The Wrong Goodbye tc-2

by Chris F. Holm

  “If they could take his soul, he’d be gone for good already. I interred his soul once before, thinking it was the Varela soul Danny swapped it for. It didn’t take.”

  “When the time comes,” she said, “you best not be thinking you can trade my Gio to get this Varela back.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.

  “You try, you won’t be dreaming ever again, you hear me? I’ll find a way to end your ass for good.”

  “Ter!” Gio admonished.

  “No,” I said, “it’s fine. Theresa, you have my word I won’t hand Gio over to Danny.” As for ending my ass for good, Theresa’d have to get in line.

  “How do I know your word is worth a damn?”

  “You don’t. But my word is all I’ve got.”

  “The hell it is,” Gio said. “You got us. Now let’s roll.”

  We grabbed the shotgun. We grabbed the chips. We grabbed some cash from Theresa’s register, and as many Red Bulls from the fridge as we could carry.

  We were in such a goddamn hurry to get the hell out of Las Vegas, we blew a stop light at the corner of Twain and Dean Martin. Then we hauled ass onto I-15 south toward Los Angeles, oblivious to the traffic camera that snapped picture after picture of our departure.

  30.

  We were a mile north of Chino on 60 when I spotted the tail. The 60, I supposed they’d say out here on the left coast, but I was born back east, so no the for me. Just one black-and-white, a Statie I suppose, pulling out of one of those spots they don’t like you swinging U-turns through and sliding into traffic two cars and maybe fifty yards behind us.

  “Dude,” said Gio, who was riding shotgun, “we’ve got company.”

  “Be cool,” I replied. “He’ll leave us be.” And at the time, I actually believed it. I’d been speeding pretty seriously until I spotted him, but when I did, I’d eased off the gas, and coasted by at barely seventy. I figured if his lights weren’t on yet, he’d just hang behind us a while by way of warning, and then leave us alone. I didn’t realize at the time the traffic cam in Vegas slapped a big, fat arrow at the end of the dotted line of mayhem half a country long that indicated where we were heading —one that resulted in the Feds putting out a BOLO for us that stretched from Sacramento to the Rio Grande.

  Five minutes after we picked up our first Statie, two more slid in behind him, all quiet-like, so as to not spook us. It spooked us.

  “Uh, Sam? Our company’s got company.”

  “Yeah, I see ’em, Gio —I’m not blind,” I snapped.

  “Hey!” This from Theresa, in the back.

  “Sorry,” I said through gritted teeth, my hands at ten and two on the wheel.

  Three minutes later, we picked up a few more —two sliding into traffic from the Nogales Street entrance in Rowland Heights, and a third swinging through a turnaround at damn near sixty miles an hour.

  I kept the needle right at sixty-five, and my eyes on the road before me, trying my damnedest to come up with some kind of workable plan. I was running out of time, and not just with the cops. The sun had already dipped below the horizon, and the sky ran the spectrum from goldenrod above to the deepest crimson as it met the western horizon. I’d heard tales of the smog in LA being responsible for some beautiful sunsets. I had no idea if it was the cause of this one. What I do know is it was the most gorgeous one I’d ever seen —which seemed fitting, since I had a little under four hours to get the Varela soul back and stop Danny from unleashing an apocalyptic flood; chances were, it was the last I’d ever see. For all its beauty, that sunset proved unsettling, if only because the amber hues above reflected dully off the white side-panels of the cop cars behind me, and the ensuing gold-and-black put me in mind of a swarm of angry bees. These past three days, I’d had enough run-ins with angry insects to last a lifetime.

  As I drove, I watched the cop cars in my rearview multiply. They were still hanging back a bit, and they’d yet to fire up their lights —but they were creeping up behind us. If I had to guess, I’d say they were hoping to take us by surprise, end this chase before it started.

  Funny; I kinda hoped to do the same.

  I ran through the angles in my head. The way I figured it, they couldn’t use a spike mat to pop the Caddy’s tires, because there were other motorists aplenty on the road. Not as many as I’d expected though, this close to LA, which meant they’d likely closed the onramps once they spotted us. They were biding their time… but to what end? Not to get an unimpeded crack at us; they didn’t seem to be shunting any of the traffic already on the freeway aside. So why?

