Evil Jester Digest Volume One Page 8

  The blasted town faded in the dust as they stumbled across the featureless desert. The fine grit in the air stung Harry’s eyes and scraped his throat with each breath. Laura followed silently a pace behind him.

  After many minutes—Harry could not estimate how long—his leg muscles screamed, his lungs burned, his eyes were dried-out pits. He looked back and saw Laura was no longer holding the compress to her torn flesh. The bleeding had stopped. She seemed to have no trouble breathing or moving across the rocky surface. Then he looked more closely at her face and he stopped short.

  It was no longer the face of his Laura. The eyes burned in deep sockets. Her lips were pulled back from the dazzling teeth she had been so proud of. Her tongue slid out and licked at the crusted blood around her mouth—blood from Harry’s knuckles.

  “Laura, what the hell?!”

  The sound that rolled from deep in her chest was more animal than human. Her fingers twisted into claws, and she sprang at him. Her teeth closed on the meat of his forearm.

  By sheer reflex Harry tore his arm free, clasped his hands and swung them together like a club. The clenched hands cracked against the side of Laura’s head. They both staggered back. Never in twelve years of marriage had he come close to hitting her. Now he had slammed her with all his strength.

  Laura’s head bobbled with a crackling sound. She took a faltering step toward him and fell awkwardly to the dirt. There she lay with her head at an unnatural angle, her limbs twitching with no coordination. An ugly growl rolled from her throat and she struggled to rise.

  Harry turned and ran with mindless desperation. His feet pounded the ground sending bolts of pain up his legs. The hot dust seared his lungs. The sun scorched his bare back. He had no conception of how long or how far he ran. His sole purpose was to get away from the thing that had been his wife. The thing with his blood on its lips. The terrible face burned inside his eyes until the world darkened. The last thing he felt was his face hitting the sand.

  *****

  The next thing he saw was a round pale blur like the moon. Gradually the details sharpened and the moon became a face. A round not so pale face looking down at him through eyeglasses.

  “I see you’re back with us, Mr. Keyes.”

  Sensations returned slowly. An antiseptic smell. A soft regular beep. A cool feeling against his flesh. A bed. He was in a bed.

  “I am Dr. Hoffman,” the moon face said, smiling. “Your next question will be ‘Where am I?’ You are in Barstow Community Hospital.” A body, fleshy and soft, coalesced below the face. “A couple of dirt bikers found you in the desert, lucky for you. Your car was towed in. It’s in a police lot now for you to pick up when you’re able.”

  “My wife?”

  “We’ve been trying to call her at your home number. So far there’s been no answer.”

  “No, my wife was with me.”

  “I’m sorry. You were alone when they found you. If she’s still out there I’ll alert the sheriff.”

  The image flashed into his mind of the growling thing he had left in the desert.

  “No. No, I got confused.”

  “That’s not surprising. You are really very lucky. That’s a bad patch of desert where you were found. It’s been poisoned land since the big dust storm of 1937 wiped out the mining town of Creighton.”

  “A town?”

  “It was. There were only a few survivors. More than a hundred people died. The bodies of all but a dozen or so were dug out and properly buried. The rest were never found. They let the desert take back what was left of the town. You can barely see where the road used to be.”

  “Why did you say, ‘poisoned land’?”

  “It’s just a very bad place to be stuck in. Every year or so somebody disappears in the old Creighton area. Never seen again. The last one was just a couple of months ago. Young fella trying out his off-roader. We found his three-wheeler but not him.

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Quilty, I think it was. Roger Quilty. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Speaking of curious, where did you get that bite?”

  “Bite?”

  The doctor pointed to Harry’s left forearm. For the first time he was aware of a fresh white bandage. “Something bit you there. It might have been a coyote, but they don’t usually go after humans.”

  Harry shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, you get some rest. I’ll be back in a couple of hours and we’ll talk about getting you out of here.”

  Alone in the cool bed Harry stared at the neat white bandage. He pulled loose the fastening, unwrapped the gauze, and lifted off the cotton. A double crescent of punctures marked the skin. There was no pain, just a nagging itch.

  The flesh all around the bite marks was red and slightly swollen. Harry scratched at it lightly with his forefinger. The flesh peeled away under his nail like a lemon twist.

  There was no blood flow from the bites or the furrow he had just dug. No pain. No pain at all. Just a hunger. A terrible gnawing, grinding hunger.

  When was that nice plump doctor coming back?

  *****

  Gary Brandner, born in the Midwest and much traveled during his formative years, has 30-odd published novels, more than 100 short stories, and a handful of screenplays on his resume. After grabbing a degree in journalism from the University of Washington, he followed such diverse career paths as bartender, surveyor, loan company investigator, advertising copywriter, bounty hunter, and technical writer before turning to fiction. Since his breakthrough novel, The Howling, he has settled into a relatively respectable life with wife and cats in Reno, Nevada.

  GPS

  Rick Hautala

  “Turn left onto Willow Creek Road,” the voice said.

