Fear

THIRTY-NINE

‘“The Mental Defective League – in formation!”’ Nathan said. ‘Name that movie.’

Miles, having driven for the past twelve hours, didn’t want to play. Celeste, sitting low in the backseat, wearing a heavy pair of sunglasses, wrapped in a blanket, and with a dose of Xanax in her, didn’t answer. It was late Saturday night, the galaxy of lights of greater Los Angeles spread out on both sides of Interstate 5.

‘ One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. After Nicholson gets bzzzzzzt, the shock treatments.’ And he leaned into the backseat, jabbed Celeste’s head with his finger, saying, ‘Bzzzt, bzzzt, bzzzt.’

‘They should have given you shock treatments,’ she said. Now and then she stuck her head out from the blanket, a turtle taking a measure of air. But she seemed to be coping, Miles thought, certainly better than Nathan was.

‘Don’t need the voltage,’ Nathan said, ‘not when I got Frost. I saved our skins, don’t forget.’

Celeste said, ‘Let’s break for the night. It’s still hours to Yosemite.’

‘I can drive,’ Nathan said.

‘Bad idea,’ Miles said.

‘Jesus, man, I know how to drive.’

‘You seem slightly wound up,’ Miles said.

‘You’re not going to let your imaginary friend drive, I hope.’

‘Enough, Nathan,’ Celeste said from the back.

‘What do you call Mr. Invisible?’ Nathan said. ‘Guilt Trip? The Shadow?’

‘His name is Andy.’

‘Well, we can’t have Andy distracting you from your driving.’ Nathan made a playful half-grab at the wheel.

Miles veered into the right lane, earning a honk and a finger from a driver he’d nearly clipped.

‘I’m not letting you drive,’ Miles said, ‘because the mirrors bother you. I don’t want you to freak.’

A long silence. ‘I don’t freak,’ Nathan said.

‘Let’s find dinner and a place to sleep,’ Celeste said quietly.

‘We need to keep going,’ Miles said, even though exhaustion rattled his brain. ‘We need to keep-’

‘Please,’ she said, ‘please. I need four walls around me.’

Dinner was take-out McDonald’s, comfort was a worn but clean motel in the northern stretches of the city, near Santa Clarita. Miles got two adjoining rooms. Nathan demolished three Big Macs, downed a soda, let out a satisfied belch. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.

Celeste kept her back to them, sitting on the edge of the bed, picking at a salad.

‘You okay?’ Miles asked.

‘I can’t believe I left my house,’ she said. ‘I ought to feel free. I don’t. I hope Nancy didn’t come to my house and… find the body.’ She shuddered. ‘I shouldn’t have left.’ She closed the salad box over the mostly uneaten mound of lettuce.

‘The shouldn’t-haves are the path to insanity,’ Nathan said. ‘You better eat that dinner, Celeste. Soldiers know you got to eat, sleep, and sh- um, go to the bathroom, whenever you have a chance, you might not get another.’

She opened the box, forced herself to eat again.

Miles finished his hamburger. ‘We all need sleep. We’ll get up early tomorrow, head out.’

‘We should camp a day or two,’ Nathan said. ‘Let Celeste recover.’

‘We go,’ Miles said.

‘You’re not the boss of us.’ Nathan wiped his mouth.

‘I am until we get Frost. Until we know we’re safe.’

‘We’re not responsible for each other.’ Nathan stood.

‘Funny thing for a soldier to say,’ Miles told him. ‘I would imagine you feel responsible, Nathan, toward your fellow soldiers.’

Nathan’s hands tightened into fists. ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Just that we have to take care of each other…’

‘Ah. Like they do in the mob.’

‘I’m not a mobster. I never was.’

‘So you say. Why should we believe you?’

‘Enough, Nathan.’ Celeste stood. ‘Sleep. Then we go.’

Nathan sat down on the bed. Celeste retreated to her own room and shut the door behind her.

‘There’s no way to hang a blanket over the mirror. Just don’t look at it,’ Miles said.

‘I won’t,’ Nathan said to the ceiling.

Miles washed his face, slipped out of shirt and jeans, crawled into the bed nearest the door, hid the gun under his pillow.

‘You don’t have to sleep with a gun with me around,’ Nathan said.

‘It’s in case Groote finds us again.’

‘Yeah, because I’m fresh out of matches.’

Miles didn’t smile.

‘I know you and Celeste are mad at me. But the fire turned out okay, it gave us an escape route.’

‘You can’t go setting houses on fire. I could have talked Celeste into leaving. What you did was terribly unfair to her.’

‘Worked, though.’

‘Well, maybe. So would a lobotomy, Nathan, but it’s not the answer for any of us.’

‘You’re stashing that gun under your pillow to keep it away from me.’

‘You could have a gun in your bag.’

‘I don’t. Forgot them in Santa Fe in the fire. Why’d you tell Groote you had the goods?’

‘So he’d let you go.’

‘That was stupid.’

‘No more stupid than your fire, Nathan.’

Nathan said nothing for a moment, then asked, quietly, ‘What are Celeste and I to you?’

‘I – I just don’t want either of you hurt any more.’

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know, Jesus, just be grateful.’

‘I am, Miles. Thank you.’

Miles switched off the lamp, buried his face in the pillow.

He was close to sleep when he heard Nathan say, ‘Miles?’

‘Yeah.’

‘If we get Frost… could we take it to the Defense Department? I keep thinking… about all the soldiers, coming home from war, brains screwed into new shapes from seeing all the horrors. They need Frost. I want to be sure they get it. That was the whole reason I volunteered for the VR treatments – to help.’

‘And you said we weren’t responsible for each other.’

