Claws of Doom

by Peebles, Chrissy

  The driver’s eyes were sunk into this skull, his skin jaundiced, and his teeth a matching shade of subway-tube yellow. He glared at me and I instinctively clutched my belly. Little Roger was very still. He hadn’t kicked since we landed on Vulgarian soil. Did he know something I didn’t know?

  Chapter Four

  I leaned on Roger, my legs unsteady from all the bracing I’d done on the trip up the mountain. The dark ground beneath my feet stuck to my shoes with a whap-slap.

  “Welcome!”

  The cheery greeting came from a tiny lady on the sunny side of thirty. She wore a white pinafore over an ankle-length black dress, barely hiding tiny pink boots. Her brushy brown hair was tied in a tail at the back of her head and swished as she scampered down the stairs to greet us.

  She curtsied. “My name is Miss McCurley. Squirl E. McCurley, but you can call me Squirl.” She pushed up her sleeves and grabbed our luggage from the coach. Roger and Kit made a polite wrestle for the bags, but she prevailed. “It’s my job!”

  Squirl schlepped the bags, three under each arm, into the hotel lobby.

  “Let’s stay on her good side,” Kit said pretending to flex his muscles as we tottered after her.

  Roger strode an uneven gate to the registration desk and banged on a little bicycle bell creating an embarrassingly sissy jangle. A skeletal guy with a dead rat toupee on his head popped up as if he’d been hiding on the floor behind the counter.

  “The Jolley party, checking in,” Roger said.

  The rat-hat clerk studied Roger and Kit; then his bulbous eyes came to rest on my tummy.

  “Your suite is ready,” rat-hat’s voice sounded like a bad case of strep throat.

  I scrounged in my pocket and handed Roger a pen. I wasn’t about to let him touch the rat’s germy quill.

  The register kicked off a cloud of dust and probable mold spoors, as the clerk whose nametag read Jonathan Harker spun the book for Roger’s signature.

  “We’ll need a priest or a minister,” Roger said. “Know where we can find one?”

  Harker glanced at my belly again. The dude was creeping me out. “The village is on struck. The priests have also struck.”

  “Strike. That’s strike. How can priests strike?” I said, more than a little agitated.

  “The religious have all left Vulgaria on retreat. This is a bad time to come to our country. I will be leaving for a family holiday in the morning.” His eyes said liar, liar, toupee on fire. “Only Miss McCurley will stay on. She will tend to your needs.”

  “Is she a priest?” I asked wondering where our luggage had disappeared.

  Harker shook his head. “She is many things; but a priest she is not.”

  As if reading my mind, he continued, “Miss McCurley is waiting for you in your suite on the third floor. I suggest you avail yourselves of the dining room soon. It closes at five.”

  Just what a pregnant lady wants to hear. Limited access to food. Dang it!

  Harker motioned toward a one-person wire lift. It looked like an ornate, oversized birdcage on two cables, ready to plummet.

  I mouthed “no way” and headed toward the narrow Gone with the Wind staircase. Roger scooted to my side and took my left arm. I grasped the rail with my right. I felt bloated and in need of a nap.

  Breathless at the third landing, I dug my fingers into Roger’s arm and paused. Squirl stood at the end of a long carpeted corridor and beckoned us toward opened dark wood double doors. I hobbled closer to the entrance. The dim sunlight cast an eerie glow on our honeymoon-plus-one suite.

  The room was right out of a Merchant-Ivory film, Victorian-a-go-go. A four-poster bed the size of my condo living room sat on a platform eating up most of the space. Faded red velvet drapes began at the bed canopy and drooped to the sides, held back from the bedposts with tatty gold cords. The bedspread matched the drapes. A dust sheen approximating powdered sugar on a red velvet cake blushed in the sunlight.

  The vision brought on a coughing fit. Little Roger kicked catching me in the side. Good. He was finally alert and flexing his little muscles. I couldn’t wait to hold the little guy. I hoped he looked just like Roger but had my smarts.

  This bacteria festival was not what I had in mind when I let Roger plan our destination wedding. This is the last time I leave the controls up to the cute, but absentminded professor.

  The flight in and out of Vulgaria occurred once a week. I wondered if it was too late to catch the outbound plane. We could still make dinner at Joe’s Stone Crabs on Miami Beach.

