The Fear In Yesterday's rings

where have they been keeping themselves all these millennia? You certainly can't believe they've been hiding out in the wheat and corn fields. I can see how a Sasquatch or yeti might remain hidden in the Pacific Northwest or the Himalayas, but where could something like the lobox hide out in Kansas? And why has it only recently started to eat people? And, of course, there would have to be more than one, unless you also believe in spontaneous regeneration. There would be mommy loboxes, and daddy loboxes, and little baby loboxes running around. Why hasn't anybody spotted even one? Really, Dr. Button. Do forgive me if I seem to belabor the obvious.'

To my considerable surprise, Button began to nod almost enthusiastically; he actually seemed to prefer Harper's scathing critique of what passed for his thinking to my polite, if somewhat condescending, attempt to simply brush him off. He abruptly swiveled around to face her, offering me his back.

'I completely understand your reservations, Miss Rhys-Whitney,' Button said in his odd, piping, nasal tone. 'Believe me, I'm well aware of the problems inherent in my theory. I know it may sound preposterous, and I can't really answer any of your excellent questions; all I'm left with is evidence that the thing doing the killings is a lobox.'

'The killer's human,' I said in a flat tone to the man's back.

Button turned around, once more reached into his briefcase, took out more photographs, and laid them out over the tablecloth. They were Polaroids, or copies of Polaroids, that had apparently been taken at one of the killing sites, and were gruesome. They showed a victim, a man, whose throat had been torn away, almost decapitating him. In addition, there was a crater in his belly from which his torn innards were spilling, almost as if a grenade had exploded in the man's stomach, blowing out his guts. I thought it was rather tactless to show the photos to two people who'd just finished dinner, but I'd grown accustomed over the years to such unpretty sights, and when I glanced up at the woman on the other side of the table, her face displayed no shock or horror, only interest.

'These are photos taken at the site of the first killing, in Missouri,' he said tersely. 'As you can see, there are some faint tracks next to the body.'

'Where did you get them?'

Button sniffed loudly. 'I took them myself, Dr. Frederickson, as part of my initial investigation. You may be surprised to learn that I'm a highly respected zoologist, and I do what might be termed forensic zoology. Despite what I know to be your initial reaction to me, I'm not a crackpot. Police departments around the country-indeed, around the world-think enough of my talents to call me in to consult when there appears to have been a death caused by some animal which they can't identify. I was first called in by the Missouri state police because, understandably, they couldn't figure out what kind of an animal had done this. You'll observe that the flesh and intestines in the stomach wound appear to have been pulled out, rather than slashed or shredded, almost as if the stomach had been cored. There are claw marks around the periphery of the wound, although you can't see them well in the photographs. In order to pull flesh out in that manner, a kind of opposable, or posterior, talon or claw is required in order to grip-think of the talons of an eagle or a hawk. However, this man obviously wasn't killed by any bird. Then what was it that killed him? No known large mammal has this kind of claw configuration. The only large creature that ever lived that is thought to have had an opposable claw on its footpads is the one I have described to you. The tracks you see in the photograph show an elevated area at the rear of the paw that could contain a retractable claw. Add to that the hair and saliva samples that can't be matched to any known, living animal. What you end up with is what I think killed this man, as well as the seven others killed in a similar fashion: a lobox. Given the background and information I've just supplied to you, Dr. Frederickson, what would you have said?'

'You have my attention, Dr. Button. By now the FBI is seriously at work on the matter. What do they think killed these people?'

The cryptozoologist pursed his lips, slowly shook his head. 'The FBI came in after the second killing-and they cut me out; they wouldn't allow me to visit that killing site, and they've banned me from the other killing sites as well. By the time I'm able to get on a site, it's already been completely worked over, evidence gathered and taken away, or obliterated. I've been searching for tracks and other signs around the peripheries of the killing sites, but that kind of work is almost impossibly difficult- like searching for needles in a corn field, if you will. In addition, the FBI refuses to share with me their lab analyses of the later hair and saliva samples they must have found. Frankly, I'm at a loss to understand their refusal to cooperate with me. It's almost as if they're trying to cover up the fact that there could be a lobox loose, and which is a danger to every man, woman, and child living in this area.'

'Is the FBI aware of your theory about this creature?'

'Of course. I told them what I thought it was.'

'In that case, Dr. Button, I think I can explain the FBI's attitude and behavior. The FBI doesn't have much time or patience for tracking 'hidden animals,' especially those that have been extinct for fifteen thousand years.'

'But to actually bar me from the other sites-'

'The bureau isn't going to want it known that they've accepted advice from a cryptozoologist-even if they consider what you've told them vital, and I'm pretty sure that's the case. They took what you had to offer them and then cut you out because they don't want to be associated with you in any stories that appear in the press. That's one reason.'

Button shook his head. 'They wouldn't listen to anything I had to say.'

'I think you're wrong. My bet is that they consider what you told them extremely important. In fact, it told them what not to look for-in this case, they can rule out the possibility that any of those people could have been killed by an animal. They're hunting a serial killer, Button. Count on it.'

Nate Button stared at me for some time, breathing noisily through his mouth. He looked thoroughly bewildered. 'That's insane,' he said at last. 'You're telling me the FBI is searching for a human killer precisely because I told them all the evidence points to a lobox?'

'You've got it.'

'Are you mocking me, Frederickson?'

'No. You have to understand that the bureau people aren't for a moment going to take seriously the possibility that the men were killed by an extinct animal from prehistoric times, and you helped them rule out the possibility of any other animal-boars, bears, rabid dogs, what have you. What that leaves is a human- but a human with very specialized knowledge of paleontology and zoology. How many people would even know about a lobox, much less leave a corpse that could make another specialist like yourself believe a lobox had done the killing? Do you see?'

The cryptozoologist slowly shook his head, but I couldn't tell whether he was indicating that he didn't understand what I was getting at, or simply rejected it.

'They questioned you very closely about your colleagues, didn't they?'

He looked surprised. He licked his lips, closed his mouth, swallowed. 'As a matter of fact, they did. They even demanded the subscription list for the journal I edit. At the time, I thought they wanted it just so that they could consult other experts. . Oh, my God.'

'Now you're beginning to get the picture, Dr. Button. Their first and foremost suspect would have been you after you laid all this business about the lobox on them, but you must have had an airtight alibi at the time of the Missouri killing and when the second victim was found. Still, you can bet they know what you've had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on every day since then when a victim has been found. So you're no longer a suspect, but they are hunting someone else with your same interests and expertise. They bar you from the sites because they don't want to be associated with you, but also because they now want to keep as many details secret as possible; it helps them screen out false confessions.'

'I hadn't thought of that,' Button said distantly. 'Perhaps you're right. It's just that. . Why would a killer go to the considerable trouble of making his murders look like the work of an extinct prehistoric creature virtually nobody outside a small field of specialists has ever heard of?'

'Well,' I said with a shrug, 'that's certainly a good question, and a debating point for your side. I do know that you can never tell what's really going on inside the mind of a serial killer. This one's apparently an academic, scholarly type who's using his deep grounding in paleontology to amuse himself while he thinks he's baffling the experts.'

'Frankly, your theory doesn't sound any more plausible than mine,' Button said tersely, and sniffed. 'In order to create paw prints, fang marks, and body wounds like those I observed at the Missouri site, a man