by Ray Garton
The trucker belched and went back to his log book.
The country music playing over the PA system clicked off for a moment and a female voice called, "Janitor to the travel store, please? Janitor to the travel store?"
The trucker looked up at Byron again, less conspicuously this time, but Byron saw him and, as he finished cleaning up the mess, shook his head, smacked his lips and muttered, "Dey jes' ain't 'nuff hours innuh day," then wheeled his bucket, mop and broom away, still humming the song. He ambled down the corridor toward the store as the foyer door was pushed open to let in a man, woman, two teenagers—a girl and boy—and a little girl, all soaked through, covered with snow, shivering with cold and looking exhausted; the man had a large bleeding lump on his forehead and blood was trickling from the woman's lower lip. Byron stepped around them as they came in, nodded hello and was about to ask what was wrong and if they needed help, but stopped just short of stepping into the puddle of blood on the tile floor...
CHAPTER 3
When Doug opened the door and entered the travel store with Adelle and the kids, they were met with a bustle of activity which, at first, he thought had something to do with them. He knew better as soon as he saw the blood on the floor and the man with a jagged hole in the left side of his nose.
The station wagon was useless—he'd hit a fence post and the car was going nowhere without the help of a tow truck—so they'd walked the rest of the way to the Sierra Gold Pan, making a feeble and unsuccessful attempt to hitch a ride; all they'd gotten was splattered with slush. Surprisingly enough, the kids hadn't complained once about the cold or the walk or even the wreck; even more surprising was the fact that neither had Adelle. Not that she didn't have any reason to complain because she did, and Doug had been kicking himself all the way from the car to the truck stop for insisting on driving her to her mother's. In the future, he would remember this trip, tell himself that Adelle was perfectly capable of taking care of herself and would never let it happen again. At least there would be a future; he was thankful that, other than a few bumps and scrapes and one hell of a scare, no one had been hurt.
Doug had never been so cold in his life as he'd been on that walk and felt he might never be warm again; for now, he would be happy just to regain the feeling in his hands, feet and face, but when they entered the building, his own discomfort was forgotten as Adelle leaned against him, clutching his wrist and whispered, "Oh, God, what now?"
Cece pressed her face into Adelle's coat and groaned, Dara turned away and muttered, "Oh, guuhhh-ross," and Jon whispered, "Gaawwd!"
Doug felt a little sick.
The man, pear-shaped and balding with greying brown hair, leaned heavily against a change machine, his white-knuckled hands clutching the machine's edges for support. Blood was smeared over his face, darkened his green down jacket and had splattered the floor. The man's jaw was slack, eyes heavy, face pale and, although several people stood around him looking on with shock and horror, no one seemed willing to get near him; the hole in his nose—it looked more like a rip, actually—opened and closed repeatedly as he breathed, spraying blood and making a wet rattling sound.
An enormous black man who, for a moment when they first walked in looked as if he were about to speak to them, abandoned his mop bucket and rushed to the bleeding man's side, shouting, "Call an ambulance!" in a voice that could be felt as well as heard. He was joined by a tall thin blond woman in a dark blue smock who darted from behind the travel store's register. Wincing, she looked at the man's nose and said, "I'll get some ice."
"What happened?" the black man asked.
The bleeder's head rolled slowly from left to right. "A...fight," he rasped. "Flashlight."
"Huh?"
"Some guy...in the parking lot...hit me in the face with a flashlight."
Over his shoulder, the janitor shouted again: "Call the police, too!"
"Callin' 'em now!" a woman shouted from the fuel desk around the corner.
The store was crowded, but no one was moving; they all stood in a sloppy circle, staring at the blood and the man who had shed it.
The door opened behind them and Doug smelled the newcomer before he heard him—it was the rank smell of a fat man who had not bathed in too long—and when he spoke, his voice sounded like gelatin being sucked up by a weak vacuum cleaner:
"—up here for a while, then we'll—the fuck's goin' on here? Ho-lee shee-yit!"
