Wrong Turn

by Catie Rhodes

  "You should’ve let him shoot me," I muttered.

  "Oh, come on. You can’t be blaming me for this," Tanner shouted.

  I didn’t, not really. But the frustration of this whole fiasco had come home to roost. I wanted to have a meltdown, fall on my knees, and scream. Tanner was an easy scapegoat.

  I finally shook my head at him. "We’ll have to walk back to town. And once we get there, I don’t know what we’re going to drive. My truck’s in a parking garage in Austin."

  Tanner put his hands on his hips and leaned his head back. His angry posture. A rush of love for this man hit me hard.

  I rubbed one hand over his flat stomach. "It’s gonna be okay, sugar." I said the words saccharine sweet with just the right little twist of smartass.

  Tanner dropped his arm and stared at me, eyes narrowed. One corner of his mouth twitched. I knew what was coming and tried to run, but I had smoked for fifteen solid years. I didn’t get far.

  He grabbed me around the waist and swung me, yelling, "What did you just say to me?"

  I laughed and played along with him. It didn’t hurt a thing to enjoy my last few hours on earth. We got everything that was valuable out of Tanner’s truck and walked off the Stephens Ranch together. We found the road back to Devil’s Rest and walked down its empty middle.

  My phone buzzed again. I pulled my hand from Tanner’s, checked it, and found not only three bars of service, but another message from Linus Bramwell.

  "Dwight Carr is the son of Shawn Grimes, the grandson of Loretta Nell Grimes. He’s broken Josie out of the mental hospital.”

  Linus didn’t realize I’d recognized Dwight as soon as I got the picture. I’d been too focused on stopping Dwight to call him back.

  I thumb-typed a quick message. “They already found us and took the book."

  Tanner and I started walking again. My phone rang. I answered on speakerphone. "Linus?"

  His panicked voice crackled over the line. "Are you and your young man all right?"

  "We’re both fine," Tanner answered.

  "You say those two crazies got the book from you?" Linus was practically shouting.

  "Yep. We’re walking back to Devil’s Rest to try to stop them." Flashes of the vision where Loretta Nell made the church group turn on each other flashed. That's what Josie and Dwight would try to do. I had to stop them. Just the thought of the battle ahead made my bones ache.

  “How did you know Dwight had broken Josie out of the mental hospital?” I asked.

  Linus spoke so fast his words sounded like another language. ”I’ve a contact at the mental hospital. An orderly named Winslow."

  I closed my eyes. Of course. Winslow was an enterprising kind of guy. He’d make himself available to whoever had money.

  "Winslow says that Josie and Dwight killed a man named Adamick and a nurse named Fitch. Dwight and Josie were screaming ‘In his name’ at the time of the murders."

  All the spit in my mouth went dry.

  Linus kept talking in my silence. "You know that I write about the occult. This book you're trying to get your hands on operates on sacrifice. The more sacrifices, the stronger the bond between the person and the book. You’ve got to find a way to break that bond."

  Headlights peeked over the horizon.

  I spoke quickly, ready to end the call. "Linus, I’m going to do everything I can to stop them…"

  "Just a minute," he cut in. "Breaking the bond will take…consuming the…"

  The phone beeped as the call dropped. I stared at the screen. It read "Call failure."

  I thought I had heard Linus say the word “consuming.” Was I supposed to eat the book? If that's what it took, I'd do it. But it sure would be a hard meal to swallow.

  The headlights were closer now, and the driver had slowed. I shoved the phone back into my pocket and turned to face the next few minutes of my life.

  The truck’s headlights turned the world white. I threw up one hand to shield my eyes.

  "Run," I yelled at Tanner. Before he could protest, I waved my arms over my head. Tanner glared at me for a second and then did the same. I wanted to kick him in the ass but was too tired.

  The truck rolled to a stop. Roderick leaned across the seat and opened the door, activating the dome light.

  Before he spoke, I had a second to feel relief. Where did that come from? The encounter a few months earlier with the hag that almost killed Hannah had left me not really caring if I lived or died. It had been liberating. I glanced at Tanner. He was the reason for my change of heart. I didn’t know how to feel about that.

