Shadow People

By C.L. Bevill

Penelope Quick is a thief who has just broken into the wrong house. She steals ancient American-Indian artifacts and discovers that there is a hidden world of magic, blood, and shapeshifters. She will do battle to save not only her own life but those of the people she loves. Worst of all, if she loses, then it might be the end of everything she knows.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.L. Bevill
• Release date: Oct 21, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458130730

C.L. Bevill

C.L. Bevill is the author of several books including Bubba and the Dead Woman, Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, Bubba and the Missing Woman, Bayou Moon, The Flight of the Scarlet Tanager, Veiled Eyes, Disembodied Bones, and Shadow People. She is currently at work on her latest literary masterpiece.

Book preview

Chapter One

Friday, July 4th - Dallas, Texas

Creeper (slang, origin unknown, probably American) - a sneak thief who specializes in entrances that go undetected by owner and police officers alike

Each time Penelope Quick went on a job, she covered a mental checklist. Drive past if the police were about. Don’t look at the cop. Don’t blink. If there wasn’t a cop around, then make sure the neighbors weren’t lounging on their porches with lemonade in one hand and binoculars in the other. Don’t look conspicuous. Park the car at least two blocks away, and for God’s sake, don’t pull a Son of Sam and leave it in front of a fire hydrant so the cops could come back and check all the tickets given during the time of the heist.

Other items were common sense but also learned from Penelope’s mentors and from years of not getting caught. Wear gloves. Wear dark clothing. Go at night. Memorize the house’s floor plan. Leave your identification at home. Turn the cell phone off, a cell phone that was purchased for its anonymity. Make sure your pockets are empty except for mission-essential items.

Dad always called it creeping, Penelope thought wistfully. Jacob Quick would have laughed and said he was going to pull a creep. Then he would look around and make sure his wife, Jessica, Penelope’s mother, wasn’t around to overhear.

Creeping was an old term for cat burglary. Penelope frequently heard it from some of her father’s old crew. Those were the days before the cops had thermal imaging and before the marks had security systems that would hear a mouse farting at a thousand paces. They called what they did an art form, a rapidly dying skill that had its heyday decades before.

Penelope could have told them the house she was watching didn’t have a security system. It didn’t have a Rottweiler out back. It didn’t have flood lights on the darkest corners of the house. It didn’t have bars on the lower windows. And the yard boys weren’t cutting the hedges back around the most accessible points, so when Penelope went in, she would be all but invisible. It was, as Jeremy had told her, too good to be true.

Jeremy Collins was one of Penelope’s closest friends. Her only friend, if truth were to be told. She had met the slender black youth when they both targeted the same Highland Park house five years before. He had been eighteen years old and she had been twenty. They had met in the back bedroom of the Tudor style mansion that had been appraised at over a million dollars. Her hand had been on the false panel where the safe was hidden, and he had barked out an outraged cry of disapproval. In the dim light of a distant autumn moon, Penelope’s first memory of Jeremy was that she thought he was far too young. He was thin and wiry and his angelic face filled with dismay at her unwanted presence. He immediately knew what she was, and she had known what he was, although her instinct was to play the part of a victim. But Jeremy wasn’t having any of it, and ultimately, they had split the proceeds of the safe that belonged to the medical doctor who owned the house.

Penelope had known about the doctor’s proclivity to order over 60% of the narcotics prescribed in the entire state of Texas and that he was being investigated by a dozen governmental agencies. It made him an accessible mark, a crook with a white collar. Jeremy hadn’t known that. But he’d quickly discovered that pursuing individuals who walked on the shady side of the law had a whole set of benefits he hadn’t previously considered. They didn’t like the police department any more than Penelope or Jeremy did, and they were less likely to report the crimes perpetrated against them.

Instant friends; the pair had bonded that night. Their friendship had continued for years. Often they worked together. Specifically, Jeremy had told her months ago about this particular house in downtown Dallas. My security buddy, Jobe, says it’s got two safes. One for the scruds. One for the best. But there ain’t a lick of protective security. Ain’t no laser beams. Ain’t nothing but a fake safe with a few gimmees. And the real one.

Even Penelope had known there was a but coming. Yes, she’d prompted him with wry humor, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It’s haunted, Jeremy had cackled amusedly. Part of the appeal, girl. I know a dozen homeboys that won’t even drive past the place after the sun goes down. A bunch of peeps got done in about fifty years ago. Guy killed his entire family with a shotgun. Got his wife, his mother, his six kids, and the milkman who stuck his head in the back door to see what the dealio was.

