Dead Stop (21 page)

This time her
tear stained face bore no expression whatsoever.

The figure
outside didn’t move. It just stood there like a grisly statue, with the wind
driven rain splattering off of it with such force it had a slight halo of mist
around it. Another flash of lightning revealed the gruesome face beneath the
drenched matt of black hair, then darkness fell, returning the dead woman to
just another silhouette against the parking lot lights..

Marisa didn’t
flinch. She just stared at it a moment longer, her face a wooden mask.

“
Usted no es
Vicki
,” she spoke at last. Her voice was soft and even, “
y si te pones
en aquí te voy a matar
.”

Without another
word she turned and headed back for the kitchen. She brushed by the dark forms
of Gerald and Holly, then slammed open the swinging door with the palm of her
hand before marching through. The light from the kitchen rose and fell in the
darkened diner as the door swung open and shut in a declining pattern.

All eyes in the
diner stayed on the door till it stopped swinging.

Then everybody
seemed to exhale at once.

“You did good,
doc.” Stacey turned back to face the older woman with a look of pure awe. “You
did damn good.”

“I just told her
the truth,” Rachel sighed. “I hope she is going to be okay.”

“She will,” the
elfish girl beamed at her, “She just needs to be left alone for a while. I’ll
go check on her later once she’s had time to settle. She’s been carrying that
for a long time.”

“Hell of a way
to have to deal with it,” the doctor muttered.

Hell of a way
for me to have to deal with it, too.

She looked back
at the windows, and their deathly rank of watchers. As her eyes swept the
dreadful line, she understood one of the true horrors of what these things
were. They weren’t just monsters…they were the past, made present. And if you
didn’t get away from them, they would eat you alive…just like her past had been
doing to her for the last two years.

The time had
come for that to end.

Under the cover
of darkness, Rachel wiped a tear of her own that threatened to fall.

Goodbye Matt,
her heart whispered out into the darkness.
I will love you forever, but
I have to let go now. I want to live.
 

Chapter
Seven: Rising Waters

Rising Waters
- Marisa

The time clock
read half past midnight when she eased open the kitchen door and slipped back
into the gloomy diner.

“Marisa?”
Harley’s soft voice in the dark indicated he still sat in the same place at the
counter he had before.

“Yeah. Just me.”

As her eyes
adjusted, she saw he still leaned against the counter next to the coffee
machine. She also noted the pot was empty and automatically reached under the
counter to grab a new filter and bag.

“Hey, you don’t
have to do that,” Harley protested. “I was just being lazy and hadn’t got
around to doing it myself.”

“It’s alright,”
she replaced the filter with practiced ease and dumped in the premeasured bag
of coffee. “It’s my job.”

Grabbing the
pot, she gave it a quick rinse at the nearby sink before filling it with more
water and pouring that into the top of the machine. Then out of sheer force of
habit, she grabbed a rag from under the sink and started wiping off the
counter.

Harley watched
without comment.

Marisa cleaned
in silence, scrubbing the rag in small circles. It was a chore repeated so
often she could have done it with her eyes closed. The waitress made her way
down the counter, picking up and moving shakers and paper towel holders with
automatic efficiency, while running the rag beneath them. The only sound in the
darkened room came from the rain drumming against the windows and the rhythmic
squeak of her rag on the countertop.

She never once
glanced at the black figures in the windows.

It was something
to do…something mechanical, requiring no thought…but in about a minute the
inevitable happened and she reached the end of the table.

Marisa leaned
forward and rested her weight on both hands gripping the edge of the counter.
She stared at the polished surface, feeling six kinds of fool, before
straightening and turning to face the shadowy man in the battered hat. She
could barely make out his face in the dim yellow light filtering in, but it
didn’t take a genius to know he had been watching her throughout this entire
little performance.

Putting her
hands on her hips, she stared back at him for ten long seconds before finally
speaking.

“Thank you,” she
spoke it like a challenge, “for saving my life in the store earlier. I guess I
owe you one.”

