The second appearance of the light had come almost one day later – pretty much to the minute, she'd have said if she'd have been asked. And that was when things had gotten kind of back to normal – or, at least, as far as they knew normal to be at that stage. They had seen the car on the road set off down into town, and that was when Rick and Geoff had gone off to see what was happening. A little after that, Melanie's personal world had ended right along with – or so it seemed to be stacking up – the regular one.
Rick leaned on the roof and rubbed his stomach. "We gonna eat something here? I'm feeling a little faint."
Melanie nodded and looked up at the sky.
"Is it my imagination or does it seem to be getting dark early? I mean, too early."
Johnny groaned as he leaned over and rolled down the window. "Could be a storm coming," he said, wincing slightly when he leaned his leg against the car's side-panel.
Melanie didn't comment on the idea of a storm. "Too early for sunset." She stepped back from the car and scanned the sky. The funny thing was that the darkness seemed to be, well, darker than usual. She knew that didn't make any sense but that was just the way it was.
She clapped her hands together. "Well, I think we should move."
"And I think we should get food," Rick said.
"Well, if everyone can wait for me, I need to pee."
They were driving again, eating prepackaged sandwiches from a convenience store, when they saw the smoke from the eighteen-wheeler. But it was still several miles before they reached it, by which time Johnny – having eaten two pre-packaged baguette sandwiches and a blueberry muffin – was feeling a little better.
"Jeez," he said from the back seat, his voice low. "What a mess."
Oil was still burning in some places and in others just pumping out a funereal pall way up into the otherwise clear blue Colorado sky. Whatever it was that had removed the population of Jesman's Bend had clearly seen fit to take the driver from behind the wheel of the rig in that same instant, out here in Denver, and the rig had jackknifed across all four lanes. A couple of other cars had slammed into it, others had gone off the road at the side a good way before. Johnny tried to picture the scene, the blinding light and the ensuing explosion.
They stopped the car, simply because there was nothing else they could do, and then checked the wreckage to see if there was any way they could get the Seville onto the clear road beyond. There wasn't. And up ahead, they could see other cars, 4x4's, pickups and even a couple of twelve- and eighteenwheelers covering the blacktop, with one trailer home upended on its roof and hanging out of the front window of a big display store filled with John Deere tractors.
"Didn't know the twenty-five was so busy that time of night," Rick said, shielding his eyes against the sun's glare.
"Lot of folks heading for Denver," Mel said. "All day, every day," she added, nodding as though to underline that a couple times.
They scanned the road beyond the jackknifed rig but there was nothing up ahead that looked drivable.
Johnny pointed over to a pull-in on the other side of the highway, and the familiar sign of the Taco Bell franchise. "Hungry?" he said.
"We only just ate," Mel said, unable to hide her incredulity.
"I'm feeding an injury," Johnny said. "You know how to work these big ovens?" he shouted over his shoulder as he limped toward the sidewalk.
Mel turned to Rick and shook her head. "Whatever happened to New Age Man?"
Rick smiled and shrugged. "I think he just left the building."
They started after Johnny, both of them noting that he seemed to be walking a little easier now. He was still hobbling, but the limp wasn't quite so severe.
Johnny stopped when he reached the sidewalk, stretched a little and looked down at his exposed shin. The shinbone was swollen up like someone had inserted a short banana under the skin where Elsie Weebershand – or whatever it was that Elsie had become – had hit it with one of the chair legs from the radio station's studio. "You think maybe it isn't broken after all?" he asked of nobody in particular, marveling at the colors of the bruising that stretched down below his sock and way up over his knee.
"If it was broken, you wouldn't be able to put any pressure on it at all," Mel said, "never mind walk on it."
Rick read out from the menu. "He's inspired by the culinary expertise on offer – chimichangas, burritos, fajitas, soured cream, refried beans–"
"Gonna be good fun in the car," Mel said. She was trying to put on a brave face but the situation seemed hopeless. And every time she started to feel a little lighter, the whole thing washed over her again.
She recalled smiling at Geoff, and him smiling back, as though they both of them knew that it was going to be the last smile they exchanged. And she remembered stroking his arm before stepping back inside the radio station and watching Johnny secure the door. And then that was it. He was gone. According to Rick, her husband hadn't died for a couple of hours after that but the departure was enough. That was the moment, the door closing slowly on Geoff's face, Geoff watching her and she watching him, until the door fitted itself neatly into the frame and Johnny turned the key and flicked the deadbolt. She kept having to check herself from wishing that Johnny had gone – which, of course, really meant her wishing that Johnny was dead. The thought made her feel guilty and she had to shake her head to loosen it, to dislodge its talons from holding onto the soft flesh of her brain and insinuating itself into her psyche.
"You thinking about Geoff?"
