The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

Oates’ barn. Her boots are by her head. Smitty looms over her, clutching her leather jacket in one hand, a fistful of dollar bills in the other.

He’s raided Jessie’s wearable bank, and he’s not happy. “I know how much money you had,” he says. “Seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven dollars. There’s nine hundred missing, bitch. I swear you’re going to give me every penny.”

Jessie rolls over onto her elbows. Her wrists and ankles aren’t bound anymore, but she can hardly move. Her right eye is swollen shut. Her lips are bruised and puffy, like a couple banana slugs glued to her face, and there’s a sound in her head that she can’t escape.

A sound like thunder.

Smitty pulls her to her feet and shoves her against the truck. For the first time, Jessie realizes they’re not alone. There’s a car parked over by the workbench, the one littered with beer bottles and ashtrays and guns. It’s a Mercedes. Oates is stretched out on the hood, his shirt skinned off, his skin nearly as white as Joe’s. There’s a man bent over him — he’s got to be the doctor that Smitty phoned — and his hands are covered with blood.

Oates screams, his body bucking against the hood of the car. Smitty whirls and yells something. The doctor swears and snatches up a syringe. He drives the spike into Oates’ pale flesh. The killer bucks again and falls back, his head striking the Mercedes hood with a hollow sound like a coffin lid slamming closed.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor says. “I swear to God, Smitty, I did everything I could.”

Blood pumps under Smitty’s skin. He drops the money on the ground and stares straight into Jessie’s eyes. “Seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven bucks,” he says. “Seventy-six hundred and seventy-seven bucks.”

Jessie tries to run, but she can barely walk. Smitty slaps her hard and… Joe slams the door of the Mustang. Heavy rain washes the last of the gravedirt from his face. He studies the parking lot. A couple logging trucks. An old Ford with a camper shell. A waitress dancing in the rain with a roll of soggy twenties and tens locked in her palm… and five hard knuckles pound Jessie’s belly. Smitty punches her once, twice, three times... four shells, five, and one more fed into the shotgun as Joe watches the waitress rush into the restaurant… and Jessie drops to her knees… reaching out, grabbing Joe, pulling him close so that his cold belt buckle burns against her cheek. “Listen to me,” she says. “That money cost us everything, and now it’s going to cost us even more.” Joe grabs her, pulls her to her feet… and Smitty drags her across the barn, to the Mercedes where Larry Oates rests in tortured repose, his face frozen in a grimace of agony, and Smitty grabs Jessie by the hair and shoves her head close to the dead man’s, so close that their lips nearly touch… and Joe’s dead lips are just as close but he says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but you see how things are now. You see that every time you close your eyes.” And he stares across the parking lot, the shotgun in his hands, and Jessie screams at him but he won’t even look at her. He’s looking at the restaurant, at that waitress on the other side of the glass, and his eyes are cold and green and full of need for all the things that have been taken from him and all the things he knows he can never get back no matter how hard he tries… and Smitty pushes Jessie nose-to-nose with the dead man… and Joe Shepard swallows hard and takes his first step forward.

Larry Oates’ eyelids look like little marble slabs. Jessie stares straight at them. She doesn’t even blink.

She can’t see Joe anymore, and she can’t see her dream. She knows she had one once, but she can’t see it at all. It’s like Joe said — she doesn’t even have a dream anymore.

But even though her dream is gone Joe is still part of it, the same way he’s still a part of her world. Jessie can never forget him, so he’s still alive in that most essential part of her, that thing-that-used-to-be-a-dream-but- isn’t-anymore.

She understands that now. He’s trapped there, and he wants a second chance at a dream that’s dead. He’s trying for it, trying the only way he knows how. Listening to something in his dead gut, cradling it there like a precious spark, allowing it to drive him forward.

Just that fast Jessie realizes what it is Joe’s listening to.

He’s listening to the only thing that survived the death of her dream.

He’s listening to her nightmare.

Jessie’s eyes are wide open. She’s wide awake. She’s not dreaming. But she’s not in Larry Oates’ barn, either, though that’s where her body stands. No. She’s not standing there, face-to-face with Larry Oates’ corpse. Not really. Instead, she’s standing in the only place she can possibly belong anymore — in the deepest, darkest pocket of a living nightmare, with a man who was once the biggest part of her world.

But Jessie and Joe aren’t alone in that nightmare.

In a nightmare, there’s plenty of room.

Jessie sees that, too.

Staring down at Larry Oates’ dead face, Jessie sees that clearly.

Just that fast, Larry Oates’ eyelids flash open.

The dead man gets up.

The doctor runs for it. Smitty grabs him.

“First thing you’ve done right all day,” Oates says.

Smitty swallows hard, and the doc’s shaking like he’s in the throws of the DT’s. “This is impossible,” the little man says, staring at the rope of intestines dangling from Oates’ belly. “It can’t be happening. He’s dead.”

Oates doesn’t pay the bastard any mind. What the doc says doesn’t make any difference to him. Hell, he knows he’s dead.

Or at least he was a minute ago. Now he’s back. He doesn’t know exactly why. Doesn’t much care, either. Hell, it could be he’s some kind of immortal. Or it could be his barn was built on top of some old enchanted Indian burial ground. Could be one of his spacy new-age girlfriends put some kind of mystic spell on him without him even knowing about it. Hell, could be a lot of things.

Maybe Oates could figure it out if he really wanted to. Tug at that rope of intestines sticking out of his belly, pull out his own entrails and read ’em, discover the mysteries of the ages in his coiled guts. But he can’t quite see the percentage in that.

Why he’s come back doesn’t much interest him.

What he can do now that he’s here does.

Oates’ right hand slices the air, palm up and open. Smitty just stares at it, like he expects to see something there.

Jesus, Oates thinks. Like he expects magic. Like he expects something to appear out of nowhere.

“The money, idiot,” Oates says. “Give me the money.”

Smitty’s a couple sandwiches short of a picnic, but he gets the message. He hands the wad to Oates. The dead man starts counting it, and he feels a little better already. There’s something in his gut talking to him, and it ain’t a butterfly knife. No. It’s something down deep, something that tells him everything will be okay if he has this money in his hands —

Only problem is, the money isn’t all there.

Oates remembers now. The restaurant parking lot. The little green jellyroll…

“We’re a little short,” Oates says.

Smitty swallows hard. “Nine hundred bucks. Gotta be that the girl’s got it, but she won’t tell me where it is.”

A quiet voice from the other side of the barn. “You’re never going to know,” Jessie says. “Neither of you.”

Oates blinks at the shadows. The little chick’s over by the workbench. She must have slipped over there while everyone was marveling at his Lazarus act. That wouldn’t be so bad in itself, but she’s holding one of his shotguns. It’s just like the gun he used to cut down her boyfriend, only this hogleg is sawed off.

“You put that down,” Oates says. “I’m already dead. I don’t figure you can kill me twice in one day.”

“Take a step,” she says, “and we’ll find out.”

Oates smiles. He feels pretty good, actually.

“Have it your way,” he says, and then he takes a step forward. Jessie raises the shotgun.