The Stake Page 13

  Unable to see the doors, Larry imagined them standing wide open, imagined he was gazing deep into the lobby, pictured the cadaver on her withered feet beside the staircase, staring out at them.

  His skin crawled. His scrotum shriveled, tingling as if spiders were scurrying on it.

  “Drive on ahead,” he whispered.

  “Right. The box.”

  The van moved forward.

  He lifted a hand to his chest and fingered a nipple through the fabric of his shirt. It felt like a pebble.

  True of guys, too, he thought. You get goose bumps, your nipples get hard.

  He remembered the way Barbara had looked as she told her story about the dark church. Focusing his mind on that, he lost the image of the corpse. But he felt guilty about using Barbara that way, so he thought about Jean. Jean on Sunday night after her nightmare. Slipping out of her gown, climbing onto him. But then he was kneeling above her and her slim body looked cadaverous in the shadows, and he was suddenly in the hotel on his knees beside the coffin, staring at the corpse. Dried brown skin, ghastly grin, flat breasts, pubic hair shining like gold in the flashlight’s beam.

  He shook his head to dislodge the images, and let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I can hack this,” he muttered.

  “Never fear, Peter’s here.”

  Pete drove past Holman’s, made a U-turn and parked in front of the gasoline pumps. He shut off the engine.

  They each took a drink of whiskey.

  “Let’s take it with us,” Pete said.

  “Let’s not. I want my hands free.” Larry capped the bottle and set it on the floor.

  They climbed out. Leaning against the chilly wind, Larry trudged to the rear of the van. Pete met him there. He had his flashlight but left it dark. Side by side they walked past the corner of Holman’s. The desert ahead of them looked gray, as if its rock-littered surface, boulders, and bushes were painted with dirty cream.

  They were almost to the rear corner of Holman’s when a vague shape darted in front of them. Larry flinched. Pete, gasping, crouched and snatched out his gun. The wind-tossed tumbleweed bounded on by.

  “Shit,” Pete muttered, holstering his weapon.

  “Good going, Quickdraw.”

  I’m not the only one nervous around here, he thought. It pleased him to know that Pete was also feeling jumpy.

  “Maybe you should turn on the flashlight,” he suggested.

  “It’d give us away.”

  “To whom?”

  “You never know, man. You never know.”

  They left Holman’s behind and headed out into the desert, angling toward the far-off smoke tree that marked the edge of the stream bed. Another tumbleweed crossed their path, but Pete saw this one coming and didn’t draw down on it.

  Larry studied the landscape ahead. He wished it didn’t have so many clumps of rock and brush. Hiding places. Each time he approached one, he tightened with fear. Each time he passed one, he quickly looked behind it, half expecting to find someone crouched and ready to pounce.

  Nobody’s here except us, he kept telling himself.

  But he couldn’t convince himself.

  At last they reached the rim of the embankment. Larry turned around. He scanned the area they had just finished crossing.

  Pete did the same.

  Then they faced forward. The area below them lay in shadow. Pete turned on his flashlight. He played its beam over the slope and started down. Larry stayed close to his side. A few times they stopped while Pete waved his light across the bottom of the gully as if to assure himself that no surprises were waiting down there. The stream bed didn’t look familiar to Larry. He was sure it hadn’t changed since Sunday, but it seemed very different in the darkness. He couldn’t even tell for certain which was the rock that Barbara had been sitting on.

  We might not be here now, he thought, if she hadn’t wandered away from Holman’s looking for a place to relieve herself. We wouldn’t have found the jukebox. Maybe the corpse, but I never would’ve started out tonight except for the jukebox.

  He realized that he had to urinate, himself.

  When they reached the bottom of the embankment, he said, “Hang on a minute. I’ve gotta take a leak.”

  “Don’t get any on you,” Pete said. “Want the light?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” He took the flashlight. Pete waited while he wandered to the left, stepping around blocks of stone. He clamped the light under his arm to free his hands. With his back to Pete, he opened his pants. The wind felt good against his penis. He aimed his stream straight out. The wind flapped it sideways, but not back at him.

