by Muriel Gray
“Know why? Men are destroyers, John. Your similarity cancels the bond with demons. You’re given life by woman, but you can’t create life. Don’t you see? You have nothing to bargain with. Nothing.”
She smiled and blinked benignly, then dropped her hand to the leather belt and found a thin strip of dried skin, curled and hideous, hanging from an ornate gold hook. McFarlane lifted it to her face and kissed it. She held it there, pressed against her cold cheek, then looked down the darkened valley again, growing lighter as she watched.
“Griffin?”
She called out loudly, almost angrily, into the dewy air as though her daughter were genuinely there, then, after a pause, a silence in which no one replied, she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“You’re nearer than you should be. He’s on his way, Griffin. Racing towards you with the delusion of saving himself.”
She smiled to herself. The Keystone Kops hadn’t managed to stop him. Griffin knew as she did that Nelly could stop the trucker right now if she chose. But she chose not to. Her daughter would finally grow up today with the man’s blood, and Nelly hoped Griffin would make herself watch it happen.
It was a privilege she wouldn’t have enjoyed if she’d handled the calling better, but she was young. She’d made a mistake. Griffin would learn from the horror of what she would see coming with the sun.
Nelly’s face hardened and she dropped her voice to a rasping, barely audible whisper, her hand closing on the strip of skin. “But remember this, Griffin. You live because I let you, your power grows only as long as I let it, and like the child you are, you think I don’t see into your heart.” She laughed softly. “But I do.”
She lifted her arms in front of her, clasped her extended hands together and cocked a wagging forefinger towards the valley.
“Just don’t ever fuck with Mama, sweetheart.”
38
He pulled his hat lower over his eyes and sighed.
“So the store manager says to the first interviewee, iffen you found a ten-dollar bill on the floor, would you give it back or keep it, an’ the girl says, well, guess I’d hand it back. Well, the next girl up says, I reckon it might not necessarily be the store’s anyhow, might just be some rich guy dropped it or somethin’ and I guess it’d do more good in my pocket than his. So the question is this. Which girl got the job?”
Eddie snorted under his moustache. Dawn CB. The pits.
“Come on, man. Finish the fuckin’ gag.”
“Girl with the biggest tits. That’s who.”
Eddie smiled in spite of himself.
“Anybody know if the chicken-house northbound is open?”
“Closed, buddy. Ride your overweight with pride.”
“Hey, driver. That store-girl joke stank bad as my ass.”
“Anyone… Listen… There was a hitcher. Northbound ‘bout ten hours ago. No… Wait… Maybe six.”
Eddie’s eyes opened.
Laughter at the urgency of the driver’s tone fought for space on the bored channel.
“Would that be maybe five?”
“Got an emergency hard-on there, driver?”
The first voice came back on, agitated, almost manic.
“Listen, would you? Listen. About five-eight, short brown hair. Big pack. Just tell me if you fuckin’ saw her, okay?”
Eddie sat up and snatched the handset. “Spiller? It’s Eddie. Go to our channel, man.”
“Hey. Is this a fuckin’ play on the radio or is anybody doin’ their job out there?”
“Eddie?”
Josh’s crackly, indistinct voice sounded incredulous, but if channel 19 noted the panic of his broadcast, it didn’t much care.
“Well, listen up, drivers. Faggots’ hour started early.”
Eddie retuned quickly and waited, his heart beating fast. He held his breath for what seemed an age and then Josh’s weak signal crackled in.
“Eddie? You really there?”
Eddie pulled his beard with some delight and sat back in the comfort of his air-sprung chair.
“Unless I’m someplace else. Listen, ‘fore you move another mile, this is real important. Where you at?”
“ ‘Bout a mile from 23 northbound. But, Eddie, I ain’t got much of a truck left.”
“What the fuck happened, man?”
“Not important. She’s still movin’. You near?”
“Five minutes north. In that fuckin tourist pull-in we used to hate, you know? Never has any shit paper in the john?”
