As if in slow motion, I got to my feet. Closed the case, slipped it back into the bag. Clutched the atomizer in one fist like it was a set of brass knuckles.
I turned my back on the exit.
Freeze Frame.
Look, therapy buddy. I know that I should’ve high-tailed it out of there so fast that I’d have left one of those cookie-cutout-perfect holes in the wall, just like in the cartoons. But I also know how horror movie conventions work. I’ve helped shepherd at least a half-dozen gore-and-blood slasher flicks to completion.
There’s always that person who’s about to leave the haunted house/castle/boat/spaceship, but then goes back for one last thing. The medical supplies. The family scrapbook. Sigourney Weaver’s friggin’ cat from Alien. And what happens to that person?
Most of the time, they meet an end that’s equal parts sticky, embarrassing, and very, very unpleasant.
I could end up like that, orders to return me to Mitchel or no.
But you know what?
This wasn’t just about me anymore. It just got bigger. As big as all the lives of those people the Thantos clan had wiped out, with no more emotion about it than you or I would have in snuffing out a candle flame. I couldn’t let more people die because of me.
In fact, I damn well wouldn’t let that happen.
I swallowed, hard, and walked over to where the frightened knot of people clustered around the edge of the kitchen by the pantry. The children whimpered and tried to burrow into their mother’s long skirt. The adults looked torn between diving into the pantry and keeping an eye on what the outside horrors were planning.
“Everybody, listen to me!” I shouted, raising my voice to be heard over the swirl of wind and the leathery beating of wings.
The two men and the waitress jumped, startled at my approach. I honestly think that everyone had just about forgotten about the lone woman at the front booth. And I hadn’t even used the magic water yet.
“Lady, get down!” the cook named Dwayne said. “Ain’t you been watching those…things out there?”
“I’ve been watching,” I said flatly. “They’re here for me.”
As one, the group stared at me. To her credit, Abigail found her voice first.
“Then…what do they want with us? What are those things?”
“They’re famine demons. They don’t want anything, except to feed. If I leave now, they’re still going to get in here and do…just that.”
Another whimper from the children. Another bang at the glass.
“How is this possible? It’s crazy!” This from the mother. Her voice creaked up into a squeak. “We didn’t do anything, I don’t want…don’t want this…”
Her husband, a heavyset man in a blue Bermuda tee-shirt, put a reassuring hand on his wife’s shoulder and spoke in turn. “I don’t know what’s going on either. But you seem to. Can you help us?”
I held up the atomizer.
“This spray I’ve got, it should help make them forget about us. At least, long enough for all of us to make a break for our cars.”
“Is that goin’ to be enough for all seven of us?” Abigail asked, as she squinted at the small bottle.
“I’m not sure. If only I had something else to distract…”
My voice trailed off as my eyes went to the still-hot kitchen grill. I went to it, turned each of the settings to HIGH.
“What are you thinking?” Dwayne asked.
“These are famine demons,” I explained. “So we’re going to throw every scrap of bacon you’ve got onto this stove!”
“Okay, but why?”
I gave him a look.
“Why? Do you know anything that doesn’t like the smell of bacon?”
Dwayne nodded, and all but ran over to the fridge next to the pantry. He flung the door open and began rummaging inside.
I had a feeling that whatever he found in there was going to determine whether or not everyone in the diner ended up as Purina Demon Chow.
Chapter Nineteen
Dwayne dumped an armload of containers on the kitchen table in front of us. Rectangular packages slid across the table’s slick surface before coming to a stop. Extra-thick slices of bacon gleamed beneath plastic.
Abigail didn’t miss a beat. She grabbed a nearby knife block, pulled out a razor-sharp implement, and began slicing open the packages as quickly as she could. Dwayne followed suit. I stuck the atomizer in a pocket and grabbed a knife too.
The father of the family of four left his wife and children where they huddled by the counter. He also grabbed a knife and started skinning the bacon from its plastic packaging. Abigail and I got our packages open first; we tossed our cold chunks of sliced pig meat onto the hot grill, where they landed with a loud hiss.
