David Wisehart

BLOOD ALLEY

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,

The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,

And the highwayman came riding—

Riding—riding—

The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

— “The Highwayman,” Alfred Noyes

1

Mojave Desert, California

Saturday, November 17, 1956

The Highwayman cast no shadow on the mountain.

He stood on the summit of a cragged peak beneath the blood-red crescent of a lunar eclipse. A fierce wind whipped along the ridge but hardly disturbed the brim of his slouch hat or the black duster that cloaked him from shoulders to knees.

Below him stretched his road, Blood Alley, a narrow two-lane blacktop that cut across the desert like a naked scar. It itched and festered in his mind. The Highwayman had felt it gnawing at his slumber. Sometimes he slept for years, longing to forget, hoping to heal. But then, as always, the strangers came. They came spinning tires and belching fumes. And the old wound reopened.

Go away! Go back! You do not belong here!

It was an old curse meant for all who came this way. He cursed them and he killed them. For a time they would fear him, and for a time he would rest. But time drove on, and the legends of the Highwayman were lost—old stories and tall tales dying on the desert wind—and the strangers in the living world forgot once more to fear him.

They will fear me tonight.

The Highwayman saw a yellow automobile on the road. Smooth curves and polished steel. The car cruised toward a roadside diner where other trespassers gathered. Even from this distance the Highwayman could read the flashing letters of the neon sign: LAST STOP CAR HOP.

The building had not been there before.

How long have I slept?

Cars filled the parking lot. The place was crowded with teenagers. The Highwayman felt their gaiety and the sharp sting of their smiles. The intruders were happy. He wanted none of it. Laughter and joy had no place on his road. These people were mocking him, and he would not be mocked.

Not tonight.

They had not asked his permission, but they would pay his price.

As the Highwayman stepped down from the mountain, lizards and scorpions scurried from his path.

2

Frankie LaMarque sat in the corner booth of the roadside diner, checking out the girls. He’d broken up with Julie last night, and needed a new conquest. Julie was his third girlfriend in as many months.

There was a moment—when he first saw her at the recording studio, with her receptionist smile and sexy green eyes—that he thought Julie might be the right girl for him, the one who would last. But Frankie understood now that girls weren’t built to last. Even the pretty girls had a shelf life.

The diner was filled with pretty girls, bobby-soxers in short skirts and big smiles.

They all had eyes for Frankie.

A plain Jane put a dime in the jukebox, turned to him with a face full of freckles, and said, “Frankie! I love this one.”

He knew what would come next. They played the same song all night. His song. The song that had made Frankie a celebrity on two continents, lined his pockets with hundred dollar bills, and filled his bed with little darlings. It was the song that gave this snazzy new diner its name: “Last Stop Car Hop.”

Frankie hated that song.

He couldn’t escape it, and there it was again:

Polish the chrome

Put down the top

We’re leaving home

Drive till we drop

To the Last Stop Car Hop

Last Stop Car Hop

Girls stood up from their tables and began to dance in singles and pairs. Then in jittery groups of giggles and curls. The boys joined in, and sure as sunset the place was hopping.

The song grated on Frankie. He didn’t like his voice. He’d recorded “Last Stop Car Hop” almost a year ago. He was a much better singer now.

They didn’t even use his best take. The guitarist, Tommy-something, had messed up a lick in the bridge section. The producers went with another take, a version that was way too squeaky. But the girls liked it that way.

God, do they ever.

Frankie wanted to puke. He wanted to leave. He wanted to drive—but not alone.

Who would be the lucky girl?

Frankie scanned the room. He could have any girl in the joint. They were all here for him. Most had written him fan letters. Frankie eyed a few chicklets he’d already bedded. He dismissed them. No sense returning to old wells. He needed fresh water.

Yes, he could have any girl here, except…

Samantha.

She was Darren’s girl. Samantha and Darren had been going steady for, what, six months now? A little more? A lifetime, to Frankie’s way of thinking.

Darren was the drummer in Frankie’s band, and had confided to Frankie last week that he was thinking of popping the question. Frankie had laughed, but it was no joke to Darren. He was serious about her, real serious.

Poor Darren. He could have most of the girls here, too. Girls liked drummers almost as much as they liked singers. Once Frankie took his pick of the litter, Darren could clean up with one of the others, or maybe more than one, if that’s what Darren liked. But it wasn’t.

