Andrew Smith - Winger

And then Ned dug around in his pocket and said, “How much do you want for the cab ride, boys?”

“You don’t need to pay us,” Joey said.

I closed my eyes and lay down across the seat. Then I felt the car turn right and begin lurching forward along a bumpy, unpaved road.

“This is Battle Point,” Joey said. “How far up here do you live?”

Then I knew we were completely hosed.

Ned said, “Where?”

It began pouring.

Joey said, “Is this your street?”

And Ned said, “I live in Waterloo, Iowa.”

Oh, yeah. Me and Joey. Both total losers.

So I said, “Ned? Will you please kill Joey first? He really, really deserves it.”

SO THERE WE WERE, IN the middle of the fucking night, in the rain, on an unlighted dirt—make that “mud”—road somewhere between Oregon and Bolgia Nine in the Eighth Circle of Hell with an ax-wielding sodomist in a walker who thought he was in Waterloo goddamned Iowa.

Good times.

Ned stared blankly out the windshield. “I don’t remember any of this in Waterloo.”

“Oh, that Waterloo,” I said. “So, Ned, was Napoleon really as short as everyone says?”

“What?” Ned said. Then he pointed out the window in front of Joey. “I think you took a wrong turn, son. Where’s the Cedar River from here?”

“We’re in the middle of it, Ned,” I said.

Joey stopped the car, right there in the middle of the river of mud that used to be a road. Not that we were running the risk of blocking any traffic, that is, unless salmon used this fucking road to spawn on.

Spawning salmon . . . awww . . . made me think of Annie. God! I’d never see her again! I felt like I would start crying, but I became determined that I had to live so I could stop JP from depositing his genetically inferior milt all over her.

“But you remembered this road and how to get here,” Joey said. “And how far it was. Are you sure you didn’t want to come to Battle Point Lane?”

“Is this Battle Point Lane?” Ned asked.

“Yes,” Joey said.

“Are we in Waterloo?” Ned asked. “My son lives there.”

“Catch and release, Joey,” I said. “Let’s put him back where we found him.”

“Maybe he’ll recognize his house if we find one up there.” Joey nodded his chin in the direction of the road-torrent.

I didn’t see any houses up there.

“Maybe he’ll remember the spot where he hid all the bodies of the other kids he tricked into taking him here,” I said.

“What?” Ned said.

“Ryan Dean”—Joey looked over his shoulder at me—“I really think you should try to go to sleep.”

He sounded a little stressed.

Joey started the car forward slowly.

I said, “Here, Joe. Do you want a cough drop?”

I dropped one of the paper-wrapped lozenges in his hand.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don’t thank me. They taste like crap. But they keep you awake.”

“Then stop eating them.”

“I think it’s just up ahead,” Ned said.

That’s exactly when the driver’s side of the car lurched downward sharply and the axle struck against something hard, with a grating, metallic clang. We were in a hole up to the top of the car’s wheels. Joey tried backing the SUV out, but we were stuck.

Oh, yeah, and that’s when the water started coming in through the bottom of Joey’s door, too.

“Fuck!” Joey said.

“Don’t give him any ideas,” I warned.

“This isn’t the place,” Ned said. “I’m sure of it.”

And that’s probably about the time that Joey seriously considered throwing the old man out too. If it wasn’t precisely at that moment, I’m sure he felt like it when Ned started screaming insanely in wild terror.

You know, there is something especially frightening when you’re stuck in the darkest depths of hell, in the middle of a raging torrent of mud, and the insane old lost guy in the front seat starts screaming like he’s going to die. I mean, I figured Ned had probably stared Death in the face more than a few times in just the past four or five hours, let alone since the discovery of fire, so when you hear a guy who you know has gone through as much shit as Ned has—in a lifetime that was undoubtedly measured by geologic periods as opposed to calendars—screaming like that, well . . . you just know you’re going to die too.

“Fuck!” Joey said again.

“Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!” Ned shrieked.

Oh, yeah.

Fun times.

Honestly, though, I have to admit to the selfish pleasure I took in the fact that the water was pouring in on the two fuckers in the front seat and not on the guy in the back who never would have come up to Ned’s abattoir for adolescent boys if Joey wasn’t so goddamned nice all the time.

Then Ned added something extra special to his scream. It kind of went like this: “BBBLLLLLAAAAARRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAGG!!!!!!!”

Which, I think, was probably Mrs. Singer’s first name.

But, anyway, the bloodcurdling sound was so unnerving that I screamed too, and just like a girl, which didn’t make Joey very happy.

“Fuck!” Joey said.

And when I screamed, it made Ned scream even more insanely.

I began laughing so hard, I was actually crying, which probably had something to do with the fact that I knew we were going to die and now I decided I didn’t want Ned to kill Joey first, because watching him do it would scare the shit out of me.

Ned shrieked again. It was a good one, too. Probably a solid fifteen seconds. And it was so high pitched that I’m pretty sure a pod or two of migrating gray whales in the Pacific veered off course for a minute, paused and looked landward, and knew exactly where that hundred-and-fifty-year-old asshole was, even if Joey and I didn’t have a fucking clue.

I laughed so hard, I thought I was going to throw up.

“What’s so fucking funny?” Joey said.

I could hear the wheels spinning uselessly in the muddy water outside, and the splashy-soothing-fountain sounds of Joey’s and the insane guy’s feet up front.

Then all I could hear was another scream. If I wasn’t laughing so hard, I probably would have beat Ned with his walker.

“I’m sorry, Joey.” I laughed. “Now I can finally say I told you so.” I paused. “Bitch.”

That’s technically not cussing.

I laughed.

Ned shrieked and wailed.

Joey said, “Fuck!”

“Okay, Joe. I’ll get out and see if there’s anything I can put under the wheels to get some grip.”

“But you’re sick, Ryan Dean.”

“Dude, Joey,” I said (scream). “Believe me, there’s nothing I want more than to get out of this car right now.”

I opened my door and looked down. The water rushed past the car’s running boards so fast, it looked like we were in a motorboat or something. I could see how the back wheels were spinning uselessly, kicking back rooster tails of mud in the dark.

I knew I’d end up getting soaked, which wasn’t a good idea, so I slipped off my socks and shoes and left them on the car seat. Then I pulled up the legs of my sweatpants as high as I could and stepped out into the cold and muddy flow.

Ned screamed again.

Damn, he had quite a set of pipes for an old guy.

I waded around to the back of the SUV, already wet up to my waist.

I yelled up to Joey, “Stop gunning it. I’m going to look for something to wedge under the wheels.”

Ned gave me an approving “EEEEEYYYYAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!”

I paused.

I slogged up to Joey’s window and knocked on it. The water was streaming into the rip in my sweats, pulling them away like a drift net. I hoped salmon didn’t bite.

I knocked on Joey’s window again.