And then she opened her eyes.
The little Ford Focus was blue and it hummed along the interstate. The world outside was mountainous and full of thick snow, she saw. She was sitting in the passenger seat. She looked over, and there was Eric, driving the car and drumming his thumbs on the center of the steering wheel. He watched the road in the absent way one does on a long drive. Then he glanced over at her.
“Hey, you're awake,” he said with a wide, handsome grin. He gestured out the windows. “Can you believe this snow? I'm amazed the roads are open.”
The snow was heavy and enveloping. The road they were on wound through sloping hills and sharp cuts through mountains. Trees and walls of rock surrounded them, all covered in snow. The trees bent under the weight of it, whether they had evergreen needles or were simply black skeletons waiting for the spring. Snow buried the fields and level areas, it encroached on the road wherever it had found finger holds, where the cars had not pushed it back. Snow had turned the world white and the sky gray, it had transformed the world into a black and white TV show with a strange, bright-blue car rolling through the middle of it.
She stretched, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. His cheek was rough with a day's worth of stubble and it pricked her lips.
“How much longer?” Charlotte said, bending down to rub her hands along the length of her legs. She created friction against her denims, stirring life back into tired and inert limbs.
“I'm not gonna tell you,” Eric said, with the coy glee of a child with a secret. “But it won't be very much longer now, so chill out, huh? Eat some junk food.”
There was a ton of junk food - little bags of a million kinds of chips, all in the footwell of her seat, around her feet. She shifted and they crinkled and crunched. “That stuff'll kill you. I don't want any part of that. Come on, why won't you just tell me where we're going?” She switched to a cute, petulant tone of voice and pouted at him. “Why's a big, strong, handsome man like you got to keep secrets from little, delicate me?”
He snickered at her, and she socked him in the arm.
Eric looked at her, his face suddenly contorted into a gargoyle expression of fury. His hand blurred across the space between them and slapped her, hard, so unbelievably hard, across the cheek, that her head snapped away and her forehead smacked into the window beside her. The impact made her shut her eyes, and she kept them shut. The pain in her cheek was a crimson blossom, beginning as a single brilliant white point of pain that soaked outward until her whole face ached. She cradled it, tears cresting in her eyes.
“Don't try that again, you dumb bitch,” Simon snapped at her. “I got plenty of experience with bitches who start fightin' back, an' lemme tell you, all it'll get you is stuffed in the trunk for the rest of the ride home. You get me?”
She nodded, frantically, so that he wouldn't hit her again. Her cheek was on fire and it was spreading. Simon said nothing else, just sighed deeply and went back to driving. The car rattled and bumped down the desert roads. She leaned against the doorframe. If there were anything but blackness, she would have peered out the window.
The car was hot and dusty, but Charlotte shivered, just a little, despite the heat. She held onto that feeling, like she held onto the images of a snow-covered landscape, a little blue car, and Eric grinning. No gargoyle-leer, no hitting. Grinning. Loving. A day's worth of stubble rasping against her lips. The staccato drum beat on the wheel. The heartbeat of tires thudding down the road. All the dead trees in their wintry shrouds...
Blackness around her and a head full of images? It was easy to go back. She just had to be still, that was all, to visualize a pool of water and then calm it until it was a mirror in which she could see herself if she looked down. Once all was still, well, all she had to do was open her eyes.
Eric drove on. The landscape had changed only in that they were driving the long downward slope of a mountain, nothing but white stretched out for miles and miles ahead of them, with only the thin vein of the black road to break up the snow tracts.
Coming down a mountain like this wasn't so hard for the little car, which was relatively light, but there were all sorts of big yellow signs which warned of exactly how difficult it was for big trucks to get down these steep sections, and how small cars should keep a close eye out for trucks that had no brakes. At regular intervals on the long slope, single lanes branched off from the road and ran for a few hundred feet, full of gravel, with big metal barriers at the end. If the trucks went out of control, they could veer into those and, physics willing, grind to a halt before shooting off the road entirely and into the trees or the side of the mountain.
“I know where we are,” Charlotte said, looking around. “This is Montana. Isn't it? Am I right?”
“You are not right, you are wrong, is what they call what you are,” Eric said. He glanced her way. “Why can't you just sit back and let it happen? You gotta keep guessing 'til you ruin it? Just be patient and wait for it.”
“I hate doing that.”
“Tell me about it,” Eric said. “It's why Christmas time is such a pain in the ass.”
She let the matter go. It was too peaceful a world to fill up with arguing. She gazed out the windows, laced her fingers in her lap, and enjoyed watching everything go by, as if she were sitting still and the whole world were on a conveyer belt, trundling past her. Occasionally, they passed trees that had shattered under the weight of the snow and toppled. More snow had covered these fallen bodies, and they were as beautiful in their way as the trees that were still standing.
Once in a while, they passed other cars, but she never got a good look at them. They were just things she was aware of, out of the corner of her eye.
