by catt dahman
“I believe that. Annie always talked about you being a fair boss.”
“I expect my employees to be punctual and personally clean, and in the diner, they keep things very clean, are friendly, and enjoy the work, or they get out. Sound fair?”
Pax nodded. “Very. My dog is in the lounge.”
For some reason that made Coral laugh until he cried. He stopped and wiped his face, and Pax laughed with him. It was a few minutes before Coral could talk without howling again with laughter. “Okay. Well, as long as it behaves, I can live with that.” He loaded a plate with huge slices of meatloaf, drizzling a chunky tomato glaze over it. “Corn and Taters, slide them a bit of that fried okra on the house. Oh, and we don’t get drunk in public; I won’t have my employees sloppy drunk out places or getting arrested for being drunk.”
“Fine by me.”
“You aren’t a drunkard, are you, Pax?”
“Not at all. I like a cold beer or two with a ballgame sometimes, but that’s my limit.”
“You’re pretty easy going. Annie said you were. She’s talked about this fine man she met on the Internet, the same site where people lie about themselves and one another and cheat and steal and bully. But now, Annie has said you checked out, and she did check you out ‘cause she isn’t a stupid woman, and she says you are one of the few, real good ones.”
“She’s one of the good ones.”
“That she is,” Coral agreed paternally, “one of the best. I won’t abide her being hurt. That said, you seem okay to me, so I can give you a chance.”
“I s’pect that means one chance only?”
“Yup.”
“That’s more than we get sometimes. Some folks...they don’t use the chance given them.”
“That’s true.”
Pax cocked his head. “Listen to that rain, wasn’t a cloud in the sky when I came across the bridge, and now it’s coming down hard, sounds like a bad spring storm.” He enjoyed a good storm when he was in a house for the evening and not out somewhere.
“We get them bad at times. It does sound pretty rough out there, may slow business down some, but the spa patrons have to eat, and we’re the best game in town.”
Pax started to say something back, but they heard a loud crash of plates and cutlery and a squeal that was close to a full scream. Both men looked at one another in surprise, wondering if someone had been hurt. Coral ran to see what had happened because it was his diner; Pax went because Annie was out there and because he wanted to make sure she was all right.
He felt a tightness in his belly.
Pax suddenly understood why sometimes Katie whined and sniffed and just knew something felt wrong. Everything sounded wrong and smelled wrong. It felt bad. That’s what Katie lived by.
Pax could almost smell the wrongness in the air.
Chapter 4
When they got to the dining area, both men stood still for a second, looking around because the scene simply didn’t make sense to them. Everything had to be reconstructed. Bit by bit, they pieced it together. Lydia had dropped a pan of used plates, forks, spoons, and plastic glasses so that glass, bits of food, and gleaming ice cubes littered the floor in a mess. She stood still, her hands covering her mouth, maybe to keep herself from screaming fully as she stared at the doorway and side of the counter, wide eyed and scared. She was frozen in place.
That was where the main noise came from: the tray falling and her screaming. Coral and Pax had to go back farther in time to understand this, so they followed her gaze and took in everything.
The entire diner had gone silent; the only noises were the pounding rain and claps of thunder. It was a fairly strong storm that showed no signs of slowing. The windows were cloudy with fog and the driving rain, from outside. Each time the thunder rumbled, the rain drove in harder.
No one ate; everyone was letting his food go cold and instead, stared in the same direction as Lydia, face set in a mask of horror, confusion, and fear. No one moved other than to cast his eyes sideways to Coral.
A man in shorts and a tee-shirt sat on a stool at the far end of the counter near the door, his eyes lost and angry, a steak knife in one hand, blood covering both the blade and handle of the knife, as well as his hands and arms. He looked drenched with crimson, but he didn’t brush it away.
Sweat poured down his face as his eyes rolled wildly. He was the kind of man that at best, people forgot or looked over, a nondescript man whose life’s accomplishments might be a perfectly mowed lawn, never missing a day at a mundane job, and being a good usher at his smallish Methodist church. He was very ordinary except for the blood and the knife, and the fact that he seemed to care about neither.
