“Hi, Mr. Stewart,” Sharon said. Her eyes were furtive, the young girl’s skin pale as paper.
“Hi, Sharon,” Rebecca’s father said.
“Hi, Sharon,” Rebecca said.
The biker with her didn’t say a word. He put his hand on the Sharon’s shoulder and prodded her forward. She walked toward the counter. Quentin’s daughter had on a pair of black yoga pants and her midriff was bare and red from the cold. The bearded and tattooed hulk followed her; his eyes darted around the store, appraising it. Finally he looked at the two people behind the counter. The biker stopped Sharon, grabbed her by the arm and whispered something in her ear. Then he pushed-moved her forward to the counter again.
Rebecca shot a look at her father.
* * *
It had started snowing again. A dozen Harley Davidsons, some with old-school butterfly style handlebars, were parked under a kind of low-slung, bleak-looking carport. The back end of the carport had collapsed under the weight of several feet of snow.
Lacy let her VW idle on the street in front of the house and its adjoining carport. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. The front door of the house was open. She reached over and turned off the car’s radio. She’d driven to the high school, found Sharon’s best friend at her locker and demanded to know where her sister was. The girl had given her this address. It was what she’d expected; she’d heard her sister talking about the place.
She saw a man in leather pants and black leather vest walk by the open door. A grey pit bull came flying out of the open door as if it might have been kicked out. The dog landed against one of the parked motorcycles, knocking it over. The pit bull scampered away up the road yapping, obviously hurt.
A young girl with long black hair stood in the doorway holding a can of beer. She was laughing; someone grabbed her and yanked her back inside the house by her arm.
“Great,” Lacy said to herself. She pulled the car around and parked directly in front of the house. This is my sister we’re talking about here. If it was Mom she’d walk right in there and yank Sharon out.
She looked up the street. The dog was coming back toward the house, its nose close to the snow-covered road. Lacy turned off the WV’s engine and got out of the car. She waited for the dog to come to her. The animal growled at first, but Lacy bent down and made soft mothering sounds. The dog came forward and let her pat its wide ugly head. Eventually the dog licked her hand.
“What’s wrong, boy, huh?” She looked up at the house behind her. She heard laughter. Someone kicked the door shut. The dog pulled away from her and ran out into the middle of the street, spooked by the loud sound of the door being slammed. The animal was almost hit by a passing car.
“I’m looking for my sister,” Lacy said. The girl who answered the door was only sixteen or seventeen, she thought, in Lycra shorts and a t-shirt. A TV was on in the living room; Lacy could see someone playing a video game on it. Several men were sitting around the dismal room. One of them got up off a black Naugahyde couch and came toward the door. He was very blond and had a large Celtic-style cross tattooed on his neck. Lacy didn’t recognize any of the men; none was from Timberline.
“Who the fuck are you?” the young man said. He pushed the girl away from the door as if she were a dog.
“She’s looking for her sister,” the girl said. She looked a lot like Sharon, Lacy thought: attractive, thin, greasy hair, in true biker-chick style.
Lacy felt the dog squeeze by her leg. It ran into the house. The man who was walking toward the door said something and Lacy heard a squeal and thud. She saw the dog get kicked into the wall next to the television set. She’d never seen anyone kick a dog before in her life, and didn’t know what to do. It froze her blood.
“I don’t want any dog that can’t fight,” the man said, smiling at her. Without saying another word, he grabbed Lacy by the arm, yanked her into the house and slammed the front door shut.
* * *
“I’d like to buy a pistol, Mr. Stewart,” Sharon Collier said.
Rebecca and her father could both see that something was wrong with her. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she seemed thinner than they remembered her.
The man did something with his ponytail. His arms were covered in blue-black crude prison tattoos. He still hadn’t said a word.
Mike Stewart turned and looked at his daughter, then back at Sharon, whom he’d known since she was a baby.
“Well, Sharon. I guess—”
“It’s a present for my dad’s birthday. It’s coming up,” Sharon said quickly. She looked down at the counter. “I need something for my dad.” Her voice sounded agitated, the words coming out a little too fast.
“Why don’t you get him a hat or something?” Stewart said. He started to come around the counter.
“No! It has to be a pistol. Something powerful—I want.” She put both hands on the glass counter, as if she were deliberating. “I want a shortened forty-five, with two clips and a box of hollow points. Oh, and I think I’ll buy him a bullet-proof vest, too. That’s okay to buy, right? I mean, it would be like my father was buying it?” she said. She scratched her arm and shot Stewart a look.
“Rebecca, why don’t you show Sharon what we have in hunting vests, and I’ll get some of my powerful stuff from the back.” Stewart looked at his daughter.
Rebecca nodded; she knew that her dad was on his way to make a call. She looked at Sharon, whom she known since they were kids. Sharon was stoned—that was obvious. The biker who’d come in with her had blue eyes, and his hair and face were greasy. He seemed very pale, too, which was a dead giveaway of meth freaks.
“So what’s your name?” Rebecca asked him, unafraid.
“Smith,” the man said, looking at her. “John Smith.”
“That’s an unusual name,” Rebecca said, meeting his stare.
“This is Mike, down at All American Gun Shop. I got to talk to the sheriff. To Quentin,” Stewart said.
“He’s not in right now. Do you want to leave a message?” a deputy said.
Stewart looked through the one-way mirror he’d installed in the shop’s office so that he could always keep an eye on the gun counter.
“Tell him that his daughter Sharon is down here at my shop with some—some biker guy. This guy is trying to get her to buy a pistol and a bullet-proof vest. I think they’re both high as kites.”
* * *
Miles raced along the corridors of Timberline’s city hall. He stopped when he saw Quentin come into the lobby, heading for the Sheriff’s office on the first floor.
“I’ve got to talk to you.”
“Not now, Miles.”
“Quentin! I said I have to talk to you!”
The sheriff stopped. He had his hand on the office door. “I’ve got to find my daughter Miles,” Quentin said.
“Quentin. Listen, there’s someone upstairs in the jail. He was the search and rescue pilot who was sent out when you called the ranger station about Chuck Phelps.”
“What are you talking about?” Quentin said.
“I just interviewed him. The pilot. He says Phelps was dead up there in the Gap, and that he and his sergeant were attacked by some kind of ... some kind of people, that weren’t people. I think you better come hear his story. It’s a lot like what I heard the guy from the L.A. Times tell my editor this morning. It’s what I heard happened in Los Angeles. They’re here. These things. I think that’s what the disappearances are about. I think it’s what I heard at Genesoft’s offices this morning. I think I know what’s happened,” Miles said. “I think it’s that genetically engineered food that’s done it. I’m not sure. But I think it’s possible.”