The other trooper had moved over to the passenger-side door, and he leaned in to examine Glory while the trooper named Joe examined the IDs.
Lovecraft had a hunch about what the trooper would discover in the car, so when the other turned to look at Howard’s license in the light, Lovecraft took note of his name tag and forced a weak smile. “Officer Vigil, is it? Rather an apt name for a man of the law who keeps such late watch in such a remote locale.”
“What’s that?” said the trooper. He looked up suspiciously and pointed the beam of his flashlight directly into Lovecraft’s squinting eyes as if to dissuade him from making any other idle comments.
There was an awkward silence punctuated by the odd cadence of the two cars’ engines not quite in synch. Howard cleared his throat, and said, quickly and loudly, pointing back to the car, “Um, that there’s Sonja Kane in the back. She had a couple too many, if you know what I mean.”
The trooper at the car brought his head out. “Woman in here looks like she’s unconscious in the backseat.”
“And what’s she doin’ in your car?” asked the trooper. “How do you happen to know her?”
“Uh, we wouldn’t know her from Adam,” said Howard.
“Ahem-Eve,” Lovecraft corrected.
Howard shot him an annoyed glance. “She hitched a ride with us back in California. Said she was on her way to Texas.”
Trooper Vigil handed their IDs back. “Funny. Most folks these days are skedaddling t’other way ‘round.”
“Yes, the conditions are rather unfavorable for agriculture in the heart of the nation, are they not? But I believe Miss McKane’s intention is to visit relatives.”
“Hey, Joe, come on over here,” called the trooper at the car.
“You fellas excuse me a moment. And y’all wait right where you are.” Vigil walked over to his partner, gesturing for Lovecraft and Howard to stay put. “What you got, Tommy?”
“You have a look-see yourself, Joe.” He directed his partner’s attention inside the Chevy and held the flashlight outside the side window to illuminate Glory in her still comatose state. “Look at her wrists and ankles. I’d say we caught ourselves a coupl’a fish.”
Vigil could see faint rope marks on both of Glory’s wrists in the flashlight beam. He leaned his head in to sniff the air, then hunched in farther to put his nose next to Glory’s mouth. “I don’t smell nothin’. You smell anythin’, Tommy?”
“No.”
“City boys said she was drunk.”
“Ain’t hardly, as far as I can see.”
They drew their weapons simultaneously and turned toward Howard and Lovecraft.
“You boys turn around and put your hands behind your backs. Pronto,” said Vigil.
Lovecraft gave Howard a quick glance, making the two of them look all the more suspicious, and when he did his best to fake a chuckle, it came out flat and dry. “Why, Officer Vigil, surely you don’t mean we are under arrest?”
Vigil’s partner waved his pistol as if he were cooling the barrel in the breeze. “That’s exactly what he means, city boy.”
“What are you arrestin’ us for?” asked Howard. “We ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”
Vigil smiled. “How does interstate kidnapping sound to y’all?” Howard gestured at Lovecraft with his eyes and began to turn around as if to comply with the trooper’s order.
Lovecraft ignored the order; he raised an eyebrow as the handcuffs came off the troopers’ belts. He held his hands out in front of him and stepped forward. “I can assure the both of you that this is nothing more than a terrible misunderstanding.”
“Uh-huh,” said the trooper named Tommy, grabbing Lovecraft’s wrists to cuff him. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I hear that, Mister, though you say it purtier than most folks. Now turn around or I’ll spin you eight ways from Sunday.”
“I beg your—” Lovecraft spun around with one handcuff attached and one dangling, taking the trooper off guard.
The man lost hold of the cuffs and cursed, just as the trooper named Vigil was taking hold of Howard’s wrists. As Vigil glanced to investigate, Howard suddenly jerked his left hand free and, with lightning quickness and agility, pivoted around, slamming his elbow into the man’s left ear. With a sickening sound, Vigil flew into his partner, Tommy, and the two of them tumbled down into the dust together.
