Doll Face

1

It wasn’t until later that Ramona realized how neatly it all fit together. Like pieces of a die-cut puzzle, everything simply fit into place in that purely seamless and smooth sort of way that fate managed when it wanted something to happen. Or it wanted people to suffer.

Chazz was too drunk to drive by the time they hit Highway 8, only no one was saying so because although he was a real mellow, easy sort of cat when he was sober, when he was drunk, he was mean as skunk piss and if you didn’t want that spraying into your eyes, you learned to keep your mouth shut and go with the flow like a turd being sucked down a toilet.

Ramona knew all about that.

“You missed the turn-off,” Creep pointed out, getting nervous because he had to cover the morning shift at Donut Den back in the city and five a.m. came real early once you passed the midnight hour.

“I’m taking a shortcut,” Chazz told him, an edge to his voice cutting beneath his words like a razor. “So fuck off.”

Lex giggled in the backseat and Soo-Lee did, too, because if Lex thought it was funny, then surely it was.

Ramona reserved judgment. She was having trouble finding the humor in a situation where the drunken idiot behind the wheel didn’t have the good sense to hand over his keys or admit he was lost.

“This’ll cut twenty minutes off the drive,” Chazz explained, taking the next right and almost putting the van in the ditch as the road curved sharply down a low hill. The rain was coming down in sheets and the pavement was greasy like it had been oiled with cooking spray.

“You never mentioned a shortcut,” Ramona said.

“I just thought of it.”

“But you’ve taken it before?”

“Of course I have.”

Which was bullshit of course, Ramona knew. Chazz’s sense of direction was seriously challenged when he was sober let alone after ten beers and half-a-dozen Jager Bombs. He had no idea where he was going and with all that alcohol in his system, he couldn’t have pissed in a straight line let alone walked one. Any moment now, some hotshot sheriff’s deputy was going to come screaming out of the williwags with both flashers going and siren screaming.

And I hope it happens soon, she thought, before he fucking kills us. Jail time and a suspended license is exactly what he deserves. Some time in a cage will do wonders for him.

She lit a cigarette and mainly because she knew it would annoy Chazz, who was virulently anti-smoking inside his van. She could feel him tensing behind the wheel, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t dare because once he did, she was going to start riding him about the shortcut and exposing his inadequacies behind the wheel.

“My old man’s gonna kill me if I lose another job,” Creep said.

“You won’t lose your job,” Lex assured him. “The corporate gods of Donut Den will spare you because of your sheer wizardry with custard and powdered sugar.”

“Piss off,” Creep said.

Ramona sighed. Why Creep bothered opening his mouth at all was a mystery. Every time he did, Chazz got irritable and Lex got smart-assed. It was strictly a lose-lose situation.

Chazz was leaning forward now, trying to see through the windshield as the rain fell harder and the wipers pumped back and forth almost manically.

“Can’t see shit,” he said.

In the back, Danielle said, “We were in this storm once and it was really bad and the next day my sister and I went looking around. The water was really deep and we saw this rat float by. And we were both like, OMG, that’s a rat, a fucking rat. Who knew we even had rats?”

Ramona had to bite down on her lip because Danielle was such an incurable, inveterate airhead. She could almost hear everyone rolling their eyes.

“Well, if we see any, we’ll let you know,” Lex said.

Soo-Lee giggled.

Ramona was leaning forward, too. She squinted her eyes as the van came down a hill and into a wooded valley. A green Day-Glo road sign passed in the murk. “Stokes,” she said. “We’re coming into some place called Stokes.” She turned to Chazz. “What sort of place is it? You must have visited it the last time you took this shortcut.”

Chazz gritted his teeth. “I don’t know. There’s lots of little fucking towns out here.”

She was getting worried about a little more than Chazz’s denial or inebriation by that point, because the twisting road leading down into the valley had an easy two inches of rain covering it and it seemed to be getting deeper. Chazz brought them across a bridge that spanned a swollen river, cut down another curving hill, and the town opened up before them.

Things happened in rapid succession then.

They came in way too fast. It seemed like one moment the town was not even there and the next it opened like a flower, spreading its petals and engulfing them. Chazz hit the brakes and the van skidded on the greasy pavement. It went to the left, then to the right as he fought the wheel and worked the brake pedal.

About the time it seemed like maybe he was going to get it under control, a shape stepped out in front.

Ramona only saw it for a split second: a vague, man-like shape with raised arms.

Then the van hit it.

They were only doing about thirty miles an hour. Under ordinary circumstances, it was hardly a deadly speed, but certainly enough to break bones and cause concussions and all manner of nasty injuries. Purely from the sound of the impact—something that made Danielle scream like a little girl—Ramona was certain it was going to be ugly.

And particularly when they rolled right over what they had hit with both sets of tires. Thump-thump, thump-thump.