Ghost Road Blues

He made no sound, played no radio, listening instead with entranced delight to the voice in his head, the voice that whispered and whispered.

On his massive hands the blood still gleamed bright and fresh, lit by the dashboard display; in his mouth he could still taste the blood of the man he’d killed. His thick lips twisted and writhed in some semblance of a smile as he drove wildly through the night. The night that was now his.

He savored the taste of blood in his mouth, and he knew that it had made him pure, made him holy. It was the first time he’d ever really paid attention to the taste of blood. It was delicious, and he wondered if he would have more of it. Inside his head the voice of God told him that yes, he would. Soon.

As Tow-Truck Eddie drove, God whispered secrets to him, telling him of the glory that had been, and of the glory that was to come. God reminded him of his own holy purpose — that of finding the Beast and killing him.

You are the Sword of God.

It echoed like thunder in his head.

Somewhere, out there in the darkness, in some unknown spot on the black road, his destiny waited. Destiny in the form of the Beast — a creature of vast cunning and evil power that he must find, must oppose — must destroy—because he was the Sword of God, and it was his holy purpose to do God’s will here on earth. Now he knew that, after all his waiting, the Beast was out here on the road tonight, waiting for him to find it, to confront it, to begin the battle of Good against Evil, of heaven against hell. That was what the voice of God told him, pounding the words into his brain. Over and over again.

He laughed out loud, and his laugh was an explosion of righteous joy because his holy work was beginning. He had always known that someday God would set him on the right path. He’d prayed for this for years. His destiny had been clear to him since childhood. If he was who he thought he was — who he knew he was — then the voice that spoke so powerfully in his mind could belong to no one else but his own father. To God himself.

He laughed again and searched the roadside shadows for the Beast.

The wrecker cut through the night air like a butcher’s knife leaving a screaming darkness behind it.

(4)

“Jesus, Karl, wait for me, will you, for Chrissakes?”

Ruger said nothing and didn’t slow his pace a single bit. He plowed on through the corn, moving fast but seemingly not making as much sound as he ought to. He glided through the stalks like a snake.

The corn stood impossibly tall and it stretched outward on all sides in a forever of darkness. Boyd stumbled after Ruger, slapping the stalks aside, feeling the sharp sting of the razor-edged leaves nicking his hand and cheeks. The wind was icy and damp and his exposed skin burned from the raw cold. His lame left arm was tucked into his shirt, and the dead weight of it plus the lumpy burden of the backpack gave him an ungainly pace that consumed energy and cost effort. Despite the chilly air he was bathed in sweat and the backpack felt as if it were filled with rocks.

“Man, do you even know where we’re going?”

This time Ruger did stop. He turned and faced Boyd, his face completely in shadows. “Yeah, Boyd, sure I know where I’m going.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going that way. Any more fucking questions?”

Boyd shut his mouth with a click, biting down on all the things he didn’t have the balls to say. They burned on his tongue like pepper seeds. With a grunt, a hearty expectoration, and a shadowy sneer, Ruger turned and plunged back into the corn. After a few seconds Boyd followed him. They trudged on in silence for just over a hundred yards before Boyd stepped into a gopher hole and neatly snapped both the tibia and fibula of his right leg.

He never saw the hole, and despite the dropping lunge and the sharp double snap of the bones, he couldn’t immediately understand what had happened. All he knew was that the cornfield suddenly rose up in front of him, the stalks seeming to launch themselves into the air, and then his face was rushing at the dirt. He tried to break his fall, but only one hand answered the summons and that was a second off the mark, so he took a cheekful of hard- packed dirt. His eyes jolted painfully in their sockets, he bit his tongue, and his brain felt jellied by the impact. He never even heard the double pop-pop of his leg bones as they broke, and at first all he felt was the pain in his face…and then the leg pain hit him. It hit him like a hurricane — blasting through every nerve ending he possessed, boiling up from the torn muscle and severed blood vessels all the way through the top of his head. He howled. He howled as loud as he could, and the shrill sound of it took flight and rose far above the waving corn. He drew in a single ragged breath and then opened his mouth to howl again, but the rough leather of Ruger’s glove, backed by bone and gristle and anger, struck him with such shocking force that the howl evaporated on his tongue and he gasped for a shocked breath, tears springing into his eyes. Ruger grabbed a fistful of his hair and jerked his head back and Boyd stared in mute awe at the single black metal eye that glared unwinkingly at him. The hard, cold silver that surrounded that black eye gleamed dully in the bad light.

“If you make one more fucking sound I’m going to blow your face all over this field.” The whisper was as cold as the metal of the gun barrel.

“My…leg…”

“You hear me, Boyd?”

“Jesus, Karl, I broke my fucking leg,” Boyd insisted, but in a low hiss, not a howl.

“No shit. Ain’t you the genius?”

“My fucking leg!”

Ruger pressed the barrel against Boyd’s forehead. “Shhhh. You’re getting loud again. Shhh, shhh now.”

“You gotta help me, Karl,” Boyd began, and then his eyes grew suddenly very wide. “Wait…Karl… don’t…!”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t do me, man. Don’t, okay? Don’t do me, please, man.”

Ruger actually managed to look hurt as he withdrew the gun. “Jeez, Boyd, what kind of guy do you think I am?” He released Boyd’s hair and even smoothed it with a caressing hand.

“Don’t do me, man….”

Ruger smiled. After a few seconds, he eased the hammer off cock and put his gun away. “Stop shitting your pants, you asshole. I’m not going to do anything to you unless you get loud again. I don’t go around killing everyone I meet, you know. I do have some scruples.”

Boyd didn’t dare make an answer to that. His terror of Ruger was even greater than the searing agony in his leg. With a sigh, Ruger stood and shrugged out of his pack, set it to one side, and then stood there, looking first at Boyd and then around at the rows of corn. A few yards away was the corner of a fence, and nailed to it was a tall wooden support for a scarecrow. The tattered guardian of the corn hung like a hobo Christ, arms outstretched and body slumped. The body was dressed in a cast-off old brown suit, frayed work gloves, and an old blue mechanic’s shirt. Instead of a burlap bag for a head, this scarecrow had been topped with a grinning jack-o’-lantern in an early nod to the coming Halloween season. Beyond the figure, the fence trailed away into shadows. Ruger pursed his lips in thought; then he turned back to Boyd.

“I think we’re near a farmhouse. See that fence? That looks like some kind of dividing line, maybe between this farm and the next. I’m going to follow it and see what I can see.”

“Jesus! You can’t just leave me here!” He hissed the words, his face screwed up with the unrelenting pain. Beads of sweat burst from every pore on his face.

“I sure as hell can’t carry you. You’re too goddamn big. Even if I could, I couldn’t lug you and both backpacks. No, m’man, I’ll get you set up here and then go get some kind of help.”

Boyd was almost weeping. “You’re going to run out on me, man. You’re gonna do me and take my share and bug the fuck out.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re gonna do me and just split—”

Ruger’s hand lashed out with appalling speed and slapped Boyd’s face hard to the left and then backhanded it to center position. He thrust a warning finger under Boyd’s nose, jabbing the air as he spoke. “Shut your fucking mouth, man. Shut it right now, or so help me God…” Ruger’s whispery voice trailed off, no reason to continue. Boyd shut up, but pain and fear crawled all over his face, twisting his lips and eyes and brows, wrinkling his features into a darkly comical mask. Ruger squatted down next to him, hooked a finger under his chin, and raised his face so that