  Kit’s room adjoined ours by a double door that closed from either side. I insisted on keeping him close when Roger made the room arrangements. Being in a foreign country, I felt the need to protect him, not knowing the extent of Vulgarian prejudice to nail techs.

  The door between our rooms sat open. I caught a glimpse of Squirl flitting around in my buddy’s room, her ponytail swinging, her cute chubby cheeks harboring a grin. She scuttled the wall and pulled back the bulky drapes, then lifted the pig-squealing window. A breeze wafted in, smelling of the forests and the sea.

  Roger stood at the window in our room, his eyes locked on the breathtaking view. The forest was exquisite, lush, dark, and mysterious. Beyond the woods I could just make out the rolling waves of the Black Sea.

  “Roger?” I tapped his arm.

  No response.

  “Sweetie?” I kissed his cheek. Nothing. I should be the focus of his gaze, not the gosh-darned trees.

  “Roger?”

  He looked at me as if surprised to see me. Could he get any more romantic? I should be used to it by now. His mind was probably off on a treasure hunt in some exotic local.

  Time to unpack and chow down. I would kill for extra crispy chicken thighs and a container of gravy. I wondered if Colonel Sanders had set up shop in Loutish.

  My suitcase was perched on a folding luggage rack. I snapped the locks, lifted the lid and checked to be sure Roger wasn’t looking. The wedding dress was on the top layer, wrapped in dry cleaner’s plastic. The label was missing but the dress was definitely Betsy Johnson. All feminine, lacy, and a tad bit funky. A woman has only one white-dress wedding day even if it is after the fact.

  “Don’t look, it’s my wedding dress.” I said to Roger as I shook it out and carried it into Kit’s room where he was busy unpacking.

  I placed my ‘something old’ dress in Kit’s closet, next to his blue maid-of-honor gown so Roger wouldn’t accidentally see it until our wedding. The way our luck ran, I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Squirl was puttering with a stack of fluffy off-white towels. She placed them in Kit’s bathroom and then sidled over to us.

  “Miss, I couldn’t help but overhear what Mr. Harker told you. There is a minister, but not here in the village. There’s a priest from the Vatican at the monastery,” Squirl said.

  She raised her brows as she mentioned Rome. “The priest arrived in the Vaticopter this morning. Lots of whirlybird noise when they dropped him off. We felt the propeller wind all the way down here.” She grinned a toothy grin.

  “He’s investigating the murders,” she said as she patted my stomach.

  Why do folks feel compelled to touch a pregnant belly? It’s not a good luck charm; it’s a body part. What would she say if I patted her boobs?

  Murders?

  Squirl lowered her voice, “Being with child, I’m not sure you should hear these ugly things, but you are bound to discover the truth.” She pulled a tiny silver cross from inside her collar and held it so I could see.

  There goes my peaceful destination wedding.

  “Who was murdered?” I squeezed her chubby cheeks with my fingers to get her to slow down and focus.

  “There’s a cemetery outside the walls of the monastery,” she nodded in the general direction of the abbey. “Some of the Loutish boys were playing among the tombstones when they found …” She hesitated as a wolf howl cut off her words.

  Shades of Mel Brooks.

  She sighed
and picked up the thread, “Monks. Buried monks. Forty bodies!”

  Bump! Bump! Who the heck was providing the background music? Queen?

  Clearing my throat I took a deep breath and spoke with all the authority I could muster, “Children shouldn’t play in graveyards.” I covered my belly with my hands in hopes of blocking Little Roger’s ears. This wasn’t something a baby-in-the-womb should hear.

  Squirl was obviously one of those folks who enjoys being the bearer of scary news. “All the monks were murdered at the same time. They died at the last full moon when the Lugosi Comet appeared in the sky. The good brothers were all staked in their coffins, right through their hearts. ‘Tis very upsetting.”

  Chapter Five

  I hadn’t noticed Roger slip into Kit’s room. He moved to the bed and put his arm around me. I shivered and buried my head in his shoulder.

  “There’s a Vatican priest at the monastery?” he asked.

  “I understand he’s a nice young man. Name’s something like Reverend Bram Soaker, I think,” Squirl said.

