It had been a good take this year; the little vampire tossed the
crumbled blanket aside and emptied the overstuffed plastic grocery bag
onto his bed. A cascade of tiny colors and shapes, with browns and
oranges speckled throughout.

Separating the booty into piles, he rasped a violent cough and wiped
his nose along a patch of forearm exposed through white makeup; he’d
had the cough when he was little and it had returned since they’d
moved back, but since Mom didn’t yell at him anymore for wiping his
nose on his arm it was no matter to him.

The little vampire separated the spoils into two piles, candy bars and
everything else. He stuffed a couple bars into his mouth and cut the
rest into a bag that he shoved under the bed. Then he picked through
the remaining stack, making a chewy pile, a hard candy pile and a
gross pile. He even got three dollars. In the hard candy pile, yellows
and blues moved to the gross pile. Then he found something strange.

It looked at first like a gross green and white swirl. Then he
recoiled. It was an eye.

It remained still, staring at him.

He tapped with a cautious fingernail; it was hard, either plastic or
glass. Cool and weighty in his palm. Probably the most awesome thing
he ever got trick-or-treating. Still, weird….

“We’re feeling pain, aren’t we?”

“Y-y-yes.”

“We’re angry at our cold parents, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“To heal, we need to tell them we’re angry, don’t we? I want you to
tell them… Chevette, I want to hear you say, ‘Mommy, Daddy, I’m
angry.’ Chevette?”

“Go on, tell them,” the vampire’s mother encouraged from the
Stairmaster. “Say it. Let them have it.”

Eerie bauble in hand, the vampire stood at the foot of churning,
perspiring machine-and-mother, waiting for a break in Oprah. He called
twice over the television. “Mom?”

“Huh? Hi, baby.” She turned back to the screen, daubing her eyes with
a hanky in her fist. She didn’t comment on his costume. The machine
roared ahead, in place.

“Mom, can I show you something?”

“Hun, this is Mommy’s time, right?”

“I know, Mom, but this is important. Please?”

Tears streamed down Oprah’s fifty-inch face, and down a succession of
others too. “Gerard Paul, can it wait? Mommy’s time is almost over.
We’ll talk about it in a bit. Right, hun?” She turned, but he was
gone. Ensconced in the television’s glow, she sobbed to the whine of
television and exercise machine.

The same blue corona pulsed from a room upstairs, but the accompanying
voices were male, calling an L.A. Kings game. The vampire snuck in the
doorway and spied around the entry at a man lying on the bed like a
corpse.

Best not to disturb him, thought the vampire, who figured he might
know something about this stuff. The man never called the vampire by
his name. He called him Jerome.

Back in his room, the vampire pulled the bag from beneath his bed and
dropped the eye inside, and hid it again. In the mirror, he admired
his costume. But for his nose and eyes, the white makeup remained on
his face, and his hair looked as slick and pointed on his forehead as
it had that afternoon. The rotten fangs he’d ordered were gnarly. He
did a great job. To think that only the year before he was B2 from
Bananas in Pajamas.

The little vampire rummaged on his desk and extricated a well-crushed
tube of model glue. He pulled out a fresh baggy and squeezed a fat
line of clear epoxy inside and held it to his face, sucking–the
plastic imploded–blowing, sucking, blowing, over and again until he
dropped the bag and steadied himself.

Through the tinny ringing, he daubed fresh white to his nostrils and
upper lip, bared his fangs and hissed, hands like claws above his
head.

He stumbled to bed and curled around the bag of candy, snuggled in his
cape.

“The way you creamed that guy in the end zone.” Bubblegum lips curled
around the words: “Did you hurt him?”

“Yes.”

“Oh god,” she writhed and pulled at his chest hair, pricked his nipple
in her nails.

“I knew you liked it,” Troy huffed, “I did it for you.”

“Oh-oh-oh my god” was Melody wet. “All the girls on the squad, oh,
they all want you.” He always liked that line.

“But they can’t have me, sugar. I’m only sweet on you.”

“Are you?” then, “I want sweets, too.”

“I’ve got your sweets… right ‘ere!”

“No, I want something sweet. For real. I’ve got a craving. I want
candy.”

