by Muriel Gray
Josh glared back at him through the window, and the boy’s mobled insolence dissolved instantly at what he saw in those two haunted eyes.
He drove on towards the sheriff’s office, watching, waiting for something but not knowing what. A man and woman kissed by a car before the woman got in and drove off. Two men stood looking at a shiny motorbike parked under a streetlamp, hands in pockets, nodding alternately at each other’s comments. An elderly woman and a young girl emerged from the porch of a house, packages under their arms, and waving to the two figures in the front-room window.
It was hardly the stuff of nightmares, but Josh’s senses were on a hair trigger. Where could he start? If Griffin was right, and after the lunacy of the last few hours he no longer even questioned that she was, then he had until sunrise tomorrow. To return to John Pace’s office was the only plan he had right now, but it was a plan that stopped there. What would he say?
What could he do? Judging by his encounter with the county bears on the forest road, no one was going to be that keen to take anything from his hand.
And how would he know to which hand he should try to return the ridiculous piece of paper that was folded snugly in the zipper compartment of his wallet?
They’re not written on paper.
That’s what she had said. Josh grabbed at his mouth and mashed his lips. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Did it matter if those hellish marks were made on marzipan or marble? The thing that mattered was that, in a language he didn’t understand, they spelled his death. He believed it.
There were two lights on outside the sheriff’s, and one behind the blinds in the office at the front. As Jezebel hissed to a standstill across the street behind a solitary parked police car, two fingers penetrated the blinds and made a gap. Josh watched from the darkness of his cab as the fingers withdrew and the blinds swung slightly in response. He took out his wallet and balanced it on one thigh.
Almost everything Griffin said was crazy, but its logic was the logic of what he saw and felt and knew to be true. New laws of physics for a new universe. But she’d stated one thing that had tortured him since they’d parted, and he wrestled with it now as he started to open the leather wallet on his leg.
You must have pissed them off bad.
Obviously. But how? What had he done? And to who? The police were the ones so keen to convince him it had been an accident. If someone was so mad at him for killing the child that he would set this monstrous hound on him, then why didn’t he just deal with him then? He leaned forward, elbows on his legs, his right one cushioned by the fatness of his wallet, and held his aching head.
Maybe that was the way. To try once more to convince them what he’d seen was true. That it wasn’t his fault. That somewhere in their midst was a murderer so cold and calculating that they should search for her until they dropped.
As if his body didn’t believe him any more than the Furnace police, Josh sat up, opened the wallet and found the strip of runes. Even its touch was repugnant, like thin, mouldy leather, but Josh gripped it hard, with great care, and examined it. The marks were fainter than he’d last noticed, like they’d been faded in the sun. He looked around the cab and his eyes rested on a pile of road atlases, dog-eared and stained from years of use. He leaned across and picked up the most battered, and with the delicacy of a surgeon inserted the runes between two pages near the centre.
“Sorry, Kansas. Nothin’ personal.”
He closed the atlas tightly, held it securely under his arm and, leaving the engine running, got out of the cab.
Archie Cameron ran a finger around the inside of his collar and looked over at Lena as he heard the footfall on the wooden steps of the office. She toyed with the state-of-the-art phone headset around her neck and looked back at her computerized switchboard to avoid his eyes.
“My shift ends in a quarter hour, Archie.”
“Then I guess we’re here together for another fifteen minutes.”
She stabbed at something on her keyboard and flushed red. The door opened and although he knew who would enter, Archie turned to look.
“Help you?”
“Yeah. Josh Spiller. You remember me from a couple of days back?”
Deputy Cameron leaned forward and made an unconvincing remembering face.
“I ran down Alice Nevin’s baby.”
Lena shot Cameron a look, which was ignored.
“Sure. Kinda hard to forget. What brings you back, Mr. Spiller?”
Josh scanned the room. “I need to talk to you some more.”
“What about?”
“About the accident.”
