Smooth Page 6

  Jobie was the odd one out. He was a sixteen-year-old African American, but Coral assured everyone that the boy was brilliant, dependable, from a great family, and well liked by everyone in town for his good manners and good nature. He grinned, despite the circumstances, proud he was included in the group to keep everyone safe and calm. He walked back and forth from the front to the kitchen and to the back as if he were on patrol. Coral said the boy would notice anything off-kilter quickly and would stay alert.

  Annie, Lydia, and Dana moved between tables and the kitchen, delivering orders and filling cup and glasses. Despite the white tablecloths over the bodies with their red blossoms of blood seeping through the fabric, the two tied up men lying complacently in a booth, and a woman with no personality sitting at the counter, the diner seemed almost normal again.

  Almost.

  Chapter 10

  Taps on the glass made everyone jump.

  Pax looked to George and Dan to see what they thought before he opened the door to the two rain-slicked people outside; both were knocking to be let inside and gesturing to the door handle, but Pax didn’t know anyone in town. No one could be sure who they were as they didn’t lower their hoods, but George said he was sure the badges were real and that the glossy plastic-covered bodies were police.

  With that part confirmed, Pax opened the door, and two figures came inside, shook off their umbrellas before they hung them up, and then carefully shed their slickers to hang them alongside the umbrellas.

  Pax, Dan, and Jake readied themselves to fight if the two people were violent.

  “You have a mess here,” the woman said. She was dressed in the police department issued grey shirt, black slacks, and black books, and she patted at a mass of dark red hair that bounced in a heavy horsetail down her back. She wrinkled her nose as she looked at the tablecloths, covering the bodies on the floor.

  Their whiteness blossomed in places with red flowers of blood. Gently, she pulled back each cloth, surveyed the bodies, covered them back, and then stood. She rubbed the toe of one boot against the calf of her other leg, her nose wrinkled as she took in the scene.

  The State Police would have hell with the crime scenes all over town since they were far from secured, but right now, the danger was real and far from being over. At least this crime scene was dry, unlike many.

  Ronnie reminded Pax of a nice, big red bay horse with her mass of red hair, sturdy body, and strong energy; she was tall and had sturdy bones. She was dismayed to see the diner in such a mess. “Whole family, unreal.”

  “This one is chewed on,” the man in grey, her partner, stated. “And who are you?” He finished viewing the bodies and turned with a grimace, looking at Pax who was a newcomer to town.

  Pax introduced himself and explained a little of why he was in town but saw the police officers, Ronnie and Mark, were not very interested. Mark had only asked for Pax to fill in gaps and because it was protocol.

  Pax didn’t care but told them, “That boy, this fellow over here, Myke, they called him, did that to him. He chewed at the boy and hid under the table.”

  “Myke?”

  Pax pointed to the man who was tied up with strips of tablecloths and stowed in the same booth as was the tourist. “That’s how they identified him. I saw it myself; he was eating that kid under the table in that booth,” Pax gagged as he said it.

  George repeated the events he had witnessed while Mark got himself a cup of coffee, and Ronnie asked for a soda. Both officers nodded often during the story as if it all made perfect sense.

  “Aren’t you gonna take notes?” Pax asked.

  “I would if we had anything that made sense to put in the notes,” Mark said.

  “Still….”

  “Seriously?”

  “Ummm,” Pax muttered.

  “Every case tonight has been about the same: some person got wet in the rain, got violent, got calm. That’s it.

  It’s best never to be around anyone who is getting out in the rain, but after he does whatever it is he does, he is fine if someone likes manikins. They just sit, stare, and do nothing. They’re harmless after they finish their little anger outburst, not like they’re gonna run away,” Mark said.

  “Murderers,” Dan said, “guys, they killed that family under the tablecloths, and lookit Marla.”

  Ronnie shrugged and said, “I know, Dan. I know it’s bad, but trust me, the killings are all over town. We have dead people in cars, in buildings, and on the streets; everyone has gone nuts. Right now, we don’t know what to do but to tell people to stay inside and try to be safe.”

