Norman Partridge - Dark Harvest

But the way things are turning out, he’ll have to do.

“I don’t have time to draw you a diagram,” Ricks says.

Then he tosses his pistol into the kid’s lap.

The October Boy is just about to cross the railroad tracks when something rams the Chrysler’s rear bumper.

The Boy glances in the rearview but doesn’t see a thing. Just as he realizes his pursuer must be running dark, a pair of high beams scald him from behind. Top that off with a screaming siren and a big ripe cherry that blooms on top of the car that’s tail-grabbing his ass, and the Boy finally gets a clue.

The prowl car rams him again, and Jim Shepard’s pumpkin head whiplashes on his braided-vine neck like it’s ready to come off. Gotta be Jerry Ricks on his backside. Only that crazy bastard would pull a stunt like this.

The Boy mashes the gas pedal. The Chrysler rockets forward, but the police cruiser stays right there with him — the space between the two cars isn’t even as wide as a coffin. Both cars pass beneath a streetlight and the Boy catches a quick glimpse of Ricks. For a second the cop is boxed up in the confines of the Chrysler’s rearview, his forehead creased above a cold pair of eyes, a cigarette pinched between his lips, the tip of that cig glowing like he’s sucking on a red-hot coal —

Bam! Another jolt. The Boy grapples with the wheel and pulls the Chrysler out of a skid, but it’s hard to do the job when your hands are only a collection of vines. Still, he manages it, and his foot is hard on the gas like those severed tangles have grown around the pedal and set root in the floorboards. We’re talking planted .

Another glance in the rearview. Another streetlight illuminates the prowl car’s interior. Ricks is smiling now. He’s not alone in the car. For the first time the Boy notices that the cop has a passenger, a kid who’s leaning out the window —

Three quick flashes from behind. Three hard pops sound in the night, but the October Boy doesn’t hear them. He only hears the sound of shattering glass as the Chrysler’s rear window explodes. Bullets scream through the cab. One rips through the Boy’s shoulder, another trenches the rind of his face, and the third doesn’t hit anything but the front windshield… which shatters like a wall of ice.

Chunks of glass splatter Jim Shepard’s freakshow hands. He whips the wheel to the side as two more shots ring out, and he doesn’t even have time to wonder where the bullets went. Main Street is only a couple blocks ahead. A hard right turn and another hundred yards beyond that… well, that’s where you’ll find the old brick church.

He’s almost there.

The cold night wind blasts through the broken window. It whips around the cab, nearly snuffing the autumn fire in the Boy’s carved head, but he won’t let that happen. No way. Not now. He’s really hauling ass. Going seventy. He knows he’s only got one chance. He’s got to punch the brakes just right, then hang on through the turn, and —

Now. He’s got to do it now .

Jim’s knotted foot jams the brake. He whips the steering wheel to the right just as Ricks jackhammers the Chrysler’s rear bumper one last time. The steering wheel whipsaws out of the Boy’s hands, yanking off a couple of his fingers as if they were ripe carrots. The wheel spins left as the two cars part and the Chrysler’s rear bumper tears loose, sparking against the blacktop, disappearing beneath the tires of the prowl car like a gleaming switchblade driven into the belly of a two-tone cat.

The front tires blow. The bumper chews undercarriage. Jerry Ricks tears at the steering wheel, because somehow a streetlamp has ended up in the middle of the road and it looks like there’s a brick wall behind it… and if you had time for a little Q&A session, the October Boy would surely tell you that a streetlamp and a brick wall sound like a pretty sweet deal to him, because the Chrysler’s not on four wheels anymore. No. It’s on two… until the road slams the driver’s side door, and the side window blows out, and the hardtop screams as the Chrysler goes ass over teakettle while the laws of physics grind their heels into the October Boy’s best-laid plans —

A couple ticks of the second hand, and two cars are totaled.

It’s quiet for twenty seconds. Maybe thirty.

In that time, Jim Shepard’s buried in a dark place, like a seed planted too deep in the ground. It’s not a new sensation. In fact, it’s much too familiar. For Jim remembers the cornfield… and Jerry Ricks’s pistol against his head… and the sound of shovels filling his grave with hard black earth.

So he fights through the darkness, battling for clarity the same way a green tendril tunnels through earth to find the sun. The shadows disappear for a second, and then they’re back. A flash of October light, and then another, and Jim sees his carved features projected on the black upholstery a few feet from his face.

Jim reaches for that reverse silhouette with a right hand that’s short two fingers, but his arm gives up and his hand slaps against his chest like a fistful of chaff. The Chrysler’s upside down. Jim’s flat on his back against the hardtop. An electric sizzle pulses in his head, projecting flickering light on that upholstery above — Jim’s smile and eyes wink out in time to the sizzle, his arrowhead gash of a nose blinking like a bad bulb in a string of party lights.

Jim can’t do much more than lie there. His eyes wink in, wink out. His smile comes and goes. And there’s a new feature, one he can chalk up to the accident — a jagged crack running from the stem at the top of his head, through his right eye, into one corner of his grin. The wound flashes like a lightning bolt against the upholstery. Again… and again… and again….

And it stabs Jim now. The next flash bucks through his body as the crack strobes on the seat above. His body spasms again, as if his muscles were corded with stripped electrical wire rather than pumpkin vine and someone just plugged him into a live socket. Jesus. He feels like some old movie monster — like Frankenstein riding the lightning one more time… only it’s not working the way it’s supposed to… the juice is burning him up instead of firing his battery.

Jolt. Jim’s right hand flaps against his chest like a hooked fish.

Jolt. Candy wrappers rustle inside him like wastepaper balled up in a giant fist.

Jolt. Jim tries to roll over. God, he wishes he could roll over. But he can’t even seem to move his hand now. It’s there on his chest, glued to a hole carved in his shoulder by one of the kid’s bullets, a hole that’s leaking sticky nougat and marshmallow cream all over his denim jacket.

Jolt.

The head crack sparks.

Jolt.

The lightning sizzles.

Jolt.

Another spasm wracks the October Boy’s body.

Ricks manages to get his eyes open. Pretty quickly he wishes he hadn’t, because his reflection’s waiting there on the windshield. Blood’s dripping from a gash in his forehead, and his left cheek’s carved like someone got his holidays mixed up and mistook Ricks’s face for a Thanksgiving turkey. But it’s that leaky forehead that bothers Jerry the most. Blood’s spilling over his brow, splattering his eyelids. Hell, he feels like someone doused his eyeballs with a handful of salt.

The cop wipes blood and sweat out of his eyes — he’s sweating like a goddamn mule. He blinks a few times. Things come a little clearer. The streetlamp’s nowhere in view — he must have missed that — but he spots that brick wall easy enough. He didn’t make out so hot with that. Spun the Dodge sideways, caved in the left side of the front end coming up against it, and the rest of the driver’s side ended up kissing those bricks pretty good. He could stick his tongue out the window and lick the damn things if he wanted to. No way he’s getting out the driver’s side of the patrol car now. Even with the side window broken, he doesn’t have the room to crawl out.