Lot Lizards (2 page)

Then something happened that made Bill lose control. The girl's vagina closed tightly around his cock, squeezed it like a fist, and she began to groan—no, no...it was almost a low growl—as she gnawed his flesh, sucking and sucking, her fingernails drawing thin trails down his shoulders and arms as she dragged her hands over him. The three sensations together—being inside her, the clawing of her nails, her teeth and tongue on his neck as she sucked voraciously—were almost unbearable and Bill began to gasp like a man suffocating, lifting his hands to push her away for a moment, to get her to slow down, go a little easier, but his hands only trembled uselessly and his arms flopped back onto the bed as he gulped, "My guh-gawd, muh-my
gawd
..."
 

His ecstasy crescendoed and his upward thrusts became harder and more rapid and the girl made sounds just below his ear...thick, muffled sounds...sticky, wet sounds...and then—
 

—the truck began to move. Or so it seemed. It did not feel like it was moving backward or forward but...
around
. It seemed to turn slowly, like a carousel when the ride first begins. Bill gripped the mattress in his fists and tried to sit up, but his upper body would not respond. He made incoherent sounds in his throat as he tried to push the girl off, but she seemed not to notice. Her movements continued without pause and the sounds she was making grew louder, more intense, accompanied now by sloppy gulping and ecstatic humming: "Mmm-hmmm, mmm-
hmmm
, mm-
hm, mm-hm
..."
 

Bill opened his eyes to discover that the truck was not actually moving, but the sleeper seemed to be spinning, faster and faster, and the music on the tape deck grew faint, as if the volume were being turned down slowly; even the girl's sounds began to fade until all that was left was the feeling of sliding in and out of her cool wet flesh and, in Bill's ears, the ocean-like rush of his ragged breathing and the beat of his heart.
 

He began to flail his arms, tried to speak, tried to tell her to stop, to get off him because something was wrong, something was
very
wrong, but he could not utter a sound and his movements were weak.
 

The girl's movements, however, became more frantic and her hands clutched at him like steel claws.

At first, Bill thought he was having a heart attack. He began to feel cold, weak; what little he could see in the dark sleeper blurred and faded as did the sound of his heartbeat.
 

The girl either ignored or did not notice his distress.

His sight left him.

He stopped moving.

Bill Ketter slipped silently into oblivion...

Consciousness returned agonizingly slowly.

Bill rose from the utter blackness of a death-like sleep to the softer darkness of his sleeper, illuminated only slightly by the lights outside the truck. But that glow, however faint, had the effect of hot needles being plunged into his eyes as he opened them. He lifted a hand to his face protectively, uttering a throaty gurgling sound as he tried to sit up.
 

His whole body trembled as if from a tremendous hangover; a rank, viscous fluid coated the inside of his mouth and gummed up the corners of his aching eyes; gooseflesh crawled over his naked body like an army of ants and he hunched forward with a shudder, trying again to open his eyes, slowly this time.
 

He was alone in the sleeper, which was not unusual. But something about it was...
wrong
somehow. He looked around in the darkness, scrubbing his face with weak hands. The only time he wasn't alone in the truck was when A.J. came with him, but she hadn't come along on a run in... well, in
years
, so why did it seem odd that—
 

A. J.'s
gone
, a faint voice whispered in his head, which began to throb suddenly with the realization that his wife had left him. He massaged his temples, clenched his eyes and ground his teeth against the pain.
 

A.J. was gone, but someone else was gone, too, he was certain. Someone else had left him alone, but he couldn't remember—

The girl
, he thought, opening his eyes. Squinting against the searing glow from outside, Bill looked down into the cab at the digital clock on the dash. It read four-forty a.m., nearly eight hours since he'd let her into the cab. Groping for his pants, his hand fell, instead, on his open wallet. He lifted it close to his face, fingers prying open the pockets.
 

His money was gone. So were his credit cards.

