room.
Five isn’t my lucky number. I don’t actually have a lucky number any more than I have an official Odd Thomas tree or flower, or bird. Claiming to have a lucky number wasn’t a lie, at least not a serious one, because no one could possibly be harmed in any way by such a statement. It was instead a finesse. I finesse a lot.
I was drawn to Shower 5 by psychic magnetism. Considering that I was searching for the rhinestone cowboy and considering that this room was unoccupied, I’m not sure what I expected to find.
If he had been here earlier, perhaps I detected a residue of psychic energy much the way that a bloodhound can track an escaped convict by the scent of the man’s shed skin cells, drops of sweat, and other spoor.
Although the shower room smelled of a lemon-scented disinfectant and seemed to have been thoroughly cleaned between users, I sought paranormal evidence of my quarry by touching the chrome spigots on the sink, the flush handle on the toilet, and the pull on the shower door. None of them inspired a frisson of weirdness reminiscent of the trucker in the supermarket parking lot.
As I considered whether I should turn on the water and pretend to take a shower for the benefit of Zilla at the attendant’s desk or just leave without explanation, movement at the periphery of vision caused me to turn to my left in alarm. I remained alone. The activity seemed to be in the mirror, to which I stood at such a severe angle that I could not see what moved impossibly in the reflection of this stilled chamber.
When I stepped to the sink, the shower room in the mirror was not lined with white tiles. The walls were bare concrete. Instead of several flush-mounted lights in the ceiling, a single fixture with a cone-shaped metal shade dangled on a chain. Although I felt nodraft, the hanging lamp swung lazily, its swooning circle of light causing phantoms of shadow to glide around like dancers in a slow waltz.
Something spattered wetly against my right cheek, and I turned to find myself no longer in the Star Truck shower room but in a drab chamber, as grim as a dungeon, with concrete walls like those in the mirror. Maybe not concrete. It was more like … the
idea
of concrete. I don’t know what I mean by that. And now I felt the draft that swayed the hanging lamp. More startling than the sudden change of venue was the presence of the rhinestone cowboy, whose spittle slid down my face.
His materialization, like a summoned demon manifesting inside a pentagram, caused my breath to catch in my throat, and the big .45 Sig Sauer pistol with the silencer, aimed at my face, fully paralyzed me.
My only weapon was my wit, and though it could wound, it could not kill. In fact, at that moment, I couldn’t think of a cutting line and, disgusted by the gob of spit, I said only, “Yuck.”
In the gloom, the spiky white hair made him look like one of those troll dolls that, to me, have always appeared less cute than psychotic. His cyanide-blue eyes, which seemed to glow from within, matched the poisonous character of his words: “Are you all out of Granny Smiths and Red Delicious, Johnny Appleseed? I’d like it if you explained to me who and what you are, but I’d like it even better if you were just dead.”
Without giving me the courtesy of a brief reprieve to tell him what
I
would like, he pulled the trigger, and the flesh of my throat dissolved like glass, a thousand shards of pain shattering through me as blood fountained up my throat and drowning darkness pulled me down.
Seven
----
DEATH PROVED TO BE DREAMLESS, IF DEATH IT WAS, AND then I woke, lying on the white-tile floor.
The sunglasses had been flung off my head and broken at the bridge. They lay directly under the fluffy white towel and washcloth that hung from the bar on the door to the roomy shower stall.
I was on my side, in the fetal position, and I might have been crying for my mommy if Mother hadn’t been a deeply disturbed woman who, during my
Five isn’t my lucky number. I don’t actually have a lucky number any more than I have an official Odd Thomas tree or flower, or bird. Claiming to have a lucky number wasn’t a lie, at least not a serious one, because no one could possibly be harmed in any way by such a statement. It was instead a finesse. I finesse a lot.
I was drawn to Shower 5 by psychic magnetism. Considering that I was searching for the rhinestone cowboy and considering that this room was unoccupied, I’m not sure what I expected to find.
If he had been here earlier, perhaps I detected a residue of psychic energy much the way that a bloodhound can track an escaped convict by the scent of the man’s shed skin cells, drops of sweat, and other spoor.
Although the shower room smelled of a lemon-scented disinfectant and seemed to have been thoroughly cleaned between users, I sought paranormal evidence of my quarry by touching the chrome spigots on the sink, the flush handle on the toilet, and the pull on the shower door. None of them inspired a frisson of weirdness reminiscent of the trucker in the supermarket parking lot.
As I considered whether I should turn on the water and pretend to take a shower for the benefit of Zilla at the attendant’s desk or just leave without explanation, movement at the periphery of vision caused me to turn to my left in alarm. I remained alone. The activity seemed to be in the mirror, to which I stood at such a severe angle that I could not see what moved impossibly in the reflection of this stilled chamber.
When I stepped to the sink, the shower room in the mirror was not lined with white tiles. The walls were bare concrete. Instead of several flush-mounted lights in the ceiling, a single fixture with a cone-shaped metal shade dangled on a chain. Although I felt nodraft, the hanging lamp swung lazily, its swooning circle of light causing phantoms of shadow to glide around like dancers in a slow waltz.
Something spattered wetly against my right cheek, and I turned to find myself no longer in the Star Truck shower room but in a drab chamber, as grim as a dungeon, with concrete walls like those in the mirror. Maybe not concrete. It was more like … the
idea
of concrete. I don’t know what I mean by that. And now I felt the draft that swayed the hanging lamp. More startling than the sudden change of venue was the presence of the rhinestone cowboy, whose spittle slid down my face.
His materialization, like a summoned demon manifesting inside a pentagram, caused my breath to catch in my throat, and the big .45 Sig Sauer pistol with the silencer, aimed at my face, fully paralyzed me.
My only weapon was my wit, and though it could wound, it could not kill. In fact, at that moment, I couldn’t think of a cutting line and, disgusted by the gob of spit, I said only, “Yuck.”
In the gloom, the spiky white hair made him look like one of those troll dolls that, to me, have always appeared less cute than psychotic. His cyanide-blue eyes, which seemed to glow from within, matched the poisonous character of his words: “Are you all out of Granny Smiths and Red Delicious, Johnny Appleseed? I’d like it if you explained to me who and what you are, but I’d like it even better if you were just dead.”
Without giving me the courtesy of a brief reprieve to tell him what
I
would like, he pulled the trigger, and the flesh of my throat dissolved like glass, a thousand shards of pain shattering through me as blood fountained up my throat and drowning darkness pulled me down.
Seven
----
DEATH PROVED TO BE DREAMLESS, IF DEATH IT WAS, AND then I woke, lying on the white-tile floor.
The sunglasses had been flung off my head and broken at the bridge. They lay directly under the fluffy white towel and washcloth that hung from the bar on the door to the roomy shower stall.
I was on my side, in the fetal position, and I might have been crying for my mommy if Mother hadn’t been a deeply disturbed woman who, during my
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