The Suicide Motor Club

by Christopher Buehlman

  She blinked at him.

  Shoot her and come in her chest hole later.

  The sun, which had just come out, made him squint.

  “Are you really a nun?” he said.

  She started to raise her far arm

  Bitch has a gun!

  but he cracked her in the forehead with the Garand’s stock real hard—the thing weighed almost ten pounds; she lurched back on her seat and stared at the ceiling before she dove for the floor, it was kind of funny, it reminded him of a dolphin. He peeked in. She shifted once, couldn’t seem to get up, then lay still. Blood pooled under her. Good.

  Hit her again to make sure? Take too long.

  Now he went around the front of the van, looking at the hotel. Three men broke from the brush and trees across the road, making for the motel. He saw that one had a gas can, another had a gun.

  Oh God this is it this is it.

  His heart hammering, he ran back into the maple trees, his injured foot forgotten. He cut left and ascended the short rise, dropped down on his belly behind the tall grass, exactly the place he had chosen to cover the motel. Now he saw the men crouched near the doors; the big one was splashing gasoline.

  He’ll burn them up oh no can’t have that can’t have that

  Woods watched him through the scope now,

  can’t burn my friends fat boy

  pressed the safety catch away from the trigger guard

  can’t burn my cold pretty Calcutta

  settled the crosshairs between his target’s shoulder blades

  fuck your back I’ll fuck

  started to squeeze the trigger, saw a flash of motion,

  cars!

  waited while a line of three cars flashed by in the sun, close enough to suggest they were caravanning

  picnic lazy fucks off on a picnic

  and then they were gone. He looked left and right to make sure nobody else was coming, then peeped through the scope again

  fat boy find fat boy

  lined up the crosshairs,

  you’ll die one shot get the tattooed one next

  squeezed

  BANG

  Felt the kick on his shoulder, saw the man jerk backward, drop the gas can, grab his left hip and ass

  missed his vitals how’d I miss okay again this shot this shot this

  but now the man was moving.

  They all were.

  29

  HANK BREWER KNEW IT WAS A BALLS-UP AS SOON AS THE SHOT RANG OUT. LETTUCE yanked up and almost fell, the gas from his jerry can spilling everywhere. Hank dropped the Geiger counter out of sheer panic. Where’d the shot come from? Had to be the small hill across. Next shot any second, next one would kill if they weren’t moving. Needed cover. Behind Jesus, that’s rich but that’s all there was, that or the pool.

  “Run!” he said, hooking Lettuce’s right arm around his neck and moving with him toward the big statue just throwing its shadow over the courtyard. Room for two or three behind the wide base, the one his sword sprouted up from into his strong, white hand. Shane beat them there. He saw his and Lettuce’s four feet moving under them, his strong, Lettuce stumbling, dropping blood. Something clacked heavily on the cracked asphalt but he kept looking at their feet. Blood on his sneakers from Lettuce, Lettuce was hit deep. That was a big, bad gun out there.

  Gotta move gotta move

  “Move!” he yelled.

  BANG!

  The next shot hit Lettuce again, head shot but must have just clipped him. “Aw, aw,” the big man moaned. Nobody said anything about guns, it was just supposed to be creepers. Jesus, the top half of Lettuce’s ear was hanging. Should they get in the pool? Dead deer down there, probably hit on the highway and stumbled in, no, they’d never climb out with a shooter waiting. Flowers down there too, why flowers?

  BANG!

  Probably a miss, thank God for small favors.

  Jesus let me live let me live

  Now they stacked up behind the statue, Shane in front, Hank next, Lettuce leaning on him, heavy on him, bleeding through their shirts, saying, “Aw, aw,” but weaker. He would pass out in a minute.

  “Shane, you hit?”

  “No.”

  Hank looked around. Motel doors closed, no help. Not sure going in there would be better. To their left, big rotting jet, Ferris wheel farther, one car rocking. Dirty, smashed-up greenhouse between the two. Car behind it, hidden from the road.

