Dead Man's Drive: A Rot Rods Novel (Rot Rods #1)

by Michael Panush

  Roscoe reloaded his sawed-off and turned to Wooster, the Captain, and Angel. “Whatever he’s preparing, you can’t handle it. Stand back and let me take the blows. I can just eat a couple oversized burgers and be back on my feet. You can’t.” He pointed back to the ground. “Just let me handle it.”

  “No way,” Angel said. “I got charms and a few more bullets. We can stop it together.”

  In front of Roach, the gray dirt bubbled and spat, like some sulfur spring. “Beelzebub!” Roach roared. His voice was louder than the wind and the creak of the earth. “Give up your insect hordes! Give up your crawling things and creatures of the night and spinners of sinful plots! Let them come to Earth to riot and take their pleasures!” He pointed to the Willow House. “Beelzebub, this house is yours! Go forth and claim it!”

  A fat, hairy leg burst out of the ground. It extended, taller than Roach, and tore into the sky. More legs followed. Eight of them ripped out of the gravel, flexed, and straightened. They were covered in thick, orange hairs, bristly like icicles clinging to the limbs. The ground shattered again, and the entirety of the demon stood. A giant spider, a tarantula the size of a Buick straightened out its legs. Eight glistening eyes reflected starlight as it turned to face the Willow House. A second spider burst out, and then another. Three giant spiders glared malevolently with all of their eyes

  Roscoe looked at the spiders. “Like something out of a goddamn B-movie. Attack of the Giant Spiders from the Pits of Hell.” He looked at his sawed-off, which seemed woefully inadequate. He squared his shoulders and walked to the door. “Give me some cover. I’ll do my best.” He walked outside, into the shadows.

  The full moon gleamed overhead. Moonlight streamed down, bathing Roscoe and the dead, broken bodies of the zombies in silver. The trio of giant spiders came for him, crawling easily over the gravel. Roscoe drew his crowbar and held it in a loose one-handed grip with the shotgun in the other. He breathed in the cold air, his lungs extending in an unfamiliar way. Carmine Vitale had done this, breathing and standing in the darkness before preparing to take another life. In the battlefields of Sicily and Los Angeles, Carmine must have done this a thousand times before the blade of his knife, the bullets from his gun, or his hands and boots did their work. Roscoe turned back to the spiders and blinked―another unfamiliar gesture. Then the first giant tarantula reached him.

  He raised the sawed-off first, not even bothering to aim as he ran to the spider. He fired once, blasting the side of the spider. Long, orange hairs and bright red goop splashed into the dirt. The spider whirled on Roscoe. One of its legs lashed out, moving too fast for Roscoe to see. It struck straight into Roscoe’s chest, knocking him back. The blow was like taking a hit from a cannon. It busted his ribs, ending his run. He struck the ground. The spider loomed over him. Roscoe looked into its shining eyes, the long fangs reached for his belly. He brought up his sawed-off and fired the second barrel.

  The shot tore into the spider’s face, ripping back glowing eyes. Sulfur stench hit the air as Roscoe rolled over. The spider slumped down. Its furry sides burned and broke. Ash spilled from the wounds. Roscoe rolled over, feeling his busted bones grinding against his flesh. The spider collapsed, falling apart completely. The wind caught the ash and blew it away. Roscoe sighed and snapped open his sawed-off shotgun. He expelled what was left of the air in his lungs. He didn’t see the second spider moving around him.

  “Roscoe!” Betty cried. Roscoe turned. The spider lunged down and stabbed its fangs deep into Roscoe’s chest. Roscoe gasped at the pain. No scream left his mouth. Venom shot out from somewhere in the spider’s maw and boiling into his veins. His greenish skin turned purple. The venom didn’t kill him, but the pain stopped him dead.

  The venom dripped into his lungs, stinging. That venom would serve his purposes fine. He breathed again, summoning as much air as possible and then letting it rush out through his open mouth. He spat, hocking up a stream of the spider’s venom. It splashed right into the demonic arachnid’s face. While the spider was blinded, Roscoe swung his crowbar. It was a wild blow, but the crooked edge of the crowbar still ripped across the spider’s face and burst a few of the unblinking, black eyes.

  The third of the demon spiders crawled behind Roscoe. Its fat tail pulsed, and a thick clump of black webbing, shining like tar, fell onto Roscoe’s belly. Roscoe wriggled, a fish on a hook. He couldn’t free himself. The spiders closed in, reaching down to tear him apart. Roscoe tried to lift his crowbar or his sawed-off. Neither hand would move. More shouts came from the house, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. His friends couldn’t help against the spiders anyway. Somewhere, far away, Roy Roach was laughing. Nothing seemed to matter anymore.