“You’re
welcome,” Harley pushed his hat back, and his almost ever-present grin cut
through the darkness. “But you already evened that score when you thought of
the keys and saw to it they got out here before I got tired and let those
things in. You saved all of our asses.”

Marisa thought
that one over for a second.

“That’s not
really the same thing,” she replied.

“We were in
trouble and you found a solution. Then you acted decisively once you knew what
needed to be done.”

“Maybe,” she
conceded, “But a lot of it was your friend. He did most of the hard stuff while
I was mainly bossing him around.”

Harley laughed
softly in the dark..

“That sounds
like Deke,” he chuckled. “He’s a good kid. He just needs somebody to point him
in the right direction and light a fire under him from time to time. How’s he
doing back there anyway?”

“Oh he’s doing
great,” she snorted. “Stacey is sleeping under his arm and he’s got this big
goofy look on his face like he’s stoned stupid. You wouldn’t know to look at
him that he was injured and surrounded by killer dead people.”

That brought
another chuckle from the shadowy figure.

“I’m glad to
hear it. He’s been worshiping her from afar for almost as long as I’ve known
him.”

“Hmph. Well,
he’s got her. She thinks he’s ‘nice’, and Stacey likes nice.”

“Good.” Harley
turned back towards the coffee pot as it started to fill, “So how about the
others? How are they doing back there?”

Marisa rubbed
her arms and looked at the kitchen door.

“Benny is still
out,” she sighed, “but the Doc is looking after him. She thinks he’ll make it
if he gets time to recover. She won’t say so, but I think she’s more worried
about Grandpa Tom.”

“Grandpa Tom?”

“The old trucker
back there. He isn’t injured or anything, but he doesn’t look so good.”

“Okay.”

“I guess that
leaves the jackass and his dishrag of a girlfriend.”

“Gerald and
Holly.”

“Whatever.”
Marisa pulled a tray out from under the counter and started refilling the
square sugar bowls with little packets of sugar. ”They’re alright too…unless he
mouths off to the doc again. I think she’s about ready to neuter him. So that’s
where things sit.”

Finishing her
self-imposed chore with the sugar packets, she returned the tray under the
counter. She stood back up to see Harley’s dim figure reaching for the now full
pot.

“You’re
forgetting somebody,” he replied mildly as he poured himself some more coffee.
The sound of the hot liquid filling the cup could barely be heard over the
storm, yet at the same time it seemed to thunder in the silence that fell
between the two of them.

Marisa
stiffened, then took a deep breath and forced herself to unclench her jaw. It
wasn’t like she hadn’t been expecting this.

“You mean me.”

“You’re the only
somebody left.”

She gathered up
the plates that had belonged to Grandpa Tom and Leaping Larry. Remembering the
kitchen sink to be full of bloody rags at the moment, she headed for the little
sink behind the counter instead.

“I’m not
injured,” she replied. Her voice sounded flat even to her own ears.

Harley said
nothing.

 Pulling a
cabinet door under the sink open with her toe, Marisa dumped the contents of
the plates into a small wastebasket within. She could feel the man watching
her…evaluating… and stood up again with gritted teeth before dropping the
dishes into the small sink with forceful emphasis. The second she did it the
girl knew she had messed up and clenched her eyes shut.

The crash of
broken platters added fresh new edges to the humiliation that already cut
through her.

“Look, Harley,”
Marisa turned and tapped her breastbone with a finger. “I’m hurting, okay? But
that’s not why I came out here. I came out to say ‘thank you.’ That’s all. I
wasn’t hunting a shoulder to cry on.”

“Understood.” He
watched her over the brim of his cup as he took a drink. “But that really wasn’t
why I asked.”

“No?” She eyed
him doubtfully. She had to concede, at least to herself, that he hadn’t shown
the slightest hint of anything but concern…but on the other hand, the next man
she met without an ulterior motive would be the first.

“No.”

“Okay, then,”
she sighed and leaned back against the sink behind her, “you were just being
nice. So that’s one ‘thank you’ and now one apology I owe you. I’m running up a
score tonight.”

