Hellhound on My Trail by D. J. Butler Page B

“It’s just you and me, and everything is hunky-dory.” His own words made him feel uncomfortable. He rapped Adrian on the forehead with his knuckle. “Everything is nice and easy, no pressure. Let’s have a picnic.” Mike cleared his throat and looked around to be sure no one was watching him. The thought that he might see Chuy made him a little nervous, but he guessed that he had enough liquor in him to hold the apparition at bay for the moment. He hoped he did.
    The rabbi’s twitches were getting more extreme. He flopped around like a live fish on a hot sidewalk, and Mike frowned. What was that black stuff bubbling up between the old man’s teeth?
    And why had Twitch picked up the gas can earlier? What was it she had said … that the rabbi was infested ?
    Mike stood up and stretched to get a better look at Rabbi Feldman. The substance bubbling inside his mouth was beginning to well up past his lips and spill down onto his throat, and onto the chest on which he lay. It was black as tar, but was formed into discrete globes. Just like caviar, Mike thought, not that he’d eaten much caviar himself, other than what he’d stolen from weddings he’d played at. Only each of the bubbles was quivering, and as they fell and hit the floor, they continued to shake and roll around.
    And the rabbi stank of rotting meat.
    Just like the Baal Zavuv.
    “Guys?” he called it. “This doesn’t look very good.”
    There was no answer. He looked over at Jim, Eddie and Twitch, and saw that they were helping a person—someone really small—a skinny little kid, actually, crawl out of a hole they’d smashed in the wall.
    He kicked Adrian. “Wake up!” he barked.
    Nothing.
    How would he light the gas, if he had to? He remembered Adrian’s book of matches, pushed the pistol into the back of his belt and got down again to shove his hands into Adrian’s pockets until he found it. GOLDEN DAWN MOTEL , read the scratched and faded lettering on the little black book, or maybe it was GOLDEN SANDS , he couldn’t be sure, AMARILLO . It smelled like ammonia and the cardboard was fraying, but if the Golden Dawn gave guests matches with their name on it, Mike had stayed in places that were worse.
    “Guys?” he called again, and stood up to look at Feldman.
    The rabbi’s face was covered in a black foam of the jiggling little bubbles. Bubbles were squeezing up around the spike in his chest, too. One of them had bobbled its way down one leg of the rabbi’s trousers and quivered beside his ankle, like a tiny little blob of sphinx poop. Mike stooped to look at it.
    “Cagado,” he muttered.
    Inside the bubble, behind a black film that swirled like oil on a puddle, he could clearly see a fly. It was as big as a horsefly and its mandibles glittered like metal.
    He kicked Adrian again, really hard this time, and in the stomach.
    “Oomph!” Adrian bellowed, and woke up. He curled reflexively, wrapping himself around Mike’s foot and tripping him. Mike fell backward—
    hit the floor—
    and banged the back of his head against the gas can.
    “No!” he gasped, scrabbling at the can with both hands—
    as it slowly tipped over—
    and Mike missed, the can hit the ground and the gas sloshed out. On the hardwood floor it puddled under the sphinx chest and the rabbi’s body.
    “What are you doing?” Adrian grunted, and clambered to his feet. His eyes widened. “Hey!”
    Mike followed Adrian’s eyes from where he lay on the floor, and saw that Rabbi Feldman’s body was covered in black foam. No, he realized, it wasn’t foam anymore. It was a cloud, coalescing and rising off the body.
    A cloud of flies.
    “Carajo!” Mike yelped. He grabbed the book of matches and fumbled to pull one of them out. The back of his ears felt wet and he wondered if he’d cut his head in the fall. He’d have to check later.
    “Per Isidem …” Adrian intoned, and then staggered back, sucking in oxygen like he’d emerged from long minutes underwater.