Poe - [Anthology]

by Edited By Ellen Datlow

  “Okay,” I said after a bit. My heartbeat had finally slowed from machine gun to a gallop. “Why did we stop here?”

  “I don’t drive when there’s yelling in the car,” Ambrose said, sounding almost prim. “That’s practically guaranteeing a wreck.” He raised an eyebrow at me and I had a sudden vision of him at his father’s age, paternal but firm: You kids behave yourselves right now or I’m turning this car around.

  “Fine,” I said. “No yelling.”

  He started the VW again.

  * * * *

  “Wake up,” Ambrose said.

  “I’m not asleep,” I said thickly, blinking and sitting up straight in my seat. Most of the daylight was gone and we were no longer out in the country but pulling into the parking lot at Wiggins. “What time is it?”

  “Fifteen minutes to Operation Save the Fuckhead.” Ambrose cruised slowly through the crowded lot. It was a Sunday night in spring; everyone wanted to end the weekend with one last treat. “Uh-oh.”

  “What ‘uh-oh?’“

  “I don’t see his car.”

  My stomach seemed to twist, then drop; at the same time, my cramps woke up with a vengeance. I leaned forward with my arms across my middle. “Maybe he was here already and left. Or maybe he’s out in the country now.”

  “I’ll drive down the road to Westgate Mall, turn around, and come back again,” Ambrose said. “There’s no place to park here anyway.”

  Just as we pulled out of the exit, a car roared up from behind and swerved sharply around us, horn honking, headlights flashing from low to high. Ambrose jerked the wheel to the right and we veered off the road into the dirt. The tires crunched on something as he slowly steered the car back onto the pavement.

  “Who do you suppose that was?” he said wearily.

  “Let’s go,” I said, hoping I wasn’t yelling. “We’ve got to catch him!”

  But as we sped up, the VW began to shudder hard from side to side.

  “What the hell is that?” I yelled as Ambrose brought the car to a stop.

  “Flat tire.”

  “Can’t we change it?” But even as I asked, I knew. “The spare’s flat,” we said in unison.

  High beams swept across the road and shone through the windshield and lit up the inside of the VW. The driver had crossed from the opposite lane to stop in front of us, facing the wrong direction. “Uh-oh,” Ambrose said softly as we watched Phil Lattimore get out of his land yacht and lumber toward us. We rolled up the windows and locked the doors.

  “Car trouble?” Phil asked, pressing his nose against my window.

  * * * *

  “Can’t reach my mom or my dad,” Ambrose said unhappily, snapping his cell phone shut.

  Lying across the front of the VW, Phil Lattimore waved cheerfully. “Hey, I told you we’re happy to give you a ride!” He gestured at his friends waiting in the convertible; I could barely hear the Fucking A’s with the windows rolled up.

  “Call a tow truck,” I said.

  “I’ll call the cops.”

  “You can’t! As soon as Phil sees a cop car, he’ll take off and it’ll happen. We’ll have caused the accident. Just call a tow-truck. What time is it? How long have we got?”

  Ambrose tilted his watch toward the light, trying to read it. “Shit. My watch stopped.” He turned the key in the ignition so the dashboard lit up. The digital clock read 8 8:8 8.

  “What about your phone?” I asked. He showed it to me. The screen said: —/—, Set Time?

  “What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

  “Just guessing, I’d say it means you won,” Ambrose said. “Now if we can just lose the ugly hood ornament.”

  Phil was squinting at his own watch in a puzzled way. He tapped the face hard with a fingernail, then held his wrist up to the light again. Ambrose leaned hard on the horn, startling Phil so much that he fell off.

  “What’d you do that for?” I yelled.

  “It worked. Now we can call your mother instead of a tow truck. I don’t have enough money for a tow truck and you promised you’d tell her. She can take us to a service station and I’ll pump up the spare while you tell her everything. It’s killing two birds with one stone.”

  Phil Lattimore was back on his feet, brushing himself off as he went back to his land yacht. I unlocked my door and started to get out.

  “Hey, don’t!” Ambrose caught my arm. “Are you crazy?”

  “I’ve got to keep him out of his car for just a little longer.” I twisted out of his grip and ran toward Phil Lattimore. His buddies gestured, hooting and cheering wildly; the surprise on his face when he turned and saw me was utterly genuine, which surprised me just as much.

  “What do you want?” he asked and for a moment he actually seemed concerned. Hey, girlie, you’re doing it wrong—I scare you and you run away, that’s how the game goes.

  I stopped in front of him. The smell of beer was like a cloud around him. “Just... wait a minute.”

  He gazed down at me as if from a great height. “Sorry, girlie, no can do. Watch died. Your ugly face break it, or Fifi’s?” He turned away and kept going.

  “I said, wait!” I yelled, going after him.

  He spread his arms as his buddies hooted some more. “She loves me, what can I—”

  I made a two-handed fist and walloped his right butt cheek.