  A low whump-whump-whump from somewhere in the distance gave me my answer.

  A helicopter.

  I fucking hated helicopters.

  No, really: I hijacked one once —long story —and it was nothing but a grade-A ass-pain, up to and including when I had to ditch it in the middle of Central Park. But at least I now knew what was holding the boys in blue at bay: they were waiting for their air coverage. Waiting to have eyes on us. Once that hap pened, there was little we’d be able to do to shake them. Which meant the time to move was now.

  I put the pedal to the metal —or, in this case, to Roscoe’s custom shag floor mat —and the Caddy’s engine sprang to life. Seventy-five. Eighty. The cop cars dropped back a ways, caught by surprise after ten plus miles of traffic law observance. Eighty-five. Ninety. By the time the lot of them found their accelerator pedals, I’d put a hundred yards between us —and at least a half a dozen cars.

  Suburb after suburb blurred by, nothing but green foliage and rooftops half seen over the highway’s noise barriers. Places with names like Hillgrove, La Puente, Hacienda Heights. Exits on a highway, nothing more. The skyline of Los Angeles glinted in the distance like some dark gemstone against the bloodred velvet of the sky.

  One hundred miles an hour. One-ten.

  Cops behind us. Danny, with luck, ahead. And night falling fast. Three days whittled down to three hours.

  One way or another, our exit was coming up.

  “Gio?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re a car guy, right?”

  “Sure —why?”

  I took a long look in my rearview. “Behind us, we got a mid-nineties Ford pickup; a minivan —Dodge, I think; a Corolla; a Hummer; an Impala. Which one’s got the best side airbags?”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  Not the most helpful answer ever, so I took a different tack. “If it were you, and you had to roll one, which would you rather be in?”

  “I dunno —the Hummer?”

  Good enough for me. Only douches drive Hummers anyways.

  “Cool. Grab the wheel. On my signal, be prepared to put your foot on the gas. And no matter what, don’t slow down, you hear me?”

  Gio wrapped one sausage-fingered hand around the wheel. “I hear you,” he said. “What’s the signal?”

  “Me dying,” I said. His eyes widened. “Don’t worry, though —I’m coming back.”

  I twisted in my seat, locked eyes with the Bluetoothed asshat in the Hummer. He was wearing a powder-blue polo shirt with a popped collar and a pair of oversized aviators, and he was chattering away at whoever was on the other end of that phone call like his life depended on it. I focused on him with every ounce of attention I could muster. And then I hurled my consciousness at him with all the strength I had, like he was the nerdy kid in a game of dodgeball.

  For a moment, all went black, and the cacophony of the freeway melted away. In that moment, my world was just a sickly nothing, a morbid amusebouche to whet my appetite for what Charon had in store for me if this idiot plan of mine didn’t pan out. And then all the sudden, BAM, I’m puking all over Asshat’s center console —the reflex action of any newly possessed meat-suit —while some jaded phone-sex worker asks me through my Bluetooth headset if I’ve been a bad boy.

  Not yet, I thought —but I’m about to be.

  I tugged Asshat’s seatbelt. On and locked. Rolled down the driver�
�s side window, and chucked his aviators and the piping hot macchiato in the center console out of it. I eased off the accelerator, and watched the cops expand in my rearview until they were a car-length or two behind. Up ahead, the Caddy swerved wildly as Gio tried to drive it riding shotgun, while the lifeless Jonathan Gray meat-suit lolled to one side in the driver’s seat.

  One shot, Sam, I told myself. You only get one shot at this. You’d better make it count.

  Right before I made my move, Asshat got wise to what I had in mind for him and his precious Hummer, and from whatever dark recess of his mind I’d stuffed him into, he started screaming at me to stop. I didn’t listen. Instead, I jerked the wheel as far right as it’d go. The Hummer’s tires squealed as the vehicle swung perpendicular to the roadway.

  Then rubber once more gripped pavement, and the Hummer flipped.

  That first roll was the longest second of my life. The Hummer was so tall, and the speed it had been traveling so fast, that it got three-quarters of a rotation around before it ever touched the ground. I went from right-side-up to upside-down to sideways as smooth and silent as if I were underwater —and then my world exploded in shattered glass, spent airbags, and rending metal as the passenger side slammed into the roadway.

