Walking After Midnight (9 page)

„Quit worrying about your butt and drive!“ He thrust her back down and reached over to yank the transmission into reverse. The van didn’t move.

„Why don’t you?“

„Because when I can see at all I’m seeing double, triple of everything. Besides, you’re good at it. You got us this far, didn’t you?“ He jammed his foot down on the gas. For no more than an instant the wheels spun furiously, and then the van shot backward.

„I’ll drive!“ Summer grabbed the wheel.

„That’s a good girl.“ He was grinning, if she cared to term that teeth-baring, lopsided twist of his battered face a grin. Funny how unafraid she now was of him. He might look like he belonged in a horror movie, he might have hurt and threatened and scared her out of five years’ sleep, but she knew as well as she knew her own name that Frankenstein wasn’t going to murder her – though thanks to him someone else just might.

„We make a pretty good team, don’t you think?“ He shifted into drive and stomped on the accelerator. The van hurtled forward. Warm, bug-laden night air rushed in through the hole where the windshield had been. For one dreadful, pixilated moment Summer thought they were going to crash into the combine again. Just in time she yanked the wheel to the right, and the behemoth’s yellow metal framework flashed by.

„Good reflexes,“ he approved.

„Get your foot off the damned gas!“

If he heard that, he ignored it. They barreled over the uneven surface of the field, heading – Summer hoped – toward the hole in the fence through which they had originally crashed. The cornstalks formed a shifting curtain obstructing her view. The van mowed them down. Before its onslaught, they fell like dominoes.

Bursting through to the soybean field was a relief. At least she could see. The hole in the fence was there, to the left. With his foot on the gas they only partly made it, taking out another six feet or so of board fencing as they plowed through.

In the morning, there was going to be one hopping-mad farmer hereabouts.

But that wasn’t her problem. Her problem – at least her immediate problem – was the lead-footed lunatic beside her. And the bullet-spitting helicopter that lurked somewhere out there in the wild, midnight-blue yonder. And the goons with guns.

And the eighteen-wheeler that roared straight toward them down Route 231.

„Get your foot off the gas!“ she screeched again, even as they hit the ditch and were airborne. The van landed with a bounce on the blacktop – not a hundred feet in front of the oncoming truck. The wheel was yanked out of her hands. The van fishtailed. An air horn shrieked. Brakes screeched. Headlights blinded. Summer shut her eyes. As if her ears were registering sounds in slow motion, she heard the squealing, rending, thudding sounds of a crash.

„Jesus, you are one lousy driver.“

Summer opened her eyes to find that they were still alive, still on the road, and speeding toward town. Gasping, she glanced in the driver’s side mirror – the rearview mirror had perished along with the windshield – to find that the eighteen-wheeler now rested at a crazy angle in the ditch beside the road. Even as she watched, its door opened and the driver popped out.

He was shaking his fist and shouting after them.

„You almost got us killed!“ Her voice was shrill, the glance she sent Steve Calhoun wildly accusing.

„Listen, Rosencrans, if we don’t get the hell out of here, we
are
going to get killed. What do you think that was back there, a drive-by shooting?“

For once in her life, Summer was bereft of speech.

8

In minutes they were streaking toward another intersection, fortunately as deserted as the last. Murfreesboro was straight ahead, Nashville to the northwest, Chattanooga to the southeast. If they made a 360-degree turn, 231 headed straight into Alabama behind them. Since they were running at ninety-plus miles an hour on a road where the posted speed limit was forty-five, straight ahead seemed the best option. If possible, Summer preferred to avoid any more incidental brushes with death.

„Hang a left,“ he directed.

Toward Nashville, not Murfreesboro. Of course he meant to send them skidding on two wheels through that intersection, probably just for the heck of it. One thing she had already begun to suspect about Steve Calhoun: Like the young turks from
Top Gun,
he felt the need for speed.

„What, are you homesick?“ She couldn’t resist the jibe.

„Funny, Rosencrans. Just do what I tell you.“

„Get your foot off the gas!“

He ignored her. The van rocketed toward the intersection at what felt like warp speed. When she made no immediate move to send them into a death-defying skid, he grabbed for the wheel. Summer batted away his hand – and got mad. Reaching down, she pinched the bare, bruised, hairy thigh closest to her so viciously that he screamed.

And jerked his leg to safety. With his foot removed from the gas, the van immediately began to slow.

„What the hell was that for?“ He rubbed his thigh and glared at her.

„I told you to get your foot off the gas.
I’m
driving, remember?“ Summer’s foot was already firmly in possession of the pedal. Her glance dared him to try to do anything about it.

„Vicious bitch.“ He rubbed his thigh some more. „Jesus, that hurt. Hang a left!“

„I’m going to!“ She did, applying the brakes judiciously until they were safely through the intersection. Then, with a wary eye on his lead foot, she accelerated northwest on 41.

Rolling fields of crops separated by wire-and-post fences and the occasional stand of leafy trees flashed past. Warm air spiced with insects peppered her face. The smell of manure was strong. Propelled by the wind, a large bug went splat against her cheek. Summer swiped at its slimy corpse with an expression of loathing.

„You do realize that there are bad men with guns chasing us, don’t you? If we don’t go real fast, they’re going to catch up.“

„Oh, shut up.“ But Summer pressed a little harder on the gas, and watched the needle creep toward ninety. Squinting against the wind and the bugs, she strained to see the blacktop as it wound its way into the equally black night.

