Rob Thurman - Roadkill

“Because I didn’t feel the need to spend a good chunk of my teen years measuring my penis. I prefer accuracy over size.” He accepted the grip of the gun. “Although I do have both.”

“Brag, brag, brag. Just shoot the son of a bitch.” But he hadn’t waited for my encouragement. He’d already aimed through the glass, not taking the time to roll down the window. But Suyolak’s driver, the Seattle professor-I’d seen the license plate for verification-must’ve yanked the wheel and the truck was off on an exit that was too damn convenient to be true, so much so that not only the world had to be against us, but the universe as well.

Goodfellow veered across the lane, cutting off Abelia’s RV, which spun in a quick one-eighty and ended up off the road. I saw a shaking fist out one window, so I wasn’t too worried. Then again it could’ve rolled over and tossed her through the air like a hundred- year-old Frisbee and I wouldn’t have been wasting an iota of concern. We made the exit and that was the important thing.

The town was something- ville, something-burg. I didn’t catch the full name and that was fine. All these little towns were beginning to blur together into one big four-way stop-ville-like when we were kids. From town to town, school to school, liquor store to liquor store, and eventually jail to jail. Bribing a bum old enough to post bond on your mother was always a fun time. The stars, the clean air when we weren’t driving through clouds of pollen, the green, the quiet… It was missed, but as for the rest, I appreciated New York with new eyes. There were no Sophia memories there. There were Auphe memories, but also ones of victory over the Auphe. It was home and I was more than ready to kick this guy’s ass and get back there.

“Never send a samurai to do a street punk’s job,” I grumbled, slamming into the door as Robin treated the exit like a snowless slalom and he was shooting for the Olympics. “Don’t lose them.”

“Lose them? I was a charioteer in Ben-Hur . A car is nothing compared to four recently gelded and consequently highly pissy horses.” He maneuvered around a slow-chugging Toyota and a slightly faster-moving, rusted-out pickup truck with a ruthless speed that would’ve had a New York cabbie bawling like a baby. The black truck missed them both as well. Maybe it wasn’t a Seattle professor, but Charlton Heston behind the wheel.

It was not the best moment to pass the sheriff, but pass him we did. He was going in the opposite direction as we followed the truck at high speed. The department car slammed on its brakes, turned, and was after us for about fifteen seconds. Then it slowed, slowed further, and gradually veered off the road. He might not have shot the sheriff, but Suyolak had done something to him, and to the deputy too if he was with him-something probably permanent and considerably worse than what was in the song. And again I wondered-if he could do that with weak coffin seals, what would he be able to do if he did get out of that coffin?

I didn’t want to put it to the test, with Rafferty on our side or not.

“Shoot the tires,” I suggested.

“No.” Nik had checked the SIG to make sure one was in the pipe. Where was the trust? “Let’s see where he goes. Hopefully it will be someplace a little less conspicuous and less lethal to the local bystanders.” It truly was another four-way stop-ville as I said, but there were two gas stations and a tiny pizza place, or what passed for pizza in Utah. There were people-only a handful, but it was a handful that didn’t have to die because of Suyolak if we confronted him and whatever else was in that truck farther out.

“The salt of the earth, these people,” Robin said with a cheer that made me wonder how many times in his long life he’d chased after death with a smile and an immaculate wardrobe. “Ever made love to a Utah woman? Or man? They actually do taste like salt. I don’t know if it’s the salt flats or the air, but they’re like the very best potato chips. You can’t eat just one.”

“Does he ever shut up? Damn it, ever ?” Rafferty looked close to desperate behind Niko’s seat.

“Whatever. You’ve spent two days with him. Try the past three years of your life. Or is it four? It’s too traumatizing to remember.” I hit the door again as we turned right. “And maybe you should concentrate on why Suyolak isn’t trying to do to us what he did to the cops back there.”

“He is.” Rafferty’s face was drawn now that I bothered to take the time to notice, his knuckles white where he clenched the seat beneath him to stay upright during the rough ride. “Just consider me your force field of cold, flu, and goddamn plague repellant and try not to distract me.” He closed his eyes, the better to concentrate, I hoped. I didn’t have a desire to have my body try to drown itself again. “Particularly you, Goodfellow.”

Robin had already opened his mouth for another comment. I didn’t have to see him to know that. I only had to know him. He kept quiet, though. I didn’t know what diseases pucks could catch, if any, and I knew they were resistant to poison, but he had a heart the same as the rest of us. And it could stop the same as the rest of ours. He could lose his life. The following silence was a sign of the high premium he put on that life. He might be a trickster, but he was up- front with his priorities and

I respected that.

I respected his driving even more as we took another turn. I didn’t think we took it on two wheels, but there was no way we took it on all four. I knew it the same as I knew Rafferty was keeping Suyolak from inserting invisible fingers into our brains, our blood, our bones, and contaminating them with his touch. I wouldn’t call it faith; I’d call it fact, the fact that we were still alive. That made Goodfellow one helluva driver and Rafferty one helluva healer. It also made me tired of sitting on the sideline. That’s not who I was, not what I did.

So instead I took a chance, one stupid, reckless chance. It was also one I was lucky to survive, but I didn’t care. I didn’t think “lucky” at the time, because it was what I was supposed to do, and who I was supposed to be , and it felt so damn good that I couldn’t have not done it if I’d tried.

Being unable to not do something is a bad sign that should make you think, and think hard, but I didn’t. Not then.

Because I was free.

I couldn’t make a gate inside the car, but I could build it around myself, and I did. Between one breath and the next, I was on the hood of the truck. I snared one hand on the rim of the windshield wiper well and pulled the Eagle with the other. I felt exhilaration as the wind hit me, as I saw a glimpse of a pale face and silver hair behind the glass, and most of all as I started to pull the trigger. The feeling didn’t disappear as the truck slid in a circle to leave the road, and I slid myself. I lost my grip and flew through the air. It could’ve been nasty, that fall.

Jack and Jill went up the hill… Weren’t things broken when they came back down?

But I wasn’t Jack. I wasn’t going to break. The truck had braked next to a creek bank, the creek rocky and ten feet down. I tumbled through the air toward it and into the second gate I’d made in three seconds. Passing through, I came out on the other side standing in knee-high water. I was about to go through the third gate and back up when the fight came to me.

There was a willow-type tree lining the banks of a creek, many of them, but they were wispy like feathers and didn’t block much of my view. I saw the back of the truck burst open, but it wasn’t Suyolak who came out. He must’ve been still trapped in the coffin-one for the home team. The driver, being sapped of life, was still enough of an expert in folklore to know Suyolak could have the cure for his wife, but he could also be the death of the husband if he escaped before the truck made it home. He hadn’t opened the coffin. How he planned to negotiate with Suyolak and depend on the bastard to keep his word was his business. Or an impossible dream, because we weren’t going to let it happen, no matter the flood of night that poured out of the truck when the doors opened.