Grave Intent (32 page)

She sucked in his words again. “What’s the
man’s name?”

He looked at her, puzzled.

“The guy you’re so worried about getting to
your wife and kid.”

Not anticipating that question, Michael
blurted the first name that popped into his head, “Ephraim
Stevenson.”

The officer started to write in her notebook,
then stopped and glanced up at him. “You got a spellin’ on that
first name?”

“E-P-H-R-A-I-M.”

“’Preciate it. Now you?”

“Me?”

She nodded. “Your name.”

“Michael Savoy.”

“Wife’s?”

“Janet Woodard Savoy.”

“And the phone number to this cabin you’ve
been talkin’ about.”

“What do you need with the number?”

The officer let out an exasperated sigh.
“Well, you got no I.D., a car wrapped around Dora Mert’s mailbox,
it looks like you’ve been fist fighting in a pig’s wallow for a
week, and you don’t seem to be able to walk a straight line for
shit. Now, that’s not to say there’s no reason to trust you,
mister, you understand? But so far, your one and one ain’t addin’
up to two. Anyway, I’m going to call these names in, make sure
nothin’ shows up. If they come back clean, I’ll have somebody give
this alleged cabin number a call. We’ll take it from there.”

Michael crossed his arms, wanting to hold
onto the little bit of hope she’d just given him. “Instead of
calling, couldn’t you send a patrol car out there? The address
is—”

She ticked a finger at him. “First things
first. What’s the phone number?”

He gave it to her, and she repeated it back
to him for confirmation.

When he agreed that she’d written the number
down correctly, she pulled the flashlight our from under her arm
and pointed the beam at the front of the patrol car. “Now you just
come on and stand right here where I can keep an eye on you. I
won’t be but a minute.”

Michael dropped his arms. “But you don’t
understand, we’re wasting too much time!”

“You’re the one wastin’ it by arguin’ with
me.” She waggled the beam over the hood of the car. “Now git.”

Only when he was in the instructed position
did she get back into the squad car, leaving one leg out, foot
firmly planted on the ground.

From where he stood, Michael heard the click
of the mike as she keyed it.

“Unit five to dispatch.”

“Go ‘head, Unit five.”

“Yeah, we got a ten thirty-five charlie on
China Valley Road right in front of Dora Mert’s place. We’re gonna
need a wrecker.”

“Ambulance?”

Michael saw the officer peer at him through
the windshield before sticking her head out the door.

“You need an ambulance?” she asked him.

He shook his head.

“You sure?”

“I don’t need a damn ambulance,” he shouted.
“I need somebody to go and check on my wife and daughter!”

She glared at him for a beat, then turned
away. She leaned over to one side for a second, and after that all
Michael could hear were mumbles and clicks.

He began to pace again, keeping himself
between the headlights lest she panic and eat up more valuable
time. To keep himself under control, he watched his feet like they
were hands to a clock and counted each step as a passing
second.

By the time the officer got out of the squad
car, Michael was up to five hundred forty-three and ready to kick
out both headlights.

“Well?” he asked when she snapped the
flashlight back on and pointed it at his feet.

“Well is right, Mr. Savoy,” she said sharply.
“If I were you, I’d find the registration to that car out there
right fast.”

“What?—wait! Did anyone call the number I
gave you?”

“Oh, yeah, they called,” she said, her eyes
hardening. “I don’t know who you think you’re dealing with out
here, Mr. Savoy, but I can tell you, it ain’t a bunch of small town
yokels. We don’t take kindly to people yankin’ our chain.”

Michael threw his hands up. “What the hell
are you talking about? Did anyone get through to that number? Were
the circuits working? Did my wife answer?”

She scowled and lifted the beam of light to
his chest. “Circuits were fine, number rang right through in fact.
All four times—straight through to Carlton—and the town
morgue.”

“Whoa! What? Somebody dialed the wrong
number. They had to have dialed the wrong number!”

“Four times?”

“I don’t care if they dialed it ten times,”
Michael said. “They had to have dialed it wrong!”

The officer looked at the notebook, repeated
the phone number he’d given her earlier in a sharp, loud voice,
then asked, “Now you gonna stand there and tell me you accidentally
gave me the wrong number?”

