Blind Panic by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page A

legs. They looked more like living totem poles than men.
    “Where the hell did they come from?” said Charlie, with a wheeze.
    “Remo,” said Cayley, clutching at his arm. “Remo, I think we’d better just get out of here, don’t you?”
    Remo raised his rifle higher, swinging it from one of the figures to the other, but all the same he took two or three steps backward toward the Winnebago.
    “They came out of nowhere , man,” said Charlie, and he was wheezing more painfully now. “They came right out of the fricking ground .”
    Mickey said, “Maybe we’re hallucinating. Where did you get that shit we’ve been smoking, Remo?”
    Remo continued to keep the figures covered, but he continued to back away, too. “That was good shit, man. I got that from Louie.”
    “Then maybe it’s the campfire. Maybe there was jimson weed in some of that brush.”
    “So what do you see?” Remo asked him. “Do you see a guy in a pointy black hat and two tall guys who look like they’re wearing coffins?”
    Mickey glanced at him quickly. They all knew that everybody has different hallucinations when they’re high.
    “I think Cayley’s right,” said Charlie. “Like, let’s say that the better part of valor is getting the hell out of here, prontissimo .”
    They began to stumble back to the Winnebago, but the man who called himself Infernal John came after them, stalking across the boulders with a terrible surefootedness. The two totemlike figures followed close behind him, with long articulated legs like stilts. As they walked, they made a clicking noise and a loud, rattling whirr.
    “Shit, man!” said Remo, and there was panic in his voice.
    “Why are you running away from me?” Wodziwob demanded. “Are you afraid of ggwo tseka’a —that I will scalp you?”
    “Just get away from us, man!” Remo shouted. “We haven’t done nothing, but if you want us to leave, we’ll leave!”
    He lifted his rifle and fired one deafening shot into the air. It echoed and re-echoed from the rimrock and all the surrounding mountains. The last echo was followed almost immediately by the roar of a mountain lion.
    “You have disturbed kaggwe toohoo’oo ,” said Wodziwob. “Just as you have crushed every blade of grass that you have trodden on, and poisoned every insect, and shot down everybird that flies through the air. You have despoiled everything, and now you must pay the price for it.”
    Remo pointed the rifle directly at Wodziwob’s chest. “You take one step nearer, Mr. Infernal What’s-your-name, and the next one’s for you. I mean it. Me and my friends, we’re going to leave now, and you’re going to stay right there and let us go. Capisce? ”
    But it was then that Wodziwob lifted both of his hands, palms outward, and started to sing in a high, strangulated warble.
    “Jesus,” said Charlie. “Sounds like my mom’s tomcat when it’s in heat.”
    “I sing to each of you as gi tuwutabuedu! ” Wodziwob called out, and his voice was no longer mocking, but hard with anger. “This means blind person. I bring to your eyes toohoo-ggweddaddu nabo’o , which means black paint. Pooga’hoo —I blow out your candle.”
    The totemlike figures stalked closer, until they were towering over them. Behind the expressionless slits in their marks, the Emperors of IT could see faint blue-white lights flickering.
    “Come on, man,” said Charlie. “We really need to go.”
    “Look at them,” Remo protested. “They’re not even human. They’re just, like, robots or something.”
    He leaned forward and peered at them more intently. The two totemlike figures made a creaking noise and swayed slightly. Then, without warning, the blue-white lights suddenly flared up, crackling and spitting as fiercely as welding torches. They were so bright that the Emperors of IT had to raise their hands in front of their faces to stop themselves from being dazzled.
    “Holy crap,” said Mickey—yet almost as quickly as the lights had