I held one foot tightly on the brake, while the other slammed on the gas. The back tires squealed. I kept holding that foot on the brake, but some force both inside and around me was pushing, pushing, pushing it off, and the next thing I knew Monster was barreling up the driveway toward Connie. The car hit her, and her plump body hit the ground.
But that wasn’t the worst of it, because I had run her over again.
And again.
What the fuck was I becoming?
The answer was all too clear:
I was a monster behind the wheel.
I put Connie’s limp, bloody corpse in the trunk of the car. I saw something glowing. Of course I knew what it was. I picked it up.
It was the safety bar.
I threw it back into the trunk.
Then I washed down the driveway with a garden hose. There, all neat and clean. Next, I went into the house to fetch the money Connie had hidden inside the pool table. I had to break it open but no biggie. Over two million dollars. Always nice to have a little cash on hand.
I jumped into the car and sat silently behind the wheel, pondering my next move.
I looked down at the stick shift emblazoned with the word Cirque.
It dawned on me that Moose still had that Cirque spark plug.
I hadn’t seen old Moose in about a month.
That was the thing to do.
Toss that junk in the trunk in some Dumpster, then . . . go see Moose.
Moose had been promoted, and they’d been training him at Mr. Pizza’s headquarters in Fort Worth. He’d come back into town a few days earlier. He’d left a couple messages on my cell phone, but I hadn’t bothered to call him back. Too many other things on my mind.
It was late. I tried the front doors of Mr. Pizza, but they were locked. I heard Nirvana’s “Stay Away” playing over the speakers. Moose loved Nirvana.
I peered through the side window. Nobody was in sight. I glanced up at the office upstairs window, and there were no lights on.
Moose wasn’t inside mopping or doing dishes. Maybe he was in the back, taking out the trash. Tonight was definitely a good night for getting rid of some old shit.
I walked through the dark, narrow alleyway between Mr. Pizza and Matthew’s Used Office Furniture store.
On the other side of the alley was somebody standing beside a Dumpster. What do ya know, I had just visited a different Dumpster about fifteen minutes earlier. Small world.
“Hey,” I said.
Moose turned around and squinted at me. “Who the fuck are you? I have a gun.”
“Moose, it’s me, Jeremy.”
He stared at me. “Yeah, and I’m Jennifer Aniston. Who are you? Is this some joke Jeremy put you up to?”
“What?”
“Let me guess. You must be Jeremy’s dad.”
“Hey, what did you do with that spark plug? I’d kind of like to have it back. That brand is hard to find round these parts.” My head was throbbing, and I was surprised to see the safety bar in my hand. I didn’t remember picking it up. I walked toward him. “Is your tool box in your car? That where you put the spark plug?”
“What the fuck is going on?” Moose said.
I held up the safety bar, ready to swing it. Or rather, Frank was ready to swing it. He was the one calling the shots.
Moose ran toward me and knocked me to the pavement. I suppose he thought that would hurt me.
I got back on my feet. Wasn’t even winded. The bar was shining bright green. The whole alley was glowing with emerald light.
Moose slugged me in the stomach.
“My turn,” I said, slamming the safety bar over his head.
He sank to his knees with a little whimper.
I kept hitting his head with the bar. There was even more blood than when I hit Connie with the car.
A few minutes later, I heaved Moose into the Dumpster and retrieved the spark plug from his car.
Good parts are hard to find.
I popped Monster’s hood, and even though I’d never done it before, I knew exactly how to replace a spark plug.
Then it was back to the open road.
My life was slipping out of my control like sand trickling down through an hourglass. Like those tiny grains, I was being pulled along by an unseen force. But in my case, it wasn’t gravity. It was destiny.
I was going over eighty miles per hour, and I didn’t even have my headlights on.
I played a demo tape from my old band Second Banana. Don’t know why I’d put that in. Guess I was tired of the radio. “Condition Red” was on.
