The Brotherhood of the Wheel

by R. S. Belcher

“Oh, shit!” She jumped into the car. Another crack, and a dull thud in the Honda’s body. Gerry’s car started smoothly, and she jammed it into gear, realizing that she was still clutching the crowbar. She tossed it on the seat next to her, the seat she had sat in and made fun of Gerry and made eyes at Cole from. Was that in a different age, a different life? No time, no time! The Honda lurched out of the parking lot, with Toby firing another round as it sped away. She nearly hit the Scodes’ oncoming tow truck and the motorcycle it was following as she sped down the dark two-lane. Her whole body was shaking. She wanted to throw up, to scream, to pull off her flesh. She did none of it. She found a crumpled pack of American Spirit cigarettes in the compartment between the seats. They were Gerry’s—fucking hipster, rest his soul. With trembling hands, Lexi lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. She felt her heart slowing to a gentle beat in her chest. It worked. She did it. They were free. She accelerated out of Four Houses and let a tiny bit of the tension bleed out of her body and mind.

  The next hour was a nightmare—no, it was hell. They had all died on 281, in that crash. This was the Devil’s playground, and he was laughing, braying like some animal. She looped along the two-lane, passing the same houses, the same trailers, the roadhouse, the burned-out houses, the fucking garage that she had just fled from over and over and over.

  In the backseat, Cole murmured something she couldn’t hear above the hum of the engine. She looked down at the gas gauge. She had less than half a tank of gas left. Something was itching in her memory—someplace someone had told them to go to where they would be safe, protected. It was the night Gerry and Alana had died. The night that Ava had run away and left them. She was probably dead, too, now. There was someplace where they could be safe. She fought to remember, but she had been so scared, hysterical, and sometimes she forgot things when she was like that. She passed the garage again and slowed slightly at what she saw. In the parking lot, under the twitchy, shivering lemon light of the lot, stood the Scodes, both of them being addressed by the motorcycle rider, the man named Chasseur—the servant of that unthinkable thing in the woods. All three of them turned to look at her as the Honda drifted by. Everything was in slow motion. Chasseur’s eyes were midnight, and massive antlers grew from his head. He waved to her, slowly, deliberately, as she passed. Lexi jammed the accelerator to the floor and sped away. Panic had her. They had to escape, to get away. The house! The bitch who wouldn’t let them in the first night had said head for the Crone’s house. The Crone’s house! She remembered. They had got separated from Ava trying to get there. She was close to it, to the driveway. She had noticed the porch light was on the last time she passed it. An RV and a car were parked up there, too. People were there, people and light.

  Something was in the road. The headlights caught them. It was children, a line of children all holding hands, making a chain across the two-lane. All were wearing hoodies, and their heads were down, hiding their faces. Lexi slowed and then stopped when the kids didn’t move. She was about to hit the horn to scatter them when their heads all came up simultaneously. Their eyes were as dark and empty as the Master of the Hunt’s had been. Their skin was so pale as to have an almost milky opalescence in the headlights. Their eyes locked with hers, and she felt herself putting the car into park without even knowing why. The children moved like a single organism to surround the car. Two of them were at the driver’s-side door, looking at Lexi, into her, with eyes of fathomless void.

  “Open the door,” one of the children said softly, evenly. “Let us in.”

  “We need a ride home,” the other one said. “Let us in. Open the door.” Their voices were like a warm narcotic syrup pouring over Lexi, into her mind, filling the crevices. She saw her hand moving to hit the open button for the doors. Part of her mind screamed, but she was still doing it. She looked around the other windows; ghostly faces with eyes of night were at each one, each staring at her and, seemingly, through her. Tiny pale hands clawed at the glass, eager to get inside. Her hand was almost to the button. She glanced at the cigarette in her other hand. She fought with all her will to act. The smoldering cigarette pressed against the smooth skin of her forearm. Lexi gasped. The nail of burning pain cleared her head, and she jerked her hand away from the lock button.

  The little creatures at her door, pretending to be human children, hissed and showed mouths full of slender bone needles where normal human teeth should be.

  “Let us in,” the children whispered. “Open the door.…” Lexi heard the sound of the rear door unlocking with a thunk. She spun around, reaching for the crowbar, only to see Cole, glassy-eyed and only semi-aware, unlocking his door.

