All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(36)
“Just something I heard.”
“Stupid. Plain, old, mule-stupid.” She considered me a moment, as though making sure the description fit. “Yep, that’s you.” Then, with a cocky salute, she darted back into Jigger Boss.
I shouldered the box of booze, and the bottles rolled and clinked. Stupid. Plain old mule-stupid. Was she right? Hell yes, I was about as stupid as they came. But I wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the obvious: something had happened in Lawayne’s torture room, something that went beyond spanking and whipping and whatever other games he liked to play. Something was different, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, although it teased the edge of my mind. Something familiar about what I’d felt in that room.
For now, though, I had a decision to make. I could either keep up the search or spend the next hour cooling my heels and waiting for Austin. I hurt, every inch of me, from head to heels. I was exhausted. I’d been chased through a nightmare, been attacked by an invisible dream-monster, had perfume sprayed in my eyes, been arrested, met an insane hobo, made-up with my boyfriend, experienced the most traumatic psychic vision of my life, and gotten the living shit knocked out of me by a guy who reeked of tanning oil. It was only five o’clock on Saturday afternoon, and that was what made up my mind.
Settling the box into a more comfortable position, I lurched down Eighth Street and deeper into town. Lawayne, Mr. Big Empty, Vehpese, the universe, God—something was trying to knock me on my ass to keep me from finding out what happened to River. And that meant I was only going to try harder.
The Greyhound bus station rose ahead of me, nothing more than a repurposed service station and a huge stretch of pavement. The service station had been green and white once, but the green had faded in the sun until it was almost gone. Someone, at some point, had painted over the signs and lettering with lazy, criss-cross swirls that were an oatmeal color, as though whoever had done the painting couldn’t be bothered with finding white paint, let alone with doing a decent job.
At five-fifteen, a single bus sat in front of the station. I watched as a young mother and a toddler descended from the bus and hurried down the street towards Bighorn Burger. Another wave of customers had descended on Sara and Kimmy and whoever else was working tonight, which meant another week that Sara would be able to keep the lights on and keep the paychecks coming. Bus travel probably didn’t mean much else to a place like Vehpese, except maybe a cheap and easy way for guys who were out and broke to get into town for work at the mines.
I circled the station. A row of cement benches lined the front of the old service station, and an older man, dressed in patched blue jeans and a huge gray coat, lay asleep on one of them. His coat flapped in the breeze, and it made me think of Inspector Gadget. I took a second look, just to make sure he wasn’t DeHaven Knight, and then kept going. Behind the station, a pair of Dumpsters overflowed with soiled diapers and wadded paper towels and Bighorn Burger trash and a pristine shower pillow and a red carry-on suitcase with one wheel broken off and God only knew what else. It looked like everyone who had ever come through Vehpese had left something there. When I completed my circuit, I’d spotted four security cameras. It made sense that a Greyhound station would have security cameras; while plenty of decent people rode the bus, there was also a high proportion of trouble: drifters, kids on the run, the mentally ill, and so on. Greyhound would need to provide at least a pretense of trying to keep the show under control.
And those same cameras had recorded a few important things that I wanted to see: River coming into Vehpese, everyone else who had arrived and left, and whether or not River had ever returned to the station. Those cameras had seen some important things last night. Now I just had to find out how to get the recordings.
As I approached the service station, the man on the bench squawked something. It took me a moment before I realized he was talking to me.
“You on this bus?” he asked again.
I shook my head, and the bottles clinked again. “Sorry.”
Wrapping himself tighter in the floppy gray coat, the man sat up. He wasn’t as old as I’d thought, but he was at least sixty. He had thick white hair—shiny, moonlight white—and he had huge pouches under his eyes and a nose like a burst cherry.
“Eh, it’s all right,” he said. Eying me, he held out one hand and rocked it back and forth. “But I got bad news for you: no seats until the morning. That’s why I’m sitting here, as dumb as a stuffed turkey and ready for the oven.” His expression darkened for a moment, and then, in what sounded like forced cheer, he asked, “You running away or running back?”
“Neither.”
“That’s pretty good. That’s really pretty good. You stay home. Don’t make any dumb mistakes.”
I tried to keep moving. “Too late.”
He laughed, and the laugh was so deep, so genuine, that I stopped again. The sound was out of place: not just here, at this crappy bus station, and not even just in Vehpese. It was out of place in my life, and the force of it hit me like a train blowing steam. The man’s face had brightened with the laughter, and he waved me over to his bench. I shrugged and joined him, setting the box between my feet.
The old man cocked his ear at the sound of the glass. “That sounds like trouble, my young friend.”
I kept my eyes low and I kept a few inches between us. I’d had enough psychic visions for one day, and I didn’t need any more. “You from around here?”