Thunderbird

by Chuck Wendig

  Ethan’s face wanders into view.

  That smile is there. But it’s cold, empty, like a skull’s grin.

  “Time to go home, Miriam,” he says. “We’re gonna get you better. Then we’re gonna have a long talk while you think about what you’ve done.”

  PART FIVE

  * * *

  NO SUN EXISTED, AND IT WAS DARK EVERYWHERE

  INTERLUDE

  THE BIG MAN AT THE ROCK DOVE RANCH

  She’s sitting outside a brothel in Nevada. As one does. Place is called the Rock Dove Ranch, or RDR. Post-and-rail fence lines a long driveway out to the highway— and about ten minutes north is Reno.

  Miriam sits outside and smokes. Behind her is the ranch proper. She’s not sure what she expected out of a brothel in Nevada— part of her kind of figured it’d have some Old West vibe to it. A bloodred parlor-house with wagon wheels in the windows and a froofy-but-also-stern madam with too much makeup and a hat made of white peacock feathers. Lots of fishnets and player pianos and the smell of spilled whiskey soaking into an oaken floor. But this place: it looks like an office building. Square, tan, plain as a pair of golf shoes.

  Her target: a gambler named Dan Hodan— nickname “Dan-Dan”— comes out here every Friday night to celebrate his winnings. Or, when he loses, to weep into the snatch of some very enthusiastic lady of the evening. He’s the next link in the chain to find Mary Stitch: the woman who Miriam believes possesses a Get Out of Jail Free card. Do not pass Go. Do not collect your two hundred smackeroos. Meet Mary and head straight to No More Psychic Powers Avenue.

  It’s Friday evening or coming up on it. She went in, asked around about him. The house madam was a frumpy thing in a gray T-shirt with big-ass pink-framed cat-eye glasses. The prostitutes ran the gamut: blond hair, black hair, purple hair, thick hips, big ass, little ass, huge tits as fake as a wiffle ball, tiny tits with itty-bitty nips like cherries on a dollop of whipped cream, smooth thighs and cheesecake asses and stretch marks and bullet holes and tan and pale and makeup and no makeup and—

  Well, only thing that seems to universally link these women is a tough-as-tiger-teeth attitude. Each one of them: smiley, snarky, each with bite. Like they know how to talk, they know how to walk. Miriam pointed it out to one, a tall skyscraper of a woman with blond hair all the way down past her ass calling herself Danika Dreams. Danika said, “You think we’re hookers, but really? We’re saleswomen. Each and every one of us could sell sand to a lizard. It ain’t about these—” She shakes a pair of breasts that are nice, if a little uneven. “Because these only get you so far. It’s about this.”

  And there, Danika tapped her temple and then her lips.

  “What we think and what we say gets us paid,” she said, then winked. She gave Miriam an assessor’s glance: up and down and then up again. “You’re a good-looking thing. Kind of a young Molly Ringwald type but like if she were on heroin instead of just some rich white girl. Got that road-trash vibe about you, like you just blew in here on a hot wind. Guys go for that. Some of them, anyway; they all got a type. You interested? Some girls do it just for a week, just to see.”

  Miriam laughed. “I would, but at some point, I’m sure I’d punch some yokel in the dick and break it off like an icicle. Bad for business.”

  “Some guys could be into that, too,” Danika said, a little cheeky. But then Miriam told her what she was looking for— info on a client. Danika told her that hanging around in here might be weird, and Dan-Dan was a good client, though kind of an asshole. So, she said: best to wait outside. Not inside. Particularly since Miriam didn’t want to try putting herself in the rotation—no need to confuse the gentlemen who’ll show up here looking for a little coital comfort.

  So, now Miriam sits outside. And smokes.

  Sun beating down.

  The fucking sun.

  Ugh.

  Why is it she ends up in these places? I gotta find a place, dark and damp. Seattle, Vancouver, some creepy inbred New England island. Places where the sun won’t show its creepy-happy face most days of the year.

  In the distance, a car. Silver sedan. Shining bright in the oblique angle of that horrible sky-god, that wretched day-star.

  Miriam winces, stands up. This must be Dan-Dan.

  Car pulls onto the pebbled gravel.

  A man gets out.

  It isn’t Dan-Dan.

