Flesh

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The second floor hallway of the dorm was deserted. Only a few of the overhead fluorescent lights had been left on for the night, giving off a cool, desolate illumination that added to Jake’s uneasiness. Bands of light showed beneath some of the doors. Jake heard music coming from one of the rooms and the sound of a shower from the bathroom.

He stopped in front of Roland’s door. No light came through the gap at its bottom. Taking out his wallet, he spread the bill compartment and removed a thin plastic case. He slipped the lock pick and torque wrench from the case.

The burglary tools were a gift from Chuck, who had provided lessons for the price of a six-pack.

Jake had never quite planned to use them for an illegal entry. Nevertheless, he’d carried them in his wallet for the past two years, mostly to please Chuck but also telling himself they might come in handy if he ever locked himself out of his house. Lately, he’d picked the house lock several times for Kimmy because she got a kick out of it.

The recent practice paid off. In less than a minute, the lock of Roland’s door clicked and Jake eased the door open half an inch.

He put away the burglary tools.

He didn’t expect Roland to be in the room. He’d found no yellow VW in the dorm parking area and Roland had to know that Alison would tell the police where he lived. But the guy was hurting. He might go to ground anywhere, even in his own room.

Jake drew his revolver, stepped against the wall for cover, and shoved the door. It swung open and bumped to a stop. He listened and heard nothing.

Reaching around the door frame, he found the switch plate.

Light spilled into the hallway.

He lunged into the room.

Saw no one.

The room had a linoleum floor with a tan, fringed rug spread across the center. Jake saw no blood on the floor or the rug.

There was a bed along each of the long walls. One bed was made, one wasn’t. Beyond the head of each bed stood a desk with a straight-backed chair. The far wall had shelves partway up, then windows to the ceiling.

Jake swung the door shut.

He was standing between two wooden partitions which he guessed were the sides of twin closets.

If Roland was in the room, he was hiding. Under a bed or inside one of the closets.

Keeping his back to the door, Jake dropped to his hands and knees. Both of the beds had suitcases under them. That left the closets.

Jake got to his feet. He rushed forward and spun around, sweeping his revolver from one closet to the other. The sliding doors of both were open. Which left half of each closet out of sight.

Jake stepped to the one on his left, ducked, and peered in beneath the hanging clothes. Nobody there. He sidestepped to the other closet. The hangers were empty, giving him a good view through the dim enclosure.

Satisfied that the room was safe, he holstered his revolver.

If this was Roland’s closet, where were the clothes? Had Roland already been here, packed up and fled? It hardly seemed likely that someone in his condition would return for his clothes before taking off. And there was no blood.

Remembering the luggage, Jake crouched beside the nearer bed and pulled out the suitcase. It wasn’t latched. He opened it. The case was stuffed with folded clothing. The T-shirt on top was printed with a message. He lifted it, shook it open, and read, “GHOULS JUST WANTA HAVE FUN.”

Jake put down the shirt and pushed the suitcase back under the bed.

Obviously, Roland had been planning a trip.

Planning to get out of town before the heat came down on him. Planning, maybe, to travel the roads like the John Doe in the van, killing whenever the opportunity presented itself, leaving a trail of half-eaten bodies in shallow graves.

But he hadn’t come back for the suitcase.

Not yet.

He won’t be back, Jake decided. He’s blind in one eye, maybe brain damaged from Alison’s thumb, and less two fingers thanks to Rex Davidson’s bullet. He’s got a stab wound in the chest, though it sounded as if that might be superficial. At the very least, he has to be in shock and weak from blood loss. The last thing he’ll be concerned about is picking up his suitcase.

If he’s concerned about anything, at this point. If he’s not already dead.

Jake sat on the edge of the bed. On the wall across from him was a poster of the actress Heather Locklear. He stared at her slender, bare legs and his mind drifted to Alison.

Maybe leaving her alone wasn’t such a good idea.

She’s safe, he told himself.

You can’t be sure of that.

Maybe go back.

The best thing you can do for her is nail Roland. Before he dies and the damned snake-thing gets into someone else.