“No, that’s the right one, but—”

“For a man so worried about time, you’re sure
throwin’ away a lot of it, Mr. Savoy. Both yours and mine. So let’s
get this movin’. Time to see your registration.”

“But—”

“Look, you’ll have a chance to do all the
buttin’ you want down at the station. Once you get me that piece of
paper out of your car, we’re gonna take a little ride and get a few
things straight. Find out exactly how much you mighta been
drinkin’, figure out why you got blood in places without any cuts,
and get to the bottom of why you’re runnin’ around over a hundred
and fifty miles from home without any I.D.. Come on now, let’s git.
We’ve kept poor Miss Mert up long enough with all this hurrah.”

Michael slammed a fist against the hood of
the squad car. “I’ve already told you I haven’t been drinking,
goddammit, just like I told you I forgot my wallet at home!” He
yanked on the front of his T-shirt. “This blood comes from an
injured woman. Her car ran off the road just outside of Pucket, and
I stopped to help. All you’ve got to do is call the ambulance
service in that area to confirm it. Now that’s the whole goddamn
story. I don’t need to go down to any police station. I need to get
to Carlton!”

A brilliant sword of light pierced his eyes.
“And I need your registration!” the officer said. “Now if you wanna
go ahead and add destruction of public property to the crap already
hangin’ over your head, you just go on. But let me warn you, I
might be a woman, but I can cuff you and haul your ass outta here
faster than anybody. So you either get on out there to that car
right now and get me that registration or you’ll be spending a hell
of a lot more time in Sunton than you planned to.”

With a shout of frustration, Michael pushed
away from the squad car and stormed down the driveway toward the
Cadillac.

A wobbling light beam appeared on his left
side.“Slow it down, Savoy,” the officer said. They’d barely walked
a hundred feet, and he could already hear her panting and huffing
for breath behind him.

Michael’s mind pureed his thoughts until they
were soup. He kept his walk brisk, his eyes straight ahead.

“I said slower,” she wheezed.

Michael started to jog.

“S-stop! Now! Y-you hear?”

The beam of light swung wildly now, across
the open field to his left, down near his feet, over his head,
revealing the thick wall of trees and brush across the
road—nature’s sanctuary—a fortress against questions and
delays.

Without a second thought, Michael ran for
it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Wilson Savoy mumbled a Hail Mary, then the
Pledge of Allegiance. Those were the only prayers he knew.

Shaking, he got to his feet and leaned
against a wall for support. His mind felt perforated, too fragile
to hold the image of the dog-man without splitting apart—that
blood-soaked snout shrinking into a human aquiline nose, those
lips, swollen and stained from the fruits of their most recent
labor. Every time he tried to force the vision out of his brain,
however, it only made more room for Lester. In the forty-three
years Wilson had been a funeral director, he thought he’d seen more
faces of death than any one person had a right to. Mangled bodies,
flattened bodies, burned ones, floaters, infants, hangers, crap
that kept you awake at night for weeks. This was the first time
he’d ever watched one of these gruesome deaths actually take place.
Between the sights and sounds of Lester’s flesh being torn apart
and dog-man’s transmutation, Wilson figured he might never sleep
again.

Kneading his bottom lip between two fingers,
Wilson glanced over his shoulder at the back door. He had to find a
way out of here, out of this building, out of Brusley, out of
Louisiana. But how? Even if he managed to escape through a window,
that dog-thing might still be lurking outside. Hell, for all he
knew, another one might be hiding in the funeral home.

Unsure of what to do next, Wilson turned back
to face the length of the hall. That’s when he noticed the slugs, a
parade of them, hundreds, crawling along the baseboard of the wall
to his left. Their slick, brown-green bodies were long and as thick
as a man’s finger. Their trail seemed endless. Stunned, Wilson
followed their path with his eyes, down the entire length of the
baseboard, up the corner of the rear wall to the ceiling, then
along the crown molding where they seemed to loop back to where
they began. Wilson turned slowly, looking for the last slug,
following the trail that led to the back door—and the old, barefoot
man standing beside it.

