CHAPTER 9
PILL PEDDLER
While Chase tried calling the police about the demonic attack on the gas station, he watched Peddle sit down on his truck’s rear bumper. The entrepreneur ran his hands down his face, appearing to massage every muscle in one delicate stroke. As Chase waited for the authorities to answer, he could see the desert heat getting to Peddle, too. Sweat clung to both men’s brows as the sun’s descent did nothing to discourage the warmth. They’d both have to get some water soon.
“Blast it all. Busy signal again! Guess the cops have their hands full with other matters.” Chase growled and flipped his cell phone closed. A dark thought clouded his mind. What if the demons had already slaughtered the town’s entire police force? Worse, what if they’d done the same to Dylan?
“Problems?” Peddle didn’t bother to mask his sarcasm.
“You could say that.”
“I thought I just did.”
Chase ignored this. It wasn’t worth getting into it with the guy over a mere technicality. Besides, they had worse things to think about at the moment.
“I wonder what made monsters out of all those people,” Peddle spoke as if purposely trying to annoy Chase with idle chitchat.
“Afraid they won’t remember how to pay for your products and services?” Chase sneered.
Peddle folded his arms, acting as if Chase’s comment had wounded him.
“I’m a business leader in this community. The welfare of its people is a chief concern for me.”
Chase shook his head, rejecting the man’s claim.
“Don’t you mean their money is a chief concern for you?”
Peddle’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t judge me. You don’t know me at all.”
“I recognize your type.” Chase stepped toward Peddle, his voice reduced to a murmur. “I’ve known many seamy guys and gals my whole life. Hookers, druggies, and others you’d do well not to know about.”
Peddle turned a nasty scarlet at the insinuation.
“I’ve never committed a crime in my life.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t swindle people out of their money.”
Chase flipped his phone back open again, seeing if he had any numbers for the National Guard on his phone. It’d been about eight years since he’d last served, but anything was worth a shot at this point if it meant the difference between survival and certain death.
“I beg your pardon!” Peddle stood up, grinding his teeth. “How can I be robbing people blind when I have the least expensive gas in all the land?”
“I’d question any guy who fretted over the loss of payment for candy and potato ships while the rest of the world fell to pieces,” Chase said, shrugging. “We’re lucky to be alive, but you seem more worried about your profit margin.”
An angry breath escaped Peddle’s nostrils, the sound a whistle sharp, much like the crows and vultures from earlier.
“As a gas station owner I have a right to protect my business,” he said, standing up to give Chase a nasty sneer, up close and personal.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t protect your assets. I’m just saying you should just count your losses and move on.”
“Then I sincerely hope your old man doesn’t have a stroke or something,” Peddle snapped at Chase. “Your lack of economic sense may well doom your pa’s farm.”
Chase’s fingers clenched tighter around his phone to the point where he accidentally pressed down hard on a button.
“You’re something else, you know that?” he fumed. “I’ve never known anyone as selfish as you. And my brother’s the ultimate pleasure seeker.”
Peddle grunted, but objected no further. Unable to tune out most of the mogul’s ramblings, Chase eyed the short, stout man pacing back and forth in the parking lot. At least soon he could leave Helensview behind for good and not have to worry about what Peddle did or didn’t do.
Having no luck reaching anyone in the military either, Chase shoved his phone into his pocket before pulling out the hotel key he’d managed to get back from the front desk. The fact that he’d found it precisely where he’d left it was another sign that the world might soon end. Unlocking the door to his room again, he then spun back toward Peddle.
“If you really care about your business at all, then you can’t ignore what‘s been happening in town.”
“That’s not my problem. I didn’t come to Helensview looking to befriend the local yahoos.”
Chase stroked his chin and smirked.
“But I thought you considered yourself integral to the local community.”
“You name one town that hasn’t prospered from having a gas station.” Peddle held up a finger to demand that Chase actually mention a town by name.
