Ghost Road Blues pd-1

by Jonathan Maberry

  “Hey, you down there,” Ruger snapped. “Yeah, you…get in here. Right now.”

  Connie did not move so much as an eyelash.

  “I ain’t gonna tell you twice, woman. Get your ass in here right now. Don’t make me come and get you.”

  “D…Dad?” Connie asked in a tiny voice.

  Guthrie met Ruger’s eyes, read them. Understood. “Come on in, Connie. Do as he says.”

  She still hesitated. Guthrie turned halfway around and hissed at her, “Get in here, for God’s sake!” That got her moving, and she scurried down the hall with mincing steps on legs that seemed to move like unbending sticks.

  Ruger looked at her, all dolled up with a pearl choker and a full-skirted print dress. He chuckled. “Who the hell are you? Donna Reed?”

  In other circumstances, the observation might have been as funny as it was accurate, but at the moment Ruger was his only audience. Still he gave himself a good chuckle at his bon mot. Giving Val a vicious jab with the gun barrel, he said, “Now, who else is here?”

  Guthrie shook his head. “No one. Just us.”

  “You better not be lying to me, old fella, it’s been a trying day, and I’m really not in the mood for fun and games.”

  “Mister,” said Guthrie, “as long as you got that gun to her head, I am going to do whatever you say. I don’t want no trouble, and I don’t want no harm to come to me or mine. If you want money, I’ll give you what I got. Just please don’t hurt the girls.”

  Ruger liked the speech, and said so. Guthrie said nothing, but his eyes were hard and steady. “Tell you what, Mr….?”

  “Guthrie.”

  “Guthrie. Fine. Tell you what, Mr. Guthrie, why don’t you and Donna Reed park your butts on the sofa over there?”

  Guthrie nodded, and he guided Connie over with a flat palm on her back. Ruger turned to follow, keeping Val between them, but it was clear that Guthrie was not going to do anything stupid. Ruger relaxed a little. He knew that most people weren’t stupid or heroic enough to face down a gun. With all the crime nowadays, everyone handled these things like business transactions. Once Guthrie and Connie were seated, Ruger let go of Val’s hair and gave her a shove that propelled her stumbling all the way to the couch, where she collapsed onto her father. Ruger stood with the gun pointed at her while she got herself sorted out. Connie edged away from her to make room, moving as far away as possible as if she feared to touch the woman who had touched the man with the gun. Val settled in between Connie and her father, who wrapped one strong and comforting arm around her shoulders.

  “You okay, pumpkin?”

  “She’s peachy,” answered Ruger. “Now shut up.” He prowled quickly around the living room, peering down the hall and up the stairs and out the windows. Satisfied, he dragged a Shaker rocking chair over and sat ten feet in front of the couch, resting the gun on his thigh. He drew in a deep breath and let it drain out of him slowly, the way a smoker exhales the first long drag of a cigarette.

  Val stared at him, fighting the numbness of shock, still dazed from the blow he had struck. She had never been hit that hard in all her life, but it was more the fact of the blow than the force that made her want to scream and cry. Who was this man? What could he possibly want? This was so far beyond her ordinary experience that she didn’t know how to react, except to crouch there in fear on the edge of the couch and wait for whatever was going to happen next to unfold. The moment stretched and the man did nothing for a while except sit and stare at them, jiggling the pistol and occasionally pursing his lips the way people sometimes do when they are thinking.

  Val tried to get some measure of the man; she studied him without appearing to do so. He was no local man, that was for sure, and no farmer. He was dressed in a dark city suit that was stained with dried blood, and his shoes were caked with mud. The man was rather handsome in an oily sort of way, with a long thin nose and a strong jaw, but his lips were too thin and looked cruel, and his chin was so pointed that it gave him a saturnine countenance. He had very high, prominent cheekbones and an almost Shakespearean brow, except for the sharp dip of his coal-black widow’s peak. His hair was as dark and shiny as a magpie’s wing. But it was his eyes that disturbed her most: they were a strange charcoal gray and extraordinarily piercing, and despite the pretense at humor, there was no trace of humanity anywhere in those shadowy depths.

