by Ray Garton
He looked up.
A man, fists on hips, grey-shirted belly hanging over his belt, looked down at Bill with frowning eyes. "The hell you doin'?"
"I was—I'm just—there's a—"
The man kicked his left leg out and growled, "Get the hell outta here, y'fuckin' drrrunk!"
The man's foot caught Bill's shoulder and sent him backward onto the pavement, but he sat up immediately, just in time to see the man's back as he walked the length of his truck and disappeared behind it.
Clutching the truck's bumper, Bill lifted himself to his feet and followed the man, leaning against the trailer all the way. As he neared the back of the truck, he heard the man's voice:
"...many times've I told you, Goddammit, I ain't got all fuckin' night to wait for you! I don't care what you're—"
Bill rounded the corner and saw the man facing the trailer's open door, shouting into its yawning blackness. The man froze; his head jerked toward Bill and his lips curled into a snarl. He was grossly obese and his face was broad and lumpy; his dark hair was greasy and receding above his enormous ears and what teeth were left in his head were stained.
"The hell d'you want?" the man growled.
"The girl," Bill gasped, leaning against the corner of the trailer. "The girl who was...just standing...in front of the truck..."
"What girl?"
"The girl...the one you were—"
The man slammed the trailer door shut and jerked the latch, turning fully to Bill. "I dunno what th'fuck yer talkin' about."
Overcome with dizziness again, Bill staggered, slid down the corner of the trailer and landed on one knee as he wheezed, "No-no-no...the girl...I saw her...sh-she stole muh-my—"
The man slapped a meaty hand onto Bill's shoulder and pulled him away from the trailer, grumbling, "Go sleep it off, buddy." He slammed Bill against the truck parked beside them and headed for his cab.
Scrambling to his feet, Bill followed him, panting, "Nuh-no, n-no! Wait! Please! You were juh-just t-talking to her, you were juh-just—"
The man turned and faced him and Bill froze. The man's lips curled up around his dirty teeth and his tongue moved restlessly behind the gaps between them; his eyes were small and dark, buried in flesh like a pig's. He lifted a hand to his round belly and scratched himself through the taut material of his dirty grey shirt. "Tell y'what," he said; his voice was the sound of a clogged toilet. "You get away from me an' I won't rip yer fuckin' head off."
Bill tried to back away but only fell to his knees again, weak and dizzy.
The man opened the door of his cab and climbed in. A moment later, the truck's engine shifted into gear and began to move slowly out of the parking slot.
The truck was black, jet black, a 1980 Peterbilt. Its 1693 Cat engine rumbled with the power of a volcano and the refrigeration unit on the white trailer, the side of which read in black letters, CARSEY BROS. TRUCKING, gave a steady, hollow hum.
Bill dragged himself up and stumbled forward as the black truck rumbled slowly out of the parking slot. He squinted at the license plates on the rear of the trailer as the truck rolled away, but his vision was blurred and his stomach was churning again and he leaned forward, clutching his abdomen and retching. He staggered half way to his truck, then fell, curling into a ball on the pavement, dry heaving.
"Hey-yum...you okay?"
Bill looked up through tears at a red-haired freckle-faced boy wearing a powder blue shirt and black pants, the uniform of the truck stop's shop workers.
"You-um...you don't look so well, man."
Bill was frightened; something was definitely wrong with him and he didn't know what it was, but something told him to keep it to himself...for now.
"Fuh-fine," he gasped, getting up. "I'm fine, ruh-really."
"You sure? You look...well, awful pale. I can call somebody if—"
"No-no-nuh-no...really. I'm fine. "He tried to smile as he stood, clutching his stomach. "Just...flu. Thassall. Got the flu, I think.
"Aw, shit, man, that sucks. Y'know, they got some stomach stuff in the travel store if you wanna...sweet Jesus! What the hay-ell hap'nuh y'neck?"
"My...my..." Bill looked down at himself. The hair on his chest was matted and slick with something that was dribbling down from his neck. He touched four fingertips to his jaw...a little lower...felt more blood coming from two small punctures. "What... what the... what'd she do to me?"
