Jill stood in front of the mirror, brushing the snarls out of her hair.
The air felt thick enough to slide down your throat and choke you. She had the window open, but it provided no breeze to cool the room. Occasionally a car whizzed past or a group of kids strolled by, hooting and hollering, but no breeze came.
The lamp on the nightstand provided a murky cone of light. She made a mental note to get a bigger, brighter lamp. The lack of light and the oppressive heat made the room seem smaller, confining. Almost claustrophobic.
Maybe she would invest in an air conditioner if she got some money saved.
When she finished brushing her hair, she set the brush down and picked up a tube of rose lotion from Bath and Body Works. It was her favorite scent, and she rubbed it on her hands, arms and legs, enjoying its coolness.
She had wiped the mascara from her face that had run in rivulets down her cheeks. After asking Matt to leave, she broke into a crying fit, and the force of her sobs scared her. She hardly knew Matt, and yet she liked him a lot.
Her sobbing had come when she thought of the lousy luck she had with men in the past four or five years.
The guys she had dated had mostly been after one thing. Their eyes would glaze over when she tried talking about history, current events or books. They would steal glances at her breasts or her legs, paying little attention, waiting only for their turn to talk. A guy she had dated twice tried slipping his hand up her skirt on their second date. They were in the middle of a General Cinema movie theater at the time.
When she got up and stormed out, he had followed her, ham-handedly trying to apologize for his advances. She slapped his face and told him to perform a certain sex act on himself.
There had been other dates, other guys, and then Jerry. By the time they had broken up, she began to believe all the good men were taken. And then there was the incident in the warehouse and Matt had come dashing in to save her.
Maybe she wanted to believe that it had been fate, or a sign this was the man she would be with. It wouldn’t hurt if she got to know him better.
But then the stories started, stories about monsters and hidden beasts living in Lincoln, all seeming to crazy to believe if not for the small kernel of truth that stuck in her mind. She had seen something in that warehouse, despite all her attempts to deny it.
The memories of the smell on Dorothy Gaines and Rafferty’s creepy behavior floated into her head and she told herself to shut up.
The inner voice, possibly the voice of reason, the voice that for most people spoke the truth, kept butting into her thoughts
. They’re real, Jill. Matt’s right.
Why couldn’t she get Matt Crowe out of her head if she wanted him gone?
A bead of sweat dribbled down her forehead. That was it. Too hot for clothes. She stripped, ripped the blankets off the bed, flopped down and turned off the light.
She would call Matt tomorrow and tell him they should go their separate ways. She would thank him for helping her, and that would be it.
If she plunged herself into her work, she would forget about him and another man would come along. One that didn’t believe in bogeymen.
C
HAPTER
17
Carla Reese dragged the pack of Wrigley’s gum across the scanner plate and the register beeped. “That be all?”
“How much for you?”
The customer, a teenage kid, maybe seventeen, leaned across the counter. Carla had never seen him before, even though he appeared to be around the same age as her. His shoulder-length hair was parted in the middle, brown and fluffy, as if he had spent a lot of time blow-drying it. He had on a faded denim jacket and bleached jeans.
The jacket had patches with the names of heavy metal groups sewn on them. She could make out a few of them: Metallica, Slayer, and Judas Priest. He was a throwback to the eighties, a headbanger. A species believed to be extinct.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“How much for you, sweetie? Are you for sale?”
“That’ll be twenty-seven cents.”
“For the gum?”
“Right.”
He dug in his pocket, pulled out a crumpled dollar bill, and threw it on the counter. She picked it up and unrolled it, not liking the sweaty feel of the paper.
“What time you get off?”
“None of your business.”
She punched the amount into the register and the drawer popped open, bumping her in the groin. She frowned. That drawer always opened a little fast and normally she stood to the side so it wouldn’t catch her in the crotch. But the jerk had distracted her.
“If you don’t tell me, I can wait outside for a while. I got all night.”
“I’m off at midnight.”
That was a lie. In ten minutes it would be ten o’clock, and her shift at Wilson Farms would be over. They were open twenty-four hours and she expected her replacement, Liz Chaney, any minute.
“I’ll come back at midnight. To see you.”
She left his change on the counter, not wanting to touch his hand. He pressed the change against the counter with his palm and dragged it. The scraping noise made her hair stand on end.