He sighed. “Whatever. You mean, now? Do you have any ice cream
downstairs?”

“Don’t take that tone with me. And no, I want candy.”

“Come on, let me take your mind off of candy.” He nuzzled her neck,
his hands pushing to her bra.

“No! Troy Ontario!” She shoved. “I’m serious.”

He grunted in disgust. “What! Do I have to run out and get you candy?”

“No, silly. You don’t have to go that far.” She bounded to her feet
and waved him follow. She stopped in the hall and looked over her
shoulder, pointing to a closed door. “Paulsy probably has a ton of
Halloween candy.” He locked fingers below her ribcage and nestled his
erection along her ass through her skirt. “We can swipe some after he
crashes.” She returned one of his nudges. “Right?”

“Absolutely,” and followed her back into the room, closing the door
behind him. She lay back on her elbows, sweater on the floor, her
nipples dark tents in her diaphanous bra. Troy dove atop her.

Kisses deep and spitty, fingers on muscles and tickle spots, the
lovers saw one another through touch. He was so strong, she so soft.
He moved on to business, trailing down her throat and shoulders while
she ruffled his golden hair and inhaled the scent of shampoo. His
tongue snaked between her breasts as he pulled the straps and
unwrapped his prizes. His mouth followed one beautiful slope and
fastened around its straining nipple. She shuddered.

“Bite them,” desperately.

Teeth delicately scraped her erect ends, top to bottom, as she liked.
She arched her back in surrender. He played between her breasts until
her chest was shiny and heaving, jutting with need. Fingers burrowed
into her skirt.

Suddenly lucid, she called, “Troy, Troy, I want some candy. Troy, go,
get me some. Troy.” He looked up, incredulous. “Yes.”

He rose and hurled a “Dammit, Melody” at the girl covering her breasts
in her arms. He fought into his pullover and grabbed his jacket. He
stopped as she plucked dark blue satin panties from around a lacy
ankle sock, a patch of wetness in the crotch.

“Look what you did to me. My pretty’s all wet.” Legs parted beneath
the skirt. “You want to play with my pretty, don’t you?”

He wavered like a compass needle.

Very gently, she directed, “Check if Pauly’s light is on.”

He was out in the hall and then back again. “It’s on.”

“See if he’s awake. Tap on his door. Go.” He left, sighing, and
returned shaking his head. “Get his bag. He won’t hear, just be quiet.
He won’t, I do it all the time.”

He came back a couple minutes later. “At first I didn’t know, but,”
she lay in a short kimono, “but, man, was he out.” He tossed down the
sack and lay behind her, fondling luscious legs while she poured out
candy.

“Bastard! Where’s the good candy? I want chocolate!” She hurtled out
of his clutch. “I know where he put it! I’ll show him!” and she was
gone. He was up and trailed her as if a leprechaun.

She was on her knees and reaching under Paul’s bed, her pouty lips
matted and blowing a kiss across the room. Troy adjusted his dick. She
walked past him carrying another bag.

She was already stretched on the bed when he closed the door behind
him. “This is better,” she clucked through a full mouth. “Pervert’s
got a hole in his bedframe. There’s a gross magazine in there. God,
all I had today was rice cakes.” She reached into the bag and
unwrapped another, quite oblivious to him yanking off his pants and
mounting her. Over his flexing shoulder she inserted another chocolate
bar.

There was a void inside, a desolation he couldn’t rub or blow on, so
with his palm he kneaded the side of his face, not because it hurt so,
but because he couldn’t caress himself where it really did. This
shuddering chasm drove him staggering onward, lost but knowing exactly
where he was going, only vaguely aware of objects passing around him.

Some moved in blurs, especially the smaller, louder ones who gathered
in packs about him, though they didn’t disturb him unless they poked
him or fell into the striding turbines of his legs, and then were
easily dispersed with a terse bark. Even the more aggressive beasts,
with their glaring pairs of eyes and wailing horns, charged past but
earned little of his attention. Delirious beyond time and reason, his
only object was succor.

The torment stretched endlessly, and yet as he felt himself drawing
near, his gait became a clumsy gallop, heedless of the others fleeing
in terror. He moaned, the proximity tempering the mad longing like a
spike.

