They trust me to do this. An engineering major for chrissake. Why not Danielle? She’s studying nursing.
But he knew the answer to that.
Danielle was a basket case on a good day and today was not a good day. Sighing, he reached down toward the guy’s extended, smashed hand. It looked like a withered funeral lily. Very pale, almost white like it was fake or something. Remembering how they did such things on TV, Lex placed his fore- and middle fingers together and reached them beneath the guy’s wrist.
And yanked them back.
“What?” Chazz said.
But he wasn’t even sure himself. The guy’s wrist did not feel like skin at all, more like rubber. Cool rubber. It wasn’t right. Lex had never touched a corpse before, but he had a pretty good idea that they did not feel like that.
Swallowing, he touched the wrist with an extended finger.
No, that wasn’t right. It was like rubber, but it was definitely not rubber. It felt like some kind of plastic… soft, yielding, almost doughy. He had the feeling that if he jabbed his finger into this guy, it would leave an indentation that would not push itself back out.
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on here,” he said. “But that ain’t skin.”
4
Soo-Lee reached down and took Lex by the arm, pulling him away from the body and to his feet. It was an impulsive action and she was not even conscious of doing so. The only thing she was aware of was the fact that there was something very wrong here.
“Well, somebody’s gotta check him,” Creep said.
“How about you?” Lex suggested.
“Fuck that.”
Soo-Lee looked from the body to the houses and buildings, all of which were black and silent. No, none of this was right. The whole damn town almost looked like a set from a movie. That was insane and it made no sense whatever, but that’s what she was thinking.
Everything’s artificial here. Nothing’s real.
A creeping dread had gotten beneath her skin now and she started to tremble minutely. She badly wanted to take Lex by the arm and run, run as fast and far away from this place as they possibly could. She tried to speak, but her mouth was dry as sand.
“Listen,” she said when she finally got her voice working. “I think Chazz is right. I think we need to drive out of here right now.”
“At last, some common sense,” Chazz said.
“We can’t leave the scene of an accident,” Ramona reminded them. “Now let’s just figure out if this guy is okay or not. Can we all agree on that?”
Lex nodded. “Of course, but I’m telling you right now there’s something weird about that body. I’m not touching it.”
Soo-Lee held on to him tightly as if to guarantee that.
Everyone stood there a moment. Nobody said a thing. They all just waited around like mourners, staring at what was sprawled at their feet as if what Lex had said was not perfectly ridiculous, but made a certain amount of sense. In fact, they all backed away a bit in case the body moved.
“Well, somebody needs to do something,” Creep said.
“Let’s just go,” Danielle suggested.
“Oh, you people,” Ramona sighed.
She stepped away from them and whipped out her iPhone. She dialed 911. Soo-Lee held her breath. She was certain it wouldn’t work, certain they wouldn’t get a signal way out here. That’s how things worked in horror movies and she was nearly convinced that they had stepped into one, somehow and someway.
But it worked.
Ramona told the operator that they had a man down in the street. He had been hit by a car and they weren’t sure if he was alive or not, just unconscious. She answered a series of questions and then she told them where they were.
“Stokes,” she said. “Just off Highway Eight. S-T-O-K-E-S. Yes, Stokes.”
Here it comes, Soo-Lee thought. Here comes the bad part.
Ramona was clearly getting agitated. “Listen, I’m not an idiot. The sign said Stokes.” She held the iPhone away from her ear, looking at the others. “Didn’t it say Stokes?”
But nobody was sure. She had been the one who’d seen it.
“That’s what you said. Stokes,” Lex told her.
Everyone was standing there in a little knot, pressed together out of some nameless anxiety as Ramona argued with the 911 operator. Soo-Lee had nearly relaxed, thinking Ramona was bringing civilization and safety to them in the form of cops and paramedics.
But that wasn’t the case.
“They’re saying there is no fucking Stokes,” Ramona said, more than a little exasperated. “They never heard of a town called Stokes.”
Lex shrugged. “Fuck it. They should be able to track your signal with GPS.”
“Yeah,” Creep said. “They should be triangulating you right now.”
They won’t find this place, Soo-Lee thought.
Ramona finally lost it. “Just fucking get here, will you?”
Chazz laughed nervously. “See? They don’t give a fuck, so why should we?”
“Somebody’s still got to check that body,” Lex said.
5
“Oh, for godsake,” Ramona sighed.
She stepped forward and crouched down. She mumbled something under her breath about the poor guy being hurt and how she couldn’t believe everyone was acting like this. But despite her common sense, concern, and daring, they all sensed the hesitation in her words and the hesitation in her movements when she reached out to touch the body. It was like she was sticking her fingers under a shelf where an especially large spider had just crawled.
She grasped the wrist and pulled her hand away.
“See?” Lex said. “Maybe it’s an artificial limb or something.”
“Get it over with already,” Chazz snapped, getting frustrated and more than a little pissed-off—two of his most common moods—but not daring to come any closer.
Ramona felt like a kid on a dare.
The others were waiting for her to touch the body again as if it was some dead thing they’d found stuffed in a sewer pipe. Sucking in a breath between clenched teeth, she touched the wrist again. Lex was right: it wasn’t skin. It was more like rubber or vinyl, oddly smooth and soft to the touch. She had an insane idea that she could have kneaded it in her fingers, pressed it into any shape she wanted.
She felt around, feeling ill in the pit of her belly, trying to find a pulse.
The skin of the wrist, if skin it was, had felt cold before but now it was feeling warm, practically hot with life. Then she found something else. Something that made her yank her hand away.
There was a clear seam between the hand and wrist.
It wasn’t a cut or an injury, it was a seam as if the hand and arm were some kind of prosthetics, artificial parts joined together. She turned to tell the others about it, but something happened that sealed her lips shut.
A siren.
She heard a siren.
But it wasn’t from any ambulance or police car. No, this was loud and cutting, a constant droning that rose and fell like a World War II-era air raid siren. It was a shocking, unnerving sort of sound as it reverberated through the streets, echoing across the dark little town, bouncing off rooftops and down narrow alleyways.
Danielle began to sob and nobody was accusing her of being a drama queen or a wimp; everyone was as scared as she was. They were rooted to the spot. Hands went up to ears as the droning grew louder and louder, but nobody bolted or ran because there was nowhere to bolt or run to.
Ramona herself was shaking.