Read The Collected Horrors of Tim Wellman for Free Online Page A

at me, her face as cold as stone, and
then slowly nodded. "She said her new man had been talking some
weird shit like that," she said. " Monsters . We both laughed
at the thought at first, but then Susan said she saw one following
her. Then one day she just stopped talking about them but I could
tell she was still worried."
    "After she made her big hit debut on the street,
one of the things grabbed her up before she could make a curtain
call," I said. "Cops emptied their guns into the son of a bitch
until their hands got tired. Didn't phase it at all."
    She stood up and opened the only drawer I hadn't
had the chance to check and pulled out a small address book. "Her
man's number is in here. Steve Saunders." She thumbed through till
she found it and picked up the filthy old phone and dialed the
number. She waited. There was no answer. "Let me try this other
number." She got the same result.
    "He work at the Top Heavy Club?" I said,
twirling the matchbook between my fingers like a two-bit coin.
    "Yep," she said. "Owns the joint." She grabbed
her purse from the dresser and walked toward the door. "I need some
answers."
    I nodded. I didn't need answers, but I wanted answers. I followed her out the door.
     
    ***
     
    The place was a dump. I wasn't sure how they
could afford to give away free matches. But whatever money they
were making, they sure as hell weren't spending it on pretty
dancers; they reminded me of my mother. Karen grabbed my hand and
pushed her way through the crowd and got us to a door in the back
wall behind the stage. I had decided she was an okay gal and was
pretty sure she was too dumb to be deceptive. "This is his office,"
she said. She knocked and when there was no answer, she pounded on
the door with her fist.
    "I ain't seen him come in tonight," someone said
from behind us. We both turned and looked up. He was a big guy, the
kind of frame that usually balances a tiny little brain on top, but
he didn't seem threatening. "Ya can go on in if ya wants, though,
Karen."
    "Thanks Vance," she said. I nodded, not caring
to make solid eye-contact. She turned the handle and we both went
through the door and closed it behind us.
    It was a normal enough office with an old desk
full of papers, a couple of gray metal filing cabinets, and a badly
stained sofa. It wasn't really what I was expecting, though I
wasn't sure exactly what I was expecting... a doorway to
hell, maybe, well-marked with a neon sign.
    "Not here," I said.
    "He's always here at night," she said. "He says
if he's not here these bitches will steal 'im blind." She walked to
his desk and picked up the phone and dialed the numbers again.
There was still no answer. She looked at me and cocked her head.
"How do I know Susan is really dead?"
    "Because I told you," I said.
    "That ain't enough," she said. She plopped down
on the sofa and lifted her legs up into a reclining position. "And
you ain't jack-shit to me and I just bit on the first worm ya
dangled in front of me."
    I pulled a cigarette from my pack with my lips
and picked up a pack of matches from the desk. "I know what I saw,"
I said as I struck the match. "You can believe whatever you want to
believe." I held my pack toward her. "Sure you don't want a smoke,
dollface?"
    She reached out and dug a filter king out with
her long fingernails and I tossed the matches on her stomach.
"Thanks."
    I nodded my head toward the door. "You ever
think about how much that big oaf looks like a monster?"
    She took a long draw. "I ain't never seen one of
the things, remember?"
    "That's right," I said. "If you hadn't been
drunk you could have looked out the door and seen a van full of
them," I said. "Susan got in that van."
    "How do you know that?" she said. She sat up and
put her feet back on the floor.
    "That bum outside your room..."
    "Johnny?"
    "Yeah. Johnny saw them," I said. "And saw her
get in with them."
    Karen sat silently for a moment, staring at the
floor. She took another draw and flicked the ashes on the