Lot Lizards (17 page)

They moved quickly and were on Mrs. Tipton in a heartbeat, pushing her to the floor, embracing her, their faces pressing to each side of her neck as she struggled helplessly. Her screams were brief, and then she became silent, her wide eyes staring at the ceiling, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, hands clenching and unclenching, feet twitching.
 

Shawna held in her scream, hugging herself as she backed away clumsily until her shoulders were against the window-pane, then she spun around and screamed with all her might, pounding her fear-weakened fists on the glass: "
Heelllp
! Somebody
heelllp
!" She screamed the words over and over again until—
 

—hands clutched her shoulders and turned her around and Shawna looked into the white, smiling, blood-smeared face of the blond. From beneath her upper lip curled two long narrow fangs—just like the fangs on Mr. Edell's German shepherd next door—and each of them glistened with dark blood.
 

"Don't be afraid," the girl hissed, blood spattering from her lips. She pressed a bloody hand over Shawna's mouth, spun her around and embraced her from behind.
 

The other girl rose slowly, her tongue running over her lips, and stepped in front of them. Her eyes were heavy, as if she'd just awakened from a deep sleep. Her nose twitched a few times and she winced at Shawna. "She smells funny," she said.
 

"So?"

"I mean she smells...sick, maybe."

"Don't they all these days? She doesn't smell as bad as some. Probably just a bad diet. This is hicksville, y'know. They probably live on grease around here. You bleed the old lady?"
 

"Course not, idiot. She's alive."

"Well,
kill
her. She'll talk."
 

The girl in the ski cap went back to Mrs. Tipton's side and the blond turned to watch. Shawna wanted to close her eyes, wanted to struggle, kick and fight, but she was simply too weak
 

1
 

and terrified to do any of those things, so she watched as horror churned her insides. The girl bent down and held the old woman's head between both hands. With a sudden jerk, Mrs. Tipton's neck cracked sharply.
 

Shawna struggled then, tried to scream again, but only for a moment; she grew tired quickly and the girl's arms were like iron bars.
 

As the girls wrapped her up in two blankets, the blond smiled down at Shawna and said gently, "You're gonna come with us. There's somebody who wants to see you. Somebody who'll like you a
whooole
lot..."
 

CHAPTER 14

"Wait a sec," Byron said to Bill and A.J. before they went inside the truck stop. He jogged to a battered white Chevrolet pick-up, opened the door and reached behind the seat, retrieving a handgun which he stuffed beneath his belt under his jacket before he slammed the pick-up door and led them inside.
 

Inside, it was noisy and dark. They shouldered their way through the crowd, through the travel store and, after Byron stopped to get a flashlight from a utility closet, into the restaurant. Byron led them behind the counter toward the hall that led to the basement. A weary looking waitress holding two plates of half-eaten food stepped in front of Bill and A.J. and said, rather curtly, "I'm sorry, but you are
not
supposed to be back here."
 

Byron turned and put a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Jenny. They're with me."

She turned to him. "Byron, you look like shit. You okay?"

"Nope. Look, we' re going down to the basement. Anybody says anything, tell them they're with me and it's okay."

Looking confused and concerned, and glancing at Bill with a sort of sickened fascination, she nodded and hurried away.

"Bill?" Adelle whispered hesitantly. "I should go talk to Doug. He should know about...about what's happening."

"Okay." He squeezed her arm. "Remember, stick together and don't go outside, but get away from that guy at the next booth."

She nodded, looked sick for a moment, as if she might vomit or pass out, then began to cry quietly.

"Don't worry, A.J. We're gonna...we're gonna..." When she looked up at him, he couldn't finish, he couldn't look her in the eyes and say it, so he held her to him, looking instead at a stack of dirty plates as he said, "We're gonna get him out of there and he's gonna be fine."
 

"Somebody mind telling me what the hell's going on here?"

The man's voice trembled only slightly with quiet, contained anger and when Bill turned to him, he knew somehow that it was Doug.
 

Adelle wiped her eyes and sniffled. "Doug, this is Bill. My ex-husband."

He said nothing, just stared Bill in the eyes. He looked angry at first, defensive, jaw set and eyes narrowed. But as he continued to look at Bill in the poor light, his expression changed to one of curiosity, then he backed away a little, frowning, all of his anger gone.
 

"We have to talk, Doug," Adelle said.

Doug's eyes darted back and forth between Bill and Adelle, suddenly worried. Her lips were quivering and she was about to start crying again. "What's going on here?" Doug asked.
 

"Just...Doug, please, come to the table. We have to talk." She sounded impatient. With another glance at Bill, she took Doug's hand and led him away.
 

As they started down the hall, Byron shook his head and said, "I bet
you've
had better days."
 

"Not in about a year."

Byron turned his flashlight on a ring of keys he'd taken from his belt, found the right one and unlocked the basement door.

"This is where they keep all the kitchen supplies and the food," Byron said, shining the flashlight into the darkness below as he started down the stairs. "The garlic's probably in the free—" He stopped half way down with Bill right behind him.
 

Sounds.

Movement.

A gasp...a sigh...a giggle...a low, gurgling whimper...

Byron swept the light around the basement until the beam found them: a boy and girl on a coat spread out on the concrete floor. The boy was on his back, jeans pulled down around his knees, the girl squatting atop him, hands flat on his chest as she ground her hips on him until she froze and they both looked up.
 

