On Tenterhooks (37 page)

“Yeah,” agreed Martin, “but give her some room to breathe
.
Let her tell you
;
don’t force it.”

“Okay
.”

When
Veronica
and Abby returned from the bathroom
,
Abby was wearing the top to
Veronica
’s tracksuit and
Veronica
wore only the white tank top that had been underneath the jacket.
She
paused at the bar long enough to return the first-aid kit
.
Martin and Steve both stood up, both watching Abby with obvious concern. Seeing the welcome, she smiled.

“I’m okay, guys,
just a little sore and a little stiff.”

Steve looked at
Veronica
for confirmation
.
She
smiled and nodded.
“We got her fixed up
,
and
she
’ll be fine.”
She put her arm around Abby’s shoulders and gently squeezed.
Martin moved off the bench
to
let Abby slide in near the wall.

“Okay,” said Steve, “w
e gotta
figure
out
what we do now.”

“What we do now?”
Veronica
asked, her voice
rising
.
“Jesus Christ, how about we get the hell out of here before
P
reacher finds us again?
  Or ‘Mr. Biker’
comes back
.
Who the hell are these guys, Steve?”

“How should I know
?” Steve shot back
.
“I know about as much as you do
!”

“A
l
l
right, knock it off, guys,” said Martin, standing
up again
.
“It’s not helping
.
I say we stay here
,
at least until we catch our breath
.
Besides, there are other people here
,
and we’ve got our backs to a wall, so no surprises
.
Let’s get our heads around it before
we
go off half-cocked.”

The two men
looked at
Veronica
, who
looked at the front door and back to them.
 
“He could trap us in here, you
know
.”

“Yes,” said Martin. “But he also could be right outside in the roadway there, peeking in every window trying to find us
.
For all we know we could run right into him.”

“Besides,” added Steve. “Preacher and Biker seem to have been following
us
for a long time now
.
I don’t think running is a good solution.”

“Then what is
a ‘good solution’
?”
Veronica
challenged.

“I don’t know, but let’s try to figure it
out .
.
. together
.”

She
peered
at the door again and then
turned
back at them.
They
watched her, waiting in silence for her to agree.
“Stop staring at me like I’m
a
damn
circus freak!  Fine! M
ove over!”

She slid onto the bench next to Steve.

“Okay, so
let’s put it together,” said Steve
.
Preacher
was in our dreams first
.
Then he
showed up, looking for each of us before we even met
.
Then, he somehow managed to follow us
, on planes, across the
country
and
even here
.”

“
Yeah
,” said
Veronica
.
“
But how could he do that?  He was on us before we even met
.
It’s like
— ”

“Like he’s inside our heads,” whispered Abby, looking frightened.

“Right,”
agreed
Veronica
.
“And what about
our new friend, Biker?” He seems to be pretty
into
us
,
too.”

“Yeah,” agreed Steve
.
“But
I
don’t get the same feeling from the two of them
.
Even before Preacher hurt Abby, he seemed wicked to me
.
The first time I saw him
for real
, back in the airport, he looked messed-up
. . .
almost sadistic.
”

Steve shook his head.
“
I don’t know what to make of Biker,
” he continued. “B
ut I don’t get that same feel from him. Regardless, they both have
apparently
been following us for a while now.”

“
Do you think they
got our info off that
website
?” asked Martin.

“I
don’t think so,” replied Steve, “a
t least not mine
.
I didn’t mention anything in my letter about how my wife died
.
But Preacher
seemed to kno
w that she died in a car accident.”

“Yeah, and
judging by the way you described your first meeting with him,” said
Veronica
, “
he seemed to enjoy reminding you of it
.”

“He’s not human,” Abby stated.

They all paused and looked at her.

“What do you mean, sweetie?”
Veronica
asked.

“I mean
—
he’s not human.
When he touched me
. . .” 
She paused, caught in an involuntary shiver
and then
cleared her throat
.
The group waited
.
They wanted to know what
had
happened to her
.
Each of them leaned
on
the table, eager to hear Abby speak again
.

“When he touched me,
h
is hand was burning me
. . .
on my chest
. . .
but I could also feel him
. . .
inside my
head
.
I don’t kno
w how to explain it
.
It’s
like .
.
. like
he was running around,
throwing open
doors in a big house, looking for something.”

“Did he find it?”
Veronica
asked.

“No
,
I don’t think so.
Well,
I don’t know
.
I don’t eve
n know what he was looking for.”
She shrugged.

“
I think he was reading my emotions or something
,
and I was trying to fight him off
.
I can’t explain the feeling
.
I almost felt like he was trying to rape my mind
—
to make me think things I didn’t want to think.”

“That’s about right, sweet thing.”

They each jump
ed
in their seats
at the sound of the voice
.
Biker stood over them near the end of the table
.

“It’s his specialty, in fact
.
But he’s gone, at least for now
.”

He
took
a chair from a nearby table
,
slid it up to the end of their booth
and
dropped
into
it
, joining them at the table
.
No one said a word
.
Martin
and
Veronica
, sitting on the
outside
, shrunk
toward
Steve and
Abby
.
Biker either didn’t notice o
r didn’t care about the slight.
He picked up
a
bottle
off the table
.

“Water
?
Come on
ya’ll
, let’s
think and drink here
!”
Then, h
e turned in his chair and whistled.
“
¡
Pedro,
Cinco
cervezas
, por favor!”

“
¡
Si,
S
e
ñ
or!”

“Now,” he continued
, turning back to the table.
“Where were we?”

No one answered
.
He looked at each
of
them in turn
.
Abby couldn’t hold his gaze, but the others
stared at him stone-faced,
until he broke the
stare
.

“Ah,
I see
.
I get it
,
” he
nodded
.

Pedro arrived and placed a frothing pilsner before each of them
.
Abby pushed hers away
.
Biker took his, raised it to his lips and drained it in six
crowded gulps
.
When he finished, he
smacked
the glass
back down on the table
,
wiped the suds from his lips with the back of his hand
,
glanced over his shoulders and then leaned in on the table
.

Conspiratorially, he whispered,
“Okay, I got an idea.
Don’t freak out on me or
nothing
.”

He reached back under his jacket
,
pulled a
pistol
from his belt
and
laid it on the table with the muzzle pointing at himself
.
Abby drew back even further
.
F
is
h
ing
in his jacket pocket
,
he
pulled out a handful of
loose
bullets and dropped them on the table beside the gun
.
They clattered and rolled on the grimy tabletop.
No one else moved.

“This
here
is a
M1911A1 single-action,
 
semi-automatic, magazine-fed, and recoil-operated
 
handgun
, commonly referred to as a
Colt .45,” he said, pointing at the gun
.
“Standard sidearm of the US military
from 1911 to 1985
.
A solid shot in the chest from
50
paces will
knock down
an average-sized man
like a feather in a windstorm
.”