Penelope had given him a steady look that portrayed her complete and utter skepticism of his story. However, she later determined from a historical research of the house that Jeremy had gotten it mostly correct. The owner, a minor Texas oil baron and millionaire in the 1940s, had killed everyone in the house, including a six-month-old infant in a crib. Then he shot his two prized Irish Setters and culminated his murderous rampage by placing the end of the shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger with his big toe. The story had made Penelope cringe.

And Jobe says he saw the owner crack the safe. A wad of cash. Lots of jewels in there, too. Native American stuff. Old stuff. Real collectable stuff. We can hock it before the sun goes up, and it’ll be in New York City before the sun sets again. They had both known what the absence of security meant. The present owners had something to hide; they were bent in some form or fashion. That was the equivalent of an engraved invitation to Jeremy and Penelope. She had her rules and Jeremy accepted them, even if he didn’t always follow them himself. No little old ladies. No one who couldn’t afford the loss. And the preferred marks were usually more crooked than themselves. She was a thief who liked to rob other thieves. But not only thieves, drug dealers, murderers, and people who weren’t on the straight and narrow. It made her life easier. It also made her able to sleep when she closed her eyes at night.

Thieves don’t have ethics, Jeremy had teased Penelope on more than one occasion. It ain’t gonna pay your mama’s bills.

If I didn’t have ethics, Penelope, stung, had launched immediately back, then I wouldn’t be paying any of mama’s bills.

Jeremy, who had been abandoned by his mother at twelve, didn’t feel the same familial obligation. But he liked Jessica Quick almost as much as he liked Penelope, so he didn’t argue with her. He respected his friend’s wishes, even if he didn’t follow the same conventions.

They had planned their strategy starting with the architectural layout and ending with points of entry/exits. The house was a hideous Victorian Gothic construct from the late 19th century, and replete with leering gargoyles perched on the corners of the roof. It loomed over the desolate side street like a gargantuan monster intent on frightening the bejesus out of the next passerby. Penelope had thought on more than one occasion that it was the ugliest house she’d ever seen, and she had seen many houses on her various creeps.

But that had been two months before, and Jessica had come down with a nasty case of pneumonia. Caught up with her mother’s illness, Penelope hadn’t been doing anything since then, and Jeremy, as he frequently did, had dropped from sight. Penelope had called him on his cell phone and left messages, but she had a good idea what had happened. He had hit a big mark and scored. So he’d taken off for the Caribbean. He had a honey on St. Thomas that he visited every chance he could. When his money ran out, he’d be back, and they would take up on the plan where they’d left off. But Penelope had found out she couldn’t wait. She needed an influx of cash, and she needed it desperately. She couldn’t wait for Jeremy to return. If he got mad that she hadn’t waited for him, then she would cut him a finder’s fee. He’d get over it.

Standing behind a clump of thick, pink-bloomed oleanders, Penelope quietly surveyed the house on 26 Durfrene Row. Behind her was another ugly house, but the lights were out, and she had personally witnessed a family carry out three picnic chairs and a small cooler as they headed south toward a DART station and the Trinity River. It was, after all, the Fourth of July, and any moment the fireworks would start all over the metroplex. The most exciting were those of the Trinity Fest, and they would last a staggering thirty minutes, running through at least $500,000 of the city of Dallas’s budget. Because it was Independence Day and because it was a Friday, people were massing at the festival in droves. It was a party night, and no one could reasonably expect a thief to be hitting their house.

Standing in the deepest shadows of the huge oleander, she went over her mental checklist to ensure that before she ever broke a law, she was prepared in every way. She believed in being prepared.

*

The man was sitting in his car on the far side of Durfrene Row. He was parked as far away as possible from the Victorian Gothic house at number 26 without leaving its direct line of sight. He had night vision goggles, and he was watching Penelope Quick’s figure with keen interest. He didn’t know Penelope was a woman, nor would the fact of her gender have made a difference. But he knew a thief when he saw one.

The house didn’t belong to him. His interest in the property was for a specific reason none would have guessed. He had been watching it for weeks now and was no closer to his objective than he had been on the first day he had arrived in Dallas. Frustration hadn’t set in, but the knowledge that his enemy was getting closer to his goal than the man was getting to his, was disquieting.

