Prowlers: Wild Things (11 page)

"No, no," Molly said, waving the words away as if they were annoying gnats. "I mean about breakfast. What did he say was good here?"

Surprised, Jack glanced at her. "Where did that girl go? The one who woke me up because she was so freaked about that lady trucker getting killed?"

A hurt look flickered across Molly's features. "Don't do that, even kidding. I know why we're here, Jack, but we also have to eat breakfast."

"Hey," he said softly, slipping an arm around her. "None of this is fun. I was teasing, yeah, but I'm also glad you can think about something else. And it was French toast, I think. The guy with the crew said the French toast was good."

Jack pulled the door open for her. Molly surprised him with a kiss on the cheek and then grabbed his hand and they went into the Blueberry Diner together.

Jack was more than a little relieved to find that whatever mad diner genius had lathered the exterior of the building in gaudy berry color had been stopped before reaching the interior. Inside, the Blueberry was mundane, a simple arrangement of counter, stools and booths that had been an unchanged formula for fifty years or more. Four of the dozen or so booths were occupied, as were about half the stools. Normally Jack would have opted for a booth but aside from breakfast, their purpose in coming here was to meet Max, the counterman mentioned by the jarhead the night before.

As they crossed to the counter and slid onto a pair of stools, heads turned. Jack knew that he wasn't the only person who found Molly attractive. Her hair alone, that wild red mane that she could barely control, was enough to draw stares. But the attention they were getting just then was for both of them, not just her, and he supposed it was natural enough for the people in the diner to be curious. He felt as though he was wearing a sign around his neck that said NOT A TRUCK DRIVER.

Once they had settled in at the counter and picked up menus, the truckers all went back to their breakfast and conversation. Jack glanced at Molly and gave her a smile with just the corner of his mouth.

A waitress in blue jeans and a white blouse hustled a tray to one of the booths. She was a thin woman who looked almost too frail to balance such a heavy tray. Over her clothes was draped an apron the same screaming purple-blue as the diner's outer walls, but someone had taken it one step further. On the front of the apron, inside a white border, was a big blueberry with a face and arms and legs and a lunatic's grin. Jack thought it looked like an octopus — like an old cartoon character called Squiddly Diddly, in fact — but he supposed it must be a blueberry.

The waitress slid dishes of Eggs Benedict and sausages and pancakes onto the table, along with another plate piled high with an unrecognizable heap of food he suspected must be what the menu identified as the "trashcan special." She called everyone "hon'" as though she had been brought in from Hollywood's central casting to play the gum-snapping, tough gal local waitress. What ruined that impression was the fact that she was not visibly chewing gum, as well as the light in her eyes and the laugh that seemed about to burst out at any moment, as though she knew all her "hons" and "sweeties" were expected of her, and she was in on the joke.

Down along the counter, a grizzled looking fiftyish guy was pouring coffee for a sad-eyed, dough-faced trucker who didn't look much older than Jack himself. The counterman had a thick head of salt-and-pepper hair and a mustache to match, and he had not bothered to shave for the previous day or so. His apron was white, and Jack had the idea that he would not have worn the maniac octopus-blueberry apron even if someone held a gun to his head.

Jack caught his eye and the counterman brightened and strolled over, passing an obscene pleasantry with a coffee-skinned man who clutched a cigarette in his teeth and looked more than a little like the actor Laurence Fishburne. With his laughter still echoing, he zeroed in on them.

"So what can I get you folks?"

"I'll have French toast," Molly said immediately. "Orange juice, hash browns, and bacon."

"Hungry," the counterman said appreciatively. "That's the way we like 'em." He focused on Jack. "What about you?"

"I'll have the French toast too. We heard it was something special."

The counterman scraped a hand across his bristly chin and studied them a bit more closely. "You did, didja? We don't get a lot of tourists in the Blueberry, mostly long-haul folks. I'm glad someone around here appreciates us."

"Actually, it wasn't anybody local," Jack explained. "It was a truck driver. Guy with a crewcut. We met him last night. He was with a few other people, these two brothers, Dave and Hank . . . what was it? Cross, maybe."

