Revenant Rising

by M. M. Mayle

  “All right.” Nate sighs again. “I’ll give you that one, but what about the other guy, the one supplying Grant?”

  “Can’t say. Grant refuses to identify the bloke. I get the feeling it’s not one of his regulars, though. All I know for dead certain is that he surfaced soon after I approached Grant and professed to have seen Aurora riding in a truck in the vicinity of her hometown of Paradise, Michigan. It’s all in here, as you know.” Colin brandishes the wrinkled fax. “And I was told the info came with no strings attached.”

  “I still don’t like it. There are always strings.”

  “Yeh, don’t I know.”

  “Too much coincidence,” Nate says.

  “Save it, will you? We already had that argument when you stopped me at JFK. Reminding—who told you I’d be passing through New York? And how’d you know I intended to continue to Detroit on a commercial flight?”

  “Hey, you know I never reveal my sources.” Nate cracks a rare smile.

  “Yeh, you and Cliff Grant. Brothers under the skin you are,” Colin says without smiling and lights another cigarette.

  TWO

  November 1984

  Another hour has passed when Colin begins fidgeting and brings out a small folder from an inner pocket. When asked, he identifies it as a pocket calendar. There’s little question what he’s charting when he counts off days and weeks with the tip of a pen.

  “She’s due end of December, could be a Christmas baby,” he says. “And yeh, I know, I shouldn’t get my hopes up about any of this, but it’s hard not to.”

  Nate says nothing that would reveal his own weakness for hope and they both go back to watching for red pickup trucks. Thirty minutes later, the snow flurries diminish; by the time they approach the town of Bimmerman, the pavement’s dry.

  “I could stand another cup of coffee. How ’bout you?” Nate says.

  “I’ll need a pee before I take on any more coffee.”

  “Okay, just give a nod when you see a place that’ll do.”

  The small town is surprisingly congested for a weekday afternoon. Nate proceeds at a crawl which in no way impedes the heavy flow of traffic. Nearly every angled parking space is filled with pickup trucks, vans, and small campers. Pedestrians outfitted in hunting gear stand around in clusters and many of them appear drunk or well on their way. They’re spilling out of a bar on one corner, openly drinking from cans and bottles on another, and partying on truck beds in between. He and Colin crane and pivot to take in both sides of the wide thoroughfare, where it’s next to impossible to scan each vehicle participating in the impromptu bacchanal.

  “Want to join the party?” Nate indicates a bar where a nearby parking space is opening up.

  “Shit no! They’ve got guns.”

  “You know, I wonder if they do. I don’t see one deer carcass among them. These guys are just using hunting as an excuse for a prolonged drunk.”

  “You may be right there, but I think we’re not seeing any deer-kill because there’s no snow to speak of—for tracking.”

  “Good point. And speaking of—are you satisfied we haven’t overlooked anything here?”

  “Yeh, get on with it. I don’t exactly fancy stopping here and I’ve got no problem with having a slash ’longside the road if it comes to that.”

  Once they clear the outskirts of Bimmerman, there’s no traffic at all. No gas stations either. “How far are we from Paradise? Check the map, will you?” Nate says.

  “Without checking the map I can tell you we are a long way from Paradise. Stuck in purgatory, we are, and should we ever attain Paradise we’ll find it’s been paved over and they’ve put up a parking lot.”

  “I should’ve seen that coming—very funny. Now will you please check the fucking map and see if there’s another town—never mind, I see a place up ahead.”

  Nate slows to enter the parking lot of a so-called truck stop that’s never been paved. The open space surrounding a cinderblock building with a sign advertising beer, snacks, and clean restrooms is rutted in places and impassable in others. He parks to one side of the building after letting Colin out in front near a pair of decrepit gas pumps. There are no red pickup trucks in sight. No pickup trucks at all, a first for today.

  He gets out to stretch, moves toward the back corner of the building, drawn by the heavy thrum of an idling engine. But before he can investigate further, Colin comes charging at him, running flat out, wild-eyed, arms waving.

