Earlier Phil had read a little bit about inbred physiology in the books he'd gotten at the county library. The phenomena proved much more intricate than he'd thought.

The more intensive the inbreeding, the more damage to the reproductive genes, and the higher the rate of defective births. Scarlet eyes and black hair were common traits, and so were enlarged heads, missing or extra fingers and toes, and uneven limbs. But Phil quickly a.s.sumed that these Creekers were extraordinarily inbred, bad genes pa.s.sing down not for years but for whole generations, because a lot of the deformities he'd seen were gross extensions of those detailed in the books. One of the books had pictures, and they weren't nearly as severe as the Creekers here.

Phil looked closer at the dancer's head. It seemed split by a hard fissure of flesh. But- What's she doing now?

The dancer remained flat on her back with her legs raised.

Then her hips seemed to...shake.

In a few seconds it became apparent what she was doing.

She's dislocating her hips, Phil thought in grotesque astonishment. It was true. Her b.u.t.tocks, completely bare save for the tiny g-string, began to flex, sleek muscles churning beneath the white, stretched skin. Phil grit his teeth; the macabre act hurt just to watch.

Eventually her labors alternately worked her femurs out of their hip sockets with a resounding double pop-pop!- Hooooly s.h.i.t, Phil thought.

-and then the dislocated legs ranged back all the way to the floor.

She lay the back of her head in her feet as one might do with their hands while lying in bed. Phil couldn't imagine anything more unnatural-that is-until he saw what she did next.

Her feet rose back up, turning at impossible angles as the trained muscles of her legs twisted expertly this way and that. Soon, then, she was caressing herself with her feet.

Her toes trailed up and down her abdomen. Her heels rubbed her pubis. And then, with the arches of her feet, she began to caress her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as deftly as if they were hands...

Good G.o.d Almighty, was all Phil could think.

"Come on, man," Eagle said. "Time to go."

Phil rose, gulping at the final image: the girl slipping her feet beneath the diminutive g-string and fondling her s.e.x. He followed Eagle and Sullivan out the back door.

"Like that Creeker freak-show s.h.i.t, huh, bub?" Sullivan asked him.

"Yeah, it's a trip," Phil lied. They walked across Sallee's gravel lot. Phil could tell he didn't like Sullivan right off, the tone of his voice, the mean look in his small eyes, but Phil had to keep that at bay. "Yeah, they're all a bunch of f.u.c.ked-up wh.o.r.es in there," Sullivan continued. "Them chicks up front too, c.o.keheads, c.o.c.ksuckers. 'Specially that hot-s.h.i.t Vicki Steele. You see her, bub?"

"Yeah, I saw her."

"She's the only one of them wh.o.r.es who charges more'n a hundred. f.u.c.kin' stuck-up, ritzy c.o.kehead wh.o.r.e is what she is, thinks her s.h.i.t don't stink, thinks that just 'cos she's Natter's cooze she's somethin' special. Ain't nothin' but redneck sc.u.m just like all the rest of 'em. Boy, I'll tell ya, I'd f.u.c.k that c.o.kehead wh.o.r.e so hard her brains would slop out her ears."

Phil swallowed these words like a mouth full of rocks.

"Hey, Paul, give it a rest, will ya?" Eagle kindly suggested without elaborating that the woman he so explicitly referred to had once been engaged to Phil. "You wanna fill our new partner in, or what?"

Sullivan chuckled. He solidly filled out his jeans and light flannel shirt with a body-builder's physique, and that unpleasant, beat-up face of his only steepened the image. A tough customer. But Phil didn't let that intimidate him; Sullivan was flesh and bone just like everyone, and just as vulnerable. The guy went on, "Okay, bub, me and my buddy Eagle here, we gotta make a pickup tonight, and we need a dupe to drive us, ya know? A dummy who'll dummy up and not ask a lot of questions."

Phil smiled vaguely. Sullivan was testing him, all right, to see just how much s.h.i.t Phil could tolerate. Fine with me, Phil thought to himself. "Hey look, man, I'm just along for the cash. I could s.h.i.t care less what you guys are moving."

