Tammy grabbed a pen and stuck it in the ghoul's eye.
"How terribly immature," the ghoul snarled.
"What went wrong?"
"The graveyard guardian. She saved the vampire, who saved the werewolf, who saved the mortals. We weren't prepared for a ghost. And we can't do anything against them anyway. So it really wasn't our fault, now, was it? Can't send ghouls against spirits and expect to win, now, can you?"
"Shut up."
"I was just answering your question, mistress. No reason to get snippy just because you muddled the job."
Tammy rubbed her palms together. "It-shay, uck-fay, amn-day."
The head burst into flame.
"Really, mistress. How infantile."
The ghoul went up like flash paper once alight. Nothing was left but a small pile of ash that she swept into the waste-basket.
She spent the next half-hour listening to music on her headphones and pondering the situation. Everything seemed to be going wrong. She was beginning to question her great destiny. She was a teenager and prone to moments of angst and self-loathing. Whenever such moments hit her, there was only one thing to do. She had to talk to the spirits. She had an easy method of communication in the back of her closet, sitting somewhere behind her checkers and Parcheesi sets. She fished around and removed her Ouija Board.
She'd bought it when first embarking on her occult dabbling and quickly realized how utterly useless it was. Not that it couldn't summon spirits under the right circumstances. Particularly at parties, since the dead were always happy for an invitation to a big shindig. There were so few good parties on the other side. But the kind of ghosts channeled through the board were hardly worth her time. She threw it aside and dug deeper before finally hitting upon the object of her desire: her Magic 8-Ball.
As an instrument of spiritual communication, most Magic 8-Balls weren't much better or much worse than Ouija Boards, but this one was special. It was filled with the blue blood of Goorka-mushalavtoteca, Queen of Horrors Unborn. And rather than having to summon a spirit, which was always unreliable, Tammy had already permanently bound a soul into the orb.
She sat cross-legged on her bed, cleared her mind, and shook the spirit awake. Then she explained the situation to the 8-Ball, asked it what to do, and gave it another good shake. She peered into its tiny window and waited for the triangular thingamabob to surface with its reply.
ANSWER UNCLEAR, the ball said.
Tammy rattled the orb once again. It stubbornly held its ground.
ANSWER UNCLEAR.
She gave it a hard smack. The thingamabob dipped below the murky depths and emerged bearing a new message.
PISS OFF.
She rolled the ball in small circles on her bed. The specter in the ball, while invaluable as a source of advice, could be uncooperative at times. Most times, in fact. She couldn't exactly blame him. It had to suck, spending all day in the back of a darkened closet, but it was his own damned fault for pestering her all the time while he'd been free to roam.
"Oh, don't be such a baby. You wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't screwed up your chance in the first place. You'd be a living god and wouldn't even need me."
The blue blood bubbled and blackened, CRAM IT.
"Alright. If you don't want to help me, I can't really make you. I'll never open the way, but I can deal with that. I'll just graduate, go to California, and become an actress. Anybody can do that."
This was very true. Her abridged Necronomicon, being the latest edition, had two dozen rituals on that particular subject. Everything ranging from a three-hour incantation that would guarantee a prime-time sitcom to an elaborate ceremony of human sacrifice that would land a dedicated practitioner a three-picture deal with any major studio.
"It's not my first choice," Tammy admitted to the ghost. "But I'll be just fine. Whereas you'll spend the next five hundred years in a little black ball in a tin box on the bottom of Old Lady Riddler's Well."
She flipped the ball up to read its response.
ALL SIGNS POINT TO NO. The thingamabob dipped and rose again to add, SO GO FUCK YOUR SELF.
Tammy abandoned reasoning with the sphere. It usually didn't work anyway. The specter within was possessed of singular stubbornness and determination. He was no ghost of terrible tragedy or unresolved issues. He simply refused to pass into the hereafter because he didn't want to. Few people had the strength of will to fight the pull of final death. But, pigheaded as he was, no one stood between Tammy and her destiny.
