tried to escape him.
He moved into the courtyard, where doors to motel rooms lay on three
sides. There were no lights, but he could see a surprising amount of
detail, including the dark blue shade of paint on the doors. Whatever
he was becoming, it was perhaps a creature with better night vision than
a man possessed.
A battered aluminum awning overhung the cracked walkway that served all
three wings, fornng a shabby promenade. Rain drizzled from the awning,
splashed onto the edge of the concrete walk, and puddled in a strip of
grass that had been almost entirely choked out by weeds.
His boots made thick squelching sounds as he walked through the weeds
onto the concrete pool apron.
The swimming pool had been drained, but the storm was beginning to fill
it again. Down at the deeper end of the sloped bottom, at least a foot
of water had already collected. Beneath the water, an elusive-and
perhaps illusory-shadowfire flickered crimson and silver, further
distorted by the rippling of the fluid under which it burned.
Something about that shadowfire, more than any other before it, shot
sparks of fear through him. Looking down into the black hole of the
mostly empty pool, he was overcome by an instinctive urge to run, to put
as much distance between himself and this place as possible.
He quickly turned away from the pool.
He stepped under the aluminum awning, where the tinny drumming of the
rain made Jim feel claustrophobic, as if he were sealed inside a can.
He went to room 15, near the center of the middle wing of the U, and
tried the door. It was locked, too, but the lock looked old and flimsy.
He stepped back and began kicking the door. By the third blow, he was
so excited by the very act of destruction that he began to keen shrilly
and uncontrollably. On the fourth kicIt, the lock snapped, and the door
flew inward with a screech of tortured metal.
He went inside.
He remembered Shadway telling Rachael that electrical service had been
maintained, but he did not switch on the lights. For one thing, he did
not want to alert Rachael to his presence when, at last, she arrived.
Besides, because of his drastically improved night vision, the
dimensions of the lightless room and the contours of the furniture were
revealed in sufficient detail to allow him to roam the chamber without
falling over things.
Quietly he closed the door.
He moved to the window that looked out upon the courtyard, parted the
musty, greasy drapes an inch or two, and peered into the lesser gloom of
the blustery night. From here, he had a commanding view of the open end
of the motel and of the door to the office.
When she came, he would see her.
Once she had settled in, he would go after her.
He shifted his weight impatiently from one foot to the other.
He made a thin, whispery, eager sound.
He longed for the blood.
b Amos Zachariah Tate-the craggy-faced, squint-eyed trucker with the
carefully tended handlebar mustachelooked as if he might be the
reincarnation of an outlaw who had prowled these same solitary reaches
of the Mojave in the days of the Old West, preying upon stagecoaches and
pony-express riders. However, his manner was more that of an itinerant
preacher from the same age, soft-spoken, most courteous, generous, yet
hard-bitten, with firm convictions about the redemption of the soul that
was possible through the love of Jesus.
He provided Ben not merely with a free ride to Las Vegas but with a wool
blanket to ward off the chill that the truck’s air conditioner tIrrew
upon his rain-sodden body, coffee from one of two large thermos bottles,
a chewy granola bar, and spiritual advice. He was genuinely concerned
about Ben’s comfort and physical well-being, a natural-born Good
Samaritan who was embarrassed by displays of gratitude and who was
devoid of self-righteousness, which drained all of the potential
offensiveness from his wellqneant, low-key pitch for Jesus.
Besides, Amos believed Ben’s lie about a desperately injured-perhaps
dying-wife in the Sunrise Hospital in Vegas. Although Amos said he did
not usually take the laws of the land lighflyven minor laws like speed