Red lights are flashing
Wall Street is crashing
Crazy things are happening
And they’re not for the best
Bank account is sinking
Wallet size is shrinking
Things are out of control
And there’s disaster ahead
Living on the streets
Not enough to eat
World is filled with dread
With a gun to my head
Condition Red
Condition Red
No escape
From Condition Red
Things were more like Condition Green inside Monster. The safety bar lit it up. A cold, pulsing, glowing green.
The car started shaking and spinning. I gripped the wheel and tried to straighten it out, but Monster twirled around and around like a giant teacup ride at the carnival.
The car kept spinning, spinning, spinning into darkness like a twister lifting Dorothy’s farmhouse off to the faraway land of Oz. It kept going around and around. Even though I hated dance music, I thought of “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by Dead or Alive. I had my own little death disco cooking, green light flashing, round and round I go, where I stop, the dead only know.
But, finally, I stopped.
Back in the Land of the Dead.
My head was still spinning. I stepped out of the car and vomited. The puke glowed green and slimy. That caused me to throw up even more. I kept upchucking the green slime for God knows how long.
Then the slime started to take shape. It rose into a pillar before me, pulsing and shifting and squirming, slowly restructuring itself into something . . . human.
Me. Or rather, what used to be me.
It was Jeremy Carmichael, naked as a grape.
I looked good, too. No scars. Great posture.
“Boy, that took some doing, didn’t it?” my body said with my voice but Frank’s inflections.
My mouth tasted like I’d taken a shit from the wrong hole. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, my old body was filled with cancer, so I had to figure out a way to get reborn in a healthier one,” Frank said. “Am I going too fast for ya? Should I slow down, give ya a moment to catch up?”
I nodded, spitting the last traces of green from my mouth. “That would help.”
He shook his head, like a teacher talking to the slowest student in class. “Shit, boy, I’ve never been much for explanations. I made you me, cancer and all. Okay? Then when you were full of me, I spewed you out and went along with it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to hit the road. Have fun with my cancer, okay? Because you deserve it, you rotten little shit. You killed my Maddy and I loved her. Of all the things in that goddamned Land of the Living, she was the only one I ever loved.”
“Why didn’t you get back with her after you died?”
He laughed, but it sounded more like a pig squealing. “Oh, I tried that. But she said I’d lived too hard and it had turned me mean. And that’s your fault, too, asshole. Losing that woman was what turned me mean. So fuck you, dipshit. I still have some living to do.” With that, he ran past me and climbed into Monster’s driver’s seat.
I sprinted around the other side and took the passenger seat.
Frank turned to me. “What the fuck? This is where you get out, boy. Me, I’m gonna have me some fun in both lands, living and dead. And you’re not invited.
”
“This is my car,” I said. “And that’s my body. I ain’t going nowhere.”
“You fucking hick. ‘Ain’t’ is lousy motherfucking grammar.” He started up Monster. “Well, suit yourself. I’m itching to hit the road.”
He drove down the road a stretch, and soon the streets began to glisten with a thick layer of blood. We passed the Welcome to the Land of the Dead sign.
“Have you seen that River of Time yet?” Frank said. “Is that some freaky shit or what? When I got here, I tried to get in that, but those bat fuckers kept chasing me off. One of them almost caught me. I did manage to stick a toe in, just a toe, but that was enough. It gave me some extra power. Even patched up the bullet wound I had in me. Didn’t fix the cancer, though. Guess that was too much a part of me.”
I nodded. I noticed that the safety bar was within easy reach.
“All these sorry dead folks, they’d love to bathe in that river. It gave me the power to do what I’ve been doing. Powerful stuff, that.”
I made a grab for the bar, but Frank was too quick for me. He saw what I was up to, grabbed it first, and started striking me with it.
“Well, looky here. Had a weapon and didn’t even know it,” he crowed. “Now get the fuck out. No hitchhiking, boy. Out.”
There was only one thing left to do. I pulled the door handle and jumped out.
