Hitchers (19 page)

“There are rumors that there is an advanced form of the disorder...”

I turned the volume way up, leaned forward.

“...victims report not only losing control of their voices, but of their bodies. Do you have any information on this? Can you confirm these cases?”

“We have encountered a few of these cases. It appears to be an advanced form of the same disorder.”

“Bullshit,” I growled. The feds were probably afraid people would panic if they knew what it really was. They had to know by now.

On second thought, the feds were probably right to keep it quiet. Let people get used to the voices first.

Summer was waiting on her front steps. She hopped up when she saw my car.

“Have you seen WSB News?”

“No, what?”

“They've got footage of a full-on possession, and proof it's not this post-traumatic stress thing. The woman's hands are trembling like mad, she's got the zombie voice, and she answers detailed questions only the dead person would know—How tall was your first
wife? What was your grandmother's first name? They checked the answers and all of them were right.” Summer shook her head. “The whole thing is about to blow. They can't pass this off by saying we're all crazy or traumatized any longer.”

Summer stared out the passenger window, watching pedestrians hurry by, hunched in the cold.

“My guess is they'll insist it's a mental illness to the bitter end,” I said. “I just can't picture the president on national TV, saying ‘The dead have taken over half a million souls in Atlanta. We're doing everything we can to save them.'”

“I see your point,” Summer said. She opened her window a crack, sending a burst of cool air through the car. I turned the heat down, in case she was too warm. “I was awake most of the night wondering what happens if they can't save us. And we can't save ourselves.”

I only nodded; I wondered that myself, and I didn't have any answers. Grandpa's gleeful prediction played between my ears.

Until, what? No more Finn?

“I've always been comfortable with not knowing what happens when we die,” Summer said. “Maybe there was something, maybe nothing. I was a true agnostic—I liked believing that anything was possible and I wouldn't know the answer until I died.” Her head drooped. “Now I know the answer, and I can barely breathe I'm so scared. You actually
saw
what happens when we die. I can't get past it.”

I sighed deeply. “I try not to think about it. When I do it's like the ground has given way and I'm falling into a bottomless pit.”

“What do you think is happening over there? Have you thought any more about it?”

I grunted a laugh. “All I do is think about it. I don't know, maybe it's hell, and the people who rescue dogs from the pound and recycle go to a different place.”

Summer burst out laughing. “Shit, I need to adopt a pet in a hurry.”

We stopped at a light; an old man, his spine curled so deeply he had to crane his neck to see, hobbled past the Avalon's bumper. His hands were trembling. It was not the tremor of the aged, but the blurry vibration of the possessed.

I gestured through the windshield. “That's what it looks like.”

“What?”

“That old man. Look at his hands. He's got a hitcher.” That's what people were calling them; it seemed to have started on the support group website.

She watched, transfixed. “I keep trying to imagine what it would feel like, but I can't.”

The old man stepped onto the curb; the light turned green.

“No, you really can't.” Again, I struggled to wrap my mind around the contradiction: Summer's tormentor was Lorena.

I spotted another, about two blocks further on, a blocky young guy in a charcoal suit. He looked all wrong in a suit. This was a flip-flop and shorts guy, a beer in a Styrofoam holder guy. I didn't bother pointing him out to Summer, though she may have noticed him on her own.

“Can I ask you something?” Summer said.

“Sure.” As I spoke a spasm laced down my back, like a rope being pulled under my skin. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

I pulled the car toward the curb as the rippling spread, followed by tingling. I tried to warn Summer, but couldn't get it out.

Grandpa finished pulling the car over. “This is where you get out, Missy.”

“What?” Summer asked, confused.

“You heard me.”

She looked at my hands, quavering, clinging to the steering wheel. “Here? I don't even know where I am.”

Grandpa looked up at the street sign. “You're on Forsythe Street. Now get out.”

