Hitchers (27 page)

“Are you sure the car is this way?” Summer asked.

“We're going to hang a right at the next corner. I parked over on—”

We both stopped at the sound of a scream. It was brief, clipped. It seemed to be coming from the next street over.

“What was that?” Summer asked.

We doubled our pace. “I don't know.”

Now that we were paying attention I could just barely hear a voice. It sounded panicked, high-pitched. The bald fear in the tone made my guts twist.

We broke into a run.

“Maybe we should go back to the news vans, get someone to call the police,” I suggested.

We passed a shallow alley. A kid who'd been facing a loading dock
spun around. I heard Summer peep in surprise as the kid grabbed my passing shoulder and jammed a pistol into my neck.

“Don't move,” he said. He turned and, keeping his voice down, called over his shoulder. “I got two more.” He was wearing a Braves cap and camo pants, sixteen or seventeen years old.

Another man appeared out the darkness of the alley.

“Hold on,” I said, trying to keep the breathless panic out of my voice. “We're just going home.”

“No you ain't,” said an older, heavy-set guy with big jowls surrounding a tiny chin. “Move. This way.” Pointing what looked like a small assault rifle at us, he led us past green dumpsters and stacks of wooden palettes to a lowered fire escape ladder.

“Climb,” he said.

“Hang on, hang on” I said, raising my hands in supplication. I could hear voices above us, on the roof.

The big man shoved me, knocking my forehead against the steel ladder. “Hang on nothing. Move.”

I climbed, with Summer right behind, followed by the man with the gun. We hit the landing ten feet up, where narrow steps angled up the five- or six-story building. I couldn't see into the small, grimy windows. Everything inside was dark; the building was some sort of industrial place.

“Keep on going,” the big man ordered.

“What is this about?” Summer asked. “We don't understand what's happening. We were just going to our car.”

The man didn't answer. As we climbed we kept asking, kept explaining that we weren't any part of this, but the man didn't respond.

Panicked voices rang out from below. The kid who'd grabbed me from the alley was bringing two more people up behind us.

One story from the top we heard another scream from above. I didn't want to go up there, didn't want to see what was causing people to scream like that. I considered diving through one of the windows we passed, hoping Summer would follow me, but the
man with the gun was right behind us. He'd be on us before we could even get up to run. With my legs shaking so badly I could barely find the steps, I climbed the last flight, onto the roof.

There were eight or nine people on the roof, gathered at the far end. Most of them had guns. One jogged over and took control of us, nodding once to the big man, who turned and headed back down. We were hustled toward the group.

“What is he
doing?”
Summer said, staring toward the people gathered on the roof.

A man in camo was clutching a woman by the upper arm, dragging her along. The woman screeched and pleaded, dug in her heels, trying to pry the man's fingers from her arm. Another man grabbed her other arm with his free hand. They dragged her toward the edge of the roof.

“No. Stop,” Summer said, her hands pressed to her cheeks.

They lifted the woman, who was bucking and bicycling her feet, over the low wall until she was sitting on it. She was blubbering, pleading, gripping the edge of the wall for all she was worth as she tried to twist around.

The men pried her fingers loose and pushed. She fell, screaming.

“Jesus, what are you doing?” I asked.

“Sending you back where you came from,” said the man with us. He had a goatee, was maybe thirty.

“We're not,” Summer said. “Look. Look at our hands.” She held out both hands for the man to examine, glanced at me, said, “Show him yours.”

I held out my hands.

“We're not stupid. We know the demons hide,” the man said. “Let's go.” He raised his gun so casually, like it was a beer and he was about to take a swig.

“You're making a mistake—we don't have any demons,” Summer said.

“Yeah,” the kid leading the group behind us said. “Then what were you doing in Little Five Points? Partying with the rest of Satan's
army, that's what.”

