Read Online Skeleton Crew by Cameron Haley - Free Book Online Page B

back doing whatever. We were cruising down Silver Lake and I was using the traffic spell to make good time when an elderly gentleman stumbled into the street between two parked cars, arms windmilling, right in front of the Lincoln.
    Adan shouted and braced one arm on the dash as I hit the brakes, but the old man never had a chance. There was a loud thump and the car shuddered as the grille slammed into his left hip. He flipped over the hood, twisting like a stuffed toy tossed into the air by a pit bull, and smashed against the windshield before somersaulting into the backseat of the open convertible. The piskies bailed just in time to avoid being crushed by the limp, broken body.
    The Lincoln’s tires squealed as I locked up the brakes and finally brought the car to a skidding stop. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly I thought my fingersmight snap when I released it. I glanced in the rearview mirror. I couldn’t see the old man, but the white upholstery of the backseat looked like it had been painted red by a really sloppy tagger. I looked through the starred glass of the windshield and saw blood there, too.
    Adan and I just sat there for a moment, neither of us speaking. Then the screaming started. We looked to our right. An old woman with curlers in her hair stood on the sidewalk, one clutched hand wrinkling the front of her muumuu. And she shrieked.
    â€œTell me that didn’t just happen,” I said quietly.
    â€œWhere the hell did he come from?” said Adan.
    â€œDomino…” Honey said. She was hovering at the edge of the street, between the car and the old woman.
    â€œPearl, stop that wailing!” the old man said, appearing in the rearview mirror as he sat up in the backseat. “You’re like to wake the dead.” He made a horrible hacking, wheezing sound and his shoulders shook. He was laughing. The left side of his skull was caved in and a wet flap of skin hung down over his cheek. His teeth were broken and bloody, and a couple of the lower ones were protruding from his bottom lip. He was wearing a nightgown, an old-school Ebenezer Scrooge number.
    â€œHenry, you bastard!” yelled Pearl. “You bit me, you miserable old snake!” The woman shambled toward the car, raising her arm above her head. She was holding a butcher knife. Blood ran from a wound on her neck onto the green-and-orange muumuu. At least he hadn’t gotten her ear. Adan and I jumped out of the car and backed away.
    Henry twisted in the backseat and started crawling out onto the trunk. Most of his body didn’t seem to be responding very well, and he dragged himself along on his belly, using his elbows for leverage. Point to Pearl—he didkind of look like a snake. He was also smearing blood all over my car.
    I held up my hands. “Chill the fuck out, Pearl,” I said. “Let’s see if we can talk this through.”
    Pearl stopped and looked at me, still holding the knife in stabbing position. “Talk?” she shrieked. “You want me to talk? He tried to eat me!”
    â€œI feel you,” I said, rubbing my ear. “Believe me. But I’m not going to let you stick Henry, okay?”
    â€œHe died already!” Pearl yelled.
    â€œTwice,” said Henry. He’d rolled over on his back and lay splayed out on the trunk, chuckling wetly.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “How do you know he died, Pearl?”
    â€œThe machine! He’s been hooked up to those damn machines for months, good for nothing except lying in bed shitting himself.” She shook with fury. “I had to clean it up!”
    â€œAnd he died?”
    â€œYes! He flatlined. When you get to be my age, honey, you’ll know what it looks like. And he shit himself again!” Now that she mentioned it, Henry did smell a bit fragrant.
    â€œCode Blue!” Henry said, cackling.
    â€œOkay, okay. Then what happened, Pearl?”
    Pearl calmed a bit and the knife