Authors: Ray Garton
"What's gonna happen, Dad?" Jon asked quietly.
"We're going to stay here until sunrise, Jonny. It's just—" He glanced at his watch."—oh, an hour or so from now. Things are going to be fine."
"No. I mean, what’s gonna happen to
you
?"
Bill put his hand on Jon's shoulder and gave a closed-mouth smile. "Oh, don't worry about me. Tell you what. Go see how your sisters are doing, okay?" He patted the boy and gave him a gentle push. Once Jon had disappeared, tossing reluctant looks over his shoulder, Bill went to the coffee counter and fell heavily onto one of the stools, folding his arms on the counter and resting his head. "Good question," he mumbled quietly to himself. "What' s gonna happen to me..."
Sunrise
was
only a short time away.
And he knew that what the creature had told him was true: he
was
dying...
CHAPTER 18
Time crawled by as the snow continued to swirl outside. Bill stayed at the coffee counter with his head on his arms, his strength draining from him like blood from a wound. He lifted his head occasionally, partly to keep himself awake, but also to check on Adelle, who continued to comfort Jenny, the waitress, and watch over her daughter Shawna; when the girl slept, Adelle moved around the restaurant helping Dr. Phillip Kale—who was rather upset himself—to calm down those on the verge of panic and to tend to the cuts and scratches a few people had gotten from the broken glass. One woman, however, would not be calmed. Dina Bonnick paced around the restaurant, her face pale and drawn, eyes wide and darting, wringing her hands as she said over and over—sometimes in a quiet mumble, other times in an authoritative bark—"This is a mess...a mess...this place is a
mess
, where is the
janitor
, this has to be... well, somebody has to clean this up. I'm responsible. I-I-I'm in
charge
here and
this place is a mess
!"
The doctor took her aside, holding her arm and patting her back, speaking to her in low, soothing tones.
"
But this could mean my job
!" she hissed, jerking away. "It' s a mess, just a
mess
!" She began to tremble then, from head to foot, and Dr. Kale helped her into a chair where she mumbled incoherently to herself, rubbing her thighs jerkily and wringing her shaking hands.
Everyone in the restaurant spoke in hushed voices. Someone had turned on a radio and conversation fell to a faint murmur whenever an announcer updated the situation on the freeway. A baby cried now and then; sometimes the crying did
not
come from a baby. The crying increased each time one of the figures rushed toward the broken front window snarling like a rabid animal, only to stop and scream or fall to the ground. A couple of times, one of the girls—
No, no
, Bill thought,
one of those
things—came dangerously close to diving into the restaurant and Bill was afraid panic would break out again, but each time, the creatures were overcome by the garlic that Byron and the other men had finally managed to scatter around the building. Occasionally, the wind would blow over the garlic and into the restaurant, making Bill's eyes burn and his skin feel as if it were shrinking dangerously all over his body.
When he came back inside, Byron had been visibly shaken. He'd taken the seat beside Bill and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out hard as he kept his eyes on the window.
"Gave these damned things up four years ago," he said, waving the cigarette, "and climbed the walls for a month. But on my worst day, I never wanted a smoke as bad as I did just now. It's a fuckin' nightmare out there," he whispered. "Them things have gone
crazy
! They're like a pack of wild dogs or, or...hell, like a school of sharks in bloody water. And if they don't get that damned freeway open so we can get some help in here..." Another angry burst of smoke as he shook his head, still staring out at the night and vague figures that moved around in the darkness. "Fuckin' bullets don't do no good. Nothing stops 'em. 'Cept that garlic. God, I hope it keeps working."
"Janitor!" Dina Bonnick called from across the restaurant, shooting out of her chair and stabbing a finger toward Byron. "Janitor! You,
Byron
!" Dr. Kale tried to quiet her, get her to sit down, but she just shook him off. "Where have you
been
? Clean up this
mess
right
now
!" She pointed at the scattered shards of glass and the now crusty puddle of black ooze on the floor. "That is your
job
, you know! You
do
want to
keep
your
job
, don't you?"
Byron stared her down, cracking his knuckles as he smoked. Finally, he whispered, "Whatta you say I go over there and toss that dizzy bitch into the parking lot?"
"Don't worry about it, Byron," Bill said. "Everybody's scared and upset."
Byron stared at the woman for a few minutes, until the doctor calmed her down and got her back into her seat, then he put out his cigarette, lit another and gestured toward what remained of the winged creature on the floor. "The hell you s'pose happened to
that
thing?"
It was becoming an effort to speak without slurring his words, but Bill said, "I'm not sure, but I think it had something to do with the little girl it was carrying. She has AIDS." He looked at Byron. "It drank some AIDS infected blood. Maybe that was it."
Byron stared at the lumpy substance, frowning. He cracked his knuckles a few more times then, without saying another word, stood and went to the window where he stared out at the night.
Bill groaned quietly and ran a hand through his hair. When he lowered it to the counter, he saw thick strands of hair clinging between his fingers. Turning his hand over, he saw that the skin around his fingernails was turning an odd bluish grey and beginning to crack and peel.
Funny
, he thought,
they weren't that way a little while ago... were they?
A hand touched his shoulder and he jerked around, startled, to see Doug standing beside him. The man's mouth worked silently at first, struggling to find the right thing to say, then he looked away a moment.
"Look," he said finally, "I just want to say, urn, that I'm sorry about, urn, not taking you seriously before. I thought maybe you were...oh, I don't know
what
I thought."
"Forget it. Really." Bill tried to smile. "It's not the kind of thing that's easy to take seriously."
Hesitantly, Doug took a seat beside him.