  Ruger fished his cigarettes out of his pocket and fired one up one-handed, never relaxing his grip on the pistol, even though it appeared to rest casually on his leg.

  “Okay, folks, it’s question and answer time,” he said after he had made them sit and stew in troubled silence for almost a minute. “The rules are simple. I ask questions, and you answer them. You get points for all correct answers, but let me warn you — you could lose some substantial points for wrong answers.” He jiggled the gun for emphasis. He fixed his gaze on Guthrie. “Okay, Mr. Guthrie, you are our first contestant tonight.”

  Guthrie said nothing, but Val could feel him stiffen beside her. This was so outrageous and unreal that he didn’t even know how to think about it.

  “Now, unless you are some kind of Mormon and these young darlings are your harem, I can assume that these are your daughters. In fact, did I not hear Donna Reed there call you ‘dad’?”

  Guthrie hesitated for only a split second. “Yes, they are my daughters.”

  “Good, you get one point. Now, tell me their names.”

  “Val and Connie.”

  “Uh-huh. Which is which? No…let me guess. That one looks like a Connie,” he said, nodding to Connie. “She looks like every Connie I’ve ever known. Prissy name, don’t you think?”

  Guthrie didn’t think he was supposed to answer that question, so he kept his jaw clamped shut.

  “I guess that means you’re Val?” Val nodded. “I’m sorry,” Ruger said, cupping a hand to his ear. “Didn’t catch that.”

  “Y…yes. My name is Val Guthrie.”

  “Ah, splendid.” Ruger looked as pleased as if Val had just won a spelling bee. “Now, ladies, hold up your hands. Mm-hm. No wedding ring on your hand, Val. Too bad. Shouldn’t let fruits like yours spoil on the vine. But…ooo, look at that, Connie’s got a nice fat gold band. Well, where is Mr. Reed?”

  “What?” Connie asked, confused.

  “Your husband. Don’t you ever watch TV Land? Where is he?”

  Connie said nothing, looking too scared to even open her mouth beyond the permanent shocked O in which it was set.

  “Connie,” Ruger chided, “you’re forgetting the rules.”

  “He’s not home,” said Guthrie.

  Ruger smiled, stood, walked over to the couch, and looked down at Guthrie. With another demonstration of his terrible speed he punched the old man in the face. Guthrie’s head rocked back as blood erupted from his torn eyebrow. It poured down his face in a shocking flood of brilliant red. Guthrie clamped his hands to his face, and Val seized him protectively in her arms, trying to stanch the flow of blood. Connie recoiled in horror and squeezed herself farther into the corner of the couch.

  Ruger stood over them, looking down at them with all of the reptilian humor momentarily gone from his face. “Listen to me, you old fuck. If I ask you a question, you may answer. If I ask anyone else a question, shut the fuck up. Am I clear?”

  Guthrie nodded slowly, his eyes blazing with pain and fury.

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Yes, goddamn it!” Guthrie snarled, and tensed for another blow. Ruger just let his smile return and backed up until he found the rocker and lowered himself into it.

  “Okay then. Let’s try this again.”

  Guthrie’s face was painted red and blood ran from between his fingers and down his forearms.

  “Now, Connie. Where is your husband?”

  Connie glanced at the blood still streaming down Guthrie’s face and in a choked, little girl voice said, “Mark went to a meeting after work.”

  “A meeting of what?”

 
“Rotary Club.”

  Ruger burst out laughing. “Oh man! That is just too precious! Fucking Rotary Club, and Donna-frigging-Reed to come home to. Tell me, Miss Perfect, does he drive a station wagon, too?”

  “How did you know…?”

  Laughter spewed out again. “American made?”

  “Yes…a Ford.”

  Ruger actually pounded the butt of the pistol on his thigh as he laughed. Val and her father exchanged a very brief glance; Connie just frowned in uncertain confusion and fear. Eventually Ruger sobered. “Okay, Mr. Guthrie, your turn again. How’s the face?”

  “It’s fine,” Guthrie said coldly.

  “Looks to me like it hurts like a bitch. Whatever. Okay, now, does anyone else live here besides Donna Reed and her husband, Val the Spinster, and your own self? Is there a Mrs. Old Lady Guthrie?”

  “It’s just us.”

