The Nightworld (15 page)

Chapter 30

In the morning after we pack the bike back up, Lara produces a couple of washcloths and pronounces that she feels too grubby for words.

“I have to at least wash behind my ears.” She makes a face. “We have enough water to last until we get there, if we’re careful.”

“Washcloths?” I ask her with a raised eyebrow.

She shrugs. “I figured we might need them.”

I’m still pondering the workings of her mind—washcloths and an extra clip of ammo—when she pours half a bottle of water on hers. She hands me the bottle.

“I’m off to have a little privacy,” she says. “Keep Tank with you, okay?”

“Don’t go too far. And don’t get in sight of the road.”

She rolls her eyes. “I know. Be right back.”

I watch her go, admiring the view. Then I get my own washcloth wet. I can smell myself. A little washup couldn’t hurt.

Three things happen, almost all at once. Lara screams, and Tank starts to growl. Before I can even look at him, something hits me from behind and I’m out cold.

I wake to Tank licking my face and whining. For a minute I don’t remember where I am, but then I see the trees and the building and I’m on my feet. Tank stops whining and waits, like he’s waiting for me to tell him the plan. I look around. The bike is still here, along with all of our stuff. Whoever came only wanted one thing.

I run in the direction Lara headed to wash, and I find what I’m afraid of: her jacket is on the ground. The washcloth is next to it. She’s not here.

From far up the freeway I hear the screech of tires. I can’t see the vehicle because it’s already over the hill. I run back to the bike and start it. I’m on the road before I even think about Tank. My heart sinks, but I can’t go back. Tank is on his own.

I push the bike as hard as I can. I can’t hear the other vehicle anymore, but as soon as I clear the hill I see it: a beat-up convertible with just the metal frame of a soft top. Some remnants of the cloth top flutter from the frame, and I wonder who trashed it. Inside the car are three people. One of them is Lara. I can see her hair whipping in the wind, and it looks like she’s struggling, even from this distance.

The driver sees me and hits the gas. I do the same, and the bike gives me a little more, but not much. Still, I think I can catch them. Lara looks back and sees me. She struggles even harder, and the guy holding her twists one of her arms behind her back and slaps her across the face. She hits him back, and I watch in horror as he draws his fist back and slams it into her face, hard as he can. Lara slumps over, unconscious.

I scream into the air flying by, my heart pumping. I know what will happen to her if I can’t stop them. I drive with one hand, and with the other I get my gun out of my jacket. Then I get as close as I can get—they have about fifteen feet on me that I can’t seem to catch up on. I try to keep the bike steady, and I aim for the back tire. The guy behind the wheel must see me in the rearview mirror because I hear him yell. The other guy looks back and sees my gun. He grins, then casually pulls out a gun of his own and points it at my head.

He pulls his trigger a split second after I pull mine.

My bullet hits the tire, and the convertible skids to the side. I wait for the impact of his shot, but his aim is thrown by the movement of the car. I can see the driver fighting the steering wheel, and losing. The car is veering off the road, and it jolts along the side of the freeway lane until it hits the grass. I hold my breath.

Thankfully, it doesn’t roll. Before it comes to a full stop, the driver is out of his seat and running toward me. I stop the bike and jump off, just in time for him to leap on top of me. We roll together, but instantly push apart and spring to our feet. He comes in punching, but he’s wild; nothing hits home. I dodge around for a bit, trying to both avoid him and look for my gun, which I’ve lost in the tumble. There’s no time to try to get a fix on the guy who has Lara.

I can’t see my gun anywhere, and now my opponent seems to be showing better form. He darts in with a left hook that glances off my temple when I turn. He hops back and regroups. I focus on being ready for him when he comes back at me.

Then I hear a scream. I look in the direction of the car—it’s not Lara. She’s still limp as a rag, being dragged out of the car by the second guy.
He’s
the one screaming—a scary, crazy howl. I see him drop Lara on the ground and he falls on her, ripping at her clothes. Something deep inside me starts to burn, white-hot.