"How're the girls?" Bill asked.
"Fine. They're over there with Jon." He nodded toward a table where the girls sat with their brother sipping cans of Pepsi. "They talk about you a lot, you know. All three of them. Especially Jon. They've missed you."
Bill felt as if he were expected to say something, but only nodded, and his silence seemed to embarrass Doug. "What are you going to do for transportation once the freeway's open?" Bill asked.
Shrugging, Doug said, "Once the freeway's open, we'll be able to get a tow truck out here, I suppose. But if that takes too long, I'll probably rent a car and send Adelle on ahead to her mother's."
The two of them stared out the window for a while. Patches of the darkness outside moved, seemed to ooze this way and that around the parked cars like black mud, and Bill knew it was them. They were out there, waiting, thinking, deciding what to do, how to get inside the restaurant where a magnificent buffet awaited them, with desserts of children and infants...
An elderly woman in the far rear corner of the restaurant began to sing "Rock of Ages" in a frail, cracked voice and, a few lines into the hymn, others joined her, until nearly everyone on that side of the restaurant was singing, some with spirit, others in mournful voices that wandered off key.
Bill turned his eyes to Doug, who was still watching the parking lot. Not a bad looking man. He seemed nice enough. And he appeared to be protective over A.J. and the kids.
"How did you meet?" Bill asked. "You and A.J."
Doug hesitated, uncomfortable. "Um, at work. The hospital. I'm a-yum, an X-ray tech." His eyebrows shot up and he looked surprised at his own words, as if he realized he'd just made some horrible gaffe, and added quickly, "But not until, you know, until after you'd left, I mean, there was nothing between us when you two were—"
Bill closed his eyes and held up a hand. "That's okay. Don't worry about it."
Doug sighed as if he felt he'd failed to say what he wanted to say.
Quietly: "Do you love her, Doug?"
He became fidgety. "Yeah. I love her. Very much. And those kids," he added, looking Bill in the eyes. "They're great kids. But...well, you know, that doesn't mean you couldn't come around and, you know, see them. Like I said, they've missed you."
Bill ground his teeth and scrubbed his cold face hard with a trembling hand. He didn't want to hear what he thought was coming.
"In fact," Doug went on, "once this is all over, you could come by once in a while. Spend some time with them. I know it'll be uncomfortable at first, but I think they'd really—"
Bill averted his eyes, shaking his head vigorously. "No, Doug," he said hoarsely. "I'm sorry but no, that's...not gonna happen." He stood and walked away from the counter as...
...Jenny stroked Shawna's forehead. She was so pale, her eyes nestled so deep in her dark sockets. Blood had been splattered on her face and in what remained of her hair. Jenny held a cloth to the wound on Shawna's neck, checking now and then to see that the bleeding was continuing to slow. The skin around the bite had turned a mottled purple and yellow and become puffy.
"They hurt Mrs. Tipton," Shawna whispered tremulously. "I think...maybe they killed her."
"Don't worry about that now, honey. Just try to hold still and relax and—"
—
stay alive, try to stay alive like you've been doing for the last year, Shawna, please
—
"—think about something nice." The restaurant had grown so cold that her breath wafted from her mouth like a small ghost each time she spoke.
"It bit me."
"I know, honey, but that thing is gone now. It's not gonna hurt you anymore." It was such an effort to keep her voice steady, to keep from falling apart in the face of the possibility that Shawna's wound might become infected, which, thanks to the virus, could kill her just as easily as the cancer. She wished the nurse or doctor would come back; it was easier to maintain herself when they were there to help.
The man named Bill returned to Jenny's side and gave Shawna a little smile. "How's it going?"
"Okay," Shawna answered flatly.
Speaking in a soothing voice, Bill asked her if she'd seen anyone else in the trailer where the monster had bitten her. She described a boy and Bill nodded, said that was his son, that he was all right now, and asked if there was anyone else.
"Just two ladies. They were mean. They hurt Mrs. Tipton and took me from the house. They were real white. Sick-looking, maybe. Like us."
"Okay." He patted Shawna's shoulder and said, "Don't worry about them. They're not coming in, because we've—"
Byron came to Bill's side and clutched his arm urgently. "Gotta talk a sec. I got an idea. C'mon over here." He led Bill to the coffee counter where they spoke quietly.
Jenny watched them, feeling afraid again. Was something else wrong? Had things gotten worse? She reached down absently and took Shawna's hand, squeezing it as she watched the two men, watched their lips moving so quickly, their brows frowning, heads nodding rapidly. Byron pulled something from his coat pocket, a small box; he opened it, reached inside and produced what looked like a bullet. Holding it between thumb and forefinger, he gestured with it, still talking fast, then paused, waiting for Bill's response. Suddenly, they turned and looked at her at once and moved toward her as Byron returned the bullet to its box and the box to his pocket. She waited, but they said nothing for a long moment, exchanged hesitant glances, then squatted beside her.
"Jenny, honey," Byron said, his deep voice soft and uncertain, "we're gonna need your help."
There was something about the way he said it that made Jenny slide an arm under Shawna's shoulders and hold her closer to her side. "What? I mean, how?"
Another pause, another reluctant glance between the two men. Then Bill said, "We think the reason that thing died—" With a nod toward the mess on the floor. "—had something to do with your daughter. It bit your daughter, and...she has AIDS."
Jenny's insides began to shrink with dread. "Yuh-you wanna use my buh-baby for some kind of—"
"No, no," Byron whispered, squeezing her arm. "It's just a guess, but it's all we got to go on, and in case we're right, and in case all that garlic out there don't work...well, what we need is... we need some of your daughter's blood."