  Wooster’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears. “Hey, you oversized bugs!” Roscoe looked up. Wooster had left the house, unarmed. Wooster moved his hands down his shirt, unbuttoning it. He had already shed his coat and Stetson. His bolo tie was gone as well. “You want to chew on something? I’ll give you something to chew on. Can’t say you’ll like it―cause I reckon it’ll bite back.” His arms fell slack as his shirt opened completely, revealing his bare chest. Wooster’s shaggy skin had been marked with countless scars. A single silver necklace dangled over his neck. He tore at the chain and ripped it aside. The shirt went fluttering behind him.

  Roscoe stared at Wooster in surprise. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “It’s the wolf, boy,” Wooster said. “I’m letting him out.”

  As he spoke, Wooster began to change. His broad shoulders hunched over, and the skin reddened and split as though some invisible knife struck him, again and again. His flesh slid to the side as if invisible hands grabbed and pulled it, slipping back and folding over so that it seemed to vanish from view. Fur emerged, bristling and dark. Next, Wooster’s arms bulged and broke. Claws ripped out of his fingers, jutting into the air fast enough to make a hum. He sank down, standing on his knuckles like a gorilla. Wooster’s face split as well, the skin breaking and reforming. His snout extended. His teeth grew. His sideburns went gray and bushy. They pressed together, linking and covering his face in a mask of gray fur. The transformation finished in a matter of seconds. Where Wooster had stood, there was a now a great, wolfish creature with thick arms corded with sinew and muscle and tipped with long, lean claws. It was a wolf, cast in the shape of Wooster Stokes. The wolf charged.

  His long claws pattered across the gray ground, raking up gravel, sending streams of dust behind it. The giant spiders turned to face the wolf. Roscoe couldn’t help―not with the webbing gluing him to the dirt. One sent out a long strand of spider silk. The black silk unspooled in the air, straightening as it flew. The wolf leapt aside, effortlessly jumping over the blob of silk. Wooster nimbly landed. His claws cut through the spider’s body. One leg went spinning away, goo dripping from the wound. Wooster ran along the length of the spider, cutting as he ran. The creature collapsed, losing another leg before going down. A few more swipes finished it. Wooster darted away as the demon collapsed into ash. Their battle made no noise except for the crunch of the spiders’ legs on the chalky soil and the wolf’s slight panting. Wooster faced the next spider.

  They ran for each other. Roscoe was struggling with the webbing. The pain from the venom had faded, enough so he could move his limbs again. He tore at the silk, and it broke and he popped free and grabbed the sawed-off. Wooster and the spider leapt into battle. The fight was brutal and fast. Claws and giant legs entangled and broke. Venom-dripping fangs slashed and tore into fur. Blood flew and spattered in the dust. Roscoe stumbled to his feet, rammed two new shells into his sawed-off and took aim.

  “Wooster!” he cried. “Keep still! I got a shot!”

  Wooster rolled aside. Roscoe fired twice and the spider’s head burst. Wooster scrambled to Roscoe’s side on all fours. His wolfish eyes, yellow and haunting, stared up at Roscoe.

  “So you’re a werewolf,” Roscoe said. “I ain’t exactly surprised. Explains how you took
all that damage and had the strength to carry a .50 cal. You could have told me, you know.”

  With a snap, Wooster’s head rocked back. His fur faded. “It never came up.” His voice was still that of a wolf, a low growl. Wooster jogged to his pile of discarded clothes. Roscoe turned around and gave him some privacy. “Don’t look now!” Wooster shouted to the house. “Especially not you, Betty! And, Angel, I don’t want you peeking neither!”

  A gunshot cut the silence. Roach emerged from behind the parked vans. More of his zombie henchmen, dressed in the same sort of pink suits that he wore, stood in front of him with weapons at the ready. They protected him with their bulk, shielding him from any shots fired from the house.

  Roach sighed. “Enough of this dithering. I think I’ll shoot you all.” He nodded, and his men opened fire.

  Roscoe and Wooster turned and ran. Bullets whistled past them, kicking up dust at their feet. Roscoe reached the doorway first and ducked inside. Wooster did the same. Angel, Betty, and the Captain returned fire, providing a little cover. Felix and Snowball huddled in the back. Roscoe’s boots settled on the creaking wooden floor of Willow House. Another noise cut through the silence―the deep rumble of a foghorn. It was a little surprising. He had almost forgotten how close Willow Point was to the sea.

