Smoke

by Joe Ide

  “Why did you do that, Billy? Why?”

  A paramedic said, “Step back, Sheriff, you’re getting in the way.”

  They loaded him into the ambulance. Cannon, mystified, watched it drive away.

  Billy lay on the gurney, straps holding his arms over his chest. It wasn’t uncomfortable. Actually, it felt fine. The ambulance was going fast, he could tell by the tire noise. There were bright fluorescents on the ceiling and he had to look away. A lot of equipment in here. Bags, braces, things stored in overhead bins, devices he didn’t recognize. The siren was muted, a paramedic seated sideways, talking on his radio. Billy closed his eyes and smiled. Isaiah and Ava had gotten away. They were going to Sugar Mountain and they would save Mom and Irene. Because of him. He had saved the day. He was, at last, a hero.

  Isaiah was averaging eighty miles an hour, the fastest the Spark would go without blowing up. The tiny engine was screaming, the road noise so loud it was like the windows were open and the windshield was missing. As he fled the house, he saw Cannon’s car in the rearview mirror, screeching to a stop in the middle of the street. Something had happened back there. Otherwise, Cannon would be on your tail right now. The ambulance had arrived almost immediately after that. Isaiah passed it going the other way. He made a calculation. Cannon is stuck at the scene for how long? Let’s say ten minutes. What then? Cannon would try and anticipate your next move. The logical thing for Isaiah or anyone else to do in this situation was escape and speed south on 185 at eighty miles an hour. Okay, assume that Cannon is coming after you. Ten minutes at the scene, another minute to get to 185. You have approximately an eleven-minute lead, Isaiah thought. Conservative, but it was safer. The sheriff would probably hold his speed to ninety miles per hour. The highway was mostly wide turns and long straightaways; any faster would be foolhardy. With an eleven-minute lead and a ten-mile-an-hour time differential, it would take Cannon about an hour and six minutes to catch up. Which also meant Isaiah had an hour and six minutes to catch Crowe and Warren before Cannon caught and arrested him. Before the killers slaughtered Gretta and Irene.

  “Do you think we’ll get there in time?” Ava said. Isaiah didn’t answer.

  Cannon stayed focused and alert. All he needed now was to hit a goddamn deer at ninety miles per hour. He’d been on the road for forty-five minutes and hadn’t seen the Spark. Had he guessed wrong? Should he stop and go back? No, stick it out. Your reasoning is solid. He was worried about Billy. The accident could cost him his sheriff’s badge and probably should. His temper was a goddamn menace, but never mind that. You can fix yourself later, he thought. For now, catch that damn Isaiah.

  Crowe and Warren were more fucked up than they’d ever been. Warren had given Crowe a couple of Darvon, a few lines of blow and a 30-milligram slow-release Adderall for pep. Crowe’s right eye had been obliterated, replaced by a big black and green leech stuck to his face. The pain had gone down but only a little. Warren was no longer human. He was something crawling out of the apocalypse, covered with dried blood, a plum-colored bump the size of an eight ball on his forehead. His nose was bulbous, broken and not in the middle of his face. A front tooth was missing, which made him look stupider than he already was. He said something about running into stairs that weren’t really stairs, whatever that meant. The only thing that kept either of them going was the mother and daughter. What they’d do when they caught up with those bitches. The perfect girl, Crowe thought. At long last, the absolute perfect girl! He imagined her and Mom sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows and telling ghost stories. Oh, they’d get a ghost story all right, except there’d be two of them armed with a fucking axe and a foot-long Bowie knife sharp enough to skin a human being.

  Shareen’s car didn’t go very fast. It was making clanking noises. Crowe wondered about Shareen and whether the rats and coyotes had found her body and if the maggots were wiggling out of her ears. When this was over, he’d go back and take a look. Warren had dropped the same pills as Crowe but added an extra Adderall and more lines of blow. He was rocking back and forth, shaking, nodding his head, babbling, but you couldn’t make out the words.