  Shane peeked up but bobbed right down.

  BANG!

  “Keep the fuck down, that guy can shoot!”

  He thought somebody was holding an ice cube against his left forearm and he looked down, saw blood trickling from a groove of mostly white flesh scored diagonally across black tattoos of crosses and Mother Mary. It looked like Mary’s mouth had been shot off.

  Guess he didn’t miss that other shot after all prick’s batting .750.

  He remembered the crazy nun yelling, You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead. Maybe she was right.

  They crouched behind the statue, blind and panting. He looked again at the car behind the greenhouse.

  Camaro fuck the Beta car this is real they’re in there but they can’t get us.

  Not this second, but maybe soon.

  The light seemed weaker than it had. He scanned the sky, saw the next blanket of clouds coming, minutes away.

  “Lettuce, I hope to Christ you were right about daytime.”

  But Lettuce was dead.

  Fubar this is fubar

  He looked at the motel again.

  One door was cracked.

  It hadn’t been before.

  He made a noise like a man who just realized he was on a high ledge and aimed his .45. Nothing moved.

  “What’s the shooter doing?” Shane said.

  “Staying put if he’s smart,” Hank said. “He’s really got our number.”

  Now Hank crawled to the side of the statue’s base, risked a peek and rolled back. Nothing had moved. No shot came. A truck rolled by on Route 66.

  The clouds drifted closer.

  “Next car rolls by, I make a move,” Hank said. “Try to cover me.”

  “I don’t have my gun.”

  He said it like Ido’avemygun, all high and tense and crammed together. He was so jacked up he might have a stroke.

  “What? Where is it?”

  “Judith.”

  “What?”

  “I left it with her. To watch the van with.”

  Hank glanced at the van, saw the driver’s-side door half open.

  The nun’s finished shouldn’t have yelled at her

  Hank thought to look for Lettuce’s shotgun, then remembered hearing that heavy clack while they ran. The gun lay in the courtyard, twenty yards away. Might as well have been a tennis racquet at this range, against that rifle.

  The light dimmed further, the clouds marching on.

  He looked at the Camaro again, and, although it was close enough for him to see the SS badge in the center of the grill, it seemed to be a mile away.

  “Can you hot-wire a car?” he said.

  “No.”

  “Figures.”

  Could the keys be in it?

  Not likely, and he didn’t trust Shane to drive any more than he trusted him to shoot.

  “All right, here’s the plan. You run for the Camaro. I stay here and cover you. Once you’re in it—passenger seat, got me?—I break and come hot-wire it while you cover me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Okay.”

  Hank looked back at the motel. Two doors were cracked now. One shut when he looked.

  Oh fuck Oh fuck.

  Darkness rolled up the road coming from Oklahoma.

  An oil truck came
barreling east, riding in shadow but about to break into daylight.

  “When I count three, you turn rabbit. You run faster than you ever ran and slide behind that black hot rod like you’re stealing home, you got that?”

  “Yeah,” Shane said.

  The truck broke free from the cloud shadow, looming close, light glancing off its mirrors.

  “One.”

  The truck shifted gears, growling as it hit a dip.

  “Two.”

  As the truck mounted the rise, Hank saw the driver had a cowboy hat on.

  Yee fucking haw let’s do this

  He cocked the hammer back, pointed the .45 at the motel doors.

  The truck passed the parked van, disappeared from his sight as it roared in front of the statue of Christ.

  “Three!”

  Shane just crouched there, trembling.

  “GO! GO!”

  Hank kicked at his hip; Shane staggered almost to his feet but couldn’t bring himself to leave shelter and crouched back down, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  “Go right now or I leave you here!”

  Shane tried, he did. He half stood, shaking.

  The frontier of clouds moved over the sun and cast the courtyard into shadow, the golden cape of light seeming to retreat east toward Joplin, toward Carthage.

  Shane looked at the motel.

  Hank looked at his face, said, “Fucking RUN!” and kicked him again, hard.

