HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (20 page)

She turned and ran
from the barn, throwing aside the thoughts that racked her mind. She
was not a child; she had never been a child. Not ever.

She knew the boy was
watching, but he wouldn’t remember her or stealing the food
from his mother’s kitchen. He wouldn’t remember a thing.

CHAPTER 22

WESTWARD TRAVEL,
HO

A farmer picked up
Nick and took him twenty miles west. Afterward he walked three more
miles before the sun set. He slept at the base of a lone leafy tree
that grew near a dried waterbed. The next day he caught a ride with a
traveling salesman who took him out of the state of Texas and dropped
him off in a little town in New Mexico. Nick found Mexican food at a
little cart parked on the street—soft tacos filled with
shredded pork and peppers. After walking a while, he found and
rented a room at a dusty courtyard motel called Piney Inn. There he
showered and slept the sleep of the dead until late morning.

When he woke he
realized he had done little thinking or planning for his future. He
counted the money he had left and knew it would last a month, maybe
two if he was careful. But eventually he would have to stop
traveling and make more money. He knew Arizona lay beyond New Mexico
and decided that is where he would stop, at least for a while. He
was now several states away from Angelique. He had a short reprieve
from her, affording him enough time to gather himself and replenish
his resources. He couldn't chance going into a bank and requesting
money from their accounts in Charlotte. Angelique would be watching
for that.

It took him two more
days of walking and hitchhiking to get to Phoenix. It was a dusty
town, hot baking tarmac and buildings that looked naked and stunned
under the relentless sun. It felt like a warehouse town, a sprawling
outpost in the desert. He found quarters in a rooming house right
away, the next day secured a job with a grocer, and settled in to
think about where he was going.

Another young man
worked at Peeble’s Grocery. Knowing no strangers, only
friends, he struck up a fast friendship with Nick. Holding out a
hand the size of a slab of beef steak he said, “Hiya, I’m
Dodge, Dodge Carter. Where you hanging your hat in town?”

Nick liked him
immediately. Not only because he was so open and friendly, but
because the look in his eyes said, I’m trustworthy. I’m
exactly what you see, that’s what you get. I’m not going
to be a problem to anybody.

He was a big boy,
over six feet-three inches tall with shoulders like a football
linebacker. His hair was sandy blonde, his eyes a cool green. When
he smiled his mouth went lopsided, giving his big-jawed,
stubble-bearded face a charming, innocent look.

The first night in
town, Dodge took him to a bar after work at the grocery. While
playing three games of pool, Nick learned all about his new friend’s
past.

“
Been on my
own since I was fifteen,” Dodge said, but there was no
self-pity in the confession. “My folks wanted to head back to
Oklahoma, where we’d come from when I was six, and I didn’t
want to go. Phoenix ain’t no New York City, but it’s
better than a forty acre farm in the middle of Okie nowhere, I tell
you that.”

“
They let you
stay behind alone at fifteen?” Nick asked.

Dodge shrugged. “Had
no choice but to leave me. I ran off from home while they were still
packing.” He grinned and that lopsided smile caused Nick to
smile back.

“
I honked
around this town for almost a year, picking up a little money doing
yard chores, running errands, selling newspapers. I slept in
culverts and cleaned up in gas station men’s rooms. When I was
sixteen I came by Peeble’s and checked in for whatever work
they might have. Mr. Peeble took a direct interest in me being on my
own and all. He put me in a little apartment he had over his garage,
gave me work, and look at me now. I'm a real made man. I’m the
produce man, the produce manager himself, king of the cucumbers and
watermelons!”

Nick laughed with
his new friend, liking him very much.

Dodge and Nick made
the pool playing a weekly event. Dodge didn’t have a steady
girlfriend, much to his chagrin, and the two young men got along so
well.

Then came the night
when Evil walked through the door of Peebles Grocery. Dodge was
acting manager on the night shift, Nick worked stocking shelves, and
a lone cashier filed her nails between the few customers who ventured
out after dark. It would be an hour before they closed.

In walked two boys,
not yet eighteen by the looks of them, and the one in the lead had
the eyes. They were dark with death. The boy was not on drugs or
liquor, nor was he in some kind of emotional rage left over from some
kind of argument. No, Nick could see the look in this boy’s
eyes came from deep inside where it had been festering for years,
maybe eons. He was in no way supernatural. He was deeply human and
a born killer.

Passing the cashier,
ignoring her, and she ignoring them, they walked down the aisle past
Nick. They both wore long brown dusters, and both were Hispanic.
The one with the look in his eyes was taller, broader, but still
under six foot. His hair was cut in ragged patches as if an insane
barber had been wielding the scissors. The boy who followed behind
had a scared rabbit look on his face, which made him almost as
dangerous as his buddy.

Nick stood from
where he was crouched before a shelf, two cans of green peas in his
hand. He almost threw them at the boys; his muscles contracted, his
instinct was to bring on an assault. Instead, he set the cans on the
shelf carefully and followed the boys who had turned the aisle corner
and were out of sight.

Nick’s heart
raced. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been around evil humans
before. He had stopped or averted several attacks on both himself
and Angelique over the long years they had been together. The evil
ones in the human population were fewer than other humans believed.
To be truly evil, a person had to give up all that was decent and
compassionate in his soul. Such a person gave up the most human part
of himself—his conscience. Not that many were able to really
eradicate all vestiges of love, hope, and desire for approval. When
they did, that’s when evil creeped in and took hold, killing
the good soul, and the conscience that controlled that soul, little
by little until it vanished forever.

