Dean Koontz - (1973)

by Shattered(Lit)

  "You can't let him go around us!" Colin said.

  "I know."

  If the bastard got out in front of them, he would be able to blockade the entire roadway. The cracked stone shoulders on both sides were too narrow and the sand beyond them too dry and soft and loose for the Thunderbird to leave the pavement and regain the lead once that was lost.

  Doyle put his foot down.

  The big car surged ahead.

  But the stranger in the van, though mad, was not stupid. He had been expecting that maneuver. He put speed on too, and at least for the moment, he was able to stay even with Doyle.

  Wind roared between the two parallel vehicles as they hurtled westward.

  "We'll outpace him," Alex said.

  Colin did not respond.

  The slim speedometer needle climbed smoothly to eighty and then on up to eighty-five. Doyle glanced at it once. Tense and frightened, Colin watched it with real dread.

  The flat land whipped past them in a shimmering white blur of sand and heat and free-lying salt.

  And the Automover hung in beside them.

  "He can't keep up," Alex said.

  Ninety. Ninety-five . . .

  Then, as they were rushing toward a hundred-miles-an-hour, with the wind whooping between them, the madman pulled his wheel to the right. Not much. just a little bit. And only for an instant. The whole side of the Automover made light, brief contact with the full length of the Thunderbird.

  Sparks showered up and skittered like a fall of bright stars across the windshield in front of Doyle. Tortured sheet metal screamed and coughed and crumpled up on itself The steering wheel was nearly torn out of Doyle's hand. He grappled with it, held on as the car lurched onto the stone shoulder, kicking up gravel that rattled noisily in the undercarriage. Their speed fell, and they began a slow sideways turn. Alex was certain that they were going to plow into the van, which was still alongside of them. But then the car began to right itself . . . He took them back onto the highway, touching the gas pedal when he would have preferred to go with the brakes"You all right?" he asked Colin.

  The boy swallowed hard. "Yes."

  "Better hold on, then. We're going to get the hell out of here," he said as the Thunderbird gradually picked up the speed which it had lost, casting its pale shadow on the side of the Chevrolet.

  Doyle risked one quick glan ce away from the road, looked up at the van's side window, which was no more than three or four feet away.

  Despite the short distance between them, he could not see the other driver, not even his silhouette. The man was sitting up higher than Doyle, on the far side of the cab, and he was very well hidden by the yellowwhite desert sunlight that played upon the window glass.

  Eighty miles an hour again, making up for lost time and for lost ground. And now on up to eighty-five, with the speedometer needle quivering slightly. it hesitated on the eighty-five, in fact; for a moment it looked as if it would stick there, and then it jerked and rose slowly.

  Alex watched the Chevrolet out of the corner of his eyes. When he first sensed it moving in to brush against them a second time, he would take the car into the stony berm and try to avoid another collision.

  They could not tolerate much more of that banging around. Though it was half again as expensive as the Automover van, the big luxury car would come apart much sooner and more completely than the Chevrolet.

  It would dissolve around them like a flimsy paper construction, roll over and over like a weightless model, and burn faster than a cardboard carton.

  At ninety miles an hour, the car began to shake badly, making a noise like stones rolling in the bottom of a washtub. The steering wheel vibrated furiously in Doyle's hands.

  And then, worse, it started to spin uselessly back and forth.

  Doyle eased up on the accelerator, although that was the last thing he wanted to do.

  The needle fell. At eighty-five, the ride was smooth and the car was under control.

  "Something's broken!" Colin shouted over the roar of the wind and the two competing engines.

  "No. it must have been a section of bad road."

  Though he knew that their luck was not running that way, Alex hoped to God that what he had told the boy was true. Let it be true.

  Let it be nothing more serious than a piece of bad road, a section of rain-tunneled pavement. Don't let anything happen to the Thunderbird.

  it must not break down. They must not be stranded out here in the sand and the salt flats, not alone, not so far from help, and not with the madman as their only company.

