by Dan Padavona
Keeshana whispered something that was swallowed by the hum of the motor, and as Amy turned toward her, she saw Keeshana make the sign of the cross. Maybe they should have stopped and turned back for the interstate, but fate kept pulling them down the scalded pathway, the van plummeting into madness.
Then Keeshana did stop the van, her foot pressed to the brake pedal as she stared through the glass. They idled in the middle of the road, pieces of homes crumbling around them, Jeremy leaning forward from the backseat with hen’s eggs for eyes.
“What happened here?” he asked.
Keeshana shifted the van into reverse. “I think we should go.”
“No,” Amy said, gripping Keeshana’s arm. “Keep going.”
“Amy, you don’t want to see—”
“I need to know.”
Keeshana shook her head, and Jeremy sat back in his seat, his eyes searching aimlessly through the van, busying himself so as to avoid the scene outside the window. Lurching ahead, the minivan crept deeper into Chardray. Amy kept searching for something familiar, something she could wrap her mind around to make sense of the madness. But everything appeared unrecognizable, an alien landscape out of a nightmare.
She sobbed, biting down on her fist as she stared out the passenger window. She began to recognize the remnants of neighbors’ homes, places where she once laughed and played. The neighborhood was simply gone, her memories burned away. Yet in the vast nothingness left behind, she sensed eyes watching her.
The van drifted past the Jenner house, as though part of a deranged funeral procession. All that remained of the old house were bits of glass, blackened wood, and a muddy tendril of smoke rising eerily out of the wreckage. Amy broke down and cried, certain she would lose her mind. Keeshana must have known the Jenner house lay outside the window, for she didn’t immediately stop. Instead she accelerated past the wreckage and brought the minivan to a halt at the edge of town, parked before a dead end which seemed ironically full of life with its lush fauna and flowering shrubs. The fire had originated behind them, somewhere near old Mrs. Bennett’s house. Amy silently prayed that Mrs. Bennett, all of her neighbors, and especially her father had vanished last weekend. She hated thinking such a thing, having obsessed over the possibility of her father still being alive. But any fate was better than the devilish inferno that had engulfed the neighborhood.
“Amy.”
Keeshana was saying her name. How many times? It wasn’t until Keeshana touched Amy’s cheek that her daze broke.
“Amy, we’ve seen enough. I think we should go.”
“How could this have happened?” Amy buried her face in her hands. How many towns had they passed through since leaving Atlanta? It seemed a cruel twist of fate that although the people of those towns had disappeared, the towns themselves lay preserved, like still photos from a book of memories. Only Chardray lay destroyed. Why here of all places?
Jeremy’s eyes flashed with fright in the mirror. “It’s not safe for us to be sitting here.”
“He’s right,” Keeshana said, brushing tear-soaked hair out of Amy’s eyes. “Your father isn’t here, Amy. God willing, he was gone before whatever happened here happened.” Amy didn’t reply. She didn’t protest either, so Keeshana cautiously backed the minivan away from the dead end, one eye on her friend, the other eye warily surveying the smoldering remains of the stricken village. She completed a three-point turn, the van now facing the wreckage. Occasional loud crashes were heard as pieces of construction collapsed. The smoky scent smothered all, slowly constricting their lungs and making their eyes water.
Jeremy started to cough as the van passed back through the neighborhood. Keeshana drove carefully, weaving around debris which dotted the street like land mines. Here and there lay shrapnel and broken two-by-fours, nails jutting upward, awaiting the soft, rubber flesh of the van’s tires. Amy stared forward, seeing the village but not seeing the village, crippled by sensory overload.
They passed the crumbled Citgo sign and the leveled remnants of Peter Pig’s barbecue pit when a growling sound from up the road brought Keeshana’s head up. She glanced over at Amy, but her friend sat unblinking. As though a camera’s flashbulb fired, metal winked back from the entrance ramp of the interstate. The strange light grew in the van’s windshield.