On a shelf below the poster stood a framed family portrait. The young man in the photograph was probably Roland’s roommate, Jason, the guy who’d disappeared with Celia.

Maybe Roland has a photo of himself, Jake thought. He looked over his shoulder. The wall was covered with grim pictures that looked as if they’d come from magazines. Most of the subjects weren’t familiar to Jake, but he recognized one that showed Janet Leigh in the shower scene from Psycho. Another was Freddy, the killer who wore a battered fedora and a glove with long blades on its fingers in Nightmare on Elm Street. There was a hideous fat guy holding a chain saw overhead. There was a group of decomposed zombies, one munching on a severed arm.

Jake shook his head. The snake-thing had certainly chosen a compatible host. Coincidence?

He remembered that he was looking for a photo of Roland. Knowing what the guy looked like would help.

He stood and wandered to the end of the room. The desktop was clear except for a bottle of glue and a pair of scissors. Dropping onto the chair, Jake slid open the middle drawer and stared.

He’d found his photo of Roland.

He felt sickened by it.

Body parts floated around the leering face: numerous breasts, torsos, buttocks, vaginas, and a few arms and legs.

These were not cut from magazines. They had the thickness of snapshots.

The only part of the girl’s anatomy not cascading around Roland’s head was her face.

Maybe Celia Jamerson, Jake thought.

A drop of sweat fell onto Roland’s left eye. Jake blotted it with his sleeve, then wiped his face.

He lifted the photograph out of the drawer. Beneath it lay its frame.

So Roland hadn’t slipped it back into the frame after finishing his project. Scissors and glue were still on the desktop.

The wastebasket was midway between the two desks, close to the wall. Jake crouched over it. The bottom of its white plastic liner was littered with scraps. He upended the wastebasket, sat on the floor, and searched.

Most of the shots didn’t include the girl’s face. The photographer, obviously, had been more interested in views of her lower areas—all of which had been snipped out, usually leaving the limbs intact.

Jake found three pictures showing the girl’s face. The face in all three belonged to the same girl.

She wasn’t Celia.

She wasn’t dead. At least not at the time she posed. She smirked; she licked her lips. In one, she sucked her middle finger.

Jake slipped a view of the girl’s face into his shirt pocket. He scooped up the remaining scraps and dumped them into the wastebasket.

In the morning, he would get a search warrant. The room would be photographed and gone over, inch by inch, every item studied and catalogued, every surface closely inspected and checked for prints, the whole area vacuumed for stray bits of hair, fabric, and other particles that might incriminate Roland.

Jake took the eight by ten with him, and left.

After leaving Roland’s room, Jake cruised the streets around the campus, looking for the yellow Volkswagen bug with the banner on its aerial, not really expecting to spot it, wanting to return home and make sure that Alison was safe but knowing that his duty was to search.

First the streets near the campus, then the Oakwood Inn.

He dreaded the thought of driving out there and entering the dark restaurant. The longer he prowled the streets, however, the more certain he became that the Oakwood was where Roland must’ve gone. The damned creature seemed to have an affinity for the place. And that’s where it had left its eggs.

Jake knew that he was procrastinating.

He turned onto Summer Street, which bordered the campus on the north.

What I’ll do, he thought, is go home and get into my gear before heading out there. I’m not going to the Oakwood without my boots and leathers. Roland might be dead. The thing might be loose.

And that’ll give me a chance to see Alison.

He wondered if she was asleep yet.

He glanced down a side street, spotted a Volkswagen at the curb, and hit the brakes. He checked the rearview. Clear behind him. He backed up, stopped, and gazed at the car.

It was parked beneath a street lamp, but the light above it was dead, leaving it in darkness. Jake couldn’t make out the color of the VW.

But it had a banner on the aerial.

This is it.

Heart thudding, he turned. He drove straight for the car. His headlights pushed toward it, lit it.

Yellow.

Someone was in the driver’s seat.

Jake gazed through the windshield, stunned.

The man in the VW didn’t move. The left side of his face looked black in the glare of the headlights.

This had to be Roland.

