Night Road

by A. M. Jenkins

  Gordo didn’t say it was all right. Lights from oncoming cars seemed to slide over his shoulders and face before dropping into shadows.

  Cole thought he wasn’t going to speak at all, but after a few moments, he asked stiffly, “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know,” Cole answered.

  “Don’t you have some kind of plan?” He sounded like the same sulky, sullen kid Cole had met that first night in the Building.

  “It doesn’t matter much where we go right now. We can work on basics anywhere.”

  “Anywhere?” Gordo sat up. “Then why don’t we go to Missouri?”

  “Missouri is not an option,” Cole reminded him. He did not explain. He knew why Gordo wanted to go there. And Gordo knew why they couldn’t.

  Gordo slumped back in his seat again. When he spoke this time, his voice was laced with bitterness.

  “I’m sick of you guys.”

  Concerned, Sandor started to turn around.

  “Let him be,” Cole advised.

  Sandor sighed and turned back.

  “How’s that look?” Cole nodded at a sign ahead on the right. It stood in front of a large building with lots of cars parked around it and a sign announcing that Thursday was Ladies’ Nite.

  “Very nice,” Sandor said, a little too heartily.

  Once inside, Cole was relieved to see that Gordo’s mood didn’t affect his hunting. The basics were becoming second nature to the boy. His feed was effortless, quick, and unnoticed. He chose a slow song for a slow dance. He had the moves to the neck down pat. He didn’t walk away the moment he was done but stayed to finish the dance, talking to his feed as an omni would so as not to attract attention.

  “He’s coming along,” Cole admitted to Sandor as they sat at a small table crammed up against a pillar.

  “He’s homesick,” Sandor told Cole. “I heard him crying during the day.”

  “Crying?” No wonder the kid looked tired.

  “Yes. It seems to have hit him all of a sudden: Boom! Like a tidal wave.”

  Gordon’s had his whole life ripped away from him, Johnny had said. You and Sandor are the only way he has of making sense of it all.

  Gordo needed someone to be steady. That someone was Cole—and Cole had dropped the ball.

  Okay. He couldn’t go back and fix it. He felt bad for the kid, bad for losing his temper last night—but he mustn’t let pity or guilt keep him from continuing to teach the boy survival skills. That’s what he’d done with Bess. And the more he’d backed off, the worse things had gotten.

  “The thing to do,” Cole told Sandor, “is not get sucked into his drama. We have to stay focused, no matter what his mood is. We have to be…solid.”

  “Like rocks along the shore.” Sandor stirred his straw around in his drink. “So that Gordo has something to cling to when the waves break over him.”

  “Well…yes. I guess.”

  “It’s a good analogy, especially for a heme, don’t you think? I should have been a writer.” Sandor dropped the straw back into the untouched glass. “Now I’m going to go feed, if you don’t mind. I see a little redhead over there. I’ve always been partial to redheads, and I feel that I could use some cheering up.”

  “Go ahead,” said Cole. “I’ll be the rock along the shore until Gordo comes back.”

  They were all finished shortly after and able to move on quite soon—a huge improvement over the first few nights when Gordo had taken hours to get sustenance.

  They had been traveling vaguely southwest, but Cole thought it might be better now to head east again—the opposite direction from Missouri.

  And after they got back in the car, he knew it was better.

  “Since I’m the only one who wants to go anywhere,” Gordo announced the second the doors were shut, “I say we go to Missouri.”

  Cole cast a glance at him in the rearview mirror but said nothing.

  “I want to check on Jill.”

  Cole felt Sandor looking at him. He shook his head slightly to remind Sandor: Don’t get sucked into the drama.

  “I want…I want to see my mom.” Gordo’s voice cracked slightly on the last word.

  Sandor turned around, full of sympathy. “Oh, Gordo—”

  “No,” Cole interrupted. “You have to cut them loose. One more time, Gordo: They are aging and will die. You won’t.”