Plunging through thick shrubbery, he discerned the dim outlines of
another, climbing from a building. Closer, he saw it emerge from a
window and lower to the ground. It turned, too late to scream. Enraged
by its obstruction, he dashed it away. The soaring body left a
gurgling skid along the length of the wall, innards exploding onto the
decorative bushes.

He bounded into the window.

It was here! Searching frantically, he located it, handled it, drew it
home.

Clarity! Joy! The eye was again in place.

Paralyzed by sensation and emotion, he stood and trembled, spraying a
tinkle of excitement. And then, if it could be, he discovered
something even more astounding.

On the bed before him lay his vision, the one he stared at in his cold
corner for so long that she continued dancing and smiling when he
slept each night. He shut his eyes and saw her; when he opened them
again she remained unchanged. Long golden hair, citrus lips and
brilliant teeth, with unblemished bronze skin from sculpted face to
bounteous domed breasts and long legs. Missing was the form-fitting
white cloth which in the vision partially covered her, but she was
close, so very close.

As the young woman’s scream found root in her larynx, the giant
stepped forward and she swooned. It gathered her limp body and climbed
through the window.

Sweating, eyes moist and bloodshot, Andromeda replaced the sports
drink in the refrigerator and turned out the remaining downstairs
lights. Traipsing up the steps, the bathroom, undressing, drifted past
in a daze. She felt so centered after her body-and-soul sessions,
solitary and able, serene, while cool water ran over her body, and she
inhaled deeply and touched herself.

In the heat lamp, she dabbed her body with her softest towel and
glided into a white silk robe.

She stepped into the world again. The carpet welcomed her toes. Love
brought her closer to her family. Melody’s door was closed, and she
respected that statement in accords with their agreement: such a fine
young woman she had become!

Pauly’s door was shut, too. She opened it and peered inside. Her
little man lay sleeping so adorably. She tiptoed near, brought the
sheet over her peaceful angel, kissing his forehead. The dear was
still in costume. That’s right, it was Halloween!

Her eyes scanned the room. Mommy had a sweet tooth. She lifted
discarded clothing, some papers. Then her face brightened, because she
knew where he hid the bag.

Outraged, he pushed the brat’s door open. She was gone, all right. The
room was a sty, shit thrown everywhere, every square inch. The
curtains twisted in the chill breeze. He stormed off.

The boy’s door was open. There was his batty wife bent underneath
Jerome’s bed, her old cunt hanging out of her robe.

“Andie!” he barked. She slammed her head against the bed frame. The
boy didn’t stir. “Get out here!”

“What is it?” she grimaced, rubbing her head.

“Come out here, I’ve got something to show you,” he commanded and
pulled her to her feet, dragging her by the wrist through the hall and
into their dark bedroom. He pointed at the screen. “Half of L.A. is
watching this game, and look what they’re seeing.”

“We’ve now received dozens of calls. Bravado, West Hollywood,
Beechwood, Mulholland, all reporting sightings. Again, we cannot
certify the credibility of these eyewitness reports, but apparently we
have an unfolding hostage situation, details of which are unclear, and
still police will not comment or confirm our inquiries. We’ll go back
to Click Berman in the Newshound Minivan, but first let’s have another
look at that dramatic footage captured by the security camera at a
convenience store.”

Andromeda scratched her smarting scalp. “Jesus, George, you dragged me
here to see another freak show?”

“Knock it off. Watch.”

“These, these are only cigarette-buyers, I mean, the kind of people
who stand in line to buy cigarettes in stores such as these. And here,
entering from the left, let’s freeze here, you see, obviously a
mammal, humanoid, of stunning height and, uh, proportions… let’s
back that up, and freeze, again, a view of the captive…”

George tap-tap-tapped the screen: “Huh? Huh?”

“An as-yet unidentified Angelino, apparently unconscious and in her
late teens-early twenties, Caucasian, thin, long blondish hair, with
really, really outstanding… yes, well, we can safely conclude that
both captor and captive are without clothes, which the staff and
management here at your news channel note for purely journalistic
reasons (yes, and AP is now confirming this fact, thank you). And
while the visual quality is less than perfect, clearly this compelling
clip is raising concern around the entire Valley area, concerns that a
monster is loose with a naked girl on the streets of Hollywood!”

