The Killers Amongst Us: Chimera Dawn Chronicles by Declan Conner Read Free Book Online

the pebbles,
still calling out for help.
    All coordination between mind and body was lost. Her mind
was telling her to keep running, but her legs stopped answering. She could hear
Gyp barking and growling behind her. She dropped to her knees, and looked
toward the campfire. The scene before her shimmered, but she could make out Ted
and the others charging toward her. Almost at her side, she could see Ted with
his rifle shouldered, when all around her started to spin to a mist of lost
consciousness.
     

Chapter 6
     
    SHAW gave his windshield a blast of water and a quick
clean with the wiper blades to remove the dust, then turned right onto the main
street. The view through his windshield was akin to taking a step back in time.
Breaker’s Pass Main Street was frozen in time from around the era of the
settler days. Still it kept the tourist coming, he thought, the lifeblood of
the town. The stores framing the high street were constructed with either pine
logs or wooden planks. Save for the buildings framing the asphalt road, and the
electricity poles, it wouldn’t have looked out of place as a set for a cowboy
film. The main street was noticeably quiet for the time of day. Shaw passed the
general store and turned left at Bill’s barber shop on the corner. He thought
it strange that a closed sign hung in the window. Shaw felt alive for the first
time in as long as he could remember. Not that he was pleased at the vet’s
demise. He hardly knew her. She was new in town.
    It had been some time, but there was always the same deathly
silence on the way to a scene of a death. His mind was heading in all
directions with anticipation. He’d almost forgotten the feeling of isolation
and the apprehension that accompanied such journeys. His heart sank as the vets
came into view. It was clear why the main street was deserted as he turned a
bend. It looked like half the town had closed shop and were now milling around
outside the vet’s property. Shaw pressed the button for his reds and blues and
activated his siren with a short blast. The crowd parted to let him through. He
pulled up at the gate to the rear of the property. Frank was arguing with some
of the townsfolk, his arms outstretched, and holding them back at the gate.
    Shaw picked up his radio microphone.
    “Blue Leader to, Fox One. Have you finished over there?”
    The thirty seconds he had to wait for a reply turned his gut
inside out. He could see Frank needed help.
    “Just loading the stag on the guys’ pickup now, Fox One,
over.”
    “Good, I need you over at the vets, ASAP.”
    “On my way, Blue Leader, Fox One, out.”
    Shaw opened his door and climbed out of his seat onto the
sidewalk.
    “Please, all a ya, make way. Just go home.”
    Faces turned in his direction. He’d seen those looks before.
Five and a half years on the job and they still considered him the new boy in
town. This scene was his territory, not theirs. He wasn’t about to let their
seniority in town let them stay put. He could see they weren’t for moving.
    “For the last time, move on. You could all be trampling over
evidence.”
    Shaw picked out the face of the local bar owner, Ed Grimes.
He doubled up as the town mayor. Grimes stood toe to toe with Frank. Now he
understood why Frank had been arguing.
    “Mr. Mayor, can you help us to get everyone to go home,”
Shaw asked, and pushed through the crowd. He hoped that using his title would
muster support.
    “We only want to know what’s going on,” Grimes said, and
appeared to be looking down at Shaw with those three inches of extra height he
had over him. “Frank says we could have a wild animal on the loose by the look
of the vet’s body.”
    Frank shrugged his shoulders.
    “We don’t know anything yet,” said Shaw, and stabbed a look
at Frank,
    “Well it’s not my Montague,” said Mrs. Fisher, clutching her
cat to her chest. “He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
    “Listen, Sheriff, if it is a wild animal we all need to
know. I could