Chapter Twenty-Three – Sam

 

As we headed down the highway to Garrison, Faith talked to me about the weird house out beyond the edge of Eb Shook’s property. In turn, I told her about what I’d heard from Eb. About the pale, bulletproof man who’d been stalking his animals nearly forty years before. About the history of mutilations in the area, going all the way back to the Civil War.

I’ll be honest, at that point I probably should have called Tabitha or Kris to check in, to give them a new point of investigation, but I didn’t.

Instead, I was thinking too much about the lingering feel of Faith’s neck on the tips of my fingers. Of how warm they felt after they’d brushed over her skin while I’d put my talisman on her, of how completely sated I felt just by hearing the sound of her voice as she told me about her talk with Ike.

“Think it has anything to do with it? With the pig?”

“I don’t know,” I said, completely honestly. “I mean, that place sounds pretty wild, though.”

“What about that guy Eb described? What do you think of that?”

I shrugged as I steered the Camaro down the narrow country highway. “He seems like one of the types who robbed the coroner’s office, right?”

“That one,” Faith said, slowly. “That one, you thought you hit. Right?”

I coughed, cleared my throat. That was right. I had. Shit. It was getting harder and harder to keep my stories straight. “Well, yeah, I mean, that’s what probably happened. I just missed him, is all. Which is probably what Eb did, too. Shot wide. From the way he told it, it was dark as sin out there, no telling if he could have even hit the guy. Probably just scared him off.”

“Right,” she said, letting the word draw out slowly from her mouth. “That’s what I thought. I mean, it’d be silly to think that there was actually some bulletproof man out there. Running around killing people’s farm animals. Wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I said, completely straight-faced. “Because, some guy running around killing people’s farm animals is completely normal on its own.”

She reached up, touched the spot just above her breast where the Hand lay against her skin. “Good point.”

Was she thinking about the feel of my own fingers on her skin? I didn’t know. But, I found myself hoping that she was.

Who was I kidding, though? She’d never fall for someone like me. A shifter, half man and half wolf. Especially not after I’d had to spend the last two days lying through my teeth at every turn. In the end, it wouldn’t even matter that I’d just been trying to protect her. No, what would really matter was that I’d concealed the truth from her for so long, even while she was getting pulled deeper and deeper into this mess.

But what else could I do? Just let her get hurt?

I shook my head as we passed the sign designating the city limits for Garrison, population one hundred twenty.

“Whoa!” Faith said as we approached the city. “Slow down unless you want a ticket!”

“What’re you talking about?”

“These small towns around here are awful. Did you not see the speed limit change back there?” She leaned over close to me, the smell of her hair filling my nose, as she checked my gauges. “Trust me, you’re going like twenty over.”

I hit the brakes and downshifted. “I didn’t even see a sign!”

“I know, I know,” she said. “They come out of nowhere. It’s how the cities around here even stay paid.”

I slowed down as I approached the stop sign, downshifting again, bringing my car to a seeming crawl as the car’s speed dropped to just over thirty miles per hour.

Up ahead, the local police department’s squad car was poked out from behind a decrepit billboard that had more holes than it did advertising surface.

“See?” Faith said. “He was just waiting for you.”

“Geez,” I said as I flicked on my blinker, waited a moment the length of a heart’s beat, and turned left. About a block ahead, a small cafe was doing some brisk lunch business, and I pulled into one of the diagonal parking spots on the street.

“Rosebud Cafe,” Faith said as she peered out the windshield at the big plywood sign and its bright red lettering emblazoned along its width. “Sounds good to me.”

I killed the engine, and we both climbed out of the Camaro.

Main Street in Garrison was, unsurprisingly for such a small town, pretty dead. Or dying, at least. The sun shone down on the blasted, dusty streets, and the fading paint of the historical buildings that were all scrunched up together like sardines in a tin. No parking lots or anything, just the kind of spots where I’d just put the Camaro. Off in the distance, where the main drag through town abruptly stopped, I saw a kid wandering, kicking a can just as lonesome-looking as he did as he headed off down the road.

“Charming place,” I said.

“Small town Texas at its finest. Surprised places this small are still around, even. This one doesn’t even have a stop light.”

I nodded in agreement as we both headed up to the restaurant’s front door.

“Thank you,” Faith said brightly as I held the door open for her, and we both stepped inside.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the sudden dimness, with Faith and me both blinking as we took in our surroundings, the smell of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy making my mouth water and my stomach grumble, again.

But, there was a hint of something else below it all that I didn’t at all expect. A metallic, bloody earthiness that took me back to my last hunt. The smell of raw meat and fresh organs, of the insides of butchered animals.

The cafe was little more than a single large room with about a dozen tables spread throughout. Brickwork pillars, all clearly load-bearing, were staggered around the room with small pieces of artwork hanging from them. Across the back of the room, a line of tables had been shoved together to form a long dining board, with two opposing rows of rough-looking men in coveralls chowing down on their early lunches. Other than the workmen, the place was practically deserted except for the staff.

Most strange of all, though, was how quiet it was. No talking, no laughing. Like a library dedicated to fine country dining, where only the scrapes of silverware on ceramic plates, like the rustling of pages, were allowed. Not even the men in the back, who looked as if they should have been the boisterous sort, made a noise. No coughs, no clearing of their throats, no laughs. Not even a chuckle.

An older hostess, gray streaks running back through her ashen blonde tresses, came bustling up. “Two?” she asked, her voice like a gunshot in the near silence of the dining room.

“Yes,” Faith replied. “Please.”

With a flash of yellow, coffee-stained teeth, the hostess led us to one of the side tables, and we squeezed in on opposite sides of it. She dropped menus, took our orders of sweet tea, and disappeared to the back.

