Page 133 (1/2)

He’s petting me. He thinks I’m sick and he’s petting my head.

“EVERRRRYONE … HURTS. WILLLL GO FIND … HELP.”

The fingers stroked Cooper’s hair one last time, then Jeff stood. He lumbered to the front of the hotel lobby. He walked out the ruined rotating door and vanished into the night.

Cooper slowly stood. He scanned the ravaged, smoky lobby to see if any of the killers were looking at him.

They weren’t. They were too busy dying.

The Tall Man’s eyes leaked yellow fluid, not all that different in color and consistency from the phlegm coating his nose and mouth. He was still coughing, still sneezing, but was too weak to wipe the goo away.

Cooper walked closer. The man’s rheumy eyes opened and closed, the stringers of yellow mucus that ran between his eyelids bouncing in time. His throat made a wet sound.

This was the man who ate Sofia.

You ate her too, you ate her too …

“I only had one serving, you f.u.c.k!”

Cooper took a step back: he’d just yelled at himself.

You are so f.u.c.king crazy you’re going off the deep end man get control …

“Shut up, shut up!”

He scrunched his eyes tight. He rubbed the pistol barrel against his right temple.

You’ve got the gun use it use it …

Use it on the Tall Man? No need. The Tall Man didn’t have much time left. None of these a.s.sholes did.

Or … maybe it was better if Cooper used it on himself.

He shook his head, shook it hard. No, he couldn’t think like that. He could make it out alive. He could. But if he couldn’t, if people like the Tall Man got him, if they were going to shove a stop sign up his a.s.s and out his mouth, roast him over a fire …

Was eating a bullet better than just being eaten?

The Tall Man coughed again. Phlegm came up, but this time so did blood. A thick, dark-red glob clung to his chin.

He’s coughing blood. Chavo was coughing blood …

Cooper heard yelling from the street. He held the gun against his thigh as he slowly walked to a broken window. He crouched, peeking just over the sill’s jagged gla.s.s.

Outside, he saw two women sprinting for their lives. Behind them, seven or eight screaming people carrying knives, hatchets, one carrying a shotgun by the barrel as if it were a club. Running alongside the hunters were two hulking, pale-yellow creatures with tiny faces and rippling muscles. Were either of them Jeff? No, they weren’t — Cooper would have recognized his friend, monstrous or not.

He couldn’t help those two women. He hadn’t saved Sofia, so he sure as f.u.c.k wasn’t going to get himself killed over a pair of strangers.