Ashes

by Haunted Computer Books

  "You shouldn'ta been out so late," J.D. whispered. "Now look what you gone and done to yourself."

  He glanced at one white exposed breast that had managed to avoid visible harm. Then he let her roll forward again. Her bones rattled like lug nuts in a hubcap.

  "Now what am I going to do with you?" he said, licking his lips. He looked both ways but there were no headlights in sight.

  "Can't leave you out here, that's for sure. Might get yourself run over, and then where would you be?"

  That, plus J.D. didn't want his ass behind bars for second degree murder. A few speeding tickets were one thing, but this deal meant some hard time. At state prison, a pretty boy like him would be up on the blocks in no time, and the grease monkeys wouldn't wait for every twenty thousand miles to give him a lube job, either.

  He stood up and looked around. He could slide her into the ditch, but that would be leaving things up to luck. She might be found before morning if some gap-toothed farmer came out early to get a fresh squeeze of swollen udder. And who knew what the forensics boys would come up with? He thought of the paint flakes up the road. They could look into those little microscopes and say whatever they wanted to, and the cops had been after him for years.

  "Nope. Can't leave you here."

  He walked behind the Camaro and unlocked the trunk. He unrolled a tarp that was stowed in one corner. He didn't want to mess up his trunk carpet. He took off his leather jacket and tossed it on the passenger seat, but he kept his gloves on.

  The night smelled of cow manure and car exhaust and sweet, coppery body fluids. Cammie's engine ticked as it cooled. He patted her on the hood as he went past. Then he stooped and lifted the broken body.

  It hung like a rag doll, with too many universal joints in the arms and legs. It was light, too, as if all its gears and cogs had slipped out. He put her in the trunk, hearing the largest chunk of her skull ding off the wheel well. He walked up the road until he found the other sandal, then he tossed it in and closed the trunk.

  He drove back to town without breaking fifty-five. It was raining by the time he hit the outskirts.

  Mama must not have heard him come in. She was already gone when he woke up, down checking side stitches on boxer shorts for five-and-a-quarter plus production. He was glad he'd slept through her coffee and butter toast. That made another half-dozen hundred questions she'd never get around to bugging him with.

  He winced when he saw Cammie in daylight. There was a dimple on top of the fender and the chrome striping was peeling away from the side panel, damage he hadn't noticed the night before. He drove down to the shop and pulled into the middle bay.

  Floyd was smoking a cigarette and wiping his hands on a greasy orange rag. Floyd owned the shop, and liked to let everyone know it. He glowered at J.D. with oil-drop eyes.

  "Yo, Jayce," he said. "What you doing here so early?"

  "Got a ding on the shoulder. Need you to hammer it out."

  "Had you a little bender, did you? Demolition derby with a mailbox?"

  Floyd snickered and then started coughing. He pulled his cigarette out of his mouth and spat a wad of phlegm onto the greasy concrete floor.

  "Just get me a rubber mallet, wouldja?"

  "Sure, I'll help. Thanks for asking," Floyd said.

  "You don't have to be a smart-ass."

  "And you don't have to work here if you don't want to."

  Floyd could be a real pain in the plug hole. But he was a body-work pro. He'd worked the pits for Bobby Allison about twenty years back. When he got down to business, he was an artist, and steel and fiberglass and primer were his media.

  And J.D. could tell Floyd loved Cammie almost as much as he did. They pounded out the dents and replaced the headlight frame and put on the primer coat before they started taking care of the customers’ cars. Then at lunch, Floyd feathered out a coat of red so that it blended with the color of the rest of the car's body.

  J.D. was up to his elbows in an automatic transmission when he saw Floyd put down his airbrush and step back to admire his work.

  "That's gooder than snuff," he proclaimed. J.D. nodded in appreciation. The quarter panel didn't have so much as a shadow in it.

  "Preesh, Floyd. Nobody can fix them like you do," J.D. said.

  "Nope. Throw me your keys, Jayce. I need to change my plugs, and I left my good ratchet in your trunk yesterday."

