Calling forth the willpower only available to someone who had pa.s.sed through the veil of death, Earl looked away.
An unpleasant mutter rose from Chad"s throat.
The next fourteen holes stretched half-an-hour into twenty years. Earl read his pamphlet and stared into the lights and studied his golf ball until he knew every dimple by heart. He looked anywhere and everywhere Tammy wasn"t in a vain effort to discourage her. Somehow, she managed to still fall into his line of vision. It was uncanny how she seemed to be wherever he casually glanced. She gracefully glided to and fro, here and there, bending over this and kneeling beside that and adjusting her stockings and smoothing her skirt to terrifying effect. Admittedly, Earl wasn"t putting forth all his efforts in resisting, but the girl knew her body and how to use it. He caught himself staring more than once.
So did Duke. The werewolf"s crooked smile never left his face.
Chad made a futile attempt at sticking by his girlfriend"s side, but he was constantly outmaneuvered, always one step behind.
The last ball rattled in the last hole, a three-foot-high volcano.
"That was fun," Tammy said. "We"d like to play again, but Chad and me got things to do."
Earl breathed a sigh of relief.
She reached out and touched him for the second time of the evening. It wasn"t much. Just a light hand on the small of his back. Enough to send a shudder down his spine to his nether regions.
"See you later," she said.
"Later," Chad agreed through clenched teeth.
The teenage couple returned their equipment to Wacky Willie. Earl and Duke were about to do the same when the ghost of Herbert Smythe appeared by their side.
"Excuse me, but I couldn"t help notice you scored a perfect game there, friend."
Duke rolled his golf ball round and round his palm. "Wasn"t that hard."
"It"s all luck anyway," Earl added.
Herbert ignored him. "Anyway, as you have already probably guessed, I"ve been condemned to play this course until I score a perfect game. I"ve mastered all the holes, except number nine, and I was hoping . . ."
"Sure."
"Really. Thanks, I really appreciate this."
"No problem."
Tammy watched the werewolf give the ghost golf tips as the vampire pretended to read his pamphlet while casting regular glances up and down her figure.
Tammy had always a.s.sumed that a vampire would be harder to seduce than a regular man. Certainly, a few degrees harder than teenage boys. He wasn"t. Earl offered some token resistance, but that was all it was. He was hers whenever she wanted.
She was tremendously disappointed.
Yet she found herself intrigued as well, not by the vampire, but by the werewolf. Duke withstood her flirting a.s.sault better than anyone ever had. She caught him watching her from the corners of his eyes several times, but only when she was really looking for it and only, she suspected, because he didn"t really care if she caught him.
She wanted him. He was fat and rough, with callused hands and greasy hair, but she wanted him. She"d never wanted anyone before. She gave Chad a jump now and then to keep him in line, but that was a means to an end. She"d let Roger Simpkins get to third base one time, but that was only because he was Denise Calhoun"s boyfriend. She"d found Earl interesting until realizing that being an immortal stalker of the night didn"t make him any less of a stooge. She"d carried a brief crush on Boris Karloff before discovering he was a puss in real life. But never before had she felt what she felt for the werewolf in the leather jacket.
But by night"s end, he would either be dead or driven away. For the briefest of moments, she considered changing her plans, but no amount of wanton teenage l.u.s.t could sway her from her sacred mission. Which was a terrible pity since she seriously entertained the notion of losing her virginity to him. Chad hardly counted. He was more of a ch.o.r.e than a s.e.xual encounter and a short ch.o.r.e at that.
"You ready to go, babe?" Chad asked.
She nodded.
They climbed onto Chad"s motorcycle and peeled out of the parking lot.
Once, Make Out Barn had been a haven of teenage activity. Wholly living up to its name, the worn old building played host to regular sessions of heavy petting and awkward groping. There were even one or two acts of genuine s.e.x on the premises, though not nearly as many as locker-room boasts might lead one to believe. The barn was a place for certain people, namely those of surging hormones and acne-induced angst, preferably in groups of two, to get away from the endless h.e.l.l that teenagers tend to perceive their lives to be until they grow up and realize that real h.e.l.l generally strikes around middle age, when one discovers that life is either far too short or far too long.