Lowering the goggles he doubtfully pursed his lips. It wasn’t in his heart to watch another hapless soul walk, or rather sneak, into the house to meet a fate worse than any they could have imagined. But if he revealed his presence, then he was risking more than the death of a worthless thief. He remained where he was, quietly watching for an opportunity.

The house appeared to be unoccupied at the moment. The lights were extinguished. No noises of activity radiated from the inside that would indicate habitation. It was as silent as the crypt that it had become. It was as dark as sin personified.

Then the thief had appeared, sliding through the shadows like the things of legends. The man had been taken aback for a moment. The thought had slid unwanted through his analytical mind, the product of a thousand stories. Shadow people. But the goggles placed to his face with hands that trembled just a little, showed the thief to be flesh and warm-blooded, dressed in dark clothing that covered the individual from head to toe, with a knit cap that could easily be pulled down over the face.

Not the product of the underworld. Only a thief interested in the very same house.

Fool. The man thought. Damn fool. Only the spirits wait for you there. No riches for your greedy soul. Nothing there but terror and evil to haunt your eternal existence.

*

Penelope noticed the same things that the watching man had noticed. The house was still. It was noiseless. It seemed devoid of people. She hadn’t been around long enough to see if the owners were out with the rest of the city of Dallas’s population at various July 4th celebrations, but she felt positive they weren’t home. A quick call to the main telephone number of the house from her cell phone ensured its lifelessness. She allowed it to ring ten times for good measure and turned her phone off again.

Shifting from the shadow of the oleander, she melted into the night, making liberal use of every inch of gloominess and each crevice of the houses along the even side of Durfrene Row. When Penelope reached her goal, she went around the back, soundlessly scaling a brick wall with decorative wrought iron curling across its apex. She was as silent as an alley cat.

The yard in back of the Victorian Gothic was dead; the grass crackled like desiccated bugs when she stepped on it. There had once been a rose garden rimming the yard, but the blooms had died on the stem, their darkened shapes still and inert. Penelope studied the shriveled flowers with a wary eye. Prone to imagination she couldn’t envision why anyone would allow such an elaborate garden to die off by simply ignoring its existence.

A kitchen window had been previously selected as the one to enter. Not only was it located near the entrance to the basement where the safes were located, it was more than accessible. It was just above ground level and was positioned at the back of the oversized kitchen. Penelope would have to climb across a secondary sink, but the window was absent of security devices and obscured by the leaves of a large mimosa tree. The mimosa had made the most of the shade of the Victorian Gothic house, managing to survive alone in a dead wilderness.

After peering inside for movement and detecting none, Penelope used a branch to position herself and levered the window open with a special instrument used for older windows. It was like a Slim Jim tool; it slipped down between the casement and the lock and a little twist released the mechanism. Ten seconds later, Penelope was opening the window. It didn’t even creak.

Like the thief she was, Penelope slipped inside with the night.

Chapter Two

Friday, July 4th

Boxman (slang, origin unknown, probably American, circa 1940s) - a safecracker

26 Durfrene Row had an old-fashioned kitchen with outdated appliances and an archaic, well-used, wooden butcher’s block. The kitchen was large enough for a half-dozen servants to work freely within it. The floor was black and white checkerboard tile, and the dripping faucet from one of the oversized sinks sounded like impatient tapping fingers.

Penelope let herself drop to the floor with a catlike movement. Her eyes scanned her horizon and adjusted to the dimness of the room. She wouldn’t be able to use a light in any room that had an exterior window, even if it faced the back of the house, so she blinked her eyes and waited. Her arrival hadn’t been noticed, and she planned to keep it that way.

Stopping by the closed face of an ancient dumbwaiter, Penelope again scrutinized her surroundings. The kitchen appeared to be used irregularly. There were moldering dirty dishes in the sink, and the dust on the floor showed a pattern from the front entrance to the kitchen to the refrigerator. Not very good housekeepers, she surmised. Perhaps this house was merely an investment for them. Then why have a safe in the basement? Why skimp on security?

A discomforting rash of goose bumps scurried down Penelope’s back, and she didn’t like the feeling. Usually pulling a creep was thrilling. She knew what to expect. There were rarely surprises, and when there were, she handled each well. Once she had convinced a wary police officer that she was the owner’s sister visiting from Chicago. Then there was the unexpected meeting with Jeremy in the Highland Park home. Even those incidents hadn’t given her the feeling of disquiet that was plaguing her now.

