Seize the Night

let alone Sasquatch.
    I switched on the spotlight and swept it left and right along the street. Deserted.
    “I thought you were on it,” I said.
    “Was.”
    “Now?”
    “Not.”
    “So?”
    “New plan,” he said.
    “I'm waiting.”
    “You're the planning dude,” Bobby said, shifting the Jeep into park.
    Another weird scream—like fingernails scraping on a chalkboard, the dying wail of a cat, and the sob of a terrified child all woven together and re-created on a malfunctioning synthesizer by a musician whacked on crystal meth—brought us out of our seats, not merely because it was eerie enough to snap our veins like rubber bands, but because it came from behind us.
    I was not aware of pulling my legs up, swiveling, gripping the roll bar, and standing on my seat. I must have done so, and with the swift grace of an Olympic gymnast, because that was where I found myself as the scream reached a crescendo and abruptly cut off.
    Likewise, I wasn't consciously aware of Bobby grabbing the shotgun, flinging open his door, and leaping out of the Jeep, but there he was, holding the 12-gauge Mossberg, facing back the way we had come.
    “Light,” he said.
    The spotlight was still in my hand. I clicked it on even as he spoke.
    No missing link loomed behind the Jeep.
    The knee-deep grass swooned as a bare whisper of wind romanced it.
    If any predator had been trying to squirm toward us, using the grass as cover, it would have disturbed the courtly patterns drawn by the gentle caress of the breeze, and it would have been easy to spot.
    The bungalow was one of those that lacked a porch, fronted only by two steps and a stoop, and the door was closed. The three windows were intact, and no boogeyman glowered at us from behind any of those dusty panes.
    Bobby said, “It sounded right here.”
    “Like right under my butt.” He had a solid grip on the shotgun.
    Looking around at the night, as creeped out as I was by the deceptive peacefulness of it, he said, “This sucks.”
    “It sucketh,” I agreed.
    A look of high suspicion crimped his face, and he backed slowly away from the Jeep.
    I didn't know if he had glimpsed something under the vehicle or if he was just operating on a hunch.
    Dead Town was even more silent than its name implied. The faint breeze was expressive but mute.
    Still standing on the passenger seat, I glanced down along the side of the Jeep, at the lazily undulating blades of grass. If some foul-tempered freak erupted from beneath the vehicle, it could climb the door and be at my neck before I would be able to locate either a crucifix or an even halfway attractive necklace of garlic.
    I needed only one hand for the spotlight. I slipped the Glock out of my shoulder holster.
    When Bobby had backed off three or four steps from the Jeep, he knelt on one knee.
    To throw a little light where he needed to peek, I held the spotlight out of the Jeep and directed the beam toward the undercarriage on my side, hoping to backlight whatever might be hiding there.
    In the classic, wary half-kneel of the experienced monster hunter, Bobby tilted his head and slowly lowered it to peer under the Jeep.
    “Nada,” he said.
    “Zip?”
    “Zero.”
    “I was stoked,” I said.
    “I was pumped.”
    “Ready to kick ass.” We were lying.
    As Bobby rose to his feet, another scream tore the night, the same scraping-fingernails-dying-cat-sobbing-child-malfunctioning-synthesizer wail that had made us jump like lightning-struck cats only moments ago.
    This time I had a better fix on the source of the scream, and I shifted my attention to the bungalow roof, where the spotlight revealed Big Head. There was no question now, This was the creature that Bobby had called Big Head, because its head was undeniably big.
    It was crouched at one end of the roof, right on the peak, maybe sixteen feet above us, like Kong on the Empire State Building but recreated in a direct-to-video flick that lacked the budget for a larger set, fighter planes, or even a damsel in peril. With its arms covering its face as though the sight of us hideous human beings frightened and disgusted it, Big Head studied Bobby and me with radiant green eyes, which we could see through the gap between its crossed arms.
    Even though the beast's face was covered, I could discern that the head was disproportionately large for the body. I also suspected that it was malformed. Malformed not just by human standards but surely by the standards of monkey beauty, as well.
    I