“An exit?”
“No.”
“What?”
“Something in the fog.”
“Me, too,” said Claire.
Trevor checked his side mirror. “Coyote.”
Claire scanned the road behind them, looking for the mysterious light they had passed. “We have to go back to that building.”
Trevor shook his head. “There’s no building on this stretch. Nothing for forty miles.”
“I saw a light, Trevor.”
“We need to keep moving.”
“Ethan’s in a bad way,” Dakota said.
“We need help,” said Claire. “There’s some kind of building back there. We just passed it. They might have a land line.”
Trevor said, “Do you see any telephone poles? Use your brain, Claire. No poles, no phone.”
No time.
Claire unbuckled, opened the door, and stepped out.
“Claire, where are you—”
She slammed the door behind her.
30
Claire marched back down the road, alone in the swirling fog. Cool mist heightened her senses. She heard the breeze whistle through the sage, small creatures scamper and slither on the desert floor, and the receding sound of Trevor’s voice.
“Wait…”
She ignored him. Trevor wanted to keep going, but this might be their only chance to save Ethan. There might be someone in the building. Or a phone or computer or radio. Some way to reach out for help. She had to at least try.
Ahead of Claire, a faint voice echoed: “Wait…wait…wait…”
That’s not Trevor.
The voice was much younger. And not a single voice but a pair, whispered in unison. The voices of—who?—what?—young girls?
Claire stopped.
“Who’s there?”
Trevor again, behind her: “Where are you?”
The young girls’ voices echoed. “Where are you?”
And then: “Why are you here?”
Pale faces formed in the mist. Two young girls. Twin sisters, no more than eight years old. As the mist receded, the girls moved forward without taking a step. They stood together holding hands. They wore matching country dresses, light blue, and yellow shoes with little black bows. Perfect white stockings pulled tight to the knees. Braided blonde hair. Dimpled cheeks.
Claire called out, “Hello?”
The children stared at her with curious eyes. “Hello, Becky…”
“I’m not Becky,” Claire said. Where are the parents? They must be here somewhere. “I need help!”
“Yes…yes…yes…”
All Claire could think about was Ethan bleeding out his life in the back of the car. She had to make these girls understand. “Someone’s hurt!”
“Where does it hurt, Becky?”
“Please. Go get your parents. Can you help us?”
“Help us…help us…”
Claire walked toward them.
The twin girls withdrew into the fog and disappeared.
“No, wait…”
Claire followed them into the thick whiteness.
Something snagged her foot, and she fell forward, landing hard with hands and knees. The ground was smooth and hard and—paved? Could she still be on the highway?
Claire stood, disoriented, and looked around for the headlights.
“Trevor!”
The fog thinned, and she saw a neon sign flicker ahead. Most of the panel was dark, but letter by letter the sign lit up. It buzzed and flickered.
Red letters: first a “t” then a “p” then an “o,” forming the word “top.”
An “S” changed the word to “Stop.”
Truck stop? Claire guessed. The girls must have gone inside.
She walked toward the sign.
Behind her, a car horn honked. The Hummer.
Trevor’s frustration cut through the fog. “Damnit, Claire.”
More neon letters lit up, forming two words now: “Stop Car”
Claire looked back and saw red tail lights approach.
The rear of the Hummer emerged from the fog. Trevor was driving in reverse. He backed up beside Claire, and paced her as she walked.
Trevor powered down the passenger window. “Get in.”
“There’s a building,” she said, pointing at it. “They might have a phone.”
She saw the final letters illuminated, completing the sign: “Last Stop Car Hop.”
“Trevor, look,” she said. “It’s from that song. Frankie Lamarque owned this place before he died.”
“I don’t care. It looks like a dump.”
Trevor was right. It was a 1950s diner, out of business for half a century. Window frames clung to broken shards of glass. Doors sagged on their hinges. Outside, speaker boxes were mounted on poles next to each parking stall. Inside, the building was dark and secretive. It bore the weight of gloom and neglect.
Parked in the lot were two old cars—classics from the fifties, maybe, or older, but they looked brand new. One was a red Chevy. The other was a bright yellow Ford coupe. The owners were nowhere to be seen.
Claire crossed the driveway.
Trevor said, “Wait for me.”
He’s stalling for time, she knew. If I wait, he’ll talk me out of this.
“I’m going in.”
“Claire—”
She entered the diner alone.
31
The main dining area was dark and cavernous, revealing only the dim outlines of tables and booths. Faint light spilled from a room in the back.
An office, she imagined.
Claire thought about using the flashlight app on her cell phone, but there was moonlight coming in from the broken windows and that other light from behind the office door.
Save your battery, she counseled herself, like a prudent TV sitcom mother, like the mother she never knew, and probably never would. Careful now.
After letting her eyes adjust, she walked in further, past a sign that read, “Please Wait To Be Seated.”
