The Suicide Motor Club

by Christopher Buehlman

  Here he produced a newspaper clipping.

  “The Asheville Times. September 13, 1955. ‘Blitz Nixon Vanishes,’ it says. In Atlanta. Now let’s look at this one. From the Savannah Morning News. January 4, 1926. ‘Crime Figure Missing. Harris Carlisle, fifty-eight years old.’ I’ll just skim this . . . Racketeering, petty theft, murder, nice fellow. Vanished into thin air, his car still running. So what, a petty southern crime boss gets bumped off, right? Except that his grandson is Penry Carlisle, the promising race car driver Luther Nixon disfigured. And Penry died of suffocation around the time Luther was last seen. It’s possible some relative of the boy euthanized him, then shot Nixon and dumped his body into a ditch—Mr. Nixon had something like that coming for a very long time. Except that we have fourteen different car accidents from 1958 through 1968 resulting in exsanguination or abduction wherein the victim’s vehicle was flipped or steered off the road and a witness identified a bald man as the driver. In seven of those cases a second car was reported to be involved. In three of those cases, a witness reported seeing shining eyes. And now,” he said, nodding at Jude, “one with true sight has seen their teeth. Also, there’s this.”

  He passed around a series of pictures of a man at a bar.

  “This was found on a roll of film developed from a Vitrona camera, a very fancy electronic flash camera, found near the wrecked car of a Danish tourist in New York State, just south of Niagara Falls. The camera bag had been thrown clear, the camera itself ruined. Much like its owner.”

  The man in the photos was clearly bald, but his face was badly blurred. From his body language, he appeared to be telling a joke, mugging to the camera. Hands up like a monkey. Fists to his head as if pulling hair he didn’t have. Leaning toward the camera as if telling some vulgar secret. Turning away as if laughing.

  “Now look at this.”

  So saying, he passed around a fifth photograph from the Vitrona series. In it, the same blurred bald figure stood with its arm around a jovial, ruddy-looking blond man with pale blue eyes. The blond man’s image was so clear you could count his laugh lines. The bald man appeared to have been caught moving fast, even those parts of him that had clearly been still. The images did not seem to be part of the same picture, but they undeniably were.

  “The dead, it seems, do not photograph well.”

  —

  GUNSHOTS RANG OUT ON JUDITH’S THIRD DAY WITH THE BEREAVED. SOMCHAI HAD taken the van, a newish Chevy in need of its first brake job, to buy all the honeydew melons and cantaloupes from an Amish couple who ran a roadside fruit stand just on the other side of the county line. Lettuce had gone to town to make other purchases. Now the men were shooting the Amish melons in the field bordering the woods. A portable basketball hoop with a rotten net stood nearby, as did a trio of scarecrows set up like tackle dummies.

  First the shooters shot honeydews on the ground. Then they fired as the cantaloupes swung back and forth from a length of rope dangling below the basketball hoop. Not many of the men could hit the melons while they were in motion; just Lettuce with his short, double-barreled shotgun and Hank with his .45 revolver.

  Judith watched with her arms crossed.

  She had not been given a gun nor invited to borrow anyone else’s.

  I shoot better than most of these guys.

  Lettuce had assumed command of the firing exercise. After he shot, he stood near a large canvas tool bag and smoked.

  “I’d like to shoot, too,” Jude said. “Have you got an extra gun?”

  “You won’t be a shooter. You have another job.”

  “You might want me to have something, just in case. I’m really not bad. I could show you.”

  “We can’t waste ammo,” Lettuce said, seemingly disinterested, stubbing his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe. Judith felt at least half of their whiskey-sharing camaraderie burn away at that. The last man emptied his gun and said, “Clear.” Lettuce walked away from Judith and spoke to the group.

  “Now, the reason I got you shooting melons is because Mr. Wicklow tells me a head shot will stun an undead. Not for long. But long enough to do this.”

