Flesh

careful with it, knowing that he would need to wear it back to the dorm after getting rid of his other clothes.

They were with Dana, stuffed inside his mummy bag and hidden in bushes about ten miles south of the restaurant.

The windbreaker, inside and out, looked spotless. He dropped it over the pack, then checked himself. The rain had done a good job of cleaning him. Though all his fingernails had blood caked under them, he looked fine otherwise.

Roland put on his robe, gathered what he needed for a shower, put his room key in his pocket, and hurried down the corridor.

The rest room was silent. He made sure the toilet stalls were vacant, then unloaded his stuff onto a bench in the dressing area of the shower room and approached the sinks. Taking off his robe, he inspected himself in the mirrors above the sinks. At the back of his leg was a crust of dried blood in the shape of a circle where the thing had chewed its way into him. From there, a bluish bruise extended upward, angling across his right buttock to his spine, then straight up his back to the nape of his neck. His hanging black hair, he thought, was long enough to cover the neck area when he was dressed.

He stepped closer, shivering as the cold edge of the sink met the back of his legs. Turning sideways, he twisted his head around. He could see a slight hump at the back of his neck. It continued to about halfway down his spine.

Roland fingered the distended skin behind his neck. The lump felt much larger than it looked. He stroked it. The thing writhed a bit, and gave him a mild tingle of pleasure—only a hint of the ecstasy it had bestowed when he had fed it.

Worried that someone might come through the door, Roland draped the robe over his shoulders and returned to the dressing area. He dropped his robe onto the bench, gathered up his washcloth, soap, shampoo and toothbrush, and entered the shower room.

The hot spray felt wonderful on his chilled skin. He lathered himself and scrubbed. He washed his hair. After rinsing, he found that much of the blood was gone from under his fingernails. But not all of it. He used his toothbrush to get rid of the rest.

Back in his room, Roland stood in front of the built-in bureau and combed his hair straight forward as he always did before parting it down the center. This time, he parted it on the left. It made him appear more normal. Good. He no longer cared to draw attention to himself by looking weird. He wanted to blend in with the student body. At least until it was time to find a new van and hit the road.

No. Too soon.

You’d attract more attention if you suddenly changed.

For now, do everything the same as always.

Roland nodded and moved his part to the center where it belonged.

He put on a clean pair of jeans and socks, then a yellow T-shirt with bloody bullet holes printed across its front as if he’d been stitched by a machine gun. The T-shirt, however, let too much show. He put on another shirt over it—a black sports shirt with a collar high enough to conceal the back of his neck.

Roland yawned. He ached to sleep. Plenty of time later for that. Just a couple more things to do.

He removed the handcuffs and key from his pack, and hid them under some socks in his bureau.

Then he took out the envelope with the photos. The envelope was smeared all over with bloody fingerprints.

“Not too cool, Roland, old man,” he whispered.

He opened it. The photos weren’t stained. He separated them, slipping the shots of Dana into a fresh envelope, and returned them to Jason’s drawer.

He flipped through the remaining photos and grinned. Dana would’ve been pleased by the way they turned out. Roland in his pissed jeans. Roland naked from waist to knees. She would’ve had fun with these, using them to humiliate Roland.

Roland?

Me.

He frowned, puzzled that he had been thinking of himself by name.

After tearing the photos and envelopes into tiny pieces, he returned to the rest room and flushed them down a toilet.

Back in his own room, he stretched out on his bed and slept.

The door bumped shut, waking him. Sitting up, he rubbed his face while Jason tossed an overnight bag onto the other bed and hung up his suit.

“How was the wedding?” Roland asked.

“Not bad. The groom’s a real dork, but that’s her problem. Man, did I tie one on.” He sat on his bed and made a sour face. “What gives, anyway?”

“Huh?”

“I saw Dana’s car in the lot.”

“Yeah.”

“Where is she?” Jason lowered his head slightly. “Hiding under the bed? You been slipping it to her?”

“Oh, sure.”

“So what’s her car doing out there?”

“It’s a long story.”

“So? Spill it.” Jason opened his bag, removed a pint flask, and took a swig. “Hair of the dog,” he muttered.

“She’s probably all right,” Roland said.

“Yeah? What do you mean, probably?”

Roland got up. He found the newspaper story about the killings at the Oakwood Inn, and handed it to Jason. “Read this.”

Waiting, Roland glanced at the clock. Almost noon. He’d been asleep for nearly six hours. He felt good.

Jason looked up. “Yeah? What’s this got to do with Dana?”

“We went over there last night. To the restaurant.”

“For dinner?” He looked at the paper. “Who opened it?”

“No, it wasn’t open. It was deserted, locked up.”

“Then what were you doing there?”

“Dana got this thing into her head about me not having any guts. She dared me to spend the night in the restaurant. She bet me a hundred bucks I wouldn’t.”

A grin spread over Jason’s face. “Yeah, that’s Dana, all right. I was gone, so she figured she’d use the opportunity to stick it to you.”

“She doesn’t like me much.”

“Sure she does. She just gets a kick out of tormenting you, that’s all.”

“Well, whatever. Anyway, I said I’d spend the night there, and that I had more guts than she did.”

“Wrong move, buddy.”

“So the way it turned out, we both went into the place. The deal was, whoever chickened out first and split, would lose.”

Jason shook his head slowly. “Christ, and to think I missed out on all this. So what happened, you turned tail, she stayed, and you drove her car back here?”

“There was more to it than that.”

Jason took another drink from his flask.

“Around midnight, we heard a noise. Kind of a bumping sound. Scared me shitless.”

“Yeah, I bet it did.”

“I was ready to get the hell out, and Dana told me to go ahead and kiss the hundred bucks good-bye. So I stayed. She went exploring to find out what made the noise.”

Jason began to look concerned: “You let her go off alone?”

“I told her not to.”

“You could’ve gone with her.”