“What are you arrestin’ us for?” asked Howard. “We ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”
Vigil smiled. “How does interstate kidnapping sound to y’all?” Howard gestured at Lovecraft with his eyes and began to turn around as if to comply with the trooper’s order.
Lovecraft ignored the order; he raised an eyebrow as the handcuffs came off the troopers’ belts. He held his hands out in front of him and stepped forward. “I can assure the both of you that this is nothing more than a terrible misunderstanding.”
“Uh-huh,” said the trooper named Tommy, grabbing Lovecraft’s wrists to cuff him. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I hear that, Mister, though you say it purtier than most folks. Now turn around or I’ll spin you eight ways from Sunday.”
“I beg your—” Lovecraft spun around with one handcuff attached and one dangling, taking the trooper off guard.
The man lost hold of the cuffs and cursed, just as the trooper named Vigil was taking hold of Howard’s wrists. As Vigil glanced to investigate, Howard suddenly jerked his left hand free and, with lightning quickness and agility, pivoted around, slamming his elbow into the man’s left ear. With a sickening sound, Vigil flew into his partner, Tommy, and the two of them tumbled down into the dust together.
Howard let out a savage battle cry and leaped onto the two men before they could untangle themselves. They hardly had time to come out of their daze before Howard was pummeling them with his large fists. As they flailed around under him, kicking up a thick dust that obstructed them from view, Howard yanked first one, then the other, up by the collar, giving each man a chance to make a stand. But neither trooper could amount to much under the Texan’s berserker strength. They hit him a few times, but he was in such a rage that he hardly felt it. The one-sided fight was over momentarily.
Lovecraft watched intently as the murky dust began to dissipate. Before his amazed eyes, his stocky friend emerged, wild-eyed and alone, his lip bleeding below a wide grin. Howard proudly brandished the troopers’ pistols, one in each hand, and backlit by the headlights, the image he created was the epitome of masculine brawn; it was an image that Lovecraft would not soon forget.
Lovecraft pulled out his handkerchief, popped it open with a flourish, and handed it to Howard. “I believe I am looking at the cover illustration to that first tale you sell to Adventure Magazine. ”
Howard ignored the offer. He spat a thick stream of blood from his mouth, as if in contempt, and wiped his lip along his wrist, leaving a red smear. “Those highfalutin’ bastards ain’t never gonna buy one of my stories,” he said. “They hated the first one I sent ‘em, and they’ve. never given me a bit of notice since. Face it, HP. We’re strictly Weird Tales material.”
Lovecraft pondered the events of the last few days as he regarded his bizarre surroundings. It didn’t take him long to answer. “Yes, perhaps you’re right.” He helped Howard drag the dazed troopers through the dirt up to the front end of their police car, where they handcuffed both of them to the bumper.
“I really don’t wanna be doin’ this,” said Howard. “But I don’t see how we got any other choice.”
Lovecraft wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Extreme times require extreme actions,” he said. “I only hope we will be equipped to deal later with the consequences of our actions. Are you a man prone to dwelling on past regrets?”
“I ain’t got time to think about that right now, HP. Come on.” Howard put the troopers’ pistols and the keys to their handcuffs in the front seat. He noticed a canteen in back, so he paused to retrieve it before closing the doors and returning to the front.
Howard splashed the troopers with small palmfuls of water until they opened their eyes and squinted up at him. “I’m sorry it’s gotta be this way,” he said. “Here’s your canteen and some jerky. I’m sure someone’s gonna be stoppin’ before mornin’. Keys to your cuffs are in front. You tell ‘em that.”
“We’ll get you, you son of a bitch,” said Vigil. “I ain’t forgettin’ your. ugly faces.”
Howard raised a threatening fist, and the trooper shut up. “I said I was sorry,” said Howard. “And I ain’t plannin’ on makin’ your acquaintance again.” He joined Lovecraft back in the Chevy and didn’t even bother to glance in the rearview mirror as he drove off, kicking up dust and gravel that made the troopers wince.
THE GAS IN the troopers’ car didn’t last for more than another hour, and soon after the engine stopped the headlights began to dim.
“Shoulda filled up tonight, Tommy,” said Vigil.
“God damn’ em. You think they couIda done us a favor and shut the headlights off, huh, Joe?”
“Yeah, and fluffed us a pillow or two while they was at it? You stupid son of a bitch.”
“Ain’t my fault, Joe.”
They sat in a sullen silence as the headlights dimmed into amber, then into a faint glow. In a few more minutes they sensed something wrong in the black desert night around them. Their eyes hadn’t yet fully adjusted so they saw nothing, but they could hear the sound of something rustling through the nearby sagebrush. A flapping sound came from above.
Vigil felt something land on his back and crawl past his collar, up to the hair on the back of his neck. “What the he-!” He reached with his free hand and jerked the thing off-it was a bat. In what little light remained, he could see the blood dripping from its mouth. With a yelp he closed his fist around the bat’s neck until he felt a sick crunch, then he flung the thing into the darkness.
“Joe?”
There was a tug from Tommy. “What?” said Vigil. Now he could hear guttural noises around them, and just as the headlights died, he saw the pointed snouts, the feral teeth, the glowing eyes of the hungry coyotes as they pounced.
The two troopers screamed and writhed helplessly, trying to free themselves from the handcuffs that pinned them like bait against the fender of their dead car.
AFTER THE ANIMALS had dispersed, before the insects crept in to pick off what little flesh remained on the saliva-covered bones, a pair of headlamps appeared in the lingering darkness. If anyone had been there to witness the approaching vehicle, they would have seen twin beams of light suspended a few feet from the black surface of the road. The lights were angled and positioned like the headlamps of a car, but as they moved, they seemed to be suspended in the darkness with nothing behind them-twin sources of light flying over the road in a precise configuration that mimicked those on the front of a car.
And as the lights came closer, one would have noticed a strange thing about the last vestiges of the night behind them, a sort of thickening or congealing, a coagulation of darkness that solidified into large scabs until the form of a black sedan materialized. The vehicle came to a silent halt in front of the troopers’ remains, the beam of its headlights flaring momentarily as it reflected off the white of a single eyeball the animals had somehow overlooked in the socket of a skull.
Two silhouettes emerged from the car, their blackness detaching from its blackness. No door had opened. No sound issued. The black car was utterly silent, and the figures glided over the ground, not leaving footprints. They stopped in front of one of the bloody, tooth scraped skeletons, and then a sort of rustling sound could be heard as they spoke to each other. There was a sort of hissing noise-perhaps the sound of some alien laughter-then one of the figures leaned down to pick something up. Two blood-spattered strips of beef jerky. The animals, for some reason, had left them. A hand seemed to emerge from the shadow of one of the black figures. It held out a single strip of the beef jerky, and now the other figure took it. More hissing laughter, and then the wet smacking sound of chewing, the sound of teeth sticking in tough meat, the sound of amused shoggoths.