In Laymon's Terms

Ron R. Clinton

VENING. WHAT CAN I get for you?”

Gary Bardun looked up from his papers and saw the waitress standing at his table holding a steaming coffeepot, a welcome sight at one a.m. on such a cold evening. He had been driving home late on Highway 1 after an exhausting three-day corporate-security convention down in San Jose, when his headlights had chanced upon an old sign on the side of the highway. Handpainted and faded by the elements, it read simply “DINER...OPEN LATE!” with a red arrow bleached to pink pointing to a narrow road on the left. Chilled and tired, he pulled off the main road and found the nondescript small diner tucked away deep in the woods. A good half-mile off the coastal highway, it sat at the end of a terminally rutted road under a tightly woven canopy of moonlight-frosted fir trees. No signs, no neon, just warm light spilling from two large windows into the night’s biting chill and the words DINER painted haphazardly upon its shadowed frontage, with taloned fir branches obscuring much of the lettering. He was lucky to have stumbled upon it at all.

“Hm? Oh, uh, black. Just black,” he said, absently wagging a finger at the empty cup on the table.

The waitress smiled and carefully poured the hot coffee.

“Great. That’s fine, miss. Thanks.” Gary ran his eyes down the rounded contours of her short-skirted uniform as she drifted back to the diner’s counter. He blew on the steaming, oily coffee and took a tentative sip. He felt a tingling warmth flood his chest and mused whether it was the coffee or the stirring curves of the waitress.

He suddenly remembered he had forgotten to get his wife a gift this trip. A “just a little something” item, something to suggest that, as always, he was still at least trying. For close to two years now he’d been trying. Trying to chip away at the icy distance between them that had grown as frigid as the night air outside. Trying to get her to love him again.

He tried to push her from his mind. Wasn’t as though she was likely to think much of a gift from him anyhow, being too busy lately to give a damn about him or his firm, a wildly successful defense and security firm that had paid her ass through law school. Seemed like these days Linda always had more important things on her mind, and her law partner Richard was probably pretty damn high and cozy on that list. Still, he wished he’d remembered something for their little girl, Kelly. Their only child, the love of his life. Just three years old now and cute as hell. Well, maybe there’ll be something down the road a bit that’s still open. Or there’s always the next trip.

“Not bad, huh?”

Gary turned his head to the booth behind his. A young man in his early twenties wearing a black T-shirt and timeworn leather jacket sat grinning at him. A cigarette lay smoldering in an ashtray on the table by his hand. His other arm was draped loosely around the shoulders of a girl who looked sixteen going on thirty: blonde and pretty, but with ashen smudges under her hooded eyes and drawn cheeks pinching into the corners of her mouth. The girl sat mute, staring vacuously at the vein-work map of scratches and stains on the white Formica table.

“Sorry?”

“The waitress, man.” The man’s eyes flicked hungrily over to the waitress. “You know, the chick with the coffee. She’s really somethin’, huh?”

Gary glanced over at the woman. She stood in front of a waist-high counter, past which could be seen a brightly-lit but apparently empty kitchen. She was leaning across the counter, her arms folded beneath her chest and resting on the counter as she talked cozily to another customer, an older bearded man who sat on one of the red stools with the familiarity and assurance of a regular to the diner. The waitress’ heavy breasts threatened to spill from the top of her simple but low-cut dress. A good way to ensure a tip, Gary figured. Her eyes caught Gary’s gaze and she whispered something to the customer. Chuckling, the bearded man looked over at him. And winked.

Gary turned back around on the red bench-cushion. Feeling like a ten-year-old boy caught looking at his dad’s Playboys, his temples drummed hot with embarrassment. Was it his imagination or were the diner’s only other patrons, a couple of big guys in long-sleeved flannel shirts and suspenders sitting across from him in a booth near the door, also shooting glances in his direction? Was he the show tonight? The out-of-towner the locals can get a few chuckles from?

He spoke over his shoulder. “Yeah, I guess she’s something all right.” He shuffled his papers and spread them out upon the table. He lifted his cup to his lips and savored the hot bitterness on his tongue and the cup’s warmth on his hands. He set it back onto the table and, picking up his pen, tried to focus on his work.

“Something else I can get for you?”

