His bowels ached. His heart thudded and he panted, trying to get enough air into his tight lungs.
Who’s going to write Pete’s book, he thought, if I have a heart attack and keel over dead?
Pete opened the door. Larry shined his light into the lobby. Its beam trembled on the stairs to the left, jerked past the banister and downward, sweeping over the empty space to the right.
They stepped inside. Pete shut the door.
I’m in, Larry thought. Good Christ.
The wind was gone. He heard it, but it no longer blew against him. The hotel was warm. Not as warm as the van, though. He couldn’t stop shivering. His skin felt tight. He knew he was goose bumps from head to toe. An icy hand seemed to be squeezing his genitals.
He swung the flashlight back and forth. Over the sandy, hardwood floor. Across the registration counter. Along the walls. Turning slowly, he lit the boarded windows at the front. The closed doors.
The click and blink of the camera made him flinch. Its automatic film advance buzzed.
“Wanta get the general layout,” Pete whispered. He took several more photos, turning in a full circle to capture every foot of the lobby’s empty interior.
While he reloaded, Larry squatted down to ease a cramped feeling in his bowels.
“You okay?” Pete whispered.
“Hardly.”
“Crap your pants, you’ll have to walk home.”
“Ha ha.”
“I’m going up and get a couple of the landing.”
Larry stood but didn’t go with him. He aimed the light at the stairs. Pete climbed them, holding the camera in both hands. And stopped abruptly.
“Very interesting. Have a look.”
Grimacing, Larry forced his wobbly legs to carry him to the stairway. He made his way upward until he reached Pete’s side.
Four dirty, weathered planks lay across the landing. They covered the hole left by Barbara when the boards gave out beneath her.
“You know what this means,” Pete said.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“God, I hope he didn’t take our vampire.”
God, I hope he did, Larry thought.
Hope he doesn’t
Larry shined his light up the stairs. It reached into the second-floor corridor, threw a faint glow high on the wall. He stared, half expecting a wildman to shamble into the beam.
Pete’s got a gun, he reminded himself.
But the scare will probably kill me.
He wished he could make himself look away from the upstairs corridor. But he didn’t dare take his eyes off it.
Pete drew the revolver. “Hang onto this for a minute.”
Larry switched the flashlight to his left hand and took the gun in his right. He aimed both toward the top of the stairs.
The solid, heavy feel of the .357 was comforting.
Very comforting.
Almost like putting on a coat, the way it soothed his chills and calmed him. But better.
No wonder Pete’s been so cool about most of this. He’s had the pig-iron on his hip.
Pete snapped a photo of the landing. Then, letting the camera dangle by its strap, he crouched and lifted one of the boards. He propped it upright against the wall. When all four planks had been removed, he took two shots of the gaping hole.
No longer worried much about an intruder, Larry lowered his gaze to the break in the landing. He saw the splintered edges of wood that had gouged and scraped Barbara. He remembered the feel of her body when he’d wrapped his arms around her. The soft warmth of her breasts against his forearm. The way she’d looked later, standing in the sunlit doorway with her blouse open.
His mind came back to the present as Pete began setting the boards back into place. He realized he was no longer shivering at all. He wondered if it was having the gun or thinking about Barbara that had taken away the shakes. Probably both, he thought.
“Okay,” Pete said, getting to his feet. He held out his hand for the weapon.
“Let me keep it,” Larry said.
Pete was silent for a moment. Then he shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?”
They turned around and started down the stairs.
“We’re gonna have a lot of good shots of this place. Did that
“Nope.”
“Great. We’ll be going it one better.”
They reached the bottom of the stairway and stepped around the newel post, shoes crunching on the sandy floor.
The panel alongside the staircase was shut, just as they had left it. The body of Christ on the crucifix gleamed golden.
Pete took a few strides backward and snapped a photograph to show the staircase enclosure.
Stepping up to it, he ran his hands along a seam in the paneling. He tried to dig his fingers in, then gave up and took out the tire iron. He pushed its wedge into the crack. Slowly, as if trying not to make a sound, he pressed the bar.
“Open, sesame,” he whispered.
With a soft groan and squeak of nails, the slab of wood moved outward half an inch.
Pete slipped the fingers of his left hand into the gap. He shoved the bar under his belt. Using both hands, he eased the panel toward him. Nails squawked. The gap widened.
At last the panel came off completely. It was about four feet across. Pete stretched out his arms and grabbed both edges. He looked like a life-size imitation of the body on the cross as he lifted the panel and carried it aside — the crucifix almost touching his cheek. He propped the slab against the staircase, rubbed his hands on the front of his pants, then moved backward and took a shot of the opening.
Larry waited until Pete was beside him. Together they stepped under the staircase.
Let the thing be gone, he thought as he swung the flashlight to the left.
It lit the foot of the coffin. Raising the beam slightly, he saw the old brown blanket covering the body. The blanket was propped up like a small tent over the stake. Beyond the upthrust area of blanket was the corpse’s dark face.
Pete nudged him with an elbow.
“What?” Larry whispered.
“Nobody absconded with it.”
“Too bad.”
“I’ll get a shot from here,” Pete said.
A small patch of red light from the camera’s flash attachment appeared on the blanket. It floated upward to the underside of a stair just above the corpse’s head, then found the face. Over the pounding of his heartbeat Larry heard the camera make brief, whiny buzzing sounds as its autofocus made adjustments. The red light trembled on the tawny forehead, touched a sunken eyelid, roamed down a hollow cheek and settled on the upper row of teeth.
Larry shut his eyes in time to miss the sudden shock of brightness. He saw it through his lids. Then another.
