Napoleon snorted even as more toothy lumps boiled up through cracks in the floor. The terrier readied himself for battle.
Earl jammed the key in the ignition and started the truck. He flicked on the brights in an effort to see past the hood. It helped a little.
"Where are we going?" Cathy asked.
Earl put the pickup in reverse and backed away, kicking up a cloud of dust and gravel. He ground his way to first gear.
"We're going in."
He fastened his seat belt.
"You sure this is going to work?"
"Pretty sure."
He revved the engine. Steaming fissures cracked the parking lot. The massive tentacles of Frush'ee'aghov thrust through the earth. A writhing wall began sprouting in front of Gil's All Night Diner.
Earl mashed the accelerator while a gap of opportunity remained. The pickup's wheels spun. The truck didn't move. A glance in the rearview mirror showed a gray tendril holding the truck by the tailgate.
"Goddamn it!"
Earl pushed harder, but the pedal was already all the way down. The engine roared. The truck stayed put.
"We're not going to make it!"
Cathy jumped from the cab and hopped in the bed. She brought down her bat on the tentacle's tip. Frush'ee'aghov didn't even notice. Blow after blow after blow accomplished nothing.
"Damn it, let go! Let go!"
Rusted hinges surrendered to opposing forces. The tailgate bent and snapped off. The pickup shot forward, rocketing toward the shrinking hole in the barricade and the unholy temple behind it.
"You're persistent," Tammy mused. "I'll give you that."
Duke was a bloody mess, barely able to keep standing. Organs spilled from a tear in his side. He held them in with one hand, using the other as a third leg. Ragged, wheezing breaths slipped from his throat. His right leg trembled. A jagged bone poked from his left thigh.
Tammy flicked her finger at him. A new cut slashed across his muzzle. She waved her hand, and five cuts tore into his already thoroughly serrated flesh.
"I'm beyond death now. Beyond the pathetic mortal speck I was, and very soon I'll take my place beside the old gods." She gently cupped his muzzle and raised his head to look into his eyes. "I like you, Duke. You were the one thing I desired I could not have when I was but a child. And even though you could not kill me, you gave it a good try. I respect that. I respect you." A long, red tongue darted from her lips and licked his nose. "That's why I'll offer you this. Join me. As I sit by the new masters of the world, you shall sit by my side. What do you say?"
He spat out a glob of phlegm, vomit, and blood. "Fuck you."
"Have it your way. I could kill you, but I wouldn't dream of denying you the honor of witnessing my ascension to glory."
She slapped him to the floor and turned away. He was of no consequence. She stroked Frush'ee'aghov's slimy mass with loving fingers. The light would forever extinguish soon. In her joy, a flitting thought danced barely in her consciousness. She wondered where Earl and Cathy had gotten to. No doubt crushed beneath Frush'ee'aghov's great body or fallen into hell itself.
A broken headlight cut through the darkness. A battered pickup smashed its way through the front doors. It swerved around a tower of tentacles and collided with the central pillar. The front end wrapped around the cracked column.
Frush'ee'aghov screeched. Tammy felt the Gate narrow. Arcane energies slipped away, but the damage was not enough to stop her. She didn't know how they knew, how they came so close to breaking the matrix. But they had failed, and now she was to become a living goddess. A long, rough chuckle bubbled up within her.
"I cannot be denied!"
The pillar trembled. The pressure of holding up the ceiling and holding open an interdimensional gate were too much to bear. The brick column began to crumble.
"No. This isn't right. This isn't how it's supposed to be."
The central column collapsed, crushing the truck cab, and what was left of the roof fell in. The old gods bellowed as their portal to Earth swung nearly shut. A fraction of their power filtered through the remaining crack. Tammy's body shrank into a vulnerable human shape. Suddenly her will alone anchored Frush'ee'aghov to the world. The strain was immense, almost unbearable, but she need only weather it for a few more moments.
A savage growl issued from behind her. She whirled on the werewolf limping toward her.