Chase glanced across the street at a pair of motorcyclists taking turns ramming their bikes into a telephone pole, crashing and smashing the metal frames off their vehicles. The two dismounted from their bikes, shoving one another and butting heads without cause or reason. Two more victims lost to Helensview’s curse, the thuds of their helmets rhythmic, drum-like beats.
“I bet this town did just fine long before you ever arrived, Peddle.”
Peddle growled, his face darkening with rage, perhaps the initial stage of the gas station owner’s own transformation into a demon.
“Will you stop judging me already? It’s getting old really fast!”
“Is it now?” Chase asked.
Peddle stuttered, spittle shooting straight from his mouth. Instead of gurgling out an actual sentence, he clammed up with a heavy sigh and buried his face in his arms.
Chase got maybe five seconds at most to enjoy this moment. A roar ripped through the air, followed almost at once with a massive jolt that made Peddle lose his balance, fall off the truck, and hit the ground knees first. Chase snatched Peddle by the arm and jerked him into the motel room, nearly dislocating the man’s shoulder in the process. He wasted no time at all in securing the door after they were both safely inside. With any luck, this room would again serve as a safe haven, at least until the demons stopped carrying out this new round of mayhem.
Curious as to what just shook the earth, Chase crept towards the window. Glancing outside, he found smoke billowing from a section of buildings three streets north of the motor inn. With the help of a northerly breeze, the plume soon consumed the heart of Helensview, blotting out the sunlight and bringing dusk prematurely to the city center.
“Sounds like the monsters are having fun over there,” Peddle said with a grumble. “If they’re causing chaos out this way, what the devil are they doing to my precious store?”
Chase grunted a harrumph. This guy made all of Dylan’s flaws seem trivial in comparison. Chase would give up almost anything just to hear from his brother once again, to just know that Dylan was alive and well and not a demon. Why’d he have to give Dylan such grief back at the diner? Couldn’t he have just let things go and been a more supportive brother?
“I wouldn’t even think of going back to your store just yet. There’s no way to know whether the demons have even abandoned your lot. Hell, they might be setting up a nest right at your station.” Doubting that Peddle even cared about any of this, he added, “You saw the way the motorcyclists went after one another. It’s just not safe anywhere in town.”
“Then why don’t you just get in your truck and take off?” Peddle challenged him.
Chase turned on Peddle, saying, “I will once I know what happened to my brother.”
Peddle mumbled. “Good luck with that. It seems to me your family doesn’t fire on all cylinders.”
Fury surged throughout Chase, every fiber of his body aching to beat Peddle senseless. Chase cracked his knuckles in the anticipation of blood splattering. Maybe he could spill Peddle’s. After all, the town was becoming more demonized by the minute. Who’d really notice, or even care, if a certain gas station owner’s innards were smeared up and down the motor inn walls like a fresh coat of coppery paint?
Peddle’s lips par
ted, his gaze directed toward Chase’s fists. The station owner’s nervous tics and glances toward the door made him appear likely to bolt without warning. Instead, he reached inside his pants pocket for something, perhaps a gun.
Chase charged at the man, ready to strike either Peddle’s gut or chin. Peddle held up a palm in apparent surrender, his other hand holding a bottle of prescription drugs in front of Chase.
“Stop!” Peddle commanded, his voice quivering as if he worried about his own sorry behind. “I can help you, but you’ve got to listen to me.”
“What now?” Chase barely noticed the feral manner in which the words flew from his mouth, or the voices inside his mind beckoning for him to strangle Peddle. Just the right amount of pressure would do the trick, and it wouldn’t cost much effort.
“I want you to try one of these pills,” Peddle suggested, standing still on shaky legs.
Chase eyed the bottle and snarled. “What’s this? Poison?”
“No!” Peddle gasped before catching himself. “I swear they’re a form of tranquilizer. They’ve kept me sane these last few days.”
