Like Digging A Ditch With A Spoon

It had been a week and Deeb had heard nothing from Janet. She had always known, she supposed, that there was a very high likelihood that the lady was full of shit. It was nice to have some kind of explanation though, even if it sounded like something dreamt up on hallucinogenic mushrooms. She had stopped reporting the dead bodies. The authorities might start getting suspicious if she was the one who reported them every time. Sometimes, if the vision didn't fade for a while, she'd have a closer look around. It was clear that it was the same type of animal attacking, possibly the same animal, because the gashes and occasional footprint looked nothing like Deeb had ever seen on a living specimen. It was the same footprint she'd seen in the vision of the roadkill turkey. She didn't get a good look at the creature, but she knew it was large and its footfalls sounded anything but graceful. It sounded like an abomination. She'd just try not to think about that thing lurking around while she was trying to fall asleep.

She was in the middle of trying to draw the gnarled footprint when Terry from maintenance knocked on her office door.

"Hey, Terry. Turbine F ready to be switched back on?" He shook his head. "No, unfortunately. It's gonna take us a bit longer than we thought. Probably a week actually. We gotta take the blades out to get to the rotor."

Deeb groaned.

"I'll let logistics know. Ugh, I had a feeling this would happen, but hoped you guys would give me good news."

"No such luck, Levitt. No such luck."

"Hold on, let me call flow management and let them know Turbine F is gonna be down for a week. I can open hatch F0 and F1 so you can get the turbine out as soon as you get someone on the crane."

Terry called his coworker Gretchen to tell her that they were ready for the crane while Deeb messaged flow management and sent a dam-wide announcement to clear the walkway so she could open the hatch. She pressed a button on her panel to sound the sirens on the walkway. "Alright, they've got 15 minutes."

Terry leaned back on the fence.

"Ah, it'll take them that long to finish disconnecting the blades. How can you stand those sirens for so long?"

Deeb laughed.

"There's always some kind of siren or beeping, you get used to it. The worst issue is when you get so used to it that you don't notice them anymore and then something goes wrong and you have no idea."

"Has that happened to you before?

"Yeah, it always happens. I check my alarms all the time just to make sure it's not happening. At least the alarms sound different so I can tell which is which usually."

They stood on the walkway watching Gretchen lift the blades from the concrete depths. Terry wasn't much of a conversationalist and Deeb didn't really feel like talking, so they just stood there, thankful the sun was behind a cloud, so they could see without squinting. She could see everything from up there. It was always windy on top of the dam. The turbines always seemed smaller in Deeb's mind, but seeing one dangling on the crane right in front of her, she remembered how big they were. 172 tons. Good luck team lifting that. The sun came out from behind the cloud and glinted off a small shiny spot on the otherwise dulled turbine and briefly blinded Deeb, who cursed a blue streak in the few seconds it took to understand what happened and shield her eyes. She got a call from Sasha, who just wanted to let her know that she had run into one of Deeb's friends from school, and thought that was much more important than anything Deeb might be doing at that moment. "Yeah, yeah, tell her I'm glad she's doing well. … oh, yes, Sophie is a nice name for a cat. … well I don't know, I haven't seen her in 7 years! … of course I'm busy, it's 2:30 on a Tuesday. … love you too. Have fun. Bye, mom."

Deeb went back to her office and kept trying to draw the footprint. It looked like nothing she had ever seen… and nothing she could even imagine. She knew she must be missing some detail. A vision suddenly came on. There was a high slope and a shallower one. A ditch on a hillside. There were sprays of light pink flowers and a few murky puddles. She knew that ditch. It was on the dam side of drainage creek 3. She felt the awkward gait, not sure of whether or not to be graceful. Slowly, slowly. The shadow it cast when it stepped into the sun. Rebecca from payroll taking a late lunch, admiring the flowers. By the time she realized she was shaded, it was too late. She barely had time to scream. Deeb knew it was over when what used to be Rebecca rolled down the little hill and splashed into the puddles of murky water, turning them red and crushing the pretty pink flowers.

She shook the vision. She had only been back in her office for a few minutes. And she could see the dam side creek banks from where she had been standing before. She may have not been able to see in excruciating detail, but she would have seen a mauling. She would have HEARD a mauling (the animal doing them seemed to be pretty quiet, but the people certainly weren't). How did that stupid thing manage to strike without being seen? There would have been an alarm. Somebody would have seen it. Somebody would have heard it. There was an entire maintenance team out there with full sight of drainage creek 3. She scrambled outside and saw nobody was out anymore. And wherever the body was, she couldn't see it. The maintenance team had left. She considered reporting the body, but then remembered she didn't want to risk a false association. She felt bad, leaving Rebecca out there, lavender cardigan getting muddy, bleeding out into a ditch. But she couldn't risk it. And it wasn't like Rebecca had an opinion anymore. It seemed the beast didn't have a pattern. It just kept killing people in random ditches all over the place. She supposed it hadn't done anything in town. It had largely stayed in rural and singularly developed areas. But that hardly meant anything. It clearly wasn't afraid of people. Animals that were afraid of people ran at the first sight and sound, this thing only ran AFTER the deed was done.

Deeb returned to her office and worried about how quiet the animal could be. The only noises is ever seemed to make were hisses and clicks. Unless one was really listening, it would be so easy for it to just sneak up and strike. She could just be walking down the street and get gutted before she even registered there was anything going on. It was something big. That much was clear from the weight in the footfalls. How could something so big and so dangerous be so quiet? She wondered if anyone secretly knew what it looked like. She knew deep in her heart that through the visions, her vague idea of some features was the most complete image any human had of the damned creature, but she hoped someone else had seen it and was just being very quiet. She hoped she never had to see any more of it than she already had. Frustrated, she crumpled up her sketches and threw them in the wastebasket. They weren't enough, and yet were too much. The pencil stared ominously. And then Deeb heard the scream. She wandered out in the midst of the commotion and in the distance saw Rebecca from payroll turning the pink flowers red.