by Aric Davis
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 Aric Davis
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
eISBN: 9781611096606
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
“Don’t crush it up, dude. You’ll just waste it on the floor.” Ron took the pipe from Jeff’s hands and showed him how it was done. “You don’t bust up crystal like this—you want the flakes in the bowl. Otherwise, what’s the point?” After dropping the jet-black meth into the glass, Ron fired up the torch and gave Jeff a look. His friend seemed almost nervous now that they were actually doing it. Dipping the fire into the pipe, Ron gave Jeff a nod, and the stem from the bubble dipped into his mouth. Ron saw his friend huffing in the smoke, which was almost as black as the flake itself, easily the darkest smoke he’d ever seen from crystal. Jeff pulled away from the pipe, not with the pale, glassy look that accompanied a normal hit of good meth, but with a grayness in his cheeks and a change in his eyes already. Ron gave his friend a look—Wicked, bro—then slid the glass tube into his own mouth and ran the blowtorch over the bowl.
The smoke came in at an astonishing rate, but unlike with regular crystal, Ron didn’t want to cough. He just kept sucking in, easily the biggest draw he’d ever taken from a pipe, and it just kept going. Finally, with his lungs screaming, Ron set the pipe and torch down. Even his eyes felt as if they were full of smoke. Jeff was sitting in the same spot that he had been in before, but he looked much farther away now. Finally, smoke came pouring from Ron’s lungs, and he collapsed into the chair behind him. Goddamn intense, he thought, and then just like the very first time he’d ever smoked crystal—a puff stolen from the glass dick of one of his mom’s many boyfriends—Ron felt that pop in his head, that rush that all junkies crave and are willing to search for until they finally die. Free told the truth, thought Ron as the smoke overtook him. It really is like the first time all over again.
The walls of the trailer felt almost as if they were rushing in on Ron, but in a good way. He didn’t have a care in the world, not about Mom’s new boyfriend, Bill, saying he was going to kick Ron’s ass if he didn’t either get a job or move out, not about the hundred bucks he owed Danimal, and sure as shit not about Christine dumping him last month, the stupid bitch. Right now, all he cared about was in this room, in his head, and in the rush. All those old junkies they got to come to the school to talk to them in that last year before he dropped out had been wrong. Your buzz could come around, that rush could come back, and if anything, this time it was even stronger.
Wishing they’d turned on some music, maybe some Nickelback, Ron watched Jeff pick up the pipe again, almost drop it, and then light the torch. “Dude, what are you doing?” Ron asked the question in a voice that didn’t even feel like his own, and sure didn’t sound like it, either. He was slurring, but that was par for the course—he spent lots of time slurring. His voice was deeper, thicker somehow, and when Jeff spoke, his voice was different, too.
“I’m hitting this pipe. What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” Jeff said in an annoyed voice. “You don’t want any more?”
“Nah, man, I’m good. I just can’t believe you’re not. I’m like the furthest from tweaking out in a long time. I feel good, really chill, but still wired up.”
Ron watched as Jeff ducked the flame into the glass and took another hit, a huge one this time, then exhaled and did it again. “You’re kind of blowing my mind, Jeff. You’re a beast!”
“It’s not working,” said Jeff as he stood, still holding the torch, smoke pouring out with the words. “It’s not working at all.”
“You need to give it a minute, man. This is good smoke.”
Ron smiled as Jeff set the bowl down. The dude needed to chill out. The smile left his face as Jeff quickly crossed the room and leaped atop him, knocking the chair over and spilling them both to the ground. Ron was trying to speak when Jeff started on him with the torch, hitting his mouth first with the MAPP gas, and as his lips fried under the extreme heat from the torch, Ron still felt pretty damn good.
***
Matt Cahill was cruising through the southern tip of Indiana, spinning wheels as his Honda CB550 motorcycle got to pushing him through towns with names like Santa Claus, Liberal, and New Boston, but with no real destination in mind. Riding the bike felt good, sometimes almost as if the Honda were an extension of his body, accelerating when he needed it to, crisply turning on a long-ago-replaced suspension. Matt had no destination in mind—he just wanted blacktop underneath him and miles behind him. The motorcycle was perfect for both.
Matt wasn’t sure if he’d been running from a problem or chasing after one for the last year or so, never really sure if he was facing it with his hands up and balled into fists or if he was backing away with his palms wide and outstretched. Either way, the time spent since being trapped underneath ice and dying had brought him more conflict than Matt would ever have guessed one man could encounter, especially when that man was he. Invariably, that conflict was brought on by a there-but-not-there entity that Matt thought of as Mr. Dark, a presence that meant bad things were going to happen, and usually sooner rather than later. Time without meeting people, without hearing tales of woe and seeing awful things in their eyes, meant time away from Mr. Dark, and that was just fine with Matt.
Not that running away was a perfect solution, or even really a solution at all. It was just the way things were right now. But deep down, Matt knew that wherever he went and whatever he did, the head was going to catch up with the tail. Whether that meant Mr. Dark was following him or some other less visible entity was pushing him into bad situations because of what was needed from a man who had died and had been brought back to life, Matt didn’t know. Not that it mattered much, it wasn’t his choice, and hadn’t been for a long time.
