The librarian fingered me, said I’d come in with Stacy. She said she heard me pounding the stairs, running away. It wasn’t until closing time, when the she checked the second floor, that she found Stacy’s body crammed inside the narrow bathroom. The police questioned me, took molds of my teeth to compare with the marks on Stacy’s neck and chest. Springdale broiled with the cannibal case for four months. In the end, I was absolved by the snatches of skin found beneath her fingernails, the flesh that Stacy gouged as she fought for her life.
Of course, I was as guilty as anyone, but I wasn’t alone. That thingin the library had been born all those years ago—in the depths of our imaginations—of two fathers. The teeth marks on her body may have mimicked my own, but the flesh belonged to Bobby Milton.
Familiar Faces
A short, stout man in a wrinkled grey suit stood next to the window of his hotel room. He poked one thick finger through the Venetian blinds, prying them open slightly so he could peer into the darkness outside. A single light flickered high on a lamppost above a silver sedan—a long, luxury model that showed its age with a little rust around the wheel wells. The only other light came from a little cluster of orange fire blinking in the distance. Behind him, sitting on the edge of a double bed with a rust-colored comforter, a thin woman, mid-thirties, wearing garish, slightly smeared lip gloss poked her hair into an awkward pile on her head.
“Are they out there, Manny?” She asked, her voice hushed.
The man turned, showing her his square face smudged by a few days’ worth of beard. The blinds snapped shut as he pulled his finger out. “I can’t see anything.” He stroked the few greasy strands on top of his head. “Hell, I should move the car. Y’know, park it closer to the doors.” He waved the black pistol in his other hand, gesturing toward the blinds.
“What? Go out there now?” She stood up and wrapped herself in her own arms. “Not with them out there, Manny. We don’t know. They might be waiting for you.”
“Yeah. Alright. Sit down, will ya?” Manny shuffled to the nearest nightstand and laid the handgun on top. “You’re right.” He dropped onto the bed, and the old springs gave a weak whine under his weight. “So Liz, what now?”
“You need some sleep, Manny. Look at your eyes. We can’t keep this up.”
He glanced into the mirror on the opposite wall, noted the cheap knock-off abstract painting above the bed, and squinted to see the purple circles around his eyes. Liz paced in front of the mirror, slapping her pale upper arms. “It’s so cold in here,” she said.
“Furnace is probably out. Hell, we were lucky to be able to kick start the generator.” Manny flopped back on the pillow. “Turn the lights on, babe.”
“Manny, you got the light over there.” She waved one pale hand at the lamp next to his side of the bed.
“No, I want the big lights. All of them. I ain’t sleepin’ in the dark if I don’t have to.” His hands slipped behind his head, and he kicked off his worn leather loafers. “We’ll leave real early tomorrow. Try to stay ahead of them.” He closed his eyes for a moment, then sat up abruptly, like he was listening to something. “Do you hear that?”
“What, Manny? I don’t hear…”
His fat finger pressed against his lips. “Shhhh. Listen.” A small sound, somewhat like a woman brushing her hair, seemed to radiate from the walls. His hand slid over the gun, and his fingers tightened around the grip.
“Manny,” Liz said, “it’s just the fan. You know, the ducts.” She walked over to the wall and brushed a hand in front of the vent. “I tried to turn up the heat when we came in, but it’s only the fan blowing.”
“Pilot light must be out.” His knuckles whitened around the pistol as he swung his legs off the bed, socked feet thumping onto the floor. “I can’t take much more of this shit.” He waddled into the bathroom. “Did we check in here?”
“No, Manny. Come on, will ya?”
One chubby finger flicked on the fluorescent bathroom lights while he poked the pistol toward the ceiling tiles. “I just gotta check, okay? I don’t want to wake up dead, ya know.” Using the barrel of the gun as a probe, Manny propped up each ceiling tile. An old syringe, stashed there by some former occupant, rolled from under a tile and clattered to the floor. “Freakin’ druggies.” He pinched the syringe between two fingers like a dirty diaper and tossed it in the waste bin before snapping off the light.
“Satisfied?” Liz asked as Manny emerged from the bathroom. He shrugged.
“Let’s hit the sack, okay. I want to get outta here early.”
“Where to, though?”
“I dunno. Keep moving.” Manny sat on the bed, picked up the phone receiver, and checked for a dialtone. “Still dead.”
They lay next to each other in a rather lumpy double bed. Manny remained fully dressed except for his shoes and suit coat, and he rested on top of the blanket. His eyes were shut but his body was tense, a tightly wound spring in a suit, ready to pop at the slightest sound. Next to him, with the thin hotel comforter tucked snugly around her neck, Liz slept in a curled fetal position. All lights remained on in the hotel room, burning like a midnight sun, illuminating the stained yellow walls and casting strange shadows in the shag carpet.
A few hours passed before Manny bolted upright, quick as a loaded mousetrap. The room was still bright, and he glanced at Liz as she snored next to him. An awful odor, a blend of raw sewage and mold, hung in the air. They always brought the smell with them—even his brother, when they found him locked in the basement of the club with the other bodies. He had become one of them, mindless, black-eyed, and scratching at the walls. Manny shook when he remembered the bullet shattering his brother’s skull and spraying the dark ooze of his undead brain against the concrete floor.
A click from the hallway.
Manny’s wide, white eyes, like two little radar dishes, scanned the room. Slowly and quietly so as not to upset Liz, Manny slipped his feet to the floor. He didn’t look at the gun as his hand slipped around the grip.
A slight thump sounded outside the door on the hallway carpet. Manny crept across the brightly lit space, flinching slightly as he saw his reflection in the mirror. “Damn,” he uttered, almost inaudibly. He pushed against the wall next to the door to their room.
A small tapping sound started in the hallway, something that sounded like little fingertips or tiny hands poking at the wall. Manny brushed his forehead, rubbing the back of his wrist against the sweat that started to drip there. Inside his chest, Manny’s heart tapped against his ribcage, mocking the fingertips in the hallway.
The sound amplified, echoing from the other side of the door now. Tap, tap, tap. Manny lifted the gun, holding it across his chest, pointing the barrel at the door. He wrapped his left hand around the doorknob and waited. He looked sideways toward the door and then shifted his gaze across the room to the window. Tap, tap, tap.
“Jesus Manny,” Liz sputtered as she jumped in the bed, “you scared the crap outta me.” Her face squashed into scowl. “What the hell is that awful smell?”
Manny’s thick eyebrows knit together as he frowned. The sound in the hallway stopped, almost as if waiting. He glared at Liz, shot her this disgusted look that read of weariness and terror. The sound of his own, pounding heart swelled in his ears. A thick drop of perspiration meandered down his nose, dangled for a moment, and dropped to the floor.