FURNACE

by Muriel Gray

  Harvey blinked out of the empty space that used to be a door and watched as the taillights of the truck careered off a closed exit ramp and disappeared behind a cover of trees.

  From the speaker hanging by a wire from the dash, Princess Jasmine spoke to him in a breathy voice.

  “Oh, Aladdin. Is it really you? I thought you were dead.”

  Harvey cupped his hand over his mouth and started to laugh.

  27

  “What’s the longest he’s ever gone without calling?”

  Nesta’s face was a study in adult calm, quickly ruined by the beer she’d just opened frothing over the top and spilling over her hand. Elizabeth passed her a magazine to catch the foam.

  “In all these years? Two nights.”

  Nesta slurped at the top of the bottle to stop the flow of rogue beer.

  “No shit? He calls every night?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “It must have been some row.”

  Elizabeth looked at the wall. “I wanted to hurt him, Nesta. Guess I did a good job.”

  Nesta sat back on the low sofa and sighed. Only an hour ago she’d wrestled with whether it would be intrusive to drop by and check on her friend and partner, but now she was glad she had. Seemed that Sim downstairs had lost a few more brain cells, and a loco lodger was the last thing Elizabeth needed right now. What she needed was that special someone they both knew. The someone who’d forgotten how a phone worked.

  “That’s the bit I don’t get. Why did you want to hurt a guy like Josh? They ain’t makin’ them like that anymore.”

  Elizabeth looked back at her friend and smiled without warmth. “Because I could.”

  “Oh, well, that explains everything.”

  Nesta took a contemptuous swig of beer and Elizabeth looked at the floor.

  “What I mean is, I was so hurt myself. Hurt that he was just going about his business, getting on with his life, taking me for granted. I couldn’t believe it when I found out I was pregnant, and I was so angry he wasn’t here to talk to about it. To share the problem.”

  “But, honey, he wasn’t AWOL. He’s long-haul. He’s never here.”

  “I know. I was way out of line.” Her cheeks reddened. “Way out,” she repeated softly.

  Nesta softened her voice. “How you feeling? You know…”

  “Weird. Want to know something?”

  “I want to know everything.”

  Elizabeth smiled again, this time at her lap. A sad smile, but not a bitter one. “I’m fourteen weeks gone.”

  Nesta opened her mouth in theatrical surprise.

  “What?”

  Elizabeth looked up, and Nesta thought something like joy was fighting for space behind her eyes.

  “I know. I had no idea it was so advanced. I just found out with the scan.”

  “But are you showing?”

  “Sort of. It’s hard to tell.”

  “Like you never weigh yourself?”

  Elizabeth looked away dreamily, ignoring the question. “The strangest thing is, and I know it’s impossible, but I can sometimes almost feel it moving.”

  “You’re right. That’s not possible. It’s the size of a jelly bean.”

  “Well, maybe I dream it. I don’t know. The feeling’s so strong sometimes.”

  Nesta softened her gaze and her voice. “You’ve done it, haven’t you?”

  Elizabeth looked at her. “Done what?”

  “Cancelled the appointment.”

  Elizabeth nodded, and this time there were tears in her eyes. Nesta sat forward and put a hand out to her arm.

  “Good.”

  “He was right, Nesta. We can work it out. All I need to do is talk to him. Tell him it’s going to be okay.”

  Nesta sat back again as if everything had been sorted with that admission. “So if he’s not calling ‘cos he’s mad at you, then I guess it’s up to you. How we goin’ to get in touch with him, then?”

  Elizabeth rubbed at her wrist. “I guess we could call his dispatcher.”

  “So let’s call.”

  The phone trilled from the hall as though roused by the suggestion, and Elizabeth looked to Nesta in panic.

  Nesta held out her arms and shrugged. “Answer it, for Christ’s sake.”