“I was walking her home,” I said. “It's not safe for her to be out here alone with all of the dead walking around. She was delivering food to her eighty-year-old mother who lives on McClendon.” The two men were listening, maybe even looking uncertain, so I kept talking. “This is Summer—”

“I live on Highland,” Summer interjected. “Finn is my neighbor. He wouldn't let me go alone.”

The guy with the goatee stared at us. “Get over there.”

It hit me suddenly, why they were throwing people off the roof when they could simply shoot them. You could only hear screams for a block or two, and there weren't many residences in this area. Gunshots you could hear for half a mile. That would alert police and National Guard troops.

“This is nuts,” I said. “We're on your side. You can't just throw us off a roof.”

“We're at war with Satan,” he said. “Innocent people die in war, especially when the stakes are five billion souls. If you're innocent, it's too bad you were in the wrong place.”

“You can't just call something a war and murder people,” Summer said. She gestured toward the other end of the roof. “You have to stop them.” They were dragging a young guy toward the edge now; it was taking three of them.

The guy's taut expression didn't change. “I'm not gonna say it again. Move.” He raised the gun, tensed his finger.

I held my ground; so did Summer. “You won't shoot us unless you absolutely have to,” I said. “You don't want the police to hear.”

He turned his head, called, “Pete. Need some help here.” A man with a rifle trotted over. This guy was tall, with big muscular arms. He strode right up to me and, without a word, belted me in the side of the head with his rifle.

The roof spun; a hard, dull pain spread from one temple to the other. Somehow I stayed on my feet. An arm wrapped around my neck, putting me in a headlock, twisting me off my feet and dragging
me. Dragging me toward the edge, I knew. Panicked, I reached up, trying to dislodge the arm. Vaguely I heard Summer screaming.

“Soldiers!” someone called. “Soldiers. Let's move.”

The arm around my neck was suddenly gone. I fell to the ground, struggled to my hands and knees as Summer reached to help me.

A gunshot cracked nearby. Then shouts, the thump of boots, and more gunshots.

I lifted my head to look around, but saw only black static dots. My head was killing me. “What's happening?”

“They're running. Someone must have called the police.” Summer sank to the roof next to me, started to cry.

A siren rose in the distance, drawing closer.

T
here were no joggers in Pitman Park, no Frisbee tossers or skateboarders. Since the hammer had fallen on Atlanta, people didn't recreate. Maybe they rode treadmills and pumped weights in gyms, but those were serious things that allowed you to retain a tight-lipped expression. The only type of smile that was appropriate in Atlanta now was a gallows smile, the sort of smile that didn't reach your eyes, and told people you could take a swift kick in the crotch, or the end of the world, in stride.

The only people in the park were hurrying through on their way to somewhere else, and those with nowhere else to go, yet I flinched whenever I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. This place didn't feel safe to me. Nowhere felt safe to me now, except Mick's place. Every time I closed my eyes I was back on that roof; when I did manage to sleep it was all nightmares, all night now.

At the Sally (that's what those who used it called the Salvation Army) I'd been told Salamander might be found here, and what he might be wearing.

He was sitting on a park bench next to a steaming Styrofoam cup
of coffee, his dog-eared sneakers crossed, his face hidden inside the hood of a filthy parka save for glints of a thick grey beard. I hurried over to him.

“Excuse me, are you Salamander?”

He pressed his hands on either side of the bench, looked up at me. “Well, I guess I am. My name is actually Sal Mandel, but it kind of drifted, you know?” He chuckled.

I smiled. I'd found Dave, I couldn't believe it. As soon as I'd walked up Dave's heart must have leapt. “Man, I've been looking all over for you.”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “A couple of guys told me someone was looking for me.” He lifted his cup, took a swig. “So now you found me. What can I do you for?”

“My name is Finn—”

He jumped to his feet, sloshing his coffee, and pointed at me. “You're the one he called.”

“That's right! Dave called me. He was my friend. He was looking for his wife.” I'd found him, I'd definitely found him.

