Crossroads (10 page)

"How what works?"

"Life."

"How does it work?"

Her mother smiled. "How it’s supposed to work is for people to live in a state of possibilities, but unfortunately how it’s come to work is that they can no longer find those possibilities within themselves."

"Why not?"

The smile faded, and her mother closed her eyes, drifting. Her voice, when it returned, seemed a million miles away, maybe off on one of those far planets. "They have lost their dreams, and losing them, they are losing themselves."

The boys in the school had killed the other students to prove that
they
were real. Or else to prove that the other students weren’t. Was that it? What about the sick young man? His illness seemed terribly real, but apparently it wasn’t real enough to a lot of other people that they wanted to help him. Kira supposed that watching the drama show with it’s cardboard cutout people might have convinced someone that somehow their
lives were at least a little more real than that. But how anyone could sit and watch something so depressing was beyond her.

"We need to be going," she said, taking the empty plate from Jen and carrying it and the glasses to the sink.

"We can’t keep breaking into people’s homes. We’re going to need some money," said Kira, as they walked up the sidewalk of the little town.

A few people glanced in their direction. More than one cast a narrow-eyed look at Jen and then quickly away, and Kira knew that they had already convinced themselves that what they saw was just one young girl and some odd reflection in a shop window. As Kira and Jen passed a bakery the smell of fresh cooked bread was like a soft wall, entrapping them until Kira struggled through it only to find herself caught by a pet store window. Two Basset puppies lapped the glass with long pink tongues while their impossibly huge ears dragged the pee-stained, green carpet, their tails describing perfect circles behind their little furry behinds.

Kira laughed.

A tall, skinny man with thinning brown hair and thick glasses stuck his head out the door and asked if she’d like to hold one of them while he cleaned their kennel. She nodded, stepping into the shop that reeked with the sour-sweet smell of feed, and animal urine. She held the squirming dog close to her chest and stroked the soft fur behind its ears. The pup nuzzled in closer to her trying to lick her face, and she wrinkled her nose at its puppy breath. She noticed Jen, staring into a cage full of long-haired, golden kittens. The cats all pressed their noses against the glass front, eying her. When the man was done cleaning out the dogs’ storefront kennel he took the puppy from Kira and smiled.

"Don’t you want him?" he asked.

She frowned. Who wouldn’t? But the thought of dragging the dog along with them, to who knew where, maybe running into the
Empty-eyed-man
or another passel of Grigs caused her to shake her head.

"What’s your name?" asked the man, heading back behind the counter and depositing the puppy back into the display window.

"Kira."

"That’s a pretty name. I’m Jonathon."

"Hi."

"Where’s your mom and dad?"

Kira had been expecting the question so she didn’t hesitate. "Shopping."

Jonathon nodded. "Bet they’d like you to have a puppy. Or what about a kitten?"

"Do you have change?" asked Kira, quickly.

"How’s that?"

She acted as though she were reaching into her pocket and then held up an empty hand to him. Slowly a hundred dollar bill appeared.

"Change?" she said.

"Sure," he said, taking the bill and opening the cash register to slap it inside. "What’s a little girl like you doing carrying around a hundred, anyway?"

She shook her head, never taking her eyes from his. She had to concentrate to make the trick work. If he looked away or got distracted it might all fall apart.

But that very thought distracted her
. Falling apart
was what Jen had said. For just an instant Jonathon stared into space with a confused look on his face. Kira got his attention again by waving her hand.

"My change?"

"What’s that? Oh, yeah... sorry. Don’t know what I was thinking. Just kind of drifted there for a moment. Here."

He handed her four twenties, a ten, and two fives, and she pocketed them quickly.

"I have to be going," she said, catching Jen’s eye.

Jen gave the kittens one more look-and they gave her one-and then they were back out on the sidewalk.

"I don’t like doing that," said Kira, as she and Jen reached the outskirts of town. A metal pole held a small sign reading
Overton-The Friendliest Little Town in Virginia,
but Kira didn’t think it was going to be that friendly when Jonathon figured out he’d just been robbed.