  “I—I already talked to my mother,” Gordo said in a rush. “I called her earlier while Sandor was in the shower.”

  “Oh, my God,” Cole said in disgust. “Did you tell her where you were?”

  “No.”

  “You called her from the room?” Sandor echoed. “What did you say to her, Gordo?”

  “I told her I was better now and that I missed her.”

  Cole fought his urge to snap at the kid again. The last Gordo’s mother had heard, he’d turned into Jack the Ripper and run off into the dark. And the kid called her out of the blue to say he was better now?

  God, hadn’t the kid heard anything Cole said?

  “How did she take it?” Sandor was asking Gordo.

  Gordo shrugged and looked away.

  “I’ll tell you how she took it,” Cole said dryly. “Not well.”

  “I knew she’d be worried about me.” Gordo’s voice was muffled.

  “Do you think she’s less worried now?”

  Gordo did not answer. He leaned his forehead against the window.

  “We’ll talk about it sometime in the future,” Sandor said. “Maybe you could see them after a few years, when you are more self-sufficient.”

  “When I’m no longer responsible for you,” Cole said. “I’m telling you right now; we are not going to Missouri on my watch.” He waited another moment, willing himself to remain calm and steady—like Sandor said, a rock along the shore. “All right,” he said, more to himself than to anyone. “Let’s get back to business.”

  He started the car, but when he turned to make sure the way was clear to back up, he noticed something.

  “You’re not buckled,” he told Gordo, trying beyond all patience to keep his voice even. He pulled out of the parking space, expecting the boy to sullenly buckle up and then sit there in his gloomy corner for the rest of the night.

  Cole was heading toward the exit before he realized that the kid hadn’t moved.

  He hit the brakes. “Gordo. Buckle your seat belt.”

  “What difference does it make?” Gordo said coldly. “You said I can’t die.”

  “Nobody said anything about dying. I just don’t want to get a ticket.”

  “Gordo, please,” said Sandor.

  Cole pulled up the emergency brake and put the car in park. He watched in the mirror, waiting.

  And waiting.

  After an uncomfortable couple of minutes and a honk from a car that couldn’t get by, Gordo finally gave in and fastened the seat belt.

  With bad grace, Cole noticed. It was irritating, but Cole said nothing, just pulled onto the highway.

  “At least I want to check on Jill.” Gordo’s voice came from the backseat. “At least I didn’t just walk off and leave her locked up somewhere.”

  Silence came down like a cold curtain over the car.

  Cole’s fingers curled tight around the steering wheel. I didn’t leave her, he wanted to say. She’s well cared for.

  No. No. He must disengage himself. This wasn’t about him. It was about Gordo. Gordo was firing off arrows because he was angry and upset.

  In the backseat, Gordo sank into his corner again.

  How predictable.

  Cole should never have told the kid all that stuff about Bess. At least he shouldn’t have gone into detail the way he had. What had he been thinking? He’d treated the kid—okay, fine, almost as if he were a friend. At least for a short time he had. For a few minutes there. And the kid had stuck a knife in his back.

  Gordo just leaned against the window, looking out.

  To Cole, it felt as if the boy wore his feelings all o
ver his body. Being around him made Cole feel saturated, almost sticky, with residue from his gloom.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  COLE made sure the next motel they stopped at had a pool. He couldn’t wait to get away from the rotten little punk. Let Sandor stay in the room with him; Sandor could dole out support and understanding. Whatever else was wrong, the kid sure hadn’t been lacking for someone to pat him on the back and be his buddy.

  Cole waited in front of his own door, watching to make sure Gordo and Sandor got into their room. As soon as their door shut, he stuck his key card into the slot.

  But as he turned the handle, Sandor was back, standing at his shoulder. “Are you all right?” he whispered.

  Cole opened the door and set down his suitcase. “I’m fine,” he said, but he was annoyed to feel his face getting warm for the second time in two nights. He stepped in and flipped on the lights.

  Sandor stayed in the doorway. “I’m surprised you told him about all that. You’re usually as closemouthed as a clam.”

