Something hard and small rammed into her spine from behind. She jerked upright and whirled, a thousand dreadful thoughts zipping through her mind. But it was only a big ugly bastard with a lot of acne scars on his greasy face. “Your purse,” he rasped. “Don’t get brave and scream or nothing. Just give me the purse.”
“I’m not carrying a purse,” she said.
“Then money. Give me your money.”
“All I’ve got is a couple bucks.”
He looked her over. “You know, you ain’t the ugliest broad I’ve ever seen. Go into the bathroom and keep your mouth shut, cause I’m right behind you.”
Jeryline closed her eyes, weary of this. “Hey, big shot?” she said. “You’re right about that.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Right about what?”
“I ain’t the ugliest broad you’ve ever seen. But I’m the last broad you’re ever going to see.”
He frowned. “Huh?”
She grabbed the back of his head and smashed his face against the steel rim of the water fountain. “Peek-a-boo,” she said, raising him, and gouged his eyes out with two fingers of the same hand, the old Three Stooges style. He spasmed backward and rolled on the floor pawing at his face and bellowing.
She patted her pocket before moving on. The key was there. A smoking old wreck of a bus was now idling in the rectangle of shade behind the depot. She checked her ticket, checked the number of the bus, and stepped up. As she showed her ticket someone stepped up behind her, crowding her forward. She turned instinctively, hauling the key halfway out of her pocket before she even realized she had done it.
The man was a Black, well-dressed business-type. He glanced down at her hand, glanced in her eyes, and stepped back down to the ground. “Catch you later,” he said, and though it may have been the hazy midwestern sun, may have been a trick of the glare through the windows of the bus, his eyes seemed to glow inside, a subdued, bestial red that shone in his eyes before he turned away.
Jeryline found an empty seat. A teenage boy in the seat ahead glanced back at her, turned back to his business, then glanced again. “Wow,” he said. “Neat tattoo!”
Jeryline curled her hand. “Thanks.”
“No, really! I’d like one just like it, astrology stuff, when I get older. How much did it cost you?”
She smiled at his innocence. “It cost me a lot,” she said. “It cost me more than you could ever know.”
He scowled at her, disbelieving, turned away, and got involved in other things.
Which was just fine with her.
Author’s Final Interlude
by
T. C. Keeper
That’s about the size of it, loyal Cryptoids. I just faxed a copy of the manuscript to a team of top-notch editors at Pocket Books in New York City. I’ve heard they get off on slashing things here and there, hacking out big chunks, tearing writers’ hearts out. Who better to understand me? And I figure that since Pocket has a kangaroo for a logo, they’ll get things hopping. Hah!
While I wait for a reply, here is an update.
Wormwood is, of course, a ghost town now, and will be forever. The Mission Inn burned to the ground, leaving only unanswered questions for the authorities of New Mexico. They found nine charbroiled skeletons but could only identify eight: Wanda, Cordelia, Sheriff Tupper, Deputy Martel, Uncle Willie, Roach, Wally Enfield, and Danny Long. The ninth one, that of Silas Brayker, had the coroner mystified. The bones, he said at the inquest, were those of a man almost one hundred years old. No one could imagine who it might have been.
The remains of Silas Brayker were quietly buried in a pauper’s grave in Junction City, which was marked only with a small cement cross. Several years later the caretaker found an old military medal hanging from it by a faded purple ribbon. He checked the library and found that it was a meritorious service medal from World War One. Rather than pawn it or sell it, he tucked it into his wallet, and on every Memorial Day since has draped it there again.
In the meantime, Jeryline Bascombe wanders from town to town, job to job, hiding from the law and the inevitable appearance of the next Salesman. She does not know when the stars on her palm will shift again, but she knows they will, and on that day she will face Brayker’s fate as bravely as he did.
Wait. The fax is beeping. Something’s humming. Now a sheet of paper is slowly reeling out. It says, it says . . .
To: T. C. Keeper
From: The Editors. Pocket Books
Dear Mr. Keeper: The only way you will publish this ghastly book is over our dead bodies. The only way it will become a movie is if you kill every producer and director in Hollywood.
Hmmm . . . I think that could be arranged. Don’t you?
See you at the movies, kiddies!
Tales from the Crypt - Demon Knight Page 24