by Brett Riley
In the silence, the Kid appeared in front of him. Thornapple’s shotgun boomed, the stock kicking his right shoulder, before he realized he had seen the ghost or raised the gun.
He felt nothing.
Struggling with the salt, Raymond rejoined the others. Red Thornapple looked crazed, the shotgun held against his shoulder. He turned in circles and did not bother to lower the gun when it pointed at someone. Garner swayed in the middle of them, five feet from the building. How he had lasted so long Raymond could not imagine. The trucker stared at the Dead House door as if unsure of what it was or how to get past it. Then his milky, distant eyes locked onto the boxes of salt. He shuffled forward. His lips still moved.
Raymond turned to LeBlanc and said, Keep it off us.
Before LeBlanc could reply or ask any questions, Raymond raced forward, opened the Dead House door, and stepped through, dropping two salt boxes and ripping at the top of the third with his good hand.
Behind him, guns roared.
He set the salt down and kicked over the stacks of diner equipment and shoved it all to the side. Then he hip-checked the stacked tables toward the north wall. The circle needed to be as large as possible. He worked hard and fast, trying to finish before Garner blundered in. And then a gun thundered from inside the Dead House. Raymond cried out, his ears ringing, as that same outraged roar filled his mind.
Thornapple stood in the doorway, already reloading. Wherever the Kid had appeared, he was gone now.
Raymond picked up the open salt box and poured, forming a crude circle extending from the door to the piles of junk. When the box emptied, he bent down and ripped open the second one. Then he stood and poured again. The boots and gun belt were still piled on the shelf where Frost had left them, innocuous-looking lumps among a gaggle of shapes and shadows.
Finally, Raymond completed the circle and stepped inside it.
Somebody bring the gas! he shouted.
LeBlanc ripped the can away from Garner. Then he stepped into the Dead House.
Outside, a gun fired. The others yelled and bickered, their voices commingling like the quacks of frightened ducks. And then LeBlanc leaned inside, holding out the can, looking harried and terrified.
Take it, he said. We’re under fire.
More shots. Thornapple shouted something unintelligible. LeBlanc set the can on the floor and disappeared.
Raymond picked it up and unscrewed the cap, the smell hitting him hard in the close quarters, making his eyes water and his head spin. He walked to the circle’s farthest edge and splashed gas on everything beyond it, holding the can by the handle, his cast tucked underneath for balance. He pistoned the can from behind his hip to a point near eye level, the accelerant arcing, catching the intermittent moonlight and glittering, dissolving into shadow. The sound of it hitting the floor and walls was like a hand slapping bare flesh, wet and meaty and flat.
Someone bumped Raymond, nearly knocking him out of the circle. He turned.
It was Adam Garner, his eyes wide open and staring straight ahead, his tongue protruding, his chin and neck and torso caked with blood. He must have been hemorrhaging inside. Faster than Raymond would have thought possible for someone in that shape, Garner tore the can from Raymond’s hand and shoved him away. Raymond fell outside the salt circle and tripped over the mess on the floor. His bad hand struck something. The world went gray as he shrieked. When he focused again, the smell of gas overwhelmed him. Garner was splashing it everywhere. Raymond’s eyes and throat burned. Some had spattered onto his shoes and cuffs. How could Garner make that pistoning motion? The seesaw effect on the hips and abdomen had to be excruciating.
Sure enough, Garner’s strength ebbed. The can’s upward motion arrested a little more with each toss. Then Garner stopped, spent, gas dribbling onto the salt circle, washing part of it away. Raymond cursed and clambered to his feet. He picked up a salt box to fill the breach, but Garner kept dripping fuel and blood everywhere.
Damn it straight to hell.
Movement in front of them—the Piney Woods Kid floated there, his arms dangling, his empty eye sockets staring at the spot where the circle diluted.
Motherfuck, Raymond said.
He tried to take the can from Garner but only succeeded in sloshing more gas onto the salt, which washed away, leaving a six-inch gap.
Garner turned to Raymond, his eyes as big as moons. He opened his mouth.
