They lacked strength of numbers, for one thing. In the wake of Jack Paradise’s murder and the imprisonment of Jim, the tenuous connections that had held together the always fragile Camp Whiskey community frayed and came apart. An attempt to repel the usurpers from the Order of the Dragon lacked cohesion and direction and was put down in spectacularly brutal fashion. The camp’s mysteriously cowed faux-military wing stood by and let it happen. The bulk of the people saw that the Order could not be overcome and a mass exodus ensued. Allyson had felt a strong urge to run with them, but could not bring herself to do so without Chad, who was riding now in one of the forward vehicles.
Only a small, hardcore group chose not to flee. These were mostly men, and mostly members of the paramilitary unit assembled by Jack Paradise. Most of Jack’s men died alongside him that night. The ones who remained took orders from the Order people, and did so without question. Chad was being held against his will by the Asian woman, but Allyson had a feeling he would have stayed regardless, at least as long as Jim remained alive.
Thinking of that stirred Allyson’s anger anew. The bitch treated him like a piece of property, or a pet, dragging him along wherever she went, striking him whenever he dared to open his mouth. Allyson felt embarrassment on Chad’s behalf any time she witnessed this behavior, and a part of her withered inside every time it happened, as she thought of how humiliating the ordeal must be for him. Doubly frustrating was her utter inability to do anything about it.
The Asian woman forbade any contact between them. Allyson initially wondered why Chad’s new keeper allowed her to stay at Camp Whiskey. She eventually realized the woman was deriving a sadistic enjoyment from Allyson’s predicament, taunting her by flaunting her ownership of Chad. It was a petty, cruel thing. But it was also a good thing. Proximity meant there would one day be an opportunity to exploit. She kept her eyes open. The chance to get away with Chad in tow would present itself. And she damn well intended to make the most of that opportunity.
But now things had changed. Again.
The order to saddle up and head out to the final battle of good versus evil (although Allyson had decided evil versus evil was a more accurate description at this point) had been handed down. Many hundreds of miles later, Allyson was still looking for that perfect moment. The circumstances complicated things. She no longer had an indefinite period of time to work with. She was separated from her man and surrounded by well-armed hostiles.
Still, she wasn’t ready to give up just yet.
She kicked the back of the seat ahead of her and said, “How much farther?”
The man in the seat turned to look at her. He was clad in camos and sported black shades despite the overcast sky. “Not sure. Maybe fifty more miles.” He grinned and licked parched lips. “And hey…k ick my seat again and I’ll come back there to teach you a lesson.”
The man in the driver’s seat-a black man also clad in camos-glanced at the rearview mirror and grinned broadly. “I’d like to tear me off a piece of that, my ownself.”
Allyson snorted. “Either of you pukebags touch me, I’ll tear your fucking eyes out. And anyway, you don’t have time for pussy. You’ve got a big battle to be dying in soon, remember?”
The driver laughed. “Listen to the mouth on her.”
The man in the shotgun seat leered at her. “Don’t worry, baby. I can always make time for pussy, one way or another.”
Allyson slid a hand into a pocket of the heavy winter jacket she was wearing. Her fingers curled around the handle of the big switchblade she’d stashed there earlier. She eased her hand out of the poc ket and clicked the little button on the side. The blade popped out and she lunged forward, slamming the blade into the man’s exposed throat. The man’s shades popped off his face as blood jetted from the hole in his throat. He gaped at Allyson in disbelief even as she yanked the blade out and slammed it into one of his eyes. Allyson did all of this without thinking, instinct driving her, a moment of pure awareness in which she understood on a primal level that the “perfect” moment she hoped for would never arrive. It was much like those fevered moments in the dark kitchen of Chad’s house as she’d slaughtered those men in black, her mind and body operating with surprising efficiency in stripped-down reptile-brain mode.
And brutal murder was like anything-it got easier with practice.
Blood spurted over her hands and soaked the front of her jacket. The man tried to twist away from her, but she grabbed the front of his shirt and held him close, yanking the blade from his eye and whipping it around again, punching it through his temple, somehow keeping her aim true as the driver screamed and swerved on the winding back road.
Allyson turned her snarling face toward the driver and said,“Slow down and let the others get around that bend.”
She pulled the bloody blade out of the dead man’s head and brandished it.
“Do it or die.”
The man was shaking and crying, robbed utterly of any remaining shred of bravado or machismo. “Y-y-y-yeah…o-kay… please…”
And he did it. The van ahead of them disappeared around the bend. The Jeep slowed and Allyson ordered the driver to park at the shoulder. Again, he did as instructed, tears streaming down his face as he mewled like a snot-nosed kid on a playground standing in the shadow of a bully. Allyson pushed the shotgun seat forward, threw the door open, and got out. She hauled the dead man’s body out of the Jeep and deposited it in the ditch beyond the shoulder. The whole time the Jeep was in gear and running, its engine chugging, exhaust kicking out steam in the winter’s air.