Jake opened his door. He crouched behind it, pulled his revolver, and took aim. “Step out of the car!” he yelled.

Roland didn’t move.

Jake repeated the command.

Roland remained motionless. He was dead, unconscious, or faking.

Jake stepped away from the door. Keeping his handgun pointed at Roland, he walked slowly forward. He tried to watch Roland through the windshield, but found his gaze drawn downward to the pavement.

He wished he had his boots on. His ankles felt bare in spite of the socks.

He remembered the machete in the trunk of his car. Halting, he considered going back for it.

The front bumper of the VW was no more than two yards in front of him. He stared at the darkness beneath it.

Glanced at Roland.

The right eye was open. It seemed to be watching him.

This guy is dead.

The fucking snake might be anywhere.

Like under the car, just waiting for me to get close enough.

The skin prickled on the nape of Jake’s neck.

He backed away, sidestepped at the rear of his car, and dug into his pocket for the keys. He found the trunk key. He fumbled it into the lock and twisted it. The trunk popped open, blocking his view. He snatched out the machete and rushed clear.

Roland hadn’t moved.

Jake saw nothing squirming toward him on the pavement.

With the machete in his right hand, the revolver in his left, he hopped onto the curb and approached the passenger side of the VW. When he could see that the windows were rolled up, he dashed to the middle of the street. The windows on the driver’s side were shut too.

Whether Roland was alive or dead, the snake-thing was still in the car. Probably. Either inside Roland, or writhing around loose, trapped.

Jake stepped close to the driver’s window and peered in. He glimpsed the gaping hole where Roland’s left eye should have been and quickly looked away from it.

Roland was reclined in the seat, the front of his shirt bloody, his head tipped back slightly against the headrest. His position prevented Jake from checking the back of his neck.

The head beams left the lower areas of the car’s interior in darkness. If the creature was on a seat or the floor, Jake couldn’t see it.

There was only one way to find out whether it was still up Roland’s spine: open the door, shove him forward, and look.

No way.

Not a chance.

Jake holstered his pistol. Watching Roland, he walked backward to his car, slid in, and took a pack of matches from the glove compartment. He got out. He back-stepped to the trunk and picked up the can of gasoline.

He poured gas onto the curb beside the VW, onto the pavement behind the car and near its driver’s side, then past the front to the curb again, completing the circle. Then he splashed the car, dousing it with the pungent liquid and running trails out to the surrounding gas. Finally, he crouched and flung gas into the space beneath the undercarriage.

He stopped when the can felt nearly empty. He wanted to save some gasoline, just in case.

He capped the can. Hurrying into the road, he stepped over the wet path of the circle. He set the can down behind him, squatted, struck a match, and touched it to the stained pavement.

A low, bluish flame with flutters of yellow and orange stretched out in both directions. It met intersecting paths and rolled toward the car.

Jake picked up the can and backed away. By the time he reached the far side of the street with it, the car was a blazing pyre. He could feel its heat warming his clothes and face. The fire lit the night, shimmering on the leaves of nearby trees, glowing on the walls and windows of the apartment house beyond it, shining on the hood and windshield of his own car.

A car parked behind the VW seemed to be safely out of range.

He wondered if he should move his own car.

Or himself.

Hissing, popping sounds came from the fire. Then a sharp crack made Jake flinch. He heard glass crash on the pavement.

“Christ,” he muttered.

He rushed forward until the wall of fire stopped him. Shielding his eyes, he squinted through the flames at the wide, wedge-shaped gap in the driver’s window.

Nothing came out.

As he watched, flames enveloped Roland. They crawled up from below, sweeping up his face and igniting his hair. Jake gagged as the face blackened and bubbled. Then dense smoke covered the horror.

Jake heard distant shouts of “Fire!”

He heard more windows burst.

Then he was rushing around the car, brandishing his machete, peering through the blaze at one broken window after another. Smoke poured from the openings. But nothing else came out.

Not yet.

The car’s gas tank went up with a muffled boom. Jake staggered back as heat blasted against him. A spike of glass flew past his cheek. Another stabbed his thigh. He pulled it out. The car was still rocking from the impact.

