Three or four cars sped by as a light drizzle began to fall. I tried smiling, putting on a needy face, even waving my arms as if there were an emergency. But that only made one driver step on the pedal.
A short while later, I saw a car pulling out of the hospital parking lot. I hurried toward it and approached the driver’s window as the car came to a stop at the intersection.
“You headed east by any chance?” I asked pointing my thumb in that direction. “I’ve been waiting for the bus for an hour.”
The driver was a young kid, and an older woman was in the passenger seat.
“Yeah, I’m headed that way. Where are you going?”
“Clenhburran.”
“Oh, I know the place. I can take you as far as the gas station.” I figured he meant Andy’s. “It’s just a few miles on foot from there.”
“That would be great, thanks.”
I sat in the back of the old but comfortable Toyota, whose footwells were full of empty soda bottles and old newspapers. The driver was named Kevin and his passenger was his grandma. They had been visiting Kevin’s mother, who was in the hospital with an ovarian tumor.
“And why were you here?”
“Me? Oh, I, uh, was visiting an old friend. He broke his back in an accident. Poor guy’s in a body cast, but other than that he’s okay.”
Kevin’s grandmother asked what I’d said, and he told her again in a loud voice. That’s pretty much how the rest of the drive went: Kevin would ask a question, I’d respond, and he’d repeat it to his grandmother, who seemed happy to be part of the conversation. The Frames’ “Revelate” played on the radio.
Andy’s appeared around a curve. In the distance, the storm was taking shape, like the silhouette of a phantom. The clouds extended like a heavy cloak over the horizon. I figured there was still an hour until it made landfall.
Kevin turned in to the gas station.
“We’d take you all the way home, but we’re in a rush,” he said.
I told him not to worry, that I’d be home before the storm hit. It was only ten minutes into town, and I figured I’d find Judie and the kids there. I thanked Kevin and then his grandmother, in a loud enough voice so she could hear me. The Toyota turned back onto the highway and disappeared around another curve.
Andy’s had one of those little roadside cafés inside, the kind of place where your insides immediately regret having eaten. I’d skipped dinner, and my stomach had started to growl, so I considered going inside to grab a candy bar, but I decided it was better to find Judie and the kids first.
That’s when I noticed a couple of vehicles parked out in front. Vans.
C’mon, Pete, just cross the goddamn street, and let’s find Judie and the kids. . . .
They were probably tourists. There were a lot of visitors to the northern part of the country at this time of year. Probably camping. It was a long way from one town to the next. Maybe they were resting for the night.
One was a plain, white van. But the one next to it . . . I noticed something that made my blood run cold.
An unmistakable GMC badge on the front.
Dark red. Chrome rims.
It couldn’t be. But it was. The van from my nightmares.
SIX
THERE WASN’T a single car pumping gas at Andy’s. The wind scattered the pages of an old newspaper along the ground. From the speakers inside the café, I could hear the commentary on a hurling match between Leinster and Munster.
One of the newspaper pages took flight and wedged itself beneath the GMC van, which, in the fading light, appeared to be empty.
This can’t be.
I walked up to the building as if I were looking at the items for sale outside. Firewood, bags of ice, dog food, newspapers.
I reached the corner. The white van was parked closest to the building. And right next to it was the GMC.
My knees started to shake.
It was a sparkling new GMC Savana, dark red, with Belfast license plates. Yes, there were a lot of vans like this one in the world. But how many red vans had chrome rims like this one? At least a few, I guessed.
I was so overwhelmed, I actually closed my eyes and told myself: Wake up. Wake up in the hospital, right now, and eat your dinner. But when I opened my eyes, the van was still there.
The windshield was covered in splattered bugs, so I figured it must have been on the road for a few hours. The air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror had a Hertz logo on it. A rental . . .
I pretended to shop for quarts of oil while I tried to memorize the license plate. I thought I remembered it, but immediately it went out of my head again. My mind was racing at a hundred miles an hour.
