Free Lot Lizards by Ray Garton

me. I'm...different now."
    "Do you have—"
    "No-no, I don't have anything. Not...really. I guess you could say I'm not well, but it's not a sickness. Not exactly." He looked down at his hand on Jon's wrist and frowned, thinking, struggling with something.  
    "What, Dad? Tell me what's wrong with you."
    "I can't, Jon. I just can't explain it, it's too...you wouldn't understand it. You'd think I'm crazy."
    " No I wouldn't !" Jon hissed.  
    He was silent for a long time, so long that Jon began to think he'd just...slipped away, or something. Then he nodded. Looked Jon in the eyes. And speaking slowly and monotonously, he began to tell Jon what had happened to him in the last year.  
    As he listened, Jon was filled slowly with a fear much colder than the snowy night outside...
     
     

 
    CHAPTER 7
     
    As Kevin passed the order counter carrying a tray of dirty utensils, the cook, Arnie Hamilton, leaned out and called, "Hey, Kevin, we're almost out of cheese. Go down and get some, huh?"  
    Kevin put the tray down on the dish cart with a tray of plates and called over his shoulder, "What kind?"
    "Both."
    "No problem." He smiled slightly as he wiped his hands. He liked to go down in the basement; he was the only one who ever went down in the basement on this shift and it gave him a chance to be alone and take a few tokes.  
    Passing through the kitchen, Kevin grabbed a ring of keys from a hook on the wall. At the end of a narrow corridor that went all the way to the back of the building, he unlocked a rickety door, reached in to flick on a light and went down the steep stairs to the basement.  
    The fluorescent tube lights made delicate tinkling sounds as they flickered on and bathed the stacks of boxes and crates and shelves of restaurant equipment in glaring white light. It was damp and smelled of cardboard and wet cement and it was almost as cold going down there as it would have been stepping outside.  
    Across the basement from the staircase was the freezer's broad steel door. Kevin thought it looked like the door to some awful prison cell, the kind of cell reserved for only the most heinous offenders; sometimes when he opened it up, he imagined finding not the restaurant's food but a dark and smelly room with mossy stone walls to which were chained the decayed rat-eaten remains of prisoners who had been locked up and forgotten. Of course, there was nothing beyond the big steel door but meats, cheeses, ice cream, frozen batters and God only knew what else, but giving his imagination an occasional walk in the park made Kevin's job a little more enjoyable.  
    His feet crunched over the damp concrete floor as he reached under his smock, unfastened his breast pocket and removed a joint. There were NO SMOKING signs posted all over the basement, but Kevin ignored them. He'd been performing this little ritual ever since he'd gotten the job and had found a way to keep the smell from lingering.  
    Near the ceiling was a rectangular window about two feet by three with a sturdy padlock on a hinge-latch. Months ago, Kevin had tried every small key on the ring that hung in the kitchen until the lock chittered free.  
    Now he climbed a couple crates and unlocked the window, pulling it open to let in a blast of icy air. He sat on the crate, cupped his hand around the lighter and lit the joint, drawing the sweet smoke in deeply and holding it in his lungs.  
    His job was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. Aside from being around Jenny—something he enjoyed so much that he figured it was probably weird...unhealthy, or something—it got him out of the house and away from the constant screaming that was a way of life for his uncle Mike and aunt Sylvia. He'd been living with them since his parents were killed in a house fire almost four years ago and he'd hated every minute of it. Most of the time they seemed unaware of his presence and when they did notice him, it was only to shout at him for one thing or