Two giant birds roosted on the diner"s sign. Several more circled overhead, cawing impatiently.
"I"m taking them over to Red"s right now."
"You do that. I don"t suppose I could trouble you for something cold to drink?"
"Help yourself."
Sheriff Kopp grabbed a soda, got into his car, and disappeared down the long, dusty road. Duke and Loretta climbed into the truck and headed in the opposite direction. Duke pa.s.sed the ride silently cataloguing the scenery. There wasn"t much to see. Just a flat expanse of desert broken by cacti, tumbleweeds, fields of brown gra.s.s, and the occasional building. Rockwood had grown without a master plan, and it showed.
There were mobile homes and adobe constructions, ramshackle cabins and three-story manors. Some had white picket fences and concrete driveways. Others were surrounded by razor wire, with cows and chickens milling about in the front yard. The only common element was a lot of empty land between each. The citizens of Rockwood valued their personal s.p.a.ce.
Finally, they pulled up alongside a wooden building. A sign over the door read RED"S TAXIDERMY AND MORTUARY.
A pair of pit bulls raged at their chains, announcing the truck"s arrival. A wrinkled, old black man emerged from the cabin.
"Got another load for you, Red."
He glanced at the pile of bodies. "Whoo doggie, there"s a lot this time."
"Nine of "em," she confirmed.
"I"ll get the wheelbarrow. Don"t mind the girls, son. They"re all bark. Just as long as you stay out of their reach."
Hands in his pockets, Duke stood inches from their snapping jaws.
It took three trips with the squeaky wheelbarrow to transfer the moldering body parts from the truck to the crematorium in the back of the building. When it was done, Loretta counted out a handful of bills.
"Usual rate?"
"Forty bucks a head."
"d.a.m.ned things are costing me a fortune."
"I"m giving you the bulk discount," Red pointed out.
"I know, and I appreciate it. But every time this happens I end up sh.e.l.ling out a couple hundred for the disposal and gla.s.s repair. And business ain"t exactly booming back at the diner. Sometimes I wonder if the Good Lord is testing me."
"It would explain a thing or two," Red agreed.
Duke squatted beside the slavering canines and stuck out his hand.
"Wouldn"t do that," Red cautioned. "Less"n you want to lose a finger."
The dogs stopped, sniffed his hand, and began licking his palm. He scratched their muzzles and patted their necks.
"d.a.m.nedest thing I ever saw. Those b.i.t.c.hes hate everyone. Even me. I gotta knock the s.p.u.n.k out of "em with a stick when I feed "em."
The dogs wriggled on the ground as Duke rubbed their bellies. "I got a way with animals."
Duke kicked Earl"s trunk. The lid cracked open an inch. "Dusk already?"
"Yep."
The trunk slammed shut.
"Get your a.s.s up, Earl."
Earl"s m.u.f.fled voice moaned, "Just ten more minutes."
Duke tried to open the trunk, but the lid held, locked from the inside. He beat on the steamer"s side. It rattled with each blow.
"d.a.m.n it! Just ten more minutes!"
"Ten more minutes, my a.s.s," Duke grumbled as he hefted the heavy trunk in the air. Even in his current man shape, he was twice as strong as most men his size, and there weren"t many men his size. He turned the trunk upside down and shook.
"Alright already, you dips.h.i.t!"
Chuckling, Duke threw in three extra shakes before setting it back down. The lid popped open, and the woozy vampire emerged.
"Jee-Zuss Kee-Rist, Duke, what"s up your b.u.t.t?"
"While you"ve been sleeping, I"ve been digging all afternoon." He slapped some of the dirt off his pants.
"Ain"t my fault I got me a skin condition."
Duke frowned as he extended a full mason jar to Earl. The vampire set the red liquid under his big nose.
"What"s this?"
"Breakfast. I had Loretta squeeze off some hamburger juice."
"h.e.l.l, Duke, you know I can"t drink this cold stuff. Screws with my digestion something fierce."
"Suit yourself. Saw some livestock about a mile west."
"Livestock?"
"It"s a small town, Earl. Probably be better if you watch what you eat." He turned on the faucet, which began to rattle and groan. He stuck his hands in the brown water and briskly rubbed them together.
"I can get a bite without causing any trouble."
"What about Tulsa?"
"You always gotta throw that in my face. I told"ja. That was an accident."
"Just keep to the cows and burros," Duke sighed. "Saw a llama ranch, too. They had some emus. Could give that a try if you"re lookin" for sumthin" exotic."
"Fine. Can you at least come with me? Do that animal juju of yours."
Duke shook his hands dry. "Don"t tell me you"re afraid of a couple of cows."
"I ain"t afraid of nuthin", you p.r.i.c.k. It"s just easier."
The werewolf laid on the cot and closed his eyes. "After breakfast, you better go and check that cemetery."
"Cemetery? By myself?"
"I"m doing the gas line. You"re handling the zombies."
"But . . ."
Duke rolled to his side, his back to Earl. "d.a.m.n it, I"m tired here. Besides, you know you gotta better talent for that sort of thing."
"But . . . but . . ."
"Christ, Earl, you can be such a p.u.s.s.y."
The vampire straightened, scowling, his shoulders held back. "I ain"t scared of nuthin"!"
"Yeah, yeah."
"f.u.c.k you, Duke."
"Blow me, Earl."
