The Midnight Road (34 page)

It wasn’t only about life, but about cool. Action. Charm. Hipness. Breath.

From the backseat Danny seemed to be urging him not to do it. That made Flynn smile, knowing his brother didn’t want him dead. Saying to him, Take it to the edge of the water, on a straight run. Give it your all, but don’t go in, you hear me, you don’t need to go in.

From back there Zero said, “Of course you do. That’s what this is all about. You’re dead. You’ve always been dead. Didn’t I already tell you?” It was the first time the dog had ever spoken to him in front of another person. Of course it would be Emma, who was also dead. She didn’t react to Flynn’s brain damage, but he thought she must’ve heard.

Flynn glanced over at her and said, “Are you scared?”

“No.”

“Do you care? Do you even want to live?”

“No.”

What could you do with that? How did you work around it? He should know. They started down this road together. Flynn put his hand on her knee the way Danny used to always grip his girlfriends. Lightly, friendly. It had something to do with sex but more about partnership, about traveling together.

He fought for words and put the hammer down. The world whipped past them even faster while they sat there, stuck in and out of time. He started to speak and quit, tried again and came out with a noise he’d never made be fore in his life.

He cleared his throat, a little surprised at how calm he felt. “You’re not the only one who jumped the rails so early on, Emma. Nobody gets out of childhood undam aged.”

She said nothing.

“You were a kid, you can’t blame yourself for what happened. You can’t even blame them. Danny and Patricia were only kids too. They were stupid but that’s no reason to hate them. We all have pain to deal with. Everybody’s got a story to tell. A dead daddy, a greasy-fingered uncle. A mean mommy. A failed algebra test. We all hurt. You don’t have to feel pain more deeply than the rest of us, Emma. You don’t have to allow yourself to be hurt anymore. You deserve better. Patricia would want better for you.”

She said nothing.

He gripped the wheel tighter. “Fine.”

He jammed down on the gas. The car bucked and jounced as they went over the curb toward the snow-covered sand. They hit a dune and went airborne.

She reached out against the dashboard and dug her nails in. Her grimace tightened until she appeared skeletal, already dead. She turned away, pressed her face against her shoulder, sinking farther into the seat and growing smaller and smaller until he could hardly see her. Until she wasn’t even there anymore.

“All right, fuck it,” Flynn said. “Let’s do what they couldn’t. Let’s hit the water.”

“You know who I am, don’t you?” Zero asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m the angel of death.”

The constant wind at the shore blew the snow into sloping drifts that uncovered saw grass and sand. The beach where his brother had made love to Patricia Waltz and other girls opened wide. The rooftops of the neigh boring mansions offered black scratches against the white sky.

Zero’s voice, his own voice, said, “You’ve always been mine, whenever I wanted you.”

“Not anymore, mutt.”

“Forever,” Zero said, “you’re mine forever, because that’s what you want. You’re mine until you hit the bottom of hell. Until we—”

A huge fist reached forward from the backseat and grabbed the French bulldog by the collar of its little plastic coat, roughly shaking it once. Zero’s eyes bugged farther, his lips peeled back into a hateful, knowing snarl. The angel of death was pulled away, only to reappear an instant later at Flynn’s left shoulder, pressed hard against the inside of the driver’s window. The dog yelped and looked at Flynn, sort of grinning, indignant and frothing. The knuckles of the hand holding the dog rapped twice on the glass, vying for Flynn’s attention.

He finally understood and rolled the window down. The hand shoved the dead dog out and Flynn rolled the window back up, free of the tormenting voice of his self-hatred. He glanced at the rearview but Danny wasn’t there anymore. His brother had appeared just long enough to show Flynn he was still loved and protected.

He put his hand to Emma’s chin and slowly turned her face and forced her to look out the windshield as they closed in on the furious ocean.

“Last chance, Emma. I think I can save you if you’ll let me. And more than that. I need you. I need you to give me a reason to get beyond the next minute. It’s a lot to be responsible for, these feelings, these words, especially coming from a stranger. But we’re not really strangers, are we?”

The Charger roared through the storm fencing and flew out over the snow. Sand, ice and smashed bits of wood exploded up across the hood.

Flynn yanked the wheel hard, the Charger bouncing down the beach and fishtailing like mad.

You had to have a reason. He glanced at the side of Emma’s face, thinking she could be beautiful, if only—

The right-front tire plunged and the Charger rocked wildly forward but kept going, jolting and bouncing harder and harder as the tires lost all traction and the car began to spin in a wide looping circle. He wondered if the shocks would hold. They whirled out of control. He gunned the gas and they reeled, the circle widening as they were tossed about. She fell up against him and he wrapped his free arm around her, holding her close because if you had to die, it was better to die with some body else. He pressed his lips to her cheek and tasted salt.

She was crying.

“Stop us,” she whimpered. “Please.”

It might be too late.

