by Dan Wells
“Sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t help myself.”
I have never considered that a comforting excuse.
I closed my eyes again and listened as the wind whipped at the edges of the tarp, as another engine moved across the lot, as a pair of heavy footsteps clomped on the concrete. Brooke’s body went tense, and I knew she’d heard it too.
“Shhhh,” she whispered, and Boy Dog licked her hand.
The door clicked open. The truck jostled, rolling slightly to the side as the driver climbed in. I looked at Brooke. “Here we go.”
“Where?”
The engine started with a violent stutter, and the truck began to move.
“Doesn’t matter where,” I said. “It won’t be too far before a truck this old needs to refuel, so we’ll just wait ’til he stops, see if we can climb out in secret, and then start hitchhiking again, working our way back to Dillon. I don’t know how the FBI is tailing us, but if they can’t make the leap from Dallas to whatever random place we end up in, we might be able to lose them.”
“And then just pick them up again in Dillon,” said Brooke. “They’re bound to investigate this murder.”
“Maybe,” I said. It was getting hard to hear as we pulled onto the highway and wind shook the tarp like a drum. “But it’s like you said: they know it wasn’t us, because we were in Dallas when it happened.”
She flashed a wry smile. “Doesn’t mean they won’t be looking into it. We don’t know what we’re going to find there.”
“If we’re lucky,” I said, “whatever we find won’t know about us, either.”
Her face was right in front of mine, mere inches away. I could feel her hips and her legs; her feet and mine were almost laced together in the tight space. Even with Boy Dog falling asleep on top of us, it was too close, and I needed to move. I closed my eyes and ran through my number sequence: one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four, fifty-five, eighty-nine, one hundred forty-four, two hundred thirty-three, three hundred seventy-seven …
Brooke exhaled, and I felt her breath on my face, warm and comforting like a pillow of air. I breathed deep, then shifted my legs and struggled to sit up, picking up Boy Dog with me. He flailed weakly in my arms, not fighting but simply looking for a new solid surface to replace the one he’d been sleeping on. I managed to maneuver him back into the slot I’d just risen from and crept toward the back of the truck, searching for fresh air.
The highway was full without being crowded, the cars and trucks and trailers moving seventy or eighty miles an hour at least, but nearly motionless in relation to each other. More vehicles were moving toward us from the side, another highway merging with ours, and I watched a bright orange semi glide toward us, growing larger and larger as it approached, until its road joined ours and we were right next to each other, barely three feet apart. I could see the pencil-thin scratches in the paint and read the tiny lettering on the signs and notices stuck to the side. The road behind us stretched out to the horizon line, a thousand cars in perfect formation.
An hour later they had all disappeared onto side roads and exits, and we were alone.
The truck drove for about five hours, all told, going deep into Arkansas. When he stopped again for gas and a restroom, we jumped out and hid, making sure he didn’t see us, just in case. After he drove away we took a quick pit stop ourselves, filling old water bottles from the drinking fountain by the restrooms. I waited while Brooke used the restroom again, and then we walked back out to the on-ramp of the northbound freeway, hoping to circle around and head back to Dillon. We stuck to the back roads, and spent the night in a town called Longbend, somewhere near the border of Missouri. It rained all night, and we huddled together under an old rail car, wrapped in our thin blankets and catching scattered bits of sleep whenever our exhaustion managed to overwhelm our discomfort. I thought about our showers from that morning, all that cleanliness and nonthreatening approachability washing away into the gravel. At least our clean clothes were still packed; I made sure to keep the bags dry.
In the end, though, I supposed it didn’t really matter. The people of Dillon had already seen us, if not at our worst then at least close to it. What would they say when they saw us? What would we say when we saw them? Hi, we saw that dead kid on TV and rushed straight back just in case you didn’t have enough suspects. We had a perfect alibi—the man at the gas station had seen us buy snacks and then hitchhike out of town the day before the murder—but would that be enough? Would they interrogate us anyway? If they asked for ID, and maybe even if they didn’t, they’d discover we were runaways. If they went so far as to fingerprint us, I was already in the system. Going back into this situation threatened to destroy every bit of secrecy and independence we’d managed to build up.
