Frenzied - A Suspense Thriller Read online

  In other words, he had no idea what might happen.

  The worst of the thunderstorm had passed, but heavy rain clouds hung in the sky, continuing to shed a persistent drizzle, pushing the late afternoon into a premature twilight. The ornately designed lamps outside the clubhouse had kicked on. Based solely on outward appearances, it looked like a normal Friday there—except for the complete absence of any residents visiting the facility.

  Dr. Bailey’s plan for the “soft” quarantine appeared to be working. Using their community broadcast system, Deacon’s staff had transmitted Bailey’s message urging residents to remain in their homes, and promising that more information would be forthcoming soon. Folks were either staying put or had left already.

  Deacon was concerned about how Mr. Falcon would react to such a precautionary measure—the man had yet to summon him again—but he was more worried about Pops. The ornery old man had refused to leave, and his nurse’s shift ended at seven o’clock that evening; Anita was a dedicated professional but she had let Deacon know in no uncertain terms that she was going home that night. He respected her decision, but that meant Pops would be alone in the apartment. Pops was moderately independent, and a damned good marksman, but Deacon still had concerns about his father being there on his own with so much uncertainty about what was really going on.

  Putting the thoughts out of mind, he pulled the SUV out of the clubhouse parking lot.

  “What normally happens in South Haven on a Friday night in the summer?” Dr. Bailey asked from the back seat. “This seems like such a well-planned community I’d imagine there are some organized social activities.”

  “A lot, actually,” Deacon said. “There’s a movie theater, several restaurants and bars. It gets pretty busy.”

  “Friday’s are usually Screen on the Green, too,” Emily said, beside Bailey. “That’s on Main Street on the big lawn.”

  “Screen on the Green?” Bailey asked. “Is that a movie showing?”

  “Popular movies,” Jim said. “Family-friendly fare, of course. Think Shrek, Ghost Busters, Back to the Future. My wife and I usually go—she comes for the movies but I like the cheap food.”

  “He’s a diehard cheapskate,” Deacon said, inclining his head toward Jim. “But yeah, there’re always some interesting food trucks on site running specials. Good stuff.”

  “It sounds like a cool place to live,” Bailey said, gazing out the passenger window. “Such beautiful homes and landscaping, too. It’s like something out of a magazine.”

  “It was, until recently,” Emily said.

  They were cruising through the residential neighborhoods, which, to Deacon’s relief, had been empty. He slowed the SUV at a four-way intersection and checked both ways. Nothing on his right, but to his left, about a hundred yards away, he noticed a pack of perhaps a dozen dogs, of various breeds and sizes. The canines were trotting into a forested area. They moved with purpose, and that was when he saw the man bringing up the rear of the pack.

  He recognized the guy, though he couldn’t recall his name. Shaggy-haired and burly, he was in his twenties, lived in one of the residences with his affluent parents, and often did odd jobs around the community: including dog walking.

  The guy was naked, and appeared to have leashes dangling from around his neck, like crude necklaces. None of the dogs was on leash but they trotted in step with him all the same.

  One of them was a St. Bernard. Jake, Deacon thought, remembering the name of the dog that had mauled a young woman to death that morning and been just an inch from ripping out his throat. No doubt, it was the same dog. A chill spiked his spine.

  “Dogs over there,” Deacon said to the others. “I bet you dollars to donuts that every one of them is infected. And the guy, too.”

  “Jesus, someone out walking wouldn’t stand a chance,” Jim said.

  “I’d like to examine one of the dogs, if we can get our hands on one,” Bailey said. “We need to confirm whether the symptoms are exactly the same, if the bloodwork matches.”

  “If we can get our hands on one, sure,” Deacon said. “But we’re not messing with that pack.”

  The dogs and the walker disappeared from view. Deacon inched the vehicle through the intersection.

  “And no one has seen any cats today?” Bailey asked. “I’m curious whether they are susceptible to what’s happening.”

  “Haven’t seen one,” Deacon said. He added: “Yet. But you know cats, they’re a lot more stealthy than dogs.”