Torture was out of the question. Spirits were hard to torment in any effective fashion. So she fell on her last resort: bribery.
"Okay. I'll make you a deal. Bonanza is on in ten minutes."
The ball shook. The Cartwrights were his biggest weakness. He'd explained to her once that the Ponderosa was a perfect working model of the hierarchy of the old gods. As she learned more about the secret world, she began to see his point. Once she saw the similarities between Lome Greene and Tougiauareuadksdel, He Whose Name Cannot Be Spoken and recognized Little Joe as Ahzuulrah, Incarnae of Mad Impulses, everything fell into place. It was almost as if the old gods themselves had subtly reached through the shroud and had a hand in its creation. The specter believed they had. He also believed that the hidden guardians of light had responded by spurring the creation of Three's Company. And that the old gods had launched a counterattack in the form of interminable I Love Lucy reruns. Back and forth it went. The eternal struggle between light and dark was waged on many fronts. Television syndication was just one of them.
TRY AGAIN, the orb said.
She loathed offering more. She didn't want the specter getting spoiled. But she did really need his help.
"Okay. You can also watch Charlies Angels and Dukes of Hazzard. But then it's right back into the closet."
A pair of bright blue eyes appeared in the 8-Ball window before the thingamabob replied, REPEAT YOUR QUESTION, ALL WILL BECOME CLEAR.
Gil's All Night Diner had seen many conflicts. Epic struggles between the living and the dead, roaches and exterminators, asbestos insulation and health inspectors. These clashes, often orgies of wanton violence, paled in comparison to this latest war of wills.
Loretta and Sheriff Kopp locked stares. He stood tall and straight, hands on belt. She folded her thick arms across her large chest. This was no easy feat but served to establish her own unshakable determination. If it came to blows, Kopp wouldn't last long. She outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds. Nonetheless, Kopp held his ground with the courage of a man who had seen sheep explode spontaneously and lived to clean himself up later.
"I'm sorry, Loretta. I'm shutting you down."
She narrowed her eyes to squinty lines buried between her chubby cheeks and wrinkled brow.
"Now I don't want any arguments," he continued. "I told'ja last time if there was any more trouble, I'd have to do it."
"Damnation," she grunted, opening her frowning lips just enough to spit out the word. "You can't count this little incident. Nobody got hurt."
"Somebody could'a been. I'd hate to think what would'a happened if those two fellas hadn't been here tonight."
"Hell, Marshall, I would'a handled it, regardless."
"And if you couldn't?"
"I would'a."
"Damn it, woman, there's sumthin' wrong with this place, sumthin' evil at work. I'm startin' to think that ol' Gil didn't just wander away. That maybe this business with the diner had sumthin' to do with his disappearance."
"Hell, Marshall, no offense intended to ol' Gil, but he was such a slight fella. He could'a been dragged off by coyotes for all you know. Besides, I can take care of myself."
"And if you can't?"
"I can."
"But if you can't?"
"I can."
He shook his head. "Alright, Loretta. You want to put yourself at risk, that's your choice. But what if there'd been customers tonight. They got a right to expect a meal without risking getting their faces bit off."
/>
"Aw, not that again." She snorted. "Look, that fella wouldn't have lost his nose if he'd been smart enough to leave the zombies to me."
"Be that as it may, I got no choice." Kopp put a hand on her shoulder. "If you insist on keeping this place open, I'm gonna have to arrest you. I don't want to do that, but you know I will."
She winced. "Oh, alright."
"Good. Now don't worry yourself. It won't be permanent. Just till we figure out who's responsible for this. In the meantime, you got someplace to stay?"
"Oh no, Marshall. You can put me out of business, but you can't make me leave. Ain't nobody scarin' me away."
"It isn't safe," he said.
"I ain't goin'."
"It isn't even your property, technically."
"Maybe not legally, but I earned it. And nobody, not zombies or ghouls or even the Devil himself, is gonna run me off."
