Road Carnage (Selena book 4)

by Greg Barth

  The car jumped the curb. I clawed at the door handle, managed to get it open.

  With my last conscious thought I forced my body to rip itself free from Lilly Bett’s grip.

  I hit the ground hard, rolled over in the weeds, banged my ankle on something hard, something scratched at my cheek.

  I heard the crash.

  ***

  I was on my back, looking up at the dark predawn sky. White puffy clouds billowed overhead. My breath came in deep gasps, my mind started to clear.

  The stench of gasoline filled my nostrils.

  I sat up.

  The car had collided with the tanker truck. Both were smashed beyond repair. The car was twisted, black metal wedged under the tanker. I could see a strand of blonde hair through the rear side window. Gasoline poured from the tanker, filled the car, and spread across the parking lot.

  I rolled over, crawled back through the weeds to the edge of the road. I found my shotgun along the way.

  I stood, crossed the street, and followed the tree-lined road. I pushed myself as fast as I could, tried to ignore the pain in my ankle.

  I forced myself up to a slow jog, vowed to quit smoking, and made my way back up to where Ira’s truck had left the road.

  The truck hadn’t flipped, but it was at an odd angle in the deep ditch. The front grille had smashed into a tree. The door was open. The headlights were still on.

  I checked the cab. Ira wasn’t inside. There was a good bit of blood on the door and steering wheel.

  His bloody pistol lay on the floorboard.

  I checked the back of the truck. Nothing back there except a chainsaw and a gallon of gasoline.

  I grabbed the jug of gas, walked into the copse of trees. Blood smeared some of the leaves. He’d be moving slow, limping on his busted shin without his crutches. I’d probably clipped him good with the shotgun as well.

  “Ira?”

  “Go away. Leave me alone,” he said from the darkness.

  I walked deeper into the cover of trees.

  “Ira?”

  “I said, leave me the fuck alone.”

  “You want to deal with me? Or should I get my friend?”

  “You, I guess. That little gook gives me nightmares. Cutting a man’s dick off like that. Fucking savage.”

  I was getting closer.

  “Hate to have to tell you this. You’re down to one kid now, Ira.”

  He made a noise. Something like a sob. The man loved his kids.

  “Give me another couple of days, and there won’t be a Blake left alive on the planet.”

  “You leave Timmy alone! You hear me? Leave him alone!”

  There he was, a stumbling shadow in the dark.

  I held the gas can in my left hand, the shotgun in my right. I raised the gun to my shoulder, lined it up with his silhouette and fired.

  A blast of orange and I saw him for a split second. The buckshot ripped through his ass. I heard him fall to the ground.

  I crept up to him.

  He was on his stomach, one hand feeling his shredded buttocks.

  I pushed against him with my toe, kicked at him until he lay on his back.

  “Any last words you want to say to me?”

  “You…you…you little piece of trash, skank who—”

  I turned up the jug and filled his mouth with gasoline.

  He sputtered, gagged, coughed.

  I kept pouring. His mouth was nothing but a sewer to me. I didn’t care what he had to say.

  He retched, held his hands up to block the flow of gasoline. The gas was overpowering. He couldn’t draw breath.

  I drenched his hands, face, hair, eyes. I got a lot of it in his foul mouth.

  Once I emptied the can, I dropped it next to him.

  He vomited, then started to choke on the vomit.

  I fished out my pack of cigarettes, shook one loose, and lit up. I relished the first draw on the cigarette.

  “Mmm, that’s good,” I said. “So good.”

  I took another draw, enjoying the taste of the smoke, the nicotine’s calming effect.

  Ira writhed and sputtered on the ground by my feet. A pool of dark blood collected around him, bleeding from his ass.

  I smoked it down to the butt, then I flipped the cigarette at Ira’s face. A shower of orange sparks, and a whoosh as the gas lit up.

  Ira beat at his flaming face, but his hands were on fire. He raised from the ground a bit, mouth open, entire head engulfed in flame.

  I backed away.

  He sat there, mouth open, head aflame. I heard the searing of his flesh. After a moment, his head lolled back and he dropped to the ground.

  Then there was another blast. Deafening. A massive orange fireball filled the dark sky. The patch of woods I stood in was illuminated from the blast. Heat slapped my face.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  I was going to miss that car.

  I turned and headed back the way I came, back to Ira’s truck.

  Nothing to do except walk. I followed the road for maybe a hundred yards in the dark when a pair of headlights appeared in the distance. As they drew closer, I broke open the shotgun and reloaded.

  The headlights were blinding, then the car was beside me.

  It was the lawman that had been tied up in my house. He was dressed but still didn’t have everything back in place.

  He powered down his window. “I need you to get in right now. Get in the back and lay down on the seat.”

  “If you know who I am, then you’re about to make some big headlines this morning.”

  “I know who you are, and if you want any chance of getting out of this mess, you’ll get in the car right now.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I STAYED LOW, cheek pressed against the backseat while the sheriff checked on the situation at the gas station.

  I listened to the chatter on the radio from the front of the car. As I understood it, they were keeping everyone away from the fire until they had the proper equipment on site. Something about the car covering the open valve to the underground tanks.

  All known store personnel, the truck driver, and customers made it to safety. There was enough delay before ignition to evacuate. Witnesses stated at least one person, the driver of the car, was presumed dead.