  The Captain let a rare smile cross his face. “That’s our ride. Follow me.” He grabbed one of the suitcases and turned away. Roscoe took his own suitcase and grabbed Betty’s valise. They all followed the Captain through the length of the mansion, passing through dusty old rooms laden with broken furniture. They reached a rear garden, decaying and crumbled into black rotten plants and gray dust. The Captain went for a small stone stairwell, carved straight into the mountain at the edge of the cliff.

  They went down in single file, traversing the stairs arranged in switchbacks along the side of the cliff. The stairwell ended at a rocky beach, half-submerged by the cold Pacific. An old steamboat waited there, the smokestack steaming as the foghorn boomed. Two figures stood on the deck.

  Betty navigated the steps and stopped Felix from tripping. “How long have you been a werewolf, Wooster?”

  “Oh, almost my whole life, I suspect,” Wooster said. “Family came over from the Oklahoma Panhandle when I was a boy. We stopped in some grove somewhere or other on the way, and I went off to play, as boys will. Wolf come along and bit me. Put a piece of itself inside. Ever since then, I been on the run. When the full moon came, I’d let the wolf out, and it’d do what it did and I’d have to run to avoid suspicion. Ain’t no wonder that I turned to the life of a bank robber and an outlaw.” He looked at the Captain. “Until I robbed the bank in La Cruz and the Captain caught me. He helped me with the wolf. Helped me tame it some, and I been here ever since.”

  “I should have known,” Angel said. “You do got the manners of a dog, man.”

  “And you’ve got a face your Mexican mother couldn’t love,” Wooster said. “Now shut up and walk.”

  They hurried down the rest of the steps in silence and soon reached the bottom. The sea crashed, flowing over the pebbles of the beach. The Captain splashed through the water, ignoring the ocean rushing around his shoes as he made his way to the boat. Walt Weaver was there, along with an old, stoop-shouldered sailor in an oil slicker and flat cap. They tossed down a rope, and the Captain motioned for his crew to join them.

  Getting aboard was slick and difficult. The venom in Roscoe’s chest was still aching, like a burn on the underside of his skin. He still managed to scramble up and pull himself over the railing. Roscoe then reached down as Betty helped Felix and Snowball. The boy stumbled and nearly fell. The yeti squeaked in panic and tried to leap away, but Walt caught him and tucked the shaggy, white ape under his arm until Felix was aboard. Betty, Wooster, and Angel clambered up next. The Captain was the last to board. He stared back at the jagged cliffs and Willow Point, looking at what he could see of his city for a few more seconds. He raised his withered arms, and Roscoe and Angel hauled him aboard.

  The fisherman approached the Captain. “Your whole circus aboard, then? No more monkeys or elephants to load? Maybe a fat lady and a couple of dwarves?” The Captain didn’t answer, and the fisherman shook his head. “I’ve shepherded bootleggers back and forth to Mexico and card sharks out to gambling ships. But never a Mexican in a fancy suit, some college girl, an albino chimpanzee and an Okie―to say nothing of the zombie.”

  “They’re unique, Fisherman,” Walt said. “But they’re still passengers, and you’re still the captain of this rust bucket. Better get under way before your hull springs a leak.” He patted the fisherman’s shoulder, and the old sailor trudged over to the wheelhouse. Walt glanced at the Captain as the engine of the rust-stained steamer rumbled to life. “Don’t mind him. He was born without a heart.”

  “I’ll pay him,” the Captain said. “And you.”

  “Don’t sweat it, sir,” Walt replied. “You don’t owe me any cabbage.” He pointed back to the cliffs. “Besides, I think you lost enough.” He put his hands in his trench coat. The boat moved under their feet. “You got anywhere to stay in Los Angeles?”

  “Well,” the Captain answered. “Not really.”

  “We could get a hotel?” Betty said.

  Walt shook his head. “And let Strickland find you after bribing some punk working the desk? I don’t think so. No. You’ll stay with me. I got a small place on Silver Lake. It’ll be cozy I guess, but still comfortable.” He pointed to Snowball. “Does the overgrown squirrel shed?”

  “No, Mr. W-Weaver,” Felix stammered. “And he is housebroken as well.”

