Lost Highway

by Hunter, Bijou

  “The sun is going down,” Odessa says, turning on the couch and placing her feet on the ground. “Will the wolves come in through the hole?”

  “They’re too large. The ones I saw eat Tom’s body were at least four hundred pounds. We should keep the door locked tonight in case something else comes inside.”

  “What else is there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Odessa rolls her eyes at my answer, and I’m surprised by her demeanor. I expected more tears or ranting after her discovery. The others refused to accept what they saw. Mary cried a lot and begged me to wake her up. The man said he was insane and locked up somewhere. He thought this place was a fantasy, so he embraced it without mercy. I can’t recall the other woman’s reaction. She wasn’t here long or hadn’t proved all that memorable.

  If Odessa goes insane and I’m forced to put her down, I hope to remember her for a long time.

  Chapter Eleven

  Odessa

  Quill doesn’t offer his bedroom for the night. He doesn’t even seem to consider I might want to sleep. We sit in the living room, long past sundown. He says nothing. Not even when he stands to lock down the house. I see how he removes my suitcase and bag from the room before locking it again. When he sits in the chair, Quill returns to staring at me.

  I take the TV remote and click through channel after channel of static. After Quill secures the cabin, I finally land on a visible episode of Tom & Jerry, but the signal goes out after a few minutes.

  “You’ll need to get accustomed to fewer comforts now that you’re in the Lost Highway.”

  Focusing on his face shrouded in darkness, I ask, “Do you miss your old life?”

  “No.”

  Finding the static soothing, I leave on the TV. I relax on the couch and watch Quill. He seems otherworldly in the dark room with the flickering light dancing on his face.

  “Are you ever scared here?”

  “No.”

  “Were you ever scared in your old life?”

  Quill doesn’t answer. His menacing gaze bothers me, but I won’t look away. Nothing in this cabin is as reassuring as looking at him.

  “What would you be doing if I hadn’t come here?”

  “What I’m doing right now.”

  “Staring at the couch?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s very interesting.” When Quill doesn’t react, I squirm lower under the blanket. “This is more comfortable than the mattress in the other room.”

  Quill says nothing for the longest time, but the silence isn’t so bad when he’s around versus when I’m alone.

  “You haven’t asked for food,” he finally says.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Hunger isn’t a problem in the Lost Highway. Eating is a choice here.”

  “Yet the Death Dealers cannibalize.”

  “Eating humans is a strong taboo. Killing and consuming fellow human beings is as primal as one can become.”

  “Have you eaten anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you want to go primal?”

  “No.”

  “Do the other Death Dealers think you’re a goody-two-shoes for not eating them?”

  Quill doesn’t respond, but I laugh quietly at the thought of peer pressure between killers. My humor fades as my thoughts return to what Quill insists on calling a closet. The voices still echo in my mind, and I know they’re waiting for me downstairs.

  “I’m going to sleep now,” I say, shivering under the thick blanket.

  My gaze notices the bandage Quill wrapped around my leg. I haven’t felt the pain in hours.

  “Are you going to bed?” I ask him after my eyelids grow heavy.

  “No.”

  “Will you be here when I wake up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  In the dark room, I can’t read his expression. I only know he says he’ll stay with me tonight, and I believe him. Quill is scary and emotionless, but I believe he’s also the best and sanest Death Dealer in the Lost Highway.

  Chapter Twelve

  Quill

  Odessa sleeps for hours on the living room couch. Using only the TV lighting, I memorize every curve of her delicate face. She opens her eyes just after the dull sunlight illuminates the room. I don’t look away when her gaze finds mine. Odessa frowns at me, but I refuse to bow to her will. If she doesn’t want me to look at her face, she can cover herself with the blanket.

  “Did you sleep at all?” she asks, sitting up.

  “I don’t need to sleep.”

  “Did you at least get to recharge your batteries?”

  I don’t react, but Odessa grins at her snide remark. She’s quite pleased with herself when she stands up.

  “What now?” she asks.

  I remain in my chair a bit longer, forcing her to wait. Once I finally get to my feet, she smiles as if she’s won.

  “We should look at repairing your room. There’s no telling how long we’ll have access to the outside of the cabin.”

  “Okay,” she says, following me down the hall.

  I unlock the bolt on her room and swing open the door. Behind me, Odessa gasps and backs away.

  The room is splashed with a reddish green liquid. As I step through the door, Odessa grabs my arm.

  “Don’t go in,” she whispers. “Just close and lock the door.”

  “It’s clearly gone,” I say, wrenching my arm free. “There’s nowhere for it to hide in here.”

  “It could be in the hole.”

  I walk to the gaping exit in the wall and lean down to look inside. “It’s empty.”

  “What was it?”

  “A nocturnal creature I’ve never seen before.”

  “I’m not sleeping in here again.”

  “I’ll block the exit.”

  “I’m still not sleeping in here.”