Guh, he whispered. Guh. Guh. Go. Now.
Raymond said, Fuck, just as the Kid drew his weapon and fired. Garner’s head snapped backward. He fell onto his back, eyes open. Dead.
From outside, LeBlanc hollered, Betsy, no!
When Frost saw what Garner intended to do, he turned and ran, slipping and sliding across the grass lot, through puddles on the paved parking area. He reached Austin and ran for the flares Roen had left on the road. He picked one up. The long red cylinder’s light cut through the rain and darkness. It felt warm but not scalding. Frost turned and ran back, reaching the parked vehicles just as McDowell sprinted for the building’s doorway and LeBlanc screamed for her to stop.
McDowell hurdled the salt line and skidded to a stop beside Garner’s body. The Kid watched her. Raymond stood still, wanting to run, afraid it would get him killed. He studied the Kid’s blank expression and thin lips and empty eye sockets, trying to think of something, anything, to do.
Get outta here, Ray, McDowell said.
I’m not leavin you, he whispered.
The Kid turned to her. McDowell’s brow furrowed in concentration. She did not blink. Her hands balled into fists.
Go, she repeated.
Raymond started to reply, but then it struck him—an emotional force like a cresting wave. It obliterated his senses, his spatial awareness, his ability to think. Fear, anguish, rage, determination, hate, a love so deep it might have been infinite—they smashed him, driving him to his knees. He cried out and burst into tears.
McDowell had not moved. Blood poured from her eyes, her nose. Her teeth were clenched.
The Kid floated backward. His hands covered his ears. His mouth fell open in a silent scream.
That’s right, asshole, she hissed. This is what you brought us. How do you like it?
McDowell’s assault poleaxed LeBlanc as he tried to enter. He fell to his hands and knees at the threshold, his stomach clenching against a sadness so deep it felt like nausea, a fear as sharp as muscle cramps, pain as wide as the imagination. He vomited, spat, vomited again. The Kid’s wailing cannonade—frightened now, and hurt—blasted through LeBlanc’s brain. He forced himself to look up. McDowell stood over Raymond, who wept on the floor. Her feet were set shoulder-width apart, her fists clenched, her chin thrust forward as if daring someone to punch her. The Kid floated back, inches at a time, as if the far wall could shelter him from this storm.
Get up. Help them.
LeBlanc crawled. He reached Raymond and managed to stand. Then he pulled Raymond up, back, past Garner’s body. The two of them overbalanced and hit the muddy water on their backs and skidded. Frost sprinted past them, kicking up sludgy water and holding a burning flare.
Betsy, get outta there! Raymond screamed, rolling off LeBlanc.
Thornapple had fallen to his knees. LeBlanc dragged him away and shoved him toward the trucks.
Go, LeBlanc said. Then he turned to the Dead House. Betsy, he cried.
Frost fell to one knee near the door, his free hand clutching his head.
Betsy, get out of there, he said.
LeBlanc pushed past Frost and into the Dead House. The nausea hit him again. He fought through it, a step at a time. The Kid shimmered in and out, grimacing in pain.
I don’t know how Darrell’s still standin, Raymond thought as LeBlanc took McDowell by the shoulders. He pulled her out of the Dead House, past Frost. She never took her bleeding eyes off the Kid. The air b
etween her and the Dead House shimmered, all that energy made manifest. Her nose gushed blood. Seeing her, Frost wavered and nearly dropped the flare.
Betsy, LeBlanc said. You gotta stop. You’re hurtin yourself, and Jake.
She said nothing. Frost had dropped the shotgun somewhere and braced himself with his free hand.
LeBlanc shook her, hard. Her head rattled back and forth. Her eyes unfocused. And that god-awful power lessened, faded, disappeared.
Everybody get back, Raymond said.
In the Dead House, the Kid’s pained expression vanished. His gaze bore into McDowell. He snarled.
Now, LeBlanc cried.
