by Anthony Izzo
When he saw Rafferty at the door, he opened it all the way. He still had on his grimy coveralls from the garage.
“Evening, Ed.”
“Just came from the gas station.”
“Carl pump your gas for you?”
“Yep. Didn’t charge me either. Appreciate that, by the way.”
“Any time.”
Jimbo tugged at the crotch of his coveralls.
“Took a look around your place. Anything funny happen there lately?”
“Nope.”
His eyes darted to the left, then to the right, and Rafferty knew he was lying.
“No kills this close to the Harvest, you know.”
“Do I look like I was born yesterday?”
“Just wanted to make sure you didn’t forget the rules.”
“Was always a stupid rule, anyway.”
“It’s designed to make sure none of the Outsiders get suspicious. You know, I smelled something funny in the garage.”
Jimbo spat over the porch railing. “Let’s quit the dance, Ed.”
“There was a kill, wasn’t there?” Rafferty said.
“Yeah.”
Rafferty felt his heart pump harder. He could feel his anger starting to rise, and if he didn’t try and relax a little right now, he might splatter the old coot’s nose across his face. “You killed someone?”
“No, Carl did.”
“Did you feed on him?”
“Yeah.”
“You stupid bastard.”
Rafferty gritted his teeth. Jimbo clenched and unclenched his fists, as if he were preparing to spring. Rafferty was angry enough to slam Jimbo back into the apartment and thrash him, teach him a lesson. But he had to be careful. Jimbo was old, but he was also crafty and vicious.
“Carl needs to be punished. I need to make an example of someone.”
“Why not me?”
“You might be next if you’re not careful.”
“Carl told me something when we were standing over the body,” Jimbo said.
“And?”
Jimbo folded his arms. “He said I shouldn’t put up with your crap no more. He said maybe I should lead the Harvest.”
“You’re old, Jimbo.”
“I’ve made more kills than you ever will.”
“But I killed Worthy. He was the last clan leader, so that makes me top dog. If you think you can beat me, go ahead and try. You don’t have it in you.”
Jimbo’s eyes narrowed, bringing out the crow’s feet around his eyes. He ran his tongue over his cracked lips. The old goat appeared to be sizing him up.
“I think I will, Ed.”
“What?”
Jimbo’s hand whipped from his side, claws revealed. Rafferty jerked his head back, lost his balance and tumbled backward. He spun and landed facedown, his nightstick jabbing him in the gut, popping the air out of his lungs.
Jimbo stood in the door grinning, his teeth the color of an old taxicab. “Forgot I could do that, huh, Ed? One of the benefits of being old. Pretty good trick, huh?”
Rafferty stood up and immediately doubled over, sucking air in big gasps, his diaphragm refusing to work. After a few seconds, he grabbed a gulp of air, thinking that if he hadn’t jerked away, he would be minus most of his face.
Jimbo slammed the door, and from behind it, Rafferty heard him pounding through the house.
Donna went to the broken window. She grabbed the windowsill, pulling with all of her strength. A piece of concrete came loose and she hit the floor, landing on her back.
She heard the thing as it reached the bottom of the stairs. Its rank odor permeated the basement.
She got up and gripped the sill again. The creature took two strides and yanked her down to the floor. Her shirt ripped and she landed near the workbench. Something hard and narrow jabbed into her back and she smelled gasoline fumes.
She looked down to see the gasoline can on its side. The nozzle had poked her in the back. Cold fabric pressed against her back. It had soaked the back of her shirt.
Rising to her feet, she saw the creature ready to pounce, back on its haunches like a big cat. It leapt at her with ferocious speed and pinned her to the ground. She felt the cold concrete through her shirt.
The raw, sulfurous smell from the creature stung her eyes. Thick saliva dribbled in a runner down its chin.
The beast straddled her, then lowered its huge head and sniffed at her neck. Her lungs felt like compressed footballs. But it hadn’t pinned her arms.
My arms are free. Time to do some damage, she thought.
She wanted to find something to hurt it with, but what? She turned her head left, then right, hoping for something on the floor. There! A black-handled screwdriver near Bob’s bench.
She had to fight it, or she’d be seeing Dominic in the land of clouds and angels a lot sooner than she planned. She was probably doomed, but she could at least give the thing a battle before it killed her.
It reached back and dragged its claw up her thigh. She felt a burning sensation and heard the fabric pop. Then the sting of her skin being opened. She guessed it planned on cutting her to pieces, maybe seeing how many agonies she could bear before those teeth clamped down on her throat.
She stretched and got her fingertips on the screwdriver’s handle. She pawed at it and it rolled toward her and she slapped her palm down on the handle.
It lowered its head and now its face was a few feet from hers. Yellowish fluid pooled in its nostrils.
She swung her arm in an arc and drove the screwdriver into its left eye, turning the eyeball into jelly. Before letting go of it, she twisted the handle, hoping that she hit the brain.
The creature reared back, clawing at the screwdriver, chattering and screeching.
She rolled to her feet, spotting the gas can as she rose. Picking up the can, she unscrewed the spout and splashed gasoline on the creature. The fluid ran down its legs and gathered at its feet.