He dropped the wallet and grabbed his pants, making his way unsteadily out of the sleeper and into the cab where he put on his pants carefully, trying not to succumb to the dizziness that threatened to topple him. He started out of the truck, but froze when he noticed that his tape deck was gone. So was the small television he kept in the passenger seat.
 

"Son of a bitch," he slurred, clutching the seat to hold himself up. He threw open the door on the driver's side and started to step down cautiously, but the black pavement below flew up to meet him, striking him with the sound of thunder. The throbbing in his head worsened as he rose up on all fours, groaning. The sounds of the lot—once so familiar that he hardly noticed them—now drilled into his ears with barbed steel bits. Barechested, he hunkered on the pavement and looked around through bleary aching eyes.
 

Truck engines purred all around him like giant cats and the air was thick with diesel exhaust mixed with the smell of cow shit; the truck parked beside his held a trailer full of cattle. Headlights blinded him as they flashed by and he could feel the movement of the great rolling tires through the pavement beneath his bare hands.
 

He fell on his side and curled his knees up to his chest. Something was wrong, terribly wrong... he was sick, seriously ill...he needed help, he needed—
 

His stomach clenched and he began to retch. The meal he'd eaten in the restaurant earlier rolled up from his stomach in thick gobs and landed on the pavement, undigested and reeking.
 

When the tremors in his gut had stopped, Bill sat up and stared through watery eyes across the aisle between the rows of parked trucks to the next row facing him. One of the trucks was idling loudly. Its headlights were on and Bill squinted against the painful glare, but he did not close his eyes because...something was moving in the light...someone...
 

He sat up weakly, his chest heaving.

A slender figure stopped in front of one of the headlights, silhouetted against the glow. The figure hunched to light a cigarette; the head leaned back to exhale smoke and—
 

—a fist clenched in Bill's chest. His back straightened and his head craned forward as—

—the figure became more familiar, its identity given away by the curves outlined in the light, by the careless posture and the stringy hair that fell from the back of the head...
 

"C'mon!" a male voice called. "Whatta y'waitin' for, huh? Y'think I got all night?"

"I'm coming, okay?" the figure shouted back.

Bill scrambled to his feet, trying to ignore the dizziness that sent the lot spinning in all directions beneath him and stumbled toward the girl standing before the idling truck.
 

"Hey!" he called as he staggered toward the facing row of trucks, his voice thick. "Huh-hey, you!
You
!"
 

The figure stiffened, turned toward him, then hurried out of sight.

Bill fell to his knees on the pavement between the rows of dormant trucks, trying to follow the girl with his eyes, but a bright flash of white blinded him and the bellow of a truck's horn filled the night; Bill crawled frantically over the pavement, saw the enormous tires of a truck roll by just inches away from him and crawled desperately toward the lighted truck, his nails clawing the tarmac, until his head butted into a thick, stiff leg.
 

He looked up.

A man, fists on hips, grey-shirted belly hanging over his belt, looked down at Bill with frowning eyes. "The hell you doin'?"

"I was—I'm just—there's a—"

The man kicked his left leg out and growled, "Get the hell outta here, y'fuckin'
drrrunk
!"
 

The man's foot caught Bill's shoulder and sent him backward onto the pavement, but he sat up immediately, just in time to see the man's back as he walked the length of his truck and disappeared behind it.
 

Clutching the truck's bumper, Bill lifted himself to his feet and followed the man, leaning against the trailer all the way. As he neared the back of the truck, he heard the man's voice:
 

"...many times've I told you, Goddammit, I ain't got all fuckin' night to wait for you! I don't
care
what you're—"
 

Bill rounded the corner and saw the man facing the trailer's open door, shouting into its yawning blackness. The man froze; his head jerked toward Bill and his lips curled into a snarl. He was grossly obese and his face was broad and lumpy; his dark hair was greasy and receding above his enormous ears and what teeth were left in his head were stained.
 

