Bumper Crop (14 page)

"Oh, God," she said, clinging to me. "Let's do it, let's do it."

We did. First time was a drizzly night and we caught an old woman out. She was a lot of fun until we got the knives out and then she went quick. There was that crippled kid next, lured him from the theater downtown, and how we did that was a stroke of genius. You'll find his wheelchair not far from where you found the van and the other stuff.

But no matter. You know what we did, about the kinds of tools we had, about how we hung that crippled kid on that meat hook in my van until the flies clustered around the doors thick as grapes.

And of course there was the little girl. It was a brilliant idea of Gloria's to get the kid's tricycle into the act. The things she did with those spokes. Ah, but that woman was a connoisseur of pain.

There were two others, each quite fine, but not as nice as the last. Then came the night Gloria looked at me and said, "It's not enough. Just won't do."

I smiled. "No way, baby. I still won't die for you."

"No," she gasped, and took my arm. "You miss my drift. It's the pain I need, not just the watching. I can't live through them, can't feel it in me. Don't you see, it would be the ultimate."

I looked at her, wondering did I have it right.

"Do you love me?"

"I do," I said.

"To know that I would spend the last of my life with you, that my last memories would be the pleasure on your face, the feelings of pain, the excitement, the thrill, the terror."

Then I understood, and understood good. Right there in the car I grabbed her, took her by the throat and cracked her head against the windshield, pressed her back, choked, released, choked, made it linger. By this time I was quite a pro. She coughed, choked, smiled. Her eyes swung from fear to love. God it was wonderful and beautiful and the finest experience we had ever shared.

When she finally lay still there in the seat, I was trembling, happier than I had ever been. Gloria looked fine, her eyes rolled up, her lips stretched in a rictus smile.

I kept her like that at my place for days, kept her in my bed until the neighbors started to complain about the smell.

I've been talking to this guy and he's got some ideas. Says he thinks I'm one of the future generation, and the fact of that scares him all to hell. A social mutation, he says. Man's primitive nature at the height of the primal scream.

Dog shit, we're all the same, so don't look at me like I'm some kind of freak. What does he do come Monday night? He's watching the football game, or the races or boxing matches, waiting for a car to overturn or for some guy to be carried out of the ring with nothing but mush left for brains. Oh, yeah, he and I are similar, quite alike. You see, it's in us all. A low pitch melody not often heard, but there just the same. In me it peaks and thuds, like drums and brass and strings. Don't fear it. Let it go. Give in to the beat and amplify. I tell you it's love of the finest kind.

So I've said my piece and I'll just add this: when they fasten my arms and ankles down and tighten the cap, I hope I feel the pain and delight in it before my brain sizzles to bacon, and may I smell the frying of my very own flesh. . . .

D
an Lowry came up with this story, talked about it forever, but he couldn't seem to get around to writing it. I listened to him tell me about it, and how he wanted to do it, and one day, at my house, I cornered him. I said, write it, man.

He didn't.

I said, want to write it together?

He liked the idea.

We worked on it together at my kitchen table, then he went home and worked on it on his own, and I did the same, and we took the best of what we were doing and made a story. I did a draft, gave it to Dan for the same. Then I did a polish.

Sent it to
Twilight Zone
.

I knew it was a sure sale.

It wasn't. But T. E. D. Klein, the editor at
TZ
, thought it would make a great movie.

We sent it out a few more places, but, no dice.

I put it in a drawer and pretty much forgot about it until one day Ed Gorman asked if I had anything for a book he was putting together called
Stalkers
.

I knew this was perfect for that book, but, my hopes weren't high. So far, no one had really shown any interest. Our best response was from Klein, about how it would make a neat movie.

Ed liked it, bought it, and it appeared in
Stalkers
. Since that time it's been on audio, been reprinted a bit, and there's been a great comic book adaptation, and a new adaptation is in the works.

There was even a bit of film interest, but, alas, it collapsed.

I believe T. E. D. Klein, or Ted, as most everyone knows him, was right.

It would make a neat film.

Bottom line. It's a tribute to the pulps and was written during the height of the CB craze, which is why there's so much CB lingo.

(Written with Dan Lowry)

M
icky
was at it again. His screams echoed up the fuselage, blended with the wind roaring past the top gunner port. The Pilot released Sparks from his radio duty long enough to send him back to take care of and comfort
Micky
.

The day had passed slowly and they had passed it in the hanger, listening to the radios, taking turns at watch from the tower, making battle plans. Just after sundown they got into their gear and took off, waited high up in cover over the well-traveled trade lanes. Waited for prey.

Tonight they intended to go after a big convoy. Get as many kills as they could, then hit the smaller trade lanes later on, search out and destroy. With luck their craft would be covered with a horde of red kill marks before daybreak. At the thought of that, the Pilot formed the thing he used as a mouth into a smile. He was the one who painted the red slashes on the sides of their machine (war paint), and it was a joy to see them grow. It was his hope that someday they would turn the craft from black to red.

Finally the Pilot saw the convoy. He called to Sparks.

In the rear,
Micky
had settled down to sobs and moans, had pushed the pain in the stumps of his legs aside, tightened his will to the mission at hand.

As Sparks came forward at a stoop, he reached down and patted Ted, the turret gunner, on the flight jacket, then settled back in with the radio.