Frost tossed the flare toward the doorway. He turned and tried to run, slipping to one knee, even as the flare sailed end over end through the door. Then he regained his feet and sprinted as the fumes immolated, racing the flare to the Dead House and beating it by half a second. Then the building itself caught fire in an enormous WHUMPH, the remaining windows blasting outward and raining glass everywhere, flames spewing from the broken panes and out the door and over Frost’s head as he dove into the mud, the light searing everyone’s eyeballs.
McDowell collapsed. LeBlanc caught her and carried her like a bride to the vehicles. Thornapple jumped into Garner’s truck bed as Frost climbed into the cab and started the engine. No one had bothered to worry that the motors might not turn over; either the Kid would be dead or weakened, or no one would be left to turn the keys. Thornapple stood up in the bed and threw one of the sprayer units at the Dead House, hoisting it over his head with both hands and thrusting it forward as he might a large stone. It landed a few feet in front of the building and skidded to the open front door. Then he tossed a gas can just as Frost spun out, tires rooster-tailing mud until they got traction. The vehicle shot forward, and Thornapple fell into the bed as Frost veered around Johnstone’s corpse and passed over the parking lot, through the driveway, and onto Austin Street. He parked beyond the driveway.
Raymond had gotten into their rental’s passenger seat as LeBlanc laid McDowell in the back. Then the big man got in and drove out of the yard. They parked near Garner’s truck. Everyone but McDowell got out. They stood there for a while as the building burned.
And then the fire reached the can near the entrance. It exploded, sending a ball of fire thrusting into the night sky and over the courtyard. Everyone recoiled and covered their ears. The misshapen remains of the can fell onto the concrete slab. Chunks of board and glass dropped like hail. They all ducked inside the vehicles until the debris stopped falling.
Then, without a word, they got back out. LeBlanc and Thornapple walked to Johnstone’s body in silence. They picked up the corpse and carried it onto the road, where they laid it next to the truck. Then LeBlanc jogged to the vehicle at the fence line.
As LeBlanc drove back off the lot, Raymond approached the Dead House’s gutted, burning hulk, getting as close as he dared. The front wall had caved in. The roof was mostly gone. The explosion’s force had turned the assorted junk inside to shrapnel, which had punched holes in the other walls. The yard was full of burning fragments. Some had landed on the diner.
Inside, the Kid floated where they had left him, regarding the flames with no more expression or passion than he had shown when slaughtering Johnstone. The boots and gun belt lay near his feet and blazed like hot coals in a campfire, blackening and curling.
Soon, the others joined Raymond. The Kid flickered like the fire itself, now bright and distinct, now faded.
That’s right, you fucker, Thornapple whispered. Burn.
No one else said anything. Frost looked shell-shocked and wet and sick. The rest of the roof collapsed, flaming boards and shingles raining on the Kid and passing through him, the smell of Garner’s burning flesh rank and acrid. And then the walls fell in. The fire rose higher, and as it did, the Kid waned. Then he winked out.
Still, they watched until Roen and his men came back and stood beside them, until the fire engines arrived and began the work of saving the diner, until the ambulances came to take away the injured and the dead. The Kid did not come back.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
September 20, 2016—Comanche, Texas
Raymond, LeBlanc, McDowell, and Frost drove from the cemetery in their rental, which was now peppered on one side with pea-sized dents where someone’s salt rounds had struck it. Flaming debris had burned and smudged the paint job. The car looked like it had survived a minor skirmish in downtown Baghdad. Raymond had insured it at the airport, but who knew how much the policy would cover? His shattered hand still throbbed. He slept fitfully and took Percocet when he could no longer stand it.
McDowell wore a cast from her shoulder to her wrist. The Kid’s phantom bullet had clipped her humerus at the point of the deltoid tuberosity, breaking the bone and causing the deltoid muscle to roll up like a window shade. The ER doctor had put on the cast and advised her to see her own physician, as she would need surgery to reattach the muscle. The emotional toll had been much greater. She slept for two straight days and needed a pint and a half of blood to replace what she lost at the Dead House. Tests showed no lasting neurological damage, a minor miracle considering all she had done.