  I didn’t have much time. I tried my damndest to ignore Asshat’s myriad cuts and scrapes, the shuddering of the Hummer as it skidded along the freeway, and the shriek of steel on pavement. Instead, I visualized the meat-suit I’d left back in the Caddy. The way it moved. The way it smelled. The way my thoughts rattled round its brain. See, every meat-suit’s different. Every one I’ve ever inhabited has left an imprint on my soul, and in every one of them I’ve ever abandoned, I’ve left a little of what makes me me behind. It’s one of the bitches about being a Collector —eventually, subjugating vessel after vessel chips away at you until there’s nothing left but a ghost, a shadow, a feral creature that knows nothing but this cursed existence. But today, I was counting on that fact to save my ass.

  See, hopping bodies is a bit like picking a lock. You need to hit all the right tumblers on your way in, or no dice. It takes concentration, focus: two things in short supply when you find yourself smack-dab in the middle of a traffic accident.

  OK, maybe “accident” is the wrong word. But who’s ever heard of a “traffic on-purpose"?

  Anyways, I was banking on the fact I’d been in the Jonathan Gray body long enough —and left it recently enough —it’d be like coming home. That my key could find the lock in total darkness. That I could stroll on in without whacking my shin on his metaphorical coffee table, or some shit.

  Gimme a break —metaphors aren’t my strong suit.

  Lucky for me, crazy-ass stunts like this one are.

  I closed my eyes. Stretched my consciousness. Latched onto the meat-suit in the Caddy like it was a life-preserver. I’m pretty sure it was.

  The transition was fast. Crazy fast. Almost no time at all spent in the Nothing that stretched between. Which is why, even as I was doubled over the Caddy’s driver’s side door puking, I could feel the impact of the cop cars slamming full-bore into the roof of the Hummer.

  Holy hell, was it a sight to see. The Hummer was lying on its side in the road, its undercarriage facing us. When the cops slammed into it, it leapt a few feet off the ground and lurched toward us as if by magic, the remainder of its airbags deploying and filling the cabin like oversized popcorn. Then a cop car launched over it, twisting sideways in the air in a strangely balletic turn, and two others, trying to flank the automotive carnage, slammed into the concrete barriers on either side, loosing a flurry of sparks. One flipped, one didn’t, and when all was said and done, the Hummer, two dozen cop cars, and God knows how many civilian vehicles were unwitting accomplices to our escape.

  Eh. The civilians were likely all locals, and they were headed into LA proper. This probably ain’t even the worst traffic they’ve seen this week. I just hoped the douchebag in the Hummer was OK.

  But we weren’t out of the woods yet. The night was filled with the sound of sirens, and the low whump of the chopper was getting louder. I scanned the sky, and saw it slide in over the roadway behind us, a spotlight surveying the pileup behind us —but then, on orders from below I assume, its spotlight swung our way, a jittery circle of white tracking across the empty freeway, reflecting off the dotted yellow lines. Its wasp-like body tilted after it as though chasing its own light.

  So much for shaking them.

  I laid my hands on the wheel as my meat-suit’s urge to vomit subsided, and felt Gio yank it wildly to the right. I kicked his foot away from the gas, and yanked the wheel back. “Gio, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Atlantic Boulevard!” he shouted.

  “What?”

  He waved the chicken-scratch directions he’d copied down from the laptop back in Vegas. “This is our fucking exit!”

  Fuck. More like was. By the time I got the message, we were past it. I yanked the wheel. Hopped the curb. Ran across a triangle of exhaust-browned grass, took out a smallish shrub. Hopped another curb, and wound up back on track.

  Above us and about seventy yards behind, the helicopter followed, its spotlight skittering over us every now and again, only to slide off once more with a jerk of the wheel, a random tap of gas or brake.