My distraction has been a welcome opening for the guy in front of me. He comes for me. But he hasn’t banked on my anger. I don’t know where my focus comes from or how I know just where to hit him; I’ve never been in a fight in my life. But I roundhouse-punch him harder than I’ve ever hit anything, and he drops like a stone. I don’t even stop to look, just run past him to where I’ve finally spotted my gun on the ground. By the time I scoop it up, the guy on Lara has seen his friend and he’s heading my way. I stand still, pointing the gun right at his head. He slows when he sees it, and then he stops. He has a weird, crooked smile on his face and tilts his head. Now that I have a chance to get a good look at him, I can see he’s older, somewhere around fifty maybe. He’s got a scar on his throat, a ragged red thing that crosses his Adam’s apple and jumps every time he swallows. He’s shaved his eyebrows or something—in any case, they aren’t there.

“You won’t pull the trigger.”

I stay silent. He smiles wider and starts walking, slow little steps in my direction. I shake my head.

“You’d better stop.”

He does. But he laughs too. “Or what, little boy?” He does a little dance step in place. “You know,” he says, “I’m going to kill you.” He reaches slowly inside his vest and draws out a knife. It’s big, and serrated. “I’m going to kill you quick, because you bore me. But then I’m going to go get your girl.” He nods in Lara’s direction. “I’m going to do things to her, and then I’m going to kill her too. Only slow.” He runs his finger along the edge of the knife, hard enough to cut his own flesh. Blood springs from his finger. Then he starts his tiny steps again, moving toward me.

“I’ll fucking kill you.” I hold my gun straight out, aiming right for his head. I mean it, and I realize that my life is about to change. I’m going to kill a man.

“No, you won’t, little boy.” He whispers the words, and then he smiles. He licks the blood from his finger.

Then his head explodes.

Chapter 31

The guy sinks down to the ground, blood covering his face. Behind him, Lara stands shaking, holding her gun. I run to her.

“I couldn’t find it—the gun. They took it from me. But it was in the front seat.” She sounds strange, her voice monotone.

“Are you okay?”

“He told me all the things he was going to do to me. He kept saying all the things . . . he was going to do.”

“He’s not going to hurt you.” I ease the gun from her hand and pocket it. I put my arm around her. For a minute I just hold her. I feel her breathing, and I thank whatever power might exist that she is still alive. Her head is buried in my chest, and she clings to me, holding me as tight as I hold her. We sway a little, standing there by the side of the road, almost like we’re slow-dancing, next to a dead man.

I hear something, and I look past Lara’s hair. The guy I punched is getting up, eyes glittering in the dim light, a knife in his hand. He rises slowly, like a panther, and starts toward us, making a low growling sound in his throat as he comes. I raise my gun with my other arm still wrapped around Lara, and I whisper to her. “I’m going to shoot the gun now.” And then I do, sending a bullet into his skull.

I hold Lara a minute more, and then I step back and look down at her.

“You okay to ride?”

She nods.

“Let’s go, then.” We walk to the bike, and Lara starts to cry.

“Where’s Tank?” Her voice breaks. I don’t know how to tell her I had to leave him. I don’t know how to say we can go back looking for him. What’s happened has made it crystal clear to me that we need to get our asses to Detroit as quickly as we can, and hunting the freeway for Tank isn’t an option.

“I didn’t have time to—”

“We’re going back.” Lara is not asking.

“We don’t have time to mess around, Lara.”

“Stopping for somebody you love isn’t messing around, Nick.” Lara’s jaw is set. She’s not kidding. “We’re going back.”

Thankfully, we don’t have to finish this argument. Because just like out of some Disney movie, a shape appears on the road, a hundred fifty yards away. Lara and I see it at the same time, and once we figure it out, we’re both crying. Because it’s Tank, running his heart out, running to catch up to us. He closes the distance, and when he sees us we can hear him whining as he runs, a strange, heartbreaking sound filled with worry and joy. He throws himself at us and Lara falls on him, sobbing. “Tank!” She holds him, no small feat with a hundred-pound mongrel who is wiggling like a monkey. Tank licks her face, and licks mine too, once I join the hug fest.

We aren’t sentimental fools for too long. We get Tank strapped back into the bike and hit the road. I think about checking the convertible for anything we might be able to use, but something about the idea of taking anything that belonged to the savages we just had to kill makes me feel sick. We drive away without looking back.

I keep the bike lights off for as long as the freeway lights hold out. After a while they’re all black, and negotiating the road gets a little iffy, so I put on the headlight. There seem to be more and more vehicle carcasses, and I wonder why. Did people get this far along in their trek to . . . wherever they were trying to go, and then abandon their cars? Most of those on the road look like they were simply stopped and left; only a few are wrecked. Did some sort of transport arrive to take people en masse to some destination?