  He stumbled, more from surprise than from the blow itself. I barely saw him whirl on me before he grabbed my upper arms, lifted me off my feet and threw me into the back seat of the land yacht.

  It wasn’t a soft landing and his buddies were no more ready for it than I was. I was struggling in a tangle of arms and legs. There was laughing and someone yelling Jesus are you crazy toss her out she’s jailbaitand another voice sayingshe wants a beer.I kicked out, hoping to hit something tender but connected with nothing but air. Beer cans crumpled against my face, dug into my skin as the car jerked forward.

  “Stop!” I screamed. “Stop! Don’t let him! Don’t let him, make him stop!”

  “What the fuck?” somebody said. No more laughing. One guy in the front seat was insisting that we’d better stop, another guy agreed, and then a third guy yelled Look out!

  For a fraction of a second, I thought it was pure noise, an impact from sound waves. The car skidded at an odd angle and I managed to pull my head up just in time for the second impact. The air went out of my lungs in one hard blow. When my vision cleared I was trapped on the floor; someone seemed to be kneeling on my ribs. Fighting to breathe, I tried to drag myself up toward air.

  I don’t remember hearing the third impact.

  * * * *

  I came to inside something moving fast.

  “Do you know your name?” said a woman’s voice, all brisk concern. A hand squeezed mine. “Do you know your name?”

  The light was blinding me; high beams?

  “Do you know your name? If you can’t talk, squeeze my hand.”

  I tried to pull my hand away and sit up but I couldn’t move at all.

  “Do you—”

  “Hannah,” I croaked. My mouth tasted funny. “Tell me he’s okay.”

  “You don’t worry, everyone’s in good hands.”

  “No, tell me.” The light in my eyes grew more painful as I became more alert. “Tell me he’s okay. Tell me I saved him.”

  “Don’t worry, honey, everything’s gonna be fine.”

  I had a glimpse of a woman’s face, dark brown, with short black dreadlocks. In thirty-five years, degeneration in her brain would finally reach its end-stage.

  Abruptly pain erupted everywhere in my body. I would have howled but all that came out was a long croaky moan. The woman turned away quickly and did something; the pain began to ebb, along with my awareness.

  “Midol,” I whispered. Or maybe not.

  * * * *

  After that, I was in and out, almost like channel surfing. Doctors and nurses appeared and disappeared and I never knew which was which. Sometimes I saw my mothe
r, sometimes my brothers; once in a while Donna was there as well. Although I was never sure if I was dreaming, even when it hurt.

  At one point, I was trapped in the back seat of Phil Lattimore’s land yacht again, feeling it spin around, tires screeching, glass breaking, metal smashing. I think I heard the third impact that time but afterwards, there was no one asking if I knew what my name was while we traveled. But it was much easier to breathe.

  * * * *

  Phil Lattimore came to see me. He peered over a nurse’s shoulder and made stupid faces, mouthingWho said you could have a car accident here? That was no way to treat the person who had saved his stupid thug ass and I’d tell him that as soon as I was well enough.

  * * * *

  My Mother was sitting next to my bed, gazing at me with an anxious, searching look.

  “Yeah, it’s me.” It hurt to talk. My voice sounded faint and hoarse.

  “No kidding.” She tried to smile. “I’d know you anywhere.”

  I swallowed hard on my dry throat and winced. She poured me a glass of ice water from a sweating metal pitcher and held the straw between my lips for me. “Did Ambrose tell you?”

  It was like a shadow passed over her. “Ambrose? No.”

  “He made me promise—” I sucked greedily at the straw; suddenly ice water was the most wonderful thing in the world. “Said if I didn’t tell you, he would. After it was all over. Which it is. Isn’t it?”

  She made a small, non-committal movement with her head. “Yes, honey. It’s all over.” She poured some more ice water for me. “Rita got here as soon as she could.”

  “Rita?” It took me a few moments to remember. “Did she come because Ambrose told her?”

  She made that little movement with her head again.

  It was easier to talk now; I turned my face away from the straw to show I’d had enough. “I feel bad about that. Because now I have to admit I lied to Ambrose.”

  My mother closed her eyes briefly as if she had had a sudden pain, then she put the ice water down on the table beside the bed. “Yes, I know. We know.”

  We? Pain nibbled at the edges of my awareness, as if it had just woken up and wanted to join the conversation without drawing too much attention to itself. “How? Who told you?”

  “You did.” My mother sighed, looking at me sadly. “You don’t remember talking to me, do you?”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “The doctors said you’d have a spotty memory thanks to the combination of the head injury and the medication.” She put her hand over mine on the bed and I realized I had a cast on my arm up to my knuckles.

  “Everything’s all dreamlike.” The pain was getting more assertive. “Did he make it? Is he alive?”

  Now she hesitated. “Your uncle Scott’s been sitting with him. He hasn’t left the hospital since—”

  “Uncle Scott?” Pain definitely wanted more attention now; I tried to ignore it. “Why is Uncle Scott sitting with Phil Lattimore?”

