by JG Faherty
“Here you go,” he said to Johnny Ray. “Still think Eddie was just bullshitting me?”
Sally started to scold him again for his language, but Johnny Ray cut her off. “Sally, we need to get these to Jonathan as soon as possible. I can take them to his house right now, if you want.”
“Yeah, tell that dipshit he’d better straighten things out, pronto.”
“Carson!”
“Sorry, Ma,” Eddie said. “I’m just sick of everyone thinking Eddie was a piece of shit, and I’m sick of people trying to screw me over.”
“Screw you over?” Johnny Ray asked, giving him a quizzical look.
“I mean us. My family. Ah, the hell with it.” Eddie shook his head and stormed down the hall. At the last minute, he remembered to veer into Carson’s room instead of his own. He slammed the door shut and turned Carson’s radio on to a heavy metal station, hoping his tantrum would deter anyone from wanting to come in and talk to him.
Gotta hold it together.
He was letting his temper get the best of him again. Something he’d always tried not to do, especially in front of his mother. Or Carson.
Is it because I don’t have a body anymore? That didn’t make sense; after all, he had a body at the moment, even if it belonged to Carson. And only the knowledge that his little brother had never broken anything in anger – never thrown a major tantrum at all, in fact – was keeping him from putting his fist through a wall.
An after-effect of dying? Maybe. Something like that had to fuck with your head. But it didn’t explain why the anger seemed to be growing stronger every day.
Even now, listening to his mother and Kellie talking in the living room, he felt like destroying something. Or screaming. Or punching someone.
If I keep this up, someone’s gonna catch on. Carson, or the little piece of ass he’s still not fucking yet. God, what I wouldn’t give to stick my—
Stop it! That’s not me talking! He slammed his fists into Carson’s pillow. Do what you want to the Hell Riders, but no using Carson’s body for anything other than helping the family.
Except his body – Carson’s body – was doing its best to betray his good intentions. Just thinking about Kellie Jones had his cock hard as a hammer.
Get a grip. I gotta stop thinking about pussy. I’ve got more important things to do.
He turned the radio off and let his consciousness exit Carson’s body, rising to where Diablo sat waiting. With his mother obviously better, and the financial crisis taken care of, it was time to get back to the real business at hand. The reason he’d come back from death in the first place.
To kill all the Hell Riders.
Chapter Twenty-Two
A soft knock on the door brought Carson awake.
“Huh? Come in.” He sat up, wondering how he’d ended up in his bed. The last thing he remembered was helping his mom into the house and their lawyer, Mr. Lyons, delivering the bad news about the insurance.
“Carson? You okay?” It was Kellie, peeking tentatively around the door.
“Yeah. Why?” The words came out automatically. The truth was, he didn’t feel okay. In fact, he felt like crap. His head was all fuzzy, the world seemed out of place, and he couldn’t remember going to bed.
Just like the night I passed out at the restaurant. I woke up in my bed that time, too, with no memory of what had happened.
The thought came to him as Kellie entered the room, looking very concerned.
“You were acting kind of…funny before.”
From the way she said it, he knew she meant something a lot more serious than ‘funny’.
“Funny, how?”
Kellie shrugged. “Not yourself. You were swearing, and then you threw a fit and came in here and slammed the door, started blasting the music. Me and your mom waited a while to see if you’d come out, but you didn’t, even after you turned the radio off.”
“How long…how long have I been asleep?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer, but he needed to know.
“Almost an hour. After my dad left—”
“Left? Where did he go?” The last thing Carson remembered was being in the living room and getting the news about their insurance. Chief Jones had been standing next to the couch.
“To the lawyer’s house, remember? You found the insurance records. Turns out they’re going to pay for the garage after all. After my dad called and told your mom the news, she went to bed. I hung around, ’cause I wanted to…talk to you.”
Normally the idea that Kellie wanted to spend time with him would have had his heart doing the salsa in his chest. Unfortunately, the rest of what she’d said had him too confused to think about romance. He tried to get a grip on his thoughts, but his mind wouldn’t focus.
“I…I don’t remember any of that. I found them? How? Where? Eddie always took care of that stuff. He….” The words trailed off as a queasy feeling took root in his stomach.
“What is it?”
“Kellie. Remember what we talked about? I think…I think it happened again. No, I’m sure of it.”
“You mean, you think your brother came back?”
“Yes. And he took over my body. Possessed me. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Think about it. The swearing. The loud music. That’s Eddie to a tee. How did he – I mean I – seem?”
Kellie frowned. “Really angry. Furious is more like it. You were talking about the papers, and then my dad said something about your brother and you flew off the handle.”
“Crap. Eddie couldn’t stand the cops, even after your dad helped him out. It wasn’t anything personal, he just always felt like the police, and lots of other people in town, had it out for him because of who our father was, and because we were poor.”
“That sounds a lot like what you were yelling about.”
A shiver ran up Carson’s back. “Kellie, we have to do something. If I’m right, then a lot of the weird stuff that’s been happening in town is because of Eddie. We have to stop him.”
Taking a seat next to him on the bed, Kellie bit her lip before replying. “Carson. Think about what you’re saying. Do you really believe your brother’s ghost is going around possessing people and making them do things? Making them hurt each other?”
