Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02 (6 page)

Gil warmed to this idea. “I agree. Okay. Anything sounds like a plan right now.”

Always the breath of fresh air, Wendy said, “I knew we shouldn’t have wasted all that time driving around the city. What if you guys are wrong about the timing?”

The sound of Gil’s teeth grinding sent shivers rolling through me. “Do you have a better idea?”

“Maybe.” Wendy snatched her purse from the floorboard and dug inside.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She pulled out her cell phone and spoke two words, “Madame Gloria.”

“Jesus.”

“It couldn’t hurt, Amanda,” Gil said.

A minute later and we had another voice in the car. Wendy’s telephone psychic had joined us on speaker. Her voice was rich and buttery like a jazz singer’s, hypnotic. Ear crack. There was no wonder Wendy called on her so often. “Here’s what you’re going to do, children. Take the next exit.”

She had no sooner gotten the words out than the next exit was on us. Hearing no dissent, I pulled the car off the freeway. At the top of the off-ramp a sign pointed toward a campground.

“Follow the signs to the campground, when you arrive at the gate, turn off your lights.”

This was beginning to sound dangerous, but no more so than a flaming vampire in the backseat of my Volvo, so I kept going. The road to our destination was worn and potholed, and entirely unlit. This was the kind of dark that scared the living, and it was beginning to scare me. My headlights seemed swallowed in the dense forest on either side, and the paved road gave way to dirt before too long.

Then we came up to a sign.

It hung from a chain that blocked our way.

“Shit!” Gil screamed, defeated.

Madame Gloria’s voice attempted to soothe, “Now, now, ease yourself, vampire. Shelter is at hand. Drive into the campground and at the curve, you’ll find what you
seek.” Then, “That was twelve minutes, Wendy, shall I add it to your bill?”

Wendy looked from me to Gil, sheepishly. She clicked off the speakerphone and whispered, “Yeah, that’s fine … I know.” She glanced in my direction, not quite meeting my gaze. “I know,” she said, again, and hung up.

“Hmm.”

“What?” Wendy snapped.

“Are you sure about her?”

“She guarantees her visions to be
moderately accurate
.”

“Well, in that case—”

“What?”

“You realize that means she’s only right part of the time.”

“Well I have faith that she’s right about this.”

“Okay.” I shrugged.

Wendy turned to her window, her scowl reflected in green dash light.

Gil left the car to unhook the chain, and hook it closed behind us. The further into the campground we drove, the wetter it became. Not from any noticeable rain; the dampness just seemed to be its natural state, permeating everything, condensing on the windows. Muddy puddles splashed dry as we churned through.

“Turn off the ligh—” Gil yelled, then cut himself off, then whispered, as though someone could hear us inside the car. “She told us to turn off the lights!”

I clicked them off and we bounced over the rough road in darkness for a moment, before a dim glow appeared in the distance, flickering on and off as though with candlelight. I stopped and turned off the engine. “That must be it.”

“Yep.” Wendy clutched at the dash; she was chewing her lips again.

“Why are you scared?” I asked. “Did that witch tell you something?”

“No. It’s just kind of scary, that’s all.”

“We’re the monsters, ladies.” Gil opened his door and hopped out. “Remember?” He pushed the door shut with a quiet click, and then a soft bump to secure it.

I pulled off my heels and followed suit. Dirty feet were far preferable to ruined designer shoes, even if I had to drive barefoot.

Wendy didn’t move. “I’ll stay here and guard the car.”

“That’s what Mr. Kim’s for, wake his ass up.” The gentle snores continued from somewhere other than the backseat, probably somewhere in the heater vents.

“He can’t defend it if someone strikes. He’s clear for Christ’s sake.” Wendy crossed her arms, and sneered.

“Who’s going to ’strike’ our car, Wendy?”

“I don’t know.”

It was certain Madame Gloria had told her something. I acquiesced and trod off in the direction of the light. Gil was already moving, low and catlike. The light emanated from a smallish RV, obscured behind an overgrowth of wild rhododendrons. Gil pressed his ear to its side and held a finger to his lips. He was in hunting mode, which would have been arousing had we played for the same team. Well, actually, it was still arousing. Gil was sorta hot, ask anyone.

“Someone’s in there. Definitely.”

I sniffed at the air—my only useful hunting skill, truth be told. At first the only scent was pine, and bark, the wet rot of needles. Then something else snagged on the moist air. What I caught was familiar: coffee grounds,
tobacco, sweat, piss, shit. Body odors, of a specific variety. “Homeless guy,” I said. “Probably mentally ill.”

Gil nodded. He’d learned to trust my nose. His could tell you the vintage of any celebrity blood donation in production, while mine was only capable of detecting disgusting body fluids and psychiatric problems.
²⁹

“Just knock.” I elbowed him in the side, causing him to flinch like a girl, forcing me to mouth that simile.
Like a girl
.

He made a fist at me, dropped it and then shrugged an okay.

After the third rap against the metal door, a quiet raspy sound came; it could have been, “Who there?”

“Amanda and Gil,” I said. It didn’t really matter if the poor guy knew our names, he wasn’t going to make it out of this alive anyway. It’s a sad fact about our kind that you’re hopefully used to by now.
³⁰

The door swung open. “Who?”

First impressions are terribly important, don’t you find? I know I do. The trailer’s occupant didn’t. Clearly.

The man was a tiny scrap of a guy and filthy—not unlike my feet—the dirt seemed ground into him, staining his skin in a way that was totally unsavory and obscuring any ethnicity.

He blinked tired eyes. They adjusted and widened, fear welled up—though I can’t imagine what was frightening, other than the total mess that was my outfit. He made a quick attempt to slam the door closed. Gil intervened, his fingers getting crunched between the door and the frame. The air whistled as he cringed, sucked up the pain and jerked the door back open.