  “She’s in there!” Colin gasps. “Get back in the fucking car! Hurry up before she sees you!”

  Nate complies, slumps down behind the wheel, slips on aviator shades, and flips up the hood of his parka. “What about you—she didn’t spot you?” He scowls at Colin who dove into the car from the other side and is now crouched at window level in the passenger seat.

  “She didn’t see me. At first I didn’t see her either. Then I heard her voice, recognized it straightaway. She was asking the clerk where to find the loo and I had a chance to dodge behind a magazine rack. Saw her face plain as day. No question.”

  “Then what in hell are you doing out here? Why am I hiding? Why didn’t you just approach her and be done with it?”

  “You think she won’t make a colossal uproar if I go after her in public? And if she sees you she’ll know what’s up and make a run for it.”

  “Good point.” Nate slumps deeper into the seat.

  Colin peers over the dashboard. “I know—move the car. Move the bleedin’ car round to the back. Yeh, that should do it. Go close behind the truck like we’re queuing up to have a pee.”

  “Hold on. How do you know that’s where the truck is?”

  “Heard her say to the clerk that she’s parked back there and must have missed the restroom door. And that’s when the clerk said she could only enter the toilet from inside the store, but she could exit out the back.”

  Colin again conceals himself below window level while Nate, presumably unrecognizable, draws up behind the pickup truck that is exactly as described in the fax except for one detail: the Michigan license plate is phonier than a three-dollar bill. Even with road grime on it, anyone can see that a numeral three has been clumsily altered to make an eight and a letter “P” crudely changed into an “R”. Plus, the renewal tag is missing.

  Nate has no idea what to make of this incidental information and he’s run out of thinking time anyway. A dingy door with no outside handle flies open and out comes Aurora Elliot. In the flesh. No question, as Colin said. And there’s no question she’s no longer pregnant. At this sudden revelation, his gasp is about the same length and intensity as Colin’s, and that may be the reason he doesn’t anticipate Colin’s next move.

  At the precise moment Aurora climbs into the passenger seat of the pickup and pulls the door shut, Colin jumps out of the rental car and sprints for the opposite side of the truck. In one fast motion he yanks open the driver’s door and drags the driver out. In another quick move he sends the driver sprawling and swings himself into the driver’s seat, where he guns the already running engine and roars out of the parking lot in a spray of dirt and gravel.

  “Holy shit!” Nate yells. His impulse is to bang his head on the steering wheel; banging it with his fist is as much as he’ll allow himself. “Holy fucking shit!” he explodes and starts the rental car engine. Along with everything else, he realizes he’s now accessory to a combination kidnapping-hijacking, so he may as well be full accomplice. The driver of the pickup truck is back on his feet and dusting himself off; Nate doesn’t pause to see if the hapless jerk is looking his way when he floors it and fishtails out of the parking lot.

  The red pickup has close to a half-mile on him when he regains the highway. If Colin continues at this speed, there’s little chance of closing the gap on a vehicle with twice as many cylinders as the rental car. The best he can do is maintain the gap and hope Colin will eventually slow down. He’s squeezing a steady eighty out of the Skylark when the road develops some curves and dips and h
e has to back off a little.

  The truck also slows, but for another reason. Even from this distance Nate can see that Aurora is putting up more than her standard verbal fight; she’s flailing at Colin with both arms and now she appears to be swinging something at him as the truck swerves and slows even more.

  Nate uses the opportunity to gain ground, so when the truck crests the next rise in the road the activity inside the vehicle ahead can be seen in silhouette against the sky, like watching figures dramatize behind a sheet at a magic lantern show.

  Colin’s right arm suddenly lashes out like he’s clotheslining her. But he would never do that; no way in hell would Colin ever strike her or Aurora would have been reduced to pulp long ago. Colin’s arm is still extended across the space separating him from Aurora when the truck disappears down the other side of the rise. He must be clamping her mouth shut; she must be spewing something nastier than her usual invective. That’s the answer he’ll have to live with because now the road has leveled out, Colin has sped up, and the sky has grown too dark to support a lantern show. Besides, Nate sees something else to worry about.

