Purgatory Road

by Samuel Parker

  “You best be getting gone before I change my mind,” Boots whispered.

  The storm around him subsided, all its energy dissipating like a wounded dog scurrying out of someone’s front yard. Seth took a few steps back, sizing up Boots. He looked over the side of the canyon at the scene forming below, at the cop holding the pistol, at his champion’s bloodied and broken face. The fight here was winding down, and he could feel that he was on the losing side.

  “All right, Boots. All right.” Seth spit the venom out of his mouth. It mixed with the last of the raindrops and spilled down the stone. “I’ll let you have this one. Cole was about used up anyway. No use for him no more. But look down there before you get all high and mighty. Look there, and you’ll see rage boiling. Only this is better. Ain’t twisted and sick. No, this pure. Justifiable. Took awhile to get there, but now it shows up. Once that gets unleashed, ain’t no going back again.”

  The final number of shadows evacuated the ridge, off to their home on the other side of reality. Stillness fell over the top of the world.

  “This is where you’re supposed to say your words . . . ain’t it, Seth? Something like This ain’t over or something like that?”

  “You know, Boots. You know. What’s the use in saying it?”

  “I know. I know there’s goin’ to come a time when you and me will have ourselves a reckoning. Where we’re gonna get this done for. Get this good and done.”

  “You’ll never have it in you, old man.”

  “I already do.”

  “No, Boots, you don’t. You lack the will. The will to take charge. You’re at your best when you’re tucked away, hiding like a coward from all us boogeymen. You go on back now. Back to your trailer. Back to living alone and blaming the world for forsaking you.”

  “You need to wish I’ll do that.”

  Seth laughed as he took a few more steps back. “Keep humoring yourself, old man.” He spit again, then smiled an evil grin, turned, and walked away into the darkness, melting into the night.

  Boots looked up at the now clear sky, the stars shining down and washing the mountain in soft radiance. He looked east across the desert valley, the stillness of the quiet wasteland. His corner of the earth.

  “It was something once . . . ,” he whispered to himself.

  He looked down into the canyon and watched the outcome of the battle from up on high.

  Alone.

  76

  Jack thought he could feel the bullet pass over his head, or in time, that is what he convinced himself. He looked up, stunned to find a cop pointing a pistol at his head.

  “Drop the chain!” the man yelled at him.

  He dropped the weapon to his feet and looked down at Colten. The man was beaten. His face gushing blood from his mouth, his nose.

  With the fight over, the full pain came back into Jack’s body and he fell too. His face felt swollen and throbbed at the rate of his slowing heart. His side felt shattered. He didn’t know how he had been standing a moment before. Jack could feel his body going into shock, the stinging agony washing over him with each passing second.

  Red walked up to the pair of bloodied pugilists. The rain coming to an end and clearing up with each passing footstep.

  “You Jack?” he asked. “I said, are you Jack?”

  Jack nodded his head, the stiffness of his neck tensing up before he knew what was happening. The cop moved his weapon and trained it on Colten, who looked up at him with blackened eyes, his head resting on the bumper of the pickup truck. Red kept the gun and his eyes on the madman, but kept talking to Jack.

  “Can you get up? Can you walk?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Well, try.”

  Jack attempted to stand again, but his right leg gave way with newfound pain. He fell against the tailgate and put all his weight on his left foot. Every muscle in his body screamed at him. Every nerve resisting his attempts to get up.

  “I need you to go get in my car. Get in there and shut the door. I’ll get you out of here soon enough.”

  “But . . .”

  “Shut up. Get in the car and shut the door.”

  Jack drug himself across the clearing. The starlight now shining down and illuminating the stone floor. He cried in pain with each step . . . his strength completely gone. He made it to the car, opened the back door, and lay down on the bench seat. He wanted nothing more than to fall asleep. To pass out. To escape the pain that was now consuming every part of his body. He didn’t have the will to bend his legs and shut the door like he had been ordered. He didn’t care anymore.

  Out in the clearing, Red waited until Jack had thrown himself into the back of the cruiser. Then he looked down at Colten, the end of his pistol fixed between his eyes.

  “What are you going to do, Red?” Colten asked, fear building up inside him.

  His rage had left him. Colten couldn’t explain the sensation that he now felt, as if suddenly one had the feeling of breaking free from a straightjacket. He sensed that he was alone. Abandoned. Left behind enemy lines without protection. He was scared, as scared as he imagined the young girls he had brought up here must have been. But now he was on the flip side of this evil game and he didn’t like it. Staring into Red’s eyes, Colten tried to discern if he had that same look behind the pupils. He searched for bloodlust.

  “What are you doing, Red?” he squealed.

  ———

  Red looked at the back of the pickup truck. It was smashed. The kind of damage one would think a truck would have if it slammed into the front of a police cruiser. His eyes traced the lines of the dents, imagining how his young officer’s body had bent the metal as it was pinned between the two vehicles. The rain had washed away the flakes of paint and any remembrance of PJ’s life that may have resided on the twisted bumper.

