The Devil's End

by D A Fowler

  He gave her an affectionate pat on the rump through the sheet and got up to get dressed. She groaned in protest. “Why are you gettin’ up? I’m not finished with you yet.”

  “I’m sorry, Carol,” he apologized, “but my wife’s flight is due in about half an hour. I’m going to be late as it is.”

  Carol felt the blood drain from her face. “Your…wife?”

  He stopped for a moment and looked at her coldly. “You didn’t know I was married?”

  She sat up and clutched the sheet around her chin, the good feelings instantly replaced by shame and humiliation. “You neglected to mention that one little detail,” she spat fiercely, terrified that she might cry.

  He resumed buttoning his shirt and shrugged. “For all I knew, you were married too. What difference does it make? We both got what we wanted. Why should you be upset?”

  Carol was too angry to respond. She wanted to grab the lamp off the table beside her and hurl it at him. But instead she just sat there shaking, injecting poison darts into him with her eyes, feeling like the cheapest slut on earth. She would have given her soul for the ability to shrug the experience off, think no more of it than she would shampooing her hair. To say, and really mean it, something like: “Yeah, I got what I wanted, an’ it was okay, I guess. I’ve had better, but I’ve also had a lot worse.” She waited until he had finished dressing and was gone from the room before she crawled out from under the sheet and put her own clothes back on, the effects of the inhibition-killing alcohol all but vanished. Before walking out, she used the bedroom extension to call for a cab. She would be damned before she’d allow him to drive her back to the office where she’d left her car. Damned for eternity! She went into the bathroom and wrote in lipstick across the mirror, YOU WEREN’T ALL THAT GREAT, HONEY. A little message for Sid’s wife.

  God help any male pedestrians who might be crossing the street as she drove home from the office.

  Lana’s bedroom door was thrown open with such ferocity that the knob made a dent in the wall behind it. Bruce and Lana both jumped. “God, Mom, what’s with you?”

  “I believe it’s time for your friend to go home,” Carol said harshly from the doorway. “An’ I would appreciate it if he was over here a lot less often.”

  Bruce had a revelation; he was being thrown out. And far be it from him to stay where he wasn’t wanted. That’s why he was hardly ever at home. He released Lana’s hand and stood up.

  Lana glared at her mother hotly. “How dare you? I can have him over here as often an’ as long as I want. An’ if I can’t, then you’re gonna start seein’ a lot less of me.”

  “You talk to me in that tone of voice anymore, young lady, and you’ll spend the next month in your bedroom. Don’t you dare make threats to me. Until you’re eighteen years old I can tell you what you can or cannot do, and you will obey me or you’ll be gravely sorry. Do I make myself clear?”

  Carol dared her daughter to challenge her authority. The guilt trip was over. It was Lash-Out time.

  Bruce hadn’t been planning to get in the middle of this, but at that moment his tongue seemed to have other ideas. It said (politely, of course): “Mrs. Bremmers, I guess you might not appreciate this, but you don’t own Lana. She’s her own person, you know? She’s got rights.”

  Carol lunged forward, her right hand landing with a loud smack on Bruce’s left cheek. Lana started to scream.

  “I hate you, hate you! I haven’t done a damn thing! Why are you doin’ this?”

  “Get out,” Carol hissed at Bruce. “You’re quite right, I don’t appreciate some delinquent young smartass tellin’ me how to be a mother. Lana’s too good for you anyway.”

  Lana tried to shove past her mother to leave with Bruce, but Carol restrained her with an iron grasp. “You’re not goin’ anywhere.”

  Lana was mad enough to strike her mother, but the taboo against it was too strong. She flung herself down on the bed and continued to scream out her rage. Carol pulled Lana’s door shut behind her and stalked after Bruce, but he hurried through the living room and was out the front door before she could say anything else to him. As far as he was concerned, she’d already said quite enough.

