Стивен Бойетт - Mortality Bridge

The funnel lifts.

Niko stands on brake and clutch. The heavy car skids backward to a halt and Niko pops it into first and puts the hammer down. Shadows shift as the mason jar rolls and hits again. The slowly rising whirlwind finger stops and poises and strikes. Niko works through gears and forces the car straight and drives directly under the living funnel as it augers onto the plain intent to write his epitaph. Niko drives. He drives and the funnel touches down where he just was. The heavy car is caught within the grip of vortex winds and Niko shuts his eyes as stinging sand assails his skin. The rear end of the car tries to get away from him. He lets off on the gas and feels the car gain traction. For a moment Niko thinks he’s got control and then the Franklin spins. Niko turns the wheel in the direction of the spin. He averts his mortal gaze and feels himself turn round and round. The tires’ scream is faint against the cyclone’s freight train thunder circling and circling.

And comes to rest.

The rolling mason jar taps Niko’s shoe. He picks it up. A cold blade stabs his heart when Niko sees a tiny triangle of glass has been knocked out. But within the feather glows. And a faint smell of Jem’s perfume. The smell that filled him with when he hugged her long and hard after months away on tour. It smells like Jemma. It smells like love.

Carefully he sets the jar upon his lap and starts to look out the kickedout windshield. And stops. Which way is forward? Which way backward? The Franklin spun so many times there’s no way he can know for sure. He can hear the twister roaring down the plain—behind him? Yes behind and to the right. Then ahead and to the left is where he wants to look. Right?

Probably. But what if it’s not? The twister’s had time to move.

Niko sits unmoving in an agony of doubt. God damn it. You can’t just sit here. You’ve got to look up sooner or later. Got to pick a direction. Got to have a moment’s faith.

He takes a deep breath and holds it. Jem. The solid certainty of broken mason jar held his bleeding hands. All right. Okay.

He looks up and sees a redlit white wall separating ground and sky. All breath escapes him.

The engine that had been so well tuned idles roughly now.

The tornado closing from behind him.

The heatless jar in his cut hands.

Go.

AND NOW THE mad and headlong race across the final stretch of plain. Niko pushes the Black Taxi to the limit with the pedal to the metal and hands clenched on the wheel and the broken mason jar wedged firmly at his crotch.

The engine keens. A rapid chuffing sounds beneath the tires like a speedboat rushing through a modest chop. Constant around him are bangs and thumps as metal unbuckles. The dented hood slowly smooths and the right side roof raises as the crumpled pillar post straightens. The Franklin looks as if it is inflating as it eerily heals itself. A crystalline lattice spreads across the empty windshield frame like a web weaved by an unseen spider, bowing in the steady wind and making it difficult to see what lies before him.

Niko rolls the window down and hangs his head out. Something smacks his forehead and he flinches back and wipes away a whitish paste and dark brown bits. A kamikaze cockroach. The chuffing from the tires is the Franklin running over hordes of roaches carpeting the plain.

Unable to look out the window Niko rocks from side to side to triangulate a view through the thickening lattice of reforming windshield. Occasional dead shine ghostly in the headlamps’ glare as Niko heads obliquely toward the growing line of marble wall that stretches probably forever away in either direction. Up ahead in the far distance he sees a darker patch within the wall. The gate?

Niko has become afraid to hope for anything but now he cannot help the hot anticipation that uncoils in his chest. The end in sight. The end in sight. He reminds himself that he has made it past the end before, in submerged memory, in different guise, and still looked back. And still lost everything.

I will break this. Whatever else it costs me I will break this chain.

Before him grows a steady creaking as the windshield glass reforms. It’s nearly impossible to see out now. Niko blindly heads toward the wall. When he nears it he cuts right and drives alongside it. He ought to come upon the gate soon.

He cannot shake the sense of unseen legions nipping at his heels. Surely they will not just let him waltz on out of here. Surely they’ve got something special planned.

Well let’s hurry up and find out what it is.

THE WINDSHIELD IS a solid pane of glass again, lined with a network of filament cracks that slowly thin until they disappear and leave clear spotless glass when they are gone. If the mason jar would only do that.

Suddenly the gate whips by. Niko yells and stands on the brake and then fumbles into reverse and backs up until he’s sitting in the idling car beside the massive gate. Staring out the window wondering what to do next. Beside him looms the massive iron grillwork of the gate. Just beyond that crouches the giant insane dog growling growling growling.

He forgot about the goddamned dog. This time it has no need to strain its anchorchain leash as it faces him with slobbering feral grins. The dog is posted less to keep people from going in than to prevent their leaving. If Niko tries to get past it, it will have no problem at all tearing him into bitesized chunks. No jumbo milkbone gonna save your ass this time buddy pal.

While the dog quivers like a drumhead just beyond the gate Niko surveys the wall. Featureless white marble smooth as glass rising at least thirty feet. No way in hell he can scale it. He fights to quell a white blind wave of desperate panic that will own him if he lets it break. Like trying to figure out a chess problem while a bomb ticks down to zero underneath your chair. Come on. It’s just a dog for christ sake. A hydra headed dog the size of a small elephant but still. Just a stupid fucking animal. Come on smart boy. Can’t you outthink a watchdog on a leash. That old bumper sticker, My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma. Yeah well my karma’s pretty much become—

Niko draws a deep breath as a desperate idea is born. No oh no.

But he goes into action before he allows himself to think about it. For thought would surely paralyze him now. He sees his hand reach toward the shift lever. Don’t do this, old son. Miles away his foot lets in the clutch. You won’t survive this. His remotely operated hand fumbles until it finds reverse. Jemma won’t survive this. He lets out the clutch. God damn it you stupid grandstanding asshole you won’t make it. As the car backs up he turns it to the right until the gate glides into view again in front of him. You think there’s an airbag in this thing? You don’t even have a seatbelt, you moron, you’re gonna kill yourself. He straightens out. The grated gate and eager monstrous dog beyond it shrink as he backs up. The view through the nearly regrown glass is slightly fractured, but the dog remains kaleidoscopic even when the glass is whole again.

Something heavy lands on the back of the Black Taxi. Niko flinches. Guess you were being followed. Oh well.

He stops about a thousand yards from the gate. That should be plenty.

Now winged figures land along the top of the marble wall above the gate to perch like heckling ravens on a power line. They dangle hooves or claws or feet and grin and nudge each other and wager and cackle as they hold up tridents and rocks and bricks.

Niko regards their ballpark camaraderie and on sudden impulse hits the horn. The soul-cleaving shriek cuts the chronic night and batwings spread and flap. One demon jerks hard enough to fall off the wall and land on his head. The others laugh and several jump up to piss on him. The fallen demon grins and opens his mouth and drinks and bows like a courtier. His wings flourish like a sable cape and then he leaps up to his former perch.