Howard let out a savage battle cry and leaped onto the two men before they could untangle themselves. They hardly had time to come out of their daze before Howard was pummeling them with his large fists. As they flailed around under him, kicking up a thick dust that obstructed them from view, Howard yanked first one, then the other, up by the collar, giving each man a chance to make a stand. But neither trooper could amount to much under the Texan’s berserker strength. They hit him a few times, but he was in such a rage that he hardly felt it. The one-sided fight was over momentarily.
Lovecraft watched intently as the murky dust began to dissipate. Before his amazed eyes, his stocky friend emerged, wild-eyed and alone, his lip bleeding below a wide grin. Howard proudly brandished the troopers’ pistols, one in each hand, and backlit by the headlights, the image he created was the epitome of masculine brawn; it was an image that Lovecraft would not soon forget.
Lovecraft pulled out his handkerchief, popped it open with a flourish, and handed it to Howard. “I believe I am looking at the cover illustration to that first tale you sell to Adventure Magazine. ”
Howard ignored the offer. He spat a thick stream of blood from his mouth, as if in contempt, and wiped his lip along his wrist, leaving a red smear. “Those highfalutin’ bastards ain’t never gonna buy one of my stories,” he said. “They hated the first one I sent ‘em, and they’ve. never given me a bit of notice since. Face it, HP. We’re strictly Weird Tales material.”
Lovecraft pondered the events of the last few days as he regarded his bizarre surroundings. It didn’t take him long to answer. “Yes, perhaps you’re right.” He helped Howard drag the dazed troopers through the dirt up to the front end of their police car, where they handcuffed both of them to the bumper.
“I really don’t wanna be doin’ this,” said Howard. “But I don’t see how we got any other choice.”
Lovecraft wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Extreme times require extreme actions,” he said. “I only hope we will be equipped to deal later with the consequences of our actions. Are you a man prone to dwelling on past regrets?”
“I ain’t got time to think about that right now, HP. Come on.” Howard put the troopers’ pistols and the keys to their handcuffs in the front seat. He noticed a canteen in back, so he paused to retrieve it before closing the doors and returning to the front.
Howard splashed the troopers with small palmfuls of water until they opened their eyes and squinted up at him. “I’m sorry it’s gotta be this way,” he said. “Here’s your canteen and some jerky. I’m sure someone’s gonna be stoppin’ before mornin’. Keys to your cuffs are in front. You tell ‘em that.”
“We’ll get you, you son of a bitch,” said Vigil. “I ain’t forgettin’ your. ugly faces.”
Howard raised a threatening fist, and the trooper shut up. “I said I was sorry,” said Howard. “And I ain’t plannin’ on makin’ your acquaintance again.” He joined Lovecraft back in the Chevy and didn’t even bother to glance in the rearview mirror as he drove off, kicking up dust and gravel that made the troopers wince.
THE GAS IN the troopers’ car didn’t last for more than another hour, and soon after the engine stopped the headlights began to dim.
“Shoulda filled up tonight, Tommy,” said Vigil.
“God damn’ em. You think they couIda done us a favor and shut the headlights off, huh, Joe?”
“Yeah, and fluffed us a pillow or two while they was at it? You stupid son of a bitch.”
“Ain’t my fault, Joe.”
They sat in a sullen silence as the headlights dimmed into amber, then into a faint glow. In a few more mi
nutes they sensed something wrong in the black desert night around them. Their eyes hadn’t yet fully adjusted so they saw nothing, but they could hear the sound of something rustling through the nearby sagebrush. A flapping sound came from above.
Vigil felt something land on his back and crawl past his collar, up to the hair on the back of his neck. “What the he-!” He reached with his free hand and jerked the thing off-it was a bat. In what little light remained, he could see the blood dripping from its mouth. With a yelp he closed his fist around the bat’s neck until he felt a sick crunch, then he flung the thing into the darkness.
“Joe?”
There was a tug from Tommy. “What?” said Vigil. Now he could hear guttural noises around them, and just as the headlights died, he saw the pointed snouts, the feral teeth, the glowing eyes of the hungry coyotes as they pounced.
The two troopers screamed and writhed helplessly, trying to free themselves from the handcuffs that pinned them like bait against the fender of their dead car.
