“Oh, uh—”
“—Right, she was naked. I get that. I mean, what does she usually wear before bed, or after she gets out?”
“Her nightgown.”
Irene trained her eyes on the restless individuals in line outside The Place with No Name.
“Was her nightgown there when we left?”
Nicholas struggled to recall and blinked a few times. “I, uh, don’t remember.”
“Oh, fan-fucking-tastic. So, now we don’t know if we’re looking for a woman in a green gown, or a woman without clothes.”
“Look, I think we’ll notice one way or another.”
“Shit,” Irene thought through her lips. “Look at this place. If she’s wandered out naked, or even in that stupid gown of hers, she’s gonna be screwed.”
The build-up of traffic slowed the cars down to less than ten miles-per-hour.
“At least the road is slow,” Nicholas said. “Gives us a chance to look harder.”
Irene counted the youngsters in line to the nightclub. “Everyone looks like her. Even the men.”
Sure enough, each time a face folded into view, Iris’s face briefly enveloped those of the people she saw. Just as Irene and Nicholas were convinced they’d found her, the person’s real face crept into view.
The clothes they were wearing were the third or fourth thing they’d noticed. Several reasons to be disappointed. Several reasons why their efforts proved futile; sailing up the seedier parts of Chrome Valley without a paddle, wasting their time and effort. At least, that’s how it felt to Nicholas and Irene as all the hope slipped out of their hearts, down their legs, across the back seats, and out the exhaust pipe.
Irene shook her head and resisted the urge to cry. “Stay strong. Stay focused.”
Nicholas could scarcely believe he needed telling. “I am, I am—”
“—I wasn’t talking to you,” Irene snapped. “I was talking to myself. I need to hear those words. What I don’t need is the man who let my sister slip away telling me he’s staying focused and strong.”
“Huh? What do you mean by that?”
Irene folded her arms and turned her head to the passenger window. A gaggle of scantily-clad prostitutes held their middle fingers up at the car. The girls held their tongues out and flapped them across their lips.
“Never mind. Just keep looking.”
Nicholas reached for the car’s radio system on the dashboard.
“What are you doing?” Irene said. “This isn’t time for music—”
“—The news. Maybe the news can tell us something.”
The radio burst to life at a maddeningly high volume.
“—is Steven Sibald with your Throwback Friday, and this is Santo & Johnny from 1959.”
The twang of a guitar exploded through the speaker system, forcing Nicholas’s ears to prick up.
Irene eyed him as his face turned to stone and produced a gentle smile.
“You gonna turn to the news, or not?”
“Shh. Wait.”
The recognizable tune played on as Irene watched the hookers step around the drunk with the green Mohawk. He crawled forward and tried to grab at their ankles, only to receive a swift kick to the face from one of the girl’s stilettos.
“God, I hate this fucking place.”
The car stopped for a moment as Nicholas absorbed the tune. Then, he realized something. “That’s it. That’s it.”
Irene turned to him. “What’s it?”
He reached into his breast pocket and took Iris’s cell phone out. “The thing. The pass code thing. Here.”
He chucked the phone into Irene’s hand and lifted the handbrake.
Irene held the phone up in a huff. “What do you want me to do with this useless piece of plastic?”
“Nineteen-ninety. One, nine, nine, zero.”
“The pass code?”
Nicholas squinted and held his hand over his brow. A pair of giant headlamps on the opposite side of the road producing a blinding spectacle.
“No. The combination to her chastity belt,” he said with sarcasm. “Yes. The pass code. The year we got married. Put it in.”
Irene hit the four numbers in sequence. Her face lit up, as did the screen on Iris’s phone.
“It worked. It worked. We’re in!”
The front of a huge Mack truck swerved out of control, headed straight for the line of guests outside the nightclub.
“Good, good,” he said. “Check her call log and texts—”
BEEEEEEP.
The front of the truck narrowly missed the front of Nicholas’ car.
“Whoa.”
He hit the gas and sped away from the scene, just in time to avoid a trailing Bugatti tearing across the road.