But staying away would mean letting a Withered keep killing. The local cops would be helpless—we’d seen that time and again. Killing a Withered took a different approach, soft and oblique, watching from the shadows until you discovered their secret and struck. Somehow we had prompted this Withered to kill after years of dormancy, and unless we could find a way to unprompt it, we had to assume it would keep killing. An object in bloodlust tends to remain in bloodlust. Cleaver’s First Law.
I didn’t like being the reason it had killed Derek. I refused to be the reason it killed anyone else.
“Do you think we can get all the way there tomorrow?” asked Brooke.
“Sorry,” I said, shifting slightly away to avoid bothering her. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I was already awake,” she said. “Scoot back, you’re warm.”
I had only moved a fraction of an inch, but now I moved back, as grateful as she was for the added body heat. We pulled the blanket tighter around our shoulders and listened to the rain clatter against the rail car above us.
“I think we can get there in one day,” she said. “If I’m remembering the map right, it’s not too far.”
“Kind of isolated, though,” I said. “But you’re probably right.”
“What’s your plan?”
I’d been puzzling over that myself. “If Attina is disguised as Corey Diamond, we need to find a way to talk to his friends.”
“You mean the ones you pulled a knife on?”
“His parents, then,” I said. “Or his teachers—someone who’s known him for a while. Somewhere in his past, probably in the last three or four years, there’ll be a moment when his behavior changed—when the real Corey died and a shape-shifting Withered took over. Honestly, it’s probably easier for the Withered to take over teen lives than adult ones; the real person’s likes and habits haven’t really been established yet, so any inconsistencies can be passed off as puberty.”
“That’ll help us find out if it’s really Corey,” said Brooke. “How do we find out how to kill him?”
“A speed-bump test,” I said, “if we can arrange without getting caught. Beyond that we just have to … get to know him really well.”
“I didn’t meet him,” said Brooke, “but I have really uncomfortable feelings about him.”
“He was pretty … uncomfortable,” I said. “He stayed in the background, analyzing us while his friends cracked jokes. Honestly, he kind of reminded me of me.”
“That’s giving him too much credit,” said Brooke.
“Talking to the other people first might give us an idea of how to talk to him,” I said. “But how to get into his inner circle after starting off on such a bad foot?”
“This is going to be another long one, isn’t it?” asked Brooke. “We’ll need somewhere to stay.”
“We’re almost broke.”
“We should go back to Sara Glassman’s house.”
I raised my eyebrow. “You think she’d feed us again?”
“I think she’d let us stay,” said Brooke.
“You’re kidding.”
“Why not?” she said. “She has that whole house with nobody else in it, and she loved us.”
> “You, maybe.”
“You too,” said Brooke. “You’re more charming than you think you are.”
“I’m not charming.”
“Charming’s the wrong word,” she said, nodding. She shot me a quick sideways look. “It’s more of a … brooding loner thing.”
I started to protest and then laughed out loud. “You want her to offer us rooms or hit on me?”
She shrugged. “I’m just saying. She likes us and she’s a good person. She’ll want to help us. And we know she has a guest room because she had family staying with her right before we showed up.”
“I guess,” I said, and I imagined Brooke in the shower again, naked and glistening. I closed my eyes and tried to push the thought away. Getting physical with Brooke would be like a … a betrayal, of her and Marci both. “You think she’ll have two guest rooms?”
“You’re forgetting our cover story,” she said. “Everyone thinks we’re a couple.”
“Great,” I said. I thought about her body next to mine, and started counting again. Two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, fifty-five …
I counted all night.