Coral traded a quick glance with Pax and shifted his gaze.
At the man’s feet beside the stool, lay a pretty little girl of about six or seven in a pool of blood that had poured from her chest; she might have been still breathing shallowly, but it was impossible to be sure. Her blue shorts and blue and pink tee shirt were bloodied; her blonde pigtails were crimson at the ends. Her little fingers were curled delicately.
The blood looked out of place, and had the girl not been at the center of it, it would have been surreal. It was so very red that it hardly seemed real.
Close to her was a toddler; his throat was cut and gaping open, and his little faded, denim bib overalls were a gory mess. He still had a pacifier in his mouth, and one hand gripped around a scruffy, stuffed blue rabbit. Blue eyes, wide and shocked, stared at the ceiling. One little foot stuck out; it was in a little Chuck Taylor sneaker, the laces undone and trailing into the blood; they were more red than white.
Coral found himself staring at the pacifier and the blue bunny. Nothing made sense. How had these children appeared on his floor, bleeding, and what did this mean? It related to the man who sat holding the knife, but Coral struggled to connect the dots.
A few feet away lay a pretty woman; she was curvaceous and wore a lime green halter with denim shorts and had hair that was long, dirty blonde and shiny, but she also lay in a pool of blood, her hands and arms bloodied from defensive wounds. Her chest was punctured several times. Her facial expression was one of shock and pain.
Another one. And this still made no sense.
Her umbrella lay to one side, still opened from when she had used it to keep the children and herself dry.
Bloody marks and water on the floor indicated someone had crawled or been dragged to a booth across from the man, and Coral and Pax hoped that whoever it was might still be alive. They couldn’t see over the backs of the seats but knew the person needed first aid quickly. Coral was squeamish about blood, and all this red splashed everywhere made his stomach flip.
“What? What’s going on?” Coral asked Dana, the other waitress. He was still trying to reason this out.
“He…he…Oh, my God, Coral, they came in, and he…he was yelling...Yelling like loud hissing...mad but not loud. He picked up a knife off the counter that someone had left: the man who had a steak and that baked potato with chili; this man just…just…did that. He grabbed the knife and did it. To his family, he did that right here.” Her hands were at her chin and mouth, white with tension.
She stared accusingly at the man at the counter.
Seeing her white skin and the way she shook, Coral whispered for her to sit down before she passed out. She slid to the floor, weeping. Okay, he had information. He got it. It was bizarre, but he made more sense of the scene now.
Coral made motions with his hands to the patrons watching him that they should be quiet, be calm, and stay seated at their tables or in their booths. Everyone was still terrified but also felt safer with the big man there and in charge of the situation.
He called out, “Hello, there. I’m Coral, and this is my place. How can I help you?” in a friendly, calm way, he asked the man with the knife. He felt fainty insane, trying to speak calmly with a man who had by all accounts, just slaughtered at least three people.
The man mumbled. At leas
t he was responsive, so Coral could possibly get a feel for what was going on in the man’s head. “Pardon? I didn’t get that.”
Another mumble.
“What’s your name?”
“Ed. I’m Ed,” the man moaned, rubbing at his wet hair and head. He was soaked with rain.
“Well, Ed, what can I do for you?”
“Worms.”
Coral cocked his head. “Worms, Ed? You want some worms?”
“They’re here.”
“Where are they? Are they in here? I sure don’t care for worms unless I’m baiting a hook and fishin’.”
“In my head.”
“The worms are in your head?”
Ed mumbled a yes.
“Oh. That’s terrible. We need to get you some help quickly.” Coral noted that none of the diners happened to be the local policemen tonight; they usually dropped in a little later. It figured when he needed them, they wouldn’t be here. “We can get those worms out and make you feel a little better. We’ll get you help”
“I don’t want help. It’s getting better. It’s all getting better,” said the man who had lost the anger in his eyes and looked almost peaceful.
“Okay, well, what is it you do want?”
