Emily Devenport: The Long Ride

“What are they?” asked the brunette as she and Elayne rushed through tidy little gardens. “What do they want with us?”

“They’re monsters,” panted Elayne. “And I don’t know what they want. Maybe they want to put things inside our heads like they’ve got.”

They stopped for a moment to rest behind some rose bushes. They were out of sight of the road, now. Elayne looked out across cultivated fields, toward freedom.

“We’ve got to keep moving,” she said. “We’ve got to stay as far away from them as possible. We’ll rest for a moment more, then we have to cross those fields. Can you run in those shoes?”

“I can do anything in these shoes,” said the brunette, almost laughing as she looked at her four-inch heels.

“Good. Just one more minute to catch our breath, and then run like hell.”

“You sure are good at giving orders,” Terry said, just behind her, and Elayne jumped a foot. He was standing there with Ross and Kal on either side, a few steps behind him, their faces expressionless. Elayne shook her head in horror and backed away toward the fields.

“Stop running,” said Terry. “You’re really starting to piss me off.”

“No!” said Elayne. “They’ve got things inside their heads! They’re monsters!”

She turned and ran into the fields, Terry following close behind, but the brunette just stood there with tears running down her face. She didn’t even look at Ross and Kal, and they didn’t look at her. She watched Terry catch up to Elayne and pull her down. Then, her head cocked slightly to one side, the brunette faded away into nothingness.

“Goddammit!” Terry was laughing as he pulled Elayne off her feet and spun her to the ground. “You’re gonna make me wreck my good suit.”

Elayne immediately tried to scramble away, but he swept her right up off the ground and carried her away like a groom with his new bride.

“You can’t do this,” screamed Elayne. “I’m too heavy!”

“My granddad bent iron bars with his bare hands in the circus,” Terry said. “My dad was a boxer. I would be too, if I didn’t like my pretty mug so much.”

He marched back across the field with her, back to where Kal and Ross were standing without the brunette.

“Where is she?” demanded Elayne. “What did you do to her?”

“She was a glitch,” said Kal. “From nineteen fifty-seven.”

“She wasn’t a glitch,” said Elayne, crying now. “You did something.”

Terry grinned at her as he stuffed her back into the Chevy.

“Let’s see if you’ve got anything valuable,” said Terry, still grinning and now sitting much closer to Elayne. Kal was driving again, and Ross was sitting in front of her, so that she had to look at the back of his head while he gobbled candy bar after candy bar. She was vaguely embarrassed to be pawed with her dad in the car; yet at the same time it wasn’t her dad, she knew that, too.

Terry was searching her for jewelry. He found her Mickey Mouse watch on her right wrist and laughed. “Aren’t you a little old for this?” He skillfully slipped it off.

“Hey!” Elayne lit up like a Christmas tree. “You give that back !” She lunged across the car after him, glaring into his laughing face, her hand locked around his wrist. He seemed astonished that she would fight back, and delighted.

“There you go, giving orders again,” he said.

“Give it to me! Goddammit, I’ll give you my wedding ring if—” she felt for the ring and stopped dead. It wasn’t there. In fact, she wasn’t even quite sure what it had looked like. Worse than that, she couldn’t remember what her husband looked like, or his name, or where they lived. She fell back into her seat and was confronted again with the back of Ross’s head. What if she had something inside her own head now, something making her forget?

Terry put his arm around her, allowing his hand to rest on her breast, casually. “Lose your ring?” he asked. “Well, it wasn’t me. But I’ll keep this watch.”

“No, you won’t,” she said, and wrenched it away, surprising him. Since he would have to take his hand off her breast to get it back, he let her have it.

“How old are you, sweetheart?” he asked. His fingertips touched her nipple.

“Thirty-three.” She kept her eyes fastened on Ross’s head. The longer she had to be near him, the more convinced she was that the thing inside his head would crawl out and jump on her, the moment she wasn’t looking.

“You’re quite an armful,” Terry was saying. “How much do you weigh?”

“One hundred forty-five.”

“Hmmm. Most women would lie about their weight.”

“Why should I lie?” She thought the skin on Ross’s skull was starting to wrinkle in a weird way. She blinked to make sure.

“What are your measurements?” Terry asked.

“37-25-37.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right. I sure would like to see you in a dress. And stockings. Hey, sweetheart, look here.” He took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “Look inside my coat,” he whispered. She did, just so he would let her go back to her vigil sooner. His coat was parted enough to let her see a gun in a shoulder holster under his left arm.

“No one’s going to touch you, baby,” he said. “Not while I’m here.”

“You promise?” she said.

“I promise.”

It was night before they stopped at a motel. Elayne had dozed against Terry’s shoulder. “Separate rooms, Kal,” she heard him say.

“Of course,” said Kal, his voice diminishing as he walked away toward the office.

Ross was still eating candy bars, only now he was making little, contented cooing noises while he did it. Elayne shivered. Kal came back out of the office and tossed a key to Terry, who caught it deftly.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said, and pulled Elayne out of the car.

She looked back at Ross and Kal while Terry unlocked the door and pushed her into the room. Once inside, she went to the window and peeked out through the curtains. Kal and Ross were still sitting in the front seat, fussing with something on the seat between them. She thought her dad—Kal—was starting to look an awful lot like Ross. Both of them bald, and huge, with bruises under their eyes and mouths like gashes in their faces. Maybe the thing in his head was changing him physically, too.

“Lock the door!” she told Terry.

“I already have,” he said, from somewhere behind her.

“They’re just sitting there. What are they doing?”

“I don’t know.”

Elayne turned and found him standing by the double bed. His jacket was off and he was inspecting his gun. A money belt was fastened around his waist.

“You don’t know,” she snapped. “And yet here you are!”

He showed her his teeth again. “They paid me ten grand. That’s why I’m here. That’s why you’re here, too.”

Elayne looked out the curtains again. Ross and Kal were gone. She backed away from the window and sat down on the bed. He pulled his jacket out from under her, frowning, and tossed it onto a chair.

“What if they come in here while we’re asleep?” she asked. “What if they try to put something in our heads?”

He reholstered his gun, then took the whole affair off and set it on the bedside table, setting his money belt right behind it. “I don’t know where you get that stuff,” he said, and put his arms around her. “They want you to find something for them. And they’re not coming in here. I’ll shoot them if they do, and they damn well know it.”

“Find something?” she said, as he put his mouth on her neck. “Find what? ”

“You’ll find out,” he murmured. “You’re beautiful. Come here.”