Catacomb (3 page)

Abby remained all smiles, hopping out of the truck when they reached the Neon. Without prompting, Jake Lee parked and lowered the gate on the truck bed, grunting and sweating as he pulled the spare onto the gravel ditch.

“Here now,” he said, lumbering back to the cab and getting an enormous flashlight. “Take this. You can give it back to me when you get in to the diner for supper.”

“That’s really nice of you,” Abby said, fetching the little tool kit and jack from the back of the car. Dan heard her sigh at the sight of the sleeping bag rolled up where the spare tire ought to be. He took up the position of spotlight operator, holding the big yellow bulb steady while Abby set to work.

He glanced at Jake Lee, who had paused on the way back to his truck to watch them. More than watch them, really—he was staring, his head cocked to the side like he’d just discovered a rare species of insect and was trying to decide what to do with it. Dan tried to give a friendly wave to get his attention, but the mechanic just frowned and shook his head before driving off into the night.

T
he tire change was taking longer than Dan expected. His arms were beginning to cramp from holding the flashlight steady.

“If I were a straight guy,” Jordan said, “this would be a total turn-on.” He took off his thick, fashionable glasses and wiped at his nose and forehead with his arm.

“Then not for the first time, I’m glad you’re not straight,” Dan said. “Jordan, you could at least try to help.”

“I’d just get in the way,” he said.

Abby gave a tiny grunt of effort, wrenching off another of the blown tire’s lug nuts.

“Good thing that car only weighs about sixteen pounds max,” Jordan added. This was met with a swift, blind kick from Abby, who was now pressed up against the car’s faded, electric-green chassis.

“At least one of us knows how to change a freaking tire!” she shot back. Her forearms and face were streaked with war-paint lines of grease and dirt.

“Thanks, Mr. Valdez!” Dan said, crouching to see what she was working on. She had at last managed to maneuver the replacement into alignment. The only thing left to do was tighten the nuts on the spare.

“Thanks,
Mrs.
Valdez,” Abby countered. “She’s the one who insisted I learn this before even considering a road trip.”

“Here,” Dan offered, holding out his hand for the wrench. “Let me finish this.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. She puffed back a wisp of purple hair. She had dyed a few streaks at the beginning of summer, and now her naturally black hair was encroaching down toward the roots.

“I think I can handle it,” Dan said. “Righty tighty, lefty loosey? Anyway, the blood is running out of my arms. You take the flashlight.”

They changed places, Dan kneeling next to the car while Abby positioned the flashlight to shine down onto his head and the tire. Tightening the tire onto the car was harder work than he expected, and he had to grip the wrench with both hands to gather enough force. Finally, he had to lower the car jack so he could finish.

“Wow, Jordan is right,” Abby said. “That is kind of a turn-on.”

Dan blushed, ruffling his hair shyly. “I think we’re good to go. Let’s get this stuff in the trunk and get back to the diner, yeah? I’m starving.”

“If you insist,” Jordan said with a sigh, helping Dan pack up the flashlight and tool kit. “At this point I’d prefer McDonald’s. That mechanic was just a little too eager to help.”

“I think he was nice,” Abby said, climbing back into the driver’s seat.

“Ugh. Careful,” Jordan replied with a shudder. “I wouldn’t let him hear you say that.”

When they returned to the diner, the atmosphere once again became quiet, almost chilly. Jake Lee was nowhere to be found, but the lights were still out in the garage next door, so Dan held on to the flashlight.

The service at the Mutton Chop was slow, although apparently not for the other tables. Dan watched platters of food come and go, but the only thing that had made it to their table was a cup of coffee for Abby, delivered by a man whose nametag read
Fats Buckhill
. Dan hadn’t even gotten his water yet. Abby tapped her ringed fingers on the surface of the table and offered a friendly smile whenever Mr. Fats, the owner-slash-waiter-slash-horror-movie-extra, hobbled by the table, but he just kept saying, “I’ll be right with you.”

To be fair, for almost 9:00 p.m., the diner was surprisingly busy. Dan could swear every local in the joint was staring at them, but whenever he turned to see, they whipped back around, suddenly very interested in their food.

“This is how it starts,” Jordan hissed, leaning in to get closer to Dan. Abby ignored him. “First that mechanic. There’s always the one gruff yokel who warns you or has that
hee-haw
donkey laugh, and then everyone in the movie theater is all,
Get out! Get the hell out of there! What are you even thinking?
”

Dan snorted. Abby’s sharp elbow founds its way into his ribs, but even she had a smile for Jordan’s joke.

“Laugh it up,” Jordan continued, all but hiding behind the big, laminated menu. “Who do you think they’ll kill and feed to the pigs first? Duh, me. Of course they’ll bump off the gay kid first. That’s like redneck murder one-oh-one.”

“That’s just judgmental,” Abby replied, sipping her jet-fuel coffee. It was one of her only vices—Dan had lost count of how many cups of coffee she’d had so far this trip. But if it kept her awake for the drive, more power to her. They still had a few hours to go tonight before they made it to the next campsite. “You don’t know these people, Jordan, and even if they are a little less . . . cosmopolitan, there’s nothing wrong with that. Your way of life isn’t better or worse.”

