Richard Laymon - Flesh

Then he noticed the sudsy water swirling down the drain.

Gooseflesh crawled up his back.

Don’t be crazy, he told himself. There’s a metal drain basket down there, nothing could come up.

He dropped to his knees. His fingertip went into the drain only as far as the first knuckle before it touched the obstruction.

Okay. No problem.

Your only problem, pal, is your head.

Two hours alone, searching that damned restaurant.

If it was going to get you, it would’ve gotten you then.

It didn’t come home with you. It’s probably already found a new home—in whoever broke into the restaurant between Thursday night and this afternoon. Some lucky bastard is running around with the thing up his back, looking for a meal. Give us this day our daily broad. Good old Barney, he can joke about it. He should’ve gone in there. He might be worried about drains, himself.

Jake stayed in the shower until the water started turning cold. Then he climbed out, dried himself, took another drink of bourbon and took the revolver out of the bag. In his bedroom, he combed his hair and put on a robe. He carried his drink and revolver into the living room. Sitting on the sofa, he crossed his legs to keep his feet off the floor. He rested the gun on his lap. Then he swung the telephone over from the lamp table and dialed Barney’s home.

Barney answered by saying, “Higgins.”

“It’s Jake.” His voice sounded all right. “Did Applegate get back to you?”

“Sure did. Y’were right on the John Doe from the van. Perfect match on the teeth ’n blood type. How’d it go from yer end?”

“I checked out everyone who was at the crime scene Thursday night. Nobody was carrying.”

“How’d y’make sure?”

“Strip searches.”

“They musta liked that. Tell’m why?”

“Damn near. I said Smeltzer had a parasite infestation. They were pretty cooperative.”

“Coulda told’m I’d ordered a circumcision survey.”

Jake ignored the remark. “After I finished with them, I went out to the Oakwood. Somebody’s been in there. The front and back doors had both been forced. I found a bag of flour on the kitchen floor.”

“A bagga what?”

“Flour. Like you use for cooking. You know.”

“Somebody makin’ cookies?”

“I doubt it. No oven. There were some footprints, too. Somebody had stepped in the blood and left tracks. A bare foot. About a size seven. And somebody had polished off a bottle of vodka the Smeltzers had left out in the bar area.”

“What d’ya make of it?”

“Maybe a derelict. The size of the footprint, though, makes me think a girl was in there. Maybe a couple of kids from the college had themselves a party.”

“But no sign of a’ old Sneaky Snake?”

The skin on Jake’s thighs and forehead seemed to go stiff and tight.

“Y’looked, didn’t ya?”

“I looked. I spent more than two hours looking. I checked every inch of that place.”

“No luck, huh?”

“I didn’t find it—”

“M’I hearin’ a but on the way?”

“Yeah, But.” He felt breathless, a little dizzy. He sat up straight and filled his lungs. “Down in the cellar, behind the stairs, I found a half a dozen eggs.”

“Eggs?”

“Yeah.”

“Like chicken eggs?”

“No, not like chicken eggs.”

Barney whistled softly into the phone. “Like its eggs?”

“I…yeah, I think so. They were clear. Like…almost like jelly beans, but soft. Red, but clear. I could see inside them. And each one of them had a little…like a little worm.”

“You puttin’ me the fuck on, Corey?”

“Little gray worms.”

There was a long silence from Barney. Then he said, “Where’re they, these eggs?”

“Still there.”

“You left ’em!”

“I stomped them flat.”

“You crazy? Shit!”

“What was I supposed to do, bag them for evidence?”

“We coulda’ had tests run, found out—”

“I know. I know that. I…I freaked out a little, Barney.”

There was another long silence. “Y’ all right?” Barney asked in a soft voice.

“I’m managing.”

“Yer not a guy loses it.”

“Oh, I can lose it pretty good.”

“I shouldn’ta had y’go in there alone. I’m sorry. Y’gonna be okay?”

“Sure.”

“Y’mashed the little fuckers.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Well, maybe just as well. Guess we don’t want’a be takin’ any chances.” Jake heard him sigh. “So momma wasn’t there, huh?”

“I think…it could be anywhere, but there’s a good chance it went out of that place with whoever it was that broke in.”

“The party kids.”

“It’s just a guess.”

“No idea who they were?”

“Just that one was probably a female, and I don’t imagine she went in that place by herself. Probably with a guy. We might lift prints off the door handles and the vodka bottle. I bagged the bottle, so we might as well check it. But I don’t think that’d get us much of anywhere. We’ve got three thousand students at Clinton U., about five hundred more at the high school, print cards in our files on maybe two dozen.”

“How ‘bout strip searchin’ every kid in town? I’ll help y’out ’n do the gals myself.”

“Yeah, sure. I almost wish we could. That or print them all, it’s about the only way we’d find the thing.”

“No guarantee the woocha got one a’ the kids, anyhow,” Barney said.

“Whoocha?”

“A bad-ass whatchamacallit. Coulda gone off ’fore the kids showed. Gotta move in mind?”

“Not really. Maybe stake out the Oakwood. I’m pretty sure the thing’s gone, but there’s always a chance that the kids might return.”

“Slim t’none. Y’better get some rest. Our whoocha got into someone, maybe it’ll fly the coop and be outa’ our hair. It sticks around, then we’ll have us a missing person or a dead body next day or two, and maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Either way,” Jake said, “we’ll have to go public with it.”

“Y’had to remind me,” Barney muttered.

“If I didn’t, Applegate would.”

“Yeah. We talked it over when he called. We’re gonna hold off till noon Tuesday. Then it’s press conference time if we haven’t nailed it. You, me ’n him, we’ll be instant celebrities—the three stooges that panicked the nation. Oh, what fun. We better get that fucker by then.”

“I hate to just wait around.”

“No point wastin’ yer time, you haven’t got any leads. Just sit tight, try t’get yer mind off it.”

“Yeah.”

After hanging up, Jake finished his bourbon. He went into the kitchen to start dinner and was peeling a potato over the sink when he realized that he had left his revolver on the sofa. He didn’t go after it. For some reason, his jitters had gone away.

Maybe it was the bourbon. More likely, it was talking to Barney—talking about the thing and its eggs, and about the break-in. Especially about the break-in. He had no doubt, any more, that the creature had found a new host. It wasn’t slithering around, looking for a chance to sneak up on him. It wasn’t ready to lurch out of the garbage disposal in a burst of potato peelings and bite his neck.

It was up the spine of a kid who’d gone looking for fun in the wrong place.

Jake wondered if the kid was getting hungry.

“It was a loverly dinner,” Celia said as they left the Lobster Shanty. “And you are a loverly person.”

“My pleasure,” Jason said.

She swept an arm around his back and pressed herself against him and kissed him. They were standing in the light beneath the restaurant’s portico, but the parking valet was nowhere in sight. Neither was anyone else. Jason held her, feeling the wet heat of her mouth, the soft push of her breasts, her belly flat against his belly. He was getting hard. He knew she could feel it. She squirmed, rubbing him. He slid a hand down her back. There was only smoothness through her gown, not even a band at her waist. He caressed the firm mounds of her rump.