The process of cauterization had been ugly.
After a few panicked calls, they found a doctor of ill-repute who was willing to patch up their wounds and hide them away for a couple of days, in exchange for almost all of the cash in the briefcase.
“You couldn’t have got us a car with more legroom?” Lou asked, shifting uncomfortably. “I can’t make it all the way to Canada in this.”
“Then we’ll go to Mexico.”
“Seriously, George. We need to steal something else.”
“Yeah, let’s steal a big roomy clown car with flashing lights that makes wacky sound effects. We certainly wouldn’t want to be in a non-descript automobile when cops, bad guys, and the general public are all looking for us.”
“I didn’t say it had to be a clown car. Just something roomier.”
“At least your arm takes up less room now.”
Lou frowned at him. “Are you really going to make jokes about my hand? Seriously?”
“I’m just trying to make you laugh so you don’t cry.”
“I’m not gonna cry.”
“Good.”
“Do you think I’m a werewolf now?”
“Are you bringing that up again?
“Is it really such a terrible thing if I want reassurance? I got bit. I got bit really, really bad.” He held up his bandaged stump. “See?”
“You saw how quickly it affected Michele. It’s been two days. Maybe it’s a special kind of bite. An injection or something.”
“I hope so.”
“I told you, I’m going to watch over you. You start to feel wolfy, we’ll put you in the trunk. Everything’s going to be fine. I didn’t get my throat torn out by Ivan, so I’m sure as hell not going to get it torn out by you.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m feeling optimistic.”
“So am I.”
Lou turned on the radio. Some hip-hop music blared over the speakers. “Do you like this song?”
“It’s crap.”
“Good. I think we’ll listen to it.” Lou began to move his head back and forth to the beat. “Groove with me, George.”
“You look like an idiot.”
“I’m an idiot with rhythm. C’mon, groove with me.”
George watched him for a moment, then smiled. He cranked up the volume and the two thugs grooved off into the sunset.
THE END
About Jeff Strand:
Jeff Strand is the four-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of such insane novels as PRESSURE, DWELLER, BENJAMIN’S PARASITE, A BAD DAY FOR VOODOO, and GRAVEROBBERS WANTED (NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY). He is grateful for yet another opportunity to piggyback off of more successful authors. He lives in Tampa, Florida, and complains about cold weather in the 60’s. You can visit his Gleefully Macabre website at www.jeffstrand.com
Other Books by Jeff Strand
A Bad Day For Voodoo
Stalking you Now
I Have A Bad Feeling About This
Dead Clown Barbecue
Faint of Heart
Fangboy
The Sinister Mr. Corpse
Dweller
Benjamin’s Parasite
Pressure
Kutter
Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary)
Single White Psychopath Seeks Same
Casket For Sale (Only Used Once)
Lost Homicidal Maniac (Answers to “Shirley”)
Gleefully Macabre Tales
The Severed Nose
Disposal
Mandibles
Elrod McBugle on the Loose
Out of Whack
How to Rescue a Dead Princess
The Haunted Forest Tour (with Jim Moore)
Draculas (with JA Konrath, Blake Crouch, and F. Paul Wilson)
Suckers (with JA Konrath)
EERIE
a thriller
by BLAKE CROUCH
& JORDAN CROUCH
EERIE copyright © 2012 by Blake Crouch & Jordan Crouch
EERIE is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Blake Crouch and Jordan Crouch.
From newcomer Jordan Crouch and Blake Crouch, author of the runaway bestseller Run, comes Eerie, a chilling, gothic thriller in the classic tradition of The Shining and The Sixth Sense.
TRAPPED INSIDE A HOUSE
On a crisp autumn evening in 1980, seven-year-old Grant Moreton and his five-year-old sister Paige were nearly killed in a mysterious accident in the Cascade Mountains that left them orphans.
WITH A FRIGHTENING POWER
It’s been thirty years since that night. Grant is now a detective with the Seattle Police Department and long estranged from his sister. But his investigation into the bloody past of a high-class prostitute has led right to Paige’s door, and what awaits inside is beyond his wildest imagining.
OVER ANYONE WHO ENTERS
His only hope of survival and saving his sister will be to confront the terror that inhabits its walls, but he is completely unprepared to face the truth of what haunts his sister’s brownstone.
You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.—C.S. Lewis
OCTOBER 1980
“How much longer, Daddy?” Grant Moreton asks from the backseat of the ‘74 Impala. The boy catches a glimpse of his father’s eyes in the rearview mirror. They aren’t angry or even stern. Just tired and sad—the way they’ve looked for the past year.
“We’re five minutes closer than the last time you asked. Do you remember how long I said it would be then?”
“Twenty minutes?”
“That’s right. So what’s twenty minus five?”
Grant glances over at the girl with braided pigtails sitting beside him. He is two years older than Paige, but his five-almost-six-year-old sister already understands math in a way he never will.
“What is it?” he whispers. “What’s the answer?”
“No cheating,” their father says. “Your sister helps out too much with your homework as it is.”
Grant stares through the window as he tries to calculate the answer. There are mountains out there, but nothing to see at this time of night beyond the occasional glint of light from a distant house or a passing car.
On the radio: game six of the World Series. The Phillies are on the brink of beating the Kansas City Royals and the roar of the crowd comes like white noise through the speakers.
Grant feels a thump on the side of his leg. He looks over. Paige leans in, whispers, “It’s fifteen.”
He glances at the rearview to make sure their father hasn’t noticed this treason.
“Fifteen,” he says.
“You sure about that?”
Grant shoots her a sidelong look.
She responds with an almost imperceptible nod.
“I’m sure.”
“That’s right. Nice job, Paige.”
Grant flushes with embarrassment, but in the mirror, his father’s eyes are gentle.
“No worries, kiddo. That’s what sisters are for.”
Jim Moreton rolls down his window and flicks his cigarette outside. Grant glances back, watches it hit the pavement in a spray of sparks.
A sharp chilled blast of Douglas-fir fills the car.
They ride on in silence listening to the game.
Through the windshield, the road ahead of them winds, steadily climbing, the double yellow emerging out of nothing into the burn of the headlights.
The boy rests his head against the window. He shuts his eyes and retrieves the square of fabric from his pocket. Brings it to his nose. Breathes in the smell of his mother’s nightgown. If he closes his eyes, he can almost pull the scene together, the way it should be—her in the passenger seat, his father’s arm stretched across the back of her headrest. Grant is having a harder time picturing her face lately without help from a photograph, but the timbre of her voice retains sharper and truer than ever. If she were in the car right now, she’d be talking over the game. Playfully arguing with Jim about the volume of the radio, how fast he was driving, the graceless way he slingshots the car through each hairpin turn. Grant opens his eyes, and even though he knows she won’t be there, the shock of the empty seat still registers.