by J L Bryan
“A monster,” Clay said. “A murderer. Can I come in? Please?”
“Of course. Hurry.” The woman stood aside to let him in, then quickly closed and locked the door.
“Oh, thank you!” Clay threw his arms around the woman, embracing her tightly—partly for effect, partly to enjoy the feeling of pressing himself against the warm rolls of her flesh, breathing in the lilac scent of her perfume.
Then he drew back, touched the ancient emerald ring on his finger, and smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ellie
Michael's father drove us to the old strip mall where we'd parked the van. The fire hadn't spread into downtown Bishop, but an acrid haze of smoke hung in the air, so thick you could cut it with scissors. Or even pinking shears.
The sun was up, presumably, but it wasn't visible through the smoky haze above and the red light that reflected off of it. The businesses in the strip mall were still closed. I supposed the tattoo parlor and the vape shop didn't cater to the early-morning crowd.
My heart was still beating about a million times a minute as we pulled into the empty parking spots by the van. Fire triggered fear in me at the best of times, even “happy” fires like a log crackling in a brick fireplace at the holidays or a campfire with marshmallows for toasting. There was nothing about watching a helpless marshmallow melting and burning at the end of a stick that cheered me up.
To be surrounded by fire in every direction, though, fires big enough to consume forests and towns and trailer parks, was more terrifying than almost anything I'd ever experienced—and I've seen some gruesome apparitions in my clients' homes.
I was ready to get out of town and as far from that wildfire as we could go, as fast as we could go, but I left that choice up to Michael. This was his first chance to speak to his father in more than a decade, a chance to at least address the issues between them, to acknowledge them, though of course not resolve them—the scars were too old and deep.
Still, I would have given anything for one more chance to see my parents, to tell them I was sorry for our last memory as a family being a stupid fight. To tell them I was sorry I hadn't been able to save them. To tell them I missed them.
It was too late for all that for me, but Michael had a chance to do what I couldn't.
Besides, we didn't have any solid ideas where Clay and Melissa had gone, only some murky possibilities.
“Should we meet back at the fairground?” Michael asked.
“I don't want to hang around like a bunch of refugees,” Brent said, scratching his gray-streaked stubble. “Let's meet up at Jack's Restaurant. It's right on Main, a decent old-fashioned place, and we'll hear the latest news about the fire there.”
“Works for me, I could use something to eat,” Michael said. I nodded, happy to hear it. Michael had barely touched any food in the past day or two. He slid out the passenger side, and I followed after, happy to get some distance from Brent's tobacco-and-beer smell.
Brent's truck pulled off as Michael and I climbed into the van.
“Not bad,” Michael said, watching his dad drive away in the van's side mirror.
“Meeting up with your dad after all this time?” I asked, surprised he had anything positive to say about the experience.
“That truck can't be any newer than '91, but it runs smooth and quiet, like he just drove it right off the lot. Didn't you notice?”
“You're asking me if, while we were driving away from a fast-spreading wildfire with walls of flames closing in on both sides of the road, did I notice how well he'd refurbished his old truck?”
“Yeah, it was pretty impressive,” Michael said, as if I'd just agreed with him rather than questioned his observational priorities.
“But your truck's much older,” I said, resigned for the moment to this turn in conversation. Maybe this was his way of processing what had to be a lot of complex emotions at seeing his father again.
“True, but that's why it's so slow. And temperamental. I'm surprised it hasn't broken down yet, going cross-country without me around to tinker with it.” He shook his head. “I should have put LoJack on it. That would have saved a lot of time.”
I pulled out of the parking lot and headed downtown, which wasn't far away. Jack's Restaurant wasn't hard to find, either; it had a decorative facade that looked a bit like an old Spanish mission.
The interior pretty much screamed “Old West!” with antique tools, guns, and a number of mounted fish on the wall. A big chandelier made out of a wagon wheel hung over the dining room.
