CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Collision

 

ALISON SITS NEXT to the man with the long, greasy hair. She grips the seat belt like it’s a safety line, like if she clutches it tight enough the strange man will stop driving down these narrow Kansas backroads at a hundred miles per hour, slicing a scissor-line through corn and wheat and other grains.

The man hums. Mmm-mm-mmmm...

“Who are you?” she finally asks after ten minutes of driving.

“Hm? Oh. Just a friend.”

“A friend. My friend.”

“Didn’t say your friend. Just a friend. Friend to the world. Trickster extraordinaire. Defender of the golden thread. Which is, I think, close to snapping...” He looks down at the dashboard, then presses on the accelerator. The car whips forward. Rows of cornstalks fly past, blurring into an indefinable green smear.

“Please. Don’t kill me.”

“Kill you? I would do no such thing. Oh, that reminds me—” He holds the wheel with one hand, reaches across her lap and wrenches open the glove compartment. Inside, a knife rests on the maps and old receipts. He snaps his fingers and the knife rolls out, bounces off the lid, and lands in her lap.

She yelps.

Quickly she fumbles with the knife, picks it up, and holds it to his throat.

“Really?” he asks.

“You stop this car.”

“Not yet.”

“Stop the car!”

“I just gave you that knife. And now you’re threatening me with it?”

“Stop the car!” she screams.

He slams on the brakes. Tires squeal. Smoke from burning rubber rises up on both sides of the car. Her own head smacks against the dashboard, and she almost loses the blade.

Before she knows what’s happening, he’s snapping his fingers again and her car door flings open from invisible hands.

He waves at her. “Bubbye, now. Nice to see you. Keep the thread intact.”

Then he pushes her out and accelerates away.

 

 

A CADILLAC SITS on the side of the road. A few bumblebees buzz between white wildflowers as the wind shakes the corn. The Devil peers into the back seat of the car. There lies the boy—his great-grandson.

“Barney?” he says to Frank. “Ugh. That’s his name. Barney?”

“Mm,” Frank says. “Short for… I dunno. Barnabas or something. Wasn’t easy sneaking that kid here, by the way. Thank God for your guy with the plane—”

Lucifer wheels on him. “Did you just say, Thank God?”

“I—wait—”

“I’m sure you didn’t. Because the ‘guy with the plane’ was my guy. He was a Devil worshipper. He’s in my pocket. God had nothing to do with this. Nothing.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—it’s just a saying. Everybody says it.”

Lucifer’s scowl turned back to a smile. “Well, soon they’ll be saying Thank Satan when anything good happens. Or anything bad. Or anything at all, because I’ll be the one turning the clockwork gears that make the whole universe go.” Again he peers back in through the window. “Barney. What a horrible name. It just... falls off the tongue. Like a bridge jumper plummeting to his death. Remind me to think up a new name for our young Prince, here. Something infernal. You know? In the tongue of my corrupt angels.”

“Sure. Whatever. Why you need the kid, anyway?”

“Like I said, I need a prince. The throne has rules, Frank. God had one of His blood with Him ruling Heaven—nobody’s seen Jesus yet, have they?”

“Nope. It was like he didn’t come to earth with the rest of the... the rest of you.”

“Mmm.” The Devil pulls himself away from the window, opens the passenger side door. “Well, whatever. I need someone with me on the throne. Someone who has my blood. Plus, that way I can leave the little prince behind as I go do... you know. Whatever it is I do. I don’t want to be shackled to that fuckin’ chair all the time, do I? No, I do not. Kid’s my proxy, he’s my blooded regent on the divine—oh, shit.”

Frank turns.

A white Dodge SUV appears down the road.

Barreling down the asphalt toward them. Erratic. Swerving like a drunk is driving.

And it’s headed right for them.

Frank cries out. He’s got the gun up. Firing shots into the car. Three bullets drive into the grille. Two more punch uneven holes in the windshield.

Lucifer growls. Mercy is not a thing he particularly enjoys—it’s a fucking chore is what it is, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do, so he whips open the Caddy’s back door, grabs the kid, and backpedals away—

Just as the SUV plows into the Cadillac.

The two cars, like crumpled soda cans, do a funny cockeyed waltz further down the road before both slide off and into the corn. Both cars honk—a droning horn that keeps going and going, as if each is trying to drown out the other.

The Devil sets Barney down in the weeds just as Frank stalks past him.

Frank roars, gun up. Fires another round into the SUV—the back window shatters.

The front door of the Dodge pops open.

And out comes a big sonofabitch. Black as the tar-pits of Hell itself. His gut a blood-soaked mess, the blood already turning brown and black.

The Devil stands back, decides to watch.

Frank breaks into a run, the revolver raised—

He’s pulling the trigger but it’s almost like he doesn’t realize it’s not firing. The cylinder is turning with every pull, the hammer clicking, but no bullets are coming out.

The black fellow, well, he’s got a tire iron in his hand, which he brings down hard against Frank’s skull.

Frank drops like a sack of rocks.

His body is still.

Ooooh. Ouch.

Now the big bastard has turned his attention toward the Devil. His face a contorted mask of pain and rage, he stalks toward Lucifer, the tire iron again raised.

