Dead Stop (14 page)

Part of her
really didn’t want to know.

Then things got
worse.

A second later
she heard the door to either the restaurant or the entrance jerk open, and
realized she was only ten feet from that end of the aisle. If this was one of
the maniacs attacking people then he would be on top of her in just a matter of
seconds, and there would be almost no way she could avoid being seen by him.
Retreat was the only option.

Marisa remained
crouched and crabbed her way backwards for a few feet. Eyes fixed on the front
of the aisle, she kept her keys clenched in her fist. Right now she would have
preferred a weapon with more reach…like an assault rifle, perhaps…but this was
what she had and she had it ready for use. Still, this scenario demanded
avoidance, if at all possible, so the young woman took a few more crouching
steps rearwards before turning to make a hurried dash back to the restroom
hallway.

That brought her
almost face to face with the nightmare coming around the back end of the aisle.

“
Madre de
Dios!”
Marisa choked back a scream, and crossed herself at the same time.

 Suddenly
she was a little girl again…the one who listened to her Aunt Estelle’s litany
of horrors  who licked their lips and waited in Hell for the bad women who
didn’t go to church and behaved without shame. Aunt Estelle must have had a
rogue’s gallery of demons somewhere, for she could go into great and gory
detail of what awaited each naughty brat who got too full of herself and fell
away from the protections of Heaven. Several of them bore a remarkable
resemblance to this monstrosity…only this thing must have decided it had waited
long enough and crawled its way out of Hell to come looking for her instead.

The young woman
instinctively reached for the little cross she no longer wore around her neck,
and felt the little girl inside wail when her hand closed on air. She had put
it away her last year of high school, unwilling to endure the scorn from the
more “modern” girls in her class. She wondered if Aunt Estelle was looking down
on her from Heaven right this moment, and if so was she pleading to the saints
nearby for intervention…

…or shaking her
head in righteous finality at the niece who had brought damnation on herself.

Marisa could
only lift the fistful of keys between the horror and her in warning as she
backed away; while keenly aware of what a puny threat it was in the face of
such a demon.

Its tiny eyes
glared with mad lust from their dark sockets as it approached, picking up the
pace with each step. It closed with her rapidly, and the woman knew it was
going to be on her in a second whether she faced it or turned to run. She did
the only thing she could and lashed out with her key spiked fist as the
stinking creature reached for her.

The blow landed
at a solid angle, and actually snapped the things head to the side. Marisa was
not a tiny girl and could throw a soft ball from her position in center field
all the way to second base without a relay man. On top of that, she had been
raised on the side of town where a girl had to step up for herself from time to
time, even if she usually found such activity classless and shameful.

Usually.

Right now she
was scared out of her mind and ready to throw down with the devil himself.

Unfortunately,
this thing gave no sign of being impressed by her resolve…or her makeshift
weapon. The horror turned its nearly fleshless face back towards her, its grin
seeming to mock her attempt at self defense. It showed no sign the blow had it
fazed it.

Marisa screamed
and drew back her fist to strike again as the thing’s jaws parted in
anticipation of its final lunge.

But the fist
that landed next didn’t come from her…and it impacted with power enough to spin
the monstrosity around and knock it to the ground.

Marisa squeaked
as the fist drew back past her and twisted to see the tightly smiling face of
Harley as he put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her behind him.

“There’s more of
these things outside,” the tall redneck gritted in a weirdly calm voice as he
stepped past. “So go back through the restaurant door, but be ready to let me
through.”

Marisa didn’t
move, standing like a deer in the headlights, and could only bring herself to
point at the monster behind the man as it started to climb to its feet.

It never got the
chance.

Harley turned
and caught it by the back of the neck with one hand and its outstretched arm
with the other. He shifted his weight and brought the thing to its feet in one
smooth motion before spinning around with it and smashing it face first into
the cooler doors with enough force to shatter the glass. The man didn’t
hesitate to see the effect of the move, but adjusted his grip and yanked the
flailing monster back out of the glass. He turned with it and smashed it face
first on a steel shelf three times, just like a professional wrestler would put
his opponents head into a turnbuckle, before spinning once again to throw the
creature into a nearby pyramid of oil cans.