  The drama playing out in front of him hasn’t kept him from noticing that the same vehicle has been framed in his rearview mirror for the last five miles. It’s hanging back the same distance he’s maintaining from the red pickup. Whatever that means.

  He debates whether he’s flirting with paranoia or if some law enforcement agency might be monitoring the situation. The simple answer: Most people with altered license plates are not on good terms with the authorities. He debates this a little bit longer, just long enough to estimate if the owner of the hijacked truck might have his own militia, a posse of good ol’ boys that’s closing in this very minute. Now Nate hears dueling banjos whenever he looks in the rearview mirror.

  Up ahead, Colin slows again and signals a turn. A couple of road signs indicate that the direction he’s taking will lead to an Indian reservation and a lighthouse museum. Nate follows and, a short time later, so does the vehicle bringing up the rear. He needn’t look at any map to know they’re no longer going to Paradise—in any sense of the word.

  “There has to be a reason,” he mutters and blinks his lights to let Colin know he’s still following. Then he leaves the lights on because this time of year night falls fast anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, and now that they’re entering deeper forest, night is coming down like a collapsing tent.

  Whoever’s behind him turns on his headlights, and in front of him, Colin’s lights go on. Within this moving capsule of illumination Nate begins to feel that he’s regaining control of the situation, that he’s his old imperturbable self. He’s even closing the gap with the red pickup truck, he notices after a few more miles go by. Then, as he spots road signs warning of a narrow shoulder and advising that the bridge ahead ices over before the road, the area in front of the pickup truck suddenly lights up like a flare’s been set off. The effect lasts only the second it takes Nate to realize that Colin has switched on the roof lights of the hijacked vehicle.

  Their beams are far-reaching, shining well up the tall trees lining both sides of the road and making the deer standing in the middle of the road appear monstrous.

  No deer could be that big. Nate’s jaw drops; he yells and leans on the horn. He hits the brakes hard and wrestles for control of the resultantly slewing car. He douses his lights and wills Colin to do the same when he’s blinded by another set of roof lights. Another pickup truck is coming from the opposite direction. And this driver also sees the monstrous deer because he’s veering into Colin’s lane.

  Colin, who knows to hit an animal square-on if hitting is inevitable, has no such training regarding oncoming vehicles and obeys the most basic of instincts by wrenching the truck he’s driving onto the narrow shoulder, where it plunges through a guardrail and out of sight. The oncoming truck, after a wobble or two, speeds away, no doubt headed for the revels in Bimmerman. The vehicle that was trailing behind—an old blue truck with a cap over the bed—streaks by. The deer could have been an apparition because now there’s no sign of it whatsoever.

  Nate somehow skids to a stop less than a car length from where the truck disappeared, jumps out and shouts into the enshrouding silence. There’s no response at all, not even an echo, not even the whistle of wind in the trees. His frenzied imagination then invents sounds that cause him to hear tires squeal, metal shriek, welds pop, glass fracture, and a series of sharp cracks, small explosions, and conclusive thuds. But no cries for help.

  That lack snaps him out of the shock-imposed inertia and returns him to the rental car and a search of the passenger compartment for anything that might produce light—matches, a cigarette lighter, anything. No luck there, so he tries the trunk where a thorough ransacking of the two overnight bags produces a penlight. While he’s at it, he grabs a couple of white T-shirts, one to tie to the radio mast of the rental car, the other to use for flagging down a passing motorist to send for help. He shoves both into the waistband of his jeans and continues to search for anything else that could be useful. He’d like to find a tire iron, but he can’t even find the spare tire, so he sets out with what little he has.

  He steps over the torn and twisted guardrail at the place where the truck went through. The embankment is steeper than expected and thick with brambles that afford no handholds. He skids and slides most of the way down and finds conditions no better at the bottom, where the ground is heaved and slippery with pine needles. After falling twice, he thinks to hold the penlight in his teeth and leave his hands free to grab for any support that won’t impale him. When he sights the wreckage, he bites down so hard on the penlight his teeth hurt.