  His eyes moved down to Shane’s crotch, where dark liquid spread as he pissed himself.

  Now Hank looked toward the motel.

  He almost pissed himself, too.

  Instead he ran.

  BANG

  The shooter’s bullet whinnied off concrete and broke a window.

  Christ they’re so white don’t look back but jig, jig

  He made himself duck and break slightly left as he ran, something stretching his pants pocket and pressing his thigh

  BANG

  In my pocket what run faster fast

  and Hank ran fast, so fast one sneaker flew off

  BANG

  Ping!

  I know that sound my uncle told me

  Shane screamed behind him, from the gunshot or them he wasn’t sure and now he was past the Sabre jet, one more gap before the greenhouse and the wicked car behind it.

  But the shooter’s out that’s what that ping was M1 pings when it’s dry

  Now Hank wheeled and faced them, bringing up his gun. He ignored what was happening to Shane—he couldn’t process that now—and focused on the closest one. The tall one was almost on him, big ears on him, greasy ball cap, running fast with his long legs. Straight at him. He wouldn’t have to move the gun to track the target. Hank aimed just under the brim of the baseball cap and squeezed, the big pistol bucking in his hands. The ball cap flew off, its owner jerking straight and lurching back, putting his hand to his head like he forgot something, matter falling through the greasy hair at the back of his head, and then he sat down hard. The big one with the neck brace was almost on him and he shot that one too. The big one stopped and crossed his arms in front of his face so Hank couldn’t tell where the head was and it wasn’t coming anymore but now he saw behind the thing.

  bald one pulled Shane’s jaws apart Oh God save me save me

  The female was down on all fours over Lettuce, her face near the shot side of his head, her tongue working like a kid with an ice cream cone. The bald one, holding the lower part of Shane’s jaw, kicked her, said, “Later, whore, sun’s comin’,” and now she ran at Hank. Tears streamed down Hank’s face but he shot clean, shot her in the chest and knocked her down with a flat, bloody cough. The tall one had regained his feet but wasn’t moving forward yet. The big one was coming, but not fast, the hole in his arm and through his cheek already smaller, but the pain might have made it think twice.

  two bullets left

  in my pocket something what

  He shot the tall one again, he didn’t like the tall one, then pulled the round bottle out of his pocket

  Holy water!

  twisted the cap off with his teeth, splashed it on the big one, who turtled up with his arms crossed over his face again, but this time when the water hit him he made a sound like a deaf man yelling as his arms smoked from many places at once. The others backed up. The bald one, frustrated, threw Shane’s jaw at Hank but missed.

  A truck’s horn blatted from the road but now he could only look at Shane. On his knees, somehow still alive, in shock, his tongue hanging free. Making a sound a man shouldn’t have to make.

  Christ sorry Shane sorry brother Christ

  Hank shot Shane in the chest.

  Shane fell back heaving, and then the heaving stopped. Hank ran to the Camaro now, saw the lock tab down, swung with his gun butt meaning to break the window, but only cracked it. He drew back for another swing he never got to take.

  Something cold and hard seized him by the other arm, spun him, jerking the holy water loose so the bottle broke on the ground. The fine-boned pale one tried to look into Hank’s eyes. Hank knew what that meant, looked away in time, ran months through his head like Somchai had taught him, anything to keep his mind free.

  January February March April

  He brought the gun around but the vampire slapped it out of his hand, so hard the hand went numb.

  May! June! July!

  He had one trick left. He tore his shirt open, showing the pale one the tattoo of Christ. One shirt button ticked on the bricks and rolled. The dead one winced at the sight of Hank’s chest, then vomited last night’s black blood all over the kneeling Christ thereon, obscuring it.

  August

  Now Hank looked into its eyes.

  August august

  He couldn’t help himself.

  “You’re okay,” it said.

  august beautiful so beautiful i’m okay i’m really okay

  He went slack and stood helpless before the smaller monster.

