Free Laws of Nature -2 by Christopher Golden Page A

him.
    Jack hopped out of the Jeep and ran around to the back to get an umbrella for her, then went to the door. With the doors locked, the two of them crowded under the now-inadequate shield from the rain and looked for somewhere to eat. They spotted a place called the Jukebox Restaurant.
    "It looks harmless enough," Molly observed. "And it's dry in there."
    "Sold," Jack replied.
    Together they ran to the door and slipped inside. The Jukebox was much nicer than Molly expected. Not that it was anything special, but the tablecloths were clean and each table had a small candle on it. It was relatively crowded as well, which Molly thought boded well.
    A minute or so after they had come in, a waitress walked over, wiping her hands on her apron. She smiled oddly at them, as if she thought they had inadvertently stumbled into the wrong place.
    "Can I help you folks?"
    "I hope so," Jack replied. "Two for dinner."
    The waitress blinked. "Oh. Oh, sure. Smoking or non?"
    "Non," Molly said quickly.
    As the waitress grabbed a couple of menus and turned, Molly frowned. Nothing like being wanted, she thought. Maybe it was the girl's first night, or maybe it was that they just did not get too many travelers passing through, but she thought the waitress's hesitancy was extremely rude.
    With a curious smile, the waitress laid the menus on a table against the back wall. As Molly sat down, she glanced around and saw that a lot of the other diners had turned to observe them. A shudder passed through her.
    Enough to make a girl paranoid, she thought.
    "Can I get you folks a drink while you're deciding on dinner?" the waitress asked.
    Jack ordered a Coke and Molly asked for lemonade. The second the waitress was gone, Molly tried to tear her attention away from the surreptitious glances she was getting from others in the restaurant.
    "Boy, I guess they really don't get a lot of tourists through here," she whispered to Jack. "I feel like I'm in a fishbowl."
    "Could be they're just entranced by your ravishing beauty," he suggested.
    Molly swore at him under her breath, and he laughed. A few minutes later the waitress returned with their drinks and they ordered. Jack had steak teriyaki.
    Though Molly would have liked the pasta primavera, she ordered the chicken parmesan; she reasoned that was the one thing on the menu it would be really difficult to screw up.
    "Okay, anything else at the moment?" the waitress asked, eyes on Jack.
    "Actually," Molly put in, almost forcing the girl to turn to her, "we were hoping you might be able to tell us if there's anywhere in town for us to stay. A hotel or a bed-and-breakfast?"
    "Hunh," the waitress replied, face twisted up in an expression that implied the question might be too difficult for her. She was clearly stumped. "Do you have relatives in town?"
    "No," Jack said good-naturedly, "just passing through. Seeing the sights."
    "Yeah," the girl replied cynically, "it's just too bad there aren't any sights to see. There isn't much to do in Buckton."
    Molly and Jack just waited, watching her. After a moment the waitress shrugged.
    "Well, the only place to stay in town is the Buckton Inn. It's just up the Post Road a ways, about a mile and a half on the left. You can't miss it, considering it's the only thing there," she said, her expression, like her tone, filled with disdain for her hometown.
    "Thanks," Jack said.
    "Not at all," the waitress replied. "Just do me a favor? If you're going anywhere that's even remotely like a city after this, give some thought to the idea of taking me with you."
    Molly actually chuckled at that, feeling far less impatient with the girl than she had been. "We'll take it into consideration," she promised.
    Deputy Alan Vance stood in the lobby of the Buckton Inn and tapped impatiently on the counter. The fingers of his right hand drummed out the theme from the ancient Lone Ranger television show.
    Behind the counter, Tina was on the phone with Mick Bradley, who had been unwilling to come