  The night air was chill, almost frosty. Bruce stumbled blindly toward his truck, unable to see clearly because his eyes were stinging fiercely with tears. His cheek throbbed. He got into the cab and closed the door, then promptly proceeded to open the glove compartment. To hell with his birthday. Eat, drink, smoke marijuana, and be merry…now, for that is all there is and all there will ever be. Live for the moment, because the next one may be your last.

  He and Lana had gotten into quite a conversation before being so rudely interrupted. It had started at the park, and like a snowball rolling downhill, had gotten bigger and more lopsided on the way. They had convinced themselves that people around them had been invaded by alien beings—just like in Body Snatchers!— and their only chance for survival would be to run away to an island somewhere in the Pacific. Bruce had saved almost five hundred dollars; that would get them by for a while. What else could they do? Tell a story like that to the police? Not hardly.

  Bruce lit one of the joints and dragged deeply. Three hits later he was smiling again. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Now their ideas seemed rather funny to him, all but the part about running away to an island. That he could handle; they could create their own blissful paradise, just like the young lovers in Blue Lagoon. Yes, yes…

  Nobody around to tell him how worthless he was, or that he wasn’t good enough for her daughter. Only Lana, her angel face and dazzling smile. That such a beautiful girl as she would actually care about him was so amazing. He still couldn’t quite believe it. He only hoped she cared half as much for him as he did for her. That would be more than he would ever need.

  He reached into his jeans pocket for his keys and started the pickup’s noisy engine, then turned on the custom-made stereo system which he himself had designed, built, and installed. Boston’s “More than a Feeling” blared through the speakers. Must be oldie night, he thought to himself. But the tune sank into him, vibrating him with a comforting rhythm. He had to agree; it was more than a feeling. He now felt capable of handling Home Sweet Home.

  He put the transmission in gear and drove off, accidentally mashing too hard on the accelerator, resulting in the squeal of tires. Lana’s mother would probably think he’d done it on purpose, his last great act of defiance or something. Probably strengthen her resolve to keep him away from her daughter. She was going to have a hell of a time doing that.

  He stopped at the corner of Teakwood and Briar Lane behind a battered blue Nova which bore a yellow bumper sticker in the rear window: Shit Happens. Bruce saluted the unknown driver with his joint. “It sure does, buddy. All the time.”

  The Nova made a left turn and sped away. Bruce pulled to a lazy halt behind the stop sign and decided to finish off the whole hooter before going on. He was almost high to the point of passing out when he heard a scraping noise in the bed of his truck. He jumped, looking over his shoulder through the cab’s rear window.

  The intersection was illuminated by a single mercury street lamp on the opposite corner, and only gave him a good view of the tailgate. He raised up and peered into the shadows beneath the window, wondering if a dog or cat had decided to hitch a ride with him. It had happened before; he’d been heading for the park from the drive-in when he’d caught a glimpse of a monstrous black head in his rearview mirror, which had startled him so much he’d jumped the curb and smashed smack dab into a U.S. mailbox. The Labrador had bailed out, leaving Bruce alone to deal with the trouble. He had shouted after the wagging tail, shaking his fist, “Thanks so fucking much!” just as a patrol car pulled up behind him, red and blue lights flashing. Damn cops everywhere when you didn’t want them, but just try finding one in an emergency. It could have been worse, though. At least he’d been out of pot at the time
, or he would have had it on him—and oh, did they search his pickup, hoping to bust him on a DUI. But that hadn’t eased his punishment with the belt-wielding maniac his mother was married to. The only time Bruce had received a worse beating was the time he got caught selling raffle tickets for a nonexistent drawing. But hell, what twelve-year-old boy hadn’t done something like that?

  The truck rocked slightly, as if something heavy in the bed had just shifted its weight. Bruce strongly considered just turning back around in his seat and punching the accelerator, but he was going to have enough trouble trying to drive straight without expecting at any moment to see a hairy apparition pop up in his mirror.

  Warily, he put the transmission in park and eased his door open. The street on either side of him was lined with small, identical houses, all brightly lit as families sat around the dinner table to thank God for filling their stomachs, as if He had punched the time clock forty-six times that month.