  Roderick was talking, his voice high with panic. "Seen your truck drive through Devil’s Rest. Then you never came back. Thought you two were dead or hurt." He took a good look at us and made a face. "You are hurt. What happened?"

  I saw no reason to lie. "Dwight Carr came for the book. Tried to kill us. Maimed Tanner’s truck." The rest was too complicated to explain.

  Roderick nodded slowly. "Well, let’s go get that book. He don’t have no more right to it than you."

  I wasn’t so sure about that, but we needed a ride. Tanner and I barely got the truck’s door closed before Roderick took off, burning rubber. Tanner and I had been walking almost forty-five minutes. Not five minutes later, the Devil’s Slumber Inn sign flashed in the darkness. A crookedly parked car sat in front of the motel office. Maybe we’d caught Dwight after all.

  "Stop off here." I tapped Roderick’s arm.

  He gave me an odd look but did as I said.

  We crept through the broken door and into the office. The sign outside lit the room in flashes. Unless Dwight and Josie were hiding underneath the counter, we were alone. We hurried down the narrow hallway to Dwight’s little apartment.

  The only light in the room came from the screensaver on his laptop. I tapped a few keys to wake it up. A spreadsheet appeared on the screen. Those email addresses again. I didn’t get it. Roderick came to stand behind me, watching me scroll through the addresses.

  "There’s my email right there." He pointed.

  I scrolled some more, amazed at the number. There had to be at least a thousand addresses here.

  "I think this is everybody in town, or damn near." Roderick’s hand hovered over the keyboard. "You mind?"

  I passed the laptop to him. "Be my guest."

  He scrolled for several long seconds. When he spoke, anger laced his words. "So that’s what he was up to. Damn it, Mandy."

  "Pardon?" Tanner stood a safe distance from Roderick, body tensed as though he was waiting for anything.

  "See, Mandy’s real taken in by Dwight Carr. Does all kinds of things for him she shouldn’t. This is one of those things." Roderick’s nostrils flared.

  I’d play, even though I didn’t really want to know at this point. "Like what?"

  "The Devil's Rest Library is run by the City of Devil’s Rest. So Mandy used her access to their computer system to get every single email address they had." Roderick glared at the laptop as though he’d like to throw it.

  Tanner made a face. "Why emails?"

  Roderick shook his head as he delivered his rant. "Dwight said he wanted to send out a mass mailing about being nicer to people coming to town curious about the Messengers."

  Dwight’s plan fell into place. I moved toward the laptop. "Excuse me." I practically pushed Roderick out of my way. He went willingly enough. I minimized the spreadsheet program. Open on the screen was a service for mass emails. There’d only been one email sent.

  I got so lightheaded I had to sit down on Dwight’s couch. The squeak seemed loud.

  "What is it?" Roderick leaned over my shoulder.

  I opened the email Dwight had sent to everybody in Devil’s Rest. The email contained no text, only five pictures of pages from an open book. I couldn’t see the gross leather cover or the silver corner caps, but I didn’t need to. The images couldn’t have come from anywhere but Mohawk’s book.

  I didn’t want to look at the pages, was afraid of what
they’d awake in me, but I couldn’t help myself. Each page had a few symbols on it. Nothing I knew the meaning of offhand. But these symbols tapped at my lizard brain, trying to coax my fury back to full flame.

  My mind supplied ideas of the ways I could kill both Roderick and Tanner and use their blood to paint those symbols on the walls of this room. I hit the off button on the laptop and pushed it aside.

  Roderick stood staring with glazed eyes. Faster than I’d have thought him capable of moving, he snatched a metal ruler off the desk and came at me with it.

  "In his name," Roderick screamed.

  I jumped up and shoved the rolling chair into Roderick. It didn’t faze him. Tanner hit him from behind, knocking him to the floor. The expression on Roderick’s face never changed from dazed madness. I stomped on the hand holding the metal ruler. Roderick didn’t react.

  "Do it again," Tanner yelled.

  I didn’t want to hurt Roderick. He’d been nice to us, and I liked him. But I did as Tanner said, bringing the hard sole of my cowboy boot down on the back of Roderick’s hand. I felt and heard the bone snap.

