Backtracker (85 page)

Gingerly, he finally rotated the arm, turned it with painstaking slowness. He tried to steel himself, prepare for more horrors; bile burned his throat and he knew that he would never be prepared.

He continued to turn the arm. Swallowing hard, he shut his eyes, knowing as he did so that he
couldn
'
t
avoid the inevitable.

Reluctantly, he opened one eye.

His held breath rushed out all at once.

The underside of the arm was unmarked.

Straightening, still keeping the right arm from view, the Miraclemaker took a step back, away from his mess. With a low, spent moan, he retreated farther, stumbling over a piece of the table that
he'd
smashed earlier. Sweating, puffing, reeling, he slumped heavily against a wall.

He
didn
'
t
feel a thing.

The realization struck him suddenly: he
didn
'
t
feel a thing from his right arm. As ravaged and gruesome as it looked, it caused him no pain. Blackened and blistered and seeping, the arm felt just as it always had, miraculously normal.

Miraculously.

A second realization spun up from the riot in his mind, hit him like a brick between the eyes: he was running out of time.

It was agonizingly obvious; it was the only explanation; he
couldn
'
t
deflect or dilute it.

He was running out of time.

The spreading rot...it had to be a signal. It had to mark the beginning of the end for him, the start of his finish.

The miraculous nature of his condition was the tip
-
off. The extremity, the sudden manifestation, the disfigurement without pain; they all pointed to one agent, one possible cause. The source of his newfound misery and the source of his divinity could only be one and the same.

He was near the end of his mission, almost done with his work.
He'd
been promised enough time to complete it, and nothing more. When arranging his foray, he
hadn
'
t
thought to ask for anything more, had been too overjoyed with what had already been pledged him; apparently, his benefactor planned to hold him to that, would strictly enforce the agreed
-
upon terms.

Apparently, the Miraclemaker would have
just enough
time and not a minute more. Already, he appeared to be on the way out; his arm, no doubt, was just the beginning, the shape of things to come. The deterioration was clearly expanding, would surely continue through the rest of him.

It seemed that
he'd
become a human fuse, a walking countdown.

The Miraclemaker cursed himself for his shortsightedness, his poor negotiation at the start of the affair.
He'd
been too excited and eager to get on with his campaign,
hadn
'
t
thought to secure a guarantee that he would remain physically intact until the very end of the endeavor. Naturally, his benefactor
hadn
'
t
volunteered such a guarantee; this had left a loophole in the agreement, a very large loophole which it now seemed the benefactor would ruthlessly exploit.

So this was how it would end. From time to time, since the start of his adventure,
he'd
wondered what would happen to him at its finish.
He'd
known only one detail of his fate
-
that a steep payment would be demanded of him, a payment which he thought he might be able to withhold; otherwise, his personal destiny had been unknown. No stipulations had been entered into the contract, no clauses which specifically addressed his status after the completion of his mission.

The Miraclemaker now had a pretty good idea of what awaited him.

He would rot. He might do so without physical pain, but the mental anguish would be considerable.

He would rot. He would have to watch himself rot.

An awful picture coalesced in his mind, an image of himself in the advanced stages of deterioration. He saw his entire body decomposing, mutating beyond recognition; every inch of his skin was blackened and pulsing with boils, bursting pustules, running sores.

Just like his arm; the rest of him would be just like his arm, maybe worse...
probably
worse. He wondered just how bad it would get before he expired; at the same time, he
didn
'
t
think that he really wanted to know.

Choking, grinding his teeth, the Miraclemaker forced back the urge to vomit. A bead of sweat slid down his nose and off the tip; though he felt cold, chilled to the bone, he was soaked with perspiration, a tangible sheen of panic.

He was running out of time. The thought of his fading life filled him with fear and sorrow, monumental regret; though there had been a time, long ago, when
he'd
longed for death, he now hated to see it come,
didn
'
t
want to see his glorious age of miracles draw to a close. In so many ways, the past weeks had been the best of his life.

Of all his emotions, all his reactions to impending extinction, the strongest by far was worry. He worried that he
wouldn
'
t
be able to complete his work,
wouldn
'
t
manage to eliminate the final victim and assure overall success.

Though
he'd
been promised enough time to carry out his whole plan, he now wondered if he would indeed be given that time. If his benefactor was malicious enough to rot him alive, perhaps he would choose greater treachery as well, go back on his word. Maybe, there would be enough time, but the Miraclemaker would be in such bad shape that he would be physically unable to clinch his victory.

If he
couldn
'
t
triumph in the end, all that
he'd
done would have been for nothing. His whole life would have been for nothing.

Twin clear droplets rolled from the Miraclemaker
'
s eyes, drifted down his cheeks. He tipped his head back, stared at the ceiling with a look of absolute despair.

A choked gurgle emerged from his throat. It was much like a sob.

It was followed by the crackle of tires on gravel, the sound of a car rolling into the driveway in front of the house.