Leave. Leave now. The voice inside Penelope’s head was as loud as if someone had spoken just beside her, and she jerked with helpless reaction. Don’t go into the basement. Don’t go out of the kitchen.

But what about Mama? The questioning thought shot through her mind. Penelope didn’t generally allow situations to become dire, but Jessica’s sickness had precipitated events. If Penelope didn’t rapidly come up with a certain amount of money, her mother was going to be living in Penelope’s guest bedroom, and she didn’t have a guest bedroom. Penelope had one room. It was kitchen, bedroom, and living room all in one.

The conflicting voices argued in Penelope’s head. Enough, she told herself. It’s just that stupid story Jeremy told me. The house is haunted so I’m freaked. Damn Jeremy.

Penelope frowned. She rubbed her forearms above the light, black material of the long-sleeved shirt she was wearing. She needed the money. There was no disagreeing with that fact. Another golden opportunity like this wasn’t going to present itself overnight. Her mother really needed the money, even if she didn’t know about it. And Penelope would do whatever she had to do to make sure Jessica did NOT know about it.

Motionless, Penelope sniffed delicately. The house was stale as if unlived in and possessed a faint foul odor like spoilt food. Perhaps the owners were haphazard visitors. In all the times she watched the place, she only saw a few people from the back of the opposite side of the house where the detached garage was located. They drove away in a black Chevy Suburban and came back sometimes days later. There hadn’t been movement in the house for days.

There were the safes to consider. She would go to the basement, locate the real safe, and it would take forever in thief’s time to open it. It was a Fort Knox safe; the theory being that it was as safe as the army fort and the gold contained therein. It had many safety features the middle-class citizen could afford, and it wasn’t so heavy that it would take a crane to lift it into place. The particular model was fire protected for up to 50 minutes at 1450˚ F. It had a 1/4" thick steel door made of 10-gauge steel. There were six active door-locking bolts and locking dead bolts, including top and bottom bolts. It weighed 753 pounds and had a volume of 25 cubic feet. It could keep most of the average homeowner’s goodies protected.

However, given a little time and opportunity, the above-average thief always had a way to crack the box. Sometimes they even cheated at that effort just like she was going to do.

Penelope slid the kitchen door open. It was a pocket door that glided on decades-old ball bearings and protested slightly with the movement. She winced at the moaning complaint of noise and stopped to listen. Again the house was still and without activity. Houses like these old monstrosities always made a dozen varied noises at any given time. The eaves creaked. The bricks settled. Rats scampered through the attic, their claws clattering at the beams and air conditioning ducts. A little creak of a door was nothing. No one would even perk an ear at it.

There was a hallway outside the kitchen. To the left were the living areas. Three living rooms and a den dominated the southern part of the house. A grand staircase made of oak and mahogany led to the second and third floors. To the right was the formal dining room and further down the hallway, a pantry with an entrance to the basement.

Penelope turned silently to the right. She didn’t care what was upstairs. There wasn’t a safe upstairs, and the inside information indicated that the most valuable goods were in the basement safe. Time wasn’t her buddy right now, and Penelope didn’t want to be trapped in a windowless basement without an exit plan if someone decided it was a good time to come home.

The pocket door to the formal dining room was shut, and Penelope went past without faltering. She stopped as she passed a doll sitting on a small table in the middle of the hallway. Even in the murk she could see the fine quality of the nonchalant statue sitting there. Made from real feathers and leather, it was a kachina doll. Then Penelope remembered that Jeremy’s friend, Jobe, had mentioned the owner’s interest in Native American artwork. There were other items around. A bear-like fetish of some sort hung on the wall. A framed sand painting, frozen in time by some sort of chemical process, sat propped on the floor next to the door to the dining room. The kachina doll gave her pause because of its vivid colors. Red, blue, and green conflicted with yellows and oranges. Its leather skirt was decorated with elaborate beadwork and the mask adorned with feathers that swayed with a slight breeze.

However, it was the expression on the lavishly created doll’s mask that gave Penelope the most hesitation. Static, its tiny and precise features snarled out at her, malevolent and vicious, waiting to vehemently curse the next person to cross its path. Exaggerated teeth dripped with blood, heavily painted eyes glared out at her. The kachina wasn’t merely angry; it was prepared to rend an individual to a pile of steaming entrails.

The voice was back in her head. It’s not too late, it said.

Swallowing the urge inside her, Penelope steadfastly ignored the doll as she continued on her way. The pantry door was open about two inches, and she cast a guarded look over her shoulder before she opened it enough to slip through. Closing it silently behind her, she was enveloped in blackness.

