Wormfood (27 page)

“Wait … wait. We don’t even have the same blood type,” I croaked. Of course, I was just guessing, but it seemed like the smart thing to say.

Pearl smiled at me again, and it was clear that she could care less. “Blood is blood,” she whispered, sliding her finger down my forehead. “It don’t matter when life is leaving.” Her touch on my nose left something warm and slimy behind. After a moment, I realized she was marking me, painting something on my face. “Everything you think you know, all your science, all your books and facts and bullshit, it means nothing. Nothing. There are forces out there, powers beyond what is known, out beyond your pathetic nightmares, little boy.”

She turned to Bert after finishing with me, and dipped her finger into a bowl filled with something black. She left a streak of the liquid straight down his bare chest. On either side of the line, she started drawing weird symbols and shapes, mostly around Bert’s heart. “I can read clouds. I can hear what the wind whispers. I can see in the dark.” She dug around in her bag for a moment, pulled out some kind of metal shaft. It glinted in the gray light and I realized it was a goddamn scalpel.

Without hesitating, she bent back over Bert and started tracing the lines with the scalpel. Blood seeped out, ran down his chest. “I can talk to snakes. To wasps. To cockroaches. To worms,” Pearl said proudly. “And I can control blood. Hell, I brought Junior back three times now.” She looked across me to Junior, standing on the other side of the bar. “‘Member that truck? Thought you’d never wake up. Good thing that driver was a big pig of a man, held a lot of blood in all that fat.”

My blood continued to drain down the tube, into Bert.

Pearl started chanting something in her hissing, garbled voice as she cut into Bert, carving, slicing, permanently etching those strange shapes and symbols into his flesh. It sounded a lot like what she had been singing when I had seen her at the burn barrel in her backyard that night we slaughtered the steer.
I’m not dying like this
, I thought.
Not like this, with my blood slowly being siphoned out of me like some asshole sucking gas out of a car’s goddamn gas tank
.

I tried to raise my right hand but couldn’t. I rolled my head over to the side and found out why. Junior was holding me down against the bar. I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, nothing. My life kept slipping away, my blood being sucked out of me, down into Bert’s cold, white body. This wasn’t fair. I didn’t want to die. Not like this. “Please stop,” I whispered.

Pearl stopped chanting long enough to say, “Not yet. Not yet.”

“Please don’t,” I said. Cold lethargy settled through my limbs, anchoring my body to the smooth finished wood of the bar. I wished Misty would say something, anything, now; I didn’t care what they did to her. But I couldn’t see where she was. The reality of the situation hit me hard. No one was going to save me. I realized with an absolute certainty that I was going to die; I was going to die, my blood stolen, drop by drop. I had to think fast. But my mind was a blank gray slate. Nothing.

Pearl resumed chanting, cutting away at Bert.

My blood kept sliding away, my unforgiving, betraying heartunknowingly pumping it out of my arm, down the greasy tubing. Something sparked in my mind, fizzled quietly. I blurted out, “I know where the buckle is.”

Silence filled the restaurant.

“Bullshit,” Junior said.

I sensed Pearl watching me, so I said, “I know where it is. I know where Fat Ernst hid it. I watched him.”

“Is that so,” Pearl said quietly.

“He hid it in one of the hamburgers,” I whispered. “I saw him.”

“In the hamburgers?” Pearl asked.

“Yes, I saw it.”

“Well,” Junior said, “thanks for the tip, Archie. We appreciate it.”

I spoke fast, feeling a faint numbness creeping through my body. “Kill me and you’ll never find it.” That got their attention. “It’s not in the fridge. I put the meat somewhere else.”

Pearl grabbed my chin, jerking my head over so I was staring into her melted-wax face. “Where is it?”

I stared her dead in the eye and repeated, “Kill me and you’ll never find it.” Pulling my right arm out of Junior’s grip, I reached over and yanked the needle out.

Pearl looked down at Bert. She reached out and touched his neck, feeling for a pulse. After a moment, she said, “He’s back with us.” She turned her attention back to me and nodded. “He’s alive but just barely. You show us where the buckle is, and we’ll let you go.” She said evenly, “If I find out you’re lying, I’m gonna cut off your dick and choke you with it. Then I’ll feed you to the worms. Understood?”