Startled, Gary looked up from his note-taking and saw the waitress standing at his booth again. She was holding her order pad in one hand, a pen in the other. Gary’s eyes flicked to her chest. With a red flush he felt wash across his face, he struggled to keep his eyes fixed on her face. “Oh. Sorry,” he said quickly, “I’m not looking to order much tonight. Just the coffee, all right? Thanks.”

The waitress shrugged and, slipping both pad and pen in her dress pocket, strolled back to the counter.

“I’m tellin’ ya, man, that’s some prime backwoods ass. And, lemme tell ya, Randy knows prime ass when he sees it. Sure, maybe she’s a little on the ripe side, damn near old enough to be my Mom, but shit, you catch those titties on her? Goddamn!”

Gary sighed, put his pen on the table and twisted around. “Look, pal, I’m not—”

“Sherri here,” Randy said, shaking the quiescent young girl’s shoulder, “well, she’s alright in the tittie department, I guess, but Christ did you check out hers, man?” He shook his head, his longish black hair wagging from side to side across his pale face. “I mean, fuck me—those’re some serious tits, you know what I’m sayin’?”

Gary felt his cheeks go warm. He patted the air and said, “Look, just keep your voice down, all right?”

“Sure, man. Chill out, it’s cool. ’Sides, screw her—me and Sherri, we’re gonna be seein’ lots of titties tomorrow, ain’t we, baby? Hm?” Randy stretched his arm further over the girl’s shoulder and roughly squeezed her right breast through her jacket. A soft moan, almost a whimper, escaped her tightly-pressed lips. Gary tensed. He noted the grinning young man either didn’t hear the poor kid or simply didn’t care.

“Yeah man, we’ve been thumbin’ rides for more than a week. Got our last one from those two guys over there,” Randy said, pointing at the two men at the table by the door. “Came here to tour that old house up the road where all them murders are s’posed to have been done. Where all them bitches got ripped and chewed up good. And got the fuckin’ of their lives, from what I hear.” His eyes sparkling with feverish excitement, he patted his jacket with his left hand. “Here, I know I got somethin’ about it in here somewhere...”

“Look, that’s all right, I’m not really—”

“Nah, man, I just gotta—yeah, here it is!” Randy pulled out a worn and folded-up sheet of green paper. “Here, you gotta check this shit out.” He leaned over the table and tossed the flyer. It spun and fluttered down over Gary’s shoulder and onto his worksheets. “Hell, we came all the way up from L.A. for this. Check it out, man,” he said, pointing at Gary’s table, “it’s wild.”

“Yeah, uh, all right. Thanks,” he said, turning around in his seat. His stomach was tense and knotted and, God, he was tired. He hoped he was done with this psycho-wannabe, though he felt sorry for the girl. A real shame, seemed like a nice kid.

Gary took a sip of coffee. Barely warm.

“Uh, excuse me, miss?” The waitress grabbed the coffeepot and walked back over to his table. “Could I get some...?” He nodded distractedly at his half-empty cup as he swept up the mess of papers on the table into a pile away from his cup, keeping them safe from any spattering of coffee.

“You sure you want a warm-up?” She glanced at her watch. “Getting kinda late.”

Gary looked up. “What?”

“Just that it’s getting kind of late and we should’ve been closed by now.”

“Look, miss,” Gary said patiently, “I’m not trying to be rude here, but you were open and, yes, I know full well how late it is. That’s actually the reason I need the coffee. So, if you wouldn’t mind...?”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She bent over and slowly, carefully poured the steaming coffee. The tops of her large breasts strained at the thin material of her dress top, the ribbing of her neckline gently cutting into her full, spongy flesh.

Gary forced his eyes back onto his paperwork. “Thanks,” he said to the table as she finished pouring, not daring to look up again until she’d gone. He could feel Randy’s lewd grin boring into the back of his head.

Gary took a sip of his hot coffee; the burnt acrid taste was jolting and wonderful. His eyes strayed to the rumpled sheet of green paper that stood out like a green beacon in a sea of white. Knowing Randy wouldn’t let him alone until he looked at it, he plucked it from his reports, unfolded it and began to read:

THE BEAST HOUSE

invites you to come and visit

...if you dare!!

Since 1932, Malcasa Point’s Beast House on California’s coast has offered visitors from around the world the opportunity to experience firsthand the horrific exploits of the legendary giant Beast!

Come join us and:

* WITNESS the blood-soaked recreations from more than a dozen true monstrous butcheries of sexual savagery that have occurred within these very walls!

