Man Made Murder (Blood Road Trilogy Book 1) (19 page)

Every time he closed his eyes, he remembered the rush of that chick’s blood. It tugged at his shoulders, wanting to lure him back inside.

He squinched open his eyes again, everything blocky and hard to make out.

He was going to be fucking useless in daylight.

He gauged the distance to the bus, put his head down, and strode toward it with his eyes shut. The temperature dropped a few degrees when he passed into the bus’s shade. He put a hand out, finding its side. Walking the length of it, he finally reached the door.

Inside the bus, he put a hand in front of him, shuffling until his fingers bumped the bunkroom door. He slipped inside, pulled it shut, and pushed his sunglasses up with one hand, rubbing the afterimages away with his fingers.

At least at this point he could hide on the bus until show time—just him and dead Vampire McGee.

A
fter the sun
finally slipped past the horizon, he poked his head out. Now he could see well enough to read the plate numbers on their support band’s trailer from thirty feet away. He stepped down from the bus, leaving the door open. Sauntered around the front—stretching his legs if anyone asked. His sneakers kicked up dust. The whole area behind the building was nothing but crumbling pavement and bone-dry dirt. Beyond that, a chain-link fence looked over a field of dried grass. High voltage power lines ran across it. He headed back the other way. An aisle of about fifteen feet ran between the venue’s back wall and the length of the bus. A little farther up the building sat a welcome sight—he just wasn’t sure how he was going to lug a hundred-and-seventy-pound corpse thirty feet without anyone coming out the back door and catching him at it.

First things first—he grasped the lid on the dumpster and hauled it up. No lock. That was a good start.

He peered over its lip.

Not quite half full—a mix of garbage bags and broken-down liquor boxes. He shot an eye toward the door before clambering inside.

Someone had taken garbage out since this morning; the sweet scent of doughnuts fought with the dregs of last night’s alcohol.

Holding his breath, he worked his foot between the bags and started shifting them to the other side, piling them in one corner as he could. He didn’t want to go all the way to the bottom—when the garbage truck came and dumped the trash into its mouth, the last thing he wanted was a body-sized torpedo crowdsurfing over the other garbage.

He pulled himself back out, sneakers thumping softly to the ground.

Back on the bus, he stopped halfway up the front lounge to peek out the window. No one coming yet. This was going to be risky as hell. But the alternative was, what—taking the dead biker on tour with them?
Get staked—see the country!

He shoved his curtain back and reached in, dragging the head toward him, hauling the body off the bunk. He walked backward with it. The foot end thumped to the floor. The taped bags swished over the floor as he dragged it up the aisle. He hoped nothing tore. The smell wasn’t too bad now—Hefty bag and lightly fermented meat—but he could imagine the stink rolling out if the wrapping opened up.

When he got to the steps, he lowered the package’s shoulders to the floor and hopped down.

He glanced toward the venue door.

Coast still clear.

He rolled the biker onto his stomach and backed down the steps with it until he could lean forward and dig his shoulder under the biker’s stomach. When he straightened, the biker’s toes pulled off the top step, and all the weight was on him.

With an arm wrapped around the body and the other hand gripping the bus door, he backed away. His knees threatened to buckle.

He staggered a half circle, bumping the bus with the biker’s heels before lurching, swaybacked, toward the dumpster—feeling like
any second now
that fucking door was going to open.

The weight grew heavier with every step.

The skin behind his ears pulled tight, listening for the slightest sound—though he had no idea what he’d do if he did hear the door swing open.

He staggered the last few paces and banged into the dumpster. With a shove, he managed to get the biker tilting away from him, its hips caught between him and the dumpster.

So close, so close
.

Glancing toward the door, he scooped the biker from behind his knees and heaved him in.

Fuck yeah
.

With another look toward the back door, he hauled himself over the lip. He stumbled over the bags—more tired now than the first time he’d been in there—and folded onto his knees. One of the bags—not the biker—squished under his hand as he pushed himself back up. He dragged the trash in the corner over the torpedo, half burying his own shins in the process.

Over the rustle of plastic and clink of bottles, he heard a door bang open and froze.

Crouched.

A bottle dug into his kneecap.

He’d left the bus door wide open.
Shit
.

His heart beat hard and steady. Slowly he settled onto his ass, his back against the wall of the dumpster. His heel next to the biker’s head.

