ZERO: RACHEL
ZERO: RACHEL
The cop’s eyes flicked up, away from the body on the concrete of the service station driveway. “Who the hell is in charge here?” he yelled. He stared back down at the wound, a crusted tear in the neck of some luckless desert nobody. There were a too many of them, drawn by the magnetic pull of Vegas, but somehow never having the strength to get all the way there. They got stuck in towns like this. Too many. Too much. Too much blood, veins emptied into an uneven blob that was already taut and shiny in the heat of early summer.
A pair of ghostlike faces lingered in the window of the AM/PM, between faded ads for chili-dogs and nachos. They watched the body. They’d watched as the DPS cruiser had pulled up, but they did nothing more. Maybe they were the ones who put the call in, maybe they were just there for beer.
Rick pulled himself away, thinking too much that the wound was about the size of a bite, but not an animal bite. He stood up and took a few steps back towards the cruiser. Hard sunlight of midday pounded on the concrete, bleaching the already colorless landscape into unreality. This wasn’t what happened out here. You got chewers who stabbed each other with screwdrivers or flash-fried themselves trying to steal copper out of power lines. Random and uncreative stupidity, that you got. But this was something else entirely.
“Anything else?” he asked of his partner.
Jan was sitting in the car, door open, one foot on the pavement. His sunglasses radiated impassiveness, but he was tense.
“Not on the radio. Just the initial call.” Jan shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t like this.”
“Wish I was back in Vegas.” Rick’s voice was an impatient rasp. He could use some forgetting, some distraction.
“So, we gonna follow the tracks or we gonna talk to the locals?”
“Shit, this is homicide, if not 5150.” Rick used the California code, though he’d never been there. It had become common currency for a criminally insane perp, and that was good enough. “We better take some notes. Call in the stiff.”
“How about you take some notes. I don’t want to find who the hell ever did that. Not without backup.”
“Fine. Chickenshit.” Rick squared himself and walked over to the door of the convenience store. Yeah, a little of home would be nice. He could be off after this, drive down the hill a way and be treated like a king in town. Wrap this dead-end call up and call it a day. Another victory in the war for public safety.
His hand grasped the warm aluminum of the door and he pulled. There was a sick chill clatter and the door barely moved. Locked? What the hell? The irritation snapped Rick to attention and he stared inside the store. He’d seen folks inside before; why the hell was he being locked out?
The glare made it impossible to see inside. Dust and grit coated the glass, sticking to Rick’s hand as he swiped it across the door. Wind whistled, all vowels and no meaning, snapping the polyvinyl pennants like fleeing kites. Somewhere behind him, he heard the squawk of the radio and a click as Jan hung it up.
“We got no backup coming,” Jan’s voice boomed over the wind. “Flipped tanker on the fifteen south of Town, asphalt all over the whole goddamn road. They want it cleared yesterday, you know how they are with that.”
“Fuck it,” Rick growled. So much for going home anytime today. “Some joker locked the door!” he yelled by way of informing Jan of his intentions. Jan sometimes needed his hand held like that. “Thought I saw someone inside, but maybe it was just my eyes.”
TAK TAK TAK. Rick tapped the plate glass with his stick. Something moved in the gloom, behind a rack of chips. Someone pulled towards the door, making motions to another who’d stayed behind. A middle-aged Mexican man came to the door, hesitantly.
“Come on! I don’t have all day here!” Rick yelled, trying to drive his authority right through the locked door.
Hands shaking, the man reached out to the chains he’d wrapped around the inner door handles. “Just…just a minute. I’ll let you…” His words were muffled and distant.
Behind Rick, there was a tired scuff of shoes on concrete.
“Hey! Hey you! Get away from that!” Jan’s bark was a little shrill, a little brittle for cop talk.
Rick snapped around, hand paused over his sidearm. Steady. Could be anything.
Streamers of dust snaked across the stained concrete, like a curtain being drawn aside. Ahead of them was a single staggering figure, walking slow or drunk. His arms, once hanging uselessly, drew up carefully like puppet arms. One of his hands was wounded, a crescent bite mark right behind where the pinky joined his right hand. His scrubs were stained with blood across the right side and more freshly, on his chest, trails of scabs leading down from his mouth and chin.
“Stop! Do not move any closer!” Still shrill, Jan was barking.
It looked like misapplied black lipstick, all that dried blood. He was out of it, completely and totally, eyes fixed on Jan standing in the doorway of the cruiser, his legs apart and weapon drawn.
“Any closer and I will be forced to fire!” The shrillness left Jan’s voice.
Scrub guy took another staggering step over the body. Rick covered the guy, though he was looking at a near profile which made the shot tricky. But at least he wasn’t going to light up the 89 octane.
“Jesus, Jan! The pumps!”