Read Online Lizard World by Terry Richard Bazes - Free Book Online

cough, but masked the rotting smell that grew with every step. He was conscious of the lump pulsating on his forehead where the one they called Lemuel Lee had hit him: some day he would get that little schmuck. Behind him he could hear Lemuel Lee cursing and the goat bleating as it stumbled. The howling was louder now -- a horrified shriek on the verge of articulate speech.
           On the first landing a blue iron door secured by a deadbolt and a massive padlock looked ghostly in the lamplight. Aunt Ligeia paused to wheeze: “Hold up, Lem,” she said and did her best to breathe slowly and look calm. Breathin’ real slow like this always made her feel better. Yep, she could damn well master this panic from her emphysema, but this wasn’t nothing compared to the kidney attacks which came on without warning like a knife stab in the back. Last night, for example, when it woke her, she’d begun to sweat and vomit cause her back had hurt so bad. Catching the prisoner here had been a stroke of luck, of course, but if she couldn’t get Earl to overcome his egghead scruples and transplant one damn little kidney, she’d be just one more carcass for the Beauregard stiffyard.
           She looked like a large yellow toad standing there in her polyester housedress, the folds of her double chin wiggling as she tried to catch her breath. Smedlow thought it might be as good a time as any to crack her in the head with his flashlight. But if he tried to make a break for it, then that vile Lem would chase after him -- and at best he would be lost at night in the swamp. Suddenly behind him he heard something croak, felt something pulling at his coattail: through a barred window in the blue door a filthy hand was reaching out, tugging at him with blistered fingers.  
           “Hands off, Darrell!” commanded Lemuel Lee -- and the hand retracted through the bars. “Don’t pay no mind to goddamn Darrell, mister.”
           The howling was coming from somewhere down below. The atmosphere of dust, mildew and unnamed foulness was now so thick that Smedlow reached for his handkerchief and covered his mouth and nose. Open door after open door exposed the clutter and the shadows of vacant rooms.
           At last they reached a hallway with another locked door, this one green. Glass bottles and rusted iron cans littered the floor. Lemuel Lee pulled the goat down the last few steps: but instinctively it drew back and released its urine. The howling suddenly stopped. The smell was now almost unbearable.
           Lemuel Lee looked in through the bars, then removed the padlock, drew the deadbolt. As the goat was shoved in quickly, bleating in vain, Smedlow forced himself to look into the chamber: from the hindquarters of an alligator emerged a chest, arms and head which were still recognizably human. It was scratching itself with unbelievably long fingernails. It must have found something of interest in its hair, for now it brought thumb and forefinger to its mouth and began to chew and slaver. Dung, blood, chicken feathers, stale bread and rotting meat strewed the stone floor on which it slowly waddled closer to the bleating sacrifice.
           “He’s family, Earl,” said Aunt Ligeia and held her kidney for emphasis: “We gotta take care a family.”
           “I know it, Ligie. But if he gets loose, the way he done before, well, we’ll be in a heap a trouble.”
           Smedlow looked away, but heard the shriek, the scuffle, the last gurgling bleats, and then the quieter sound of tearing.
           “That’s Mosher Poe, mister,” said Aunt Ligiea, “or what’s left a him. The old folks tried, but the splicin’ didn’t take. Back in eighteen and forty-six Uncle Mosher built this here perfume factory along with Hezekiah Frobey and that English fella. That English fella was the first one since Cleopatra, Queen a Egypt, to make perfume outa Crocodiles -- or outa gator juice, which is