CHAPTER TWO
Eventually the flow of words from Cheryl began to slow because she had told her short life’s story all the way up to her wedding, which had occurred last month. Now Matt was trying to dodge her questions. After Matt explained that his wife had died of cancer, Cheryl’s big, blue eyes turned sad. Then she flushed, seeming embarrassed that she had brought up something she assumed was painful. She told Matt about the year and a half during Jeff’s last deployment when she and Jeff wrote back and forth and used Skype, as if their separation could compare to Janey’s death. “I was so afraid he wouldn’t come home.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t care.” Jeff smiled at her.
It didn’t work. Cheryl seemed to think ceaseless talking could undo any damage caused by opening up an old wound. What she didn’t realize was that Matt actually liked talking about Janey. After all the chaos and death of the last couple of years, he wanted to remember her. Her memory kept him going. If Cheryl had given him a chance, he would have told her about Janey. But listening was fine, too. The simple story of a young couple falling in love was, well, normal. He fell asleep to the sound of her voice like it was a lullaby.
He woke up to Cheryl’s voice, too, but it was louder and high-pitched now. Matt didn’t know how long he’d slept or exactly where they were, but the terrain had changed to desert and rocks. Off to the east he could see a giant wall of brown clouds traveling across the horizon like a wave. The clouds swirled and boiled as the storm rushed toward
them. Dried, dead plants and gravel were flying across the road. The wind around the truck was so strong that the vehicle swayed, so Jeff slowed down. Matt wondered if it was some creation of Mr. Dark’s.
“It’s like something out of a movie.” Jeff pulled off the road.
“I’ve read about these. They’re called haboobs.” Cheryl pronounced
haboobs
slowly, with an emphasis on the last syllable,
boobs
.
Jeff immediately began to laugh, and after a second of hesitation, so did Matt.
Cheryl looked hurt, as if she had heard too many dumb blonde jokes. “No, really. It’s an Arab word for a really bad sandstorm. Sometimes there’s a rainstorm afterwards and sometimes it’s just nature blowing dirt all over everything.”
“Well, why don’t they call it a really bad sandstorm instead of a ha
boob
?” Jeff was enjoying his new word.
Cheryl poked him in the ribs and said, “Well, I don’t know, but that’s what it’s called.”
Jeff squirmed from being poked in a ticklish spot and put his arm around Cheryl. “Okay, haboob. Come and get us.” She held his hand and their tiny spat was over.
As the storm got closer, they could feel the wind battering the truck and making whining sounds like it was trying to get inside. Even with the windows tightly closed, there was a taste of earth in the air. The wall’s color changed to a dark yellowish tan that blocked out the sun.
“Oh, look at that poor man!” Cheryl pointed across the highway. Outside in the wind a man was walking along the highway. He had a long walking stick and a Mexican blanket wrapped around him, covering his face. He must have been looking down, using
the road to guide him, because looking into the sandstorm would have been painful. He probably didn’t even know the curtain of sand was so near. “He won’t be able to breathe when that thing hits.”
Jeff barely hesitated before reaching for his door handle.
“You picking him up?” Matt reached behind for his ax, which was in his duffel.
“There’s a bit of space in the trailer. He could be some homeless old vet. Do you know how many homeless vets there are?”
Matt didn’t answer. He was thinking about how many evil bastards there were. In the last two years he’d seen so much evil that he pretty much expected trouble. It was a relief when he didn’t find it, but of course that just meant it was waiting for him around the next corner. Well, he’d know about this stranger soon enough. Matt just needed a good look at the guy’s face. If there was a bit of rot, the guy wasn’t getting a ride, even in the back. Matt carried his duffel, leaving the ax hidden inside. If this man was just a lost soul, he didn’t want to scare him into refusing a ride, but Matt wasn’t going to meet him without a weapon handy.