Sticky, salty smoke billowed from the grill as a dozen more slabs of cold bacon landed on it in a tangled pile. Gobbets of grease splattered the walls and a bubbling wave of liquefied animal fat flowed down the sides of the stove in a vision right out of a vegetarian’s worst nightmare. The smoke shifted from white to brown. Then choking black as the first strips slid from crispy and right on into pork-flavored carbon.
My head snapped up from where I continued to strip out the bricks of meat as I heard the sounds of breaking glass. Two of the sheydu had launched themselves against the windows hard enough to shatter the panes. The hellish things hovered inside the main dining room, their wing beats scattering stacks of loose paper napkins into a miniature blizzard. One let out a growl, and the putrid smell of carrion came from its snaggle-toothed jaws.
A chorus of screams from us. Not sure from who, exactly, but I knew I was among them. Dwayne stepped to one side, reversed the hold on his knife, and threw the blade at the hissing demon. It didn’t spear the thing through the forehead, the way it always worked in the action flicks. Instead, the creature took the blunt handle right on its shiny-wet wolf nose.
A yipe! and it skedaddled out of the room, taking out another window in its flight.
The second sheydu came at us. Without thinking, I hurled the half-open pack of bacon in my hand at it. The demon caught it in mid-air. It chewed on the exposed meat for a moment, then let out a pleased, burbling snuffle as it too flapped off into the night.
Four more of the damned things flew into the diner, jaws chattering, wing beats echoing in my ear. We were out of time.
“Everyone, get next to me!” I shouted, as I stepped back towards the front counter.
I gathered the kids and their mom as close to me as possible. The father followed, then Abigail, and finally Dwayne. The two kids practically burrowed into my legs as I groped for the atomizer in my pocket.
The damned glass bottle nearly squirped out of my bacon-greased hands as I brought it out!
Come on, Cassie. You drop this thing now, and it’s all over for these people.
I slowed, breathing hard as I held it up high. Moved my free hand to the pear-shaped ball. I kept squeezing it in a steady rhythm. Mist from the nozzle drizzled out.
The four sheydu flapped around the dining room, shrieking and yapping like fur-covered harpies. The air they kicked up swirled the mist around into a silvery spray. I inhaled. It felt as if I were breathing in the animated sparkles from a breath-mint ad.
Cool. Refreshing. Tingly.
A beat, and my mind flashed back to a memory so vivid, that it seemed as if it were happening right in front of me. I’d just turned nine, and I’d been out playing in the park on a brutally hot summer day. When I got home, Mom had given me an ice-cold soda. I’d held the glass bottle up against my face, feeling the cool beads of sweat. I smiled.
So did the people around me. Their eyes were either closed, or simply oblivious to the flying horrors in front, the crackling stink of burning breakfast meat behind. Everyone’s expression had a peaceful, happy, and – in the case of the adults – a just-got-my-world-rocked, post orgasmic look of bliss.
“Come on,” I said, and one by one, each person snapped out of their daze. “Keep your
arms locked, everyone. Dwayne, you’re closest to the front. Start walking towards the door. We can’t help but follow you.”
He nodded, and with difficulty, the group got moving. With our arms locked together, it felt like we were all playing some sort of hellacious, life-or-death game of Twister. No sooner did we clear the front counter than the four sheydu shot through the space we’d just occupied.
A loud banging, followed by a spurt of flame from the kitchen. Then the sounds of chewing, gobbling. The scrabble of claws on tile and metal. A half-dozen more of the damned creatures swarmed in through the windows. They too ignored us and went for the crispy-char smell of the bacon.
Dwayne got us to the door. He reached high up above his head. Instead of pulling the door’s handle, he carefully took down the string of bells.
A single tinkle from the string, as he set it aside.
One of the sheydu looked up from its feasting.
My heart stopped.
And then it went back to tearing at its side of bacon.