* SEE lifelike wax figures of all the Beast’s ravaged victims painstakingly-recreated as they were found—in the very setting and shredded clothing in which they met their violent death!

* EXPERIENCE the legendary horror & FEEL the horror that is...The Beast House!

Admission: $15.00 per person. Includes equipment rental for self-guided audio tour. Tour includes some nudity. Special Midnight Tours given each Saturday night at midnight, $100.00 per person (18 & over).

*** Present this flyer and receive 20% off your total dining bill at the newly expanded Snack Shop

...now offering a full line of gourmet and vegetarian meals at reasonable prices!!

*** 10 Front Street, Malcasa Point, CA (approximately 150 miles North of San Francisco on the coast’s Highway 1)

“So?”

Gary tore his eyes from the flyer and looked back over his shoulder. “What?”

“The Beast House, man,” said Randy, rolling his eyes. “The House. What’dya think?”

Gary reached over and handed it back to him. “Sorry. Not my kind of thing.”

Randy shook his head in disgusted disbelief and folded the green flyer back in his jacket. “Fuck, shoulda guessed.” He whispered something in Sherri’s ear and then said, “Oh, hey—by the way, is that your Volvo out there, the gray one?”

“Yeah, that’s mine. Why?”

“Your tires. Got a look at ’em on the way in, and it looks like at least a couple of ’em are flat.”

“What? What are you talking about? They were fine when I pulled in.”

“I dunno, man,” he chuckled. “Just tellin’ ya what I saw.”

“Terrific.” Gary fought the burning impulse to leap over his bench and wipe the punk’s smirk off his face, demand to know what the hell he did to his car.

“Hey, I’d give ya a lift, but since I got none...” He shrugged. “’Sides, I know a proper guy like you ain’t lookin’ at going where we’re headed anyhow.” He put his arm around Sherri again and shook her. “Right, baby?”

The young girl’s eyelids fluttered. She slowly lifted her head...and smiled, her dull gaze suddenly sharpening. “Right, lover,” Sherri purred, her horrible grin cutting itself into her gaunt cheeks while she stared at Gary and whimpered with pleasure under Randy’s hands.

“Damn, girl, ’bout time you stopped tripping on me. Good shit, huh?”

Gary shook his head, chiding himself for being naive and misreading the girl. He decided it was time to go and just forget it, they weren’t worth the trouble. If his business taught him nothing else, it was that drug-addled kids like these are often the most unpredictable and dangerous.

Gary turned around and carelessly gathered up his reports. He snapped open his briefcase, tossing in the paperwork before quickly closing it and clasping it shut again.

“Hey now, where you off to?”

“What?” he asked, not turning around.

“I asked you where you were off to, dude.” Randy’s voice had suddenly grown dark and menacing, his words clipped to a razor’s sharpness.

Gary’s back tensed. “Just got to start heading home. You know, the wife and kid and all.”

“Uh huh. Yeah, must be a bitch.” Rancor dripped off Randy’s words. Sherri lapped it up and began snickering.

Gary stood and grabbed the briefcase off the table. Randy’s eyes widened at the sound of something shifting with a soft, muffled thud.

“Ooo, what’cha got in there?”

He looked over at Randy. “Nothing much. Just sales samples.”

“A salesman, huh?” Randy’s mouth curled up into a sneer.

“Kind of. So, the tires. You recall which ones they were?”

“Nah. Shit, coulda been all four for all I know.” Sherri grabbed Randy’s arm and buried her giggling face in the shoulder of his leather jacket.

“I see.” Gary spied a phone on the back wall behind the counter and started toward it.

“Take it easy, sales-dude.” Gary could hear both of them laughing behind him as he walked away.

He reached the counter and asked the waitress if he could use the phone. “Seems I have some flat tires on my car outside,” he explained.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Or so I hear, anyway,” he sighed. He placed his briefcase carefully on the counter next to the cash register. “Any towing outfit nearby?”

“Sure, I guess so.” She looked across the counter to the seated older man with whom she’d been speaking earlier. “Bert, you think—”

“Nah, don’t sweat it, friend,” Bert said, shaking his balding head. “I already called and gotcha all taken care of.”

“You did? But how’d you know my tires were flat?”

“Saw them on my way in.”

“Oh.” Gary was puzzled. Hadn’t the man been in the diner the entire time?

“Yep. Well, whattya know—in fact, there’s Bobby now. Looks like he’s getting you all squared away.”

