The Suspect

Sheriff Barnett glared through a one way mirror at the filthy man who sat fidgeting in the interrogation room.

She didn’t like this. As a rule she was strictly opposed to hauling in suspects for questioning without any real evidence, but there’s a saying about desperate times, and her current situation could easily fit that category.

The spree of grave robberies had been going on for three months now, and the people of Hobbes, Kentucky were getting very impatient for it to end.

It had started with a couple of months-old graves being dug up over the course of a few weeks. Of course people were upset, but on that scale they were willing to begrudgingly accept the explanation of wild animals being at fault.

Now, however, it seemed like one was being dug up every other day, in spite of a newly built fence. Perhaps dug up wasn’t even the right word.

Everyone in town was sure that the culprit was a person, but everyone hadn’t gotten a close look at the disturbed grave plots.

In every case the ground had been clawed up, coffin lids torn to splinters, and bodies completely missing.

Sheriff Barnett was at her wit’s end when it came to what to tell the newspapers. It was true what the reporters always said, there were no animals near Hobbes capable of doing this, but she struggled to believe that a human was capable of it either. Truth be told, she was just as clueless as the townsfolk.

She closed her eyes for a moment to gather her thoughts and then asked the deputy beside her to explain one more time the circumstances under which he had brought this man in for questioning.

“I was out patrolling ‘round the cemetery,'' the deputy began, “When I seen this here fella leanin’ up against the fence looking inside.

I walked up to him to ask him just what he thought he was doing, and as soon as he seen me he started tryin’ to creep away. I shouted for him to stop, but he just kept on movin’ away a little faster, so I drew my gun and told him to get down on his knees. He dropped when he saw the gun, and I loaded him up in the squad car.”

Sheriff Barnett frowned.

“There’s somethin’ ain’t right about him, ma’am.” The deputy said, earnestly pleading his case. “He stinks like a buzzard and he looks at me like I ain’t never seen a man look at nobody. He hasn’t said a damn word since I found him, won’t even open his mouth, just grunts at me. If anybody’s got somethin’ to do with this grave business it’s him.”

Sheriff Barnet looked at the genuine unease in the deputy’s eyes, and her frown softened. She was still annoyed, but she had some sympathy. This cemetery situation was starting to get to everybody.

With a sigh, Sheriff Barnett switched on the microphones in the interrogation room and opened the door to go talk to whoever this stranger was.

When she closed the door behind her and looked at the suspect face to face, she suddenly didn’t think as little of her deputy for being unsettled.

The man did indeed stink like a buzzard, the little room was filled with a sickly sweet odor. He was wearing some sort of a bizarre patchwork cloak, and he was filthy from head to toe.

His eyes were ringed with red, and he fixed sheriff Barnett with a disinterested, but unnerving gaze, as if he was looking straight through her at something he’d like to eat.

She walked across the small concrete room and took a seat opposite to him at the table, her face a mask of calm, not betraying her inner discomfort.

“So,” She opened, “Let’s get right down to business, what were you doing out by the cemetery when my deputy brought you in?”

Across the table, Grikk knew he was in a world of trouble. He could barely understand the words this woman was saying, but he knew It had to do with him and the cemetery.

He didn’t know much about town people, hell he didn’t know much about anything, but the family had taught him that there were always people looking to lock him in a cage.

They had also taught him that if that happened, well, there wasn’t a thing they could do to help him.

Sheriff Barnett heard the suspect grunt in response to her question, just like the deputy said he had been doing. It didn’t sound quite like any sound a person should be making.

In her twenty years working for the law in Hobbes, Sheriff Barnett had seen her share of junkies and freaks, but this man was… different. She went through the motions of trying to persuade him that things would be easier for everybody if he just opened up and told what he knew, and how much worse everything could be if he refused to cooperate, she knew deep down that it was a waste of time. The man’s only replies were to dart his eyes back and forth and grunt like an animal.

She looked down toward where the man’s handcuffs were attached to the table. He fidgeted uncomfortably, as if it made him deeply uncomfortable to have his hands out in the open. They were as strange as the rest of him, As big as any hands Sheriff Barnett had seen, and with bizarrely thick and jagged nails.

There was dirt caked under his nails for sure, but that wasn’t the kind of evidence you could accuse a man of defiling twenty graves on.

Sheriff Barnett sighed and stood up.

Still in his chair, Grikk breathed anxiously through his nose. She had looked at his hands. That broke one of the two rules the family had told him to follow for staying hidden.

Always wear your hood, always hide your hands. He had bitten off his claws before the man had put a chain on his wrists, still had them in his mouth in fact, but she had still looked at his hands.

Did she know?

He was near panicking, he was pretty sure he could break the chain around his wrists, but could he make it through the door? And would they follow him?

He knew that if he ran and they caught him things would get a lot worse. If they took off his hood… If they made him open his mouth… It could spell big trouble for the whole family.

He decided to stay put.

Back behind the one way mirror, Sherif Barnett shook her head as she talked to her deputy.

“You caught yourself a strange one alright.” She said, “He ain’t right in the head and he’s probably all screwed up on somethin’, but the problem is, if you didn’t find anything on him, we can’t keep him here.

Believe me I don’t like him any more than you. He makes my skin crawl. I don’t ever want to see another one like him, but you can’t slap a man with twenty felonies for being dirty and strange.”

The deputy nodded his head, took the handcuff keys off his belt, and reluctantly opened the door to the interrogation room to tell the suspect that he was free to walk out the front door.

As he was led outside, Grikk rubbed his wrists and then quickly slid his hands into his pockets. He was very careful to walk slowly and calmly away from the concrete building he had been held in, but as soon as he had turned two corners, he took off at a dead sprint for the swamp that sat two miles south of the cemetery.

He spit out his claws into his hand and looked down at them. They resembled razor sharp yellow shovels, like the claws of a mole. He lamented their loss for a moment, it would take months to grow another set like this. It was worth it though, he thought as he threw them aside into the dirt.

He had been strong. He had kept the family safe.

He opened his jaws and let out a whoop of victory, exposing several dozen small, hooked teeth.

He would make it back to the swamp in a few minutes, and he would warn the family that it was time to find a new place to camp.

He knew they wouldn’t be happy to move, but they would know it was right. Hell, when they heard that he had made it through an encounter with the people in uniforms they might even be impressed. He might be the baby of the family, he thought, but he could fend for himself.

The family all knew they were going to have to move soon. They had been eating too much. When they first arrived outside of Hobbes they had been starving, but after a while they had just gotten greedy.

Next place they found, they would be more careful.

Grikk made it to the brush on the edge of town and dropped down to run on all fours. As he did, a branch pushed his hood back, revealing his rough, bald head and vulture-like ear holes. Since he was out of people’s sight, he left it down. He never liked wearing it when he didn’t have to.

Back at the office, Sheriff Barnett and her deputy talked about the night’s events, sharing one last shudder before closing up for the night.