"Stay back, or suffer my wrath!"
But there was no wrath to suffer. Even a rudimentary magic required concentration, and all her arcane power was focused on holding open the Gate.
Duke's clawed hand punched through her chest and ripped out her heart. The still beating organ looked tiny in his hand. Tammy stumbled. The old gods poured all their energies into her, but she was dying. If she could just hold on a little longer.
"Stop screwing around, Duke!" Earl called.
Duke squeezed Tammy's heart in his fist. It popped. The priestess of the old gods hissed her last breath.
"Aw, shit."
Frush'ee'aghov sank into the earth. Flailing and thrashing, he fought the irresistible pull. His nearly open eye sucked back through the Gate. A desperate tentacle wrapped around the pickup and dragged it along to hell. Earl and Cathy jumped from the doomed vehicle.
"Damn it!"
Earl tried to save the wreck of twisted steel. The pickup and he had been through a lot together, and he wasn't going to let it go without a fight. The bumper came off in his hands. The automobile bobbed, tipped downward, and sank into the turbulent linoleum sea. It disappeared into the void with a heartrending scrape of warping metal. The dark fog swirled into the bathtub drain of Creation. The many rifts and crevices sealed themselves shut so tight not even the tiniest cracks remained. The old gods shrieked one last defeated cry from their prison.
But it was a distant wail, hardly worth noticing.
The portal closed with a belch and spit out a muffler that came to rest at Earl's feet.
Cathy grabbed him and whirled through the once again seemingly normal diner. There were a few screwups. The tile ran slightly askew. A table stuck through a wall in a mingling of space. The bathroom door had relocated itself several feet from where it once stood, but these were all minor slips in the space-time continuum and easily ignored at the moment.
Napoleon cautiously trotted into the dining area. Cathy knelt and took the dog in her arms. "We did it, boy! We actually did it!"
Duke and Earl glanced up through the gaping lack of roof. The moon and stars were back in place. The thousands of twinkling lights beamed down upon the diner with a blinding brilliance compared to the eternal twilight that had nearly smothered the world. In a hundred years of endless night, Earl had never seen anything as beautiful.
"Thought we cashed in our chips for a second there."
Duke nodded.
Earl stepped in something wet and squishy that had fallen from the leaking gash in Duke's side.
"You alright?"
The werewolf shoved his drooping organs back in place. His canine lips peeled back in a weak smile. "I'll live. How you doin'?"
Earl took a good long look at Cathy. Napoleon licked her face while she laughed. The beauty of the reborn night paled beside her musical giggle.
"Never better."
Things returned to normal by the end of the week. The citizens of Rockwood were far too accustomed to such happenings to make a big deal out of a little thing like a near apocalypse. The world hadn't ended. Everyone pretended not to notice. Life went on.
There were changes, small shifts in Rockwood's paradigm. The sun shined brighter. The brown grass turned a healthier shade of yellow. A wren was spotted singing sweetly on a diner sign amid a flock of ravens, and a stain of blood on a linoleum floor was finally mopped away for good. And in McAllister Fields two new ghostly guardians stood watch.
Somewhere in the back, two young lovers lay side-by-side, laid to rest in a single ceremony that they might find the happiness in eternity denied them by a
tragic coyote attack.
Tammy stood at the graveyard gate. Nothing stood between her and the other side, but she just couldn't step across. It wasn't like there was an invisible wall, yet every time she thought about lifting her leg and crossing, the foot stayed put.
Chad charged the gate. He started from a good way off, but the closer he got, the heavier his steps became. Just before he would have crossed over, he came to a reluctant stop.
"Damn, babe, I thought I had it that time."
Tammy rolled her ectoplasmic eyes. There was no way to break the term of guardianship. They were trapped until somebody died and got buried. Then it was off to whatever waited on the other side for a fallen priestess of the old gods. In the meantime, she could only kill time. She didn't mind the waiting itself, but the company left much to be desired.
