Dark Advent (43 page)

Farrah looked up at her with big, trusting eyes. “Know what?”

“That I was right all along, and that you shouldn’t ever have been worried.”

They hugged again, and for the first time Farrah told Diane that she loved her, and Diane said the same went for her too. Then Farrah scooted off the bed, tossing her hair behind her with a flourish and bouncing out the door. Diane sank back to the bed, curling into a content, radiant ball and flirting with sleep again.

Except Diane had no way of knowing about the questions that still burned in Farrah’s mind. Deeper questions, scary in a mysterious way…things she was just too embarrassed to bring up. How could she ask about them when she didn’t even like to think about them?

About the sight that had lodged in her mind’s eye, and wouldn’t go away.

* *

A dull headache throbbed at Erika’s temples, but if it was the worst ailment she could complain of, she was doing pretty well. Like Diane, she was stretched out in her room, tossing atop the covers without much clothing in an effort to combat the heat of the day. Like Diane, she was losing.

The past week was mostly a blur, like a long-term drunken binge. Things were half remembered, some dreamlike, waiting to be triggered into memory by a key word or thought. Others were gone forever, buried too deep to see daylight again. She felt hung over, as if weights were hanging from her body, movement going better when she thought it out in advance.

But the worst aspects of a drunken binge were the parts you could remember and wished you didn’t.

Like Solomon and his cold metal prod. The violation as he’d inflicted his own warped amusements on her. There had been no bleeding or discharge since then, so he’d apparently not done any lasting damage to her. Maybe he’d taken a tissue sample. Or maybe it was just a cruel bluff. He was sick enough to think it funny.

Just the same, whenever Jason came back—and he
would
—and they migrated south, her top priority would be to consult the first real doctor they encountered for an examination. Just to be sure. Safe.

A couple hours after Solomon had left her, an older woman came in, brusque but at least she wasn’t brutal. She’d untied Erika long enough for her to squat over a bedpan and slip back into her jeans. And then came another shot, the second of many she would receive from them. To keep her quiet, keep her from being a bother.

Thorazine, the woman had told her, and she’d welcomed it for its insulating factor, the cushion between her and the memory of Solomon and his hateful invasion of her. She’d never be rid of it, no matter what the future held. Those endless minutes would always claim a little part of her. Always and forever.

She wished she could cry it out in Jay’s arms, and someday she would. Someplace safe, far away. She wouldn’t hit him with it as soon as he returned. He’d no doubt have more than enough to deal with. Until then, if she needed to, she could lean on Pam, on Diane, on Colleen, maybe even Caleb. But for now it would remain her secret, kept for the good of all.

It was the loneliest feeling in the world. But she’d manage.

It would be her investment in the future.

7

The reality of what was happening in St. Louis had come crashing back in on him with the force of an avalanche. For a time, Jason had thought it possible that he might be able to leave all the bad times in the past, to collect dust until it buried them. Now he knew that the privilege of forgetting would have to be fought for, just like everything else.

They were still cleaning up the carnage from the botched raid on Heywood when Jason knew he’d have to hit the road again. Never mind that he still didn’t feel up to par, that his leg and shoulder ached to the bone again, that he wanted to crawl into bed and sleep the clock around once or twice. But it was time to roll: Hagar’s body hadn’t been found in the wreckage of the truck, or anywhere else. As the truck had careened along behind the houses, he must have jumped clear while everyone’s attention had been drawn out front. Which meant that to be on the safe side for everyone concerned in St. Louis, Jason had to beat him back. And if he couldn’t do that, at least make it a close second.

“Don’t be an idiot, Jason,” Gil said out in the street. The cleanup was almost over, but no one seemed to feel like going back in. One dog dead, one man dead, another man likely heading in that direction, and one side of Molly Silva’s face was a swollen purple bruise thanks to the butt of a shotgun. They’d all been ravaged by something they’d hoped to leave out in the rest of the world.

“My mind’s made up,” Jason said.

Gil shook his head and eyed him harshly. “Look at you. You look like hell. You’re in no shape to head back again now.”

Then he’s gonna love this next part.
“I was wondering if I could ask another favor. I’d like to take enough gasoline with me to be sure to get me there. I want to drive it straight through, and I don’t want to have to worry about siphoning all the way back. Twenty extra gallons should do it. And I’ll need coffee. Or pills.”

Gil scowled down at his boot tips. In the distance, plumes of lazy smoke rose from what remained of the burned-out truck. “If you want it that bad, okay.” He spat, shook his head again. “Shit. What a mess.”

“I’m sorry all this followed me here, Gil. I really am.” So far he hadn’t looked closely at the men and dog the raiders had shot. He’d heard the names, and hadn’t recognized them, but their faces would be another story. Faces would haunt him for the entire 800-mile trip.

“Yeah,” Gil said, his voice flat and distant. “Jason. Listen to me. I want to tell you something. Two tours of duty in Vietnam and I never
saw a man treated like what I saw happen over there.” He pointed toward the lake, where Lucas’ corpse was still waiting to be scraped up, now a feast for fat green flies. “That’s a side of you I wouldn’t have guessed existed.”

