The man sat up, dumping the contents of the bag in Brian's lap. The car slowed down, and there was a squeal of brakes as the pickup truck behind them tried to avoid a collision.
"Asshole!" the pickup driver yelled as he pulled past them. He stuck out his middle finger.
The man grabbed a handful of french fries from Brian's lap. "Drive," he said.
"Look-" Brian began.
"Drive."
They pulled back onto the highway. A half hour later they caught up with the pickup. Brian probably would not have noticed and would have passed the vehicle without incident, but, without warning, the man in the passenger seat rolled down his window, grabbed the half-empty cup of Coke from Brian's hand, and threw it outside. His aim was perfect. The cup sailed across the lane, through the open window of the pickup truck, and hit the driver square in the face. The man screamed in pain and surprise, swerving out of control. The pickup sped off the shoulder and down an embankment, colliding with a small paloverde tree.
"Asshole," the passenger said. He chuckled, his laugh high and feminine. Brian looked over at the man. Despite his throwing capabilities, the passenger was grossly overweight and in terrible physical condition, no match for Brian. He turned his attention back to the road. They would have to stop for gas soon-at the next town, if they weren't pulled over first- and he knew that he would be able to escape at that time. He would be able to either run away or kick the shit out of the obese bastard.
But though he wanted desperately to kick the crap out of the crazy fucker, he wasn't sure he really wanted to escape. Not yet, anyway. He didn't seem to be in any physical danger, and if he were to be perfectly honest with himself, he was almost, kind of, sort of having fun. In some perverse, almost voyeuristic way, he was enjoying this, and he knew that if he allowed the situation to remain as is, he would not have to go back to work until they were caught-and he wouldn't even be penalized, he could blame it all on his abduction.
But that was insane. He wasn't thinking right. He'd been brainwashed or something, riding with the man. Like Patty Hearst.
After only a few hours?
"Holy shit," the man said. He laughed to himself in that high-pitched voice. "Holy shit."
Brian ignored him.
The man withdrew from his pants pocket a small, lumpy, strangely irregular brown rock. "I bought it from a man in Seattle. It's the petrified feces of Christ. Holy shit." He giggled. "They found it in Lebanon."
Brian ignored him, concentrating on the road. On second thought, he wasn't having fun. This was too damn loony to be fun.
But the man was finally talking to him, speaking in coherent sentences.
"We need gas," the man said. "Let's stop at the next town."
Brian did not escape at the gas station, though he had ample opportunity. He could have leaped out of the car and run. He could have said something to the station attendant. He could have gone to the bathroom and not come back.
But he stayed in the car, paid for the gas with his credit card.
They took off.
For the next hour or so, both of them were silent, although Brian did a lot of thinking, trying to guess what was going to happen to him, trying to project a future end to this situation. Every so often, he would glance over at his passenger. He noticed that, out here, on the highway, the man did not seem so strange. Here, with the window open, he did not even smell as bad. What had seemed so bizarre, so frightening, in the parking lot of the bank, in the business-suit world of the city, seemed only slightly odd out here on the highway. They drove past burly bikers, disheveled pickup drivers, Hawaiian-shirted tourists, and Brian realized that here there was no standard garb, no norm by which deviation could be measured. Manners and mores did not apply. There were only the rules of the road, broad guidelines covering driving etiquette.
Inside the sealed worlds of individual cars, it was anything goes.
Brian did not feel comfortable with the man. Not yet. But he was getting used to him, and it was probably only a matter of -time before he came to accept him. That was truly terrifying.
Brian squinted his eyes. Ahead of them, on the side of the road, was a stalled car, a Mercedes with its hood up. Standing next to the vehicle, partially leaning against the trunk, was an attractive young lady, obviously a professional woman, a career woman, with short blond hair and a blue jacket/skirt ensemble that spoke of business. "Pull over," the man said. Brian slowed, stopping next to the Mercedes. "That's okay," the woman began. "A friend of mine has already gone to find a phone to call Triple A-"
"Get in the car!" The man's voice was no longer high and feminine but low and rough, filled with authority backed by a veiled threat of violence.
Brian saw the woman's eyes dart quickly around, assessing her options. There was no place to run on the flat desert, but she was obviously trying to decide if she could make it into the Mercedes and close her windows and lock her doors in time. Or if that would even help.
He wanted to tell her to run, to get the hell away from the road, that they wouldn't leave the road to find her, that the man never got out of the car. He wanted to shift into gear and take off, leaving her there safe and unharmed.
But he remained in place and did nothing.
"Get in the car, bitch!" The violence implied in the man's voice was no longer so covert.
The woman's eyes met Brian's, as if searching there for j help, but he looked embarrassedly away.
"Get-" the man started to say.
She opened the door and got into the backseat of the Blazer.
"Drive," the man said.
Brian drove.
None of them spoke for a long time. The landscape changed, became less sandy, more rocky, hilly canyons substituting for rolling dunes. Brian looked at the clock on the dashboard. He would be just getting off his afternoon break now, walking through the hallway from the break room to his desk.
"Panties," the man in the passenger seat said.