Summer got out. Grandpa lifted a hand in farewell as he drove off.
He glanced at my watch, though the Avalon had a clock two feet from his nose and the watch bounced as if it was on the end of a spring. “Let's see if we get more than forty-seven minutes this time.”

He turned right at the light. “We're gonna have a little talk, you and me. But not just yet.” He drove around the block, headed back up Forsythe. Even before we pulled up in front of the Cypress Street Pint and Plate I'd guessed where we were going.

When I was a kid Grandpa would often volunteer to drive me somewhere—to buy school supplies or whatever—then take a detour through the Pint and Plate. I didn't mind because he always bought me a Coke, and he was unusually nice to me on those detours. “Don't tell Grandma, now,” he'd say as he boosted a drink to his mouth, chasing each swig with a long, satisfied “Aaaaah.” He always knew the bartender, was warmer, more animated than he ever was at home. In the course of twenty minutes he'd down three whiskeys, then we'd be off. If someone asked what took us so long Grandpa would say I'd had trouble deciding, or the store had been out of what we were looking for and we had to go somewhere else. If no one was watching he'd wink at me when he said this, and after a while I'd watch for the wink. The wink was like a vitamin I was deficient in, and I drank it in.

If Grandpa knew the bald, unshaven man who was tending bar that day he didn't let on. All he said was, “Whiskey, neat.” The bartender started at the sound of his voice, but set a cocktail napkin down, then the drink on top. He quickly retreated down the bar.

Inside I cringed as he let out that first long raspy “Aaaaaah” and set the shivering glass back on the napkin. The plan was for me to return to Deadland, to explore further and see what I could learn, but I was curious about the “little talk” Grandpa had promised. Besides, I didn't relish going back to Deadland. It was scary.

The bartender was staring at Grandpa's hands. Grandpa folded his arms, pinning the hands under his elbows. “Let me ask you something. Which is right: The yolk of an egg
is
white, or the yolk
of an egg
are
white?”

The bartender peered at the ceiling. “Is white.”

Now I knew Grandpa didn't know this bartender. Every bartender who'd ever tipped a bottle for Grandpa knew this one.

“You're not so bright,” Grandpa said humorlessly. “The yolk of an egg is yellow.”

The bartender smiled nervously, nodded. “Got me.”

Grandpa set his empty glass down. “Hit me again. See if you can't get a little more in the glass this time. You're charging me for a whole drink, aren't you?”

The bartender's face grew stony. If he'd been dealing with a normal customer he looked like the sort who wouldn't take any crap. Instead he poured noticeably more into the glass, then turned and walked to the farthest corner of the bar.

Grandpa drained the glass in three gulps, pulled out my wallet and hooked a twenty. “Keep it.” The twenty fluttered to the bar.

“You're a big tipper,” Grandpa chuckled as he pushed open the door.

“So,” he said as he walked, “dinner's on you, is it? Because of all the money you're making.” A young couple heading toward us paused. They looked alarmed, whispered to each other, then hurried across the street. The bartender may not have heard yet, but word was spreading about what shaking hands meant. “There's only one problem, buddy-boy. It's not your money. It's mine.”

He turned into a clothing store called Enki Mikaye. A skinny guy with a square jaw met him right at the door and asked if he could be of service.

“Yes, I want a suit. A solid three-piece, double-breasted. Classic. None of this new styles crap.” Grandpa made it sound like changing fashion in men's suits was entirely this salesman's fault, but I didn't think that was why the salesman took a step back. Besides the hands, Grandpa's voice still held an unmistakable croak.

Appearing visibly nervous, the salesman helped him choose a suit, plus an ensemble to go with it. It was an outfit I would never
be caught dead in, and it cost me $1800.

When he presented the salesman with my credit card, the guy slid it through, glanced at it, then at Grandpa.

“Finn Darby.
Toy Shop.”

“Yes, that's right.” Grandpa lifted his chin, as if daring the salesman to question it.