  “Well, holy shit-snickers,” Miriam says. “You’re alive.”

  Agent Tommy Grosky stands there, staring through a pair of Wayfarer sunglasses. “I got your message,” he says.

  “Weldon Stitch.”

  He takes a few steps closer, around the front end of the car, arms crossed. She can’t see his eyes but she can tell he’s regarding her warily. Like a kid at the zoo excited to see the tiger but secretly afraid the big cat will jump the barrier and make him a midday snack. Grosky knows her well enough.

  “You’re one fucked-up bird,” he says.

  “You know me well.” She flicks the cigarette. “How’d you find me?”

  “We’re Big Government. Got a lot of eyes. Once I had your location in Colorado, was easy enough to follow the trail of feathers.”

  “Feathers. Cute.”

  He grins. “I’m a cute guy. Like a teddy bear.”

  “Uh-huh. Adorable. So, is it you following the trail of feathers, or is it Big Government? You here to bring me in again?”

  He brushes some crumbs off his chest, off his tie. “No, just me.”

  “Why track me down at all?”

  “Because you’re amazing.”

  “Aw, thanks. I love you too, big guy.” That spoken with as much sarcasm as she could muster: a sponge drippy with it, squeezed hard.

  “I mean it. You have a real gift. People want to know how they die, Miriam. It’s the one thing most of us never know until it hits us out of nowhere, like a brick thrown from a passing truck.”

  She sniffs and shrugs. “Yeah. Well. I know, and it’s basically awful. You know how people die? Poorly. Badly. No dignity in death. It’s all pants-shitting, drooling, barfing, bleeding— it’s not just resting your head on a pillow and having an angel scoop you up into heaven. It’s fluids and disease; it’s bleats of pain as you piss yourself. It’s ass cancer and burning alive in a DUI wreck and an old lady dying alone on her kitchen floor as man’s best friend, her woozhy-woo-woo pet Chihuahua, eats her feet once one missed mealtime comes and goes. So: it’s a question people shouldn’t want answered. That’s a box nobody should open. But for me, it’s always open.” And I want it closed so badly. Right? Isn’t that why I’m here? Or is it just that I can’t help but pull a hangnail until it bleeds?

  “I’m just saying. You could be such a service. Imagine: Taking the hands of every FBI agent. Telling them if they’re going to die on the job. Or someone in protective custody— are we going to fail them? Are they gonna get dead? God, you touch a kid born today and find out he dies in a hundred years, you can tell the future. You can see what waits for us all a century down the pike.”

  “Hoverboards,” she says. “They’re coming. Just you wait.”

  “I want you to join up. Be a part of something bigger.”

  She licks her lips. “Sorry, Grosky. No can do. I’m trying to go the opposite way. I want to be a part of something smaller. Something as small as my life and my death, and that’s it. I’m trying to turn this thing off. Right now, I’m a broken faucet, but maybe I can get fixed.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “For you, maybe. Not for me.”

  “I could try to force you. Make a threat. Bring you in again.”

  A wicked grin cuts her face in half. “Yeah? How’d that go for you last time? Nah, you’re too smart for that, Tommy.”

  “I am.” He nods and sighs. “I am, I am. Well, I guess this is it. For now.”

  “For now.”

  “You ever want anything, you call me.”

  “Uh-huh.” As he starts to turn back toward his car, she calls
after him: “Hey. What happened with you and Tap-Tap?”

  “He got away.”

  “Ah. Shit. Sorry. But you lived.”

  “I got his guys. Goldie, Jay-Jay. Shot Goldie, arrested Jay-Jay. He rolled over on Tap-Tap and a bunch of other local criminals. Tap-Tap went to ground. That nightclub in Miami— Atake— it’s still a haven of whatever little empire he built, though. FBI can’t quite crack it. Maybe one day.”

  “Best of luck with it all.”

  “It’s not really my bag. I’m on leave for a while, anyway.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s been good. Anyway.” He nods, pops the door to the sedan. “I’ll see you around, Miriam.”

  She gives him the finger.

  He laughs.

  Then he’s gone, and she goes back to waiting for Dan-Dan.