Pax admired the man’s calm voice and control as he reached slowly towards Annie. Moving by inches, she crept closer to him, leaned into him, and grabbed for his hand; he sighed. Just holding her hand and knowing she was safe and he was between the crazy guy and her, made him feel better.
“I don’t want anything. I want the worms to stop whispering. They’ll be finished soon though.”
“I would think so.” Coral took a step closer to the man, his hands in plain sight, making him look smaller as he moved. “How did they get into your head?”
“I dunno. Damned things.” The man cast red, angry eyes at Coral. “They’re pissing me off, taking too long.”
“Were they in your family, too?”
“How would I know? I don’t know shit about the things. My head hurts.” He casually slid the blade across his palm; Coral and Pax could see he had done this before as three deep, bloody cuts were already there. “Ahhh.”
“The rest here don’t have them, and we don’t want them to get worms either; what say we let them all leave? And then we can figure out what to do to get the ones in your head out? We don’t need pesky whispering worms.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I said no. I may not be finished.”
“I see.”
“They should do it, too. It’s peaceful other than their itching.”
“Okay.” Coral slid a few steps closer. I may not be finished, the man had just said. He heard odd sounds from the booth where the blood trail led; there was a sound like duct tape being ripped and some cracks and pops. It made him think someone had survived. Without help, the person could be bleeding out, but Coral thought the man, Ed, might attack him if he made a sudden move.
A loud cacophony of thunder exploded overhead, making everyone jump.
Coral used the distraction to slide another foot closer.
Pax squeezed Annie’s hand. If everything else felt surreal, at least she felt real and stable.
“I feel free,” Ed said suddenly, “except for the worms. They itch.”
“Well, that must feel good to be free. I sure would appreciate it if you’d allow me to clean up this mess. I just hate a messy diner.”
“Mess?” The man looked about at his slaughtered family with little concern.
Coral nodded. “So no one slips on the wet floor.”
“If you must. Ducks. But I may not be red finished….” Ed rolled the knife’s handle in his fingers so it glittered dangerously; the threat was clear. “Pretty soon, I won’t care. I will even eat my wife’s meatloaf.” He chuckled, staring at her body. “Except she’s dead, huh?”
“I don’t know if she is. I can check. Also, I can send my staff for a mop bucket and mop….”
Coral was wondering what to do as he mulled over what this had to do with ducks or meatloaf.
“No,” Ed said, “she bitched a lot. The kids were loud a lot. The worms are spaghetti in my cake.” He rubbed his head again.Coral suppressed a frown of confusion. “It’s over now, no more bitchin’ or loudness, right? No more spaghetti in your cake.” For one second, Coral was afraid he would laugh at the crazy words. He knew if he did laugh, he would just laugh and laugh until he went mad because it wasn’t a funny, silly chuckle trying to escape him.
It was a scared noise that wanted out. Oh yes, when the spaghetti was in your cake, then it was a time to laugh until tears ran down your cheeks because otherwise, you would sit down and scream a good, long time. If Coral didn’t keep his thoughts in one tiny spot in his brain, he would start looking at the tiny sneaker in the blood and that little girl with her pink-tipped hair, and they would wonder why he or someone else hadn’t saved them, and well, that was when all would just go to hell.
He took another step, biting on his cheek with his teeth to keep focused. From the side, he could see into the booth now, but what he saw made less sense than Ed’s rambling. Maybe it was because he was straining his eyes sideways to try to see what was there.
Another step didn’t help sort what he was seeing.
A boy, maybe a pre-teen, was lying on his stomach with his face and head turned to one side. He was partially under the table, tangled around the pedestal, and sticky crimson was all over the floor.
A man sat on the boy’s back with one of the diner’s knives; the man was carefully worrying at the flesh on the boy’s neck and upper back and arms. He had torn the tee shirt down the middle to expose the boy’s back.
Now, the man was cutting and snapping the small bones in one of the boy’s hands but then dropped the hand and went back to the back. To Coral’s horror, the man ripped off a section of skin with a duct-tape kind of sound and popped it into his mouth like a treat, chewing complacently.