  “Jesus fuck, will you shut up?” Crowe roared. “Did you hear me? SHUT UP!” But Warren kept it up, the sound of his voice like hornets in a jam jar, sawing through Crowe’s skull, the last scraps of his sanity flying out of the window. He realized he was babbling too. Perfect girl perfect girl I’m coming for you perfect girl you’re going to die perfect girl perfect girl.

  Ava was grateful to Isaiah. All he’d been through to help someone he’d met yesterday. She glanced at him. A strange man with a big heart. She felt bad about what she was going to do, but she had no choice. She thought about Crowe. The malignant shit had taken her Hannah away; Hannah, who could finish your sentences and think the same thoughts, not because of some mysterious telepathy, but because you were always together. When you went for a walk, you held hands. You slept in the same bed until you were in high school. You exchanged clothes while they were still warm. You read each other’s emotions like you were turning pages in a children’s book. A loved one murdered was a violation beyond death, beyond your capacity to grieve, horror on top of pain, the corruption like a bloody blindfold you could never take off. She’d decided not to kill them, but they would be punished. Neither man would ever move freely again.

  Crowe pulled into the trailhead parking lot, behind the mom’s car, so tight it couldn’t back out. He touched his knife and gun to make sure they were there. He was giddy, nearly drooling with lust and greed. Warren was still babbling, soaked in sweat and he’d stuck out his jaw like that retard in Sling Blade, the sight of him so fucked up Crowe couldn’t look at him.

  There was a wooden sign at the beginning of the trail. Crowe held his phone up to give him light. It was a map. Trails leading to the peak, the waterfall, the canyon, the viewing sites. “Will you look at that? There’s a fucking map!” He laughed. The campsite, called the Witches’ Tree, was .8 miles away. That was nothing. The two men hurried to the beginning of the trail. They saw flashlight beams wavering in the dark.

  “Do you see them, Crowe?” Warren said. “Do you see them?” Crowe began fast walking, Warren went ahead of him, galloping like a kid riding an imaginary horse. “Come on, Crowe. Let’s go faster!”

  Isaiah and Ava arrived at the trailhead. Gretta’s Subaru was hemmed in by another car. “They’re here,” Ava said. It was almost dark and getting cold. They got out of the Spark. Ava raced around to the trunk and found the Sig.

  “Have you ever shot that before?” Isaiah said, worriedly.

  “No, but I know how to point it and pull the trigger.” She slid the ejector up and back, sliding a round in the chamber. She put a spare magazine in her back pocket.

  “Maybe I should carry it.”

  “I don’t think so.” She stuck the gun into her pants and a bottle of water into the carrier on her belt.

  “I can’t go very fast,” Isaiah said. He was sore and limping from his tumble with the Electra Glide.

  “I know,” Ava replied. She found a small flashlight and said, “That’s why I’m leaving you here.”

  “What? No!”

  Ava backed away. “Thanks for everything, Isaiah, but I have to do this.” She ran off. Isaiah watched her flashlight beam disappear into the dark. He was deeply afraid. Crowe and Warren weren’t smart in the conventional sense, but they were cunning and ruthless. The gun would be heavy in Ava’s hand. It was hard to aim under the best of circumstances, but harder still if you’re cold and trembling and full of hate. She wouldn’t be expecting the kick. She might drop the gun or shoot Irene or Gretta. Whatever happened, Isaiah thought, it would be terrible. He searched around in the car for another bottle of water but there was none. He found a three-inch folding knife in the side bin and stuck it in his pocket. Then he dry swallowed his last three Tylenol, laced his shoes up tighter and started walking.

  The campfire created an amber dome, textured darkness all aroun
d.

  “I’m sorry I made us late,” Irene said. “Not very smart.”

  “It’s okay. Everything turned out fine,” Gretta said. The tent was the pop-up type and easy to set up. They’d built a nice fire. They heated cans of soup in the embers and ate fresh bread from Eve’s Bakery and watched the orange sparks jump and vanish into the night and smelled charcoal mixed with the great outdoors. They looked at each other through the flames, the heat wiggling the air.