"What? Who?"
"That...girl." He pointed to his blue Kenworth. "She came to my..." He pointed to the empty space where the black Peterbilt had been minutes before, "...she was just standing right... she said she was..." He touched the wound again; it was sore and he winced, hissing, "She bit me."
"Well, uh, I-yuh..." The boy was looking at him very oddly now, shuffling his weight from one foot to the other."... I don't know about no girl, mister. 'Cause, y'know, we don't let none of them girls back here, know what I mean? None of them lot lizards." He began to back away, squinting at Bill's face. "Thass, um...thass why you gotta pay to come into the lot, so's we can keep 'em out, y'know? Um, if you want, I can call a cop. We got security guards here, y'know, I can tell one of 'em you're—"
"No," Bill said, still touching his bloody neck. "No, that's...that's okay." He shuffled back to his truck, and when he looked back, the boy was gone. It took an effort just to open the door of the cab and he stood there a moment, still, silent, fingering his wound and listening... to something...something...
It wasn't another truck...it wasn't an engine at all... in fact, it was very close, whatever it was...
He got into the cab, slammed the door and sat behind the wheel for a few minutes, taking deep, slow breaths. The storm in his gut calmed after a while, leaving behind it a strange emptiness. It wasn't exactly hunger, and it wasn't quite a thirst, and yet...
He found the jerky the girl had left behind and lifted it to his mouth but, an instant before he took a bite, he gagged and dropped his hand to his lap, suddenly taking rapid breaths to keep from retching again.
Water. That would help. He found the container of water and lifted it to his lips, sucked in a mouthful and—
—his throat closed, spraying the water over the windshield and dash. He coughed and gagged for what seemed a long time, then put the jug down.
And he heard it still... that sound that seemed so close...so unidentifiable...
He rolled down the window and inhaled deeply, hanging his head limply through the opening. The sound was louder.
He lifted his head... squinted...
It was a thick rushing sound... a throbbing...
Almost like a heartbeat.
He turned slowly to his left to the truck parked beside his...to the livestock trailer that reeked of cow shit. Even in the poor light, he could detect the movement of the cattle through the round ventilation holes that lined the trailer.
Much to his surprise, he could even hear their breathing.
And the throbbing sound continued...
Westbound Interstate 40, just west of Williams, Arizona...
Christmas had ended nearly five hours ago and the interstate was a corpse. The lights of a truck scale just off the freeway-glowed like a lonely ghost in the cold dark night. Inside the scale shack, Officer Larry Hauff of the Arizona Highway Patrol sat before a noisy portable heater with his feet propped up on a rickety table reading an article in the Weekly World News; it seemed a mummified Egyptian pharaoh was still getting erections regularly in a museum in Cairo. He read, chuckled, sipped bitter coffee from a Thermos, then read some more.
It had been a slow night and a cold one. As cold as it was, Larry knew it would only get worse; Mother Nature was gearing up for one hell of a winter blitz, all the weather forecasters said so.
He heard an engine slow and turned to see a blue Kenworth pulling off the freeway; it was hauling nothing—no trailer, no truck—just the stubby, sawed-off-looking tractor. Larry stood, slid the door open and stepped out of the shack into the bone-chipping cold pulli
ng his coat together in front as the tractor veered around the scales and slowed to a stop. The driver got out, leaving the engine idling, and headed toward him.
He was a lean man, medium height, and walked with a swagger. At first, Larry thought perhaps he'd been drinking, but realized, after a moment, that the man had a slight limp.
"Morning," Larry called, his breath blossoming into a small cloud of vapor before his face. "Can I help you?"
As he came closer, his face hidden by darkness, ice crunched beneath the man's boots where small puddles had frozen in the night. His hands were in his back pockets and his elbows jutted at his sides; he wore no coat. "I hope so," he said, stepping into the glow of the shack's light.
Larry flinched. The man's skin was the color of dry bone and his eyes were so deep in their sockets that they were hidden in circles of blackness.
"I lost my buddy a ways back and I was wondering if he'd been through here."