Archie Cameron cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair. “Well, I guess the sheriff would be happy to hear anythin’ you got to say, but he ain’t here right now, an’ in case you didn’t notice, it’s crackin’ on eleven o’clock. You want to come back some time tomorrow?”
Josh was watching the man’s face. For what, he didn’t know, but he watched it anyway. “I can’t do that.”
“Why’s that?”
Josh knew his upper lip was starting to bloom with sweat. He fought his own body, willing it to play poker. “Just passin’ through. Got a load to deliver.”
As casually as if she were alone in this sleepy office, Lena tapped in some numbers on her keyboard and a flashing code on the screen told her the number was being dialled.
There were four words on a loop in Josh’s mind, and they were screaming at him.
How will I know?
He had no idea how, but he was going to try and find out. This man had given him a copy of the statement. It had been a thin thing. A photocopied sheet, and yes, he’d taken it from its envelope and folded it into his crammed wallet along with everything else in the whole damned world. But if he passed the runes to this deputy and he wasn’t the one… what had she said? It would be like they’d been lost or destroyed.
Sunrise. And then it wouldn’t matter anymore.
Josh swallowed a mouthful of bitter saliva.
The deputy was rubbing his chin. “It need seein’ to right now?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Cameron stood up and walked slowly to the hatch in the window, his every step watched by Lena. He arrived in front of Josh and placed both hands on the teak counter that separated them.
“Shoot.”
Josh was lost. “It wasn’t an accident. You have to believe me.”
Archie Cameron groaned and bowed his head. “I thought we’d been through this like ten thousand times or somethin’.” Josh hesitated. He was groping for clues. “Was passin’ through. Just wanted to make the point again.”
“Well, you made it. Anythin’ else?”
Josh looked deep into Deputy Cameron’s eyes. They were opaque. There was no hint of fear, no triumph of victory.
“Yeah. I got kinda lost last time.” He held up the atlas. “Point me at the best route outta here to the northbound interstate?”
Cameron examined Josh’s face for a beat, then sighed and made a gesture with his hand. “Sure.”
Josh’s hand was trembling as he lifted the atlas to the counter and started to slide it towards Cameron’s waiting hand. It was about an inch from the man’s fingers when Josh stopped pushing it, slammed his hand over the ragged cover and barked, “No.”
The deputy jumped. “Hey! What’s your problem?”
The problem, as Josh had just realized, was that Archie Cameron was going to take the runes. Willingly, yes, unknowingly, maybe not. But they were going to be taken by the wrong man. Josh had known at that moment that Cameron had no fear of whatever Josh had to give him. If there was fear in the man’s demeanour at all, it was merely fear of Josh himself. Or perhaps what was accompanying him.
Josh’s heart was thumping at the nearness of his loss. He would have passed them, and they would have been destroyed.
Josh pulled the atlas back over the counter towards himself, picked it up and cradled it against his chest, panting with panic
. He licked the sweat from his upper lip with a dry tongue. “I just remembered. I know the way.”
The policeman nodded slowly, humouring a lunatic, and stood his ground, hands on hips. Josh looked to the woman by the telephones, nodded to Cameron and turned to the door. He was watched carefully by two sets of passive and inscrutable eyes, and he stopped and looked back.
“I might just stay the night. I’d like to see Sheriff Pace.”
Josh won a prize. Archie Cameron’s eyes flashed with the first sign of discomfort. He glanced quickly at his female colleague and back again at Josh, clearing his throat once more for no good reason.
“Sheriff ain’t around tomorrow.”
Josh had his hand on the door handle. “No? Where is he?”
“On leave.”
Josh looked from one face to the other and knew they were lying. He nodded once, gripped his atlas tightly in his fist and left the building.
“Call her,” said Cameron to the door.
“Already did,” said Lena to her keyboard.
29
She didn’t mind the drugs. In fact she didn’t mind being in the hospital. How long was it since she was here before? A week? Sure, but before that. Not the time Amy was born, but the time that Amy was made. Nine months. That was it. That was how long it took.
