The Suicide Motor Club (19 page)

JUDITH FELT THE CAR SLOWING TO A STOP AND READIED HERSELF. SHE COULD
taste blood in her mouth; she had bitten her lip during her violent trunk ride. The clanging in her injured head nauseated her, but she would only have one chance and she meant to take it. She lay very still and waited for the sound of the key in the trunk.

—

CLAYTON PARKED THE BATTERED BLACK CAMARO SS JUST OFF A SWITCHBACK ON
the side of a hill. A riot of birdsong heralded dawn's approach, but this part of the Ozark National Forest was so thickly wooded in the summer that Clayton could walk for miles by day if he had to, so long as he picked his way around the occasional searing patch of sun. He didn't really know what to do with the girl in the trunk, if she was still alive. He had been thinking about her all through their drive south, at once puzzled and delighted by the prickling sensation her remembered image caused; it was very like dim memories of infatuation. She
was
beautiful, after a certain Pallas Athena fashion, but not exceptionally so. He had enjoyed the society of opera singers and ballerinas whose looks snared men's hearts as reliably as gas lamps brought moths, and he had always been the charmer, not the charmed. Why was this
prettyish, battered thing haunting him? What had she done to him? Was this what they felt, the women he had hooked with his eyes and bound with his voice? It was not entirely unpleasant.

Could he allow her to live?

All of his kind felt a deep directive to keep their existence secret. If a human who had seen them could not be reliably allied with or charmed blank of the memory, then he or she must perforce die. The impulse to kill the injured nun and put her in a hole rose in him again and again, always followed by revulsion at the mechanics of harming her. Her courage in the face of Mr. Nixon's thuggery had moved him; surely bravery of that order deserved more than an unmarked grave in the woods. Could he really shut those eyes of hers and bury them? The pigment of her iris was too rare a food for ants. He had to decide soon.

“Resolved,” he said, “that I shall charm this creature into forgetfulness. Failing that, I shall . . . take up the question again.”

He had turned off AR 23 just after passing a camping and army surplus store he meant to revisit during business hours, should clouds present themselves. A tent and sleeping bag beneath a rock overhang or in some providential cave would serve to protect him. Unless of course the girl in the trunk harvested a sharp branch and plunged this through the tough meat of his heart. Rope, then. And a canteen—she would need water. And a comfort break.

“Resolved,” he said, “that leaving a prisoner in her own filth is a violation of the Geneva Convention and a breach of basic etiquette. I shall let her make water while it is still dark enough for me to chaperone her.”

He got out of the car and walked to the trunk, surprising himself with his schoolboyish desire to see her again. He hesitated with the key at the lock, preparing himself for the possibility that the girl might have died without bothering to consult him.

“No, blue eyes,” he said quietly, “I should not like to find you dead.”

—

JUDITH HEARD THE KEY CRUNCH INTO THE LOCK, HEARD THE MECHANISM SPRING
as the trunk popped. She lay folded around herself, slitting one eye like a child cheating during grace. Weak, tree-filtered predawn light flooded into her steel coffin, blotted in the middle by the figure of a man in silhouette. A dead man with bright eyes. The new one. It frowned down at her.

“Is there a tenant in that body?” it said. “Or have you gone home to your reward?”

She lay still, the spare tire digging into her throbbing back.

“I quite admired your pluck back at that defunct hotel. If you consider yourself my adversary, I may be in trouble.”

It reached down now, touched its cold hand to her face. She repressed a shudder. Instead she opened her eyes halfway and reached one hand up to take the dead hand at her cheek. She squeezed it gently, forced a smile. It smiled in return. She rolled over just a little to free what she was lying on. The monster bent slightly, inclining toward her hand, though whether to kiss or bite it she did not know.

A curious thing happened then, and it happened fast. She met the thing's eyes and did not find them hateful. Their unnatural light diminished. The vampire's face seemed to form a double image now, the true image dead and repellent, the false one live and attractive. She did something very like focusing her eyes and chose the true image. The one with the dark, dead skin and the sharp, off-white teeth.

That was the one she swung the crowbar at.

—

CLAYTON SAW THE NUN'S BODY MOVE AS SHE INITIATED VIOLENCE AGAINST HIM.
He saw the hand that had been hidden arc up with the iron bar in it, saw in her face the resolve to do him harm, but he did not move. He
realized he was watching the whole thing as a spectator, genuinely interested in the drama of the woman in the trunk lashing out at her supernatural adversary. The impact hurt, of course, rather badly. His vision twinned for an instant; he found himself inadvertently stumbling backward, sitting down hard, aware that his right fang and one other tooth had been knocked half out. His own sluggish, black blood had slimed his cheek; one eye felt wrong in its socket. And here she came again! She had some difficulty freeing herself from the trunk—doubtless her own head injury had left her dizzy—but once she found her feet, she sank into her hips and swung that bar at him again with such force that it occurred to him his head might actually come off. Instinct took over at last. He wrapped his arm around his head and let himself fall with the blow, shunting much of its power. He balled up defensively now, absorbing three more strokes, each weaker than the last. Then she threw the crowbar at him and ran.

—

ONE SHOE ON AND ONE SHOE OFF WAS NO GOOD WAY TO RUN, BUT ADRENALINE
softened the pain. Judith knew she hadn't killed it, knew she didn't have the strength left in her arms to knock its head off. She didn't even know if that would work. She didn't know how fast they could run. She didn't know if sunlight really hurt them. But now she saw weak sunlight painting the east-facing sides of tree trunks near a stream up ahead. She ran for that with all her waning strength, pounding the brambled ground, pistoning her arms for momentum, her gallops seeming to come in threes, keeping time with the shouted locomotive chant in her mind.

please God please

please God please

please God please

The light on the tree trunks ahead grew stronger, took on an orange
glow. It looked like heaven to her. God had put it there for her and she would reach it because he was with her and desired her to live.

