Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror) (6 page)

Clustered around the counter were four middle-aged men.  Two of the four were red-faced and glaring, looking angry as hell.  One was dressed in brown overalls and a white t-shirt.  The other was dressed in jeans and a checkerboard plaid shirt.  A third mustached man was looking down at his cowboy boots, both hands buried in the pockets of his denim jeans.  The fourth guy appeared nervous as he tugged on the brim of his green baseball cap. 

The seventh person was a crumpled-up old woman seated at the counter.  Her gaunt face had more cracks than a dried-up riverbed.  She was wearing enormous false eyelashes, gaudy turquoise eye-shadow, and a metallic blue dress.  Her thin hair had been dyed pitch-black, making her face look even more ancient (and more pathetic, in Talytha’s opinion). 

Seven sets of eyes glared at her, fixing Talytha with angry stares.  None of these seven were black people (and the old woman was probably the whitest white lady she’d ever seen in her life) but that didn’t surprise her much.  Talytha had light brown skin, a hazelnut tone actually, but the way these people were looking at her, she felt very black indeed.  It was startling how no one made any attempts whatsoever at pleasantries, not a
‘Hi,’ ‘Howdy,’ ‘How may I help you?’
or even a simple ‘
Yes?
’ 

The middle-aged lady behind the counter sniffled, causing one of the red-faced guys to glare at her.

Talytha stammered, “Um . . . hello.”

No one greeted her in return.

“I, um— I’m kinda lost here.  I was hoping I could maybe get some directions to-”

The guy in the plaid shirt interrupted her, asking, “Where you headed?”

The pallid guy wearing the green baseball cap asked, “North or south?”

“Actually,” Talytha said, “I’m not sure.”  She smiled at them.  Receiving no smiles in return, she clarified, “I’m looking for someone who lives around here.”

Three of the seven— including the old woman— were looking elsewhere when she said that.  Those three sets of eyes now whipped back, joining the other four sets to stare fearfully at her.

Talytha concentrated on the red-faced guy wearing brown overalls and was stymied when she tried to determine his age.  Upon first glance, she’d taken him to be in his late fifties, maybe early sixties.  Now she realized it was his haggard
eyes
that made him look so aged.  A breed of frantic desperation was locked behind his eyes.

All
these people appeared to be stressed out.

Brown Overalls took out a big white handkerchief and wiped sweat off his face as he asked Talytha, “Who ya lookin’ for?” 

The guy in the plaid shirt and the guy in the green cap exchanged an uneasy look between them.

Talytha sighed.

She would rather be anywhere else right now, instead of this this hick nowhere creepy-as-shit little town.  She should be back home in Chicago, getting ready to go out on a date tonight.  Everything about this trip had been fucked up from the get-go.  There was some kind of trouble at the airport and her departure was delayed almost two hours.

When she finally made it to Great Falls, she had problems with the rental car agency.  Her grandmother Diana was sponsoring this trip— this quest to find Maleeka— and before Talytha could get her car, the rental agency had to contact her grandmother directly.  That took the better part of another hour.

Then she had to endure a long-ass boring three-hour drive, with strong winds dogging her all the way.

Only to arrive here in Paintersville and meet these lovely people.

For all of a minute, she considered moving on.  Screw these rednecks.  She would find her sister on her own.

She didn’t like the way everyone was looking at her.

But then the guy in overalls asked, “Well?” prompting Talytha to say the name of the asshole who lured Maleeka to this godforsaken place, “Darnel Johnson.”

“Darnel?” asked the pale guy with the green cap.

“Darnel?” repeated the flushed guy in brown overalls.

The young woman behind the counter said, “I’ll bet she means David.”

“David?” repeated the guy in the plaid shirt.

When the elderly woman with the sculptured black hair spoke up, her voice was shrill enough to kill a circling horsefly.  “She’s obviously related to that Keeka girl!  Probably her sister, from the looks of her!”  She waved a gnarled hand, dismissing Talytha, the first of the seven to stop staring at her.

The young woman corrected the old hag, “She means Maleeka.”

Brown Overalls gave Talytha a shrewd look, asking, “You related to Maleeka?”

The crone rolled her eyes and shook her head, screeching, “Of
course
, she’s related to Keeka!  Just
look
at her!”

