Lot Lizards (24 page)

Jenny's eyes widened and she held Shawna even closer, hissing, "Are you out of your fucking
mind
, you want me to give you—you think I'll—my
God
, how can you—" She stopped, took a breath and started to get up, telling Shawna, "You wait just a second, sweetheart, I'll be right buh—"
 

The little girl gripped Jenny's hand hard, harder than Jenny thought she could, and said, "They think maybe I killed the monster, Momma? That maybe I can stop the others?"
 

"You nevermind, honey, I'm gonna go talk to these men and—"

"Is that what they think?" Her eyes were brighter than Jenny had seen them in a long time and she sucked her lower lip between her teeth, lifting her head from Jenny's rolled up coat, frowning.
 

Jenny glanced at Byron, then Bill. They both nodded. Shawna saw their silent replies and squeezed Jenny's hand again, saying as firmly as she could, 'Then I want to help."
 

Bill and Byron sat at the coffee counter with the box of bullets open and the bullets lined up before them. Each wore rubber dishwashing gloves and held a cloth that had been soaked with Shawna Lake's AIDS infected blood. One at a time, they picked up a bullet, held it delicately between thumb and forefinger and squeezed the cloth around it, coating it with the blood; the bloody bullet was then returned to the counter in another line. As they worked, they watched the window, catching glimpses of figures moving in the darkness outside, watching them.
 

"This might not work," Bill muttered.

"How come?"

"Well, I don't know how long the virus will last on a bullet out in the open, know what I mean? And it’s being shot through a gun. And a bullet isn't exactly a sponge. A bunch of reasons, know what I mean?"
 

"Yeah, yeah, we're grabbin' at straws, I know, but what the hell else we gonna grab at? Tell you what," Byron said, turning to him. "You come up with a fool-proof idea and I'll drop this one like a bad habit."
 

Bill nodded in agreement and they continued in silence.

As the minutes passed, Bill noticed his hands were trembling more and more. A knot grew in his stomach slowly but surely, becoming almost unbearable. It was a feeling he'd had before, a year ago, when he was unfamiliar with his condition. He'd always likened it to watching the most suspenseful scenes in the best of Hitchcock's movies: a gut-tightening feeling that continued to grow worse until the movie's payoff. But this feeling had no payoff. It just became more intense, more painful, and it meant only one thing...
 

The sun was rising.

That was when the screaming began outside in the darkness as...

...Phil and Claude Carsey stopped struggling against the ropes that tied them. They sat still and listened to the sounds that were coming from all around outside.
 

"The fuck is that?" Claude barked, out of breath.

Phil just listened, chest heaving.

It grew even louder and both men felt their scrotums shriveling as they realized what they were hearing.

"It's them," Claude breathed.

"Shit... sunrise."

"What’re they doin' out there? How come they ain't found a place to hide? How come they ain't in the trucks?"

"The fuck am
I
s' posed t’ know?"
 

They listened as it grew louder still, as if it were coming closer...

...closer...

...dangerously close, until—

—it sounded as if it were right outside—

"
The window
!" Phil cried in a shrill voice.
 

"Holy shit!" Claude shouted, slamming his back against his brother's, struggling against the ropes. "
Get us outta here! Somebody get us outta here for the love of Gaawwwd!
"
 

The brothers fell on their sides and craned their necks to look up at the window, which was completely blocked by a wall of leering faces. They continued screaming for help, begging for rescue, but...
 

...panic was breaking out in the restaurant and, above the voices of the frightened patrons, no one heard the two men in the basement.
 

Byron had already loaded his gun with six bloody bullets and was on his feet facing the window shouting, "What the hell's
that
?"
 

Bill rose slowly, his entire body tense and aching. 'The sun's...coming up," he whispered.

"What's that mean?"

"Means...if they don't...if we don't...find shelter...we're gonna die."

Byron spun on him, shouting, "What the hell you mean,
we're
gonna—" He froze, staring at Bill, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. From the look on Byron's face, Bill thought it was probably best that he couldn't see himself, but he couldn't resist lifting a hand and touching his cheek.
 

His skin felt like beef jerky.

Byron looked as if he were about to speak, but no sound came from his mouth; if it did, Bill couldn't hear it above the voices of the crowd. Bill leaned close to him and rasped, "Calm them down. Tell 'em...it's good...whaf s happening. They're dying out there."
 

After a moment, Byron turned and shouted, "
Hey
! Everybody just quiet down, here! C'mon, no, just—" When he realized it wasn't working, he pointed the gun in the air and fired.
 

The voices fell to a murmur.

"Nobody panic, now, y'hear? What you're hearing out there is good. It means—" He stopped mid-sentence and, along with Bill and everyone else, listened.
 

It was quiet outside.

"What happened?" Byron whispered.

Just the whining of the wind. And something else, something softer. Voices...muffled, screaming voices...

Bill frowned and rasped, "Sounds like...like it's coming from... from the base—"

"
Basement
!" Byron shouted. "The fuckin'
basement
! We forgot to cover the window to the fuckin'
basement
!"
 

Byron dashed around Bill toward the hallway that led to the basement door as the crowd's panic began to grow again. Bill fell against the counter and closed his eyes when the realization struck him, his stomach sinking as if it were filled with lead.
 

The voices belonged to the Carsey Brothers.

The lot lizards had gotten into the building.

