Lot Lizards (14 page)

Cody looked both puzzled and irritated and started to pull his arm away when he heard the voice, too.

She shook his arm and said firmly, "That's my
son
, something's wrong with my
son
," as she started out of the room, pulling Cody with her...
 

Bill moved fast, weaving around the trucks, much faster than the big man behind him, although the heavy footsteps were trying to keep up.
 

Stupid
, Bill thought,
what a stupid
, stupid
thing to do, leaving him alone like that when you know they're
—
 

He ducked between the two Carsey Bros, trucks and stopped so fast that his feet slid over the icy pavement.

Jon had done as Bill had told him; he'd stayed where Bill had left him. But now he was not alone.

It was dark between the two trucks, but Bill could see its eyes glistening wetly and the long dark nails that extended from its fingers stood out against the pale skin of Jon's throat. Jon's eyes were wide with panic and his chest jackhammered up and down with rapid breaths.
 

"I could kill him in an instant," it said in a soft, sibilant voice that spoke with the accents of countless languages and seemed slightly garbled, as if there were something in its mouth. Teeth, perhaps. Lots and lots of malformed teeth. "Or I could bleed him. Feed on him. Make him just like you. Would you like that?"
 

Bill considered rushing the thing, wrestling Jon away from it, but he couldn't take his eyes off that black claw, the tip of which pressed delicately on Jon's throat, puckering the flesh.
 

...
she looks...too
different to
go out
, Claude Carsey had said.
 

"God, no," Bill whispered. "Don't do that. Please."

Footsteps crunched through the snow, stopping behind Bill, and the big man muttered, "Oh, Lord in heaven."

"Then bring Mr. Carsey back," the voice hissed, like a needle cutting across ice.

"He's...he's okay."

"I don't care about that. Bring him back."

"Lord in heaven," the man said again, repeating it over and over under his breath.

"Give me my son," Bill said, trying to sound firm, authoritative.

The voice laughed. Rather, it was more of an animal-like sound that
resembled
a laugh than actual human laughter. "What do you want? Why do you follow us?"
 

Bill's mouth worked, but nothing came out. He didn't know what to say; all he knew at the moment was that he wanted his son back.
 

"Do you want to bring us harm?" the voice asked with a sarcastic lilt. "Do you want to bring harm to your own kind?"

"I-I...I'm not your kind."

"But you are. You are."

There were more footsteps then, coming closer at a jog. And a voice.

"Jon? Jonny?"

Bill felt weak with horror. It was A.J.

"Jonathan, are you all ri—" She rounded the back end of one of the black trucks and froze, staring open mouthed at Bill, then at the thing that held their son between them.
 

A sheriff's deputy stepped up beside her, his hand fumbling for his gun once he realized what he was seeing.

"Okay," the deputy said, raising the gun, "just hold it there, just hold it a second. Let the boy go."

They can't see it, either
, Bill thought.
 

The thing shifted in the darkness—it was an unnatural darkness, even darker than the shadows, that seemed to enfold the creature like a blanket—and Bill could see the glistening eyes turn to the deputy, who was stepping forward cautiously.
 

"You hear me?" he called. "Just let the boy go and we'll work this out without anybody getting hurt, okay?" Moving closer, he added firmly: "Right
now
." Closer. "I'm not
playing
with you." Closer still...Bill was going to speak up, warn the deputy, but what could he
say
? He was too late, anyway.
 

Something—Bill suspected it was an arm—whipped out of the darkness so fast that it was little more than a blur and struck the deputy in the chest. Ribs cracked like dry twigs and the deputy left the ground as if caught in a powerful wind. The gun tumbled away from him as his arms and legs flew out in front of him and his body shot across the aisle to the next row of parked trucks. His back slammed into the back of a trailer and he slid to the ground, crumbling into a rag-doll heap in the snow.
 

A.J. screamed. For a moment, she looked as if she were about to dive forward and attack the thing.

The big man behind Bill gasped, "Holy
shit
, what the hell is—"
 

Bill reached back and clutched the man's arm. "Get that woman out of here. Now."

He was around the truck in seconds, standing behind A.J. and holding her shoulders, trying to lead her away. He pulled her backward to the other side of the truck where her cries faded.
 

"Give me my son," Bill said, "and I'll do whatever you want."

"Join us," the black voice hissed without hesitation.

"
What
?"
 

"Travel with us. Hunt with us. You are endangering too many—yourself as well—by traveling alone. You are inexperienced. Ignorant. We can teach you. I can teach you. After all," it whispered slowly, almost sensuously, "you
are
one of my own."
 

"I don't need to travel with anyone. I've done fine for a year."

"Then why have you followed us?"

"To...to stop you."

It laughed. "Stop us? From doing what we must do? What you must do, as well?"

"No," he said, his voice low as it came through clenched teeth. "No, I don't kill. I don't hurt anyone."

"Then you will
die
!" the voice said happily. "You will grow weaker and weaker until you cannot move. And you will whither away. Surely you're feeling it already, aren't you?"
 

"No."

"Mmm. You don't lie well. You feed on animals? Or perhaps you steal the blood. From hospitals, I suppose. Many have tried that. The weak ones always do at first, the sentimental ones. But they soon learn that it is not the same. They grow weak, then ill. They learn something. You will learn it, too. Unless you feed on living humans, unless you drink warm blood still pumping through human veins and arteries, you will die. It is a wonderful way of weeding out the weaklings. Survival of the fittest, and all that. So. If you are not hunting, I do not believe that you are in good health." It laughed again. "You're dying already."
 