He slammed the brakes and tore at the wheel but he couldn’t break the circuit as they kept going around and around, the engine screaming and the tires flying insanely across the ice. He thought, Too late, we can’t make it. Look at this shit. The car lurched, the shocks screeching. They ripped into the water and the force of the sea stopped them like a wall of cement. Flynn and Emma both slammed forward. She cracked her face against the dash and he banged his nose hard against the steering wheel. Noir was gone, it was time for color. Blood burst across the inside of the cracked windshield. It was a sickening sight but a real one, a fleshly one. Metal shrieked and crumpled. The two front tires burst and the radiator exploded. She sat quivering in the seat, her fists pressed to her cheeks, her nose broken and pouring blood, her fiery eyes staring into the blue. The sorrow inside loosened and flowed. Emma said her sister’s name once, a quiet farewell from a lifetime away as the waves broke across the hood. She fell against him and the tears she’d been holding back for three decades came gently at first and then with greater power. Their blood ran together. He lita cigarette before his pack got wet and stared out over the waves. Water poured in through the vents. It was going to be impossible getting the doors open. They’d have to get out through the windows and swim in the fierce tide. It was going to be tough. But they still had another minute for that. He held her tightly, waiting for his own tears to come, and thought,
I’m alive.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TOM PICCIRILLI lives in Colorado where, besides writing, he spends an inordinate amount of time watching trash cult films and reading Gold Medal classic noir and hardboiled novels. He’s a fan of Asian cinema, especially horror movies, pinky violence, and samurai flicks. He also likes walking his dogs around the neighborhood. Are you starting to get the hint that he doesn’t have a particularly active social life? Well to heck with you, buddy, yours isn’t much better. Give him any static and he’ll smack you in the mush, dig? Tom also enjoys making new friends. He’s the author of fifteen novels including
The Dead Letters, Headstone City, November Mourns,
and
A Choir of Ill Children
. He’s a four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award and a final nominee for the World Fantasy Award. To learn more, check out his official website, Epitaphs, at
www.tompiccirilli.com
.

Also by Tom Piccirilli

The Dead Letters

Headstone City

November Mourns

A Choir of Ill Children

And coming in 2008:
The Cold Spot

Don’t miss
Tom Piccirilli’s
exciting new novel

THE
COLD SPOT

Coming from Bantam Books
in summer 2008

Read on for an exclusive peek, and pick up your copy at your favorite bookseller.

THE COLD SPOT

On sale summer 2008

Chase was laughing with the others during the poker game when his grandfather threw down his cards, said, “Lady Luck’s still pissed I left her for dead in Vegas,” took a deep pull on his beer, and with no expression at all shot Walcroft in the head.

Only Chase was startled. He leaped back in his seat knocking over some loose cash and an ashtray, the world tilting left while he went right. Jonah had palmed his .22 in his left hand and had it pressed to Walcroft’s temple, a thin trail of smoke spiraling in the air and the smell of burning hair and skin wafting across the table into Chase’s face.

You’d think it would be disgusting, acrid, but it was ac tually sort of fragrant. There was almost no blood. One small pop had filled the hotel room, quieter than striking a nail with a hammer. It didn’t even frighten the pigeons off the sill.

Walcroft blinked twice, licked his lips, tried to rise and fell over backward as the slug rattled around inside his skull scrambling his brains. The whites of his eyes quickly turned a bright, glistening red as he lay there clawing at the rug, twitching.

The others were already in motion. Chase saw it had been set up in advance, well-planned, but nobody had let him in on it. They didn’t entirely trust him. Jonah opened the closet door, and Grayson and Rook lifted Walcroft’s body and carried it across the room. Walcroft was trying to talk, a strange sound coming from far back in his throat. He was blinking, trying to focus his gaze, his hands still trembling.

Chase thought, He’s staring at me.

They tossed Walcroft in the corner of the empty closet, slammed the door, and immediately began cleaning the place.

No one looked at Chase which meant everybody was looking at him. Nobody said anything as they wiped down the room. So that was how it was going to be.

The room continued leaning and Chase had to angle his chin so things would straighten out. He shuddered once but covered it pretty well by bending and picking up the ashtray. They wouldn’t want the butts tossed in the trash, they contained DNA. Maybe. Who the fuck knew. They were evidence anyway, some keen cop might nail Rook because he always tore the filter off his Camels. It was a clue.

Chase carefully split the cotton nubs apart, stepped to the bathroom, and threw them in the toilet. He washed out the ashtray. Maybe it was the right thing to do, maybe not. It could be downright stupid. It felt insane. What really mattered was they had to see he was trying, that he was very much a part of the crew.

He dove for the cold spot deep inside himself and seemed to miss it. He couldn’t look at his face in the mirror. His heart slammed at his ribs, trying to squeeze through. Beginning to pant, he noticed he wasn’t breathing through his nose. He started again. He made sure he left no prints on the toilet handle or around the sink. He tried to hurl himself into the cold spot again and this time felt himself begin to freeze and harden.

When he got out of the bathroom the closet door was open a crack. Walcroft was still squirming and had kicked it back open. One shoe had come off and a folded hundred-dollar bill had fallen out. Rook said, “Son of a bitch,” grabbed a pillow off one of the beds, and drew his .38. Walcroft kept making the sound.

Chase knew then he would hear it for years to come, in the harbor of his worst nightmares, and that when his own loneliest moment in the world came to pass he’d be doing the same thing, making that same noise. Rook stepped into the closet, stuffed the pillow down on Walcroft’s face to stifle the shot, and pulled the trigger. There was a loud cough and a short burst of flame. This time the pigeons flew off. With his teeth clenched, Rook tamped out the pillowcase, which was on fire. He nabbed the c-note and shut the door again. That was finally the end of it.

Chase was fifteen and he’d been pulling scores with his grandfather for almost five years. First as a kid running two-and three-man grifts, a few short cons, kitten burglaries—as Walcroft had called them—and then working his way up to taking part in an occasional heist. He knew Jonah always packed guns during jobs, but so far he’d never seen him fire one, much less kill a man.

Now this, one of his own friends, a part of his own string.

The score had gone down smooth as newborn ass. They hit a bookie joint run out the back of a fish market owned by the North Jersey mob. Jonah had explained how years ago nobody would’ve dared mess with any of the syndicates, but the days of the mob families’ real power were long over. They squabbled among them selves more than they battled the FBI. Sons put their fathers under. Wives turned informant on their Mafia boss husbands. Everybody flipped eventually.