Dwayne pulled the door open and jammed a doorstop under the edge. Outside, the fog had let up a little, enough to see the cars in the lot. A swarm of sheydu came out of the fog, a black and gray rainbow of the creatures, and plunged into the diner, shredding its innards, just as we made it to the lot.
“Don’t look, honey, don’t look,” the husband crooned to his wife, his family.
“Everybody know where their cars are?” I asked. Got the nods I hoped for in reply. “Okay, then. When I give the word, make a break for your cars. Get in, floor it onto Highway 15, heading south.”
“Why south?” Abigail asked.
“Because I’m heading north. If they follow, I don’t want anyone hurt because of me.”
“Lady,” Dwayne said, with a cough, “I don’t know what you’re mixed up in, but…thank you for savin’ our keisters back there.”
A murmur of agreement. Quickly blotted out as an explosion rocked the diner’s kitchen. The swarm of sheydu must have finally gotten to the building’s gas mains.
“Good luck, everyone,” I said. Then, with a breath, I shouted. “Now! Get going!”
On cue, they broke and ran for each of their cars.
I remained still. Watched. Prayed.
Prayed that the famine demons wouldn’t mistake the starting of the car motors for a dinner bell.
Chapter Twenty
I backed towards my car. I didn’t dare take my eyes off the burning diner. Furry shapes clung like a carpet of giant rats, to the building’s frame and frolicked in the flames of the burning kitchen. The sound of teeth rasping against metal and wood sent the flesh creeping along the back of my neck.
I could only pray that the sheydu didn’t change their collective demonic minds. That they’d take a pass on coming after any of the people in the lot.
Dwayne and Abigail jumped into an old jalopy of a Ford and sped off. The family of four piled into a dirt-stained SUV and took off in their wake.
The breath I’d been holding finally whistled out of my lungs. I managed to tear my eyes away from Dante’s Drive-Thru and got to my Porsche. Flung open the door, all but threw my handbag into the passenger seat. I jammed the key in the car’s ignition and the motor caught on the first try.
My tires squealed as they jounced onto the highway asphalt. I winced, and kept looking in the rearview mirror, fearful that the swarm would erupt out of the fog bank.
Suddenly, as if someone had flicked on a halogen bulb in a darkroom, my car shot out into brilliant mid-morning sunshine. The sun’s blaze was a welcome heat on my skin. I quickly jerked the steering wheel to one side to keep the car in the upcoming exit lane.
A quick check to make sure the road around me was clear. Then I dug in my sunglass compartment, came up with my trusty Ray-Bans. My thumb left a tacky smear of grease on the edge of the frame as I slipped them on.
I took the next exit onto Highway 89. Kept on going. This time, I didn’t stop to pull over. No more shaking of the hands, no more nerve-jangling freakouts. Maybe I was getting tougher, at least in stages, or my brain was finally coming to terms with a single, incontrovertible fact: a quartet of the friggin’ universe’s most powerful beings were after me.
Not only did I refuse to pull over to do the shiver, shimmy, and shake, I didn’t even stop for lunch. My stomach had pulled a debutante’s diva-act and decided to go into seclusion without leaving so much as a forwarding number.
I drove for the rest of the day along the state highways. These weren’t the ruler-straight five-laners that most people think of when they cross this part of the country. No, these were one-and-two lane squiggles of asphalt that wandered the empty ranges of red candy-striped rock and pale green bushes between Utah and Arizona.
In the early afternoon, I had to stop and refuel my hungry Germanic princess of a car. I did so at one of the southern swings of the highway that took me within spitting distance of the Arizona border. A chill wind blew up. Dust clung to my cheek, and I wiped it away with a shudder.
As soon as I got the pump nozzle set in the tank, I went over to the ramshackle hut of a convenience store and looked for the women’s bathroom. The cheap yellow cast of the light – all fifteen generous watts, if that – made me look like I’d just escaped from a burn center.
That said, I completely gutted their bathroom of paper towels and liquid hand soap. I scrubbed off the coating of bacon grease on my face and forearms with the stubborn will of a second-year film student. By the time I came out, my skin glowed, as clean as I could possibly get it.
