Expecting to Die

Like Bianca.
What was Lara doing up at the reservoir?
Why had some “creature” chased after her?
Had it attacked?
It all sounded unbelievable. None of it made a whole lot of sense.
But neither had Bianca’s story and it was very real.
The streets in town were quiet. She met only a few cars and trucks, people on
their way to work, but she was uncomfortable behind the steering wheel and felt,
again, the Braxton Hicks contractions that had been showing up periodically
over the past few weeks. She told herself this wasn’t her first rodeo, she knew all
the signs, and that when real labor was imminent, she’d know it.
But it’s been more than a few years since you were last pregnant. Your body
has changed a lot.
“Oh, shut up,” she growled and glanced at her reflection in the rearview
mirror. “It’s not happening, not yet.” She had far too much to do before she
could even think about maternity leave.
Once again, she turned her thoughts to the task at hand and the attack on Lara
Haas. Was it too convenient? Some kind of setup, or publicity stunt? “You’re a

---

jaded, pregnant cop whose BS radar is always cranked too high,” she told herself
with another look in the mirror. “Or, maybe just a damned good detective. Let’s
go with that. Yeah, I like that better.”
At Northern General, the lot was fairly empty, only a few vehicles parked near
the front doors. She found an empty spot and headed inside, taking the elevator
to the second floor, where she found the room occupied by Lara Haas.
A nurse was attending to her patient, taking vital signs, and Alvarez stood near
the windows, turning when she heard Pescoli arrive.
Propped on the bed, the head of which was raised, Lara, devoid of makeup,
looked more like a kid than ever, as if she were closer to fifteen than twenty. In a
flash, Pescoli remembered her as a toddler at the preschool. She’d been pretty
even then, round blue eyes, blond hair, pink cheeks, and rosebud lips. Now, an
IV dripped colorless fluid into her right arm while her left forearm was elevated,
a padded splint holding her wrist and hand immobile. There were surface
scratches on her face and arms, and a dark discoloration visible at her neckline.
Pescoli didn’t say a word as the nurse, a prim woman in her fifties in scrubs
and rimless glasses, took Lara’s vitals, then, not particularly happy the cops were
there, looked from Pescoli to Alvarez. “Does the doctor know you’re here?”
“Don’t know,” Alvarez said.
“I’ll check. Remember, the patient has been through a lot,” she said, glaring at
the detectives over the tops of her glasses. “We’re still waiting on the results of
some of her tests.”
Alvarez gave a quick nod.
“Hmmm.” The nurse started to exit, then took a closer look at Pescoli’s baby
bump. “You’re near term.”
“Yes, I am.” Pescoli felt her feathers ruffled a bit.
The nurse’s thin eyebrows arched knowingly. She looked about to say
something more, but caught a warning in Pescoli’s eyes and glanced back at the
bed. “I’ll be at the desk if you need anything,” she said to Lara as she pointed to
a remote call button attached to the rails of the hospital bed.
Lara smiled weakly. “Thanks.”
“So how’re you feeling?” Alvarez asked as the nurse exited.
“Pretty rough,” she admitted, her lower lip quivering slightly. “My mom is out
of town, but she’s on her way back from Spokane right now.”
“What about your dad?”
Her eyes slid to the side. “They’re separated. He’s in San Francisco. For a
while. But Mom. She’ll be here soon.” She managed a brave little smile that
faltered slightly, and she blinked back tears.
Pescoli felt a pang of empathy for Lara—she was, after all, just a teenager.

---

How duplicitous could she be? Silently berating herself for her own jaded
attitude, she said, “Why don’t you tell us what happened?”
“It was just like Bianca,” Lara said. Then she paused. “Wait a minute. Aren’t
you homicide cops?” Her blue eyes rounded. “No one died, did they? No one
was killed. Right?” She appeared about to panic.
“Nothing like that,” Alvarez said. “We just think what happened to you might
be considered part of a wider investigation.”
“Okay.”
Pescoli asked, “Why were you up at Reservoir Point?”
“I lost my phone, earlier. When we were all up there, at the Point, filming, you
know? Last night. I had it because I remember texting and then being told that
all our phones had to be turned off. So I did. And we did our scenes, if you can
call them that, I mean, I’m barely on screen at all and just in a group shot. But a
bunch of us were there, around the fake campfire, sitting on logs. I think that’s
when my phone must’ve fallen out of my pocket and I didn’t notice since I
wasn’t supposed to use it.”
“Then what?” Alvarez asked, when she paused.
“After the filming, we all left and Alex and I went to the Midway Diner.
That’s when I noticed it was gone. I was freaked, you know? I mean, I can. Not.
Live. Not without my phone, so Alex and I, we went up there looking for it.”
“In the dark?” Pescoli asked.
“Yeah, everyone was gone. It was weird being up there with all that
equipment in the dark, but I had to get it back, so we went through the barricade
and started looking. The trouble was that, since it was turned off, we couldn’t
call it. I’d hoped that I hadn’t turned it off, and we would be able to hear it or see
it in the dark because it would light up when we called, but nah. That didn’t
work.”
Pescoli took over questioning. “So then . . . after you couldn’t find the phone,
what happened?”
“We looked all around the campfire area and it wasn’t there. I remembered
going up the trail a bit, to watch Bianca’s big scene where the Big Foot is
chasing her down the mountain, so Alex and I checked there, and that’s when . . .
that’s when . . . we could maybe hear it. I thought it would be okay, because
Alex was going to call it and it would light up and ring, so really, the dark works
best. Well, kinda.”
“But it was turned off.”
“Yeah.” She nodded, the back of her head sliding against her pillow. “That
was the problem.”
“So, what happened?”