“I do. At least, I think I do. I know I’m not crazy. The only people Eddie’s hurt are the Hell Riders. And I’ll bet that’s because they….” He found himself unable to finish the sentence out loud. Killed him.
“What about you? If you’re right, he’s possessed you twice.”
“But he hasn’t hurt me, or anyone else, while he was…inside me. I think he only used me to help us, like with the insurance papers.”
“Even if that’s true – and I’m not saying I believe you – what can we do?”
Carson sighed. “I don’t know. But we have to figure something out. I have a real bad feeling about this.”
Outside, thunder rumbled in the night sky.
* * *
Eddie rode Diablo back and forth across Hell Creek, rattling windows and causing people to look up into the sky and wonder how there could be so much thunder on a cloudless morning. Heavy metal music – Demon Dogs, Iced Earth, Priest, Maiden – provided a mental soundtrack to his rage, the tunes cranked up as loud in his head as if Diablo’s sound system still worked. He hadn’t slept all night, his fury unabated even after he watched Johnny Ray bring the paperwork to Lyons’ house. Only several hours of blowing up trees and alligators out in the swamps had eased the pressure growing inside him enough so that he could return to his grave and wait for dawn.
He had big things planned, and he didn’t want to use up all his energy.
The moment the sun came up, he’d resumed his aerial laps, his fury growing with each passing hour, searching the town, waiting for his opportunity to—
There.
; A motorcycle traveling down the highway, its rider clad in a Hell Riders vest.
Harley Atkins. Eddie recognized the rotund gang member and his bike even from two hundred feet up. Seen from above, Harley resembled a turtle; the vision would have been hilarious if Eddie hadn’t already been seething.
“Gotcha, motherfucker.” Eddie aimed Diablo straight down and shifted gears, accelerating faster and faster, a supersonic eagle diving at his unsuspecting prey. At the last moment, he eased up on the throttle and slammed himself into his target.
Harley’s bike swerved hard left and tilted, the edge of the foot rest skimming the blacktop and throwing up sparks, before Eddie gained control of Harley’s body and yanked the heavy bike back up. For a sickening moment it teetered the other way, threatening to dump Eddie onto the highway and turn him into a road pizza, but then it straightened out. Eddie let out a victorious war whoop as he accelerated to ninety miles an hour.
What a rush!
Eddie throttled the bike up even further. With no fear of dying, all that remained was the thrill of the ride, the sheer adrenaline jolt of the speed. He reached up and took off Harley’s classic Nazi-style helmet, then tossed it away. The wind batted his face and whipped his filthy, shoulder-length hair. Bugs smashed against his flesh like miniature darts and got lodged in his beard.
Good. The filthier he looks, the better.
Eddie had no care if Harley died on the highway, but he also hoped he didn’t. He had bigger plans for the fat slob.
Much bigger.
* * *
Sitting in his squad car at the edge of town, Wilbur Dennis was splitting his time between watching the occasional car or truck go by and reading the latest copy of Pistol Digest. His car was right out in the open, mainly because Chief Jones believed prevention was as good as capture when it came to controlling speeders, but also because there wasn’t a damned place within miles where you could hide a car even if you wanted to. Nothing but scrub and swamp once you got more than ten feet from the edge of the road. Not that it mattered. Anyone who traveled through Hell Creek more than once or twice knew there was almost always a radar trap at one end of town or the other. Consequently, speeders tended to be few and far between, especially in the middle of the day.
So it caught him completely by surprise when a motorcycle raced by at close to a hundred miles an hour, its engine roaring like a super-sonic dinosaur. He caught a quick glimpse of black leather and long hair, and then the bike was past.
“Holy fuckin’ shit!” Dennis dropped his magazine and hit the switch for the sirens and lights. It was that simple act, that oh-so-slight delay, that saved his life, as the motorcycle executed a crazy, screaming skid, spun around one hundred eighty degrees, and raced back toward town, already doing close to fifty when it whizzed past his front bumper before his car even reached the blacktop.
“Goddamn!” Dennis slammed on the brakes, his brain registering his near-death experience and the middle finger extended in his direction at the same time.
Harley Atkins. He must be drunker than a skunk to try that shit with me. Dennis pulled out and floored the gas pedal, the cruiser’s oversized engine growling like a chained lion in response.
As they raced down the highway, Dennis quickly realized he’d have no chance of catching the customized motorcycle. He grabbed his mic and called in the situation. “This is Wilbur. I’m ten miles west of town in pursuit of Harley Atkins. Clocked the bastard at near to a hundred, and then he flipped me the goddamned bird.”
“Roger that, Wilbur,” came the response. “Johnny Ray’s out, but I’m sending Ted your way right now.”
“Tell him to be careful. Harley must be wasted. Nearly ran me off the road.”
“Heard that loud and clear.” The connection clicked off and Dennis laughed. They were gonna put Atkins’s fat ass in jail for sure this time. No way he was getting out of this mess.
Up ahead, Atkins slowed his bike, allowing Dennis to close the gap, and then sped up again as he approached the town line.