A television screen had been duct-taped into submission at the edge of the checkout counter. I’d come out in time for the local news report. Apparently, a ‘freak sandstorm’ had blown through the southwest corner of the state, knocking out power to St. Christopher’s and causing a fire at a local eatery.
Some quick clips of the Pork n’ Flapjack’s gutted remains. An even quicker clip of the interview with the local fire chief. The man scratched his head, his puzzlement evident as he spoke about the ‘big mystery’ as to how so much of the structure had been consumed by the flames. Even the ash.
A shiver ran down my arm. “Quit it,” I said to myself, though the bored cashier perked up a bit and gave me a strange look.
As I walked back out to my car, I sighed. Figured that I’d need to get used to that.
I drove onward as the sun turned into an orange ball of flame. Did my best to ignore it as it began popping up in my rear-view mirror. Dusk fell, and after the third yawn, I consulted the GPS again.
Not much out here. But the road arced through the very bottom left corner of Colorado, and in the curve of that bend was a decent-sized town – one with a brace of motels! – called Puebla de la Guerra. Nice. Sounded quiet and out of the way, which was just what I needed.
It was a struggle to keep from dozing off as I drove. So I sung show tunes and dumb jingles from the commercials I’d worked on until I pulled into the town’s main street. It was quiet, almost completely still, but the well-maintained street lights and lack of iron bars on the motel windows was encouraging.
I stopped at a local mini-mart to top off my tank again. My heart jumped as I spotted one of the daily papers that carried Dora’s column. And while I still didn’t feel hungry, I figured that I better have something around to snack on if my stomach decided to stop pulling a Garbo and come back out into the public eye.
So, armed with my suitcase and a handbag stuffed with a package of blueberry Pop-Tarts, a rolled up newspaper, and a pair of ancient magic items, I drove across the street to the closest motel. The clerk barely spared a glance up from his newspaper to take my cash.
In case you’re curious, I checked in as Ms. Macguffin. It’s an in-joke for people in my industry. Trust me, it was appropriate.
I back flopped onto the motel’s bed with a creak of well-abused springs and a puff of lemon-scented room deodorizer. My suitcase lay tossed in one corner, the handbag in another. Breakfast pastries on th
e nightstand.
Maybe, just maybe, I’d summon up the energy for a shower and a change of clothes. Right now, the garments I wore smelled like I’d been doing my best to get a tan by leaning over a barbecue pit. But I had something else to do first. I tore apart the newspaper, discarding section after section, until I pulled out the page with Dora’s column.
I stared in disbelief.
The headline in her section cheerily informed me of the gut-wrenching news.
Our inimitable advice columnist Dora Pahnn is off for the week, attending to matters of cosmic importance! Until she returns, here’s some Dear Abby!
Abso-friggin-amazing. The one friggin’ time I needed, really, honestly, and truly needed Dora’s advice, and she goes off on vacation.
No, not that, I realized. More like she’s gone low-profile, underground. Those matters of cosmic importance applied to a certain blonde from La-La Land. One who was dumb enough to marry into a family of possessive, homicidal immortals.
I tossed the paper off to one side. Put my forearm up over my eyes and groaned.
I couldn’t believe it. Just as I was starting to understand her weird new-age crap, too.
All I had left was the Sphinx’s riddle, which I apparently sucked at figuring out as well.
What is it that looks like a door to some, a passage to others, a message from those who seek to do evil, and yet solves all of life’s problems?
Okay, I knew that there was a way to make a door look like a passage. Use a forced-perspective technique. I could make a foyer look like a damned subway tunnel if I needed.
But I didn’t think that the answer to the sphinx’s riddle was a simple camera trick.
How could a passage look like a message? Let alone solve every single problem life had on offer, like some do-it-all whatzit from a late-night infomercial?
I lowered my arm to my side. Pondered the riddle for three, maybe four more minutes.
Then sleep came for me so suddenly, it was as if I blacked out.
I Married the Third Horseman (Paranormal Romance and Divorce) Page 8
