Richard Laymon - Flesh

“Oh, terrific,” Steve muttered. “Let me guess: you want a little on-the-scene exploratory surgery to determine whether it’s inside him.”

“Good guess,” Jake said.

“Shit.”

Steve went to the van and spoke to the men through its open window. They climbed out.

Wearing gloves, they uncovered the body and lifted it into a body bag. They zipped the bag. One man retrieved a gurney with folding legs from the rear of the van. They hoisted the bagged remains onto the gurney, rolled it to the van, and pushed it in.

“Is this a solo job?” Steve asked Jake. “Or do I get the pleasure of your company?”

“I’ll stick with you.”

“Good decision. Congratulations. Have a cigar.”

Once the cigars were lighted, Jake followed Steve into the rear of the van. He pulled the doors shut. The lights remained on. The smoke from the cigars drifted into vents in the ceiling.

Steve knelt on one side of the body bag, Jake at its end with his back to the doors. He drew his revolver.

“Yes,” Steve said. “I was about to suggest as much.”

“The thing’s probably dead,” Jake whispered. “If it’s in him at all.”

“If it remained between the spine and the epidermis, I would agree with you. But just suppose, when the situation heated up, it took a trip into this fellow’s stomach? It passed through Smeltzer’s stomach, so obviously it has no problem with the acids.”

“This guy must’ve cooked for fifteen minutes,” Jake pointed out.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Charred on the outside, rare in the middle. That’s how I prefer my steaks.”

Jake squinted at Steve through his rising cigar smoke. “So if the thing went deep, it might be all right?”

“Very likely fit as a fiddle.”

Jake muttered, “Shit.”

Cigar clamped in his teeth, Steve opened his satchel and pulled on a pair of surgical gloves. He slid the zipper down the length of the body bag.

In spite of the van’s ventilation system and the aroma of the cigars, the stench that rose from the burnt corpse choked Jake. His eyes teared as he gagged, but he watched the bag’s opening and held his revolver steady.

Steve seemed unaffected. He bent over the remains. With the tip of a gloved finger, he prodded a blackened crater a few inches above the groin. “Was this fellow shot?” he asked, his words slurred by the cigar in his teeth.

“Just in the hand.”

“This might be the creature’s exit.”

“Couldn’t the fire have made that?”

Steve shrugged. He pushed with his finger. The charred surface in the center of the crater crumbled, and his finger went in deep. He wiggled it around. “Nope,” he said. He pulled his finger out.

Then he grabbed the far side of the body bag, lifted and pulled it toward him. The corpse rolled out, bumping facedown onto the gurney. Black flakes fell off it.

Jake switched the revolver to his left hand long enough to wipe his right hand dry on his trouser leg.

Steve spent a while looking at the back of the corpse. Then he took a scalpel from his satchel. He turned his eyes to the barrel of Jake’s revolver. “Try to miss my hands if we have a sudden visitor. They mean a lot to me.”

“What about that exit hole on the other side?”

“If that’s what it is.”

“Great.”

“Ready?”

Jake eased his forefinger over the trigger. “No, but go ahead.”

Steve pressed the blade of the scalpel to the nape of the neck, pushed it in, and slid it downward.

“Jesus,” Jake muttered, watching the crust of skin crumple at the edges of the incision.

Nothing came bursting out.

Steve brought the blade again to the back of the neck. He inserted its point into the slit and poked around. “I think we may be all right,” he said. He grinned at Jake. “Just watch it don’t come popping out his arse.”

“Thanks.”

Setting the scalpel aside, Steve used both hands to spread open the incision. The outer layer of black cracked and flaked off with a sound like dry leaves being crushed. Steve dug in with all the fingers of his right hand. After probing inside the wound for a few moments, he said, “The thing was here, all right. I can feel a definite separation of the lower epidermal layer from the muscle fascia.”

Picking up the scalpel again, Steve ran the blade the rest of the way down the spine. He did more exploring with his hands.

“Yep,” he said.

“So it was in him, and now it’s gone,” Jake said.

“That’s how it looks. Took a powder through the stomach hole. That’s my professional opinion. Of course, the thing might still be inside him…lying low, so to speak. Won’t know that, for sure, until I’ve done a full autopsy. I’ll get the boys to bag him up again. We’ll keep him in cold storage and I’ll call you over so you can ride shotgun when it’s time for the big event. Though, as I said, I’m almost sure it’s not in him at this point.”

“If it’s not,” Jake said, “the thing is either ashes inside his car or else…it’s not.”

“And looking for a new home,” Steve said.

“Or already found one,” added Jake.

The ringing of a bell woke Alison up. She raised her face off the pillow and turned her head. After a moment of confusion, she realized that she was lying on the sofa in Jake’s living room. The lamps were on. No light came through the curtains, so it wasn’t yet morning.

The bell rang again.

She threw back the sheet and sat up. A strap of her negligee hung off her shoulder. She brushed it back into place.

The front door was open a few inches, the guard pulled taut.

Jake, she remembered, had warned her to barricade herself in the bedroom. Not wanting to take his bed from him, she had chosen to sleep on the sofa. She had heeded his warning enough, however, to fasten the door chain to prevent him from entering while she slept.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Jake.” A belt with a holstered revolver swung through the opening and dropped to the floor. “I’ll step away. Bring the shotgun, unchain the door, then back off and keep me covered.”

“Just a minute.” She lifted the sweater off the coffee table and slipped into it. She fastened the middle button to keep it shut across her breasts. The shotgun was propped against the table. She picked it up and went to the door.

She pushed the door shut. She glanced down at herself.

The negligee was awfully short.

Her face heated.

He’s seen me in it before, she told herself. Hell, he’s seen me in nothing else.

She slid the guard chain to the end of its runner, let it drop, and opened the door.

Jake was standing on the lawn. He shook his head. “That’s no way to cover me.”

Shrugging, Alison lifted the butt of the shotgun off the floor. She clutched the weapon in both hands. But she didn’t aim at him. She backed away.

Jake entered the house and shut the door. A miasma of unpleasant odors came in with him. Though more than two yards in front of him, Alison smelled gasoline, cigar smoke, sweat, and a disgusting, sweetish stench that she couldn’t recognize.

Jake’s face and clothes were smeared with soot. One leg of his tan trousers was torn at the thigh and matted with dry blood.

“What happened to your leg?”

“Flying glass. No big deal.” He untucked his shirt, opened the buttons, and took it off. Then he turned around.

Alison stepped closer. The odors got worse, but his back looked fine. She reached out with her left hand and ran fingers down his spine. She felt no bulges. His skin was cool and damp. “Except for the stink,” she told him, “you’re fine. What happened?”

Jake turned to face her. “I found Roland. He’s dead. He was already dead by the time I found him.”