Stone Maidens by Lloyd Devereux Richards Page B

on,” she said. “I need something to eat.”
    David stumbled out into late afternoon sun too bright for his eyes. That was a bad sign. The edges of buildings and cars, even the people sitting in the big front window eating, appeared to shimmer. His breathing became uneven. Another vision was coming. Or was it his conscience not letting him off the hook? Increasingly, he feared that he was leading a double life and that others would notice him out of sorts, put two and two together, and that would be the beginning of the end. But what could he do?
    “Are you all right, dear?” Hilda’s clammy hand touched the back of his neck. “Why, David, you’re burning up.”
    “I’m fine.” He cringed from her touch, from the whole world that suddenly pressed in on him. “Not that hungry.” He leaned against the side of the truck fender, almost sounding convincing.
    The old man scooted ahead to hold the door for Hilda. Inside, she brushed past a waitress carrying a tray, nearly upsetting it. She quickly dropped her jacket over the back of a seat and made for the waiting bins of hot food with the urgency of a kid needing to pee.
    David fell into a chair, cowering under the full press of another siege, his sense of sight draining into so many swirls and dots. The people will see! What could he do but take a seat?
    “Pick up a tray and get some green beans,” his father bent over and whispered. “They’ll settle your stomach.”
    David stood up, off balance. Someone behind him was murmuring; he glanced sideways at the blurring shadows of two women huddled at the next table. The murmuring stopped. They were staring. He was a spectacle already—proof that he was mad!
    He followed the old man to the serving line. It was all he could do to navigate between tables without bumping into people. Hilda was at the far end already, happily facing an assortment of desserts, instructing a female server to ladle up an extra scoop of apple crisp.
    It made him dizzy to look down. His tray began warping in and out. Someone said, “May I help you?” and sounded a mile away.Hot flashes made his skin tingle. A revving heart sent him sucking for air. Everything was happening at once. He was descending a ravine again, chasing a screaming girl at a full run—with no say in the matter with this raging maniac inside his head.
    The face of a girl, her mouth open in a high-pitched scream, hammered him back into an empty seat. A high-speed camera was rolling in his head, yanking him into the middle of a chase scene that wove through oaks and a dark grove of hemlock amid nonstop shrieking.
Damn!
He’d left his prescription pills inside the glove box of his truck after making the run to Crosshaven earlier.
    A woman at a nearby table took in a mouthful of meat loaf. David glanced down at his own tray, which was now covered in a carpet of oak leaves. An awful ripping sound made him gag. Noises skittered from left to right as if his head were wired with special stereo made solely for his ears. The sweat wouldn’t stop rolling down his cheeks.
    Trembling, he glanced back at the woman eating meat loaf. The fork in her hand had morphed into a rubbery hose that glistened red. David gasped in disbelief.
Not at Beltson’s!
She bit off a chunk of the ribbed hose, snapping it between her teeth like a piece of red Twizzlers candy.
    David staggered down the serving line, forcing himself not to look back at the woman, but his mind couldn’t stop the picture show running, filling his head. A ladleful of green beans jumped out at him: pure green screaming, bright green under sprays of red, and now there was the distinct sensation of a warm limpness convulsing beneath him.
    David’s exhaling couldn’t keep up with his inhaling. Inside him, the demon was taking charge. He no longer could keep the full-bore vision from consuming him. In the line ahead, his father mumbled something, pointing to a vegetable dish under a protective hood. The surface of his palms