I walked around to the front of the store, and the automatic doors whooshed open. To the left, behind the counter, a teenage girl with acne smiled hello. I nodded back. With my mouth as dry as it was, I couldn’t have managed a simple hello. To the left was the café and the convenience store section. I walked between two racks filled with magazines, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies until I reached a column that obscured me from the café. I grabbed a magazine and pretended to read it.
Two tables were occupied. In one, a family was having dinner—probably the owners of the white van. Two kids Jip’s age ran around the table, fighting over a toy, while their parents ate in sheepish silence, embarrassed by the scene their kids were making.
The other group sat by the window. There were four of them. Three—a brunette, a heavy-set man, and a skinny guy with sunglasses—I recognized immediately. The fourth was a tall, burly guy I’d never seen before, sitting next to the woman with a road map spread in front of him. The others drank coffee and ate sandwiches in silence, scrolling through their cell phones. It seemed like they were looking for something or some place. Tremore Beach, perhaps?
It’s hard to describe exactly what was going on inside my head at that moment. It was all I could do to hold on to the magazine and stay quiet. What I wanted to do was stop them dead in their tracks, right then and there. To kill them. I watched them. From the outside, they could be anyone: people here on business or actors on vacation. And I was the only one who knew the truth about what they were here to do. I stuffed the magazine back on the rack. I went to the counter and bought a pack of gum. The teen offered me a two-for-one deal, and I said I was in a hurry. I left her a ten euro bill on the counter.
“Just one thing,” I asked on my way out. “You see those four sitting in the back?”
“Yeah.”
“Not the family, but the three men and the woman. You can see them, right?”
“Sure, of course.”
“They drove up in that van, right?” I said, pointing out the window. “The red one? You can see that, too, right?”
“Um, yeah. Why?” she asked.
“Never mind. I thought I saw them earlier today in Dungloe. I think they’re film people or something. Maybe they’re scouting a movie location.”
“Seriously?” the girl said, her mouth agape, her eyes wide. “My sister Sarah’s an actress!”
“Well, maybe you should talk to them before they leave.”
I left the store and walked slowly toward the road, my stomach sick and my head starting to pound with nerves. I crossed carefully. I was so out of it, I could easily have been hit by a truck. Plus, I didn’t want those four to notice someone sprinting across the road toward town.
Once I’d crossed, I grabbed my cell phone and called Judie again. This time, the recorded voice said the mobile number I was calling wasn’t available. Then I tried Leo and Marie. Neither their home phone nor cell phones rang. I glanced at the storm front thundering in the distance. Maybe the electrical storm was causing interference. It was hard to think straight. Only the feeling of panic was clear in my mind. I might have flagged down another car, or I could have taken a detour toward High Street, stopped by Fagan’s and warned whoever was there about what was going on. Instead, I just ran. I wanted to reach Judie at the store, make sur
e my kids were safe, and then worry about the thousand phone calls I had to make—starting with Leo and Marie, the cops, the national guard, whoever.
First, I started toward Clenhburran, at a fast walk so as not to draw any attention, then a gentle jog, and, as soon as I was far enough away from the gas station, at an all-out sprint, churning my legs as fast as they could carry me.
For ten minutes, I managed to run at that pace, running faster than I’d run in the last ten years. I had to stop to catch my breath to keep from puking. The pills I’d taken at the hospital probably didn’t help. Neither had the years of smoking a pack a day. I felt loathing for my soft and wimpy body as I tried to suck in as much oxygen as I could.
I looked back at the road. I could imagine the van flying down it any minute now. I started walking again, as fast as I could, a sort of desperate and exhausted march as my lungs tried to fill with air.
By the time I reached the first houses on the outskirts of Clenhburran, it started to rain. The neighborhood was deserted. I figured everyone was taking shelter over at Fagan’s, with a pint and plenty of stories to last the night.
