by Brian Hodge
John felt the words and they hurt more than wounds in his stomach, because he knew they were the truth.
"Some of your friends are in here with me. Would you like to say hello to one of them?"
"Don't do this." John tried to look away. He couldn't.
Without an invitation, Steven Adler's face again shifted and somehow began subtly rearranging itself, becoming older, broader, and Martin Strickland's voice drifted across the room. "Long time no see, John."
There was no mistaking that raspy twang.
John had seen Martin's dead body not more than an hour ago. He felt cold sweat roll down his sides.
The man who had stolen Martin's voice and face looked John up and down, shook his head sadly at what he saw. "I hope you don't mind me saying this, old buddy, but you look worse than me. And I'm dead." He smiled like he always did, like it hurt him. The cold blue eyes held Martin's familiar twinkle. "You need to quit hanging around those smoky old pool halls. You'll end up like Sparky, asphyxiated."
"Martin, is that really—"
"Yeah, it's me, or what's left of me."
John's mind refused to accept what he saw. It had to be side effects from the peyote he had consumed earlier. "This is all some kind of parlor trick." John dug in his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills, separated one from the rest. His hand was shaking. "I got that ten spot I borrowed from you last year when I was through here."
"Nice try, John. It was a twenty spot, and you borrowed it five years ago. You always did have a bad memory when it comes to money."
"Not as bad as you when it comes to women." The response was automatic, an old joke between them.
John was torn between his fear and the sudden desire to hug his old friend.
The two men stared at each other from across unimaginable gulfs.
The blue eyes lost their twinkle, became serious. "Listen close, John, I want you to do me a small favor if you don't mind."
"Name it."
"I'd sure like a drink of whiskey."
John handed him a bottle.
Martin turned it up. "Damn, that's good." He stared at John, fidgeting with the bottle.
John waited.
Martin always took a while to say what was on his mind.
After a second, Martin obliged. "Don't let that shit kicker from Dallas take Doralee back there. I'd like her to be buried with me and Nicky."
"I'll do what I can."
"That's all I'm asking."
John looked at his old friend. "What's it like in there, Martin?"
"Peaceful, that's the only way I can describe it. Real peaceful."
They stood there, uncertain of what to say. "You want another drink?" John asked.
"Yeah, maybe one for the road." He took a drink and handed the bottle back, and then the blue eyes that held
Martin's soul began dimming, the voice fading, as though coming from a great distance. "Looks like I gotta go, John, Doralee and Nicky are waiting for me."
The blue eyes were almost opaque now.
John struggled with the words he had never said to a man, but he knew this would be his last chance to say them. "Martin… I love you. I'd give anything if—"
"I know that, John, and I love you, too. But do me a favor, though; don't go around telling everybody you love me. I got my reputation to think about." He laughed that raspy laugh of his. "Good-bye, old buddy, you take care of yourself. Say hello to the boys at the ranch, and kick this guy's ass. I know you can do it. You're the best." With those last words, Martin's face began coming apart, falling away a piece at a time, a jigsaw puzzle being dumped in slow motion.
He managed one last wink before he vanished completely. And Steven Adler's face reassembled in his place.
Steven's voice was cold, taunting. "You still think we're doing parlor tricks here?"
"You want to talk to anyone else? Leon Wilson, maybe. I'm sure he'd like to talk to you since you're the reason he's dead. You can tell him how sorry you are, too."
John desperately sought to change the subject; he didn't think he could bear talking to Leon. "Where's your partner, Earl Jacobs?"
"He's watching Timmy. Waiting for a phone call." Steven's eyes were steady as he glanced back at the pool table.
Something was odd about the gesture, and it suddenly hit John what was wrong. Steven Adler was lying.
Lying about Earl.
Why?
John took a stab in the dark, trying to provoke a reaction. "Earl's not with Timmy."
"And why would you think that?" Steven's face never changed expression.
"Because Elliot said you were alone when you stopped Bobby Roberts. Because… Earl doesn't know anything about this." And John understood. "He's not like you. He's not a killer, is he?"
Steven looked like he wasn't going to answer, then for some reason known only to him, he relented. "No, Earl is different, but he'll be like me someday. Exactly like me. The virus I put in his blood takes a while to kick in."
"Earl doesn't know what you really are, does he? Or what's going to happen to him?"
"No, and you try to tell him, I'll kill you, and then I'll kill the entire town."
"Why did you pick Earl to stay with you? I think I know the reason." John was beginning to put it all together, feeling his way by instinct. "Because he reminds you of Matt Thomas, the only real friend you ever had. That old man was like a father to you."
A mask shifted across Steven's face and his eyes went flat. "Bring your bony white ass on over here, John, I got a jar of pig's feet. Would you like one?"
John looked Steven squarely in the face and this time he didn't flinch. "You let Matt down; you let him die in that cave, because you slept too long and left him alone."
"Help me, John, it's cold in this old freezer." A scar rippled down the smooth white skin, and when Steven Adler smiled, only half of his face moved.
The hustler moved nearer the vampire. "So you found a replacement for your partner in Earl Jacobs, but there's one problem—Earl is too much like Matt Thomas. He's a decent man who wouldn't like what you do if he ever found out." It was John's turn to smile. "You're a lot more human than you want to admit."
