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  “Goddamnit!” Larry screamed, and then swerved hard, bringing the two of them together in a sickening crunch of grinding metal, trapping Snake’s arm as both cars turned sideways and sped down into the grassy median, two cars melded into one huge twisted piece of scraping wreckage as Bryan looked out his window at a world that suddenly seemed so surreal, almost as if he were a casual observer, back home with Carrie, watching a DVD.

  Bear screamed, both of his massive hands clutching the steering wheel while whoever sat next to him gripped the dash, much like Bryan had. Snake, his arm still trapped between the grinding metal, wailed like a rock star with his nuts caught in a vise, while the other screaming passenger pounded the seat in front of him

  The cars shot up the other side of the median. Then they were airborne, the hand gripping the pistol flying straight up as the vehicles separated, the raw and ragged stump of its wrist dangling uselessly against a passenger door that flew suddenly open. The Goat slammed into the front of an eighteen wheeler, which had already locked up brakes and was screeching jackknifed down the highway, the impact sending its driver headfirst through the shattered front window, Snake’s door popping open, leaving him tumbling through the air like somebody’s sick version of a child’s rag doll while the Z-car flipped sideways end-over-end, bouncing off the hood of a Mustang and sending Bree sailing into the front seats, screaming, the roof crushing down and smacking Bryan’s head, the Z-car jolting against the pavement, tires bursting and screaming as both cars careened aslant off the opposite side of the interstate while the G.T.O. and the tractor it had collided with exploded into a fiery ball of flame, so intense it pounded the ground into an earth-shattering lurch as a severed hand landed splat on the crumpled hood of the twisted piece of blue Camaro, which now sat facing the burning Goat and rig.

  The rest of Snake came down a few yards in front of them. He groaned and rolled over, tried to push himself up, and then collapsed onto the grass.

  The Camaro’s severely buckled roof pressed Bryan against the dashboard. Larry’s chest rested snugly on the steering wheel, Bree’s legs folded across his. The rest of her was pinned beneath Bryan’s chest, her face pressed against his crotch. Larry moved his arms and flexed his fingers, turned his head toward Bryan, and said, “Are we dead yet?”

  Even though his heart was in his throat and his stomach was where his heart should have been, Bryan laughed. Because they were alive, and there was no blood, no screaming or freaking out, and as far as he could tell none of them were seriously injured.

  And at the moment, that asinine comment seemed absolutely hilarious.

  “Bree,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  Her jaw moved against his crotch when she answered, “I think so.”

  Larry said, “Dude, can you reach that?”

  “What?”

  “That.” He pointed at the piece of joint smoldering on the floorboard.

  “I don’t think so,” Bryan said. “How about you, Bree?”

  Her jaw dug into the side of Bryan’s leg. “I can’t see shit.”

  “Dude, the cops are gonna be here any minute. We’ve got to get rid of that shit.”

  People were running back and forth in front of them, some screaming, some not, probably shocked into silence. Flames engulfed the burned-out shell of the Goat, sending the sickening sweet aroma of roasted flesh wafting through the air, a smell that made Bryan think of Larry’s parents.

  Sirens blared in the distance.

  “Bree,” Larry said. “Where’s the rest of the pot?”

  “Stuffed down my pants.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “I can’t. I’m pinned in. I can’t… get my hands in there.”

  “Goddamnit,” Larry muttered, then, “Bryan, reach in and dig it out, quick, before the cops get here.”

  “Geez, I don’t know.”

  Bree, giggling, said, “I don’t mind.”

  “Just do it, Bryan. You don’t want to go to jail, do you? Bree, move your left hand a couple of inches forward”—she did and her fingers brushed the smoldering roach—“Feel it?”

  The back of Bree’s head nodded forward. “Uh huh,” she said.

  “Grab it and pass it up to Bryan.”

  The sirens grew closer as Bryan flattened his hand and snaked it under Bree’s leather pants—She’s not wearing underwear!—felt around for the baggy, touched it and pulled it out.

  “Cool, Dude! Which one do you want?”