AFTER THE ANIMALS had dispersed, before the insects crept in to pick off what little flesh remained on the saliva-covered bones, a pair of headlamps appeared in the lingering darkness. If anyone had been there to witness the approaching vehicle, they would have seen twin beams of light suspended a few feet from the black surface of the road. The lights were angled and positioned like the headlamps of a car, but as they moved, they seemed to be suspended in the darkness with nothing behind them-twin sources of light flying over the road in a precise configuration that mimicked those on the front of a car.
And as the lights came closer, one would have noticed a strange thing about the last vestiges of the night behind them, a sort of thickening or congealing, a coagulation of darkness that solidified into large scabs until the form of a black sedan materialized. The vehicle came to a silent halt in front of the troopers’ remains, the beam of its headlights flaring momentarily as it reflected off the white of a single eyeball the animals had somehow overlooked in the socket of a skull.
Two silhouettes emerged from the car, their blackness detaching from its blackness. No door had opened. No sound issued. The black car was utterly silent, and the figures glided over the ground, not leaving footprints. They stopped in front of one of the bloody, tooth scraped skeletons, and then a sort of rustling sound could be heard as they spoke to each other. There was a sort of hissing noise-perhaps the sound of some alien laughter-then one of the figures leaned down to pick something up. Two blood-spattered strips of beef jerky. The animals, for some reason, had left them. A hand seemed to emerge from the shadow of one of the black figures. It held out a single strip of the beef jerky, and now the other figure took it. More hissing laughter, and then the wet smacking sound of chewing, the sound of teeth sticking in tough meat, the sound of amused shoggoths.
18
EAST ON HIGHWAY 70 to Las Cruces, through the night and the following morning, and then Highway 80 to EI Paso. Howard felt good to be back on Texas soil, even if it was only for a hundred-mile drive through. When they reentered New Mexico, they began passing an increasingly annoying array of billboards that advertised the local caverns; they followed the dusty wind into Carlsbad, New Mexico. It was just before four, and Howard pulled up at a diner to eat before the last stretch. Glory was decidedly uncomfortable, bound in the back seat, sweaty and numb and itchy, though out of politeness and concern, she tried not to show it.
“How about it, HP?” said Howard. “She’s been nice and ladylike for a while now. I say we untie her so she can get a civilized meal.”
Lovecraft looked at Howard, then into the backseat, where Glory sat like a penitent or a convict. She had shifted her ropes as much as the slack would allow, and her skin was red, beginning to chafe from the irritation. “Glory?”
“I suggest you boys park in the shade somewhere where no one will see me. Leave the windows open and bring me back something cool to drink if you can.”
“How do you feel?”
“Okay. Like myself, if you know what I mean.”
“Will you let us know the moment you feel another attack coming on?”
“I don’t want to go in.”
“We can’t leave you out in the car like a dog,” said Howard.
“The consequences.”
“I’m willin’ to risk them if HP is.”
“I vote to be civilized,” said Lovecraft. “Civilized but vigilant. And with ropes at the ready.”
“You boys sure know how to talk about a lady,” Glory said with a smile.
“It’s decided,” said Howard. With Lovecraft watching for any hints of renewed possession or treachery, Howard leaned into the back and untied her.
Glory rubbed at the red patches on her wrists and ankles, smoothed back her hair, and got out of the car, somewhat unsteadily. “The Crystal Cave,” she read. “I would have thought ‘The Pegasus’ from the picture.” ,
The place had obviously renamed itself to capitalize on the cave traffic-the old sign, still legible despite the peeling paint, had the flying horse of the Phillips 66 logo leaping over the black silhouette of a mesa. The men didn’t say anything, but Lovecraft found the image uneasily reminiscent of the story of Perseus and the Gorgon. He hardly needed any reminders of the mythic monster they were on their way to face-the stylized angel on the hood of Howard’s Chevy was reminder enough.
Inside the stale-smelling diner, Howard escorted Glory to the ladies’ room and posted himself outside while she freshened up. She emerged looking like her old self despite her now permanently disheveled hair.
Lovecraft had already ordered, and his food arrived just as Howard and Glory slid into the booth.