“Huh? Huh? What’d I say? Trouble, that’s what she is!”

Andromeda slumped to the bed. “My Melody,” she said through her
fingers, “my baby.”

“Your Melony.” He snapped a clip into his 9mm and thrust it into his
shoulder-holster. “I’m going to the station. Sit tight, I’ll get your
baby back.” Slipping on his jacket, he went into the dangerous night.

She rocked to her feet, taking tiny steps to her daughter’s room. She
stared at the incomprehensible wreckage, moving only when her feet got
cold. Treading past Gerard’s doorway and down the stairs, she clicked
on the Stairmaster and the television:

“This is Click Berman at the In-And-Out Burger on West Sunset, and you
can see behind me the extensive property damage, mangled cars, broken
windows…” and began stepping.

Noise and brightness pursued him at every turn, and though he kept
moving in search of some peaceful corner, the riotous chaos
relentlessly followed. The furies uncovered each restful backyard and
dim alley, with harsh reds and blues, shrill sirens, or roving mobs,
twittering, jeering, shouting, throwing. In this hostile landscape,
madness besieged him like unleashed water, an alien
sensation–panic–seized the giant ape like hands about his throat.

Even the beautiful creature in his arms set herself against him.
Sometimes docile, draped in his arms like a sublime tapestry, or
clinging to his hairy chest with its complex of rippling muscles, in
the next instant she could stir and flail at him with her little arms,
and her dangling feet became weapons jabbing his ribs, though not as
effective as her persistent screams, which shocked and irritated him
at first, then had a wearing, depressing effect on him, a morose tug
he’d never before experienced. This hadn’t happened in the vision. Out
of his confusion coalesced the understanding that what appeared to be
a fair and dainty creature would not be so easily managed; in fact,
would need to be heeded. And just as his frustration grew so
overwhelming that he might flee howling into the darkness, she would
again be silent and surrender in his arms, nestled to his chest.

Melody had never been so afraid in her life, not even when her parents
divorced and she almost had to move to Missouri, but luckily Mom
remarried quickly. But this was far more serious, she might even die.
She had no clothes. And the thing wouldn’t let her down, and people
wouldn’t go away, no matter how she screamed.

But that wasn’t why she fainted: the creature smelled of onions and
Paulsy’s wet socks.

The goliath barreled through a six-foot stockade fence and onto the
boulevard, a rottweiler snapping at his heels. Cars swerved
frightfully, and as a set of canines was sinking into his calf muscle,
its adjoining body was thumped skyward and down the hill.

Two, three, five cars piled into one another. With the woman under one
arm, the monster did not slacken its pace when it reached the far
parking lot, until it saw the Oreo sign in a 7-11 window. Stricken, it
entered the store.

Inside was flouescent bright, with more noisy people who scattered
like ants. Rampaging through the room stacked high in vivid
packaging, the monster searched for the familiar blue, and when it
found it, unmistakable, it shredded the wrapping and crushed tray
after tray into its yawning mouth, this good taste of home the first
semblance of gladness in a long unsettling day.

A bullet tore into its shoulder. A second whizzed by its ear. Puzzled,
it shook crumbs from its fur, and might have returned to his feast had
not the woman been roused to consciousness by the gunfire and resumed
her distressing cries.

Flustered by the loss of this state of grace, the monster shuffled
from foot to foot, bellowing obscenely in its version of cooing, and
finally offered the girl a cookie. She bawled even louder.

Now enraged, the beast glared at the quivering clerk, who shook with
such intensity at its charge that the pistol clattered to the floor
and he barely ducked in time as the Slurpee machine flew through the
glass and into the parking lot. He crawled behind the counter and
escaped through the shards to safety, just as flashing squadcars
squealed to a halt outside. Their quarry was long gone.

The monster and his captive emerged from the rear door, and stole into
the brush and downhill.

Bitch was getting uppity.

All night she waved her fat titties in his face, in a little halter
top that showed off her nipples (so juicy this time of year), one that
slipped down more often the longer they raved, the more tequila she
drank, the tighter she grabbed him. They knew they were going to fuck:
it was in her eyes, she wanted it.