Doug looked over his shoulder casually and saw the man: very fat, not very tall, thin dark hair greased back above a face like a gravel pit with teeth of rotting bark. The man he was speaking to was slightly taller, not quite as fat, but with the same hair; his face seemed to be sprinkled with a rash that, in places, was the color of ripe cherries. They were both so repulsive, they could have been brothers or, at the very least, first cousins. Both men stared in awe at the blood on the floor and the shorter, fatter one leaned toward the taller and, still looking at the puddle, muttered, "Get out there and make Goddamned sure none of 'em come in here. This'll drive 'em outta their fuckin' minds."
The other man nodded slowly, moved backward a couple steps, then turned and hurried out the door.
"A phone," Adelle mumbled, looking as if she might be dizzy. "We should find a phone."
Doug put his arm around her and turned her toward the restaurant. "Yeah, but first let's get a table and some coffee, huh? C'mon, kids." They shouldered through the crowd in the corridor until they reached the register where a young woman stood behind the counter talking on the telephone. "How long is the wait for a table?" Doug asked.
Putting her hand over the mouthpiece, she said, "About forty—" She stopped, looked them over and frowned. "Oh, Lordy, you folks haven't had a good night, have you?"
Doug chuckled. "I'm afraid not."
Leaning toward them, she whispered conspiratorially, "Well...let me see what I can do, huh?"
"You stay here with the kids," Doug told Adelle. "I'm going to see what I can do about getting a tow truck. Wave me down if you've got a table when I come back."
He wound his way back to the travel store, where the janitor was mopping up the blood; the injured man was gone, but had left behind a trail of red splotches on the floor leading across the store to a door marked OFFICE. Doug asked the cashier where he could find a pay phone and she pointed him toward the fuel desk and beyond but, as he turned, stepping around the janitor, he was nearly knocked to the floor by the fat, smelly man who'd been standing behind him earlier.
"Goddammit," the man growled quietly, hurrying toward the door.
Doug watched him grab the arm of a thin, pale girl wearing a long heavy black coat, who stood at the door staring open-mouthed at the janitor's mop as it slid back and forth through the smeared blood on the floor.
"Didn't he tell you not to come in here?" the man snapped, jerking her around and pointing her toward the door. "Now get out there, dammitall."
As if in a daze, the girl pushed through the door and walked slowly outside.
Doug turned and headed for the telephones, shaking his head and wishing, once again, that he'd never come...
By the time they were seated in a corner booth by the window, pinpricks of sensation were returning to Jon's toes.
"I'm seating you out of turn," the hostess whispered, '"cause you folks look like you need it, 'kay? Just kinda keep quiet about it."
Jon took off his coat, scooted over to the window and peered through the partially open blinds, hooking a finger over one and pulling it down; he watched the trucks outside as Mom ordered coffee and hot chocolate for everyone. She dipped a napkin in her ice water and dabbed her cut lip, then asked, "Everybody sure you're okay? Nobody was hurt?"
Jon and the girls nodded wearily.
There was a telephone at each table with a plastic card attached that read COLLECT AND CREDIT CARD CALLS ONLY and Mom placed a collect call to Aunt Janice in Grants Pass.
The waitress brought their drinks and menus, but Jon didn't open his. He'd been hungry
earlier but had no appetite now. Being at the Sierra Gold Pan again made him miss his dad.
They'd come to the truck stop together six years ago. Jon was nine then and out of school for the summer so Dad had taken him along to run a load of sheetrock into Tacoma, Washington. Jon had ridden in the truck before—a dark blue and silver Kenworth that looked, to a nine year old, much bigger than it actually was—but he'd never gone on a whole run with Dad and he remembered having more fun on that trip than in Disneyland the year before. Probably because it had just been the two of them together inside that monstrous machine that sounded as if it were eating the road as they went. They could tell dirty jokes without a scolding from Mom; Cece, who was two at the time, wasn't bawling and getting car sick and Dana wasn't there to complain about everything. Just Jon, his dad and the truck.