  Mark had recently changed the voice on his GPS to this cold, commanding male voice. When he had first gotten the navigational device, he had—ironically, of course—programmed in the “nagging wife” voice. For a while, he found that relatively amusing; but before long, he realized how—subconsciously, no doubt—he had been trying to make light of how much Eileen had been getting on his nerves lately. Or maybe he chose it to mock her, demonstrating—to himself, at least, when he was driving in the privacy of his car—that she wasn’t the only woman in his life who nagged him.

  That had only lasted a few days.

  Now, with this long drive from Maine to Florida ahead of him, keeping to back roads as much as possible, he didn’t need any more “stressors” in his life.

  Leaving Eileen had been the easy part, but letting go of Jeff—his six-year-old son—had been tough. Circumstances had forced his hand because he certainly hadn’t wanted to leave his boy alone back there with that psycho-bitch.

  “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” as his father—now six years dead—used to say.

  Shielding his eyes with his hand and squinting against the morning sunlight glinting off the hood of his car, he scanned the intersection left and right. The Virginia roadside was lush with spring growth. Down south, it was nothing like spring in Maine, which swung in with frozen slush and grit. He’d been driving with the car windows, front and back, open because of the stench in the car. Half-empty fast food containers, apple cores and banana skins, old coffee cups, cigar butts, and a host of other rotting smells filled the small space, but the sweet breeze that filled the car reminded him that spring had finally arrived…

  Spring with so many new opportunities.

  The directions from the GPS didn’t feel right.

  He was positive he was supposed to turn right onto the road, which would take him back to the main highway. Judging by the position of the sun and trusting his own navigational instincts, it just felt wrong. Unless the road drastically changed direction, he was convinced that turning left would head him east or—worse yet—back north.

  Except for his car, the exit ramp was deserted this early in the morning, so he slowed down as he approached the fork in the
road, not yet committing to either turn. He stopped the car at the fork in the road and sat there with the engine idling, expecting the GPS to correct itself and tell him to turn right after all.

  “Turn left onto Willow Creek Road,” the robotic voice repeated.

  Mark scowled at it.

  “You’re sure ’bout that?” The graphic display clearly showed the road he was on with a thick, red arrow arcing to the left. “I dunno…”

  He let out a startled cry when an eighteen-wheeler suddenly appeared in his rearview mirror, bearing down on him—fast. The sudden, sharp blast of the truck’s air horn shattered the early morning stillness, the sound so loud it made Mark’s teeth ache.

  Muttering under his breath, he eased into the right-hand turn without bothering to snap on his turn indicator. The semi’s driver gave him another quick, deafening blast of the air horn to express his appreciation for Mark’s skillful driving. Mark resisted the urge to flip him off as he pulled out onto the road he was sure would take him back to the highway.

  “Recalculating,” the GPS unit said, and Mark shot it another scowl. Then he shifted his gaze to the rearview mirror to see the semi, so close to his rear bumper he could see only a portion of its shiny chrome grill grinning at him in the mirror.

  “Back the fuck off, why don’t yah?”

  Just to make his point, Mark down-shifted because he could see, up ahead, that the driver wouldn’t have an opportunity to pass him for a long stretch of road. The jerk needed to be taught some manners, trying to bully him like that.

  Mark’s grip on the steering wheel tightened and his teeth clenched as he drove. His jaw began to throb behind his ears.

  It was obvious the truck driver wasn’t going to be intimidated. He stayed right there on Mark’s tail, the throaty rumble of the engine so loud and close it punched Mark’s eardrums like the concussion of gunshots, drowning out everything else.

  So much for a nice, pleasant drive this morning, he thought.

  “Proceed one quarter mile to Casey Road and turn left,” the GPS unit said mechanically.

  “Up yours,” Mark whispered, glaring at the GPS. And then faintly, just at the edge of hearing above the rumbling roar of the semi behind him, he thought he heard a voice say, “Watch your mouth.”

  Wondering if he had really heard it or only imagined it, he shifted his gaze to the truck’s grill in his rearview and eased his foot off the accelerator to slow down just enough so the truck driver would know he shouldn’t be fucking with him.

  This earned him another, longer wailing blast of the air horn and a couple of quick flashes of the truck’s high beams. Reflected in the rearview, the light stabbed his eyes like lasers, making him wince.

  “You really don’t wanna fuck with me,” Mark muttered, shifting his eyes back and forth between the rearview mirror and the curving road that unspooled ahead down a steep incline. Even if this road didn’t bring him back to the highway he was looking for, he was satisfied that he was at least head south. Off to his left, range after range of mountains receded into a distant purple haze. The rising sun struggled to burn away the fogbank that hovered in the valley like a dense pall of smoke.

  Mark eased back in the car seat and draped his right arm over the top of the seat, hoping the driver behind him would see just how casual and carefree he was. Lowering the driver’s window all the way and with the backseat window halfway down, he let the slipstream of air tousle his hair and wash like warm water over his face. The fresh smell of green growing things mixed with tinges of motor oil and burnt rubber that rose from the highway.

  This is a good thing, Mark told himself.

  Even with the windows down, the air in the car had been getting increasingly rank the further he drove into warmer climes. The fresh air rinsed the stench from the car.