  So saying, he reached into the tool bag and took out a long, very sharp wooden stake that looked to have been made from a baseball bat. He charged one of the scarecrows and rammed this into its chest while Hank grabbed a mallet from the bag. Lettuce ducked, still bracing the stake, while Hank swung, driving the wickedly pointed, fire-hardened wood deep into whatever comprised the scarecrow’s chest. Putting the mallet down, Hank ripped the shirt free to reveal a large half-frozen ham lashed to the frame.

  “What are the others doing?” Judith asked.

  Lettuce said, “Covering us, I hope.”

  “No,” Judith said. “I meant the other vampires.”

  23

  DAY FOUR.

  Judith rubbed her eyes, trying to stay awake in the hot barn where Wicklow had left her to read files. He had gone to town to pick up a registered package from overseas, something important. Something for her. Flies, their numbers seemingly undiminished by the coils of fly tape hanging near the walls, lit on her or buzzed near her with impunity.

  She read from a typed piece of paper, its back still lumpy from keystrokes.

  Katherine Louise Cutter, b. 1936. Arrested for shoplifting, assault with a deadly weapon, and resisting arrest, Lititz, PA. 4/30/1962. Bradley’s Gas Stop and Market, Kenneth Roy Bradley, prop. At approx. 9:30 pm Miss Cutter was observed sneaking liquor (type not specified) into her purse. When Mr. Bradley confronted her, she claimed the bottle was hers. He took it from her and shoved her toward the door. She went behind the counter, presumably looking for money or a firearm, but only found a pair of scissors, with which she stabbed Mr. Bradley about the face and head. His son, Kenneth Bradley Jr., hearing the commotion, came from the trailer behind the store and helped Bradley subdue her. Officer J. M. Landrey of Lititz Borough PD made the arrest, and was en route to jail with Miss Cutter when he was summoned to pursuit of a red Thunderbird suspected of fleeing a fatal crash. Landrey made contact with the vehicle, reported that it looked scraped up and had a wobbling tire. He could not read the plate, which had been intentionally obscured with mud. The station lost radio contact with Officer Landrey at this point and had no further news of the Ford or its driver, a white male wearing a hat. Approximately an hour later, Officer Landrey was found parked on train tracks seated in the backseat of his duty vehicle in only his boxer shorts. The officer was reading Field & Stream magazine. He had no memory of the chase, nor of arresting Miss Cutter, nor was he unduly concerned about the possibility of being struck by a train. Miss Cutter was not seen again, though her mother claims she is not deceased. After a medical exam ruled out trauma or illness, Officer Landrey was fired.

  Judith rubbed her eyes. Someone had written in red pen above the words fatal crash:

  Flip & bleed

  The red penman—was it Wicklow, or the one on the other end of the phone?—also wrote on the bottom of the page:

  PFC John Morris Landrey US army 4th Inf.

  KIA Dak To 6/22/67

  Requiescat in pacem

  Everyone suffers who meets them

  In the same manila folder, Judith found a yearbook picture of a chestnut-haired or dark-blond girl who was pretty in a sneaky, cute way, like a sexy squirrel. Bangs framed a tan face captured in a three-quarter turn, smiling hard at the photographer’s command. This was a boyfriend-stealer and shoplifter, perhaps, but girls who stab clerks don’t wear lace collars, do they? Of course, she was only a senior in high school, eighteen years old. A lot could change in, what, five years? Was this healthy but sly Pennsylvania teen the pale, gaunt, wild-haired thing with the red hole for a mouth she had seen riding shotgun in New Mexico? She could be sure about Nixon, and maybe the Camaro driver if they got a picture of that fine-boned, young-looking monster.

  And of course she would nev
er forget the long, horsy, dead face on the thing that took Glendon. The tall one that poured his arms out of the car. The one that won at tug-of-war.

  She looked one last time at Katherine. The number 8 in red had been scratched through and replaced with a larger 9 on the top corner.

  Almost certainly a vampire.

  She yawned with the early summer heat.