  With penlight now in hand he determines that the truck has come to ground upright. It’s resting on all four wheels—literally—because the hard landing blew the tires and collapsed the heavy-duty suspension.

  Nate steadies himself and points the light at the front of the wreckage and sees that a stand of good-sized trees broke the trajectory of the vehicle and deflected it downward. At least three trees are deeply gouged, and another is sheared off, with the bulk of it resting on the roof of the truck. The engine compartment is foreshortened where it impacted with the tree, which can only mean the engine is . . . .

  Backing away a couple of steps, Nate wills himself not to hyperventilate. If he’s going to be any good to anyone at all, he’ll have to stop imagining—procrastinating. “Just do it, asshole,” he coaches himself and goes to work on the passenger-side door. It’s buckled from impact and one of the hinges is torn off; the other hinge is twisted beyond use, but if he can wrench it loose he might be able to pry the door out of the mangled frame. With the penlight again held in his teeth he gives it his all and thinks he hears something give. On the ninth or tenth try, the door comes off and he gets a look inside the cab.

  Broken glass twinkles everywhere he shines the little light and mocks his hesitation to point it straight at Aurora. When he does, he needn’t feel for a pulse to determine that she’s dead. Her head is bent back at an unsurvivable angle; her throat is grotesquely exposed to reveal what appears to be the only marks on her, a series of bruises either side of her neck. She’s still belted to a bench seat that’s lost its moorings at this end; her lower legs are trapped by the collapse of the firewall. Her arms are limp at her sides, and the one hand he can see is relaxed. Nothing suggests she fought against dying so violent a death.

  He forces himself to examine her face at close range and there’s nothing in her final expression to indicate she voiced any kind of protest at the end. It then crosses his mind that she may have been strung out on something when the end came, that those bruises on her neck are the needle tracks of the last-stage heroin user she was rumored to be.

  He’s now better prepared to confront whatever’s to be found on the other side of the vehicle. When he gets to that side, the door there is effectively welded shut by the caved-in roof and nothing he can do will remedy the situation. Earlier
, he let himself hope he saw movement in the driver’s seat while he was assessing Aurora’s condition, and he can’t put off any longer finding out if that was true.

  In stark contrast to Aurora, Colin is covered with blood; it’s all over his face, down his neck, and has matted and darkened much of his hair.

  “Colin . . . Colin, blink if you can hear me. It’s Nate. You’ve been in an accident . . . It’s gonna be okay.” He removes his bulky jacket, works an arm and shoulder through the narrowed window opening and shines the light in Colin’s eyes at close range.

  Colin does better than blink; he rolls his eyes in annoyance, and his pupils contract as they would under normal circumstances.

  “Don’t try to talk.” Nate dabs at multiple wounds on Colin’s head and face with the T-shirts intended for use as flags. None of the cuts and scrapes is actually hemorrhaging, and a few are starting to coagulate. He then directs the light downward and sees where the real trouble lies. While the steering column has not pierced him, it has driven the intact steering wheel against Colin’s torso in a way to guarantee multiple broken ribs and massive internal injuries. Lower down things look worse, if that’s even possible. From the knee down, Colin’s legs are merged with the firewall that was collapsed by the crash, a situation Nate can’t confront even in his imagination.

  Instead, with shaking hands, Nate releases the seatbelt that’s outlived its usefulness. Taking care not to jar the steering wheel, he opens Colin’s jacket and shirt, determines that no gushing wounds are hidden from sight. With similar caution he prods a little lower, encounters a pool of moisture identifiable at this proximity by his nose. Urine. Another discovery obvious at this proximity is the distinct whistle accompanying Colin’s labored breathing.

  Nate withdraws from the window opening, retrieves his jacket from the ground and drapes it for what it’s worth across Colin’s crushed chest.