“Shit,” he yelped as he spun the steering wheel to the right.
Swerve.
The Bugatti rocketed past the hood of Nicholas’ car and into a couple of pedestrians. A sliver of a white dress fabric flung into the air and landed on the windshield.
“Get out of here, now,” Irene screamed. “Drive, drive, drive.”
Nicholas hit the gas and used the sidewalk to escape the sudden scene of carnage they were about to leave behind.
Irene didn’t have time to look anywhere other than the screen of Iris’s cell phone.
“Shit, we could have been killed back there,” Nicholas said. “What the hell was that about?”
“Shut up, I’m trying to read.”
Flick-flick-swipe…
Nicholas eyed the commotion erupting far behind them in his side mirror.
“What is up with people? What was all that about—”
“—I said shut up,” Irene snapped as she read the first of a few text messages. “They’re all from you. Nothing in any of the other texts.”
A rampage of scared pedestrians barreled along the sidewalk, having seen the truck and Bugatti stop somewhere in the distance. The screams and cries from those affected shrank against the vanishing point in the side mirror.
Nicholas couldn’t tear his eyes away, failing to check the road ahead.
“Jesus Christ.”
He snapped out of his temporary bewilderment and eyed the neon lights that shrouded a building at the exit ahead - The Chrome Theater.
“I’ll pull up outside the building,” he said. “It’s not safe.”
Irene looked up for the first time since breaking into the cell phone. She shot Nicholas a glance, as if to say she was worried. Nicholas knew she’d found something.
“Yeah, pull over. Let’s interrogate this phone.”
Chapter 15
It all happened in slow motion…
Iris’s knees crashed to the stone-cold ground alongside the green bag, just as a bullet zipped past her head and sliced through the strands of her black hair.
She watched the bullet rocket away from her face as she turned to Cind’rella.
Spatch.
It punctured Cind’rella’s leg, the force of which threw his body against the back of the truck.
“Gah!”
Big Six jumped forward and fired at Ahmed and Freddie, who scrambled away in two separate directions.
Wydron fired at the pair as they dived behind a box.
“Fuckin’ let us go, man,” Freddie screamed at the ceiling.
Wydron barked at the crates. “Ain’t no way you’re gettin’ outta here alive.” He turned to Big Six and pointed at the truck.
“Get in and start the engine.”
Big Six snatched the duffel out of Iris’s hands and ran over to the steps to the driver’s side of the truck. “You got it. But first I need to take our ‘ting back.”
He pulled the door open and sat inside as Wydron pointed his Glock at the crates Freddie and Ahmed hid behind.
“Mow them two terrorists down—”
“—Ugh, ugh,” Cind’rella squealed as he clutched his chest. “Wydron, m-man. I’ve been hit.”
He coughed up several ropes of blood down his d
ress. Unimpressed, Wydron kicked the man’s bare legs.
“Get up.”
Cind’rella’s croaks of terror punched through his chest. “Nawwww.”
“I said get up.”
Freddie hopped out from behind the crate and fired at the two men.
“We gotta get outta here,” Ahmed said.
“Don’t you think I know that, you prick?”
Two more bullets sped through the air and slammed into Cind’rella’s side.
Vroom. Vroom.
The Mack truck’s engine burst to life.
“Yo, Wydron,” Big Six yelled through the window. “Get back.”
Wydron waved his gun at Cind’rella. “C’mon. Get away from the truck.”
“I c-can’t m-move.”
“I said get movin’.”
Tug-tug.
Wydron grabbed Cind’rella’s dress and yanked him away from the side of the truck. He spotted the white material trapped between the two back doors. “Shit.”
Vroom.
The truck moved forward, taking the screaming Cind’rella along the ground behind him.
“Argh!”
“What the fuck?”
Toe Tag fired at the two crates, hoping to hit Freddie or Ahmed - or both - as he ran over to Iris.
“Yo, lady. You need to move. Now.”
Iris looked up from her chest with tears strewn over her face.
