Lost Souls

by Poppy Z. Brite - (ebook by Undead)

  He could tell her the truth. That Zillah was of another race, a race whose seed was bloody poison. That Zillah’s baby would rip her apart inside and she would die as Jessy had died fifteen years ago, her thighs sticky with blood, her eyes rolled back silver-rimmed in her head. Yes, he might tell her all that. She was already mad enough to believe it. But if she knew what danger she was in, she might tell someone else. She might convince someone. And that would endanger Nothing, would endanger Zillah and the others. The young, the fine, the fire of a dying race. No. He could not betray them.

  “You must get rid of it because he will leave you,” Christian said lamely. “You’ll be alone.”

  “I’ll follow them wherever they go,” Ann said. “I’ll follow Zillah.”

  Her hair hung loose about her face, straggling, bright as flames. She was just a girl. A girl like Jessy, a human girl who should have a life without fear or pain caused by the whims of others. A girl who should have healthy children that she could live to care for. Babies she could nurse at her breast; babies that would not feed upon the tissue of her innards.

  Christian knew he could not let the others leave him a second time. He could not watch that black van disappear down the road and wonder whether he would ever see it again. If they left Missing Mile, he would follow them. They would protect him from Wallace Creech. And if Ann followed too, perhaps he could convince her. Perhaps there would be some way to keep her from giving birth to another of Zillah’s beautiful, deadly children.

  “They’ll go to New Orleans,” he told her. “To the French Quarter.” There; it was done. She might follow them; she might find them. She might not.

  Christian turned away toward the trailer. He did not look back at the girl who stood by the rosebushes, the girl with funereal black lace tied in her bright hair. The girl who even though there was no physical resemblance, none at all, reminded him so strongly of Jessy fifteen years ago.

  The same bewitched light shone in her eyes.

  24

  After they left the Halloween party, Ghost drove to Ann’s house. Her Datsun was not parked in the driveway, but her father’s red Buick was. Ghost didn’t want to talk to Simon Bransby, not tonight, not about all this. And he could see that there was no light on in Ann’s corner room.

  Ghost swung past the Greyhound station over by the old Farmer’s Hardware store. Ann’s car was in the parking lot, but it already looked abandoned. The bus station was dark; no one sat on the lone bench out back. The southbound night bus came through Missing Mile every night at 10:05. It was long gone.

  Ghost drove back to Burnt Church Road, grabbed their toothbrushes and Steve’s bag of pot, and pointed the car out of town. He could think of nothing better to do. New Orleans, Steve had said, and Ann was probably headed there too.

  Steve slumped against the passenger door, his breathing deep, heavy, exhausted. He was in no shape to answer questions. So Ghost took N.C. 42 south out of Missing Mile without looking over his shoulder. He knew he would be back. He and Steve could travel anywhere, but they always came back to Missing Mile.

  The road made him as nervous as a racehorse. He wasn’t good at driving, not like Steve. Driving was in Steve’s blood. But the highway billowed and writhed before Ghost’s eyes; stars glittered in the rearview mirror; the moon dodged shreds of pale cloud. The night was dark, then bright, then dark again.

  Halloween night. A bad time to travel. What might be keeping pace with the T-bird? What strange eyes might mark the car’s passage? Ghost kept the windows cranked tight shut, kept his nostrils flared for trouble.

  As he drove past Miz Catlin’s place, Ghost saw a lone candle flickering in the front window. Miz Catlin knew enough to stay inside tonight, her small fire warming the good spirits and keeping the bad ones away.

  With a longing that ached in his bones, Ghost wished he were asleep between the crisp faded sheets of Miz Catlin’s guest bed. He had spent so many childhood nights in that bed, napping, waking and tossing, twining his fingers in his hair and trying to hear the quiet conversations of Miz Catlin and his grandmother in the next room. Sometimes they spoke of things he couldn’t understand, things that frightened him, names he could never recall when clear sunlight spilled through the windowpanes the next morning. Astaroth. He thought he remembered that. Or was it asafoetida? Sometimes, as old women will, they spoke of recipes and grown children and husbands strayed or buried. Still Ghost had listened rapt, turning over each word he could hear, keeping it like a jewel-colored pebble or a broken blue eggshell somewhere in his mind.