So he drove her home, when he didn’t want to leave in the first place,
but he was a good guy and she was with him, and he did what he had to
do. And now she wasn’t doing her part.

When he pulled over a couple blocks from her house, she started
getting weird, but even then she was up for a good time. She put her
hands up, but he kissed her and told her how pretty she was, and she
would relax (“I like kissing”) and let him slide her skirt down, and
kiss some more and then her pantyhose, and later her top, and then she
wouldn’t let go her panties until he stripped down. (“See?”)

Then she came up with this “Lick me, please lick me,” and he told her,
“Fuck that, I don’t do that shit.” Then she said, “I want to suck you
down,” and he could go for that, but he could tell she was stalling
and besides she wasn’t no good at it.

He went down on her and she punched and kicked and yelled loud,
forcing him to crank the radio way up, and he had a pretty bad set-up
so there wasn’t no one going to hear her. It was sort of funny until
she started kicking on his dashboard and CD deck and windows, and then
he wasn’t playing any more. If she would just get busy it would get
done faster.

He broke her down. For a minute, she stayed quiet and he was smooth,
with the whole Jeep rocking back and forth. Then–scared the shit out
of him–this chick started screaming in through the window. This
wigged-out naked chick, floating on the other side of the window.

Actually, Melody wailed when she spotted a dead jawless dog on the
roof of the Jeep.

Violetta opened her eyes and saw the naked chick and she screamed too.
Then the naked chick saw the couple inside and she screamed back.

But the naked chick wasn’t really floating. They didn’t know until the
giant stooped and squinted through the glass. Ho, fucking ugly!
Violetta sprang against Tucci as he hiked his pants. The thing pushed
the Jeep until it rocked as before, its god-awful face pressed to the
window.

Tucci slammed the door. “You got a problem, ugly motherfucker? Fuckin’
with my ride? You’re dead, man!” He gave up two feet to the beast.
“Say, you got a nice mama. That’s the way.” He stroked Melody’s legs
and reached for a nipple, erect from cold. The monster slapped the
hand away. “God, do you stink!”

With a furry paw, it plucked the burning cigarette from Tucci’s lips.

“Hey, you fuck! And get that thing out of my face!” The beast’s
massive erection pointed threateningly at Tucci’s chest. Tucci slapped
it aside.

The monster jumped and retaliated with a tap to the shoulder.

Tucci leapt and swiped at its face. It slapped him back.

Like a broken marionette, the youth’s head dropped askew. The body
crumbled to the road.

Cigarettes rolled out of the corpse’s tee-shirt onto the pavement. It
lifted one tenderly. Just like the vision.

Much to Violetta’s further consternation, the monster lowered itself
to the window once again. She shouted in terror, but the creature had
no interest in her whatsoever. Carefully, it placed the cigarette
behind his ear and cocked it just so, like in the vision. It grunted
with pleasure and raised himself to its full height. And saw an
amazing thing on the dark hillside above.

Upon the lighted billboard towered the vision. Like in the magazine in
the cellar, but larger than life, stretched across the sky. The
bare-chested hunk carried the young woman as effortlessly as the
cigarette behind his ear, and her wispy blond hair, her coquettish
limbs and the thin white material of her swimsuit all suggested she
was light as air. Something differed from the page the monster had
secreted in the masonry at home, but it wouldn’t know that the green
ad copy of the billboard proclaimed “I’m going to live forever!,” in
place of the wry observation “What do they know about fun?” on its
home copy.

This did not matter, as the piece evoked such happiness. The savage
had not a clue as to that warm sensation, yet the buoyant
ingredients–the sunny yellow background, the laser-white smiles, the
mirth of play and expectation–conveyed an unmistakable message, and
in this combination of goods lay the invariable formula of elation.
The primitive knew an immeasurable awe, and a purple, bobbing penis.
And the signs did not cease there.

