Cryptids - Chapter Three Revised

      Dean lay on his stomach in the hospital bed with his back completely covered in bandages. He had popped many of the stitches Kyleigh had put in the evening before with his exhausting hike back to the Jeep. After being stitched up, cleaned up and bandaged he received a tetanus shot, antibiotics and painkillers. After all Dean had been through there wasn’t a lot of life left in him, and he soon drifted off to sleep. Kyleigh kept a vigilant watch over him that first night. She felt such guilt. He had been alone out there because she always wanted to be right and to be in control. That morning the doctor was back to check on his patient and shook his head at finding Kyleigh still there. He walked in, looked at the chart and checked to make sure Dean’s stats were normal. Then he turned to Kyleigh with a disapproving look. “Ms. McTierney, what are you still doing here? You should have gone home yesterday.”

         “I wanted to be here when he woke up. I’m not leaving so you can wipe that look right off your face.”, she said defiantly. She sat back in the chair as if preparing for the long haul.

         He scowled at her much like a disgruntled parent and replied, “It won’t do you any good to stay. I’ve given orders to the nurse to give him something to help him sleep. I’m sure he would rather sleep through the worst of it. You would be of greater help to your friend if you were to return to your hotel and get some rest yourself. You’ll just be a nuisance to my staff if you were to continue skulking around here.”

         “I haven’t been skulking.” , she said to the doctor. There had been the tickling fear in the back of her mind that the animal that had done this might come back for Dean.It wasn’t like she could actually explain that to the doctor. The doctor was right however, she was only getting in the way here. The creature that had attacked him in the wilderness wouldn’t dare come here to the hospital. Kyleigh had gotten the impression that they wanted to keep the secret of who they were. There was a moments silence before she looked at the doctor again. “How long?”

         “Give him a few days. Leave your number at the nurses’ station and either a nurse or I will call you if anything changes. He should be fine; it will just take him some time to heal. Deal?”

         Kyleigh stared hard in his face, “I’m trustin’ you. If anything …and I mean anything happens you let me know immediately.”

         “Anything.”, he nodded as he said it and left the room. As he walked out the door you could tell he was happy to have her gone. Kyleigh couldn’t care less what he thought of her as long as they were going to do their best by Dean. She knew she came off as a bitch to those who didn’t know her, but loyalty meant something to her. She had been close friends with Dean for over five years now. He had always been there for her. She definitely meant to have his back this time.

         She walked to Dean’s side brushed her hand gently through his hair and whispered, “I’ll be back. Don’t you make them call me for anything but good news.” Then she walked slowly out of the hospital, dropping her cell number off as she went. She would discover the truth and deal with the problems that were thrust in her lap for now, but whoever or whatever had hurt Dean would pay.



         Kyleigh now had a mission and nothing was going to stand in her way. Her first stop was back to the lab to grab the tape of the Tasmanian Tiger. When she walked in and demanded it from the young assistant he informed her that it had gone missing hours after her and Dean had left in search of the animal. “That’s great. Big surprise.” She said before walking right back out the door. She needed sleep before she did anything else. Tomorrow was soon enough to start figuring out what the hell was going on. With her dusty backpack still on her back and covered in grit she returned to the hotel. The other guests gave her speculative glances as she marched through the lobby. She was nearly to the elevators when the desk clerk ran up to her waving two sheets of paper at her. “Ms. McTierney, you have a few messages.” The guy was in his early twenties and had a gawky and lanky appearance. His body seemed to be too long for him, of course he had plenty of time to fill it in. He seemed incredibly eager to please, but unfortunately for him, Kyleigh didn’t have the patience for it right now.

         She snapped the papers out of his hand so he would stop waving them under her nose and abruptly turned back to the elevator. The clerks face fell and Kyleigh was grateful the elevator doors shut and she wouldn’t have to hear him whine.

