The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove (25 page)

Molly

“Has it been five minutes yet?” Molly was sitting cross-legged, her sword held across her knees. Theo jumped as if he'd been poked with an ice pick, then checked his watch. He crouched by the cave mouth, listening for the sound of either salvation or death.

“About a minute left. Where the hell are they? Molly, maybe you should find some cover.”

“What cover?” She looked around the cave. It was an open chamber; the only cover would be the darkness in the back of the chamber.

“Get behind Steve.”

“No,” Molly said. “I won't do that.” She heard a voice come from the back of her mind. “Get to cover, you daffy broad. What, do you have a death wish?”

“I have abandonment issues. I'm not going to turn around and abandon someone else,” Molly said.

“What?” Theo said.

“I wasn't talking to you.”

“Fine, die. What do I care?” said the narrator.

“Bastard,” Molly said.

“What?” said Theo.

“Not you!”

“Molly, how did you get those guys to come out and drag me into the cave before?”

“I just told them to.”

“Well, take their clothes back to them and tell them to get dressed.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. And tell them to hang on to Steve's sides and not let go, no matter what he does.”

“Now who's nuts?”

“Molly, please, I'm trying to save him.”

The Sheriff

Burton checked his watch. “That's it. Get into position. We're going in.”

Sergeant Sheridan wasn't so sure. “They have thirty hostages and we don't have any recon of their positions and we don't have a full team. You want to take this guy out with thirty witnesses?”

“Goddamn it, Sheridan, get your men in position. We go on my signal.”

“Sheriff Burton.” Theo's voice from the cave.

“What?”

“I'll take your offer,” Theo said. “Give me five more minutes and I'll come out. We can all leave together. The others will come out after you're gone.”

“You just want him anyway, right?” Sheridan said. “He's the only one that can hurt the operation.”

Burton turned it over in his mind. He'd been determined to take out the constable and the woman, but now he had to rethink things. If he could get Crowe away from the others, he could dispose of him with no witnesses.

Burton's cell phone rang. He flipped it open. “Burton,” he said.

“You shouldn't have made disparaging comments about my weight, Sheriff,” the Spider said.

“Nailsworth, you piece of sh—” The line went dead.

Suddenly the sound of a wailing Blues guitar came screaming over the marine terrace. Burton and the SWAT team turned to see an old white station wagon driving along the edge of the terrace, next to where it dropped to the beach.

An inhuman roar rose up out of the cave, and when Burton looked back to the cave all he saw was a huge reptilian face coming at him.

Winston Krauss

Winston sat in the back of the station wagon, steadying the Marshall amplifier that was screaming out the notes from Catfish's Stratocaster. The amp was plugged into Mavis's black box and a cord ran over the seats into the cigarette lighter, next to where Catfish was playing. After the first few notes, Winston's hearing had shut down due to temporary deafness, but he didn't care. He could hardly believe his luck. Mavis had promised him the biggest sexual thrill of his life, and he had doubted her. But now he saw it. It was the most gorgeous creature he'd ever seen.

Steve

The feelings of self-pity, jealousy, and heartbreak were new to him, but the response that welled up in him when he heard the sound of his enemy was more deeply imprinted on his lizard brain and it displaced all the newer feelings with rage and the imperative to attack.

He stormed out of the cave with pilgrims hanging on
his back by the ridge of armored plates that ran down his spine. Two layers of protective covering slid over his eyes, shortening his vision, but it was the sound that guided him anyway, the sound that carried the strongest association with the enemy. He flashed bright crimson and yellow as he charged over the rocks, kicking aside the vehicles and shedding pilgrims as he made his way to his enemy at the shore.

Theo

Molly stood in the cave entrance, screaming for Steve to stop. Theo grabbed her around the waist and pulled her away just as the Sea Beast, dangling pilgrims, charged past them. She elbowed Theo in the forehead, stunning him for a second, and she made for the cave entrance. Theo caught her outside on the rocks and held her.

“No!”

Theo wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her side, and lifted her off the ground, then held her kicking as he braced for gunfire. But none came.