Tammy put an end to that.
Every priestess needed a temple, someplace to practice her forbidden arts in peace and quiet. The first time her mom almost walked in on her as she conjured the spirits had proven that. To that end, Tammy had taken Make Out Barn for her own. It wasn"t hard. All it took was some carefully controlled arson and a simple rite of the Dreadful Aura. Her temple had been left alone ever since, making it perfect for her needs. She could study up on her destiny, raise the dead, and leave corpses to soak up black magic without having to worry about kids looking to enjoy the pleasure of swapping various bodily fluids and adults hoping to interrupt such pleasures.
She shone her flashlight on the bodies. The ritual demanded they be buried in shallow graves, and so they sat in inch-deep holes in the ground, covered from head to toe with a thin layer of dirt. The Mark of Those That Inhere Within the Smothering Shadows were carved into their foreheads. The first stage of the magic had taken effect. The fetid flesh of the corpses had become a pallid green, and their teeth had become rows of razor-sharp fangs. Thick, black claws had grown from their fingertips. They were still dead, but soon they would rise to serve her.
Gleefully grinning, she removed the occult odds and ends from her backpack.
Chad shone a light on a dead face. "Uh . . . Tammy?"
She ignored him. Tammy did not exist once she and Chad went through the doors of the temple.
"Mistress Lilith."
"Yes?"
He tiptoed a wide circle around the dead people. "What are we doing with these guys?"
"We?" She chuckled at the p.r.o.noun. As if Chad were an equal partner in her destiny. "We are raising the dead."
"Oh. Okay. Like zombies, right?"
"Sort of."
The ritual shared certain elements of zombie-making, but these were a far more dangerous breed of walking dead. The spell itself even entailed some risk to the casters. It was the most difficult feat of black magic she had yet to attempt, and if something went wrong someone would have to be torn apart when her minions first rose. Chad had volunteered for the duty if the necessity arose, though he didn"t currently know it.
He reached for the black candle she"d set out. She slapped his hand away.
"Don"t touch anything."
"Okay." He cast a nervous glance toward the nearest dead guy. "So do we have to get naked again?"
"No."
"Oh. Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Okay."
"Oh, alright," she sighed.
He smiled stupidly as he stripped off his clothes in fifteen seconds flat.
"Your turn, Mistress Lilith."
Chad leered while she got undressed. It wasn"t necessary, but it made things easier. Chad would do just about anything as long as they were both naked while doing it.
"You didn"t really like that old dude, did"ja, babe?" he asked as he posed and flexed.
"No. Of course not," she replied.
Tammy organized her supplies. There wasn"t much to it. She just had to call forth the shadows to enter the corpses which involved a quick incantation. She had Chad lay out his mom"s good silverware and her dad"s camping tent stakes. She lit the black candle and began. Chad knew enough to sit quietly in the corner while she worked.
"I conjure thee, from the endless night, from the icy hearth of forever quiet, from the shadows which cannot be banished, I conjure thee!"
She put her finger to the page to mark her place and grabbed her pocketknife. After another five minutes of steady incant-ing, she p.r.i.c.ked her index finger.
"Ose-thay at-thay eyeth-wray in-ay arkness-day. Eyes-ray. Eyes-ray. Eyes-ray!"
She flicked a drop of her blood on the black candle. The flame flared, spewing an unnaturally thick cloud. Shapes and things terrible and unknowable slithered in the gray smoke. They whispered and cackled, all too eager to be given form in the world of flesh.
"Eyes-ray!" Tammy shouted. "Eyes-ray and-ay obey-ay eye-may ill-way. Eyes-ray! Eyes-ray!" She threw her arms wide. Her flashlight cast fearsome light across her face. A skittering piece of dark crawled over her eyes.
Chad would have been frozen in sweaty horror had he noticed, but he was too busy staring at her pert b.r.e.a.s.t.s as they rose and fell as she incanted.
The smoke funneled downward into the mouths and eyes of the bodies. A chill wind blew. The unholy chattering quieted, and stillness settled on Tammy"s temple.