It pulled the screwdriver from its eye, the lid closed over the ruined socket.
It snapped the screwdriver in half and flung it. Then it looked down at itself and sniffed, detecting the gasoline bath Donna had given it. It looked at her with bubbling fury in its good eye, aware of Donna’s intentions.
She picked up the box of blue tip matches. Opening the box, she took one out. Its soft glow provided minimal light in the dark basement.
It swiped at her and she ducked. Its blow connected with the top of the workbench, splintering the wood and scattering tools across the floor.
She struck the match against the box, praying she wouldn’t wind up lighting herself up like a road flare. Blue flame rose from the tip.
Before she could toss the match at the creature, it raked her forearm with its claw, slicing her open. God, but that hurt! The match tumbled to the floor. It hit the puddle of gasoline on the floor and a curtain of flame erupted from the concrete.
Fire raced up the creature’s legs and it flung itself against the wall, as if trying to separate the flames from its body.
Now was her chance, maybe the only one. She ran around it, getting out of the way just as the fire climbed up the workbench.
Scrambling up the stairs, hoping she wouldn’t pass out, she hurried through the kitchen.
She heard the thuds coming up the basement stairs and smelled the thing’s skin cooking, a mixture of spoiled meat and sewer gas that made her stomach lurch.
She reached the front door in the foyer, flipped the dead bolt and pulled it open. Goddamned police tape. She clawed through the tape and it fell to the floor like giant limp noodles. A siren screamed from down the block. Good, here comes the cavalry. God knew she needed it right now, even if it happened to be Rafferty.
She turned the screen door knob and flung it open.
The flaming horror caught up to her and drove its fist into her lower back. It felt like a two-by-four to the kidneys.
She flew forward, palms scraping the wood on the front porch. Fresh pain traveled up he
r wounded arm.
It busted through the screen door and the door flew to the right and hung on a remaining hinge like a marionette on a string.
This would be the end. She was sure of it.
The blood leaked from her arm, making her head feel muddy. She looked up and the treetops spun.
Her ears split again as the cop cars pulled up. She could tell by the sounds of the sirens they were prowl cars.
A blast from a big gun. A .357?
Darkness.
Jill stood in front of the mirror, brushing the snarls out of her hair.
The air felt thick enough to slide down your throat and choke you. She had the window open, but it provided no breeze to cool the room. Occasionally a car whizzed past or a group of kids strolled by, hooting and hollering, but no breeze came.
The lamp on the nightstand provided a murky cone of light. She made a mental note to get a bigger, brighter lamp. The lack of light and the oppressive heat made the room seem smaller, confining. Almost claustrophobic.
Maybe she would invest in an air conditioner if she got some money saved.
When she finished brushing her hair, she set the brush down and picked up a tube of rose lotion from Bath and Body Works. It was her favorite scent, and she rubbed it on her hands, arms and legs, enjoying its coolness.
She had wiped the mascara from her face that had run in rivulets down her cheeks. After asking Matt to leave, she broke into a crying fit, and the force of her sobs scared her. She hardly knew Matt, and yet she liked him a lot.
Her sobbing had come when she thought of the lousy luck she had with men in the past four or five years.
The guys she had dated had mostly been after one thing. Their eyes would glaze over when she tried talking about history, current events or books. They would steal glances at her breasts or her legs, paying little attention, waiting only for their turn to talk. A guy she had dated twice tried slipping his hand up her skirt on their second date. They were in the middle of a General Cinema movie theater at the time.
When she got up and stormed out, he had followed her, ham-handedly trying to apologize for his advances. She slapped his face and told him to perform a certain sex act on himself.
There had been other dates, other guys, and then Jerry. By the time they had broken up, she began to believe all the good men were taken. And then there was the incident in the warehouse and Matt had come dashing in to save her.
Maybe she wanted to believe that it had been fate, or a sign this was the man she would be with. It wouldn’t hurt if she got to know him better.
But then the stories started, stories about monsters and hidden beasts living in Lincoln, all seeming to crazy to believe if not for the small kernel of truth that stuck in her mind. She had seen something in that warehouse, despite all her attempts to deny it.
The memories of the smell on Dorothy Gaines and Rafferty’s creepy behavior floated into her head and she told herself to shut up.
The inner voice, possibly the voice of reason, the voice that for most people spoke the truth, kept butting into her thoughts. They’re real, Jill. Matt’s right.
Why couldn’t she get Matt Crowe out of her head if she wanted him gone?
A bead of sweat dribbled down her forehead. That was it. Too hot for clothes. She stripped, ripped the blankets off the bed, flopped down and turned off the light.
She would call Matt tomorrow and tell him they should go their separate ways. She would thank him for helping her, and that would be it.
If she plunged herself into her work, she would forget about him and another man would come along. One that didn’t believe in bogeymen.
CHAPTER 17
Carla Reese dragged the pack of Wrigley’s gum across the scanner plate and the register beeped. “That be all?”
“How much for you?”