Allyson climbed back inside, assuming the position formerly occupied by the dead, would-be rapist. She pulled the pistol from the driver’s holster and jammed the barrel against his side.
“Drive. Now.”
The driver looked at the pistol she’d so easily taken from him. Then he looked at her, simple, numb disbelief in his eyes. “I could’ve killed you. Or left you. Or-”
Allyson jabbed the pistol harder against him. “But you didn’t. You fucked up. Because you’re not as hardcore as you thought. But I am, motherfucker. So now you’re gonna drive. Catch up to the rest of those assholes before they know anything’s wrong. Make me say it again, I’ll shoot your ass and do it my damn self.”
The Jeep lurched forward.
The engine rattled and ate up highway.
They caught up and kept rolling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The spoon slipped from her fingers and landed with a small thump on the little card table. It landed upside down, its meager load of mashed potatoes dumped onto the scuffed and scratched black surface. Ellen groped for the spoon’s handle again, managed to grasp it at an awkward angle, and raised it again to her mouth. This time the spoon actually entered her mouth. A sound of simple triumph issued from the back of her throat.
Marcy sighed. “That’s something, anyway. You didn’t get any actual food in your mouth, but hell, you’re getting there.”
She settled back in her chair and stared at the thing that was supposed to be her sister. The creature was the spitting image of Ellen. Marcy was impressed by what Dream had accomplished, this godlike act of forming life out of seeming thin air. It had been Alicia’s idea, to see if Dream could deliberately do what she’d done with her, recreating a dead friend from a synthesis of memories, spiritual essence, and, for lack of a better word, magic. Dream had been wary at first, and then curious, as she became increasingly interested in testing the limits of her abilities. Marcy had been so numb, so grief-stricken, and so willing to gr asp at any straw.
So one night on their way to this place they stopped at a cheap motel on the outskirts of a rural community. Dream and Marcy crawled into bed together. They wrapped their bodies around each other, limbs entwined in the most intimate ways possible. There’d been nothing sexual about this, just an instinctual understanding that they needed to be as close to each other as possible in order to effect this unique process of creation. The darkness and relative silence served to enhance their concentration. Marcy’s mind filled with images and thoughts of Ellen and nothing else. She visualized her dead sister so well Ellen seemed to come alive in her mind. She fell asleep in Dream’s embrace, and thoughts of Ellen followed her into dreams so vivid, so lucid, they felt as real as anything from her waking life. As she awakened in the dim light of the following morning, she heard a sound like the scared whimpering of a lost puppy. Then she’d opened her eyes and there was her reborn sister, nude and huddled in a corner of the dingy room.
She’d felt such joy in those first moments, a feeling subsequently tempered by the realization the creature they’d created was essentially an empty vessel. But the reborn Ellen did seem to recognize Marcy and the others in a dim way, and it was this little thing that provided the shred of hope necessary to keep going. Dream had pledged to work with her every day until Ellen was fully restored. Marcy had faith in her friend and believed this would eventually happen.
She looked into Ellen’s stupid, vacant eyes again and sighed.
Marcy didn’t doubt the sincerity of Dream’s intent. They’d formed a strong bond over the course of those long, frequently surreal months on the road. The complicating factor, however, was Dream’s near-constant state of inebriation. She’d stayed drunk or high much of the time during their travels, but the camaraderie of the road had obscured the extent of her problem. Now, though, the truth of Dream’s dependency was plain to see. She had the perpetually dour aura of the clinically depressed. She was obviously self-medicating. In a way, it was understandable. It wasn’t as if she could seek the aid of a psychiatrist or any other type of mental health professional.
But knowing this failed to alleviate Marcy’s frustration. Her friend was a god. Or something very close to a god. And that was simultaneously very cool and fucked- up to the nth degree. Cool because it allowed Dream and her friends a level of freedom few people would ever experience. And fucked up because Dream inwardly remained so quintessentially human and frail despite her gift.
Ellen was eating with her fingers again, stuffing mashed potatoes and meatballs into her mouth with messy abandon. Marcy refrained from slapping her wrist this time. She watched the girl eat and tried to imagine a future in which her sister was functioning at a higher cognitive state, a time when she might exist as a reasonable approximation of the sibling she’d known. She tried to imagine having actual conversations with her, perhaps reminiscing about things from their childhoods.
Ellen’s teeth chomped down on her fingers and drew blood. The girl let out a squeal of pain and stared at her mangled fingers in dumb disbelief. A thin trickle of crimson slid over the heel of her hand and down her wrist. It wasn’t the first time Ellen 2 had injured herself. Marcy very much doubted it would be the last. And now she’d have to clean the idiot’s hand and swab the wounds with disinfectant. Her mind did that forward projection thing again, saw years of tending to this creature, and a black despair seeped into her heart.
Then Ellen held her hand toward Marcy. Her mouth opened and emitted a single syllable:“Hurt.”
Marcy’s mouth dropped open. The word was the first intelligible thing Ellen 2 had uttered since the morning she was conjured into existence in that dank hotel