  FORTY-SIX

  SHOCK TREATMENT

  “You’re going through shock,” Mary says. The world bounces and shudders. Every bounce sends a spider web of pain through Miriam’s body— like a bullet hole in a mirror, cracks everywhere, everything gone wonky. Her heart flitter-flutters like a moth around a porch light. She tries to lift her arms, her legs, but it takes too much out of her. Tears crawl along her eyelids, creep down her cheeks. Everything shudders, judders, tumbles, bumbles: bump, bump, bump.

  I don’t know where I am.

  Mary stands over her. Staring down.

  Someone behind her, too.

  Louis.

  Not-Louis.

  Trespasser.

  He puts a finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he says. “You’re in a van. The no-longer-a-wizard van. And you’re dying.”

  Mary Stitch doesn’t flinch. She can’t hear or see him. He’s a ghost.

  I don’t want to die.

  He grins. Mealworms play his teeth like piano keys. “Good.”

  She closes her eyes. Feels her whole self dip down into darkness, like a ladle into black broth—

  Hands pull at her. Teeth bite at her. Beaks clack and squawk.

  The tile floor is cold underneath her. Blood pools out from between her legs. A red snow shovel clatters nearby. Above her, Mary Stitch says, “You killed my boy. That awful thing inside you, that worm, that demon, it should never be made. You’re a rotten girl. You deserve pain. You deserve a womb like a mummy’s tomb: dusty and dead and sealed away so no one else can have it.”

  Breath stinks like snowmelt and rotten food.

  A red balloon bumps along the ceiling. Bump, bump, bump.

  A scorpion scuttles around inside the latex. Squeaks and clicks.

  Bump, bump, bump.

  She’s running now. Boots in mud, every step making the bottoms of her boots bigger— boots like bricks, feet like cement blocks, and she thinks, I’ve been running, I’ve been getting better, stronger, faster, why can’t I do this. But the hole in her chest whistles like a teakettle. Then it sprays blood. Pbbbt. A spit-take of crimson. A lung collapsed, house of cards. She goes down.

  And falls not in the mud but in a river. Bubbles pop. Slick weeds suck at her ankles, pulling her down into the soft bed of the river. The river is rising. The storm is coming. Louis swims down. Reaches for her. He’s dead, too. His lips are gone: fish-nibbled. Gums pull back, yellow teeth, and through them he keens:

  “Where’s Wren? What did you do to her? Don’t you know what she’ll do?”

  Then his head shudders, and in the center of his head is a hole, and blood clouds the water, grows thick like squid ink, drops her down in the black once more. Eyes open. Gasping for air.

  Above, blue skies. Morning skies. Streaked with fingers of fire across washboard clouds. The world shifts. Bump, bump, bump. Faces above her. Mary. Ethan. Ofelia. Feels like she’s in a hammock.

  Please make this stop. Please let me wake up.

  “You are awake, dum-dum,” the Trespasser says, this time with her mother’s face, joining the other three. Helping to carry her. “Did you think we were your pallbearers?” Her mother laughs. Fire dances in her eyes.

  A bed. A cot. Something beeping. A tugging at her arm. Someone says in Mary Stitch’s voice, “We’re gonna go ahead and leave that bullet in you. Karen said to keep it there. Let it be a reminder to you. A souvenir of your cruelty.” Then someone else says, “This is morphine.”

  She floats away. Then pops like a balloon and then drowns. Swimming. Flying. Falling. Drowning. Again and again.

  Somewhere, something probes at her margins. Teasing at the edges of her awareness, like fingers trying to sneak a taste of pie. Miriam grits her teeth and wills those fingers away: throws up all the walls she can, slams down every portcullis. Anything that comes to touch her, she bites at it—

  Snap, snap, snap.

  The feeling recedes. Water moccasins sliding back through murky water.

  This goes on again and again, and Miriam looks up from her bed at one point and sees a sight that at first comforts her and then destroys her:

  Isaiah. Standing at the edge of a bed in a tent. Wind ruffling the edges. He’s wearing the Superman shirt again. His shoulders are wet with blood, turning the fabric purple. He says, “I’m sorry.”

  And she asks him why.

  And he says, “Because Gabby is with my momma now.”