  Dreams had batted sleep away at least four times the previous night, and her damp pillow suggested one of those dreams might have been significant. Was it the car crash, in which she rammed headfirst into a train that had been heading for hell but now derailed? Could it have been the saloon dream that found her winning a poker game with four skeletons? She strongly suspected the moon mission dream, but everyone knew a real moon mission was coming up. She had been atop the parapet of a white sand castle, its walls notched like a castle she and Rob had helped Patsy build on a summer trip to Myrtle Beach. Glen stood with her on the moon-castle, getting on tiptoes to peer over the wall at tiny astronauts climbing out of their rocket. Stars shone icy and cold above them. It dawned on her that she was not supposed to be on the moon, that there was no oxygen here, that she and Glen would suffocate and it would be her fault, but it was too late. She yelled at the astronauts, who could not hear her, and then found that Glen was gone. She had still felt his tiny hand in hers.

  When she had gone downstairs at dawn (following Somchai’s second knock), she drank three cups of black coffee in a row, cooling them with water from the tap to get them down faster.

  Now she put down Katherine’s file and picked up one labeled Robert Odom. She held it in her hand for a moment, a tremor of hate and fear going through her: not fear of him or it exactly, but fear of what seeing its human face would do to her. She didn’t know if her frame was sound enough to contain the scream Robert Odom’s face might draw from her,

  How’d you know my name? That his name, too?

  and she was done reacting like a woman. No screaming, no crying, no vomiting at the sight of those she must destroy.

  I will be strong, she thought. I will fortify myself with psalms and wafers, wafers and psalms. He leadeth me in the paths of fast cars. He maketh me to lie down on white gurneys.

  STOP IT.

  My blood runneth over.

  ENOUGH

  I never blasphemed even in my mind at the convent.

  Or did I?

  Have I been misled in coming here?

  Nothing seems real or matters.

  I’ve lost it.

  I’ve lost it.

  I’ve lost it.

  —

  JUDITH SMELLED SMOKE, THE HIGH, CHEMICAL SMOKE OF SUMMER BARBECUE grills before the meat goes on. She walked to the door and saw a burning figure sagging on the grass past the men. A young man named Shane now squirted liquid from a square can all over a second scarecrow and ducked aside while Somchai, coming from behind him, struck a stove match and tossed it at the dummy. The speed of their movements suggested they had been drilling at this for some time before they were given lighter fluid. The dummy erupted in flames nearly invisible in the noon sun, but a whitish cape of smoke drifted up, casting a hazy shadow on the grass. A third scarecrow patiently awaited its immolation while Lettuce soaked the first with a garden hose.

  Shane drenched the last dummy with fuel.

  Shane, she knew, believed he had lost a son to one of them as well. His little blond moustache and carefully parted hair suggested a bank manager, but he moved with purpose and she could picture him burning one. Holding the point of a stake to one while a bigger man slammed it home. Maybe shooting one, though he was a pathetic shot even with stationary targets.

  Now Hank ripped a match from the box and tossed it on the false man. Lettuce spoke while he doused the flames.

  “Good! You know how to shoot, you know how to stake, you know how to burn. We’ll work in twos to make our movements harder to predict. We’ll drill to get it in our muscles so when the fear and adrenaline hit, we just do it and don’t think. That’s the key to staying alive. Don’t stop to think. Tomorrow we’ll work on beheading. Not the most pleasant thing to do, but we’re gonna get real good at it. Wicklow says it works.”

  How does he know?

  What did he do in Cuba?

  “Of course, this is all backup. We’re gonna try to hit them during the day. Even under cover, they’re supposed to be weaker while the sun’s up. And if we can get sunshine actually on ’em, that’ll do our work for us sure as hell. That’s the plan.”

  Maybe they would be able to destroy their enemies.

  But what was her role in this? Was she to pray? Sing psalms?

  Hopefully she could keep her mind better focused than she had today.

  She just needed sleep.

  And faith.

  God give me faith. I was hoping to pray my way to you in the cloister, but now I need you to find me. Help me. I don’t know how deeply I believe you care about us; you know my heart, you know I want nothing more than to be sure. Do you hear me? Please show me that you hear me.

  The dogs barked and she knew Wicklow was back.