And the stops they made! They ate at a restaurant that was inside an old train and stopped in Mt. Shasta where hundreds of people were gathered for a ceremony to worship the little men they believed were living inside the mountain; they visited a little town that looked like the set of a western movie and Jon got his first taste of beer; and best of all, they stayed a night at the Sierra Gold Pan Truck Stop on their way back.
It was probably the least interesting of their stops and it wasn't as big as some other truck stops they'd gone into, but something about it had captured Jon's imagination. It was full of people—even in the middle of the night!—and had an almost carnival atmosphere that Jon found exciting. The engines of trucks made the parking lot pavement vibrate and disembodied voices called out names and made announcements in the night; inside, music played and voices droned and cash registers chattered and, in the back, a room filled with video games and pinball machines rang and beeped and buzzed Jon's favorite sounds. Dad cashed a ten dollar bill and gave him forty quarters—not counting the ones in his pocket—and turned Jon loose in the arcade room while he took a shower; a few truckers had gathered behind him as he played and cheered him on to win three free games.
Now it was different. Without Dad, the truck stop seemed like just another truck stop full of weary travelers and overworked waitresses and cashiers. Everything was different without Dad.
"I told you," Mom snapped into the phone, "we'll get there as soon as—oh, don't start with me, Janice. The only reason for that is you live there. I'm a few hundred miles away and we've—because I can't afford to fly, that's why!"
Jon looked down at his hot chocolate and clenched his teeth. He hated his mother's voice when she was angry or defensive; it was bitter and sharp, seldom raised but always cutting. That voice, Jon was certain, was the reason his dad had simply disappeared a year ago...
He turned to the window again, pulling a blind down. The snow was still falling heavily, thrown to the ground diagonally by the harsh wind. The road in front stretched to the right away from the freeway, flanked by streetlamps that glowed in the night like small moons. Some distance away, the road curved around a patch of trees and disappeared. On the outside of the curve and off the road a bit stood a large two story house. A bright light shone in front of the house and a soft glow came from three of the windows: two below and one on top. In the top window, a small figure stood silhouetted against the light. A few moments later, a taller figure came, put two arms on the shoulders of the smaller, then both moved out of sight.
"Well, do they think she's going to get through the night?" Mom asked, her voice softer now and a little trembly, lips pressed closer to the mouthpiece, until: "No, we're not sight seeing, Janice, we had a wreck. I don't know how much longer we'll—Cece," she interrupted herself, "quit playing with the salt—I don't know how much longer we'll be here. We need a tow, then we've gotta get the car fixed and—oh, oh, yeah, here we go again with your favorite little guilt trip."
Jon rolled his eyes. Things were more interesting outside.
At the front edge of the lot, near the street, someone stood below one of the mercury lamps facing the restaurant. A girl. At least, it looked like a girl. She wore a long dark coat and its hem snapped around her legs in the wind; a cap was pulled down over her head and long fair hair blew around her face and neck. In the glare of the lamp high above her, the girl's face looked gaunt and very pale, as if her skin were caked with flour. She didn't move, just stood stiffly in the flurry of snow, hands in her coat pockets, watching.
Jon squinted, pulled the blind down and cupped his hands to his eyes, pressing his nose to the cold glass.
The window...she was watching the window, his window! Just standing there as if she were unaware of the snow or the ice cold wind...staring. At him!
"But what did the doctor say about the blood clot?" Mom asked, drumming her fingers noisily on the tabletop. "Did he say it could—Jon," she interrupted herself again, "Jon-athon! Leave the blinds alone." Into the phone again: "Did he say it could be fixed?"
Jon ignored her.
The girl still had not moved.
A truck rolled slowly across the lot and in front of the girl and Jon waited several seconds for it to pass.
The girl was gone.
His back stiffened, eyes darting left to right, but he couldn't find her. Where could she have gone? Only seconds had passed, not enough time for her to completely disappear. Unless she'd hunkered down behind a car...
The blinds rattled as Jon pulled them down further and craned his head around to look in both directions along the front wall of the restaurant and Mom hissed," Will you stop it!"