“Then lend me Kong, Eddie. I got to find that hitcher.”
Eddie was taken aback by Josh’s easy acceptance of his location, disappointed his proximity hadn’t been met by a whoop of delighted disbelief. But then Josh wasn’t sounding much like Josh anymore. And something big must have gone down to make him so casual about busting up Jez. He bit back his feelings.
“Yeah, like in your dreams maybe I let you behind this wheel. But, hey, Spiller? Want to hear somethin’ that’ll crack a smile across that ugly puss-cake of yours?”
“I don’t have any fuckin’ time left for this, man.”
Josh was practically crying. Even though the signal was poor, Eddie felt a knot tie in his stomach at the unfamiliar distress in his friend’s voice. What was going on?
“She’s here, Spiller. Muffin’ or whatever the fuck she’s called. I got her with me, along with that gold pin she stole.”
There was a long silence. Long enough to make Eddie think he’d lost Josh’s signal. Then Josh’s voice, low and distant.
“In the call? Now?”
“Naw. In the john. Probably wipin’ her ass with a handbill on white water raftin’ like everybody else.”
“Eddie?”
Josh sounded almost calm. Eddie relaxed a little.
“Yeah.”
“Ever kissed a guy?”
“Not even ma daddy.”
“Get ready for a first, man. You might just have saved my life.”
“Fuck off and drive, Spiller. Two miles from the exit ramp.”
Eddie replaced the handset with a satisfied smile, unconsciously fingering his bottom lip as though Josh’s kiss had already been planted.
He was still smiling pleasantly when his door opened, but the lips drew back and remoulded his half-visible mouth into a snarl as the knife slid between his ribs.
Griffin used both hands to push the blade home, and she was glad. It took more strength than she imagined to penetrate clothing and flesh, but her double-hander provided sufficient force.
She watched Eddie’s face contort as he turned to her, his hands grabbing at air in front of him, then pulled the blade free with a grunt and sank it deeply into the base of his neck. He made a futile move to rise, to grab hold of her, and she withdrew the knife, quickly stepping back down from the running board.
Eddie Shankling followed her involuntarily, his big body topping sideways from the considerable height of his cab, landing painfully in an untidy heap on the asphalt. His face was pressed to the ground, his knees folded beneath him, pushing his back into an ugly arch. Griffin bent low, out of curiosity, to hear the gurgling sound that was bubbling from his lips. Blood frothed in his beard and she pushed at his bulk tentatively with her foot to get a better view. It rocked him over and the man slumped onto his side, the thick blood from his chest wound welling out beneath a trapped arm, the mess from his neck blackening his jacket.
She bent lower, level with his face. “Aw, now don’t be mad with me, Eddie. Treat it as a kind of telegram from all those women out there I know you drivers respect so much.” She wiped the blade of her knife on his trouser leg and stood up. “Thanks for the ride.”
She stepped over him, pulled herself into the cab and closed the door.
The keys were in the ignition and Griffin smiled. Sure, her plans had gone a little pear-shaped, but there was no denying this was exciting. She was going to get out of here before Josh arrived, and she was going to do it in his dumb accomplice’s truck.
She’d watched him drive, and although it was a manual shift with about a million mystery gears between high and low, she reckoned there wasn’t that much to it. Her slim hand touched the plastic gorilla hanging from the key ring, then gripped the plastic key fob and turned it.
The starter motor wheezed into life, churning obediently under the hood but failing to start the engine. Griffin cursed and tried again. The same. She was starting to sweat now, half from a growing panic, half from a core of embarrassment at the feebleness of her attempts to get the truck moving.
She tried once more and then noticed the immobilizer—a small panel with seven numbers mounted inexpertly beneath the steering column.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
She banged the wheel with a fist, then pushed open the door and jumped down. Eddie was twitching and gurgling, his arms trying to cross his body for instinctive comfort and failing. Griffin bent to his face again and pulled it around roughly by the blood-soaked beard.