The customer, a teenage kid, maybe seventeen, leaned across the counter. Carla had never seen him before, even though he appeared to be around the same age as her. His shoulder-length hair was parted in the middle, brown and fluffy, as if he had spent a lot of time blow-drying it. He had on a faded denim jacket and bleached jeans.
The jacket had patches with the names of heavy metal groups sewn on them. She could make out a few of them: Metallica, Slayer, and Judas Priest. He was a throwback to the eighties, a headbanger. A species believed to be extinct.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“How much for you, sweetie? Are you for sale?”
“That’ll be twenty-seven cents.”
“For the gum?”
“Right.”
He dug in his pocket, pulled out a crumpled dollar bill, and threw it on the counter. She picked it up and unrolled it, not liking the sweaty feel of the paper.
“What time you get off?”
“None of your business.”
She punched the amount into the register and the drawer popped open, bumping her in the groin. She frowned. That drawer always opened a little fast and normally she stood to the side so it wouldn’t catch her in the crotch. But the jerk had distracted her.
“If you don’t tell me, I can wait outside for a while. I got all night.”
“I’m off at midnight.”
That was a lie. In ten minutes it would be ten o’clock, and her shift at Wilson Farms would be over. They were open twenty-four hours and she expected her replacement, Liz Chaney, any minute.
“I’ll come back at midnight. To see you.”
She left his change on the counter, not wanting to touch his hand. He pressed the change against the counter with his palm and dragged it. The scraping noise made her hair stand on end.
“Me and my friends’ll be waiting,” he said.
He stuffed the change in his front pocket and bounced out of the store.
What an asshole.
She was used to being hit on by guys, but never by somebody that forward. What did it mean when he said him and his friends would be waiting for her?
Last year she nearly made the cover of Seventeen, and her mother was talking with some big-time talent agent in New York named Barry Barker. Carla was custom-built for modeling. Five-eleven, weighed one hundred fifteen; and according to the photographer at Seventeen, she had better cheekbones than Kate Moss. Thus she became the target of horny teenage boys.
She thought about calling Ronnie at Home Depot to come pick her up, but he wasn’t off work for another hour, and she had her own car at the store. Besides, the kid who came in the store was probably long gone by now. Maybe he was just trying to rattle her, or maybe one of his buddies had dared him to come in and hit on her. It would be better if Ronnie didn’t find out someone was hitting on her, for there would be a fight if he did.
She wondered if all that weightlifting he did for football made him aggressive.
The clock read five minutes to ten.
Liz Chaney walked through the door, her brown apron draped over one arm.
“Hey Liz,” Carla said.
“Hey.”
“Did you see anyone out there?”
“Outside the store?”
“Yeah.”
“No, why?”
“Some jerk was in here hitting on me. He said he’d be waiting for me when I got off work.”
“Must be nice to get that kind of attention.”
Liz wore Coke-bottle glasses with flaming pink frames. She also had a face full of throbbing acne. Carla didn’t know much about her outside of work, but she didn’t think Liz went on many dates.
“It was no big thrill. He was a real loser.”
“I have to take what I can get.”
Carla smiled awkwardly.
Liz walked down the cereal aisle and disappeared through the silver double doors at the back of the store. She came out a moment later, hands behind her back, tying her apron string.
Carla punched in her cashier number, signing off the register. When Liz got to the counter, she would punch in her own number and take over.
Removing her apron, Carla b
rushed past Liz on her way to the back room.
“Have fun on your date.”
“He’s probably not even out there.” She hoped.
She went through the double doors near the coolers, unlocked her locker and took out her purse. Stuffing the apron in the locker, she closed it and clicked the padlock in place.
She paused at the door, scanning the parking lot for any sign of her admirers. Her Firebird and Liz’s Taurus were the only cars in the lot. An elderly man in a madras shirt talked on the pay phone at the edge of the parking lot.
The coast looked clear, but her heart rate sped up just the same. She hurried to her car.
Carla’s keys slipped from her hand and jingled on the pavement. Her palms were slick with sweat.
She bent down, picked them up, and unlocked the car door.
“Hey sweetheart.”
She turned around and saw the guy from the store standing ten feet from her. There were two other people with him, the friends he mentioned in the store, she guessed.
The guy to the left of him had a ponytail, though the sides of his head were shaved. He had a narrow, ferrety face and held a black boom box in his right hand. The other one was a girl, maybe fifteen. She had on a black crop top that showed off a pale, round belly. The crop top was complemented by a denim miniskirt that appeared to be groaning from stress being placed on it.
Carla eyed all three of them. “Piss off.”
She flung open the car door, hoping to climb in quickly and speed away. Her nail chipped and broke on the door handle.
The leader of the group grabbed her by her left arm.
She gasped and tried to pull away, but his nails dug in tight.
“Look down.”
Six inches of chrome flicked open. He had his back to the store window so the knife would be out of sight.
She glanced over to the phone booth, hoping the elderly man was still there, but he was gone.
Frantic, she looked to the store window, but Liz was out of sight.
“Your friend ain’t there. And if you scream, I’ll stick you. Try me if you think I won’t.”
The other two closed in on her.
“Get in the car. You’re taking us for a ride. Cooperate with me and you’ll be okay.”