“Me and my friends’ll be waiting,” he said.
He stuffed the change in his front pocket and bounced out of the store.
What an asshole.
She was used to being hit on by guys, but never by somebody that forward. What did it mean when he said him and his friends would be waiting for her?
Last year she nearly made the cover of
Seventeen,
and her mother was talking with some big-time talent agent in New York named Barry Barker. Carla was custom-built for modeling. Five-eleven, weighed one hundred fifteen; and according to the photographer at
Seventeen,
she had better cheekbones than Kate Moss. Thus she became the target of horny teenage boys.
She thought about calling Ronnie at Home Depot to come pick her up, but he wasn’t off work for another hour, and she had her own car at the store. Besides, the kid who came in the store was probably long gone by now. Maybe he was just trying to rattle her, or maybe one of his buddies had dared him to come in and hit on her. It would be better if Ronnie didn’t find out someone was hitting on her, for there would be a fight if he did.
She wondered if all that weightlifting he did for football made him aggressive.
The clock read five minutes to ten.
Liz Chaney walked through the door, her brown apron draped over one arm.
“Hey Liz,” Carla said.
“Hey.”
“Did you see anyone out there?”
“Outside the store?”
“Yeah.”
“No, why?”
“Some jerk was in here hitting on me. He said he’d be waiting for me when I got off work.”
“Must be nice to get that kind of attention.”
Liz wore Coke-bottle glasses with flaming pink frames. She also had a face full of throbbing acne. Carla didn’t know much about her outside of work, but she didn’t think Liz went on many dates.
“It was no big thrill. He was a real loser.”
“I have to take what I can get.”
Carla smiled awkwardly.
Liz walked down the cereal aisle and disappeared through the silver double doors at the back of the store. She came out a moment later, hands behind her back, tying her apron string.
Carla punched in her cashier number, signing off the register. When Liz got to the counter, she would punch in her own number and take over.
Removing her apron, Carla brushed past Liz on her way to the back room.
“Have fun on your date.”
“He’s probably not even out there.” She hoped.
She went through the double doors near the coolers, unlocked her locker and took out her purse. Stuffing the apron in the locker, she closed it and clicked the padlock in place.
She paused at the door, scanning the parking lot for any sign of her admirers. Her Firebird and Liz’s Taurus were the only cars in the lot. An elderly man in a madras shirt talked on the pay phone at the edge of the parking lot.
The coast looked clear, but her heart rate sped up just the same. She hurried to her car.
Carla’s keys slipped from her hand and jingled on the pavement. Her palms were slick with sweat.
She bent down, picked them up, and unlocked the car door.
“Hey sweetheart.”
She turned around and saw the guy from the store standing ten feet from her. There were two other people with him, the friends he mentioned in the store, she guessed.
The guy to the left of him had a ponytail, though the sides of his head were shaved. He had a narrow, ferrety face and held a black boom box in his right hand. The other one was a girl, maybe fifteen. She had on a black crop top that showed off a pale, round belly. The crop top was complemented by a denim miniskirt that appeared to be groaning from stress being placed on it.
Carla eyed all three of them. “Piss off.”
She flung open the car door, hoping to climb in quickly and speed away. Her nail chipped and broke on the door handle.
The leader of the group grabbed her by her left arm.
She gasped and tried to pull away, but his nails dug in tight.
“Look down.”
Six inches of chrome flicked open. He had his back to the store window so the knife would be out of sight.
She glanced over to the phone booth, hoping the elderly man was still there, but he was gone.
Frantic, she looked to the store window, but Liz was out of sight.
“Your friend ain’t there. And if you scream, I’ll stick you. Try me if you think I won’t.”
The other two closed in on her.
“Get in the car. You’re taking us for a ride. Cooperate with me and you’ll be okay.”
She wanted to believe that, but she couldn’t. She was positive her body would be found in a ditch or an abandoned warehouse.
She jerked her arm, trying to free herself. He poked her in the thigh with the tip of the knife, and a dot of blood stained her khakis.
“Get in. Now,” he said through clenched teeth, and she noticed they seemed odd. Canine. Fang-like. God, he stank too!
She crouched into the car, the knifepoint in her ribs.
“Get in with her.”
The girl and the guy with the shaved head went around to the passenger side. The one with the knife told Carla to unlock the door and she did. The other two climbed into the backseat.