That was when she felt the hand slip under the back of her belt.

—

“YOU CERTAINLY RUN FAST FOR A PERSON WITH A CONCUSSION,” CLAYTON SAID,
sitting in front of Judith under a rock overhang, painting a nasty scratch on the sole of her foot with antiseptic that stained her skin red. Judith winced at the sting, seethed at her helplessness. He looked up as she scanned the trees past him. He noticed this.

“I don't intend to harm you, or anyone else, but I will kill to protect myself. Please keep that in mind before you think to involve any fellow campers you should chance to see.”

Her bound hands drifted toward her neck.

“I haven't fed from you.”

“Why?”

He furrowed his brow while putting the lid back on the disinfectant. He began bandaging her foot.

“I don't know.”

He worked in silence for some time.

She put her hands on her lap, looked at the fresh, new rope there.

She didn't understand why he was ministering to her wounds. Why waste his time if he was going to kill her?

“What now?” she said.

“Now we look each other in the eye and I say things to you.”

He put her doctored foot down.

He looked her in the eye.

She met his gaze.

“I don't think I can be hypnotized.”

“We call it
charming
.”

“I don't think
you're
very charming,” she said, almost smiling. If
she didn't know better, she would think she actually enjoyed the thing's company.

“I wish that were mutual.”

“You're not going to kill me, are you?”

“I don't think so, no.”

“I'm sorry I hit you. With the crowbar.”

“I know what you hit me with.”

“Anyway, I'm sorry.”

“And I'm sorry a professional baseball career is not open to you.”

She almost laughed.

“You've done nothing but help me. You stitched and bandaged me,” she said. “You knocked the woman out of the car and stole it, but you didn't want that car. You did it for me. You're not like them,” she said.

“No.”

“You're older?”

He nodded.

“You got old because you're not a killer.”

“I've killed.”

“You've been spared for a reason.”

“Let's not start all that.”

“All what?”

“All that Calvinist predestination claptrap.”

“I'm Catholic.”

“I noticed. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Calvinism, Catholicism, they're just two outhouse seats over the same hole.”

She opened her mouth in shock, then closed it.

“I suppose blasphemy's the least of your worries.”

Her eyes narrowed just a bit as she considered him. That rare shade of blue, with just a hint of lavender to it. Was it possible to become addicted to someone's eyes? He wanted always to see them.

“Do you know why I'm here?” she said. “Why I came after these murderers?”

“I do not.”

“I had a son,” she said.

She told him about Glendon.

—

WHEN SHE FINISHED SPEAKING, HER ROPES LAY COILED AT HER FEET. CLAYTON
did not remember taking them off her. Afternoon had come, the sun probing odd fingers of light here and there through the forest's murk. Hunger and exhaustion took turns leaning on him.

“I need to sleep,” he said.

“What happens if you don't?”

“I get weak.”

“We can't have that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“You're going to help me kill them.”

“Why would I do that?”

She weighed her next words before she said them.

“Because you love me.”

He considered this.

“Yes.”

They looked at one another.

“Are you toying with me?” he said.

“No.”

“Do you share my affection for you?”

“No.”

“Could you?”

“I see you as you are.”

“Ah,” he said. The cosmetic charm a vampire unconsciously ran to
mask his true appearance even worked on that vampire—most of the time. Clayton, however, had seen his own true image enough times to know that it would kindle no affection in a living woman's bosom. He had glimpsed himself from time to time in moments of fear or trauma, thinking each time that he looked a little worse, a little more wasted and dark. His shadow had gotten thinner, and it stayed that way. “So we're back to ‘Why would I do this for you?'”

She took his cold hand in her warm one and stood.

They were the same height.

“What is your name?” she said.

He told her.

“Clayton Birch,” she said, “I cannot love you as a woman loves a man. I cannot allow myself to see you falsely and be deceived into intimacy—I am still a novice sister with vows to uphold. But I can promise not to betray you or hurt you, at least not on purpose. Not until the others are dead.”

“And then?”

“I could do something for you.”

“Oh, I don't think I like the sound of this.”

“Don't you?”

He said nothing.

“How long has it been since you've felt sunlight on your face?”

He watched her. He opened his mouth to voice outrage at her suggestion, but nothing came out.

“If you help me destroy them, if you let yourself be an instrument for good, just maybe you can rest. Don't you want to?”

“No.”

“And if there is something up there . . .”

“You have no right.”

“. . . as I
know
there is with a knowledge that it is beyond my power
to communicate, if there
is
a God above us, and you serve him, even now, and I bless you and pray for you . . .”

“Stop it.”

“. . . and end this false afterlife, this
curse
, maybe then you can go to your maker and be welcomed by him.”

“You should sell bridges.”

“I am offering you a bridge.”

“Well, I won't help you.”

“You won't?”

“Have you ever watched anything rot?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you observed the decomposition of an animal, by the roadside, perhaps?”

“Observed.”

“Observed, yes. Noted its decomposition day by day, over time.”

“Yes.”

“What was it? The particular thing you thought of when I asked.”

“It was a raccoon.”

“Did anything strike you as especially uplifting about the process?”

“That's an animal.”

“Do you think a man looks so different?”

“I suppose not.”

“Allow me to assure you that he does not. I killed a man in 1870, with cause, and looked in on him again in 1913. Macabre, I know, but I was born curious. In any event, there he was, just as I left him, only skinnier. So, if a man rots himself flat and gray into the ground and stays there, his meat eaten by beetles, his bones no more than stick piles, how is he different than your raccoon? Why should we think the one has a soul and the other does not?”