  Bruce slowly moved along the side of his truck, muscles tensed, his legs ready for flight. But he was several tokes over the line, and he doubted his ability to run very far without tripping over his own feet. Not that he would actually need to run, of course.

  More noise in the truck bed erased any trace of doubt; something was definitely back there. Heart hammering, Bruce pursed his lips and tried to whistle, but his mouth and throat were too dry, and all that came out was a hiss. He gave up and called out softly, “Hey pooch, why don’cha introduce yourself? I don’t usually pick up hitchers, but I might make an exception if you’re—”

  The word “nice” stuck in Bruce’s throat as he watched the incredibly large, dark mound begin to rise above the bed wall. At first he was willing to believe it was a Saint Bernard, but a slab of pink skin caught in the street light vanquished that idea. It was definitely a biped, good old Homo sapiens. It was—

  His good friend Spiro Guenther.

  Twenty-Four

  Paperwork had kept Detectives Louis Helm and Brent Phelps, his partner, late at the station that night. Sooner or later, they told themselves, they would learn not to let things pile up.

  Helm had just hung up from a call that had him looking like he’d been selected by the IRS for an audit of his last twenty years’ income. Phelps gazed up through a haze of pungent cigar smoke that encircled his desk like a gray wreath. “What is it, Lou?”

  “Damn murder,” Helm said, uttering a hearty belch. The Reuben sandwich he’d grabbed for dinner was beginning to avenge itself. “Some kid. You gonna accompany me to the scene?”

  Phelps crushed out his cigar. “Damned right. Don’t see much of that kind of action around here. Isn’t the Snell girl, is it?”

  Helm pushed away from his desk and motivated his body up and forward, releasing a puttering burst of flatulence which his partner ignored. Helm had made it clear early on that if Phelps could smoke cigars in the office, he could damn sure let wind whenever the urge presented itself. “No, it’s a boy. And unidentifiable, from what I just heard. Gimme a hit of your firewater. I think I’m gonna need it.”

  Phelps leaned over to slide out the bottom drawer of his desk. He produced a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a shot glass. “Help yourself. So, what was it? Stabbing, shooting…?”

  “You’ll see when we get there,” Helm muttered, pouring two fingers and tossing it back. “I’m not ready to talk about it just yet.”

  Bruce’s body, naked and shimmering in golden light, was poised over hers; now he entered her body and rocked with gentle motion, his lips nuzzling her neck and shoulders. Lana moved her hips upward to meet his thrusts, a low moan escaping her throat. He whispered, “You feel so good.”

  Drowning in ecstasy, she opened her eyes to look at him. He gazed down at her adoringly, driving himself in deeper. So perfect, so perfect. But then the picture began to change. His face, as she stared at it, began to crack and peel. Blood oozed from the cracks and fell onto her cheeks.

  When his eyes popped out and dangled over her own, she screamed and sat up, her heart jumping madly. Just a dream. Bruce wasn’t there; no one was there. She took several deep breaths and glanced at the lighted digits on her clock radio. Ten past midnight.

  She listened to the silence. Apparently she hadn’t actually screamed out loud. That was good. Wouldn’t want the Bitch to lose any of her precious sleep. Nor Luke, the little viper.

  She knew why she’d had such a horrible dream. The way Jay Gorman looked. The things she and Bruce had talked about all afternoon and evening. Aliens. Able to assume the guise of a human being by forcing the human soul out. But something about their presence in the earthly flesh made terrible things happen to it; made it look dead or chronically diseased…

  It was possible, wasn’t it? What was a better explanation, especially with all the weird rumors going around? Lana remembered her father’s wise words of advice: never assume. To assume makes an ASS out of U and ME. Therefore, an investigation was called for. Or rather, the continuation of the investigation they had allowed Jay to talk them out of pursuing.

  What better time than the present, but she would have to do it alone. She still hadn’t the foggiest idea where Bruce lived, and it was too late to call his house. And there was no use looking for his address in the phone book, since the listing was under his parents’ last name, and he’d never mentioned what their last name was. But she could do it alone. She was in a defiant mood anyway.

