"Turn and prepare to meet your maker, 'cause Ol' Zeke's gon' send you to your final reward!" Ezekiel Crawford called in the darkness to the glowing pair of eyes peering at him from the dividing line of Old Mill Road. He snapped on the truck's high beams and watched the terrified creature in the road freeze for an instant. Zeke needed no more time than that.
Too furry for a deer and too big for a rabbit, dog, or 'coon, he thought as he caught the animal's stare. He didn't much care what it was. Once spooked, those bastards moved fast. The animal turned and fled. Zeke stomped the pedal and the old Chevy pickup lurched forward.
The creature lumbered along the highway's white marker as if it felt that safety lay straight ahead in the least unobstructed path. In Zeke's estimation such logic made it just another dumb animal fit for the hunt. Tonight's kill would be easy because whatever it was, its legs were short and its movements sluggish.
It mattered little to Zeke if the weapon were his Mini 14 sporting rifle or his half-ton pickup. Today he had already emptied a chamber into four 'coons without leaving the pickup, just to get in a little target practice. Shooting them or steering into them, it was all the same. "Huntin's huntin'," he would have explained if asked about the battered pile of animal remains in the back of his truck.
But no one ever asked because Ezekiel Crawford was only a man doing the job Sussex County paid him to do. Six months earlier Sheriff Dexter P. Brophy had given himself one hell of a task choosing an official title for that job, one that would not make the men on his force laugh themselves sick. The sheriff finally settled on The Highway Sanitation and Animal Removal Patrol.
Old Brophy might have more accurately called the job The Roadpizza Packing and Stacking Patrol. 'Old Mill Road' read the marker off Interstate 65, and that became Highway 96 once it passed the Dairy Queen, but no one in Sussex ever called it by either of those names. 'Skunk Alley' the townsfolk of Sussex called it, and the stench of road kill animal carcasses rotting in the sun along that ten mile stretch explained why.
When Brophy posted the job opening on the Sussex County police station's bulletin board, the next morning only one man applied. Until that day Ezekiel Crawford's primary responsibility around the station house had been to see that the sheriff had himself a clean and proper porcelain crapper upon which he might park his ass.
During those six months civil servant Ezekiel Crawford had redefined the boundaries of his duties as originally envisioned by thesheriff, although he never bothered to inform Brophy of this. The job promised flexible hours, so Zeke selected night-time when the air was cool and the hunting was best. After the first week he requisitioned himself a cow catcher like those found on the front of old railway trains. He claimed the Chevy's grill had suffered considerable damage when a buck had crossed the pickup's path. The impact had been so forceful that part of the animal's dripping hind leg had lodged in the grillwork.
Zeke chose not to inform the sheriff that he had chased the fleeing creature a good quarter mile before catching up with it. Brophy took one look at the ruined dripping grill and the next day Sussex County's newest employee had his cow catcher.
Tonight the cow catcher had surely done its work. The truck had caught its target dead center without Zeke's hitting the brake, and the pickup sent it flying. The animal came down on Highway 96 like a sack of laundry, thumped a few yards, and came to rest along the soft shoulder about a hundred feet from where it had been struck. Zeke had to practically stand on the brake to avoid hitting it again, and as he swerved the rear of the truck dove-tailed into the muddy trench along the side of the road.
Zeke cut the engine and laughed a squeaky cackle. "Goddamn, that was close! If it'd been a snake, it'd bit him," he said aloud as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "But dumber'n a stump, that's no lie." From behind the wheel he examined the dark lump that lay motionless near the front tire. He knew only a fool would approach a large wounded animal while it was in its death throes.
He took his high beam flashlight from the glove compartment and flashed it on the creature, but it remained still. Slowly he stepped from the truck. The animal's dark fur had matted on the side where it had been struck and it lay in a gradually expanding pool of blood. Zeke still could not make out exactly what he had hit, and the animal's thick fur made it impossible to tell its front from its hind quarters. Zeke extended his leg and prodded the fur with the toe of his boot, holding the flashlight's beam steady on it, but he could not even locate a face beneath the fur. The creature did not move.
"Deader'n a stuffed frog," Zeke said through his grin. ". . . and you sure as hell ain't no frog. But, Jesus! You sure do stink enough to be from around here." He turned to the truck and pulled out the large shovel from the cab. He slid it under the carcass, leaving a smeared trail of blood as he dragged the shovel back to the pickup. Getting the heavy animal into the back of the truck presented no problem. The Sheriff had added a lift to the old Chevy because it was cheaper than hiring two men for the job.
The animal lay on the lift in a formless heap, and Zeke hit the switch.
He kept the heavily bleeding creature separate from the two dead mongrels and six assorted road kill 'coons and rabbits in the back of the pickup. He again flashed the light on his kill, took off his red hunting cap and scratched his head. "Don't that beat all? Coulda sworn I knew everything that went on all-fours in Sussex, and that ain't no lie. Shows no one really knows which way's up when the sun goes down 'round these---"
He stopped cold.
For a moment it looked as if he saw the fur heave, like maybe the thing might still be breathing. He moved the flashlight's beam along the animal's entire body to see if any part of it swelled or fell, but he saw nothing move. "Damn goosefeathers I been sleepin' on must be ticklin' my eyes," he muttered and slammed the flap of the pickup.
He climbed back into the truck and turned the ignition. But when he threw the Chevy into gear the pickup rattled and shook without moving forward, the rear wheel spinning in the mud-filled trench behind him. Zeke tried popping the clutch but the wheel only hissed louder while kicking up clods of lumpy mud and grit.
"Goddamn toad-suckin' mother---!" He slammed his fist hard on the steering wheel and the horn's sudden blast startled him into silence. During the brief hush of the moment Zeke heard a dull thud from the cargo area of the pickup. He turned and looked through the rear window of the cab.
