money wasn’t trickling in, Manfred was in trouble with the law, and there was this big, bad thing outside trapping them indoors for the night. Of course he’d noticed there was a full moon. The moon would be as near to full as made no difference for the next two nights. He wondered if he’d have to stay locked inside all that time or if he could manage to stay up most of the night with the front doors unlocked to get the customers he often got during that moon phase. They were the customers better left to Lemuel—but he hadn’t heard from Lem in weeks. Or would those customers be in too much danger? What made this full moon more dangerous?
And then he was back to his worry about the shop.
The worst thing about sleepless nights was the feeling of running in a hamster cage, at least mentally. The same thoughts, over and over . . . He tossed and turned for another half hour. Finally, he slept.
—
The Reeds drew all the shades in their trailer, double-checked to make sure all the windows and doors were locked, and got out their guns, which were loaded and ready for use. Madonna held Grady for a long time before she put him to bed, and she left the door of his room open so she could hear the smallest sound. They didn’t turn on their television, either, which was a trial for both Madonna and Teacher. Instead, Madonna checked her Facebook page and some recipe websites, and Teacher read a backlog of mechanics magazines. By midnight, they were relaxed enough to crawl into bed to sleep.
—
In the Midnight Hotel, in their separate “suites,” Suzie and Tommy slept the sleep of exhaustion, only rousing enough to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water. Just down the hall, Mamie had had to take some pain medication for her hip, and she was snoring in her room. Shorty Horowitz slept sporadically, waking to confused dreams that were set in his colorful past. His grandson, in a room upstairs, was worried about spending yet another night in Texas, and concerned about finding somewhere for his grandfather to settle. If only he had a sibling to share the load. Barry slept with silver around his neck and wrists.
Lenore Whitefield was exhausted, too. She was out the second her head hit her pillow. Her husband stayed up to look at porn on his laptop, unbeknownst to Lenore, who would have hit him over the head with that laptop had she known.
The two contract workers sat in their respective rooms upstairs playing a computer game with each other. They did not see anything odd about this behavior. They didn’t pay any attention to the town, and they never knew that if they’d stepped outside the doors that night, they might have been eaten.
28
Manfred had to leave his work desk untended the next day to honor his promise to drive into Davy to see Arthur Smith. Though he grumbled internally about leaving his work, and he did need to talk more to Barry and Olivia about what had happened when they were in the Goldthorpe house (there’d been no chance for him to get the full story), he had to admit he was anxious to hear whatever Arthur had to tell him. Davy only seemed a large town in comparison to Midnight. Though it was just a few minutes’ drive north, Davy had many more restaurants and shops. It was also the county seat, with the usual cluster of lawyers around the usual courthouse. Since Davy was also on a small river where rafting and canoeing were possible, the town conducted a brisk tourist trade in the summer and early fall.
The law enforcement agencies in the town had recently consolidated into one building, a renovated school. The sheriff’s department, the jail, and two courtrooms were in the same building, and the ambulance service was one block away, the fire department a block after that. Manfred had expected a little district that ran on emergencies and crime to be bustling, but not in Davy. There were no fires, nor anyone in need of rescue at the moment. The sheriff’s department seemed just as quiet. The jail had a separate entrance at the other side of the building, so Manfred didn’t even have to share parking space with visitors. He was not at all tempted to find out if there was more bustle over on the jail side.