He had already eaten a good deal of the flesh.
Coral gagged. A giggle rose. The spaghetti was in the cake. Watching Coral, Pax and the others wondered what had made the big man sick enough to gag and to turn pale. Coral’s face twitched as if he were trying not to laugh, and Pax saw the beginnings of acute shock taking over his new friend.
“Rock steady, Coral,” Pax called out.
Pax felt Annie moving slowly, and something was pushed into Pax’s hand. It was the handle of a steak knife. He longed to feel the handle of a revolver instead, but this was better than nothing, maybe.
“I have one, too,” she whispered. Pax admired her bravery and fortitude right then; she was calm and thinking hard. No matter what, she was setting up a second line of protection for these people and willing to fight. Even across the Internet in chats, Pax had felt she was a survivor and a strong, good person who would step up if needed.
What if Pax hadn’t come to Cold Springs? What if Annie were here facing this without him? He shivered, thinking he would have been horrified for her.
Ed jerked his head toward them, and a frightening second passed while Pax wondered if he were about to be in a knife fight. Ed was only casually watching Coral who was still pale but was actively trying to concentrate on Ed again. Everyone watching was trying to guess what had so unnerved the big football player.
“He was hungry,” Ed said to Coral with a head nod to the action in the booth. “Very hungry.”
Pax felt a stone lodge in his belly. Ed’s comments sounded as if…well, Pax could hardly comprehend the rest of his thought. He tilted his head a little. What could make someone do something so terrible to another?
Coral barely nodded back, confirming Pax’s worst scenario; Pax swallowed hard.
“I see that,” Coral said conversationally. He watched the man chewing on the boy and then almost fell over in shock as the man turned around so that Coral could see his face. Despite his face and chest and hands being red with slippery blood and his clothes being rain soaked,
the man was someone Coral had known well; for years, he had known Myke who ran the antique shop right down the street and was one of the sanest, nicest fellows anyone would ever want to meet; he wasn’t violent, and he certainly wasn’t a cannibal. {Not that he knew what a cannibal looked like particularly}.
“Hi, Myke,” Coral said, unsure what he should say.
Myke groaned and muttered something, suddenly seeming to be more aware of what he was doing, wiped his mouth with a sleeve and crawled off the boy to lean against the seats, his feet in the aisle. His eyes were calm, uncaring, and mild as he yawned. “Hmmm,” he said to Coral.
As the rest of the people in the diner saw who it was, they gasped; when they saw his bloodied mouth and teeth, they moaned and whined, wondering if Myke had been under the table doing something very horrible.
Coral wanted to keep Ed in his sights, but he couldn’t look away from the gore of the boy’s neck and back and Myke’s eyes, which were like watching a flame burning, but a flame that was getting smaller and duller by the second. Beside his leg, Coral twitched his fingers, willing Pax to be ready to help him and be able to.
Pax moved away from Annie, motioning her to stay put, as he hid the knife behind his back and took a few sliding steps towards Coral and the carnage at the door. He tried to keep his body loose and ready for anything. His movements would let Coral know he was going to try to help. Despite her moxie, Annie wasn’t the type for a knife fight, and neither was anyone else; this was all on Pax. He was watching Ed’s gaze going dimmer. “Hi, Ed. I’m Pax.”
“Paz? Paz, I have bugles in my frog. Tired.”
Coral glanced back to Ed. “That’s a shame. Let’s relax, buddy. Put down the knife, and we’ll talk some more; knives make me nervous.”
Ed looked at the blade as if he didn’t know why he was holding it. He spoke calmly and seemed passive now. “I don’t know, maybe.”
Coral moved like the lightning that flashed outside the diner, feinting right and then darting in from the left, plowing into Ed and the stool, heaving all his weight at the man holding the knife. Both men went sprawling in a huge explosive noise that made everyone cringe and jump with fear. Someone screamed. It was a classic tackle, and the knife fumbled into the air where it twirled a long second and fell to the ground.
