Nicky just shook his head. “What? You like to live dangerously or something, lady? I could be anybody.”
She nodded again, a half smile playing on her lips.
“Sure,” she said. “Anybody at all. Except you’re Nicky Straw. We used to take English 201
together, remember?”
He’d recognized her as well, just hoped she hadn’t. The guy she remembered didn’t exist anymore.
“I know about being down on your luck,” she added when he didn’t respond. “Believe me, I’ve been there.”
You haven’t been anywhere, he thought. You don’t want to know about the places I’ve been.
“You’re Luann Somerson,” he said finally.
Again that smile. “Let me buy you a meal, Nicky.”
He’d wanted to avoid this kind of a thing, but he supposed he’d known all along that he couldn’t.
This was what happened when the hunt took you into your hometown. You didn’t disappear into the background like all the other bums. Someone was always there to remember.
Hey, Nicky. How’s it going? How’s the wife and that kid ofyours?
Like they cared. Maybe he should just tell the truth for a change. You know those things we used to think were hiding in the closet when we were too young to know any better? Well, surprise. One night one of those monsters came out of the closet and chewed off their faces ....
“C’mon,” Luann was saying.
She stood up, waiting for him. He gave it a heartbeat, then another. When he saw she wasn’t going without him, he finally got to his feet.
“You do this a lot?” he asked.
She shook her head. “First time,” she said.
All it took was one time ....
“I’m like everyone else,” she said. “I pretend there’s no one there, lying halfstarved in the gutter, you know? But when I recognized you, I couldn’t just walk by.”
You should have, he thought.
His silence was making her nervous and she began to chatter as they headed slowly down Yoors Street.
“Why don’t we just go back to my place?” she said. “It’ll give you a chance to clean up.
Chad—that’s my ex—left some clothes behind that might fit you ....”
Her voice trailed off. She was embarrassed now, finally realizing how he must feel, having her see him like this.
“Uh ...”
“That’d be great,” he said, relenting.
He got that smile of hers as a reward. A man could get lost in its warmth, he thought. It’d feed a freak for a month.
“So this guy,” he said. “Chad. He been gone long?” The smile faltered.
“Three and a half weeks now,” she said.
That explained a lot. Nothing made you forget your own troubles so much as running into someone who had them worse. “Not too bright a guy, I guess,” he said.
“That’s ... Thank you, Nicky. I guess I need to hear that kind of thing.”
“Hey, I’m a bum. We’ve got nothing better to do than to think up nice things to say.”
“You were never a bum, Nicky.”
“Yeah. Well, things change.”
She took the hint. As they walked on, she talked about the book she’d started reading last night instead.
It took them fifteen minutes or so to reach her apartment on McKennitt, right in the heart of Lower Crowsea. It was a walkup with its own stairwell—a narrow, winding affair that started on the pavement by the entrance of a small Lebanese groceteria and then deposited you on a balcony overlooking the street.
Inside, the apartment had the look of a recent splitup. There was an amplifier on a wooden orange crate by the front window, but no turntable or speakers. The bookcase to the right of the window had gaps where apparently random volumes had been removed. A pair of rattan chairs with bright slipcovers stood in the middle of the room, but there were no end tables to go with them, nor a coffee table. She was making do with another orange crate, this one cluttered with magazines, a couple of plates stacked on top of each other and what looked like every coffee mug she owned squeezed into the remaining space. A small portable blackand-white Zenith TV stood at the base of the bookcase, alongside a portable cassette deck. There were a couple of rectangles on the wall where paintings had obviously been removed. A couple of weeks’ worth of newspapers were in a pile on the floor by one of the chairs.
She started to apologize for the mess, then smiled and shrugged. Nicky had to smile with her. Like he was going to complain about the place, looking like he did.
She showed him to the bathroom. By the time he came out again, showered and shaved, dressed in a pair of Chad’s corduroys and a white linen shirt, both of which were at least a size too big, she had a salad on the tiny table in the kitchen, wine glasses out, the bottle waiting for him to open it, breaded pork chops and potatoes on the stove, still cooking.
Nicky’s stomach grumbled at the rich smell that filled the air.
She talked a little about her failed marriage over dinner—sounding sad rather than bitter—but more about old times at the university. As she spoke, Nicky realized that the only thing they had shared back then had been that English class; still he let her ramble on about campus events he only halfremembered and people who’d meant nothing to him then and even less now.
But at least they hadn’t been freaks.
He corrected himself. He hadn’t been able to
“God, listen to me,” Luann said suddenly.
They were finished their meal and sitting in her living room having coffee. He’d been wrong; there were still two clean mugs in her cupboard.
“I am,” he said.
She gave him that smile of hers again—this time it had a wistfulness about it.
“I know you are,” she said. “It’s just that all I’ve been talking about is myself. What about you, Nicky? What happened to you?”
“I .. 4
11
Where did he start? Which lie did he give her?
That was the one good thing about street people. They didn’t ask questions. Whatever put you there, that was your business. But citizens always wanted whys and hows and wherefores.
As he hesitated, she seemed to realize her faux pas.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “If you don’t want to talk about it ...”
“It’s not that,” Nicky told her. “It’s just ...”
“Hard to open up?”
Try impossible. But oddly enough, Nicky found himself wanting to talk to her about it. To explain. To ease the burden. Even to warn her, because she was just the kind of person the freaks went for.
The fire inside her shimmered off her skin like a high voltage aura, sending shadows skittering. It was a bright shatter of light and a deep golden glow like honey, all at the same time. It sparked in her eyes; blazed when she smiled. Sooner or later it was going to draw a nest of the freaks to her, just as surely as a junkie could sniff out a fix.
“There’s these ... things,” he said slowly. “They look enough like you or me to walk among us—especially at night—but they’re ... they’re not human.”
She got a puzzled look on her face which didn’t surprise him in the least.
“They’re freaks,” he said. “I don’t know what they are, or where they came from, but they’re not natural. They feed on us, on our hopes and our dreams, on our vitality. They’re like ... I guess the best analogy would be that they’re like vampires. Once they’re on to you, you can’t shake them. They’ll keep after you until they’ve bled you dry.”