I nodded. “And if I give you the buckle, you’ll let me and Misty go.”

Junior grinned when I mentioned Misty.

Pearl said, “Of course.”

“Okay. I’ll give it to you. But I’m gonna need gloves, a plank out of the wall over there, your snow shovel, and a shitload of duct tape.”

Junior shouldered his way through the dangling insulation and splintered wall back into the restaurant, stomping across the Cadillac’s hood, carrying what I needed. He pulled me off the bar and held me up as my legs found the strength to stand. I swayed back and forth, dizzy from the loss of blood, feeling empty somehow. I looked up, found Misty watching me carefully from her place in the booth. We locked eyes for a brief instant, but it was enough. Enough for her to wink, slowly, deliberately. Enough to know that she was worried about me, that she was with me.

“Where is it?” Junior asked, clamping his fist around the back of my neck.

“Out back,” I gasped, and felt my feet almost lifted off the floor as Junior marched me along, slamming my face into the swinging kitchen door. He shoved me into the stove, hard enough to drive the air out of my chest in one quick rush. I watched the tiny blue pilot light dance and disappear. Before I had a chance to take another breath, Junior yanked open the back door and threw me out onto the loading dock. I hit the wet wood and rolled to the edge, nearly falling into the open Dumpster.

The rain was still falling. I put one hand on the metal edge of the Dumpster. It was almost completely filled with black rainwater. Several dark lumps floated at the scummy surface. I pushed myself to my feet, scanning the horizon frantically for any signs of help. Nothing but water and the distant trees lining the freeway. Another foot and the water would be washing over the loading dock. Everything, as far as I could see, was under at least three or four feet of floodwater, leaving a surging brown landscape of foam, trash, and floating cornstalks.

And somewhere down there, down in the cold water and mud, the worms waited.

Junior smoothed his pompadour back and stepped closer. “Where is it?”

I tilted my head at the Dumpster. “In there.”

Junior shook his head, dropped the plank onto the dock, and tossed the gloves and duct tape at me. While I got ready, the water got higher, rising another three, four inches. In about an hour or so it was going to wash over the loading dock and into the restaurant, covering the floor. I stood at the edge of the loading dock, looking down into the Dumpster. My arms were wrapped with several layers of duct tape from my shoulders down to my wrists. Huge leather gloves encased my hands, floppy leather fingers sticking out at least two to three inches from the tips of my fingers.

Junior waited impatiently on the other side of the shovel, arms crossed, ignoring the rain that ran through his hair and left greasy trails down his face. Pearl waited in the doorway, out of the rain. She said she didn’t want the rain ruining her makeup. But she kept a tight grip on Misty’s leash.

Misty watched silently from near the doorway.

I hoped my guess about the buckle was right. At first, I had thought that Fat Ernst would have hidden it in his Cadillac, but that would have been too obvious. Then, at the last second, I remembered the glint of something shiny peeking through the raw hamburger meat when I dumped the boxes in the Dumpster. It was time to find out.

I dropped the plank across the Dumpster, shook it to make sure it would hold, and eased out over the black water. I’d wrapped duct tape around my boots and legs, up my knees, as well. I was hoping it would be enough to stop the worms from chewing through to my skin but had no way of knowing whether it would work. I inched out to the center of the plank, keeping my butt planted firmly on the splintered wood, legs splayed, feet braced against the top of the Dumpster walls.

Junior handed me the shovel and said, “You got five minutes, zipperhead. After that, no buckle … no more nice safe seat.” He put his boot on the edge of the plank and gave it a little shove to demonstrate.

I held the shovel on my lap, taking several deep breaths. The stench coming out of the Dumpster reminded me of Slim’s pit. Actually, the two places weren’t too different. Both were full of rainwater, rotting meat, and the goddamn worms. Except this Dumpster was worse. There wasn’t just rotting meat under that water; Heck’s body was somewhere down there too. I didn’t want to think about what the worms had done to him. So I held my breath, got a good, solid grasp on the handle, and slowly sank the tip of the blade into the thick black water.

Instantly, thousands of tiny worms rose to the surface. It was worse than I had thought. Not only had Heck’s body been infested with the worms, the meat from the boxes was also full of them. There had been plenty of food, plenty of water, and plenty of time. And now the Dumpster was literally teeming with thousands, maybe millions of worms. My skin started to crawl, and it was all I could do not to drop the shovel and roll back onto the loading dock.