Jason stood quietly still a moment, leaning on the cane. “He was in retreat, Gil. He was backing off when you gave the order to blow that truck. Isn’t that kind of like shooting a man in the back?”

Indignant, Gil straightened to his full height. “I had the welfare of everyone here in mind when I did that.”

“For my part, so did I.”

“Apples and oranges, Jason. The two don’t compare, not one damn bit.”

“Then forget all that for now. I don’t think you’ve had a good look at my back yet, have you?” Without waiting for an answer, Jason unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it away. Holding his arms out from his body, he slowly turned his back to Gil, showing him the gridwork of scars. “The guy by the pond did that to me. He says he raped my girlfriend. He helped murder Tomahawk. Just call it an overdue debt I paid back.”

Gil said nothing for a long moment, and Jason thought he might turn and walk away. But then he looked Jason in the eye. “It could be seen that way. But when you sink to their level, what makes any difference between you and them?”

“The end goal,” Jason said, without hesitation. “It makes all the difference in the world.”

He slung his shirt on again and walked away, cane in one hand and Gil’s riot gun in the other. He headed for Molly’s, and in her driveway sat parked a Dodge Charger that had been recovered from the other side of town and rejuvenated to get him back north. The last he saw of Gil, the man was still staring at his back.

* *

It was early yet, the gray of daybreak at the windows, and Farrah was sure that no one was even awake to pay attention to her.

She was worn out. She’d scarcely slept since Friday night, and when she did, her dreams were lying in wait, ready to pounce. Weird dreams, dreams that scared and fascinated at the same time. A part of her whispered that they were wrong, but its voice was weakening. The part of her that told her they were exciting was getting stronger every day.

No one’s out here…

They’d begun on Friday night, and she’d almost told Diane about them during their talk yesterday. But she’d chickened out. Maybe she wouldn’t have had Diane asked about them point blank, but how could Diane have known? They’d returned last night, worse, if anything. Her curiosity wouldn’t take much more without something to appease it.

I
shouldn’t be doing this…

She repeated it with every step higher, creeping along the escalator to the sixth floor. Toward the man they’d brought in Friday night. She knew his name was Travis, and that everyone had talked about him for a long time, and that they didn’t like him. Well, that much she could understand—his looks were kind of scary.

But whatever had been happening inside her—and she wasn’t at all sure what it was, a queasy tug of war between wildly contrasting emotions—somehow Travis was the cause of it. She’d never seen a man like she’d seen him, not even her father. Okay, a year ago this past spring at school, one of her friends had smuggled her mother’s most recent
Playgirl
out of the house and a bunch of them had crowded into a giggling ring around it in the bathroom. But pictures could lie, and there was a world of difference between seeing something on a flat piece of paper and seeing it standing in front of you.

I
really
shouldn’t be doing this…

But by now she was at the top of the escalator, on the sixth floor, for real, and the last of her hesitations had fallen away five or six steps below. Although if someone had asked why she was
really
here, she still couldn’t have answered.

Someone like Sam. Sam Dunne. She’d watched him trudge upstairs late last night for what they were calling guard duty. She guessed it was still his shift, and if he’d stopped her, Farrah supposed she would’ve told him that she wanted to pull her weight for a change, take a turn at guard duty. But as he sat in his chair, ten feet from the escalator, Sam’s chin was drooping to his chest, and next to the gun across his lap there was a Sony Walkman. He had a pair of earphones clamped over his head, and his breath snorted and puffed.

She tiptoed past.

Farrah saw him near the sales counter, tied into his own chair like a forgotten player in a game. At first Travis didn’t notice her, but then his head snapped around and he watched her approach…softly, cautiously. Every quiet step of the way.

He looks different.

Well of course he did, she decided a moment later. He was wearing a pair of gym trunks. Farrah stopped a good eight or nine feet away and came no closer. The light up here wasn’t as good as downstairs…more things to block it. But she could see him staring back at her, his hair sweaty and curly and tangled, his eyes spaced wide apart, his muscles enormous, like a man from the action movies her dad had loved to watch.

“Shhhh,” he whispered, and nodded at Sam. “You don’t want to wake him up.”

She shook her head, suddenly mute.

“Well?” he said. “What do you
want?”

“I don’t want anything.” She felt herself getting red, and must’ve stumbled over the ‘I’ half a dozen times.
I
made him mad.

“So you’re just gonna stand there and stare?
That’s
rude.”

She took a step backward. “I could go if you want me to.”

Travis looked at her a long moment, then shook his head. “Nah, you don’t have to.”

Farrah smiled, just a little, and retraced her step forward. Maybe she hadn’t made him mad after all, and only surprised him. Some people didn’t like surprises. At least he didn’t look mad anymore. He was watching her in a way that reminded her of her father, how he used to sit in his recliner after work and answer her questions even when there were too many in a row. He’d answer them all, and get this exasperated expression on his face, but underneath it she could see that he really did love her.