Marisa knew
martial arts when she saw them, and apparently they had been trained to the
point of reflex with this guy. And at his size, with those muscles, his moves
had all the power and authority of a tiger. To say the man was devastating was
an understatement. The fact he was ridiculously good looking on top of it was
almost taking things to the absurd. 

The thing he was
fighting wasn’t so impressed.

The demon
floundered straight back to its feet in the cans, seemingly unbothered by the
beating it had just taken.

“Holy shit!
You’re a
tough
bastard,” the rangy young man sounded surprised.

The monster’s
sunken eyes fixed on Harley with the same look of intense ferocity it had only
seconds ago regarded Marisa with.

 It
attacked without hesitation, only to have a stepping over side kick drive into
its chest and slam it back against the wall. It still didn’t go down. Clearly
pain meant nothing to this thing. The horror rebounded from the wall and
started straight back towards the man…

…just in time to
take a roundhouse kick to the side of the head that smacked it’s skull off its
shoulder with an audible snap.

This time it
went down for good.

It fell at the
man’s feet, who stared at it with wide-eyed suspicion from a fighting stance as
it twitched on the floor.  Marisa watched as Harley prodded the now
obvious corpse with the toe of his boot a couple of times. The hateful skull
snapped in blind hunger, but the body just twitched in uncoordinated jerks. It
still lived, but acted like it had lost all control of its body below the neck.

Harley knelt
down beside the thing for a second, then stood as if satisfied the fight was
over.

Marisa stared in
shock as he straightened his hat and looked back in her direction.

“Door,” he
reminded the girl gently.

“Right!” The
waitress turned and made a dash for the restaurant entrance.

What the hell
were you doing, you idiot!
She berated herself internally.
The world is
going to hell around you and you’re staring at some yahoo like a moonstruck
cow! Snap out of it!

Marisa bolted
out of the aisle and made the mistake of looking to her left, towards the cash
register as she did. What she saw there would give her nightmares for the rest
of her life.

Four more of the
skull faced demons were rising to their feet in front of the wreckage that had
once been the store counter. Several others ripped and tore at something behind
the debris, and she saw one leg protruding on the floor from the feeding
tangle. It wore one of Gladys’ orthopedic shoes.

But even worse
was the bloody mass of meat at the feet of the four monsters in front of the
ruined counter. She could barely recognize it as human, it was so torn and
shredded. But even as she stared in horror, it made a mewling whimper and a
hand with missing fingers jerked up and reached towards her in a desperate
appeal for help.

She cried out
and kept running, trying to ignore the renewed screaming when two of the
monsters reacted to their meals movement with fresh attacks. Unfortunately, the
other two must have decided they were more interested in the movement on her
end of the store.

In what she was
starting to recognize as some kind of attack posture, the blood-soaked
creatures spread their talon like hands and gaped their jaws before heading her
direction.

“Harley!” she
screamed a warning as she pushed through the restaurant entrance and turned to
hold the door. “They’re coming!”

She gripped the
door, wondering where the man had disappeared to. The two monsters had now
picked up speed and would be at the doorway in another second or two.

“Harley!”

The man erupted
from the aisle he must have been crouching in just as her pursuers reached it
and shoulder blocked them into each other and the post card display by the
front window. They went down in a thrashing heap while he bounced off and used
his changed momentum to run towards the door.

Marisa started
to make a sharp comment on stupid moves as he reached the entrance, then bit it
off.

It dawned on her
that he had actually put himself in danger and waited back in the aisle, just
to make sure those things wouldn’t catch her before she made it to safety. The
man must have seen them when he came in the store in the first place, so he
already knew the threat they posed.