The guy who’d been mostly invisible up until now was forty-something, with a bushy, graying mustache.  He looked up from his cowboy boots, shot a disgusted glare at the wrinkled lady, and apologized.  “You’ll have to forgive my mother.  She’s old and feebleminded.”

Talytha giggled nervously when the old bag retorted, “Feebleminded, my dust-fartin’ ass!” 

The face of the man in brown overalls was no longer so red.  His eyes, however, hadn’t lost any of their mad-frantic glint.  He ignored the others and asked Talytha directly, “You
are
Maleeka’s sister, aren’t ya?”

Since he at least correctly pronounced her sister’s name, Talytha said, “Yes.”

“Well,” said Brown Overalls, shoving both hands into his pockets, “Dave’s place isn’t hard to find at all.  He’s just a couple miles outside town.”

Talytha didn’t question them talking about a David Johnson instead of a Darnel Johnson.  This was exactly what she secretly suspected: Maleeka was living with a white man.

When Maleeka told Talytha on the phone that her new boyfriend was from Paintersville, Montana, Talytha automatically assumed he was white.  Maleeka became indignant and swore
Darnel
was black.

The sad truth was that Grandma Diana was racist herself.  If one of her granddaughters were to bring home a white boy, she’d disown her.  Talytha loved her grandmother with all her heart but she also recognized how bigoted the older generation could be about race, which was probably why Talytha didn’t let this old Caucasian woman get to her too much.

Talytha knew Maleeka would lie about her boyfriend’s skin color, turning David into Darnel, simply to appease an old woman 1,300 miles away (who was likely to die before she ever met the guy.)

So Talytha asked, “Can you tell me how to get there?”

The man in brown overalls pointed vaguely, saying, “You go back out here to the main highway and head north.  Go about six miles, until ya get to the—”

The guy in the green baseball cap startled the hell out of Talytha by shouting, “Why are you doing this?  You
know
what happened to her sister!”

Alarmed, Talytha looked directly at Green-cap and asked, “What happened to my sister?”

Green-cap’s face was cold and bloodless but his eyes were hot and bloodshot, gleaming violently.  With frenzied gestures, he implored the other men, “You
know
we can’t just let her go!  You
know
he’s going to want her!”  He jabbed a finger at Brown Overalls, bellowing, “
Tell me
I’m wrong!”

Talytha didn’t have a clue what’s going on here and had no desire to find out.  Genuinely frightened by this crazy man’s outburst, she decided it was time to seek out the local authorities.

She didn’t exactly run but she hurried away without saying another word.

As she turned the corner down the aisle that led to the front door, she heard five cries behind her.

Green-cap screamed, “You
know
I’m right!”

A man shouted, “She’s bolting!”

Another man whined, “We don’t want to make him
angry
!
”

To which the old crone replied, “He’s gonna be tickled to
death
when he gets a load of this’un!”  She laughed a cackle that sounded like a gurgling brushfire.

And the woman with eyes puffy from crying shouted louder than any of them, “DON’T LET HER GET AWAY!”

Talytha ran.

Suddenly there was a loud slam beside her, startling a squeak out of her.  She was nearly to the end of the aisle, nearly to the door, when the entire section of soft drinks received a jarring blow from the other side, causing cartons and two-liter bottles to spill onto the floor, directly in her path.  As long twelve packs of Coca-cola bust open, sending dented cans rolling, Talytha stepped on one of those cans, tripped, and fell on her butt.

Someone (the owner of the Paintersville general store in all likelihood) shouted, “Oh, why’d you have to do
that
, for God’s sake!  Don’t tear the place up!”

“Don’t hurt her!” wailed the young woman.

“GET her!” shrieked the old crone.

Talytha clamored to her feet, looking back in the direction of the threat, back up at the mirror.  She saw the cluster of people was still near the counter.  Virtually no one had moved, except she didn’t spot either Green-Cap or Plaid Shirt.  Wincing, her ass hurting, she turned and saw the only thing between her and the door were cans, bottles, and a growing cola slick.  Several two-liter bottles were hissing out of their broken seals.