"The hell d'you want?" the man growled.

"The girl," Bill gasped, leaning against the corner of the trailer. "The girl who was...just standing...in front of the truck..."

"What girl?"

"The girl...the one you were—"

The man slammed the trailer door shut and jerked the latch, turning fully to Bill. "I dunno what th'fuck yer talkin' about."

Overcome with dizziness again, Bill staggered, slid down the corner of the trailer and landed on one knee as he wheezed, "No-no-no...the girl...I saw her...sh-she stole muh-my—"
 

The man slapped a meaty hand onto Bill's shoulder and pulled him away from the trailer, grumbling, "Go sleep it off, buddy." He slammed Bill against the truck parked beside them and headed for his cab.
 

Scrambling to his feet, Bill followed him, panting, "Nuh-no,
n-no
! Wait! Please! You were juh-just t-talking to her, you were juh-just—"
 

The man turned and faced him and Bill froze. The man's lips curled up around his dirty teeth and his tongue moved restlessly behind the gaps between them; his eyes were small and dark, buried in flesh like a pig's. He lifted a hand to his round belly and scratched himself through the taut material of his dirty grey shirt. "Tell y'what," he said; his voice was the sound of a clogged toilet. "You get away from me an' I won't rip yer fuckin' head off."
 

Bill tried to back away but only fell to his knees again, weak and dizzy.

The man opened the door of his cab and climbed in. A moment later, the truck's engine shifted into gear and began to move slowly out of the parking slot.
 

The truck was black, jet black, a 1980 Peterbilt. Its 1693 Cat engine rumbled with the power of a volcano and the refrigeration unit on the white trailer, the side of which read in black letters, CARSEY BROS. TRUCKING, gave a steady, hollow hum.
 

Bill dragged himself up and stumbled forward as the black truck rumbled slowly out of the parking slot. He squinted at the license plates on the rear of the trailer as the truck rolled away, but his vision was blurred and his stomach was churning again and he leaned forward, clutching his abdomen and retching. He staggered half way to his truck, then fell, curling into a ball on the pavement, dry heaving.
 

"Hey-yum...you okay?"

Bill looked up through tears at a red-haired freckle-faced boy wearing a powder blue shirt and black pants, the uniform of the truck stop's shop workers.
 

"You-um...you don't look so well, man."

Bill was frightened; something was definitely wrong with him and he didn't know what it was, but something told him to keep it to himself...for now.
 

"Fuh-fine," he gasped, getting up. "I'm fine, ruh-really."

"You sure? You look...well, awful pale. I can call somebody if—"

"No-no-nuh-no...really. I'm fine. "He tried to smile as he stood, clutching his stomach. "Just...flu. Thassall. Got the flu, I think.
 

"Aw, shit, man, that sucks. Y'know, they got some stomach stuff in the travel store if you wanna...sweet
Jesus
! What the
hay-ell
hap'nuh y'neck?"
 

"My...my..." Bill looked down at himself. The hair on his chest was matted and slick with something that was dribbling down from his neck. He touched four fingertips to his jaw...a little lower...felt more blood coming from two small punctures. "What... what the... what'd she
do
to me?"
 

"What? Who?"

"That...
girl
." He pointed to his blue Kenworth. "She came to my..." He pointed to the empty space where the black Peterbilt had been minutes before, "...she was just standing right... she said she was..." He touched the wound again; it was sore and he winced, hissing, "She bit me."
 

"Well, uh, I-yuh..." The boy was looking at him very oddly now, shuffling his weight from one foot to the other."... I don't know about no girl, mister. 'Cause, y'know, we don't let none of them girls back here, know what I mean? None of them lot lizards." He began to back away, squinting at Bill's face. "Thass, um...thass why you gotta pay to come into the lot, so's we can keep 'em out, y'know? Um, if you want, I can call a cop. We got security guards here, y'know, I can tell one of 'em you're—"