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  The cops took notes. They pried, they prodded and asked leading questions. They didn’t seem to believe them. The motorcycle cop mentioned drugs and the state trooper made Larry blow into a tube. The two beers he’d had back at Fast Eddie’s barely registered, but both cops gave him hell about it. The city cop wanted to run him in for DUI, but Larry was able to convince him that none of it was his fault, that it could have happened to anyone. They were just three friends out for a ride who had run afoul of a car full of maniacs.

  The state trooper finally called a halt to the proceedings. He offered them a lift to the nearest telephone, and the other policeman lumbered away. Bree followed Larry and Bryan to the silver and blue Highway Patrol car. Once inside, the officer headed north on the grassy shoulder, and Bryan got an up-close-and-personal view of an endless line of traffic stretching as far as the eye could see. When the policeman dropped them at the gas station, Larry called a cab, and then paid for the fare when they arrived home.

  They all went into Bryan’s house and had a beer. Oddly enough, they didn’t talk much about the accident at all, just drank their beer and joked around. Larry did bring up what Carrie had said, and Bree joined in with some good-natured ribbing, but that died down quickly when an apprehensive look crept across Bryan’s face.

  Bree and Larry followed Bryan out to the Honda, and Bryan and Larry put the tire on the car. When they finished, Bryan handed Larry the keys. He watched the Honda pull away from the curb, and went back inside. After turning on the television, he lay back on the couch, closed his eyes and thought about his neighbor.

  Larry was fantastic. He’d told the police just enough to keep them in the clear. And no telling what might have happened back at Fast Eddie’s if Larry hadn’t whacked Snake with that cue stick. Larry even remembered to grab Bryan’s tires out of the trunk before they took off with the state trooper. Of course, he wouldn’t have been in this mess at all if he hadn’t gone off drinking with his neighbor. But that wasn’t Larry’s fault. It wasn’t like he’d twisted Bryan’s arm to get him there. No. When it came down to it, all of this was Bryan’s doing. If only he had kept his promise to his wife, he would have noticed the flat and the disabled spare, would’ve taken Carrie’s truck yesterday and had the tires fixed. He wouldn’t have run into Larry; they wouldn’t have met Bree. None of this would have happened. And he was sure that was exactly what Carrie would say when she walked through the front door.

  … Married With Children’s theme song started to play. Moments later, the clock chimed six. Bryan opened his eyes to see one of WCNC’s talking heads appear on the screen—‘Dramatic footage,’ he said, as an aerial shot of flames and rising smoke, wrecked automobiles, the burned out shell of the G.T.O. and the jackknifed eighteen-wheeler flashed across the screen.

  A vehicle pulled into the driveway, its tires crunching across the crushed-shell surface as Bryan sat up. He grabbed the TV remote from the coffee table and clicked off the television, stood up and sat back down. He looked down at his hands, which were balled into fists, and had instantly started to sweat. His stomach felt queasy. For a brief moment he felt lightheaded. He didn’t know what to do. He flashed back to the day his sixth grade English teacher had sent him to the principal’s office for shooting spitballs across the room. The long, lonely walk down that deserted hallway was like walking to the backyard to pick out a switch, all the while knowing when he got back his old man was going wear his ass out with it.

  And that was what Bryan felt like when the doorknob turned: a lonely little boy waiting for the axe to fall.

  Carrie opened the door and stepped into the short hallway. Plastic grocery bags clutched in both hands, she bumped the door closed with her hip. Bryan stood up and took a step toward her, and then stopped and said, “Hi.”

  “Where’s the Honda?”

  “I let Larry borrow it.”

  Carrie set the bags on the floor, walked over and put a hand on the side of Bryan’s neck, and gently rubbed it. Silky blonde hair fell across her narrow shoulders. She smelled just as wonderful as when she had left the house that morning, like South Carolina peach blossoms on a backwoods country road. Smiling at him, she said, “Are you all right?”