‘I meant’ – and he searched for words – ‘we don’t know each other. Why did you come back for me?’

‘It wasn’t to make you indebted to me,’ Miles said. ‘I get the sense you really don’t want any responsibility toward anyone else.’

‘When I’m better,’ Nathan said. ‘When I’m fixed, when I’m good enough to be around other people. Soon. It’ll be soon.’

‘You’re good enough now.’

Miles listened to the young man’s breathing slide into the steadiness of sleep, savored the quiet, the wonderful, see-nothing dark, sank his aching, tired body into slumber.

‘Don’t get comfortable,’ Andy said from the darkness. ‘We need to talk.’

Miles closed his eyes, shut out the voice.

‘You think you help them, I go away now, is that it? You couldn’t save Allison, so you’ll save them.’

Miles mouthed, Shut up, into the pillow.

‘You didn’t worry about saving me. Jesus. Known you since we were learning how to piss standing up, and you worry about complete strangers.’

‘I tried… Saving you was the whole point of the sting,’ he said into the pillow, afraid to wake Nathan but afraid to not answer Andy.

‘You shot me.’

‘You shot me,’ Miles whispered back.

‘But it was all your fault,’ Andy hissed, his voice sounding like flame. ‘Should’ve kept your mouth shut. You killed me with a word, asshole.’

Miles pulled the blankets over his head, a child burrowing into the soft sheets to escape a bad dream. Sweat coursed down his ribs. ‘I didn’t.’

‘You didn’t save Allison, you won’t save them,’ Andy said. ‘You’ll make another mistake, and boom, boom, they’ll be dead too.’

After Andy’s laughter faded, the silence of the room pressed hard against his ears. Finally he closed his eyes, prayed for the dreams to keep their distance, and slept.

Miles heard the door click shut. Total darkness.

He thought the sound was his imagination, the click of the knob the final word of a dream. You killed me with a word. He searched under the pillow for his gun, closed his fingers around the barrel.

Silence.

He sat upright in the dark, fear squeezing his chest, the gun out steady in front of him.

‘Shoot into the dark,’ Andy said. ‘Great freaking idea.’

He closed his eyes. No sound of Nathan breathing.

Miles snapped on the light.

Nathan was gone.

The clock read 4:03 A.M. Miles pulled on jeans, heard the reassuring jangle of the car keys in his pocket. Nathan hadn’t taken the car, at least. Miles pulled on his shirt, tucked the gun in the back of his pants, left the shirt hanging loose behind him to cover the gun. He eased open the door to Celeste’s room; she’d left a bathroom light on for comfort, and he could see her sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. He shut the door gently.

He grabbed the room key, went out into the hall. Empty and quiet. To the right was the lobby, to the left was the parking lot. He headed for the lot. Nathan was walking, he decided, planning to hitch a ride.

But the lot was empty. He could hear the distant roar of scattered traffic on Interstate 5. He ran back down the hall into the deserted lobby.

Nathan stood at a pay phone, hanging up as soon as Miles came into sight. His expression was defiant.

‘What are you doing?’ Miles asked.

‘I called my folks… I had to let them know I was okay.’

‘You shouldn’t have.’

‘Listen, my folks don’t have caller ID or nothing, man, they won’t know where I’m at and I didn’t tell them. But I had to let them know I’m okay. I’ve always been tight with them. They’re used to hearing from me every week, man, they’d freak if I didn’t call.’

No contact with him for six months, it’s part of the treatment. Miles let the lie hang in the air between him and Nathan, wondering if another lie would follow.

‘Okay,’ Miles said. ‘How are your folks?’

‘Great. My mom, she understands me. Always has. She’s always been real supportive of me.’

‘You’re lucky to have her.’

‘Okay,’ Nathan said. He stepped away from the phone. ‘I’m sorry I upset you. I can’t sleep no more. Let’s wake up Celeste, get going.’

‘You said we should stay, let Celeste have indoor time.’

‘I was wrong. You were right.’

‘Wow. Me. Right.’ He wanted to say, Stop lying. Tell me who you really were calling. Tell me why you were in such a hurry to hang up you didn’t even say good-bye.

‘The diner down the service road’s open in another hour or so,’ Nathan said. ‘If it doesn’t have mirrors all along the walls – some of ’em do, you know – we could eat there.’

‘Sure. Sure.’ Maybe he had been calling his parents. ‘But we’d better get up and get on the road.’ Or he’s called the police, and in five seconds I’ll hear the sirens.

But there was only the quiet of the night, and they went back to the room, Nathan averting his eyes from the mirror that hung over the sink counter, stretching on the bed. He wouldn’t call the police, not from the lobby, not when I might catch him, Miles decided. He’d just run, get clear away.

He let Celeste sleep another hour. The motel stayed quiet, still, until the sounds of showers rushing through pipes, coughs in the hallway, the distant thrum of a truck pulling out of the lot, announced the new day.

They walked to the diner in the morning chill. Celeste huddled close to him, and as they reached the glass doors he saw her face on the cover of the morning’s USA Today, an old publicity photo from when she’d won the five million, grinning out at the world from a vending machine.

‘Uh-oh,’ Miles said.

‘What?’ Then Celeste saw herself, put her face into Miles’s shoulder.

A couple coming out of the diner, chatting, smiled a good morning at them. Then the woman followed their gazes, riveted on the newspaper dispenser.

Miles steered Nathan and Celeste back toward the hotel. He peeled out of the lot, thinking, Those people didn’t see her face and the picture, they couldn’t have, but as they shot by the diner the couple were still standing there, studying the front page of the paper they’d pulled from the machine.