“My way of keeping her from being carded.”
“Smart man.” Graham pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. “I’m outa here,” he said. “Enjoy yourselves, kiddies.”
Then, leaning over and putting an arm around Greaton’s shoulder, he whispered, “Try not to piss ‘em off.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Graham made his way down the hallway, to his room on the tenth floor. He was right: he’d had enough, more than enough. His legs were heavy, his eyelids drooping, and he was damn glad he didn’t have to drive anywhere tonight. Not in his condition. It really was too bad about Greaton—the guy could write. He wondered if Rick would make it back, or if whatever happened all those years ago truly had destroyed his career. It sure hadn’t helped his disposition any, not that he’d ever had much of one.
Sighing, he fumbled in his pocket for his keycard, checking his watch as he pushed the door open and entered the room. The door swung shut and he crossed the floor, past the bed and down into the suite, where he stood at the sliding glass door staring out at the horizon. It was ten o’clock, kind of early to be calling it quits on a convention night that would see plenty of after hours parties. Unless you’re old as the hills and you’ve been swilling margaritas all evening. How many? Plenty enough to have taken his mind off of what had happened to him back in Richmond.
Not enough to forget about Scary Mary, though.
He stepped away from the balcony, eyeing his nice comfortable bed as somebody tapped on the door, took a step forward and the rap came a little harder. “Be right there,” Graham called out as he crossed the room, wondering who the hell it could be. Probably Trujillo to blow more smoke up his ass. He peered out the spy-hole at one of those kids from the convention. The guy stood there with his rubber knife strapped to his side, holding a hardbound book in one hand and a bulging plastic sack in the other—one of those Halloween jobbies people were carting up and down the hallway. He was smiling and staring up at the peephole when Graham opened the door.
“Hey, there,” Graham said, smiling when he saw the book the guy held was one of his own.
“I wanted to make sure I got this signed,” the kid said. “I’m not sure how long I’m going to stick around tomorrow.”
“You’re not gonna pull that pig-sticker on me, are you?”
Laughing, the kid handed Graham the book.
“Aw, hell. Come on in,” Graham said, and held the door open. “What’s in the sack?”
“A severed head, of course.”
Graham laughed. “That Savini’s a real friggin’ artist, isn’t he?”
The telephone rang as the kid stepped inside, and then shut the door and followed Graham deeper into the suite, to the glass coffee table, where Graham answered the telephone on the fourth ring to find Susan’s voice rushing through the line, tense, angry, heartbroken: “What have you done?”
“Wh…what?”
“What in the hell did you do?”
All the color drained from Graham’s face, his legs wobbling as he plopped down on the small sofa. “Susan, what are you talking about?” But he knew exactly what she was talking about. What else could it be?
“The police came to the door this afternoon, Graham. Came looking for the Jeep Cherokee that ran over a man outside of Richmond, day before yesterday.”
Jesus.
“Susan.” A wave of heat flushed through Graham’s body. Sweat beaded across his brow and his mouth went suddenly dry.
“Looking for a busted taillight.”
And there it was.
Army ants crawling through his scalp, prickly-legged spiders scurrying across his back and rats running up his pants leg, as he said, “Susan, look.”
“Your busted taillight, Graham.” Susan’s voice was cracking; Graham could hear her crying as the kid stood there, grinning like he was having the time of his life. Graham tried to hand back his book but he walked away, over to the balcony’s sliding glass door.
“Susan, I can explain. It was all just a misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding?”
“Yes! A misunderstanding at a traffic light. The prick got out and kicked the shit out of my car. I thought he was going to—”
“He’s dead, Graham. You killed him.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Ho,” the kid muttered, smiling.
“HE’S DEAD, GODDAMN YOU! BECAUSE YOU BACKED INTO HIM LIKE A GODDAMN MANIAC AND HE HAD A FUCKING HEART ATTACK AND DIED!”