“No,” the Devil says, then points at the man with an index finger. The SUV’s driver stops, frozen and in considerable agony. “Nuh-uh. Sorry. I’ve got plans and now you’ve gone and slowed the proceedings down. The church is five miles away, which is perfectly fast by car, but now I’m going to have to walk. And I’m not carrying the kid. What am I, a common mule? So, here’s what I’m offering you”—he searches the man’s mind—“Tundu? Is that your name? Loyal to my grandson, I see. Yes. Gods, even half-gods like Cason, tend to draw devotees, and I can see the connection. So that means you won’t mind helping Cason’s boy, right? Carrying him for me? Good. Great. Whatever.”

He reaches into Tundu’s mind, flips all the right switches and pulls all the wrong levers. The man is his. At least, for a time. He’ll die soon: that gut shot is pretty bad. But for now, he’ll serve. Penance for his crime.

Nearby, Frank twitches. Moans. Still alive, then.

Lucifer walks over. Kneels down in the gravel. “Your job is done, Frank. You’re fired. Pink slip. Do they still give out pink slips? Mm. Disappointing that our journey together comes to this end.” Blood pools beneath Frank’s head. “Bye now, Frank.”

He points at Tundu. “Grab the boy. Let’s walk.”

 

 

CASON OPENS THE shack door, stumbles out into the light. He’s not sure what’s real anymore. He knows this is the reality, but down there in the forest maze everything felt crisper, more real than this—that tiny fracture in his expectations troubles him.

But he can’t stop to think about that, now. He’s tired. Bedraggled. Muddy.

The Devil is free, and it’s all his fault. Before he entered the missile silo, that wasn’t even an option—it wasn’t a problem he could’ve possibly imagined. And now it’s real. And the Devil is his grandfather. He has no time to ruminate on how fucked up that is.

Down there in the silo, he didn’t see Psyche.

And up here, he doesn’t see her, either.

Or the Dodge rental.

That’s a problem.

Cason cups his hands, yells out. His voice echoes over the corn.

He yells again—for Tundu, for Psyche, for anybody.

No sign. No Devil. Nothing.

He feels alarmingly alone. A tiny seed inside sprouts a germ of fear—the Devil is free and he’s already gone and ruined the world, and this is Cason stepping out into that world, not the world he remembers. Or maybe he’s been down there for hundreds of years and all that he knows has passed him by.

What he knows is that he’s worried about Psyche and Tundu.

Which means it’s time to walk.

 

 

ALISON DROPS THE knife. It sticks in the dirt past the road’s shoulder.

She looks around like this is some kind of joke.

She’s alone. The road stretches in both directions, an asphalt ribbon parting the seas of wheat and corn.

Everything about her feels like a raw nerve exposed to the air. Alive, but stinging.

Then she picks the knife back up. And puts it back down again. A fear fantasy plays out in her mind where the cops—the real cops—show up and see her carrying a knife and suddenly everything goes bullet-shaped as they fill her full of lead.

But then she’s afraid that the other guy, the fake cop, will come back.

Him, or the Indian.

Or the strange little man.

Or the horrible narcissistic woman with the mad mane of hair and the ability to crawl inside her mind like a mouse.

She picks up the knife again.

And it’s then a voice echoes out over the corn—

Indistinct at first, but louder the next time:

“Tundu. Psyche! Hello?”

The voice. Familiar. All her senses awaken. It’s an overwhelming rush, a powerful flashbulb inside her head—

Rage rising—

Blood in her vision, red haze, red rage—

Cason.

Alison clutches the knife and heads toward the voice.

 

 

CASON STAGGERS UP the drive and toward the road. Sees tracks on the ground—car tracks. Looks like a second set. From the Dodge, maybe. They swerve. With each turn, the rubber gets a workout—black track-streaks. If Tundu was driving, he got out of here in a hurry. What happened?

He gets to the road. Looks right. Nothing. Left? Nothing.

Knows there’s a crossroads back the way they came. Not far. So he heads that way.

Crows fly overhead, chased by a pair of smaller birds. Swifts or sparrows or swallows, he doesn’t know. They dog-fight above his head, and as he walks, he looks up and watches.

His heart jumps in his chest.

It can’t be.

Another illusion.

It’s Alison.

Dead ahead. A hundred feet before the intersection. Marching toward him with eerie purpose and grim determination.

“Al,” he says. Again not sure if this is a trick. “Alison. Is that really you?”

She just stares. Continuing her dread march.

Something glints in her hand.

A knife. It’s a knife.

Cason’s not sure what to do. Run? Hug her? Try to dispel the illusion somehow?

He stands at the ready. Defensive position. Hands up, palms out. “Alison, stop right there. Okay? I’m going to need you to—”

He feels it even before he registers what happens. Her hand moves, and with a flick of her wrist the knife leaves her grip and... he paws at his throat, finds the hilt sticking out. His words dissolve into a gassy gurgle.

She picks up speed. Crashes into him.

Alison wrenches the knife free and brings it down again. And again. And again. The blade perforating his chest. Lungs. Heart. Everything else.

Something Psyche said scratches at his mind:

But if someone takes out your heart or your head, you’re still deader than a pocket of dust...

Heart or head.

Pocket of dust.

All goes black.