When they had arrived in the ER, their clothes unrecognizable and every inch of bare skin coated in drying mud, McDowell looking as if she had just worked a shift at a slaughterhouse, the doctor seemed spooked until he saw acting Chief of Police Roen, who accompanied them. Roen answered most of the man’s questions. Everyone else could barely speak—too tired, too sad.
Now they had just attended their third funeral in four days. On the eighteenth, Bradley’s had hosted the uniformed officers of the Comanche Police Department past and present, members of the Comanche County Sheriff’s Office, and officers from the highway patrol. Bradley’s wife sat in the front pew, dressed in black and crying into tissue after tissue. The rest of the church filled with civilians Raymond and his group would never know. The agency crew sat in the back pew with Rennie, nodding to Thornapple when their eyes met, speaking to no one and eschewing the graveside service. Raymond did not feel responsible for Bradley’s death, and he had seen no indications that the others did either. The man had done his job willingly and well. He had not followed them blindly. But his family might have felt differently, and none of Raymond’s party wanted to make a horrible day any worse. They paid their respects by showing up, left while the rest of the congregation filed by the coffin, and drove back to Thornapple’s place. They could have gone back to the hotel, but they stayed mostly so McDowell could help Thornapple regulate his emotions. He had been stoic. McDowell worried about what he might do when they left.
Sue McCorkle attended Bradley’s funeral. She did not seek them out, did not thank them, would not even look at them, as if their alien presence reminded her of what might have happened had she and her boys stayed in town. Raymond and the others left her alone. What was there to say?
They had also seen Morlon and Silky Redheart. Morlon shook their hands. We appreciate y’all, he said, while Silky stood behind him, silent. Then they both walked away. The Redhearts had attended the other funerals as well. From across the room, Morlon nodded each time, but they did not speak again.
On the nineteenth, they said goodbye to Adam Garner in church. Almost nothing had been left to bury, just some of Garner’s charred and blackened bones and a surgical pin from his right knee. The bones had been gathered and examined and cremated, and though he wondered what would be done with the ashes, Raymond had not asked. Garner had followed them to the Dead House, but he had done so only because none of Raymond’s party could think of a better solution. The circumstances with the town council and Roark’s injuries had forced their hand that night, and the rain had ruined the plan that might have brought them all through safely. Still, Garner died on Raymond’s watch. And as Raymond saw Garner’s family and close friends holding each other in the hot and
humid Baptist church, he wanted a drink. Afterward, they retreated to the Thornapple ranch again, where they drank iced tea—everyone but the newsman, who put away enough Jack Daniel’s and Coke to float a battleship before passing out in his chair. He snored there until LeBlanc carried him down the hall and tucked him into bed.
Raymond could relate.
Today, the twentieth, they saw Joyce Johnstone into the ground. They learned she had two ex-husbands and one stepson, three grown men with tears in their eyes, white faces hovering above their dark and somber clothing. Thornapple talked with them for a long time.
The agency’s flight out of Dallas/Fort Worth was scheduled for the twenty-first at 3:20 p.m., and they still had to pack, see Rennie one more time, and say their goodbyes.
McDowell rode in the back with Frost. She had been looking out the window ever since they left the church, watching the trees and stubby-looking houses and scrub oak and mesquite fly by. Now she said, I’m scared for Red. What he’ll do without her.
No one replied. They could not babysit Red Thornapple for the rest of his life, nor would he want them to. Raymond remembered Marie’s death, the prolonged agony of every solitary night, the sheer bravery it took to crawl out of bed in the morning. He remembered welcoming liquor’s fog, the way it rolled in over his mind and his vision until he wept without knowing why, laughed for no reason, broke things and punched men with little provocation. LeBlanc had helped as much as he could, mainly by keeping him out of jail and yelling at him when his misery led to thoughts of eating his own gun. But in the end, you had to decide for yourself whether to live or die. If Thornapple chose death, he would find a way. If he wanted to live, he had other, older friends who could stand with him much better than people he had known only a few weeks. Already the close camaraderie that had formed during their sortie was starting to fade. Raymond had been a guest in enough houses to know when the atmosphere turned, when the host wished you gone. And so they would pack, and they would go.
