“I doubt it.”
She slid over closer to him. “Just because you and Lenny don’t get along, you don’t have to take it out on me.”
“Lenny’s got nothing to do with it,” he said, eyes on the road. “I can’t stand either of you.”
“You don’t really mean that,” she said. Her voice was very soft, very unlike her. He could smell the rain-scent in her hair; in fact, he found it pleasant. She moved over a little more. “We ought to go out sometime, you and me,” she said.
“Sorry. I don’t go out with Kirby vacuum cleaners.”
She began to run her finger along the rim of her tube-top, unaffected by his insults. The rim crept lower, showing the edge of a nipple. “You know, I could make you feel real good if you let me… Why don’t you let me?” Then she leaned very close and placed a hand on his leg.
He flung her hand away immediately. “One more word like that and this free ride home turns into a free ride in the county detention center. One more word.”
“Well,” she cooed, “there’s no reason why we can’t at least be friends.”
“There’re plenty of reasons, Joanne, the first of which is I don’t have assholes for friends.”
She shoved herself back against the door, and glowered. Kurt could see her fuming in the dash-glow; he expected to see steam come out of her ears. Shutting her up so abruptly almost made driving her home worth it.
He eyed the guardrail around the next bend, using it to guide him through the rain. He seemed to be getting the hang of this now, and he let his speed pick up. He put a cigarette in his mouth and briefly took his eyes off the road to push in the dash lighter. At that exact moment, Joanne lurched forward and shouted, “Look out!”
Reflex made Kurt stomp the brakes. The car fishtailed into the bend, and by the time it had stopped completely, it had nearly revolved 180 degrees. The rear fender missed the guardrail by an inch.
“What!” Kurt barked. He pulled the car safely to the shoulder. The near miss made his hands shake.
Joanne sank back, her hand to her heart. “You almost hit that guy.”
“What guy?”
“While you were busy lighting your cigarette, some guy jumped over the rail and ran across the road into the woods.”
Kurt turned on the remote-control spotlight and turned it into the forest. The two hundred thousand candle- power lamp scanned back and forth across the trees, and revealed nothing unusual.
“You’re stoned,” he said.
“No, I’m not! A guy ran across the road, and you would’ve hit him if I hadn’t yelled.”
Kurt clicked the light back off. “A
Joanne’s hair dripped water onto her legs and the seat. “He was running so fast, Jesus… I didn’t see him too good. Looked skinny, though. Looked like he was wearing gray clothes, maybe overalls.”
Kurt thought about it, then threw the possibility out the window when he considered its source. “It was probably just a deer.”
“Deers don’t walk on two legs.”
“That’s right, and
“Yeah, a few as in eight or ten, and God knows how many bong hits of that homegrown horseshit Stokes sells.”
Now she was almost shouting at him. “I’m not a lush, Morris, and I ain Mort no pothead, either! I’m a lot straighter than you think.”
“Straight as a U-bolt,” Kurt replied. He righted the car and continued. “I can just see me wrecking this three-day-old cruiser because you’re having hallucinations.”
Shortly afterwards, Kurt turned around in the parking lot of one of Tylersville’s monolithic apartments. He stopped, looked at her, and said, “Bye-bye time.”
Joanne got out. Rain pelted her back as she leaned over. “Thanks for the ride…prick.”
“It was a pleasure. It’s not every day I get to be so close to the town sperm bank.”
She showed him her middle finger, slammed the door, and walked off.
He’d had enough patrol in this weather; he may as well have been driving blindfolded. A coffee break now seemed well deserved. He headed for the Jiffy-Stop, to park till the storm let up; he only hoped the road didn’t wash out before he got there.
Around the next bend, Uncle Roy’s house appeared only as a ghost of itself in the pouring, black rain. Kurt checked the TV-room windows for lights, hoping to see Melissa up past her bedtime so he could yell at her in the morning. The windows were black, but at the same time, he noticed a dark, ragged heap at the end of the driveway. This did not yet strike him as odd; after all, it could be garbage, though that in itself seemed odd because Melissa didn’t generally put the garbage out two days early, if she put it out at all, and Kurt certainly hadn’t...
Then he slammed on his brakes, skidding to an angled halt.
The heap, whatever it was, had moved.
He backed the cruiser up and then pulled the front end into the drive. The heap seemed to be doggedly crawling toward the house, like a tortoise. By then Kurt knew the heap was a person, probably a drunk, or an accident victim. He jumped out of the car and trotted up.
The rain crashed against him in heavy, irritating layers, drenching him. Kurt knelt before the collapsed figure. His hands touched sodden fabric and cool flesh. He carefully raised the figure’s head and shoulders into the glare.
The head lolled; the face was a swollen, blue mask of bruises and blood. It was Vicky.
Kurt’s heart shouted at him to move, but the clout of shock left him helpless for many seconds; all he could do was stare, as if into the lamp of an oncoming train. Her blouse was an eerie, pale pink from blood thinned by rain; she’d bled a lot. Red crust sealed one eye shut, the other eye twitched. She’d been beaten so severely he thought she must be dead. But then her hands clenched his shirt; she was trying to lift herself up.
“Don’t say anything, don’t move,” he stammered. She squealed when he picked her up; he doubted he could touch her at all without hurting her. The rain laughed at him, blowing harder. Twice he almost slipped carrying her to the car. He slid her into the front seat as gently as he could, then got in behind the wheel and turned on the dome light. She was only part conscious. She moaned with her mouth closed, touching things around her shakily, as if blind. Her body jerked once very hard as she held back a cough. She opened her mouth to speak, but drooled blood instead.
Kurt flicked on his siren and the blue revolving light. His tires whined on the slick road, and as he raced south on 154 he begged God and the universe one wish—that he get her to the hospital alive.
— | — | —
CHAPTER ELEVEN
John stepped out of his room for the last time. Pure instinct made him pull the door to behind him, but it was useless; it never clicked shut. It had no lock and no bolt. None of the doors did, except the one at the med station, and the wing door.
The hall lights seemed brighter today, and more artificial. His footsteps sounded annoyingly loud, like someone clapping stones. It was the meaning of the moment, he knew, and nothing more. From doorways, other ”in-pats” looked at him with blank envy. Some of them nodded, some waved, but most recoiled into their rooms as he passed, still unused to his facial features.