In the background of the gigantic photograph lay the final element,
just over the billboard girl’s outstretched palm. And there in the
distance, beyond the billboard, stood a larger, three-dimensional
representation of this same puzzle piece. Stunned with a mystic’s
epiphany, the creature solemnly affixed the cigarette in place, and
embarked on the last leg of its quest, starting uphill into the bush,
blond companion screaming, as a convoy of blue-and-whites skidded
around the corner toward a body and a car with a shocked and bleeding
occupant.

Kennedy slammed the door of his unmarked and jogged to the entrance.
Charles “Hondo” Heston was waiting for him inside the glass doors, and
followed Kennedy’s brisk pace through the foyer.

“How you holding up, mick? How’s Andie taking it?” he asked while Faye
the brunette receptionist buzzed them in.

“Well, Hondo,” he spun into the break room and pulled a Styrofoam cup,
“I could say that we haven’t had sex in months and this won’t help
things,” and the three chirping rookies standing in front of the
television fell silent and looked. Kennedy scowled and poured some
joe. “But we’ll pull through this, dammit. She’s a tough little girl.
And I’m gonna get that boat, and we’ll leave this stinking town.”

Heston gave him a beefy pat on the shoulder.

The convenience store videotape played, now computer-enhanced. Kennedy
wandered near. The sequence repeated and repeated, fast, slow,
backward, louder, forward, with and without expert commentary. The
officers sized up the situation.

“Will you look at the pumpkins on her?” commented one shavetail.

“That’s not where I was looking,” said another.

“You sons of bitches, that’s my daughter!” Kennedy cold-cocked the
first one, then threw coffee in the other’s face, spun and landed a
roundhouse kick to the side of the head. He would have gouged the
third’s eyes out, if Heston hadn’t locked his arms.

“Get the hell out of here!” he yelled at the youngster, straining
against his berserk partner. In a minute he let go, both men huffing.

Kennedy tossed the empty cup at the prone bodies. “Thanks Hondo, I owe
you one,” he said and lit a smoke.

“You gotta cool down, mick. The Old Man’s just waiting on you to slip
up, you know.”

“I know, I know. Come on, we haven’t got all night,” and he was off
down the hallway.

“Mick, the Old Man expressly said he doesn’t want you anywhere near
the War Room on this one. He’s going to bust your ass down.”

“Don’t you worry, I’ll behave myself. Besides,” he paused outside the
door, “it’s my daughter they’re talking about, and he’s got nothing to
say.” He slipped inside. Heston shrugged and followed.

The room was dark but for the lamp of an overhead projector. Frazzled
by the momentary interruption, a pear-shaped officer in thick glasses
stood open-mouthed in the glare.

From the conference table, Chief Borgnine glowered at the newcomers
standing in the corner. “Detective Hackett, you were saying? About the
forensic data?”

“Yes? Oh yes, the most fascinating aspects of this current situation
may be found in an apparently unrelated homicide occurring this
afternoon a few blocks from this cluster of earliest sightings. Hadda
Teller, white, early eighties, found bludgeoned in her living room,
laying in a pool of blood and Halloween candy. Teller was the widow of
renowned cryptozoologist Anton Spelczech…”

“Cryptozoologist, Detective?”

“An expert in mythic and disputed fauna, Chief Borgnine. Spelczech
immigrated from Hungary after the Soviet crackdown in ’56 and settled
in California, and died in 1989. He signed a yeti track casting for me
at my first conference, a truly brilliant specimen that…”

“Yes, yes, Hackett, get to the point.”

“Indeed. Spelczech was renowned for his studies of the North American
sasquatch, popularly known as Bigfoot.” With his fingers, Hackett
framed caustic quotes around “Bigfoot.” “Spelczech consistently
produced evidence of the sasquatch arcanus that was distinguished for
its biologic uniqueness. In a field where concrete evidence is rare if
not spurious, his samples were never shown to be hoaxes.”

Impatient rustlings traveled around the table. “Hackett…”

“Of course. Judging from the massive trauma to Ms. Teller’s body, the
perpetrator had to be tremendously powerful. In fact, superhuman. And
Homicide too discovered hair samples at the immediate site that are
thus far unidentifiable, not belonging to any creature, human or
otherwise. We found more of these samples here, in the basement, which
smelled particularly rank, and where we also uncovered other evidence,
including these oversized stool specimens, which I’d recognize
anywhere as similar to this, Spelczech’s famous Sample #12/77, which
he claimed was the verified stool of… sasquatch, the Bigfoot!” He
switched to a transparency showing side-by-side still frames from the
convenience store tape and the famous Patterson-Gimlin film of the
sasquatch. “I believe that further examinations of the Teller premises
will confirm my hypothesis.”

