “whatever is this about?”
Emory got down on his belly and pressed his ear to the floor.
“We got an anonymous tip that somebody’d been stealin’ from the health center. Dr. Cuss confirmed countless items missin’. Important items. They think Mr. Griffin stole them,” the sergeant said.
Breath balled up like a dirty sock of regret stuffed down Emory’s windpipe.
That bastard! Dr. Cuss gave those items to him.
This serum was going to help people! Escapees like abuse victims and war captives. It could be used as a therapeutic! A salve to win a future war! It could be used to see inside the circulatory system without machines and could aid in accuracy during invasive medical procedures.
But what was the use?
All he ever wanted to do was make good and make his name known, and all he ever got in return was grief and new reasons to hide.
“I’m sure there must be some misunderstanding,” Regina said.
“That may be, but stealin’s a crime. I gotta investigate,” Sergeant Adye said.
“The sheriff out on the mainland would have my head if I didn’t, and the community is already goin’ wild on the Knock-Knock Neighbor app sayin’ we should close the schools and sound the alarms. You know how word travels ’round here. ”
“Of course. Uh, well, Emory’s right upstairs. I bet he can clear this up.”
They moved quicker than Emory expected as he frantically searched for a place to hide.
Frozen with indecision, he was smack in the middle of the floor when Regina knocked and called out to him.
“You got the key for it?” Sergeant Adye asked after Emory didn’t answer.
“Downstairs,” Regina said.
At the sound of their retreating footsteps, Emory remembered the crawl space behind the tall bookshelf. Inside were bags and boxes of dusty belongings.
Before shutting himself in, he tugged the bookshelf back into position, sunk into the darkness, and pressed a hand over his mouth to mute his breathing.
When Regina and Sergeant Adye entered, he pictured the horror on their faces. There were tubes and beakers and scales and microscopes everywhere. Shards of glass covered the floor. Papers were torn and flung about. The night before, Anderson’s deceit had sent Emory on a rampage.
“What’s that smell?” Sergeant Adye asked, audibly concerned.
“Beats me,” Regina said, sounding equally worried. Emory tracked their footsteps in his mind’s eye based on the creaks of the floorboards he had memorized over time.
“Looks … devilish. Not right. Dangerous! Watch your step.”
Sffsh. The sound was unmistakably the door to the minirefrigerator he’d bought and hauled up the stairs by himself several weeks ago. “Is that … blood?”
In there, Emory had stored Marvel Jr.’s original blood in a bag and more of his blood substitute. He knew how this looked.
“I’m sure they are sauces of some kind,” Regina said, evidently trying to convince herself.
“No disrespect, but those ain’t sauces, ma’am,” said Sergeant Adye.
“Oh dear…”
Emory listened to them tear the room apart. More apart than he’d already done himself. Emory inched deeper into the crawl space, truly scared for his safety.
“Anywhere else he could be hidin’?” Sergeant Adye asked.
There was a lengthy silence. “Not that I can think of,” she said, much to his relief.
Sergeant Adye said something indistinguishable into a crackling walkie-talkie.
“All right, Regina. I’m going to call this in to the mainland, and we’re gon’ put out a search for the guy.
Everythin’ ’bout this screams danger to me as a God-fearin’ man.
I’m gon’ get an officer stationed outside the house in case this madman comes back.
If you see or hear anythin’, call me right away.
I promise you that we’re goin’ to catch this monster. ”
“Of course,” Regina said shakily.
As soon as he heard the door close and lock, still in the dark, musty space, with his heart up in his throat, Emory thought through the possible outcomes. The most likely one saw the Ipingers forming their own manhunt without waiting for the mainland officers.
A mob was no doubt coming for him.
His mind conjured pitchforks and torches and being burned at the stake.
Nobody still did that, did they?
Vigilante justice could skew the better judgment of even the kindest people.
Sergeant Adye’s words replayed in Emory’s head.
We’re goin’ to catch this monster.
The word monster burrowed inside Emory’s chest and took deep, dark root.
Tucked into that crawl space, he wished he could disappear, but for the first time in the many times he’d done so in his life, he didn’t need to wish, because he could.
He could disappear.
All he needed was time.
Driven, he pushed his way out from hiding, then bolted and barricaded the door. A siren blared on the horizon. He shut the windows and the curtains and prepared more serum in an uncareful dose before swiftly setting up his own two-way transfusion.
A little while later, as his blood flowed out into a hanging bag and the extra artificial blood flowed into his veins, he felt oddly, eerily calm.
Fine, he thought. If they want a monster, I’ll give them a monster.