Janet drove so slowly, she was certain they could walk to their destination more quickly. Yet each time she asked, Mandalay just said calmly, “Keep going.”
“I’m not sure we can get back out as it is.” The road—really a pair of dirt ruts with an overgrown strip between them, sandwiched between saplings and thick undergrowth—closed in around them. Branch tips scraped the sides of the car and made nails-on-chalkboard screeches against the glass. For some reason, the most depressing songs she knew ran through Janet’s head.
“And if I could move, I’d get my gun…,” she murmured aloud, the rough passage adding a vibrato to her voice.
Mandalay said, “What?”
“Sorry. Just a song stuck in my head. ‘Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.’ Kenny Rogers.” She frowned. “Now, why would I be obsessing about a damn Kenny Rogers song?”
“It’s not your fault. It’s because of where we’re going.”
“We’re taking our love to town?”
Mandalay chuckled. “No.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
For a long moment the only sound was the greenery battering all sides of the car. Then Mandalay said, “Rockhouse’s cave.”
Janet slammed on the brakes. Even though the car was barely moving, the jolt still flung Mandalay forward against her seat belt.
Janet stared at her. “I’m sorry, I must have earwigs or be in a temporal bubble or just be a really stupid hillbilly, because I know I didn’t hear you correctly.”
“Yes, you did.”
Janet put the car in reverse and twisted to look out the back window. All she saw was a red glow on the cloud of dust raised by their sudden stop.
“Wait,” Mandalay said calmly. “Let me tell you.”
“They hang dead bodies to keep people out,” Janet said, easing the car back along the path. “They have rape rooms. They brew meth and moonshine right in the fucking cave.”
“Please, stop. It’s important.”
“Not to me.” She barely stayed on the path and just missed backing into a tree trunk.
“I understand why you’re afraid.”
“Do you?” She slammed on the brakes. “Near as I can figure, you’ve never been afraid in your life. Everyone makes sure you’re covered in Bubble Wrap and only bump into things with rounded corners.”
“That’s not true. I’ve been afraid.”
“Oh yeah? When? What could possibly scare the great Mandalay Harris?”
In a small, flat voice, she said, “When the night winds spoke to me in human words from right behind me.”
This brought Janet up short. She put it into park, took several deep breaths, and said, “Mandalay, I know you have a reason for this, and I appreciate your trust in me, but I’m about to pee my pants. I’ve heard way too many stories about what they do in that cave, and I don’t particularly want any of it done to me. So I think maybe you should go get Bliss Overbay or Bronwyn Chess to come with you.”
“I need you. I need your musical talent.”
“For what?”
Mandalay looked out at the night, then turned back. “That banjo we got from Popcorn? The tuning pegs are made from finger bones.”
It took Janet a minute. “Wait … human finger bones?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
“Whose do you think?”
Janet barked out a laugh at the absurdity, then said, “You’re really testing my bladder control here.”
“Adam didn’t die the way everyone says. I don’t know if he was murdered, and if he was, I don’t know for sure who’s responsible. But I do know how to find out.”
“By going to this cave and playing that banjo?”
“Yes.”
“What song?”
“The song that comes to us.”
“Comes to us from where?”
“Where do you think?”
There was just enough light for Janet to see Mandalay’s eyes reflect like an owl’s, big and round and silver.
* * *
Duncan drove Renny’s truck, the one that had belonged to Adam, in silence. The radio was even turned off. The roads between Unicorn and his home were twisty and tricky, so he was careful. He had the most precious cargo in the world: his pregnant wife.
His wife.
His baby.
Holy shit.
He glanced over at her. She looked at the ring on her finger in the light from the dashboard. It wasn’t anything spectacular—he’d never even gotten her a proper engagement ring, so the band was both plain and solitary—but she seemed happy with it.
“How you doing, Mrs. Gowen?” he asked.
“All right.”
“And how’s Baby Gowen?”
“He’s fine. He seemed to take the whole wedding as a good sign.”
“Smart kid.”
She leaned against the window and closed her eyes. “Thank you. I feel much better now.”
“Now that you’re married?”
“I know, right? It’s the dumbest thing. I used to make fun of girls who just wanted to get married and start having kids. It’s like, ‘Don’t you have any dreams or goals in life?’ But now look at me.”
“I hope you still have some goals and dreams.”
She laughed. “That’s the thing, Dunk. I never really did. I mean, I knew I needed a job, and someday I’d probably get married. But I was never driven to do anything.”
“You were driven to get married,” he deadpanned. “I drove you.”
She snorted. “Are all your jokes going to be that bad?”
“Probably.”
She took his right hand and squeezed it. “Well, then, I guess I better get used to it.”
“I guess you better.”
She let go of his hand and looked again at her ring. “It just feels like everything is going to be okay now.”
“Don’t jinx it,” he joked.
And then the giant pig was right there in the middle of the road.