  And sometimes… sometimes they spoke of him. At those times he thought his ears would pull loose from his head and fly away, so hard did they stretch to listen.

  “He won’t ever have it easy, Deliverance. The boy’s gift is just too damn strong.” That was Miz Catlin. She meant him, Ghost. The gift was the things he knew, or felt, without having any way to know. The things he couldn’t tell just anybody, the things his grandmother always understood.

  “I know it, Catlin. Nobody with the gift ever has an easy time, ’specially not when they’re as open-hearted as my Ghost. Let that boy try to tell a lie and his forehead turns to glass.” That was his grandmother, her voice softer than Miz Catlin’s, her words softer too. “But I trust him to use it well. He’ll never hurt anybody with his gift.” Her voice had lowered then. “The only thing I worry about is, his gift might hurt him. He’ll spend his life feeling everybody else’s pain. Takes a lot of strength not to lay down and be crushed under that weight.”

  Ghost jerked awake and tossed his head. He was being lulled to sleep by voices from the past, by the night road, by the spirits drifting between midnight and dawn. As he drove past the graveyard outside Corinth, Ghost saw the humped stones palely gleaming, the rags of mist that rose from the cold ground.

  He felt the hair at the back of his neck trying to stand up. Lie down and be quiet, he told it. Those graves weren’t dangerous. Even if spirits roamed there, they were just people. Frightened, maybe, because their bodies were rotting and drying and dusting away. Frightened and maybe even angry. But still people. They couldn’t hurt him or Steve. Not like some things. Some of the monsters were alive.

  Ghost thought of Miles Hummingbird. Did Miles roam tonight? Did his spirit soar on the night winds like the roar of the ocean? And would Miles have to return to his grave at dawn, summoned back by some rooster crowing, some train whistle blasting far away in the cold morning? Ghost tried to send his mind into the night, out where Miles or Miz Deliverance might hear him. Help me, my dear dead, he thought. Help me stay awake. Help Steve wake up without a really bad hangover. Let him want to drive because I don’t know how much longer I can keep this steamboat on the road. Help me if you can.

  It didn’t work, not right then. But an hour later, as U.S. 1 took them down into South Carolina, Steve unfolded himself, groaned, and said, “What the fuck are you doing driving my car?”

  Thank you, thought Ghost as he went to sleep, his head leaning against the window, his eyes blessedly shut. Thanks. And good night.

  Speeding away from midnight, Steve felt good. Good because they had found a truck stop where four cups of bitter black coffee had sent his hangover to headache heaven. Good because he’d tuned in to an FM station that played classic rock all night long. He sang along with the old tunes loud enough to keep himself awake, soft enough to let Ghost sleep.

  But good most of all because they were on the road again. He was not thinking about Ann, or green-eyed Zillah (that little jerkoff, Steve’s mind automatically subtitled him), or even New Orleans. He was not brooding over the way the last few months had turned to shit. He was not thinking at all. He was only singing along with the radio, letting the cold wind whip his hair across his eyes, letting the road wash his soul clean. Heaviness fell away with each mile he left behind. He felt weightless. God, he could road-trip forever. He knew what lay at the end of the road: more of Ann’s bullshit, more fury, more pain. But the highway was home.

/>   After a while something began to nibble at his happiness. I’ve got maybe thirty-five bucks on me, he figured. My last paycheck from Whirling Disc, less beer money. And Ghost never carries any cash. We’re gonna need money soon.

  Okay, but there was a way to solve that problem. Dangerous. Fuckin’ renegade business. But so easy, if he could pull it off.

  Steve started scanning the roadside. Used-car dealerships, orange sodium lights glinting on rows and rows of souped-up wrecks, making them look like cars in an old black-and-white movie. A railyard, tracks crossing and diverging like some tangled puzzle of wood and iron, boxcars casting long square shadows. There, up ahead—that was what he wanted. A ramshackle little gas station, closed down for the night. And outside, the dim glow of a Coke machine. The old-fashioned kind. The kind you could jimmy. Steve pulled up in front of the store and killed the lights.

