Richard Laymon - Flesh

The skin prickled on the nape of Jake’s neck.

He backed away, sidestepped at the rear of his car, and dug into his pocket for the keys. He found the trunk key. He fumbled it into the lock and twisted it. The trunk popped open, blocking his view. He snatched out the machete and rushed clear.

Roland hadn’t moved.

Jake saw nothing squirming toward him on the pavement.

With the machete in his right hand, the revolver in his left, he hopped onto the curb and approached the passenger side of the VW. When he could see that the windows were rolled up, he dashed to the middle of the street. The windows on the driver’s side were shut too.

Whether Roland was alive or dead, the snake-thing was still in the car. Probably. Either inside Roland, or writhing around loose, trapped.

Jake stepped close to the driver’s window and peered in. He glimpsed the gaping hole where Roland’s left eye should have been and quickly looked away from it.

Roland was reclined in the seat, the front of his shirt bloody, his head tipped back slightly against the headrest. His position prevented Jake from checking the back of his neck.

The head beams left the lower areas of the car’s interior in darkness. If the creature was on a seat or the floor, Jake couldn’t see it.

There was only one way to find out whether it was still up Roland’s spine: open the door, shove him forward, and look.

No way.

Not a chance.

Jake holstered his pistol. Watching Roland, he walked backward to his car, slid in, and took a pack of matches from the glove compartment. He got out. He back-stepped to the trunk and picked up the can of gasoline.

He poured gas onto the curb beside the VW, onto the pavement behind the car and near its driver’s side, then past the front to the curb again, completing the circle. Then he splashed the car, dousing it with the pungent liquid and running trails out to the surrounding gas. Finally, he crouched and flung gas into the space beneath the undercarriage.

He stopped when the can felt nearly empty. He wanted to save some gasoline, just in case.

He capped the can. Hurrying into the road, he stepped over the wet path of the circle. He set the can down behind him, squatted, struck a match, and touched it to the stained pavement.

A low, bluish flame with flutters of yellow and orange stretched out in both directions. It met intersecting paths and rolled toward the car.

Jake picked up the can and backed away. By the time he reached the far side of the street with it, the car was a blazing pyre. He could feel its heat warming his clothes and face. The fire lit the night, shimmering on the leaves of nearby trees, glowing on the walls and windows of the apartment house beyond it, shining on the hood and windshield of his own car.

A car parked behind the VW seemed to be safely out of range.

He wondered if he should move his own car.

Or himself.

Hissing, popping sounds came from the fire. Then a sharp crack made Jake flinch. He heard glass crash on the pavement.

“Christ,” he muttered.

He rushed forward until the wall of fire stopped him. Shielding his eyes, he squinted through the flames at the wide, wedge-shaped gap in the driver’s window.

Nothing came out.

As he watched, flames enveloped Roland. They crawled up from below, sweeping up his face and igniting his hair. Jake gagged as the face blackened and bubbled. Then dense smoke covered the horror.

Jake heard distant shouts of “Fire!”

He heard more windows burst.

Then he was rushing around the car, brandishing his machete, peering through the blaze at one broken window after another. Smoke poured from the openings. But nothing else came out.

Not yet.

The car’s gas tank went up with a muffled boom. Jake staggered back as heat blasted against him. A spike of glass flew past his cheek. Another stabbed his thigh. He pulled it out. The car was still rocking from the impact.

Now, it was an inferno.

The fucker’s cooked, Jake thought. Cooked. It’s a goner.

For the first time, he noticed a few people watching from the other side of the street. He turned around. More were on the lawn in front of the apartment house. He took a step toward two young men, probably students. One wore a robe, the other wore only boxer shorts. Both men backed away. No wonder, Jake thought. I’m not in uniform, I’ve got this machete.

“I’m a policeman,” he called. “One of you guys call the fire department.”

“I already called,” said a brunette woman in pajamas. “I hope nobody’s in that car,” she said.

“Nobody alive,” Jake said.

“How’d it start?” asked the guy in the boxer shorts.

Jake shook his head. Then he turned away. The fire was still blazing. Several of the spectators from the other side of the street were inching forward for a better view.

When Jake rushed into the road, some of them backed off and one young couple turned and fled, the woman shrieking. Apparently, they had missed the news that he was a cop. Or couldn’t bring themselves to trust a guy, cop or not, who was running at them with a machete.

“Everybody stand clear,” Jake yelled. “The fire department is on its way.”

“Somebody’s in the car!” a man shouted, pointing.

“Get back,” Jake warned.

A woman turned away, hunched over, and vomited.

“Everybody move back, back to the sidewalk. There’ll be fire trucks coming in.”

One couple ignored his warning. They were standing over Jake’s gas can, frowning at it and muttering to each other. The girl wore a pajama shirt. The guy wore pajama pants. The girl crouched and reached toward the can.

Oh, shit, Jake thought. “Don’t touch that!” he snapped. “It’s evidence. The arsonist might’ve left prints.”

Clever, he thought.

Dumb asshole, why didn’t you put the can back in your trunk?

As the girl backed away, Jake slipped the blade of his machete through the can’s handle, raised it, and carried the can toward his car.

No point leaving the thing in sight. The fire boys might not be so easily fooled, and he would have a rough time trying to explain why he torched a vehicle with a suspect still inside.

The gas can and machete were locked safely in his trunk by the time he heard the sirens.

The firemen rushed the car with chemical extinguishers. Blasting flames out of the way, they pulled Roland’s carcass off the seat and dragged it into the road. Two firemen fogged it with their extinguishers, then left it there and joined those trying to knock down the car fire.

Jake looked at the corpse. It was still smoking. It was a charred, featureless hulk that hardly resembled a human being. If he hadn’t watched the body being removed from the car, Jake wouldn’t have been able to tell whether it was faceup or facedown. He knew it was faceup. But it had no face. Or ears. Or genitals. The surface was a black, cracked crust flecked with frothy white from the extinguishers. Fluids leaked from cracks in the crust.

When the honking blast of the extinguishers went quiet, Jake heard the sizzling sound that came from the body. It sounded like a rib roast.

It didn’t smell like one.

Jake stepped back, struggling not to vomit.

A fireman showed up and spread a blanket over the body.

Smoke rose from under the blanket.

Jake kept watch.

The fire was out, the car a smouldering ruin, by the time the coroner’s van arrived. The men stayed inside the van, smoking cigarettes, waiting, as instructed, for Applegate to show up.

Soon, Steve arrived in his Lincoln Continental. He climbed out, wearing a warm-up suit and carrying a doctor’s bag. He joined Jake. “What’s going on?”

“This is our man,” Jake said, nodding toward the covered corpse. “Earlier tonight, he killed a girl and tried to nail her roommate. He killed Rex Davidson. There’s a good chance he had our snake-thing up his back when he did it.”