  “I’m regretting it now, let me tell you.”

  “Oh, don’t regret it. You can’t control how people respond to your overtures. It was good of you to reach out in the first place.”

  “Is that what it was?” Cole said. “Reaching out?”

  “Yes, and don’t let this discourage you.”

  “I’m not discouraged. I’m just taking it as it comes. Now if you don’t mind babysitting the Missouri Kid, I’m going to go for a swim.”

  This hotel pool was a small rectangle, rigidly outlined in concrete. Good enough.

  Cole swam laps—back and forth, back and forth—until his frustration had worked itself loose and was beaten aside by the sheer repetition and effort of exercise.

  His arms had begun to feel rubbery, so he turned over and floated on his back for a while, staring up at the sky. He listened to his lungs draw in each long, slow breath and then release it even more slowly.

  When he got out, the night air was a little cool on his wet skin, so he wrapped the towel around his shoulders before stretching out in one of the white lounges.

  The moon was out, bright white, clouds sliding quickly across it to be outlined briefly in silver before moving on. He’d managed to put his irritation aside, but he couldn’t help thinking about what Sandor had said.

  Cole hadn’t been reaching out. No, it had just been a lesson for Gordo, that’s all. And the kid was an idiot. He thought good intentions made up for a bad outcome. He was wrong.

  Cole knew. He had sat there with Bess curled up against him, his arm curved around her, and he’d thought it out. Decided that Fate had offered a lifeline. There, beside him, was the chance to have a companion—not just any companion, but the companion of his heart.

  So he’d taken her life from her—fused her body to her eternal soul so that the soul could never, ever escape. He hadn’t thought about that at the time. He’d thought only of himself, of what he wanted. What he was missing.

  It didn’t matter if no one else blamed him. It didn’t matter if everyone else had moved on. The one person who could absolve him was gone, disappeared into her own shell of a body.

  He let himself think about that shell. It was a particular torture he only used on rare occasions, but he brought it out now: bones healed askew. Head permanently at an awkward angle on her once-broken neck. Horrible.

  It was horrible. The worst thing he’d ever seen.

  So…why didn’t the picture bring its usual stab of self-loathing?

  He was tired. That’s what it was. The swimming had worn him out. And maybe the events of this trip had burdened him to capacity, so that there were no available feelings left to be whipped to shreds.

  Still, it was a little strange. And hard to explain. How could the worst thing he’d ever experienced be…just another picture in his head?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  COLE stayed in his own room the rest of that night, avoiding Gordo completely. The next evening, not knowing what to expect, he arranged his features into a neutral expression and wheeled his suitcase toward Sandor and Gordo’s room.

  Funny—only a couple of weeks ago he’d longed for silence, but now the thought of spending a whole night in a quiet and tense car was unappealing.

  When Sandor let him in, the blow-dryer was going in the bathroom. Cole thought that was a good sign; maybe Gordo had gotten the bile out of his system.

  Sandor took his place on the bed, leaning against the headboard, and Cole seated himself in the scrubby tweed armchair, preparing to be inundated by the TV news Sandor had been watching.

  But the TV shut off with a click. The picture shrank instantly into nothingness, leaving the screen a blank.

  Cole looked around to see Sandor holding the remote. “Gordo is very unhappy,” he informed Cole.

  “Ah.” Maybe not quite out of his system yet.

  “I have come up with an idea to help him,” Sandor said. “We should get him a dog.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I’m completely serious. We could go by a pet store. What do you think?” He sat looking at Cole, eager and hopeful.

  He was serious.

  “You’re insane,” Cole burst out. “I can’t even believe you’d say something like that.”

  “They have very small dogs these days, and little bags to carry them in. We could get a quiet one, who only wants to sit with his master and be held. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to provide a helpless creature with everything in the world it desired? And look at it this way. If Gordo gets into a difficulty, he can feed off the dog!”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Come now. You know that you yourself have been in a pinch once in a while—”

  “That’s not the same thing as carrying a dog around for a snack. God, it reeks of—of—of the way Frederick treats his omnis!”