  “Don’t,” Ghost said thickly.

  “Go back to sleep,” Steve told him. “It’ll buy our beer in the French Quarter.”

  He fished through the mess in the backseat and found his trusty coat hanger, knelt, and fed it into the coin-return slot. It was about to catch… there … he could feel it nearly catch. If the Coke machine had been a girl, Steve would have been getting ready to make it come like a banshee.

  “That’s it, baby,” he muttered, and then something with a lot of weight behind it slammed into his back. Pain flared deep in his kidneys. Steve lost his balance and spilled backward into the dust of the parking lot.

  “Looks like we got us a trick-or-treater.”

  Steve twisted to meet the two most emptily gleeful pairs of eyes he had ever seen. These two made Zillah’s thug friends look like geniuses… or at least sub-geniuses. They had sloping foreheads and tattoos that wound down ropy-muscled arms and spread dark tendrils over the backs of grimy hands. One of them was broad-chested with features that seemed too large and sensual for his face—a redneck Dionysus. The other was scrawny; his colorless hair fell straight and fine from under a mesh baseball cap stitched with the Coors logo, a trusty asshole indicator if there ever was one. In one knuckly fist he gripped a hammer.

  He grinned at Steve, showing crooked little teeth. “We got anything for trick-or-treaters, Willy?”

  Willy laughed. The sound made up in malice what it lacked in humor. “Shit, I didn’t save no candy. You got any candy, Charlie?”

  “Yeah.” Charlie swung the hammer. It whistled past Steve’s head, inches away. “I got me a big jawbreaker right here.”

  “Fuck off,” he said, struggling to his knees. “I wasn’t bothering you.” His voice sounded thin and scared. He cursed it.

  “Now will you listen to this?” Willy’s face was suddenly the picture of shocked innocence. “Asshole was fixin’ to rip off my daddy’s Coke machine in the parking lot of my daddy’s store. And he thinks we ought fuck off and leave him be. What you say, Charlie?”

  “Uh-uh.” Charlie let loose a high, toneless giggle. “I think we better beat the shit out of him.”

  The gas station didn’t belong to Willy’s daddy. With a sudden helpless fury, Steve was sure of that. They were carrying a hammer, for fuck’s sake. Why would you carry a hammer around a deserted gas station in the middle of the night? To bash in the skull of some punk city kid you caught ripping off the Coke machine? Not likely. To bust a window, maybe? To pound hell out of the cash register? Bingo, Steve congratulated himself. You win the prize. Willy’s gonna give you the Golden Ticket.

  Steve sputtered laughter. It came with no warning, hysterical and beyond control. He leaned against the Coke machine and tried to catch his breath, but he couldn’t help it. Willy was going to give him the Golden Ticket, and bang-bang, Charlie’s silver hammer was going to come down upon his head. Then maybe they could make him sqeeeeeeal like a Pig—Steve knew he’d better stop laughing, knew things might get real unpleasant around here if he kept laughing, but he couldn’t quit. Not until Charlie’s fist smashed into his cheekbone and the sole of Willy’s boot came down on his ribs. Or maybe it was Willy punching him in the face and Charlie stomping his ribs. It didn’t matter.

  He grabbed a thick jeans-clad ankle and yanked. Charlie went down. The hammer flew out of his hand and thunked into the dust six feet away. Steve smelled shit. It was masked under the smell of cheap beer and redneck sweat, but it was shit all right. He thought of saying Pardon me, but which one of you stepped in shit? and snorted more laughter, crazy laughter, through the pain in his face and his ribs.

  Willy was coming for him again. He brought his legs up and pistoned both boot heels into the greasy crotch of Willy’s jeans. Willy doubled up with only a loud grunt; apparently he was more of a man than Charlie. But here came good old Charlie again, and he’d got his silver hammer back, could you say amen and hallelujah, and he was raising it high above his head. Steve wondered briefly whether maybe he should have had his soul saved after all.

  And then Ghost shot into the fray, screaming like a mad thing and swinging his own hammer, the one Steve always kept under the front seat of the car. Ghost’s hammer connected with Charlie’s elbow, and Steve heard something crack. He just managed to get out from under Charlie’s hammer as Charlie dropped it, howling and clutching his elbow.

