“You got it,” the biker said, disappearing into a throng of people.
Randon moved closer to the crowd. He’d recently met Mac and knew he had a pregnant wife at home. “This sucks.”
“Yep,” Kurt drawled. “And death wasn’t the worst thing that happened to Mac.”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t seen him?”
“After I left the house, I didn’t make it very far.” From there, he could only see Mac’s biker boots.
“Better be glad,” Kurt said, steering him away from the corpses. “You don’t need to see that, man.”
“I’m used to viewing this guy’s victims.”
About that time, a woman’s shrill filled the air. “What happened to his skin?”
Others gathered around the victims. Soon, several people were turning away from the bodies, holding their noses and mouths.
“What the hell happened?” Randon pushed a few onlookers out of his way in an effort to see the bodies.
Kurt threw his arm back and stopped him. “Don’t, Randon. Trust me, brother. You don’t want to remember this. Listen to me, man!”
Randon searched Kurt’s face. “Start talking. How are these deaths different than the others?”
“I’m hoping the prospects turn up with a witness who can shed some light on this, but it’s bad, man. He hasn’t done anything like this anywhere else.”
“We got something.” Sheriff McKinney rushed them. “A woman claims she saw bodies in the air around one or two this morning.”
“Flying bodies?” Kurt massaged the back of his neck. “So we’ve gone from vampires to aliens now?”
“She said the only way to describe it was to imagine a paranormal movie with ghosts floating in the air. According to her, they weren’t just drifting across the lawn.”
“What’d they do?” Kurt asked.
“Smashed into one another, rammed up against the side of what she calls a ‘cloudy bubble’ and turned a number of quote-unquote cartwheels.” Sheriff McKinney flipped through his notepad. “She said the big guy was screaming at the others, throwing a number of punches, and seemed to put up one hell of a fight.”
“So she’s got a description?”
“You know that’s a shot in the dark,” Randon said, shaking his head before ducking under the newly strewn crime tape. “You can’t describe what you can’t see.”
“You’re saying we’re dealing with an invisible force?” Sheriff McKinney snapped the end of his fountain pen and shoved it in his shirt pocket. “Is that what you’re implying?”
Randon and Kurt shared a knowing stare. They’d all turn in their badges if they truly believed they were up against something they’d never see, let alone arrest.
“Don’t listen to your witness,” Randon finally said. “We’ve been studying this guy for a while now. There’s nothing to suggest he sends his victims into midair. Besides, why bother with such theatrics?”
“To disorient his victims?” Sheriff McKinney suggested.
Kurt shrugged. “We haven’t thought of that.”
“No one has ever come forward and said they saw floating bodies either.”
Kurt pointed at the forest behind them. “Sheriff, where do these woods lead?”
Randon balked at the question. All they had to do was shift, sniff, and transition back. They’d know precisely where the woods led as well as what creatures resided there.
A cop walked up and handed a bag of clothes to the sheriff. “We found this, Sheriff.”