*****

Chapter
3
8

Billy was at the wheel, in control of the vehicle; the gun was on the floor, between his feet. He was going along with Dave
'
s plan
-
albeit reluctantly
-
but he truly held all the cards, all the power.

Dave wondered how in the world he could cut his partner out of the action. It had to be done; one way or another, Billy had to be removed from any danger.

If Larry Smith indeed waited in Kline, the visit there would be exceedingly hazardous. If Larry
was nothing
but a psychotic killer, a confrontation with him could be fatal to Dave or Billy or both of them. If there was any truth to the fantastic time
-
travel story that
he'd
told, there could still be great peril; in his zeal to neutralize interference, Larry might fight the partners, might accidentally do serious damage to either or both of them.

There were other considerations, too. Dave wanted to handle any encounter with Larry in a certain way: he wanted to try to find out the truth about Larry, disprove or verify the guy
'
s claims; if he became convinced that Larry
'
s story was factual, he wanted to talk him out of the final murder, persuade him to change the future without spilling more blood; if Larry
'
s tale was debunked, or if he refused to cancel the killing, Dave planned to escape and call in the authorities.

Billy
'
s presence could severely disrupt Dave
'
s scheme...could even bring about a tragic outcome. For one thing, Larry might not speak freely with Billy listening; Dave might also feel constrained, might not want to ask vital questions because there was a chance that Larry and Billy were the same person. With Billy along, Dave might not be able to reason with the killer, talk him out of further violence; Larry might be too agitated to negotiate rationally, and Billy might make matters worse by threatening him with the gun. It was even possible that Billy might do something rash, might use the weapon if there was a struggle or the hint of aggression from Larry; if Larry was gunned down, and had been telling the truth, Billy
'
s future might adhere to a doomed course...and if Larry had been lying all along, Billy might suffer serious consequences, anyway, might have to answer for the shooting.

There was no way around it: Billy had to go. Somehow, Dave had to leave him by the roadside, take the gun and Camaro and enter the deadly match alone.

It was all up to him.
He had
to do it alone.

Gray pavement hurtled up and disappeared beneath the nose of the car. Watching through the windshield, Dave realized that the halfway point was approaching, the junction of Routes 79 and 316. At the junction, Billy would hang a left, slip from the four lanes of 79 to the two lanes of 316; he would probably lose some time on 316, for that road had few passing zones and was known for heavy truck traffic. Whatever delays the partners experienced, however, they would still reach Kline in about twenty minutes; the whole trip would only have taken about a
half
-
hour...fifteen minutes less than the most optimistic estimate that Dave had made at the start. Thanks to Billy
'
s wild driving, the Camaro had covered most of the first leg in under ten minutes, half the time that it usually took Dave to travel the same course.

Twenty minutes. Dave had less than twenty minutes to concoct and implement a plan to get his friend out of the way.

As calmly and analytically as he could, Dave examined the dilemma, went over the current situation and how he wanted to change it. Ditching Billy; that was his goal. In order to achieve that goal, he would have to complete a series of steps: first, he would have to get Billy to stop the car; next, he would have to get Billy out of the car; then, he would have to keep Billy from getting back into the car.

First things first: Dave had to think of a way to make his friend pull over. Ideally, he wanted to get the Camaro off the road at a secluded spot, at least a place where there were no homes or buildings nearby; such a spot
wouldn
'
t
be hard to find, for Route 316 spanned long stretches of woodland. Hidden from passing traffic by trees, he could act without being easily seen by motorists, could whack Billy over the head if that was what it would take to get him to stay.

Finding a good place to stop
wouldn
'
t
be a problem; making Billy pull over was another matter, especially if Dave wanted him to pull over in the middle of the woods. If Dave asked Billy to stop at a gas station or a convenience store, on the pretense of making another phone call to 41 Park Road, Billy might cooperate; he would need a damn good reason to stop in the woods, though.

As Billy guided the Camaro to the junction and made the turn onto 316, Dave struggled to come up with a way to make Billy stop. Briefly, he thought about dropping something out the window, something important, maybe his keys or wallet; if he could make it look like an accident and put up enough of a fuss, perhaps he could get Billy to stop and help him search for the item. He quickly dismissed the idea; he
wasn
'
t
sure that Billy would pull over, or that he would get out and help in the search if he did pull off the road.

Dave considered just acting crazy, suddenly going wild, pretending that the pressure had shot him into a nervous breakdown. If he shrieked and kicked enough, perhaps he could inspire Billy to pull over and try to calm him down; Dave could then leap from the car and sprint into the woods, drawing Billy after him. Of course, in the event of an hysterical fit, Billy might just chuck a fist across Dave
'
s jaw or into his gut to shut him up. Though Billy
wasn
'
t
typically a violent person, he
didn
'
t
seem to be in the mood to put up with any kind of craziness.