Susan sobbed into the phone as an icy knot swelled in Graham’s gut, and his heart hammered against his ribcage. He wanted to explain, to tell her everything would be all right, that it wasn’t his fault, but he could barely draw a breath. And that fucking kid, grinning at him like he was the funniest thing the prick had ever laid eyes on. Standing there, smiling and swinging that bulging Halloween sack back and forth.
“Susan, look… Susan, I’ll come home and straighten this out.”
Susan snorted into the telephone.
“I’ll get a lawyer and we’ll get this all sorted out.”
“Lawyer, huh? I just got off the phone with a lawyer, Graham. Know what he said to me? ‘Everything your husband has worked for, the house, the land, the cars; everything—kiss it all goodbye, ‘cause when I’m done with you you’ll be sleeping under an overpass.”
Pain crawled through his chest, inching its way along his shoulder and down his arm. “Jesus,” he muttered, backhanding droplets of sweat from his forehead, before reaching a shaking hand toward the silver clasp beneath his shirt.
“Come home, Graham. Get a lawyer and pray to God he’s as crooked as the son of a bitch who’s snapping at our heels.”
The line went dead and Graham hung up, and the kid stepped forward, laughing.
“The fuck did you do?” he said. “Kill some fucking body?”
Graham’s breathing became a shallow hitch. “Look… this… really isn’t… a… good time.”
“No shit!”
The kid drew his rubber knife, which suddenly looked all too real, and stepped around the coffee table, the room tilting, narrowing and becoming incredibly long, as light reflected off steel and Graham started sputtering like an old jalopy: “Wh, wha, what’re you d… do… doing?”
The knife came closer.
Graham tried to move but he couldn’t.
The metal tip touched Graham’s cheek, and he knew for a fact that it was real.
“Look,” Graham said.
“Get up.”
“I… I don’t think I can.” Tears welled in his eyes, as his hands shook and the kid stepped back, swinging the sack slowly back and forth. “Sure you can,” he said.
Graham struggled to his feet; the kid tossed his sack and Graham caught it.
The bulge was round, squishy but firm.
And Graham knew.
His mind cried out No! But he knew, and he looked inside the sack at the dead eyes staring back at him, the swirling wisps of black hair sweeping across a woman’s bloated face, pressed flat by the clear vacuum-sealed plastic wrapping it, its skin grey, its mottled mouth gaping like a dead fish, the shriveled lips flat against the plastic showing bloodstained teeth, a white splinter of spinal cord protruding from the ragged stump of what was left of her neck.
Graham’s legs buckled, and the kid grabbed a handful of his shoulder-length grey hair, pressed the knife to his back and marched him over to the bed. “You said you were dying to meet her. Isn’t that what you posted the other night? See you in Orlando, Mary! I’m dying to meet you!”
“Please.”
“You’ve been crawling all over the dealer’s room looking for her, haven’t you? Well, here she is!” The kid shoved him, and Graham stumbled forward onto the bed, the sack landing on the mattress with a metallic clink, sending Scary Mary thudding to the floor while the kid reached into the bag and pulled out a set of handcuffs; snickering as he secured Graham’s wrist, yanking until the whimpering author was on his back,
yanking again and snapping the free cuff around the round wooden top of the bedpost. Then out came the other set and both of Graham’s hands were manacled to the posts.
“It was a house,” the kid said. “Cold, lonely, empty.”
“What?”
“The house he grew up in. The house he had come back to after all these years.”
“How—”
The kid smiled and dropped the knife onto the bed, unfastened Graham’s belt and trousers and pulled his pants to his knees, and kept tugging until they looped his ankles.
“Gee, you really went all out, didn’t you?” The kid laughed and pulled down Graham’s red silk boxers, untied Graham’s running shoes, pulled them off and tossed them to the floor—the pants and underwear quickly followed, until Graham was naked from the waist down and the kid was grabbing his knife, holding it in front of Graham, while he said, “I don’t know whether to saw off your head or your dick.”
“Please,” Graham said, his chest heaving as he huffed out short staccato breaths.
“Please what?”
“I don’t want to die,” Graham said, sweat dripping from his face as the knife’s flat back edge sawed across his sweating throat. “Please… I’ve got money. I’ll do anything you want.”