„There’s a gravel road up here somewhere that we need to find. On the right. As dark as it is, it’s going to be easy to miss.“

„Maybe we should turn on the lights.“

„Jesus, Rosencrans, you still don’t get it, do you? We are trying our damnedest to hide from men who want to kill us. That helicopter didn’t just vanish into thin air, you know. Something made it back off – maybe it saw the semi coming, or maybe there was something else. But you can bet your bippy that it’s looking for us now. No telling how many cars are swarming out of Murfreesboro, and maybe from Nashville too, and God knows where else, after us. We don’t have much time before they’re all over this area like ants at a picnic. And you want to turn on the lights?“ He shook his head. „Not smart.“

„What did you do?“ Summer asked in a hushed voice.

Frankenstein snorted. „Let’s just say I got the wrong people totally pissed off, okay?“

„Who?“

„Look, does it make any difference? All you need to know is that whoever is after me is after you too, and they aren’t real nice folks.“

Oh, God. She’d already had ample evidence of that. „As soon as I get home, I’m going to fire some people,“ Summer muttered.

„What?“

„Never mind.“

„Damn it, Rosencrans, I think you just passed the turn-off! Do you have to talk every blasted second?“

A distant sound could have been helicopter blades. They both strained to identify it over the rushing wind. Any reply Summer might have made vanished from her consciousness in that instant. Remembering the recent fusillade of bullets with which the helicopter had savaged the van sent a tingle of fear zooming along Summer’s spine. With a single scared glance at the man beside her, Summer stood on the brakes, turned the van in a wide, bumpy circle that flattened grass on the far side of the pavement, and headed back the other way. Only slower. Where was that road?

„There! See?“ He pointed.

Summer saw what looked like tire tracks cutting through knee-high grass to a wire fence, where they ended at a wide black ditch. In the dark it was difficult to be certain, but if this was his escape route, it sure was a short one.

„Are you sure?“ Skepticism underlay the question.

„Pull off, will ya?“

From the sound of it, the helicopter, if helicopter indeed it was, was getting closer. With an inward prayer, Summer turned off the road onto the tire tracks. The van lurched over ruts and bumps.

Of necessity, she stopped the van about fifteen feet in, at the edge of the ditch, which now appeared more like a yawning gulley.

„What are you stopping for?“

„Possibly it’s escaped your notice, but there’s a ditch in front of us. Now what?“

„It’s a cow-crossing, Rosencrans.“

„Would you stop calling me that? My name is Summer
McAfee!“

Summer peered through the open windshield as she spoke. Now that she looked closer, she saw that the moonlight gleamed dully off black, evenly spaced iron bars that formed a ground level bridge over the chasm. As a born and bred country girl, she should have guessed. With fencing on either side, without the cattle guard there would have been a gate. Feeling foolish, she drove over it without a word.

Once across, the road surface did not improve. The van dipped and shuddered, following the scarcely visible trail to the far edge of the field, which was marked by more fencing that separated the pasture from what appeared to be dense woods.

The helicopter, if indeed it had been a helicopter, was very far in the distance now. Summer could barely hear it.

„Where are we going?“

„To a place I know.“

„What kind of place?“

„Just drive, would you? Jesus. Do you yammer like this all the time?“

„Screw you, Frankenstein.“

„Maybe later. When we have more time.“

„In your wildest dreams.“

„Rosencrans, believe me, my wildest dreams don’t include you. More like naked blond triplets with forty-inch chests.“

„I believe it.“

„You should. It’s true. Look out! That’s a cow!“

Summer hit the brakes. There was, indeed, a cow, lying right smack in the middle of the path, placidly chewing its cud. A Black Angus, to be precise, which was a valuable beef animal the color of night. Only its moist eyes reflecting the moonlight revealed its presence. If Frankenstein hadn’t seen it, she would have run right over it. Or into it. Somehow she didn’t think the van would have made it past that cow. It was a very large cow.

„Drive around it.“ He spoke impatiently.

„What if we get stuck? Who knows what kind of condition this field’s in? Get out and shoo the thing off the track.“

„And give you the chance to drive off and leave me here? Uh-uh. No way.“

Since that was precisely the thought that had niggled, just momentarily, at the edge of Summer’s mind, she didn’t say anything. Instead she honked the horn. The cow didn’t budge.
Frankenstein grabbed her wrist.

„Jesus, Rosencrans! Why don’t you just send up smoke signals to tell them where we are while you’re at it?“

„The name’s
McAfee.
And I didn’t think of that.“ She had been too busy pondering the pros and cons of abandoning him.

„I believe it.“ The way he said it, it wasn’t a compliment. Summer yanked her wrist from his grasp.

A car whizzed past on Highway 41, headed for Nashville, its headlights slicing through the night. It was going way too fast. Summer tensed, and glanced over at the man beside her.

„Drive around it,“ he said again. Her suspicion as to the car’s mission was reflected in his voice.

Without another word she drove around the cow, dodged a Grand Canyon-size rut and two of the cow’s fellows lounging nearby, and bumped back onto the track. Another cattle grate marked the boundary between the pasture and the woods. As the van rocked across it, the sound that might have been a helicopter grew louder again. By the time they were under the leafy canopy, there was no longer any room for doubt. Their pursuer was back, almost directly overhead.

„Stop. It’s more likely to see us if we move.“

Summer stepped on the brake. The helicopter dropped low, its searchlight raking the field through which they had just passed. Summer turned in her seat just in time to see the cow they had dodged caught in its beam. The helicopter had more success than the van. With a spooked moo, the creature got to its feet and galloped toward the opposite end of the pasture. The searchlight followed it, flashing on a wave of heaving black hides as panic infected the rest of the herd. For a moment the helicopter hovered. The searchlight panned the field, illuminating grass and milling, mooing animals. As suddenly as it had arrived the helicopter rose, turned, and headed north.

„That was close,“ Summer said. Sweat beaded her back, making the cheap nylon blouse cling uncomfortably to her skin.