Voices carried, not loud enough for words, but he could guess what they were saying: nobody’s on the bus, and the door is wide open.

Damn it
.

He took a deep breath. Pressed his hands against his knees. If he didn’t end the mystery, it’d turn into a full-out investigation, followed by a late-night lecture about bus security. He heaved himself up.

Shawn and Wayne stood just outside the bus, Wayne looking back toward the venue door. Shawn was scanning the road.

Dean crawled over the edge of the dumpster and dropped—not quietly—to the ground, stumbling back a few steps.

Wayne looked over. Shawn turned around.

Even in the dark, Dean could see Shawn’s eyebrows furrow as he made out what he was seeing.

Dean stepped forward and swung the lid closed.

“Were you
in
the dumpster?” Shawn said.

“Lost my sunglasses. Thought they might have gotten thrown away.” As he strolled toward his guys, he untucked his glasses from the collar of his shirt and slipped them on.

“You paid, what, three dollars for those at a gas station?” Wayne said.

“Yeah, but I like ’em.”

“You’re out of your head,” Shawn said.

Dean smiled, close-mouthed, giving them a quick salute before heading for the building.

Let them go ahead and get on the bus. He had nothing to hide, aside from the two wooden sign posts he’d found in the aftermath, and those weren’t going to get him in any hot water.

He wondered again who that guy’d been, where he’d come from. Was he some kind of vampire hunter?

Was that something he had to watch out for too now? Vampires, vampire hunters—
people
were the only things he wasn’t worried about, now that he’d off-loaded his secret. To tell the truth, he wasn’t all that worried about vampires and vampire hunters either. He felt too good to give a shit.

C
arl drove
until his stomach growled. The horizon was orange. He might have time to scarf something down before night fell. He stopped at a Burger King, paper crowns piled along the half wall separating the dining area from the order counter. While he waited for his Whopper and fries, he walked back in his memory to Sophie, a cheap gold crown sliding over her eyes. She was laughing with a handful of ketchup-covered fries on their way to her mouth. She must have been seven or so then, and he’d probably rolled his eyes at whatever she’d been giggling at, the worldly nine-year-old and his silly little sister.

And maybe one day she would have had a seven-year-old of her own, crowned with her own ring of cheap gold cardboard. His heart clenched, thinking about how suddenly things could just…not exist anymore. People, possibilities, futures. All of it gone the minute you turned your head.

A teenager pushed a tray of cheap food across the counter toward him.

He didn’t feel so much like eating now.

A family of six—five kids and a mom who was admirably on top of their needs—took up the middle of the dining room. He found a corner to himself, his back to them, and chewed woodenly while staring through the big windows, watching nothing. Thinking nothing. After days and days to himself, the last place he wanted to be anymore was his own head.

After an interminable five minutes, he wrapped the last bite in its wrapper and threw everything into the trash. He’d seen a pay phone outside on his way in, and after stopping by his car, he dropped change in and listened to the other end of the line ring.

It was five thirty where he was, four thirty in Los Campos. He still hadn’t looked up what day it was. Tim would get home eventually. He hung up the receiver and collected his quarters from the coin return.

The gas station had cigarette advertisements plastered over its windows. While he waited for the Cougar’s tank to fill, he stared back at the Burger King instead, the old habit crawling through him like an itch. Wanting that hit of nicotine. He fed it a candy bar instead, grabbed a bag of chips for later, a couple bottles of soda so he wouldn’t have to stop after it got dark.

There was a problem, though, if he wanted to drive through the dark. The Cougar only held nineteen gallons. Even creeping along at forty-five, he’d run out of gas in the middle of Oklahoma, five hours shy of sunrise.

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as lodging, travel, and gas signs grew large and then fell away on the interstate, one after another.

When the sun kissed the horizon, he stopped angsting and followed one of the signs for lodging.

“Better safe,” he said to no one.

The town he pulled into was as good as dead. But there was a motel. There was always a motel.

The late afternoon desk clerk had a blue cravat tucked into her button-up shirt. The desk phone rang as he got to the counter, and she said, “Single or double?” to him as she lifted the phone off the cradle. He told her a single, and she nodded as she told whoever was on the line that Joey could watch TV if his room was clean. She moved the receiver under her chin to tell Carl how much the room cost, put his key into his hand while talking to the babysitter or the older sister or whoever about just
what
Joey could watch—yes to
The Six Million Dollar Man
, no to
McCloud
, and definitely no to staying up for the Sunday night movie. Bedtime was nine, firm.