Alice Nevin rolled her head on the soft pillow and let the even softer cushion of diamorphine fold itself around her head. Funny how the injections could make her think about all that stuff without crying anymore. She closed her eyes and smiled. Bobby’s face, when she told him they wanted his spunk in a tube. It was a picture. What did he say again?
I hit a bull’s-eye six times ‘afore. What makes them think I can’t do it a seventh?
Oh, but he was mad. Took her hours to tell him that it wasn’t like that. That it had to be done on exactly the right day. And the people at the hospital were going to take her egg and his sperm and make their baby in a tube before they put it right back in there where it belonged to grow. There was nothing wrong with that, was there?
Nothing. Except that Amy wasn’t here anymore. Nor, for that matter, was Bobby. No more bull’s-eyes. For a second, a sharp edge of grief pierced the layer of chemical padding around her heart, and her mouth started to turn down at the edges and tremble. She brought her thin arms up to her face, and the plastic wristband with her name scrawled in blue ink caught her chin. She choked back the sob, and then another delicious wave of calm broke over her.
What day was it? Had Councillor McFarlane been here? It was like a dream. Alice tried to remember if it was real or not, then decided she felt so peaceful right now it didn’t matter. But she remembered her sitting in that seat beside the bed, she surely did. She’d been speaking in a low, motherly voice, a beautiful voice, holding Alice’s hand, telling her all sorts of things. Telling her how everyone was proud of her, that she’d done so well. That she was real sorry about Bobby and who could have known, but he was going to do a bad thing to Amy and no one could let that happen, could they?
Alice shifted under the covers and stroked her arm.
Was he? He’d sure been acting strange a couple of days after Amy was born. Had gotten all jumpy, like a bird being chased by a cat. Made him kind of bad to be around. The kids noticed it. Hell, even the dog noticed it. But would he have done that to Amy? Bobby loved his kids. The kids. Who had the kids?
Councillor McFarlane had said who had them. Who was it again? Didn’t matter. She’d talked about the fancy colleges they were going to go to. That was nice. That was real nice. Maybe she would just snuggle down and think about that. About big white buildings with Virginia creeper growing up the front, where her kids would get the kind of education she never had.
The councillor was a good person. Look how she’d changed their lives. There was Alice living in that shack in the mountains with her brother with no wits to speak and a daddy beating ten kinds of shit out of her daily. No, Alice had no hope for anything better in life. And then the councillor came. And she and Bobby had got that beautiful house with all those rich folks in Furnace. And all Bobby had to do was a few odd jobs for the councillor’s husband and all Alice had to do was have kids.
That made Alice real happy, but it made the councillor happy too. Yes, she was a good person. People like that didn’t happen by every day. She was such a smart lady. And she knew what it was like to be a mother too. Seven kids. Or was it six since the boy who died years ago? And God alone knew how many grandkids. That’s how many little ones Councillor McFarlane had. Seven. Just like her and Bobby.
The boat she was sailing in hit rocks again and Alice felt her breath burn in her throat. No. Nelly had six and she had six. Amy was dead. Crushed like a little doll by that truck. Alice Nevin opened her mouth, crammed a balled-up fist of sheet into it and wailed. In response, the corridor outside clicked with heels and in only a very short time. Alice Nevin was sailing a golden ocean once more.
Eddie bowed his head, closed his eyes and hit the wheel with the edge of a fist. There could be no doubt it was him. As soon as he heard those dicks whooping about the blue Peterbilt like they were sports commentators, he knew it was Josh who’d flipped out. And what could he do now? If Josh had taken the exit they were all sniggering about, then Eddie was at least three miles back from the action. Stuck, same as everyone else, in the line of traffic that had made Josh bail out of his box. Or had it been the traffic? Eddie wasn’t so sure. His buddy was in a bad way, seeing stuff, going paranoid. But would the Josh Spiller he knew really go spit-dribbling bonko over a backup on the highway?
