Plague Nation (14 page)

Although “with” would be nice.

For the moment, though, I had to be content with some hot monkey kissing and cuddling before eventually falling asleep spooned up against Gabriel, my back to his chest. One of his arms was firmly wrapped around me. I felt safe when I was with him, a sensation now so rare that I treasured it like the world’s last box of See’s chocolates.

“Do you think they’re open?”

Gary rolled his eyes. This was the umpteenth time Laura had asked the question, and he was ready to end their first date right now. Sure, she was hot. Smokin’ hot, and if the rumors were accurate, smokin’ hot
and
accessible.

But none of the rumors had mentioned her type-A personality, or the need to double- and even triple-check things like addresses, closing times, and directions. Or her annoying habit of asking the same question a bunch of times in less than an hour.

But there was the smokin’ hot factor, still weighing heavily in her favor, so Gary took yet another deep breath to help him stay patient long enough to make it through the evening and get laid.

“Yes, they’re open,” he said cheerfully. “I go to this place at least once a week, and they haven’t changed their hours in five years.”

“Did you call ahead?”

Gary nearly told her to go fuck herself, but common sense and the sight of a shapely thigh extending from her short-short skirt toned down his response to a strategic lie.

“Yup, sure did.”

It was a good move. Laura sat back in the passenger seat, a satisfied expression on her face. Gary grinned to himself. If that was all it took, he’d lie his way right into her panties.

So he turned off the 1, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear before making the turn. Normally he would’ve barreled across the street, but Laura probably wouldn’t appreciate the whole adrenaline rush he enjoyed by dodging death. Not that there was a lot of traffic. He’d heard something about a freeway closure south of Eugene, some sort of industrial chemical and an overturned truck. That would explain it.

The fog seemed thicker, once they turned onto the subsidiary road that led to Captain Jack’s Crab Shack. The Shack itself was set back a ways, with a gravel parking lot cutting into one of the many marshy sloughs in the area. The owners
—
Captain Jack and family—caught fresh crab out in the cold northern Pacific water off Humboldt County, and sold it daily, steaming it at the Shack and then packing it in ice. During the height of crab season, you could get it for $2.99 a pound. Now, a few weeks on the downward side, it was $4.99 a pound, still a bargain.

Gary had a loaf of fresh sourdough, butter, and several bottles of inexpensive chardonnay back at the apartment. The plan was to take the fresh crabs back with them, eating them while they watched movies. He had Direct TV and figured he’d score more points by letting Laura pick the flicks. If he was really lucky, and the rumors were true, the wine would do its job and he’d be spared too much chick-flickage before getting down to business.

He was so busy contemplating the possibilities that he nearly missed the driveway in the heavy fog. Swearing, he did a sharp swerving turn into the parking lot, tires crunching on gravel as Laura gave a little scream and held onto the “Oh Jesus” handle with an unnecessarily white-knuckled grip.

Drama queen,
Gary thought.

There were several other cars in the parking lot, including Jack’s ubiquitous Crab Truck, a white serial-killer style van with a sliding door and blacked out windows. The giant red crabs painted on all sides of the van, along with “Captain Jack’s Crab Shack” in big, black letters, made it the perfect front. After all, no self-respecting homicidal maniac would run around with his address and phone number on display, would he?

Gary pulled in next to the Crab Van and turned off the engine.

“See, I told you they’d still be open,” he said, trying not to sound smug.

The Shack was an open-air structure constructed like an extra large fruit stand, with roll-down metal shutters to seal it off at night. But they were still open, a single bright light bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling, casting a warm glow against the fog that drifted through the air.

“I don’t see anyone inside.” Laura gave a sniff as she unclenched her fingers from the handle.

“Amy’s probably cleaning up something in back,” Gary said, deciding that whether or not he got laid, Laura’s nitpicky negativity wasn’t going to make it worth a second date.

Unless she’s freaky good in bed.
Then he’d reconsider the issue.

“Who’s Amy?”