“Take it, Rick. Keep it on her.”
He handed the blade to the guy with the shaved head, who held it to her throat as she got into the car.
The leader climbed into the passenger seat.
Carla burst into tears. If only she had called Ronnie!
Matt turned on the radio; Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins were singing about the world being a vampire. Even at this time of night, Matt switched on the air-conditioning. The dashboard lights glowed luminescent green, providing the only illumination in the truck’s cab.
He couldn’t understand why Jill was hesitant to believe his story. After all, they had been chased by one of Them in the warehouse. And she had been the one who wanted to meet and talk about it, so that made it all the more puzzling.
Granted, it sounded crazy. Monsters living under human skin and hunting people for food. Had he not witnessed them firsthand, he wouldn’t have believed the story either.
He pulled the truck into his aunt’s garage and got out. Tucking his speeding ticket in his back pocket, he climbed to the loft, and once inside, turned on the light.
His suitcase lay on the floor, open. A green T-shirt hung over the side.
It reminded him of all the places he had been in the last ten years. And how he had run from the problems with his uncle and kept on running. He initially ran away because he didn’t want to deal with Uncle Rex anymore, but once he was on the road, he began to search for the creatures. Each time he heard about a strange murder or disappearance, he would travel to that city or town to investigate.
That type of lifestyle wasn’t conducive to building a relationship with a woman. There had been some here and there; Monica in San Francisco was one of the better ones.
They had been together three months when he left. He had jotted a note on a piece of legal paper and left it on her kitchen table. It was cowardly, and he knew it.
He told her about his nightmares, but instead of the monsters, he lied and told her it was escaped convicts that murdered his family. He had walked out on her after seeing a news report about a Boy Scout troop in Seattle that spotted a strange creature in the woods.
After that, he spent most nights in hotel rooms, eating take-out Mexican or burgers, watching pay-per-view until falling into fitful sleep. And playing back that day in Emerling Park in his mind. Over and over and over.
For the first few months after they died, he fully expected them to pull up in the Bronco and take him home. He had even caught himself glancing out Aunt Bernie’s picture window, watching. He gave up on that idea after a while, as he did on the idea of settling in one town and being at peace.
But why should he give up on Jill? He’d been running too long, pushing people away, putting up that proverbial brick wall around himself and not letting anybody in. And if you did that for too long, you could go nuts, become one of those guys who climbs a clock tower with a high-powered rifle.
There had to be a way to convince her.
First he would call Harry, the gun store owner, and see if dinner was still on. He took the folded piece of paper with Harry’s number written on it off the nightstand.
He dialed the number and a woman answered.
“Is Harry there?”
“Who’re you?”
“Matt Crowe. I met him at his store the other day.”
A pause.
“Hang on.”
He listened as she set the phone down and yelled for Harry.
“Hello, Matt.”
“Hope I didn’t disturb you. Your wife sounded upset.”
“That’s just her usual pleasant demeanor shining through.”
“Dinner still on?”
“Yep. You still bringing a guest?”
“Maybe.”
Matt heard a musical tone ring in the background. “Hang on a second, Matt, it’s my cell.”
Matt heard Harry mumbling in the background but couldn’t make out the words. A moment later, he came back on the line.
“That was Donny Frank, buddy of mine,” Harry said. “They found a body.”
Matt felt the hairs on his neck prickle. His first thought was that the secret residents of Lincoln had struck.
“Where?”
“Griffith Park.”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Exactly. I’ll pick you up. Where you live?”
Matt paused for a moment, wondering if he could trust Harry, if he should just go off riding with him. Why not? He was a big boy, capable of handling himself if Harry gave him trouble.
Matt gave him directions.
He hung up and went down to the truck. It occurred to him that he might want the shotgun in case there were any of them still around. But there was nowhere to conceal it. Plus there would be a ton of cops around, and a loaded twelve-gauge might not get him invited to the policemen’s ball.
“Hell with it,” he said.
Harry pulled up five minutes later in a cream-colored Lincoln Town Car. He was surprised at the vehicle, taking Harry for a truck guy all the way.
Matt climbed in the car. “Nice wheels,” he said.
“I wanted a truck. One of those Ford Expeditions. The big sumbitches. But the wife outvoted me.”
From hearing his wife’s voice on the phone, Matt had a feeling Harry got outvoted a lot.