Matt had been arguing with that empty stomach since bedding down the night prior, one of those nights that managed to finally cool off just enough to be enjoyed when his head hit the pillow—his stomach wanted food, but his duffel was empty. Like it or not, it was going to be time to stop soon. The thought of interacting with another person for more than the few seconds it took to pass them on one of these dusty roads made him feel half-sick.
A blast of black smoke from the bike’s engine brought Matt’s attention back full force to his method of transportation, and when a loud noise accompanied the smoke, Matt knew the decision was being made for him, and he nosed the sputtering Honda to the shoulder of the road.
Hopping off the still-smoking bike, Matt popped out the kickstand with a deft kick from his boot, then took a moment to give a sour look to his no-longer-faithful steed before checking out his surroundings. Two-lane road, last car he’d passed was a truck full of chickens about an hour back, and the blacktop itself had the look of disrepair that indicated that the highway commission wouldn’t be fixing this one anytime soon.
Matt wasn’t
sure whether to laugh or get pissed off over the situation. All things considered, at least the warning signals that would have indicated the presence of Mr. Dark weren’t flashing in his head. So far, this was just plain old dumb luck. Matt Cahill was perfectly okay with dumb luck as he took off his jacket, laid it across the seat of the bike, and sat down next to the road.
CHAPTER TWO
The first car that passed him was a minivan that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a postapocalyptic movie, and of course, the van didn’t so much as slow. The next car not only slowed—it stopped, rolling up behind Matt half in the road and half not, and wearing signs that said County Sheriff. Matt stood, watching as the lights came on atop the car, but the siren stayed off. A few minutes later, the door opened, and a man in the rumpled brown suit that the county boys in this particular jurisdiction had been issued came out of the driver’s seat, head topped with a flat-brimmed hat that Matt could only assume was a required part of the uniform.
“Got some trouble?” The cop asked it in a way that was as much a challenge as a question, almost as if he were really asking Matt why he had to have trouble in this particular county.
“Yep. Couldn’t tell you what, though,” said Matt with a half smile, “other than she started smoking and seemed loath to quit.”
“I have an ex-wife with a similar disposition, and she was about as fun as your busted two-wheeler. You got a license on you, Mr.—”
“Matt Cahill,” said Matt as he went fishing in his wallet for his license and the papers for the bike before handing them over to the cop.
“What brings you to Spencer County, Mr. Cahill?”
“Matt will be fine, Officer. I’m just passing through, no real destination in mind.”
“All right, Matt. Is there anything on your person that I need to know about, any guns or weapons, drugs, anything that we could probably agree that a traveling fellow shouldn’t have with him?”
“I’ve got an ax in the duffel tied to the back of my bike,” said Matt, not sure what he would do if the cop tried to take it from him. The ash-handled weapon was the only remnant of his life before dying in the ice and had once belonged to his grandfather. “Other than that, I’m clean.”
“I’m not too worried about an ax,” said the cop, “as long as you’re not riding around waving it. You are missing a motorcycle endorsement on your license, though. Since I imagine you’ll be looking at a day or two in town to get your poop in a group, transportation-wise, I’ll have time to amend your ID. After all, it’s just a stamp here.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.”
“Well, take it from my perspective, I never actually saw you riding. I do have to ask one favor—computer in the car is on the fritz, so if you don’t mind, we’ll call a wrecker and go run your license on the machine down there.”
“Sounds fine to me,” said Matt, his heart skipping a beat. He was dead to the world. What was going to come up when the cop ran his ID? If he came up marked deceased, the cop was going to assume he was using a stolen identity, and that was going to result in a lot of time and trouble. Matt shook the dark thoughts from his head, then continued speaking. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to grab my stuff off the back of the bike. Not that I don’t trust your mechanic, but—”
“Take it from me, you’d trust him less if you did know him. You can throw your bag in the trunk, all right?”
“That sounds fine.”
“And, if you don’t mind,” said the cop as he walked back to the cruiser, “you can go ahead and set in the back once you get your bag secured. No offense, but until I run your ID, we can’t be buddies.”
Matt unstrapped the bag and walked to the car, waiting for his nerves to kick in. So far, whether this was headed somewhere nasty or not, Matt felt pretty good, even with the possible ID trouble. He threw his bag in the trunk of the police cruiser, closed it, and then hopped in the backseat. The cop was already on a CB, talking to someone about sending Kenny over to pick up a bike. Smiling at the air-conditioning, Matt decided being a little civilized for a few days might not be the worst thing in the world.
***
Matt sat wordlessly in the back of the cruiser as the cop drove, realizing after the third turn that they were going somewhere that Matt most certainly wouldn’t have run into in his travels had the bike not broken down. The term off the beaten path only became more apt as they transitioned from blacktop to dirt roads and then to gravel as they entered town. Along with a single flashing red light, Matt saw the sheriff’s station, a restaurant called Mortimer’s that was wearing a few signs advertising Bud Light, a gas station connected to a service shop that Matt felt quite certain he would be frequenting over the next hour or two, and a small store that he figured was probably good for a little bit of everything.