Jen stared at her, unspeaking.

"I don’t," insisted Kira. "Momma wouldn’t like it, if she knew. It was bad."

Jen shrugged. "He was a bad man."

Kira frowned. "How do you know that?"

"He’s bad," said Jen, shaking her head.

Kira pictured Jen in the pet shop. Staring at the cats. The cats staring back. And she knew that if Jen said the pet store owner was bad, then he was. Even so, she didn’t like stealing, but at least they could eat their next few meals without having to
break into anyone’s home.

Several cars passed as they hiked up the road, but Kira didn’t look in their direction, and none slowed until she heard gravel crunch behind them and a honking horn almost caused her to jump out of her shoes. She spun, looking at a wild haired young man behind the wheel of a souped up old cherry-red pickup truck. He held up both hands in a questioning gesture, and she finally nodded, hurrying to open the door and let Jen slide in. The driver smiled toothily at Jen, then Kira, and Kira smiled back, but not too friendly-like. She was glad the driver was one of those people who could see Jen right off. That might be a good sign, but the last thing she wanted to do was make another friend.

"Where you headed?" asked the young man, shaking a long strand of greasy hair out of his face.

"Up there," said Kira, pointing down the road.

The driver laughed, reaching for the eightball shifter and screeching the tires, throwing Kira back in the seat.

"Me, too," he said.

The young man’s nickname was Bullet, and he drove like one. The rumble of the big engine resounded in the small cab of the truck like a Ferris wheel motor revving, and every time they approached a car ahead, Bullet got a look in his eye like one of the midway barkers spotting an easy mark. He’d jerk the shifter, pump the clutch pedal, and blast around the offending vehicle shouting a hearty
yeehaa!
And he laughed all the time, sometimes at something Kira said, or a song on the radio, a sign on the highway, sometimes for no reason that Kira could discern, but she began to see that the laughter wasn’t funny. It covered up something dark beneath the surface, some shadowy wrongness like a mind-cancer or an emotional empty spot that had soaked up something evil. She no longer worried about what danger they might bring upon their host, but what trouble he might get them into.

They grabbed burgers and shakes at a drive-through in a town called Malecoria. Kira paid for all their meals with one of the twenties, shoving her change quickly back into her pocket, not liking the way Bullet stared at the money.

"How come she never talks?" he asked her, nodding toward Jen.

Kira shrugged. "She talks. When she has something to say."

Bullet laughed. "A little girl and a mutie, out on the road."

"She’s not a mutie," said Kira, not caring to be called a little girl, either.

"Have it your way," said Bullet, wolfing the last of his shake and tossing his paper cup out the window. "Now where are you two really going?"

"Where are you going?" asked Kira, defensively.

He made a face. "Just
going
. I keep on the move a lot. I’m a rolling stone."

She nodded. She’d known plenty of rolling stones, and she knew that that was how a lot of towners saw all carneys. Even among the show people, though, there were some who just came and went, here today, gone tomorrow. Her father called them
Walkons
because whenever he asked one of the regulars where the new help was they’d say
I don’t know boss. Guess he must have walked on.
Bullet was definitely a
Walkon
, and
Walkons
could be trouble, cause they didn’t have any ties to anyone or anything. She shoved the wad of cash down deeper into her pocket.

"What are you running from?" he asked. "You break out of juvie or something?"

"Juvie?"

"Juvenile hall. You know, detention? Under arrest? Cops and robbers?"

She shook her head. "Just running away from home," she said, figuring that was a story he might believe.

"With her?" he said, raising one eyebrow at Jen.

Kira nodded, not caring for his look at all. Suddenly she had an image not of Bullet, but of a Grig in his place, and she shivered. The vision reminded her once again of Clancy, and she turned away to stare out the window, but the horror of her recent past would not be denied, dragging her out of the moving truck and into her imagination. Screams echoed in her head, and her hands shook until Jen took one in one of her own and squeezed, passing some of her rocklike calm on to Kira. They were edging up into the foothills again, and the sun was shaded by clouds that reached right down to the ground in places. Kira took a deep breath of the cooler, cleaner smelling air, but when she turned back Bullet was fondling Jen’s thigh.

