Alex Lee Martinez - Gil's All Fright Diner

"But I thought this got rid of the zombies."

"It did, but whoever planted this in the cemetery is still out there. And for whatever reason, they got it out for your place. Or something in this place. Maybe even you. Now that the zombies are gone, they might — just might, mind you — try something else."

"Hell," Loretta grumbled.

"You got any idea who might be interested in driving you outta business?"

"Nobody that I know of."

"That's gonna make things harder. Until we find whoever is responsible for this, it could keep happening."

Loretta took a moment to wrestle with her tangled yellow hair. "Somebody in this town is practicing voodoo?"

"Voodoo is a religion," Duke interrupted.

She pinned back the stringy, bleached mass. "Yeah?"

"So voodoo is a real religion. People who practice it don't do stuff like that any more than Baptists or Catholics do."

"Exactly," Earl agreed. "We're not talking about Voodoo or Wicca or even Satanism. All those are pretty much harmless. No, what we got here is a genuine black-magic practitioner, a true disciple of the old gods. And a damn powerful one at that."

"Old gods?" Loretta asked.

"Long story. Let's just say that they make Beelzebub look like a bald, toothless rat with one leg and leave it at that."

"Think there might be more than one?" Duke said.

"Usually are."

"Hold on a second here. So there's a person or persons calling up the powers of Hell just to run me outta business?"

They nodded.

"We're talking about a cult or sumthin'?"

They nodded again.

"In Rockwood? But we don't even got a movie theater."

"That's how it usually works. People who got stuff to do don't usually sign up with the minions of darkness. It's the folks with lots'a time to kill that you gotta watch out for."

"Idle hands," Duke agreed.

"So you've seen this kind of thing before?"

"All the time," Earl replied, "especially in isolated, quiet little places like this." He leaned closer. "If you're ever in New Mexico, don't pick up any hitchhikers. Better than fifty-fifty chance you'll wind up strapped to an altar."

"You're making that up."

"Happened to me twice. Swear to God."

She snorted skeptically and returned to the original subject. "You figure Gil's disappearance is related to all this?"

"I got that feeling."

"But he was such a harmless of guy. Why'd somebody want to hurt him?"

"Why would someone want to hurt you?" posed Earl. "People do nasty things to each other. Don't usually have a good reason for it."

She nodded. "Okay. How are we supposed to find this cult?"

"You know this town better than us. You got any candidates?"

She paced behind the counter, rubbing her flapping chin thoughtfully. "Well, there's old Curtis Mayfair. He's always been an odd fella. Lives by himself in an old shack. Don't come into town much. Always talking to his dog about astrophysics or sum thin'."

"Wouldn't be him," Earl said. "See, these cults are clever. They don't act weird like that. They blend in, act just like regular folks except for the occasional orgy or human sacrifice. Odds are, you probably talked to whoever is doing this and didn't even know it."

"So it could be anybody except for old Curtis."

"We can't just eliminate him either. See, sometimes an especially clever practitioner acts crazy on purpose because they know no one thinks the weirdo is really a cultist. They're tricky that way.

"Practitioners are hard to pick out because they're not like Duke or me. There's signs of our conditions if you know what to look for, but we're talking about normal people here. Completely regular humans who consort with darkness. It's hard to pin them down unless you're lucky enough to catch them in the act. We just gotta keep our eyes open. Now that we know what we're looking for, it's just a matter of time."

Scowling, Loretta drummed her fingers on the counter.

"On the bright side," Earl comforted, "maybe the zombies are all they got."

"You think?"

"Probably not," he answered honestly.

She slapped a fist into a palm with a meaty smack.

"Damnation. ."

First thing in the morning, Loretta called Gonzalez General Repair. Wanda Gonzalez, a middle-aged Mexican with skin like leather, arrived a little before noon and quietly went to replacing the shattered glass doors.

Sometime soon after, Sheriff Kopp popped in for a visit. He nodded to Wanda. Wanda, a pane of glass under arm, nodded back.

"Sheriff," Duke greeted.

"Morning, Mr. Smith," Kopp returned, removing his dusty hat. "Loretta around?"

"She's in back."

Kopp took a seat at the counter, a few stools down from Duke. The sheriff studied the brim of his Stetson for a few minutes while whistling some lazy tune Duke didn't recognize.

"Heard you had a little trouble yesterday."

"Nuthin' I couldn't handle."

"Old Walt Hastings said you lost a couple of ringers."

"Naw." Duke held up his left hand and wiggled his freshly grown digits. "It looked worse than it was."

"I'm sure Walter will be glad to hear that."

A long quiet fell upon the diner, broken only by the clink of Wanda's work.

"Walt said you smashed open a cow's skull with a rock. I gotta say that's impressive. Damn impressive."

"It was a big rock."

"Just the same, I don't know of many men who could manage that. You ever work with livestock, Mr. Smith?"

"Nope."

"My daddy had a couple. When I was a kid, I use'ta milk 'em. I had this special rod: a big, heavy lead one. The kind of rod that'd crack open a man's skull just like that." He snapped his fingers. "We used it to keep the cows in line. I'd whomp on 'em when they got ornery. Hit 'em as hard as I could. Just to keep 'em in line. Never did much to the cows except annoy 'em."

"That right?"

"Yeah. So I figure a man would have to be God-awful strong to smash open a cow's thick head. Even with a big rock."

"Took three blows."

"Just the same, mighty impressive."

Duke took a long sip of his Coke.

The sheriff whistled a second verse.

Duke had encountered the likes of Marshall Kopp before: the quiet, thoughtful sort of man who knew more than he'd ever come right out and say. Duke decided to stop screwing around.

"I'm a werewolf."

Kopp went to the cooler and grabbed a soda. "Figured it was sumthin' like that."

"How'd you know?"

"Oh, I've had plenty of experience with this sort of thing. 'Bout seven years back, had an outbreak of vampire turkeys. And four years before that, Charlie Vaughn's daughter got herself possessed. And the Stillmans's scarecrow took to wandering around at night and scaring the bejeezus outta the kids. Point is, Rockwood has itself an unusual history, and being sheriff means dealing with those problems." Kopp cocked his head to glance at Duke with a carefully calculated half-stare meant to appear casual, but was anything but. "You ain't going to be a problem, are you, Mr. Smith?"

"No, sir."

"Glad to hear it. And you can call me 'Marshall.' Everybody does."

Loretta's wide, jiggling frame emerged from the back. They exchanged polite nods.

"What can I do for you, Marshall?"

"Sorry to have to do this to you, Loretta, but I gotta ask you to close this place up."

"What for?"

"C'mon now," the sheriff sighed. "Y'know it's my job to look after the people of this county. I was willing to overlook the zombies as long as they kept to bothering you, but now with Walt's cows getting infected. ."

"That ain't my fault."

"Yeah. But this whole walking corpse trouble started with this diner, and I have'ta figure it's connected some way."