---

“Alex started dialing the phone and we didn’t hear anything, see anything, for
a while. He used his flashlight app, and we looked for it all around where we
were during the filming, but we just couldn’t find it.”
Her eyes were wide, and if she was lying, Pescoli couldn’t see it. Still, a
serious niggle of doubt crept through her mind. This was all just too damned
bizarre.
Lara, then, went on in minute detail about walking through the woods and
searching for the phone. They had been about to give up when, using the
flashlight app on Alex’s phone, they’d found it, right where she’d been standing,
out of the camera’s sight line by the creek.
“Then Alex took off for a minute to take a leak in the woods.”
“Aren’t there Porta Potties up there for the filming? For the cast and crew?”
“Yeah, yeah. But he’s a guy and it’s their thing, I think, to pee outside. The
Porta Potties really aren’t all that great. So anyway, I’m standing there, waiting,
wondering how long it can take him when I get this weird feeling that someone’s
watching me.”
“Alex?” Pescoli asked.
“No, no . . . I knew it wasn’t him. He was pissing and—”
Pescoli cut in, “How did you know it wasn’t—?”
“I just knew, okay. So I tell myself it’s nothing, when I hear something. A kind
of rustling in the dry brush and it freaks me out a little because of what’s been
going on, and I didn’t want to run into a cougar or a coyote or whatever, not
even a squirrel or a snake . . . so I yell to Alex to hurry up, and this rustling gets
louder, kind of a crashing through the trees and then, oh, God, I hear breathing.”
Lara was gazing out the window now, into her story. “So I started moving,
y’know, trying to get away, but I’m a little mixed up in the darkness, I got a little
lost. I don’t know, but I think I went the wrong way. I was scared and confused.
But I started running, because I kept thinking about the bears and maybe wolves
and Big Foot . . . and I remember thinking about what happened to Bianca . . .
and Destiny . . . and then there was this . . . growl. Real low. Real scary. So now
I’m running and screaming. Yelling for Alex and then all of a sudden”—she
started shaking her head as if denying her own words—“I saw it, whatever it
was, a big shadowy thing, coming right at me! I screamed and turned, tried to
run back the way I came, but I was scared out of my mind, and I got off the trail
and there were berry vines and branches scraping at me and at some point I fell,
and I put my hand out to catch myself and pulled some muscles in my arm and . .
. oh, God, it came after me. I couldn’t get away. It grabbed me from behind and
started choking me and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get away.” She was nearly
hyperventilating.

---

“But you did,” Pescoli encouraged. “You got away.”
“But only because Alex started yelling and it heard him and dropped me.
Boom! Right on my ass. Then it took off like a shot, running so fast into the
woods and in seconds it disappeared! Just like that. It just vanished!” she said, as
if she’d witnessed a magic trick, or more likely, a miracle. Her gaze moved from
to Pescoli, then to Alvarez. “It . . . it could have killed me,” she whispered, her
good hand to her throat, the IV tubing stretching.
“And you’re sure this was a monster? A . . . Sasquatch?” Pescoli asked.
“Yes! Yes! I mean . . . I think so. I didn’t see it, not its face, but it was huge
and fast and strong and hairy and smelled and . . .” She shivered, almost on cue.
“I’ve never been so scared in my life.” She started sniffling, but Pescoli didn’t
see any tears forming.
“Could you have mistaken the creature for a big man?” Pescoli said. “Maybe
one in some kind of ape suit?”
Lara gasped. “You don’t believe me? But . . . you think Bianca saw one?” She
glared at Pescoli. Sitting up taller in the bed, she said, “It was there, damn it!
Probably that same huge creature that chased Bianca. You’re just lucky we’re
both alive!”
On hurried footsteps the nurse returned, her face a mask of quiet rage. “I think
you should go now,” she said to the cops. “Ms. Haas needs her rest.”
When Pescoli didn’t immediately head for the door, the nurse said, “I don’t
care who you are, Detectives, I want you out. Now.” Her chin jutted, daring them
to breach her authority, but Pescoli was done. They’d gotten all they needed
from Lara Haas, and if nothing else, the splint on her wrist and the bruising
surrounding her neck convinced Pescoli there was a certifiable homicidal maniac
on the loose.
Man? Beast? Mythical creature?
Ten to one, the killer was human.

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