  “I saw Rick running people down,” Gus said.

  Ronnie and Mark looked at one another. “That explains why he didn’t answer his radio,” Ronnie said.

  “I think it’s the rain,” Annie said.

  Ronnie sipped her soda, looking at Annie as if she had said something very ordinary. “Of course, it is.” People murmured around them, and Ronnie looked around at them to either side, her face a mask of confusion and surprise. “You didn’t know?

  Mark took up the conversation. “The rain came, and people went crazy, got violent; Doc says as near as he can tell….”

  “Doc is working on this?”

  “Of course he is, Annie; jeez, we aren’t some back water town,” Mark chuckled. “We took some of them down to the clinic, and Doc’s been examining them, says he doesn’t see anything outwardly, but in the brains…well…the ones he has looked at…the brains have just gotten all smooth. They don’t have all the ridges and stuff like normal…whatever that means,” Mark said.

  “Like zombies.”

  “Zombies don’t have smooth brains; they have viruses in their brains,” someone else called out.

  “There are no zombies,” Coral moaned.

  “I told you they’re going smooth,” Annie said.

  Mark spoke up, “No zombies, that’s ridiculous. It’s some pollutant or something in the rain, maybe, and it messes with the brain chemicals and makes people violent as if they did PCP or something. After it wears off, there’s no danger. It’s all over town, but no one is a zombie. Jeez.”

  “So what is the plan? The cure?”

  “We don’t know,” Ronnie nervously patted at her hair again. “Don’t get wet, and then we wait until the rain stops. Meanwhile, we arrest the perps and clean up the mess and figure out what caused it. Rain or not, if perps hurt anyone, or if you know anyone who is hurt, then he is going to be arrested and tried for the crime. Business as usual.”

  “It isn’t usual, Ronnie,” Coral argued.

  “Well, we’re doing the best we can. Until it’s daylight and the rain stops, this is the best we can do. Stay dry.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Pax? Is it Pax? Okay, hey, we don’t know any more than you do. Maybe there’s something in the rain, like a pollutant causing the problems. We don’t wanna panic people, but the State boys said these incidents are happening there, too, where it’s raining. Doc is working on it, though.”

  “State boys?”

  “State Police,” Ronnie said.

  “That’s pretty crazy. So the bodies are supposed to just stay here?” Pax asked.

  “I guess so,” Ronnie said. “But you have it good here. It’s warm and dry, and we can wait the rain out.”

  “Unless it rains forever,” Dana whispered.

  “Hush,” Annie snapped. She tried to give Dana a frown, but the idea had crossed Annie’s mind as well. What if it did keep raining? What was wrong with the rain?

  She handed her friend a plate and told her to take it to a table in the corner. “Over there, Dana.”

  Eyes averted from the tablecloths covering the bodies, the patrons ate their food quietly, listening to the exchanges and what the police had to tell them, but every so often, they glanced back into the rain that fell relentlessly from the sky as the night pressed in closer.

  Stress hadn’t taken away Coral’s ability to cook well, but the patrons only ate
to keep busy.

  It was full on dark, and the streetlights hardly pushed back shadows. In intermittent flashes of lightning, figures darted in the trees that dotted the park.

  Coral slid behind the counter and poured hot coffee for Mark. “I’m gonna keep those two tied, and we’ll stash them in the back room if you’ll help me. I can keep everyone here warm, fed, and dry, and then everyone can head home when the rain stops. I’ll do my part. If anyone comes in wet and crazy, Mark, I tell you if he does, then we’re going to hurt him.”

  “You’re within your rights,” said Mark as he helped Coral and the rest take the two tied men to the back storeroom where they locked them inside. Mark told both men they were under arrest but received no response other than blank looks.

  Neither man fought back but just looked at the men around them, unmindful of the sticky blood they had on their own hands or on the hard, concrete floor of the storeroom. Mark said that once they were this way, they didn’t seem to get violent again, but Coral refused to untie the pair.