Wilson gasped.

“There is no escape,” the old man said
fiercely.

A warm, wet patch suddenly spread across the
front of Wilson’s pants. “But—”

“No escape!” The old man lifted his arms up
at his sides, and his chest began to expand. “No mercy!” Thicker,
wider, his sternum bulged until the buttons on his black mourning
suit popped off.

“I don’t have it!” Wilson cried. “I don’t
have your medallion, I swear!”

The old man’s eyes darkened to the color of
pitch, and he lowered his head, chin to chest. A low rumble
emanated from him, the vibrations of which Wilson could feel under
his feet.

“I swear to God,” Wilson said backing away.
“I don’t have anything! I don’t have it!”

The rumbling became a roar of anger, and the
old man’s head lifted abruptly, revealing a wide, protruding
forehead. The lower half of his face began to shift, collecting
nose, mouth, and chin into one thick, black snout.

Wilson whimpered and held out his hands. “No,
wait! Wait! You said I had time, right? Right? Didn’t you say that?
The sun, some deal about the sun, right?”

In one last shuddering motion the
transformation became complete, and Wilson no longer faced an old
man with large ears and bare feet, but a Rottweiler of enormous
proportions.

“Shit!” Wilson whirled about and ran down the
hall.

He heard the thunder of heavy, padded feet
racing behind him.

“Hail Mary, full of grace—with liberty and
justice for all,” Wilson mumbled frantically while urging his legs
and arms to piston faster. He didn’t look back. He couldn’t look
back.

He was about to dodge left into one of the
viewing rooms when he envisioned the dog’s teeth shredding through
the flimsy accordion doors like they were tissue. He bolted right
instead, into the casket selection room and kicked the door shut
behind him.

A heavy thump vibrated against the door,
making it shudder in its frame. Then came the chomp, snap of
gnashing teeth, so loud it was as if the animal stood beside him.
With jittering fingers, Wilson managed to turn on the lights. He
quickly scanned the room, searching for a place to hide.

Another thump. Then another. The sonofabitch
was going to break down the door!

The sound of splintering wood sent Wilson
racing for a mahogany casket, which was set up on a two-foot bier
at the back of the room. He jumped into the casket and closed both
lids. Only seconds passed before he heard the Rottweiler snorting
around the seals.

Wilson lay very still, his face a bare
two-finger distance from the inside lining of the top lid. Springs
beneath the casket mattress poked into his back, but he dare not
move to readjust his position.

The dog whined, then growled and scratched on
the coffin, causing it to shift slightly on the bier.

“Go away,” Wilson mouthed, clutching the
satin lining.

The animal scratched again as though for good
measure, then Wilson heard nothing but his own labored breathing.
He listened intently, forcing slow, even breaths. Did it leave? Had
it given up that easily? Or was it just sitting there, waiting him
out? It was too quiet. Too damn quiet.

Wilson nervously clicked a thumb and
fingernail together. He glanced up, then to each side. No matter
the direction he shifted his eyes, the darkness remained so
complete it seemed palpable. His nostrils burned from the new
material smell, and his right arm began to itch. Carefully, Wilson
reached over and scratched. Instead of relieving the itch, the
prickling sensation traveled up to his shoulder, then to his neck.
Wilson followed it with a trembling finger. When he reached his
shirt collar, he felt something thick and wet crawl onto his hand.
Letting out a low moan of disgust, he swiped the back of his hand
against the top of the casket. Whatever he wiped off fell across
his left eye with a plop.

Before Wilson could scrape the thing off his
face, he felt something long and slimy creep up his left pant leg.
Another traveled across his right wrist and up into his
shirtsleeve. One slipped down his collar. Sudden visions of
brown-green slugs exploded in Wilson’s brain. He cried out loudly
and raked his hands over his body, unable to reach anything below
his waist.

Seemingly undeterred by Wilson’s clawing, the
slugs crept higher and higher, slithering across his chest, to his
armpits, around his neck. It felt like hundreds of them invading
every inch of his skin. Wilson gasped and clawed, panted, grunted,
and before he knew it, he was shoving against the casket lid. He
had
to get out!