She adjusted the short tower of tangled blonde hair atop her head and stomped off into the kitchen. Kopp knew that the argument was over. Once Loretta got a notion in her head, nothing was going to change her mind. His only recourse was to throw her in jail. He didn't want to do that. In the course of his career, his jail had seen only a handful of prisoners, mostly disorderly drunks and rowdy passers-through. And, of course, there was Velma Gladstone, who required lock-up every four months when the Gladstone curse hit, and she became a bloodthirsty spider-rat-piranha thing looking to slurp down family pets and lay eggs in their owners. During her fits, Velma could raise quite a ruckus, but something told Kopp that it was nothing compared to the tantrum Loretta would throw behind bars.
Sighing, he went outside. Duke and Earl were leaning on their truck, drinking Cokes and throwing rocks at the mound of ghouls. The scent of death had drawn a mixed flock of ravens, vultures, and owls. They huddled on the diner and its sign, but, so far, seemed put off by the offering of green, wriggling flesh.
Duke had destroyed his last outfit and changed into some of the spare clothes kept in Earl's trunk. The jeans were worn thin, and there were gaping holes in the knees. His tie-dyed T-shirt (size extra, extra large) was still short an extra. The taut cotton fabric held back his gut, looking very much like a dam ready to split open. His favorite hiking boots, now just leather tatters, were replaced by a pair of mismatched, generic-brand sneakers. Earl had yet to change his own clothes, despite the large rip in his shirt and overalls where the stake had been so rudely thrust. The wound was slow in closing, and anyone who cared to look could see a few inches below the flesh.
Sheriff Kopp took a spot beside them on the pickup's fender. "Helluva mess, eh boys? So you sure those things ain't dangerous anymore?"
"Yep," Earl replied.
"And come sunup, they'll melt away?"
"Always do," Duke answered.
The sheriff nodded, more to himself than anyone else. A shrill, feminine voice called from the radio in his cruiser. He moseyed over and reached the receiver through the window.
"Go ahead, Wendy."
The radio responded with a jumbled static reply that neither Earl nor Duke understood.
"Roger that. I'm on my way." Kopp climbed into his cruiser. "Looks like it's one of them nights. The Wilkins ranch is having chupacabra trouble again."
"Sounds like a job for animal control to me," said Earl.
"I'm local dogcatcher, too. Comes with the badge." Kopp climbed into his cruiser. "Guess everything's in hand then. Nice finally meeting you, Earl. What was that last name again?"
"Renfield," Earl said.
Kopp grinned slyly. "You boys planning on staying much longer?"
"Actually—" Earl began.
"We'll be around at least a couple more days," Duke interrupted.
"I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd keep an eye on Loretta. Hate to see anything happen to her just 'cuz she's too stubborn for her own good." He tipped his Stetson. "Have a pleasant evening." He climbed into the cruiser and drove off.
"So you wanna tell me why we aren't getting the hell out of here, Duke?"
The werewolf pitched a rock that struck a green cranium dead center. The head wobbled from its precarious perch atop the mound.
Earl picked up a rock of his own and cocked his arm. He hurled the stone, painfully aware of his semi-girlish throwing style. The projectile arced high and to the right, missing the sizable target by several feet.
"Not that I'm questioning your judgment or nuthin'. Just seems to me that the smarter thing might be to get while the getting's good."
"Can't you feel it, Earl?"
"Feel what?"
"It."
"What?"
"Damn it, Earl. You're undead. You're supposed to be sensitive to this sort'a shit."
The vampire contemplated the swishing half-inch of cola left in his bottle. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"This place. Right here, right now, it's the most important place on Earth."
"Says who?"
"Says every instinct I got. It's like someone is whispering in my ear, speaking to me. Like destiny or fate or sumthin'. And she's telling me not to leave. That leaving right now would be just 'bout the worst thing to do."
Earl smirked. "Give me a fuckin' break."
"You'd hear it, too," the werewolf grunted. "If you'd just listen."
"Yeah, well, I got a little voice in my head, too, Duke. And it's tellin' me that sticking around is just going to get us killed. I already died once. It was a real shitty experience, and that was only halfway. Don't figure the other half to be much more pleasant."