It wasn’t until Jeremy said, “Car,” that Keeshana realized what the light was. The afternoon sun reflected off the car, turning the vehicle into a fiery asteroid as it crept into the village. The car was still a football field’s length away, creeping deeper into Chardray, when something about the vehicle’s approach turned Amy’s face ashen.
“Someone you know, South Carolina?”
Keeshana’s voice seemed to come from a faraway place as Amy kept staring at the prowling glare, wondering why it caused her pulse to increase.
“Maybe it’s someone who knows what happened here,” Jeremy said.
“I don’t think so.” Amy’s whisper was nearly lost under the big motor approaching from down the road.
The car passed beneath tiger-striped lighting of sunshine through trees, and in the shadows the vehicle revealed itself. A blood-red sports car—a Camaro, Amy thought—and somehow knowing this stoked the flames of Amy’s panic. She began to sob again, this time shivering with dread as Keeshana attempted to console her.
“What is it, Amy?”
“Just get us out of here.”
But the Camaro drove straight down the middle of the road, cutting off any chance for them to drive around it. Its engine gunned, closer now, the driver concealed behind tinted windows. Now Jeremy grew agitated, too, his eyes moving between the sports car, the road, and the blackened shells of houses, as though searching for a way out.
The Camaro’s engine roared, a thunderous cry of a demon risen. Tires squealed like the terrified screams of children, and the car shot forward, heading right at the minivan.
“Drive, Kee.”
“I’ve got nowhere to go. It’s blocking us. Jesus, Amy. If he doesn’t slow down, he’s going to kill us!”
The Camaro shrieked forward. Amid the smoldering carnage, high octane insanity hurtled toward them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Speed Demon
Keeshana cranked the wheel hard to the left, the van nearly toppling over as it angled on two wheels toward the curb. The Camaro rocketed past, a bull missing the matador by mere inches. Careening over the curb, the van righted itself on the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding a street pole. Keeshana looked over her shoulder as the car buzzed past, feeling the vibrations of the big motor in the steering wheel. Both hands gripping the wheel, she pulled hard to the right until the minivan lumbered back over the curb and onto the street.
“He’s coming back.” Amy peered out the back window. Amid the blackened wasteland, the leveled remnants of her old house were blotted out by the maniac-driven sports car as the driver slammed the brakes and spun around. The shrill scream of squealing tires, the growl of the Camaro’s motor, the blinding glare of sunshine across the windshield—all added to the mayhem and confusion.
Amy rolled down her window and fired Grady’s rifle at the sports car.
“You can’t just shoot him.” Jeremy pleaded for a semblance of sanity, but Amy kept shooting.
“The hell she can’t,” Keeshana said. “It’s him or us.”
“You don’t know if he is trying to hurt you.”
“You wanna get out and ask? For Christ’s sake, Jeremy. He burned down the whole neighborhood.”
Jeremy glared at Keeshana, as though he thought she had lost her mind. “You have no way of knowing that, either. Listen to yourself.”
Amy aimed and fired again, the Camaro dead in her sights. But the bullets missed the windshield and ricocheted off the car’s roof.
“Shit! That’s impossible. I couldn’t have missed from this range.”
She fired again, but the Camaro squealed forward, swerving across the street to avoid the bullets.
As the driver threw the sp
orts car into reverse, Keeshana stopped the van and climbed out onto the street, the handgun centered on the Camaro. She fired several shots, and though she was not a skilled shooter like Amy, she wouldn’t have missed every time at this close a range. Once, she swore a bullet struck the windshield and deflected harmlessly into the wind, but that was impossible as the windshield showed nary a scratch.
The click of Amy’s rifle echoed Keeshana’s handgun; they were out of bullets. The Camaro’s engine revved, the grille pointed directly at Keeshana. They stood watching each other, woman and performance vehicle, like gunslingers at high noon with a haunting wind whistling through the burned trees.
Tires smoking, the Camaro shifted into drive and accelerated. Keeshana froze, as though she were a bloody swimmer watching a shark fin approach. Amy and Jeremy began screaming, and Keeshana jumped into the van.
