Lost Highway (3 page)

Quill

T
he wind tempts me with my
prey’s scent. The echo of footsteps guides me through the dense woods. The
first Death Dealer I discover swings upside-down from a rope. Moving through
the trees, I stand before him, and our gazes meet. He isn’t one I know.

“Let me down and we’ll share
the girl.”

“Why should I share when I can
have her to myself?”

His sweaty face loses its
smile. He hasn’t been in the Lost Highway long. Humanity exists behind his
angry gaze.

I wrap the wire around his
throat and tighten. The prey struggles as I increase the pressure. Even after
he falls limp, I squeeze the wire until his head snaps off and rolls a foot
away.

Kneeling down, I stare into his
bulging eyes. All of my life, I’ve been curious about the way people die. Their
last thoughts. The final expressions on their faces. My morbid obsession suits
me well in Lost Highway.

After I remove the corpse, I
reset the trap. The woods crackle around me, signaling I have more work to do.

The next Death Dealer rests on
his stomach. His head has nearly disintegrated from the ferocity of the trap’s
spring action bolt. Again, I reset the trap and move on.

I desire to kill one of them
with my bare hands in the way I did a day ago. The traps are useful, but I miss
the physical exertion of breaking a body.

Odessa is a live being,
physically present in the way too many in the Lost Highway can no longer claim.
Her presence has awakened my need to interact with the world. My fingers ache
with the desire to ball into fists and smash against hard flesh.

I hear rustling nearby. A
massive person approaches from deep in the woods. His movements never hesitate.
He doesn’t worry I’ll prepare for his attack. A prey of such size and
fearlessness electrifies me. I don’t want to kill what is already trapped. My
gift is destroying what claims to be indestructible.

Standing near an ancient tree,
I watch from my spot as the rustling increases. The man’s footsteps intimidate
the ground, but I inhale with barely veiled anticipation.

My eagerness is well worth the
wait when the massive hulk is revealed. More beast than man, he salivates at
the sight of me. We both enjoy the promise of stealing life. I smile at the
thought of hurting him. His bones will break under my control. I’ll open his
flesh and make him howl in pain. I want to see the life leave his wild eyes.

He carries blades in both
hands. They’re extensions of him now. I dodge the
first
strike while the second tears into my shoulder. The pain invigorates me. I
smile at the sight of my blood dripping from his blade.

My foot meets his knee, and the
big man crumbles. No screams of pain leave his meaty mouth. He only grunts and
returns to his feet. I move around him, dodging a few of his strikes and
blocking others. My heart beats faster. Adrenaline flows. I inhale the sweet
scent of death around me. The Lost Highway is alive, and I’m part of it. We
breathe in sync.

I punch the big man in the jaw
before striking him in the throat and then his nose. My fists pound his face
even as he digs a blade into my side. The pain energizes me, giving my punches
more power. After my fists’ unrelenting attack, his face transforms into a
battered mess.

His right arm breaks under my
violence. Then his left shatters at the elbow. The blades are no longer
extensions of him. They fall to the ground, soon followed by his body.

Falling upon him, I lead with
my knee and feel his ribs crack under the impact. He finally cries out. Now
afraid and in pain, he rekindles enough of his humanity to beg me for mercy.

I laugh at his words and look
upward at where the trees block the sky. This place has no pity for the weak.
The Lost Highway only wants death, and I’m its best dealer.

Odessa

T
hose victims locked in this
basement long ago speak to me of their suffering. They tell me of a man capable
of twisting the human body into atrocities. They were trapped in the Lost
Highway until the owner of this cabin freed them from their pain. Death was
their salvation, and they promise it’ll be mine too.

I can’t breathe. Even after I
calm myself, I can’t deny how shallow the air feels. I’m suffocating just as
Quill warned. My chest tingles first and then my lungs beg for more air.
Closing my eyes, I attempt to find a state of calm to allow me to breathe more
slowly. I don’t think I can hold on long enough for Quill to finish with his
hunt.