I hurried down the High Street but didn’t run into anyone except a couple of kids who laughed at the way I panted and stumbled down the road. Judie’s store was close, now, but none of the windows were lit up. I dashed around to the door that led to the hostel and pounded on it with my last bit of strength.
After a couple moments in which I caught my breath, I heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
Judie, I thought. Thank God . . .
But it wasn’t Judie who opened the door but a big burly guy with an unkempt beard I thought I remembered seeing before.
“How can I help you, bud?”
I swallowed before I tried to speak.
“Where . . . is Judie?” My voice sounded stifled and hoarse, and it took the guy aback. He put his hands on his hips as if blocking the door.
“Judie?” the guy said, looking me up and down. “Who’s asking?”
I wanted to yell at him, but I didn’t have the strength.
“She’s with my kids . . . please, tell her it’s Peter.”
Now, he seemed to get it.
“Oh, of course! You’re the dad. They let you out of the hospital already? Judie thought you’d be there another couple of nights.”
“They . . . they discharged me early,” I replied.
“Oh, good, congrats. Well, Judie’s not here. She went to go visit some friends of yours at the beach.”
Hearing these words, I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me.
“What do you mean?”
“I think it’s our fault,” he continued, now a lot friendlier. “We showed up unannounced this afternoon. Since the hostel’s usually empty, we didn’t even call first, and Judie didn’t want to leave us out in the cold.”
I remembered where I knew the guy from. He was one of the musicians who used to play at Fagan’s. It was this jerk’s fault my kids were now in danger. Judie had taken them into the lion’s den, on the night when everything was supposed to happen!
“Do you have a car? I need to borrow a car.”
“We never drive when we come here,” he said, winking and tipping back his hand as if drinking a beer. “But I can lend you a bike, if you want. Judie has a couple in the backyard.”
I looked up and down the street. If I went over to Fagan’s, somebody might be able to give me a ride . . . but how long would that take? The van hadn’t come down the road yet, and I pictured the guys still sitting at the booth at Andy’s calmly drinking coffee. Maybe they were killing time until it was darker. But I couldn’t be sure.
“Yeah,” I said, finally. “I’ll take one of the bikes.”
THE DARK PHANTOM continued to grow huge on the horizon. It loomed ever more black and fearsome. It was starting to come to a head, the storm taking shape and ready to unload on us.
As I pedaled the rusty bike, my legs felt old and tired. The storm winds had picked up even more and foiled my efforts to make quick headway. The rain grew stronger and stung my eyes, and the dim light made it harder to see the tortuous turns along the road.
I’d never traveled the stretch between Clenhburran and Bill’s Peak on bike or foot, not even in good weather. I’d always driven, and since I never ran into anyone (with the exception of Leo and Marie), I’d always sped through this section in less than fifteen minutes. But tonight, this stretch of road seemed infinite. I’d been pedaling for fifteen or twenty minutes, and I still couldn’t see the ocean.
I came to the first rise and passed a gnarled dead tree with branches like twisted claws. I stopped there for a moment to catch my breath. It felt like I was about a third of the way there. I looked back and saw the lights from Clenhburran diffused in the rain like watercolors. There were no cars coming up the road.
I tried the phone again. This time I didn’t even get a recording. The screen showed zero bars.
C’mon, get back on the bike. There’s no time to waste.
I went down a long slope and never let off the pedals. I remembered there was a curve at the bottom of the hill, and I got ready to turn. But the turn arrived before I could react. I guess I was going faster than I thought, or maybe I took it wrong. Either way, it was too late to brake when I felt the shoulder of the road sliding beneath my tires. I felt myself lose control as the bike skidded over rocks and finally jammed against some unseen obstacle. I went flying and landed hard against the spongy, wet earth, slamming my shoulder into the ground.
I heard a crack but didn’t have enough breath even to yell in pain.