The headlights illuminated its low-slung head and humped back. It faced the truck head-on, and the image burned itself into Duncan’s mind: eyes glowing red as the light reflected from the backs of its retinas, huge tusks sticking out yellow and curved from the lower jaw, and the mouth and nostrils wet with pig snot and saliva.
Duncan twisted the wheel reflexively to the right, but they were at the point of a curve to the left, so before he could turn back, they crashed through the slender trees at the shoulder. It seemed to happen in slow motion: one moment the trees with their bare lower branches were lit brightly, and then they slipped out of sight beneath the truck’s hood.
The trees siphoned off most of the momentum, so that when the truck flew over the edge of the hidden ravine, it plunged straight down.
The front end slammed into the mud at the bottom with a loud squelch, burying the headlights, and the rear of the vehicle tipped forward. It leaned against the far side of the ravine, chassis exposed, cab almost upside down.
The air bag deployed on impact with the trees, and now Duncan struggled to get out of it. It felt like being stuck in mashed potatoes. “Renny!” he cried as he tried to see her. He reached for her, but couldn’t find her.
At last the air bags deflated. She hung from her shoulder belt at an odd angle. He couldn’t breathe at the thought that she might be dead, but her eyes opened and she said woozily, “What the fuck, Duncan?”
“That pig,” he said. “That pig was in the road!”
“What pig? I didn’t see anything.”
“The one that killed Kera and Adam! It was right there!”
She tried to swing her arm around to undo her seat belt, but it wouldn’t move. “Dude, I think my arm’s broke.”
“Hang on, I’ll get you.”
He tried to pop her shoulder belt, but it wouldn’t budge. He undid his own, and spent an awkward moment twisting around for a better position. Then he tried again, but the mechanism was thoroughly jammed.
“Dude, have you got a knife? Just cut the damn thing.”
“I don’t,” he admitted.
“A redneck without a pocketknife,” she said with a mocking shake of her head. “What sort of man have I married?”
He looked around. The impact had stalled the engine, but the dash was still lit, and he turned on the dome light. It showed him Renny’s pale face, and her right arm, twisted in a way it wasn’t meant to. This was serious.
He dug out his cell phone. He got no signal. “Let me see your phone.”
“It’s in my pocket. You’ll have to get it.”
He reached into the back pocket of her jeans and fished it out. She got no signal, either.
“I’m going to climb up on the road and see if I can get a call through,” he said.
“I’ll just hang around,” she joked, but he could see the veins on her neck and forehead bulging from her upside-down position. It couldn’t be good for her, or their baby.
“I’ll hurry,” he said, and kissed her. “I love you.”
“You have to now,” she shot back with a smile. “I’ve got the hardware on my finger and the software in my belly.”
Duncan worked his way out the driver’s-side door, landing in cold mud as he fell on his face. He got up, shook himself off, and looked around. In the dim light, he saw that the gully’s sides were twenty feet high, and the bottom was muddy from runoff coming from higher on the mountain.
He grabbed a protruding tree root and ascended toward the road. Cold water soaked through his shirt and jeans, since he had to press himself against the mud to climb. Just as he was about to reach the top, he remembered something.
The pig was still up there.
He hadn’t hit it, and it certainly hadn’t looked scared.
He was absolutely sure he had seen it. It had been right in the headlights, massive and dark and bristling with hair and fury. He’d seen it before, after all, from the same angle, that day it killed Adam; it wasn’t like he’d mistake a cow or one of those emus for it.
He rose enough to peer over the top edge of the gully wall. He smelled wet leaves and dirt, along with the metallic odor of the wrecked truck. There were no streetlights this far out of town, but he could see the road fairly clearly.
It was empty.
“Duncan?” Renny called from the wreck. Her voice was shaky. “You still there?”
“I’m here,” he answered as he pulled himself up onto the shoulder.
“I’m getting cold down here.”
“I’m on the road. It won’t be long.”
He pulled out his phone and checked it. As he did, he noticed the battery icon in the corner was now a mere sliver of red. He got no signal, and he barely had any juice left.
He checked Renny’s phone. It was completely dead.
He turned off his phone to conserve what he had. “I have to find some high ground to call,” he told Renny.
“Don’t leave me here, Duncan,” she said in the most pitiful voice he’d ever heard.
He never imagined Renny capable of sounding so helpless, and it broke his heart. “I won’t, honey. I just have to run up the hill.”
He looked in both directions. Which way actually did lead closer to town, and to any cell signal he might pick up? He was disoriented in the darkness, and his head just couldn’t sort it out. He’d driven this road many times, and should know exactly where he was. He looked back the way he’d come, and saw only highway twisting out of sight around a curve. Then he turned toward the way ahead.
And almost screamed.
Because there was the pig, looking elephantine in the darkness, silhouetted black against the lighter gray of the highway pavement.
He stared. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Was it a shape made of shadows?
He had just about convinced himself that it was, when it grunted. The noise was so low that he felt it in his chest like a hit on a bass drum.
It took a step toward him, its hooves clacking on the road.
He turned and ran the other way. He heard it clacking on the blacktop behind him, gathering speed.