Now, it was an inferno.

The fucker’s cooked, Jake thought. Cooked. It’s a goner.

For the first time, he noticed a few people watching from the other side of the street. He turned around. More were on the lawn in front of the apartment house. He took a step toward two young men, probably students. One wore a robe, the other wore only boxer shorts. Both men backed away. No wonder, Jake thought. I’m not in uniform, I’ve got this machete.

“I’m a policeman,” he called. “One of you guys call the fire department.”

“I already called,” said a brunette woman in pajamas. “I hope nobody’s in that car,” she said.

“Nobody alive,” Jake said.

“How’d it start?” asked the guy in the boxer shorts.

Jake shook his head. Then he turned away. The fire was still blazing. Several of the spectators from the other side of the street were inching forward for a better view.

When Jake rushed into the road, some of them backed off and one young couple turned and fled, the woman shrieking. Apparently, they had missed the news that he was a cop. Or couldn’t bring themselves to trust a guy, cop or not, who was running at them with a machete.

“Everybody stand clear,” Jake yelled. “The fire department is on its way.”

“Somebody’s in the car!” a man shouted, pointing.

“Get back,” Jake warned.

A woman turned away, hunched over, and vomited.

“Everybody move back, back to the sidewalk. There’ll be fire trucks coming in.”

One couple ignored his warning. They were standing over Jake’s gas can, frowning at it and muttering to each other. The girl wore a pajama shirt. The guy wore pajama pants. The girl crouched and reached toward the can.

Oh, shit, Jake thought. “Don’t touch that!” he snapped. “It’s evidence. The arsonist might’ve left prints.”

Clever, he thought.

Dumb asshole, why didn’t you put the can back in your trunk?

As the girl backed away, Jake slipped the blade of his machete through the can’s handle, raised it, and carried the can toward his car.

No point leaving the thing in sight. The fire boys might not be so easily fooled, and he would have a rough time trying to explain why he torched a vehicle with a suspect still inside.

The gas can and machete were locked safely in his trunk by the time he heard the sirens.

The firemen rushed the car with chemical extinguishers. Blasting flames out of the way, they pulled Roland’s carcass off the seat and dragged it into the road. Two firemen fogged it with their extinguishers, then left it there and joined those trying to knock down the car fire.

Jake looked at the corpse. It was still smoking. It was a charred, featureless hulk that hardly resembled a human being. If he hadn’t watched the body being removed from the car, Jake wouldn’t have been able to tell whether it was faceup or facedown. He knew it was faceup. But it had no face. Or ears. Or genitals. The surface was a black, cracked crust flecked with frothy white from the extinguishers. Fluids leaked from cracks in the crust.

When the honking blast of the extinguishers went quiet, Jake heard the sizzling sound that came from the body. It sounded like a rib roast.

It didn’t smell like one.

Jake stepped back, struggling not to vomit.

A fireman showed up and spread a blanket over the body.

Smoke rose from under the blanket.

Jake kept watch.

The fire was out, the car a smouldering ruin, by the time the coroner’s van arrived. The men stayed inside the van, smoking cigarettes, waiting, as instructed, for Applegate to show up.

Soon, Steve arrived in his Lincoln Continental. He climbed out, wearing a warm-up suit and carrying a doctor’s bag. He joined Jake. “What’s going on?”

“This is our man,” Jake said, nodding toward the covered corpse. “Earlier tonight, he killed a girl and tried to nail her roommate. He killed Rex Davidson. There’s a good chance he had our snake-thing up his back when he did it.”

“Oh, terrific,” Steve muttered. “Let me guess: you want a little on-the-scene exploratory surgery to determine whether it’s inside him.”

“Good guess,” Jake said.

“Shit.”

Steve went to the van and spoke to the men through its open window. They climbed out.

Wearing gloves, they uncovered the body and lifted it into a body bag. They zipped the bag. One man retrieved a gurney with folding legs from the rear of the van. They hoisted the bagged remains onto the gurney, rolled it to the van, and pushed it in.