“Well,” said Howard, “I see you’re a changed man. Is that a ham and egg sandwich I smell?”
“It is customary to indulge a man for his last meal,” Lovecraft replied dryly. “I compromise my frugality only out of my own uncertainty.”
“Well, we can, bring your cans of beans along for the expedition then. ”
“As you wish.” Lovecraft was obviously famished. He had been looking out of the corner of his eye at his sandwich all along. “Listen,” said Glory.
The two men turned their attention to Glory.
She jerked her head quickly to indicate a table where some apparent locals were talking. Everyone else in the diner seemed to be eavesdropping as well, and from what they could gather from the conversation, which was interrupted again and again by long intervals of silence brought on by stuffed mouths, the troopers they had left behind were dead.
“They was handcuffed to their car and murdered in cold blood,” one man said. “I shudder ta think of the other possibility, though I hear the county coroner said, and for the record, that it can’t rightly be ruled out.”
There was a pause. “What can’t be ruled out?”
The clatter of silver, a slurp of coffee. “It’s possible they was alive and the animals got to ‘em. Ain’t much meat was left on the bones, but there’s marks that say they mighta been tryin’ to fight ‘em off.” Someone at the table coughed, and the others made noises of disbelief. “Swear that’s just like I heard it. Talked to a couple police just a half hour ago. If ya don’t believe me, wait for the news report.”
Glory looked pale, and Howard clenched his fists on the table. From the counter, the portly owner flung down a towel and swore so loudly everyone heard him. “What’re you lookin’ at?” he said. “I’d just like to get my mitts on those sons a bitches who left those boys out there.” The customers turned back to their tables.
“How can you eat after hearing that?” said Glory.
Lovecraft had picked up his sandwich and was nonchalantly chewing a mouthful. He took his time to swallow and wipe his lips. “I would hardly want such an expensive repast to get cold, regardless the circumstances,” he said.
Glory turned away in disgust and listened to the weather report: a windstorm warning was in effect-gusts of wind up to seventy miles per hour could last until tomorrow.
“Look,” said Howard. “How about we get our food to go? I don’t feel like bein’ in public at the moment, if ya get my drift.”
THEY RETURNED TO the car with their food, Lovecraft having gone to the unusual length of ordering seconds and leaving an adequate tip. “What was the rotund fellow saying?” he asked as Howard pulled out.
“Wanted to know why we was leavin’ in such a hurry. I told him we had to beat the storm. Said we were headed toward Santa Fe.”
“A good ploy,” said Lovecraft. “But might he not notice us driving off in the wrong direction? That might cause suspicion.”
“Look, HP, the only suspicious thing in our gang at the moment is you. The way you’re dressed, the way you talk, what you talk about, the big production you made of leavin’ a tip back there-all these folks are gonna remember you, not us.”
Lovecraft was quiet.
“You boys don’t go losing your tempers,” said Glory. “We have enough problems ahead of us as it is.”
“Sage advice from a woman whose name should be Legion,” Lovecraft mumbled under his breath.
They drove a couple of miles down the road before Howard pulled off to tie Glory up once again. They continued the rest of the way dwelling on their own thoughts until they reached the first landmark in the desolate stretch of country in the Guadelupe Mountains. It wasn’t much more than five miles from Carls bad Caverns, but it could have been another time, millions of years earlier, or another world, millions of miles from the earth. For a while after they turned off the main road, there seemed to be absolutely no sign of life, not even the ubiquitous tumbleweeds to which they had grown so accustomed. It was as if the sun had burned everything away in this landscape, sterilizing it so thoroughly that nothing had ever grown back.
As they crested a ridge, Howard jerked his head. “Dust plume behind us,” he said.
They were being followed. Lovecraft felt compelled to explain that it was the odd men in their black sedan, but they all knew it now, and he kept silent to spare Howard’s mood. He wondered what their true purpose was. Why had they tagged him at such length when they could easily have snuffed him out at the outset in Providence? Their purpose would undoubtedly be revealed soon enough. Perhaps the game would be over then, and he could stop feeling like a dumb sheep being herded by the black dogs of the Great Old Ones.
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