Chad tried pushing his fingers past the barrier for the thousandth time and was unsuccessful for the thousandth time. He scratched his head and thought long and hard.
"I think we're stuck."
"Ya think?"
She headed back toward her grave. Chad trailed along.
"So we're, like, dead, right?"
She nodded.
"Bummer." Smiling, he put an arm around her waist. "I just want you to know that I'm not mad about you letting that guy kill me."
"Glad to hear it," she replied through clenched teeth.
His hand slid down to her butt.
Tammy had killed, invoked the forbidden arts, and tried to sacrifice the world for her own gain, but she wondered what she'd done to deserve this.
"Aw, c'mon, baby. We can just make out. We don't have to do anything serious."
Death had not diminished his hormones nor made him any less annoying. If Chad the ghost was anything like Chad the living, it was just easier to give him a screw and get him off her back.
"Oh, alright," she sighed.
He wrapped her in powerful, yet yielding arms and kissed her. It was strong, passionate, electrifying without being overwhelming. Heat washed through her, and she pushed him away.
"What? Did I do something wrong, babe?"
She took a moment to adjust. Chad had always been a lousy lay when alive. He'd possessed the enthusiasm and the desire. Everything but the talent. He'd always tried, but clumsy hands and a feeble endurance had been his downfall. But ectoplasm was a construction of the soul, and somewhere in Chad hid the soul of a lover.
She kissed him again. The merest touch of his lips made her weak in the knees. She shoved him roughly to the ground. There were worse ways to kill time, she supposed.
He grinned stupidly in a way she found surprisingly charming. Then he opened his mouth and said something stupid to ruin the moment.
"Are we going to do it?"
"Chad."
"Yeah?"
"Shut up."
Deep within the earth, the old gods grumbled. Only Tammy, among the living and the dead, heard.
And she just ignored them.
Earl shoved with all his might, but all the unnatural strength of the undead couldn't fit a steamer trunk into the back seat of a used Volvo. He admitted defeat, dropping the trunk to the ground.
"Guess we'll have to tie it to the roof."
"Guess so," Duke went into the diner to borrow some rope.
Earl glared at the stubborn little car. It was a poor replacement for the reliable old pickup Frush'ee'aghov had taken from him.
Cathy sat cross-legged on the hood. He leaned on the bumper beside her and took her hand.
"Do you think he minds me coming along?" she asked.
"Who? Duke? Naw, he's alright with it."
"And what about Napoleon?"
The terrier, complete with a whole head and tail, sniffed around the tires. He raised a leg and took an ectoplasmic whiz.
The ghost pee passed through its target and evaporated upon hitting the gravel. Napoleon proceeded to tour the three remaining targets.
"Duke likes animals."
"Are you sure?"
"Oh yeah."
Earl was reasonably positive. Duke hadn't said anything about it yet. When Earl had mentioned Cathy was going to be traveling with them, he'd just nodded and shrugged. It seemed like a good sort of shrug.
"Y'know, it's funny," she said. "It all came so close to ending."
"Best not to think about it."
"Guess so."
He hopped onto the hood and put an arm around her.
"Cathy, I know we've only known each other a few days and all, and I don't expect you to feel the same way." He fidgeted and twitched. He didn't know why this had been so much easier when he'd thought he was about to die. "And I don't want to scare you or pressure you into saying something you don't really mean or anything, but . . . "
She graced his cheek with a soft peck. "Earl."
"Yeah?"
"I heard you the first time."
She leaned in. Their lips met, and a long minute passed in a tender embrace.
"I love you, too."
She ran her fingers through his thin hair. He smiled crookedly.
Duke and Loretta appeared. Earl tried to wipe the smile off his face, but it stayed in place. He didn't care. He braced himself for whatever cruel remark Duke might throw at him, but Duke just shot Earl a look that, try as he might, he couldn't interpret in any bad way.
"Got the rope."
They threw the steamer on the roof and tied it down. Earl shook his bed to make sure it was in place.