Inside, the man fell back onto a ratty banquette,
shook his head, as though shaking a flea loose from the rat’s nest on his head and busied himself arranging various objects on the faux-wood table before him, as though the exchange had never occurred.

We climbed inside.

The trailer was surprisingly cozy, albeit decorated in dingy shades of yellow and cream, the effect reminiscent of an oozy yeast infection. Somehow, I was certain Todd Oldham would have been either mortified or intrigued.
³¹
What no one could stomach were the piles of dirty dishes on the lone countertop, which had become a battleground for a roach/fly war.

I scanned the man’s collection. Weird stuff. Thimbles, fishhooks and safety pins, were lumped with doll heads, fingernail clippings, and Ziploc baggies of pop can tabs (the kind you’re supposed to collect to buy precious time for loved ones on dialysis machines, but never end up anywhere but the trashcan). He arranged them on cocktail napkins, lined up in a row of eight, and each imprinted with the words: Can Can Saloon with a tiny silhouetted dancer lifting her skirt— for the boys, presumably.

His work was meticulous. Each item took up a prime location on the scraps of paper, thimbles to the left of doll heads, tabs under fishhooks, and so on. Not that there was any reasonable pattern at work.

I slid into the booth opposite; Gil followed me in.

“Whatcha doin’?” I pointed at the napkins.

The man continued his business, sorting, shoving a thimble inside an empty doll head, and placing it back on the napkin. Repeating these movements with measured determination.

“I … uh. I … uh. Sorting,” he whispered.

“What was that?” Gil’s face was crinkled and registered more than a little concern.

Clearly, the man was crazier than a shit-house rat, probably didn’t even realize we were there.

“Do you live here?” I asked.

“Seat under my bottom, ain’t it?”

“Yes, you’re sitting down, that’s true. Does that mean you live here?” I put on my most charming smile, but the man didn’t look away from his task.

Gil put his arm around me and pulled me so close I felt his lips against my ear. “I’m going to look for the keys to this rig. You take care of him.” He pulled back and winked. He slid back out and shuffled through the paper bags and other garbage that littered the aisle, heading toward the driver’s seat.

I turned my attention back to the man. Who was looking directly into my eyes, a sly smile on his dirty lips.

“They’re comin’, girl,” he said.

“What did you say?”

The man returned to his task, as though no exchange had occurred. Twirling a three-pronged hook between his dirty fingers.

Gil jingled something from the front, and yelled, “Found them!” My eyes darted to the keys dangling from his fingers and then back to the vagrant, just in time to hear a gulp. His fingers were empty and fast, apparently.

“Did you just eat that fishhook?”

“I … uh. I … uh. Yes.”

I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what had just happened. “Why would you do that? Why would you eat that?”

The man just smiled, cracked lips opening to reveal
teeth blackened with decay. There was a twinkle in his eyes though, a spark of knowledge that implied he knew a little bit more about what was going on than I gave him credit for.

“You’re insane.” I snapped my fingers for Gil. “Get over here! This crazy fuck just ate a fishhook!” I turned back to the table. The man’s hands were creeping toward the napkins. I noticed that fishhooks sat atop five of them, instead of the seven that were left. “Did you just eat two more?”

He smiled again, this time licking a thin trickle of blood from his chapped lips. Brown bubbles of saliva cluttered the corners of his mouth.

“Did you hear me, Gil? We’ve got a problem here.”

Gil stood next to the table staring down at the man, who in full, unobstructed view reached out, picked up three more fishhooks and popped them into his gaping maw. His head bobbed like a chicken as he swallowed the sharps down.

“Well that’s that,” I said, holding up my hands as though turning myself over to the cops. I imagined the effects of chowing down on the human fishing line would not be pleasant. I’d be lucky to survive it and with no reapers around to play doctor, I certainly wasn’t going to risk it. “He’s all yours. I’m not going to chip a tooth on that shit, or snag my lips, or anything else, for that matter.”

Gil frowned, but lunged toward the man’s throat, anyway, pulling back the filthy winter coat and exposing the grayed flesh underneath and scars—so many scars—all of them circular and dashed. Obvious.

Gil gagged and let go.

“Jesus! He’s barely alive. He’s been used so many times.” He pivoted and threw open the camper door. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

I reached over and pulled the jacket back, again. He wore no shirt underneath and the scars covered his neck and torso, as though he’d made the error of swimming in a moray eel’s nest. The man had been around vampires; that was certain. He’d probably been driven insane by their feeding, escaped, and retired from service out here where no one would look, let alone bother to camp. He looked away as my eyes took in the abuse of his body.

“Well, buddy.” I shut his jacket, patted his shoulder and slid out of the booth. “Today’s your lucky day.” Although, it wouldn’t be if any of those hooks shredded his insides, or maybe that would constitute a lucky day for someone who’d lived through such a trauma. Then, to Gil, “Did you try to crank this piece of crap?”

“Unh uh. Here.” He tossed me the keys. His face was even paler than normal.
³²

I left the old guy to sort the remaining objects and took a seat behind the wheel. The camper cranked right up on the first turn. I could see the Volvo through the windshield. Beams of sunlight were filtering through the trees.

“You better find a place to sleep, back there. It’s about that time.” I watched as Gil wandered through the RV opening cabinets and two doors in the rear. One led to a bedroom that would be bright and sunny due to the large window at the back, the other led to a toilet/shower combo that after giving it a shocked look and a glower, he wedged himself into it and locked the door behind him. I think he even cried himself to sleep, or at least that’s what I’d tell Wendy, later.