  I find Odessa with her arms crossed and a defiant expression in her green eyes. When I step closer, she flinches, and I smile at her fear.

  “You cannot have my room,” I tell her.

  “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t want to sleep where Tom kept his victims.”

  “I don’t care what you want.”

  Odessa studies me. Though afraid, she refuses to back down this time.

  “This is a female trick to convince me to give you my room and have me take the couch.”

  “Yes, my flatly stating I will not sleep in that room is part of my devious plan. You’re very astute when it comes to the female mind.”

  “I can’t sleep on the couch. It’s too short, and I’m too tall.”

  “I don’t want your bed. It’s Tom’s old bed, and I don’t want to sleep where he slept. I’ll take the couch.”

  “You’re lucky to have a place to sleep. I hear some Death Dealers keep their cattle hanging from the ceiling.”

  “Cattle?”

  “Trophies, cattle, dolls, meat. Each Death Dealer has their own term.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “Complication.”

  “Since I’m a Death Dealer, what shall I call my companion? Oh, I know, you’re the tallest, darkest, and most handsome robot in all of creation.”

  “Mine is catchier,” I say, surprising myself with a hint of a smile.

  In the room, the blood left behind doesn’t smell human. The pungent odor reminds me of rotting flesh. The creature explored every inch of the room. I even spot goop on the ceiling. Did it crawl up there?

  “It smells like my grandmother’s stew,” Odessa says from the doorway.

  I like how she won’t enter. Timid is preferable to blind courage. Mary became fearless before she finally snapped. I recall how she stood in the fading light and dared the wolves to take her.

  Odessa watches me move around the room. Every time I glance back, I find her studying me rather than the mess. Her expression is relaxed until I hold her gaze. I can’t read the new emo
tion in her eyes. I only know it puts me on edge.

  “What?” I ask when she won’t look away.

  “I was thinking that of all the faces I could be looking at while stuck in hell, yours ain’t so bad.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re an attractive man, Quill. Did they not tell you that during your robot training?”

  “Stop calling me a robot.”

  “Stop acting like one.”

  I storm toward the door, sensing Odessa might consider locking me inside. She only hurries away until her back is against the wall.

  “You don’t understand what awaits you if my hospitality ends.”

  “Suffering, torture, death. Am I close?”

  When she doesn't look away, I wrap my hand around her throat. “You should never make extended eye contact with a predator,” I say, pressing my body against hers. “Most won’t allow you to live the way I do.”

  Odessa stares up at me, and I relish the fear in her eyes. From the corner of my vision, I notice her hand moving upward. Once again, she prepares to break the one rule I’ve set down since the very beginning.

  Her fingers slide over my cheekbone before returning to her side. “Eyelash,” she casually says.

  Grunting at her inability to keep her hands to herself, I shut and lock the door. “I need to fix the hole before the sun goes down.”

  Odessa says nothing while following me into the kitchen. I know the tools I need are in the basement, and I also know she might lock me inside. Unlike with the bedroom, I don’t know of a secret exit.

  I consider having her join me in the basement so she can’t pull any tricks. Her expression makes me think she wants to start trouble. Possibly, the change is beginning, and she hopes to force me to kill her.

  If that’s her plan, I figure we best get it over with, so I leave her alone upstairs. I know I can break through the door, but she doesn’t lock it. Odessa stands at the top of the stairs and watches me the entire time. Rather than attempt to lock me inside, she looks relieved when I return.

  Or maybe she’s thinking something completely different. While I’m not a robot, I do lack the skills to read her well. I’d never needed more than a cursory understanding of human emotions. My feelings remained stifled while the needs of others never interested me. Now I have Odessa trailing me, and I can’t figure her out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Odessa

  Quill uses the plank from my bedroom window to block the exit. I stand nearby and watch his back. He doesn’t ask me to help. I don’t think he even wants me at his side. Quill says nothing when I follow him outside. He rarely says anything, so I don’t take his silence as a slight.

  “Have you ever tried getting the attention of the people in the sky?” I ask while he works.

  “No doubt when they look up, they see the real sky. Their world has the real sun while ours only has the reflection of their sun. We don’t have the moon or stars to light our sky, so our nights are pitch dark.”

  “We could still try to contact them.”

  “What would be the point?”

  “They could help us.”

  “How?” he asks, setting the plank against the house. “If you saw people in the sky, waving for help, how exactly would you help them?”

  “I don’t know. They could get us help.”

  “From who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know what your problem is, Odessa?”

  “No, please share, Quill.”

  Hearing my annoyed tone, he frowns at me. “You react without thinking things through, and your instincts are poor.”

  “So I should do what instead?”

  “Examine a situation carefully before reacting. Your logic seems stronger than your instincts. Also, don’t allow your emotions to control your decision-making.”

  Crossing my arms, I’m irritated by his arrogance. He might be smarter and stronger… Well, I guess, he gets to be arrogant, but his words still sting.

  “You said the highway ends in darkness. What about going through the woods?”

