"I dunno," Stan said. Then he looked back at Al from under the wide brim of his cowboy hat. "Whyn't you go see."
Al swallowed. He'd turned out to be the best climber, so he'd wound up the second-story man of the team. But he didn't want to make this climb.
"What's the use?" Al said. "Whoever he is, he's dead."
"See if he's one of us," Stan said.
"Ain't it always one of us?"
"Then see which one of us it is, okay?"
Stan had been pissing Al off today with his hot-shit 'tude. He was posse leader, yeah, but give it a rest now and then, okay? But this time he was right: somebody had to go see who'd got unlucky last night.
Al hopped over the door and headed for the pole. What a pain in the ass. The rope around the dead guy's feet was looped over the first climbing spike. He shimmied up to it and got creosote all over himself in the process. The stuff was a bitch to get off. And besides, it made his skin itch. On the way up he'd kept the pole between himself and the body. Now it was time to look. He swallowed. He'd seen one of these strung-up guys up close before and—
He spotted the earring, a blood-splattered silvery crescent moon dangling on a fine chain from the brown-crusted earlobe, an exact replica of the one dangling from Al's left ear, only this one was dangling the wrong way.
"Yep," he said, loud so's the car could hear it. "It's one of us."
"Damn!" Stan's voice. "Anyone we know?"
Stan and the rest jumped out of the car and stared up at him.
Al squinted at the face but with the gag stuck in its mouth, and the head so encrusted with clotted blood and crawling with buzzing, feeding flies darting in and out of the gaping wound in the throat, he couldn't make out no features.
"Can't tell."
"Well, cut him down then."
This was the part Al hated most of all. It seemed almost like a sin. Not that he'd ever been religious or nothing, but someday, if he didn't watch his ass, this could be him.
He pulled his K-Bar from its scabbard and sawed at the rope above the knot on the climbing spike. It frayed, jerked a couple of times, then parted. He closed his eyes as the body tumbled downward. He hummed Metallica's "Sandman" to blot out the sound it made when it hit the pavement. He especially hated the sick, wet plop of the head if it landed first. Which this one did.
"Looks like Benny Gonzales," Jackie said.
Kenny was nodding. "Yep. No doubt about it. That's Benny. Shit."
They dragged his body over to the curb and drove on, but the party mood was gone.
"I'd love to catch the bastards who're doin this shit," Stan said as he drove. "They've gotta be close by around here somewhere."
"They could be anywhere," Al said. "They found Benny back there, killed him there—you saw that puddle of blood under him—and left him. Then they cut out."
"They're huntin us like we're huntin them," Jackie said.
"But I wanna be the one to catch 'em," Kenny said.
Jackie sneered. "Yeah? And what would you do if you did?"
Kenny said nothing, and Al knew that was the answer. Nothing. He'd bring them in and turn them over. The bloodsuckers didn't like you screwing with their cattle.
But something had to be done. Lots of the cattle they roped in called Al and company traitors and collaborators and worse. Lately it looked like some of them had gone beyond name-calling and graduated to throat-slitting.
Benny Gonzales was the fifth one in a month.
Seemed the guys behind this wanted to make it look like the vampires themselves was doing the killings, but it didn't wash. Too messy. These bodies had blood all over them, and a puddle beneath them. When the bloodsuckers slit somebody's throat, they didn't let a drop of it go to waste. They licked the platter clean, so to speak.
"We gotta start being real careful," Stan was saying. "Gotta keep our eyes open."
"And look for what?" Kenny said.
"For a bunch of guys who hang out together—a bunch of guys who ain't cowboys."
Jackie started singing that Willie Nelson song "Mama, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys," and it set Stan off.
"Knock it off, goddamn it! This ain't funny! One of us could be next! Now keep your fucking eyes open!"
Al studied the houses drifting by as they cruised into Point Pleasant Beach. Cars sat quietly along the curbs of the empty streets and the houses appeared deserted, their empty, blind windows staring back at him. But every so often they'd pass a yard that looked cared for, and those houses would be defiantly studded with crosses and festooned with garlands of garlic. And every so often you could swear you saw somebody peeking out from behind a window or through a screen door.
"You know, Stan," Al said. "I'll bet those cowboy killers are hiding in one of them houses with all the garlic and crosses."
"Maybe, Stan said. "But I kinda doubt it. Those folks tend to stay in after sundown. Whoever's behind this is working at night."
That made sense to Al. The folks in those houses hardly ever came out. They were loners. Dangerous loners. Armed loners. The vampires couldn't get in because of all the garlic and crosses, and the cowboys who'd tried to get in, or even take off some of the crosses, usually got shot up. The vampires had said to leave them be for now. Sooner or later they'd run out of food and have to come out. Then they'd get them.
Smart, those bloodsuckers. Al guessed they figured they had plenty of time to out wait the loners. All the time in the world.
They was cruising Ocean Avenue by the boardwalk area now, barely a block from the Atlantic. What a difference. Last year, on a nice spring day like this, you'd see all sorts of people, locals and day-trippers, hanging out. Now it was deserted. The sun was high and warm but it was like winter had never ended.
They was gliding past the empty, frozen rides when Al caught a flash of color moving between a couple of the boardwalk stands.
"Pull over," he said, tapping Stan's shoulder. "I think I just saw something."
The tires screeched as Stan made a sharp turn into Jenkinson's parking lot.
"What kinda something?"
"Something blond. With tits, I think."
Kenny let out a cowboy whoop and tossed his Heineken empty high. It smashed on the asphalt in a glittery green explosion.
"Shut the fuck up!" Stan said. "You tryin to queer this little round-up or what?"
"Hey, no, man," Kenny said. "I was just—"
"Just keep quiet and listen. You and Jackie head down two blocks and work your way back up on the boards."
"I don't wanna go with him," Jackie said, jutting her chin at Kenny.
"He needs someone with more experience along. Me and AM go up here and work our way down. Get goin and don't blow this. I don't wanna be bringin Gregor no old lady again tonight."
Jackie didn't look happy but she went. As she and Kenny trotted back to the Risden's Beach bath houses, Stan squared his ten-gallon hat on his head and pointed toward the miniature golf course at the other end of the parking lot. Al took the lead and Stan followed.
Arnold Avenue ended here in a turretlike police station, still boarded up from the winter, but its big warning sign was still up, informing anyone who passed that alcoholic beverages and dogs and motorbikes and various other goodies were prohibited in the beach and boardwalk area by order of the mayor and city council of Point Pleasant Beach.
Al smiled. The beach and the boardwalk and the sign were still here, but the mayor and the city council were long gone.
Pretty damn depressing up on the boards. The big glass windows of Jenkinson's arcade was smashed and it was all dark inside. The lifeless video games stared back with dead eyes. All the concession stands was boarded up, the paralyzed rides just rusting and peeling, and it was quiet. No barkers shouting, no kids laughing, no squealing babes in bikinis running in and out of the surf. Just the monotonous pounding of the waves against the deserted beach.