Dead Stop (11 page)

And the other
waitress knew damn well she was getting the better end of this deal, even if
she would never admit it.

Stacey had seen
Marisa surreptitiously checking Harley out, even if social boundaries and the
fear of what her family would say prevented her from ever showing even a hint
of availability. Now she had the excuse of claiming she was forced into it by
her friend, and Stacey chuckled at how despite her protestations she had wasted
no time in getting to the bathroom to make sure everything was perfect.

“I done good,”
the impish brunette gloated.

Besides, it
would do the other girl good to spend some time with a guy who wasn’t in total
awe of her.

Of course,
Stacey realized her own problem was just the opposite.

 Her job
would be to coax Deke out of his current awestruck stage without him losing
respect at the same time. She had no illusions that he wasn’t going to be a
project, in more ways than one, but it wasn’t like she was doing anything else
this autumn. The boy needed to find motivation, and a little ambition, but
Stacey figured she was just the girl to help him discover it. Besides, she knew
he was a fundamentally decent guy which gave her a good starting spot to work
with. And he was nice.

As far as Stacey
was concerned…not being nice was a deal breaker.

And speaking of
not nice…

Stacey gave the
rear lot another careful scan before heading for the distant building in the
back. The young waitress knew Libby was back here somewhere, and the last thing
she needed was an encounter with the prostitute while she was alone. The woman
had taken a special dislike to her and Marisa as soon as they had hired on, and
the feeling had been immediately mutual.

Which suited her
just fine.

It had been the
sight of Libby crawling into a rather hideous old trucker’s cab on their third
day here that provided the first common ground she and Marisa had built their
unlikely friendship on. Therefore Libby had done at least one good thing, even
if she were completely unaware of it.

But be that as
it may, right now she just wanted to find Tomas so he could walk her back to
the main building. She wouldn’t tear him a new asshole like Marisa would, but
she wasn’t in the mood for any attitude from him either. The rain was picking
up, and she had always been a little nervous about being outdoors when
lightning was about. Not to mention, she wanted to get back in time to spy on
Marisa and Harley in hopes of catching the big moment.

So as Stacey
walked she kept a cautious eye on the distant row of trucks off to the right of
the garage and locker room. Out there would be where Libby would most likely
emerge if she showed herself. She put a little quickness into her step as the
patter on the cardboard over her head increased. The raindrops started hitting
the asphalt with audible force. It occurred to her she was probably being silly
and Libby had probably holed up in a cab, taking her time with a guy so she
could stay inside and dry while Stacey was out here in danger of getting
soaked.

So get a move
on, girl. Or you’re going to end up making Libby look like the one with all the
sense tonight.

The waitress now
hurried towards the bright rectangle at the right corner of the garage
building, where the smaller metal door stood open. The two large bay doors were
closed, probably in anticipation of the rain, but it was common practice to
leave the “walk-in” door open to allow extra air into the building. So on the
nights Arnold and Leon had reason to stay here late, the appearance of the
bright fluorescent light from within spilling out the door was an expected
sight.

The crows were a
new touch, though.

Stacey slowed
her walk again as she noticed the group of large ebony birds milling about on
the asphalt in front of the door. They strutted and crowded each other like an
inky pool of darkness in front of the entrance to the shop. As she closed the
distance, she could even see a couple on the chair and workbench immediately
inside the door. Then a couple more hopped across the threshold before flying
up and out of sight into the building.

What the hell?

The waitress
paused a second, and fixed a narrow eye on the door.

Were the birds
that desperate to get out of the rain? And if so, why not just get under the
awnings over the rows of fuel pumps? Or under the parked semis? Choosing a
building with three men working in it struck her as a far more unlikely choice.

And where were
the guys anyway?

Stacey could
picture the young Leon and Tomas getting a kick out of birds hopping into the
building, but doubted old Arnold would permit such foolishness. Maybe he was
under a car and the other two were encouraging the birds to come in with pieces
of bread?

A quick glance
to her right showed another dark circle of birds in front of the locker room
door as well. And several of them were likewise making cautious hops into the
building. More of the ebony birds lined the roofline, ignoring the falling
water from the sky. A flash of lightning revealed a third and fourth group also
standing down in front of the trucks. Stacey blinked and tried to make sense of
the odd sight.

What in the hell
was going on here?

An instinctual
unease rose within her at the strange behavior of the birds…and her solitude in
witnessing this weird phenomenon didn’t sit well with her at all. Stacey had
firm opinions about the girls who wandered off alone in horror movies, and this
situation began to uncomfortably remind her of several of them. It was
generally at this point in the film that bodies started turning up, and the big
man with the mask and machete came strolling around the corner of the building
looking for a little “alone time” with the lead actress.

Not funny,
girl. Knock it off.

Stacey snorted
in annoyance at her self induced case of the willies. She liked to think of
herself as more practical than this. Still, the only reason she didn’t turn
around right now and head back for the main building was she didn’t want deal
with the embarrassment of returning without Tomas in tow.

Benny would be
both sympathetic and understanding, of course, but when Marisa found out she
would give her gleeful hell about it for the next two days. Especially after
fixing her up by surprise like she did tonight.

Taking a deep
breath and setting her jaw, Stacey marched in the increasing downpour towards
the door. Enough was enough, and she needed to get Tomas back to the kitchen so
Benny could get back to work and she could get the juicy details on Harley’s
approach to Marisa when it happened. The birds scattered but didn’t fly off as
she walked through them and stepped up to the door. She leaned in to the building
to call out to the men…

…and slapped her
hand to her mouth to keep the call from going out.

Chapter
Four: The Storm

The Storm -
Stacey

The garage was a
slaughterhouse.

