I tilted my head and listened. James’s shouting was getting louder, which meant that he was getting closer. I had no choice but to go deeper inside the building. I swatted the tarp aside and barreled through the entryway, which was linked to a long hallway. I ran blindly until I reached the end, then stopped in my tracks, gasping.
This was the last thing I’d anticipated.
35
The room was chockfull of marijuana plants that stretched back as far as the eye could see. Clustered in groups of four, they were arranged in neat rows, with a wide aisle dividing the plants down the center. There had to be at least five hundred shrubs.
The place hummed with electricity. Fans were anchored along the wall in gaps, aimed at the plants. Dangling from the ceiling like tangled threads of spaghetti were dozens of bare light bulbs on wires, the source of the creepy green glow. Directly above the plants were more lights, though these were off: huge rectangular-shaped fixtures with foil-covered hoses shooting out from the tops. Power cords ran along the walls like coils of snakes.
At the far end of the aisle was a tattered old recliner. In it sat a passed-out snoring hippie with two silver braids, liver spotted hands, and a sizable potbelly. He had to be pushing eighty. He was like an Atomic Era refrigerator, old but tough, and still kicking. I ran up to him and gave his shoulder a rough shake. “Hello? Sir? Please wake up!”
The tips of his fingers were coated in white, and the front of his tie-dyed shirt was streaked with crumbly fingerprints. On the floor between his skinny chicken legs sat an empty donut box, a half-full liter of Dr. Pepper, and a pineapple-shaped ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. What caught my eye was the shotgun angled against the side of the recliner. The stock of it was engraved with a name:Cal.
I shook him again. “Um, Cal? Please, please, wake up!” My drugged voice had the words coming out thick and off-key, like I was talking through a JELL-O mold.
He stirred, yelling, “What’s goin’ on?”
“Shh!” The fans were so loud that a regular killer wouldn’t have heard him, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t a regular killer who was perusing me.
His eyes flew open. “Hey! Whatcha doing in here?” His hands fumbled for the shotgun, seizing it by the barrel and pulling it up. “You’re trespassing!”
I hissed, “Please, be quiet! He’ll hear you!”
“How’d you get in?” Now he had the shotgun in his hands and was clambering to his feet. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you, darlin’.”
“Listen to me,” I slurred. “There’s a bad man after me. We need to hide! If we don’t, he’s going to kill—”
“You sound funny. Are you on drugs?”
“Yes, but—”
My new friend Cal swatted a hand at me. “You’re talking all kinds of crazy! Get the hell out of here, druggie!” The audacity of such a statement coming from a man growing pot in an abandoned warehouse.
I clenched my fists at my sides. Seriously? Out of all the people I could beseech for help, it had to be this guy and not an off-duty cop or angry-tempered MMA fighter with something to prove.
“I was drugged, and the guy who did is dangerous!” I grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “He. Is. Going. To. Kill. Us. Get it? If we don’t hide, we’re going to die!”
The man glared at me like I was an idiot. “Hellooooo? Do you see this shotgun? Ain’t nobody gonna kill me—"
A crash just outside a building, then a taunting voice coming through the tarps. “Ooooliviaaaa, I’m coming for you, you stupid bitch! I can smell you all over this place. Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
I clawed at Cal’s arm. “Take my damn arm off, why don’t you!” he snapped.
I mashed my hand down over his stubbly mouth. I was done trying to explain. He was clearly not picking up what I was putting down. “Quiet!”
“Ooooliviaaaa, You can run but you can’t hide . . .”
I grabbed the hippie’s shirt and tugged him down the middle aisle, hoping the reek of the pot plants would mask our scent. But, no, it was too late. James had spotted us.
His hand was around my throat in an instant. I gagged, clawing and punching his forearms in a feeble attempt to break free. Fighting was useless. To the vampire, I was the equivalent of a hulking bodybuilder getting pummeled by an infant. He laughed in my face.
“Stop that, you pale sumbitch!” Cal yelled, whacking James across the back with the shotgun barrel. He was the antithesis of what I’d consider a knight in shining armor, but I had to admire the old man for his chivalry. “I don’t want to shoot you, son, but I will if I have to!”
James let go of my throat and turned to the hippie. I coughed and retched for air, fighting nausea as the blood returned to my face.
“Don’t!” I tried to warn Cal.
“Beat it, you old fucker,” James sneered, flashing his fangs. He shoved my hero senior citizen on the shoulder, sending him flying into a row of plants. The rectangular lights above swayed and cracked together. A few of the planters tipped over. Cal lay motionless on his back amongst a mess of broken pottery and dirt. Thorny codger that he was, he still maintained his grip on the shotgun.