Harley slid
through the door and both of them pushed it closed and put their backs to it.

A second later
the sounds of withered hands slapping and sliding on glass came from behind
them. Marisa braced herself and helped the tall redneck hold the door as the
pressure from the other side increased. She knew her contribution probably
amounted to a quarter of his, but silently swore this “dumb, helpless female”
role she had stumbled into the past couple of minutes was going to end…right
now.

The pressure on
the other side of the door steadily increased, causing the two to put their
feet far out in front of them in an attempt to brace better.

“Keys…” Harley
gritted as he strained against the door, “Are there keys to this door?”

Marisa fought to
remember for a second, then the answer came.

“Yeah,” she
gasped, “the night manager has them.”

“Who’s the night
manager?”

“Gladys.”

“Crap.”

“Yeah…”

“Well, we’re
gonna have to think of something pretty quick,” the man panted, “because I’ve
got a feeling these things don’t tire out as fast as we do.”

She had a
feeling he was right.

“Okay, okay,
just let me think…”

 Marisa
found it hard to concentrate while exerting so hard. And there also remained
the matter of still being scared half out of her mind to contend with as well.
She cast her gaze around for something to brace against the door, but instead
found herself staring at the frightened faces of those who remained in the
booths of the restaurant. Two out-of-towners…which included a certain jackass
who thought truck stops should have salad bars…

“Hey!
Señor
!”
she yelled at the pudgy out-of-towner in the red beret who was staring at them
in open mouthed shock. “You want to come help us hold this door?!”

“I – I” the
young man gawped and shook his head in negation, “I’m not – not involved in
this!”

The waitress
couldn’t believe her ears.

“Oh, believe me,
“Marisa snarled, “if these things get in here you are going to be involved!
They’re going to involve you in your own slaughter!
Now
get over here
and help us with this damn door
!”

The young man
flushed red, and sputtered in indignation, but exited the booth and took a few
noncommittal steps in their direction. He stopped when he got a better look at
the bloody visages pressed up against the glass behind them.

“Now dammit! Or
we’re all going to DIE!”

He hustled
forward again, but stopped in front of her in irritated confusion.

“There’s only
room for two against that door,” he complained. “Where am I supposed to fit?”

“You’re going to
be taking my place,” Marisa winced in effort. “So get ready. We’ve got to make
this switch fast.”

“Wait,” he
objected. “Why do I have to take
your
place?”

“Because,
Galahad,” Marisa snapped, “I’ve got to go get the spare set of keys to this
lock, and I can’t do it with my butt against this door! “

“My name is
Gerald,” the redhead huffed.

“Spare keys?”
Harley queried through effort clenched teeth. “Hey, I like the sound of that!”

The cords of the
tall man’s neck stood out as he strained backwards against the door. The
muscles of his arms and shoulders knotted with exertion and Marisa started to
suspect her contribution to this effort was probably a lot less than the
quarter she originally thought. She also realized time was of the essence here.

“Okay…Gerald…”
she fought down the urge to call him something a lot more colorful, “I’m going
to count to three. When I hit three, I’m going to roll away from the door and
you just step up and put your back against it. Got it?”

“Wait,” he
protested, “Do you mean ‘one, two, three and then move…or one, two, and move at
the same time you’re saying three?”

If I live
through this, I’m going to kill this man.

“On three,” she
growled. “Got it?”

Gerald nodded,
managing to look both irritated and unsure.

 “Okay…one…two…THREE!”

Marisa rolled
sideways away from the door, and came up on her knees to see the man looking at
her in surprise, before making an awkward lunge for the door. She didn’t want
to take the time to curse at him, so satisfied herself with glaring at his
girlfriend still in the booth as she came to her feet and started running
towards the kitchen door. The girl looked away in obvious embarrassment. Marisa
couldn’t help but wonder what any woman could even see in a useless and
abrasive little troll like Gerald, but had more important matters to attend to
at the moment.