  "Hey, buddy. After all you've done for me? You got to be kidding. Let me do it."

  Floyd frowned around the black fingerprints on his cigarette butt. Floyd didn't like other people tinkering under the hood of his '57 Chevy. But J.D. moved quickly, before Floyd could say no.

  J.D. popped the trunk and there she was, Miss American Pie. Mincemeat pie. The blood had clotted and dried and she was starting to smell a little. Her left arm was draped over the toolbox. As he moved it away, he noticed that it had stiffened a little from rigor mortis.

  He clattered around in the toolbox and found the ratchet. He was about to slam the lid when he saw that her eyes were open. Damned things weren't open last night, he was positive. Her eyes didn't sparkle at all. They were staring at him.

  "What's the matter, J.D.?"

  J.D. gulped and slammed the trunk. "Nothing," he said, holding up the ratchet. "Found it."

  "Make sure you gap the damned things right. Don't want you screwing up my gas mileage."

  "You got it, Floyd."

  J.D. drove out to the trailer park after work to pick up Melanie, his Thursday girl. He thought he heard a noise in the rear end as he pulled into the gravel driveway. Transfer case was groaning a little. He'd have to check it out later. He honked his horn and the trailer door opened.

  Melanie slid in the passenger side and J.D. watched her rear settle into the bucket seat. She smiled at him. She was a big-boned redhead with lots of freckles, but her aqua eye shadow was so thick it quivered when she blinked.

  "What you want to do, J.D.?"

  He looked out the window. In the next yard, two brats were playing with a broken Easy-Bake oven. "Ride around, I reckon."

  "Ride around? That's all you ever want to do."

  "What else is there to do? Would you rather sit around the trailer park with your thumb up your ass?"

  Melanie pouted. She was a first-class pouter. J.D. had told her that her lip drooped so low you could drive up on it and swap out your oil filter.

  "Okay," she said after a moment. "Let's go circle the burger joint."

  That wasn't a bad idea. Everybody hung out at the burger joint, the muscleheads and the dope peddlers and the zombie teens. And that meant everybody would see that the Camaro was unscratched. J.D. didn't have a damn thing to hide.

  Later, after they'd split two burgers and a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, J.D. had driven out to their favorite dirt back road. The sun was just going down by the time he'd sweet-talked Melanie into the back seat. He was wrestling with her double-hook D-cup when she suddenly tensed underneath him.

  "Joo hear that?" she whispered. J.D. heard only crickets and the slight squeaking of leaf springs.

  "Hear what?"

  "A scratching, like. On metal."

  J.D. looked up. He always parked away from the trees out on these country roads. Damned branches would claw the hell out of a custom paint job. He saw nothing but the gangly shadows of the far underbrush.

  "I don't hear nothing, babe. Now, where were we?"

  "There it went again. Sounds like it's coming from the trunk."

  "Bullshit."

  "Sounds like a squirrel running around in there."

  J.D. strained his ears. He heard the faint rattle of tools. Then, fingernails on metal.

  He sat up suddenly.

  "What the hell, J.D.?"

  "Nothing. Better get you back to town, is all."

  Melanie whimpered. She was as good at whimpering as she was at pouting.

  "But J.D., I thought—"

  "Not tonight, I got . . . work to do."

  She whined all the w
ay back into town, but J.D. didn't hear her. All he could hear were the low moans coming from the trunk and the sound of fists banging like rubber mallets off the trunk lid.

  After J.D. dropped off Melanie, he pulled out behind Floyd's garage and looked around the auto graveyard. Here was where Detroit's mistakes came to die. Pontiacs draped over Plymouths while Chryslers sagged on cinder blocks. A school bus slept in its bed of briars. A couple of Studebakers decayed beside the high wooden fence, and a dozen junk jeeps were lined in rows like dead soldiers awaiting body bags. The few unbroken headlights were like watching eyes, but they would be the only witnesses.

  Back here, Miss American Mincemeat Pie could rust in peace.

  He stepped out among the bones of cars, gang-raped engines, and jagged chassis. The moon was glaring down, all of last night's clouds now long-hauled to the east. J.D. gripped the trunk key between his sweaty fingers.