  “Isn’t this the best?” Irene said.

  “Yes,” Gretta replied. “It sure is.”

  Warren and Crowe couldn’t see the bitches anymore. For a while, they thought they heard laughing but not anymore. The trail was steep, their legs like cement pillars, their breathing scorching their throats. It was a stupid thing to do, Crowe thought. Two ex-cons whose workouts consisted of rolling joints and sharpening knives shouldn’t be climbing a goddamn mountain in the middle of the fucking night. The altitude. Crowe hadn’t thought of that, and he hadn’t thought to bring flashlights, water or jackets. Warren was in complete agony, whimpering and wheezing and moaning.

  “My heart’s going too fast, Crowe! I think it’s going to blow up.”

  The dark had no depth and no end. They were thirsty and hungry. They were in their shirtsleeves and it was getting cold, a breeze stirring up dust that stung their eyes and crusted their lungs. Crowe couldn’t tell how long they’d been hiking. Maybe they were close to the campground, or maybe they were forty yards from the parking lot. The darkness made the whole thing seem futile and idiotic, like they were on a treadmill in a coal mine or on a conveyer belt that emptied into a garbage dump.

  Crowe had discovered the human body doesn’t give a shit about your agenda. The need for food, water and rest were its main concerns. Lust was somewhere between watching sports and washing your hair. Warren stopped and sat down on the ground.

  “I’m dying, Crowe,” he sobbed. “I’m not kidding. I’m dying. We have to go back! Please, can we go back?”

  “We can’t,” Crowe said. “The parking lot might be farther away than the campground, and those cunts have food and water.” It was too dark to see Warren, but Crowe could feel him there, like a dead horse in a room with the lights off.

  “I can’t do it, Crowe, I can’t,” Warren said in snotty heaves. His voice trailed off. “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna fucking die.”

  Crowe wanted to sit down too, but that would be the end. The forest rangers would find them, two fossilized assholes lying on the trail hugging each other. The same rats and coyotes that ate Shareen would eat them too. Warren began hitting a rock with his hatchet. Somehow that seemed like the right thing to do. Suddenly, Crowe lifted his face into the breeze and went still. Ten seconds, twenty seconds.

  Warren said, “Crowe? You’re not dead, are you?”

  “I smell smoke. A campfire.”

  “I don’t care. I want to go back.”

  “You won’t say that when we get there,” Crowe said. “Can’t you see them? Their skin, their hair. I bet they smell good.” Warren stopped hitting the rock. Crowe went on. “I want to cut the girl’s clothes off. It freaks them out, you know? When the buttons fall off? Who do you think screams the loudest? The mom or the daughter?” There was no response. Crowe could feel Warren’s liquid brain percolating on high heat.

  Warren said, “The mom.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Go Faster, Isaiah

  Ava jogged every morning, lifted weights, swam laps at the Y and took power yoga. Twice a week, she climbed up and down the 147 steps on Lindy Avenue with the fitness nuts and the off-duty firefighters. She’d always felt an obligation to be in shape and so had Hannah. For health, yes, but that wasn’t the main thing. They each had the vague sense that one day they would need their physicality to protect each other. Ava was disappointed she’d tired so fast. She was breathing heavily, she was cold, her thighs were burning, and the gun was like carrying an anvil. Her adrenaline had surpassed her rational mind. A steady gait would have been faster, but she had no intention of stopping. Keep going. For Hannah.

  Cannon made a hard turn into the parking area, throwing up gravel on the wooden sign. Three cars were there. The Subaru belonged to Gretta. A car he hadn’t seen before was parked so close they were touching bumpers. The third car was the Spark. What was Gretta doing here? Probably camping. There was nothing else to do. The second car worried him. Someone had deliberately parked it so Gretta couldn’t get out. Why would someone want to trap her here? Cannon wondered. “Oh, shit,” he said. It was Isaiah’s serial killers. It wasn’t mistaken identity. IQ was right.