"What?" Melanie started at the touch of Rick's hand, gentle on her shoulder, and at the softness of his voice. "Oh–" Well what was there to say? She forced a smile, a weak one which she could already feel shivering a little at the sides of her mouth, her bottom lip trembling. She shrugged and looked away, focusing instead on Johnny, standing over there on the sidewalk as though nothing mattered at all, as though the world was just the way it had always been – filled with people and all the normal hopes and fears that made up life.
"It'll get easier," Rick whispered. "Just give it time."
She nodded. "I know," she said, though, deep inside her, deep down where Geoff's removal from her life burned in her gut like battery acid, she didn't think it was ever going to get better. That maybe even it was going to get worse. And maybe one other thing: maybe she didn't want it to get better. Maybe she just wanted to wallow in it from here on in, drinking the grief in deep draughts, feeling it pool in her gut and just sit there, still and growing stagnant.
Melanie turned and looked down the street.
"You think they're around here? More of them?"
Rick nodded slowly. "No reason why not."
"Hiding," Melanie said, her voice little more than a whisper.
When she turned back to Rick, Melanie's eyes were hard, like a shark's eyes, black and merciless. "I want to kill them all," she said then, matter-of-factly.
"I know," was all Rick could think of to say to her. He could have initiated a conversation about them – about all their onetime neighbors, the good folks of Jesman's Bend – and about how they had killed Melanie's husband and attacked the station, dragging themselves around like mindless zombies (but, hey, lest we forget, not so mindless that they couldn't turn their collective hand to souping up the local vehicular motorcade so that it could fly over the rooftops). And what was the deal with the dark glasses and the gloves? And where were they during the daytime? Vampire zombies, that was what they were, with no trace of the original person left behind. But none of this was worth putting into words. It was best left unspoken. They all knew each of them was thinking about it but a group debate didn't seem to have anything going for it.
Rick put an arm around Melanie's shoulder and said it once more – "I know…" – but softer this time.
Johnny appeared in the doorway and slumped dramatically against the door. "Hey? We eating or not?"
"Seems to me like you got a worm in there, the food you're packing away."
Johnny
leaned on the door frame and lifted his right leg, holding it under the thigh and shaking his head. "Shit, it's throbbing like a bastard," Johnny said. Even as the words left his mouth, wondering what on earth had made him use such a nonsensical relationship. It was just the dull ache that seemed to wash over every part of him. He needed some painkillers. "I need some painkillers," he said.
Rick nodded and stepped forward, squeezing his sister-in-law's shoulder twice before letting his arm drop down by his side. "Let's get inside, figure out some food, and then I'll go hunt out a drugstore, get some bandages, ibuprofen, stuff like that."
"I think I need the painkillers now, Rick," Johnny said, his voice filled with apology.
"You take him inside and see about the food. I'll go find a pharmacy."
Melanie nodded. "OK. Be careful," she said as she walked over to where Johnny was trying to rest his right foot on the Taco Bell's window ledge.
"You too."
In the Taco Bell, Mel and Johnny had done the restrooms while Rick was scouting for drugstores, and Melanie had managed to throw together a few plates of food – mostly salad, cheese and tacos: no fajitas, much to Johnny's dismay – and cartons of soda. It was while they were busy working their way through this feast, sitting at a table alongside a large window that looked out onto Main Street, that they saw Rick marching along the opposite sidewalk carrying a large brown bag. He held the bag aloft triumphantly when he saw Melanie and Johnny in the window, and they waved back to him.
"I feel as excited as when I was a kid at Christmas," Johnny said as Rick came into the restaurant.
"Any food left for me?"
Melanie stood and made to walk to the counter.
"Hey, no, finish up. I'll do Johnny first, keep him quiet."
"Muchos gracias, compadre."
"Just like a native," Melanie said, adding a small handclap to supplement the words. "But, unfortunately, not a native of Mexico."
"Let's move you over to this table and get you stretched out," Rick said. He leaned over and pushed his shoulder until it slipped under Johnny's armpit. "You'll soon feel better with food inside of you."
"Yeah, but I'm pissed about the fajitas."
"I did the best I cou–" Melanie started.
"Hey, I'm just kidding you," Johnny said. "You did great."
Melanie walked back out onto the sidewalk to allow the two men to concentrate on binding Johnny's leg. When they emerged from the Taco Bell, Johnny looked definitely better and Melanie told him so.
"It's the ibuprofen." He held up his hand, palm facing Melanie, and wiggled the fingers.
"Five? You took five painkillers?"
Johnny shrugged. "The warden wouldn't let me have any more." He jerked his thumb back at Rick.
"How's it feel? Now you're standing on it?"
"Hey, what can I tell ya, doc. It's felt better. But believe me, it felt a whole lot worse a half hour ago."
