Richard Laymon - The Stake

“More interesting if he does,” Pete told her.

“Maybe for you.”

“Any chance we might stop talking about it?” Jean suggested. “I wish we’d never set foot in that damn hotel.”

“You know,” Pete said, “we should’ve pulled the stake. You know what I mean? Just to see what happens.”

“Nothing would’ve happened,” Jean said.

“Who knows?” He leered at Larry. “Hey, want to turn around and go back and do it?”

“No way.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“Not that curious.”

“Just try turning the van around,” Barbara warned, “and I’ll bite your neck.”

“Pussy.”

“Don’t push it, buster. It was your big idea that got me messed up like this.”

“You could’ve stayed outside. Nobody was holding a gun to your head.”

“Just shut up, okay?”

He cast a glance at Larry. His expression was somewhat amused. “Guess I’d better shut up before I get her riled, huh?”

“I would if I were you.”

“Whatever happened to freedom of speech?” Though the words were spoken quietly to Larry, they were aimed at Barbara.

“That freedom ends where my ears begin,” she said.

Pete grinned at Larry, but said no more. He drove in silence.

Larry looked out at the desert. He still felt a little lightheaded and nervous, but much better than before. He guessed that the discussion had helped. Putting words to it. Sharing their concerns. Especially the playful way Pete had turned the whole godawful experience into a vampire story. And the bickering between Pete and Barbara. Their nice, normal, everyday quarreling. It all helped a lot. Leached the horror out of their encounter with the corpse. Like throwing sunlight onto a nightmare.

But his anxiety started to grow when they came to Mulehead Bend. Not even the familiar sights along Shoreline Drive were enough to dispel the dread that seemed to be swelling inside him.

Pete drove slowly through the traffic — a few automobiles surrounded by the usual mix of off-road vehicles, campers, vans, pickup trucks, and motorcycles. The road was bordered by motels, service stations, banks, shopping centers, restaurants, bars, and fast-food joints. Larry saw the bakery where he’d bought a dozen doughnuts early that morning. He saw the supermarket where Jean did her grocery shopping, the computer store where he regularly bought floppy disks, paper, and printer ribbons for his word processor, the movie theater where they had attended a horror double feature Wednesday afternoon.

Every now and then he caught glimpses of the Colorado River just east of the business district. A few people were still out, water skiing. He saw a houseboat. A shuttle boat was carrying passengers toward the casinos on the Nevada side of the river.

All so familiar, so normal. Larry thought he ought to feel some relief in returning to home turf, leaving behind the strangeness and desolation of the back roads.

But he didn’t.

It’s splitting up with Pete and Barbara, he realized. He didn’t want to part with them. He was afraid . Like a kid who’d been telling spooky stories with his friends and now had to walk home alone in the dark.

I’m not a kid, he told himself. It’s not dark. We just live next door. And I won’t be going home alone, Jean will be with me and Lane’s probably back by now.

“Why don’t you guys stick around for a while?” Barbara suggested. “We’ll have some cocktails, get the dust out of our throats.”

“Great!” Larry told her, wondering if she, too, was reluctant for the group to break up.

“I’ll make my famous margaritas,” Pete said.

“Sounds good to me,” Jean said.

Larry felt blessed.

Pete left the traffic of Shoreline Drive behind and steered up the curving road to Palm Court. When he turned onto Palm, their houses came into view.

It was good to be getting home.

Lane appeared from beside the porch. She wore cutoff blue jeans and her white bikini top, and carried a plastic bucket. Apparently she was preparing to wash the Mustang.

Pete beeped the horn as they approached. Lane turned to them and waved.

“Let’s not say anything to her about the you-know-what,” Jean said.

“Mum’s the word,” Pete said. He pulled into his driveway and stopped. Climbing from the van, he called to Lane, “Feel free to do this one when you get through over there.”

“Hardy-har.”

“Have fun shopping?” Jean asked her.

“Yeah, it was okay.” She beamed at Larry as he stepped past the front of the van. “I spent all kinds of your money, Dad. You’re gonna have to stay home and write like a dog.”

“Thanks a lot, sweetheart.”

“Consider me a motivating force. So, how was the excursion?”

“Had a good time,” Jean told her. “We’ll be over here for a while.”

“Join us if you’d like,” Barbara said, appearing behind the van with the ice chest in her hand.

“Jeez!” Lane blurted. “What happened to you?”

“Had a little accident.”

“Are you okay?” she asked, frowning.

“Just some scrapes and bruises. I’ll live.”

“Wow.”

“Come on over, if you’d like. We’ll be having some drinks and snacks.”

“Thanks anyway. I want to wash the car.”

“Well, if you change your mind...”

“Sure. Thanks.”

They entered the house. The air-conditioning felt cool and good after the brief walk through the heat. Larry sat in his usual chair at the kitchen table. Jean sat across from him. Pete began to gather bottles from the liquor cupboard.

It was all very familiar, very comforting.

“I’m going to get cleaned up a bit,” Barbara said. “Back in a minute, then I’ll dig up some goodies.”

Pete sang a few lines of “Margaritaville” as he dumped tequila and Triple Sec into his blender. The blender was one of his finds. Someone had put it out for the trashmen. He’d spotted it while driving to work, picked it up and restored it to working order.

It reminded Larry of the jukebox down in the creek bed. He saw himself crouching over it, and then he was on his knees beside the coffin, staring in at the withered brown corpse.

He felt himself start to shrink inside.

It’s history, he told himself. We’re home. It’s all over. That damn thing is fifty, sixty miles away.

“Sure is good to be here,” he said.

“Better than a sharp stick in the eye. Or in the heart, as the case may be.”

Jean grimaced.

Pete split open a couple of limes and squeezed them into the blender, then tossed in some ice cubes. He took long-stemmed margarita glasses down from the cupboard, rubbed their rims with lime, then dipped them into a plastic tub of salt. “Okay, baby, do your stuff,” he told the blender as he capped it and pressed a button. After a few noisy seconds the machine went silent. Pete filled the glasses with his frothy concoction and carried them to the table.

As he sat down, Barbara returned.

“Are you okay?” Jean asked.

“Feeling a lot better.”

She looked a lot better, too.

She was barefoot, wearing red gym shorts and a loose gray T-shirt that was chopped off just below her breasts. Larry guessed that she had taken a washcloth to her legs and belly. The filth and blood were gone, leaving her skin ruddy around the abrasions. The wood had scratched her like an angry cat, and there were broad scuffs that looked as if she’d been given swipes with some heavy-duty sandpaper.

Larry watched as she put together a tray of cheese and crackers.

The back of her looked fine. Tanned, smooth, unblemished.

She brought the snacks to the table and sat down. Pushing out her lower lip, she huffed a breath that stirred the hair on her forehead. “At last,” she said.