With the Camaro behind her and the interstate entrance dead ahead, she pressed the accelerator to the floor. The minivan’s tires burned rubber, leaving twin shadows etched into the road. But Keeshana knew it was a pointless endeavor—the Camaro was too fast, too powerful, and the sports car would catch her rear bumper before she made it halfway to the ramp.
Keeshana knew only one choice remained: get behind the wrecked houses, where the car could not reach her.
She accelerated down the road as if she meant to outrun the sports car, but the Camaro grew larger in her mirrors, closing the distance at alarming speed. When the interstate entrance ramp lay less than a hundred yards ahead, she slammed on the brakes.
“What are you doing?” Amy’s face was terror-stricken, and for a moment Keeshana thought her friend might leap out through the passenger door.
The van rocked, again nearly tipping on its side as Keeshana brought the wheel around. Jeremy flew across the backseat and slammed shoulder-first into the sliding door. The van stopped perpendicular to the street, effectively becoming a roadblock. The Camaro screeched to a halt, and then the driver backed up several feet.
Does he intend to sideswipe us? Keeshana didn’t know what the insane driver intended, and it didn’t matter. While the Camaro’s motor growled and gunned, Keeshana opened her door and jumped out.
“Get out of the van through my door. Hurry!” Amy looked at Keeshana as if she thought her friend had lost her mind. Keeshana’s eyes pleaded with her to act while there was still time, and Amy climbed across the seat, a groggy Jeremy following close behind. The Camaro’s motor continued to rev, but the driver had not made his move yet.
Amy was almost out the door when she stopped and suddenly turned back. “The rifle.”
As Amy bent down to pull the rifle out from under the seat, the Camaro started crawling forward. Keeshana yanked Amy by the arm, pulling her out of the van.
“We’re out of ammunition. It’s useless. Leave it.”
“He’ll kill us out in the open, Kee.”
“Get past the houses and run for the trees. He can’t follow us with his car.”
But Keeshana wondered if the driver had his own gun. Would he cut them down with bullets as soon as they fled across the field?
Grabbing Amy by the arm, Keeshana pulled her out of the van toward the burned houses. Jeremy ran past them, his widened eyes zeroed in on the creeping car. So focused was he on their pursuer, Jeremy never saw the mangled shrapnel of roof and glass lying on the front lawn. His leg struck the debris on his knee cap, and he flipped over and landed on his back, screaming. They stopped to help him up, tires shrieking across the street as the Camaro rocketed forward like a lion after injured prey.
“Get up, Jeremy!” Amy screamed, pulling the man by his arms, trying to force him to rise by sheer force of will. Keeshana pulled too, but when Jeremy rose to his feet, his bad leg gave out. He fell again, face down in broken glass. He started yelling something incomprehensible, and when Keeshana tried to pull him up, she saw a roof nail protruding through his hand. His eyes moved between the metal spike driven through his flesh and bone and the red monster blasting over the curb.
He kept screaming as they pleaded with him to get up, but now the car was over the curb, bouncing onto the lawn, a jade beard of weeds hanging off the grille. It was too late. In moments the car would be on top of them.
Keeshana grabbed Jeremy’s hand as the front tires plowed over his back. A million body parts grotesquely cracked inside of him, his eyes bulging like a fish as blood exploded from his mouth. He was under the car, the weight crushing and dragging him until he was caught up between metal and the back tires.
Amy yanked Keeshana away as the rear bumper skirted her head. “He’s dead, Kee. You can’t help him. Run!”
The Camaro skidded through the lawn, digging ditches into the turf as its wheels spun. Keeshana leaped over what appeared to be part of a couch, and as she looked back over her shoulder, she saw Jeremy’s body flung to-and-fro under the car, as though he were caught in the jaws of a great white. She nearly ran into another mound of debris where a broken plank jutted outward like a spear. Had Amy not screamed in warning, Keeshana would have impaled herself on the plank. Even so, the tip caught the side of her shirt and tore a strip of cotton away.
Weaving through the blackened wreckage, they broke through to the backyards. When Amy turned to look, she saw the Camaro finally shake Jeremy’s body loose. Free now, the car whipped toward the houses. The driver accelerated, the back tires spraying the street with dirt.