"Your buddy?" Larry suddenly felt even colder and folded his arms tightly across his broad chest. Something was wrong with this man. He wassickor...on drugs, maybe? "Well...what's he driving?" The steam that puffed from Larry's mouth as he spoke obscured the man for a moment, making him look even worse.
"A black Peterbilt? Extended hood? A white trailer that says Carsey Brothers Trucking on the side?"
The skin on the back of Larry's neck shriveled. Something wasn't right here, something was... missing...
"Um... yeah. Yeah, as a matter of fact he did come through here. About an hour ago, hour and a half. It's been slow, so I remember him, yeah. Probably would've remembered him anyway. He was hauling—" Larry's throat was suddenly dry and scratchy and he stopped to swallow. "—caskets. Had a load of caskets. Uhh... hell of a thing to be hauling at Christmas time, huh?" he laughed nervously.
The man nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "Yeah...caskets...yeah, that's him."
Larry frowned. The man seemed to be thinking it over, digesting the information, as if it were news to him that the Peterbilt had been hauling caskets, as if it were important. And something else... something that made Larry's scrotum whither like a walnut...
When the man spoke, no vapor appeared in the cold air before his face.
"You must've lost him a while back if he's that far ahead of you," Larry said.
"Yeah, well...we got separated. How far to the next truck stop, do you know?"
Larry cocked his head, amazed: no steam, no airy white whisps from the man's mouth. "Truck stop? Uuhh...sixty miles. Seventy. Maybe more. Hey, um, aren't you cold, fella?"
He shrugged. "Had the heater blasting in the truck."
"Uh-huh. You know...you don't look well, if you don't mind my saying. I think it might be a good idea if you took a break, stayed off the road a while. I got some coffee here in the—"
"No. I've gotta go. But thanks." He started to turn.
"No, really. I'm serious." He tried to sound authoritative, but couldn't find any authority in himself at the moment. His stomach was fluttering nervously. "I don't think you should be driving."
The man faced Larry, took a step toward him...another step...still another, until the light peeled away the darkness hiding his eyes and Larry could see them. His own eyes widened, even watered a little as he stared into those...pits. When the man spoke, his voice was soft as melting snow:
"I'm fine, really."
The voice echoed in Larry's head as if in a yawning canyon: I'm fine, really, fine, really, fine, fine, really, really...
"You don't have to give me a second thought."
...ive me a second thought, give me a, you don't have to, a second thought, second thought really... "I'll be going now."
...going now' going, I'll be, now, going now, going...
"You go back to your paper."
...paper, go back to, you go back, paper, back to your paper...
The man stepped back. His eyes disappeared. He gave Larry a closed-mouth smile and nodded his head, saying, in a normal voice, "Well, I'd better head out if I'm gonna catch up with him. You stay warm."
Hands trembling, Larry nodded jerkily, smacking his dry, felty lips, trying to muster enough saliva to speak. Before he could, the man was climbing into his cab...revving the engine...driving away...
Thirty seconds later, Larry was seated in the shack again, sipping coffee as he read a story about extraterrestrials that abducted cheerleaders, chuckling and thinking about what a slow night it was...
CHAPTER 1
"Well, it's about time," Doug Purcell said as the traffic on northbound Interstate 5 began to move. There had still been some light in the steel grey sky when they'd come to a halt, but now Mount Shasta was blanketed by darkness. Engines fired up again and headlights flicked on, their glow reflected softly by the snow that lay all around. The windshield had fogged up for the third time and Doug swiped a hand towel back and forth to clear it before starting the car.
"I wonder what it was," Adelle said quietly. She sounded as if she were yawning, although she wasn't; it was sadness and fatigue that thickened her voice.
Jon leaned forward in the back seat and asked enthusiastically, "You think maybe it was a wreck?"
"Oh, Jon," Adelle hissed disgustedly, shifting in the seat as the car began to move slowly up the incline once again.
The boy leaned back with a sigh.