“Please, lady. Get up.”
Both he and Iris turned to the truck as it barreled forward, blaring its horn.
Freddie peered over the top of the crate to see the giant truck headed towards him. “Oh, shit.”
“What?” Ahmed squealed.
“Move.”
Freddie grabbed Ahmed’s arm and pulled him out of the path of the oncoming truck.
Smash.
Big Six drove the truck straight through the crates, busting them to smithereens. Cind’rella twisted across the ground, trailing behind the wheels like a human snake, twisting to death on the road.
“Yaaarrggghhh.”
“Goddamn it,” Wydron screamed, and turned to Toe Tag. “Get the Bugatti. We’re gettin’ out of here.”
Toe Tag pointed at Iris. “What about her?”
“I’ll do her now.”
Wydron marched over to Iris and aimed his gun at her forehead. “Shoulda put a bullet in her brain ages ago.”
Iris looked death right in the face. She didn’t close her eyes, and kept her stare on the barrel of Wydron’s gun as it enlarged in her field of vision.
“Time to go to sleep, my sleepwalking bitch—”
BANG-SPLATCH.
No sooner had Wydron completed his sentence, than his mouth bust apart like an overstuffed, meat-filled balloon. The front of his skull pushed open and pushed his gray matter into the air.
He’d been shot by Freddie.
Toe Tag gasped as Wydron hit the floor, dead. “Jesus F-Fuck.”
“Hey.” Freddie turned his gun at Toe Tag. “That truck, man. We can’t let it escape. You got a ride?”
“Yeah. Man. The Bugatti outside,” Toe Tag said. “Put your gun down.”
“I will if you will.”
Both men felt a mutual pang of trust between them, and lowered their guns.
Iris rose to her feet and held her breath, catching Freddie’s attention.
“Who’s she?”
“Dunno,” Toe Tag said. “Some junkie on Prizm. She’s seen everything.”
Freddie followed Toe Tag as he ran to the warehouse door. “Give me the keys to the car.”
Toe Tag fumbled in his pocket for the keys. “No. I’m driving.”
“The fuck you are,” Freddie said. “We got a truck-full of our prints and that big, black guy has taken our money. We can’t let them get away. Let’s go.”
Toe Tag pointed to Iris. “She comes with us.”
***
The Mack truck joined the main road, speeding for the freeway with a thoroughly-confused Big Six at the wheel.
“Where is everyone?” he barked at the rearview mirror. “Huh?”
He turned to the side mirror to see a trailing wedding dress tumbling around a couple of feet behind the back wheels.
“What the—?”
Swerve.
He turned the truck into the middle lane and hit the gas, forcing Cind’rella side-to-side, rolling onto his own body. Scraps the dress flicked into the air he Cind’rella clutched at the long tail-end caught in the doors.
“Help. Help.”
Vrooom.
40 mph… 45 mph…
Big Six shook his head, hoping his mind was playing tricks on him.
Just then, the headlights from the black Bugatti bled into Cind’rella’s view.
“Uuggghhhh.”
“Is that Cind’rella?” Toe Tag said from behind the wheel of the Bugatti. “What’s he doing hanging off the end of the truck?”
He hit the horn three times, firing off the William Tell Overture into the night sky.
Dozens of cars blared their horns in retaliation as the Bugatti snaked between them and sped up behind the truck.
“H-Help m-me,” Cind’rella screamed as the road scraped the skin away from his bare legs.
Iris glanced at the dashboard clock from the front passenger seat - 12:15 am.
In the back passenger seat, Freddie buried the nozzle of his gun in Toe Tag’s temple. Ahmed sat next to him, praying the car wouldn’t crash as it bolted up the road.
“Oh, we’re so screwed, you know.”
“Shut up, you fool,” Freddie barked back at his brother and turned to Toe Tag. “Hit the gas, asshole. Don’t let them get away.”
“I ain’t, I ain’t.”
Ahmed interjected with his words of wisdom. “Keep on ‘em, man. We need to get rid of that truck and all the evidence.”