As Matt and Jeff rushed over, the wind lessened enough for the man to hear their offer of a ride. Even after glancing at the quickly approaching wave of dust and sand, he didn’t seem anxious to take them up on it. First he stared at Jeff’s face for longer than was polite. Still silent, he turned to Matt and carefully looked him over. When their eyes locked on each other, the Stranger looked surprised. Matt knew he had been recognized, but he didn’t remember this guy. From a distance the man’s long hair and beard made him look old, but as Matt got closer he realized the man was in his early forties. The only reason he had been hunched was to protect his eyes from the windstorm. As soon as he
heard Jeff’s voice, the man stood up tall with a slight bend in his knees, as if he wanted to be ready to move. It was a fighter’s stance. At the same time, his grip on the walking stick changed from underhand to overhand—the proper grip if you were going to use it to bash someone upside the head. A fistfight between the two of them could go either way. Matt was more solid, but he could tell the sinewy wanderer was tough and strong. He looked like a man who won more than he lost. Matt recognized the look because he had it, too. There was a calm fearlessness to him. In Deerpark, Oregon, the small lumber town where Matt had grown up, fighting was a necessary schoolyard skill, and Matt’s abilities had improved greatly since then. It was a different kind of fighting now. People died.
Matt stepped closer, with his hand on his ax handle, waiting for any sign of aggression, but the man’s body stayed relaxed and the walking stick didn’t move. There was a good-looking, even-featured face under all the scruff. With a shave and a haircut, he’d be presentable. The eyes were bright and alert. Maybe it was the silvery hair at his temples or the dirt on his face, but the man’s eyes seemed brighter than normal.
“I’m Jeff. This is Matt. We’ve got a bit of room in the back.”
The Stranger didn’t offer a name. He only nodded. Everyone was choking from the dust, so they moved quickly. The Stranger hopped in gracefully. Clearly, the walking stick was unnecessary. It was three inches thick along its length, with a heavy handle and a heavy silver cap on the end. You could easily kill with it. When Matt looked up, the Stranger was watching him with an expression of curiosity. It was if he expected Matt to say or do something and Matt had surprised him. After Jeff handed the man a bottle of water, the Stranger shut the trailer door in their faces. Jeff looked at Matt and shrugged.
Back in the cab of the truck Matt tried to figure out how the Stranger recognized him. When Matt had first come back to life after being frozen for three months, his picture was all over the news, but two years had passed. The attention span of the public was much too short for anyone to remember that. The Colorado police had a photo of his profile, but the Stranger was looking at him full on, right in the face, when he seemed to recognize Matt.
Jeff explained to Cheryl that the guy in the back seemed okay, just not very social. A moment later, the truck was swallowed by the haboob. They could see nothing except the tan-yellow color of the storm. The sun was blocked, and Matt had the sensation that they were submerged in the earth. Everyone’s eyes were red and teary, and they breathed in gritty dust. Cheryl turned her face against Jeff’s chest, but Matt was sure it wasn’t going to help. He missed having someone to ride out storms with. He wondered if that could ever happen again or whether he would he end up like the Stranger hunkered down in the back. The man’s presence was unsettling. It reminded Matt that he should get away from this nice young couple before something went horribly wrong.
As soon as he could see the road again, Jeff began driving toward the mountains and away from the storm. Slowly, the air cleared. Traveling along steep mountain roads, they watched the red and purple cliffs change colors in the light. The scenery seemed even more amazing after being in the dirty haze, and Matt thought about all the beautiful country he had seen since he left Deerpark. If only he hadn’t seen so many horrors along the way.
“Shouldn’t we tell that man where we’re taking him and ask if he wants to go?” Cheryl asked.
“Naw. I’m not leaving him out here in the middle of nothing and nowhere,” Jeff answered. “The old guy is probably asleep anyway. We’ll let him rest.”
Matt suspected the Stranger preferred being in the middle of nothing and nowhere, and he was absolutely sure he was not asleep.
CHAPTER THREE
The Fill ’er Fast truck stop’s faded sign still had the outline of a large arrow even though someone had climbed up the pole and done his best to make the arrow look like a penis. The vandal had used inferior paint, so the sign now featured a hazy and poorly drawn penis with a red arrow inside it. Matt wondered what type of business would just let that graffiti fade rather than fix the sign.
Three men were standing together smoking near a gas pump. They wore cowboy boots and spoke Spanish. Two of them were lean and young. The third had a paunch and a long, old-fashioned mustache. The fat man’s iPhone rang, and when he answered, the outline of a gun handle showed under his shirt. The other two had guns carelessly tucked inside waistbands. Their tight Levis were clean, and all three wore heavy, expensive-looking watches. Whatever they did, they were prosperous. Just as Jeff parked next to a gas pump, salsa music began blaring from the store. Matt looked at the face of the man closest to them. One eyeball was hanging down from the socket. It had turned black, and it swayed when the man moved his head. The truck’s gas gauge was on empty. No choice but to stop. Matt grabbed his duffel. “I’ll get it.”
