Flesh

At the top of a rise, Jake saw the restaurant and felt something similar to a fluffy himself—a sinking sensation in his stomach. But there was nothing fun about this one. This one made him feel sick and didn’t go away. It got worse as he drove closer to the restaurant.

The parking area was deserted.

What did you expect, he wondered, a frat party?

Something like that. He had hoped, he realized, to find at least one car on the lot; the car belonging to the guy (or maybe girl) who had the thing up his back. Go in and maybe find him down in the cellar kneeling over the smear of demolished eggs.

Just a faint hope. He hadn’t actually expected that kind of luck.

He stopped his car close to the porch stairs. He wiped his sweaty hands on the legs of his trousers. He stared at the door.

Nobody’s here, he thought. What’s the point of going in?

To see if anything has changed since yesterday. Maybe someone was inside after you left.

Jake rubbed a sleeve across his lips.

You made it this far, he told himself. Don’t chicken out now.

Just take a quick look around and get out.

He tried to swallow. His throat seemed to stick shut.

At least go in and get a drink. You can use the kitchen faucet.

He saw Peggy Smeltzer sprawled headless on the kitchen floor, Ronald tearing the flesh from her belly. He saw the way the skin seemed to stretch as Ronald raised his head.

Just do it, he thought.

He levered open the driver’s door and swung his left leg out. As he started to rise from the seat, the car radio hissed and crackled.

Sharon, the dispatcher, said in her flat voice, “Unit two, unit two.”

He picked up his mike and thumbed the speaker button. “Unit two.”

“Call in.”

“Ten-four.” Jake jammed the mike onto its hook.

The Oakwood has a phone, he remembered. But he’d tried to use it Thursday night and it hadn’t been connected. It wouldn’t be working now.

“Too bad,” he muttered.

He shifted to reverse and shot his car backward away from the restaurant.

He had passed a gas station about two miles back on Latham. It had a pay phone.

He swung his car around and sped out of the lot, feeling as if he’d been reprieved but tense, now, with a new concern. The message from headquarters could mean only one thing: a new development in the case. Any other matter was to be handled by Danny in unit one.

He floored the accelerator. The car surged over the road, flying off the rises (some real fluffies for you, honey) and hitting the pavement hard on the down slopes.

You’re flying, he thought. Flying away from that damned place. But toward what? Maybe toward something worse.

He braked, slowed nearly to a stop at the junction with Latham, made sure no cars were approaching, then lunged out.

A car ahead. He gained on it quickly and he raced past it.

Seconds later, Jake spotted the service station. He slapped a front pocket of his uniform trousers to make sure he had change. Coins jangled. Of course he had change. He’d made sure before leaving home, knowing that he would need to phone Barney if he got a “call in” message. The procedure seemed excessive to Jake, but Barney had insisted that, for the sake of keeping a tight lid on the matter, the car radio was not to be used.

For some reason, Jake had expected to get through the day without needing the coins.

I was wrong, he thought.

At least the timing was good.

Shit. Someone probably turned up dead, and all you care about is getting saved from the Oakwood.

He whipped across the road, cut sharply onto the station’s raised pavement, and mashed the brake pedal to the floor. The car lurched to a stop beside the pair of public phones. He killed the siren, rammed the shift lever to Park, left the engine running, and threw open the door. He fished a quarter from his pocket as he ran to the phones.

The phone on the right had a scribbled “Out of Order” note taped to its box.

He muttered, “Shit.” He grabbed the handset of the other phone and listened to the earpiece. A tone came out, indicating that this instrument was operational. Because of the tremor in his hand, he knew he would have trouble poking the quarter into its slot. So he jammed the coin to the metal plate, as close as he could come to the slot on the first try, and skidded it sideways, pressing its edge hard against flat surface until it dropped in. The sound of a ding came through the earpiece.

He dialed as fast as he could.

The phone didn’t finish its first ring before Barney answered. “Jake, it might be nothing. I don’t want you jumping to conclusions.”

Barney didn’t sound right. His voice seemed stiff and tightly under control, and he wasn’t pronouncing his words like a thug.

This is bad, Jake thought. Very bad.

I don’t want to hear this!

“Barbara phoned in. She’s concerned about Kimmy. Apparently, Kimmy has been missing since about thirteen hundred hours.”

Jake looked at his wristwatch. For a moment, he had no idea why he was looking at it. Then he realized that he wanted to know what time it was. Two thirty-five. Kimmy had been missing for…

“Jake?”

He didn’t answer. Kimmy had been gone for…thirteen hundred was one o’clock, right?

“She probably just wandered off,” Barney said. “You know kids. There’s no reason to think this has anything to do with…the other matter. Jake?”

“Yeah, I’m on my way.”

“Keep me posted.”

Jake hung up. In a numb haze, he returned to the patrol car. He started to drive.

Kimmy.

She’s all right, he thought. She has to be all right. Just wandered off. Maybe got lost.

He saw Ronald Smeltzer in the kitchen, down on his knees, teeth ripping flesh from the belly, but it wasn’t Smeltzer’s wife being eaten, it was Kimmy. Shrieking “No!” he blasted the man dead.

She’s all right. Nobody got her. She just took a walk or something.

Gone more than an hour and a half.

He saw Harold Standish open the door, playfully stick up his hands and say, “Don’t shoot.” Jake shoved his piece against Harold’s forehead and blew out the fucker’s brains. Barbara came running. She wore the blue silk kimono. She cried, out, “It’s not our fault!” Three bullets crashed through her chest. Then Jake stuck the barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger.

That’s how it’s gonna play, assholes, he thought. That’s just exactly how it’s gonna play if anything happened to Kimmy.

Better calm down.

Fuck that.

You bastards, why weren’t you watching her!

He swung onto the driveway behind BB’s Toy, resisting an urge to slam into it. Then he was out of the car, striding toward the front door.

His right hand was tight on the walnut grip of his Smith & Wesson .38. He flicked off the holster’s safety strap.

What am I doing?