  In the next block, Deacon spotted something ahead: a group of four individuals huddled in the middle of the street. Three men, one woman. They clustered in a circle, hands linked, heads bowed, as if performing a group prayer. One of the men was completely naked, while the others were in various stages of undress. The rain had plastered their hair to their heads, but they appeared oblivious to the inclement weather.

  “What the hell is this?” Jim asked.

  Deacon braked while they were still a safe distance from the group.

  “We can take another route,” Deacon said. “Avoid a dust up.”

  “No matter which way we go, we might run into some of these people,” Emily said.

  Deacon drummed the steering wheel for a few seconds. The only sound in the vehicle was the metronomic thump of the windshield wipers, the patter of rain, and the low hum of the air conditioner.

  Emily, of course, had a perfectly sensible point. These people, the frenzied, lived in South Haven, and they weren’t following the suggestion to stay indoors, because they didn’t seem to comprehend spoken English any more. Yet somehow they communicated just fine with others afflicted with the same condition, perhaps by non-verbal means. Deacon didn’t understand it and he didn’t think Dr. Bailey did, either.

  “Let’s move.” He pressed the accelerator, urging the SUV forward.

  The group huddled in the middle of the street, and didn’t turn at their approaching vehicle. As Deacon neared, he edged the vehicle to the right of them, giving them as wide a berth as possible. One of the Ford’s right tires climbed over the curb.

  “Oh, shit,” Jim said.

  Deacon mashed the gas pedal.

  The naked man had spun to face them. He had something in his hand. Eyes wild and inflamed, he lobbed the object at them like a crazed bomb thrower.

  Something smacked against the windshield. In the back seat, Emily screamed. The wipers stuttered to a halt as they hit the obstruction on the glass, and in spite of the obscuring rain Deacon thought he knew exactly what it was.

  “It’s a heart,” he said. “They must have ripped it out of something. Or someone.”

  “Dear God,” Dr. Bailey said in a hollow voice.

  “Don’t look behind us, guys,” Jim said, though he had spun around in the seat, face twisted with terror. “But whatever that heart belonged to, they’re on the ground with it now, feeding.”

  Deacon didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t resist a glance in the rearview mirror. His stomach clenched.

  Are there any limits to this madness? he wondered. Can this really get any worse?

  The wipers swept the bloody organ off the glass, leaving behind a crimson arc and bits of flesh.

  ***

  Dunkirk, read the scrolling text underneath the ornately designed mailbox.

  Deacon had brought the vehicle to a stop near the driveway of the residence. It was a two-story, contemporary Tudor-inspired home, complete with the steep pitch lines and decorative half-timbering. Deacon had passed the house many times while making his rounds through South Haven, and though he had never met the homeowners, had long admired the design of the residence.

  All of the lights in the Dunkirk home appeared to be blazing. But the surrounding houses were dark, and Deacon didn’t see anyone—human or canine—wandering outdoors.

  “The wife’s name is Patricia,” Emily read from an index card. “The husband is sick; his name is Robert. She told us to come to the back door. I’ve got to text her now and let h
er know that we’re here.”

  “What’s the deal with the husband?” Jim asked. He gripped his shotgun across his chest.

  “She wouldn’t tell us,” Dr. Bailey asked. “But she’s clearly concerned about him finding out that strangers are in his house.”

  “Do all of us need to go in?” Deacon asked. “If we need to keep things quiet, maybe some of us should stay in the truck here and keep watch from afar.”

  “I can pull backup duty,” Jim said. He tapped his walkie-talkie. “You get me on the radio if you need me, chief.”

  “I’ll stay here, too,” Emily said. “Dr. Bailey’s the one who really needs to speak to her. By the way, she just texted me back. She says to come around back now. And not to knock on the door. She’ll be looking for you. The gate is open.”

  Deacon checked to ensure his Glock was loaded, glanced at Bailey in the rearview mirror. She nodded at him and slung her leather bag across her shoulder.

  “Be careful, you two,” Jim said.

  They got out of the SUV, and quietly shut the doors. Rain dripped off the bill of Deacon’s cap.