“Stacey's going to be sad she missed this,” I said, pointing to the huge bull skull adorning one wall. “I should let her know the trail's cooled off a bit and there's no rush to get here.”
“Hottest cold trail I ever saw,” Michael said, looking out one of the diner's big windows, toward the smoky red glow of the mountains beyond town. I'm sure the view was lovely in pleasant, non-burning weather.
Michael's father hadn't arrived yet, so we took a booth, where I turned slightly to keep my back to the awful fire-and-brimstone view outside. I called Stacey.
“We're on the road!” she basically chirped when she answered the phone. “We'll be there in...uh...about twenty hours—”
“Melissa's not here,” I said. “We missed her by about twenty-four hours.”
“Oh, where'd she go?”
“Our only clue is that Clay was reading about the Great Chicago Fire. Which may not be a clue at all. That could easily just be pleasure reading for him.”
“So, Chicago?” Stacey asked.
“Like I said, I don't really know. But there's definitely no need for you to tear across the desert to catch up with us. I think we'll be heading east next.”
“Toward Chicago?”
I sighed. “I guess. But that doesn't mean we're going to Chicago. We should figure out a spot for us all to meet up.”
“Oh, I can figure this out!” Stacey said, way too enthusiastic about it. “If Ellie leaves California traveling east at seventy miles an hour...er, fifty-five, since you're driving the van...hang on...” Her thumbs tapped distantly, fingernails clacking. “So halfway in between would be...oh, wait, we're heading to Chicago—”
“Maybe!” I said.
“We're heading toward Chicago,” she said, and I could practically hear the eye-roll in her voice. “So you guys come east, and we'll go north...how about we meet up in Wichita? Or Kansas City?”
“Kansas City,” I said, picturing the map of the United States that had hung in my fifth-grade classroom. Hours of staring at it in boredom had instilled a pretty reliable knowledge of where to find the major cities in each state. “I'll get back to you if our plans change.”
“Yeah, I'll let these guys know.”
“Everything okay with the exorcist?”
“No.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He insists on listening to Enya. Says it prepares him for spiritual warfare. Can't you hear it in the background?”
“I just figured that was your choice.”
“I'm not doing yoga right this second, so no,” Stacey whispered. “I mean, I like that 'Come Sail Away' song as much as anyone but...this is a playlist of deep cuts. Deep cuts, Ellie!”
“Well, enjoy,” I said. “Maybe you'll be prepared for spiritual warfare, too.”
I hung up and took a sip of the coffee our waitress had brought. Good stuff, but I doubted it had the power to keep me up for long. It had been a long night of driving and a terrifying morning. My nerves were frayed to threads from all the stress, especially all the fires.
“Are you ready?” The waitress appeared the moment I ended my phone call. I got a little fruit and toast, the least I could get, basically recognizing that my body probably needed nourishment, however reluctant I might be to eat it.
“So,” Michael said, after the waitress left, “I can't help but notice my dad still isn't here yet.”
“Maybe he had to stop for gas,” I said. “Or cigarettes.”
�
��Yeah,” Michael snorted. “Just running out for a pack of cigarettes. The classic dad-ditching-his-family move.”
“You think he's ditching us?”
“It would definitely not be the first time. Actually, it would fit perfectly. I bet he drove right past this place and kept on going, right on out of town. It's not like he was leaving a lot of valuables behind in that trailer.”
“Maybe he'll show up,” I said, feeling bad for Michael.
“Now you sound like my mom,” Michael said. “In the early days. Before it became obvious he was really gone. She didn't believe it, either.”
“Well, you could be right. You know him better than I do.”
“Just barely,” Michael said, bitterness plain in his voice.
Eventually, the food arrived, but Michael's father didn't. Michael's appetite was unaffected; he ate everything voraciously, while I picked at a couple of cantaloupe chunks.