The salesman slid the card across the counter. “It's a wonderful strip. Wolfie is a hoot.”

Grandpa was breathing out of his nose so heavily it was almost deafening. “Go fuck yourself.” He turned and headed for the door.

“You're an ungrateful little mutt,” he said as he slammed the car door. “I took you in when your no good father walked out on you. I fed you, I tried to show you how to get along in this world, and what thanks did I get?” He threw the Avalon into gear. “I want your comic strip,” he said in a whiny baby tone. The tires squealed. “And when you get hold of it, what do you do? You use cheap tricks—bells and whistles—because you're not clever enough to do it the right way. You're not a man, Finnegan. You're still a boy, hanging on to everyone's shirt tails. Mine, your mother's, your spic wife's. You expect everything to be handed to you.”

Grandpa fell silent. He had quite a take on things. He took us in and fed us? He charged his own daughter rent. Mom had to buy all of our groceries separately; there was a separate part of the fridge for Grandma and Grandpa's food, and we were not to touch it. Bells and whistles? The strip was a hundred times more popular than it had ever been under his hand, and that was right into the teeth of a huge decline in newspaper circulation.

And the truth of it was, I had to change the strip. I'd felt boxed in by a strip frozen in time, with only two major characters and a finite stable of timeless toys (jump ropes, bicycles, teddy bears) to work with. I'd dreaded each return to that musty little toy shop, to those two earnest little twits, to my dead grandfather's tight, Victorian humor. I'd been falling farther and farther behind my deadlines when I finally decided to defy my agent and the syndicate
and update the strip, creating new characters and having a big chain buy out the little toy shop.

I stewed, and waited for my body to return to me. How long had it been? An hour and a half, at least.

Grandpa pulled out my phone, punched 911. The 911 operator asked what his emergency was.

“My emergency? I don't have a damned emergency. I'm calling information.”

The operator told him information was 411, not 911.

“Oh, that's right.” He hung up without apologizing, dialed 411, and asked for the number for CNN.

As he dialed, repeating the number in a whisper as he did so, my mind raced. What would Grandpa want with CNN?

Grandpa said he wanted to talk to someone about
Toy Shop
, specifically how Finn Darby had stolen it from him without his permission. He was transferred, told the story again, then was transferred again. This final listener, a young woman with a Long Island accent, asked how he could be the creator of
Toy Shop
when the creator was dead.

“I know I'm dead. You don't have to tell me I'm dead,” Grandpa said. “I've come back. Now, will you run the story or not?”

“How have you managed to come back?” she asked, sounding amused.

“A lot of us have come back. The dead are everywhere, missy, or haven't you noticed?”

Sounding less amused, she said she'd have to look into it, and took his number. I could only hope they'd check with my agent, and he would deflect them.

Our next stop was a jewelry store, where Grandpa bought two Rolexes at full retail and a set of gold cufflinks before ducking into another bar. Then we were off again.

“It's really something, to be young again,” he said as he drove. “I tell you it's no good getting old. When you hit seventy, that's it,” he made a chopping gesture, “blow your brains out and be done
with it. Ah, here we are.” Grandpa pulled into Maserati of Atlanta.

“I've always wanted an expensive car,” he said as he swaggered toward the showroom, flipping my keys in his palm. “I might as well spend it, right? I'm the one who earned it.”

The son of a bitch. When he was alive he was so cheap he rinsed out and re-used plastic baggies. Now that he had my bank card he was going to live it up. Or maybe he was intentionally trying to bankrupt me, to get revenge for
Toy Shop
.

A miniature poodle met us at the door, yipping and spinning in circles. Otherwise, the dealership was deserted. Evidently not many people were buying Maseratis, at least in Atlanta.

“Can I get some help here?” Grandpa shouted.

A young woman in a grey suit appeared. “Sorry, I was in the rest room. Can I help you?”

“Yes. I'm Finn Darby, I have a lot of money, and I want to buy a Maserati.”