“Captain Jack’s daughter. She usually works Sunday through Wednesday nights, but both her mom and brother came down with that flu bug, so she’s working mega-overtime.”

“You really
do
come here a lot, don’t you?” Her tone somehow made it sound like a bad thing. But he ignored it, opened the car door, and stepped out into the parking lot, his sneakered feet abnormally loud on the gravel as he walked around to the passenger side and opened the door for Laura, lending her a steadying arm as she wobbled on impractical but totally sexy black boots with spiky three-inch heels. They made the ten-foot walk to the wooden floor of the Shack slow going, but Gary didn’t mind.

And by the way Laura snuggled against him, he didn’t think she was hating it either.

“It’s really quiet out here.” Laura shivered and Gary tightened his arm around her.

“Not a lot out in this area,” he said. “It’s hard to even hear the traffic from the highway. Usually you can hear crickets and birds, though.”

“Not tonight,” she observed. And she was right. It was totally quiet, except for the sound of their shoes on the gravel and the occasional moan of a foghorn in the distance.

“Amy?” he called. His voice was muffled and oddly flat, as if the word had been swallowed by the mist.

They reached the Shack, Laura’s heels finding much sturdier purchase on the wooden flooring. She stayed firmly pressed up against Gary anyway.

“Amy?” he repeated.

They stepped further into the Shack, where several huge chest-like freezers hugged the walls. There was a counter with several scales, and a huge industrial sink with a hose attachment for cleaning the crabs if customers chose to have them backed— at an extra buck per crab—before taking them home.

Laura wrinkled her nose in distaste.

“Ugh, it stinks in here.”

Gary couldn’t argue. The place always smelled like dead crabs, and he had to admit the odor seemed especially pungent this evening, with an emphasis on “dead.” Maybe one of the freezers had gone and died, ’cause something had gone majorly off.

The rear door was open, too. Out back there was an outdoor cooking range big enough to fit four large pots for boiling the live crabs as they came in. That way the more tenderhearted customers didn’t have to see the dirty deed being done, and could enjoy the tasty crab-flesh with a clear conscience.

“Amy?” Gary tried yet again. Once again, the low moan of the foghorn was the only response.

Okay, now this is kind of weird.
Water dripped steadily from the hose, which dangled off the counter so the water trickled onto the floor, leaving a dark, slowly expanding puddle. Several crabs lay on the counter, the back of one peeled off as if someone has been in the middle of cleaning it, and been interrupted.

“Maybe she’s out back,” he suggested, as much for his own benefit as Laura’s. The truth was that he was pretty creeped out by now. “The door’s open. I bet she’s boiling up the last of the day’s catch.”

“Maybe we should just leave.”

“Without our crabs?” He grinned at her. “No way. If she’s not here, I’ll just grab a couple, and pay her next time.”

“But—”

“Just stay here,” he insisted. “I’ll be right back.” Quickly, before he could change his mind, Gary strode toward the back door—only to have first one foot and then the other slip out from under him with a suddenness that left him no time to catch himself. He landed with a bone-jarring thud on his tailbone, and lay there for a minute, groaning in pain.

“Are you okay?” Laura click-clacked her way across the wooden floor, stopping short afoot away. “Oh my god, what
is
that?” She stared at the floor.

Gary managed to stop groaning long enough to turn his head and see the pile of gelatinous offal he’d slipped on. At first he thought it was discarded crab guts, and yeah, there was some greenish yellow goo and what he thought were crab lungs there. But crabs didn’t have intestines, ones that were leaking shit all over the floor, and pieces of bloody meat and...

Is that a finger?

Gary scrabbled backward, every movement sending a bolt of pain up his tailbone.

The foghorn sounded again, louder than before. Closer. Like, outside the back of the damn Shack, for fuck’s sake. Gary stared at the open doorway as the foghorn let out another plaintive moan, this time right outside the door.