I know he’ll return. Quill’s
face is beautiful, but his soul is corrupted. He is not a man like John. He’s
an eternal predator capable of destroying others. I saw the way he fought Dag.
Never was he afraid for himself. He only feared I’d escape. Now he’s in the
woods against other monsters. His instincts won’t waver against them, yet I
doubt I’ll survive long enough to see him open the door.

In the darkness, time falters,
and my mind questions. Am I suffocating in a madman’s cabin in the Lost
Highway’s woods? Or am I back at my house with John’s hands wrapped around my
throat? Have I hallucinated Kim, the killers, and Quill? Am I dying at the
hands of my master and a man I couldn’t love?

The voices tell me death will
be a beautiful end to a dreadful life. No one will miss me. I’ve never
accomplished anything except destruction. I’ve corrupted all I touched. Death
will release me from the guilt of letting my sister die. Death will allow me
the bliss of unbreakable lies.

I think of John squeezing my
throat. His enraged face revealed this wasn’t part of our sex games. I’d broken
his black heart, and he yearned to break me.

“I’m doing you a favor,” he
said as I struggled to breathe.

Death stared right back at me,
and I flinched. I refused to embrace it.

My fingers found the knitting
needle I’d left out on the bed earlier in the day. I planned to knit a baby
blanket for my pregnant coworker. This gesture meant nothing to anyone except
the idiot in the mirror.

Once the needle opened up
John’s throat and he fell to his side, I should have run and called the police.
I knew I could walk away from his bleeding body.

The needle felt alive in my
hand, controlling me. I stabbed him again and again, long past his last breath.
I refused to stop until my bloody hands could no longer hold the needle. Once
it stuck in his eye and I couldn’t yank it free, I finally relented.

John said he loved me, yet he
wanted to end my life. I never loved him, yet I wanted to end his life. Who was
the monster between us?

The voices promise John won’t
meet me in death. I will be free from regret. My past won’t matter. They found
peace, and I would too.

I think I’m crying. I feel the
heat on my face, but my mind spins, and I’m unable to tell what’s real. Am I
trapped in this closet or back with John? Should I let go or live? I don’t know
the answers.

The darkness takes me before
Quill can answer my questions, but the voices aren’t pleased.

Quill

U
pon my return, I find the cabin
untouched by the other Death Dealers. The closest any of them get is an injured
female thirty yards from the front porch. Having grown too arrogant about my
skills, I underestimate hers. The dying woman scratches my cheek and nearly
gouges out my left eye before I put her down.

I blame my sloppiness on
Odessa. The impaled woman reveals my new companion’s future. How soon before
Odessa loses her ability to speak? The process is different for everyone, but I
doubt she’ll last any longer than Mary or the other people I brought to the
cabin.

Before walking inside, I give
the woods one more scan. How many Death Dealers still exist? I rarely check the
highway anymore. I don’t know what drew me this time around. I’d promised
myself to stop bringing people here since Mary. Now with Odessa, I don’t know
what to do with her.

Once in the basement, I move
slowly. Energy swirls around me, biting at my flesh. Too many lives ended here,
and some of them never left. I smell the burn of their power in the air. They
challenge me, hungering death even after facing theirs.

I open the closet to find
Odessa slumped to the side. Her green eyes stare blankly upward. When I snap my
fingers in front of her flushed face, she doesn’t react.

Kneeling in front of her, I
suspect a trick. She’s breathing too fast, and her hands wrap around her throat
as if she’s choking. I reach out and poke her between the eyes. Odessa doesn’t
blink or show any other reaction. She’s lost in her head, and I glance around
at the angry energy. When I left Odessa down here, I’d forgotten how the voices
like to play.

I say her name, but nothing
registers in her gaze. She’s lost wherever her mind retreated to find solace.

Picking her up, I carry Odessa
to the living room. When I place her on the couch, I notice her oozing leg
wound. I sigh at how quickly she deteriorates. Mary took longer to get this far
gone.