“You’re lying!” Chase lunged for Peddle, snatching him by the arm. “You intend to kill me with them!”
Peddle shook his head. “These will help you!”
Chase pursed his lips. What a fool Peddle was, working such a deceptive angle. Only one course of action would make this right.
Fire flared underneath Chase’s fingertips. He winced at the wave of energy coursing through his head, every pulse and beat of his heart whispering to him. His eyesight became compromised for a moment or two. White light inside his own skull flared up to where it nearly seared his optics. Then the darkness he felt welling up deep within him feasted upon this energy. When he was able to, he looked down and saw his nails growing into talons. Chills danced up and down his spine, his airways constricting as panic bled into his heart. His lips parted, and he thought he had released some sort of profanity into the air. With a monstrous buzz clamoring between his ears, he found himself suddenly unsure of anything other than the imminence of his own transformation.
Then as the terror grew ready to suffocate him in his motel room, it abruptly fell into calmness, unsettling, unnatural. Dark laughter pierced the air, but from where it came Chase couldn’t pinpoint at first. By the time he realized it had come from him, it was too late. Evil ecstasy aroused every fiber of his being, making him chuckle uncontrollably even as he pinned his palm to his belly.
Not that this bothered him in the least now. Dryness ran the sum of his tongue. Only Peddle’s blood seemed capable of moistening it. What a treat that would be for Chase, licking Peddle’s juices clean off his fingers. Almost like eating fried chicken…
“Take one, Weaverson, or else you’ll die!”
Peddle unscrewed the bottle cap, dumped a pill into his hand, and held it out in front of Chase.
Primal instinct kicking in, Chase swiped at Peddle. Peddle blocked the attack with his free arm, while at the same time tugging at his captive limb. Chase, unsurprised by the sudden rise in his bodily power, found that his grip made escape near impossible for Peddle. His lips shifted upward, exposing his teeth to the gas station owner.
In response to this, Peddle hurled his foot into Chase’s shin. Chase yowled and relinquished control of Peddle’s arm. Peddle shoved the capsule in Chase’s mouth before jumping safely out of harm’s way.
Swallowing the pill, Chase then started rocking back and forth in spastic motion. He could no longer hear the buzzing tormenting him from beneath his own skin, its silence somehow worse than their presence. All the temptation, all the devilish nuances that had given him a pleasurable rise, died. He fell toward Peddle, tears dripping of their own volition from his eye sockets. The fact that Peddle actually caught him in mid-fall almost startled Chase worse than the vertigo that had landed him in the other man’s grasp to begin with.
“Fight it, Weaverson!”
Peddle’s words summoned Chase back from the brink. A second later, the talon tips broke off, leaving behind the main part of every slightly deformed fingernail. Chase gasped for air as his humanity clawed its way back to the surface, the pill having worked some sort of magic to prevent him from going the way of the parking lot woman or the old man.
“You did it.” Peddle clasped Chase on the shoulder. “Nicely done. Another few seconds, and you’d have been lost.”
Still slightly wheezy, Chase glowered at Peddle. “I don’t get you. You’ve declared your business your topmost priority. Why show concern for me?”
Peddle refitted the lid upon the bottle before addressing Chase’s question.
“I do care about my business, but until I watched you start to transform, I didn’t realize just how awful this whole demon mess was.”
“I’m glad you came to your senses finally.” Chase moaned, his stomach still churning from the partial shift to demon.
Peddle nodded. “I’ll help you look for your brother. There’s no telling what condition those monsters left my store in, and right now I’m not interested in being gutted some twenty feet from the pumps.”
Chase smirked slightly. “Smart man.”
“Thanks.” Peddle stared out the window as the haze outside began to let up a little.
Recovering from his close call, Chase left Peddle alone for a while. If not for the man’s caplets, Pa and Ma’s eldest boy surely would’ve given in to the darkness. Where had the gas station owner gotten them, and how had he known their exact effect?