Noting that no light came from the basement door opposite from her, she retrieved her Mini Mag from a pocket. Penelope twisted the flashlight, and light filled the room. The small room was lifeless. She moved to the other end and slowly opened up the basement door. Undersized and slender, it would barely allow a normal-sized human to pass, and even Penelope had to duck her head.

She closed the door behind her and found herself on a narrow wooden staircase. The floor creaked and groaned under her weight, but Penelope ignored it. No one except someone very close could hear her. She avoided the worst spots of the stairs by keeping to the edges and the sides and descended into intimidating blackness. The constricted staircase stopped at a cement landing, and the room opened up to show where coal had once been placed for a coal furnace. The furnace was long gone. The rest of the floor was red earth, darkened by shadows into the color of pitch. The walls were the same brick as the exterior, and the room absorbed even the meager light of the Mini Mag. There was a section of wall that showed fresh cement grout and she knew where the safes had entered this dank, foul-smelling pit of a room.

Penelope disregarded her feelings of anxiety and smiled when she saw the false safe centrally located on the far side of the room. It was in plain sight and the exact same model as the one she would be opening. Wryly hoping the owner had gotten a good deal on the pair of safes, she passed it by and went to the deepest darkest part of the basement. Casements that had been half sunk into the ground outside had been bricked over, leaving dead space below. She stepped lightly over a pile of debris left by the workmen and moved a cardboard box filled with mothball-scented clothing.

There was a wooden workbench here, and it swung out of the way. It was fixed to hinges for easy access and merely camouflage for the safe. A new set of Craftsman screwdrivers and an unused Jim Dandy hammer were strewn across the top. The decoy arrayed with pristine tools was meant to fool the casual thief. Jobe hadn’t seen the workbench, but Penelope knew the owners probably wouldn’t have moved the safe out of the basement. They had bolted it into the cement in a recess that had once held some sort of pipes for the upstairs use of the occupants.

Next to it was the closed face of the dumbwaiter that went to this level. Penelope frowned until she considered that the manual device must have been used to bring coal up to some of the bedrooms on the second floor.

Wedging the Mini Mag into place on the workbench between a screwdriver and the new hammer, Penelope took out a few tools she had brought with her and got to work. After all, one never knew when an owner might pop in to discuss security issues.

At 60.5 inches tall, the safe was precisely 4.5 inches shorter than Penelope was and she bent over slightly to go to work. The first tool was a set of latex gloves. She took her leather gloves off and replaced them with latex. She needed to feel what she was touching. The second tool was a cloth bag with no metallic parts to rattle. She would need something to carry away what she would be taking. The final tool was a little piece of note paper.

Penelope grimaced. There was no one like a thief to tell a homeowner how to successfully secure their castles. The very first rule of business is when having a safe installed in one’s house, then…A rustle of faint noise distracted her for a second. It sounded like something shuffling in the dirt. Is it a rat? A cat? It’s nothing. Where was I? Ah, yes. The very first rule of business is when having a safe installed in one’s house, then one NEVER ever has the workman program the safe’s combination. Penelope opened the folded piece of paper and looked at the combination with disgust. The second rule is never ever to use a simple unforgettable combination. 5-10-15-20-25. That’s almost as stupid as 1-2-3-4-5.

Her hands were working busily on the safe. She had practiced on a mock-up of this safe until she could have opened it in the dark and without the use of one of her hands. But her hands hesitated as the rustle of faint noise repeated behind her. It sounded as if the earth was moving itself around. They…they…oh, hell, what is that noise?

Penelope knew the door to the basement hadn’t opened. And she had thoroughly looked over the basement. Every corner had been empty. But she caught the aroma of something incredibly foul, and her nose wrinkled. Had an old septic system burst? She ignored the smell and the sound and returned to her activities.

The safe opened with a smooth movement that had her admiring the well-oiled mechanism. Most thieves wouldn’t be able to get into the box in under several hours. They’d have to drill the mechanism and then force it open.

The sound repeated behind Penelope. Shuffle. Crack. Shuffle. It stopped. She hoped she wouldn’t have to wade through a ravenous horde of rats, or gophers for that matter.