  When he was done, he zipped up his pants and started to turn around. The pale beam of the flashlight passed across a circle of black surrounded by rocks. “Hey, Pete. Come here.”

  “I don’t want to get my feet wet.”

  “Come here.” He took the flashlight out from under his arm while Pete came up beside him. He pointed it at the circle. “Look at that.”

  “A campfire.”

  “Was that here before?”

  “I don’t know. Might’ve been, but I didn’t see it.”

  They walked toward it. The center of the fire circle was black with ashes and the charred remains of wood.

  And bones. Larry saw half a dozen bones, intact among the dead cinders — gray and knobbed at each end.

  “Holy shit,” Pete muttered.

  “Rabbit, you think?”

  Pete squatted. He picked up a bone that was nearly a foot in length. “This sucker didn’t come from any rabbit,” he said. “A coyote, maybe.”

  “Who the hell would eat a coyote?”

  “The fuckin‘ Madman of the Desert, that’s who.” Pete tossed the bone down. “This’ll go good in our book.”

  “Great,” Larry muttered.

  Pete pressed a hand against one of the sooty rocks. “Still warm.”

  “Don’t give me that.”

  “It is.”

  Crouching, Larry touched one of the rocks for himself. It was cold. “Asshole.”

  Pete laughed. “Had you going there, huh?”

  “Prick.”

  “Get out of the way. I’m gonna take some pictures.”

  He backed off but kept the light on the fire circle while Pete removed the lens cap, switched on the camera and its flash attachment.

  “What if the guy who did this is still around here?”

  “No sweat. He’s already eaten.”

  “A guy who eats coyotes isn’t someone I want to meet.”

  “He’s probably long gone.” Pete raised the camera to his eye, bent over the remains of the fire for a close-up, and took a shot. The flash strobed, hitting the area with a quick blast of white.

  He stepped backward. One stride. Two. Then another flash split the darkness.

  In that blink of white Larry saw something beyond the fire circle. He found it with the beam of his flashlight. “Oh, my God,” he muttered.

  Three rocks were stacked up. At the top rested the head of a coyote, its gray fur matted with blood, a bone held crosswise between its teeth. It had bloody holes where its eyes should’ve been.

  Pete lowered his camera and stared. “Wow,” he muttered.

  “Maybe we ought to get out of here.”

  Pete flapped a hand at him and stepped closer to the thing. He raised the camera. He took a shot. In the stark flick of light Larry saw intothe empty sockets. He started gagging as Pete stepped right up in front of it, crouched, and snapped another picture.

  He turned aside and vomited. When he finished, he backed away from the mess. He took out his handkerchief, blew his nose and wiped his lips. He blinked tears from his eyes. He rubbed them with the back of a hand.

  “You all right?” Pete asked, coming up behind him.

  “Christ,” he muttered.

  “Feeling a little queasy myself. Bad scene. Guy that did that must be a fuckin‘ lunatic. You see the way he poked out its eyes? Wonder if he did that beforehe ate
.”

  Larry shook his head. “Let’s do the jukebox and get out of here.”

  “Give me the light. I want to check around, see what else we can find.”

  “Are you nuts?” He kept the flashlight and started walking through the gully toward the place where they’d found the jukebox.

  “Ah,” Pete said. “What the hell. Don’t want to lose mysupper. Wouldn’t taste half as good on the way out.” His head swung around.

  A shiver rushed up Larry’s back. “What is it?”

  “Nothing, I guess.”

  “Did you hear something?”

  “Probably just the wind. Unless it’s our crazy fuckin‘ coyote muncher sneaking up on us.”

  “Cut it out.”

  “Wonder if he talked to the thing while he ate. You know? Like put the head up there for a dinner companion. Had a little chat with it. Talked to the head while he ate the body.”

  It was an image, Larry realized, that had passed through his own mind while he was vomiting.

  “Wonder if he ate the eyes.”