  —

  DAY FIVE.

  The elderly priest made his way toward the altar with a pained gait; he had to be at least seventy years old, probably closer to eighty. Wicklow sat to Judith’s right. He had told her about Father Klaskow, how he was forgetting himself these days.

  “He’ll make the sign of the cross at the absolution during the penitential Mass,” Wicklow had said as they walked in. “The missal was changed in April this year, but nobody has the heart to correct him.”

  Now she was watching for it.

  “May Almighty God have mercy upon you, forgive you your sins, and bring you to life everlasting. May the almighty and merciful God grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins,” the old priest said. Here he crossed himself and most of the congregation did the same, though a few did not. One young woman checked her missal.

  Wicklow winked at Judith and smiled.

  She smiled uneasily back at him, then felt ashamed for it.

  As the choir started to sing the Kyrie and the congregation joined in, Judith’s mind wandered.

  Is this man devout? What would make him wink like that if he’s serious about this? Am I still serious? I pray to be, I pray to be in a state of grace.

  Even as her mouth moved around the words of the Kyrie and the Gloria, words she had been saying since she was old enough to walk, she thought about what Wicklow had unpacked in the barn.

  This is holy water. The bottles are antique, you’ll see the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe engraved on the silver part of these six, which are full of blessed water from the River Jordan. These six with the crown contain blessed water from Lourdes. You will use the empty one to practice with.

  What does it do to them? Burn them?

  Yes. It may also blind them if it gets in their eyes.

  Do you know this for fact?

  I do.

  How?

  I can’t tell you. But I know. If the one who casts the water is devout, it will do great harm to the unholy living dead.

  And if she’s not?

  We believe the water itself has enough power to do some harm, but that this will be greatly amplified in a believer’s hands.

  She did a decent job keeping her mind on the service during the liturgy of the Eucharist, right until the moment she began to sweat.

  No, she thought as they knelt for the Sanctus.

  Not here just let me be one with you here at least please give me peace.

  She saw a church deserted, wind blowing through its broken windows, its candles strewn about the aisles, Wicklow in priest’s robes crucified upside down like St. Peter.

  She shook her head. The image dissolved. She wiped her brow with her sleeve.

  Wicklow
took her elbow, escorted her to the altar and knelt beside her. It was nearly impossible for her to take communion without remembering an irreverent non-Catholic boy she had dated briefly during her senior year of high school. Her mother hadn’t been pleased to meet the young man, Jimmy Dell, but couldn’t forbid it outright since she herself had dated Riley Eberhart. Riley had been an indifferent Baptist, before, as Janet saw it, her careful rationing of premarital intimacies had turned him into an indifferent Catholic and conjured an engagement ring. Jimmy Dell had accompanied the family to Mass one Sunday, which scored a point or two with Mom, but then blew the whole thing spectacularly when he had to stay in the pews while the Eberharts filed toward the altar to receive the body of Christ.

  “Bring me back a wing,” he said, just above a whisper.

  Mother had heard. Riley heard, too, and covered his mouth with his hand; it might have been a cough but Jude suspected it was a laugh. It had been all she could do to keep from laughing, too, but she was a teenaged girl then.

  She wasn’t anymore.

  The old priest stood before her and she looked into his big, watery eyes before she closed her own. She felt the wafer on her tongue and Father Klaskow said, in his hoarse, sterile voice, “The body of Christ.” She believed as hard as she could that it was literally true and said, “Amen.”

  When she opened her eyes, they went immediately to the tenth station of the cross. Jesus falls a third time. She thought again about the barn, and the imported cross she was to use as a weapon.

  This cross is from an Italian church destroyed by German artillery during the war, just south of Rome. The image of Christ is bronze, the wood is cedar. You’ll see the gold leaf vine pattern, and here, where nicks in it actually caused by shrapnel have been filled in and covered with gold leaf. It is significant that this cross stood against evil and was not itself destroyed.

  The cross had felt awkward in her hand, just a little too wide for her grip. It was not meant to be held by a hand her size.