“Hey,” Harley
set down the cup and spread his hands. “I didn’t say I didn’t have my reasons
for wanting to know. Actually, I do. I just wasn’t trying to hit on you.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yes, really,”
he continued. “I’m looking for backup.”

That caught her
by surprise, and she tilted her head in curiosity.

“Backup? What do
you mean?”

“I mean,” he
picked up the cup again and took another drink, “sooner or later, this
situation is going to go fluid again…probably in the morning, once the rain
stops and they can see inside the windows…and I’ve got to start working on a
way to get us out of this. If things get ugly, and I need to take chances, then
I’m going to need a ‘wingman’…somebody to watch my back. My first choice would
be Deke, but he’s hurt.”

“So you want
me
instead?

“Well,” he
started ticking off his fingers, “outside of Deke, there are only three other
men here. One is unconscious. One is old and apparently sick now. And the last
one is Gerald.”

“You don’t have
any confidence in Gerald?” her sarcasm dripped in the darkness.

“I need somebody
who can move fast, think fast, act decisively, and who can think of other
people besides themselves.”

“Oh well,”
Marisa rolled her eyes, “so much for Gerald.”

“Yeah,” Harley’s
easy smile widened, “It’s not personal, but I don’t think I’m brave enough to
have him watch my back.”

“That wouldn’t
be brave,” she scoffed. “It would be suicide.”

“Can’t argue
with the truth,” he poured himself another cup of coffee, “but it don’t change
the fact, come morning, I’m gonna have to find a way to get us out of here…and
that means trying to get to one of those vehicles in the parking lot.”

Marisa gasped
and stared at him.

“What? Are you
crazy? They’re too fast!” She surprised herself with the intensity of her
objection, and quickly toned it down. “Look, even if you somehow got past those
things and outran them to a car, you probably couldn’t get it open before they
were on top of you. And you want me out there with you?”

“No,” Harley
stated firmly. “If I make a run for my truck, then it will be by myself. But
even then I would like to have somebody I can trust manning the door, in case I
can’t make it but still have a chance to turn back.”

Marisa
considered that for a moment.

“I can do that,”
she nodded. “But then what? How does that help us?”

“I’ve got a .45
automatic and a box of ammo under the seat of my truck. Maybe I could draw
these things away and thin them out a little bit at the same time.”

“They’re dead,
Harley. I don’t think getting shot is going to bother them all that much.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged,
“but I’m remembering the one I tangled with in the store. If breaking their
neck paralyzes them, then their brain still runs things…even if it’s that
lizard brain the doc was talking about. So I’m bettin’ blowing their head off
will drop them.”

Marisa winced at
the memory.

“I guess,” she
agreed doubtfully, “but it still sounds like one of those plans you rednecks
come up with right before you yell ‘Hey guys, watch this!’ and die horribly.”

“Thanks a lot!”
Harley laughed again as he leaned back in the stool and against the rear wall
with his hands behind his head. “You’re just a bundle of optimism, aren’t you.”

“I just don’t
want to watch somebody else die, okay?”

The memory of
those monsters feeding in the store, and the whimpering wreck in front of the
counter, rose in her mind again. That image, alongside the one of the
monstrosity that was once her sister, caused her to swallow hard and suppress a
shudder. It was all still so fresh.

“Are you sure
you’re okay?”

He hadn’t
changed position, but his face was dead serious.

“I’m okay,” she
snapped, recovering with an effort. “I’ll be your ‘wingman’, if you want. I’ll
hold the door for you if you try that stupid stunt, and I’ll cover your back if
I can otherwise. But I want you to promise me you haven’t already settled on
this dumb idea, and stopped trying to come up with something else.”

“No problem. I
promise. I’m considering a lot of contingencies and there are some things I’m
going to check out and get straight before I do anything. At the moment, I’m just
figuring out what we’re up against and who I…waitaminute..”

Harley came to
his feet so fast it made her jump.