  Larry hadn’tthought of that. “He probably just didn’t like the thing staring at him.”

  “Maybe. Guess we’ll never know. Unless we get a chance to ask him.” Pete chuckled.

  “Give me a break.”

  Larry stepped around a large rock. He pointed the light at it. “Is that where Barbara was sitting?”

  “I think so.”

  He swept the beam forward until it found a thick clump of bushes on the right. He glimpsed chrome and dirty red plastic through the foliage. “There.”

  They hurried the final distance.

  Larry stared down at the machine resting smashed and bullet-riddled in the bushes. He imagined a photograph of it on the cover of his book. The Boxby Lawrence Dunbar.

  That’s the book I’m going to write, he told himself. Not some damn thing about a vampire.

  “See if we can lift it?” Pete asked, squatting down.

  He saw them struggling to carry it up the steep embankment. He saw himself stumble, fall, roll down the slope. The box tumbled and crashed down on top of him. Pete lifted it off. We’d better not try to move you, Lar. I’ll go get help. Pete left the revolver with him and hurried away. He lay there, alone and half paralyzed. Soon he heard someone creeping toward him. A ragged hermit dripping coyote blood, a knife in his hand. What makes me think there’s only one of them? he wondered.

  “What do you think?” Pete asked.

  “Let’s not try it.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right. God knows what’s under the thing. Or inside it, for that matter. Don’t want to go upsetting a rattler. Or a nest of scorpions, or something.”

  “That’s what I like about you,” Larry said. “Adventurous, but not foolish.”

  “My mama didn’t raise no morons.” Pete got to his feet. He backed away from the box and lifted the camera.

  Larry stepped aside. He faced the length of the gully and probed its darkness with the flashlight. The campfire and the grisly remains of the coyote were well beyond the range of the pale beam. He swept the light from side to side. None of the rocks or bushes in sight seemed large enough to conceal a person.

  “You spot Ragu the Desert Rat,” Pete said, “give us a yell.”

  “I won’t yell, I’ll scream.”

  Pete laughed.

  Larry kept watch, his back to Pete. In his peripheral vision, he noticed four blinks of light.

  “Why don’t you get into the picture?” Pete suggested. “We’ll get a couple of you with the famous jukebox.”

  Though reluctant to abandon his guard duty, he stepped backward until he came to the box. He crouched beside it. A red light on the flash attachment beamed a ray at his face.

  “Say ‘cheese.’ ”

  “Come on, get it over with.”

  “Say ‘head cheese.’ ”

  “Screw you.”

  White light hit his eyes. Pete took another photo, then stepped closer and fired two more. “That oughta do it.”

  “Sure did my night vision.” He stood up, shutting his eyes and rubbing them. Bright sparks and balls fluttered under his lids.

  “We done down here?” Pete asked.

  “I sure hope so.”

  “Want to go back and pick up a souvenir? Take it home with us, put it in the freezer?”

  “Yeah. Why don’t you do that.”

  “Hah! You think I’m out of my tree?”

  “You want to take the corpse back,” Larry said, stepping past the bushes and starting to climb the slope. “What’s the big difference?”

  “The corpse isn’t all bloody and gross.”

  “It looked pretty gross to me.”

  “Well, the coyote head ain’t worth a million bucks. For a million smackaroonies, I’d pick the thing up in my bare hands and walkhome with it.”

  “Would you eat it?” Larry asked, starting to feel almost cheerful as he approached the top of the embankment.

  “Who’d give me a million bucks to eat it?”

  “It’s hypothetical.”

  “Would I get to cook it up first?”

  “Nope, gotta chow it down raw.”

  “You’re sick, man.”

  “Me?”

  They reached the top and the wind pushed against Larry. It seemed to be blowing much harder up here than in the gully. But he was glad to be out. He felt as if he had been an intruder in the lair of the coyote eater. Ragu the Desert Rat. He hurried forward, wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the madman’s domain.

  Now and then he glanced back. So did Pete, but not as often.