In the morning we got as clean as we could, trying to look as normal and approachable as possible. I stood watch while Brooke changed her pad again; she said the flow was almost gone now and soon she’d be done altogether. I gave Boy Dog the rest of the food I’d been storing up for him, and we walked to the freeway to look for a ride. It took almost an hour before a small car pulled over; a young woman smiled behind the wheel. She looked barely a few years older than we were. She leaned over and opened the passenger door.
“How far are you going?”
“As far as you’ll take us,” I said, holding the door for Brooke.
“That’s pretty far,” said the girl. Brooke closed her door, and I got in the back with Boy Dog. “Cute dog! What’s his name?”
“Boy Dog,” said Brooke.
“What?” asked the girl.
“That’s his name,” said Brooke. “Don’t ask me, I didn’t name him.”
“He was a hand-me-down,” I said. “We’re going to eastern Oklahoma, but you can drop us off anywhere, thank you.”
“I can do eastern Oklahoma,” said the girl as she pulled back onto the road. “I’m Kate, by the way. Do you mind if I play the radio a bit?”
“Whatever you want,” I said, buckling my seat belt. “Thanks again for the ride.”
“Kate short for Katherine?” asked Brooke.
“Katelynn,” said Kate, “with two N’s. I hate it, though, so please just call me Kate.”
“I’m Brooke,” said Brooke. “Also with two N’s.” She frowned, looking concerned. “I mean—”
“Short for Brooklynn?” asked Kate.
“No,” said Brooke, and she looked confused. Was she switching over to a new personality, or had one simply popped up, spelled its name, and then disappeared again?
“Just a joke,” I said, hoping to soothe Brooke’s worries. “Speaking of two N’s, I’m Johnn.” I dragged out the n. “Nice to meet you.”
Kate laughed. “How far into eastern Oklahoma? I’m headed all the way to California—new semester, you know how it is. Or do you? You go to college at all?”
“We’re taking a year off,” said Brooke.
“Sounds fun,” said Kate. She switched the radio station, skipping some commercials and settling on a bombastic country song, though she kept the volume so low it was mostly muffled thumps and the occasional twangy holler. “Where are you two from?”
“Kentucky,” said Brooke quickly. Her confusion seemed to have dissipated, and I wondered if this was a lie or if she’d become a girl who was actually from Kentucky. She didn’t look disoriented, but sometimes she didn’t.
“Wow,” said Kate, “I wouldn’t have guessed that at all. ’Course, I don’t really have an accent either. Our generation doesn’t, really, right? All the TV and movies and stuff, we all sound like we’re from … I don’t know … Cleveland?”
“Comfortably Midwest,” I said. I had no interest in small talk but I didn’t want her to feel awkward, either, as the only one talking.
“Can I ask what brings you to Missouri?”
“Just traveling,” said Brooke. “We thought about going to Europe, but decided there was so much of America we didn’t even know, so why not get to know that better first?”
“There’s no way,” said Kate, shaking her head. “I’d never pick Missouri over Europe, are you kidding me? I mean, sure, I grew up here, so it’s old hat and I’ve already seen it and all, but even … what else … Kansas? Tennessee? Maybe, what, Arizona and the Grand Canyon, or anywhere in the States is pretty enough, I guess, but they’re not Venice. Weigh them on the scale and they don’t stack up.” She took her hands off the wheel, mimicking a scale with her palms. She grabbed the wheel again. “I’d give anything to go to Venice.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Brooke.
Kate brightened. “You’ve been?”
“A long, long time ago,” said Brooke. She stared out the window. “I’m sure it’s changed a lot.”
“Even if it’s all touristy and whatever I still want to see it,” said Kate. “Not just to take pictures, you know, but to stay there, to live there, even if it’s only for a month or two. Maybe a summer, shacked up in a one-room apartment with nothing but a laptop to write poetry on. Or even better a typewriter. Old school.”
“You’re a writer?” asked Brooke.