With a fierce frown, she looked inside the safe. There was antique jewelry and cash there. Much of the jewelry was turquoise and appeared to have been made with the largest, most luminous pieces of the blue-green stones. The jewelry went into the bag. There were three stacks of cash, mostly hundred dollar bills that followed. She nodded her head in approval. Bracing the handles of the bag across her head and shoulders, she checked every shelf of the safe and was about to turn away when a glitter caught her eye.

Penelope stopped. Now something else was calling to her. It sounded like that voice in her head, but it wasn’t quite right. Take me. Take me now. It beckoned to her with a thick, voracious voice that rang through her head. Her hand began to tremble as she reached for it. Even through the latex gloves she could feel the power stemming from the twinkling object that invited her to touch it, to pick it up, and keep it forever. As the tips of her fingers made contact, an electrical shock of recognition shot through her body. She almost jerked her hand away in utter astonishment. But the shock faded away, and her fingers caressed the cool surface with the affection of greeting a beloved man.

Something cracked loudly behind her, and Penelope abruptly realized it wasn’t just rats in the basement with her. Somehow, someway, someone had gotten into the room with her, and she wasn’t alone any longer.

Chapter Three

Friday, July 4th

Pennyweighter (slang, origin unknown, probably 1930s American) - a jewelry thief

Penelope wasn’t prone to histrionics. She knew very well that kind of reaction rarely got a thief anywhere. She also didn’t believe that a thief should carry a weapon with them on any creep. Besides the fact that armed burglary carried a heavier sentence in the state of Texas, there was always the possibility of violence, and she didn’t want to be responsible for harming anyone or being injured herself. And the worst part was that local law enforcement was not kindly disposed toward the average criminal if a weapon was found upon their person.

One had to be smarter. That was the credo Penelope used. It was the one that Jacob Quick had cited frequently, believing that cleverness could allow any thief to escape nine times out of ten. She believed in it as well but rarely had to practice it since her pre-creeping preparation was exhaustingly researched. If one knew what to expect, then logically there wouldn’t be any nasty surprises.

The impulse to shuck her drawers and head for the hills was a throwback to fight or flight. However, it wouldn’t get her out of the basement, and the diamond-like glitter in the back of safe was calling her name.

The sparkling item at her fingertips was a large egg-sized gemstone without ornamentation of any type. There was no setting, merely a large faceted jewel whose sleek black lines caught the light of the Mini Mag and returned them in a wondrous array of sparkling beams. Closing her fingers around the stone, she withdrew her hand from the safe. Even through the thin layer of latex, the gem felt like it was a cube of ice, as glacially cold as only a mineral could be. Her other hand retrieved the leather gloves and the folded paper. The bag swung slowly from its secured position around her neck and shoulder. Slowly she turned toward the figure that stood so silently behind her.

The Mini Mag’s light was pointed toward her and caused Penelope to blink. All that could be perceived beyond the yellow beam was a large human figure positioned not ten feet away from her. Jesus God, it’s a linebacker from the Cowboys. He’s like seven feet tall and half as broad. Then she wondered how the man had managed to get through the narrow door at the top of the narrower stairs without crushing the hundred-year-old door frame to smithereens. Furthermore, how could such a big man have been so damn quiet while coming up behind her?

Then there was that gut-wrenchingly awful stench, as if the man had rolled in a pile of decomposing manure and then wrapped road kill around his neck for good measure. The combined awful smells made Penelope want to gag and lurch backwards at the same time. But what really made her nervous was that the figure was so completely motionless. He stood there, beyond the range of her little light, and stared wordlessly at her.

Texas Utilities and Gas, sir, she shot out, causing her face to close in a fierce frown of disapproval, hoping that her body blocked most of the fact that the safe was wide open behind her. I’m having a serious problem with finding your gas meter and I was looking in every nook and cranny. I didn’t think anyone was home. Even Penelope knew that sounded weak.

Silence answered her. The shape didn’t move. It didn’t even appear as though the man was breathing he was so still. He’s not falling for it. Penelope thought, Oh, the hell with this. In for a dime, in for a dollar. We’ve got a major leak in the area, and we’re trying to track it down before half a square mile goes up in an explosion that would make Mt. St. Helens look like a little puff of smoke. It’s rather urgent, so if you’ll just point out where— She shifted to one side, trying to see the man’s face, so that it would be easier to gauge his reactions. In eerie harmony, the figure abruptly shifted with her, and she got a fresh whiff of that foul smell that caused her throat to swallow involuntarily. — the gas meter is, she finished feebly. Maybe you can already smell that rotten egg smell, it’s all around us.