  "Open it, J.D.," said the voice. It was a young, hollow voice, with the kind of drawn-out accent a country girl might have. The long syllables reverberated inside the tin can of the trunk space.

  J.D. looked around the junkyard.

  "Stick it in, muscleboy," the voice taunted. "You know you want to."

  He unlatched the trunk and it opened with a rush of foul air.

  She sat up and arched her back.

  "Cramped in here," she said. The moon shone fully on her, like a spotlight. The raw flesh of her face was tinged green, and her eyes were ringed with black. She reached up to smooth her hair and her arm hung like a broken clutch-spring.

  "You . . . y-you're dead." But that was dumb. He knew machines didn't die, they only got rebuilt.

  "Now, do I look dead?"

  J.D. didn't know what to say. It wasn't the kind of thing he could look up in the troubleshooting section of his owner's manual.

  "Still got a few miles left on me," she said, tugging at the strap of her dress that had slipped too low over her mottled chest. Her eyes were wide but as dull as Volkswagen hubcaps. "Besides, all I need is a little body work and I'll be good as new."

  "What's the big idea, screwing up my date like that?" J.D. angled his head so he could look at her out of the corners of his eyes.

  "Your cheating days are over, rough rider. You've only got room in your heart for one girl now."

  "Whatchoo talking about? And why did you dump over my toolbox?" J.D. couldn’t be sure, but it looked like radiator fluid was leaking from her eyes.

  "A lady's always in search of that one good tool. What say we get it on?"

  "No. I'm going to stuff you behind the seat of that Suburban over there, and you're going to stay until you're both a collector's item."

  "J.D., is that any way to treat a lady?"

  "Well, you ought to be glad I think enough of you to leave you in a Chevy. There's plenty of Datsuns out here."

  She shook her head, and tattered meat swung below her face. "I don't think so, muscleboy."

  Her finger flexed like a carb linkage as she beckoned him closer.

  J.D. couldn't help himself. He was as captivated as he'd been by his first Hot Rodmagazine. She smelled of gasoline and grave dirt, hot grease and raw sex. She'd oozed out all over the spare tire. He'd never get his trunk clean.

  "I think we're ready for a midnight run." She slid her mangled tongue over her teeth.

  He leaned over the back bumper. He felt a cold limp hand slide behind his Mark Martin belt buckle. She put the mashed blackberries of her lips to his ear.

  "And from now on, I ride up front," she whispered, and her words came out with no breath.

  Three months, and J.D. was dragging.

  The summer heat was wearing on him, and he'd lost twenty of his hundred-and-forty pounds. But it was even worse for her. She had gone from pink to green to gray and still the meat clung stubbornly to her bones.

  He hid her during the day, in a self-storage garage he rented. Floyd had given him hell at first, asking him why he walked all the time these days, was he afraid of putting another dent in Cammie or what. But lately Floyd had quit the ribbing. This morning Floyd said J.D. looked like he'd been run all night by the hounds of hell.

  "Something like that," J.D. wanted to say, but he'd promised to keep the affair a secret.

  And that evening, as he'd done every night since he'd picked up his new passenger, he carried a five-gallon can of gas to the garage and filled up the Camaro.

  And when the sun slid behind the flat Midwestern horizon and midnight raised its oil-soaked rags, he backed the car out and pointed it toward the street.

  "Where to tonight, Cammie?" he asked, as if he had to ask.

  She grinned at him. She was always grinning, now that her face was mostly skull. "The usual, muscleboy."

  He drove out to that three-mile stretch of open black road and idled. Oblivion beckoned beyond the yellow cones of the headlights.

  "One-sixty-five tonight," she said.

  He gulped and nodded. One-sixty-five. He could do it. Probably.

  Not that he had any choice. He could damage her flesh, but couldn't break the timing chains of love.

  "Okay, Cammie," he said to her.

  As J.D. stomped the accelerator and jerked his foot off the clutch, he wondered if this would be the night of consummation. Would she let him release the steering wheel as he wound into fifth gear, making them truly one, all blood and twisted metal and spare parts?