Her movements stirred dust. Cobwebs fluttered in her wake. She continued past tables and booths, past a row of stools guarding a countertop, past a dead juke box, and arrived with tentative steps at the opening to a back hallway, where she could see light seeping around the edges of a closed door.
“Hello?” she called out.
No one answered.
Must be a phone here somewhere.
Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and she saw a restroom sign above the entrance to the hallway. Moving into the hall, she felt cobwebs cling to her bare arms and face. But these webs were old and twisted, the monuments of spiders long dead.
Nothing to worry about.
Something brushed her cheek, and she waved it away.
Her spine shivered, and she let it pass.
“Hello?”
She saw an old pay phone between the two doors of the bathrooms. Claire picked up the receiver and listened, but the phone was dead.
Hanging beneath the phone was an old phone book. It dangled from a cord.
The Fowlers once lived around here.
Searching for her family records on the Internet, she’d found reference to the Fowlers in scans of old newspapers, but none of the online directories listed anyone by that name. The earliest directories she could find were from the 1990s. By then, the Fowlers had left the area.
But here was an old phone book.
Frankie Lamarque’s diner must have gone out of business not long after he was killed, which meant this phone book probably dated back to the fifties or sixties. Finding a home address for the Fowlers might be too much to hope for, but an old phone number could be just the clue she needed.
Worth a try.
Claire flipped open the phone book.
Too dark to read.
She tugged on the book, and it came free of its moorings. She carried it back to the dining area. Neon light spilled in from a broken window. Claire set the phone book on a table near the wind
ow, and opened the directory to the letter “F.” She ran her fingers down the listings, found “FOWLER, Eldritch,” and ripped out the entire page. She raised it to where the neon light was brightest—
The entire room lit up.
A beam of light traced an arc across the walls. Claire glanced back and saw headlamps through the window. For a moment she was blinded, but then the headlights moved on, and her eyes adjusted.
It was the Hummer parking outside.
Trevor parked the car in a stall next to a speaker box.
The place was old-fashioned, like from the fifties, like that diner in Happy Days or American Graffiti or some old movie with greasers in white tee-shirts and black leather jackets sipping malts, dancing to jukebox rockabilly, and drag racing their hot rods to get their kicks.
He thought of James Dean and the young Marlon Brando. Movie stars with tight-sweatered girls itching for a ride on the bad boy’s bike.
He could picture himself in a scene like that.
Those were the days.
Parked nearby were two other cars, a classic red Chevy and a yellow Deuce Coupe. They weren’t falling apart like the rest of the place, but looked brand-spanking-new. Perfect restorations.
But where are the owners?
They must have been driving by, then stopped to check out the historic location. They’d probably parked, gotten out, and wandered around. Might be inside the crumbling diner right now.
With Claire.
“Wait here,” he said to Dakota. “I gotta check this out.”
He stepped from the Hummer and stalked his way to the coupe. The windows were dark. If there was anyone in there, Trevor couldn’t see them.
“Hello?” called out.
The classic coupe sat silent.
Trevor took a few more steps across the broken concrete, crushing weeds that pushed up through the cracks. He looked in the window of the yellow coupe, then checked the red Chevy.
Both cars were empty.
Claire returned to the back office door. It was closed. A placard on the door read: “Manager.”
The light was on in the office.
Claire stepped up to the door and knocked.
“Hello?”
She waited for a dozen heartbeats, then turned the cold, cob-webbed handle, and pushed the door open.
No one was inside.
The overhead light was a bare bulb, but the cobwebs made it look like a chandelier. A wooden desk supported a manual typewriter and a rotary phone. Gray file cabinets lined the back wall. Golf trophies were arrayed on top. The wall by the desk boasted a framed diploma.
Claire stepped in, leaving footprints in the dust.
Hers were the only footprints. How long had it been since anyone was here? Years? Decades?
Who turned on the light?
She found the light switch by the door. It was covered with undisturbed cobwebs. With her sleeve she wiped away the thin, sticky filaments. She flicked the switch to the off position.
The light stayed on.
Wrong switch?
She looked for another switch, but didn’t see one.
It didn’t matter. She came in to find a phone, and there was a phone on the desk. An old rotary. If the lights worked, maybe the phone did too.
Who’s paying the electric bill?
Claire pushed the thought aside and went to the phone. She picked up the receiver and held it an inch from her ear, but heard no dial tone.
Disconnected?
Following the phone cord to the wall, she discovered that the end of the cord was frayed, as if gnawed by a rodent.
Claire returned the receiver to its cradle and opened the top desk drawer. She found pens and pennies and nickels. She picked out the shiniest penny from the loose change. The back face showed two stocks of wheat.
Wheat penny. She knew they didn’t make those anymore. The front face showed President Lincoln, and was dated 1929. Stock market crash. It was all she’d learned about 1929. The coin was very old, but looked freshly minted. Might be worth something.
She tucked it in her pocket.