His room was halfway down the building. He dropped his bag on the bed and picked up the phone. Listened to the other end of the line ring—nine, ten, twelve. Gave up at sixteen—Tim was probably working—and turned on the TV.
Sixty Minutes
was just starting. His dad had watched that when Carl was a kid. He’d have been happy to see Harry Reasoner was back on.

Thoughts of his dad made him change the channel, settling on
The Hardy Boys Mysteries
.

He tried Tim three more times, including once around the time Tim usually got home from the bowling alley. After he set the receiver down, he got under the covers and listened to the motel noises—passing conversations, a radio in another room, someone’s snores.

He tried to talk to Soph, but she felt gone, so he thought about his future instead, his head full of dreams.

After trying Tim at three a.m.—no answer still—he had a nightmare that he was letting himself into their apartment in the dark of night, the phone ringing and ringing in the kitchen. The light switch wouldn’t work, and in the middle of their living room floor, he found a girl with her throat torn out, her eyes glassy and staring, one arm stretched out, pointing toward the other room.

L
ying
on the bare mattress in his bunk, Dean knew the sun had come up. Maybe it was its warmth seeping through the bus’s metal skin, maybe it was just the amount of time passing as he lay staring at the underside of the berth above him. Or maybe it was another new sense.

Whichever, he knew it was out there.

No one else was up, but after another couple hours the first restless rustlings of mattresses came. Feet padded quietly up the aisle. Dean turned his back to the curtain and covered his eyes as the bunkroom door slid open.

After another hour or so, no one was bothering to close the door behind them.

The bus’s brakes hissed. Gravity pulled Dean’s body. The engine went silent.

The whole thing swayed as passengers off-loaded.

He waited until he was alone with the driver before dropping on his back again. The others had left both the front and back lounge doors open. He felt along the edge of the mattress for his sunglasses. Found the biker’s knife first. Held its grip in his hand while he put the sunglasses on.

By the time he was ready to put his feet on the floor, the bus was filling back up, chatter coming up the aisle. The venue must have a shower, everyone coming to get their bags so they could clean up.

He got to his feet, turned, and took one step toward the front lounge, carefully opening his eyes behind the glasses so he could see what was coming at him.

Brilliant white pain, so sharp it took his breath.

His knees gave. He wrapped his arms over his face, smashing the sunglasses against the bridge of his nose. His shoulder hit the bunk. He landed on one knee on the floor, hunched forward, squeezing his arms against his eyes.

His teeth clenched at the pain that throbbed at the front of his skull.

“Hey!” Shawn clasped his arm. “Hey, are you all right?” He dropped to Dean’s level.

The sun was so hot in his eyeballs—even now that he’d blocked it—he couldn’t even tear up. It felt like any moisture had been burned right off. He dug his fingers into his hair, crouching into himself even tighter.

“Dean. Talk to me.” Shawn’s voice bordered on panic. “What’s going on?”

“Headache,” he managed in a whisper between gritted teeth. “Migraine.”

Shawn put a hand at the back of his head.

Dean’s teeth were coming out, Shawn too fucking close.

Shawn was saying, “Okay. Okay,” and when he spoke next, his voice was directed backward. “What do we have for painkillers?”

“Shut. The. Door.” Dean’s throat was as dried up as his eyes.

Shawn’s jeans brushed his elbow as he rose and turned. The door slid shut. Dean crouched back, relieved at the distance between himself and Shawn. The
door
between himself and the rest of them. Shawn would open it again as soon as he found painkillers.

He couldn’t stay on the floor.

He grabbed a fistful of curtain, nearly tearing it down as he hauled himself into the bunk, one arm still wrapped against his eyes. He untangled his legs from the curtain and dragged it shut, pushing its edges tight against the walls.

The backs of his eyeballs ached. He peeked around his bunk area. It was mostly black, floats sliding in front of his vision.

With a curse, he pressed his head against his arms as the door juddered open. His muscles braced, but it quickly shut again. The curtain flapped against his arm.

