A Friend You Haven't Met: Part Eight

 

Maggie, in the meantime, was becoming frisky to a near unbearable degree, and acted as my co-pilot.

“Warmer … warmer. No, colder! Try down this street here … no sorry, go back … Could this be right? We’re running out of town already!”

“Pay it no mind, child,” I said. “In fact, cover your eyes and feel it out. Less distracting. Don’t worry, I’ll do the navigating.”

She put her hands over her black beetle-like eyes, and I took a few turns under her guidance, but it was true. We were getting to the end of the few streets, and the buildings were thinning out and getting spaced between barren, weed-covered lots. Suddenly she shuddered and dropped her hands away from her face.

“There!” She pointed. “Right there!” I hit the brakes.

In front of us was the last building in town. Or the first, I guess, if you were coming in from that way. It was some distance off from the rest of the place, as if it and the town didn’t want to associate with one another. Its proportions and design were strangely off.

Paint was peeling off the bricks of the long building from years in the blistering Texas sun. High narrow slits of windows lined the sides. The front was blind, with only a massive double door lurking behind a warped, fenced-in porch. Faded police tape fluttered around the posts in ghostly tendrils. A flaking marquee sign on the overhang declared under rusted, bulbless lamps: ST. HELWIG BOWLING ALLEY AND BAR.

“You sure this is it?” I asked.

She winced.

“Yes. Yes. I can barely look at it!”

“All right, boys, this is it.” I pulled carefully into the overgrown parking lot, weeds hissing around us and gravel crunching under the wheels. “Be cool but prepare yourselves for action. You might think there’s less chance we’ll be noticed in a small town, but I’ve found that the case is often quite the opposite. Any natives come by, let me do the talking. I’ve got the holy water, and Roth has his sword, so we’ll go in first. Padre, this thing has spiritual power, but so do you, and don’t be afraid to use it in a pinch. Korm … well, here.”

I put Bessie in park and reached under my seat. From the scattered maps and hamburger wrappers I pulled out a heavy, rusted flashlight.

“This is a kind of a torch.” I passed it over. “Here’s how it works. You can light our way, and if necessary, it makes a pretty good club.” I took a deep breath and checked the watcher one last time, more as a nervous tick than a necessity. “Okay, the trick until we get in is to be casual, keep your masks on, and most of all, act like we belong here.” I started to open the door, then paused. “Maggie, no flying.”

“Fine by me.” Her voice trembled. “I’m hiding right behind Timmy anyway.”

“You can always stay in the car.”

“No thanks. I’m sticking with Tim.”

“Then let’s go.”

We were an odd group, but we only had to go about ten feet to reach the railed-in porch. With any luck, I thought, we could be inside undercover before we drew too much attention. Not that I was worried more about that than about the danger of the Tekkel, but old DEA habits of discretion die hard. And any trouble with the local police would ultimately draw the interest of the Bureau, and in my semi-retirement I didn’t particularly care for their notice of my existence.

These thoughts passed vaguely through my mind the ten seconds that it took us to walk across the driveway and up the steps into the dim recesses of the overhang. I had almost relaxed when we were suddenly confronted by the doors.

We huddled around, and I examined them, stymied. I had been expecting the kind of flimsy entrance you’d normally get in a small-town establishment, with a normal lock or at least some glass we could discreetly bash in. Instead, we were confronted by two heavy solid-wood doors that might have graced a castle, with rusty black iron fixtures gripping the building, which, up close, looked to be solid stone under all that peeling paint. To top it off, a hefty length of chain was knotted through the double door handles and secured with a heavy padlock. I was not equipped for this.

“Roth, you think you can break this chain with your sword?”

He came forward and tugged at it with one black-nailed hand, then both. It rattled with a depressingly solid sound. He grunted.

“I don’t think so, even if I could get the right leverage.”

“Padre, maybe you could scout around back and see if there’s a more accessible back entrance …”

“There isn’t.” The sudden, unexpected flat voice made us turn. In the dark corner of the porch to our left there was a sudden flash of light as a huddled figure lit a cigarette, then straightened itself up, drawing in the smoke, until it stood in the dim afternoon light, staring at us defiantly.

It was a young girl, maybe seventeen, dressed in an old beat-up leather jacket that made her look bigger than the slim body underneath – a form of protection I’ve noticed often in the animal kingdom. Despite the heat she was wearing a black knit cap on top of her hair. The hair wasn’t quite brown or blond, but both. She squinted at us and breathed out an angry cloud of smoke.

     “So what are you guys up to?” she challenged. “You some kind of half-assed grown-up LARPERs? Don’t you know this is a shrine?”

“That’s odd, I thought it was a bowling alley,” I said mildly. “What’s a LARPer?”

“It’s a live-action role player, Bob,” Tim cut in. “A kind of dress-up game.” He turned to the girl. “A shrine? Like in a church?”

“You guys don’t know anything, do you? You don’t care.” She took another bitter puff, drawing her lips into a thin, pinched line. “Yeah, it used to be a church, then it was a bowling alley. But now, now … now it’s the site of the god-damned St. Helwig Sunday Massacre.” She tossed the cigarette down and ground it out spitefully, as if it were to blame.