Almost like he’s toying with me, or wants to get caught. Well, it don’t matter. His ass is mine.
“Gotcha now, motherfucker,” Dennis said, watching the speedometer creep past eighty-five. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles felt ready to split. Truth be told, he hadn’t driven this fast since his own days of night-racing hot rods as a teenager, and he was more than a little nervous about blowing a tire or hitting a gator or rabbit that decided to cross the road at the wrong time.
Distant flashing red and blue lights indicated Moselby was coming at them from the north. For a brief second, Dennis thought Atkins might try and slide past the other cruiser. Then the bike went into a long, smoking skid that must’ve burned the tires to almost nothing and came to a stop twenty yards from the other car, just as Moselby turned his car sideways and blocked the road.
Coughing from the acrid burnt-rubber stench filling the cruiser, Dennis brought his car to a halt and thumbed the loudspeaker.
“Harley Atkins! Step off the goddamn bike and put your hands over your head!”
Once more, Atkins did the exact opposite of what Dennis expected. Instead of arguing, or stumbling around in a drunken stupor, or just sitting there, the overweight biker let the bike fall to the ground and stood still in the middle of the road, his back to Dennis.
Dennis exited his car, gun drawn, and caught sight of Moselby doing the same thing on the other side of the black, oily cloud Atkins had created. Moselby also had his gun out, and Dennis took a few steps to one side, putting himself out of the other officer’s direct line of fire. Just in case.
“Atkins! Hands up! Last chance, asshole.”
Harley turned and looked back, an oddly happy smile on his face, like he was getting ready to collect a lottery check rather than get arrested. Without saying a word, he undid his belt, bent low at the waist, and dropped his jeans. Dennis had time to notice the absurdity of a biker wearing polka-dotted boxer shorts, and then the underwear joined the jeans and Dennis was staring at an ass so fat and hairy it looked like it belonged on a monkey or a bear.
He was so surprised by the comically grotesque sight that it took him several seconds to realize Atkins wasn’t just mooning him.
He was taking a shit.
Holy…. That crazy sonuvabitch is dropping a deuce right on the highway!
Moselby shouted something at Atkins, but Dennis barely heard the words. He was frozen in place, watching the turds slide out from between Atkins’s butt cheeks and plop onto the blacktop.
No, not the blacktop. They were falling right into the bastard’s pants!
Then Atkins looked back again, the crazy smile still plastered on his face, a smile that made Dennis think about the time he’d had to transport a prisoner to the state nuthouse. A lot of the people there had the same smile.
“Hey, Wilbur! Sorry about that.” Atkins leaned down and yanked up his underwear and pants, smearing shit up his legs as he did so. “Gonna be some ride back to the station, huh?”
While the smoke slowly rose into the air and dissipated across the swampland, Dennis felt his anger likewise rising inside him as Atkins’s words sank in.
I have to put that son of a bitch in my car, and there’s gonna be shit smell everywhere.
Not to mention the fact that some of it would probably end up on the backseat, and who would get stuck cleaning it afterward?
Officer Wilbur Fucking Dennis, that’s who.
It didn’t matter that he had more time served on the force than Ted Moselby. Moselby, that out-of-town bastard, had the higher rank. Which meant his car would remain shit-free.
“You goddamn motherfucker!” Dennis holstered his gun, drew his baton, and charged at Atkins, who just raised his hands and stood there with that stupid grin on his fat face. All his sensibility was gone, lost in a blind rage. Forget Miranda rights, fo
rget due process, Atkins was gonna feel some good old hometown justice.
His first swing took Harley right across his left arm, with a sound like a game-winning home run. Atkins fell to his knees, clutching the broken limb, but that didn’t stop Dennis from swinging the baton again. And again.
It never even struck Dennis as odd that Atkins put up no resistance, merely stood there and let himself get beaten. Dennis just kept swinging, not caring where it landed, until Moselby pulled him away. By then, Atkins was on his side, his face bloody, several teeth missing, and livid bruises already forming on his arms and neck.
“That’s enough!” Moselby shouted. “Christ, we’ll be lucky if he doesn’t sue the town after this. Now let’s get him in the car. Maybe we can say he resisted arrest.”
Together they dragged Atkins’s semi-conscious body to Dennis’s cruiser and shoved him into the back. And just as Dennis had expected, more than a few shit stains ended up on the door and the upholstery as they maneuvered him in.
While they were attempting to shut the door, Atkins rolled over, leaving another brown stain in his wake, and tried to speak. It took him several attempts to get the words out.
“What a great fuckin’ day, huh?”
Then he passed out.
Moselby slammed the door closed and shook his head.
“That is one seriously messed-up individual.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Dennis climbed into the front and immediately gagged at the stench already filling the car. He kept the windows open on the way through town, but even that didn’t help. By the time he arrived at the station, it was all he could do to keep his lunch from jumping out of his stomach.
And there was still the backseat to clean.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eddie found himself laughing so hard at Wilbur Dennis’s obvious outrage that the lights in the station kept flickering. He forced himself to calm down, not wanting anyone to get distracted from the Harley Atkins show. Act One was finished, and now it was time to begin Act Two.