  Walking side by side, keeping along the perimeter of the damp front lawn, Deacon and Bailey approached the house.

  A dog at the Craftsman-style house next door popped up like a jack-in-the-box in the front windows and started yapping, bouncing wildly on a sofa. It was a white Pomeranian, and from what Deacon could see the dog looked utterly normal. It was making a helluva racket, though, and he and Bailey increased their pace and reached the edge of the Dunkirk home, outside the canine’s field of vision. The dog finally fell silent.

  “I hope that didn’t blow our cover,” Bailey said, frowning behind them.

  “Let’s just keep moving.”

  A six-foot-high wooden fence encircled the back yard, and as the wife had promised, the gate was open. Deacon pulled aside the gate and let Bailey enter ahead of him. He left it open behind them.

  A large deck fashioned from pine dominated the back yard. It was full of outdoor furniture, a gas barbecue grill, and an umbrella. A stone fire pit flanked by chairs stood farther away. A green tool shed occupied a far corner of the property.

  Bailey approached the deck while Deacon hung back, hand resting on his pistol. He disliked that they had no idea what was going on with the husband. It was possible the man was relatively harmless, engaged in some pointless obsessive compulsive behavior like their pianist back at the clubhouse—or he could be a powder keg of violence waiting to explode.

  As Bailey crossed the deck, the back door whispered open. A slim, red-haired woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties, emerged from inside. She wore a brown flannel blanket around her shoulders, like a shawl.

  She closed the back door slowly, quietly. She looked terrified, but grateful that they had arrived. Her gaze traveled from Bailey, to Deacon, and when she spoke, she kept her voice at a whisper, even though she was outside her home.

  “Let’s go inside the tool shed,” she said. “We can talk there.”

  ***

  Emily was stunned.

  Her boyfriend, Zack, had finally responded to her numerous text messages.

  Sitting in the back seat of the SUV, she stared at the glowing phone display and read his reply again.

  hay watsup u cum 2 pool wanna talk 2 u k

  His response perplexed her. Zack often sent texts using shorthand and emojis, but nothing like this messy jumble of words. She wondered what was going on with him.

  Was he sick, like the others? Unable to express a clear thought?

  In the front passenger seat, the other security guard, Jim, was talking on his cell phone. Emily didn’t like to eavesdrop, but sitting in such close proximity to the man, it was impossible not to overhear his conversation. It sounded as if he were in a heated discussion with his wife, who wanted him to come home, and Jim kept insisting he had to stay because of his obligation to his fellow officers and the community.

  Emily sympathized with the man’s wife. Feeling an almost painful surge of longing, she called Zack. The phone rang and rang, and then dropped into the well of voice mail.

  How could he not have answered the phone if he had texted her only a couple of minutes ago?

  A disturbing image sprang to mind: an infected Zack fumbling with the cell phone as if it were a foreign object, unable to figure out the correct series of actions to accept an incoming call.

  She called him again, and once again, received no answer. She had only his almost illegible text about coming to the pool.

  She knew which swimming pool he meant. It was located at the South Haven water park, and was a favorite hangout of his during the summer months. She couldn’t imagine the facility was open to residents in light of what was taking place in the community.

  But he had clearly requested for her to join him there. And she ached to tell him, and only him, about her pregnancy.

  She gazed out the SUV’s rain-smeared passenger window. The darkening world was quiet, at the moment.

  Her hand slithered to the door handle as if it had a purpose of its own. Her fingers tingled.

  Don’t be a dummy, a voice said in her mind, not surprisingly, her mother’s stern voice. You go out there alone and you’ll die, like a dummy, and no one will feel sorry for you.

  With a deep sigh, Emily pulled her hand away from the door.

  ***

  “I thought Rob had caught only a flu bug,” Patricia said. “When he woke up this morning he said he had a headache, and it was so intense, like a migraine, that he didn’t go to the office. He was running a fever, too, about a hundred and two. He felt really awful.”