  “Phil who?” My mother looked as mystified as I felt. “He’s with Ambrose.”

  Uh-oh, said a small voice in my mind, under the pain. It sounded exactly like Ambrose. “Phil Lattimore is the guy I was trying to save,” I said. “I knew Ambrose would be all right.”

  ‘“All right?’“ My mother looked mildly stunned now, as if she had bumped her head.

  “Ambrose isn’t going to die for f—for a very long time,” I said. “I knew I didn’t have to worry about him.”

  My mother took a deep breath and let it out. “Is that so?” She gazed at me for a long moment, her expression a mixture of hurt, frustration, pity, and something else I couldn’t read. I started to say something else and she suddenly rushed out of the room.

  Caught completely by surprise, I tried to call after her but the pain stole my voice. Before it got really bad, however, a nurse came in with some medication.

  * * * *

  When I woke up again, there was a man sitting in the chair next to the bed. I had never seen him before but even without the strong family resemblance I’d have known who he was.

  “Hello, Loomis,” I croaked.

  “Hello, yourself.” He got up and gave me some ice water the way my mother had, holding the straw between my lips. I drank slowly, studying his face. He was a little taller than Ambrose, wiry and lean, as if he spent most of his waking hours running. His hair was curly but darker than Ambrose’s and he had a full dark beard with a few white hairs here and there. I found it really interesting that although his eyes were same shape as Ambrose’s, they weren’t the same clear green color but dark muddy brown, like mine.

  I finished the water and told him I’d had enough. He put the glass aside and continued to stand there looking me over.

  “Guess you know,” I said after a bit.

  He didn’t bother nodding. “You weren’t surprised, were you. Knew it almost your whole life and never told anyone.”

  “That how it was for you?” I asked.

  He pressed his lips together. “So, was this premeditated or spontaneous?”

  I frowned. “What?”

  Loomis took a breath and let it out; not quite a sigh. “Were you always planning to save someone’s life or was it a spur-of-the-moment thing?”

  I hesitated. “I was gonna say spur of the moment but now I’m not so sure. Maybe I was always gonna do something like this and never knew it.”

  Loomis’s eyebrows went up. “Good answer. Insightful. More than I was at your age. Otherwise—” he shrugged.

  “Otherwise what?”

  “Otherwise you’re just as much a dumb-ass as any of us.”

  I was offended and it must have showed. He laughed and patted my hand.

  “Hackles down, kid. Till the body cast comes off, anyway.” He looked me over again. “Damn. Even I never took a beat-down this bad.”

  “Was it for nothing?” I asked.

  Now it was his turn to be confused. “Say again?”

  “Phil Lattimore. Did I save him?”

  “Fuck, no.” He grimaced and poured another glass of water. Before I could tell him I didn’t want any more, he drank it himself. “There are two rules, cuz. Number one: Never tell anyone. And that’sanyone, even family. Never. Tell. Anyone.Never. And rule number two: Never try to save them. You can’t do it. All you can do is make things worse.” He gestured along the length of my body. “Exhibit A.”

  Alarm bells went off in my mind; I shut them out, made myself ignore the cold lump of apprehension in the middle of my chest. I’d be getting more pain medication soon; that always made all the bad feelings go away, physical and emotional. “Yeah, but I knew I was gonna be all right.”

  Loomis stuck one fist on his hip; the move was pure Ambrose. “You call this ‘all right’ ? Hate to tell you, cuz, but after the casts come off, you’ve got a whole lot of physical therapy ahead of you and you’ll probably lose a year of school. At least a year.”

  “You know what I mean,” I said defensively. “I knew I wasn’t gonna get killed. It was just Phil Lattimore. No one else.”

  “Yeah, that was all you needed to know, wasn’t it? Only this Phil Lattimore would die so that meant everybody else would be all right.” He looked at me through half-closed eyes. “Like you and Ambrose.”

  The lump in my chest was suddenly so large it was hard to breathe around it and my heart seemed to be laboring. “Ambrose wasn’t driving, we had a flat—”

  “He ran into the road after the car you were in,” Loomis said. “One of those things you do without thinking. The car that swerved to keep from hitting him hit another car, which in turn hit the car you were in. Which hit him before skidding into yet another car.” I started to say something but he put up a hand. “There were two fatalities—this Phil Lattimore person who was apparently too cheap to install airbags in his old land yacht and got spindled on the steering column, and someone else who you apparently hadn’t met.”

  “But Ambrose is all—”

  “Alive,
yes, and will be for another fifty-odd years,” Loomis said, talking over me. “Exactly how odd nobody really knows yet. The doctors told my parents it’s a miracle he survived that kind of head injury. They won’t know how extensive the impairment is until he wakes up. My mother believes he’s going to wake up any minute because he’s breathing on his own.”

  It was like I was back on the floor of the car with some thug kneeling on my ribs, but harder, as if he were trying to force all the air out of my lungs.