Kira stared at his hand in disgust. He kept squeezing Jen’s leg like it was a juicy tomato in some farmer’s stall, and he had a wide-eyed leer on his face as he glanced back and forth between the road, Jen’s leg, and Kira’s face. For her part Jen stared straight ahead with that empty gaze that she almost always wore.

"Stop," said Kira.

Bullet glared at her, and she glared back. Finally his smirk softened to a sleazy smile. He removed his hand and turned back to the road.

"Just foolin’ around," he said.

Jen squeezed her hand again to let her know it was all right, but it wasn’t all right. The longer they stayed in the truck, the worse Kira felt. She was starting to believe they’d have been better off alone and on foot after all, facing Grigs and the
Empty-eyed-man
out on the road, than riding with Bullet. In fact the feeling she got in the tight confines of the truck was so much like the tickling that started up the base of her spine every she thought of the
Empty-eyed-man
that she wondered if the two weren’t somehow connected.

But how could that be?

The
Empty-eyed-man
and the Grigs came from somewhere on the other side of the mirror, and as awful and strange as Bullet seemed, she was pretty sure he was just like her, a resident of
this
world. When he caught her staring at him his eyes narrowed sharply.

"What?" he said.

She shrugged. "Where do you come from?"

He laughed, but it was a hollow sound, again, almost like the
Empty-eyed-man.
She stifled a shiver.

"I’m from all over. I was born in a hurricane. Spawned by demons and lightning."

He seemed to find that even funnier, but she didn’t see the humor in it. Neither did Jen. For the first time Kira noticed that Jen was frowning.

"You speak of things you do not understand," said Jen, staring at Bullet.

His frown spread. "What the fuck you talkin’ about, retard?"

Jen studied him, her good eye flashing. "There are those spawned as you say. You are not one of them."

A confused look replaced the frown. For an instant Kira was certain Bullet was about to either slap Jen or break into tears. He was on some strange cusp. Then he turned back to the road and gave out one more humorless laugh, and the moment was over.

Once they had wormed their way up the slopes into the mountains proper, Bullet slowed on the main street of a small town. Mist hung in the air like smoke, and the people on the sidewalks seemed more ghosts than real. Kira had the feeling that they were all of them-the townspeople, and she, Jen, and Bullet-stuck somewhere
between
, and her case of nerves grew even worse. She could tell that Bullet was working his way up to something by the look in his eye, the way he leaned his stubbly chin close to the steering wheel, checking out every store front.

"What are you doing?" asked Kira, at last.

"Shopping."

"For what?"

He laughed again, the sound grating on her ears.

Pulling into a parking spot between a rusted Jeep and a beat-up station-wagon, he sat staring at barred windows that reminded Kira of the police station, but the way Bullet glared at them you’d have thought they were protecting something wonderful. The sign over the big oak doors read
Eltonbury National Bank.
The hair on the back of Kira’s neck stood on end.

"What’s the matter?" said Bullet, catching her eye.

She shook her head. "Why are we stopping?"

"I need to make a withdrawal," said Bullet, reaching under his seat and producing a big black revolver that he stuffed into his pants. He dropped his hand behind the seat and jerked out a dirty corduroy jacket, pulling it on and closing a couple of snaps to cover the gun.

Kira reached for the door handle, but Bullet was faster, whipping the gun back out and shoving it into Jen’s ribs. The way it was pointed, it looked like it might kill both her and Kira. She waited for the shot, barely able to control her shaking.

"You two are coming in with me," he said, quietly.

"No," whispered Kira.

"Make up your minds. You come in and do what I say, or I bust a cap on your friend here, right now. Don’t make a fuck to me."

Kira could see by the wild look in his eye that he meant it. She knew in that instant that he had killed before with the gun, that it meant less to him than killing meant to one of the Grigs. He really
was
connected to the
Empty-eyed-man
someway, whether he knew it or not, whether he was spawned by demons or not.