         She stepped out of the elevator and headed down the hallway to her room. She came up short, however, as she saw her door stood slightly ajar. Kyleigh flipped her bag around to the front of her and removed her Ruger SR9 semi-automatic dropping the bag gently to the floor and clicking off the safety.  She stalked quietly to the door and listened for any sound coming from inside. She stood there for a few minutes when she finally decided she’d have to go in. She pressed her body against the wall beside the door and with her gun she slowly and gently inched the door opened, keeping an eye out for anyone who might still be inside. The more the door opened, the more damage she saw that had been done to her room. Someone had some fun tearing up her room, even the bed had been flipped over. How is it that no one heard them doing this to my room? She took cautious steps into the room attempting to look everywhere at once, just waiting for someone to jump out of nowhere. After checking her sitting room, bedroom and the bathroom she was satisfied no one had remained to wait for her return. She perused what was left of her scattered belongings. Shockingly the only thing that seemed to be missing was her dirty clothes that had been in the hamper and one of her hairbrushes. She quickly packed her things back up and called down to the lobby. Her irritating desk clerk answered on the second ring. She was disappointed to hear however that they had no available rooms at the hotel. He was shocked to hear what had happened. Her room would, of course, be complimentary. If she had co-workers staying in the hotel as well, could she possibly share a room with one of them for the evening until they were able to straighten her room out? The only problem with that was that Dean had plans to stay with his cousin, so she couldn’t take over his room. She had no intention of sharing a room with her boss, Jamieson. That only left Hugh, the rest of the team had left to follow a lead in Mexico City. “I’ll work it out; just get it done as soon as possible.”, with that she hung up and dialed Hugh’s room number before she lost the nerve. After four rings she was ready to hang up, but just as she was moving the phone away from her ear she heard his voice thick and sexy from sleep.

         “This better be important, I just got to sleep.”, he said then yawned into the phone.

         “Hey Hugh, this is Kyleigh. How come you’re just getting to sleep?”

         She could hear him moving around in the bed. “Kyleigh, I heard about the attack from Jamieson. When you didn’t come back last night I thought you had been hurt, too. You weren’t were you?”

         “No, I’m fine. But Dean was hurt pretty bad. The doctor’s say it will be a few days until he can be released.”, she paused for a minute then continued, “Look Hugh, I know this is a big favor. Do you think I could bunk with you for a night or two?”

         There was a moment of awkward silence before he answered, “I’m sorry you want to what?”

         Kyleigh breathed an impatient sigh, not quite comfortable with the situation she had been put in. Because of this she stammered through her explanation a bit quickly. “Look, this is what happened. I came back here to my room to find that someone had broken in and trashed my room. The guy at the front desk is pretty irritating if you haven’t noticed and he said they don’t have any vacancies. He also said that it should only take them a day to straighten my room up, but I don’t really trust them to have it done by tonight. Do you? And so I figured I might ask you. So you better not make me ask Jamieson. So what do you say?”, she took a deep breath as she finished her tirade, feeling a bit calmer now after having gotten it off her chest.

         “Someone broke into your room?”, he asked expectantly.

         “No, I’m making it up for laughs. Yes, someone broke into my room. So can I stay with you or can’t I? I kind of need to crash for a few hours. It looks like I’ve got a full plate just waiting for me.” Kyleigh was starting to feel the exhaustion creeping up on her. It seemed like that’s all she had been feeling since she had captured that Thylacine. Or should she say that woman Khepera? After a few minutes of silence she said angrily, “Are you going back to sleep, Hugh? … Hugh?!”

         Then from right behind her, “Damn woman, you don’t have to shout. Have you gotten your things together?” Hugh said as he glanced around the room at the damage.

         Kyleigh smacked Hugh on the shoulder and said angrily, “What the hell do you think you’re doin’ sneaking up on a woman like that? Especially an armed woman.”

         “Don’t act stupid. Here you are just standing around like nothing happen. Did you consider the fact, that whoever did this might have come for you and they could come back? And I was able to walk right up to you, not sneaking, and you didn’t even hear me.” He shook his head at her then said, “Why don’t you just go to my room and I’ll grab your stuff.”

         He leaned down to pick up her bag, but she beat him to it and they played a little tug-of-war over the bag before she looked into his face and said, “Look if you don’t mind sharing your room that’s great. I need a shower and some sleep before I get back to work. What I don’t need is some white knight trying to protect me.” She pulled her bag out of his hand and continued, “And I am capable of carrying my own bag.”

         He rolled his eyes at her and said, “This should be a whole lot of fun. Alright, is there anything else I can do? You ask for favors so sweetly.”

         She looked guilty for a moment before she glared at him and said, “All I asked for was a hot shower and the use of your couch for a night. Don’t act like I asked for you to open a vein.”

         “You may not have asked for it, but that’s what it may come to.”, he said then walked back to his room leaving the door open and waiting for her. She had to make two runs to her room to get all her stuff, but she carried it without help. To think if she had let him help she could already be in the shower. She was going to have to work on her attitude.





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