  He glanced at her. There was no sign of requited love in the dim holes of her skull. She was as cold as a machine, unforgiving, more metal than bone, more petroleum than blood.

  She was going to ride shotgun forever, as the odometer racked up miles and miles of endless highway.

  If only he could please her. But he was afraid that he was nothing to her, just a vapor in the combustion chambers of her heart.

  He shifted into fourth.

  ####

  DOG PERSON

  The final breakfast was scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, grits with real butter. Alison peeled four extra strips of bacon from the slab. On this morning of all mornings, she would keep the temperature of the stove eye just right. She wasn’t the cook of the house, but Robert had taught her all about Southern cuisine, especially that of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Before they met, her breakfast consisted of a cup of what Robert teasingly called a “girly French coffee” and maybe a yogurt. He’d introduced her to the joys of an unhealthy start to the morning, along with plenty of other things, the best of the rest coming after sundown.

  Even after two years, Alison wasn’t as enthusiastic about the morning cholesterol infusion as Robert was. Or his dog. About once a week, though, she’d get up a half-hour early, drag the scarred skillet from beneath the counter, and peel those slick and marbled pieces of pig fat. The popping grease never failed to mark a red spot or two along her wrist as she wielded the spatula. But she wouldn’t gripe about the pain today.

  Robert would be coming down any minute. She could almost picture him upstairs, brushing his teeth without looking in the mirror. He wouldn’t be able to meet his own eyes. Not with the job that awaited him.

  Alison cracked six eggs in a metal bowl and tumbled them with a whisk until the yellow and white were mingled but not fully mixed. The grits bubbled and burped on the back burner. Two slices of bread stood in the sleeves of the toaster, and the coffee maker gurgled as the last of its heated water sprayed into the basket. Maxwell House, good old all-American farm coffee.

  She avoided looking in the pantry, though the louvered doors were parted. The giant bag of Kennel Ration stood in a green trash can. On the shelf above was a box of Milk Bones and rows of canned dog food. Robert had a theory that hot dogs and turkey bologna were cheaper dog treats than the well-advertised merchandise lines, but he liked to keep stock on hand just in case. That was Robert; always planning ahead. But some things couldn’t be planned, even when you expected them.

  Robert entered the room, buttoning the cuffs on his flannel shirt. The skin beneath his eyes was puffed and l
avender. “Something smells good.”

  She shoveled the four bacon strips from the skillet and placed them on a double layer of paper towels. “Only the best today.”

  “That’s sweet of you.”

  “I wish I could do more.”

  “You’ve done plenty.”

  Robert moved past her without brushing against her, though the counter ran down the center of the kitchen and narrowed the floor space in front of the stove. Most mornings, he would have given her an affectionate squeeze on the rear and she would have threatened him with the spatula, grinning all the while. This morning he poured himself a cup of coffee without asking if she wanted one.

  She glanced at Robert as he bent into the refrigerator to get some cream. At thirty-five, he was still in shape, the blue jeans snug around him and only the slightest bulge over his belt. His brown hair showed the faintest streaks of gray, though the lines around his eyes and mouth had grown visibly deeper in the last few months. He wore a beard but he hadn’t shaved his neck in a week. He caught her looking.

  Alison turned her attention back to the pan. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not much to say.” He stirred his coffee, tapped his spoon on the cup’s ceramic rim, and reached into the cabinet above the sink. He pulled the bottle of Jack Daniels into the glare of the morning sun. Beyond the window, sunlight filtered through the red and golden leaves of maple trees that were about to enter their winter sleep.

  Robert never drank before noon, but Alison didn’t comment as he tossed a splash into his coffee. “I made extra bacon,” she said. “A special treat.”

  Robert nodded, his eyes shot with red lightning bolts. He had tossed all night, awakening her once at 3 a.m. when his toenails dug into her calf. He must have been dreaming of days with Sandy Ann, walking by the river, camping in the hollows of Grandfather Mountain, dropping by the animal shelter to volunteer for a couple of hours.