Eric glanced at her when they came down the mountain and the road leveled out.
“Hey,” he said. “So how're you doing anyway? Been on the road awhile. You okay?”
“I'm all right,” she said. “Tired mostly. And sore.”
She was sore, she realized...but she shied away from the thought. She added, “Just pretty tired, that's the main thing. It's been a long few days on the road.”
“Tell me about it,” Eric said. “And I'm the one driving. Why not go to sleep for a while? We've got a ways to go still.”
As he said it, Charlotte realized that sounded like the nicest thing in the world. She let her head rest against the side window, the chill of the outside world seeping through it. Her eyes were already heavy, and she was asleep in no time.
They slept in the car that night. And in the night, a figure maneuvered inside the awkward space of the car and moved against her, waking her only halfway from a deep sleep. It was a male form, Eric, surely Eric.
He insinuated himself between her legs. She didn't bother opening her eyes, she was too sleepy. Typical Eric. Drive all day, and still have enough energy at night for something like this. Usually, he gave sex all the enthusiasm he gave the rest of life, but this time it was slow, and short, and then done, because he had driven all day and was tired.
Then he went back to the driver's seat, and Charlotte settled back down, still in the blurred-world fog of someone who had only come halfway from the black waters of a deep sleep. She barely remembered to mumble, before she slipped off again, “I love you, Eric.”
There was no reply from beside her.
Probably, he was already asleep.
Poor Eric.
Eric pulled off the freeway and into the parking lot of a small truck stop, and the car tires crunched across the ice as he came to a stop a ways off from the little building. He pulled up the emergency brake, which made a loud popping sound and that startled Charlotte, who sat up right as Simon opened the door, his feet crunching gravel.
“I'm gonna go piss,” Simon said. “You...want anything?”
It was the first thing he'd said all day, since they'd started driving again. He sounded different. Almost hesitant.
“No,” Charlotte said. She was lying. Her stomach stabbed and bit and gaped, her
hands shook if she held them out in front of her. She was so hungry. When had she last eaten? What had she had?
“I'll bring some food,” Simon said. He was silent, but there were no footsteps and the car door did not slam. Just silent for a long time. Then he added, “Are you sick or something? Besides the blind shit, I mean are you ill?”
“No,” she said. “I don't get sick much.”
“Oh.” Another long silence. Then Simon said, “You're just so goddamned cold. I thought maybe you was sick. Anyway. I'll be back.” He slammed the door and crunched away.
Charlotte sat and baked.
Charlotte sat.
Charlotte sat and steamed up the window, which was so cold from the wintry air outside. She doodled a happy face in it. Then a cat face. Then a peace sign, and then she was out of steam.
“Am I boring you?” Eric asked.
“Nope,” she said. “I can doodle and listen at the same time, you know.”
“What was I saying, then?”
“That there’s a city in Norway where they completely eliminated all the traffic lights and stop signs and rules-of-the-road stuff, as an experiment, and very nearly all accidents stopped.”
“Well...yeah.”
“Jealous that I can doodle and listen?”
“College education at work,” Eric said. “Doodle and listen. If I had gone to a big mucky-muck university, I could doodle and listen too.”
Charlotte laughed.
Eric climbed out of the driver's seat. He left the door hanging wide open as he walked in a small, restless circle next to the car. He high-stepped and opened his arms wide, he twisted at the waist and he stretched, groaning with effort as he did so. Then he bent and peered back into the car. “You gonna get out and stretch your legs at all?”
“No, I'm fine,” she smiled at him. “And I don't feel like getting covered in snow.”
“Oh, well...”
She knew what he was going to do before he did it and she shouted “Don't you dare!” But it was too late. He bent down, gathered up a big handful of snow and flung it into the car at her. It was too powdery to form a snowball, so it was simply a long sheet of snow that wafted through the car. Some of it hit her and did what snow does instinctively, which is to go straight down the shirt.
“Aaah!” she shouted. “You jerk!” She grabbed the front of her shirt and pulled it away from her body. “Get back in the car, so I can punch you!”
“Maybe I'll just walk from here,” Eric teased.
“I'm never going anywhere with you again! It's like traveling with an infant!”
Eric laughed. He slid back into the car and pulled the door shut with a bang.
“Here, I got you some chips and a beef stick,” Simon said. “Tastes all right, once you get used to --”
Simon broke off, silence and darkness ruling in the car for a moment. Then he said, quietly, “That's some damn chill you're radiating, the whole inside of the car is cold. It's like I got me a human air conditioner...”
He didn't laugh after he said it, though. He started the car and pulled it out onto the freeway in silence. The gravel crunched. The dry desert heat quickly took care of the chill. The dust worked its way into the car, inevitably, and Charlotte tasted it in the back of her throat.