  At last they reached the van. Larry flung himself onto the passenger seat, slammed the door shut and locked it. The warmth felt wonderful. And it was good to be out of the wind. The skin of his face and arms felt tingly from the buffeting. He opened the whiskey bottle and took a couple of sips while Pete climbed in behind the steering wheel.

  He offered the bottle to Pete.

  Pete shook his head. He flicked a switch and light filled the van. With a nervous glance at Larry, he slipped between the seats.

  Larry watched him move in a crouch toward the rear of the van — head darting from side to side, fingers wrapped around the handle of his holstered magnum.

  Christ, he’s afraid someone might’ve gotten in.

  Pete searched the length of the van and turned around. “It’s cool,” he said, coming back.

  In his seat again, he shut off the interior lights. He started the engine. He reached out, and Larry put the bottle in his hand. He drank, then gave it back. “Now, are we ready for the real fun?”

  “I think I’ve had enough fun for one night.”

  “You aren’t going yellow on me, are you?”

  “What’ll we do with the corpse if we dotake it home?”

  “You write a book about it.”

  “About what? Having a pseudovampire as a house guest?”

  “Exactly.”

  “It’ll just lie there. That’s if the women don’t make us get rid of it.”

  “You’re right. We’ll have to do something with it. Maybe we can find out who she is.”

  “How would we do that?”

  “First things first, Lar. Let’s take her home, then figure out what’s next.”

  “Why don’t we nottake her home till we figure that out.”

  “Hey, we’re already here. When’ll we get another chance like this? Come on, man, we agreed. Don’t bail out on me now.”

  “I’m not bailing out. I just don’t see what we’ll accomplish. Our book has to be a lot more than a couple of goofs taking a stiff home and freaking out their wives. Even a true story needs action along the way, drama, a climax. Especially a climax. We’ve got nothing.”

  “Well, eventually we pull the stake.”

  “And the damn thing stilljust lies there.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Oh, come on. You said yourself she’s not a vampire.”


  “We don’t know that for sure. Obviously, someonethinks she is.”

  “Okay. Suppose we pull the stake and she isa vampire?”

  “That’d be something, huh? Then we’ve got a best-seller for sure.”

  “If she doesn’t bite our necks.”

  “We’ll take precautions when the time comes. You know, have plenty of crucifixes and garlic handy. Maybe buy some handcuffs or tie her up.”

  “So what happens if we pull the stake and nothing happens? Which is the way it’s bound to go down. Then what?”

  Pete started the van moving forward.

  “A big dud, that’s what,” Larry told him.

  Pete eased the van onto the road. It rolled slowly toward the Sagebrush Flat Hotel.

  “Let’s just go home and forget about it.”

  “You said we should play it by ear.”

  “My ear tells me to forget it.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Pete’s head turned toward Larry. In the hazy moonlight his teeth seem to glow as he smiled. “You say we’ve got a dud if we pull the stake and she just lies there. Well, let’s find out tonight if she’s a vampire.” He eased the van to the other side of the street and stopped in front of the hotel. “Let’s go in there and pull the stake.”

  Enounters

  Sixteen

  Larry stood in front of the van, shivering, and aimed his flashlight at the doors of the hotel. They were shut. The padlock hung from the hasp, but nobody had repaired Pete’s damage. The staple was still ripped from the right-hand door.

  Pete came up beside him. He held the tire iron.

  “You won’t need that to break in,” Larry whispered.

  Nodding, Pete slipped the rod under his belt. He glanced up and down the street. Then he raised the camera and snapped a shot of the doors.

  As he stepped onto the sidewalk, Larry clutched his shoulder. “Wait a minute.”

  “I’m going in there. If you’re scared...”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Hey, sure. But I’m not gonna let that stop me. You can wait out here if you want.”

  Larry let his hand drop. He followed Pete across the sidewalk. The muscles of his legs felt soft and shaky. His bowels ached. His heart thudded and he panted, trying to get enough air into his tight lungs.