"It's going to be a good night for hunting," Sparks said to the Pilot. "I've been intercepting enemy communiqués. There must be a hundred in our operational area. There are twelve in the present enemy convoy, sir. Most of the state escorts are to the north, around the scene of last night's sortie."

The Pilot nodded, painfully formed the words that came out of his fire-gutted throat. "It'll be a good night, Sparks. I can feel it."

"Death to the enemy," Sparks said. And the words were repeated as one by the crew.

So they sat high up, on the overpass, waiting for the convoy of trucks to pass below.

"T
his is the Tulsa Tramp. You got the Tulsa Tramp. Have I got a copy there? Come back."

"That's a big 10-4, Tramp. You got the L.A. Flash here."

"What's your 20, L.A.?"

"East bound and pounded down on this I-20, coming up on that 450 marker. How 'bout yourself, Tramp?"

"West bound for Dallas town with a truck load of cakes. What's the Smokey situation? Come back?"

"Got one at the Garland exit. Big ole bear. How's it look over your shoulder?"

"Got it clear, L.A., clear back to that Hallsville town. You got a couple County Mounties up there at the
Owentown
exit. Where's all the super troopers?"

"Haven't you heard, Tramp?"

"Heard what, L. A.? Come back."

"Up around I-30, that Mount Pleasant town. Didn't you know about Banana Peel?"

"Don't know Banana Peel. Come back with it."

"Black Bird got him."

"Black Bird?"

"You have been out of it."

"Been up New York way for a while, just pulled down and loaded up at Birmingham, heading out to the West Coast."

"Some psycho's knocking off truckers. Banana Peel was the last one. Someone's been nailing us right and left. Banana Peel's cab was shot to pieces, just like the rest. Someone claims he saw the car that got Banana Peel. A black Thunderbird, all cut down and rigged special. Over-long looking. Truckers have got to calling it the Black Bird. There's even rumor it's a ghost. Watch out for it."

"Ghosts don't chop down and
rerig
Thunderbirds. But I'll sure watch for it."

"10-4 on that. All we need is some nut case messing with us. Business is hard enough as it is."

"A big 10-4 there. Starting to fade, catch you on the flip-flop."

"10-4."

"10-4. Puffin' the pedal to the metal and gone."

T
he Tramp, driving a White Freight Liner equipped with shrunken head dangling from the cigarette lighter knob and a men's magazine fold-out taped to the cab ceiling, popped a Ronny
Milsap
tape into the deck, sang along with three songs and drowned
Milsap
out.

It was dead out there on the highway. Not a truck or car in sight. No stars above. Just a thick, black cloud cover with a moon hidden behind it.

Milsap
wasn't cutting it. Tramp pulled out the tape and turned on the stereo, found a snappy little tune he could whistle along with. For some reason he felt like whistling, like making noise. He wondered if it had something to do with the business L.A. had told him about. The Black Bird.

Or perhaps it was just the night. Certainly it was unusual for the Interstate to be this desolate, this dead. It was as if his were the only vehicle left in the world. . . .

He saw something. It seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, had flicked beneath the
orangish
glow of the upcoming underpass lights. It looked like a car running fast without lights.

Tramp blinked. Had he imagined it? It had been so quick. Certainly only a madman would be crazy enough to drive that fast on the Interstate without lights.

A feeling washed over him that was akin to pulling out of a dive; like when he was in Nam and he flew down close to the foliage to deliver flaming death, then at the last moment he would lift his chopper skyward and leave the earth behind him in a burst of red-yellow flame. Then, cruising the Vietnamese skies, he could only feel relief that his hands had responded and he had not been peppered and salted all over Nam.

Tramp turned off the stereo and considered. A bead of sweat balled on his upper lip.
Perhaps he had just seen the Black Bird.

". . . ought to be safe in a convoy this size . . ." the words filtered out of Tramp's CB. He had been so lost in thought, he had missed the first part of the transmission. He turned it up. The chatter was furious. It was a convoy and its members were exchanging thoughts, stories, and good time rattle like a bunch of kids swapping baseball cards.

The
twangy
, scratchy voices were suddenly very comfortable; forced memories of Nam back deep in his head, kept that black memory-bat from fluttering.

He thought again of what he might have seen. But now he had passed beneath the underpass and there was nothing. No car. No shape in the night. Nothing.

Imagination
, he told himself. He drove on, listening to the CB.

The bead of sweat rolled cold across his lips and down his chin.

T
ramp wasn't the only one who had seen something in the shadows, something like a car without lights. Sloppy Joe, the convoy's back door, had glimpsed an odd shape in his side view mirror, something coming out of the glare of the overpass lights, something as sleek and deadly looking as a hungry barracuda.

"Breaker 1-9, this is Sloppy Joe, your back door."

"Ah, come ahead, back door, this is Pistol Pete, your front door. Join the conversation."

"Think I might have something here. Not sure. Thought I saw something in the side view, passing under those overpass lights."

Moment of silence.

"You say, think you saw? Come back."

"Not sure. If I did, it was running without lights."

"Smokey?" another trucker asked.

"Don't think so . . . Now wait a minute. I see something now. A pair of dim, red lights."

"Uh oh, cop cherries," a new trucker's voice added.

"No. Not like that."

Another moment of silence.

Sloppy Joe again: "Looks a little like a truck using nothing but its running lights . . . but they're hung too far down for that . . . and they're shaped like eyes."

"Eyes! This is Pistol Pete, come back."