Flesh

In front of the door, Jason hesitated. Nobody’s in there, he told himself. Except maybe Dana.

She’ll be standing inside, a hip thrust out to the side, hands on her hips and a smirk on her face. “So, my ride is here at last. Took you dorks long enough. If you thought I was gonna walk back, you were nuts.”

She won’t be in there.

Maybe her body. Hanging naked, all cut up.

She’s probably back on campus by now.

She’ll get a big laugh when she hears about this. Our rescue mission.

She won’t get a big laugh. She’s dead.

Jason looked over his shoulder. Roland was coming, so he waited. He rubbed his sweaty hands on his jeans. He tried to take a deep breath, but there was a hard, tight place below his lungs that wouldn’t let them expand enough.

Roland climbed onto the porch. Crouching, he picked up a board with nails at both ends. There were several such boards lying around. Apparently, they’d been used to barricade the door. “Why don’t you get one?” Roland whispered.

Jason shook his head. He didn’t need a weapon unless he believed there was danger inside; he didn’t want to believe that.

He pushed on the door. It swung open. Cool air from inside breathed on him, raising goose bumps. He took a single step forward.

Enough light entered the restaurant through the doorway and windows for him to see the cocktail area to his right, the big dining area to his left. He stepped toward the dining room. It looked empty except for a ladder, an open toolbox, some cans and jars, a vacuum cleaner and broom, all clustered near the right wall. Nothing moved.

“Dana!” he called out. His voice sounded hollow, as if he’d yelled the name into a cave.

No answer came.

Did you really expect one? he thought.

He looked to the right. On the floor in front of the long bar was an empty vodka bottle. Had Dana and Roland been drinking? Maybe they both got drunk. Maybe that’s how it started.

He could ask Roland about the bottle. But he didn’t want to hear his voice again—didn’t want anyone else to hear his voice again.

With Roland at his side, he walked into the dining area. Along the wall beyond the ladder was a double door—the kind that saloons always had in westerns. He pushed through it and entered the kitchen.

The linoleum floor had footprints, maybe a dozen of them, rust-colored stains made by a bare left foot. A small foot. Dana’s foot? The tracks began at a dried puddle of blood near the far side of the kitchen and became fainter as they approached the place where Jason was standing.

Near the blood puddle was a sack of flour. The floor directly behind the sack was coated with the white powder.

“What’s all this?” Jason whispered.

“The blood’s from those two who were killed Thursday night.”

Christ, he thought, don’t the cops clean it up? If they don’t, who does?

“What about the flour?”

“It was here when we came,” Roland answered in a voice as hushed as Jason’s.

“The footprints?”

“I don’t know.”

“They weren’t here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Was Dana wearing shoes?”

“Sure. Anyway, she had shoes on last time I saw her.” Roland pointed with his board at an open door. “The cellar’s down there.”

Jason walked slowly toward it, rolling his feet from heel to toe so he wouldn’t make any noise though he knew that anyone down there—anyone alive—would’ve heard him call out Dana’s name and maybe even heard the quiet conversation in the kitchen.

He peered down the steep wooden stairway.

Dark as hell down there.

He hoped that the restaurant had electricity, then recalled that there’d been a lamp and vacuum cleaner with the ladder and things in the other room. He flicked a switch on the wall beside the door. A light came on below.

“Want me to stay up here and keep watch?” Roland whispered.

“Keep watch for what? Come on.”

He started down the stairs. They groaned under his weight. He pictured breaking through one, falling. Worse, he pictured someone hiding behind the stairway, grabbing his ankle from between the boards.

Partway down, he stopped and ducked below the ceiling. From here, he could see most of the cellar. Straight ahead were several sections of empty shelves, some made for holding wine bottles and others apparently intended for the storage of other restaurant supplies. Off to the left was a vast area with pipes running along the ceiling, a furnace near the far wall.

No Dana.

No one else.

That he could see.

Jason rushed to the bottom, got away from the staircase and looked back. Nobody behind it.

His tension eased a little. Even though the cellar had plenty of places where someone might be hidden, he doubted that anyone, alive or dead, was down here.

Just me, he thought. And Roland.

Nevertheless, he began to search. Roland stayed behind him as he walked through the aisles between the shelves.

Roland. Behind him. Carrying that board with the nails in it.

And I’m probably the only one who knows he was here last night with Dana.

If it was Roland who…

He could almost feel those nails piercing his skull.

He turned around. Roland, with the board resting on his shoulder, raised his eyebrows. “You want to take the lead for a while?” Jason whispered.

Roland’s lip curled up. “Thanks anyway.”

“I’m going first, I ought to have the weapon.”

“Could’ve got one for yourself.”

“Don’t give me shit.”

“What’ll I use?”

“Don’t worry about it, huh? Anything happens, I’d be better with that thing than you.”

Roland’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, Jason half expected Roland to swing the thing down at him. Wouldn’t dare, he thought. Not with me facing him. Knows he wouldn’t stand a chance. I’m bigger, stronger, quicker. By a long shot.

“Guess you’re right,” Roland said, and handed the board to him.

They resumed the search. Now that he had the weapon, Jason wondered about himself. He must’ve been crazy to think that Roland might try to kill him.

The kid’s more scared than me about being down here.

He didn’t lay a finger on Dana.

He’s sure, in that twisted mind of his, that some maniac right out of a slasher movie was down here last night and did a number on Dana.

What if he’s right?

No, please. Nobody got her. She was down here alone, she did that laugh herself to scare Roland off, she’s probably back at her dorm by now.