Prodigal Blues

Once inside, I pulled down the hood and handed Christopher a brown paper bag.  "I got us some hamburgers.  I figured maybe we ought to eat something."

"Thanks," he said, taking the bag from me.

I looked at him for a moment, then at the slip of paper in my hand.  "Christopher—"

"No fries?"

"What?"

He closed the bag and looked at me.  "How can you order hamburgers and not get any fries?"

"I'm… I'm sorry, it didn't occur to me."

He sniffed the air around me.  "Do I smell onion rings?  Is onion rings what I'm smelling?"

"I had some, yeah, but—fuck that, you need to—"

"You need to calm down, Mark."

"I'm… what're you talking about?  I'm fine.  Listen to me—"

"I said calm down!"

"Jesus Christ, will you shut up for a second and listen—?"

He reached across the seat and zapped me in the neck with the Taser and that was it for me for a while…

…until I opened my eyes to almost total darkness.  My body was still thrumming from the Taser and movement came in slow degrees.

I took in the entirety of the mess, then broke it down into bite-sized pieces of disorder.

Disorder first:  I was alone in the bus, which was still ru

Disorder second:  wherever we were, it was fairly enclosed, because I could smell the exhaust fumes growing stronger by the minute.

Disorder third:  if the scene illuminated by the headlights was for real and not some leftover images from a dream I didn't remember having, then we were parked deep inside a cave—

—or the entrance to a mine.

Shit, shit, shit.

I did not so much turn toward my door as I did flop in its general direction.  Getting a solid grip on the handle was one of the supreme accomplishments of my life, because my arms and hands were still half-numbed, but I got a grip; I then lost it, got it back, and had the door opened before it occurred to me that my legs might not be up for walking or standing.  By the time this did occur to me, I was already face-down on the soggy ground.  I pushed myself up, reached into the bus, thought I had a grip on the lower part of the seat, and tried to pull myself up only to slip and fall once again.

I'd grabbed the gun.  I looked at it, cursed, then slipped into the back of my pants and grabbed the ru

I could see the entrance in the distance, framed by timbers as Christopher said it would be.  Outside it was deep gray, the rain pounding down and the thunder so loud I expected it to rip through the roof and bring all that limestone crashing down on my head.  I took several slow, deep breaths, feeling some strength return to me, hesitantly, like a child afraid it was about to be scolded or punished.

Christopher was just inside the entrance, fiddling with a barrel.  A barrel strapped to a dolly.  A barrel strapped to a dolly with all sort of wires ru

Shit, shit, shit.

He checked all the co

He stopped by the door to the trailer, his face expressionless.  "You okay?"

"What… what the hell did you do that for?"

"You were pretty out of control there, dude.  If I'd realized that just stopping to use the toilet and get some food was going to cause you to flip out, I'd've made you take dump in one of the coolers."

I shook my head, which was a mistake because it sent a wave of dizziness and nausea rolling through my entire body.  "…didn't have to use the goddamn bathroom… I found out about your—"

He opened the trailer's door.  "In a minute, Mark.  Hold that thought."

Light from inside the trailer spilled out against the walls.  They were wet, and dark, and raggedly uneven; if it weren't for the supports around us, I would have sworn we were deep inside a grave.

Christopher emerged a few seconds later pushing—of all things—a fairly-expensive motorcycle, a wide one made for long travel, complete with windshield, side compartments for storing small pieces of luggage, and a small rack across the back of the seat.

"Where'd you get that?" I managed to say.

"Saving up cigarette coupons—where do you think I got it?  I stole it from one of the rest stops we made before we picked you up.  Arnold and me painted it and changed the plates—that's where he got the bright idea about painting the trailer.  You go

"But your family—"

"—is going to be real glad to see us.  I hope you're hungry, because you can bet that Mom's going to make you eat something.  No guest ever leaves our home unfed.  You stand warned."  He rolled the motorcycle up to the entrance and leaned it against the wall.  I noticed for the first time that he had some other things up there, as well; a duffel bag and several shoulder bags which held, I assumed, the computers.

As he came back to help me to my feet, I said:  "Don't you want to know?"

"I already saw the address, I don't need to know anything more.  It's about forty-five from the truck stop.  Be there in a jiffy, you'll see."

He led me toward the opened door of the trailer.

The smell hit me hard; it was much more than human stink—although the odor of old piss and shit was more than enough on its own; the smell of the bodies inside was overpowering.  It was this thick, moist, heavy, spoiled, meaty, swollen reek that assumed invisible physical shape within and without; the kind of smell that immediately sinks down through every layer of skin and takes about a month to wash off and whose coating in my nostrils would probably never completely go away.

The strange thing is, I gagged but did not throw up.

Christopher helped me up into the doorway.  "I thought you might like to meet my former host.  You know—witness what may or may not be his final words and all that."

"Do I have to?"

"It would mean a lot to me, Mark, if I didn't have to face him alone this last time."

I looked into his eyes and saw a frightened little boy still hiding back there.  "Sure thing, buddy.  Sure thing."

We moved into the trailer.  I was amazed at how quickly the stink went away.  I realize now that the smell didn't go anywhere, it was just that my olfactory senses had had enough, tuned out, and stopped sending signals to my brain.  The stink was still there, my nose was simply pretending it wasn't.

The lights in here still worked—which is why Christopher had left the bus ru

The interior of the Airstream had been stripped bare of everything—seats, built-in appliances, tables, even the toilet and carpeting was gone.  The floor was bare metal, covered in dust and torn shreds of paper and stray sections of electrical wire, as well as tire tracks and blood.

The two bodies—one of them naked—were laid out next to each other at the far end of the trailer where the bomb had once been.  They were both face-down, for which I was grateful; despite what these two had been a part of, I knew that their eyes would be frozen in final accusation:  How could you be a part of this?

Okay, Dad; if you were in my position, what would you do?

Whatever it took, that's what I'd do.  Whatever it took to end this as soon as possible, that's what I'd do.  I love you, Mark.

Love you too, Dad.

A duffel bag sat near the door, beside which was large tool box; Christopher knelt down to open the lid.  I lost my balance a little, caught myself on the door frame, and did not collapse.  The maps fell out of my pocket and hit the floor at an angle, skittering a few feet to stop at the foot of a large cardboard box that, according to its markings, once held a new water heater.