  “I tried that on the other side of the highway. There’s no exit if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “What’s it like on the other side of the highway?”

  Quill stops working and glances back at me. “More Death Dealers. They’ve created family units. Packs, I guess, from a predator’s standpoint.”

  “Why don’t they come to this side of the highway?”

  “They do. That’s why I set the traps.”

  I hear arrogance in his answer. He’s pushed back the barbarians with his superior skills. I don’t blame him for feeling pride in his abilities. They’ve kept us alive so far.

  “Do the woods end the way the highway does?”

  Quill doesn’t answer immediately. He’s examining his work on the plank.

  “It’s a loop. On the first day, I walked from morning to night. Then the next day, I noticed a familiar looking tree with old markings in it. I added mine before walking the entire day again. The next day, I passed the same tree. I realized I could walk a hundred years through the same patch of woods.”

  “So this place has borders.”

  “I think of it as a cube.”

  “When you were in the woods overnight, did you see the wolves?”

  “It was too dark to see them. I heard them, though, but I didn’t know what they were. I climbed a tree every night so they couldn’t reach me. They were gone in the morning.”

  “I wonder if you slept in the same tree every night.”

  Quill frowns at me as if I’m mocking him. I don’t know what he sees on my face, but he returns to his work.

  “Were you scared when you spent the night in the tree?”

  “Fear is a physical reaction to the mind. Control your thoughts and you won’t feel fear.”

  I reach out and poke his stubbled cheek. He frowns at me again. This time, he’s genuinely hostile.

  “I’ve told you to stop touching me.”

  “I’m sorry. I was just remarking at how lifelike you seem. You know, for a robot.”

  Quill’s angry eyes lose their emotion, and he cocks an eyebrow. “Tell me about the man you killed.”

  His words are a punch in the gut, just as he intended. I step back and think about John.

  “He wasn’t as tall or muscular as you, but he had beautiful blue eyes.”

  Quill’s back faces me, and I swear the muscles tense when I compliment John. Perhaps, my companion isn’t a robot after all.

  “He was my Dom, and I was his sub. It began in the bedroom, but eventually, he controlled everything. I didn’t want to choose. I didn’t want to be in charge.”

  “That turned out well for you.”

  Ignoring his malicious comment, I think back to John. “I chose him because he was very dominant. He was also a masochist, and I needed pain.”

  “Do you still need it here?”

  “Are you asking if you can spank me?”

  Quill doesn’t react, but I can feel him rolling his eyes. I smile at the thought of his irritation.

  “Something happened when I was young, and pain helped me confront the anxiety from the incident.”

  “Why are you talking like that?”

  “It’s how my therapist talked.”

  “Did therapy help you?” he asks, and I hear the amusement in his voice.

  “No. She said I needed to learn to forgive myself, but I didn’t want to. I want to feel the guilt every day. The pain helped me deal with the guilt, but I never wanted the shame to leave me.”

  “Guilt for what?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Quill stands up and looks at me. “I’m amazed you have an emotion or experience you don’t feel the need to vomit on me.”

  “If you want me to stop speaking to you, just ask.”

  “Like how I asked you not to touch me?”

  “In my defense, I’m accustomed to huma
n contact. It’ll take time for me to become a robot like you.”

  “I don’t want to crush your hopes, but I was like this long before I arrived in the Lost Highway.”

  “Were you raised poorly?”

  “I was trained to kill. I feel like I repeat myself too often with you.”

  Quill walks to the porch and wipes his hands on his camouflage pants. Feeling scolded, I join him and remain silent.

  “When it warms up this way, a severe thunderstorm is coming,” he says, looking upward. “These aren’t like the one we had the other night. These storms are incredibly loud and shake everything. You’ll want to prepare for that.”

  While I nod at his warning, Quill glances at me and then at the woods.

  “Storms occur frequently. The good thing about them is the wolves and Death Dealers hide, so we don’t need to worry about them causing trouble. The downside is we can’t leave the cabin. Not when the cold brings the fog or when the heat brings the thunderstorms.”

  Nodding again, I watch the woods in the same way he does. I see nothing except trees blocking my view of everything past the clearing. Their line is a wall, trapping us into this area.

  I see now how the Lost Highway is a prison filled with smaller ones. This side of the highway becomes this part of the woods becomes this clearing becomes the cabin until we are locked away in the closet downstairs with barely enough room to move. Despite years of therapy and too many recent near death experiences, I still believe this place is the punishment I deserve.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Odessa

  In the Lost Highway, a storm doesn’t begin with a rumble in the distance. Instead, the world is quiet one moment. Then in the next, Mother Nature attacks.

  I am looking out the window at the quiet afternoon when the first roll of thunder shakes the cabin. Startled, I back away from the trembling walls. My gaze searches for Quill in the downpour, but he’s still outside doing whatever he does. I wrap my arms around my body and wait for the reassurance of his emotionless face to appear at the door.