The moon shone off the large lump of fur in the back of the truck, and the pile of leaking guts had somehow shifted closer to the remains of the other dead animals. The vibrations of the spinning wheels rocking the old Chevy had probably caused the carcass to shift its weight.
A nervous grin twitched in the corner of Zeke's mouth. "C'mon, Zeeker. This ain't no time to get yourself all spooked," he said under his breath. "'Less of course you want the good sheriff to find your sorry ass still in this trench come mornin'." He looked at the cargo area through the rear window and saw the large shovel gleaming in the moonlight, still dripping with the blood of his mangled freight. He hesitated for a moment, then quickly climbed out.
Zeke pulled the flap down and reached for the shovel, the stench from the back of the pickup causing him to cover his mouth and nose. A few of the earlier kills had been out baking in the sun all day, and their pungency was potent enough to cause him to gag up a taste of his dinner. Sheriff Brophy had once told him to consider the reek of dead animals one of the job's occupational hazards.
The mud covering half the rear tire felt soft and it was not very deep, so Zeke expected no difficulty digging the truck out. He might even have time for another go-round of road hunting before the sun came up.
Fifteen minutes later beads of greasy sweat streaked his forehead. He tossed the shovel back into the cargo area of the pickup and prepared to close the flap, ready to roll. Suddenly he stopped and froze where he stood. What he saw took a moment to register . . . or what he didn't see.
"What the---?" Zeke spun around in the darkness, then quickly looked back at the rear of the pickup, his eyes darting from right to left and back. He ran his palm along the surface of the area where fifteen minutes earlier the creature with the matted fur had been. The sticky pool of blood had gone cold, but still had not dried. The creature from which it had spilled had shambled out of the truck leaving a trail of blood that led off into the weeds.
Zeke wiped the blood on his trousers and remembered the sporting rifle he kept in his cab. It looked like he would be doing some more hunting tonight after all. He opened the door of the cab and reached behind the seat. His hand had just grasped the Mini 14's long barrel when he heard the bushes rustle directly outside the cab. Holding the rifle in his lap he turned and looked out into the darkness.
"You out there, you sonofabitch?" he called into the brush and the mesquite trees. The rustling stopped and he heard only the crickets. The silence lingered, and Zeke's eyes darted around him. "Step out where I can see you, you goddamn hair ball!"
A thick gurgle came from the weeds. The bushes suddenly parted.
Zeke's face went white.
It stood in darkness, a massive wall of fur whose face Zeke struggled to see but could not. He saw only its eyes glowing from behind the thick folds of fur, and the eyes seemed to lock with his.
It lumbered from the shadows and slogged toward the light of the open cabin door. Zeke had hit it with two tons of truck, but it was alive and coming at him. And something else, something else . . .
It was bigger. The creature seemed to grow right in front of him as it moved closer. But in the dim light of the truck's cabin he knew that was not true. It wasn't growing. Not at all.
It was opening its mouth, opening it wide. A liquid gurgling sound bubbled somewhere deep inside its throat. It was at the truck's door, much too close for Zeke to slam it shut.
"Holy mother of sweet Je---!’’
Zeke recoiled into the truck's cabin.
It had a face, all right, and Zeke saw it clearly now. But the animal had neither front nor hind quarters. The thick matted fur that Zeke had thought was its body was its face. And most of its face was its mouth .
Zeke fumbled with the sporting rifle, but his hands would not remain steady.
The drooling mouth opened and the entire bulk of the creature expanded like the lid of an enormous trunk whose insides contained rows of long pointed teeth from its top and bottom. A blood-soaked tongue lolled inside it like a fleshy rubber raft. Framed by teeth that protruded like shards of broken glass, the tongue moved toward Zeke dripping blood on his boots. Zeke kicked at it and pulled himself back.
His left hand tightened around the barrel of the rifle and the other groped for the trigger. He kicked again at the creature that had already pushed itself partly inside the cab of the truck.
The gaping maw opened wide inches from Zeke's feet, and he aimed the Mini's barrel directly into its gullet. "Hope you're fixin' to chew on some gunpowder, 'cause you been tacklin' with a man meaner'n a snake, you mother---!"
He pulled the trigger. The rifle clicked dully.
A thick cloud suddenly lifted inside Zeke's brain. Target practice on the 'coons! He stared blankly at the gun in his hands. Maybe he could get some more bullets from the glove compartment. Maybe he had enough time to---
Before he had completed his thought the mouth came down on Zeke's legs just below the knees. He heard a sound like the crunch of dried wood, and in the next instant saw both legs dangling from the creature's mouth, saw the furry head swing back, and watched his boots disappear down its gullet. He screamed first at the sight of the two raw stumps that remained, then at the agony that exploded inside him. The barrel of the rifle had disappeared along with his legs, and he still held its useless handle in his palm. He heard the creature chew into pulp the bones that had been his legs.
A great massive darkness suddenly surrounded him. This must be death, he thought, and he shut his eyes tightly to welcome its relief. But the darkness was not death. It was something much worse.
Ezekial Crawford was inside the mouth.
***
Hunger. It understood hunger. It understood pain also, but that was not nearly as bad as the hunger. Pain did not last long, like the bloody wounds beneath the thick fur did not last long. It had learned to cough up blood, yes, but that was only part of the trick to feed the hunger. Wounds healed quickly. But hunger? That gnawed and gnawed until it was satisfied.
Fortunately it knew how to satisfy hunger. It knew well what it had to do. It had to hunt. And it knew well where to find fresh game.
It slogged from the weeds to the strip of hard ground where the strange vehicles that carried its prey always passed. It crawled out to the white line in the center and waited . . .