"Krause," Molly corrected.

The counterman beamed at her and Jack knew it was time for him to keep quiet. He figured they had a much better chance of this guy opening up if Molly did the talking.

"Dave!" the man said happily. "Hell of a guy. Then the crewcut had to be John Ford. Ford always gets the French toast. He has it with berries, though, if he didn't mention it. Sort of our specialty."

"Why didn't I guess that?" Molly teased. Then the smile disappeared from her face. "There was a woman with them. Suzanne. We saw on the news this morning . . ."

Her words trailed off as the counterman began to nod sadly. "Saw that myself. A terrible shame. We were all just stunned in here." Then his eyes widened and he pointed at them. "Wait, you know what? The Krause boys were in here last night and I think they mentioned you two. You're the ones related to the Wilkes boy."

Jack stiffened, a bit taken aback by the man's knowledge of them. But Molly only smiled again.

"You must be Max," she said.

Max's eyebrows went up. "I'm famous now?"

"Your friend John told us you know everyone. I guess he thought maybe you'd heard something that might help us figure out what happened to my cousin." Jack lowered his voice and leaned in a bit. "I've heard about some other things that have happened, about this couple, the Rausches, who were killed, and a trucker just last week, Chester Douglas."

"Yeah, poor Chet. First him and now Suzanne. Been a hell of a month so far," Max said grimly, real anguish in his eyes. "I wish I could help you folks, I really do. I know the stories, of course. Heard about your young cousin and that married couple, and plenty of others in the years I've been working this counter. Bad things happen on the highway, just a fact of life. World wasn't like this when I was a boy.

"Truth be told, every trucker comes through here has a story or a theory. Serial killers, alien abductions, monsters, hoaxes, Bigfoot . . . you name it. Hell, half of the drivers blame the media for blowing things out of proportion, making things seem worse than they are. Planes and trains and boats and cars, there are always accidents, right? But long-haul truckers, that's a story. Still, you get two in a week like we've got here, makes you think."

Jack nodded, but he was barely paying attention now. Given how secretive, even worried, the jarhead had seemed the night before, he had held out a hope that Max would be able to give them a lead, no matter how slim. But the man had nothing. Just rumor, the same way Jack figured the bartender at the roadhouse in Fairbrook would have. This place was a dead end. If he wasn't so hungry, he might have simply got up and left.

Max scribbled their order on a pad and ripped the sheet off, then turned and slid it through a window to the kitchen where the cook would grab it. He snatched a plate of sausage and eggs off the shelf and placed it in front of the guy with the Laurence Fishburne intensity. Then, as though it were an afterthought, Max glanced back at them.

"Kind of surprised you ran into those folks last night though," he said.

"Why's that?" Jack asked.

Max shrugged. "Well, like I said, most of the drivers that come through here have heard plenty of stories on the road. Some stretches of highway, they're kinda reluctant to spend the night in their rigs. This is one of them."

Then he was off down the counter again to refill some coffee cups. Jack stared after him a moment, then glanced at Molly.

At her.

Then past her, to where the ghost of Artie Carroll stood just outside the window staring in, his body a silhouette of translucent mist, barely visible in the bright sun.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Molly staring at him. He turned to her. "Excuse me a second, will you? I left something in the Jeep."

She hesitated just slightly before nodding. "Sure," she said.

But they both knew what was really going on.

Jack got up and walked out of the diner, self-conscious, well aware that many of the people inside were watching him as he left. There were only a few other women in the place, but he was not worried about Molly. It was early in the morning, after all, and despite the rough and tumble reputation Hollywood had given truckers, the people in the diner seemed harmless enough.

As he pushed out the door, Artie sauntered toward him, his body little more than an afterimage, the suggestion of a person, like the shimmer of a rainbow in the spray of water on a summer's day. Jack had thought, early on, that he would never get used to seeing ghosts, these phantom souls transposed against the solid, three-dimensional world, but the truth was, it had become easier for him to deal with. The Ghostlands and the afterlife, the spirit world.

The dead.