  The three of them had gathered in the tool shed. A single, battery-powered light bulb glowed overhead. Lawn equipment hung from hooks fastened to the unpainted walls: a leaf blower, garden shears, shovel, rake, and other implements. There was nowhere to sit. Deacon leaned against the doorway, and had kept the door ajar, giving him a truncated view of the rain-drizzled world outside.

  Bailey was using her digital voice recorder to capture their conversation. She led Patricia through all of the questions which, by then, had become commonplace to the situation: what triggered the onset of symptoms? Had her husband taken any medications to fight the flu? What sort of unusual behavior was he demonstrating? When exactly had it begun?

  Tears came to Patricia’s eyes as she continued to speak: “Rob, he’s a DIY sort of guy, he loves woodworking and home improvement projects. I mean, he subscribes to a bunch of magazines, reads blogs, goes to The Home Depot every weekend, the whole kit and caboodle. He’s got it into his head today that he’s going to remodel the interior of the house. All of it. Today. He’s been demolishing everything with a sledgehammer. When I asked him to stop he screamed at me. His words were slurred, I could barely understand him, and the look in his eyes . . .” She pressed her hand against her forehead, tears tracking down her cheeks. “What’s wrong with him? Can you help?”

  “We’re working on that,” Bailey said. She handed the woman a fistful of tissues. “But I’ve got to get more information. Where did your husband go this week? Did he travel out of town, for business perhaps?”

  Sniffling, Patricia shrugged. “All he did was go to work in the city. He’s an engineer. It was a totally normal week until this morning.”

  “What about last weekend?” Bailey asked. “Go anywhere?”

  “We’re homebodies, basically. We went to the town square last Friday night, but we almost always do. That’s why we moved to South Haven in the first place, for the sense of community. We like to do things here, there’s always something to do.”

  “You watched a film at the Screen on the Green?” Bailey asked.

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “I don’t remember the movie.”

  Bailey turned to Deacon. “This Screen on the Green event, how many people normally attend?”

  “Several hundred,” Deacon said. “I don’t often go, but Jim does, and I’ve always got a couple of staff on duty there to kee
p things under control. Folks usually behave themselves, though. Someone might have a bit too much to drink but nothing serious has ever happened.”

  The doctor’s large hazel eyes were bright. Deacon figured she was onto something, but he had no idea what it might be.

  “Did you eat or drink anything at the event?” Bailey asked. “If so, do you remember what you and your husband consumed?”

  “We both had tacos from one of the food trucks,” she said. “I don’t remember what we drank. Do you think something in the food made him sick?”

  As Bailey started to answer, a loud shattering noise came from the house. Deacon shouldered open the shed door to get a better view.

  One of the big back-yard facing windows had been broken. Shards of glass hung in the frame. As Deacon watched, another window exploded, and he glimpsed a shadowy figure swinging a blunt object inside the house.

  The husband’s doing a demo on his own house with a sledgehammer, Deacon thought.

  Crying, Patricia pushed past Bailey and Deacon. “He’s going to destroy our home. Can’t someone do anything?”

  “Without hurting him?” Deacon shook his head. “No, ma’am. Sorry.”

  “You can come back to the clubhouse with us,” Bailey said. “It’s safe there.”

  Shaking her head, eyes full of tears, the woman ran back toward her house, nearly fell on the wet grass, righted herself, reached the back door. She disappeared inside.

  “She’s putting her safety at risk going back in there,” Bailey said.

  Deacon heard the husband and wife shouting at each other. During his early days on the police force, he had handled his share of domestic disturbance calls, and the interaction he overheard between the woman and her frenzied husband sounded uncomfortably similar—and made him feel powerless to intervene.

  “We can’t stop her.” Deacon shrugged. “She went back in by choice, she’s staying by choice. You gave her an alternative.”

  “I know. But I feel as if we should do something.”

  “If he was going to hurt her, he would have done it already. It seems like some of these frenzied are obsessive, but they don’t attack unless provoked. If his wife stays out of his way he might wear himself out eventually.” He closed the shed door. “I saw a lightbulb go off in your eyes when you were questioning her. You figure something out?”