"You want something to eat, Rick?"
Rick made a face and shrugged. "I'm OK. I had a Snickers bar from the drugstore."
"OK. Then are we good to move?" Melanie seemed tense.
"Sure. But what's the hurry?"
It was only approaching mid-afternoon now but already the sky over to the east looked like a mud hole.
Melanie pointed. "See that?" Without waiting for a response as the two men turned to look, she said, "That is most definitely not right."
Halfway back to the car they saw, a little way down from them, slewed right into the center rail, a buckled Escort gleaming in the sun, lying on its side heading up to the way they had come. At first, Johnny couldn't see what she was pointing at but then, just as Rick said "Hey," he spotted the hand up against the glass on the front passenger window.
"Someone's in the car," was all he could think of to say and, just for a few seconds, the realization scared him. All he could think of was Daryl Engstrom's torn-eared face and his blood spattered blue shirt as Daryl doggedly came on brandishing the station hat stand, seemingly hell bent on doing away with everyone inside. Everyone not wearing gloves and dark glasses anyways.
"Are they wearing sunglasses?" Johnny asked.
"Can't see from here." Mel moved across their side of the highway, keeping a wide berth between her and the Escort. She felt her heart hammering. For some ridiculous reason, she couldn't fight off the feeling that the Escort's door was going to creak open, spilling powdered glass and dashboard junk, and the figure that was going to roll out onto the blacktop was her husband, Geoff.
Of course, Geoff was dead. Rick had said so. Rick had seen it happen. All of that plus they were miles away. And finally, Geoff would not have been seen in an Escort. More to the point, no, ladies and gentlemen, he wouldn't even have been seen dead in one.
Johnny limped over alongside as Mel and Rick walked closer to the Escort on their left.
"Hello?" Rick shouted. "You OK in there?"
Of course, it could be the guy–
Hey, asshole, here we are once again… thought maybe you'd like to mash me up a little more just in case you left a couple of intact bones someplace…
–he ran over all that time ago, come back to have his revenge. Or maybe just to make him feel bad. Without thinking or even realizing he was doing it, Rick held back.
Mel shouted, "Can you see any movement?"
Johnny shook his head. "I'm going to get down and take a look."
"Go easy on that leg, Johnny," Rick called. And then he jogged forward until he had caught them up.
"Whoever they are and wherever they're from, I think it's safe to say they're on the home team." He took another step closer to the Escort. "At least, they don't have dark glasses and gloves."
Melanie shuddered. She was thinking back to how Geoff must have felt when Jerry Borgesson had started to remove his gloves. Only it wasn't Jerry Borgesson–
"Mel?"
–it was one of those things, things from – she couldn't even bring herself to say another world – or alien beings from a dying planet (she thought the line in the narrator's voice from the old Invaders TV show), so how must he have felt when–
"Melster? Hey… Mel!"
–the thing had taken hold of her husband's hea–
"Mel!" Johnny shook her and she turned to him as though waking from a dream, a slight frown as, just for a nanosecond, she tried to place his face.
"Let it go, Melvin," Johnny said.
Rick crouched down by the Escort and craned his neck. Even from where they were standing, Mel and Johnny saw Rick grimace and turn away for a few seconds. In that short time, it looked as though Rick was about to throw up but he seemed to regain control. When he turned his head back to look inside the car, Melanie gave silent thanks that Rick had not stuffed himself full of cheese, soured cream and cold refried beans.
"There's a piece of windshield just about taken his head off and–" He moved to the side and pointed at something Melanie decided she would be better off not seeing. "–there's also a piece of metal tubing's gone right through his eye socket."
Mel turned away to face the littered roadway.
"How about the driver?" Johnny called.
Rick shook his head. "No driver."
He lay completely down on the road and shuffled closer to the car.
"Jeez, Louise!"
"There's a lot of blood in here, let me tell you." He moved a little closer and tried the door. "Uh uh," he shouted. "Locked tight." He shook his head again and stood up, started to walk back towards them, dusting his hands. "Looks like someone killed a herd of steers in there."
As Rick reached them, Johnny said, "Any sign that the driver got out?"
"Nope. Believe me, if he – or she – hadn't got out before the impact, then there's no way they'd have got out after it. The foot pedals are up in the air, steering column is fractured and bent to hell and it's been hammered in a good few feet." He looked from one to the other. "If the driver had still been there when that happened, well, let's just say he'd be a lot shor
ter."
"How about the collision bag?" Mel asked.
"Blown up on the driver's side. Doesn't seem to be one on the passenger's." Rick shuffled further into the car. "Ah," he said, his voice muffled. "That clinches it." He started to pull out.
"What?" Johnny accepted Melanie's shoulder to lean on.
"The driver's seatbelt is still engaged."
Darkness Falling Page 31
