Lot Lizards (18 page)

This behavior worried Doug more than anything he'd seen so far.

"What's the matter, Mom?" Dara asked quietly. "You're crying."

Adelle backed away, shaking her head in dismissal.

"Mom," Cece asked, "where's Jon?"

Then she lost it. She buried her face in her hands, dropping her purse, and cried softly.

Doug stepped forward and said, "Look, girls, tell you what, since you didn't finish your dinner, here's twenty bucks. Get anything in the store. How about some junk food, huh? Dorritos? Anything you want this time, no rules. Look, there's cold sandwiches in this cooler and drinks over here."
 

"Can I have a Jolt Cola?" Cece asked expectantly.

"Even a Jolt. Go ahead—" He handed Dara a twenty. "— it's on me. Your mom and I've gotta talk."

"
No
!" Adelle blurted. "No, girls, you stay right here, duh-don't move. You can eat anything you want, just do it
right here
. Kuh-keep the wrappers and we'll pay for it later."
 

They spoke in whispers as the girls ate, Adelle doing most of the talking while Doug stared at her in utter disbelief...at first. Then, when she told him about Jon: "Son of a bitch, where is he, Adelle, why the hell didn't you say so in the—"
 

"Shh, keep your voice down, I don't want the girls to hear. Doug, I'm telling you, there's nothing we can do. That thing is...I
saw
that thing and there is
nothing
we can
do
. Except wait for Bill."
 

"Oh. Wait for Bill." The churning of jealousy stirred his guts and he paced a moment. "What the hell's Bill doing, changing his clothes in a phonebooth?"
 

"He's one of them."

"One of—you mean one of those—oh, God, Adelle, you don't really
believe
that shit, do you?"
 

"Goddammit, Douglas, I don't know what they are and I don't care what you call them, but they're out there and he knows how to handle them. I don't know, maybe they're just like us and they've got some kind of-of-of horrible duh-disease or something, but that
thing
, Doug, I saw that
thing
, and if everybody here knew about it there'd be a fucking stampede, except nobody has anyplace to
go
! Now will you please for God's sake just—" She stopped again, grinding her teeth. "I'm sorry, dammit, I'm sorry."
 

Doug stepped forward and held her as she whispered in his ear.

"I yelled at Jonny. At the table...in the car...I yelled at everybody, even after the wreck, I mean... we all could've been
killed
, but I...all I did was yell. And now he's...if that thuh-thing...oh, Doug, I just can't live with the thought of my last words to my son being angry ones..."
 

Bill tried to get back on his feet immediately but was surprised by his clumsiness, by the drained feeling that covered his body, as if the attack had doubled the weakness he'd felt before.
 

"Byron?" he croaked.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm here."

Bill saw the flashlight glowing on the floor, heard Byron shuffling around until he found it, then watched him retrieve his gun.
 

"I don't know
why
I'm here," Byron said, coming toward him, "'cause if I had any brains I'd get the fuck gone. You okay?"
 

"I'm...not sure. Don't feel too well, tell you the truth."

Claude Carsey groaned in the dark as Byron helped Bill to his feet. They went to Claude's side and shined the light on him. His face was bloody and his eyes gummy and swollen; he looked up at them with his mouth yawning and hands quivering.
 

"She killed me?" he rasped. "Am I dead? Am-am-am I guh-gonna die?"

Byron squatted down and touched Claude's cheek with the barrel of his gun. "No, you're gonna help us, that's what you're gonna do."
 

Getting on his knees, Bill asked, as firmly as he could manage, "What does garlic do to them, Claude?"

"Gar...lic? Well, I s'pose you could find out easy enough."

"Remember what I just said about you not dying?" Byron growled. "One more remark like that and I'm gonna have to make myself a liar."
 

"Makes 'em sick," Claude said. "Ruh-real sick."

"When they touch it?"

"No, no. Tha's just when they
smell
it. Don't know
what
the hell happens when they
touch
it." He turned his head and spit some blood onto the concrete.
 