He pulled away from the window as she returned the receiver to her ear. "Of course David's there already, Janice, he flew. It's a couple hours from L.A. by plane. He's a lawyer. When I'm a lawyer with my own TV commercials, I'll fly, too, okay? Look, just get off it. What about Dad? How's he doing?"
Jon watched her; when she was staring at her coffee and chewing on a thumbnail, he knew she was too distracted to notice, so he tugged the blind down again and—
—cried out, clamping a palm over his mouth. The blind slapped back into place.
A white narrow face against the window. Full lips curled into a closed-mouth smile. And eyes...wide, smiling eyes... warm eyes...sparkling...
With her hand covering the mouthpiece, lips pulled back over clenched teeth, Mom rasped, "What the hell is wrong with you? Huh? Your little sister is behaving better than you!"
"I-I'm, I-I wuh-was—"
"Well, stop it." Pulling her hand from the receiver: "Okay, sorry, Janice. Just the kids. Look, when you talk to Dad, would you tell him we'll be there as soon as possible? And tell Mom...tell her I love her. Okay?"
Jon's hands were trembling from the jolt. Sitting across from him, Cece was busy tearing up her napkin; beside him, Dara was engrossed in the menu. Neither of them had noticed. Mom was still talking, very quietly now, so quietly that he couldn't make out her words above the noise of the restaurant.
He lifted his hand slowly and his finger quivered as he hooked it over the blind and very cautiously pulled it down.
The face was still there, but this time, it wasn't a surprise.
It was the girl he'd seen standing across the lot. She gave him a sly, playful smile and tilted her head forward a bit so that she was looking up at him through long eyelashes. Her frail white hand rose slowly and doubled into a fist, then her long, slender index finger extended and curled...extended and curled...beckoning.
Jon dropped the blind again, but only for a moment. When he peeked out, her arms were folded and her eyebrows were raised high. She mouthed silently, I'm waiting...
He slapped Cece's thigh. "Move."
"What?"
"I wanna get out."
"H' come?"
"I just want to, that's all, c'mon."
"Where are you going, Jon?"
He turned to his Mom, still on the phone, and said, "I just don't want to sit anymore. I wanna walk around."
"What do you want to eat?"
"I'm not hungry."
"Well, you better eat now, because I don't know when—"
/>
"A cheeseburger. Order a cheeseburger for me."
"Where are you going?"
"Urn, just to see what Doug's doing." When Cece moved, he scooted out of the booth, crossed the restaurant and hurried through the crowded corridor to the front entrance, then went outside into the cold...
CHAPTER 4
The hunger had been growing since he'd started driving at dusk.
So had the weakness.
The hunger began in his throat; the very first hint that he would have to feed soon was a harsh dryness in the back of his throat. A bit later, his skin became sensitive and he began to tremble just a little. After a while, his eyes began to water and burn and he looked as if he'd been crying. Then the chill set in; his body always felt cold to the living, but if he went too long without feeding, he began to feel cold and was soon shivering. His lips swelled and cracked. His skin began to flake. He'd never gone beyond that, but he was sure that, if he did, he would lose consciousness and, eventually, die.
Again and forever.
The weakness had started about four months ago. Actually, when he thought about it, he realized it had probably started before that, but he'd only noticed it four months ago. At first, he'd thought perhaps he was not feeding enough, or maybe he was doing something else wrong; his understanding of his condition was still limited. But even when he doubled his portions, the weakness persisted: a gradually growing heaviness in his arms and legs and a decrease in what had, for a while, been an amazing boost in his physical strength. Later, it had begun to show in his face. Added to the unhealthy pallor were heavy pockets of flesh that sagged beneath his deep set eyes; his cheeks sank in further and further beneath his cheekbones over time, as if his face were deflating. His hair began to fall out, just a little at first, then more and more as the months passed. A couple of his lower teeth slowly began to darken and even loosen in the gum.
He had what he needed for his hunger in the back, but he couldn't drive while he was feeding and he couldn't afford the time to stop; it would sate his hunger for a while, but whatever else was wrong with him would only continue to worsen, slowly, steadily...
