American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,219

is totally and utterly astonished when the ghostly form of a woman lying on the ground with a rifle in her arms comes sliding out of the predawn darkness, as if she is being carried to him on the reflective paint on the asphalt.

Everyone in the car goes dead silent. Bolan slowly, slowly brings it to a halt about ten feet from the unconscious woman.

“Holy shit,” says Dord. “Is that her?”

Bolan is about to say yes, but he really has no idea what this woman looks like: he only knows she has a red car, which she has inconveniently chosen not to bring along for identification.

“It’s got to be,” says Bolan.

“Maybe it’s a trick,” says Mallory.

At first Bolan scoffs, but then he realizes Mal could be right. Who could possibly guess at the minds of these people, these things?

“Let’s just get her into the car,” says Bolan.

They pile out and slowly circle the unconscious woman.

“She’s pretty,” says Dord appreciatively.

“Jesus,” says Bolan. “Get her legs, for God’s sake.”

They pick her up and start hauling her toward the Civic. Bolan points her at the back door, but Dord keeps walking, tugging her ankles right by.

“Where the hell are you going?” says Bolan.

“The trunk. Are we… not putting her in the trunk?”

“Why the fuck would we put her in the trunk?” says Mallory.

“Well, that’s usually where I put unconscious people,” says Dord.

Mal and Bolan glance at one another. Mal shrugs.

“Let’s put her in the fucking trunk,” says Bolan.

The trunk of a Honda Civic is not made to accommodate the supine form of an unconscious human comfortably, but Bolan and company do their best (mostly by removing the tire iron and putting a blanket over the spare). “What about the gun?” asks Dord.

Bolan looks back. He is surprised to see that the gun is none other than the goddamn cannon Dee sometimes brought into the Roadhouse. “How the fuck did she…” says Bolan, before shaking his head. “Never mind. Get that too. But don’t put it in the trunk with her! Throw it in the backseat, or something.”

Then they pile back into the car, throw it in reverse, and haul ass back down the mountain.

That, thinks Bolan, was a little too easy.

His suspicion does not abate when Dord chipperly says, “Well, that was easy!”

“Did you know she’d be there, Tom?” asks Mal.

“No.”

“So do you think it’s a trap?” she asks.

Bolan is silent.

“Do you think so, Tom?”

“I guess we’ll find out if we get down this fucking mountain, okay?” he says.

Which, to everyone’s relief, they do: their trip down is entirely uneventful, save for a deer who peers at them from the side of the road, eyes flashing a fluorescent orange, before withdrawing into the dark.

“Are we out?” asks Dord. “Are we done?”

“Quiet,” snaps Bolan, as if they are a submarine crew trying to slip past sonar.

The street blocks of Wink swell up on their left, then gradually float away. There is a gray-pink hue in the east: dawn is coming, and this long, long night is finally done.

Done. They are Going. They are Out. They are almost Gone. This strange town, with its strange inhabitants and their catatonic stares, will hopefully become just an unpleasant memory, just a “can you fucking believe that happened” story they will all share one day.

Which is when they hear a crackle up in the skies.

“Is that thunder?” asks Dord. He presses his head up against the window glass to see up.

“It can’t be,” says Mallory. “There’s not a cloud in the—”

Then everything goes blue-white.

Bolan’s ears don’t register an explosion so much as they do a huge, rather fartish flapping sound, like someone has just crushed a massive, inflated ziplock bag right beside his head. It throws him toward the side of the car, his head cracking up against the window while his foot, over which he still retains some amount of control, stabs out at the brake. The car immediately fills with smoke, and not wood smoke or anything so pleasant, but a smoke that is acrid and fumy and somehow electric.

He can’t see out, but Bolan is pretty sure he’s stopped the car. “What the fuck was that!” he shouts.

He hears Dord coughing in the passenger seat to his right. Mallory, however, is silent, so he turns to look, not quite sure what he’ll see but expecting carnage of a most horrific sort.

The entire backseat has been burned black. He can see bits of the wire frame showing through the charred fabric, like ribs. The back and