Suspenseful Tales (2011) Page 14

  Michael heard shuffling footsteps behind him. He spun.

  Five men, all of them dead, their bodies in various stages of decomposition, dragged across the room, toward him. He recognized a couple of them; they were men he'd played cards with, guys who, like him, sometimes won, and often lost.

  He wondered if all of them were indebted to Big Daddy Jay.

  "Fuck this," he said.

  The zombies reached toward him.

  Michael barreled through them like a running back breaking a tackle, batting away their groping, dead hands. He threw open the door and rushed to the stairs. He took the steps three at a time, landed on the bottom, banged through the back door, and stumbled into the alley behind the building.

  And into the path of a white Cadillac.

  The car hit him head-on. He flew in the air, smashed against the windshield, flipped over the roof, and bounced to the gravel in a ragged, broken heap.

  Was just about to make a getaway, he thought, dimly. Big Daddy Jay had someone back here waiting for me, sneaky bastard. . .

  Someone climbed out of the Cadillac. The driver walked toward him, crunching across gravel. He looked down at Michael.

  It was Tommy Boy.

  "Hey," Michael said, weakly. "Help . . . me."

  "I tried to help you, Michael—or should I call you Ricky, the name you've been using in Atlanta?" Tommy Boy gave a small smile. "I warned you to run away. I was hoping you would. It would've been fun to hunt you down."

  In spite of his agony, Michael frowned. What the hell . . .

  "Confused, eh? Thought I was merely Big Daddy Jay's obedient little boy, tending shop?" Tommy Boy smirked. "His apparently ageless son? Funny how people in a small town don't question such telling details."

  As comprehension settled over Michael, he tried to open his mouth to scream. But his ruined throat emitted only a desperate croak.

  Tommy Boy knelt, leaned over him. His eyes danced—they were much darker and deeper than Michael remembered.

  "You owe me, Michael," Tommy Boy said, as his face began to pulsate and shift into something evil and utterly inhuman.

  "Do I look like a joker?"