Leaving her on the couch, I
clean and dress her wound. Eventually, her gaze finds me, but I don’t know how
much she sees. I tell her the medicine will heal the wound and kill any
infection. Odessa doesn’t react, but I sense she understands.

I switch on the TV set and
wonder if anything will be visible today. I flip through one static filled
channel after another until finding an old movie.

Odessa and I sit across from
each other with her on the couch and me in an uncomfortable green chair. I
don’t watch the movie. She doesn’t either. I wait for her to return from the
hiding place in her mind.

“I killed a man,” she says long
after the movie is over and the sun is gone.

“I’ve killed many men.”

“Don’t leave me in there
again.”

“We’ll see.”

Odessa’s shell-shocked
expression shifts into something more alert, nearly menacing. She’s awake now.
Fully back with me in the cabin and no longer in her head.

“Whose house is this?”

“He said his name was Tom
Hallward. I met him sometime after I arrived in the Lost Highway. I’d seen him
in the woods. He eventually invited me into his home to look at his trophies.”

Odessa examines her bandaged
leg. Her gaze reveals relief at knowing she’ll heal.

“He tortured women in his
basement,” I continue. “He also had a woman in your room. He’d become lonely
with his life here and wanted a companion. Someone he could talk with like he
couldn’t with his trophies.”

“What happened to him?”

“He wanted me to share this
cabin and help hunt the other Death Dealers. He promised to share his trophies
with me.”

Odessa watches me and waits for
an answer. She needs things spelled out because she is trapped in the old way
of thinking. I wonder if that’ll slow her descent into madness.

“I don’t share, so I waited
until Tom told me everything he knew, and then I snapped his neck right over
there,” I say, pointing to the kitchen table. “When I released the trophy from
your room, she ran out of the cabin. It was just after sundown, and I assume
the wolves ate her.”

Odessa glances at the window
where the world hides behind a curtain of darkness.

“Wolves? Is that what you
hunted earlier?”

“Wolves only come out at night
here. They’ll eat anything. Never go into the darkness unless you wish to be
torn apart by wild animals.”

Odessa glances around the room
and considers her next question. I haven’t spoken this long to someone since
Mary. She had a million questions, and none of the answers helped her in the
long run.

“Why couldn’t you leave me
locked in the room? Why that coffin?”

“Anyone can take you from the
room. I did you a favor.”

“I could have suffocated in the
coffin.”

“It’s a closet, and you didn’t
suffocate.”

“Would you have cared if I
did?” she challenges.

“I don’t know.”

Odessa’s anger fizzles. I don’t
know what she expects me to say or promise her. Now she only stares at her
hands resting in her lap.

“The TV doesn’t get good
reception here in the woods,” she says.

I don’t answer because she
hasn’t asked a question, and I don’t speak unnecessarily. Besides, she wouldn’t
appreciate the answer.

“What scratched your face?” she
asks after some time.

“A woman.”

“Did you clean the wound?”

Staring at her, I don’t answer.
Should I lie or share the truth as I did with Mary? I have no preference either
way, but I think keeping Odessa around longer would be best.

“What now?” she asks after the
channel goes out and we’re left in a dark room with only the static to keep us
company.

“You return to your room.”

“Is there anywhere else I can
sleep?”

Standing up, I stare at her
long legs spread out on the couch. “This cabin has three bedrooms. One is mine.
One is yours. One is the trophy room.”

“So no.”

When I reach for her arm to
lift her up, Odessa shrinks away, and I hesitate. Her expression rips away my
confidence for only a moment, but it’s long enough to startle me.

“Why did you kill the man?” I
ask.

“He wanted to kill me.”

“Why did he want to kill you?”

“I didn’t love him.”

“Why didn’t you love him?”

“He wasn’t worth loving.”

“Few people are,” I say,
grabbing her arm and forcing her up.

Odessa stumbles a few times on
the way to her room down the hallway. I sense some of her clumsiness is to test
my reflexes. Does she plan to escape? I don’t doubt she’ll try. They always do.