The room was in an uproar. “Detective Hackett, are you proposing that
a mad biologist brought one of these Bigfoot creatures to West
Hollywood, and it’s now running loose in our city?”

“I am!” he thundered above the din, riding the wave of discord the
grandest manner. “It is obvious to me that Spelczech held a sasquatch
specimen in his home for years, and for whatever reason the creature
has now escaped and is at large in our fair community!”

“This is all rather outrageous…”

“Gentlemen, we are presented with a historic opportunity to capture a
live sasquatch. With proper planning and care, this day may prove a
boon to science and to our own department.”

“You freak.” The lights glimmered on; it was Kennedy’s hand on the
switches. He staggered forward, clumsy with rage. “There’s a monster
out there, damn you! We already have one body on our hands, and you
propose we coddle this… this… thing, until we have bodies
stretching from here to Pasadena.” He dove across the table, where he
struggled with a dozen pairs of arms, and the lecturer hopped atop the
projector. Dragging out the door, Kennedy spat, “We need to destroy
this monster, before it rapes more of our women and children!”

A minute later, the men straightening their uniforms, Borgnine emerged
and signaled over his shoulder. “Kennedy, my office,” and kept
walking.

“You’re in it now, mick.”

“Yeah, time to face the music. Thanks, guys, l got drinks later.”

“Good luck, Kennedy,” they muttered as he shambled away.

The heavy door was ajar at hall’s end. Kennedy rapped.

“Come in. Sit. Cigarette? Meredith and the doctor’ll have my balls if
I don’t quit soon, but they don’t work 15 hour days and answer to the
mayor. Know what they have me eating?” He lifted a plastic bag like
holding a mangy rabbit. “These. A chief of police, eating fucking rice
cakes.” Leaning forward, his voice became grave. “You probably think
I’m going to tear you a new asshole, but I’m not. You must be going
nuts with that girl out there, what’s her name…”

“Melony.”

“Melanie. Kennedy, we’re on the same side.”

“I appreciate that, Borg.”

“You want your family back, and we both know all the copy-catting this
is stirring: there’s no way all those flags come from the same perp.
This monster (if that’s what it is) has got every nutso and dimestore
johnny out on our streets. It’s a world of evil out there, and we’ve
got to shut it down.”

“I realize that, Chief, but what are you going to do about it? Go out
there with white gloves and leashes and bring back a little something
for the zoo? Collect our guns and make us wear control-top pantyhose
and…”

“Kennedy! Kennedy!” the other interrupted. “Kennedy, you’ve got to
trust us, we’ll get the girl back, but… you’re off the case. I’m
sorry, but you’re too damned close to it, and the last thing we need
with all this bedlam on our hands is…”

“Is an honest cop who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. Or don’t
you remember cop work, Borgnine?”

“Now Kennedy, let’s not get nasty about this.”

“People are getting torn to shreds, windows breaking, out there, and
all everyone talks about around here is bureaucratic rules.”

“That’s enough out of you, Kennedy. You’re off the case, and that’s
that. And I’ll bust you down to janitor if I find you anywhere near
it.”

“Oh yeah?” He rose, his scarlet forehead and ears turning his crew-cut
hair lighter. “I want to give you a shoe up the ass, but I’ll give you
this instead.” He slammed his badge on the desk. “I don’t need it
anymore.”

“Yeah? Thanks.” He fingered the famed bullet-ding on the shield. “I’ve
been looking for this a long time. You’ve been marked ever since you
planted that glove!”

“You son of a!” he rushed, but Hondo pounced from his listening spot
outside the door and pulled Kennedy from the chambers.

A lieutenant sidestepped the entwined wrestlers and entered the head’s
office. Inside, he reported, “Sir, we have positive confirmation of
the perpetrator’s forty: the Hollywood Hills, the vicinity of the
sign, sir. We also have another body and an apparent sexual assault.”