Her Spider-Sense was tingling, and it was letting Penelope know that she was in big trouble. Big, fat, hairy trouble with a four-foot expanse of shoulders that would have made Arnold Schwarzenegger jealous and a nasty silent disposition that would have scared the hell out of any creeper that Penelope knew. She knew she could talk her way out of 95% of all bad situations she had gotten herself into, but there was always the other five percent to consider.

Penelope shifted to the left. As if a reflection in a carnival mirror, the large figure mimicked her, and she knew she had just fallen into the other five percent category. After tucking the leather gloves and paper into a pocket, she reached slowly for the flashlight and was pleased that the figure didn’t move. It wasn’t threatened by the gloves or the flashlight. She retrieved the Mini Mag and unhurriedly rotated the tiny metal canister in the opposite direction, not wishing to cause anyone to suddenly jump at her.

The beam of light leisurely traveled over the floor as she directed it where she wanted it to be, wishing to look upon the man’s face. But Penelope stopped as the light revealed a section of the dirt floor just behind and to the right of where the figure was so motionlessly standing. A large rough hole had been exposed; a hole that hadn’t been there earlier.

Something, or someone, had emerged from the earth to confront her. Penelope froze in disbelief. Someone had been hiding in the ground, waiting for her to rob a safe? It seemed like the plot of a marvelous fictional novel, but the evidence presented itself before her in the shape of an oversized being, wordlessly parodying her as it inevitably moved with her movements.

Her fingers twitched around the Mini Mag, and she brought the light up to where he waited. Waiting, she thought. We’re waiting for something. For someone else?

The hell with your gas leak then, she muttered and darted left. The flashlight’s beam struck his face, and she bit her lip to keep from screaming. It was the same horrifying mask as the kachina doll upstairs, except it was giant sized. The twisted, malevolent face with its carefully painted features stared at her and he effectively blocked her before she could take two steps. But the glaring eyes held her attention for a petrifying second. One was brown. The other was a bloodshot blue. One drooped as if affected with palsy; the other was open wide.

Penelope’s hand dropped, and she saw the rest of the figure that blocked her. The kachina mask ended at the shoulders. A loose black robe covered the man’s hulking shape, exposing only his wrists and forearms and his booted feet. But nothing matched. It was like looking at a terrifying jigsaw puzzle gone crazily insane.

The thoughts that careened in Penelope’s head didn’t make sense. She had seen disabled individuals before. But no one she’d seen had ever looked like him. One hand was as large as a pie plate, and the forearm above it bulged with muscles. The skin was the color of ripened peaches, and a Mickey Mouse watch bit into the flesh of the huge wrist. The other hand was soft and feminine with long curved nails. Its color was snowy with a simple gold wedding band adorning the ring finger. An uneven hump protruded from the upper right shoulder and made the material of the robe tent as if around a pole. The legs, although covered with roughly hand-stitched leather, appeared to be a mismatch just like the remainder of him.

You know, I’m just doing my job here, Penelope tried again, hearing the quaver in her voice and not liking it one bit. A quaver wouldn’t get her out of a sticky situation, and it made her sound…afraid. The police won’t like you keeping me trapped like this. They frown on people who do sick, perverted things like this and…

There was a sudden burst of sound, an earsplittingly loud, thunderous roar of cascading booms that could have been a thousand cannons firing at once. The Trinity Fest’s extravaganza of fireworks had begun in spectacular form. The man in front of her let his head swivel curiously about, and Penelope saw tufts of hair sticking out the back of the mask. There were three distinct colors of hair: gray, black, and red. It didn’t look as though someone was trying to make a fashion statement by dying their hair in different colors. Penelope didn’t know what it made her think of, except that something deep inside her was making her shudder.

With the hand holding the flashlight and using the distraction of the rumbling crash of noise outside, Penelope suddenly swept the top of the workbench free of the screwdrivers and hammer and let the still-lighted Mini Mag go with it. The abrupt noise and carnival of lights made the man twist about and emit an indignant shout.

The light spun around like a crazed toy top, showing varying degrees of angles within the basement, and the man let out an agonized whoop of protest at the sudden change. His massive arms began to flail for her in the alternating light and darkness, and Penelope felt a sudden sting as his hand raked down the side of her wrist. Biting back the cry of pain, she didn’t stay still and moved into the deepest shadows as she kept the figure in-between herself and the flashlight.

The man’s substantial shape moved swiftly