Everything was still quiet ten minutes later.
Chad dared speak up. "Mistress Lilith, is that it?"
She leafed through her Necronomicon to find where things had gone awry.
He ventured from the corner and stood by her side. "They"re not rising."
"I noticed."
"What went wrong?"
"Shut up, dumba.s.s, and let me think."
He looped an arm around her waist. "I don"t know about the dead guys, but I think Big Jimmy is starting to rise."
She was busy deciding which of Chad"s body parts to dig her fingernails into when the candle flickered. Five ragged moans rose. Tammy s.n.a.t.c.hed up her flashlight and shone it on the corpses.
Her minions sat up and slowly, clumsily rose to their feet. The four walking dead with two good legs stood in hunched, predatory stances. The fifth one-legged corpse hopped about in an awkward balancing act. Ten sets of beady, milky eyes stared at their new mistress, either awaiting their first command or, perhaps, their first meal.
Chad huddled closer to Tammy, either out of terror or, quite possibly, to cop a cheap feel. Either way, she stomped on his foot to deter him.
She pointed to the door. "Go forth," she whispered. "Go forth and sate your unholy appet.i.tes on the flesh of mine enemies."
The corpses shuffled (or hopped) to collect their weapons of knives, salad forks, and camping stakes. They shambled out of the barn one at a time. The last dead thing stopped just long enough to cast a wicked glare at his mistress. And then they were gone.
Tammy raised her hands over her head and giggled the malign giggle of a schoolgirl consorting with the legions of darkness and having a h.e.l.l of a time doing it.
As soon as Duke parked the truck in the diner lot. Earl jumped out, grabbed the battered ca.s.sette player from the bed, and started to walk down the road.
"Where you goin"?"
"I"m getting something to eat," Earl answered.
"Any particular reason you"re taking the tape player?"
"It"s a long walk."
"Don"t forget. Sheriff wants a word with you."
"I"ll be back in plenty of time."
Earl stepped out of the light of the diner"s sign and was swallowed up by the night. He walked about a half-mile down the road before turning around. He wasn"t up to the torment Duke would subject him to if the werewolf found out he was going to visit a ghost. He wouldn"t say much. Not with words. But Duke could say more with a look than anyone he"d ever met. Earl had seen gla.s.s-eating, tough-as-nails, drunken bada.s.ses retreat in trembling terror at the sight of Duke raising one eyebrow. Earl didn"t understand it. He only knew that he wasn"t up to the raised eyebrows and knowing half-smiles Duke would throw his way if the werewolf discovered his graveyard date.
"It"s not a date," he verbally reminded himself. "It"s just a . . . " He searched for a less objectionable noun. ". . . just an appointment."
He frowned. That was a touch too formal.
"Get-together?" he tried, but he didn"t like the sound of that either. Not with only two of them getting together.
"Meeting?"
He didn"t know what it was, but it was definitely not a date. Cathy was lonely, and he was just being nice. That was all there was to it.
"Rendezvous," he tried, but the word was French enough to carry romantic implications.
"It"s just a thing," he quickly decided. "A nice thing. That"s all it is."
He skulked up to the graveyard, low to the ground to keep anyone in the diner from spotting him, although he was pretty sure n.o.body would be watching all that closely. Just to be safe he hopped the broken fence on the graveyard"s dark side.
"You came," Cathy said.
She smiled, and, while Earl"s body didn"t exactly respond like a mortal body, he still felt a strange flutter in his stomach.
"I said I would. I brought this." He held up the dented box. "I thought you might like to listen to some music. "Cuz, y"know, it"s probably been a while since you got the chance." He dug some ca.s.settes out of his overall pockets. "I"ve got Elvis and Randy Travis, BB King, Buddy Holly-"
"Buddy Holly. That"d be just great."
"You have been here a while." He inserted the tape.
"Not that long. I just like Buddy Holly."
Buddy began belting out a static-filled song that wasn"t entirely decipherable. Earl fiddled with the k.n.o.bs to correct the problem, but the crackling remained. He gave up and took a seat beside Cathy on her grave.