  The road weaved back and forth, curling around the mountainside like a huge, flattened snake in the morning sun. Mark wondered if he was foolish, playing games, irritating other drivers…especially a trucker responsible for a huge eighteen-wheeler. If something happened…if while trying to shut this asshole down he or the trucker made even a slight miscalculation, they both could end up skidding off the road and careening off a sheer cliff into the river valley below.

  “Know what?” a voice asked.

  It took Mark a heartbeat or two to realize it had been the voice of the GPS.

  Perplexed, he glanced at it and said, “Umm…What?”

  “That truck driver…?”

  “Yeah? What about him?”

  “He thinks you’re an asshole.”

  The GPS’s voice was thin and barely audible above the shrill sound of the wind whistling through the windows and the thundering of the truck behind him. Mark told himself he had to be imagining the voice and chalked it up to driving too long without a break. He should have paced his driving better, he told himself, and taken longer rest stops; but he was short of cash and hadn’t wanted to spring for a motel, so he had been driving steadily day and night, taking only short breaks.

  His knuckles went white as he gripped the steering wheel, guiding the car down the curving, sloping road, the car swaying gently from side to side. Still wondering if the GPS really had spoken to him, he kept flicking his glance at it while he navigated the road ahead.

  “Did you really just…?” but that was all he could manage.

  The eighteen-wheeler was still on his tail, impossibly large in the rearview mirror. It looked to be less than six feet from his rear bumper. The wailing blast of its air horn thumped Mark’s chest like a series of punches.

  “Are you talking to me?” Mark asked, but the GPS was silent.

  He was stressed from the drive, he told himself, and had imagined…hallucinated the comments. He should pull over and take a nap before something worse happened.

  He snapped back to reality, wondering if the truck might be a runaway. This high in the mountains, he’d noticed numerous emergency ramps angling off from the roads—long, straight dirt exits ramps that ran flat for a hundred yards or so and then ended with a sudden steep upgrade backed by ten-foot tall piles of sand to slow and stop runaway trucks.

  What if this guy was having trouble with his brakes?

  Maybe he was trying to warn Mark to get out of his way.

  “Screw it,” Mark said, gritting his teeth as he glanced at the grille in his rearview. “We’ll know what’s what if he slows down at the bottom this hill.”

  “He’s laughing at you, you know.”

  The voice caught Mark off guard, but this time there was no denying that the GPS unit had spoken.

  “Are you…? You’re really talking to me?” Mark glanced at the curling red arrow on the digital view screen.

  “No, asshole,” the metallic voice replied. “I’m talking to your mother.” After a lengthy pause, during which Mark wrestled with amazement and disbelief, the GPS unit added, “Of course I’m talking to you.”

  “How can you—you’re not programmed to…to—”

  Mark snapped his focus back to the winding road when he caught himself drifting into the opposite lane. Thankfully, there was no on-coming traffic, but the driver in the semi must have thought Mark was making room for him because he suddenly sped up and tried to pass him on the right. Realizing he was about to get squeezed out, Mark stomped down on the accelerator. His car sped ahead, pulling back into the travel lane mere inches from the semi’s front bumper.

  That earned him another ear-splitting blast from the horn, and Mark couldn’t resist sticking his left hand out the window and flipping his middle finger at the driver. The wind tore at his hand.

  The scenery was going by in a green blur as Mark negotiated the twists and turns, forgetting for the moment what had just happened with the GPS. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, and he realized his stomach was tight and sour.

  “He won’t back off,” the GPS unit said.

  “Shut up!” Mark shouted, still only half believing he was really hearing this.

  �
��He thinks you’re a goddamned idiot. He’s trying to run your ass off the road.”

  “Why would he do a thing like that?”

  “Because he doesn’t like you.”

  “Doesn’t like me? How does he—” but Mark couldn’t finish the question as he glanced at the GPS. With the wind whistling in his ears, he wanted to believe—he had to believe he was imagining all of this…Maybe his radio was on, tuned to some talk radio station that was fading in and out. When he looked at the radio, though, he saw that the dial was unlit. He twiddled the volume control back and forth a few times just to make sure the radio was silent.

  “You’re not real,” Mark said, hearing the tremor in his voice. “You can’t be.”

  His lips were suddenly as dry as paper. He licked them, but there was no moisture on his tongue. A sour taste, like vomit, filled the back of his throat. He felt around until he found the water bottle on the seat beside him, but when he shook it, he realized that it was empty. He had forgotten to buy another bottle at the last rest stop, and up here in the God-forsaken boonies, who knew when he would find another gas station and convenience store?

  “There’s no water in hell,” the GPS said.

  “Will you please shut the fuck up?” Mark shouted, fighting the feeling that he was talking to himself, trying to shut off his own chattering thoughts.

  “I’m just saying…” was all the GPS said, its robotic voice as emotionless as ever. But Mark was sure he had heard a mocking tone in the voice, nonetheless.

  Negotiating the twists and turns of the down slope, Mark couldn’t help but gaze at the damned thing, fighting the urge to tear it off its window mount and fling it out the window. If he did that, though, the truck driver could report him for littering and get him pulled over. Hell, he had probably already radioed ahead to the local police barracks to notify the Staties to be looking for him.