  Bryan nodded.

  Carrie told him to take off his shirt. Her hand dropped down to his waist, and she helped him out of it. Running her hand down his chest, she gently pressed his ribs, and then lightly stroked his belly. “How’s your neck?”

  Bryan shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Bryan had wondered what he would say when the time came. He thought about Larry, how he had told just enough to keep him and Bryan out of trouble. Then he thought of what Larry had said earlier in the car after they had left General Tire: ‘Just tell her the truth.’ And that was what he did. He told her about opening the trunk and finding the flat spare tire. How Larry had come along and given him a lift to get the tires repaired. He told her he had gone to Fast Eddie’s because by the time they left the tire store it was too late to make it across town anyway. Then he told her everything: Bree, and how he’d come to sign her breast; Snake pulling his knife; the sound Larry’s cue stick made when it slammed into Snake’s face; the gunshot and the bullet whizzing by his face; racing up the exit ramp, Snake leaning out the window while bullets punched through the Z-car; the noise Snake made when the cars went careening sideways into the median.

  “Like a rock star with his nuts in a vise,” he said, and Carrie laughed.

  He started to tell her about the wreckage and the traffic lined up on the interstate, but Carrie cut him off by touching a finger to his lips.

  “I was there,” she said. “Remember?”

  Then she lifted her own t-shirt, pulled it up and over her shoulders, shook her hair and let it fall. Reaching behind her back, she unsnapped her bra, slipped it off and it dropped to the floor. She laced her arms around him, and pressed her naked breasts against him. They kissed. Bryan led her to the couch and they fell into it, shed the rest of their clothes and made love.

  When it was over, Carrie pointed out that it was a miracle he hadn’t been killed, and Bryan agreed that it was. She told him that none of this would’ve happened had he just followed through on his promise, and Bryan said that she was right. Not to keep the peace, but because he knew that she was right.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Carrie walked naked across the room, picked up the groceries and carried them to the kitchen. She returned to find Bryan, who had slipped into his shorts, picking up his t-shirt.

  Carrie held out her hand, wiggled her fingers and said, “Gimme.”

  Bryan tossed her the shirt. “Here you go, Lady Godiva,” he said, and then gathered up Carrie’s discarded clothes and gave those to her as well.

  “Thank you, my valiant young steed,” she told him. On her way across the room, she stopped and turned. “Pizza for dinner? I was going to cook, but I don’t think I want to anymore.”

  Grinning, Bryan said, “Tuckered out, eh?”

  “Oh, the lady could cook, but then she might not feel like going for another ride.”

  “I’ll call it in.”

  “I’ll call it in. After I’ve had a nice hot bath.”

  Carrie disappeared into the hallway, and Bryan went into the kitchen. He grabbed a Miller Lite from the fridge, twisted off the cap and flipped it into the garbage, took a sip, and then carried the bottle with him to his computer room, where he opened the door, flicked the light on and sat down.

  In his chair, waiting for the computer to finish its boot process, Bryan thought about how lucky he had been. A maniac had pulled a knife on him. One bullet had come so close, he’d actually heard it pass by his head. An inch or two to the right and it would have been Bryan’s head exploding instead of Larry’s headrest. The car had left the ground and tumbled in mid air, smacked another car and landed right-side-up. All around them people had lain injured and dying—not to mention the severed hand landing on the Z-car’s
hood. Seven people, Carrie had told him. Seven killed, six more injured. A nine-vehicle-pile-up.

  That’s movie shit, he thought, and then closed his eyes, bowing his head and wondering why he, Larry and Bree had come through it with barely a scratch. Was it God’s will, some kind of a plan? Or just what Larry had said: dumb luck.