  He tried the accelerator.

  The car picked up, hit ninety . . .

  And the violent shudder returned, as if the frame and body were no longer firmly joined and were slamming into each other, parting, slamming together again. This time, as he lost control of the wheel, he felt the horrible quaking in the gas pedal as well. Their top speed was going to be eighty-five. Otherwise, the car would fall apart. Therefore, they were not going to outpace the Chevrolet.

  The driver of the van seemed to realize this the same moment that Doyle did. He tooted his horn, then pulled away from them, out in front where he had command of the highway.

  "What are we going to do?" Colin asked.

  "Wait and see what he does."

  When the Automover was approximately a thousand yards out ahead of them, wrapped up in the deceptively undulating streams of hot air that were rising off the superheated pavement, it slowed down to a steady eighty-five and maintained a consistent half-mile lead.

  A mile passed.

  On both sides of the road, the land became even whiter, as if it had been bleached by the raw sun. It was punctuated only by rare, ugly clumps of struggling scrub and by occasional dark rock teeth that were all stained and rotted by the desert wind and heat.

  Two miles.

  The van was still out there, taunting them.

  The dashboard vents spewed crisp, cold air, and still the interior of the Thunderbird was too warm and close. Alex felt perspiration bead on his forehead. His shirt was sticking to him.

  Three miles.

  "Maybe we should stop," Colin said.

  "And turn back?"

  "Maybe. "

  "He would see us," Doyle said. "He would turn right around and follow-and before long, he'd be out in front of us again."

  "Well .."

  "Let's wait and see what he does," Doyle said again, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. He was aware that the boy needed an example of strength. "You want to get the map and see how far it is to the next town?

  m Colin understood the significance of the question. He grabbed the map and opened it on his knees. it covered him like a quilt.

  Squinting through his Coke-bottle glasses, he found their last known position, estimated the distance they had come since then, and marked the spot with one finger. He located the nearest town, checked the key at the bottom of the map, then did some figuring in his head.

  "Well?" Doyle asked.

  "Sixty miles."

  "You sure?

  "Positive."

  "I see."

  it was too damned far.

  Colin folded the map and put it away. He sat like a stone sculpture, staring at the back of the Chevrolet van.

  The highway crested a gentle slope, dropped away into a broad alkali basin. It looked like an ink line drawn across a clean sheet of typewriter paper. For miles and miles to the west, the road was empty.

  Nothing moved out there.

  This complete isolation was precisely what the driver of the van wanted. He braked hard, pulled the Chevrolet toward the right berm, then swung it around to the left in a broad loop. The van stopped, sideways in the road, blocking most of both lanes.

  Doyle tapped the brakes, then realized that there was no percentage in slowing down or stopping altogether. He put his foot on the accelerator again. "Here we go!"

  Holding at a steady eighty-five, the Thunderbird bore down on the van, aimed straight at
the center of the green-and-blue advertisement painted on its flank. Seven hundred yards lay between them. Now only six hundred-five, four, three hundred . . .

  "He isn't going to move!" Colin said.

  "Doesn't matter."

  "We'll hit!"

  "No."

  "Alex-" Fifty yards from the truck, Doyle wheeled to the right.

  Tires squealed. The car rushed across the graveled berm, bounced as wildly as if the springs had turned to rubber, and kept on going.

  Doyle realized that he was attempting to pull off a stunt which only a short while ago he had thought impossible. Now, whether it was impossible or not, it was their only hope. He was terrified.

  The car plowed into the grainy white soil that edged the highway, and alkali dust plumed up behind them like a vapor trail. Their speed was cut by a third in the first few seconds, and the Thunderbird lurched sickeningly in the sandy earth.

  It'll stop us, Doyle thought. We'll be stranded here.

  He stomped the accelerator to the floor.

  Although they were still doing better than fifty, the wide tires protested the loss of traction, spun furiously. The car slewed sideways, fishtailed back before picking up the speed demanded of it.

