Lot Lizards (19 page)

"What about the queen? What about your son?"

Bill closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. "I just...don't know."

CHAPTER 15

Although she was wrapped tightly in a blanket with only her head exposed from her nose up, Shawna was not completely shielded from the bone chilling cold. But even the cold was overpowered by her fear.
 

She and the blond and the girl in the ski cap hid behind a large oak tree in Shawna's front yard as a group of four young people—two boys and a girl—strolled down the nearly deserted road in front of the house heading toward the truck stop.
 

"Oh, c'mon," the girl in the ski cap said in a voice that was no louder than the subtlest breeze, "they won't see us."

"They won't see
us
," the blond replied, "but the girl is different."
 

"Yeah, but you know how she gets when we're gone too long, and we've been gone too long already."

How who gets
? Shawna wondered frantically. Who
are they talking bout
?
 

The ski cap girl continued: "I
told
you we should've taken one from the truck stop and—"
 

"And set off a panic? A search? While everybody's snowed in?"

The two couples in the road stopped for a snowball fight, then began making a snowman on the road's shoulder, laughing and exchanging jovial profanities, their voices carrying in the night.
 

So they waited for safety while Shawna trembled...

... and while Byron shined his flashlight cautiously into the trailer Bill had pointed out. The Carsey brothers had refused to tell them which key opened the lock—Phil had said, "I won't tell you because I don't want to kill you. You wanna die, you figure it out yourself."—so Byron had tried one after another until one worked. Bill remained invisible in the darkness, keeping a safe distance from the garlic that Byron had loaded into two small heavy duty boxes. Bill looked bad,
really
bad, like he was dying—
He's already
dead, Byron thought humorlessly— and Byron was more afraid than he'd ever been; he was afraid that he couldn't do this alone if Bill died...in fact, he was
sure
of it.
 

Once he'd slid the door upward, the flashlight's beam cut through the trailer's blackness and spilled over shiny black rectangular boxes. Caskets. Maybe thirty or more. In nice neat rows.
 

"Hoooo-leeee
shit
," Byron breathed.
 

He and Bill had agreed, somewhat reluctantly, that as soon as Byron had put garlic in all the caskets they could get to, so the girls couldn't return to the safety of their truck before sunrise, they would have to explain the situation to everyone in the truck stop. Once the girls realized their predicament, they would try to come inside, so the rest of the garlic would have to be spread all around the outside of the building until after daylight. Then they would take it from there. They were afraid, however, that there would not be enough garlic in the basement to be effective. In fact, having looked over the supply, they were almost
certain
there wouldn't be enough, in which case they would have to enlist the help of the other people in the building. Both of them were afraid, however, that no one would believe them, that they would be up against a number of very annoyed, and perhaps very amused, people, not to mention a few pissed off truckers looking for a fight.
 

"What is it?" Bill responded in a whisper from somewhere in the dark.

"Well...if everybody could see this, maybe they'd listen to what we have to say. Caskets. Lotsa caskets." He hefted the two boxes of garlic into the trailer then climbed in himself, taking his .38 from his jacket pocket. Any one of the caskets could be occupied and Byron felt his knees trembling. He reached down with his left hand, which held the flashlight, touched the lid of the closest casket, waited a moment, then threw it open.
 

Empty.

Putting his gun back in his pocket, he scooped a handful of garlic cloves out of the box and scattered them in the casket, then another handful. Then he lowered the lid.
 

Bill had warned him that the creature in the next truck—the queen—might be aware of what he was doing, so Byron kept looking over his shoulder at the open door, nervous, afraid. But he continued what he was doing—putting two handfuls of garlic cloves in each casket—as quickly as he could, then scattered the remaining cloves around the trailer floor before grabbing the boxes and hurrying back out. He pulled the door down, hopped off the bumper and he and Bill returned to the truck stop to spread the news, wondering if the queen in the next truck had sensed what they'd done...
 

...and under other circumstances, she might have. But, at the moment, she was terribly preoccupied. With her hunger.

In the trailer with the creature, Jon was literally numb with fear; he could neither move nor feel his limbs and remained curled up in the dark, back pressed to the wall of the trailer. But he could still see and hear.
 

There was constant movement in the thick darkness and the sound of dry skin rubbing together, of hard claws clicking against one another. And the sounds the creature made in her throat...
 

Gurgling sounds...hisses... wet, bitter mumblings.

"'
Yes
, Mistress,' they said...'we'll be quick...you won't hunger long...'"
 

He felt the touch of her trembling fingers on his face now and then, like the caress of dead snakes, and she stroked his hair sometimes as she rambled on and on, her voice bubbling in her throat like boiling blood.
 

"I may not be able to wait child...do you know what that means? You
are
beautiful. Do you know that I can hear your heart beating?"
 

He said nothing, just held his breath for a long while.

"Do you know that I can
feel
your heart beating without even
touching
you? Do you know that? I could rip your heart out so fast you would still see it beating. I could feed it to you before you lost consciousness. Your heart...your beautiful beating heart..." Her voice became a terrifying growl, almost a rumble: "Where are those little
sluts
?" And then—
 

—silence. Nothing.

What's she doing
? Jon thought frantically.
What's she doing that's so quiet and why isn't Dad here and where did everybody go and WHAT IS SHE DOING?

The silence continued...