He heard Laura scream, registered the sound of her heels clacking on the wood as she ran out the front door of the Shack, leaving him lying on the floor as Amy crawled in through the back doorway, dragging herself in with her fingertips, one eye hanging from its stalk over a shredded cheek. Chunks were missing from her neck and bare arms, and blood covered the Captain Jack’s logo on her formerly white tank top. Even worse, though, was the fact that only half of Amy followed her into the room, bits and pieces dragging behind her in tattered, bloody ribbons of flesh and viscera.

She stank of shit and rot and the ocean at low tide on a hot day. Her formerly brown eyes were bluish white and focused entirely on Gary. She moaned again, just as an actual foghorn sounded off in the distance, and as other plaintive moans drifted in from the slough in back of the Shack.

“Oh fuck no way, no fucking way.” Gary skittered backward on his ass, hands, and feet, ignoring pain and the sticky warmth under his palms. He backed up into the sink, screaming as his head made contact with the hose nozzle that was dangling over the edge.
As
soon as he realized what it was, he used the hose to pull himself to his feet, just as what was left of Amy dragged itself close enough to touch his shoe with one mutilated hand.

He screamed then, his voice almost as high as Laura’s had been, and ran out of the building into the parking lot. He was vaguely aware of figures sloshing through the muck toward the Shack, their moans growing louder by the second.

Laura lay in a heap on the gravel, holding one of her ankles and crying. Gary thought there might be bone sticking through the side of it. She saw him and reached up one perfectly manicured hand toward him, pleading.

“Gary, help me!”

He ignored her, scrabbling in his pockets for his car keys as he ran around the Crab Van to his car. The driver’s side door was unlocked—no reason to lock it here. Which meant he had just enough time to open the door as a sodden, stinking
thing
reached for him out of the fog. He used the door as a barrier, but felt clammy fingertips graze his face. Throwing himself into the car, he slammed the door shut after him, hitting the automatic lock button just as something else fell against the passenger door, wet hands slapping at the window. Several other figures moved past the car into the parking lot.

Tough shit, Laura.

Gary got the key into the ignition first try—pretty fucking good, considering how badly his hands were shaking. The engine roared to life and he hit the lights, illuminating a few dozen bodies shambling out of the foggy slough.

He didn’t bother to look behind him as he threw the car into reverse and hit the accelerator, pedal to the metal, gravel spewing out from under the tires. He may have heard Laura screaming as he sped out of the parking lot, but he didn’t look back then, either.

I was at my parents’ house in Lake County, sitting in the living room with the huge stone fireplace my dad had fallen in love with when they’d gone house shopping. It was big, like something you’d expect the witch from Hansel and Gretel to have in her gingerbread cottage.

My dad kept adding logs to an already blazing fire. I was roasting hot, sweat pouring from my face and body, and I kept asking him to open a window and stop adding wood to the blaze. They both just smiled at me, though, and tossed on more big chunks of redwood until I could barely breathe.

* * *

I woke up with a start.

Gabriel’s arm was still holding me against him. But something was wrong. The sense of safety was replaced by burning eyes. My head throbbed, it hurt to swallow, and a wave of nausea hit as I struggled to sit up.

I smelled smoke.

Oh, shit.

I grabbed Gabriel’s arm and shook it. He muttered in his sleep, but didn’t wake. I threw off his arm and struggled out of the bed, my already leaden limbs entangled in the blankets. I literally tumbled out of the bed, hitting the thinly carpeted floor hard with my knees.

“Gabriel!” I shouted, and the effort hurt my throat.

He mumbled something again and burrowed deeper under the covers. The smell of smoke increased. Was it my imagination, or could I see it curling through the air?

How the hell can he still be asleep?

Struggling to my feet, I seized the edge of the blankets and yanked them down away from him and all the way off the bed. He sat up, jolted awake, and glared at me.

“What the hell, Ash?” he demanded.

“I smell smoke!”

The look of irritation immediately vanished as Gabriel rolled out of bed and stood up, all in one smooth motion. He sniffed the air.

“I can’t smell anything. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

He didn’t bother with any more questions. We knew from experience that my sense of smell was better than his. We both scrambled for our clothing.