By the time we finished breakfast, I had to concede that Michael's father probably wasn't going to show up. He'd abandoned Michael. Again.
I guess some people never change.
“Let's find a place to sleep,” I said to Michael.
“How about the Thunderbird Motel next door? It looks fun. And cheap. Or, I saw a Red Roof Inn sign up the road—”
“Not here. I want to get out of town, away from the mountains, maybe out toward the desert where there's no forest to burn.” I checked the map app on my phone. “It looks like the first town across the Nevada state line is a place called Coaldale. I say we drive there and check into the first cheapo motel we see.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Michael said. “I won't mind leaving this town behind, either. I'm kind of starting to hate the place, to be honest.”
“Don't feel obligated to stay,” the waitress said, sounding annoyed, or maybe offended, as she dropped the check on our table. “The town's getting too crowded as it is.”
“It'll be a little less crowded in a minute,” I told her.
We paid and headed out to the van. Michael looked up and down the street of the little mountain one last time before climbing in, as if some small part of him still hoped his father would come back. Some small, possibly child-sized part of him.
But his father was gone, vanished down the dusty road. Like always.
When we reached the highway, I shoved down the gas pedal, heading for the open desert that lay below and ahead of us, leaving the vast burning mess of California behind.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“So, here's lovely downtown Coaldale,” Michael said. We'd made it out of the mountains, which had begun to feel uncomfortably claustrophobic to me, especially after driving through a narrow path between fires that had threatened us from either side of the road.
Now we drove through wide-open desert, the sky huge and blue above us, no longer shrouded in smoke. There was some scattered cactus, but no stands of trees or grass, no way for the wildfire to follow after us.
“Take your pick,” Michael said, gesturing out the window as I slowed down.
“Um,” I said.
Coaldale was a dead town. I don't mean it lacked nightlife or entertainment venues—while it certainly had none of those, either, it was clear that the place had been abandoned for years. The town consisted of a few old buildings, including what might have once been a service station and a single-story motel, but now these were just concrete husks slathered in graffiti.
“I guess we keep going,” I said.
“Are you sure? An Old West ghost town sounds like a spot you'd want to hang out.”
“I'm almost tired enough to sleep in one of those creepy old buildings,” I said. “Almost, but not quite.”
I put on speed.
The next town on the map, Millers, was also a ghost town, just a few barely discernible ruins in the sand by the road.
“Is it all going to be ghost towns?” I wondered.
“Maybe we took a wrong turn when we hit the desert,” Michael said. “Maybe this is the road to Hell.”
“Okay, thanks for that creepy thought,” I said. “But this way doesn't take us back through Vegas. Plus, we already crossed Highway 666. Maybe this next town will have some actual live people left. What's it called?”
“Tonopah,” Michael said, looking at my dash-mounted phone. “That's a name with 'ghost town' written all over it.”
“Maybe luck will be with us,” I said.
A minute later, Michael sat up straighter in his chair as we reached the town of Tonopah, which, while tiny, was not dead.
In fact, Michael was pointing with excitement at one of the buildings.
“It's the Clown Motel!” he almost shouted. “The real one!”
I slowed, gaping at the sight of a huge clown on a sign, beckoning us to stop at the Clown Motel for what, I could only assume, would be a slow and agonizing death at the white-gloved hands of a pack of evil harlequins.
“Let's stay there,” Michael said, almost overcome with excitement. “Haven't you ever seen it on the internet? There's clown decorations in every room, clown decorations all over the place...and a cemetery right next door—”
“Not a chance,” I said. I pulled into the parking lot of another hotel, a five-story granite building with MIZPAH HOTEL on the roof in big letters. The letters were full of rows of light bulbs, Art Deco style, and could probably be seen for miles when lit up at night. “Here we go. This looks pleasant. At the moment, it kind of looks like a palace. Just imagine all the beds inside, waiting to be slept in. All those pillows and mattresses and blankets just waiting for us.”