He shut the door quickly before Cheryl could climb out, too. It didn’t work. When Jeff stepped out to pay, Cheryl slipped out behind him. Then, of course, she danced to the music in her tight T-shirt and skinny jeans. The pretty blonde dancer had everyone’s attention. During the more athletic moves, her top and her jeans separated, showing her midriff. “I’m getting a Coke. Anybody else want something?”
Matt tried to talk her into waiting in the truck while he got her a drink, but she laughed at him and told him he didn’t need to do everything. While everyone was leering at Cheryl, Matt took a quick head count. Three by the pumps, four more inside the little station, and some vehicles around the corner of the building, which could mean even more men. All of them had a smirking, malevolent look. Matt spotted another gun handle. At this point he assumed everyone was carrying a gun. He considered opening up the back of the trailer and asking the Stranger to step out. An additional man would make his little group look stronger and maybe these guys would let Matt and his friends go on about their business. But what if the Stranger had sprouted his own boils of decay? Too risky.
The gas seemed to be flowing much slower than usual. As soon as Matt decided they had enough to get to the next town, he stopped, but Cheryl wasn’t back yet. Before he went inside after her he needed to check out whatever was on the side of the building.
“I’m heading for the john.” Matt swung his duffel over his shoulder. He wasn’t a fussy guy, but he wouldn’t have used a toilet here if it had just been submerged in bleach. The bathroom was locked, so Matt was spared whatever disgusting secrets it held. While he made a show of knocking and cursing, he checked out the vehicles. There were two jeeps and a truck with the logo “Top Star Moving and Storage.” Matt felt someone staring, and when he turned to look, he saw a man in the cab whose skin was covered in ants. They were hoisting bits of his rotting flesh and carrying them off. To where? Did they have an ant colony somewhere inside him? Matt’s childhood memories of watching his ant farm suddenly seemed creepy. Whatever was happening here, these guys were fully engulfed in evil—so much that Matt had no idea what they really looked like. Ant
Man lit a cigarette. The ants seemed offended by the smoke and disappeared into a hole in his neck. The other man in the truck got out and walked toward the bathroom. Matt reached in his duffel for the ax, but he didn’t need it. The man unzipped his fly and took a whiz right next to the men’s room door as if the restroom sign were merely marking the proper location instead of an actual bathroom. They were so close that Matt could see wiggling white maggots riding down the urine like fish in a waterfall. Time to get Cheryl.
Matt didn’t rush in—the jewelry store mistake was still fresh. Looking through the gas station’s open window, he could see a heavy female cashier wearing a white wifebeater. She had a tattoo on her arm, which was obscured by a fuzzy black boil the size of a baseball. Stiff red hair, brittle from too many dye jobs, stuck out from under her dirty baseball cap. Four men were drinking beer and eating an assortment of jerky and candy. They, too, were decaying. Glops of corrosive pus and bits of flaking tissue dropped to the floor. The men were calling out to Cheryl.
“Hey, mama!” One grabbed his crotch.
“You lonely?” asked another.
“You like to party?” came from a third. Then he pointed to the cashier. “We’re not drunk enough to fuck Gloria.” He and the others laughed, but it was too long and too loud, like it was meant to be mean.
Gloria made a face. “Fucking
pendejos
!”
In response, one of them threw a full beer can, which hit the side of her face. Now she had a red mark to match her hair.
Cheryl was ignoring them and trying to pay, although Gloria kept refusing her credit cards. One of the men came close to Cheryl and whispered something Matt
couldn’t hear. She jerked away, heading for an aisle. Another one blocked her with his moldy blue arm. “What you want? Anything I can do?”
Cheryl crossed her arms. “Yeah. You can get out of my way.” She tried to push past him. He dropped his arm, but only to grab her ass. Cheryl slapped him hard and fast, which made the others howl and hoot. The slap had excited them, not discouraged them. It was like she had started a game. None of them cared that Matt was watching. Before he could come up with a plan to distract them and get Cheryl safely back to the truck, she began screaming. Two of them were dragging her out of the store. Jeff ran toward her, reaching them at the threshold. He hollered, “Get off her!” When Jeff grabbed the closest man, another one shot him point-blank in the face. Jeff howled in pain as his face exploded in blood. He suffered for only a moment before the guy shot him two more times.