"That'll do."
Loretta awkwardly lowered her ample frame on one knee so she could pet Napoleon. The interdimensional crisis had left her and Marshall Kopp with a talent for seeing ghosts. Though she couldn't pet the dog who had saved her life, she could stroke the air. It seemed enough for Napoleon.
"You boys sure you have to go?" Loretta asked. "Wouldn't mind some help fixing the diner up."
"Thanks for the offer," Earl said, "but it's time we moved on. Nuthin' personal. Just the way we've been doing things for so long. Helps to keep us out of trouble. Usually."
Loretta rose with much effort. She dug into her tight shorts and pulled out a wrinkled fifty-dollar bill.
"That ain't necessary," Duke said. "You already bought us a car."
She slapped the bill into his hand. "Take it. You boys saved the world. It's the least I can do."
"You sure keeping the diner open is what you wanna do?"
"Figure a portal to hell should have somebody keeping an eye on it, and there ain't a whole lot of business opportunities in Rockwood. All part of the Good Lord's plan. According to Hector, all it'll take is a few minor renovations to make the diner into a lock instead of a key."
Earl questioned her wisdom, but if she wanted to live atop an interdimensional rift, that was her choice. He did find some comfort knowing the formidable waitress would be guarding the Gate.
He glanced up at the starry sky. "We should get going, Duke. Like to get a few miles under our belt before sunrise."
Loretta slid into Duke's arm. Duke lifted her bulk, calling upon every available ounce of werewolf muscle, and they shared a brief kiss. If planets could make out, Earl supposed that was about what it would look like. Duke set her down.
Loretta adjusted her tangled yellow hair. "You boys feel free to drop by if you're ever passing through again." She threw Duke a wink and a smile and trod back into the diner.
Duke's mouth betrayed a very slight grin.
"You horny bastard," Earl grunted.
They shared a chuckle.
"Give me the keys. I'm driving."
Duke tossed them over the roof. Earl was about to ask Duke to sit in back when he did so without prompting. He whistled, and Napoleon hopped on the seat beside him. The Scottish terrier's tail wagged as Duke went through the motions of scratching Napoleon's chin.
Earl went around and opened the door for Cathy, even though doors meant little to specters. While he was there, he leaned in Duke's window. "Uh, one more thing before we get going. I just wa
nted to thank you for, uh . . ." He lowered his voice to a whisper so she wouldn't overhear. "Thanks for not killing me."
"Forget it."
Earl climbed behind the wheel and started the car. The Volvo wasn't much to look at, but the engine purred with only the occasional hiccup. A brown police cruiser pulled into the lot as Earl was backing out. Sheriff Kopp stepped out of his vehicle. He tipped his Stetson.
"Where you folks off to?"
Glances were exchanged amidst the passengers. Finally, Cathy spoke up. "I've always wanted to see Las Vegas."
"I went there once. Be sure and catch a magic show while you're there."
The Volvo's occupants all frowned.
"I think we've seen enough magic for a while," Earl replied.
"I guess you're right. Well, have fun anyway." Hands on his belt, he stepped back. "And don't forget to buckle up now. Seat belts save lives."
"Will do."
Earl pulled onto the dirt road alongside the diner. "Vegas, here we come."
"Uh, Earl," Cathy said, "isn't it the other way?"
"She's right," Duke seconded.
"You sure?"
Napoleon yipped.
"Alright, alright."
Cathy by his side, Earl couldn't work up to his standard of irritation. He just smiled, turned the car around, and headed down the road leading out of Rockwood and to wherever the law of Anomalous Phenomena Attraction might lead him. With a vampire, a werewolf, and two ghosts in the car, it was only reasonable to expect a lot of weird shit. Hopefully later rather than sooner. But, for now, there was just Earl, his best friend, his girlfriend, one spectral dog, and a long dirt road heading into a distant horizon and a nice, quiet, normal night.
Gil's All Fright Diner Page 19