  As she walked to the hall Elizabeth realized that Sim’s madness had affected her. She was already planning how she would think her love down the line to Josh if he couldn’t hear her. She would think at him so hard, no beat-up mobile line in the world could fail to carry her message of remorse and her ache for him. Nesta slid into view at the door and watched as Elizabeth picked up the handset.

  “Hello?”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes and bit her lip. Nesta’s hand went to her neck.

  “No, Rudy. That’s okay. Sure, I’ll tape it for you.”

  Nesta shook her head and went back to her beer.

  Had he done it again? Had he killed? Josh was shaking, his jaw trembling as though he were suffering extreme cold, though his face was slick with sweat. He’d brought the truck to a stop about two miles along the country road that led from the interstate exit, and he sat now in terror, not knowing if his fear was for what he might have done to the occupants of the car, or because every nerve in his body was waiting for the sound of claws on metal. Far away beyond the trees, the immobile line of red and white lights of the interstate glittered between the branches as though they were party lanterns hung for a homecoming. It was only a matter of time before they would be joined by flashing blue and red lights, and then the bears would come after him.

  Jezebel’s headlights made a fan of white in the tunnel of black wood ahead, and Josh stared into it as though a play were about to begin. They were still talking about him on the radio. There was a lot of shouting and cursing, but the mood was almost jubilant. The consensus seemed to be that someone had gone apeshit with the traffic line and broken loose. Some truckers thought that was cool, others thought it was a case for the electric chair. But that was it. No one was screaming about the unholy thing on his trailer. No one was trying to call the National Guard or praying for deliverance to their God over the airwaves.

  Josh knew then, with a sickness that invaded him to the core, that its appearance had been a private viewing. The air in the cab was considerably cooler and he let his eyes leave the road ahead and swivel up to the innocent velour padding of the interior roof. He could hear nothing except the reassuring rumble of the engine. It was gone. For now.

  The voices on the radio were talking about the car he’d hit. He looked forward again and fumbled for the volume.

  “Jeez, did those guys ever have a lucky one walkin’ away an’ all.”

  “Ten-four to that. You see the doors, man? Clean off. An’ that little kid, lookin’ like he won a prize ‘stead of nearly havin’ his head pulped.”

  Josh slumped forward and buried his head in his hands. The rest of the voices washed over him unheard. They were all right. The people in the car were all right.

  He exhaled into his hands, his shoulders rising and falling between the spasms of his faltering breath. How long did he have now? Ten hours? Twelve? It would have him. He knew that now, and his bowels shifted with the reality of what that might mean.

  And where the fuck was he? He’d been about an hour from the Furnace exit when he’d hit the traffic, and now he was simply off the interstate in some godforsaken Appalachian forest.

  Josh sniffed, raised his head and wiped his eyes. The wall of trees on either side of the road shifted like the fur of an animal in the light wind, receding into blackness beyond the limits of Jezebel’s headlights. He let himself muse on where his stowaway might be now. Was it watching him from the darkness ahead? Waiting? Josh searched the dark bands of wood for movement other than the unwelcoming shivering of branches.

  His roving eye was rewarded, but not from the view ahead. A sudden movement in the rearview mirror, just within his peripheral vision, made his ribs seem flimsy tools to contain his heart. Jos
h held his breath and focused on the mirror. Within that rectangle of silvered glass was a reflected portion of the darkened sleeper behind him, and as he watched, the movement that had attracted his unwilling eye was repeated.

  Something was flapping at his back. Slowly Josh turned his head, his ears now confirming the disturbance registering the unmistakable rustle of agitated material. In the dark box that contained his bed, his thin quilted comforter was rising from the mattress, making a shape that implied the writhing bulk beneath it was slightly bigger than a man.

  Josh pressed back against the dash and opened his mouth to scream, but before he could give voice to the cry, the comforter’s contours lit up with weak shards of flashing blue and red. Then like a silk handkerchief emptied of its rabbit by a magician, the square of fabric stopped its thrashing and settled gently back down onto the mattress. He gaped at it, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, until logic penetrated his panic and made him tear his eyes from the quiet bed to the possible source of the lights.