  They passed the Automover.

  Doyle angled back toward the highway. He kept the accelerator pressed all the way down. Through the partially unresponsive steering wheel, he felt the treacherous land shifting beneath them. However, before the sand could capture one or more of the wheels, they reached the shoulder of the road and kicked up hundreds of small stones as they plunged back onto the pavement.

  In seconds, they were doing eighty-five again, heading west, the van behind them.

  "You did it!" Colin said.

  "Not yet."

  "But you did!" He was still frightened, but he also sounded pleasantly excited. Doyle looked in the mirror.

  Far back there, the van was starting after them, a white speck against the whiter land. "He's coming?" Colin asked.

  "Yes. "

  "See if it'll go past ninety now."

  Doyle tried, but the car began to shake and rattle. "No good.

  Something was damaged when he slammed into us."

  "Well, at least we know you can drive us around any roadblock he throws up," the boy said.

  Doyle looked at him. "You've got more faith in my driving than I do. That was pretty hairy back there."

  "You can do it," Colin said. Desert sunlight, coming through the window, made his wire-framed glasses look like tiny tubes of light.

  Three minutes later the van was on their tail.

  But when it tried to come around them, Doyle swung the Thunderbird into the left hand lane, blocking the van and forcing it to fall back. When the Chevy attempted to move in on their right, Doyle weaved in front of it and blew his own horn to counter the other's savage blaring.

  For several minutes and miles they played that game with an unsportsmanlike disregard for rules, cruising from one side of the road to the other. Then, inevitably, the van found an opening and took advantage of it, drawing even with them.

  "Here we go again," Doyle said.

  As if he had cued it, the Automover closed the space between them and brushed the car. Sparks showered up and sputtered out in an instant, and metal whined, though not as loudly or as gratingly as it had the first time that they had collided.

  Alex fought the-wheel. They plummeted along the gravel shoulder for a thousand yards before he could get them back onto the highway.

  The van hit them again, harder than before.

  This time Alex lost control. He could not hold onto the sweat-slicked steering wheel which spun through his hands. It was slippery as a stick of butter. Only when they were off the road, grinding crazily through the ridged sand, was he able to get a good grip on the wet plastic and regain command of their fates.

  They were doing forty-five when they came back onto the road, and they were a few yards ahead of the van. But it caught up with them a moment later and hung beside them until they were doing eighty-five again. The whole right side of the Automover was scraped and dented.

  Doyle knew, as he looked anxiously at the other vehicle, that the left side of the Thunderbird was in much worse condition.

  The van swept in at t hem again. There was a sudden bang! so loud that Alex thought they had been hit a fourth time. However, there was no impact with the sound. And, abruptly, the Chevrolet lost speed, fell behind them.

  "What's he doing?" Colin asked.

  It was too good to be true, Doyle thought.

  "One of his tires blew."

  "You're kidding."

  "I'm not kidding."

  The boy slumped back against the seat, pale and shaking, limp, wrung out. in a thick, almost whispered voice, he said, "Jesus!"

  Seventeen The town survived despite the inhospitable land in which it stood. The low buildings-whether they were of wood, brick, or stone had all turned a dull yellow-brown in order to coexist with the merciless sun and the wind-blown sand. Here and there, alkaline encrustations limed the edges of walls, but that was the only variation in the drabness. The main highway-which became the borough's most important street-had been a hgostly gray-black line through the desert ever since they had crossed over from Colorado; but now it succumbed to the influence of the town, became dun and dusty. Out on the open land, the wind had scoured the road clean; but here, the buildings blocked the wind and let the dust collect. A soft powder filmed the automobiles, taking the shine out of them. The dust seemed like the hands of the living desert, gradually stealing back this meager plot which men had taken from it.

  The police station, three blocks west along the main street, was as dreary as everything else, a one-story building that was losing the mortar between its mustard-colored stones.

