Alex Lee Martinez - Gil's All Fright Diner

Chad wiped his lips and leaned over the open coffin. "What do we need them for, anyway?"

"Quit asking stupid questions and take her to the car."

Squeamish delicacy pummeled beneath the raging fists of surging hormones, he lifted the corpse over his shoulder. He gagged, inhaling a thick dust cloud that smelled like moldy cotton and reminded him of grandma. The body's pinkie finger snapped off with a dry crack.

"Be careful, moron," Tamrriy snarled.

Their task went smoothly. Chad's repulsion faded to mere discomfort by the time the fifth body was loaded in the back of the Gremlin. It was a tight fit. Huffing and cursing, he wedged the cargo in and slammed the hatchback shut, accidentally chopping off a dangling leg just below the knee.

"Shit."

"Come on already," Tammy growled from the passenger's seat. She glared with the aid of the rearview mirror.

He bent down so that she couldn't see him and considered the limb laying in the dirt.

"Is there a problem?"

"No. No, it's cool."

He tossed the leg into the night's darkness. If she asked him about it, he'd just say the corpse had already been missing it. It was a poor ruse and doomed to failure. But his lust gave him the barest of hopes that she might believe him. He wasn't scoring tonight, but a half-hour grope session was still a heartening possibility.

The grind of wheels in the dusty road announced the approach of a brown police car. Chad froze before its headlights. Sheriff Kopp stepped from the vehicle. He shone a flashlight into Chad's stymied eyes.

"Chad Roberts, is that you?"

Stiffly, Chad nodded. This was it. They were finally busted. He'd always known it would happen eventually. You couldn't run around graveyards and summon the powers of darkness, even in a place like Rockwood, for long without drawing attention. The cult was over. His dad would whup his ass. His mom would frown in that quietly disapproving way of hers. He'd probably get expelled and might even go to jail for desecrating the dead. He wasn't sure that was a crime, but it seemed like it should be.

Well, he mused, at least I got some action out of it. And while Tammy could be a real Grade A superbitch more often than not, she was one fine piece of ass. He had no regrets.

Sheriff Kopp strode over and opened the Gremlin's door. "Alright now, young lady, step out of the car."

Tammy did as she was asked. The tall, lean man towered over the short seventeen-year-old.

"You wanna tell me what you kids are doing out here?"

She craned her neck all the way back to look him in the face, squinting in the point-blank glare of his flashlight.

"Nuthin', sir."

"Nuthin', sir," Chad echoed. His voice cracked.

Sheriff Kopp moved toward Chad, who quickly stepped forward and away from the Gremlin. Kopp was not fooled.

"Stay put, boy."

"Yes, sir."

Chad's heart thumped noisily. His stomach churned. His bladder suddenly felt excruciatingly full.

Behind Kopp, Tammy, eyes closed, was mumbling inaudibly.

The sheriff scanned the Gremlin's interior with a sweep of his flashlight. He frowned ever so slightly at the five bodies piled in the back.

"Looks to me like you kids got some explainin' to do."

The statement was powerful in its understatement. Too powerful for Chad to stand against.

"She made me do it! I didn't want to do it! I didn't!" Tears welled up in his eyes. "She's a witch! She's got these weird powers. She hypnotized me! Yeah, that's what she did!"

Sheriff Kopp looked Tammy's svelte form up and down. "I just bet she did. Okay, into the back of the squad car. I don't want any trouble from you two." He gently, yet firmly, guided them toward his automobile.

Tammy spun around and held her hands in Kopp's face. She had to stand on her tiptoes.

"Shurma'laka'rala'kama, Lord of Dreams, Master of Souls, I invoke thee."

Sheriff Kopp shuddered and stopped.

"There's nothing going on here," Tammy said, "Everything's fine. Nothing needs explaining. In fact, none of this ever happened. Now get in your car and go away."

Sheriff Kopp's expression became normal, save for a certain vague dullness behind his eyes. He climbed into his cruiser.

"You kids better get yourself home. It's getting late." He started the car and drove off without another word.

"Wow! That was awesome. I didn't know you could do that!"

Tammy socked Chad directly in the solar plexus.

"You asshole."

"What is that?" he asked between coughs. "Some kind of mind control thing. Like in Star Wars, right?"

She sneered. "Let's get out of here."

"You aren't mad about that whole 'she made me do it' act, are you, babe?" he asked as they drove back. "I was just distracting him for you. So you could do your Jedi mind trick on him." He grinned. "Man, that was so fucking cool!"

She stared at her geometry book with burning intensity.

"Can you show me how to do that?"

No reply was given. Ten minutes passed.

"How come you don't just use that hocus-pocus on Loretta so we can get into the diner?"

"It doesn't work on everyone, and only for a short while when it does," she answered through clenched teeth.

Chad nodded to himself for the next couple of minutes.

"Aw c'mon, Mistress Lilith. I was just trying to distract him. Really."

She slammed her book shut with a sharp slap.

Chad admitted defeat. No groping tonight. Especially after she found out about the missing leg.

Oh well, he thought as he drew once more from the bottomless well of throbbing teenage desire, maybe tomorrow.

Earl spilled the mojo bag's contents across the counter. He sorted through the odd collection of items, both mundane and exotic.

Loretta picked up an empty pepper shaker. "This is mine."

"It's gotta be the connection to the diner. So the zombies know to attack this place."

"What about the rest of this stuff?"

"Mostly magical ingredients. A cock's left claw. A black tail feather from the same chicken. Some mushrooms plucked from a corpse."

"And this?" She held up a scrap of paper with some indecipherable writing.

"That's an invocation," Duke replied. "Looks like Glok'rooshah, Prince of Shadows. Or maybe Fuyirbahga, He That Corrupts The Flesh."

Earl and Loretta tossed him suspicious looks.

"Last time we were in El Paso, I looked through Hector's library." He took the paper and read the scribbles. "Rise, Fuyirbahga. From the bowels of the earth, I bid thee, seep into this place of death and bring forth the rotted flesh to purge the unbelievers."

Earl snatched back the paper. "You're making that up."

"That's what it says."

"Bullshit."

"Read it yourself."

The vampire squinted at the writing. "Eyes-ray. Rum-fray ee-thay owls-bay of-ay ee-thay urth-ay." He snarled. "What is it? Greek? Sanskrit?"

"Pig Latin," Loretta replied.

"Yup," Duke confirmed. "Secret language of the old gods."

Earl chuckled. "That's stupid."

"No. It's smart. Think about it. Everybody knows it. Nobody thinks nuthin' 'bout it. But it's out there, everywhere, just waiting for somebody who knows how to use it."

"It's still stupid."

"Maybe. But it works."

"So that's it?" Loretta asked. "Now that this is dug up, there won't be any more zombies?"

"That's what Hec said."

"What about the cows?"

"Hec figured they got infected with some black-magic runoff by accident. Happens sometimes with especially powerful hoodoo."

Loretta breathed a sigh of relief. "That's great. I wanna thank you boys for your—"

"Hold up a minute. This might not be over yet."