  She slipped out of bed and got dressed as noiselessly as possible. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find, but if things were as weird as they seemed, she would surely uncover some evidence. Maybe she would find some giant pods. Or a small spaceship. Something.

  She groped in the dark until she got to the kitchen, where she located the light above the stove and clicked it on. But by mistake she pushed the wrong switch and the ventilation fan responded with an incredibly loud roar. She cursed under her breath and turned it off, then waited tensely for her mother to come barreling down the hallway wanting to know what the hell she was up to. Carol didn’t come. Lana finally relaxed. A little.

  She took the telephone directory down from the top of the refrigerator and opened it on the stove, after managing to flip the correct switch for the light under the grease hood. She thumbed through the pages until she came to the ones headed Mitchell-Mooney. Her finger trailed over the column of listings until it stopped in the middle of the first page. Montgomery, Albert T., 2819 Teaberry. Memorizing the address, she turned to the back of the directory to look it up on the map. If something unnatural had really happened, he had been the first victim. And when conducting a serious investigation, it was best to start at the beginning.

  She closed the phone book and replaced it, then took her mother’s extra set of car keys from the hook next to the garage door.

  A block from the house she began to breathe a little easier. The hard part—getting this far without waking her mother—was over. Snooping wasn’t so difficult. She drove slowly through the dark, sleeping streets, proud of herself for being so brave.

  Teaberry, when she found it, turned out to be a cul-de-sac; Montgomery’s house was located at the end. Lana parked in front of a house two doors down and got out.

  She’d only worn her jean jacket for protection against the cold, and it was not enough. Shivering visibly, she crept along the dark, quiet street, the residents thereof all nestled snugly in their beds, and asked herself what in blazing tarnation she was doing out there in the middle of the night, sneaking around a strange man’s house. The closer she got to Montgomery’s house, the more her bravery began to look like sheer stupidity. Looking for giant pods? Seriously, now. Did she really expect to peek through the garage windows and see a saucer-shaped aircraft hovering about the tire tools, strange lights blinking on and off?

  No, but she sincerely hoped to. How exciting could you get? As long as there was no harm to her personally, or to anyone she loved. Not
that she would want anyone to get hurt, but it happened anyway, every hour of every day. Someone she didn’t know was being murdered or raped, robbed, tortured…she mused at how desensitized she had become to such news. It affected her no more than hearing the weather report. Those people weren’t real to her. They were nothing but faceless characters who had been written in a play she had never seen.

  But if she found out something terrible was going on, that Sharon Valley was under some kind of alien attack, and exposed it, then maybe she could save a few. How guilty she would feel if she hadn’t checked it out when she had the chance, and as a result hundreds of innocent people ended up suffering. Then again, maybe she was under a completely false alarm. It all boiled down to one thing: investigate. Prove or disprove.

  Her breath made white plumes in the air as she walked. Slowing to a snail’s pace as she reached Montgomery’s property line, she gazed up at the house. It was the only two-story on the block, painted beige with burgundy trim. All of the windows were dark. The garage windows had been painted over.

  Glancing nervously up the street, she stepped onto the lawn, the dead grass crunching beneath her feet. She was headed for the side of the garage, hoping to find an unlocked door.

  When the knob twisted easily, her heart skipped a beat. Now that she was down to the nitty-gritty, she was more frightened than she had ever been in her life. For the first time since this cockamamie idea had occurred to her, she fully realized the personal danger she might be in. If…And if the if was true, it was possible that those things never slept…

  But she opened the garage door anyway. The air that greeted her was warm and musty. The odor was an assault but the warmth an invitation, and she cautiously stepped inside, all senses on the alert. Her eyes swept the darkness which revealed no shapes. Only the smell had a shape; it conjured a vision of something huge and round, like a giant moldy sponge rotting in a corner. Lana swore at herself for not bringing a flashlight. Thinking of one reminded her of watching Dennis disappear into the woods on top of Beacon Hill. She wouldn’t have gone with him for a million dollars.