I rolled and rolled on the blood-soaked ground. When I stopped rolling, I was just in time to see Monster’s taillights vanish in the distance. I was alone in the Land of the Dead.
Down a side road, I noticed a junkyard. A place of dead cars.
I ran to the junkyard and wandered around for what seemed like forever. I had no idea where I was going. The sky bled ruby rain, and the air reeked of gas, oil, burned rubber, and an acrid stench that must have been rust.
There were rats everywhere, but they didn’t even look at me. And no wonder: these were metal rats, little robot vermin, and they were all chewing on soft, mildewed car seats, chewy air filters, and crunchy spark plugs. The rats in this corner of the Land of the Dead had no appetite for flesh: fresh, decayed, or anywhere in between.
I had to get a new set of wheels if I was going to catch up to Frank again.
I saw a 1995 black Chevy Corvette with its front end destroyed. That car was out of the question. Next to it was a 2001 Ford Escape 4×4, but the back end had been crunched. No dice. I had to find a car that wasn’t totally wrecked.
I came across a 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass, an old police car. It looked like something out of The Blues Brothers—black with white doors and a black star in the center. The roof was all white, with a siren and red lights. Inside there was a wire panel between the front and back seats. Frank used to be a policeman; there was a sort of crazy logic in his body driving a police car again.
I opened the door and slid in.
The key was still in the ignition. I cranked it.
Krrrk-krrrrrk-krrrrk.
Even in the Land of the Dead, that sound meant only one thing.
Dead battery.
That figured.
I opened the hood, then popped open the battery and looked inside. Dry as a bone.
One of the robot rats scuttered up to me and sniffed my shoe.
I grabbed the metal varmint. It looked up at me with big shiny what-the-fuck? eyes. I twisted off its head and poured all its steaming oils and juices into the battery. I did the same with six more rats.
I got back in and cranked it again.
The car squealed as it started. It sounded like it was ready to rock ’n’ roll.
In that old police car, with its 442 cubic engine, cop shocks and cop tires, I figured I’d be able to catch up to Monster.
I dubbed it the Ratmobile and started driving.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
RED ICE
A corpse shuffled out of a ditch and stepped in front of my car. “Stop, copper.”
“Copper?” Then I remembered I was driving a squad car, not Monster anymore.
He was already dead, but I didn’t want to run him over and wreck the Ratmobile. It was my only means of transportation. So I stopped.
“Loose change, mister?” he asked, hand outstretched.
Who would have thought there would be panhandlers in the Land of the Dead? There were enough of them in the Land of the Living, so I guess it made sense they had them here, too.
I took a closer look at the man. He was tall, black, and bald. At least I wasn’t the only one without hair. Maybe he’d had chemo, too. He was in his late forties or early fifties but dressed like a rapper, wearing red leather pants and a ton of gold chains around his neck. His eyes were golden, too. No white iris, just gold pupils.
He smiled. Even his teeth were made of gold. “They call me the Junkyard Man. But you can call me Trash. That’s what they called me when I was a breather. Just need a few coins to buy coffee. Don’t want to cash in any of the gold. You understand.”
They had coffee in the Land of the Dead? Yet another Starbucks franchise?
“Look, I’m in a hurry. I need . . .” What? To find my old body again? To get back to the Land of the Living and make this nightmare end?
“Information, maybe?” Trash said. “If that’s the case, you’re in luck. I’m the answer man. Give me a dollar and I’ll sell you knowledge.”
It was only a buck. Didn’t have much to lose. I fished through my pockets, found a dollar, and handed it to him.
“So, where would Frank Edmondson be right now?” I said. “How am I going to get back to the Land of the Living? Where can I find Fiona Bloom or some noseless freak named Garth?”
“Man, you sure are one curious son of a bitch.” Trash opened the passenger door and got inside. “Drive. Tell me what’s up with you. Sounds like you’re a man with a mission.”
As I drove, I explained my situation, giving him the Reader’s Digest version, all the while keeping a lookout for Monster’s taillights.