“Tell me the immobilizer number, you bastard.”
Eddie opened an eye and blinked at her through blood and agony.
She let go of his beard and pulled out her knife. “Tell me, or I’ll cut your tiny dick off and feed you it.”
Eddie swallowed with difficulty, the blood burbling in his throat. The noise he used every last ounce of his energy to form from that frothy mess sounded incomprehensibly like “khuck yaw.”
Griffin got the message. She paused a moment, contemplating how best to hurt him, to make his last moments of life unendurable, when the roar of a wounded engine made her freeze. She looked up, startled but not surprised, and watched ferally from the predawn gloom of her crouch as Josh’s wrecked truck entered the parking lot.
Griffin McFarlane moved fast, keeping low and sprinting for the only cover, the wooden washrooms, like she’d trained for it. Slamming open the doors, she disappeared inside as Josh halted the mess of Jezebel alongside the mess of his friend. Jez’s engine cut for the last time and he climbed cautiously from his cab, assessing what he was seeing in the half light, a light that was increasing with alarming acceleration.
Josh stood for a moment, weighing the silence, puzzling over the open door of the cab. Then realizing what the dark shape on the ground was, he whined at the back of his throat like a wounded dog, stumbling in his haste to get to Eddie, and coming to rest on his knees in the gore of the fallen man’s blood. Josh’s whine became a wail. He stretched his hands out impotently as though to heal with them.
“Eddie. Talk to me. Eddie. Jesus.”
Eddie twitched in response, his mouth making shapes soundlessly. Panting in panic and fury, Josh put a hand behind his friend’s head and gently pushed back the soaking jacket. The wound on his neck was bleeding profusely, but not pumping. Josh mentally ticked it off. It wasn’t an artery.
“S’okay, man. S’okay. You’re goin’ to be fine. S’okay.”
Eddie moved again, gurgling this time.
“Shhh. Shhh. Keep it together, man. Come on.”
Josh moved the jacket back farther, searching for the source of the main injury, and found it in Eddie’s side. Worse. Much worse.
Could be a punctured lung, could be anything. Up until minutes before, Josh regarded the universe as a place where only he needed immediate help, but until the sun came up, which was going to happen in a matter of minutes, Eddie needed help more. He ripped off his jacket and folded it under Eddie’s head, then pulled off his sweatshirt and laid it carefully over his friend’s trembling body.
“Stay still, man. I ain’t goin’ anywhere. You hear? I’m right by you.”
He stood up, climbed quickly into the cab and grabbed the CB, trying to stay calm but aware he was screaming into it like a fighter pilot.
“All drivers. I got a man dying of stab wounds in the parking pull-in two miles north of exit 23, highway 81. You got that? Two miles north. Like I need an ambulance right now or I’m gonna fuckin’ lose him. You hearin’ me out there? This ain’t a stunt an’ I got no time here to reply. For fuck’s sake somebody help me.”
He dropped the handset, oblivious to the cacophony of response, and jumped down to Eddie’s side.
“Eddie. They’re gonna come, man. I know they’re gonna come.”
Eddie moved his mouth, straining to speak, and Josh shook his head.
“Don’t. Stay still. I know, man. I know she’s here and I’m goin’ to deal with her, okay?”
Eddie tried a nod, then moved his eyes towards the open cab above him and successfully formed a word.
“Gun.”
Josh’s pulse, already racing, quickened further. Eddie had been stabbed, not shot. What was he trying to say? He looked up at the rig and understood. Eddie was agitated, anxious that his instruction had registered. Josh touched his face gently and calmed him. “Save it, Eddie. I got you, man. I remember where it is. Okay?”
Eddie closed his eyes and made a thick sound in his throat.
Josh looked at him tenderly for a second, then climbed back into the cab, his eyes adjusting to the changing light, constantly searching the empty parking lot and wooden building for any sign of his enemy. He had to be careful. If she could take out a guy like Eddie, then she was a formidable opponent.