"Good, bub, and make sure it stays that way, 'cos there ain't nothin' that p.i.s.ses me off worse'n a nosy chump."

"You can call me chump and dupe and dummy all ya want, brother," Phil told him. "Like I said, I'm just lookin' for the cash, and as long as yours is green, you can call me f.u.c.kin' Captain Kangaroo if you want."

Sullivan chortled and slapped Phil on the back. "You know somethin', bub? I'm beginnin' ta like you already-"

Boy, would I like to kick this guy's a.s.s all over the parking lot, Phil thought amusedly. Instead he just said, "We gonna gab all night, or should we get moving?"

"Your wheels, bub," Sullivan instructed. "Cops might be wise to me and Eagle's wheels."

"Fine," Phil said, approaching the Malibu. "I just hope I moved that box of dog s.h.i.t out of the back seat."

Sullivan guffawed. "Yeah, Eag, this pal of yours, he's a friggin' riot!"

Jesus, Phil thought. This guy's some mental giant. Bet he's got an I.Q. smaller than his belt size.

The three of them piled into Phil's clunker, Sullivan riding shotgun. Phil put the keys in the ignition. "Where to?"

"Nowhere just yet." Sullivan's dark angled face turned; he seemed to be reaching for something in his pocket. Is this guy shaking me down? Phil wondered with surprising calm. Does he know I'm a cop? Phil had his Beretta .25 in a Bianchi wallet holster; it would be tough, but he thought he could get it shucked and c.o.c.ked fast enough to beat Sullivan to the draw if the guy was pulling a fast one. Phil's hand slid along his own leg, inching toward his pocket.

"Hey, Paul?" Eagle asked from the backseat. "What gives? We gotta get moving."

Sullivan's face looked like a mask of baked clay. He'd removed a small plastic bag from his jeans pocket. The bag contained several joints.

Phil sorely doubted that it was marijuana.

"What we got here, bub, is some of the best flake in the county, and just to show you what a cla.s.s guy I am, I'm gonna let you have a toke."

"Come on, Paul," Eagle objected. "Put that s.h.i.t away. He's gotta drive for us."

"Yeah, well, if your buddy boy here can't drive with a buzz, then he must be a p.u.s.s.y, and we don't want no p.u.s.s.ies drivin' on our runs." Sullivan grinned in the dark car. "And besides, I don't know this chump from a hole in the ground. How do I know he ain't a narc?"

Then Sullivan handed Phil a lighter and one of the joints. Flake, Phil thought. PCP sprayed on pot or tobacco.

Sullivan's voice seemed to flutter. "Go ahead, bub, light up and have a toke. And if you don't, that tells me one thing."

"Yeah?" Phil replied.

"You ain't for real."

Phil rolled the end of the joint in his mouth.

Here goes nothing, he thought.

He lit the joint. An acrid, nasty fetor rose with the thread of smoke off the joint's end. The smoke coiled in the air, a ghost-snake, spreading, spreading...

Susan had warned him of this, hadn't she?

He had no choice.

Phil began to take a long drag.

Blackjack came to with a smeared glare in his eyes. The moon, he realized dazedly. Cloying, humid darkness becloaked him, but as he squinted up he noticed the moon in the window.

Wait a f.u.c.kin' minute. What window? Where am I?

Memories straggled back, marching through his mind. Sallee's. The backroom. And- The trick. The wh.o.r.e.

That Creeker b.i.t.c.h done set me up...

When he tried to get up, a parade of pain rewarded him for his efforts. His left arm felt numbed, throbbing, and so did the lower-right side of the back of his skull. The darkness smothered his right hand when he raised it; he brought it down and touched his chest, his hip, his thigh, and realized he'd been stripped naked.

The bare, splintery wood beneath him felt warm; sweat trickled down his sides like crazed ants.

Good G.o.d, I feel like h.e.l.l...

The darkness throbbed with his arm and leg, and with the roaring pain at the back of his head.

And more memories flitted back.

He'd been about to put a good busting on that Creeker wh.o.r.e. The four-t.i.tter, he remembered. The one with the tiny mouth. But what happened next?

He'd been choking her out, and- f.u.c.k.

That was all he remembered...

He clamped his teeth shut against the pain. Yeah, some son of a b.i.t.c.h f.u.c.ked me up good, he deduced. It's a scam Natter's got going in there. The wh.o.r.e set me up, then I'll bet that bighead kid snuck up behind me and put a wallop on my head. But what the f.u.c.k's Natter got against me? I ain't done s.h.i.t to that ugly Creeker f.u.c.k. Don't make no sense to whack me out.

One thing Blackjack did know: I gotta get the f.u.c.k outta here.

Wherever here was.

The house, he thought. Yes, he must still be at the house. She'd taken him up to a small room on the second floor. But this couldn't be the same room. It was hotter than embers here, and he remembered old carpet on the floor of the wh.o.r.e's room, but this floor was bare wood.

Get up. Gotta move, he ordered himself. Gotta get out of this joint before Bighead comes back to finish the job...

It was nearly impossible not to cry out when he lifted himself to his hands and knees. He had to rest, shuddering. His brain throbbed like something fit to bust out of his skull. The only bearing he could make for himself was the shutterless, uncurtained window and the moon glowing in its frame. The smudged panes stood just above him to the right, but the pain made it seem hundreds of feet away. He could hear his sweat dripping onto the wood floor as he crawled forward, toward the flaking sill.

G.o.dd.a.m.n, what a job they done on me!

His left hand was all but useless. His right grabbed the lip of the sill and pulled.

It was a concerted effort; Blackjack never would've thought that simply standing up would be so difficult. Nevertheless, after much wincing, gasping, and grunting, he stood on his own two feet, leaning racked against the wall.

He peered out the window.

Christ...

Yeah, this was the same house, all right. He recognized the front yard and that s.h.i.tty dirt road leading down the hill. But the bighead kid's rattletrap truck was gone- Motherf.u.c.kin' Creeker motherf.u.c.kers!

-and so was his own.

G.o.d knew how he was going to get out of here, and once he did, what would he do? Walk around the woods buck naked? He didn't even really know where he was. Some unmarked road off the Route, then a couple of turns he'd never remember. But- f.u.c.k it, he concluded.

Better to walk around naked and lost than stay here and buy the farm.

Peering out, he figured he must be on the third floor, not the second. From earlier, he vaguely recalled a narrow flight of steps going up from the floor the wh.o.r.e's room was on. The window was his only way out...

He'd have to crawl out the window, slide down the shingled awning, then drop to the roof. That would be tough in any case, but with his left arm and leg so numb they felt dead, it would be d.a.m.n near impossible. Still, though, what choice did he have?

Just gonna have to do it, he told himself. Just gonna have to flop outta this window and get the f.u.c.k outta this freak-house.

Just as he tried to push open the window, he noticed- Aw, fer s.h.i.t's sake, no!

-that it had been nailed shut.

But before he could think further...

Whuh? What the f.u.c.k was that?

Had he heard something?

Voices, or something like voices, seemed to tickle his mind. He stared back wide-eyed in the dark...

Ona...

"Ah-no-pray-bee...

Redeemer...

"Mannona-come...

Sanctifier...

"Save us-"

They were like words mixed with thoughts. Etched whispers melded to blobs of swarming head-sounds. But one thing was clear to Blackjack: Someone else was in the room.

"Wh-who's there?" Blackjack challenged.

The dark stood before him, impenetrable, a solid black wall.

"I know someone's there, so how's 'bout tellin' me what the f.u.c.k's goin' on?"

No reply. Just the grainy dark staring back.

Then- Blackjack jerked right.

Did he see something? Did he see something moving there in the corner to his right?

Something seemed to have shifted. A wet slither behind something blacker than the darkness...