  The trees ahead were brushed with the same hues. Blue lights danced in the branches and from a side turning in the trees a police car swung onto the road in front of Josh. He watched it come, unable to react.

  The car passed the truck, bounced to a halt on the road behind Jezebel, and two policemen stepped out, putting their hats on as they closed the doors. Josh watched them come in the mirror, took one more look at the innocent passivity of his comforter and with trembling fingers turned on his interior light.

  Lighting the cab was habitual trucker’s etiquette when stopped at night by the bears, to let them see they weren’t dealing with a maniac with a knife between his teeth. But Josh wasn’t being polite. After all, they were here to arrest him. He just wanted light on his bed.

  The first cop stopped at the footboard and looked up at him through Josh’s open window.

  “Got a problem here, mister?”

  They didn’t know. Jesus. These were county bears, not state ones. Did these guys not have radios? Josh thought fast, praying his dishevelled state was less visible from four feet down. He clenched his hands into fists, cleared his throat and hoped his voice wouldn’t betray the tremble that was in his limbs.

  His fear of being caught for the insane highway detour had been substantially eclipsed by the fear of what had been moving beneath his cheap comforter. Part of him, a big part of him, was pleased to see human flesh.

  “Temperature gauge was goin’ spacey. Reckoned if I sat here a moment, she’d cool off.”

  The cop nodded sagely, scratching at an armpit. His companion was already walking around the trailer, sniffing for petty violations.

  “See your licenses, please?”

  “Sure.”

  Josh leant across and fumbled for his black folder. Oblivious to the fact that he’d dived out of view, the policeman continued to talk to the empty window.

  “Where you headed, mister?”

  Josh sat back up into view and looked directly down into the man’s face as he replied, trying his best not to throw a glance back into the sleeper that could be interpreted as guilt.

  “Furnace, Virginia.”

  If it meant anything to the man he hid it well. He neither nodded nor inquired further, but merely held his hand out, waiting for Josh to fill it with some ID.

  Josh opened the folder and sifted through its contents until he found his licenses. As he pulled them from their plastic wallets, the other man joined his companion and stood reading Josh’s door.

  Josh held out his documents and stretched down towards the policeman. Like a frog’s tongue catching a fly, the second man’s arm shot out and grabbed his colleague’s wrist, only just preventing it from grasping the papers. The first man looked at him with anger, until he read the panic on the other’s face. Josh heard only a portion of what was hissed between them.

  “Spiller… damn it, look.”

  The papers were still there in Josh’s hand, held out to be taken, but now the policeman who had demanded them was staring at Josh’s outstretched hand as though it held a gun. He backed away a pace and put his hands up at his shoulders, not so much in surrender, but in horror at something disgusting, nearly but not quite touched.

  Both men were regarding the truck as though it would burn them. Josh rubbed the back of his head with the hand still in the cab, and shook the papers like a toy at a kitten.

  “Here you go.”

  The man was shaking his head.

  “That’s okay, Mr. Spiller. Ain’t no call for it. Sure everythin’s in order. Hope your oil stays cool now.”

  Both men backed towards their car instead of turning and walking, leaving Josh with his arm stuck ridiculously from the window like an Arab bartering lazily from a bazaar stall. The police car revved like a hot rod and pulled back out in front of Jezebel. With his arm still hanging from the window Josh watched it pass, only just glimpsing the words written above the badge on the side.

  He read them aloud to try and calm his racing heart.

  “McNab County.”

  Withdrawing his arm, he rested his body on the wheel, then swallowed and turned his head to the softly illuminated quiet of the sleeper.

  Nothing.

  He put a fist to his forehead and closed his eyes, speaking aloud again, but in a voice weary with fright.

  “Not far to go, Jez. And I guess now they know we’re comin’.”