Sal nodded emphatically. “I thought I was losing my frickin' mind. He took hold of me, made me walk where he wanted, blink when he wanted.”

“I know, we're all losing our minds lately.”

He pointed at my chest. “You got a hitcher too?”

“I do, yeah. But listen, I need to talk to Dave—”

Sal shook his head. “He's gone.”

“I know, but when he comes back—”

Sal kept on shaking his head. “No, I mean he's
gone
. For good.” He grinned, waggled his eyebrows joyfully. “I'm a free man again, master of my own domain.”

I frowned. “How do you know that?”

Sal stuck out his bottom lip, raised his shoulders. “I just do. I felt it. When he slid out of me it was like the best b.m. I ever had.”

I searched his face for some sign that he was kidding, or lying, that it was wishful thinking. He met my gaze, nodded once. He
seemed so certain I half believed him.

“Why would he leave you, when all the rest of them are hanging on tight?” I asked.

He turned his eyes up, thinking. A woman rode by on a bicycle, her tires crunching pebbles and fallen twigs.

“You know,” Sal said, “I couldn't tell you. It happened right after that second call he made to you, though, when your lady friend answered. If it was anything she said, I sure do appreciate it.”

What had Summer said? She told Dave to meet us at Mick's place. Dave had asked if there was any word from Karen, and Summer had said...

Hope stirred in me like green buds on dead winter branches. Summer had ripped Dave's heart out of his chest. She'd taken away Dave's will to come back. If it was true that the dead who were back were the ones burning to be back, what happened if that fire was snuffed out?

I pulled out my wallet, fished out one of my business cards and all of my cash, maybe three hundred dollars. I held it out to Sal. “I need you to do something for me. It's extremely important.”

Sal looked at the money, then at me, waiting.

“Will you promise to call me once a day, and tell me whether Dave is still gone?”

“That's it?”

I nodded.

Sal took the card and the money. “Hell yes. What time?”

“I don't know. How about noon?”

Sal nodded. “High noon every day. I can handle that.” He looked at the stack of twenties. “You pay handsomely.”

“It's life and death. In fact, I'll give you another thousand two weeks from now if you call me every day.”

Sal held out his hand, and I shook it. “You got a deal.”

If this is true...
I kept thinking on the way back to Mick's place. I didn't want to wish Dave gone, but if he was...

Lorena had insinuated that it wasn't a matter of choice, that she
would leave Summer if she could. But that would be like willing yourself to not like chocolate, or to not love someone. You can't not feel what you feel. What if you stop feeling it, though?

The trick was coming up with some way to make Grandpa lose his will to stay. Try as I might, though, I couldn't think of anything. Killing
Toy Shop
might do it. I could discontinue it, but as I demonstrated after Grandpa was gone, you can always start a strip up again. What could I do—cut off my hands and burn out my eyes? The stony bastard would hold the pencil in his mouth if he had to.

Maybe Sal's revelation could help Mick and Summer, though. Especially Mick. Gilly seemed to be back for one reason, and one reason only: finish the album and get Mick to record it. Beyond that he didn't have much of a life to return to. If Mick pitched in and helped him finish, he might just drift away. In fact finishing the album would also mean Gilly had patched things up with Mick, working alongside him (metaphorically speaking) just like in the good old days, and that seemed to be the crux of Gilly's drive to be back in the world of the living.

We'd been focused on finding a solution that would free all three of us, a one-size-fits-all hitcher-exterminating process. A silver bullet; a wooden stake. But these weren't monsters, they were people, and each had their own reasons for being here. It made sense that each might require a different rite of exorcism. For some, there might be none at all.

A
s the news droned in the background I paced Mick's apartment, nervous about the trip to the hospital, eager to get started if we were going to do this. There was no point in moving until Lorena showed, and that could be in one hour, or thirty. Once she showed we'd have to move quickly, and hope we didn't draw the attention of any God's Hammer nut jobs.