The cop stopped the cruiser outside the sheriff’s building and walked around the car to let Matt out. Watching him move, Matt could tell the man was distracted by something, but it was impossible to tell what. The second the car door opened, Matt knew exactly what it was. Someone was shouting, maybe even a few someones. The cop pulled the door open slowly, and Matt got out, the heat back on him immediately and the respite from the air-conditioning forgotten just as quickly. The cop said, “You hang on right here, Matt,” then unsnapped his holstered pistol and began to walk toward Mortimer’s. The cop’s decision was confusing to Matt. He felt certain the bar wasn’t the cause of the noise—rather, the store across the road. Matt opened his mouth to say something, and then two people exploded through the front window of the store. The first of the two was a younger kid, a teenager. His eyes were solid black, and he was running impossibly fast toward the cop, who was just now turning to the disturbance.
First hopping the hood of the police car and then running at a full sprint, Matt was moving as fast as he was able, hearing but not hearing the cop telling the kid to back off. The kid was moving like an animal, faster than a human should have been able to, and doing it with his hands and feet levering him across the gravel road. Seeing no other signs of Mr. Dark’s corruption, nor feeling any of that awful vibe that people were about to start dying all around him, Matt continued toward the kid, who was gnashing his teeth as he closed in on the cop, still fumbling with his gun.
The kid made the cop first and had him on his back immediately. Matt could see that the guy’s gun had been knocked from his hands and lay useless a few feet away. Not thinking, merely operating on reaction, Matt ran to them, cocked back a foot sheathed in a steel-toed riding boot, and kicked the kid under the jaw as hard as he could. The kid made a noise like a dog with his balls caught in a mousetrap and lifted up to hover over the cop for a moment before falling to the man’s side and crashing down on his belly.
For his part, the cop reacted pretty well. He had cuffs out and on the kid’s wrists before getting up and dusting himself off. Matt watched him walk to his gun, pick it up and give the semiautomatic a brief inspection, and then reholster it. The cop spit in the dirt, then shook his head. “Goddamn idiot kids. Can you hear me, Jeff Walters?” The cop shook his head again. “I suppose you can’t, at least not yet. He’s going to wake up with one pounder of a headache, Matt.”
“I’d say he bought and paid for the right to have it.”
“I’ve been rude,” said the cop as he extended his right hand. “Name’s Frank Herbert.” Matt took Frank’s hand and shook it.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, you, too, partner. Not sure how much damage that little psycho could have done, but there wasn’t a whole lot I was up to at the moment when you got to kicking. Thank you for that.” Frank nodded at the road and the blown-out window, along with the other guy who’d flown through it, who was now sitting up and seemed to be taking inventory of the damage. “I’m going to go make sure Lem’s okay over there, and if you could do me a favor and poke your head in the station, that would be great. Should be a lady at the desk named Flo who’ll come out and put a shotgun on that asshole.”
The cop began to walk across the road, calling out, “Hey, Lem, hot enough for ya?” at the man in the road, who Matt could see had a nice cut on his head. Sparing one last look at the now snoring kid on the ground, Matt walked to the police station to see about Flo.
She was not what Matt had expected. Flo was pretty and short, with short blonde hair, and had skipped on the cop outfit, apparently preferring a Black Flag T-shirt and jeans. She gave him an irritated look as he entered. “Whatcha want?” Flo said as he walked in. “Sheriff’s out on a run.”
“He’s back now,” said Matt, “and he wants you outside on the double with a shotgun. Some kid out there attacked him.”
“Oh Lord,” she said, coming around the desk with a pistol-gripped shotgun that Matt felt quite sure had been pointed at him just moments earlier. “Did he kill him?”
“No,” said Matt, “just roughed him up a little bit before tucking him into bed.”
“That was mighty gracious of him. Is Frank okay?”
The way she said it, Matt figured Frank and Flo might be a little more than just coworkers. Pulling the door open, Matt said, “I think, other than possibly wounded pride, he’ll be just fine,” then followed her out the door.
“Fucking asshole,” said Flo when she saw the kid lying on the ground. She wasn’t pointing the gun at him, but it wouldn’t have taken much for her to move her arms and have him dead to rights. Matt gave a look to Frank. He and the storekeeper whom he’d gone to see to were walking over to them.
“You’re a quick bugger,” said the storekeeper. “Saved the sheriff’s bacon, from where I was sitting.”
“Lem, Flo, this is Matt Cahill, and he did indeed save my bacon.”
“I just did what anybody would have,” said Matt, shaking Lem’s hand and getting ignored by Flo, who was still fixated on the prone and still-twitching junkie.
“You see this, Frank?” Flo asked, gesturing at the teenager with the barrel of the gun. One of the teen’s eyes had lolled open, and Matt was staring at it.