Kennedy and Heston were already in the parking lot.

“I must be nuts or something.” Heston gunned the engine.

“Just a routine arrest, Kimosabe,” Kennedy answered and slapped the
flashing cherrylight on the roof. Heston observed his jaw tapping the
way it did whenever there would be trouble. He pulled away.

They passed no less than three roadblocks They didn’t need the scanner
to know they were on the right track. The traffic leading there was
astounding–VW vans, Star Trek freaks and Entertainment Tonight,
beside the usual throngs of gapers and well-wishers.

“Scumbags,” Kennedy hissed as they passed on the shoulder. He hadn’t
seen so many patrol cars in the field since Northridge.

Hondo expertly wove a route through relatively clear access roads.
Ironically, despite all the activity on the hills, they passed a dark
spot from which stretched a panorama of the Valley, so beautiful on
that clear evening that Kennedy remembered for an instant why he had
stayed in L.A. so long ago. It was like a reflection of heaven, a
beautiful bowl of stars. Except for the smoke clouds billowing from
the brushfires to the southwest.

They rounded a bluff and the scene unfolded before them. Floodlights
blasted the Hollywood sign a few hundred yards uphill. Flashing
emergency vehicles blocked the access way, so they parked the squad
and went on foot. A tank ground to a halt ahead, gun tilting skyward.
Snipers held at least two positions in the foreground. The cops who
didn’t notice and fall away from Kennedy’s approach, squinted through
binoculars and elbowed each other, searching. The grizzled veterans
pushed their way through to the command center, headed by an old
friend, Captain Brown.

“Jim, what do we have here?”

“Mick, Hondo, glad you’re here. They’re up there somewhere, but we
haven’t spotted them.”

“Nothing?”

“We’re doing the best we can. Can’t very well pack any more hardware
and manpower on this rock, can we?”

“I know. Sorry, Jim.” A second later, the binocular boys snapped to,
and rifle carbines clicked. The searchlights focused on a single spot,
and the crowd wailed its surprise. Scaling the letter D, the hirsute
man-beast stood, carrying the shrieking nude woman.

“Holy god in heaven,” gasped Kennedy.

Raising a hand to unsuccessfully block the glare, the gargantuan
leaped to the adjacent O and the next O, but he could not escape the
swiveling beams. With each jump, the onlookers oohed. It hurtled to
the W, and then back again, where it roared in frustration and
challenge. The captive shrilled louder.

“Don’t worry, mick, my boys are under strict orders to avoid
collateral damage.”

“Jim, does this thing respond to speech? I mean, have you tried
talking to it?”

“No dice, but what would help is if you tried calming that little girl
down, make our job a whole lot easier, diffuse the situation.” Brown
handed him the megaphone.

Kennedy scratched his head, cleared his throat, lifted the horn. “Uh,
ahem, M-Melony, Melony, this is your father, daddy, I’m down here.”
His wide eyes surveyed the cameras and watchers on both sides. “Now
listen honey, I know we’ve had our tough times, and, see, but you’ve
got to quiet down up there, settle down, and you know I’m no good at
this speaking stuff, and how can I put this, well, I, I need you so,
uh, Melony, that I could cry, yeah, and, and I love you so, and that
is why, whenever I want you…”

But he was almost immediately drowned out by the deafening thumps of a
helicopter ascending the ridge. It drew nearer the sign, trained its
gaze at the monster and hovered menacingly as a cobra. Viper-quick, it
buzzed the swiping, defiant creature and circled around.

Monster and beauty disappeared from view, while the chopper scanned
the length of the sign for long seconds.

Brown spotted them in his night goggles. “It’s destroying the sign!”
he barked in his headset. “Act now! Do not hit her!” just as the
copter’s beams locked on the crouching figures, the monster kicking at
the support of the letter on which he stood. The first O wobbled and
teetered.

The monster shook a fist at its foe, and the gun spit a staccato
flurry of lead, in only two seconds creating dozens of explosions of
blood and fur, and as many tiny craters in the girl’s creamy flesh.
Red cascaded down the O, and two bodies tumbled like a spider down the
ravine.

They did not hit the sign.