The muscles in Steven's face clenched and unclenched. "That's right. You've got this all figured out, John. Can you figure out what's going to happen next?"
"You're going to kill me and take the cue stick."
"Maybe. That depends on how you shoot pool."
"Let's get this over with. Timmy's mom is waiting."
Steven watched him, calm now. "You humans are always in such a hurry, you never take time to savor the moment."
"We have to hurry. Our moments are numbered."
"Take them as a blessing." Steven Adler held his stick by the handle and it looked as if he had grabbed a snake by the head. When he spun the yellowed bone between his hands, the snake began crawling.
Around and around, slithering up the handle, going nowhere. The sight was mesmerizing.
John tore his gaze away from the snake, stepped up to the table, took a deep breath, and bent to shoot. The one ball looked a mile away. In his sweaty hands, the stick felt like lead.
He stepped away. A lot of people's lives were on the line. Reaching for the talc, he sprinkled the white powder along the length of his cue stick, then he slid the wood through his fingers until it was smooth like glass. He lifted his hat, sat it back.
The rituals had to be followed or the magic might go away. Again he stepped up.
And this time he didn't hesitate, he drove the cue ball into the yellow ball, the one with the L on it.
The white ball jumped to the left and the one started its solitary trek to the pocket.
The shot was off a fraction.
The ball kissed the rail once and wobbled a little, ran to the edge of the pocket, hesitated.
And finally fell.
"Not a very auspicious start." Steven sank his ball easily, barely even looking at it. "I hope you'll do better on your next shot I'd hate to think I went to all t
his trouble for nothing."
The A came next.
"A pretty girl, Amy," Steven said. "She looks a lot like her mother."
John said nothing as he punched the ball out of sight. His hands did their job, independent of thought, of emotion.
Nothing else in his life had ever worked, except his ability to shoot pool. It had never let him down. It didn't let him down now.
He dropped every ball in the rack.
So did Steven.
They went through another rack. Then they did it again.
And again.
And again.
They did nine racks without stopping.
Steven fished the balls out of the belly of the pool table, dumped them into the rack. "I have to say I'm impressed, John. You're quite a shooter, the best I've seen in a while. Most don't make it past the second or third rack."
John said nothing. He slid a hand beneath his jacket, touched the wet slipperiness spread across his stomach and saw that his fingers came back red. When he looked down, he saw a patch of darkness that ran all the way down his leg.
More blood.
Laying his stick on the table, Steven walked over and tore John's shirt open. He lifted the bandage, stared at the oozing wounds. "Looks like you've sprung a leak. That's a shame; the game can't be called on account of pain." Steven prodded the wound with a stiff finger, watching the lean hustler double over in agony. "What happened, Johnny boy, you look like someone stuck a knife in you?"
"A buffalo gored me—in a dream." The room was tilting, and John had to lean against the table when Steven released him. "Most people would say that's crazy, but I guess you know what I'm talking about."
"Don't try to play games with me. You won't like the way they turn out."
"I need to sit down." John's hands had gone numb, and his stick clattered to the floor.
Steven picked it up, handed it back to him. John was barely able to close his hands around the cue.
The blond vampire watched calmly, his eyes taking in the blood dripping onto John's boots. "You're bleeding to death. If you don't get to a doctor very, very soon, my friend, you're going to be very, very dead. Tell you what I'm going to do. You pick one of those balls, say with somebody you barely know, and you give it to me." Steven took John's stick from him and laid it on the table. "And I'll see you get to a doctor myself."
John made his tongue work. "It's your shot."
They did six more racks before the cue slipped from John's hand, causing him to finally miss. It was Timmy Cates who didn't go down.
John slowly slid to his knees in front of the table, his face bathed in sweat. His jeans were now completely soaked with blood. There was a pool of it at his feet.
"Looks like your leak has turned into a gusher, Mr. Warrick." Pulling the hustler up from the bloodstained floor, Steven half dragged, half carried him over to where the knife waited. "What's it to be, do we stop here, do I take my prize and go home? Or do we keep playing?"
John's head felt like it was too heavy to lift, but he managed to meet the icy blue eyes. "We keep playing."
"Then you've got to ante up."
John laid his hand on the table.'
The vampire worked the knife out of the wood. "Are you sure? A finger is a precious thing to a man who makes his living with his hands."
"Do it."
"All right, you're the boss." Steven pulled out a cigarette lighter and began heating the blade, running the flame back and forth along its length. A tongue that licked a red glow in its wake. "We don't want you losing any more blood. Which finger?"
"The little one."
"Good choice. That's the one they all give up first." Steven tested the knife. It wasn't hot enough to suit him so he continued holding the flame to the blade. "One time I played this guy in Reno—ten grand against one of his fingers. I think he owed a lot of money to some loan sharks." Steven tested the knife again and still he wasn't satisfied that it was hot enough. "The guy just wouldn't quit, he kept thinking he was going to get back in the game. You know, I walked out of there with every one of his fingers, every last one. Can you believe that?"
John spread his fingers.