Brian turned his head.
Frightened, the woman looked from him to the now grinning man. "What?" · "Panties."
The woman licked her lips. "Okay," she said, her voice trembling. "Okay, I'll take them off. Just don't hurt me."
She reached under her skirt, arched her back, and pulled off her underwear. In the rearview mirror, Brian caught a glimpse of tanned thigh and black pubic hair. And then the panties were being handed forward, clean and white and silky.
"Stop," the man said.
Brian pulled over, stopping the car. From the pocket of his blouse, the man took out a black Magic Marker. He laid the underwear flat on his knee and began drawing on the garment, hiding his work with one greasy hand. When he was done, he rolled down his window and reached outside, to the front, grabbing the radio antenna and pulling it back. He quickly and expertly pressed the metal antenna through the white silk and let it bounce back.
The panties flew at the top of the antenna like a flag.
On them he had drawn a crude skull and crossbones.
"Now we are whole." He grinned. "Drive."
The day died slowly, putting up a struggle against the encroaching night, bleeding orange into the sky. Brian's muscles were tired, fatigued from both tension and a day's worth of driving. He stretched, yawned, squirmed in his seat, trying to keep himself awake. "I need some coffee," he said.
"Stop."
He pulled onto the sandy shoulder.
"Your turn," the man said to the woman.
She nodded, terrified. "Okay. Just don't hurt me."
The two of them traded places, the woman getting behind the wheel as Brian settled into the backseat.
"Drive."
Brian slept. He dreamed of a highway that led through nothing, a black line of asphalt that stretched endlessly through a desolate, featureless void. The voice was empty, but he was not lonely. He was alone, but he was driving, and he felt good.
When he awoke, the woman was naked.
The dr
iver's window was open, and the woman was shivering, her teeth chattering. None of her garments appeared to be in the car save her bra, which was stretched between the door handle and the glove compartment, over the man's legs, and held two thermos cups filled with coffee. From this angle, Brian could see that her nipples were erect, and he ] found that strangely exciting.
It had been a long time since he'd seen a woman naked.
Too long.
He looked at the woman. No doubt she thought that he and the man in the passenger seat were both criminals, were partners, fellow kidnappers. Since she had come aboard, he had not behaved like a prisoner or a captive and had not been treated like one. He had also not made an effort to let the woman know that he was on her side, that they were in the same position, although he was not quite sure why. Perhaps, on some level, he enjoyed the false perception, was proud, in some perverse way, to be associated with the man in the passenger seat.
But that couldn't be possible.
Could it?
His gaze lingered on the woman's nipples. It could. In a strange way, he was glad he'd been kidnapped. Not simply because he'd been given the chance to see a nude woman, but because an experience this extreme gave perspective to everything else. He knew now that, prior to that moment in the bank parking lot, he had not been living. He'd been simply existing. Going to work, eating, going to sleep, going to work. The motions had been comfortable, but they had not been real, not life, but an imitation of life.
This was life.
It was horrible, it was frightening, it was dangerous, it was crazy, and he did not know what was going to happen from one moment to the next, but for the first time in memory he felt truly alive. He was not comfortable, he was not merely existing. Traveling through the darkness toward an unknown destination with an insane man, he feared for his safety, he feared for his own sanity.
But he was alive.
"We killed Father first," the man in the passenger seat said. His voice was low, serious, almost inaudible, and it sounded as though he was talking to himself, as though he did not want anyone else to hear. "We amputated his limbs with the hacksaw made from Mother's bones and sold his parts for change. We killed Sister second, gutting her like a flopping fish on the chopping block ..."
Brian was lulled by the words, by their rhythm. Again he fell asleep.
When he awoke, both the woman and the man were standing in front of the car. It was daytime, and they were on the outskirts of a large city. Houston, perhaps, or Albuquerque. The woman was still naked, and there were frequent honks and excited whoops from men who passed by
in cars.
Brian stared through the windshield. The man held, in one hand, half of the woman's now torn bra, and he dipped a finger in the attached thermos cup as she fell to her knees. He placed his coffee-wet finger on her forehead as though annointing her.
He returned to the car alone.
Brian watched the naked woman run across the highway and down the small embankment on the other side without looking back.
The man got into the passenger seat and closed his door.
"Where are we going?" Brian asked. He realized as he spoke the words that he was asking the question not as a prisoner, not as a captive, but as a fellow traveler ... as a companion. He did not fear the answer, he was merely curious.
The man seemed to sense this, for he smiled, and there was humor in the smile. "Does it matter?"
Brian thought for a moment. "No," he said finally.
"Then drive."
Brian looked at the clock on the dashboard and realized that he didn't know what he would ordinarily be doing at this time.
The man grinned broadly, knowingly. "Drive."
Brian grinned back. "All right," he said. "All right."
He put the Blazer into gear.
They headed east.
Comes the Bad Time
"Comes the Bad Time" was inspired by a shape I thought I saw in a slice of tomato. It was not a face, as in the story. It was more like an object. A vase, perhaps. I was certain that I had seen this shape before, although I could not remember where or when, and over the next few days, I found myself not only looking for the object itself but searching for its form and outline elsewhere. "Comes the Bad Time" grew from there.
