Repairman Jack [07]-Gateways by F. Paul Wilson Page B

handsome.
    “I want to talk to her, ask her a few questions.”
    “Looks to me like she don’t wanna talk to you.” His voice was high and nasal.
    “Where does she live?”
    “In the Glades.”
    “How do I find her?”
    “You don’t. Whatever it is, mister, leave it be.”
    Suddenly another guy, thinner and only marginally better looking, jumped into the pickup’s passenger seat.
    Where’d he come from?
    The new guy slapped the driver on the shoulder and nodded. Neither looked too bright. If someone suggested playing Russian roulette with a semiautomatic, they’d probably say, “Cool!”
    The driver gave Jack a little two-finger salute. “Welp, nice talkin’ to ya. Gotta go now.”
    Before Jack could say anything the guy threw the truck into gear and roared off. Jack raced back to his car. If he couldn’t follow the girl, then he’d tail these two. Sooner or later they had to—
    He skidded to a halt when he saw the Buick’s flat front tire, and the gash in its side wall.
    “Swell,” he muttered. “Just swell.”

5

    “I don’t get it,” Luke said as he piloted the Chicken-ship deeper into the swamp. “Who was that guy?”
    Semelee pulled off the black wig and shook out her silver white hair. She didn’t feel like talkin’. Her stomach still wasn’t right.
    “He saw me in the room. I think he might be the old guy’s kin.”
    “That why he was trailin’ you?”
    “Maybe. I don’t know. All I know is I felt so strange in that room. It started as soon as I stepped through the door and got worse and worse the closer I got to the old man’s bed. I started feeling sick and weak, and the air got so thick I could barely breathe. I tell you, Luke, all I wanted to do was get out of there and get far, far away as fast I could.”
    “Think it was the guy?”
    “Could’ve been, but I don’t think so.”
    This man wasn’t just a guy, wasn’t just one of the old man’s kin. This man was the one she’d sensed coming for the past two days, and he was special. She sensed something about him…a destiny, maybe. She didn’t know exactly what, she just knew he was special.
    So am I, she thought. But in a different way.
    Maybe she and this new man was destined to be together. That would be wonderful. She liked the way he looked, liked his hair, his build—not too beefy, not too slight—liked his brown eyes and hair. She especially liked his face, his regular, normal face. Hangin’ round the clan like she did, she didn’t see too many of those.
    Maybe he’d been sent to her. Maybe he was here for her. Maybe they was meant to share their destinies. She sure hoped so. She needed someone.
    “Well, if you don’t think it’s him made you sick,” Luke said, “what was it?”
    Semelee pulled the white dress off over her head, leaving her wearing nothin’ but a pair of white panties. She looked down at her small, dark-nippled breasts. Losers in the size sweepstakes, maybe, but at least they didn’t sag. One of the guys she’d screwed in high school had called them “perky.” They were that, she guessed.
    Keepin’ her back to Luke—she didn’t want him gettin’ all hot and bothered out here on the water—she slipped into her cutoffs and a green T-shirt.
    “I don’t know. It was like…” She shuddered as she remembered that awful sick feelin’ runnin’ through her body, like she was being turned inside out…“like nothin’ I ever felt before. And I hope I don’t never feel it again.”
    She turned and whacked Luke on the leg as hard as she could.
    He jumped. “Hey, what—?”
    “And I wouldna had to feel it in the first place if you and Corley had done the job you was upposed to!”
    “Hey, we did just what we was upposed to. You was there.”
    “I wasn’t there.”
    “Well, you was watchin’. You saw what happened. The sacrifice was goin’ exactly accordin’ to plan when that cop showed up outta nowhere. I said all along we shoulda just flattened the old guy inside his car