“And the money,” Toe Tag and Freddie added in unison.
“Yeah, and the money.”
Iris kept her calm in the front passenger seat. She turned to her right to find Toe Tag rolling the driver’s side window down. Fresh air rushed into the car, lifting her hair over the backrest, and pushing Freddie back against his seat.
“Man, close the window.”
“You want to get this truck, or not?” Toe Tag yelled as he slammed his foot to the floor. “They’re getting away.”
Neeaawww.
The Bugatti sped up even faster. 95 mph, 100 mph…
Iris eyed the dashboard clock - 12:18 am. She tried to squeeze her eyelids shut, but couldn’t, and so brought her eyes to the road ahead to find the back of a blue car screaming towards them.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Screeech.
“Jeez.”
Toe tag swerved the Bugatti into the fast lane. The force from the turn threw everyone in the car to the right.
Freddie grabbed the handle above the door and pulled himself back, trying to evade Ahmed’s fists.
“Bro, get off me man, you gay.”
“I ain’t gay!” Freddie snapped. “This fuckin’ idiot’s driving like a woman.”
Iris held her hand out and tried to grip something to steady herself, and knocked the media player on the dashboard by accident.
The car’s interior lit up like a Christmas tree, along with its speaker system.
“Yo, yo, yo, what’s good?” the radio blasted over the thunderous car engine. “You’re listening to Steven Sibald’s Friday Throwback. Next up, we got a classic for you from 1985—”
“—This ain’t no time for music, man,” Freddie yelped from the back seat. “Turn it off—”
“—Angels all out dressed tonight looking for some action, and this is for you. There Must be an Angel by the Eurythmics,” Sibald finished as Annie Lennox’s opening chorus kicked in, followed by the first verse.
Toe Tag leaned over the steering wheel, dodging the slower cars, and squinted at Cind’rella tumbling all over the road.
“Shit, man. He’s so screwed
.”
Cind’rella certainly was screwed.
His bare heels broken open, exposing the bone, leaving a trail of thick blood on the road. Clutching for life on his wedding dress, he watched the flesh on his thighs bust open and tear away from the bone, chewed by the merciless road conveyor-belting through his flesh.
The music track provided a bizarre soundtrack for the proceedings.
“Gaaaah!” he cried as he felt his spine break and shatter as it bumped over the road at high speed.
The Bugatti sped up, throwing a God-like plume of light from its headlamps over what little remained of Cind’rella’s kicking body.
“I’ve seen some crazy-ass shit in my time, but this is fucked up,” Toe Tag said. “There’s no way he’s gonna survive this one.”
He watched on as Cind’rella used his dress to hoist himself towards the back of the truck doors.
“He’ll be lucky if there’s anything left of him by the time the truck pulls up.”
Ahmed peered at the battered, emaciated man in the wedding dress as he tried to claw at the swinging truck doors. “Oh, no. No, no, no—”
“—What’s he doing?” Freddie asked, quite unsure about the believability of his own eyes and ears. He’s trying to get back in the truck.”
“But he’s got no legs left,” Toe Tag said. “Idiot.”
Sure enough, the road had taken care of much of Cind’rella’s lower-half. Where he once had fully functioning legs, he now had long gray sticks of bone that created orange sparks against the friction of the road.
“Oh dear,” Toe tag said. “That ain’t no way to go, man.”
As Cind’rella roared in pain, a fat string of blood shot out of his nose and splattered up the Bugatti’s windshield. One, final yelp of agony, and he managed to reach the back doors.
He clutched the handle and, before he pulled the doors open, he made the mistake of looking down at his body to inspect the source of the pain.
“Awww, no.”
No flesh.
No skin.
Just two bones and a broken kneecap. An exposed pelvic bone with little in the way of human padding. His arms fared better, but most of the flesh had burned onto the road. A complicated mess of former human-being, now resembling a double-fried pancake, soaked in his own gore.
“Bwuergh.”
Somnambulist Page 15