Duke hurled his stone. It careened off the ghoul skull, sending it toppling from the top of the pile. The head snarled as best it was able without a jaw.
"I'm staying, Earl. You wanna go?" He held up the truck keys and jangled them before tossing them on the hood. "I'm getting some sleep. If you're still here in the morning, wake me up. I want to see the ghouls melt." Then he strolled back into the diner.
Earl considered the offer. He could throw his steamer in the bed and take off. He didn't know how far the empty gas tank and the ten bucks in his wallet would get him, but it'd be farther away from here. Maybe not as far as he'd like, but it'd be a start. He could work something out from there. Of course, it was more complicated than that.
Earl counted on Duke to watch him during the day. From sunup to sundown a vampire was vulnerable. Earl had lived with that fact for decades, knowing that every morning he went to sleep he might not wake. Experience told him it was just paranoia. In his whole undead life, he'd never encountered an actual vampire hunter. There weren't any as far as he knew. Rumors filled vampire society, such as it was, and whenever two bloodsuckers met, one of them always had a scary story to tell. It always involved a friend of a friend of a friend of a guy that knew a friend of theirs who woke up with his head lopped off. The boogeyman of the undead, Earl knew, that was all the hunters were. Just the same, he liked his head connected to his neck, and he liked having Duke watching his back. Just in case.
Beside that, there was the whispering. Earl had heard it, too, though he was loathe to admit it. Probably louder and more clearly than Duke did. The diner did call to him. Or something inside it. It was a dark slithering thing crawling around in his ears that grew stronger each day. It repulsed him, but if he ran away now something horrible would happen.
And then there was Cathy. The idea of leaving her behind bothered him more than anything else. His dilemma would be a lot easier if he could just ask her to go with him. Just his luck to develop feelings for a ghost anchored to a two-acre plot of land.
He found one more good rock, and tossed it with all his might. He released too late. It bounced off the gravel lot and skipped to within a few inches of the ghoul pile. The green corpses chuckled dryly.
"Goddamn," he muttered.
He shoved the keys into his pocket and headed for the graveyard.
As the first rays of dawn spread across the desert, the ghouls put an end to their ceaseless raspy chattering and fell silent. Legs
flopped around in the air in a vain attempt to run for cover. Detached arms twisted to cover their squinting yellow eyes. They squealed in the ghoulish tongue.
"Bugger, I hate this part."
"Well, no point in complaining," another ghoul replied.
"True, true," a head agreed somewhere from the center of the pile.
"Mooof glu tlak," a jawless head seconded.
"See you gents on the other side."
"Any plans?" the head atop the pile asked.
"Oh, nothing much," the buried ghoul replied. "Just float around in the sullen ether. Wait to be called upon again. Review my performance this go-around."
"I thought you did a marvelous snarl."
The ghoul would have blushed had his dead flesh been able.
"Perhaps, but I found your scampering quite sinister. And I wish I had your talent for hissing."
"You're too kind, but really, anybody can hiss. Now that bit of shrieking you did when the werewolf tore you apart, that was genius."
"Gluf fof wukal."
"You flatter me."
"I hear there's a cult in Paris with several openings. What say we float over there and give it a look-see?"
"I don't know about that. Can't say I particularly care for the French."
"Now, now, we fleshless ones can't afford to be choosy."
"Gluf fug gok ruffil."
"Excellent point, fellows."
"Oh, here it comes."
And then the sun poked its way over the horizon, and the melting began. Green flesh liquefied. Eyes oozed from their sockets. Foaming bubbles boiled and burst in loud, popping splatters. The ghouls shrieked their death rattles. Not that any of it was all that painful for things that were already dead, but they were determined to enjoy their last remaining moments of form with a good screeching contest. The goo of their flesh slid off their bones, settling in a thick green paste beneath skeletal remnants. The bones blackened and cracked. The bare skulls uttered one last groan before crumbling into gray dust. The bone dust and the fleshly muck mixed into a putrid syrup that smelled of rotten apples and fresh cow dung.
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