  “Please,” Colten begged. “Please don’t do it.”

  Red thought of his young officer coming through the station after one of her shifts. All smiles and full of life. He remembered every bad thing that happened to someone he cared about. He was lost in anguish, justifying what he was about to do. Convincing himself of the sweet release of judgment that he would feel by blowing away the trash of humanity crumbled on the ground before him.

  Red cocked the hammer back.

  “No, Red . . . no!”

  “Shut up, Cole.”

  And with that he fired.

  The bullet passed out the barrel of the gun with a blinding flash of heat and percussion. It traveled beyond sight, and tore through Colten’s thigh right above his kneecap. Cole screamed in torment.

  Red holstered the gun and grabbed his handcuffs. He then drug Cole to the wheel well of the pickup and chained his wrist to the spring.

  “I’ll be back to pick you up, Cole,” Red said. “Or at least what’s left of you after the coyotes are done with you.”

  “You can’t leave me here . . . Red . . . Red!”

  Red walked to his cruiser. He pushed Jack, who was passed out, all the way into the car and shut the door. He got in, fired up the engine, and backed out of the clearing. The headlights flashed across the truck as he turned, and he could see Colten one last time screaming and pulling at the chain.

  Red felt a cold sense of happiness, of fulfillment, as he drove down the mountain.

  77

  Jack awoke to the sounds of hospital noises. He was lying in a bed with white linen, fluorescent light shining off the chrome railings on the side of the gurney.

  Laura sat next to him, holding his hand. The bruises on her face still showing. She smiled at him, her radiance restored to her.

  “Hi there,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “You going to make it?”

  “I think so.”

  “I thought I would never see you again.”

  “I know.”

  He could hear orderlies talking outside his door. “I’m sorry I ran off.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry for
a lot of things.”

  “I know.” She squeezed his hand. He felt pain flare up in his knuckles where the chain had come down, but he didn’t tell her. He didn’t want her to let go.

  “I hate Las Vegas,” he said.

  She laughed.

  He drifted back to sleep.

  Red came into the hospital room sometime later. He pulled up a chair on the other side of Jack’s bed and started asking questions of Laura. Jack tried to follow the conversation, but drifted in and out.

  “We found your rental, miles away from any road.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” she said.

  “What happened?”

  “The car died on a highway, nobody came.”

  “What highway?”

  “I’m not sure, we were just off sightseeing.”

  “Did you walk away from the car?”

  “No, Boots came and got us. He saved us. Took us back to his place.”

  A long pause.

  “Boots?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure that was his name?

  “Yes.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jack drifted into darkness again.

  “Do you know where this trailer is?”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Can you take a guess?”

  “About an hour from the cave, I would think.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Pretty sure. It seemed like that long from the back of the truck.”

  “Could you see any landmarks?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I was tied up in the truck bed.”

  “Yes, you said that already.”

  Jack woke again as Red was leaving the room. The cop came back and stood next to him. His old grizzled features worn from desert living. He addressed the couple.

  “You’ve both had quite the ride, haven’t you? Well, you put up a pretty good fight, Jack. Took a lot of guts.”

  “Thanks,” Jack said weakly, his head still spinning between dreamland and reality.

  “I wouldn’t recommend doing it again, taking on a killer with your bare hands, but if it was my missus up there, I’d like to think I would be able to do the same thing.”

  Jack thought about those words . . . “taking on a killer.” He had never been as scared in his whole life as he had been walking up that mountain. He doubted whether he would ever be able to forget that feeling. The fight blurred together in a flash of blended action, but the walk, no, he would always remember that and find quiet pride inside that he had done it. Had fought against all fear, and saved Laura. It was an accomplishment to last a lifetime.

  Red started to leave when Laura spoke up.

  “Boots will confirm what we told you. We wouldn’t be here without him.”

  The cop stood by the door, nodded to them, and left.

  James was standing in the hallway waiting for him. He had spent the morning talking with Molly in the waiting room.

  “What’s the girl say?” Red asked.

  “Said that Cole picked her up at a diner in Vegas. That he took her up to that cave and tied her up. Said something about a guy named Boots came up and rescued her. Took her back to his trailer. That’s where she met up with these two.”

  “Hmm.”

  “So you think we should go looking for this guy?”

  “Search all you want, James, but you won’t find nobody out there,” Red replied as he started walking down the hall.

  “No? What you mean?”

  Red stopped and looked back, contemplating what he was going to say next. “How long have I lived here?”

  “Longer than me, Red. Almost your whole life.”

  “Would you say I know the area pretty well?”

  “Better than anyone, I guess. What you getting at?”

  Red took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He walked back to James and looked him in the eye. “That’s right, James. I’ve lived here almost my whole life. Know almost everything there is to know about this place. And trust me. There ain’t no old man living out there in a trailer.”

