Bria rolled her window down and spat.
She took her oversized sunglasses out of her back pocket and eased them onto her bruised face as she wheezed. Reeds was about 300 miles east from Jacksonville. If she hurried, she could get there a little after seven.
FINAL PASSAGE
BRUCE BOSTON
When burning engines
feed on the history
of individual sorrow
and you carry
your photographic history
by transcendent second
in your hip pocket,
when seconds conspire
like British spies
from a war movie
of the darkening thirties,
and seconds melt
like memories in
the click and clack
of a sunlit train,
when your alcazar
of being collapses
into memory
transfigured,
the hour strikes
to call the players
back from the green
in the last decline
of a long dusk
cast in shadow.
STARVE A FEVER
JONAH BUCK
The barking police dogs were the worst part of the wait. Martin Browne sat in the car, listening to the sounds draw closer. His palms grew sweaty against the car’s steering wheel. He turned the radio up until the sounds of rockabilly were sending little vibrations through the vehicle’s chassis.
Joe stood near the edge of the road, where the gravel started to turn to mush and the bayou took over. His boots were planted amid a nest of thorny weeds, crumpled soda cans, and old food wrappers. Joe had his fly down, and he was facing the water, but nothing was coming out.
They were saving the contents of a couple bottles of beer for in case the police came bursting out of the swampland. That was going to be their explanation for why they were stopped out here in the middle of nowhere while a jailbreak went on less than a mile away. Sorry, officer, but nature calls. The plan had sounded a lot better when they were discussing it back in Baton Rouge. Now, with the sounds of angry hounds drawing closer by the second, it just seemed imbecilic.
Martin rolled the window down. “Listen, Joe. Maybe we should start thinking about . . . you know.”
Joe whipped around so fast Martin thought the man might snap in half. “He’ll be here, okay? Just mind the car.” His words came out in a rushed snarl.
Joe was aggressive and impulsive. Planning ahead didn’t come naturally to him. That added to the anxiousness that their plan might fall apart, and his insides were a bundle of nitroglycerin right now.
What if the cops got here first? Even a cursory check would reveal Joe was the escapee’s brother, and that would be enough for any prosecutor to throw them into the hoosegow for a good, long time.
What if David got lost out in the swamp somewhere? Hell, he could have been dragged under by a gator by now. The bayou wasn’t a friendly place under the best of conditions. They wouldn’t be any kinder to a man who had just crawled through a hundred yards of sewage tunnel to escape.
Martin had known Joe and David Meinam for a long time. They had to be the two dumbest ofays God ever put on this green Earth, but everyone had their special skills and talents. Joe had a knack for ripping off ATMs, for instance. They’d wait until the wee hours of the morning, and then Joe would use some of the construction tools he’d borrowed from his family’s business. They’d have the ATM in the back of a rental truck in no time flat, and Martin knew a thing or two about actually getting them open. It was a pretty slick operation.
David had been the team’s muscle. On the couple of occasions when they walked in and robbed the banks, David was the man with the gun. He was built like Bigfoot and about as hairy. A few beefy grunts was all it took to convince some poor teller to put the money in the bag.
Things went bad last year when David tried to do some extracurricular work and rob a couple of convenience stores. The cops caught onto his shtick real quick-like, and then it was a short ride over to the penitentiary. David never said anything about the bank jobs, God bless his heart, but it definitely made Martin nervous knowing he could blab to a snitch at some point.
It was Joe’s idea to help bust his brother out, and it had seemed like a fine notion at the time. David was less likely to get them in trouble if he could keep low with some fake identity papers than if he was left on the inside of that weird, private prison.
Besides, David’s letters home were pitiful things. Parts of them were blacked out by the prison staff, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines. David had volunteered to be part of a series of drug trials to earn a faster release. Supposedly, all the pills were in the final stages of review and should have been perfectly safe for human consumption.
Still, there had been some issues. David was missing a couple of fingertips because they’d gone gangrenous. Martin had seen other letters and learned far more about David’s persistent rash than he wanted to know. Apparently, David scared the bejeezus out of himself one week because he started passing blood.
When Martin and Joe were planning the escape, it seemed more like a sort of humanitarian mission. They would swoop in and save their captured comrade like James Bond teamed up with Robin Hood, kicking ass and riding off into the sunset.
Now that the moment was actually upon them though, Martin’s teeth were clenched so hard he thought they might crack. This was taking far too long. He had to resist the urge to drive off at top speed and leave David to his fate. If the cops spotted them, they were going to get burned. Too much of the plan relied on David reading a compass correctly. They should have never relied on David. He was always the weakest link in the chain.
“There he is!” Joe slapped the hood of the car, and Martin jumped in surprise. Sure enough, a hulking figure clad in an orange jumpsuit clambered out of the underbrush. David looked different from the last time Martin had seen him. That should have been the first warning something was wrong.
He was much thinner. His husky frame had slimmed down considerably. In fact, he didn’t seem to be much more than skin and bones. The orange jumpsuit hung on him like a tent. The mud-spattered garment was obviously issued to someone with a lot more weight.