Bill and Byron exchanged a glance.

"What happens if they can't get back in the trucks, Claude?"

Bill asked.

His swollen eyes widened slightly. "If they can't...I don't know, but it must be bad, 'cause that's the only thing they're scared of. Scared
shitless
of it. And why the fuck don't
you
know what hap—" He glanced at the gun. "—well, I mean...I figure you oughtta know what sunlight does."
 

"Ain't gonna be very sunny out today," Byron told Bill.

Claude said, "Weather don't seem to matter to 'em none. Least not that I can tell. But...what, um...oh, Lordy, no, you guys ain't thinkin' of...no, you ain't gonna do that, no, you
can't
do that. You know what my brother would do to me? He'd fuckin'
kill
me's what he'd do." He sat up, pleading now. "No, please, you can't do that, you can't—"
 

But they ignored him.

"The other guy," Bill whispered. "We've gotta get him down here and out of the way."

Byron stood as Bill gave him a description of Phil Carsey and told him where Phil was seated.

"You gonna be able to handle this guy?" Byron asked, handing Bill the flashlight.

"Sure." Bill gave Claude a weak but toothy grin and said, "You won't give me any trouble as long as I promise not to give you a kiss, will you, Claude?"
 

Claude began to cry...

Byron hurried up the stairs, putting the gun in his jacket pocket, but never taking his hand from it. In the restaurant, he spotted the other Carsey brother easily and approached his booth casually. Standing behind him, Byron leaned forward and, through the jacket, pressed the gun to the back of Phil's neck, whispering, "Now listen, motherfucker." Byron knew that nothing struck fear into the heart of the average white man quite as effectively as a large black man with a gun calling him motherfucker and it tickled him. "You're gonna get up real nice and slow, like you and me are old friends, and you're gonna come with me across the restaurant to the hallway back there without doing anything funny, or my little friend here's gonna take your face for a ride clean across this building, you understand?"
 

Phil swallowed dryly and nodded, then, clumsily but with caution, scooted out of the booth and walked a step ahead of Byron to the hallway as the barrel of the gun bumped his lower back with each step. At the end of the hall, Byron removed the gun from his pocket, opened the door and motioned Phil down the stairs, calling to Bill for some light.
 

In the basement, Phil spat at his brother, "What the
fuck'd
you do, asshole?"
 

Byron poked him hard with the gun. "Shut up." To Bill: "Flash that around. There's some rope down here somewhere."

"Holy shit," Phil chuckled coldly at Bill. "You."

"Yeah, me. Sit down with your brother."

Bill got a fat coil of rope from a hook on the wall, handed the gun to Bill, placed the flashlight on a crate and wasted no time in tying the Carsey brothers back to back. As he grunted and strained, pulling the rope tight, Bill said, "Maybe you can give us a little more information than your brother could, Phil."
 

"Go fuck yourself," he gurgled.

Byron moved quickly, enraged; he slapped the gun from Bill's hand, dropped to one knee, grabbed as much of Phil Carsey's hair as he could and pulled his head back hard until Phil was gagging, the shoved the barrel against his throat, spraying his fat face with spittle as he spoke in a rapid continuous stream: "Now you listen to me motherfucker. I'm a little edgy tonight and I'd be
more
than happy to blow your Goddamned brains out right
now
because you smell
really
bad and better yet I
know
you'll
die
and after some of the shit I've seen tonight
that
would be a pretty fuckin' reassuring
sight
, but maybe you'd like it
better
if my
friend
here took a little blood sample from one of your filthy fuckin'
veins
like them bitches you been haulin' in your
trucks
do while you're sittin' on your fat ugly
ass
eatin'
chili
, huh, would you
like
that, you wanna see what
that's
like,
huh
?"
 

Phil's face reddened and trembled with anger, but his eyes gave away his fear. "Whuh-what? Whatta you want?" he whispered.

Byron let go of him, stood and took a deep, steadying breath, then handed the gun back to Bill and continued securing the ropes.
 