  Bryan sighed, opened his eyes and clicked his mouse. The computer chimed as Windows XP welcomed him aboard. He opened his browser and his email to see a myriad of messages flooding his Outlook Express screen—most of it Spam, from what he could see. Just for the hell of it, he opened the first email, shaking his head at a corny sales pitch from a woman swearing she had just the thing to make women howl with delight when Bryan made love to them. It reminded Bryan of the John Holmes Peter Pump ads in back of the old Hustler magazines he used to sneak from under his dad’s bed. He wondered how many suckers had fallen for that one, and if his old man had been one of them.

  Bryan fired up his word processor, and then navigated his way to the manuscript he’d been working on, double-clicked it and the title page appeared on the screen. He thought about that woman up in Asheville. This morning, the newspaper article had sent his imagination into high gear. He couldn’t wait to get back home and work his ideas into the story. Now all he could think about was the horror she must have felt, the suffering she must have endured. Maybe his own brush with the fates had brought the point home: pain and suffering was real. Death was more than just words on the printed page of a horror novel. It was final, something to be feared.

  Bryan closed the document and scrolled through his emails, deleting the unsolicited Spam as he came to it. Halfway down, a heading entitled Submission caught his eye. It was from the editor of Hell Bent Press, one of a handful of small press publishers who had actually managed to hang around a few years, and make a profit doing it. He was intrigued by the message because he had not submitted anything to them. Bryan double-clicked and smiled. Richard Chadwick had just read Blood Bath, and was inviting Bryan to send a manuscript his way. Bryan had an atmospheric ghost story sitting idle on his hard drive, too short for the demanding high word counts of mass market publishers like Harrow, and if he’d tried to stretch it out it would have been obvious and annoying for the reader. It was nothing like Blood Bath, but it could be just what Chadwick was looking for.

  Bryan clicked the linked email address in Chadwick’s message, navigated to his completed novels folder, highlighted The Woman She Was and attached it to his reply.

  Then he typed out a message of his own:

  Rich,

  Great to hear from you, and what a fantastic opportunity. I think you’ll like The Woman She Was. It’s quite a departure from the savagery of some of my other stuff, but I’m very proud of it. Let me know what you think.

  Best,

  Bryan Kenney.

  Bryan read over his reply a couple of times, changed a word or two and then changed it back. Then he smiled and sent the message on its way.

  What a stroke of luck, he thought. If he could pump out a couple of these babies a year and put out a mass market or two with Harrow, he’d be well on his way to making some good money. And who knows? Maybe word of mouth would spread and New York would pick up one or two of his limited editions. Maybe he’d get that mythical three book deal with Bantam or Dell. Why not? He’d already scaled his own personal Mount Olympus. Why not shoot for the stars?

  “Easy, boy,” he muttered. “Don’t put the horse before the cart. Chadwick has to accept your story first.”

  He swiveled around in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “He’ll accept it.”

  Why wouldn’t he?

  “It’s nothing like Blood Bath.”

  Maybe he won’t!

  “Bryan?” Carrie, who had opened the door, poked her head into the room. “The pizza guy just pulled up.”

  Bryan stood up. “Cool,” he said, and then grabbed his beer off the desktop and made his way across the room.

  “Who were you talking to?” she asked as he joined her in the hallway.

  Bryan laughed. “Aw, some crazy fucker,” he said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The first thing Graham did after taking his purchases to the kitchen was drift toward the television Susan was listening to while puttering around setting dishes on the table. He was walking into the living room when a talking head announced, ‘Coming up at five.’ Quick as he could, he grabbed the remote off the couch, snapping the TV off just as the five o’clock local news logo flashed across the screen.

  “Graham?” Susan called from the dining room. “I was listening to that.”

  “Oh, Gawd, Susan. I’ve had talk radio jabbering in my ear all the way home. I don’t think I can take anymore.”

  Susan appeared in the archway that led to the dining room. “Talk radio?”

  Graham smiled at Susan’s shocked tone, because he never listened to talk radio—despised it, actually—and she knew it.

  “I hit the AM button by mistake, trying to get away from that Heavy Metal nonsense of yours. Thanks for that, by the way.”