  28

  Had it been born before? The query kept circling in its unformed mind, although there was not yet sufficient reasoning power to answer even the simplest of questions. There was such familiarity in this black, dark nothingness, and yet also a familiarity in everything its carrier felt and saw and smelt and touched. It had writhed in pleasure at its carrier’s fear when it made itself known, although again, the method by which it announced itself was still ineffable. But now its carrier knew it was there, and while that was the true way, the only way, there was danger in it. To be aborted before it had grown sufficiently to see the light, to taste the air, to bathe in the sweet blood of its birth, that would be unthinkable.

  And yet was it not its nature to strike fear into the heart of he who carried it? Hadn’t countless numbers before it done the same, and as a result been terminated before they could quash the fear of the carrier forever?

  It could only be what it would be, and it was not long now until it would know what that was.

  She’d stared ahead, unmoving, almost unblinking at the headlights on the interstate for at least an hour before fatigue started to overcome her. There was no necessity to fight it. The driver who’d picked her up from the rest area was silent and morose, but she knew instinctively he was harmless, and Griffin was grateful for the peace as he drove them through the night.

  Her mind had been racing since Josh had gone. She’d had to close her eyes against the horror, the nightmare of seeing those scrawled symbols again, and offered up a rapid, ragged prayer that she would never see them in circumstances like that again.

  Where was Josh now? And more important, how long did he have? Griffin’s hand went to the brooch she’d pinned back on her sweatshirt. She ran a finger across its crudely moulded surface. She liked it a lot better now she’d shined it up some. As she touched it gently with the tip of her middle finger, she saw Josh’s face, the way it had looked down at her in the warmth of his tiny bed, and a shard of something hot touched her heart and crotch simultaneously. She looked down at the brooch.

  What was Elizabeth like, she wondered? Would she cry for Josh when he didn’t come home? Griffin felt she knew her. Of course she’d listened to Josh pour his heart out over the radio to his friend, had pushed her Walkman headphones a little to the side of her ears just in case Josh looked around. And now she knew just about all there was to know about Josh Spiller and the woman he loved back home. What would that be like, she wondered, to have Josh love her the way he loved Elizabeth? What if Griffin were carrying a wanted child, the child he so badly craved? Her eyes drifted to the di
gital clock on the dash of the truck and her mouth dried at the seconds of Josh’s life clicking past.

  But she needed to rest, and although she knew her sleep would be full of hot and dark horrors, there was nothing more she could do now except ride this truck as far away from Furnace as it was possible to get. She gave in and closed her eyes.

  Ten minutes later her driver saw the exit sign, cast a glance at his passenger and noted the regularity of her breathing. Checking his mirror, he signalled and made ready to pull onto the ramp. It was impossible to do a U-turn on this westbound interstate, but any exit would lead to a town that was as good a place as any to double back and head north again.

  What did he expect? Peasants with pitchforks? A gunslinger in the middle of the street? He’d expected something, and there was nothing. He’d found the route he recognized after a few miles of errors in the forest roads. It had made him approach Furnace the way he’d left it, and as he’d passed Mister Jim’s restaurant he felt a selfish pang of longing, wishing Griffin were here with him. In fact any human company would have soothed him, but company who knew the facts about what he might face was the company he wanted. The CB had fallen silent at exactly the same point as last time, and Josh had never felt so alone in his life. Except that he wasn’t alone. Not completely.

  He had at least stopped holding up the bizarre and horrific events of the last few days in comparison to his real life. There was simply no relationship anymore, no points of reference from which to take a sane bearing. He was on a trip through Hell with a demon on his trail, and the only sense he had left was that there might still be time to escape it.

  But if the town knew he was coming to try to effect that escape, then it didn’t much care. It was half past ten at night when he guided Jezebel slowly down the main street, his heart a sick weight in his chest at the memory of what had happened here beneath his wheels. He swallowed at the sight of Campbell’s Food Mart, lit up and still open, with the usual ugly band of small-town teenagers hanging around its doors looking for trouble. A tall gangly boy with a bottle of beer in a bag whistled at the truck and gave him the finger.