Joe Schreiber - Chasing the dead

Stumbling back from the corpse Sue feels her way to the Expedition. She doesn't take her eyes off the kid's body, even for one second. This is only partly a matter of not letting her guard down. She realizes that she's hoping that if she looks at it long enough then she'll believe it.Pragmatists like yourself believe what they see.

At the moment her rather permissive ability to believe feels like a snake trying to swallow a pig. No matter how detached she is from the events of this night, no matter how far the elastic of her incredulity may stretch-and tonight it has stretched pretty fucking far-she cannot make herself believe that she just saw the kid's dead body sit up and attack her.

But it did.This is Phillip's voice in her head now, calm and steady.And those scars on your body are gone. You're not waking up from this one, Sue. You need to accept that.

Maybe, she thinks, maybe not. Phillip isn't exactly the go-to guy when it comes to acceptance.

She wedges herself back into the Expedition, still watching the body. It hasn't budged. Inside she hears the putter of paper rolling out of her fax machine. The cell phone is ringing too. She answers it.

"You found Tatum," the voice says. "Now you understand a little better."

"Yes." Telling him what he wants to hear. "A little."

"Good. Because it's important you understand your role in it."

"My role?"

"You're not just a chauffeur tonight, Susan."

She waits, her mind flashing to Gray Haven and the poem that Jeff Tatum recited and the statues of Isaac Hamilton. "What really happened in these towns?"

"You'll see when you're ready." The voice wants to change the subject. "Your fax machine went off. Who faxed you?"

"How'd you-" Sue starts to ask, but realizes he probably heard it in the background. She doubts he'll explain himself anyway.

She glances at the rolled sheets of paper tumbling over the passenger seat. It's the corrected bank agreement for tomorrow's meeting about Sean's pub space. Without looking at it too closely she guesses that Brad has gone through and anticipated her questions, marking the places where he needs her signature. Burning the midnight oil, making sure she's got a hard copy waiting in her car for the morning meeting, and none of it could matter less to her right now.

"It's a contract for a meeting," she says. "My office manager wants me to fax him back."

"You know the rules, Susan. No outgoing calls, including faxes."

"If I don't reply he'll suspect something."

"It's two in the morning, Susan. I doubt that."

She gathers the papers up in her fist. Even if she were going to try and fax Brad some distress signal, what would she write?Veda kidnapped by a person in a gray van? She doesn't even know the license number. And while she's not convinced that following the orders will get her daughter back, she's certain that disobeying them will get Veda killed. It's like faith but the opposite, a kind of sacred terror.

"Ashford," the voice says. "Forty-one miles. It's a long drive. Better get started."

She puts the Expedition into drive. Backing up, her headlights catch the patch of snow where the kid's body still lies, faceup. Even from here she can tell he's dead, something in the angle of his head.

Sue pulls the map out of her pocket. She settles it on her lap again and pulls out of the parking lot.

One last glance into her rearview as she pulls away.

The kid's body is gone.

Following the map, Sue heads southeast through the night. The road has no name. The only reason she knows it's the right road is that periodically, when it flattens and straightens and the snow isn't falling too hard, she'll catch a glimpse of the van's taillights up in the distance. She likes seeing the taillights because she knows that Veda is in there. And she knows it's the van because once she got close enough to see its dented back door staring back at her like an ugly face.

Then the van speeds up and she can't see the taillights at all.

She hits the gas, taking it up to seventy, then eighty, waiting for them to appear. Visibility isn't an issue at the moment but she still sees nothing. Maybe the van turned off and now they're behind her. She checks the rearview. Nothing back there. Not only are there no other cars on this route, there aren't any signs-no billboards, speed limit signs, or mile markers, just the endless pipeline of the night.

She finds herself thinking about the route, what it's done, and the two bodies in the back of the Expedition. If it's true that driving through these back roads can resurrect the dead, then what about Marilyn? What about the other, the thing she dug up under the bridge?

She tilts the mirror down and turns on the dome light. She can't see beyond the backseat, nor can she hear anything over the sound of the engine and the tires on the road. But if a hand were to reach up over the seat, followed by the body itself slinking into the dark space behind her, she could see that. If she were looking, that is. If she weren't looking, or listening, she might not hear it until one of those cold hands slipped between the two front seats and clamped over her mouth. And then she'd hear the voice, right next to her ear. Would it ask her to take it farther down the road, she wonders. Or would it say something else, maybe some old poem about a man who traveled from White's Cove to Gray Haven, to paint the Commonwealth with blood?

She decides to keep the light on for now.

She drives another fifteen miles, watching for the next sign that will indicate her turn for Ashford. It's harder to see with the interior light on, but she leaves it on just the same. She remembers how Phillip always hated driving with the light on. Whenever they went anywhere, he would drive and she would navigate, and she always thought it was less about the light and more about her insistence on consulting a map as they went. If it were up to him, he would've found his way by sense of smell.

Why couldn't you be here now to help me get through this?

At some point she finds herself thinking about him in a deeper sense, and his sudden departure a year and a half earlier, the way he walked out of her life with almost no warning, leaving the details to his attorneys and accountants. In the brief and awkward telephone conversations that Sue's had with Phillip since then-the last one was several months ago-he always said that he wasn't ready for the obligations of parenthood, that he was afraid he'd be a bad father. For a long time Sue refused to accept that.

"That's yourexcuse?" she asked, during a particularly awful phone call last August, to which he replied, "It's my reason, Sue. And it's better this way. You'll just have to take my word for it." He refused to go into it any further than that. Ultimately it became easier just to believe him. Her husband, despite the fact that he always seemed like a stand-up guy, had run away from his life with her and Veda simply because he didn't think he was up to the challenge.

But what if he was running from something else? Something he couldn't possibly tell her about, for her own protection? And what if whatever it was caught up with him, within the last two months, and that was why the phone calls finally stopped?

She's still wondering about that when, behind her and approaching quickly, the blue-and-red police lights begin to flash.

"Ma'am?" The approaching officer is medium height, with a Jersey accent and tired eyes. He holds the flashlight up next to his head, shining it low enough that it doesn't blind her. The name on his tag readsO 'DONNELL. Sue can see his partner sitting in the cruiser, and hears the dispatcher's voice on the radio. "Are you having car trouble?"

Sue stands next to the Expedition, staring back at him, not answering. Her fear levels are still off the chart and she's afraid that if she opens her mouth she might start screaming. And she won't be able to stop.