Gary turned his head to the front window and saw his car hitched to the back of a departing tow truck, the truck’s red taillights growing smaller and dimmer as it bounced down the dark, rutted road with his car in tow.

“Wh-what the—” sputtered Gary. He spun around to Bert. “What the hell’s he doing?”

“Told you, friend. Just getting you taken care of.”

“But I didn’t ask for it to be towed away without me! Where the hell’s he taking it? For that matter, how the hell am I supposed to hook up with my car again at this time of night with no ride?”

“Yeah, guess that there might be a bit of a problem, huh?”

“Christ yeah, that’s a problem!” He heard Randy and Sherri’s laughter and the deep mutterings of the diner’s two other patrons rise up behind him. Not wanting to make any more of a scene, he took a deep breath and ran his hand down his face. “Fine, fine. Just tell me what I owe,” he said to the waitress, “and call me a cab, all right?” He pulled out his wallet and thumbed through his cash.

Damn, hardly enough to buy anything for Kelly after the cab and the tow-yard. And Linda’s going to jump all over me for getting home even later and—

“Uh uh. Can’t do that,” said Bert.

Gary looked up, blood beginning to roar angrily in his ears. “Oh? And why’s that?”

“Too late. All the cabs around here are shut down for the night.”

“Great. That’s just great. Now what the hell am I supposed to do?”

Bert shrugged. “Don’t know. Catch a ride?”

Gary glanced over his shoulder at the two scowling men in suspenders. Uh uh, no way—I’d rather walk. He turned back and shook his head, defeated. “Forget it, I’ll walk. Just give me the bill and point me in the direction of the towing yard.”

“Afraid I can’t do that either, friend.”

Shaking with anger and frustration, Gary opened his mouth when suddenly the sharp screech of a rusty deadbolt lock sliding home cut through the buzzing din in his head. He spun around and a brilliant shower of hot, white light suddenly burst in his skull and he rode its falling, sputtering twinkles to the black-and-white checkered floor.

Gary awoke to the screams of an animal in pain.

He forced his eyes open and blinked through a wet, red haze. He lay on the black-and-white checkered floor, a small pool of sticky blood sandwiched between his cheek and the scarred linoleum. His head felt as though it was tightly swathed in a bandage soaked in liquid pain. Gritting his teeth, he slowly peeled his face from the gummy floor and looked up.

Randy was the animal. High-pitched and piercing, his pain-filled screeches seared the air in the small diner. A heavily muscled and completely naked young man towering perhaps seven feet tall thrust himself in and out of Randy as he lay bent over one of the diner’s tables, his pants torn away and lying tattered about his ankles. Dark, clotted blood coated Randy’s thighs and legs.

The two suspender-clad men stood on each side of the naked man, the shotguns in their arms trained on the back of Randy’s head. Suddenly one of the men plucked an object from a nearby table and handed the enormous, naked man a large garden claw. He smiled and, reaching around with his powerful sinewy arm, raked Randy’s upturned throat with the sharp, glinting tines. A thick ruby mist burst from his neck and sprayed the wall next to the booth. All three men stepped back. His screams suddenly cut short, Randy slid from the table and dropped loosely to the floor, leaving a long, red-wine smear on the booth’s white table.

Awash in a sheen of blood and sweat, the naked man twisted his head and looked at Gary, a wide smile cutting his large wide face in two. The harsh fluorescent lighting of the diner painted his shining bald head in a dirty brilliance. His heart hammering wildly, Gary’s horrified eyes dropped to the inhumanly-massive erect dildo the man sported, a crudely hand-carved baseball bat with Louisville Slugger still emblazoned in black on the side. Gary saw with an icy shudder that it glistened with dark blood and ragged bits of Randy’s flesh. Held on by leather straps looped around his waist and between his legs, it wobbled ponderously as the large man turned to face him.

“About time you woke up, friend. Hell, you missed all the fun,” Bert said. “Well,” he chuckled, “most of it, anyhow.”

Gary raised himself up on his elbows, his arms quivering with the strain. He lifted his shell-shocked eyes up to Bert. The bearded man swam in and out of focus. Gary squeezed his rheumy eyes shut, trying to clear his vision. He tried to speak but quickly clamped his mouth shut. His teeth had nearly severed his tongue in the fall; red-hot shards rushed in and stabbed his tongue with each breath. He felt the warm, coppery blood begin to well inside his mouth and leak from his pursed lips.

