The Devil's Graveyard (52 page)

All the King had in front of him was a plate with a cheeseburger on it, which he hadn’t yet touched, and a glass of orange juice.

‘That was some fuckin’ day yesterday, huh, Sanchez?’ he commented.

‘Yeah. Not exactly my idea of fun. Reckon next year I’m goin’ to stay in Santa Mondega. Gotta be a whole lot safer.’

‘Yeah, man. Smart idea.’

Sanchez finished up the last piece of sausage on his plate and wiped his mouth with a napkin, before reaching for his coffee cup.

‘Reckon you’ll see that Janis Joplin chick again?’ he asked Elvis, who was staring out of the window at something in the parking lot.

‘Yeah, maybe. She’s kinda cool. Say what, though, Sanchez, ya oughta take out that Annabel thing. She’s got it bad for you, buddy.’

‘She’s got somethin’ bad, sure enough,’ Sanchez grumbled. ‘I can smell it every time she’s near.’

Elvis laughed politely and continued to stare out of the window. From behind his sunglasses Sanchez saw him raise an eyebrow.

‘What’s happenin’, man?’ he asked.

‘Yo, Sanchez,’ Elvis half-whispered, so that no one within earshot would hear him. ‘Check out that black car outside.’

With a squeak from the tortured vinyl, Sanchez twisted his substantial butt round on the bench and peered out of the window to get a look at the car. Sure enough, in the lot outside was a black Pontiac Firebird parked in front of one of the motel rooms. It was rocking wildly from side to side.

‘What d’ya reckon’s goin’ on?’ Sanchez asked.

Elvis grinned. ‘I reckon,’ he said in his lazy drawl, ‘yep, I reckon someone’s gettin’ fucked.’

Invincible Angus had spent a thoroughly unsatisfying night in the Safari Motel. After the chaos of the previous day’s events, he had ended up without any of the cash he had hoped to pick up. He had successfully gunned down the Judy Garland impersonator, but it hadn’t made him any money. He hadn’t retrieved his twenty thousand dollars from Sanchez, either.

When he checked into the motel the previous night he’d been somewhat overhasty. Apart from one pistol, he’d left his few remaining possessions, including a box of shells and his spare magazines, in his newly acquired black Pontiac Firebird, which he’d parked in the bay right outside his room. Not a clever thing to do at the best of times, but particularly dumb when the car had no window on the driver’s side, on account of him having put a bullet through it. But Halloween had been so hectic, and so frustrating, from start to finish that all he had wanted to do was get a good night’s sleep. Now that he’d had that sleep, he was fully alert again.

The motel room he had stayed in was pretty basic, but it sure beat spending the night in Hell, or inside a zombie’s stomach, which was probably more or less the same thing. He stepped outside and breathed in a lungful of the fresh, early-morning air. It was good to be alive after all that had happened. That at least was something to be grateful for.

It was then Angus caught sight of what might just prove to be a lucky break. On the other side of the parking lot was the motel diner. Sitting at a booth by the window, stuffing his face full of sausage, was Sanchez fuckin’ Garcia. And he had his buddy, the Elvis jerk, with him. These two muthafuckers might still have Angus’s twenty grand. And if they didn’t? Well, they were still worth killing anyway.

He closed the motel door quietly behind him so as not to draw attention to himself. All he had to do was grab a couple of the loaded magazines he had stupidly left in the car the night before. Then he was going to finish the job of burying those two bastards in the desert. Not even very deep, since they’d be doing the digging.

The morning was surprisingly cold considering how hot it had been the day before. There was a light frost on the car’s windshield brought on by the chill of the desert night. As he walked over to the driver’s door Angus glanced up at the sun, which was just beginning to show over the horizon. At that low angle its rays were blinding, and he was grateful for the Firebird’s dark-tinted windows.

He opened the car door, feeling the chill of the frost on the door handle under his fingers. He lifted his right hand and blew warm air from his mouth on to his fingertips. Those fingers needed warming up in readiness for squeezing the trigger of his gun. He glanced over at the diner again. Sanchez and Elvis didn’t seem to have caught sight of him yet. As he climbed into the car he kept his gaze fixed on Sanchez’s fat face as he chewed greedily on his breakfast.
That thievin’ sonofabitch was gonna be sorry he ever messed with Invincible Angus.

The black leather seat in the car was ice-cold and he shivered as he sat down on it and pulled the door shut. Still staring at his two intended victims, he reached over blindly to the glove compartment, where he’d stashed the shells and spare magazines the night before. As he did, his hand brushed against something in the passenger seat. He quickly turned his head to see what it was, and reeled back in shock. Slumped next to him in the passenger seat was a corpse.

Judy Garland
.

The woman he had shot in the hotel the previous night. She smelt pretty bad, too. The front of her blue and white dress was stained almost black from a dark patch of dried blood where his bullet had smashed into her chest. Her face was hideous, the eyes open but turned up into the head, so that only the whites showed. Her hair was disordered and stiff with blood, the neat pigtails long since gone. The effects of death had drawn her lips back from her teeth in a terrifying rictus that looked like a snarl.

Jesus!
he thought.
How in hell had this woman’s body come to be in his car?
As soon as he asked himself the question, Angus felt his blood turn to ice. One look in the driver’s mirror answered the question for him.

Staring back at him from the rear seat was a dark figure with a hood pulled up over its head.

THE END (perhaps…)