Something about Travis brought all that back again. There was something different about the way it looked on Travis, but it was close enough, and in a world where parents weren’t around anymore, close enough was fine by her.

“Were you there when they brought me in a couple nights ago?” he asked.

She nodded. “Uh huh. They made me leave really quick.”

He seemed to find this funny. “Did they tell you why I’m here?”

Farrah shook her head. “Nobody tells me much of anything. Diane didn’t even say why.”

He seemed to perk up at the mention of her name. “Diane, huh? You good friends with her?”

She nodded proudly. “Best friends.”

“I see.” He concentrated a moment, as if thinking this over.

“So…” she finally said after watching him think for a moment. “How come they brought you here?”

“Oh, it’s a long story,” Travis said with a sudden surge of friendliness. “Some differences of opinion, that kind of thing. It really is kind of stupid.”

And just to prove that he didn’t hold any grudges, that he didn’t hold her guilty by association, he gave her a big smile. She smiled back, uncertainly at first, then with more confidence. And she slid another step forward. Maybe everyone downstairs misunderstood him. Maybe he didn’t smile enough for them, because he had an okay smile when he wanted to. It made his eyes lighten up and look less scary.

“You know how sometimes the boss has to yell at people who work for him, and they get mad, even when the main thing he wants is for everybody to just get along and do a better job? It’s like that,” he said. “You know, I’d really like to have a chance to go downstairs and explain that to everybody. Get a lot of this stuff straightened out, you know. But, uhhh…” Travis looked down at the ropes wrapped around him and gave a helpless little chuckle. “Doesn’t look like I can go anywhere, does it?”

“Do those ropes hurt?”

He chuckled again as she took another step forward. “Well, they sure don’t feel good.”

Farrah nodded.
No, I don’t think I’d like them on me either.

Travis glanced toward Sam, then regarded her with large, sincere eyes. “You know something? I bet if we went down there together and you helped me out, helped me explain all this stuff to everyone, they’d really be proud of you. They’d probably think you were some kind of hero or something.”

“Heroine.”

“Heroine. Right. See, you’re already smarter than me, know more words.”

“I don’t know,” she said slowly.

He shrugged, or did the best he could under those ropes. “It’s up to you, you know. Downstairs, they probably don’t tell you anything because they don’t expect you to do much to help, to get involved in the important stuff. But hey, it’s up to you.”

He was right, of course. Colleen wasn’t the only one who always treated her like a child. They all did. Except for Diane. Sure, they let her help out with the cooking and that kind of stuff, but nothing that was important.

Travis needed help.

And it would be just like what she’d told Diane yesterday.
He’ll be trapped someplace and things look awful for him, and I’ll come along and save him.
The closest thing to a fairy tale situation as she was likely to find anytime soon around this place.

“It’s all up to you,” he said again, little more than a whisper.

Farrah looked over her shoulder at Sam, whose chin was still playing tag with his chest. Right there. He was
right there
if she needed him. She turned back to Travis and covered the last few steps in between. She knelt to start on the ropes at his feet. And while she couldn’t see it, that was when his eyes got scary all over again.

* *

The road back to St. Louis was around 800 miles, give or take. Hagar had no estimated time of arrival, only a dogged determination to get back home and worry about the road weariness later. Of course, he didn’t know for certain that’s where Jason Hart was headed, but he’d have bet on it just the same.

They’d blown it yesterday. Fucking A, how they’d blown it, sky high and miles wide. Come down with a serious case of overconfidence and walked right into an armed enemy camp, complete with attack dogs. Seventy-five percent casualties, and it would’ve been a clean sweep had he not bailed out of the truck when he had the chance. He’d made a break for the line of trees, hiding and working his way around and watching what happened next. He watched the truck go up like Fourth of July fireworks, thanking whatever instinct had told him to jump. Then, as he watched Jason take Lucas apart, Hagar thought if it had been him, he’d rather have burned with the truck.

Blown it, pure and simple. No way in hell was he going straight back to St. Louis to break the news to Solomon.

So he’d hung around, watching, skulking in shadows and darkened corners. It wasn’t hard to keep from being noticed. Everyone else had other things on their minds. Pretty soon it became apparent that Jason Hart was planning on leaving.

With the other guys dead, he couldn’t imagine a better outcome to the morning. This would save him a lot of trouble. As long as Hart was headed north on his own, all Hagar had to do was tail him and make sure he got there all right. And when the opportunity presented itself, deliver him to Solomon.

He had a feeling this was the only thing that would earn his way back in.

All he had to do was watch as Jason lugged a quartet of five-gallon gas cans out of a shed and into a car. All he had to do was steal his own gas when he realized he might lose the kid on the road if he had to take time to siphon along the way. All he had to do was steal an entire car next, hot-wiring a compact on the edge of Heywood. All he had to do was hang back a mile or two the entire way, as often as not driving with the binoculars at his eyes so he could make sure Jason wasn’t doing anything unexpected.