The license plate?‘STEPHENS-1’
“Okay, group meeting,”I said.“Sheriff, I’m going to have to pull Tyler away for a minute or two.Is that alright?”
“Fine by me,” he said.“I haven’t had the chance to kick back and set my feet up in some time, and let me tell you.There’s an electric air and an old world charm to this place that makes me feel right at home.”
“That is fantastic,” I said.“Al, Carol.Come on.”
I pulled them into the kitchen and slid the metal shudder shut.
“Good news, bad news,” I said.“Which first?”
“Bad news,” Tyler said.
“We’re fucked.”
“Tell us the good news, then,” Carol Anne said.
“I found where the Stephens are.Their SUV is back behind the barn.No trace of them at all.”
“Oh, fantastic,” Brother Al said.“So now we must babysit the Sheriff until he decides to leave.”
“If he decides to leave,” I said.“If he doesn’t get suspicious and decide to investigate or call in reinforcements.He knows my name and my face, and even knows where we are.I have no idea how we’re going to get out of this situation.”
“I know,” Brother Al said.There was an air of fierce determination on his face, and the deviousness of his expression made something in my stomach churn.“We could just convince him to leave.”
“How?”I asked.
“Consider,” Brother Al said.“Did we not start this adventure off on the promise of a horror movie?What say we put on a real show for the Sheriff…”
He explained his idea to us, in detail, exhaustively.And as I sat and listened, I thought: ‘This will never work.Jesus, if you can hear me.I give up.I give in.Just get me through this last part and I’ll become a nun.I’ll quit all of my bullshit.I swear it.’
“Are we agreed, then?”Brother Al asked.
I closed my eyes.
“Yeah, sure.Why not,” I said.“What’s the worst that could happen?”
11.
Sheriff Stephens was nota complicated man.Every night before bed, he took his medications for his heart.One nitro, one water pill.Then he’d brush his teeth and say his prayers regular.Stare at the ceiling and sigh a bit.Then roll over and, within five seconds, he’d fall straight to sleep.
Whatever the reason was, the Sheriff could not sleep this night.How could he?He wondered.How could anybody sleep in this unbearable heat?He sat up, kicking the covers off, and watched through the window of the Doll Room at the laughing and hooting from the churchyard.
“Too damn hot.Brother’s gone missing, or ghosted me.And now these bastards,” he said, to himself, because he was the kind of person that often spoke to himself.He got to his feet and dressed himself quickly, making sure he strapped his belt around his waist and holstered his gun.The safety was… on, he thought.
He stepped into the hallway.The whole building was quiet.From here, there was a long corridor down to the lobby.He stepped forward and jumped when a metal shutter slid itself closed near him.
“Who’s there?”he called out, banging.
Only giggles greeted him.He didn’t like this.Not one bit.
Still, he pressed on.Through the long hallway and into the lobby.Another door was open here—the moonlight streaming on its open entrance, and he entered again and found himself in another room of doors.At the far edge, a set of steps that went down.A swirl of fabric moved down the steps—and he followed it, increasingly uncomfortable in his heart.
Something smelled like blood down here—blood and the tanks at the zoo, the old reptile tanks his hoarder father used to have.He held a part of his jacket up to his nose and carefully made his way to the bottom of the steps, aware as hell of the squeaking of every board as he went.When he reached the bottom, he reached out with a hand and carefully, slowly moved the basement door open.
There was a lamp next to him—magenta, and round, with a shade over the top.The slice of light it left slid into the open doorway.There was something thick—something pulsating, moving and undulating in the gloom.For a moment, something with a mop of blondish hair squirmed its way from the shadows, but before his eyes could adjust, the Sheriff saw something like a dinner plate with a stripe down the middle move closer… and closer.
He leaned forward, pulling at his back pocket with a flashlight and beaming it up.The dinner plate was glistening—held as if suspended in air by the back.And then something slid over it, transparent and slick, and the stripe down the middle shrunk in on itself, into a narrow slice of iris, and he soon realized he was face to face with a gigantic eye.