Nick knew something
was about to happen. These boys in the store were up to no good;
they were up to murder. And Dodge was working the produce on the
last aisle, the direction the boys were headed. He could not let them
harm Dodge. Dodge was one of the pure souls, also few on the earth,
that Nick had ever met. The thought of him being in imminent danger
made Nick’s insides quake. He could feel the skin and muscles
of his back expand and contract. It was the itch and the strain of
wings, black wings, the wings of a Fallen One ready to wreak havoc,
ready and willing to bring down Hell and Damnation.

Nick turned the
corner of the aisle just in time to see Dodge pushed up against the
vegetable bins, his face screwed up like the mechanism on a wind-up
toy. He was a man in the throes of several emotions vying for
predominance--startlement, anger, confusion, and a fleeting shadow of
fear he couldn’t conceal.

The evil boy had
Dodge by the shirt front, pushing at him, and the other boy held onto
one of his arms. There was a gun pointed to Dodge’s cheek.

Nick roared. He
didn’t think about it, didn’t plan it, didn’t know
he was even doing it, but a roar came from his wide open mouth and it
sounded like two words running together, “DODDDGGENOOOOOO!”

The kid pulled the
trigger and the left side of Dodge’s head blew out in a red
spray of brains and blood, covering yellow squash and green heads of
cabbage. Dodge slumped toward the floor, his life gone. The kid who
shot him let him go and was running away, the other boy behind him
shouting for him to wait, wait, wait for me!

Nick couldn’t
move. He was paralyzed with the pain of loss, with disgust at
humanity, with a sudden stab to his heart. He had seen death, had
even witnessed murder, but this was someone who did not, in any way,
deserve his fate. This was a travesty, a loss on a grand scale for
the universe.

On a dark starry
night, with nothing more pressing in Dodge’s thoughts than how
to make the squash display look beautiful, an evil, out-of-control
boy walked up and blew Dodge’s brains out. That wasn't right.
In no universe and in no galaxy was that right.

Now Nick moved.
Anger overcame astonishment and Nick was flying down the aisle after
the killers. He knew there was nothing he could do for Dodge
anymore, nothing. Dodge was no longer among the living.

The cashier was
screaming as Nick passed her, but the sound was muffled and far away
in Nick’s ears. The roar he had made now came from inside his
brain, drowning out half the world. He hit the door, slamming it so
hard it hit the inside wall and glass shattered. On the sidewalk,
Nick paused only a second. He saw the two figures dressed in brown
duster coats rushing across the street, heading for an alleyway.

Now was the time for
wings. Now was the time of destruction and vengeance. The great
black appendages tore cloth, rending it in tattered shreds as if
reflecting their owner's fury. The tips rose, the black, shiny
feathers spread, ruffling in the wind, and Nick rose from the ground
in flight. He caught both boys at the mouth of the alley, taking
them each by the scruff of the neck, and hauling them, feet dragging,
screaming, toward the darkness between the retail buildings. He
slammed them forward, letting go, and they careened headlong into a
red brick wall, shadows swallowing them, the night sucking their
fearful cries into silence.

Nick set down on his
feet. His wings folded. He was formidable, his visage from a horror
magazine—brows furrowed, eyes ablaze, lips held hard in a
straight unforgiving line. He stood looking at the boy who had
pulled the trigger. The gun was no where in sight. He might have
dropped it or stuffed it in the pocket of his large brown coat. “Why
did you do that?” Nick asked, his voice like doom come calling.

The boy tried to get
his breath and arrange his senses. Blood spilled down his forehead
into his dark eyes. He looked quickly at his companion and saw the
other boy was unconscious…or dead.

“
WHY DID YOU
DO THAT?” Nick shouted. The brick walls reverberated with his
rage.

“
He said he
wouldn't open the safe…”

“
Your heart, a
dead thing, is mine, boy. You have two minutes to make your peace
before you are sent to Hell. Dodge was a good man, a young man just
beginning to live his life, and you came along and took that life
away. Now what do you have to say for yourself, you viper, you
belly-crawling reptile?”

“
He said…he
said he wouldn’t open it. He said…he said he loved his
job and he wouldn’t do it.”

“
So you shot
him. Pulled the trigger and blew away a man worth a thousand of you,
killed his good, pure heart, emptied his innocent brain, dropped him
into the netherworld without a thought.”

“
I…I…”

The boy could not
get over his stuttering and as Nick approached, now lifting and again
spreading his wings, silence filled the alley.

Though the boy could
not utter a sound, his eyes now filled with a fury of his own and
Nick recognized it. It was fury over the unfairness of his life, of
lost opportunities, of missed chances and untasted desires. It was
defiant and without regret. The boy’s mouth widened into a
grimacing smile, the smile of a clown, the smile of a man who knows
he is dead but he just hasn’t stopped breathing yet. “Fuck
you,” the boy said and spit toward Nick. “I wanna die
anyway, you monster, you demon, you devil! Come and get me!”

And Nick did as he
was told. He reached down and snapped the boy’s neck like
breaking the neck of a chicken. He then flung the boy across the
alley, smashing his limp body into the opposite wall.

Nick was breathing
hard and found tears on his face. He had not cried since he had lost
his beloved wife. He didn’t know there were so many tears in
him and that living in this human form allowed him to feel such
immense grief that it was like a tsunami of an order beyond
understanding. It threatened to engulf and consume him.

He backed away,
leaving the second boy in the alley. He’d direct the police to
him, saying he saw them flee into the alley, let the law deal with
his crime. They would wonder what happened to the other boy, the
dead one, but there were no witnesses to tell what happened. It would
end as a mystery, the same as the reason two crazy kids might march
into a late night grocery and in cold blood murder Dodge Carter for
refusing to open a safe.