“He’s going to try to bust through the debris.” Amy stood frozen, watching the Camaro barrel toward the wreckage. “He’s insane.”
Keeshana urged her forward, the edge of wilderness some fifty yards away, fronted by a curtain of elms and hickories swaying in the breeze. “He’ll never make it. Keep running. We’ll lose him in the forest.”
They ran faster, and not far behind, they heard the car stop and the driver open his door. He slammed the door closed, screaming at them as they disappeared into the trees.
“I knew you’d come lookin’ for your daddy.”
As they broke through the trees, Keeshana saw Amy’s face twisted in shock. “It has to be someone you know, Amy.”
“I’ve never seen him before, and he’s not from Chardray. But how does he know my father?”
Keeshana stole a glance through the trees. The driver was a young man, maybe even a boy. He stood amid the carnage, a cowboy hat tilted over his head. “We’ll figure that out later. Keep running.”
“Come back, Amy. Y’all don’t need to run from ole Ricky. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” He threw his head back and laughed, a rabid hyena under the blazing sun.
The man kept yelling as they rushed into the wilderness, leaves and limbs whipping past in a blur.
Is he coming after us? Keeshana listened for pursuit, but their own footfalls and the snapping of twigs drowned out all else. Their only choice was to keep running.
“You know these woods, South Carolina. Lead the way.”
Her breaths coming in labored gasps, Amy cut through the fauna, angling left of their previous path. Her head kept swiveling back, eyes wide as she watched the woods for the lunatic attacker. “How does he know my name, Kee?”
As the Saturday afternoon sun accelerated toward the horizon, Keeshana could not erase from her mind’s eye the sight of Jeremy’s broken body. The man, the lunatic driver, would do the same to them if he caught them. And so she fled with Amy into the unknown, the rustling of leaves and the crackling of brush echoing through the forest, a beacon for the pursuing driver.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Will's Headache
“You really fucked that up.”
His head felt weighted down by wet sacks of cement, and there was a pink glow on the backs of his eyelids, as though someone shined a light into his face.
“Wake up.”
He wanted to sleep a little longer, but the voice coming from above his head was insistent, and the bed he lay upon was terribly uncomfortable. Maybe if he rolled over, she would go away and allow him to sleep a few mor
e minutes.
“Get your ass up. You’re in trouble.”
He started to push himself up and realized he wasn’t in a bed at all. Rough, unforgiving concrete lay under his palms, and he felt tiny stabbing sensations in his hand. Opening his eyes, he saw himself on a sidewalk, collapsed amid broken glass.
“Where the fuck am I?” Groggy, he blinked his eyes until he placed context to the scenery. He was outside the shopping center, the crowbar a few feet from his skull. Lorna leaned over him, anger having long pushed past any concern that once existed in her eyes. The pink light was the setting sun, nearly eclipsed by the shopping plaza, and he smelled the salty air of the nearby Atlantic as he watched a pelican land in the parking lot, its wings spread wide like an angel’s.
“You let that muscle head do a number on you.”
His head hurt, and his ears rang with a high-pitched tone. “Yeah? What about you? You didn’t exactly last all ten rounds, either.”
“That doesn’t matter. What I want to know is, what are you going to do about it?”
She wants to know what in the hell I am going to do about it? Presently, all Will wanted to do was break into the closest hotel and sleep in a comfortable bed. His body felt shattered, as though he had been thrown from a moving vehicle. Or a motorcycle. The fight with the man known as Viper came back to him. Will had underestimated Viper’s ability, figuring there was more bark than bite to the man.
Now anger simmered deep inside of him. “The day isn’t done. Let’s find him so I can finish this.”
She laughed, her eyes full of disgusted amusement. “If he sees you again, he won’t stop at knocking you unconscious.”
“What the hell do you want from me? Either you want me to track him down or you don’t. Make up your mind.”
Her eyes wandered across the abandoned cars and dark stores. “Lupan isn’t going to be happy when he finds out you failed him. He was pretty damn specific about getting Viper out of the picture.”