“Will you blow me?”
“What?”
“Be right back!” the kid called out, and then disappeared over the side of the bed, suddenly reappearing with Scary Mary’s head in his hands, clumsily twirling it like a basketball for a second before dropping it onto the mattress, where it was scooped up and placed squarely between Graham’s legs, her cold, grey lips pushing against Graham’s flaccid penis as he started to gasp, his chest continuing to heave while his pale face turned grey as spent ashes. “My heart,” he croaked. “Please.”
The kid gripped Graham’s cock, touched the blade against it and Graham drew a deep breath. His entire body shuddering, he closed his eyes and wished it all away. When he opened them the vacuum-sealed head was pressed to his face. Then a hand ran down his thigh, spraying a thin sheen of sweat onto the bedspread, which had grown damp beneath Graham’s body.
“Look at you!”
Graham tried to speak but his mouth wouldn’t work, tried to beg but he couldn’t, to wail and scream and cry out to God, anything to stave off what was happening. He didn’t want to die, did not want his life to slip away. Please, he wanted to say, I’ve got a wife! But all he could do was draw one long agonizing breath after another, while his chest heaved and his arms twitched, his body shook and his eyes rolled up into their sockets, until one last shuddering breath gushed out like air from a stabbed tire, and Graham Greystone was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The thrill of the convention had faded quickly for Larry, who was starting to wonder why he’d come along in the first place—other than to get away from Charlotte for a while, and to take a shot at getting into Bree’s pants, which would make the trip more than worthwhile. It wasn’t like he had Bryan for competition anymore, unless the guy got drunk as hell and forgot he was married to one of the hottest babes Larry had ever seen. The lucky fucker. Didn’t look like he was feeling too lucky on the airplane, though, stuck beside that babbling old crone. And boy did Bryan’s jaw drop when the flight attendant whispered ‘Congratulations’, just loud enough for that miserable-looking bastard to hear it—well worth the twenty bucks Larry had tipped the guy. All topped off by Bree suddenly deciding she was tired and needed a nice soft shoulder to doze on.
Larry really wanted a taste of that.
Probably won’t get it.
They were sharing a room.
Double beds.
That’s all right. I’ve still got two nights to figure something out.
Johnny Z took a seat beside Larry, raising his eyes at the over-the-hill Vampirella wannabe who had made her way back to Greaton’s table, and was now giving a boring dissertation on the do’s and don’ts of writing: “If an author starts out describing the weather, I toss the book right there. If I want a weather report, I’ll turn on the evening news.”
Bryan rolled his eyes and looked down at the table.
“Look at this,” Zweitic said, brandishing his toy.
“Again with the knife,” Larry called out over the murmuring crowd, which showed no signs of petering out.
“No, the blade. Look. Alice Cooper signed it in some kind of fake blood Savini had.”
“Tom is a genius,” Miss Kitty said, as if the special-effects guru and she were the best of friends, instead of the casual conventioneer acquaintances they actually were.
Zweitic pushed the knife to the center of the table. “Sucked it up with an old fountain pen.”
Bryan ran a finger across Cooper’s scrawled signature, which was now a thin hard line of dark red. “That is cool, looks like real blood.”
Larry leaned toward Zweitic, muttering, “Yeah, almost as cool as this librarian’s convention you’ve got going on here.”
“What?” Zweitic said.
“Look around, Dude. Geeks, goofballs who look more like math teachers than celebrities. I mean, I don’t know what I expected, but, Jesus, this is a fucking Revenge of the Nerds reunion.”
“You don’t read much, do you?” Miss Kitty said. “Other than the occasional Hustler.”
Larry smiled and tipped back his Heineken.
“Queen FatAssia has spoken,” Johnny Z muttered, and the two of them laughed, Larry covering his mouth to keep from spewing beer onto the table.
“No live music, not a decent beer in sight,” Larry continued.
“Aw, poor baby,” said Bree.