  “No, no!” Lexi shouted, and tried to turn to pull the rear door closed, but the children were already swarming into the SUV. She tried to fight, swinging the crowbar as best she could as small, inhumanly strong hands grabbed her and wrestled the weapon out of her hand. Her door came open, and she fell on the cold, hard pavement of the road. She was pinned, and she saw Cole’s limp body being dropped beside her on the road by the children. She wanted to curse, to spit, but small, viselike hands and fingers held her and were stuffed into her mouth, rendering her mute. She tried biting them, but the children didn’t seem to register the pain.

  The headlights of the Scodes’ old truck were blinding her. She looked up to see Wald and Toby, then she saw the Master of the Hunt. Chasseur’s eyes were normal again, and he had no horns.

  “She hurt me, Wald,” Toby whined as he pointed at her. Lexi wished for an instant she had bashed his skull in with the crowbar. “And then she got away and—”

  “Shut up,” Wald said, looking with disgust at his brother, then looking at Chasseur with fear. “Master, I’m so sorry for Toby’s incompetence. I had only stepped out for—”

  “It is your incompetence as well, Walden,” Chasseur said. “The boy is badly injured. Your zeal may lead to me not having the perfect final sacrifices tomorrow night on Beltane Eve.”

  “Sir, I made sure that there is not a mark on him.” Wald’s voice was picking up in pitch, and a little whine was creeping into it now, too.

  “Shut your mouth,” the Master of the Hunt said. “We have less than twenty-four hours until he and the girl must be sacrificed. I will not allow your ham-handed bumbling to interfere in the successful completion of all that I have toiled for.”

  Lexi was no longer struggling. She strained to hear what Chasseur was saying.

  “Tell me your will, Master,” Wald said. “I’ll see to it personally.”

  “Gather our allies in the town. Arm them with the weapons you’ve confiscated over the years. The time has come to cleanse Four Houses of the infestation of the unbeliever. Tomorrow, you will lead our allies on a purge. They will slaughter every man, woman, and child in this town. In their bloodlust, I expect them to eventually turn upon themselves and kill each other. You shall clean up any stragglers who survive.”

  “Everyone?” Toby said. “But some people are nice and—” A single look from Chasseur was enough to silence him.

  “The one that followed me back, the policewoman, she has power, power even she has no idea she possesses. She, the old bitch, and the whore she’s taken under her wing could present problems for me and the plan. Kill them and the rest of the chattel before they manage to get the town organized against me. Kill all three women. Kill anyone else that gets in your way. Kill everyone, for his glory, and for mine.”

  “Yes, Master,” Wald said, a slight gleam in his eye now. “Your will shall be done.”

  The Master of the Hunt looked at the Scode brothers and then at Lexi and Cole, lying on the ground. “Drug them, paint them, and keep them that way until it is time for them to be devoured by the Horned Man. If you fail in this, I will feed you both to the hounds a little piece at a time.”

  At the mention of drugs, Lexi began to struggle again, fiercely, but she couldn’t get free, couldn’t shake loose so many small, strong hands. The last thing she heard before she felt the silve
r sting of the needle, before the world became odd, and slow, and everything pointless, was the Master of the Hunt’s voice.

  “By this time tomorrow, on sacred Beltane, this entire planet shall become the Horned Man’s prey,” Chasseur said, “and the whole world will scream with one throat.”

  TWENTY

  “10-97”

  They were in Kansas. Jimmie’s rig was rolling along on Route 36, headed toward a little town called Lebanon, near the Kansas-Nebraska border. Sam and Dave’s “Hold On, I’m Comin’” was playing on the cab speakers, and the sky was so blue and clear it could break your heart.

  “You have some of the weirdest musical tastes of any old white guy I know,” Heck said, rubbing his eyes from the bench behind Jimmie’s seat. “Didn’t I hear Daft Punk a little while ago when I was sleeping?”

  “You think he’s bad,” Max said from the passenger seat, tapping and swiping the screen of her tablet. She had a notebook open and propped against her knees, which were close to her chest. “Try riding with Lovina. Very odd music.”

  “Morning, sleepy head,” Jimmie said. “Just in time for the party. And, for the record, you log as many miles as I have, and you get very open-minded about your music. It’s a survival trait.”