“Damn,” Trash said when I finished my tale. “You’ve got a regular little action-adventure saga going on. Hope we don’t run into that Connie. She’s gonna be pissed at you.”
“Yeah, but Frank made me do it,” I said. “So, answer man. How’d I even get here in the first place when I had my accident?”
He flashed a golden grin. “I know this, and the answer is well worth the dollar. The brain is the threshold to the Land of the Dead. Some people come here when the brain is seriously damaged, and they all come here when the brain is dead, which is about as damaged as you can get. Back in the Land of the Living, you’ve heard of people seeing angels or bright lights and voices after serious head trauma, right? You know, ‘Head toward the light.’”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“They were actually speaking with people from the Land of the Dead. Sometimes brain-dead accident victims come here as living people. If they die here, their bodies die in the living world, and their corpses on this side wake up after three days.”
That explained the poor bastard hanging from the cross in that church ceremony.
“When you had your auto accident,” Trash continued, “your brain was dead for a few seconds, so you ended up here. Now, this Frank guy . . . I’ve heard of him. Real troublemaker. He’s got some power. Once you’d established a link, he kept dragging you back.”
“So how will I get my body?”
“Let me work on that one, okay? First, we have to find this Frank guy. Assuming he hasn’t already gone to the Land of the Living. Now that he has a living body, he can go anytime he wants. Before he was using you as a bridge into that world. Now he is a bridge.”
“What about me? Can I go back?”
Trash mulled it over. “Yeah, you’ve got a living body. Cancerous, from what you told me, but living. The question is: Do you have the power to do it? Touching the River of Time gave Frank the power, and now he has the means. You might be shit out of luck.”
“No way. We’ll force Frank to send me back.”
; “Whoa. What’s this ‘we’ shit?” Trash said.
“Frank has two million dollars in his car,” I said. “If you help me, you can have half, okay?”
Trash nodded. “We’ve got a deal. I’ll get me a big, fancy tomb with that. And my own coffee shop. And some more gold would be good . . .”
Suddenly I remembered something. “Hey, Frank said he wanted to have fun in both lands, living and dead. So maybe he’s still on this side.”
“Yeah, kinky bastard like that Frank, he wants it all.” He leaned closer to me. “He might have acquired some tastes in this neck of the woods, if you know what I mean. Preferences. Diversions the living might not understand.”
Ahead, I saw dark shapes reaching up into the sky. Soon I was able to make out details. It was a city of towering skyscrapers made entirely of dead cars.
“And I thought that junkyard was big,” I said. “That’s a hell of a lot of cars.”
“The streets are made of concrete, and the cars are forged from steel. Us humans, we’re just flesh and bones. Flesh is weak and bones can break.”
“Cars aren’t made from steel anymore,” I informed him. “How long have you been dead?”
Suddenly the Ratmobile started sliding. I eased off the gas pedal.
“Red ice,” Trash said so softly I almost didn’t hear him.
“Huh?”
“It’s kinda like black ice, a really thin coating of ice on a road, caused by freezing mist,” Trash explained. “Of course, in the Land of the Dead, it’s red.”
The streets were covered in sleet and blood. I slowed down, hoping that the red ice had also slowed Frank down.
“Weather changes pretty quickly here,” I said. “Or is winter coming?”
“We don’t have any seasons. It’s just here and now forever.”
For a few minutes, we drove in silence.
“Do you mind if I whittle?” he asked.
“No, go ahead.”
Trash took a small block of wood and a bowie knife out of his pockets and started carving. I was a little nervous about having such a big knife slicing away only a few feet from me, but I’d already given my blessing.
“You’ll probably want to go to the Diner of the Dead,” Trash said. “You look hungry. And that’s where Fiona works. Frank’s always had a hard-on for her. Those two are both pretty famous round these parts. She’s the hottest dead chick here. Got lots of style, she does.” He continued to slash and gouge at his piece of wood.
Monster Behind the Wheel Page 21