Turning to the waitress who now sat beside him on one of the counter’s stools, Bert frowned and asked, “Ooo, Mary, he doesn’t look so good, does he?”

She looked down at Gary. “Hm? Oh. No, I don’t suppose he does at that, Bert.”

“Shouldn’t have hit him that hard with the skillet.”

“Well, you see what he did, Bert? Tried to stiff me on my tip. You see him leave anything? I sure didn’t.”

“I’ll give you that one, Mary. That wasn’t the proper thing to do, no sir.”

“I mean, I work hard for my money. I shouldn’t be treated like that.” Bert looked back down at Gary, his bushy eyebrows furrowed in thought as he studied him. “She got herself a point there, friend. Should’ve tipped her, no two ways about it.”

“Damn straight,” Mary said, crossing her arms.

“You know,” Bert said, fingering his beard, “seeing as how he’s probably learned his lesson and all, maybe we should just get him cleaned up and let him go.”

“You think?”

“Well, I don’t suppose he’ll forget to tip again, do you?”

“No, I don’t guess he will. Still, it’s the principle of the thing.”

Bert shook his head. “No time to stand on principles, Mary. After all, running a restaurant’s a cutthroat business.”

The two locked eyes. Their mock frowns suddenly slipped from their faces and they burst out in laughter. “Oh Bert,” Mary said, gasping for breath, “you’re one wicked, wicked fella.” She leaned over and wrapped her fingers in his beard, pulling him toward her and kissing him long and hungrily on the mouth.

Gary’s eyes shot to the counter above him, searching desperately for any sign of his briefcase. There it was—a brass-gilded corner jutting out from the edge!

“Uh, Bert? Mary?” one of the men in suspenders called out. “You want us to...?”

Bert tilted back in his stool and patted Mary’s thigh. “All right, all right. Yeah, Leo, take him into the back. The smell’s starting to get to me anyhow. Junior, you keep an eye on the gal there,” he said, nodding to the young girl as she sat curled up in a corner booth, her horrified gaze frozen on the pantless corpse of her boyfriend. “And don’t touch her yet, you hear?”

“Don’t forget, Bert,” said Leo, “you promised to send your boy over to our place tomorrow night.”

Bert nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

The two men handed their shotguns to the large naked man and dragged Randy’s body into the rear kitchen.

Bert looked back down at Gary. “Sorry, friend,” he said, “looks like you’re gonna be keeping that date with Junior there, after all.”

“Damnit, Daddy,” the bloody, naked man growled, “I told ya not to call me that no more.”

Mary shot up from her stool. “Hey! Don’t you dare talk to your father like that, young man!”

“Sorry, Ma.”

“Wait—” The word gurgled in Gary’s throat. He knew he had to hurry and try for the briefcase, but strength was only now beginning to return and prickle in his arms and legs.

“Hey, I tried,” Bert said, throwing up his hands. “You heard me plead your case to Mary here, right? Right? Besides, now let me tell you the good news: you’re gonna be downright famous. Isn’t that the shits—famous and not even being around to enjoy it? So I’d like to thank you now, friend, for helping to soon make my little diner joint here the most famous restaurant in these parts. Least, that’s how me and the boy here have it figured,” he said with a proud smile.

Bert stood up off the stool and walked to the front windows of the diner, the rubber soles of his shoes squeaking on the wet floor. He looked out into the frosted darkness with his hands clasped behind his back and shook his head. “You should see how much traffic that old rickety house up the road gets. Thousands of folks traipsing up and down that highway from all parts, every day of the week, every damn week of the year. And you know how much of that business we get lately? Hm? Any idea? Well, let me tell you, it ain’t much, it ain’t much at all.”

“Amen to that,” Mary said.

Confident that her attention was fastened on Bert, Gary slowly and quietly drew his knees up and off to the side. His arms and legs felt like coiled springs lubed by nervous sweat.

“Now all them folks are eating at the new fancy-shmancy cafe they got set up there, or else they come away too damn sick from the tour to do any eating at all. Hell, we’re lucky if we get much out of the Beast House at all anymore. Sure not like it used to be.” He turned around and walked over to his son and clapped him on his broad back. “It was Junior here, bless him, that came up with the fix—well, the idea, at least—to get us back on the map.” The large nude man blushed.