David waded through the water as Joe waved him on with frantic hand motions. Joe had a pistol tucked into the waistband of his pants. If the police stumbled into them right now, someone would likely get shot.
Trudging forward, David suddenly noticed something. He stopped and shot a hand out. He snatched an object off a nearby bush and stuffed it in his mouth. Martin thought David might have accidentally jammed a couple of leaves in there, too. He grimaced, but Martin couldn’t tell if that was from eating the leaves or the effort of wading through the water. David chewed furiously as he reached the side of the road and half-stumbled, half-collapsed into his brother’s arms.
Joe opened the back door and stuffed David inside before hopping in himself. Martin was pulling away before Joe even shut the door. The sound of barking dogs started to fade away into the distance, and for the first time since they committed to this crazy venture, Martin felt some of the tension slip out of his body.
They still had a long way to go, though. Soon there would be roadblocks and checkpoints in the area, and pictures of David’s face would start broadcasting on the local news. They needed to get to ground fast.
One good thing at least. David didn’t look like his old pictures. He’d lost so much weight the roundness of his features had changed to gaunt cheekbones, and he’d lost a lot of his hair, which had come out in irregular patches.
“Here, put these on,” Joe said, tossing some of David’s old clothes into the back.
“Thanks,” David managed to say in a shadow of his old voice. He started peeling off his muddy jumpsuit and slipping into the clothes.
“Good to see you again, my man,” Martin said without turning around.
“H
ungry,” David replied.
“We’ll get you something once we clear this mess. Until then, we have to eat up some miles.”
“He’s hot,” Joe said.
“What?”
“He’s hot to the touch. Like he’s got a fever. I could feel it when I shoved him in the back.”
“Well, we’ll grab him some pills when we get back to the city. Food and pills. We’ve got to get out of here first, though.”
A hand landed on Martin’s shoulder, and he nearly jerked the car into the swamp. The hand felt like someone had filled a rubber glove with volcano ash and laid it near Martin’s neck. Martin wanted to smack the hand away, some ancient part of his brain sounding the alarm. Plague. Disease. Pestilence.
“Hungry,” David said again.
Martin looked at David more closely in the rearview mirror. Something was dangling out the corner of his lips, what looked like a spider’s leg. Jesus, was that what he’d stuffed in his mouth while wading out of the bayou?
David’s tongue shot out and pulled the spider leg into his mouth. For a second, he smiled like he’d just finished a plate of his mama’s fresh apple pie. Then the smile faded into something more haggard.
“All right, all right. We’ll stop and get you something when we get the chance. There’s nothing around right now, though.”
David moaned.
“How are you holding up, man?” Joe asked. “Are you sick?”
“It’s the pills they gave us,” David said. “The whole test group got them. The doctors don’t know what to do. We’re all so hungry.” He absently reached up and pulled out a chunk of his hair. It made a noise like Velcro as the roots tore out of his scalp. David stuffed the clump of hair in his mouth and absently swallowed it.
He grimaced and reached up for another chunk of hair, but Joe slapped his hand away. Now he knew why David’s scalp was so patchy.
“What pills? What did they do to you?” Joe demanded.
“The pharmacist said they were new diet pills. Supposed to speed up your metabolism for a little while. Burn everything right off you.” David clutched himself and groaned again.
“We’ve got to get him something to eat, man,” Joe said.
“We’re still a dozen miles from the next town. The cops are going to be all over this highway soon,” Martin protested.
David lurched forward, his breath suddenly in Martin’s ear. It was a warm, fetid carrion stink. “I need food. I need it.” David’s tone sounded both demanding and pathetic.
Martin leaned away, but the heat remained on his neck for a couple of seconds. His skin broke out in goose flesh.
David’s temperature felt more like a half-baked cookie than a human being. That made some sense, though. If those pills sped up David’s metabolism, it was like building a big fire. And a fire of that size would consume lots of fuel and give off lots of heat.
“They kept us in a special treatment unit, but that only made it easier to escape.” David grinned and licked his lips. “Minimum security, baby. No problem. I’m really starting to feel it now, though. It’s starting to get bad again. I don’t know how much longer . . . ”
“Here, have a smoke. It’ll calm you down,” Joe said. He pulled out a pack and offered one to David. By the time he had fished out his lighter, David had already eaten the cigarette.
Joe turned to Martin. “Does this seem, uh, normal to you?”
“Name a scenario in which this shit would seem normal.”
“You know what I’m asking. What are we gonna do about this?”
“Well, the hospital is out of the question. We’ll have every cop in the parish on us before we finish filling out paperwork. Maybe we can wait it out. Just keep the food rolling until his body goes back to normal, you know? He said it was a metabolism pill. Basically, his body is burning way more energy than normal, right? That’s what’s making him so hot. His body’s trying to go through its reserves all at once.”
“How long do you think it’ll last?”
“Do I look like a doctor to you? I think the best we can do is stuff calories into him and hope the pills wear off soon.”
“Well then, let’s go get him some damned food fast.”