  Steve grabbed the stray hammer, rolled, and came up on his feet. Now he and Ghost both had hammers. They faced the rednecks, keeping each other covered.

  The rednecks didn’t seem like much of a threat now, cringing back against the wall of the building. Willy’s hands were still cupped tenderly around his crotch. Charlie’s right arm dangled uselessly; his face had gone the color of bad cheese. They stared at Steve and Ghost like cornered possums, too stupid to be really scared, but wary.

  “We ought to bash your cracker brains in,” Steve told them.

  “But we’re not,” Ghost said hurriedly. “We’re just gonna get back in our car and leave. Don’t make any fast moves.” He brandished his hammer at them.

  Steve waved his too, but he was beginning to feel he had lost control of the situation. He edged around the front end of the car and pulled his door open. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ghost doing the same. They threw themselves in and both doors slammed at once. Steve thumbed the lock button. Ghost was ranting at him. “Hurry, hurry, let’s get the hell out of here before they stomp both our asses—”

  The engine started on the first try. Steve gunned the car across the parking lot and had the satisfaction of seeing Willy and Charlie scrabble out of his way like crabs in boiling water. He thought he might have clipped one of them, hoped so. Then the gas station was dwindling in the red glow of the taillights. He glanced at Ghost, who was sprawled backward in his seat, half-grinning. He thought he could see Ghost’s heart pounding through the thin cloth of his T-shirt. “You just saved my ass,” Steve told him. It was a rare moment of awkwardness between them. “I owe you one.”

  “Wait till we get to New Orleans,” Ghost said. “You can buy me a bottle of Night Train.” His hand crept across the seat, found Steve’s hand and held it tight. Steve thought he could feel a message flowing into him through Ghost’s warm fingers: You get yourself killed, Steve, and that’s it. That’s the end of the game for me too. I know you’re bummed out and you think I’m the only person in the world you can trust, but I need you too. So you better keep your ass safe. I need you too.

  * * * * *

  Sometime closer to dawn—but not too close, not dangerously so—a battered silver car drove along the same road that Steve and Ghost had left behind an hour ago. A Bel Air. Zillah hadn’t wanted to wait for Christian to gas up his car and give Kinsey Hummingbird his notice, so they had all arranged to meet in the French Quarter the following night.

  Christian had forgotten to turn his headlights on. For him the road was lit well enough by moonlight and the faint glitter of the stars. And there were no other cars on the highway, not this late at night.

  At least there had been none. But as he rounded a sharp curve, a pickup truck screeched o
ut of a side road onto the highway behind him. Its headlights burned a blinding bar into his rearview mirror. Its horn blared as the driver saw Christian’s car too late, and braked too hard. Then the pickup was skidding off the road, smashing down a short embankment, rolling over and over. At last the truck came to rest against the trunk of a massive pine. The windshield was cracked, blood-smeared.

  Christian pulled off the road and left his car. He picked his way carefully down the embankment. The passengers in the pickup were dead, or nearly so; he could smell that. There was no oily tang of gasoline, no smell of heat; the truck would not catch fire. There was only the heavy scent of blood, rich and laced with alcohol.

  Christian knew the accident had been his fault. After all, he had left his lights off. But he had not meant to. And the truck had been going much too fast.

  And he was hungry.

  The truck’s passenger must have died instantly. His features were smeared across his face in a blur of blood and bone studded with broken glass. The driver was still alive. His body lay twisted across the seat, his scrawny legs pinned somewhere beneath the dashboard, but he was conscious. Blood soaked from under his mesh cap, beaded his colorless hair. The driver moaned when he saw Christian, and when Christian bent to the passenger’s torn throat, he tried to scream. But he could not open his mouth. His chin had struck the steering wheel with crushing force, and his jawbones ground together, pulverized.

  As Christian lapped the dying-blood off Charlie’s lips and chin and throat, Willy could only watch.

  25

  Everybody else had a car to drive, or a bunch of loud companions, or at least, like Christian, a radio to play all night, brave rock and roll occasionally exploding into bursts of static, whispering in voices that almost formed words.