Then Shawn was there, crouched by the bunk. “Here.” Knuckles touched his hand.

Grimacing, he rolled onto his side, away from Shawn. Away from the touch, which sent a jittery chill through his nerves.

He had his eyesight back, some of it—enough to make out the shadowy outlines of concern on Shawn’s face.

Shawn held his palm flat. Dean couldn’t see the pills well. His fingertips ghosted Shawn’s warm palm as he felt for them, and the touch brought a tingle through his jaw. His body wanted to lurch forward. He broke contact, the pills pinched between his fingers.

He wondered what they were going to do to him, if he’d even be able to keep them down.

Shawn held out a cup of water, smelling both sweet and flat. Dean shook his head, pushing the pills into his mouth.

Dropping onto his back, he dry-swallowed them.

“I’ve never known you to get migraines,” Shawn said.

“Haven’t since I was a kid,” he lied.

“Should we call a doctor?”

Details picked themselves out in the bunk. Dean held his hand over his face, could make out the grooves in his palm. He closed it. “I’ll be all right.” Come nightfall. “I just need a few hours. Can Teddy cover me for sound check?”

“He won’t mind.”

Dean rubbed his forehead.

“Are you sure a few hours are enough?” Shawn said. “We can pull out of the show. Better if we do it now than when people are lined up at the door.”

“I’ll be okay. It doesn’t last long. By dinnertime I’ll be good.”

Shawn’s heart beat, faster than usual. Closer to Nick’s pace.

In the shadows of his bunk, Dean said, “Really. I’ll be okay.”

“All right,” Shawn said finally, his brow still creased with concern. “We need to grab our stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe a shower’d do you good?”

“Maybe later.” He massaged his eyes.

Shawn pulled the curtain shut, but not well enough. Dean pressed it snug against the wall, ducking his face into the crook of his arm, just as the door juddered open again.

Jesus, this was going to be a problem.

But what else could he do? Tell them to send him home, he couldn’t do this anymore? Aside from the days of discussions and fights that would ensue—what would he do once he got back home? The band was all he’d ever done or wanted to do. The only thing he
knew
how to do?

And what would the band do, without their lead guitarist? He’d be leaving his best friends in the lurch.

C
arl hung up the phone
. The echo of the ring tickled his eardrums as he zipped his bag and hauled the strap onto his shoulder. He checked the room—daylight spilling through curtains, rumpled bed, soggy towel. He got in his car, paid fifty-nine cents a gallon to fill the tank. Made a pit stop in the bathroom, then bought a fried egg sandwich from the counter inside. He ate it in the car, yolk oozing from its sides. He licked it off his fingers as he drove.

He was in northeast Oklahoma. Flat. Monotonous. He drove underneath a McDonald’s built across a highway overpass. Well, that was something.

No more calling Tim. He’d be home around nightfall, speed and traffic willing. He’d just walk in the door—surprise!

It irritated him that Tim hadn’t been home, hadn’t been just a phone call away. He needed to
talk
to someone, just to get the fuck out of his own head. And Tim was all he had.

Approaching Oklahoma City, he got snagged in backed-up cars, his knee jiggling at the wait. Eventually he was past the accident that had held them up, two twisted Chevies, one a sedan, the other a station wagon. Ambulance lights flashed weakly against the hot sun in a pale sky.

He fought fatigue after Amarillo, every inch of highway looking like he’d already driven it ten times. He crossed into New Mexico at two thirty with his sun visor down, squinting in the brightness as he nursed another cup of caffeine. The car smelled like sweet creamy coffee. His mouth was thick with it.

He hit Roswell at rush hour, glancing at the dash clock nervously as traffic slowed to forty, but the slowdown only lasted a quarter mile. As soon as the city limits were behind him, he pressed the pedal down, hitting eighty-five, ninety, nothing but scrub as far as the eye could see, blurring on either side as he raced the shadows that collected behind him.

By Alamogordo, the shadows were catching up. In his rearview, streams of headlights trailed behind him, car windshields tinted orange and opaque. He turned on his headlights. When he checked the clock, he tightened his grip on the wheel.

He wasn’t going to make sundown.