“Four minutes,” Junior said, as if reading my mind. He wasn’t wearing a watch, and I knew I was at the mercy of his patience.

I forced the shovel deeper into the muck, trying to remember where exactly that bottom box had landed. The handle kept slipping deeper and deeper into the rancid water, until just six inches remained above the surface. I prayed it wasn’t Heck’s body when the blade strucksomething rigid. I pushed the handle forward, bracing it on my knee then pushing down, using my knee as a lever. The resistance split, and the shovel slid into the mass easily.

And while I prayed I hadn’t touched Heck’s body with the shovel, I prayed harder that the plank was strong enough to handle the extra pressure.

The plank held and the shovel blade broke the surface. The soggy, shredded remains of a white box slipped off the side and landed in the water with a
plop
. A mound of gray, raw hamburger meat rested on top of the blade. Hundreds of tiny worms squirmed and wriggled in and out of the meat, spilling away and falling back into the water. I jiggled the handle a little, slowly shaking chunks of hamburger meat off the shovel. Soon the meat was gone. No buckle.

“Three minutes,” Junior reminded me.

I stuck the shovel back in, deeper this time, not worrying about whether I hit Heck’s body or not. I tried again, scooping up a giant, soggy mound of squirming meat, but the buckle wasn’t there.

“Two fucking minutes,” Junior said, and slid the plank sideways a few inches, almost pitching me into the water. I shoved the shovel into the water, again and again, bringing up dripping piles of meat. Once I brought up a ragged piece of Heck’s shirt. I forced myself not to worry about it, just to keep going.

Pearl, who had been silently watching from the doorway the whole time, finally spoke up and said, “That’s enough. It ain’t out here. This little shit has wasted enough of our time.”

I kept pulling meat out of the Dumpster. “But it’s in here, I know it.” I jabbed the shovel back into the water. “Just give me a little more time. It’s in here.”

Junior leaned harder on the plank. “Time’s up, Archie.”

I struggled to lift one more shovelful. As usual, the blade was heaped with meat and alive with worms. I started twisting the handle back and forth, same as every other try, dribbling little bits and pieces into the flooded Dumpster. I didn’t know what else to do.

Out of the corner of my eye, Junior stood up, putting most of his weight onto his left foot, as his right foot slid across the plank and prepared to kick it into the Dumpster.

And then I saw it at the end of the shovel. The buckle.

Covered in gray hamburger meat, a golden notched edge hung out over the side of the shovel blade. The diamonds captured the somber dark light that filtered down out of the storm clouds and flung that dead light back out into the air in brilliant sparkling patterns.
Here’s my chance
, I thought, and got a better grip on the shovel’s handle.

“I’ll be damned,” Junior breathed, still leaning back, right foot resting against the edge of the board.

I jerked the shovel away from the water, twisting my upper body around as fast as I could, flinging the mound of meat up into Junior’s face.

Junior jumped, faster than I had guessed, and most of the meat, maybe seven, eight pounds of it, hit Junior in the throat. A little stuck to his face, his eyes, his mouth. It was enough to distract him when he landed heavily at the side of the Dumpster and fought for his balance. The buckle bounced off his ear and went sailing toward the back wall of the restaurant.

Pearl screamed something, a shrill, jagged sound that echoed out across the floodwater. She rushed at her son in a stuttering, crablike movement, but Misty grabbed hold of the leash, right up near her throat, and yanked Pearl back.

Junior lost his fight with gravity and landed on my shoulder and right side hard, slamming me sideways into the plank. The wood groaned and cracked. I swung the empty shovel back around, like I was trying to hit myself in the head and managed to strike Junior’s neck, but he barely noticed it. He balled up his fist and hit me in the temple before I even had a chance to let the shovel fall back away and reverse my grip.

My head bounced off the plank and stars burst behind my eyes.

Junior clamped his hands around my throat and sank his knee intomy stomach. I couldn’t breathe. My left leg fell off the plank. I hoped the duct tape was thick enough to stop the worms.

Arms taut and shivering, Junior stared down at me through slitted eyes, lips pulled back, yellow teeth clenched and bared in a wild and savage grin. “Motherfucking piece of shit.”