Bill's voice was unsteady: "That thing out in your truck has my son. I wanna know what to do about it."

Phil smirked. "Have another one."

Bill leaned close, touching his nose to Phil's and showing his fangs. "What...is...she?"

Phil's nostrils flared with disgust. "The queen. Sorta... sorta like their... leader, I guess. Their
mother
, kinda. She knows what they're thinkin', what they're doin'...least, she seems to. Hell, half the time, I think she knows what
I'm
thinkin' and doin'. I-I-I...look, I'm sorry, but...if she's got your son...you ain't gonna see him alive again. She likes 'em young."
 

With clenched teeth: "I want to kill her. How do I do it?"

"Yuh-you think I know? You duh-don't think I'd've tried by now if I
knew
? I
hate
that fuckin' thing, she scares the
shit

outta me, but there ain't a Goddamned thing I can do about it."

"Where'd you find her?"

"Oh, no. She found
us
. We...we was independents. Went all over the country haulin' shit. We was in upstate New York on our way to pick up a couple loads a pastries. Y'know, packaged shit like Ding Dongs and Ho Ho's. We stopped at a rest stop. Late at night. There was a few cars there, but...there was no people. Place was dead. Hah. Dead. Went into the bathroom and there they was. These three guys. Feet stickin' outta three different stalls. Blood on the floor. They looked dead. Claude got sick. I got scared. Ran outside and looked in them other cars parked in the lot. There was...more bodies. Never looked, but I figured there was more in the ladies' room. All I wanted was to get the fuck
outta
there, y'know? And then... there she was. Just as big and ugly as you please seepin' outta the dark. A great...big...Goddamned demon. Tha's what I thought she was at first, I swear, a fuckin' demon from Hell." He'd gotten out a breath and panted a moment. "Thuh-they'd been stayin' in this little cave way out in back of the rest stop. Made us go to a...a little cemetery way out in the middle of fuckin' nowhere. Made us..." He clenched his eyes against his memories, "...made us dig up coffins to haul 'em in. Wuh-we had to...
empty
all these fuckin'
coffins
. Practically dug up the whole place before we had enough. All those—oh, sweet Jesus— all those bones and-and-and cuh-corpses. Rotted and smelling and... the smell, man, you just don't know the smuh-smell." He stopped a moment, eyes closed, then: "Seven years ago. Believe me, buddy, if I knew how to stop her..." He just shook his head silently, eyes wide.
 

"Then why do you
do
it, asshole? Why don't you just
stop
? " He gave a soft, unpleasant giggle. "Hee... hee-hee...steady money and, uuhhh...hee-hee...lotsa
travel
a course, a-and, lessee...buh-because she, hee-hee, won't fuckin'
let
us.
Never
let us, you
kuh-kiddin'
? That...cunt...
flies
, man!" he hissed. "She's got fuckin'
wings
like a great big fuckin'
bat
!" His flabby cheeks quivered like gelatin, his eyes filled with tears and his shoulders quaked within their bonds.
 

Byron finished tying and stood slowly, staring at Bill with a look of growing horror.

Phil's words came in a wet, trembling breath. "I'm
fucked
, man. Me'n him
both
. We'll be doin' this the rest of our fuckin'
liiives
. And there ain't
nothin
' you can do... to stop it." He broke down then, sobbing openly, his chin pressed to his chest, head bobbing.
 

"Huh-hey, Phil," Claude whispered from behind him, craning his head around to look over his shoulder. "Hey, duh-don't cry, Phil. C'mon, Phil, don't...don't cry..."
 

Bill and Byron stared at one another for a long moment, both of them afraid to speak. Then Byron asked, "What do you suppose we should do?"
 

Bill massaged his chest with four fingertips; it felt empty, cold...decaying. "I've got an idea. First we'll have to get the keys from them, then take the garlic out there and put some in at least one of the trucks to keep the girls out...until sunrise if we're lucky. Just keep it away from me. I feel bad enough as it is."