  From my position in the back, I could see the flames reflected on the glass windows around me.

  When the front door opened again, I nearly jumped from my skin.

  The sheriff got inside, backed the car away from the gas station and pulled onto the road.

  “You startled me,” I said.

  He looked back at me. “So who was that in the car?”

  “Lilly Bett Blake,” I said.

  “That’s a damned good thing,” he said.

  “I guess.”

  “She was a mean one.”

  I scoffed. “Who ain’t?”

  “I’m not,” he said. “Least, not when I don’t have to be.”

  “You’re going to be a hero now, catching me like this,” I said. “Lots of people looking for me.”

  “I’m not looking for headlines. At least not those kinds. I’m more into money myself. Money, and the kind of life that comes with it.”

  “Your lucky day. You can add seventy-five thousand to your bank account easy,” I said.

  “Seventy-five? Shit. The way I see it, Selena Carson died in that car.”

  “Nobody’ll buy that,” I said.

  “It’s tricky, I’ll admit. The bones will have to be completely charred to prevent good DNA work. ’Course I’ll make sure they’re fully contaminated with your DNA. The skull can’t be in good shape. Teeth, whatnot. Probably have to throw in some carpentry.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You had some work done. Screws, bolts. Shit like that in your legs, I hear.”

  “Carpentry. Holy fuck, mister. You got that right.”

  “You can call me Bobby,” he said. “I’ll get the county medical examiner throw some screws in amongst
the ashes. I’ll have to file some paperwork showing where you, what’s your cover name?”

  “Amanda Murphy,” I said.

  “Showing where Miss Murphy reported her car stolen.”

  “It was a good car.”

  “It did its job. It got you here. Just remember this, there’s all kinds of other cars out there. You need one, you get you one.”

  “Can I go home now?”

  “Tonight. Enola’s got a lot of questions she’s answering right now. Don’t worry. The person I’ve got asking the questions already knows the right answers. It’s a slam dunk. I’m going to take you to Christine’s apartment. She won’t be home, but I’ve got a key.”

  “You have a key to Chris’s apartment?”

  He laughed. “You’ll catch on pretty quick. We’ve got a unique thing here.”

  “How is Chris?”

  “Last I heard, she’d lost some blood and was being transported. If she was gonna die, she would’ve done it by now. Got shot through the left hand. Messy as hell, but if you’ve got to take a bullet, the extremities are the way to go. Hands or feet are best. Any closer, it could be bad.”

  “She plays guitar.”

  “You ain’t heard her then. She holds the guitar. She makes noise with it. I’ll give you that. But I won’t go so far as to call it music.”

  “Timmy Blake,” I said.

  “What about him?”

  “You need to get his phone from Chris. There’s some video footage on there you should watch.”

  “I’ll ask her for it. You don’t like them Blakes much, do you?”

  I chuckled. “Just Bucky and Lilly Bett for a very short period of time.” I sat up in the seat.

  “Well, you know how it is. A man gets desperate. No tellin’ what he’ll do.”

  I scoffed. “Or a woman.”

  He made eye contact with me through the rear view mirror. “Oh, no. Now a woman, she’ll just burn the whole damned thing down around everybody.”

  I took out a cigarette and lit it up. I didn’t bother to ask if he minded.

  “So, Sheriff Bobby, why are you doing this for me?”

  “Like I said. We’ve got a good setup here. You should be a part of it.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense. Why invite a shark to come swim in your pond?”

  “Let’s just say you never know when you might want to scare the other fish.”

  I considered his words, and decided I didn’t like them. “So what’s this I hear about you fucking my girlfriend?”

  He laughed. “Don’t shoot me just yet. We’ve got a lot of getting to know each other to do before we get around to that.”

  And just like that, I was out of the frying pan.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Will Viharo for recommending the best road movies from the 1970s to help get me primed and ready to write this adventure. While Road Carnage turned out be more fast paced than the meandering road novel I had planned, those car movies gave me a feel for the place-to-place rhythm of these stories.

  Thanks also to the rock band, Betty Blowtorch. While Selena’s blazing race through the southeast was accompanied by ACDC’s Highway to Hell, it was Betty Blowtorch’s Are You Man Enough album that fueled the writing of it.

  A very special thanks to the people at All Due Respect. Writing is a lonely, solo craft. Publishing is a team effort, and I couldn’t have asked for a better team. They’ve put a lot of work into the books, and they look as good as they do in large part due to their efforts.

  Most of all, thanks to the readers who have followed Selena’s adventures this far. She wasn’t especially nice in Road Carnage, and this was a nasty one, but I hope you will stick with her for one more adventure. One last adventure.

  Watch for Selena’s soon to come return in Everglade.

  Until then, peace out,

  Greg Barth

  June 2016

  About the Author

  Greg Barth is the author of Selena, Diesel Therapy, Suicide Lounge, Road Carnage, and the forthcoming Everglade. He lives and writes in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

  More from All Due Respect Books

  We hope you enjoyed Road Carnage by Greg Barth. If you haven’t read the first three books in the Selena series, you should! Selena (vol. 1), Diesel Therapy (vol. 2), and Suicide Lounge (vol. 3). Here are some other hardcore crime titles from ADR.

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