David Barbour - Shadows Bend

Two silhouettes emerged from the car, their blackness detaching from its blackness. No door had opened. No sound issued. The black car was utterly silent, and the figures glided over the ground, not leaving footprints. They stopped in front of one of the bloody, tooth scraped skeletons, and then a sort of rustling sound could be heard as they spoke to each other. There was a sort of hissing noise-perhaps the sound of some alien laughter-then one of the figures leaned down to pick something up. Two blood-spattered strips of beef jerky. The animals, for some reason, had left them. A hand seemed to emerge from the shadow of one of the black figures. It held out a single strip of the beef jerky, and now the other figure took it. More hissing laughter, and then the wet smacking sound of chewing, the sound of teeth sticking in tough meat, the sound of amused shoggoths.

EAST ON HIGHWAY 70 to Las Cruces, through the night and the following morning, and then Highway 80 to EI Paso. Howard felt good to be back on Texas soil, even if it was only for a hundred-mile drive through. When they reentered New Mexico, they began passing an increasingly annoying array of billboards that advertised the local caverns; they followed the dusty wind into Carlsbad, New Mexico. It was just before four, and Howard pulled up at a diner to eat before the last stretch. Glory was decidedly uncomfortable, bound in the back seat, sweaty and numb and itchy, though out of politeness and concern, she tried not to show it.

“How about it, HP?” said Howard. “She’s been nice and ladylike for a while now. I say we untie her so she can get a civilized meal.”

Lovecraft looked at Howard, then into the backseat, where Glory sat like a penitent or a convict. She had shifted her ropes as much as the slack would allow, and her skin was red, beginning to chafe from the irritation. “Glory?”

“I suggest you boys park in the shade somewhere where no one will see me. Leave the windows open and bring me back something cool to drink if you can.”

“How do you feel?”

“Okay. Like myself, if you know what I mean.”

“Will you let us know the moment you feel another attack coming on?”

“I don’t want to go in.”

“We can’t leave you out in the car like a dog,” said Howard.

“The consequences.”

“I’m willin’ to risk them if HP is.”

“I vote to be civilized,” said Lovecraft. “Civilized but vigilant. And with ropes at the ready.”

“You boys sure know how to talk about a lady,” Glory said with a smile.

“It’s decided,” said Howard. With Lovecraft watching for any hints of renewed possession or treachery, Howard leaned into the back and untied her.

Glory rubbed at the red patches on her wrists and ankles, smoothed back her hair, and got out of the car, somewhat unsteadily. “The Crystal Cave,” she read. “I would have thought ‘The Pegasus’ from the picture.” ,

The place had obviously renamed itself to capitalize on the cave traffic-the old sign, still legible despite the peeling paint, had the flying horse of the Phillips 66 logo leaping over the black silhouette of a mesa. The men didn’t say anything, but Lovecraft found the image uneasily reminiscent of the story of Perseus and the Gorgon. He hardly needed any reminders of the mythic monster they were on their way to face-the stylized angel on the hood of Howard’s Chevy was reminder enough.

Inside the stale-smelling diner, Howard escorted Glory to the ladies’ room and posted himself outside while she freshened up. She emerged looking like her old self despite her now permanently disheveled hair.

Lovecraft had already ordered, and his food arrived just as Howard and Glory slid into the booth.

“Well,” said Howard, “I see you’re a changed man. Is that a ham and egg sandwich I smell?”

“It is customary to indulge a man for his last meal,” Lovecraft replied dryly. “I compromise my frugality only out of my own uncertainty.”

“Well, we can, bring your cans of beans along for the expedition then. ”

“As you wish.” Lovecraft was obviously famished. He had been looking out of the corner of his eye at his sandwich all along. “Listen,” said Glory.

The two men turned their attention to Glory.

She jerked her head quickly to indicate a table where some apparent locals were talking. Everyone else in the diner seemed to be eavesdropping as well, and from what they could gather from the conversation, which was interrupted again and again by long intervals of silence brought on by stuffed mouths, the troopers they had left behind were dead.

“They was handcuffed to their car and murdered in cold blood,” one man said. “I shudder ta think of the other possibility, though I hear the county coroner said, and for the record, that it can’t rightly be ruled out.”

There was a pause. “What can’t be ruled out?”

The clatter of silver, a slurp of coffee. “It’s possible they was alive and the animals got to ‘em. Ain’t much meat was left on the bones, but there’s marks that say they mighta been tryin’ to fight ‘em off.” Someone at the table coughed, and the others made noises of disbelief. “Swear that’s just like I heard it. Talked to a couple police just a half hour ago. If ya don’t believe me, wait for the news report.”

Glory looked pale, and Howard clenched his fists on the table. From the counter, the portly owner flung down a towel and swore so loudly everyone heard him. “What’re you lookin’ at?” he said. “I’d just like to get my mitts on those sons a bitches who left those boys out there.” The customers turned back to their tables.

“How can you eat after hearing that?” said Glory.

Lovecraft had picked up his sandwich and was nonchalantly chewing a mouthful. He took his time to swallow and wipe his lips. “I would hardly want such an expensive repast to get cold, regardless the circumstances,” he said.

Glory turned away in disgust and listened to the weather report: a windstorm warning was in effect-gusts of wind up to seventy miles per hour could last until tomorrow.

“Look,” said Howard. “How about we get our food to go? I don’t feel like bein’ in public at the moment, if ya get my drift.”

THEY RETURNED TO the car with their food, Lovecraft having gone to the unusual length of ordering seconds and leaving an adequate tip. “What was the rotund fellow saying?” he asked as Howard pulled out.

“Wanted to know why we was leavin’ in such a hurry. I told him we had to beat the storm. Said we were headed toward Santa Fe.”

“A good ploy,” said Lovecraft. “But might he not notice us driving off in the wrong direction? That might cause suspicion.”

“Look, HP, the only suspicious thing in our gang at the moment is you. The way you’re dressed, the way you talk, what you talk about, the big production you made of leavin’ a tip back there-all these folks are gonna remember you, not us.”

Lovecraft was quiet.

“You boys don’t go losing your tempers,” said Glory. “We have enough problems ahead of us as it is.”

“Sage advice from a woman whose name should be Legion,” Lovecraft mumbled under his breath.

They drove a couple of miles down the road before Howard pulled off to tie Glory up once again. They continued the rest of the way dwelling on their own thoughts until they reached the first landmark in the desolate stretch of country in the Guadelupe Mountains. It wasn’t much more than five miles from Carls bad Caverns, but it could have been another time, millions of years earlier, or another world, millions of miles from the earth. For a while after they turned off the main road, there seemed to be absolutely no sign of life, not even the ubiquitous tumbleweeds to which they had grown so accustomed. It was as if the sun had burned everything away in this landscape, sterilizing it so thoroughly that nothing had ever grown back.