And the
slaughter was still in progress.

Ten feet away,
Leon’s lifeless eyes stared back at Stacey from where the assistant mechanic’s
severed head rested next to a toolbox. The concrete floor was literally covered
in blood, and crows dotted all the work benches and shelves, picking at pieces
of flesh they would fly down and snatch back up to their roosts.

A large knot of
figures were clustered into the far corner with their collective backs towards
her. They struggled and pulled at something, while bending as if to take a
closer look at whatever it was. Their skin was gray, and from this distance
looked to be cracked and flaking like old paint. At least what she could see
from the rear. They were covered in filth, and their clothes looked torn and
ragged…although they were comprised of suits and dresses.

Almost half of
these “people” were women.

Stacey froze as
motion caught her attention near the front of the garage. She swiveled her eyes
in time to see another figure come shambling around the end of the car the men
must have been working on.

It was a woman
in what had once been some kind of pale dress. Long black hair hung down,
obscuring most of her face…a fact for which the young waitress was grateful.
She had a severed arm in her grip, and tore at it with crimson dripping teeth
that were far too visible for Stacey’s imagination not to put the rest of the
picture together. Fortunately, the thing’s attention remained focused on its
grisly meal and it didn’t appear to have seen her yet.

But now with her
prize in hand, the horror seemed content to wander away from the feeding pack
and back into the area closer to the door. A couple of crows flew to the
rafters at her approach. All she had to do was look up from her meal and she
would be looking straight at the wide-eyed waitress from only fifteen feet
away.

Stacey had definitely
seen this movie before, and had no illusions about what happened to solitary
women in this situation unless they did precisely the right thing.

She was one
wrong move away from dying horribly.

No fast
moves, girl. You just slowly pull your head back out of this building. Then you
take a good look around to make sure there ain’t nothing sneaking up on
you…then you run like hell. And whatever the hell you do, don’t you dare
scream.

Unfortunately,
things never had a chance to work out that way.

The dead woman
tore a chunk off the arm with her teeth and raised her blood drenched skull to
full view while she chewed the meat. The waitress stopped breathing as the
thing stared in her general direction while it lifted a hand to push more meat
into its lipless maw. Its jaw worked in a ghastly rhythm as the blackened
muscles still attaching it to the skull flexed in oily contractions.

For one brief
second Stacey thought the thing may have failed to see her, then it stopped
chewing as its shriveled eyes locked with hers.

The two
women…one dead and drenched in blood, and the other wide eyed in shock…stared
at each other across the small distance of gore spattered concrete. Stacey
swallowed as the grinning horror lowered the severed arm and tilted its head as
if puzzled by her sudden appearance. It made no noise as it regarded her, other
than a faint gristle-popping creak as its head now leaned the other way like it
was trying to figure out what to do about this new development.

The crows
rustled in the metal rafters above, eager to see the outcome of this meeting.

Stacey fought
the urge to whimper and held her breath…waiting for the one small move that
would dictate her next action. She tensed, eyes still locked with the monster
in the pale dress.

Time seemed to slow
to a stop.

Then the thing
lifted the arm back to its face and tore away another chunk of meat.

It didn’t walk
off, or even turn away. It just appeared content to watch her while it fed on
the arm of one of her coworkers. Stacey struggled not to gag, and kept her gaze
focused on the feeding corpse.

Now what?

She hadn’t had
time to adapt to this new reality…as if it were even possible…and didn’t know
what to do.

The young
waitress wanted nothing more than to turn and put as much distance between her
and this horror show as possible. She wanted Benny…and Marisa…and yes, Deke
too. The realization that all this gore had once been Arnold, Leon, and Tomas
was just beginning to sink in and she knew if she didn’t do something quick she
would break down right here…and that would be fatal.

But she was just
as afraid any sudden moves on her part would cause the rotten abomination in
front of her to attack. For the moment it remained satisfied with its current
meal, but the fact it continued to watch her had unsettling implications. She
felt like a fly that had caught the attention of a spider, but hadn’t jerked
the web hard enough to provoke it.

She didn’t dare
move, and she damn sure couldn’t stay here.

She was trapped.

And of course,
that’s when all hell broke loose.

Behind
her—actually, outside and somewhere to her right—a raucous storm of caws and
flapping wings erupted.

Her nerves tight
as a high tension wire, Stacey jerked her head out the door and whirled to her
right before thinking…and she knew as she did it things were about to start
happening very fast.

To her right,
the puddle of crows in front of the locker room door had launched into a cloud
of whirling night shadows as a hideous pale form lumbered into their midst. It
plodded and mewled, and it took a brief instant for the young woman to realize
what she saw.

It was a huge,
naked man…with three different horrors like the one she had just faced clinging
to him…and they were tearing him to pieces as they rode upon him. Deep bloody
gashes flapped open and closed along his back and sides as he waded out the
door and into the rain. Blood poured down him in streaming rivers, and great
gobbets of meat hung from places where they had been half gouged out of his
flesh. He sobbed and flailed at the things hanging on him, and even during the
split second she watched several more of the dead things clambered out the door
in pursuit.

In the next
instant she remembered her own peril and tore her gaze from the ongoing carnage
to look back into the garage.  The dead woman had already dropped the
severed arm and was halfway to her…hands outstretched and mouth agape like some
kind of attacking animal.

This thing could
move!

Stacey shrieked
and turned to run. There was no time for considering options or even thoughts
of helping the nearby man as he floundered to his knees under the weight of his
attackers. As a matter of fact, one last glance at him revealed a couple of his
tormenters had broken off the attack on him and were now doing a fast lurching
lope in her direction instead.