“You can't be serious,” he said, even as I opened the door and hopped out. He followed me out as I approached the hotel's front doors. “You're really going to skip a chance to stay at the Clown Motel? On New Year's Eve? We might never get another chance!”
“If the fates are kind,” I said. “Michael, I spend enough time with ghosts. I don't want to stay in the world's creepiest motel. I just want a nice place to rest with no dead souls floating around. Is that too much to ask?”
Michael sighed, with another longing look at the Clown Motel sign, then followed me into the much less circus-themed Mizpah Hotel.
In fact, the Mizpah was much nicer on the inside than I'd expected, the spacious lobby full of antique furniture, paintings, statues, and elegant chandeliers (as opposed to the repurposed wagon wheel variety). It had a pleasant, stepping-back-into-the-1920s kind of feeling.
A young man dressed in a crisp, dark suit greeted us at the counter, not a hair out of place on his head, his voice like something from an upper-crust finishing school: “Welcome to the Mizpah. How can we be of service?”
“We're just looking for a room,” I said.
“I'll be happy to help you, ma'am. How many nights will you be staying with us?”
Technically, the answer was zero—my plan was to zonk out all day and drive all night, thereby avoiding traffic and keeping the highways to ourselves. I didn't see any reason to get into the technicalities of that, though. “Just one.”
“Excellent. You're in luck, because the Lady in Red Suite is available. It's our finest room, named for our resident ghost.”
“Your resident what?” I asked, hoping I'd heard him wrong.
“The Lady in Red.” The clerk beamed, as though he couldn't be more delighted by my follow-up question. “She's said to be the spirit of a woman murdered by a jealous lover on the fifth floor, back in the Wild West days. She haunts that floor, and is seen in her namesake suite in particular. It is said that she occasionally whispers into the ears of men who sleep in that room. We call her 'Rose.' Affectionately, of course.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, annoyed that we'd landed in another haunted hotel. How many haunted hotels and motels were out there, lurking along America's highways? Hundreds? Thousands?
“No, it's true!” the clerk said, still beaming. He seemed to have mistaken my dismay for a scoffing disbelief in ghosts. “It was even featured on an epis
ode of Haute Haunted.”
“Hot Haunted?” Michael asked. “Like...haunted places in the desert? Haunted volcanoes?”
“That's 'haute' rather than 'hot,'” the clerk said, looking mildly annoyed for just a moment before resuming his smooth professional demeanor. “The show covers only the most high-end haunted settings. European castles, Gilded Age mansions, and so on.”
“Those are the kind of clients you need, Ellie,” Michael said, elbowing me a little. “Not these unemployed musicians operating rundown tourist traps in the mountains.”
“Some people travel quite a distance hoping to encounter the Red Lady,” the clerk added.
“I'd rather skip that,” I said.
“Hey, the Clown Motel is still an option,” Michael said.
“I wouldn't call it that,” I told him. To the clerk, I said: “We'll take your most humble and least haunted room. I'm not interested in encountering ghosts. Just sleep. Peaceful, quiet, non-haunted sleep. I don't want to be anywhere near the fifth floor.”
“Of course, ma'am. I'll provide a standard room on the second floor, if that is acceptable.”
“Very,” I said.
While he checked us in, he let us know about the hotel's amenities, but my attention wandered. I was exhausted, unable to think about much but the bed awaiting me upstairs.
At last, we made it up to the room—a nicely appointed, Art Deco kind of place with two queen beds. The window curtains were heavy and dark red, which made them perfect for pulling tightly to block out every drip of sunlight from outside. That was what I did, first thing.
Next thing, I stretched out on one of the beds, ready to sleep.
My nose twitched.
“What's that smell?” I asked, sitting up in alarm. “Is this place on fire, too?”
“It's our clothes,” Michael said. “They sucked up a lot of smoke.”
“Ugh. I guess I'll take a bath. After I rest my eyes a second.”