“Have you been listening at all? We can’t stop here. The cops will—”
Martin felt a thump against the back of his seat, followed by a tearing sound. He looked back and saw David with his teeth gnawing into the upholstery, tearing a strip off like a lion tucking into a gazelle. There was something wild in his eyes as he chewed on the patch of material. David gagged, nearly choked, and then managed to swallow the wad of treated leather and foam padding.
“Christ on a cracker,” Joe muttered, watching his brother gnosh on the upholstery. He pushed David back in his seat. “C’mon, bro. You can’t eat that. It’s got glue or resins or whatever in it. You’ll make yourself sicker.”
“We’ll stop at a convenience store and load up on beef jerky or whatever.” Martin finished his thought differently than he’d originally planned. That bestial look taking hold in David’s eyes had convinced him.
Martin vaguely remembered reading in a bathroom trivia book that the highest fever anyone had ever survived was about 115 degrees. He always felt like death whenever the flu spiked his temperature above one hundred. Even though he didn’t have a thermometer with him, he was fairly certain David was well over a hundred degrees.
He also recalled from that same book, a prolonged fever could fry someone’s brain in a hurry. It was like overheating a computer. Above a particular temperature range, certain components would either give out or start melting.
They passed a farm on the left. The ground was starting to dry up a little where people had reclaimed the soil from the muck. That meant they were getting closer to some semblance of civilization. Maybe there would be a drive-thru someplace relatively anonymous where they could pull in and get moving again.
David touched Martin again. If anything, his fingers were even hotter than before. They dripped with a sort of greasy, pungent sweat. Martin jerked his head away. If the fever just kept increasing, his system would break down from the unnatural starvation.
“There! A gas station!” Joe said.
The building even had a little market attached. The prices would be jacked up, but there would be food. That was exactly what they needed to keep David from imploding.
Martin pulled into the gas station and rolled past a seagull that had been flattened by some motorist. A couple living gulls perched on the building’s dumpster, and another landed on the station’s roof and cackled at Martin.
“Wait here,” Martin said. He grabbed a hat and a pair of sunglasses. This place would have security cameras. The hat and glasses would at least obscure his face.
He hopped out and marched into the little market. A bored-looking clerk with acne scars greeted him, but Martin barely noticed.
What should he get? What could he give a man with a wildfire raging inside him? What would extinguish those flames?
More than anything else, David probably needed calories. Martin scurried to the refrigerators in the back and grabbed a big bottle of soda before snaking his way back toward the counter. On the way, he grabbed food mostly at random. Chips. Sandwich crackers with fake cheese filling. Something called a Jumbo Muscle Bar.
He took a detour to the next aisle, which had some generic medicine and an intimidatingly large array of chapstick. Some cold and flu medicine joined the other purchases. Maybe it would help. All Martin had to go on at this point was a basket of maybes.
He tossed the pile down in front of the clerk and fished out his wallet. Did he have enough cash for everything? He hoped so. The cops would come sniffing at Martin’s door eventually because he and David did a stint in juvie together when they were teens. He was a known associate. Martin was paying a buddy to help him with an alibi. He, Martin, and Joe had been watching the game together all day, enjoying beers and microwave nachos. However, the cops could find out if he used a
credit card near the breakout. Then he’d have a big neon sign over his head reading, “GUILTY.”
The clerk gave a bland, professional smile and started ringing the items up. Then, the man glanced up as if to make small talk. His gaze shifted over Martin’s shoulder. “What in the world?”
Martin turned around, already afraid of what he’d see. David was out of the car. Joe had his brother by one arm, trying to pull him back into the vehicle. David was crouched over the dead seagull, shoveling pieces into his mouth with his free hand. Crushed bones, matted feathers, and pulped entrails alike went into David’s mouth.
Joe tugged on his brother’s arm again, and David shoved him back against the side of the car. With both hands free, he started gnawing on some of the larger cuts. He snapped a leg bone and sucked the putrid marrow out. Then he smashed the bird’s skull against the ground before upending what was left of its brain into his mouth.
“I’m calling the cops. That guy’s crazy,” the clerk said, reaching for the phone.
“No, wait.” Martin threw up a hand in a vain attempt to dissuade the man, but the clerk’s fingers were already dialing. Abandoning the food, Martin dashed outside and tried to grab David.
There were tears streaming down David’s face, mixing with the sweat pouring out of his body. “Can’t stop,” he said around a mouthful of crusty, blackening seagull intestines. “Need more.”
Martin tried to pull him away, but it was like trying to drag an anvil left out in the desert sun. There was no budging him, and heat radiated off David’s body in sickly waves. Aside from some feathers and a few other morsels, the flattened seagull was basically gone.
Suddenly, two sheriff’s vehicles came screaming down the narrow highway, their lights flashing. The station’s clerk burst out of the store and waved his arms at them. One of them either didn’t see the man or was hell-bent on meeting up with the posse searching the swamp. The other turned off and pulled into the parking lot.
This couldn’t be happening. Martin shouldn’t have stopped. Now they were really screwed. This wouldn’t be a trip to the pokey, either. A jailbreak was big league stuff.
Tales from The Lake 5 Page 15