They drove in silence for a long time. The radio grew dull and Simon turned it off. Silence filled the car for a bit, and then Simon began to talk. He spoke slowly at first, sounding preoccupied, like he had something on his mind that he wanted to share.
“The first girl I killed, I did her right next door to my house. Now that was stupid. You don't gotta tell me that. So stupid. But I got away with it. Turns out she had some shit of a boyfriend who used to beat her and they thought of him before me. But you know? It was good. Killing her. It was fuckin' amazing.”
Charlotte had been leaning against the window, but she sat up straighter as he began to talk. There was no need to look over at him, so she looked straight ahead at blackness.
“Pretty soon, I realized I wanted to do it again. But you know what?” He paused a second, not long enough for her to answer. “I'm not an idiot. I'm not actually stupid. You probably think I am. All fuckin' women, they take one goddamn look at me and think they got me all figured, you know? Well they don't. You shouldn't do that to men. You don't get it. So I watch a lotta TV, and I see all those shows about serial killers. And they always have their territory and their patterns and sooner or later, the cops get 'em. So you know what I did? I got smart.”
He snapped his fingers, just an inch away from her left ear and she flinched as sharply as if she had been struck. “You payin' attention? Or you staring into space again?”
“I'm paying attention,” she mumbled, hating how weak her voice sounded.
“Better be.” He said nothing for a time, then continued. “So I waited, real patient, and then I took my vacation time from work and headed out west. All the way to California. Sometimes I hit Oregon or Nevada or Washington or somethin', but usually California. I just really like their girls. And I grab the bitch, and then drive back home, do what I want. Means I've got no territory they're gonna spot, no patterns. It's great.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“I dunno,” Simon said. “Cause I'm proud of it? Cause you're gonna die, so what's it matter?”
“How many times before?”
“You're my tenth,” he said, and now there was no disguising the pride in his voice. “You're my happy anniversary. Cool huh? Hey, listen, you eat that shit I bought you, or I'll tape a funnel in your mouth and pour food into you. You get me?”
“I get you,” Charlotte said, but she didn't eat. She leaned her head back against the glass, which was fogged as thoroughly as if the world outside were coated in mist.
It was interesting that she didn't feel scared, or upset. Not really. Maybe it was because she had slept so little and had been through too many days of terror and imprisonment, maybe she was just worn out inside. But she wasn't scared. She was as calm as a pool of water, and as clear.
“Hey,” Eric said, “you dozing off?”
She looked at him. His close-cropped blonde hair could almost blend into the snowy fields passing by the car. He had several days worth of stubble on his face, but his hair was so pale, it was almost impossible to tell.
“I don't know,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like I'm just waking up. How are you doing?”
“Me? I'm fine. It's a long drive, though.”
“Well, we could just stop,” Charlotte said. “Or you could tell me where we're going, and I could drive. How's that for a thought?”
“It's a good thought. Anyway, it's not that much further. So relax. Just enjoy the ride.”
“Yeah, well, easy for you to say, you know where we're going.”
“Only immediately. Cosmically, do any of us? I mean really?”
“Don't even start up with that,” Charlotte said. He laughed and focused on the road.
She looked at him, really studied him, and then said, “When did you get a gold earring?”
Simon whirled to look at her, wide-eyed and alarmed. She saw him, then, for the first time...but only for a split-second. Then the blackness swallowed her vision. It was alarming and painful, a stake driven through each eyeball. Even in the blackness, she could make him out, like an after-image: soft and too tall for the car, thick glasses and a thin mustache, bad teeth, a finger missing on his left hand. A gold earring.
“What the fuck?” Simon snarled at her. And when she didn't answer – she was trying to, though, she was scrambling for something to say as terror bubbled up inside her, marring the clear surface of the pond – “How the fuck did you do that?”
Abruptly, he wrenched the car off the road and it skidded through the dust. At the speed they'd been going, Charlotte was amazed the car wasn't simply wrecked. She tensed up, waiting for the blows to land. What she didn't expect was to feel both his hands close on her head, one on each side of her face. He force
d her around to look at him, so hard her neck twinged. For a moment, Charlotte thought he was going to smash her head in, to strangle her, but he just held her that way.
“You look blind, you look goddamn blind,” Simon shouted. His breath was hot and reeked of old meat and stale chips. “Your eyes are all pale and shit like in the movies. So how the hell did you do that?”
“I don't know, I wasn't, I just --” she stammered and stopped, choking on the congealed terror in her throat.
He just held her that way, silent but for his fast breathing. His hot breath hit her face in gusts. Her mind randomly reminded her of how Eric had held her just this way, hand cupping each side of her face. Rough palms against her soft skin. She couldn't see him, but it didn't frustrate her. She didn't know what expression was on his face, couldn't see what he was thinking. What excited her, though, was that sooner or later he would lean in and kiss her, and she didn't know when until his lips were against hers. Every time, a surprise. Magnificent.
Something Wicked #19 (March 2012) Page 5