I never noticed it before, but now that I think about it, quite a few of my stories seem to involve a fear of vegetables. I'm not sure why that is.
When I cut open the tomato and saw Elena's face, I knew it was starting again. Jenny was out in the garden, feeding her plants, and I quickly sliced the tomato into little pieces, put the pieces in a baggie, and dumped the whole thing into the garbage sack. She would find out soon enough, but I wanted to stave off the inevitable as long as possible.
On an impulse, I opened the refrigerator and took out our last two tomatoes. I sliced the first one in half and it was fine. I pushed the two pieces aside.
Both of the second halves had formed into a frighteningly accurate caricature of Elena's face.
I felt the fear rise within me. I looked down at the tomato halves and saw the unnatural convergence of red spokes and clear gelatin and seeds. Elena's features, down to her crooked smile, stared back at me, doubled. I cut the pieces into tiny bits, mashed them with the palm of my hand, and dumped them into the garbage sack as well. The bits of tomato that were clinging to the serrated edge of the knife resembled Elena's lips.
I wiped the knife with a paper towel and threw the towel away just as Jenny walked through the door, She was hot and sweaty but happy. In her hand was a small green zucchini. "Look," she said. "Our first harvest of the year."
I tried to smile, but the gesture felt forced and stilted on my face. I watched with horror as she picked the knife up from the sideboard. "Let's wait," I said, attempting to keep my voice light. "You can't eat zucchini raw anyway."
"I just want to see what it looks like."
She cut it open, and she began to scream.
When Elena walked up to our door and asked if she could sleep in the barn, we thought nothing of it. Times were different then, people more open, and we immediately recognized her as one of our own. Her hair was long and blond and stringy, her tie-dyed dress dirty. She was barefoot and alone, and she obviously had no money. It looked as though she'd been walking for days.
I looked at Jenny and she looked at me, and an unspoken understanding passed between us. We would help this girl.
My gaze returned to Elena. She seemed nervous and scared, and I thought she was probably running away from something. Her parents, perhaps. A relationship. It was hard to tell. A lot of people were running in those days.
She stood on the porch, looking around at the farm, afraid to meet our eyes. She said she was just looking for a place to crash for the night. She didn't need any food or any special treatment. She simply wanted a place to lie down and sleep. Of course we said she could stay. Instead of the barn, we told her she could have the couch in the living room, and for that she seemed grateful.
She smiled her crooked smile, and I felt good. The dinner that evening was pleasant but average. Elena was net a brilliant conversationalist, and we had to ask all the questions. She would respond with monosyllabic answers. Though she looked older, she was only seventeen, and perhaps that was part of the reason.
We could tell that she was tired, so after dinner we set up the bedding on the couch and retired to the bedroom. We heard no sounds from the living room after the first few minutes and assumed she had fallen instantly asleep.
I was awakened hours later by the screaming. I sat immediately upright and felt Jenny do the same next to me. The screams-loud, piercing, and impossibly high-pitched- came in short staccato bursts. I ran into the living room, pulling on a robe, Jenny following.
Elena was having convulsions on the floor. She had fallen off the couch and in the process had knocked over the coffee table and everything on it. Her body was jerking crazily on the floor, her spastically twitchi
ng arms running over the broken pieces of a vase, blood flowing from the ensuing cuts. She screamed painfully with each spasm, short harsh cries of unbearable agony, and the expression on her face was one of senseless dementia.
I didn't know what to do. I stood there motionless as Jenny rushed forward and put a pillow under the convulsing girl's head. "Call the ambulance!" Jenny yelled frantically. "Now!"
I ran for the phone and picked it up. Not knowing the number for the ambulance or police, I dialed the operator.
"Wait!" Jenny screamed.
I turned around. Elena's body was floating in the air, moving upward. She was still having convulsions, and the sight of her spastically flailing body floating above the ground, blood pouring from her wounded arms, made me feel very afraid.
Jenny was stepping back, away from Elena, not sure what to do. I grabbed her, held her tight as the girl's body lowered once again and the convulsions stopped. Her bulging eyes closed, then opened again, normal. She licked her lips and winced as her conscious mind felt the pain in her arms. "I'm okay," she said, her voice weak and cracking. "I'm all right."
"You're not all right," Jenny said firmly. "I'm calling a doctor. And you're not leaving this house until you're completely well."
She stayed with us for a month.
Until she died.
I cut up the zucchini and threw it away while Jenny sat in the living room. When I went in to see her, she was sitting straight-backed on the couch, her hands in her lap, afraid to move. "It's here again," she said.
I nodded.
"What does she want with us? What the hell does she want with us?" She burst into tears, her hands trembling fists of frustration in her lap. I rushed over to comfort her and put my arms around her. She rested her head on my shoulder.
"Maybe this is it," I said. "Maybe it'll stop now."
She looked at me, her expression furious. "You know it won't stop now!"
I said nothing, holding her, and we sat like that for a long time.
Around us, we heard noises in the house.
The Collection Page 15