Josh paused. The ludicrous nature of what he was doing struck him hard. He was about to find Eddie’s gun and go hunting a twenty-one-year-old murdering psycho. But a psycho to whom he needed to pass back a strip of dried skin, and have her take it willingly and knowingly, or he was about to become more shredded than his oldest friend.
And the craziest part of all? It had to happen now. Right now, in the next few minutes, before the ridge of mountains he could see to his right, already illuminated from behind, exploded with the first light of the new day.
If it hadn’t been for Eddie lying in his blood at the door of the cab, Josh would probably have held his head and laughed. But there was no mirth to be had in this madness. Josh knew now it was impossible to save himself. But if it was the last thing he did, he would take Griffin McFarlane with him into oblivion.
He sat in Eddie’s chair, took a deep breath, then with his right hand felt behind the seat. Josh closed his eyes, and exhaled as his fingers closed around cloth wrapped around something hard and heavy. He pulled it out, unwrapped it and held the gun in his hand, feeling its deadly weight and cold metal against his palm, and with a hand that was surprisingly steady, he clicked open the bullet chamber.
Josh stared at the round ends of Eddie’s shiny bullets, snug in their cylindrical homes, then looked towards the dark wooden building at the end of the parking lot. In the gloom of the cab something shifted behind Josh Spiller’s eyes, a flitting ghost of movement that was echoed around the corners of his mouth. It was a twitch of muscle that was beyond a smile, beyond madness or revenge, nothing more than the muscular response of a predator to an electrical message from its brain.
There was a slit in the wooden walls of the men’s washrooms, invisible from within when the darkness of the parking lot competed with the strip-lit interior. But Griffin had punched out the lights, her fist wrapped in her sweatshirt, and since the dawn was winning over the dark, she had found it easily. By crouching on top of a toilet tank, she could survey nearly the whole parking lot through it.
She cursed through clenched teeth. He had been in the cab a minute ago, his shape easily recognizable as it moved slightly behind the wheel. But she had become uncomfortable in her bizarre position, had taken a second to adjust herself, and when she looked again Josh had gone. Griffin ran a hand over her face and stepped quietly down from her undignified pedestal. There was no need to panic. What could he do? He could force-feed her the runes and it would make no difference to the outcome if she hadn’t received them correctly.
Willingly and unknowingly. Yeah, sure. She smiled at how the dumb piece of beefcake would try. In a few minutes he was history and part of her bristled with the excitement of what that would mean. She was going to see what few mortals had seen. Asmo
deanus in the flesh. But better than that. She would see him at work.
There was only one area of risk. The bearded trucker had been easy. He hadn’t known she was listening at his door. Hadn’t expected her to be there, to have a knife, to have murder as her chore. Without that advantage she wondered how she would have fared, and now the upper hand of surprise was gone, Josh Spiller had height, weight, muscle and the blind rage of revenge on his side. She fingered the long point of the knife and wondered if making a break for the far-distant trees across the fields wouldn’t have been a better decision. But no.
The possibility of missing the physical manifestation of her first hot elemental was too much of an incentive to stay near.
All Griffin McFarlane had to do now was to stay alive longer than the man she’d condemned to hell. She slid the knife carefully up her sleeve and started to study her surroundings more closely.
In other circumstances, Josh would have acknowledged that the light was sublime. Painters, photographers and filmmakers had rightly named this moment in the day “magic hour,” celebrating the limbo between light and dark, the miracle of the sky mixed with turquoise and cream and pink, when the air seemed charged with illumination of its own. In such a light, the humble and crudely designed wooden building was lent a magnificence it didn’t deserve. Against this backdrop, the striplights that remained on the central glass area endowed the whole structure with a beautiful melancholy, a contrast of blackness and highlights that resembled the surreal dusk restaurants from Edward Hopper paintings.