“Shit. Shit. Shit!” I yelled at the soggy and treacherous ground, while the rain soaked the parts of me that weren’t already smeared in mud.
There was a terrible pain in my left shoulder. It wasn’t broken, I didn’t think, but I’m sure I’d dislocated it or something. I got up. The bike was lying on its side at the edge of the road. I picked it up with my right hand and guided it back onto the paved road. I got on, careful not to put any weight on my left hand, but when I tried to pedal, it was stuck.
I cursed every goddamn leprechaun in Ireland. I flipped the bike over and tried to see whether the chain had slipped off the gear, but something else must have been broken. It looked like something was wedged between the chain and the sprocket. A plate that was screwed in place was covering the rest.
I tried to rip off the cover but it was screwed tight, and I only managed to cut my fingers on the edge of the plastic. I kicked the shit out of the bike, left it lying in the road, and started down the path on foot.
Run, you bastard, even if it kills you.
But I couldn’t run. I knew it. So I hobbled as fast as I could down the road. There was one more hill ahead and after that, a small decline that led down toward Bill’s Peak. It’d take me another twenty minutes, but I’d get there.
The lightning, which had been flashing within the clouds in the distance, began to crash at last, still somewhere out at sea. Their brilliance illuminated the world below with each flash, casting long shadows on the ground. I dragged myself along in the rain like some desperate broken-winged insect.
It had been years since I last prayed. Years since I’d thought about God, at all. But in that moment, it was the only thing I could think to do. To ask the Almighty for forgiveness for having forgotten about Him and to ask Him one favor: that He might give me enough time to get to my kids.
Maybe God misunderstood my request. Or maybe He just has a sick sense of humor. It’s all I can imagine after watching my own shadow form and stretch out in front of me. At first, I thought it was lightning overhead, but the shadow grew longer, and soon there was light all around. That’s when I realized.
I turned around and saw the headlights of a vehicle fast approaching. It was too late to jump out of the way or to try to hide, so I just stood there, stock-still in the middle of the road, my hand shading my eyes from the oncoming car. It was all I could think to do: stand there and block
the way.
As it reached me, I raised my hand and smiled. The van braked, and I could see it clearly now. As expected—as long-awaited—it was the red GMC.
SEVEN
I WALKED SLOWLY toward the van. I thought I’d stutter out of sheer panic if I found myself having to say anything. The driver’s window rolled down. Behind it was the new guy, the character with the strong jaw I’d seen at the gas station. He was good-looking, like some kind of ’60s movie star. Next to him was the woman, and for the first time, I got a good look at her face. Her black hair was picked up in a ponytail, and the dark eyes on her round, moonlike face were bright and cold.
“Thank God you came along,” I said, my voice sounding worried. “I crashed my bike a ways back and . . .”
“Yeah, we saw it,” the driver said, speaking with an American accent. “You left it right in the middle of the road. I almost ran the damn thing over.”
“Oh, I’m really sorry,” I said. “I was . . .”
Just then, without looking over, the woman said something in French. The driver nodded. Then he smiled, showing two rows of pearlescent teeth, and leaned on the windowsill.
“You live over on the beach?”
“Yeah. Why, you headed there?”
Stupid question. The road led in only one direction.
“We’re on the way to visit some friends,” he said. “Maybe you know them. Leo and Marie Kogan.”
Yeah, I know them you evil son of a bitch. . . .
“Of course. They’re my neighbors.”
“Your neighbors! Wow, what a coincidence,” the guy said. He glanced into his rearview mirror at the passengers in the back. “Randy, Tom, make room back there. Leo and Marie’s neighbor is coming with us.”
I heard the sliding door glide open.
“Hop on in. We’ll save you a walk in this rain.”
IN THE BACK was Randy, the John Lennon clone with the round sunglasses and the greasy, matted, long hair. He was sitting with his back to the driver. I sat across from him next to the stocky guy, Tom.
The Last Night at Tremore Beach Page 21