  The one with the neck brace, his face contorted in pain, stepped up behind Hank, raised a still-smoking forearm and fist. Before it bludgeoned his head into the wrong shape, Luther grabbed that fist and stopped him. The small one put Hank’s shirt back on him and popped the collar, covering most of his tattoos, then slipped his arm around Hank’s waist and steered him toward the darkness of the motel room. He pushed Hank in by the small of his back, but gently, almost regretfully, as one might usher a naughty toddler into the spanking room.

  “You sure fight pretty,” Cole said. “But you don’t get to touch my car.”

  The door shut.

  30

  CLAYTON PEEKED OUT OF THE SLIT IN HIS WINDOW DRAPES NOW, SAW A STRONG, tattooed man helping the stout, injured man away, the latter shot through the hip, a ghastly exit wound under his navel promising death. A smaller man skittered before them to shelter behind the gaudy Christ statue that stood before the pool. The symbolic nature of the event made him smirk just a bit. The stink of gasoline persisted. He felt clouds coming, knew the sun’s bright blade would soon be sheathed. A run into the woods out the back window now seemed more plausible, but perhaps unnecessary. The fight had turned. More gunfire, more woe for the breathing. Would the noise bring the constabulary around? Perhaps, but just as likely not. Men shot guns in the country, there was nothing ominous in the sound. Could there be more adversaries in the rear? Unlikely, but smart to check anyway. He crossed the ruined room, peered through the small, filthy bathroom window, squinting against the waning sun, and there, in the middle of the road, he saw an unlikely sight.

  A nun in full habit crossed Route 66 in a daze, her head bleeding freely. A van perched behind her, its door hanging open. The clouds came now, robing her in darkness and clearing his vision. He blinked his eyes anyway, unsure if he should believe what he was seeing.


  She was beautiful.

  Even at a distance of fifty yards or more he could see there was something holy and demanding about her eyes, like God’s answer to the fierce interrogation in the eyes of the undead.

  He felt as though he were watching a scene from hagiography: St. Mary of the Van, though wounded, crosses the road toward devils; and though he knew he was cast in the role of devil, Clayton could not help but be moved by the tableau. He heard motel doors open, more gunfire banged, closer now; he knew slaughter was descending on the vigilantes.

  He went back to the front, let himself out into the sickening but tolerable cloud-light. Now the one they called Cole was descending the Ferris wheel upside-down behind the unsuspecting pistolero defending himself manfully but without real hope against the quartet he was aware of. The other two diurnals had been made ruin of, one tastelessly so. Clayton waded through the overgrown grass and thorny vines encircling the motel, saw a truck heading for the nun. It sounded its great, froggy horn to no purpose, she was half inconscient, but before the horn’s echo had faded, Clayton found himself leaping the remaining brambles and sprinting into the road. When the nun saw him, she froze. He grabbed her arm and slung her gracelessly into the brush on the motel side of the road. The truck began to brake now, its great wheels shuddering and smoking, but Clayton jogged alongside until the driver looked at him. He hooked the man with his eyes, said, “Do you like hamburgers?”

  “Yes,” the man said, licking his pillowy lips.

  “Well, good. Drive to Joplin and eat the biggest hamburger you dare. You never stopped here, you will remember nothing of me or the woman.”

  A man screamed from the motel.

  “Or that.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you drive?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then do it, sir! And safe travels.”

  The truck, which had never fully stopped, now rolled forward faster, woozily crossing the median with its leftmost tires, earning a horn blast from a westbound Chrysler whose driver never saw the man with the Indian bonnet run behind and between the swiftly separating vehicles to start the odious business of cleaning up after the massacre of the Avalon Garden of Wonders and Motor Lodge.

  —

  THE WOMAN HAD PASSED OUT. SHE LAY IN THE GRASS CURLED LIKE AN INFANT. Clayton removed her black veil and her white wimple, now sopped bloody down the right side from the vicious cut along her eyebrow. Her eye was already nearly shut.