  “Except that Gordo will love his dog, as Frederick does not love his omnis. I see it now: The boy has lost one life and doesn’t feel connected to the new one yet. A dog would help him through the transition.”

  “A dog is not going to help.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Sandor, nobody has a dog. Nobody! Where do you think Gordo’s going to keep it? In the car? In hotel rooms? Is he going to take it with him every time he feeds?”

  “Actually,” Sandor said, “I think it might help him get a little closer to the girls. Girls love little dogs, you know. He could tuck a Chihuahua or a Yorkie under his jacket. Or even a mutt—you can tell how big a puppy will get by the size of its paws, you know. If we got one with paws about the size of Q-tips—”

  “No. No!”

  “But we must do something for him. I have been trying to remember what it was like when I was new to all this. Things were much simpler then, back in Boravia when I was a boy. But even so I was wild, cruel, self-absorbed for many long years. It’s the same with all of us. Including you,” Sandor said pointedly. “There’s no denying that one commits thoughtless acts when one is young, lonely, and afraid. One commits acts that cannot be taken back; is it not so? Do you know what I am saying, Cole?”

  Cole shook his head. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

  “A dog would help him feel more connected.”

  “Sandor. It’s a logistical impossibility.”

  “It would give him something to feel. If we want to remain human beings, we must feel; don’t you agree?”

  The blow-dryer stopped.

  “All right,” said Sandor. “We will set the discussion aside for now.”

  “We’re going to set it aside forever. There’s no way, Sandor. Do you understand? No way in hell.”

  He was so vehement about the whole thing that he had trouble clearing the emotion from his face when the bathroom door clicked open and Gordo came out.

  Cole gave Sandor one warning look—Don’t you dare say anything about a dog!—then turned, ready to give Gordo a calm, removed, no-hard-feelings nod of greeting.

  B
ut Gordo would not look at him. The kid brought his things out in a big pile, deliberately dumped them into his open suitcase with his old sloppiness, and zipped up the suitcase without a word.

  Cole decided he would not speak either. Even if he wanted to, what could he say: The sooner you drop the attitude, the sooner everything will get back to normal?

  Gordo’s “normal” was long gone.

  All three were silent in the car. Cole hoped Sandor wasn’t thinking about dogs.

  Cole quickly spotted a likely place for a feed, a boxlike bar. He disliked bars and had hoped to gradually get away from them; the omnis in them had often had too much to drink and were smelly breathed and repetitive. But bars were still easiest for Gordo, and Gordo wasn’t at his most agreeable right now, so that was where they must go.

  Cole had already passed the exit, so he had to double back. Another glance in the mirror, and he had to fight the urge to inform Gordo that he looked like a duck when he was pouting.

  “All right,” he said when they were in the parking lot, “I guess we’re ready.”

  He turned off the engine and got out of the car, feeling to make sure his wallet was in his back pocket as he walked around to Sandor’s side.

  Gordo had not emerged.

  Cole peered in: The kid was still buckled and showed no signs of moving. So Cole gave the window a sharp rap.

  Slowly, deliberately, Gordo turned his head to give Cole a seething blast of a dirty look.

  All right, so he was still upset. Cole made a rolling-down-the-window gesture at Gordo; he would talk to him, lay out the choices calmly.

  But Gordo ignored him.

  Sandor had gotten out, and the front passenger door was still open. Cole bent into the car to look back at Gordo.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked. If his voice had a slightly acid tone to it, he still felt he was being reasonably polite, under the circumstances.

  “I’m not going to do it.”

  “Not going to do what?” Cole glanced back at the boxlike building. He didn’t like bars either, and it wasn’t the nicest place in the world; but it wasn’t a dive either. Gordo, he felt, was in no position to object.

  “Any of it. I’m not going to drink people’s blood anymore. The whole thing’s sick. I’d rather starve.”