“False,” Jordan declared, lowering his voice when he spotted the owner returning to check on them. “My way of life is objectively better because mine has Wi-Fi and Netflix.”

“How y’all doin’ here, then?” Fats Buckhill crouched to bring himself down to the table’s level. His old knees cracked ominously as he did so, loud and crisp as breaking twigs. He had wide-set, friendly eyes under a heavy brow and a salt-and-pepper beard that was neat and closely shaven. One eye was slightly milky, the other crystal blue.

“Really good, Mr. Buckhill,” Abby said politely. “I’m going to be getting the Cobb, and these two . . .” She trailed off, eyeing them impatiently.

“Burger,” Jordan said shortly. His hand hovered in front of his mouth, probably trying to cover up his new piercing so the locals wouldn’t judge him. “Bacon burger. Tons of bacon, just really go for it. And a milk shake if you’ve got ’em. Chocolate.”

Fats laughed at that, cocking his head back. “Oh, I like you, son. You got good old-fashioned tastes.”

Dan felt Abby’s elbow jab preemptively, but that didn’t stop his incredulous smile. “Oh, yes,” Dan said with as much sincerity as he could muster, “Jordan is about as traditional as they come.”

That earned him a kick under the table from both of them.

“The pulled pork and potato salad for me,” Dan said, vowing to humor Abby and be less of a smart ass. “A Coke, too. And maybe a slice of the chess pie for later.”

“Another sound decision-maker.” Fats stood, his knees crackling again, and swept up their menus, tapping all three together like a deck of cards on the table.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Abby added, clearing her throat resolutely, “would you mind sitting down to talk for a little while? I’m working on a photo project and it won’t be complete without some insight from the people who actually live in and love these places.”

She was laying it on thick, but it worked. Fats’s one good eye twinkled. “Why of course, that’d be just fine. Let me put these orders in with Fats Junior and then I’ll be right back to oblige you.”

The old man shuffled away, perhaps with a bit more spring in his step now. The hush of the restaurant grew less pronounced, as if some secret signal that the teenagers were all right had been given.

“Did you see how cheery he got?” Jordan murmured. He kept his eyes glued to Fats. “Old fart’s just excited I’m eating all that bacon. Gonna get me nice and plump before the slaughter.”

Abby rolled her eyes and took a long swig from her coffee. “Well, after the year we’ve had, I understand why you’re nervous, but we’ve earned some peace and quiet, Jordan,” she said. “Some normalcy.”

“Don’t say shit like that. Don’t! That’s like catnip for bad juju.”

Dan had already decided to stay out of it when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Probably Sandy getting worried that he
hadn’t called her yet today. He checked his messages, finding the alert hadn’t come from a text but from his Facebook app. Dan couldn’t imagine who would be messaging him on Facebook. There wasn’t anyone from his high school he planned to keep in touch with. Could it be one of his fellow freshman class members at Chicago saying hello?

He flicked the app open with his thumb, half-listening to his friends squabble. Fats returned, leaning onto the edge of the booth frame to chitchat with Abby.

Dan tabbed over to his inbox, feeling his hand freeze into a numb vice around the phone.

This wasn’t right. Or okay. Or possible.

“Jimmy Orsini operated up and down this route during Prohibition, didn’t he?” Abby was saying, and she even pulled out a photograph to show the restaurant owner. But she might as well have been speaking in tongues. “My teacher Mr. Blaise grew up around here, and he was telling me all about how interesting Orsini’s grave is. I was going to try and get there, to photograph it. That’s sort of my thing right now. Photography, I mean, not graves.”

Fats’s reply sounded distant, too, and Dan realized it was because his blood was pumping so loudly in his ears it was making it hard to hear. “I wouldn’t recommend photographing that, little miss. Never know what that kind of thing might stir up. Bad energies and the like. There’s a downright shivery ghost story about Orsini and his gang. The gravestone’s in Alabama, sure enough, but the Pinkertons gave ’em hell all up and down this route—finally caught ’em down in New Orleans. Orsini got himself shot up in an escape attempt.”

Yes. Ghost stories.
Ghosts
. That word at last pierced his brain. Dan stared down at the message and its sender, and he soundlessly mouthed the words back to himself.

Micah Bonheur

da Niel dani el

areu there ill

be se eing you real so on.

T
he food arrived while he was still staring down at his phone, but his appetite had fled.
Prank
, he thought.
I’ll kill whoever did this
. His palms grew sweaty around the phone until he shoved it into his pocket. Out of sight, out of mind.

“You okay?”

Jordan stared at him, squinting while he sucked down his milk shake. Shrugging, Dan pushed a fork halfheartedly through his potato salad. He couldn’t explain the message from Micah, especially not there, with Abby still chatting away with Fats. Now she was taking notes, scribbling names and places in between bites while the old man pulled up a chair next to the booth, apparently cozy enough for a long visit.