Burton was climbing to his feet just below them, focused on the Sea Beast as it passed. “Shoot that thing! Shoot it! Shoot it!”

The SWAT commander had rolled out of the way and come up with his weapon ready, but with people hanging all over the beast, he didn't know where to shoot, so instead let his weapon fall to his side as he stared in amazement.

Burton drew a pistol and began running after the Sea Beast. Below, two of the SWAT team had already broken into a run from behind the Blazers just as the Sea Beast bowled them over. The other two were pinned under-neath one of the crushed vehicles. As they fell, each pil
grim jumped to his feet and ran after the Sea Beast, who was making a beeline across the grassy terrace toward the white station wagon.

Theo watched as the car stopped, Blues slide notes still screaming out of the back, and Estelle Boyet crawled out of the driver's seat and ran around to the back. The guitar playing stopped for a second as the passenger side opened, and out stepped Catfish Jefferson, holding a Fender Stratocaster.

“Let me go!” Molly screamed. “I've got to save him! I've got to save him!”

Theo yanked her back toward the cave. When he was able to look again, someone he didn't immediately recognize had crawled out of the station wagon, and Catfish handed him the guitar.

Sheriff Burton was running after the Sea Beast, waving his weapon around, trying to get an angle to shoot without hitting one of the pilgrims. He stopped, dropped to one knee, steadied his aim, and fired. The Sea Beast roared and whipped around, throwing the last of the pilgrims into a tumble in the grass.

Molly whipped her head back into Theo's chin at the same time she drove a heel into his knee. Theo let go of her and she rushed over the rocks and down toward the monster.

Catfish

Estelle had brought the car right to the edge of the drop-off to the rocky beach. Catfish looked at the surf beating on the rocks below, then at his guitar cords coiled in the
front seat, then at the rocks again. They just might be long enough. But the dragon was going to get to them before he could find out.

“Hurry!” Estelle shouted.

Catfish stood mesmerized by the charging monster, not a hundred yards away.

“Go,” he said weakly, “get yourself out of here.”

“No!” said Winston Krauss. “You promised.”

There was a gunshot and the Sea Beast whipped around in his tracks, bringing Catfish to his senses. “Let's go,” he said to Winston. Then he looked at Estelle over the top of the car and winked. “You go on. This ain't your time.”

Catfish played a few notes on the Stratocaster and then ambled after Winston to the surf. The pharmacist ran into the water up to his knees, then turned around. Catfish was having trouble climbing over the rocks to the water while keeping the guitar cord from catching.

“That's far enough,” Catfish said. He walked into the surf and stood next to Winston, keeping the guitar high to keep any spray off of it.

“Give it,” Winston demanded.

“You ain't got a lick a sense, do you?”

“Give it,” Winston repeated.

Catfish played four bars of “Green Onions” on the Strat, the notes still blaring out of the amp in the station wagon, then draped the strap around Winston's neck and handed him a guitar pick. “Have fun,” Catfish said.

“Oh, I will,” Winston said, a lascivious grin crossing his face. “You know I will.”

“Play!” Catfish said as he turned and ran up the beach. He saw Estelle already making her way away down the shore away from the commotion. Behind him, the sour, rattling notes began to emanate from the amp in the station wagon as gunshots filled the air.

Molly

The sheriff fired three more times as he backed away from the Sea Beast, missing not only the monster but the entire North American continent. Molly threw herself sideways from a full run into the back of Burton's knees and cut his legs out from under him. She came up in a crouch, putting herself between Burton and the Sea Beast. The sheriff thought he heard the song “Green Onions” and shook his head to clear a hallucination. The Sea Beast roared again and the sheriff vaulted into a crouch, ready to fire, but instead of a sea monster in front of him, he saw a woman in a leather bikini. He looked over his shoulder and watched the Sea Beast snap up the white station wagon in its jaws and toss it aside. The guitar sounds stopped and the Sea Beast slid over the bluff to the beach. Seeing that the danger was gone, he trained his sights on the woman. People were streaming by him on either side after the monster, wailing like a crowd of banshees.