  It’s then she realizes. This isn’t a vision. This is happening. Clarity strikes her like a hammer on a bell: those fingers poking around, that was Karen. She was looking for something. She was looking for the boy. And somewhere in Miriam’s surface thoughts, she found them. Miriam, lost to morphine. Broadcasting a signal she never meant to give off— oh, god, Karen got what they wanted. They know that Gabby went off to be with her sister. Took Isaiah.

  They killed her. They took him.

  Miriam failed.

  A sound somewhere, like a car. Coming closer. Loud highway sounds. Miriam strains, tries to cry out—

  But it’s too late. The SUV tears through the tent. Strikes Isaiah. The red balloon he was holding— Was he holding a balloon? Where did that come from?— floats up into the sky as Miriam sinks down beneath the earth once more.

  And then one day, Miriam wakes up for real.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  SHELLS CRACKING ON BLACK PISTACHIOS

  Crunch, crunch, crunch. Mary Stitch sits there, prying apart pistachios with her fingernails and, occasionally, her teeth. The pistachios are covered in something: cinnamon or maybe chili powder. So red, they’re almost black. Mary pops the meat in her mouth, crunching them up in little bites before tossing the shells in a nearby coffee cup.

  Miriam, gray and pale and clammy, stares. Like watching a nearby mountain lion casually lazing about. Her hand slides underneath a gauzy white sheet, under a white T-shirt, finds a bandage covering the hole in her chest. She winces.

  Around her, a machine beeps. An IV drips into her arm.

  The older woman peers down at a pistachio. “Are these nuts or not?”

  “What?” Miriam says, or tries to. Her voice is broken and dry—the sound of two tombstones rubbing together.

  “Peanuts are not nuts. They’re like peas. Legumes. Wasn’t sure if pistachios are nuts too or what. A tomato isn’t a vegetable; it’s a fruit. Strawberries aren’t berries, though I don’t know exactly what they are.” She licks the outside of the pistachio before cracking it and eating it. “All kinds of things aren’t the things we think they are. We get ideas in our heads about the essential nature of a thing and don’t know how to be wrong, so we just assume we’re right even though all evidence, well, it’s to the contrary. Like me. You thought I was going to be Little Miss Helpful, didn’t you? That I was someone with a code. A twisted code, maybe, like you have, but a code nevertheless. But I don’t. Not really. Only thing that matters to me is me, and even then, I’m getting pretty goddamn tiring to myself.” She shrugs. “You bet on me, and you bet wrong.”

  “You . . . shot me.”

  “Mm-hmm, and the sky is blue, the desert is dry, and trickle-down economics are comple
te horseshit. We can make factual statements all day, Miriam.”

  “Wh . . . why?”

  Mary looks around. The tent flutters in the wind a little, like it’s restless, hoping to take off the way a kite does. “Oh. Well. That is a puzzle. One with very few pieces, as it turns out. First reason? These very nice people in the desert have chosen to make use of my services. They have money to share, and in return, we’ve concocted a little plan. Like I told you before: I am very good at highlighting the weakness of things. Not just people. Systems. Structures.”

  The realization strikes Miriam like a car slamming into her: At dinner, Karen took Mary’s name right out of my mind. Snatching it like a fly in an open hand. They’re going to destroy that courthouse with her help.

  But only because I introduced them.

  Once again: Miriam ties the noose she fought so hard to unravel.

  Miriam tries to cry, but her eyes are little deserts all their own. Her brow is damp, but everything else is dried up— her fingers like pumice, rasping against each other, the skin pulling away from her nails. Her lips are that way too: cracked and crispy and ready to split.

  “But”—and here Mary leans forward—“the real reason is, you killed my brother. You killed Weldon, you nasty little cunt. That I cannot abide.”

  “He was a monster.”

  “He was my brother.”

  “He raped you. Molested you.”

  A sharp bark of a laugh. Mary says, “You think that’s how it went, do you? Oh, honey. See? I told you: you think you know a thing, but then it turns out you got it all twisted. Weldon never touched the kids. He paid me to do that. Like he did to others throughout his life. He just watched. It was God’s job to sort him out, not mine, not yours, not the law’s. You’re the monster. Not him. Not me. You think you do good things. You think you’re righteous. But you’re not.”

  “You . . . you’re an animal. So was he. I’m glad I pulped his head like a fucking blood orange.” Miriam starts coughing, hacking, body wracked. Every inch of her tightening up, shuddering. Everything hurts.