  Roderick let out an agonized scream. Bile shot up the back of my throat, followed closely by sour, hateful guilt. Roderick stopped screaming and began to flail, trying to escape Tanner’s grip. Tanner grunted with the effort of keep Roderick in check.

  I left them and ran around the room, looking for a way to restrain Roderick. But few people have handcuffs or lengths of rope lying around. I found a supply closet and ran back to Tanner.

  "Let’s get him in that closet over there." Without waiting for his answer, I began to tug on Roderick. He snapped at my hand, the click of his teeth somehow more horrifying than his attempt to kill me with the metal ruler.

  Tanner helped me haul Roderick to his feet. He kicked and jerked in our grips. I lost my patience and slapped him across the face.

  "Snap out of it. Let it go, or it’ll kill you," I yelled.

  Roderick’s eyes lost some of their maniacal shine. He struggled again, and I slapped him again.

  "Stop it." I spoke the same way I sometimes spoke to members of Sanctuary. "Stop it, or we’re going to lock you in that closet. It’s over. Let it go."

  Roderick relaxed in our grip, but neither of us released him. The older man stood panting, his shoulders slumped.

  "It’ll all right. I’m done." His voice didn’t sound like a madman’s, but I’d been fooled too many times in the last few days to trust anybody. I kept my grip on Roderick’s arm. He said, "You can let go. I won’t attack you again. I’m so sorry I did that." The remorse in his voice convinced me. I let go.

  "If Dwight sent those images to everybody in town…" I didn’t want to think about what it meant, not after what we’d just been through with Roderick.

  Roderick cradled his broken hand. "Mandy. She checks her email twenty-four hours a day. I’ve got to go see if I can help her."

  "And we have to get that book from Dwight." Tanner checked the time on his phone. "And you’ve only got a few hours before Mohawk comes for you."

  Roderick glanced between us. "What are you two really up to?"

  I shook my head at him. "You don’t want to know. Give us a ride to town?"

  To my surprise, Roderick agreed. We stowed the valuables we'd taken from Tanner's ruined truck in Dwight’s apartment. We’d either be alive to come back for them or not. Roderick drove us the last few miles to Devil’s Rest.

  On the outskirts of town, we passed the first row of burning houses. One of them had someone hanging from a cross out front. My stomach sank. We were too late to help anybody.

  16

  Flames belched from the windows of houses. Doors hung open. A small, still form lay on one of the lawns, fine blond hair blowing in the night breeze. One of her little shoes had fallen off a few feet from her.

  Cars sat with open hoods, flat tires, and broken windows. Flames licked at a few. Human forms sat slumped over in more than one.

  Roderick passed it all, face grim and still.

  Something didn’t add up. This kind of carnage had taken time to get rolling. Some of the cars had finished burning and sat smoking. How had Roderick bypassed getting caught up in it? I put my hand on Tanner’s leg to signal him. He slipped his arm over my shoulders. Otherwise, I kept as still as I could.

  "This wasn’t going on when you left town?" I asked Roderick.

  He stared at the road ahead, seeming not to see the ruined town. We had reached the edge of the downtown area. He spoke without looking at us. "Dwight said if I brought you two back, he’d give me Mandy and let us leave town."

  The passenger side door clunked open. Tanner jumped out of the truck and dragged me with him. We hit the ground hard. Pain flashed in my elbow as it connected with the pavement, the hard packed surface shearing off a layer of flesh. Tanner dragged me to my feet.

  "Hey!" Roderick slammed on the brakes. He clambered out of the truck and barreled around it.

  Tanner and I ran, hands clasped. We cut between two buildings. Roderick’s footsteps pounded behind us for a couple hundred yards. Then he yelped in surprise. The sound of a body hitting the ground came out of the darkness. Roderick began to scream in earnest.

  "No, no, no." His words struck pity in my heart. He’d not been a bad man. Just one who loved his family enough to do whatever it took to save them. I understood that. Roderick’s screams cut off abruptly.

  Tanner and I ran until we found ourselves in the parking lot of a dentist’s office. I put my hands on my knees and tried to catch my breath.