Ahead and to the right, Doug saw the blood red flicker of flares lined up on the freeway at an angle to guide traffic into the left lane. Fenced off from the traffic by the flares was a shapeless mangle of steel and shattered glass that had once been two cars. The red and blue lights of police cars throbbed and spun in front of and beyond the mess. It was the fourth they'd seen since they'd passed Redding. "Yep," he said, "it's a wreck."
Jon leaned forward again, barking, "Really?" and his little sister Cece uttered a small, breathy, "Oh..."
Adelle sat up and peered ahead. "Jon, stop it, okay? People could be hurt, here."
As they neared the wreck, Doug saw black splashes of blood in the snow and a lone tattered boot standing upright on the freeway's shoulder.
"Oh, God," Adelle said. "Cece, don't look. Turn away."
The twelve year old groaned, "Oh, Muh-therrr."
Doug was slightly sickened by it all: the policemen walking about in their heavy coats and plastic covered caps with flashlight beams bobbing over the steaming blood in the snow and the monstrosity of twisted metal, the domelights of their vehicles spilling the colors of tragedy over it all.
"Gaazvwwd," Jon breathed in awe. "I wonder if Dad ever sees anything like this when he's—"
"Jon, will you just shut up!"
Doug glanced back at Jon. "C'mon, son. Okay? For now? Your mom isn't feeling too—"
"Oh, please, Doug, please don't." She seemed to sink into the sheet, cupping a hand above her eyes as if to shield them from sunlight.
He looked over his shoulder at the boy again and shrugged.
Jon's arms were folded tightly and he looked out the window at his right as he mumbled, "Don't call me son."
A rustling sound came from the back of the station wagon. Doug looked in the rearview mirror and saw seventeen year old Dara, the oldest of Adelle's three children, sitting up, sleepy-eyed, among the luggage and blankets.
"What's goin' on?" she slurred.
Jon said, "S'just a wreck, dweeb, so go back to sl—"
"That's enough!" Adelle shouted, spinning around in her seat. "I don't want to hear another sound from any of you, do you understand?"
Silence.
Adelle settled back into her seat.
Doug looked at her again and his heart sank. He'd never seen Adelle like this and it hurt him, not because she'd been grumpy and snapping at everyone but because he knew that she was hurting. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if Jon hadn't mentioned his father...
"Next place we come to, I'm stopping," he said.
Adelle stiffened. "Why?"
"Well, for one thing, we could all use something to eat. An
d we need some chains if we're going to get there."
"We have chains."
"I said I'm sorry, sweetheart. I thought they'd fit your car but they don't and they're not doing any good. What do I know about chains? I'm a San Francisco boy. I've never driven in snow in my life."
"Well, I have. That's why I don't understand why you insisted on driving me to—"
"I didn't like the idea of you making the trip alone."
"I've made this trip a million times."
"Well, not since you've known me, and certainly not under these circumstances."
She scrubbed her face, making a sound half way between a sigh and a groan. "They said she might not make it through the night. I wanted to...I just didn't...I don't want her to go before—"
"I know, honey." He reached over and squeezed her arm. "But we can only do the best we can. We can't control the weather or traffic."
As if on cue, it began to snow again.
They'd left Sacramento shortly before noon—less than two hours after Adelle had learned that her mother in Grants Pass, Oregon, had suffered a massive stroke—knowing the weather would be bad, but not suspecting that it would get so much worse.
Doug continued, trying to sound cheerful: "We'll stop, stretch our legs, have some dinner and find out where we can get some chains that'll fit. Okay?"
Adelle was rubbing her eyes with her knuckles; either she hadn't heard him or she was ignoring him.
He drove on, slowly and carefully, and after a while the traffic began to thin out. As they reached the mountain's summit, the freeway became less crowded and Doug was able to pick up speed a little—not much; he didn't want to push his luck—and the atmosphere in the car seemed to thin just a bit.
Below the mountains they'd just scaled, the small town of Yreka was nestled in a hilly valley and Doug felt much safer to be driving on flatter ground. A gentle glow—from the town, Doug supposed—rose above the tall trees up ahead to the left and it was such a welcome sight, so pleasant to look at, that he almost missed the sign to the right of the freeway: