"What's wrong, Darlene?" he asked opening the door. She started to speak, but turned instead and pointed at Paula Gilbert's car.
"What is it?"
"Go... look," she said.
"I ain't got my shoes on," he complained.
"Go look!" she screamed and he jumped and then started out and across the lot to Paula Gilbert's car. Darlene followed slowly but remained back a good twenty or so yards. Griffy slowed down as he approached the car, stopped, and then slowly opened the door.
"Jesus!" he shouted. "Get in there and call for an ambulance."
"Yes," she said, realizing that should have been the first thing she had done. In a panic she punched out 911 and gasped her words. The dispatcher needed her to repeat it all and she did, fighting the hysteria in herself to slow down and be sensible.
"They're on her way!" she shouted to Griffy. He was standing back. The car door was open, and he was just gaping at Paula Gilbert as if he was terrified of touching her or talking to her.
"You better see to her," he said.
"What's going on?" Darlene heard from behind. Griffy's wife Dorothy was there in her bathrobe. "What are you two doing? What's all the shouting for? What's happening?" she followed, delivering her questions in shotgun fashion.
"Paula Gilbert," Darlene said nodding at the car.
She walked to it slowly and joined Griffy to look in.
"Oh my God," she cried, but unlike Darlene and Griffy, she went forward and tried to rouse Paula. Her eyelids fluttered.
"She's alive!" she screamed. "Did you call for help?"
"They're on the way."
"Go get a blanket for her," she ordered Griffy, and he turned, happy to have a reason to get away from the scene. He charged past Darlene and into the restaurant.
Now feeling ashamed at her own response, especially in light of how quickly Dorothy had moved into action, Darlene joined her and they both looked in on Paula Gilbert.
"What happened to you, Paula?" Darlene asked her.
She opened and closed her eyes and moved her lips. Reluctantly, still feeling as if she was getting too close to a leper, she lowered her head to turn her ear like a cup catching the soft, nearly inaudible words.
Darlene's eyes widened as she listened to her speak, gasping out her incredible tale.
"What happened to her? What is she saying?" Dorothy asked. Darlene shook her head.
"She must be delirious," she said. "She's making no sense."
"God only knows what really happened to her," Dorothy said, "but whatever it was, I hope to hell it's not catching."
He was in an unusually disturbed state of mind. He had set out this evening believing he was in a vigorous, healthy state, never feeling more energized and contented. That was why he was so charming in that saloon and why he was so poetic and philosophical with Paula. He had really intended to have a simple romantic evening, make love, and bring her back as contented as he was. Despite some of the disturbing things that had recently happened, he still harbored the belief that he could transfer wonderful things to women when he didn't have to take what he needed from them. In a sense he was truly the world's greatest lover. Not only did women have difficulty turning him away, but they were ruined for other men, always dissatisfied afterward since none could come up to his level of satisfaction. It was a delicious sort of arrogance that put vigor in his strut and power in his eyes.
But something very unexpected happened when he began to make love to Paula Gilbert. He had a need he had been unaware of until he was actually making love to her. Usually, this was a feeling he experienced before he went looking for prey. Something in his body always first sent signals to his brain to tell him to go on a hunt. He hadn't had any such signal all night. What was going on?
Why were his periods of contentment getting shorter and shorter? At this rate, he'd be hunting day and night and never have a rest. It was like those batteries running cell phones and the like, he thought. After time, they held a charge for less periods of time and had to be recharged so often, it was cheaper or easier to throw them away and start with a new one.
But how was he to do that? He couldn't throw away his body and start with a new one, could he?
Or could he?
Something was rising toward the surface of his memory. He sat in the dark and waited patiently for it to break out. It was coming, coming up out of his past. Something to do with his body. What?
It stopped coming up.
He grimaced as if he could squeeze his brain like an orange and force the memories to drip out.
It was sinking again, going deeper and deeper into the blackness. Wait, he wanted to shout. Don't give up. Come back to me.
Tell me who I am.
Exhausted with the effort, he finally gave up and started the engine of his vehicle. Paula was still in the rear seat, breathing with such great difficulty, he could hear her gasps clearly. The sound was haunting him.
"Stop it!" he screamed at her. "Just die quietly like the others." It occurred to him that he had never spent this much time with a woman afterward. He would take what he needed and leave them. It was his own fault now, of course. He had taken her in his car. He could have left her on the side of the road, he realized, left her in the bushes by the lake if she had begun to die immediately.
For a while he was surprised by what happened but she didn't show signs of anything detrimental, so he told her to dress and he would take her back to her car. She was quiet, but he interpreted that simply as her sense of contentment. Let her savor the lovemaking, he thought proudly.
Then he looked into the rearview mirror and saw she basically hadn't moved.
"Get dressed. We'll be back at the tavern soon," he ordered. She didn't respond so he pulled over to the side of the road and leaned over the front seat. He flipped on the overhead light and saw what was happening.
"Damn it," he shouted at her as if it was entirely her fault. Cars whizzed by, even at this hour. He was back on a busy highway. A few hundred yards down was the first of those houses he had pointed out to her on the way to the dam. So he turned around, shifted into drive, and shot forward, now speeding toward the tavern. When he arrived, he saw a pickup truck with three men crowded in the cab pulling out of the lot. He waited until they were gone and then he drove in, pulled alongside her car, and deposited her in the front seat. He flung her clothes into the rear of her car, got back into his, and drove off thinking maybe no one would find her until morning at least and by then it would be far too late. She would be unable to tell anyone about him, not that anyone would believe her if she did.
When he pulled into the driveway of the rooming house, he hesitated before driving around back. There was something stuck in the front door, a piece of paper. It waved gently in the breeze. He looked around cautiously, his sixth sense triggered like the instinct of a wild animal. He could practically smell the presence of someone else. It was faint. Whoever it was had been here and gone. He got out of his car, leaving the engine running, and went to the door to pull the sheet out from between the screen door and the front door. It was from the minister, a Reverend Dobson.
Dear Mrs. Martin,
I hope you are all right. I came by to comfort you and discuss the funeral to see if there was anything special you would like me to do. Please call me as soon as you can.
God Bless,
Reverend Dobson
He had forgotten about that; he had forgotten there would be a funeral. How stupid of him. He was taking too much pleasure in all this and making too many mistakes. Of course, he would have to leave this place now. There was no doubt anymore. He really was enjoying the area, the peacefulness, the easy pickings. He had been feeling like a fox in a rabbit warren. All he had to do when he was hungry was reach out.