Jesus, Gary thought, guy tears apart Randy and stands there naked in a two-foot strap-on wooden penis and he’s blushing? This is insane, unreal...I’ve got to act, get out of here, get home and Linda will be bitching at me that I’m late again and Kelly will hug me with her small arms and everything’ll be fine and normal again and—

“Boy came up to me one day,” Bert continued, “and said, ‘Daddy, sure is a damn shame none of them Beast killin’s weren’t done here at our place, get some of those folks spendin’ the big bucks here ’stead of that eyesore up north. Then we could set up our own wax dummies right here in the diner. Tourists love that shit.’ You hear that? My boy!” Beaming, he clapped him on the back again.

Mary shifted on her stool and smoothed her skirt. Gary tensed. Waited for Junior to look away.

“And don’t forget this here Beast outfit I made, Daddy, to fool all them—”

“Shut up, boy—Daddy’s talking now.”

The young man lowered his cowed eyes. “Sorry, Daddy.”

Gary steeled himself. He had to do it. No choice.

Bert went on: “Sounded so damn good some friends of mine wanted in, too. Leo and his brother in the back there for their feed store that’s ready to go under. And Bobby, well, his towing company’s doing just fine—I think he’s just a little tweaked in the head myself.”

Gary shot from the floor with a stumbling lurch, his arms outstretched and flailing. His fingertips brushed the corner of his briefcase. It tipped and slid off the counter even as his legs gave way beneath him and he crashed to his knees beside it. His sweaty fingers fumbled at the locks and the latches snicked open and he thrust his hand in to grab the small Glock 36 .45 that’ll blast these maniacs to hell and—

His hand closed on nothing but brittle sheets of paper.

“About done there, friend?” said Bert, still standing in place and looking bemused. “Jeez, what do you think we are—stupid? Mary, show him just how stupid we are.”

Gary craned his neck up and felt a fresh wave of hopelessness and despair roll over him as he stared into the deep, black O of his gun’s barrel projecting from Mary’s steady hand.

“C’mon, Daddy, c’mon,” Junior whined. “Let me do ’im.”

“Damnit, Junior—”

“Junior’s right, Bert,” Mary cut in. “You’re talking too damn much. Let’s just get it done, all right? We been lucky so far, but someone might drive up.”

“Nah, not this late.”

“Damnit, Bert,” she said angrily, “this fella on the floor did. Who’s to say someone else won’t?”

Bert nodded. “Okay, Mary. You’re probably right. Just so damn proud of Junior I’m letting my mouth run off. Boy never had a lick of sense, and then comes up with something like this out of the clear blue...” Bert sniffed and wiped his eyes. “Damn allergies.”

“Uh huh,” said Mary with a smile.

Bert walked over to Gary and crouched down beside him. “Don’t worry, friend, even though I didn’t much appreciate you giving my wife the eye a while back, I’ll have Junior here make it pretty quick for you. Not like that other fella. Leo got lucky on that one; hated that little shitwad the moment he came in. And her, too,” he said, looking over at Sherri. His voice grew husky and tight. “You can take your time with that sweet thing, Junior. Oh yeah, take all the time with her you need.”

“Bert...”

“Shut up, Mary.”

“But I haf a wife,” Gary managed, his tongue flopping uselessly in the puddle of blood that had gathered in his mouth, “and a daugh’fer. Puh-p’ease...”

“Yeah, kids,” Bert said with a wide smile, “ain’t they just the best?” He stood up and stepped back. “Speaking of which...Junior?”

The hulking young man set the two shotguns in the booth next to Sherri’s and began to lumber towards Gary, the bare soles of his feet slapping the floor that lay wet and tacky with Randy’s blood. His face was twisted with unbridled glee. His massive wooden penis wagged obscenely from side to side, cutting a nightmarish smile in the air.

Gary’s wide eyes shot to the abandoned guns and then to Sherri. Grab them damnit grab them grab them now save us his eyes screamed but Sherri didn’t see. She was rocking on the cushioned bench, keening softly as she hugged her knees to her chest, her downcast eyes wild with panic and flittering like the beating wings of a tiny, caged bird.

The last thought Gary had before the steel talons of Junior’s garden claw caved in his skull and ended all his thoughts forever was his wife, and what Linda would say to their daughter in the years to come about him, about her dead father kneeling and screaming in waxy enshrinement in a rundown California diner.

Or if, unlike the coffee-and-pie crowd, she’d even care enough about him to bother saying anything at all.