The guttural roar of exhaust pipes rose behind him. He looked in the mirror. Three bikes had appeared over the horizon, their headlights forming a triangle. He swallowed, checking the road ahead.
Thinking
. He was close enough to home to be somewhat familiar with the area, but the news wasn’t good—no exit for another five miles or so. Nothing but highway, scrub, and, way off in the distance, brown hills.

The engines gunned.

His back tensed. He didn’t even have the gun anymore, lost on the fucking bus. Would a gun even work, anyway?

Not that it mattered—he didn’t fucking have it. Or the stakes. Not that they’d be much help either.

The bike lights swerved, shifting the shadows inside the car.

The hair on his nape stiffened as the bikes pulled alongside.

He wouldn’t look.

He’d be just some guy on the highway, New Mexico plates, on his way home from work maybe.

He eased off the gas. The Cougar started to drop back.

The bikes roared again, shaking Carl’s seat.

They surged ahead, and kept on going down the road.

The Cougar slowed—fifty, forty. Their taillights grew smaller. Cars pulled around him. A guy in a Cadillac laid on the horn. Carl let the Cougar ease to the shoulder, staring ahead, his heart pounding. His mouth dry.

He came to a stop, muscles like loose rubber bands.

When the road was clear—no one behind him, no one in front of him—he let out his breath.

Sweat slicked his brow. He swiped it with the edge of a shaking hand. He was losing his mind, seeing vampire bikers everywhere. A breath of a laugh eased out, brittle, wanting to be something close to relief but not quite making it.

He pulled back onto the road, keeping it to the speed limit, maybe a little under. Eyes darting toward the shadows at the edges of the road.

He rolled into Los Campos with a wave of relief. The familiarity of his own neighborhood washed against him like a tide. He’d been gone, what, six days? It felt like a year. He’d imagined things would be different back here, after everything he’d gone through, but not a thing had changed. The buildings—homes, apartments, stores—were beige like the landscape, like they’d grown right up out of the ground. He passed the car wash, its sign lit against the evening, and the vacant lot littered with shadows and trash. A blue bucket, cracked and tipped sideways in the dirt—it had been there for months now. He pulled up at the apartment building, two stories of beige fronted by wrought-iron railings. He nosed the car up to a curb. Shut off the engine.

The place was quiet, not a bike in sight—that was something. Not that it didn’t mean they weren’t hiding around the corner.

You’re being paranoid
.

He was. Why wouldn’t he be, after what he’d seen? He let himself out of the car, ears pricking at the neighborhood sounds—a kid’s shout from down the street, the tap of a horn. He grabbed his bag, climbed the dark stairwell. His footfalls echoed along the catwalk. The windows he passed were blank, their curtains pulled tight. He unlocked his door and let himself in. Clicked on the light. He didn’t need to call out for Tim; the place just
felt
empty. He tossed his keys on the end table and headed for the bathroom, where he pissed, stripped, then scrubbed himself under a miserable trickle of water from the shower head.

By the time he was dried off, he felt both refreshed and heavy with the toll of a week spent in a car. He stepped over his trail of clothes and dropped on his bed face first, falling asleep with his arms spread, the warm apartment air skimming his bare legs. The ghost of the old Carl’s scent, embedded in the sheets, mingled in his nostrils—the Carl who was over and done with now. New Carl was home, ready to move on with life. If he could find his fucking roommate.

D
ean slipped
off his sunglasses at the bottom of the bus steps, the dark of evening upon them. Fans waiting outside the bus pushed albums toward him, scraps of paper for him to sign. They wanted photos taken with him. He dashed his name out a few times before apologizing for having to get inside.

Anything to avoid coming into contact with them.

The delicate pulses in the girls’ throats whispered dirty things to him.

He was full of teeth.

He was nothing
but
teeth.

The door closed behind him, and he walked the cool, fluorescent hallways to find his bandmates, show them he was okay, that he’d be fine for the show. He’d need to figure out his food situation at some point, but for tonight, his mission was to be fine—because there was no other choice if he wanted to keep doing this.

It wasn’t just for himself. Shawn, Jessie, Nick—this band was their life too. It was everything they’d worked for. The guys on their crew; they needed to put food on the table. Teddy, Janx, and Mike had families. The bus driver probably had a family. The band was bigger than him.

It was also everything for him. Without it, he was no one.

One way or another, he was going to make it work.

The blood of the others pounded him as soon as he opened the door at the end of t