  The fact was no one knew what was happenin'

  Chapter 11

  “Coral, my girl is home alone. I didn’t get a sitter ‘cause I am supposed to be off by now,” Lydia said, pulling Coral to the side of the diner. “I’m really worried.”

  “Sam is alone?”

  “Yeh.”

  Coral studied an empty cup before tossing it into a bin to be washed. “She wouldn’t have called to go out into the rain, Hon. She’s likely curled up and watching T.V., okay? Did you try to call her?”

  “No signal.”

  “Chris wasn’t gonna go by?”

  “He’s at the shop, tearing apart a motor; you know how he gets when he’s working on a motor. I told Sam to order pizza, and I’d eat some when I got home. What if the pizza guy….”

  “She’s okay, Lydia. You have to keep yourself safe for her. When this rain stops….”

  Lydia set her jaw. “I’ve gotta get home, Coral. I have to get to Sam.”

  “You can’t go traipsing out in this rain. Maybe it’s not the reason for all this insanity, but if it is….” Coral had lines of concern on his face. Lydia wasn’t just a good waitress, but she was also like a daughter to him, and he was fond of her daughter, Samantha. He knew that Lydia meant to go check on her child. He thought Sam was just fine and that no one needed to go out in the rain.

  “Gus, you’d let Lydia borrow your rain slicker and umbrella, won’t you?” Annie asked.

  “Why sure. Why does she need it? No one needs to go out in that. It ain’t safe.”

  “She’s gotta get to Sam and check on her.”

  “Oh.”

  Annie frowned. “Well, she can’t go alone. I am not about to watch her go off alone with lunatics out there.”

  She turned to Ronnie and Mark who were devouring slices of apple pie topped with ice cream. They were members of the police force, and it was their job to protect and serve the community, but they didn’t look as if they were going to get up and do anything.

  Ronnie paused with the fork halfway to her mouth. “Now, Annie, come on. You called us ‘cause you have a situation here. We can’t all go running around in the rain and get sick and attack people. We’re here working this crime scene.”

  “You want seconds of that crime scene work?”

  “Please.”

  Annie thumped seconds of the pie onto their plates. The pie was good with flakey crust, covered with sweet filling and tart apples from the farmer’s market across the street.

  “I tell you what, Lydia, you can use Gus’s slicker, and I can use Ronnie’s, and we’ll run to my Jeep. A little rain won’t keep us down. And we’ll drive out to your place and get Sam, all covered up, and bring her back here. It won’t take but a few minutes to do it,” Annie said. “I’m not letting you go alone.”

  Pax shook his head. “Not without me you aren’t going. Officer Mark, if you’ll let me borrow your slicker?”

  “All of you can’t go out there….”

  Everyone begun speaking at once, and the buzz grew louder.

  “Pax?”

  “Ummm?” He was listening to the officers describe what they had seen out in the streets while he listened to Annie and Lydia make plans, but everyone in the diner was talking at once.

  “Pax? You locked the door back?” Coral asked.

  “Dan did. You did, right Dan?” Pax hesitated.

  Chapter 12

  “I….” Before Dan could finish his sentence, three wet dripping people barged into the diner, snarling and moving determinedly through the blood at the entrance way, without caring that they tracked it through the room. No, they weren’t zombies, but they were wet, groaning people who didn’t look normal anymore; they were determined to hurt someone. Anger and insanity filled their eyes.

  A woman was barefoot, her feet were cut, and her sundress was torn and soaking wet; her hair was in strings about her face. With a staggering surge of energy, she jumped up and launched herself over a partial wall, right on top of the nearest table, sending dishes and glasses flying in all directions. She squatted there, looking at the people around her.

  People screamed.

  At the table, the couple and teen daughter had just finished eating as much as they had appetites for and were about to stretch their legs a little, walking about the diner when the crazy, wet woman banged onto the table in front of them.

  They pulled away from her with shouts, telling her to go away. The daughter slammed a plate into the woman’s side, fighting back, as her parents got out of the booth.