Bill looked at Jon, who seemed to be staring at something far in the distance; he seemed unaware of everything around him.

"Why was this done to me?" Bill asked.

"A mistake. It happens. It cannot be undone. You accept your situation or you don't. Which shall it be, Mr. Ketter?"

"Let my son go."

Bill saw the shadow-like shape of a long slender arm stretch out toward him in the darkness.

"Come to me first."

The black claws were smooth and glistening. The long boney fingers, skin flour white, beckoned gracefully.

"Dad?" Jon whimpered, as if he'd just awoke from a bad dream. "Dad? What's...what're you—"

"It's all right, Jon. Everything's all right." He tried to smile at his wide-eyed son, thinking that whatever was to come would be far better than watching Jon die. He stepped forward cautiously, nodding slowly, saying to the creature, "Okay. Fine. I'll come to you. But you've got to let my son—"
 

The enormous man appeared at the other end of the trucks, arms raised above his head, both hands clutching a yard-long winch bar. It remained suspended there for an instant, just long enough for light to sparkle on the chrome. Then it started downward.
 

The creature moved in a blur.

Bill cried out, "
Nooo
!"
 

Jon released a terrified, confused scream that was cut off instantly as he was pulled into the darkness and out of sight.

The milky white arm swept up, long fingers wrapped around the black man's wrist and he screamed, dropping the winch. It clattered to the ground behind him and he was pushed backward; he hit the pavement rolling through the dirty slush, grunting painfully until he slammed into the rear tires of a truck across the aisle.
 

"Not
nice
, Mr. Ketter," the creature hissed. "I've
changed
my
mind
." The creature swept around the back of the trailer in a whispering haze of darkness and Bill heard the door slide up with a rumble.
 

Feeling numb with fear, he stumbled forward as he heard Jon's cries cut short when his thin body tumbled into the trailer.

Bill rounded the trailer and looked into the square of blackness in which he could see, very faintly, a pale, hideous face, inhuman, with a glistening, grinning snout full of white needles.
 

He froze.

"Your time is running out," the face rasped, a thin pink tongue flickering behind the fangs. "You are growing weaker. You are becoming ill. You'll die soon. For good. You are no longer a threat. You are...a pity."
 

The door slammed down with a metallic explosion and then—

—the night was silent except for the wind that blew curtains of snowflakes in white swirls.

Bill's teeth crunched as they ground together. His fists clenched until his nails dug into his palms. He heard a low growl rising from his chest and—
 

—he threw himself against the trailer's door, his fists pounding the metal, echoing like thunder on the other side as he screamed incoherently. He grabbed the latch and jerked on it, throwing his whole weight into the effort. In a moment, he collapsed to his knees, weakened and trembling, his head hanging between his shoulders, chin pressed to his thin chest.
 

Behind him, the black man groaned as he climbed to his feet.

And a soft, sniffling voice whispered, "Bill? Buh-Bill, is...that you?"

Only when he lifted his head did he realize there were tears in his eyes and his stomach was hitching spastically, more from nausea than sobs. He looked over his shoulder to see A.J. standing a few yards away.

"Bill?" she said again, just a breath this time.

He nodded jerkily.

For a long time, they just stared at one another as the snow fell...

CHAPTER 12

Although it was a busy night at the truck stop, no one responded to the screaming and shouting in the back lot. The wind had picked up considerably and the night was a white blur of snow; the engines of both cars and trucks blended into a constant idling thrum and people at the gas islands had to shout to one another to be heard above it all. Even those who
did
hear the agonized screams of Bill and Adelle Ketter had other things on their minds...
 

Delbert Terry had been kicking back in his sleeper, huddled beneath blankets, warmed by his heated bed pad and reading a Louis L'Amour novel as he made his way to the bottom of his second can of barbecue flavored Pringles. One of those late night talk shows was on his radio and when he tired of reading, he'd listen to the lamentations of faceless Americans who had called the show's toll free number. He was more than willing to forego a hot meal and coffee inside the crowded noisy truck stop; he preferred the quiet, warm solitude of his sleeper. Besides...
 

...he was horny.

The knock on the cab came just as a woman on the radio began to sob because her white upper middle class daughter was pregnant by and in love with a black man who had just gone to prison for selling drugs.
 

Delbert smiled and put down his book, flicked the radio off and called, "Yeah?"

No response.

He tossed the blankets aside and got up. "What?"

"Want some company?" A small, thin voice. Young.

Delbert liked them young.

He opened the sleeper door and looked down at the small girl bundled in a heavy coat. She smiled up at him, her face pale, eyes heavy with a sexy, sleepy look. Delbert leaned out, offered his hand and chuckled, "C'mon up, honey."
 

She was light as a feather...

Lumpy Turner met his company for the evening when he returned to his truck after dinner. She was leaning against his fender smoking a cigarette, apparently unaware of the snow and biting wind, tall and slender with a face like a movie star— a little on the pasty side, but
damned
fine—and lips that set Lumpy's imagination racing.
 

"What can I do you for, missy?" Lumpy asked with a grin, knowing what he
wanted
to do her for.
 

When she spoke, the wind whipped smoke from her mouth violently: "You can start by opening up and letting me in."