David Wisehart - Blood Alley

She felt a hot rush of rage. “Don’t get mad at me. ”

“I’m not.”

“Fine.”

Just trying to help.

Claire crossed her arms.

Dick.

She sat in angry silence, staring ahead at the tail lights of the dragsters.

We’re not getting any closer.

Claire opened the clipping from the Palmdale Post . In the dim red light of the lunar eclipse she could only read the headline: “Fowler’s Last Stand.” She studied the news photo, which showed armed policemen surrounding an old farmhouse.

That house looks familiar.

The waitress at Dinah’s Diner told them the farmhouse was on this road.

Can’t be too far now.

She was able to puzzle out more of the words. “Fowler… ordered to sell… refusal… eminent domain… courthouse… seizure.”

Someone was trying to take his home, she realized. But why?

Claire had studied something about eminent domain, but forgot exactly what it meant. Mr. Steinitz had talked about it in history class. Something about how the government could just take away a person’s land if they needed to, as long as they paid the owner. The landowner didn’t have any choice, especially if the government needed to build a dam or an aqueduct or—

A highway.

Dakota said, “What’s with the Fowlers?”

“Nothing,” Claire lied.

“Why are you so obsessed with this?”

“I’m not obsessed. It’s just…”

“What?”

You won’t understand.

Claire took a deep breath to calm herself, and lowered her voice. “I think maybe my mom was born around here.”

Trevor let up on the gas and looked over at her. “You sure?”

Claire knew little of her birth mother, who went by several names and never stayed in one place for long. Most people who her knew her mother had called her “Barbara Smith.” But Claire figured out that wasn’t her mother’s real name. Not her family name, at least. “Smith” was a name for hiding her past, and Barbara seemed to have something terrible to hide. She’d given Claire up for adoption at birth. Claire had been a premie, and nearly died a dozen times in her crib. Because of the long ordeal, a nurse at the hospital remembered baby Claire well, and the mother too. That had been the start of the trail, Claire’s first big break in unraveling the story of her past. The evidence was slim, the memories fuzzy, but all signs pointed here.

California.

The Mojave Desert.

Blood Alley.

“My mom was from California,” Claire said, “but ran away from home. She disappeared for years. Came back pregnant.”

“With you?”

Claire nodded. “I think so. Unless I had a brother or sister. I don’t know.”

“Who was the father?” Dakota asked.

“All I have is a name. My mother’s last name before she changed it.” Claire held up the news clipping: “Fowler.”

Dakota said, “If your parents gave you up, what makes you think they want to be found?”

“They don’t.”

Claire felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Trevor, trying to get her attention.

“Look,” he said.

They were much closer now to the drag racers. The red Chevy was in the right lane, with the yellow Deuce Coupe trying to pass on the left. Side by side, the two cars bumped into each other, then veered apart.

Headlights appeared on the road ahead.

A truck coming their way.

This is how Frankie died, Claire realized.

The two drag racers held their lanes, claiming the width of the highway, offering no concession to the oncoming truck.

Claire said, “They don’t know they’re about to die.”

Trevor gained on the Chevy.

Don’t get too close.

“Samantha!” It was a young man’s voice, coming from the red Chevy.

Frankie’s voice, or someone else?

The window of the Chevy was rolled down now. The young man reached his hand out through the window, toward the coupe racing beside it. In his hand was a bright yellow scarf.

Through the open window of the other car, a girl’s hand reached out and grabbed the scarf. The young man didn’t let go. Instead, he steered his car a little to the left, closer to the Deuce Coupe, and pulled on the scarf to draw the girl to his Chevy.

She leaned out her window.

He leaned out his.

It’s him.

“That’s Frankie Lamarque,” Claire said.

The boy and girl kissed, silhouetted by the headlights of the onrushing truck.

Claire heard the truck honk. Then a squeal of tires. The yellow coupe dropped back and cut quickly into the right lane, behind the Chevy and just ahead of the Hummer.

The truck whooshed by.

Sound without wind.

Strange.

Claire turned to watch the truck fade into nothingness.

Ghost truck, she thought.

“That was in… sane! ” Trevor looked to Claire for confirmation.

“Watch the road, Trevor.”

“I am.”

“There’s gonna be an accident.”

The Deuce Coupe didn’t give up the race, but returned to the left lane and pulled even with the Chevy.

Frankie shouted out the window, “What the hell, Darren?”

The girl in the Deuce Coupe yelled, “Frankie! Help! Get me out! Get me out! ”

She’s terrified, Claire thought.

The girl wasn’t afraid of the near collision, but of something inside her car—she was terrified of the driver, Darren.

Frankie yelled, “Samantha, no! ”

Samantha opened the passenger door and leaned out, watching the road fly under her.

She’s gonna jump.

The coupe sideswiped the Chevy. The passenger door hit the Chevy hard. The door slammed shut, throwing Samantha back into her seat. The cars banged into each other again and again. The Chevy slowed and dropped back. The Deuce Coupe sideswiped it. The front end of the Chevy lifted up. It rose into the air as the other car went under it.

The Chevy rolled, bounced, and tumbled.

The driver’s door was torn off.

A body flew out—

Frankie.

The body landed, rolled, and came to rest in the road.

Beside the road, where the body fell, was some kind of marker.

A statue.

As the Hummer raced by, Claire saw the bronze bust of Frankie Lamarque.

A roadside memorial. Wreaths, cards, fresh flowers.

The Hummer drove right over Frankie’s body in the road, but Claire felt no bump of the tires because the corpse was a ghost.

“Oh my God,” Dakota said. “What do we do?”

“Drive,” Claire said.

“But those people…”

Trevor and Claire exchanged a look.

Now he believes me.

Trevor said, “They were dead already.”

The Hummer’s headlights glided over the road, giving the median line a steady pulse.

Claire looked back at Ethan. His eyes were closed. His face showed no expression. But his chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm.

He’s still alive , she thought.

She reached back to hold Dakota’s hand, which was slick with Ethan’s blood.

Trevor said, “Everyone okay?”

“No, Trevor. We’re not okay.” Dakota’s tears had left her, but her eyes were red and her voice still trembled. “Ethan’s not okay. I’m not okay. None of us are okay. Okay? ”

“Okay.”

Claire saw a light far off in the distance. “There’s a house up ahead.”

Trevor eased up on the gas. “Something in the road.”

It was a large tire. He swerved around it.

“What was that?” Dakota asked.

“Tire,” said Trevor.

But is it real? Claire wondered. She thought back to the wall at Dinah’s Diner. The tire might be a phantom relic from some long-ago crash. The school bus?