But with Artie it was different. The fact of Artie's death still hurt him, the memories they had shared still fresh. How could he be dead, this guy who'd been his best friend since he was old enough to really know what it meant to have a best friend? Taunting their nebbishy algebra teacher in high school; playing one-on-one hoops at a concrete lot behind Artie's grandfather's house in Southie, tough guys at the age of ten; debating the fascism of action films, the dangers of smoking, and whether or not Ghia Frantangelo had really been wearing nothing under her skirt during that assembly junior year.

Those memories were all laced with a kind of melancholy now and he imagined that would never go away. On the other hand, though, Artie's appearance did not disturb him as much as it once had. What still unnerved him, however, no matter how often he had seen the apparitions of the dead, were their eyes. Artie's eyes. Unlike the rest of him, they seemed solid, not the gossamer texture spirit-forms that seemed spun of spider's webs, but black little holes punched through this world into another. Dark rips through which one might see into the Ghostlands for real if one looked hard enough.

Jack had reached the point where he tried not to look.

On top of that, of course, there was still a bit of awkwardness about his feelings for Molly, who had been Artie's girlfriend for years. Still, despite all of that, all Jack had to do was look at the grin on his friend's face, the shaggy blond hair that hung to his neck, the careless way he stood staring at the Blueberry Diner, and he could not help but smile.

Artie stared at the diner and shook his head in astonishment. "
Man
, this place is blue."

Jack laughed, trying to keep his face hidden from the people inside so they wouldn't think he was crazy. "Come on," he muttered as he walked across the parking lot. Once he was inside the Jeep, with the specter of his best friend — dead half a year now — in the seat beside him, Jack at last spoke.

"Good to see you, man. Thanks for coming."

"Just reach out, partner, and I'll be there."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Don't sing. Really. That would be bad."

The ghost gave him the finger.

"We could really use your help," Jack told him.

"So I heard," Artie replied, slouched in the seat in an imitation of life. "Another conspiracy. It's good to see you too, Jack. Always. How are things with Molly?"

Jack swallowed, shifted awkwardly in his seat. "How are things with Eden?"

Artie grinned. "Touché. For what it's worth, I've got my fingers crossed for you two."

"It's worth everything," Jack said solemnly. "You know that."

There was a long moment when neither of them spoke. Then Artie nodded and threw up his hands.

"So what can I do for you guys?"

Jack gave him the run down on Jared Wilkes, Doug and Arlene Rausch, Chet Douglas, and Suzanne Robinson. "If you can find any of them in the Ghostlands, or anyone else around here who knows anything about the Prowlers, it would be a huge help."

"Anything," Artie said. "You know that, Jack. Word travels on my side of the fence, bro. If there have been as many attacks around here as you think, it shouldn't be a problem."

"Thanks." For a moment, Jack felt the urge to shake Artie's hand or clasp his shoulder, to make contact. It opened a fresh wound in his heart to remind himself that such contact was impossible.

Artie must have seen the pain in Jack's expression, for he gave his friend a knowing look and a gentle nod. "I know. It's getting harder instead of easier, isn't it? Weird."

And that was the truth of it. Jack had just been thinking that he was getting used to seeing the dead, that it was easier now. And that was true, too. But seeing Artie was different. All it did was remind him again and again of what he had lost; what they had
all
lost.

"Weird," Jack agreed.

Artie gazed at him with those eternal eyes. "Give her my love," he said. "I'll be back."

Then he was simply gone like the flame of a candle that has been snuffed, yet without even a telltale swirl of smoke to mark his departure. Jack stared at the empty seat beside him a moment and then reached out to open his door. Even as he did, the cell phone clipped to the back of his belt began to ring.

CHAPTER SIX

The apartment was too quiet.

Courtney was in Jack's room, sitting on the edge of his bed. Her cane was heavy enough to sink deep into the comforter and this illustration of its weight, its substance, surprised her. Next to the cane was her cellular phone, painfully silent and still, like the apartment. Soon, Wendy and Tim would arrive downstairs and other members of the staff not long after, and then the gears in the mechanism that was Bridget's Irish Rose pub would start to grind and they wouldn't wind down until after one in the morning.