  The exit ramp ended at a light. Perpendicular to the exit was a broad commercial stretch, four lanes of traffic surrounded by strip malls, sidewalk storefronts, and auto dealerships, their brightly colored signs pushing back the falling night. The ocean to the west had doused the sun’s blaze by now, leaving the sky overhead that starless royal blue that passed for dark within spitting distance of any major city. Beside me, Gio shouted to be heard over the oppressive din of the approaching chopper, and gesticulated wildly. Though I could barely hear him, my eardrums throbbing from the thrumming of the helicopter’s blades, the gist was clear enough. Our destination lay on the other side of the intersection.

  The light was red. Traffic flowed past us in both directions, dense and steady. But waiting for the green was not an option.

  I laid on the horn, and goosed ol’ Bertha into action. She leapt forward like she’d been born to, and we shot out into the intersection like a bullet from a barrel.

  Horns blared. Shouted curses peppered us in Spanish and English both. The chopper gave chase a moment, and then pulled back, mere inches from a tangle of power lines. The streetlight to its left was not so lucky —it wound up a fine dice as the helicopter peeled away. Sparks rained down. The mangled streetlight pole toppled, yanking free a phone line as it fell. Amidst the swerving, honking chaos, the chrome and steel seas parted. I saw my opening and took it. For a moment, I thought we were gonna make it. But the moment didn’t last.

  You wanna know the problem with goddamn UHauls? I’ll tell you what the problem is: the fucking “U". I mean, sure, most truckers the country over are jacked up on coffee or meth or Pixy Stix or whatever, and not a one of ’em you encounter on the road has had a full night’s sleep in weeks, but at least they know how to drive their fucking trucks. I’ve seen the commercials late at night on cable; they’ve got to go to school and take a test and everything. But all you need to drive a U-Haul is a license and a bunch of shit to move, and it seems to me neither of those qualifications is a reliable indicator of your ability to successfully pilot fifteen tons of truck and cargo down a busy city street. Which is to say, OK, I ran the fucking light, but I still maintain that bastard should have swerved the same as everybody else when the streetlight came down, and he never would have hit me.

  He did, though. Hit me. Well, hit Bertha, at least. Smack in the rear right tire. Spun us around like this behemoth of a vehicle was nothing more than a children’s toy, leaving the three of us clinging for dear life so as to not get thrown.

  Could’ve been worse, though. If I hadn’t seen him and cut left at the last minute, Theresa would’ve wound up pasted to his grill. I’m guessing getting Gio’s woman killed would’ve made hi
m a whole lot less cooperative —and, you know, I would’ve felt bad and stuff, too. So thank God for small favors.

  Anyways, when our Sit’n Spin stopped going round, we found ourselves facing back the way we came. The chopper hovered wobbily above the offramp, its rotor damaged —more keeping watch than giving chase. That bought us some time till the cavalry arrived. Seconds, not minutes.

  The Caddy was straddling a low hedge in front of a Staples and a Taco Bell, and tottering like a seesaw. Woozy and out of sorts as I was from the crash, all I could think was what kind of an idiot drops a Taco Bell smack in the middle of one of the largest Mexican populations in the country? I mean, I like Chalupa Supremes as much as the next guy —preferably with some of that caulk-gun guac they put on ’em if you ask —but seriously? Putting a Taco Bell here is like plopping a Red Lobster on the coast of Maine. The sight of it depressed me so, I half wondered if I should let Danny do his thing, and wait for the rising waters to wash the world clean.

  But of course then I wouldn’t be around to enjoy it. So to hell with it, I thought —let’s go save the world.

  Again.

  Problem was, the Caddy wasn’t moving. I must’ve thumbed the ignition a half a dozen times, but she just sat there, engine ticking, refusing to move.

  Poor Bertha, I thought. She gave her all. Of course, every war’s got its casualties —I hoped to God Bertha would be the only one tonight. I stole a glance at Gio and Theresa, and muttered a silent prayer to that effect. I’d lost enough friends in my life already.

  Yeah, I called them friends. Shut up.

  I glanced at the clock on the dash —an old, round analog dealie with light-up numbers at three, six, nine, and twelve. The second-hand was stopped dead, and the display read nine-thirty. Which meant I had no more than two hours and change before Charon plunged me into Nothingness. And that’s assuming bug-monsters are on Pacific time.

  “You two OK?”

  “Yeah,” said Gio, though he didn’t sound it.