  She laughed. “Graham, you old coot. You used to love the hard stuff.”

  “Yes, dear, and when I was nineteen I’d stay up all night drinking Boiler Makers.”

  “Nineteen? You’d still be knocking ‘em down if it wasn’t for that second heart attack.”

  “But I wouldn’t be staying up all night,” Graham quipped. “Some people actually grow up when they grow up.”

  Susan walked over, leaned against her husband and kissed his bearded cheek.

  “You’re such a grumpy old bear,” she said.

  To drive home his point, Graham said, “If I had to stomach another minute’s worth of two morons arguing about whether or not the President is full of shit, I think I’d go crazy.”

  “Where’s the argument in that?”

  Chuckling, Graham performed a little slight of hand by nonchalantly slipping the remote into his right front pocket, and then gave his wife’s shoulder a little pat before walking over to a polished walnut entertainment center. Knickknacks and family portraits lined the shelves of the sturdy three-piece structure, amongst gourds of various shapes and sizes that lay nestled in a nest of silken brown leaves. A miniature pumpkin sat next to a ceramic witch sitting sideways on a broomstick. Pinecones and artificial yellow flowers lay along the top front edge and a spider web made of thin filaments of string hung from the top right-hand corner. A rubber tarantula as big as a fist stared down at a miniature G.I. Joe doll entwined in the webbing.

  Graham grabbed two black metal handles attached to the sliding wooden doors and drew them back, folding them inward until the panels came together to hide the TV.

  “What,” Susan said, “we’re not watching any television tonight?”

  “Why don’t we listen to some music instead,” Graham said, more a statement than a question. “Something calm and soothing.”

  He bent over, running his hand down a row of CDs, to a compilation disc he had made: Thelonius Monk and Charlie Parker, Boney James, a little Rippingtons and Peter White thrown in for good measure. After making his selection, he opened one of two small glass doors that shielded his stereo components, and popped the disc into the player. Keyboards played over the speakers. A bass joined in, followed by a saxophone.

  “Nice,” said Susan.

  Graham nodded his agreement, shut the door and stood upright. “Nobody does it like Monk.”

  “I’ve got a roast in the oven. It’s pretty much done, we can eat whenever you’re ready.”

  “Why don’t we have a drink instead?”

  “Margaritas?”

  “I was thinking Boilermakers.”

  Susan rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right,” she said.

  Laughing, Graham said, “Margaritas will be fine.”

  Susan turned and walked into the dining room.

  Phase one of Graham’s plan had succeeded. He had silenced that blasted TV right in the nick of time by out
flanking his wife with some off-the-wall bullshit excuse. No easy task, to be sure, because Susan liked to watch, or at least listen to the local news in the afternoon—usually while preparing their dinner. Graham took a step toward his study to initiate phase two, but a vehicle turning into his driveway stopped him dead in his tracks. His heart fluttered, thumping in his chest as all the color drained from his face.

  Because they’d already found him.

  He wanted to cry out to Susan to ‘hide me!’, but he didn’t. He walked across the room, parted the curtains and peered out the window at a rust-colored four-wheel-drive sitting at the end of his driveway. The driver, who took up at least half of the truck, leaned out his window and spat a mouthful of tobacco juice onto Graham’s yard. The guy had bushy brown hair and a thick beard. He held a clipboard in front of the steering wheel, moving a hand across it as if writing something. He was huge, just like the redneck Graham had injured back at the red light. Graham thought he looked an awfully lot like him.

  It could have been his brother, or his cousin. Maybe that big bastard had remembered his license number and they’d already tracked him down.

  Graham wiped a shaking hand across his forehead and it came away drenched in sweat. His other hand patted his shirt, looking for the magic pill that could stop the hammering in his chest. He didn’t know what he would do if the truck continued up his driveway, and that big redneck came pounding on his door.

  The driver tossed his clipboard away and looked up at the house.