  “Where are we, exactly?” Heck asked.

  “Kansas,” Jimmie said. “Close to the ground zero of mystical energy, if Max’s theory is right.”

  “Max,” Heck said absently. “That’s short for Maxine, right?’

  “Mackenzie, actually,” Max said, not looking up from her tablet. “My grandfather was named Max, and we were pretty tight growing up. So he was Big Max, and I became Little Max. I liked it, and it stuck.”

  “Shouldn’t you be Mac?” Heck said, grinning.

  “Shouldn’t you be Hector?” Max replied, again not looking up.

  Hector scowled. “I need to get my boots on,” he said with a snarl.

  Max smiled. “Okay, Jimmie, up ahead you need to turn right onto Route 281,” she said, examining her tablet map.

  “Same 281 that the Pagan’s first victim was discovered on in 1956,” Jimmie said.

  Max nodded.

  “Okay, how does this work?” Jimmie said as they turned onto 281.

  “We’re very close to the geographic center of the conterminous United States,” Max said.

  “Is that the same exit as the worlds’ largest rubber-band ball?” Heck asked, grinning once again. “And can we buy fireworks there?”

  Max paused and looked up from her tablet to glare at him over her glasses. “It means that all that forty-two thousand miles of magic-charged highway converge here,” she said. “This is the center of the magical circuit that is the U.S. interstate-highway system.”

  “So how do we get to Four Houses, Max?” Jimmie asked.

  “I believe this occult-power system was designed to be tapped into and used,” Max said, working furiously on her tablet. She seemed to locate what she wanted and nodded. “Viamancers simply do it by instinct and genetics. I think it’s a by-product of so many people living and being in proximity to the source of all this magical power—children began to be born with the innate ability to tap into it, hence your ‘road witches.’”

  “Okay, but none of us are road witches, as we’ve already established,” Heck said. “So what do we do, Doc?”

  “The system used to number the routes and highways is part of a complex, evolving, and very esoteric system of sacred geometry and numerology,” Max said. “All the occult secrets of the world, all the secret history of mankind, all the powers in the universe are hidden in the language of numbers.”

  “You mean the little road signs?” Heck said. “The interstate shields and the mile markers? All that stuff?”

  Max nodded, pointing to a small mile-marker post as they passed. “Exactly,” she said. “It’s a formula for accessing and tapping the power of the earth’s magic. In theory, it could allow a skilled practitioner of the mystic arts to perform all manner of impressive magical feats.”

  “Like hiding a whole town from being found,” Jimmie said. “Or transporting us there?”

  “Exactly!” Max said.

  “So you’re a skilled practitioner of the mystic arts?” Jimmie asked her.

  “Um, no,” Max said. “But I’ve read a great deal about it, and I’m sure I can—”

  “Oh, shit,” Heck said. “We’re screwed.”

  “—activate the system and operate it to get us to Four Houses.”

  Jimmie sighed. “Okay, Max, do your voodoo.” Max smiled at the trucker. Jimmie gave her a thumbs-up. “You got this, Max,” he said. “Take us to Lovina.”

  Max took a deep breath and settled herself into a crossed-legged position in the passenger seat. She closed her eyes and took several minutes to control and focus her breathing. Jimmie shut off the music and turned down the CB. He slowed the truck, but Max shook her head, keeping her eyes closed. “Faster,” she whispered. “Go faster.” Jimmie accelerated down the desolate two-lane, barren empty fields on either side of them as they moved faster and faster. Max opened her eyes when he hit seventy. She began to recite strings of numbers, formulas, and equations, one smoothly sliding into the next. Solutions becoming new integers, streams of outcomes and possible outcomes, theorems, solidifying into something more.

  The road in front of them began to waver, like the heat coming off a desert highway. They were at eighty now, and the sky was growing dark, filling with brooding clouds. There was a strange shift in pressure, which made all three feel as if their ears were going to pop. The semi was almost at ninety now.

  “Damn,” Heck whispered, tapping Jimmie on the shoulder and pointing out the driver’s-side window. “Jimmie, what the fuck is that, man?” Far off in the field to the left of the truck was something massive and dark, squatting at the horizon. It was partially obscured by the wavering curtain of distortion and the looming storm clouds. A few stray droplets of rain began to pat softly on the windshield, as if they were driving into a summer thundershower.