Sure, maybe he’d curse and get on some four-wheeler’s case by sounding the horn, but he would never take a suicide route up the hard-hat highway. So something else must have got to him. If Eddie was going to find out what, he had to make sure he didn’t lose him. But Eddie thought he could guess where Josh was headed.
He glanced across at his sleeping passenger. She was out of it. Her mouth was hanging open and her head was slumped on her chest like a drunk’s. But even in the unladylike pose, Eddie could see what made Josh take a dip. Who knows, if it had been on offer, and he wasn’t a man condemned to the alter, maybe he might have been tempted himself. Then his eye caught that brooch on her shirt and he reminded himself his cargo was not just a psycho but a thieving psycho.
That brooch with Elizabeth’s name on it must have cost Josh at least a month’s pay. As two heavy chains around his wrist and neck bore testimony. Eddie was pretty partial to gold himself, and there certainly was no mistaking twenty-two carats when you saw them. Well, Josh was going to get it back. He would see to it. If he really had run back up some shit-caked mountain roads to get to that dumb town he was so obsessed by, then Eddie would wait a little farther up the interstate and catch him on the way out.
He’d already cast an eye on the Rand McNally, and if Josh planned on heading home to Pittsburgh, there was no way out of that mountain garbage except this highway. There was a quiet tourist stop a mile after the most northerly exit from those nowhere towns, and Eddie decided that it would do just fine to sit there and wait until Josh came by.
The only problem would be how Missy Lightfingers was going to react when she woke up and found herself within spitting distance of her hometown instead of watching the sun come up over the Colorado Rockies.
Well, she’d just have to live with it. Because she wasn’t going anywhere until she handed that brooch back to its owner and explained herself. She had a lot of explaining to do, and if Eddie decided she’d stay put and do it, then nothing in the world would change that plan. Nothing.
He walked this time. It was the only other place he knew to go, and from what he could remember of its leafy location, an eighteen-wheeler at eleven-thirty at night might cause a drape or two to twitch. But as Josh walked towards Nelly McFarlane’s house he wondered why that should bother him. There were already eyes on him. Malicious, inhumane, hungry eyes that had locked on to him about a minute after he’d left Jezebel’s cab.
And now he had seen an image, albeit a distorted image, of what those eyes belonged to, Josh thought the fear in his belly might drive him mad. He could barely walk with the weight of it. His hands were trembling at his sides and what breath he had was trapped in a burning knot in his throat.
The worst thing was knowing. Somehow, before Griffin had told him what his feral senses suspected, there had been comfort in his confusion, an escape route from a reality that was too bizarre to accept, an exit door marked simply INSANITY. Even now, he struggled to regain that bewildered disbelief. But it was gone. Josh Spiller was not mad and there was little point, now that his time was nearly at hand, in denying what his primitive senses had been telling him throughout the age of this nightmare.
And so he walked, accepting at last that something others could sense, but only he for the moment could see, was walking with him.
The old chestnuts swaying above him were only just in leaf. He could smell their sap rising, hear the soft rustle of new foliage.
And he could smell something else beneath it, the first wafting tendrils of the same stench that had nearly made him vomit in Alabama.
And it was growing stronger, more pungent with every step he took. Josh’s head reeled with the image of sewers flowing with a mixture of excrement and bloated, rotting flesh. Closing his eyes he concentrated, willing himself to taste only the sweet night breath of the trees.
But it was growing worse. Burning flesh. The smell of entrails sizzling with heat and disease. Skin peeling back from bubbling fat and ulcerous muscle.
His gorge was rising and his walking slowed to a shuffle as he gasped for breath, trying desperately to stop the acidic flow of saliva to his cheeks that he knew meant bile was on its way. As he bent at the waist, hands on his stomach, using what tiny reserve of willpower remained at his disposal to halt his dry retching, a sound to his left made him widen his streaming eyes and keep his body as still as a thudding heart would allow.