We cruise along, warily watching the rearview mirrors and the horizon before us. I figure we have another night on the road. I want to make it as far as we can before we stop, but I know Lara is exhausted. She’s a trouper, though. Every time we stop to stretch a bit, she always nods when I ask if she wants to go a little farther. She’s very quiet, though, and that worries me. I don’t know exactly what happened in that car.

When we finally stop for the night, we drive all the way down an off-ramp and cruise the area, looking for a really good spot. Finally we see a restaurant that looks fairly untouched. I hope there’s some sort of food inside, and I want to check it out. I stop the bike and swing off the seat. “Want to wait here for just a minute?”

“No. I thought we had this talk.” Lara gets off the bike.

“I guess we did.” I really wish she’d work with me, just a little. But I understand, at the same time. Being separated isn’t the best plan, maybe.

We let Tank out of his seatbelt and he runs ahead. Lara looks worried, and I am too, a little. I don’t want him to get hurt. I feel pretty bad about leaving him, but I know I’d do it again if it was Lara I was leaving for—I’m just glad this time we had a happy ending.

Tank pees, and then he sniffs all around the parking lot outside the restaurant. Lara and I look around, trying to see any sign of people. The interior of the restaurant is shrouded in darkness. I risk the flashlight and shine it inside. I don’t see anything alarming, but that doesn’t really reassure me.

“I think we should just go in,” says Lara. “And we should hide the bike in there too.” She holds the door open and waits for me to push the bike through.

“You don’t think we should check it out inside first?”

“I know we should, but I’m just so damn tired I don’t care. Plus, I’ve got a gun.” She yells the last four words into the restaurant.

“Okay then.” I shake my head, but I roll the bike through the door. It makes me feel a little better that Tank isn’t growling at anything. The inside of the place is okay—a typical dive-diner type of thing. It does appear to be safe, and I relax a bit more the farther we get inside. I roll the bike all the way to the back and point it toward a door I hope leads outside. I try the door and it opens. There’s a deadbolt on the inside that I slide home.

We look around. The back room is what I’ve come to expect in abandoned restaurants—an office room and then a pantry. This place looks untouched. The pantry is full of canned goods, and the office looks like someone will be arriving to schedule the wait-staff shifts any minute.

“Weird.” I say it out loud.

“Yeah. But there have to be places like this, places that have just been skipped so far.” Lara runs her hand over the can labels on the pantry shelf. Most of the cans are huge, enough peaches to feed five families, enough beans to make forty people fart.

“I guess.” I want to make the front door secure. “Listen, I’m going out front for a minute.”

“I’m coming.” Lara is right behind me.

“I just want to see if we can make this harder to get through, at least for tonight.” I point at the swinging front door.

“I think a couple of benches should do the trick.” Lara gestures toward the booths in the eating area.

“Sounds good to me.” I don’t say anything about blocking our own exit if we need to use the front. At this point I just want her to feel safe, and I can tell she is barely hanging on in her exhaustion. We tug and push until we have three of the red pleather benches moved to the front and the door doesn’t swing in anymore.

“That should do it,” says Lara. “Now let’s go eat, and then let’s sleep for a long time.” She smiles at me, but she looks pretty tired.

We head for the back rooms, Tank at our heels, sniffing every corner.

“I’ll get the bed ready if you want to pick some dinner,” I say. Lara nods. I unpack the sleeping bags and make a little nest for us in the office. It has a door that we can close—one more barrier that might help Lara sleep well. When I’m done, I join her in the pantry. She’s staring at the cans.

“Any favorites?” I watch her face as she considers the shelves.

“I don’t know.”

She’s trying, but she’s just about out of fuel. I take a can of peaches and one of beans. “Let’s try these.” I take her hand and lead her to the office. While she settles in on our sleeping bags, I take the cans to the kitchen and open them. Grabbing two plates and a bowl, and a couple of spoons, I dish up the food. When I get back to the office, Lara is almost asleep. I’m tempted to let her go, but I know getting some food into her will be important.

“I’m probably going to regret this later, Tank, but here you go.” I set the bowl of beans down in front of him, imagining the scents he’ll be gifting us with in the middle of the night.

“Lara.” I touch her shoulder gently. She opens her eyes and looks up at me with an expression like she wishes she could deck me. “Here’s some beans.” I hold her plate in front of her and the smell must revive her a bit, because she sits up.

We’re both asleep before we finish.