  “What about farm hands? You can’t work this big old place by yourselves.”

  “We have a few regular hands, and we have some day labor come in.”

  “Wetbacks?”

  “Some migrant workers, a few local boys.”

  “Any of them getting any from Val over there?”

  Guthrie ground his teeth and tried to find some kind of answer that would not result in a beating or a bullet, but Karl waved the question away. “Forget it. Trick question. What I meant to say, is there anyone else who’s likely to come sniffing around after her tonight?”

  Val tensed, her fingers digging in to her father’s skin. “No,” she heard her dad say.

  “What, no boyfriends?” Ruger asked Val.

  “He lives in town,” said Connie, and then clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes growing as wide as saucers as she realized she had spoken out of turn. With a weary sigh, Karl stood up and walked over to her.

  “No, please don’t!” Guthrie said.

  “Let her alone!” pleaded Val.

  Ruger looked at them for a moment, considering. “She broke the rules. Loss of points. What can I do?”

  “She’s just scared. She didn’t mean anything,” Val protested, half rising.

  Ruger swung the gun around so fast it became a silvery blur. The edge of the barrel caught Val across the forehead just below the hairline and knocked her back against the armrest. Her father began lunging at Ruger, but the man was so frighteningly quick; Ruger twisted and drove his gun-hand elbow into Guthrie’s solar plexus as the old man struggled to stand. All the air and fight went out of Guthrie, and he collapsed against the dazed and bleeding Val. The two of them huddled in a bloody and motionless heap.

  Ruger gave a world-weary sigh. “I can see this is going to be a long night after all, folks. Oh well, shit happens, huh?” As his irrepressible smile crept back onto his lips, he turned to Connie, who was so terrified that she was not even breathing. Both of her hands beat the air in front her, warding off imagined blows. Ruger bent down toward her and batted her hands out of the way. Connie squeezed her eyes shut and turned as far away as she could, her whole face twisted in expectation of the pain. Ruger kept leaning forward until his lips were only a couple of inches away from her face. He did not touch her, not so much as a hair on her head. Instead, he said in a sharp voice: “Boo!”

  Connie screamed and fainted.

  Chapter 10

  (1)

  Tow-Truck Eddie moved through the rooms of his house as if he were exploring a marvelous new country. Everything he looked at appeared fresh and mysterious and wonderful. He stood for a time in the dining room, listening to the old grandfather clock ticking out the seconds of his new existence, and he realized that with each passing moment new universes were being created and old suns were dying glorious deaths. All for him.

  In the kitchen, he took tomatoes and crushed them in his strong fingers, and understood the message that they had always tried to tell him about the truths hidden in living blood; how could he have missed the meaning of this parable for so long? He licked the pulp from his hands and marveled in the taste, so like blood.

  Upstairs in his bedroom, he picked up a five-pound plate from his weight set and pressed the flat side of it against his cheek, delighting in the coolness and roughness of the hard black iron.

  Down in the laundry room, he stripped out of his soiled clothes and crammed them into his tiny washing machine. He poured a precise capful of Wisk over them and washed them in cold water. Naked, he inspected his body, astounded at the fineness of his skin, at the textural differences between the flesh of his stomach and that on the inside of each wrist; at the difference in sensation between the cool air of the cellar on his thighs and on his face. He inspected his flaccid penis and wondered what kind of seed it would dispense, now that he had become a true son of God. Would his children share his power? Would the act of inseminating a woman likewise bestow grace on her? The thought made his penis jump, begin to swell, but he forced those thoughts away. They were not proper for this moment; they were thoughts from before, and he would allow them only at the proper time, and with the proper ceremony, but not in the squalid laundry room of his house.

  Still naked, he ran up the stairs, and the exertion felt so good he ran up and down the stairs twenty-five times. Sweat flowed from his pores and coated him with a fine sheen. When he walked into the living room and stood before the mirror, he saw how the sweat helped define each of his muscles. He turned this way and that, flexing his arms and chest, swelling his lats, flexing the bulky quadriceps and abdominals. Even with all the thousands of hours he had spent with weights, he had never fully realized just how perfect his body had become, especially for a man of his age. He looked thirty rather than fifty. His body was more superb than any Greek statue: each muscle rippling like bundles of bridge cable beneath the firm tautness of his skin. From the broad expanse of the pectoralis major to the tapering peroneus brevis he stood as a model of metahuman perfection, and a whole hour passed before he could tear himself away from his own image. What a perfect vessel, he thought. What a perfect temple for the Holy Spirit.