Molly looked over her shoulder and saw Steve going into the water, then turned back to Burton. “Go ahead, you prick. I don't care.”

“You got it,” Burton said.

Winston Krauss

He was just beating on the guitar strings now, but it didn't matter. The amplifier wasn't working anymore and this beautiful creature was coming to him. Winston was so turned on he thought he'd explode. She was coming to him, his dream lover, and he yanked the guitar from around his neck, ready to receive her.

“Oh, come on, baby. Come to papa,” he said.

The Sea Beast charged into the water, throwing spray fifty feet in the air, then snapped his jaws over Winston, severing the pharmacist's body into two sleazy pieces. The Sea Beast swallowed Winston's legs and roared, then snapped up the remaining piece and dove under the sea.

The Sheriff

“I don't think so, Sheriff,” Sheridan said.

Burton looked over his shoulder without taking the gun off Molly. Sheridan had his M-16 trained on the sheriff's back. “Don't fuck with me, Sheridan. You're in this with me.”

“I'm not in
this
. Lower your weapon, sir.”

Burton lowered the pistol and turned toward Sheridan. Molly started to leap forward and the SWAT commander pointed the M-16 at her. “Right there,” he said. She stopped.

The pilgrims were all standing at the shore now, wailing as they looked out. Molly gestured in that direction and Sheridan nodded. She ran toward the shoreline.

“What now?” Burton asked.

“I don't know,” said Sheridan, “but no one has been shot here, and I have a feeling that there's going to be a lot of attention around this event, so no one is going to get shot.”

“You wimp.”

“Whatever,” Sheridan said.

“Hey, Burton!” Theo Crowe was running down the hill toward them. “You hear that?”

When they looked up, Theo ducked behind one of the wrecked Blazers and pointed toward the southern sky. “Film at eleven.”

Burton could hear them now: helicopters. He looked
to the south and saw the two dots coming over the horizon. Two of the SWAT team members were topping the next hill. They had started running when the monster first came out of the cave. The other two were still pinned under one of the overturned Blazers. He turned back to Sheridan. The big cop was watching the approaching helicopters. “Game over,” Sheridan said. “Guess it's time to start thinking about my deal with the D.A.”

Burton shot him in the face, then broke for the far side of the rocks to his Eldorado before the others had time to figure out what had happened.

Theo

Theo came up behind Molly and touched her lightly on the shoulder. When she turned, he could see tears streaming down her cheeks. Then she returned to staring out to sea with the others. She said, “All I ever wanted is to feel special. To feel like something set me apart.”

Theo put his arm around her. “Everyone wants that.”

“But I had it, Theo. More by having Steve in my life than when I was making movies. These people felt it, but not like me.”

The two helicopters were coming in close now and Theo had to speak right into her ear to be heard over the thumping blades. “No one's like you.”

There was a stirring in the water just past the surf line, and something was rising in the kelp bed. Theo could see the purple gill trees standing out on the Sea Beast's neck. He was heading toward shore. Theo tried to pull Molly closer, but she broke loose from him, jumped off the bluff, and ran into the surf, scooping up two baseball-sized rocks as she went.

Theo went after her and was halfway across the beach
when she turned and looked at him with eyes filled with such pleading and desperation that it stopped him in his tracks. The helicopters were hovering only a hundred feet over the beach now. The wash from the blades kicked up sand in the faces of the onlookers.

As the Sea Beast approached shore, only his eyes and gills above the water, Molly threw one of the stones. “No, go away! Go!” The second stone hit the Sea Beast's eye, and he stopped. “Don't come back!” Molly screamed.

Slowly the Sea Beast sank below the surface.

The Sheriff

The speedometer on the Eldorado was approaching sixty when Burton topped the last hill before the cattle guard. He had to get to the airport and use the open ticket in his briefcase to join his money in the Caymans before anyone could figure out where he had gone. He'd planned for this all along, knowing he might have to make a run for it at some point, but what he hadn't planned was that there would be two Suburbans and a Mercedes parked just over the top of the hill.