  “I’ll bet he’ll marry us,” Roger said squeezing me close. He conveniently didn’t hear the part about the dead bodies.

  “Damn it!” I shoved him away shooting him my most shriveling look. “There’s a collection of monks pinned like butterflies in their coffins, and you want some guy who has touched those corpses to join our hands in holy matrimony?”

  “Oh yeah… the bodies. Since when are you so squeamish?”

  “I’ve always been squeamish. I’ve just never found the right time to tell you.”

  He patted my hand. “You take a nap. Kit will stay here with you. I’ll just jog up the mountain to the monastery and have a chat with that Vatican priest. I’ll see what’s what. Might not be a bit of truth to the tale. When I return we’ll have a nice dinner downstairs.”

  “You are not fooling me, Roger Jolley. You want a look-see at those dead monks. I’ll not be widowed before I’m married. Besides, I want to be sure that you don’t touch anything germy. We go together or not at all.”

  “Yes, dear,” he said in his most patronizing tone.

  Roger stretched and yawned. “We could all use a little nap. I’m jet-lagged. After a snooze we’ll visit the monastery.”

  I thought I saw him wink at Kit, but it could have been a case of dry-eyes from the long flight.

  We left Kit in his room and returned to ours in time to watch a dust cloud settle on our bed. Squirl pulled back the velvet spread, folded it into a circus-sized tent, and placed it on a sofa under the windows.

  I checked the sheets for holes and mildew. Clear.

  Thanking Squirl, we locked the hall doors after her but kept the door between our room and Kit’s ajar. I slipped into a flannel mom-nightie. Roger stripped down to his skivvies and fell into the bed like a rock. I peeked in at Kit. He snored lightly. Jet lag had caught up with the guys.

  Being tired all the time was the only downside to my pregnancy. I couldn’t tell where poop from preggers left off and jet lag began. I felt like a wrung-out dishtowel.

  I slipped into bed next to Roger and gazed out the window at the gray-blue sky and the tops of the green-black trees. The resort was pretty in a Hansel and Gretel way. Where was the witch?

  Hovering on the edge of sleep, I awoke with one of those sudden jerks that happen when you feel you are falling from a dream cliff. Roger! That little stinker, his eyes had lit up at the mention of the staked monks in coffins. No way would he be able to resist those dead friars while I napped. What kind of fool did he take me for?

  Maybe he was faking sleep waiting for me to nod off? I lifted his right eyelid and ran my finger lightly under his nose. No response. He was asleep.

  Just in case he decided to wander, I pulled a drapery cord off the bed curtain canopy, tied one end around my left wrist and gently tied the other end around his right hand using a tricky double-knot I’d seen on the Discovery Channel. “Sorry, love,” I whispered, lying next to him. I watched him breathe in and out, in and out, the rhythm lulling me into a deep sleep.

  The need to pee woke me. I thought I was a frequent pee-er before pregnancy, but now I felt as if I were going twenty times a day. The bedroom was dark. Someone had closed the drapes. I sat up and struggled from the soft mattress trailing the drapery cord from my wrist. My fiancé was not on the other end. I glanced back at his side of the bed. No Roger. I tied him to me like a puppy on a leash and now he was gone. That little shit!

  I was going to kill him, but first I needed to tinkle.

  The bathroom smelled of Pine Sol and bleach. It contained a potty, an ancient pedestal sink with two faucets, and a tub with a circular shower curtain and a handheld spritzer. The commode was an oldie with a tiny seat. Louts must have super small butts.

  With a sigh, Little Roger and I had a satisfying pee. The toilet paper could have used some fabric softener but at least it didn’t contain the wood splinters I’d found embedded in the potty paper in Cairo.

  I turned on the sink faucets and let them run for a bit. No telling how long the water had been sitting in the rusty pipes. Standing before the basin, I unwrapped a bar of pink heart-shaped soap and sniffed it. It had the scent of funeral roses. The mirror over the sink was pitted and peeling at the corners. My reflection told me I’d lost my pregnancy glow, if I ever had it. Dark circles cupped my tired green eyes.

  The cold water trickled over my hands as I rubbed the soap with my palms. I glanced up at the mirror. A shadowy figure stood behind me. The image leered at me with two large canine teeth on either side of narrow purple lips. His white hair was pulled back in a ponytail and his boney face reminded me of a former real estate client after his last facelift.