  "I’m gonna quit smoking," I gasped.

  "No, you’re not." Tanner stood next to me, panting but not as hard as me.

  Little by little, the stitch in my side eased. I stood up straight. Something rattled nearby. I jerked to attention and tried to place the noise. It sounded like a raccoon raiding a trash can. But I couldn’t dismiss it. Not tonight. I stared into the darkness, willing my eyes to adjust.

  They soon did. A shadow stood next to the dentist’s office, swinging one arm. The arm passed the trash can, and it rattled. My eyes adjusted a little more. The whites of the person’s eyes shone in the darkness. Their lips split in a smile, and their white teeth glowed in the dark.

  "Let’s go." I started backing up.

  The person standing in the darkness let out a wild scream and raced at us, knife held aloft in the arm they’d been swinging against the trash can. I didn’t have time to move. Tanner took one step toward the knife-wielding maniac. His fist moved so fast I couldn’t see what he did.

  The woman sprawled forward, taking big steps, trying to regain her balance. She stepped in a pothole and went down. She somehow landed on the knife, stabbing herself in the chest, right underneath the ribcage. I expected screams. They didn’t come.

  The woman reached across her chest and pulled on the knife. It came out with a sucking sound. She slowly got to her feet and came toward us, holding the knife out again. Tanner and I both backed away, too stunned to run.

  The woman shambled toward us, each step less graceful than the last. Her bladder let go. Urine slashed the pavement. She dropped to her knees, eyes still wide and wild, and tossed the knife at us.

  "In his name." With those guttural words came a line of slobber and blood. She shuddered and fell forward.

  I backed away from the dead lady, not wanting to meet her ghost. Tanner stood rooted to the spot. I went back and took his hand.

  "We gotta go." I gave him a light tug.

  Tanner turned to me, mouth open. Nobody had to tell me the scene had been too much for him. "She was probably a nice person."

  "I know." I gave him another tug.

  He pressed his lips together. Tanner knew how to whip the ass of a person, but he also hurt deep for them. Usually it touched me. Tonight it scared me because any hesitation could get us killed.

  The sound of a vehicle approaching came from the darkness. That snapped Tanner out of his gloom. We hurried to hide in the pocket of shadow o
n the porch in front of the dentist’s office.

  A convertible rolled into sight. Two young men sat in the front seat, and two young women sat with their feet on the backseats and their behinds on the trunk of the car. They saw the dead woman and rolled to a stop. The boy in the passenger seat pulled out a pistol and fired several rounds into her dead body, then a couple more at the dark sky. They drove away howling like coyotes.

  The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Tanner shivered next to me. In the distance, a voice came over a loudspeaker. Though I couldn’t understand the words, the speaker's cadence reminded me of the fiery sermons Memaw had dragged me to when I was a kid. And I knew the voice.

  "Dwight." I started walking toward the sound. Tanner walked behind me, saying nothing. I stuck my hand in my pocket to make sure the snub-nosed pistol Hannah had loaned me was still there. It might not work on Mohawk, but it would damn sure work on Dwight and Josie. If I could hit them.

  Tanner jogged a few steps and fell in beside me. I let go of some of the gloom to smile at him. Horror raged around us, but we still had a smile for each other. I was glad I’d picked this man. And that he’d returned my feelings.

  If I died, I’d lose something I really liked: Tanner. Tonight would have been easier if we’d never met. I shook off the thought. We had met. We’d met, fallen in love, and now I was angry that I might not get to see how things played out.

  Then there was my family and Sanctuary. Sure I had a lot of duty there, but I’d chosen it. If I died, I’d miss so many things.

  The truth was out. I didn’t want to die tonight. And I wouldn’t let Mohawk take me. I’d have to do whatever it took to get out of here alive and with my freedom. All this time I’d looked for the book, I’d thought I was doing everything I could. But I wasn’t. I needed to live out loud.

  I hadn’t used every bit of my power to battle Loretta Nell’s ghost. She’d caught me by surprise the first time. But I should have been ready for her when we’d encountered each other in the mental hospital. She was just a nasty old ghost, not even a true chthonic being like Mohawk.