Earl stormed from the diner, stopping just long enough to leave his breakfast by the kitchen stove. "Thanks, but I"ll find my own."
Loretta cast a disapproving glance but didn"t offer a reply. She hunched over a stubborn grease stain on the counter and continued scrubbing.
The vampire found his meal snoozing half-a-mile west of the diner. He leaned against the picket fence and watched the slumbering cow. Earl hated bovine blood. The only thing he hated more was cold bovine blood. He could live off the stuff, but that didn"t mean he wanted to. But, much as he hated to admit it, Duke was right. This was safer.
Earl didn"t need to kill his meal when he ate, but accidents happened. In a truckstop outside of Tulsa he"d been caught in the middle of dinner and nearly got his head lopped off by an eager bunch of religious nuts. Duke had saved his b.u.t.t then and hadn"t gone twenty-four hours without reminding him since.
He"d stalked livestock before and taken a bite of most domesticated animals. Emus he could stand, but they startled easy and kicked like a son of a b.i.t.c.h. Goat was good, but always left him hungry an hour later. Pig was almost pleasant, but he didn"t like crawling in the mud. Horse had a horrible aftertaste, and donkey was terrible until properly aged. He"d never had llama. Never could get past all that hair to find a vein.
He hopped the fence and carefully snuck up on the cow. The beasts were easy pickings most of the time. Repressing a shudder, he remembered the time he mistook a bull for a heifer and found himself on the receiving end of a nasty goring that left an inconvenient hole in his intestines for the rest of that night and ruined a brand-new shirt. He double-checked for an udder before biting into the cow"s jugular. He drank his fill (as much as he could stomach). The cow slept through the whole process.
He took his time walking back to the cemetery. Graveyards creeped him out. They always had. As a mortal, whenever he"d strolled past one, he could feel the eyes of the dead staring at him. He"d remind himself that there were no such thing as ghosts, no boogeymen or monsters. They were just figments of his imagination. Then he"d died and risen from the grave as one of the undead. Pushing monsters away into childhood fantasies was much harder after you"d become one. He"d discovered that most of the terrors that stalked the night weren"t really terrors at all. They were mostly like regular folks, just trying to live their lives. As long as they were left alone they were perfectly harmless except for the occasional bite on the neck. Humans were the real terrors, always getting worked up and looking to kill something.
But cemeteries still creeped him out because ghosts creeped him out. And experience told him that every cemetery had at least one ghost in residence. Most people couldn"t see them except as flitting shadows on a spooky night when the moonlight shined just right. As a vampire, Earl wasn"t so lucky. He stood on that fine line between death and life, one foot on each side, though not truly belonging to either.
A waist-high wooden fence surrounded the two acres of neglected graveyard. The fence was barely standing in some places, completely fallen in others. A tall wrought-iron arch marked the entrance. The left gate clung to the arch by one rusty hinge. The right side creaked as it swayed back and forth. The plots on the other side were marked by homemade wooden headstones or the rare modest stone marker. Several tall cacti stood like unblinking watchmen. The wind picked up just long enough to raise a cloud of dust and bounce a tumbleweed across Earl"s path.
"I ain"t scared of nuthin"."
He walked through the gates.
Right away Earl saw something was wrong. Gaping holes covered the ground where zombies had dug their way out of their resting places. Earl counted sixty before losing interest. It looked as if not a single corpse had had the decency to stay in its grave. Except one.
It was near the back in a plot marked only by a sagging wooden cross. The cemetery guardian sat beside it. Earl could see the ghost plain as day. She looked as real and solid as any person of flesh and blood. There was little ghost-like about her, but he could tell. He could always tell. There was something about the pale, smooth consistency of ectoplasmic skin and the milky color of spectral eyes. The spirit wore cutoffs, a flannel shirt, and a pair of sneakers. Her long brown hair, tied in a ponytail, waved in the breeze. With dimpled cheeks, full blue lips, and a trim, athletic build, she was cute. But even a cute ghost was still a ghost and sent a shiver down Earl"s spine.
He cleared his throat. "Pardon me, miss."
She looked up at him, then over her shoulder, then back at him. "Are you talking to me?"
"Don"t see n.o.body else here."
"You can see me?"
He nodded.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
She got to her feet and waved her hands in his face. "Really?"
He grabbed her arms. "Really."
The ghost gasped and pulled away. "You touched me!"
If there was one thing he disliked more than ghosts, Earl decided, it was a ghost who didn"t know how things worked.
She reached out and experimentally prodded him in the chest with her finger. When her hand didn"t go through him, she smiled. "Seems like forever since I touched anyone. I almost forgot what it was like. Are you dead, too?"
"Undead," he corrected.
"Like a vampire? You"re a vampire?" She looked the thin, gawky man up and down. "You?"
"We stopped wearing capes a while back. Name"s Earl."
"I"m Cathy." She held out her hand for him to shake which he pretended not to notice. He didn"t like touching ghosts if he could help it.
"Who"s grave is this?" Earl asked.
"Mine."
"So you were the last person buried here."
"Yeah. How"d you know?"
"The last person buried in a graveyard usually stays behind to keep watch over it."
Cathy pounded her fist into her palm. "So that"s it! Boy, is that a relief. I thought I was here because I had unfinished business or something."
"Didn"t the last guardian tell you anything?"
"No. He just said, "Adios, sucker," and disappeared."