  “What?”

  “We’ve gotta eat that shit!”

  A young dude ran up to the car and knelt down next to Larry. Head shaven, he had a gold loop in his right ear. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Larry said. “Go get us some help.”

  “Hang on, y’all, the fire truck’s almost here. Cops are leading the meat wagons.”

  Meat wagons, Bryan thought. Christ.

  He handed the roach to Larry, and fished the sticky bud out of the baggy.

  Stripping the pot off the stem, he tossed the naked stick out his open window and popped the rest into his mouth, chewed and swallowed.

  Larry said, “All gone?”

  Bryan nodded.

  “Cool, Dude.”

  “They’re still going to drug test you.”

  “I’ve got a plan.”

  “What?”

  Smiling, Larry said, “Play dumb and hope for the best?”

  “I got news for you, Dude. You ain’t playin’.”

  A fire truck pulled up in front of the burning wreckage, men in boots and hats and fire retardant trench coats springing into action, pulling hoses, spraying water, some fanning out to other cars that lay wrecked on the side of the road.

  Two Charlotte city police cars rolled up, followed by three ambulances. Two state troopers arrived, then one riding a motorcycle. The motorcycle cop hurried over to the Z-car. “You guys all right?” he said.

  “Yeah,” Larry said.

  The cop tried the door. No way was that twisted piece of metal going to give, though. “Hang on,” he said. “We’ll get you out soon as we can.” Then he disappeared behind them and ran down to the Mustang.

  “Oh, fuck,” Bryan muttered.

  “What?” Larry said.

  Bryan couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it until now.

  The whup whup whup of helicopter blades were getting closer by the minute.

  Then the whining of the engine as the blades came to a stop, and the engine stopped, too.

  “What’ve we got?”

  Bryan recognized that voice instantly.

  “It’s a goddamn mess. Look at this shit… bodies everywhere. Got three pinned up like sardines in that blue and white Z-car, or what’s left of it.”

  “Z-car?”

  Oh shit!

  Footfalls approached.

  I went out to change the flat and the spare was flat, and…

  A helmet, then narrow shoulders clad in a flak-jacket appeared on the horizon.

  Larry gave me a ride and we got the flats repaired, and…

  Carrie knelt beside the car and gasped. “Larry? You all right in there?”

  “My back hurts.”

  “Hang on, buddy. We’ll have you out in no time.” She walked around to the passenger door. Kneeling beside it, she looked in at a young girl in tight leather pants stretched out across her husband’s lap, her face buried in his crotch. “You have got to be shitting me!”

  “My neck hurts,” Bryan whimpered, hoping like hell the shock of seeing him still alive in this twisted piece of metal might garner him some sympathy.

  “Not as much as your ass is gonna when I stick my foot up it,” Carrie muttered, leaving Bree snickering into Bryan’s pants as she turned and walked away.

  Chapter Nine

  The pills were on the desk, right where Graham Greystone wanted them. A small brown bottle chock full of his precious little nitroglycerin tablets.

  Don’t leave home without it!

  He wouldn’t think of i
t.

  Not Graham. Not after what he’d been through.

  First mass market novel published at nineteen, at least one a year since—some years, two. Thirty-eight novels spanning a twenty-seven year career, a short story collection or three along the way. His signed, limited edition novellas, a much anticipated event in the small press world of horror fiction, usually sold out in short order. Graham couldn’t remember the last time he had walked through a Barnes and Noble without seeing one or more of his books on the shelves. Used bookstores throughout the globe had dedicated Graham Greystone sections full of old dog-eared paperbacks. Accolades garnered, awards won, websites around the world heralding his greatness. He might not have been Stephen King, but King damn well knew who Graham Greystone was.

  Graham lived a life most could only dream of: rising late while others trudged the early morning byways to earn their meager livings, toiling away at jobs they hated. He rarely met anyone who actually enjoyed their work, or received the same kind of pleasure from their lives as he did.

  Or had.