... as Jenny got a cigarette break and headed straight for the telephone behind the register.

"It's out," the cashier said as Jenny picked up the receiver.

"What, all of them?"

"All the ones in here, anyway. They're electronic, remember? All that
computerized
shit," she spat. "Might wanna try the payphone out front."
 

Jenny rolled her eyes and fished through her pocket for change as she pushed through the crowd toward the front entrance, not bothering to grab her coat.
 

Her whole body tensed when she stepped out into the cold. She squinted against the stinging snowflakes and cursed when her stiff fingers fumbled with the quarter then punched the wrong number into the telephone. She got a ring on her second try.
 

It rang four times. Six. Eight.

"C'mon, Grace," she muttered, her breath billowing from between chattering teeth, "pick up the damned phone."

A dozen times. Fourteen.

Jenny's throat felt tight when she hung up and tried again.

Still no answer.

What could be wrong
? she wondered, glancing toward her house. It was so dark, though, there seemed to be no house there at all.
 

"Oh, Lord," she said aloud, depositing the quarter again. "Oh, Lord..."

...inside the truck stop, Bill and Byron approached Adelle, Doug and the girls in the travel store and Bill explained what Byron had done.
 

Doug took Bill's arm and led him away to a rack of black Harley-Davidson teddies. Byron followed.

"Listen," Doug whispered firmly, "I'm not sure exactly what's going on here, but if this is some kind of prank, a hoax to get your wife back, or something, I'll throw you into court so fast you'll wish it had never crossed your mind."
 

Bill started to speak, but Byron beat him to it: "Hey, friend, if this is a hoax, it's got Allen Funt beat all to hell. Besides, I would've kicked the shit outta this guy by now, he was trying to pull something over. But it's no hoax and we ain't got
no
time to deal with you right now."
 

"It's okay, Byron," Bill said calmly. "Look, Doug, all I want to do is save my son, okay?" In a whisper, he added, "If that's still possible. Afterwards, you'll never see me again. I swear."
 

Doug softened then, averting his eyes a moment. "If s just...the whole thing is so—"

"—yeah, crazy, I know," Bill interrupted. "But we've gotta live with it." He slapped Doug on the shoulder and turned to Byron, nodding toward the restaurant as he said, "Let's go..."
 

...while outside, the blond carried Shawna effortlessly over a snowy field toward the truck stop. With each jarring footstep, Shawna felt colder and more terrified—even when it seemed she could never be more terrified—of her destination.
 

We're gonna take you to see somebody...somebody who'll like you a whooole lot...

...
a whooole lot
...
 

The way the girl had said it—with a voice full of meanness and a snide smile framing her blood-darkened teeth—made Shawna shudder more than did the cold.
 

They crossed the field diagonally, heading for the rear of the truck stop. After going over two fences and pushing through the surrounding hedges, they entered the back lot, creeping between the rows of parked trucks until—
 

—the blond froze, stiffened and pressed her fingers hard into Shawna's back and shoulder.

The girl in the ski cap dropped to her knees holding her head and began to cry softly.

The blond staggered, trembling, and fell to one knee making grunting sounds. And then—

—it was over.

The girl in the ski cap sobbed.

The blond gasped, "She's angry. We've taken too long."

"I told you, dammit, I
told
you."
 

"Just shut up. We'll have to hurry, that’s all."

Shawna was lifted again and the girls quickened their pace...

...as Jon's heart quickened its pace. The creature was growing more enraged. He sensed her moving about in the darkness, caught glimpses of her as she paced, heard her claws clicking together and her fangs making snick-snick sounds as her jaws opened and closed. She made a sudden movement in the darkness and Jon felt her hands on his shoulders, could see the vague outline of her head directly in front of his face and heard an odd rustling sound...like sheets of leather being shaken...
 

She stroked his throat and her claws scraped lightly across his skin. Her tongue, wet and cold, licked his cheek, worked its way down to his throat where her lips closed...sucked...
 

"Don't be afraid," she whispered. "You'll feel no pain. Only a moment of extreme—"

There were three knocks on the trailer door and she pulled away from him. The door rumbled upward and faint light penetrated the darkness. Two young women climbed in hesitantly, one of them carrying a frail little girl in her arms.
 

"We're sorry," one said, pulling the door down.

"We hurried," the other added, "but with the snow—"

The creature rushed forward and grabbed the little girl up in her arms, growling, "I don't want to hear
excuses
!" She backed away from the two women silently and stood still for a long moment, then the women dropped to their knees, clutching their heads and crying out in pain.
 

One whimpered, "Nuh-nuh-no, nuh
-noooo
!"
 

The other screeched, "Stop! Pluh-
heeeze
stop!"

Silence. The women fell back against the closed door, groaning.

"Get the light and turn it on," the creature hissed, turning to Jon, holding the girl close. "I want him to see this. I want him to see what his father really is."
 

There was a metallic click and light shined in the blackness.

And Jon screamed...

...as Jenny slammed the receiver back onto its hook and turned to stare out at the white-speckled night. The wind was blowing harder and snowflakes pelted her face as she tried to light a cigarette, cupping her hand around the lighter.
 

She had to get home. Something was wrong.

Stop it
, she thought.
They're probably all in bed—it's nearly three-thirty, for crying out loud—or maybe the weather's screwed up all the lines. So stop panicking.