“Don’t get me wrong. The stuff in the dealer’s room was kinda cool—especially that crazy bastard and his rubber knife—and all these people running around with their costumes, their bloody shirts and gaping wounds. Especially that dude with the hatchet buried in his head—now that guy is a genius. How the hell’d he make it look so real?”
“What about the chick with the flap of shredded meat hanging off her face?” Bryan said, and Bree said, “Yeah!”
“Yeah,” Larry said, nodding his agreement. “There’s lots of cool stuff going on, but geez, look at this dump. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this back home.”
Greaton spoke up, “There’ll be some after-hours parties going on later.”
Larry glanced at his watch, and gave his half-full bottle a disdainful look. Then, giving Miss Kitty his best David Spade impression, he said, “Not that your running commentary on the mechanics of writing isn’t a riveting piece of work.”
“Well,” she said, “I never—”
“Oh, I’ll bet you have,” Larry said, “plenty of times.”—and Bryan did spew some beer onto the table.
Bree, grinning, gave Larry’s thigh an enthusiastic pat.
“Or,” Johnny Z said. “We could go for a little ride, see what the great south has to offer, besides Mickey Mouse, that is.”
Larry perked up. “You got wheels?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be damned. How about it, Bryan? Wanta see what we can get into?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Larry,” he said, probably thinking of all the shit his neighbor had gotten him into these last few days.
“C’mon, man, it’s only eleven o’clock. Let’s go fuck around somewhere, find some live music, and some beer that don’t taste like piss.”
Maybe some women, too!
Miss Kitty wrinkled her nose.
“What’s a matter,” Larry said. “Somebody fart?”
“You are a very vulgar young man.”
Larry gave her a little Steve Martin: “Well, excuuuuuse me!”
Bryan shook his head, smiling.
“What do you think, Rick,” Zweitic said. “Want to join us?”
Greaton shot Miss Kitty a sideways glance. “I don’t know,” he said.
A young man stepped up to the table, tall and thin, with pale white make-up covering his face and a wide, silver-studded
belt looping his waist. His lips were blue, his black hair teased up in long waves. A silver cross dangled from his right earlobe. He wore a snug, black leather outfit that gleamed beneath the bar’s dim lights, and his face lit up when Bree said, “Hey, Eddie Scissorhands!”
Scissorhands laid a thin, hardbound book on the table. “Wow,” he told Greaton. “I can’t believe you finally showed up. I’ve been lugging this book around forever, hoping to get your signature on it.”
Beaming, Greaton picked up the book and ran his hand lovingly across it. “Wow,” he said. “I haven’t seen this one in years. You know it’s a collector’s item, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Greaton’s vampire companion said. “One of Rick’s finest. Written and published during his darkest period.”
Greaton grimaced and sat the book on the table, and shot Miss Kitty a disdainful glare. Larry wondered why he didn’t just tell her to shut the fuck up.
“C’mon, y’all,” Zweitic said, pushing himself away from the table and standing. “Let’s get a move on.”
They all stood, Bree, Larry, Bryan and Zweitic.
Scissorhands took Bryan’s empty chair.
“What’re you drinking, Rick,” he said, as Bryan and his crew walked away.
* * *
In the parking lot, Bree took a pack of Marlboros from her purse, and said, “I’ve gotta have a smoke.”
“I’ve got something better,” Larry said.
“Fire it up, Dude.”
“Maybe we should wait’ll we get going,” Bryan suggested.
“No shit,” Zweitic said. “That’s all I need, some southern redneck rolling up and busting our asses.”
“Fuck that.” Bree shook loose a cigarette and lit it, drew in a lungful and slowly let it out. “Fuck the Clean-Air-Act.” she said, drawing laughter from her friends.
The sky was clear and cloudless, the moon full against a blanket of shimmering stars. A mild breeze stirred the night air as Bryan said, “Man, this is great.”
“Yeah,” Larry said, looking up at the sky and taking a deep breath. He wore blue jeans and a loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt, decorated with a floral print. “People back home are freezing their balls off, and here we are walking around in short-sleeved shirts.”
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