Seize the Night

from its face.
    On all fours, straddling the ridgeline, it raced across the bungalow roof.
    “Keep the light on it!” Bobby said.
    I tried, but the creature moved quicker than a striking snake.
    I expected it to launch itself off the roof and straight at us or disappear across the peak and down the far slope, but it traveled the length of the ridgeline and sprang without hesitation into the fifteen-foot gap between this bungalow and the next. With catlike poise, it landed atop the neighboring house, where it reared onto its hind legs, cast a green-eyed glance back at us, then dropped low, sprinted from gable to gable, leaped to a third roof, crossed over that ridgeline, and disappeared onto the back of the house.
    During its swift flight, captured repeatedly by the spotlight beam but for only an instant at a time, the creature's face had been less than half revealed in kaleidoscopic glimpses. I was left with impressions rather than clear images. The back of its skull seemed to be elongated, and like a cowl, its forehead appeared to overhang its large sunken eyes. The lumpish face might have been distorted by excrescences of bone. To an even greater degree than the head was disproportionate to the body, the mouth appeared too large for the head. Cracking its steam-shovel jaws, the creature revealed an abundance of sharp curved teeth more wicked looking than Jack the Ripper's cutlery collection.
    Bobby gave me a chance to reconsider my assessment of Big Head.
    “Sorrowful?”
    “I still think so.”
    “You're nothing but cardiac muscle, dude.”
    “Lub-dub.”
    “Anything moves that fast, teeth that big—its diet isn't just fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.”
    I switched off the handheld spot.
    Although the beam had been directed away from me, I was groggy from a surfeit of light. I had not seen much, yet I'd seen too much.
    Neither of us suggested going on another Big Head hunt. Surfers don't trade bite for bite with sharks, when we see enough fins, we get out of the water. Considering this creature's speed and agility, we wouldn't have a chance of catching it, anyway, not on foot or in the Jeep, and even if we did find and corner it, we weren't prepared to capture or kill it.
    “Supposing we don't just want to sit here sucking down beer and trying to forget we saw anything,” Bobby wondered as he got behind the wheel.
    “Suppose.”
    “Then what was that thing?”
    Settling into the passenger seat again, working my feet around the beer cooler, I said, “Could be an offspring of the original troop that escaped from the lab. There might be bigger, stranger mutations occurring in the new generation.”
    “We've seen beaucoup offspring before. And you saw a bunch earlier tonight, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “They look like normal monkeys.”
    “Yeah.”
    “This was awesomely not normal.”
    I knew now what Big Head was, where it had come from, but I wasn't ready to tell Bobby quite yet.
    Instead, I said, “This is the street where they trapped me in the bungalow.”
    Assessing the sameness of the houses around us, he said, “You can tell one of these streets from another?”
    “Mostly.”
    “Then you're spending a seriously psychotic amount of time here, bro.”
    “Nothing hot on TV.”
    “Try stamp collecting.”
    “Couldn't handle the excitement.”
    As Bobby drove off the rutted lawn and over the curb, into the street, I holstered the 9-millimeter Glock and told him to turn right.
    Two blocks later, I said, “Stop. Here. This is where they were spinning the manhole cover.”
    “If they take over the world, they'll probably make that an Olympic event.”
    “At least it's more exciting than synchronized swimming.”
    As I got out of the Jeep, he said, “Where you going?”
    “Pull forward and park with one wheel on the manhole. I don't think they're still here. They've moved on. But just in case, I don't want them coming up behind us while we're inside.”
    “Inside what?”
    I walked in front of the vehicle and directed Bobby until he stopped with the right front tire squarely atop the manhole cover.
    He switched off the engine and, with the shotgun, got out of the Jeep.
    The weak onshore breeze grew a little stronger, and the clouds in the west, which had swallowed the moon, were gradually expanding eastward, devouring the stars.
    “Inside what?” Bobby repeated.
    I pointed to the bungalow where I'd squeezed into the broom closet to hide from the troop. “I want to see what was