Dave thought about trying a direct approach, just grabbing the wheel and jerking the car from the road as Billy scrambled and braked in surprise. He dumped the notion in a flash; given the high speed at which the Camaro was flying, a sudden twist of the wheel could lead to disaster.

Frowning, Dave drummed his fingers on the armrest, then clamped his hand around it so tightly that his knuckles whitened. He was getting nowhere, no closer to shedding his partner...and the Camaro was still rocketing toward Kline.

Realizing that
he had
to make a move soon, Dave wrung his brain for an answer, desperately tried to squeeze another idea from it. He might as well have tried squeezing water from a brick.

The Camaro accelerated, darting around a truck, then passing two cars. Dave guessed that it would only take about ten more minutes to reach Kline.

He glanced over at his companion. Billy sat stiffly behind the wheel, eyes trained
dead
-
ahead; he
hadn
'
t
said a word since leaving the trailer. Dave thought that his face looked pale; perhaps, Billy was just as sick with worry as his partner, was just as scared though he concealed his fear.

Suddenly, Dave had an idea.

It seemed like a good idea; he thought that it might actually work. He put it to use right away, as there was no time to waste.

Grimacing, he detached his hand from the armrest, gripped his stomach instead. Leaning forward, he took hold of the dash with his other hand; he lowered his head and released a soft moan.

For a moment, Billy
didn
'
t
react. Dave moaned again, louder this time; closing his eyes, he emitted a strained grunt.

"
What
'
s the matter
?
"
Billy asked finally, his voice flat, lacking any immediate concern.

Dave started to speak, then interrupted with another grunt.
"
I feel...sick,
"
he answered at last, forcing the words through clenched teeth.
"
I think...I
'
m gonna
'
...throw up.
"

"
Shit,
"
muttered Billy.
"
What the hell could you be
sick
from?
"

"
Don
'
t know,
"
gasped Dave. Groaning, he abruptly ducked forward, as if he were about to vomit on the spot.

"
Son of a bitch,
"
grumbled Billy.
"
Is it really that
bad
,
man?
"

"
I
'
m gonna
'
lose it right here,
"
sputtered Dave.

"
Not in the
car
, for cryin
'
out loud
!
"
snapped Billy.

Yanking his hand from his gut, Dave latched onto the window crank and spun it hurriedly. Before the side window had dropped the whole way down, he was shoving his face through the gap.

"
No
!
"
barked Billy.
"
It
'
ll blow down the whole side of the car! Shit!
"

Dave let loose a terrible moan. He remained in place, head cocked into the chill, swift wind.

Without a word, Billy stomped on the brake and lurched the Camaro off the road. The car jolted to a halt on the berm; something clattered in the trunk, flung forward by the sudden stop.

"
Go
!
"
shouted Billy, thumping Dave
'
s back, practically pushing him out of the vehicle.
"
Do it in the
woods
instead of all over my
upholstery
!
"

Gagging for effect, Dave fumbled with the door, then heaved it open and burst from his seat. Hunched over, clutching his stomach with both hands, he stumbled across the berm and into the
tree line
.

Dramatically weaving from side to side, Dave staggered through crackling brush, careened to a stop by the thick trunk of an oak. For an instant, he teetered in place, feigning dizziness; then, he fell against the oak, wrapping his arms around it as if it were the only thing which could support him.

Inwardly, he cheered, felt a hot rush of triumph blasting through his nervousness.
He'd
accomplished the first step; the car had been stopped. The mock illness had done the trick; naturally, Billy
wouldn
'
t
allow his prized Camaro to be marred.

Next would come the
real
trick, the second step. The first bit of acting had been comparatively simple; now, Dave had to get Billy to exit the car.

Groaning loudly, Dave uncurled one arm from the tree. Still hugging the trunk with his other arm, he bent over and turned his face to the ground as if preparing to retch.

For several moments, he held the pose, staring at the sticks and dark earth at his feet. He bobbed his head, released a few miserable moans, some agonized grunts; he thought that the performance would seem more authentic if he clearly established just how stricken he was.

Leaning further, he staged a convulsion, pumped his shoulders and head forward. He did it again, more emphatically, making a noise between a cough and a choke.

Then, he let go of the tree and dropped. He allowed his whole body to go slack, tried to make the fall look realistic; he went down on his back in the dirt, took the slight impact on his buttocks and shoulders.

A twig prodded him in the small of his back, and he shifted to dislodge it. Then, he lay still; eyes closed, he waited and listened, tried to muster his resources for the next step.

Several minutes passed before Dave heard anything except the hiss of tires on the road. He guessed that Billy
hadn
'
t
been paying much attention to the routine; though he figured that Billy
would
n
o
t
ice him soon enough, he still found it hard not to open his eyes and check on his partner
'
s progress.

At last, a car door slammed. Dave heard footsteps on the gravel berm.

"
Dave
?
"
called Billy Bristol, sounding irritated.
"
Aw, what the hell
?
"
he snapped, his steps accelerating, hitting the ground harder.