"I'd suggest you give me Louise. She's got cancer, and I don't think she'll live more than another year."
"You're a liar. Louise has never been sick a day in her life."
"She's got lung cancer. You might as well give her to me."
"Take the finger."
The blade was glowing cherry red now, and Steven put the lighter away. "It's your fault she's got cancer. She smokes too much and thinks about when the baby was still alive. She knows you blame her."
"Our son fell off the back of the truck while Louise was trying to take his picture. It was an accident. I don't blame her." But John knew that was a lie, he did blame her. The words sounded hollow to his own ears.
"Last chance to save the finger."
John looked away.
The heat from the knife reached John and it almost felt good because he was so cold. A shiver passed through him as his hand was grasped, held. The knife touched his finger and he heard the crunch of his bones when the blade passed through them. He heard a slight sizzle, smelled the sickly sweet odor of his own burning flesh.
Then it was all over.
Just like that.
His finger lay there on the table like some kind of undersized Vienna sausage.
But it wasn't all over.
The pain caught up with him. Coming in waves. Drowning him.
He curled into the fetal position on the floor, holding his injured hand under his armpit, making mewling noises as he crawled across the pine board. There were no words to describe how much his hand hurt.
Steven knelt beside him. "It's the heat from the knife you feel, not the loss of your finger. Don't worry, the worst of the pain only lasts for a few minutes."
John's consciousness began going grainy at the edges, slipping away. Just before he blacked out, the sudden image of a cabin in a clearing strobed on the inside of his eyelids, and he saw a dead man and woman lying on the ground. Then the scene was gone before he could get a good look.
The sawdust on the floor filled John's open mouth, choking him. He threw up and he felt the wounds in his stomach tear some more.
Something wet and cold struck him in the face, brought him back. He saw Steven Adler standing over him with an empty beer bottle. The vampire pulled him up until they were face-to-face. "The clock is ticking and we don't have time for rest breaks." He handed John a cold beer to wrap his injured hand around. "The game is waiting. We play until I miss, or until you run out of fingers."
They did three more shots, and John missed.
Kevin this time.
The little finger from his right hand joined his left.
Steven placed them side by side. "Two down, eight to go. I'll make a necklace out of them."
John tried to pull away from the knife waving in front of his face, but he couldn't find the strength. The blade caught the light, fading in and out, and John realized he was no longer seeing the present. He was watching something that had happened a long time ago.
The knife was reflecting off a kerosene lamp.
Shadows danced on the wall.
John realized something about the knife had jump-started him, had taken him to this distant place in time.
He felt his legs go limp and his eyes rolled up, but there was no escape from what was in his head. He was hot-wired into this.
Going along for the ride.
He was standing in a clearing looking into the door of a dirt-floor cabin. There were two boys sprawled in the corner and he could tell from the odd angle of their heads they were dead with broken necks. Steven Adler was crouched on the floor in front of a little girl.
His knife kept catching the light as he worked.
The whole thing only lasted an instant but John was sure of what he had seen—Steven Adler crouched over a little girl with a wet knife in his hand. Her high-pitche
d screams were carried on the night air.
Another strobe.
He saw a young Earl Jacobs ride up to the cabin, walk in. The screaming started again. There was a pistol shot and the screaming stopped.
Another strobe.
John was back in the present. Despite the blade hovering inches from his eyes, he spat in the vampire's pale, grinning face. "You skinned her alive, you son of a bitch, you skinned her alive. She was just a little girl."
"What little girl?"
"The one in the cabin. The one Earl found."
"Oh, that little girl." He held the cue stick under John's nose. "Her skin made the leather on the handle of my cue stick, her red hair made the snake. Little boys and girls around five are the best. Their skin is very supple at that age. I always wanted to see if I could skin one who was still alive." Steven wiped the spit from his cheek and hauled John over to the table, deposited him face down there. "You've got a lot of spunk, John, and I admire that. I really do, but you'd better save it for the game." He handed John a cue stick. "It's your shot."
But the cue slipped from John's hands, fell to the floor with a clatter. He crawled across the green felt, leaving dark stains in his wake, until he finally collapsed. His hands no longer hurt. Nor his stomach. In fact, right now, he couldn't feel anything.
"Come on, John, I'm waiting."
John tried to move. Couldn't.
Steven picked the stick up, broke it across his knee as though it were a matchstick and tossed the pieces on the table. "Looks like we're all through here. Game's over." He grasped John by the hair and lifted his head, exposing the throat. The stained knife was still in his hand. "I guess the time for us to part company has come. Any last words before you join your dead friends or do you just want to whisper them to me later?"
"You didn't beat me." John tasted his own blood in his mouth. He choked on it, swallowed. "You're not the best. I am."
"We'll have eternity to debate that." Steven placed the knife under John's outstretched throat, hesitated, and then the blond vampire smiled a sad smile. "You showed a lot of guts tonight, and I'd like to let you live, John, I really would. But some day you might work up enough courage to come after me. With what you know, you might do what so many have tried and failed."
A bullet poked through the window, tugged at Steven's shirt and shattered the jukebox across the room. An instant later, the sound of a shot followed.