Bill knew he wouldn't be the only one who would not see daylight...

CHAPTER 19

M
omma'd kick my nigger ass to hell and back, she knew I did some dumbfuck thing like that
, Byron thought angrily as he ran across the restaurant toward the rear corridor wondering how he could have possibly neglected to see that garlic was placed outside the basement window as well as all the others. He took his flashlight from his jacket pocket, suddenly aware of the fact that his bowels needed to move.
 

What had always seemed to be a short, unthreatening corridor seemed to stretch on forever as he moved into deeper and deeper darkness. The closer he got to the basement door, the better he could hear a sound that was coming from the other side, and a few feet from the door, he slowed his pace to a fast walk, listening.
 

He couldn't make it out yet, but it was not a voice or footsteps. It sounded more like...
sloshing
.
 

His keys jangled as he found the master and slipped it into the lock.

The sound continued.

He turned the key and pushed the door open.

The sound became more distinct.

It was wet and thick and came from the darkness below.

Sucking.

The flashlight beam pierced the darkness as it swept down the stairs searching for the source of the sound. The saucer of light passed over a few feet of dirty concrete floor, a couple of crates and—
 

—a pair of shapely female legs on their knees, then two more, and slender white arms splashed with black-red and a face
smeared
with it and—
 

—Byron tried to gasp but his lungs failed to work as he looked down at the swarm of pale bloody faces that rose quickly from the glistening mess that used to be the Carsey brothers and looked up at him.
 

He spent a moment in eternity at the top of those stairs, locked in the gaze of dozens of startled eyes glittering in the beam of his flashlight. Byron thought briefly of his mother's smile as a wet throaty hiss rose from below and the girls moved as one toward the stairs. He made a small pathetic sound—not unlike the sound he used to make as a child when he was afraid-—and raised the gun, firing twice into the mass of bloody grinning faces pushing upward toward him, but the gunshots had no effect and the sound he made grew louder as he dropped the flashlight, backed into the corridor and pulled the door shut, clenching his fist around the knob to keep it from being turned from the other side as he screamed down the dark corridor, "Everybody
out
! Get out of the
building
! Everybody get out
noowww
!"
 

A chorus of screams erupted in the restaurant. Running feet stormed over the floor in a rush of movement; glass shattered and men and women shouted incoherently.
 

The knob jiggled in Byron's hand and he tightened his grip, pointed the gun and emptied it into the door. It did no good. Fists pounded the door and the collective hiss from the other side became a guttural snarl.
 

"Byron!"

Dropping the gun and clutching the doorknob with both hands, Byron looked to the other end of the corridor and saw Bill leaning against the wall unsteadily, holding one of the hologen lanterns at chest level, his face lost in shadow. Behind him, through the windows, Byron could see the first dull ghost of daylight in the iron sky.
 

"Byron! Come outside! Hurry! They won't last long out there! Just
run
! "Bill lifted the lantern a bit higher so his face was bathed in its harsh white glow. His pale skin had become dry and flakey, wrinkling deeply around his eyes and mouth. He looked twenty years older.
 

Byron opened his mouth to tell Bill to find his wife and kids and go and he would follow, but realized that Bill wouldn't last long out there either and before he could say
anything
—
 

—the door cracked and splintered and a bloodied arm shot through the jagged opening, a hand slapped onto the side of Byron's face and closed hard, digging nails into his flesh and slamming his head against the door.
 

He could hear Bill shouting at him pleadingly, but the voice sounded far away as the hand pulled his head against the door again and again and he released the doorknob, pushing with both hands against the door, trying to pull away from the vice-like grip, but—
 

—the fingernails had punched through his cheek and the fingers were curled behind his lower teeth, the thumb stabbing upward beneath his jaw, its hold powerful and unrelenting, and—
 

—Byron screamed as the door opened and the arms slid out of the darkness, embracing him like tentacles, and hands tore at his clothes, fangs ripped his flesh and tongues lapped at his blood.
 

He fought at first, writhing on the floor, flailing and kicking, but the pain became too great, the screams of his attackers too loud, and as his own blood gurgled in his throat and spattered into his eyes, Byron wondered who would mop up the mess as...
 

...Bill backed away from the corridor feeling helpless and angry at both himself and Byron. Unable to watch the blood bath a few yards away, he turned toward the panic in the restaurant.
 

People were running in all directions: some from the restaurant toward the front doors, others from the store into the restaurant calling the names of children and spouses.
 

Leaning against walls and counters and chairs, Bill walked unsteadily into the chaos holding the lantern up and searching for A.J. and the kids.
 

On the floor just a few feet in front of him was Jenny Lake. She was huddled protectively over Shawna screaming to no one in particular, "What's
happening
my
God
what's
happening
what's—"
 

"Take the girl and
go
, Jenny, just get
out
of here!" Bill shouted to be heard above the confusion.
 

She looked up at him, tears streaking her terrified face. "But what' s
happening
, where do we go, where do we—"
 

Fighting to keep his balance, Bill reached down and gripped her upper arm, pulling hard. "Outside! Get
outside
!"
 

Shawna was curled into a fetal position on the floor, now wrapped in her mother's coat rather than using it as a pillow, and her wide eyes darted around in the dim light, confused and terrified. Jenny slid her arms under the frail little girl and scooped her up off the floor.