  The creature’s eyes spun like red and yellow pinwheels casting a hypnotic web that drew me in. My body refused to move, frozen in place. Little Roger booted me snapping me awake just as the monster leaned forward and sniffed my neck.

  Keeping the creature’s reflection fixed with my eyes, I slammed my elbow back into him, not making contact, and spun around protecting my baby bump with both hands. There was no one there. I was alone in the room. A hallucination? Pregnant women have strange dreams, true, but I was awake and he was real.

  I leaned my butt against the sink and ran my wet hands through my hair. That dude was flesh and blood, or least blood. I didn’t imagine the stench of skunk ape that lingered in the small room.

  I needed a weapon. Something heavy. A quick inventory of the bathroom told me there were no ashtrays. A toilet plunger sat behind the commode. It wouldn’t pack a wallop but I grabbed it and held on as if it were Excalibur.

  Armed with a gummy rubber ball on a stick I peeked out the bathroom door. No boogie men. No fiancé, either. Barefooted, I carefully stepped along the carpet toward Kit’s open door holding the plunger like a sword with the rubber end out. The most damage I could inflict would be to suck off someone’s face.

  “Come and get it, big guy!” I yelled to the ghost in the suite.

  “Yikes!” Kit was lying on his bed in one instant and in the next he was on the ceiling shivering in his black satin pajama bottoms. “You scared the daylights out of me!” He crawled back down the wall and under his sheets.

  I waved the plunger over my head for emphasis. “There was a monster in my bathroom!”

  His nerves were jelly but his good heart wanted to protect me. Kit leapt from the bed, his legs tangled in the sheets causing him to trip, falling forward. He skidded on his chest along the floor, stopped at my feet, and clambered to a sitting position. “Now that hurt!” He rubbed his nose.

  Refusing my outstretched hands, he performed a gymnast’s jump up. “Don’t be so quick to help lift one-hundred and seventy-pounds. Remember your condition.”

  He hiked up his droopy silk pajamas.

  “Is the monster still in the bathroom?” He wrapped his hands around the stick next to my white-knuckle grip. Four hands on one toilet plunger.

  “I only saw his reflecti
on in the mirror. He disappeared when I turned around.”

  Kit loosened his fingers. He cut me one of his doubting looks. They don’t happen often, but when they do, they really piss me off. I pulled the stick out of his hands.

  “Where’s Roger?” I asked.

  “He tiptoed out about ten minutes ago. Told me to keep an eye on you. He was headed to the monastery.”

  “We’re going after him.” I signaled Kit to follow me.

  “Maybe you should get dressed. WHERE did you get that … that …?”

  I looked down at my flannel nightgown. “It’s comfortable. Pregnant ladies like to be comfortable.”

  “This is your honeymoon! That is the nastiest looking thing I’ve seen outside of Walmart.”

  “You’ve never been in a Walmart. How about you getting dressed? You look like Liberace’s boy toy in those satin pajama bottoms. At least put the top on.” I pulled the plunger from his hands.

  Kit grabbed the jacket half of his snooze-wear struggling to get his long arms into the sleeves. He slid his feet into black slippers with pom-poms on the toes.

  My shoes were near the bed. I scooted over and stepped into them. Raising the plunger, I plunged ahead as Kit fussed with the satin covered buttons on the pajama top, his elbows out at ninety-degree angles. Side-by-side we attempted to dash out the door in perfect imitation of two of the Three Stooges.

  Yanking open the door, we tripped over Squirl, knocking her to the carpet.

  Not in the mood to be polite, I yelled at her, “Were you listening at the keyhole?”

  She wobbled to her feet, brushing the floor dust off her apron. “Yes.”

  An honest snoop. “Why?”

  “I’m worried about your baby.”

  I stepped back, covering my belly with my hands. “Why?”

  “Vlad.”

  “What’s a Vlad?” I asked hoping the answer had nothing to do with Dracula.

  “Vlad’s Impala is parked out front. That means he’s here in the Van Helsing. I heard he steals babies.”

  Chapter Six

  Shivers ran through me like mice in a barn. “I don’t have time for ghost stories. Which way did Roger—my fiancé—go?” I sounded brave but it was pure bull.