  The officer in charge of the station, a man who called himself Captain Ackridge, wore a brown uniform that fit in with his town and a hard, experienced face which did not. He was six-foot, two hundred pounds, perhaps ten years older than Doyle but with a body ten years younger. His close-cropped hair was black, his eyes darker than that.

  He held himself like a soldier on parade, stiff and proud.

  He came out and looked at the Thunderbird. He walked the whole way around it and seemed to be as interested in the undamaged angles as he was in the long scars down the driver's side. He leaned close to the tinted windshield and peered in at Colin as if the boy were a fish in an aquarium. Then he looked at the damage on the car's left side again and was satisfied with his inspection.

  "Come on back inside," he told Doyle. His voice was crisp and precise in spite of the underlying Southwest accent.

  "We'll talk about it."

  They returned to the station, crossed the public room where two secretaries were pounding on typewriters and one uniformed, overweight cop was taking a coffee break and munching on an eclair. They went through the door to Ackridge's off ice, and the big man closed it behind them.

  "What do you think can be done?" Alex asked as Ackridge went around behind his neatly ordered desk.

  "Have a seat."

  Doyle went to the chair that faced the scarred metal desk, but he did not sit down. "Look, that flat tire won't slow the bastard up for long. And if he-"

  "Please sit down, Mr. Doyle," the policeman said, sitting down himself. His wellworn spring-backed chair squeaked as if there were a live mouse in the cushion.

  Somewhat irritated, Doyle sat down. "I think-"

  "Let's just do this my way," Ackridge said, smiling briefly. it was an imitation smile, utterly false. The policeman seemed to understand that it was a bad copy, for he gave it up right away. "You have some identification?

  "

  "Me?

  "It was you I asked."

  The officer's voice contained no real malice, yet it chilled Doyle. He got his wallet from his hip pocket, withdrew his driver's license from one of the plastic windows, and pushed it across the desk.

  The policeman s
tudied it. "Doyle."

  "That's right."

  "Philadelphia?"

  "Yes, but we're moving to San Francisco. Of course, I don't have my California license yet." He knew he was on the verge of babbling, his tongue loosened not so much by the residual fear of their encounter with the madman in the van as by Ackridge's penitrating black eyes.

  "You have an owner's card for that TBird?

  Doyle found it, held the wallet open to the proper plastic envelope, and passed the whole thing over to the policeman.

  Ackridge looked at it for a long time. The billfold was small in his large, hard hands. "First Thunderbird you've owned?"

  Alex could not see what that had to do with anything, but he answered the question anyway. "Second."

  "Occupation"' "Mine? Commercial artist."

  Ackridge looked up at him, seemed to stare through him. "Exactly what is that?"

  "I do advertising artwork," Doyle said.

  "And you get paid well for that?"

  "Pretty well," Doyle said.

  Ackridge started to leaf through the other cards in the wallet, taking a couple of seconds with each. His sober, intense interest in these private things was almost obscene.

  What in the hell is going on here? Doyle wondered. I came here to report a crime. I'm a good, upstanding citizen-not the suspect!

  He cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Captain."

  Ackridge stopped flipping through the cards. "What is it?"

  Last night, Doyle told himself, I faced a man who was trying to kill me with an ax. Today I can surely face this two-bit police chief.

  "Captain," he said, "I don't see why you're so interested in who I am. isn't the most important thing-well, going after this man in the Automover?"

  "I always believe it pays to know the victim as well as the victimizer," Ackridge said. With that, he went back to the cards in Doyle's wallet.

  it was all wrong. How on earth could it have gone sour like this-and why had it?

  So that he would not be humiliated by watching the cop pry through his wallet, Alex looked around the room. The walls were institutional-gray and brightened by only three things: a poster-sized framed photograph of the President of the United States; an equally large photograph of the late J.

  Edgar Hoover; and a four-foot-square map of the immediate area.