  Maybe he’d be in time to rescue Gretta and Irene, but more likely not. Isaiah was banged up from the fall with the Harley. Cannon tried to radio Dickerson, but he was out of range and there were no signal repeaters out here. He unsnapped his holster. He put on his field jacket. He got the riot gun and a bottle of water out of the trunk. Then he turned on his flashlight and started running.

  Isaiah had slowed from his already slow pace, his steps the same size as his feet. The cold air was dry. He’d read somewhere that putting a pebble on your tongue helped keep moisture in your mouth. A ridiculous idea. Now his mouth was dry and tasted like a pebble. He was walking with his hands folded over his chest and his head down. He couldn’t make out his shoes. This is what you do, Isaiah. This is who you are, and you will never see Grace again.

  The trail was like a ledge winding around the mountain. Isaiah saw someone behind him with a powerful flashlight moving fast. It had to be Cannon. If he arrests you now, Gretta and Irene will be murdered. You can’t outrun him, and you can’t take him on. Figure this out, Isaiah. Hurry!

  He felt naked and vulnerable standing behind a tree. It was an absurd way to hide, but there wasn’t much room on either side of the trail. He heard Cannon’s footsteps, so steady it was like he was marching. He peeked. Cannon was an intimidating man under normal circumstances, but more so in the dark with his uniform, badge, riot gun, the flashlight up-lighting his square, grim face. Frankenstein in a khaki uniform. He was very near, his pace never faltering. Isaiah tensed, readying himself to move, his pains more intense as he stood there getting colder and stiffer. He could smell Cannon’s deodorant. Cannon was fifteen feet away, ten, five, he was parallel…and Isaiah let him pass.

  He waited until Cannon was well up the trail before he came out of hiding. There was a moment’s relief. Cannon was going to catch Ava before he did and get to Irene and Gretta much sooner. Cannon had a riot gun. For who? Isaiah wondered. Carry that thing all the way for you? Couldn’t be. Was Cannon finally a believer? Isaiah searched around in the dark and found a stout branch. He used it as a hiking stick and walked on.

  Ava had stopped to rest. She looked back and saw a flashlight, a bright one, and whoever it belonged to was keeping up an incredible pace. Couldn’t be Isaiah. It was Cannon, she thought. He doesn’t believe in the serial killers. If he arrests you, Irene and Gretta are finished. Go, Ava. Go fast! You’ll never have a chance at Crowe again.

  The campsite was set on an extended ledge that jutted out over the canyon. A rock wall on one side, a sheer cliff on the other. The Witches’ Tree was at the end, opposite the trail; tall and leafless, its twisted branches reaching into the sky.

  Just as Crowe had predicted, mother and daughter were sitting around a campfire, talking and laughing and drinking something hot out of tin mugs, their tent and camping gear scattered around. They had no idea monsters were watching them, monsters that would eat them like s’mores, hot and sticky and sweet. Crowe and Warren had been hiding outside the perimeter of the light for a good fifteen minutes, resting and waiting for their breathing to slow. They’d taken more Adderall, their pain and discomfort overwhelmed by their driving needs and surging adrenaline.

  “We don’t want them to see us until the last second,” Crowe whispered. “We’ll have to move fast.”

  Warren was nodding, staring at the bitches, grinning and jumpy.
“Yeah, yeah, right.” The bumps on his head were like budding antlers, his nose like a walrus’s snout. His injuries took up his whole face. He made slushing sounds, breathing through the gap where his front tooth used to be.

  “They’ll take off, but I’ll fire in the air and they’ll stop,” Crowe said.

  “Yeah, women are pussies,” Warren said, chuckling at his own joke.

  “You ready?”

  “I’m ready as hell.”

  Irene was about to pour water on the fire and stopped. Two men burst out of the darkness, greased with sweat, screaming, with their mouths wide open, their faces horribly injured. They looked like cannibals, high on something that makes you dance and fuck all night. The big one had a huge knife; the smaller had an axe. They were running hard, but not very fast. Irene’s first thought was confusion. She couldn’t connect the two men with anything. Wait a second, are these Billy’s serial killers? “Mom?” she said.