Claire closed the top desk drawer and tried the side drawers. Inside she found, among various other files, a folder with news clippings from the Los Angeles Times, Palmdale Post, and South Antelope Valley Press. Mixed in with reviews and articles about the Last Stop Car Hop were reports of accidents on the highway. She recognized some of articles from the memorial wall at Dinah’s Diner.
One of the headlines caught her eye: “Fowler’s Last Stand.”
She unfolded the clipping. It was the front page of the Palmdale Post, dated September 5, 1933. Under the headline was a large black-and-white photo showing a farmhouse surrounded by cops. Four policemen aimed rifles at the front door of the house.
Intense.
The caption read: “Local police surround Fowler residence, moments before the shootout.”
Two other headlines screamed from the front page: “Heartbreak and Horror at Fowler Farm” and “Locals Leery of Lunar Eclipse.”
Claire’s eyes were drawn to the first article, which began:
In the shocking aftermath of the Fowler shootout, authorities are now piecing together clues as to the secret life of highway obstructionist Eldritch Fowler, a life of murder, rape, and incest—
The silence was shattered by a burst of music. It blared from outside the room—from the hallway or the dining area or the parking lot.
It was Frankie Lamarque, singing:
I met my girl by the cherry tree
We took it nice and slow
I asked my girl to marry me
But her old man said no…
Claire guessed it was blasting from someone’s car, but Trevor wouldn’t play that song.
Someone else is here.
Tucking the news clipping into her pocket, she hurried out of the office, down the hall, and back to the dining area.
The jukebox was now turned on, and playing way too loud.
Claire covered her ears. She went to the jukebox and searched for a volume knob, but couldn’t find one. She looked through the glass. A 45 rpm vinyl record spun inside. The label read: “Frankie Lamarque, Last Stop Car Hop.”
Polish the chrome
Put down the top
We’re leaving home
Drive till we drop
To the Last Stop Car Hop
Last Stop Car Hop
Claire grabbed the back of the machine. The jukebox was heavy. It took some effort, but she moved it another inch from the wall. She saw the electrical cord plugged in. She reached through the cobwebs and pulled the plug from the outlet.
The jukebox continued to play.
What the hell?
Trevor’s voice behind her: “Claire.”
She stood and saw Trevor near the door.
“How did you turn this on?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I was outside. You find a phone?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t work.”
A phone rang.
The sound came from the back office.
Claire hurried back down the hallway. Trevor follow, with the music still bouncing off the walls.
She entered the office and answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Claire…” It sounded like the twin sisters in the fog.
“Who is this?”
“We’ve been waiting for you—”
She hung up.
32
Dakota cradled Ethan. She tried to comfort him as he shivered in her arms. He was damp with sweat and blood. She touched the skin of his cheek.
Cold as ice.
Ethan lay on his side, across the seat, with his back to the front of the car and his head in Dakota’s lap. The back of his leather jacket had been worn down to nothing. She could see the boney white of his spine, and moist red muscles where the skin should be.
Oh God, Baby.
She smelled urine.
It didn’t matter.
I’m so
sorry.
Ethan would be clean again, and strong, and healthy, and beautiful, once they got him to a hospital.
“I’m not going to let you die,” Dakota said aloud, because he needed to hear it, because she needed to hear it, though she worried it was yet another promise she couldn’t keep.
She heard a crackling outside.
What is that?
It sounded like a PA system turning on, like those ancient outdoor speakers they had at school.
Where are we?
They were parked somewhere on the desert highway—
Blood Alley.
—past the bridge—
Destroyed.
—heading for Cedarview.
Too far.
How much further? She didn’t know. They didn’t have a map, and their phones didn’t work here.
Why are we parked?
Since leaving the bridge, she had barely paid attention to anything but Ethan.
We should be moving.
Nothing else seemed important now.
Why aren’t we moving?
Nothing else seemed real.
Where’s Trevor?
She glanced out the window. Trevor had parked at some dusty old diner. Light flickered from a neon sign, and music played inside, but the place seemed completely run down. She saw a row of speaker boxes, one for each parking stall.
The Hummer was parked next to post with a two-way speaker box mounted on it. The speaker was outside the driver’s window.
Two other cars were parked at the diner. One was red and the other yellow. They were old cars, like on TV. She didn’t know much about old cars. But she knew one thing. Cars had drivers.
Someone else is here. They’ll help us.
A voice from the speaker box said: “May I help you?”
It was a male voice. Old and raspy, like the voice of her uncle before he died.
“Hello?” she called out, but the man on the speaker couldn’t hear her. All the windows were rolled up. The sunroof was open, and the back window was broken—How did that happen?
She needed to roll down the driver’s window, but Dakota couldn’t get there with Ethan in her lap. She lifted him gently and maneuvered out from under him.
Ethan groaned.
“Sorry, Baby.” Dakota eased him back down onto the seat. “I’m getting help. I promise. I’m not going to let you die.”
She climbed into the driver’s seat, then hit the button for the window.
Blood Alley (The Highwayman) Page 12