  James stared back blankly as Red sauntered down the hallway and out the exit door.

  78

  On the third floor of the hospital, behind a locked door guarded by an overweight corrections officer who was busy reading the paper in a not-too-comfortable chair, lay Colten. His leg was immobilized and bandages covered most of his face. His eyes were sunk in black tar pits of bruises, his lips swollen and stitched.

  He spent most of his time pulling at the leather arm restraints that held him down until his energy was gone. Once rested, he would start pulling again, convinced that with enough effort he would be able to free himself. But with each tug, the restraints would grip tighter, digging into his wrists. Torturing him.

  His mind raced through his life. All the girls he had taken up to the cave. All the great times he had had.

  His thoughts zeroed in on that one fateful turn of events. The second-guessing when he had his hand to Molly’s throat. All this was because of that. His mess-up, his rash reaction. If he had just killed her, he would not be here. He would be sitting behind the counter at the gas station, smoking a cigarette, basking in the aura of another soul snuffed out.

  But no. He had hesitated, as if some unseen hand had slapped him in the head, filling him with doubt. He hated himself more and more because of this.

  Colten pulled on the straps again. More out of frustration over this thought than the idea of escaping.

  “You know you can’t break those, don’t you?” Seth said. He was standing by the closed door. His black shirt, his jeans . . . looking no worse for wear after his encounter on top of the mountain.

  Anger filled Colten when he stared at the man. “You left me! Where were you?”

  “I had my own business to take care of.”

  Another pull on the straps. “This is your fault!”

  Seth laughed. He walked over to the bed, grabbed a chair, and sat down. “My fault? Really?”

  “You told me to go after that woman. In the cabin. You set me up!”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “You knew what would happen. You knew that Red would follow her back!”

  Colten thrashed in the bed. The gunshot wound in his leg burned with intense pain and he stopped.

  “Calm down, Cole. You need to settle down. It’s over.”

  “Get me out of here.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Get these off me!” Colten screamed, pulling once again at the restraints.

  Seth stood up. “No, Cole. Your part of this is done now. You served your purpose. You messed it up, but you still did what I needed from you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You stirred the pot up. Got folks thinking they should get back in the game. Can’t get things done if folk don’t want to cooperate. Yeah, you did enough to get ’em riled.”

  “You used me? You used me!”

  Seth ignored the question as he made for the door, leaving Colten shouting behind him.

  “You can’t leave me here!”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “I can’t go to prison! I can’t sit there and wait to die!”

  “Oh, you won’t have to worry about that,” Seth whispered, as he walked toward the door and dispersed through it.

  Colten pulled yet again at the restraints. It was then that he saw it. Two black little legs reaching up to the sky over the white blanket covering his feet. They flexed, feeling the air, grabbing on to the cloth and pulling its body up. A spider, bigger than anything Cole had ever seen. He gasped, but his voice had left him.

  It crawled slowly up his leg, feeling its way across crisp hospital linen. Inching closer with each stuttering heartbeat. The insect’s eyes staring into Colten’s, staring into him, licking its fangs. It crept on, up his thigh, his waist, onto his chest.

  Colten flexed his arms, every muscle taut like Sams
on against the pillars of Dagon, but to no avail. The creature walked deliberately, up his neck. Its legs searching for Cole’s mouth, feeling their way, following the hot breath of his gasping lungs.

  He could feel it pull itself into his mouth, clawing at his teeth, digging down inside him. He could not scream, he could not move.

  He could no longer be.

  79

  Columbus had never looked so good.

  Molly followed her parents into the house. They had flown out to Las Vegas and been with her at the hospital and during all the police questioning. Her mom, weeping and holding on to her most of the time, her father oscillating steadily between anger and thankfulness that his daughter was safe.

  The death of Colten in the hospital was treated as a blessing in disguise for most involved. Molly’s parents were not too eager to hang around Vegas longer than they had to, and the quick summation of the horrible ordeal meant an equally quick trip back home.

  Home. A word that Molly let drift through her mind like dust in a sunbeam.

  The stillness and familiarity came back to her. She had been gone only a month, but it seemed like a lifetime. Everything she had seen, everything that she had been through had changed her. It would be impossible to believe that it couldn’t.

  She tiptoed quietly like a tourist through her childhood memories. A time of innocence forever lost, never to be regained, a feeling of ease and peace that she had walked away from all too easily.

  Regret is the heart breaking over abandoned comforts.

  Molly opened the door to her room. Everything was in place, but she looked at her things with changed eyes. The bedspread that she would lie on and text with her friends about stupid things. The posters of teen idols who now seemed all but trivial. She observed herself as if a stranger.

  “You all right, hon?” her mom asked, coming up behind her and hugging her again. Smothering, but welcome.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s going to be okay. Just going to take awhile. You’ve been through a lot.”