“This place is…” Faith began in a low voice, clearly conscious of how quiet the diners at the back of the restaurant were, but trailed off.

“Weird as all hell?” I finished.

She nodded, her eyes wide as she craned her head around to look past me at the workers.

“Stop staring,” I said.

“How can I not, though? It’s just so weird.”

“Maybe they’re third shift, and just tired,” I offered as I looked over the laminated menu in front of me. The selection was minimal, and restricted to what you’d expect in a roadside diner. Chili, steaks, burgers. Coleslaw and fries or mashed potatoes with everything. “Know what you’re getting?”

Faith fluttered her eyes as she focused on me.

“Food?” I asked, nodding to her menu.

“Oh, right.” She picked up the menu, began to look it over.

I quickly picked out what I wanted, but kept my menu in front of me as I mulled over the workers at the back of the restaurant. As I did, I began to count.

One. Two. Three.

Scrape.

One. Two. Three.

Scrape.

One. Two. Three.

Slurp.

Jesus, were they eating in unison?

Still holding my menu in front of me, I fought the urge to turn around and stare at the workers. To somehow confirm with my eyes what I was hearing with my ears. I held my breath, continued the count.

One and Two and Three.

Scrape.

“Think I’m going to have the BLT,” Faith said after a moment more of looking things over, bringing me back to the real world.

“Chicken fried steak,” I said after a moment, before setting my menu aside. “Can’t go wrong.”

She laughed a little, laid her menu on top of mine.

“Where to next?” she asked.

“Back to Potterswell,” I said, pulling my phone out and checking the time. “See if we can’t finally get into the archives at the library, see if there’s any more information now that Eb has given us what he had.”

“Think we’ll actually find anything?” she asked, uncertainty evident in her voice.

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. No telling until we look, though.”

Our hostess, who was doubling as our waitress, came back over with our teas, and Faith and I broke off our conversation so we could give our orders. Just as she was about to leave, I stopped her.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said in a voice that was unconsciously low. “I have a question.”

“What can I do for you, honey?”

“It’s about that table back there,” I asked, still nearly whispering.

Her eyes shifted almost imperceptibly as she looked at me, seeming to dance in their sockets for a moment as her smile seemed to wither away. “What about them?”

I opened my mouth and was about to ask the waitress what their deal was, but before I could answer, Faith had reached across the table and put her hand on mine. “My boyfriend was just curious about whether or not where they work is hiring, that’s all. We just moved to the area, and he’s between jobs at the moment. Any leads help, ya know.”

I shot Faith a look, but she didn’t even bother to return it, just squeezed my hand a little more tightly as her smile broadened.

“Oh,” the waitress said, the shriveled-up smile returning to her face. “Well, they work for the meatpacking facility out on highway 69, just a few miles outside of town. G&I Meat? The one owned by Mr. Ironside?  You heard of it?”

A meatpacking facility would certainly explain the smell of fresh meat that I’d detected earlier.

Faith turned to me, her head cocked to the side a little. “That’s right,” she said, nodding. “My friend Veronica mentioned that place to me just a few weeks ago. She had a chance to do some private parties a few months back, but turned it down. You should go in and apply there, babe. They pay all right, from what I hear.”

“Good luck,” the waitress said. “Mr. Ironside is pretty particular about who he hires. Got contracts and everything, and no moonlighting. He prefers local people, but if you're willing to sign on the dotted line, he'll probably be more than happy to hire you on.”

“Well,” Faith said, nodding past me in the direction of the workers, “my baby here is a hard worker. I’m sure this Mr. Ironside would be more than happy to give you a fair hearing on a job.”

I squeezed her hand right back, a genuine smile coming to my face as I relished the feel of her skin on mine. “That’s right.”

“What else do you do?” the waitress asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Oh,” I said, “this and that. I write mostly, I guess, but looking for something a little more steady while we, uh, try to settle down.”

“Well, I hope it works out,” she replied in that same hushed tone. “You two make a real sweet couple.”

Then she was gone, disappearing back into the kitchen to place our orders.

“What was that?” I mouthed soundlessly.

Eyes as big as saucers, she pointed to her ear and mouthed: “Listen.”

Nothing. No scraping of forks, or of knives. No slurping of soup or tea or coffee. Just the hum of the whirling fans, high above us, the muffled clanking of pots in the kitchen. Near perfect silence.

My mouth suddenly dry, I swallowed as a sense of dread crept up the back of my neck. As I sat there listening, I began to realize what that feeling was.

Eyes. Eyes looking right at the back of my head.

I glanced back over my shoulder.

The men had stopped eating, their forks halfway to their mouths, suspended in midair over their plates. All eyes were on me and Faith. Cold, vacant, emotionless. Empty.

I turned back to Faith and just nodded very carefully. “Right.”

She forced a smile as she unconsciously reached up to touch where the talisman I’d given her rested against her skin. I watched her throat bob as she too swallowed hard.

I squeezed her hand, which was still entwined with mine. “Gonna be okay,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”

Almost as if on cue, the workers thankfully returned to their lunch.

One and two and three, scrape.

“Should we leave?” Faith asked.

I shook my head. “No. Just eat our lunch. They’re just weird, that’s all.”

The look on her face, though, told me she didn’t believe me for a hot second.

They continued on like that as Faith and I sat quietly, just holding hands with one another, exchanging worried looks as we waited for our food.

As we sat there, my mind’s wheels began to turn at a feverish pace.

The workers behind us? The way they ate soundlessly, moved in perfect synchronization? What other signs of a cult did I need?

And, thanks to the waitress’s help, I knew exactly where to start looking next.