  Graham had cruised through forty-six years of life with barely a care in the world, traveled extensively, and even though married to his childhood sweetheart, he had wined and dined and fornicated his way through every town he’d visited. He knew from whence his next meal would come and who would sign his next paycheck. Life, for Graham, was a piece of freshly-baked chocolate cake, a bowl of bright red cherries.

  Until he woke up last Halloween in a state of panic.

  He’d been dreaming about his father, who had dropped dead on Graham’s sixteenth birthday. He opened his eyes to see his dad’s terror-stricken face, his gaping mouth wailing ‘help me!’ as the ghostly pale visage drifted like wisps of smoke across the dark room and out the open window. Graham often wondered if he really had seen his father that night, or if it was an illusion manufactured by a mind literary critics had dubbed the modern master of haunting tales of apparitional horror.

  He had woken, drenched in sweat, to the hollow echo of his father’s plea, and his wife’s urine stream splashing into the toilet. He blamed his queasy stomach on the pizza he and Susan had shared earlier; the throbbing in his left arm from being trapped beneath him while he slept, the crushing pain—like an elephant break-dancing on his chest, he’d later tell the doctor—caused by his nightmarish fantasy.

  Graham knew he would’ve joined his father if Susan hadn’t emerged from the bathroom and turned the bedside table lamp on to find him stammering and stuttering and huffing for breath. If she’d not had sense enough to dial 911, Graham would now be in the hereafter, keeping company with the likes of those lost souls who populate his novels.

  He’d sat in the doctor’s office, barely registering his words of advice: ‘Stop smoking, eat less, exercise more… lose weight.’ It didn’t seem real. He felt like he was eavesdropping, a ringside observer watching someone else deal with their heart attack.

  How was he going to lose weight? More exercise? Graham lived a writer’s sedentary lifestyle; any exercise would be more exercise. Stop smoking? Yeah, right… maybe he could try—he would try. Eat less? Geez, he didn’t eat that much. Later that night, the overweight and out of shape writer jokingly posted an entry at the HorrorFan message board that he’d had Heart Attack .05, but that he felt better already and was sure he would be back to normal in no time at all.

  And he was. Days went by, months passed. Graham, who had cut back to a cigarette in the morning and one or two throughout the day, found himself chain-smoking again, banging away at the keyboard with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips. Hell, why not? He felt better. That was the way he’d always done it and that was what he did best.

  Back to normal, working his way through a new manuscript.

  Until a sucker punch from Heart Attack 1.0 left him on a stretcher in back of a rescue unit, wondering if he would live to see the emergency room or not. He did live, and although that episode had not been as severe as the first, it had laid him lower than at any point in his life.

  This time he paid attention to his doctor. He went on the diet, and did not complain when Susan took his cigarettes and coffee away. Graham’s body slowly began to recover, but not his mind. He’d get winded going up the stairs to his bedroom, refuse to walk outside and get the mail. Months went by as Graham sat on the couch in a state of perpetual exhaustion, anxious and depressed, while Susan did every household chore he had once been responsible for. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t write. His manuscript lay unfinished and he didn’t seem to care, could not care, could not allow himself to worry about it lest his fluttering heart land him toes-up in back of a red-and-white rescue vehicle on his way to the Chesterfield County morgue.

  Writer, Graham Greystone: dead at forty-six.

  Graham brushed a strand of shoulder-length gray hair away from his neck, rubbed an index finger across his neatly trimmed beard, and turned to the twenty-one inch flat panel Sony computer monitor Susan had given him two Christmases ago. He grabbed the mouse and negotiated his way to the HorrorFan message board. Pushing his wire-framed glasses back into place on the bridge of his nose, he read one of the posts aloud, “Where is Scary Mary?”, scanned down to one from a couple of days ago: Anybody Heard From Mary?

  Graham knew she was a permanent fixture at HorrorFan, that she posted messages there on a daily basis. He wondered where she was and hoped she was all right. Maybe she’d already flown down for Horrorcon. She could be sitting at the Orlando Clairton right now, sipping Margaritas and munching chips.