  The woman dripped water onto the table and hunkered down, snapping her teeth at the teen girl. The plate crashed into the woman’s nose, splattering blood everywhere; the girl, Carrie, almost fell as she slid out of the seat, grabbing her mother’s hand. She had gotten a good punch in with the plate, allowing her to get away. “Mama,” she called, dodging the wet woman’s claws that reached for her hair.

  “Get back, Daisy,” the man and woman shouted, “what the hell are you doing?” The man threw a balled-up napkin at Daisy, angry for the mess she had caused and more than a little frightened by her behavior. Dishes and food were all over them and the floor. His daughter grabbed for her mother’s hands, trying to avoid Daisy’s wild lunges.

  Daisy, perched on the table, canted her head to one side like a bird of prey and snagged a lone fork from the table; it was the only utensil she hadn’t knocked to the ground.

  Working at the only video store in town, Daisy would normally chat energetically to everyone who came into her store, and she knew this family well.

  They rented a scary movie and a comedy every Friday night for their family time.

  When the dad went out of town for work, the mom and daughter came in and rented seven or eight movies for the weekend, some romantic comedies and some horror movies. Daisy would always ask them what food they had planned and if they were going to get manicures, but she didn’t talk now; she snarled and growled, brandishing the fork.

  Unexpectedly, she leaped from the table to use her weight to push the teen girl, Carrie, to the floor.

  Carrie threw an arm up and felt the tines of the fork sink into her forearm all the way to the bone. She shrieked. The fork hit the bone, slid, and went out the other side. Daisy lost her hold on the fork as Carrie rolled away. Carrie’s father grabbed Daisy and lifted her off the floor before throwing her to the ground.

  He kicked Daisy in her head. And it felt good to do that; he liked the sound and the feeling.

  When she paused in the attack, he kicked again. Even when she was curled up and not moving, he kicked Daisy. He wanted to continue until her head and face were little more than pulp, but no one was really watching him anyway, so he lost interest. Had his daughter not laid a hand gently on his arm, he might have gone on kicking the woman forever.

  But then again, the rain water from Daisy that had had soaked his arms when he was trying to pull her away from his daughter was dry, and he felt a bit
better. The young girl’s parents grabbed her to get her away from her attacker and behind the counter.

  The man who had come in with Daisy was a ne’er-do-well who lived at the trailer park and cooked meth sometimes and sold it to make his money; he used as much as he sold.

  Periodically, Ronnie and Mark rousted him. He was Bill, the local drug addict and distributor, and he carried his own weapon: a brick that he used to bash at people randomly as soon as he pushed through the doorway; Coral ducked one way, and Pax grabbed Annie and Lydia to duck in another direction.

  In his hand, the brick swooshed.

  Trying to get the brick away from him, Ronnie dodged a blow but suffered a nasty scrape on the side of her head, making her dizzy while she cursed. Physical combat in a small town wasn’t a daily activity. She could handle it, but it wasn’t what she was used to. She thought that she should pull her gun and maybe shoot Bill, but in her years of duty, she never had pulled her weapon.

  Mark slammed his gun down on the man’s head hard enough to knock him out, and several people lay bloodied from the blows of the brick, so it was like a war zone. Mark was angry enough to hit the man a few more times but held back.

  All the diners had jumped up to run but had scattered in all directions, so they tripped over one another and skidded on the rain-wet floor. A child screamed after flying to one side; a loud pop probably meant a broken arm. Her mother cradled her in a corner.

  The third person who had come in was a man in his late twenties, big and brawny. He waved a big Bowie knife as he glared at the diners who were sliding and slipping out of his way.

  In disbelief, an older man made a waving motion of dismissal at the big man because he recognized him and liked him just fine and then looked down at his stomach, groaning, his hands clutched at a spreading red stain. He was gutted.

  The big man didn’t seem concerned as he pushed the older man away and carried on through the diner, his head moving back and forth as if he looked for a certain person or specific type of prey.