She hopped and leapt and made her way past the obstacles.  At the end of the aisle, just as she reached the front door, she caught a glimpse of someone to her right, turned, and yelped when she saw Plaid Shirt standing there.

Pointing a long fingernail at him, Talytha yelled, “You stay away from me!”

She heard the floorboard creak behind her as Plaid Shirt backed away.  Someone was sneaking up on her.

Before she could react to that realization, she was bashed in the back of the head.

She had a brief flutter of consciousness from the floor.  She was looking up at Green-cap, who was looking down at her, a shovel in his hands.

Then, for a long time, Talytha Taylor knew nothing more.

******

She awoke to pain and the talk of cruel men.

Her head throbbed and she almost moaned aloud.  Somehow she managed to keep still.

“— any wonder he snapped?”

“We’re
all
on edge.  Things will get back to normal after tonight.”  Talytha thought she recognized this guy’s voice.  It was Brown Overalls, the red-faced guy from the store.

“I still can’t believe he hit her like that.  I swear, a year ago, Pete Proctor was the quietest guy in this town!  He didn’t even hunt, for God’s sake!  He wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

“A lot’s happened in the last year.”

“Fuck, yeah.  And none of it good.”

She realized she was in a moving car when they hit a pothole in the road.  The jar to her body caused her head to flare.  She bit back a moan, grimacing, tears squeezing out of her closed eyelids.

From the front of the car, Brown Overalls said, “I can’t believe we’ve sunk this low.  This really sucks.”

“Stop saying that!  We do what we’ve gotta do!  To save
both
ourselves
and
our loved ones!  Christ on a stick, man!  Don’t you remember what happened to the
last
do-gooders who defied him?”

“Oh, I remember all right.  If I ever do live to see an end to this, I’ll never forget their screams.”

“You’ll live to see the end of this. 
Most
of us will.  Eventually we’ll figure out how this fucker does it.  I
still
think it’s the paint.  There’s something bizarre about that paint he uses.”

Brown Overalls laughed, totally without mirth.  “There’s something
bizarre
about all of this!  Wrack your brains if you want, Sheriff,”
Sheriff?
  Talytha jumped as if goosed, “but there’s no
logical
explanation for what this guy does.  There’s no
radioactivity
or mutant whatever in the friggin’
paint
!”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re one of those fools who actually believes he’s some kind of devil from Hell!”

“Not a devil, no.  But a demon?  Damn straight.  Just look what he did to the church!”

“What about you, Doc?  You’re being awfully quiet back there.  What do you think?”

Talytha was startled again when she heard someone right next to her say, “She’s awake.”

“What?”

Talytha’s heart was pounding so hard— in both her head and her chest— she found it difficult to think, difficult to breathe.  She was in a moving vehicle with three men— Brown Overalls, a
Sheriff
, and a Doctor.  She was too frightened to open her eyes, she wanted to go on feigning unconsciousness, but she didn’t know what good that would do.

Doc said, “How are you feeling, Talytha?”

An involuntary moan escaped her when he said her name.

The Sheriff asked, “She gonna be all right, Doc?”

“Yeah.  Pete
must
have restrained himself.”  The direction of his voice changed, aimed again at Talytha. “She’s going to have a helluva headache for a while though.”

Talytha opened her eyes and, wincing, she sat up, saying, “Can’t you give me something for the pain, Doc?”  She couldn’t believe her own bravado.  Her mouth always got her into trouble.  When she was frightened or upset she often became flippant.

The doc was not at all what she expected.  She had mentally pictured an elderly man but this guy looked like he was struggling to hit his mid-twenties.  Dressed in a tight-fitting black suit, he had the face of a teenager.  He even had a touch of acne; zits dotted his chin and his forehead along his hairline.

He stared at Talytha with an expression of sad distress.

Talytha realized she was riding in a police vehicle.  A grated screen separated her from the men in front.  The white-haired man she thought of as Brown Overalls was driving.  Riding shotgun was a big, burly, bald man dressed in a brown Sheriff’s uniform.

It was the Sheriff who addressed her, turning around in the front seat so he could look at her with tiny green eyes.  “I didn’t handcuff you but I
can
if you give us any shit.  So don’t give us any shit, okay?  Just shut up and enjoy the ride.  Nobody’s going to hurt you.”