  “Aces. As long as the rest of you are too, we’ll get along fine.” Walt rested his hands on the railing as the boat steamed away from La Cruz. Roscoe joined the Captain, and they stared out together, silently watching the dark cliffs recede into an outline and then vanish into the moonlit mist. They were running away, forced to flee by their enemy and the people they had served. It wasn’t only the venom in Roscoe’s shoulder that pained him.

  It was dawn when they reached Walt’s apartment, located in a quiet and hilly portion of Silver Lake. The apartment was small, but well-furnished. Walt kept a small record collection next to his radio, a couple tasteful pieces of furniture and a smooth floor of blonde wood. He’d cleared up the beer bottles, tossing the dead soldiers in a wastebasket in the corner. They let Betty take the bedroom, while Felix bedded down on the couch. Wooster had brought a few sleeping bags from Donovan Motors and that was enough for him, Angel, and the Captain. Roscoe didn’t need to sleep. They worked together to make the apartment comfortable and Walt shut the blinds and everyone―except for Roscoe―got a chance to snooze and rest after the retreat.

  Roscoe walked through the apartment, stepping carefully around his sleeping friends. He paused by the couch and looked at Felix. The boy had fallen asleep with his spectacles on. Roscoe removed them and set them on the coffee table. Snowball curled up at Felix’s feet, watching Roscoe with wide eyes. The yeti seemed to be guarding his master. Roscoe nodded to Snowball and walked past the couch.

  He reached the door and headed outside. Roscoe had been planning what he had to do for a while. It had been building in him ever since they’d arrived in Los Angeles and piled into Walt’s little Studebaker Commander. Carmine Vitale’s memories only made him more eager. He reached for the door when he heard something stir in the room. Roscoe turned.

  Walt Weaver moved over the sleeping forms of Angel and Wooster. He nodded to Roscoe. “Going somewhere, kid?”

  “I don’t see how it’s any business of yours, shamus,” Roscoe replied.

  “You’re my friend―so it is my business.” Walt stood next to him. “Besides, I wouldn’t be much of a detective if I couldn’t piece it together. I can see the sawed-off shotgun, under your coat. The expression on your face tells the rest of the story. You’re gonna do something stupid. Going back to La Cruz is my bet.”

  “I’ve got… some memories inside of me,” Roscoe sai
d. “I’m gonna let them take control. Kill a lot of people. Clear the way for my friends and make sure they’re safe.” He turned back to Roscoe. “You gonna stop me?”

  “I don’t think I could.” Walt grinned. “So I’ll do the next best thing. I’ll go with you.”

  “No.” Roscoe shook his head. “I’m gonna let a river of blood flow through La Cruz. I’m gonna start killing, and I’m not gonna stop. Strickland, Don Lupo, Roach, Detective Burns―every bastard who’s caused us trouble, I’m gonna destroy them.”

  Walt stared at Roscoe. “I didn’t know you were this violent.”

  “You don’t know what I’m really like,” Roscoe said. “Maybe I didn’t either.”

  “Then I think you do need me along,” Walt insisted. “To remind you.” He grabbed Roscoe’s arm. “I’m going with you. What’re you gonna do, take a cab to La Cruz? You can’t do that. And if things get bad, you’ll need someone backing you up. Now, you can slug me and start a fight and wake up the Captain and the others. You can choke me silently to death. You can shoot me. Or you can let me go with you. What’ll it be, friend?”

  Roscoe tried to calm down, to fight the memories. Finally, he nodded. “Fine.” He turned away. “Try to keep up.”

  He went outside, and Walt followed. The detective took a notepad from his coat and scrawled down a message which he set on the glass coffee table and then walked out of the door and locked it. He accompanied Roscoe down the little steel stairwell to the parking lot of the apartment complex and his car. Roscoe knew they had a long road ahead of them.

  a Cruz seemed different. Roscoe and Walt Weaver approached it from the side, taking an early highway exit and driving through the suburban neighborhoods before reaching Main Street. The Studebaker did a decent job of blending in. It was a little dented compared to the gleaming Caddies and Chevys in the driveways, but Walt kept it dead on the speed limit and drove carefully to avoid any suspicion. Roscoe leaned back in the seat, a pair of sunglasses covering his dead eyes. Walt had the windows up. Roscoe hoped that would be enough and he wouldn’t be spotted. Maybe he even wanted to get spotted, wanted to pick a fight and win it. His crowbar and sawed-off shotgun were on him, waiting for use―and he’d eaten two TV dinners at Walt’s place to heal the wounds he’d sustained during the getaway from Willow Point. He felt ready for anything.