  He wished that he could somehow clone himself so that he could always be able to look at that body, maybe even to hold it, kiss it, make reverent love to it.

  What would it feel like, he wondered, to make love to one’s own body? Surely it must be the most perfect love anyone could ever experience.

  Walking back and forth through the house, he watched the clock tick toward ten o’clock. He had been home for nearly an hour and a half, and still the level of energetic excitement hadn’t abated even one iota.

  He laughed out loud, full of a pure delight, and turned a graceful pirouette in the middle of the living room.

  (2)

  Vic Wingate was turning the crank of his antique printer; yellow handbills zipped out from under the roller and settled down into the tray. A haze of blue cigarette smoke tinted the air of the cellar. It fascinated him to watch the blank sheets of paper go in one end of the roller and pop out of the other a second later filled with words and pictures. Even though it was a lot of work to do it this way, and though he could have done it far easier and much faster on his computer, Vic preferred the ink and the mess and the feel of doing it by hand.

  The stack of blank papers dwindled down to nothing and Vic stopped cranking. Stubbing out his cigarette in a dented metal ashtray he’d stolen once from the only good hotel he’d ever stayed in, Vic picked up the top copy of the freshly printed handbills. His thick lips moved as he read his own words: WHY THE WHITE RACE HAS THE RIGHT TO RULE, and below that in smaller type: AND HOW THE JEWS ARE TRYING TO USURP THAT RIGHT.

  Usurp. He liked the word. Vic always had a dictionary and thesaurus handy when he wrote up his handbills.

  He let the handbill flutter back down atop the others and stretched. His muscles were sore from two really difficult transmission jobs at Shanahan’s Service Station, where he worked nine to five, five days a week. It was a hard job, but it paid well and Vic loved it. He loved everything about cars. If he had the money, he’d buy
Shanahan out, though he’d still do his time in the pits. Then he smiled when he realized how dumb an idea that was. Come the day after Halloween there would be no Shanahan’s…and from that point on Vic wouldn’t be working for anyone. Well, except for Griswold. The Man would always be the Man.

  He worked on his handbills for a while longer, musing now about how things were working out. It was all starting now, he knew that. The Man had a lot of pieces moving on the board, and though Vic knew most of what was in store, he didn’t know everything. He was a general, sure, but not the Man himself. That was okay with him. When the Red Wave hit on Halloween night, Vic would be nearly a king himself.

  He bundled the flyers and stacked them, then massaged his neck muscles, which had grown stiff as he’d worked over the printer. Then a thought occurred to him and he looked at his wristwatch: 9:30 p.m.

  “Well, well,” he murmured. A smile wriggled wetly onto his lips. “The little fucker’s late again. Oh boy.” He fingered his belt, wondering if tonight was a belt night or a hands-on night. Hands, he decided. You could never really get the feel of it with a belt. Kid felt it, sure as hell, but Vic wanted to feel it himself. He liked his hands to sting. It was no good if your hands didn’t sting, he mused, and you never got that with a belt. All you got with the belt was a jolt up the arm and the sound. The sound was good, but that sting was outstanding. With the thickness of the calluses on Vic’s hands, it took a lot of speed, a lot of impact for there to be any sting at all, and Vic always liked to challenge himself to see how many hits it would take until the sting was there, and there at just the right tingling level.

  Vic figured that maybe it was time to amp up on the kid. If the Man’s other plan for getting rid of the little pussy didn’t work out, then it was up to Vic to accomplish his goal. If he upped the ante on Mike, made the beatings a bit worse — but not so bad that those cops that weren’t in his pocket would be forced to step in — then maybe the kid would finally get the fucking message and realize that, yes, life is hell so maybe it’d be better to jump off a fucking bridge. Or something. Vic had left razor blades on the side of the tub several times, but the little bastard was too damn dense to take a hint.