“You follow me,” Eppstadt said, “I’ll show you something.”
“Keep your voice down. There are people around here you don’t want to have coming after you.”
“I met one of them already,” Eppstadt said, walking on towards a small group of trees. “And I never want to see anything like it again.”
“So let’s get out of here.”
“No. I want you to see. I want you to take full responsibility for what happened here.”
“I didn’t make this place,” Todd said.
“But you knew it was here. You and your little lover. I’m putting the picture together now. Don’t worry. I’ve got it all.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
Eppstadt was searching the ground now, his step more cautious, as though he was afraid of treading on something.
“What are you looking for?”
He glanced back at Todd. “Joe,” he said. And then, returning his gaze to the ground, he pointed. “There,” he said.
“What?”
“There. Go look. Go on.”
“Who was he?” Todd said, staring down at the maimed body in the dirt, its throat gaping.
“His name was Joe Something-or-Other, and he was a waiter at Maxine’s party. That’s all I know.”
“And goat-kid did this to him?”
“Yeah.”
“Why, for Christ’s sake?”
“Amusement would be my closest guess.”
Todd passed a clammy hand over his face. “Okay. I’ve see him now. Can we get the hell out of here and find Maxine?”
“Maxine?”
“Yeah. She went outside with Sawyer — ”
“I know.”
“And now Sawyer’s dead.”
“Christ. We’re being picked off like flies. Who killed him?”
“Some … animal. Only it wasn’t any kind of animal I ever saw before.”
“All right, I’m coming,” Eppstadt said. “But you listen to me, Pickett. If we survive this, you’ve got a fuck of a lot to answer for.”
“Oh, like you don’t.”
“Me? What the hell do I have to do with this?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“I’m listening.”
“I wouldn’t be here and nor would you or Maxine or any other poor fuck — ” He glanced at Joe’s corpse. “If you hadn’t sounded off at the beach. Or-if you really want to go back to the start of things-how about a certain conversation we had, during which you suggested I get my face fixed?”
“Oh, that.”
“Yes that.”
“I was wrong. You should never have done it. It was a bad call.”
“That was life. My flesh and — ” He froze, for something had emerged from the undergrowth: a beast that was a vague relative of a lizard, but shorter, squatter, its back end having, instead of a long and serpentine tail, an outgrowth of two or three hundred pale, bulbous tumors. It went directly to the remains of Joe.
“No, no, no,” Eppstadt said quietly. Then suddenly, running at the creature the way he might at a dog who’d come sniffing at his gate. “Get away!” he yelled. “For God’s sake, get away!”
The lizard threw the yellow-blue gaze of one of its eyes up in Eppstadt’s direction, was unimpressed, and returned to sniffing around the sliced-open neck. It flicked the wound with its tongue.
“Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus,” Eppstadt gasped.
He picked up a rock and threw it at the animal, striking its leathery hide. Again, the cold, reptilian assessment, and this time the creature opened its throat and let out a threatening hiss.
Todd caught hold of Eppstadt, wrapping his arms around him from behind, to keep him from getting any more belligerent with the animal. They were lucky the beast was so interested in the remains of Joe, he knew; otherwise it would have turned on them.
The lizard averted its gaze from Eppstadt again, and started to tear at the raw meat around Joe’s neck so that Joe’s head was thrown back and forth as it secured itself a mouthful.
Eppstadt was no longer attempting to free himself from Todd’s bear-hug, so Todd let his hold slip a little, at which point he turned on Todd, slamming the heel of his hand against Todd’s shoulder.
“That should have been you!” Eppstadt said, following the first blow with a second, twice as strong.
Todd let him rant. Over Eppstadt’s shoulder he saw the lizard retreating into the undergrowth from which it had emerged, dragging the remains of Waiter Joe after him.