“Is this a solo job?” Steve asked Jake. “Or do I get the pleasure of your company?”

“I’ll stick with you.”

“Good decision. Congratulations. Have a cigar.”

Once the cigars were lighted, Jake followed Steve into the rear of the van. He pulled the doors shut. The lights remained on. The smoke from the cigars drifted into vents in the ceiling.

Steve knelt on one side of the body bag, Jake at its end with his back to the doors. He drew his revolver.

“Yes,” Steve said. “I was about to suggest as much.”

“The thing’s probably dead,” Jake whispered. “If it’s in him at all.”

“If it remained between the spine and the epidermis, I would agree with you. But just suppose, when the situation heated up, it took a trip into this fellow’s stomach? It passed through Smeltzer’s stomach, so obviously it has no problem with the acids.”

“This guy must’ve cooked for fifteen minutes,” Jake pointed out.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Charred on the outside, rare in the middle. That’s how I prefer my steaks.”

Jake squinted at Steve through his rising cigar smoke. “So if the thing went deep, it might be all right?”

“Very likely fit as a fiddle.”

Jake muttered, “Shit.”

Cigar clamped in his teeth, Steve opened his satchel and pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. He slid the zipper down the length of the body bag.

In spite of the van’s ventilation system and the aroma of the cigars, the stench that rose from the burnt corpse choked Jake. His eyes teared as he gagged, but he watched the bag’s opening and held his revolver steady.

Steve seemed unaffected. He bent over the remains. With the tip of a gloved finger, he prodded a blackened crater a few inches above the groin. “Was this fellow shot?” he asked, his words slurred by the cigar in his teeth.

“Just in the hand.”

“This might be the creature’s exit.”

“Couldn’t the fire have made that?”

Steve shrugged. He pushed with his finger. The charred surface in the center of the crater crumbled, and his finger went in deep. He wiggled it around. “Nope,” he said. He pulled his finger out.

Then he grabbed the far side of the body bag, lifted and pulled it toward him. The corpse rolled out, bumping facedown onto the gurney. Black flakes fell off it.

Jake switched the revolver to his left hand long enough to wipe his right hand dry on his trouser leg.

Steve spent a while looking at the back of the corpse. Then he took a scalpel from his satchel. He turned his eyes to the barrel of Jake’s revolver. “Try to miss my hands if we have a sudden visitor. They mean a lot to me.”

“What about that exit hole on the other side?”

“If that’s what it is.”

“Great.”

“Ready?”

Jake eased his forefinger over the trigger. “No, but go ahead.”

Steve pressed the blade of the scalpel to the nape of the neck, pushed it in, and slid it downward.

“Jesus,” Jake muttered, watching the crust of skin crumple at the edges of the incision.

Nothing came bursting out.

Steve brought the blade again to the back of the neck. He inserted its point into the slit and poked around. “I think we may be all right,” he said. He grinned at Jake. “Just watch it don’t come popping out his arse.”

“Thanks.”

Setting the scalpel aside, Steve used both hands to spread open the incision. The outer layer of black cracked and flaked off with a sound like dry leaves being crushed. Steve dug in with all the fingers of his right hand. After probing inside the wound for a few moments, he said, “The thing was here, all right. I can feel a definite separation of the lower epidermal layer from the muscle fascia.”

Picking up the scalpel again, Steve ran the blade the rest of the way down the spine. He did more exploring with his hands.

“Yep,” he said.

“So it was in him, and now it’s gone,” Jake said.

“That’s how it looks. Took a powder through the stomach hole. That’s my professional opinion. Of course, the thing might still be inside him…lying low, so to speak. Won’t know that, for sure, until I’ve done a full autopsy. I’ll get the boys to bag him up again. We’ll keep him in cold storage and I’ll call you over so you can ride shotgun when it’s time for the big event. Though, as I said, I’m almost sure it’s not in him at this point.”

“If it’s not,” Jake said, “the thing is either ashes inside his car or else…it’s not.”

“And looking for a new home,” Steve said.

“Or already found one,” added Jake.