“No, no, no,” said Kate, shaking her head so vigorously I worried she’d drive us right off the side of the road. “Anthropology major—I’m going to join Doctors Without Borders or something like that. I’m hoping for an internship with them over Christmas, but, I mean, if you had the chance to just sit in Venice and write poetry, why wouldn’t you? Just, like, sipping little demitasse cups of coffee and smoking in a plaza reading Byron. I don’t even smoke but I would, because, come on.”
I realized, listening to Kate talk, that no one would miss her for days if we killed her. She was in the first hours of a cross-country trip, with the kind of free-spirited independence that would explain away all kinds of silences. I could grab the back of her neck—soft and exposed, her hair pulled up except for a few wispy strands and the light blond down on her skin. She’d let two strangers into her car because she’d wanted the conversation, and because our status as drifters suggested a shared love of reckless romanticism. It was more likely that we were addicts, car thieves, or straight-up murderers looking for someone to chop into pieces. I thought of all the ways we could kill her, all the ways we could hide the body—dozens, if not hundreds, of ways that we could make her disappear without a single trace.
That slender neck, right in front of me. I could choke it, or stab it, or pull its hair and listen to it scream—
“It was really cool of you to pick us up,” said Brooke. “Most people are scared of hitchhikers.”
I looked at her and saw she was staring at me as she said it.
I closed my eyes and leaned back into my seat.
“I know, you hear all the stories,” said Kate. “But seriously. I mean, you guys are great, and I think most people are great, you know?”
“It doesn’t hurt to be careful though,” said Brooke.
I never would have actually hurt her. I was just thinking about it because … because that’s what I did. Killing wasn’t a job, it was literally what I did for a living. To live. To help other people live. I couldn’t just kill people, except sometimes I could.
That was the moral swamp I swam in and I was barely keeping my head above water.
Kate drove us through Tulsa without stopping, and then Oklahoma City, and finally stopped for gas somewhere west of there, in a land now almost entirely taken over by farms. It had been more than five hours, and Brooke had chatted with her for all of it. They’d even played the alphabet game, but with so much banter mixed in I’d lost track of who was winning. I checked my map, looking for which c
rossroads we needed to stop at, trying to remember if our next leg took us north or south.
“Want to stop for some food?” asked Kate, jerking her head toward the truck stop while she pumped gas. “They’ve got a burger place and a taco place, your pick.”
“No thank you,” I said quickly. “We’re good.”
Kate looked puzzled. “It’s been hours—Brooke, I heard your stomach rumbling like five minutes ago.”
“Honestly,” said Brooke. “I’m not hungry. You get something if you want it.”
“Do you not have any money?” asked Kate.
I wished she hadn’t asked that. How could we possibly proceed from here? Either she offered to buy us food, in which case we were a burden, or she didn’t, in which case she’d feel uncomfortable eating in front of us. Even if she ate in the truck stop without us watching, the difference in food possession would define the rest of the trip. She’d wonder if she should have given us some, or she’d wonder why we didn’t get any, or she’d wonder if maybe we really were criminals. Were we running from something? Would we steal things from her car? Would we hurt her? In just a few sentences, her entire perception of us had changed.
“You know what?” I said, holding up the map. “This is where we get off anyway. I just found it.”
“You sure?”
“We go north,” I said, and looked around at the flat nothingness that surrounded us. “I told you we were headed for the country.”
“I can take you farther if you want,” she said.
“You’re headed west,” said Brooke, shrugging helplessly. “Thanks, though.”
“Do you need food?” she asked, but she lowered her voice as she said it. It made her uncomfortable. What was she thinking about us? That we weren’t equals anymore—that we were poor and possibly homeless. Whatever easy relationship we’d had was gone now.
But … who cared what she thought of us? We needed to eat, and if we made her uncomfortable, well, we’d never see each other again. “Sure,” I said. She bought a burger each for the three of us, with fries and a drink, and we ate together in silence. Then she waved goodbye and drove away.