Lucy buckled her seatbelt and glanced in the rearview mirror. Matt had climbed to his feet, and he hobbled toward the car.
“Hey, no fair!” she yelled and gave the accelerator a little gas, jerking his feet out from under him. “All right, count of three. We’ll start small with half a mile!”
She grasped the steering wheel, heart pumping. She’d done this a half dozen times but never with helmets.
“One! Two! Three!”
She reset the odometer and eased onto the accelerator. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty miles per hour, and the boys already beginning to scream. At four-tenths of a mile, she hit forty, and in the rearview mirror, Kenny’s and Matt’s pale and naked bodies writhed in full-throated agony, both trying to sit up and grab the rope and failing as they slid across the pavement on their bare backs, dragged by their cuffed ankles, the chains throwing gorgeous yellow sparks against the asphalt.
She eased off the gas and pulled over onto the shoulder. Collected the spray bottle and the artificial leech from the guitar case, unbuckled, jumped out, and went to the boys. They lay on their backs, blood pooling beneath them. Bone and muscle already showing through in many places where the skin had simply been erased, and Kenny must have rolled briefly onto his right elbow, because it had been sanded down to a sharp spire of bone.
“Please,” Matt croaked. “Oh, God, please.”
“You don’t know how beautiful you look,” she said, “but I’m gonna make you even prettier.”
She spritzed them with pure, organic lemon juice, especially their backs, which looked like raw hamburger, then knelt down with the artificial leech she’d stolen from a medical museum in Phoenix several years ago. Using it always made her think fondly of Luther and Orson.
She stuck each of them twenty times with the artificial leech, and to the heartwarming depth of their new screams, skipped back to the car and hopped in and stomped the gas, their cries rising into something like the baying of hounds, Lucy howling back. She pushed the Subaru past fifty, to sixty, to seventy-five, and in the illumination of the spotlight, the boys bounced along the pavement, on their backs, their sides, their stomachs, and with every passing second looking more and more lovely, and still making those delicious screams she could almost taste, Lucy driving with no headlights, doing eighty under the moon, and the cold winter wind rushing through the windows like the breath of God.
She made it five miles (no one had ever lasted five miles and she credited those well-made snowboarding helmets) before the skeletons finally went quiet.
Lucy ditched what was left of the boys and drove all night like she’d done six blasts of coke, arriving in Salt Lake as the sun edged up over the mountains. She checked into a Red Roof Inn and ran a hot bath and cleaned the new blood and the old blood out of the ropes and let the carabiners and the chains and the handcuffs soak in the soapy water.
In the evening she awoke, that dark weight perched on her chest again. The guitar case items had dried, and she packed them away and dressed and headed out. The motel stood along the interstate, and it came down to Applebee’s or Chili’s.
She went with the latter, because she loved their Awesome Blossom.
After dinner, she walked outside and stared at the Subaru in the parking lot, the black rot flooding back inside of her, that restless, awful energy that could never be fully sated, those seconds of release never fully quenching, like water tinged with salt. She turned away from the Subaru and walked along the frontage road until she came to a hole in the fence. Ducked through. Scrambled down to the shoulder of the interstate.
Traffic was moderate, the night cold and starry. A line of cars approached, bottled up behind a Winnebago.
She walked under the bridge, set down her guitar case, and stuck out her thumb.
3
Donaldson pulled over onto the shoulder and lowered the passenger window. The girl was young and tiny, wearing a wool cap despite the relative warmth.
“Where you headed?” He winked before he said it, his smile genuine.
“Missoula,” Lucy answered.
“Got a gig up there?” He pointed his chin at her guitar case.
She shrugged.
“Well, I’m going north. If you chip in for gas, and promise not to sing any show tunes, you can hop in.”
The girl seemed to consider it, then nodded. She opened the rear door and awkwardly fit the guitar case onto the backseat. Before getting in, she stared at the upholstery on the front seats.
“What’s with the plastic?” she asked, indicating Donaldson’s clear seat covers.
“Sometimes I travel with my dog.”
Lucy squinted at the picture taped to the dashboard-the portly driver holding a long-haired dachshund.
“What’s its name?”
“Scamp. Loveable little guy. Hates it when I’m away. But I’m away a lot. I’m a courier. Right now, I’m headed up to Idaho Falls to pick up a donor kidney.”
Her eyes flitted to the backseat, to a cooler with a biohazard sign on the lid.
“Don’t worry,” he said, taking off his hat and rubbing a hand through his thinning gray hair. “It’s empty for the time being.”
The girl nodded, started to get in, then stopped. “Would you mind if I sat in the back? I don’t want to make you feel like a chauffeur, but I get nauseated riding up front unless I’m driving.”
Donaldson paused. “Normally I wouldn’t mind, Miss, but I don’t have any seat belts back there, and I insist my passengers wear one. Safety first, I always say.”
“Of course. Can’t be too careful. Cars can be dangerous.”
“Indeed they can. Indeed.”
The front passenger door squeaked open, and the girl hopped in. Donaldson watched her buckle up, and then he accelerated back onto the highway.
Grinning at her, he rubbed his chin and asked, “So what’s your name, little lady?”
“I’m Lucy.” She looked down at the center console. A Big Gulp sweated in the drink holder. She reached into her pocket and looked at the man and smiled. “I really appreciate you picking me up. I don’t think I caught your name.”
“Donaldson. Pleased to meet you.”
“Is that really your last name, or are you one of those guys who have a last name for a first name?”
“No, that’s my first.”
They drove in silence for a mile, Donaldson glancing between the girl and the road.
“Highway’s packed this time of day. I bet we’d make better time on the county roads. Less traffic. If that’s okay with you, of course.”
“I was actually just going to suggest that,” Lucy said. “Weird.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to do anything to make you feel uncomfortable.” Donaldson glanced down at Lucy’s pocket. “Pretty young thing like yourself might get nervous driving off the main drag. In fact, you don’t see many young lady hitchers these days. I think horror movies scared them all away. Everyone’s worried about climbing into the car with a maniac.”
Donaldson chuckled.
“I love county roads,” Lucy said. “Much prettier scenery, don’t you think?”
He nodded, taking the next exit, and Lucy leaned over, almost into his lap, and glanced at the gas gauge.
“You’re running pretty low there. Your reserve light’s on. Why don’t we stop at this gas station up ahead. I’ll put twenty in the tank. I also need something to drink. This mountain air is making my throat dry.”
Donaldson shifted in his seat. “Oh, that light just came on, and I can get fifty miles on reserve. This is a Honda, you know.”