  “The city,” Jimmie said. “We’re crossing. You’re doing it, Max.”

  “Hold the speed!” Max said, sounding as if she were dreaming with her eyes open. She recited more strings of numbers, and a thin black line of blood trailed down from her nostril and spread along her lips. “Hold the speed,” she mumbled again, and then returned to her numeric incantation.

  Heck looked over, and now the dark shape was closer. He could make out skyscrapers and spires, temple domes and Gothic cathedrals. “It’s getting bigger, Jimmie,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Jimmie said. “It does that. Pray we don’t have to drive into it, or through it.”

  More blood was streaming out of Max’s nose now, and she was convulsing a little, but she kept reciting the numbers and formulating complex concepts out of the basic building blocks. The raindrops hissed and steamed as they hit the hood and the windshield. Jimmie saw a massive green-and-white highway sign coming up on the right side of the road. It said METROPOLIS-UTOPIA 23 MILES.

  “Why is it called that?” Heck asked, not taking his eyes off the city as it edged closer.

  “Back when they were building the highway system,” Jimmie said, “they put signs just like that up as place markers for real interstate signs. The stories say no one is sure if the city was always there and the Road just gave us access to it or if it was created along with the Road.”

  Heck tried to look away from the massive black tumor, the outline of architectural styles—lines and forms that didn’t match and couldn’t fully be processed by the human brain.

  “Well … shit,” Jimmie said, and glanced over to the left. The dark city took up most of the wasteland from floor to sky. The scene was much clearer now, and Jimmie recalled every detail from his nightmares after his last visit here. Heck made a noise, a catch in his throat, behind Jimmie. The trucker sincerely wished he could have prepared his squire for this, but he had no clue how one would do that. There weren’t words.


  Heck looked deeper into the city, and his mind tried to make some sense of it. All the buildings, all the bizarre hodgepodge of structures, were made of the twisted scraps and hulks of cars, trucks, semis and motorcycles. Some dark, shiny material held the millions of scraps of vehicle metal together like a glue. Whatever it was, the smooth organic nature of it—its sheen and its slightly viscous motility—made Heck think of a bug’s carapace as it skittered across a dirty tiled floor.

  There was a sound Heck could hear now that was growing louder above the semi’s engine. It took him a moment to identify it—it was screaming, millions of voices screaming, howling, weeping, begging, singing, laughing. Millions of voices from every tower window, every roof, every parapet, every street. It was the sound of a million million lunatics, all looking straight at the tiny rig coming ever closer to their dark city.

  Heck and Jimmie looked at Max. Her eyes were white orbs with tiny bloodshot cracks stretching across the surface. Black blood streamed down from her nose, and now from her tear ducts as well. She was still muttering formulas and hissing numbers. Heck grabbed an old flannel shirt and took off her glasses. He tried to wipe away the blood. “Jesus, this is killing her,” he said.

  The Road was burning at its edges with white fire. The simple lines of paint on Route 281 flared and sparked with blue-white current, and the light from the Road was now the only light, bathing the cab in a weird, refracted miasma, like lights underwater. The black thunderheads had blotted out the sky to the horizon; occasionally, chains of lightning bounced between the menacing mountains in the sky. There was a horrible crunching, rumbling sound all around the truck, like rocks being pulverized. Heck looked over at Jimmie. The trucker was focusing all his might on driving, staying inside the lines of the Road, staying on course. Jimmie was sweating, but his eyes were steely and calm. Past Jimmie, Heck saw through the driver’s window something that froze the reason in him and let the fear run rampant for an instant. The city was there, moving, throwing rock and dirt aside as it plowed across the field, an unstoppable juggernaut of madness and movement. He could smell it now, as well as hear it: decades of human waste and garbage left unattended to fester and stink. The city smelled of death. From the vantage point they had now, Heck saw them, the viamancers, the road witches, the mad inhabitants of Metropolis-Utopia. They were little more than indistinct silhouettes, but he could feel all those eyes on him, burning him, like cigarettes and X-rays. He could see the wires of the city now—the countless bodies in various states of dress and decay, hanging across the skyline like a row of paper dolls. Some of them were missing limbs or heads; others were little more than skeletons held together by rotting tendons and cartilage.