  Hoping I’ll show up?

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he muttered, remembering the risqué comments she’d littered the board with about what she planned to do to him if he did show up. “She was just talking big, like people do when they’re an anonymous name on a message board.”

  Probably weighs three hundred pounds, anyway.

  “Just what I need, a three hundred pound accountant jumping my bones.”

  Writer, Graham Greystone: flat as a pancake at forty-six.

  Maybe she’s not fat. Maybe she’s young, fit and trim. Beautiful, with firm, round breasts, blue eyes and a model’s pretty smile. Maybe she’s not kidding around.

  Forget it. You’d drop dead trying to fuck her.

  “Sure wouldn’t mind seeing what she looks like, though.”

  “Graham?”

  “Huh?” Graham swiveled around in his chair. His glasses slid down and he pushed them back into place. “Oh, hi, Susan.”

  “Honey, I need some things from the store.”

  “Well?” Graham paused for a moment. “Go get them.”

  “I’m in the middle of cooking. I need you to get them for me.”

  “Aw, Christ, Susan.”

  “It’ll do you good to get out of the house, get a little exercise.”

  “Have a little heart attack, more like it,” he muttered.

  “Please, Graham. You can’t sit around like a lump all day, staring at the computer.”

  “But… ”

  “Gee whiz, Graham, you’re not even working on a manuscript. No wonder you can’t get over your incident. All you do is lie around waiting for the next one.”

  “Susan… ”

  “Look, get up. Go out in the fresh air and sunshine. Feel how wonderful it is to be alive. Quit sitting around waiting to die. That’s what you’re doing, you know.”

  Graham looked up at his wife, at the lustrous chestnut colored hair that fell in waves across her petite shoulders. She was wearing a loose-fitting blouse tucked into a faded pair of jeans, a light blue apron over her pale white Liz Claiborne top. Even with a smudge of flour on her cheek, she was as pretty as the day they’d married. Graham felt a momentary pang of guilt for all the times he had betrayed their wedding vows, and hoped like hell she never found out.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said.

  Smiling, Susan winked at him. “Of course I am.”

  Graham, pushing his sliding keyboard tray into the desk, rolled hi
s chair back and stood up, walked over to Susan and brushed a lock of hair away from her face, kissed her cheek and said, “Of course you are.”

  At the door, Susan said, “Why don’t you go to a store in town, cross the river. Take a nice long drive, the scenery will do you good.”

  “We’ll see,” Graham told her. He had on a light blue Nautica shirt, decorated with swimming sharks, shirttails hanging over the tops of a tan pair of Tommy Hilfiger shorts. His white Reebok running shoes had blue piping down their sides. Keys in hand, he walked down the stairs of their redbrick two-story colonial-style home, across a lush yard to a three-year-old, graphite-metallic Jeep Grand Cherokee. A long line of shrubbery stood sentinel along his driveway. A row of hedges fenced in the property’s front.

  Graham got in the Jeep and settled into the two-toned leather-trimmed seat, fired up the engine and put the car into gear, and then pulled onto the street. He drove for a couple of blocks, and then took a right, then a left up Parrish Avenue.

  Graham sighed. Susan was right. He wasn’t living anymore. He was sitting around waiting to die. Getting away from the house was probably a good thing. He didn’t freeze up when he stepped outside, had no shortness of breath on his way across the yard. Maybe he was better than he thought. Maybe his body was farther along in its recuperative process, in spite of the fact that Graham had done very little to help it. She was right about something else, too: he needed to get back to work. All he had to do was fire up the word processor, knuckle down and finish the tale. Hell, he’d been barreling along toward the end the night of his last attack, would’ve easily polished it off the next day. Now his manuscript lay unfinished, thirty or so pages from its end.

  Graham stopped at a red light. In the distance, a group of children were tossing a football back and forth in Chimley Park. Graham thought about his brother and sister, and his own childhood back in Chicago. Then he thought about his dad and that weird dream, the hollow lament of ‘help me!’ that had started this whole miserable ball of wax rolling.