"Oh, shit!" the boy groaned, scrambling to get up. "Shit, oh
shit
, man,
shit
!" The girl moved of f of him and he began pulling up his pants before he was off the floor.
 

"Kevin?" Byron asked.

Bill watched the girl...

"Kevin, what the
hell
' re you doing?" Byron snapped.
 

...and the girl watched Bill as she slipped into her pants casually.

He whispered to Byron as he pushed by on the way down the stairs, "She's one of them."

Smiling, the girl swept up her coat, saying, "C'mon, Kevin, hurry up."

"Oh, shit, son of a bitch, I'm, shit, man, I'm fucked," Kevin rambled.

The girl's eyes remained on Bill's as he hurried down the stairs and her comfortable smile never faltered. As if without a thought, she bounded up onto the stack of crates beneath the small window, which she tore from its hinges and tossed to the floor where the pane shattered musically; her right leg kicked up expertly, her foot clanged against the upturned garbage dumpster just outside, and the dumpster slammed into the opposite wall, clearing the passage.
 

Kevin had stopped to stare in awe, his belt still unfastened.

Bill and Byron were half way across the room, the flashlight beam dancing through the darkness.

She held out her arm to him and said firmly, "Give me your hand."

"What?"

"
Give me your hand
!"
 

Kevin did as he was told and she swept him off the floor, lifted him in both arms and pushed him out the window smoothly, then started to crawl out after him.
 

Thunder cracked in the room and a brief flash turned the walls white.

The girl slammed against the wall when a glistening black-red flower blossomed in the middle of her back. She bounced from the wall, leaving behind a splash of red, and fell off the crates to the floor where she was still.
 

But only for a moment.

As the two men closed in on her, she sprang to her feet like a gymnast and hunched slightly, arms out at her sides, ready to defend herself. She was still smiling.
 

"
Holy mother
fucking
shit
sweet Jee-zus hear my
prayer
!" Byron bellowed, his feet skidding over the concrete as he quickly backed away, staring at the large black hole between the girl's breasts. He shined the light directly on the wound and saw that it was moving. Raw meat, shedding very little blood, was quivering...undulating...
gelling
...
 

His right hand, clenching the gun, began to convulse as he lifted it to fire again, babbling his horror in a high-pitched string of profanity as Bill dashed toward the girl from the side.
 

She did three things in the same second: she moved three big steps forward in a single leap, swung her right fist into Bill's chest, knocking him into the crates, and kicked up her left leg, connecting with Byron's right hand and sending the gun into the darkness. Then she slapped her hand over his face, pressed her fingers into his fleshy cheeks and pulled him toward her, getting very close.
 

"I'm already dead, you stupid nigger," she rasped, then slugged him in the stomach, slamming him into the wall beneath the stairs.
 

By the time she left the basement to join Kevin outside, the wounds beneath her tattered blood-stained clothes were healed.

As Adelle led him away from Bill and back to the table, Doug watched her and his stomach tightened. It had been bad enough seeing her walking through the dark with, of all people, her ex-husband—Doug recognized him from the family snapshots he'd seen—but the look on her face as she hurried stiffly—nearly
jogged
, in fact—around the tables and chairs told him that something bad was going on.
 

"Adelle, what the hell is the matter?" he asked.

She squeezed his hand. "Not now."

"What do you
mean
, not now? What were you doing with him? And what the hell is he doing
here
?"
 

She stopped and faced him. She was white with panic but managing to hold herself together. It wasn't until that moment that he realized she was trembling all over. "I'll explain in a minute, Doug, I
promise
I will, but first we have to get the girls away from that booth."
 

"Away from the—
why
?"
 

"That man." She nodded toward the booth beside theirs. "We have to get them away from
him
." Before he could ask why, she clutched his shirt in both hands, made a sound that could have been laughter or sobs... or both, closed her eyes and mouth tightly and took a deep breath, speaking quietly and with an exaggerated sort of calm. "Doug, something horrible has happened. Something I couldn't believe if I hadn't seen it. You know I don't panic easily. You know the shit I deal with in ER and you know I handle it pretty well but the truth is that I am about five seconds away from becoming a screaming convulsing vegetable and before that happens I want to get the girls away from that man and into another part of the building. Please, just
please
humor me for now and I'll tell you everything in a minute." Without waiting for him, she hurried to the table, leaned down and began gathering their things as she whispered to the girls.
 

Doug followed them out of the restaurant, stopping to pay their bill and glance back at the man in the booth beside theirs; he seemed agitated and was constantly looking around, as if waiting impatiently for his partner. Hurrying to catch up with Adelle and the girls, Bill went into the travel store, trying to keep himself from becoming too upset until he'd heard Adelle's story.
 

The store was lit by several lanterns and the two cashiers carried flashlights. People milled about in the darkness, their feet shuffling on the floor, their voices blending into a steady drone punctuated by an occasional laugh or a curse from a disgruntled trucker. Adelle went all the way back to the darkened soft drink coolers.
 

"Mom,
what's
going
on
" Dara whined. "I wasn't through eating. I'm
hungry
."
 

Through clenched teeth, Adelle snapped, "Just be quiet and don't—" She stopped suddenly, flinching as if slapped. Her face relaxed and she put an arm around Dara, whispering, "I-I-I'm sorry, honey, I didn't muh-mean to bark at you like that." She embraced the girl for a moment, breathing, "I'm sorry."