The Attraction by Douglas Clegg Read Free Book Online Page A

torn from a book on the Aztecs. There was a scene of blood running from a warrior’s chest, a look of horror on his face, as several priests stood around him, with one raising his still-beating heart high. Other large pictures included a poorly done painting of what appeared to be a tomb with stone jaguars and scorpions and what Josh guessed was the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl. A crystal skull hung suspended above their heads. They all giggled and snorted or just laughed out loud as they passed through a spotlighted area with a tall wooden sculpture of a naked woman. The sign behind the sculpture read,
This work of art was found behind the arroyo and is believed to have been carved by the Ancients.
    Finally, a new doorway, and over it, the sign,
It’s not too late to turn back! You don’t want to see the Unspeakable Mystery! The Ancient Savage Flayer of Men! The Flesh-Scraper of the Pyramids of Teotihuacán!
    Josh was the first one through the door, and what he saw there made him cry out.

P ART T WO
    THE UNSPEAKABLE

Chapter Seven
    1
    Dave Olshaker had been on the road too long, and he was sleepy as hell. He and Billy Dunne had to slap each other a few times just to keep their eyes open, and then the heat of the day just fried them out, that and the warm piss beer. Dave had to take a dump twice back in the sagebrush because something he’d eaten the night before hadn’t set well.
    But they had watched it all.
    Billy had wanted to go help with the tire change. “It’s our chance. We can help ’em, then beat the crap out of Griff. And you can get Tammy.”
    But Dave, not feeling so great, had held back. He’d just driven around and around the narrow, dusty side road off the highway, trying to keep out of sight of the gang with the Pimpmobile.
    Once the tow truck had come out, he decided to follow it up to the Brakedown Palace, but he still stayed a ways back until he saw all of them go inside the shop.
    When he drove up to the Palace, he gassed up the car, then went inside.
    “Fuel,” Billy said, grabbing Hostess Cupcakes, Twinkies, and some Drake’s Yodels from the shelves, stuffing them down his pants as if the bulge wouldn’t be noticeable.
    “That a Twinkie in your jeans, or are you just happy to see me?” Dave chuckled.
    “Where’d they go anyway?” Billy asked.
    Charlie Goodrow had come back inside the shop, and pointed to the doorway in the back. “They went back there. And you’re paying for every damn Twinkie you got in your pants, kid.”
    2
    Inside the inner sanctum, Josh was shocked by the smell—it was of some kind of church incense. The room was smoky with it.
    The others came up behind him, Tammy coughing, Ziggy saying something about getting high off “sacred fumes,” and Bronwyn pointing out the lack of ventilation, despite the cigarette hanging out of her mouth.
    But Josh had already gone over to the display case. The Mystery. The Great and Powerful It.
    With spotlights on signs and images behind it—signs that warned of ancient curses and Aztec savagery, and images of the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon as well as of some man-creature covered with blood, holding what looked like a human head in his hands—a glass case stood at the center of the room, lit from beneath and behind with a cool blue and white light, and within the glass display, some kind of curved rock.
    It was in what looked like a large stone bowl. As if a geode the size of a desk had been cracked open to cradle it.
    “It’s a dead kid,” Griff said.
    “No, it’s not. Look at the hands.”
    “And feet,” Josh added. “Christ.”
    “It’s disgusting,” Tammy said.
    “I don’t know,” Bronwyn said. “Makes me feel a little creepy. But it has its good points.”
    “Like?”
    Bronwyn shrugged. “It looks like the kind of baby someone I know will have someday.”
    “Like a baby freak,” Griff said.
    The only one not talking much was Ziggy. Josh noticed that he just stood off to the side, and wouldn’t do more