Frankie didn’t understand why Darren wanted to settle down with just one girl. That was just song-talk.

And why Samantha? he wondered.

The question intrigued him.

What was it about her, anyway? She was cute enough. Maybe a little plump for Frankie’s taste, but the tits were nice. Those were very much to Frankie’s taste, round and full and firm. A bright red sweater stretched tight across her man-catchers, revealing two little buttons where there were no buttons.

Darren swore that Samantha’s blessings were everything they seemed to be. No help from the costuming department.

Frankie smiled.

What he wouldn’t give to hold those tits tonight, suck on them, squeeze them till she squealed. Maybe slap her ass a little if she liked it. If not, he could teach her to like it. She seemed the type. Frankie had learned a few bedtime tricks since hitting the big time.

But Samantha was Darren’s girl. And that meant she was strictly off-limits.

Or is she?

Frankie wondered if he could get her into the sheets, then realized something. He didn’t know what Samantha felt for Darren. Frankie only knew one side of the story—Darren’s side. Sure, Darren was sweet on her, but what if Samantha didn’t feel the same?

What if Darren pops the question, and she says no?

A rejection from Samantha would crush poor Darren. What would the little drummer boy do then? Sulk in a corner? Lock himself in his room for months?

Probably.

It would hurt the band, that’s for sure. Darren and his miserable sulking.

Poor Darren. Such a sap. Letting a girl get in the way of the music.

A new realization hit Frankie like two cars smashed together. Samantha, that cunning little bitch, was just using Darren to break up the band.

Of course she is. Girls need attention, and once they get a little, they take a lot.

Samantha had gotten Darren’s attention, all right. Now she wanted it all. Marriage, kids, the works. She was going to lock that drummer boy away and swallow the key. That crazy bitch had already taken poor Darren’s heart, and now she’d take his career, too.

And mine, thought Frankie. She has to be stopped.

Frankie rubbed his eyes to cover his thoughts. He was tense. His shirt felt damp at the small of his back.

Easy now, Frankie. Just cool it.

He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. He felt the tension ease in his shoulders and neck.

Of course, Frankie thought, she might be everything Darren says.

Samantha might be sweet and faithful and true. Frankie had never met a girl like that—and probably never would—but he sang songs about them.

If you can write a song about that kind of girl, she must be out there somewhere, right?

But was it Samantha?

Only one way to know.

She had to be tested. Tempted.

By Frankie.

He knew what he had to do. He had get Samantha in the sack. Or at least try.

If she turned Frankie down, then Darren was right, and she was everything he said she was. The perfect girl. The perfect little bride. Sure, if Samantha turned Frankie down, then she could resist anyone, and Darren was right to marry her.

But what if she went with Frankie?

Then she’s just like every other girl.

Darren would lose her one day—if not to Frankie, then to some other sweet-talking, soft-singing lothario with greasy hair, a black leather jacket, and a cheesy smile. But by then it would be too late for poor Darren. By then, Darren and Samantha would have a house and five kids and a mortgage and all that family crap, and one day Darren would stagger home drunk from some late-night gig to find the sheets cold and the wife gone.

Yes, Samantha had to be tested.

Tonight.

3

Frankie stared at Samantha across the diner. A couple of chicklets sat down beside Frankie and started talking about how great he was, how he was supercool and supercute and all that crap, but he paid them no attention. His eyes were on Samantha.

She was smiling at her boyfriend Darren, nuzzling up to him in their booth. They seemed to really love each other.

Frankie wasn’t so sure.

Samantha pulled back from Darren to sip her soda. Something changed in her expression. She seemed to feel the weight of Frankie’s stare. Samantha turned her cute face to Frankie and gave him a quick smile, then turned back to Darren and let the smile melt.

Frankie kept on staring as the teenie-boppers beside him pawed at him for attention, whispering endearments and promises and teases.

They meant nothing to Frankie.

He watched Samantha play with the ends of her own hair, twirling a blonde lock around her middle finger. He didn’t know if the gesture was intentional, if it was meant for Frankie, but it didn’t matter. It was a sign. She would look back at him if he kept on staring.

So he did.

A few moments later Samantha turned her head and caught his look again. The smile was bigger this time and more genuine.

Frankie knew he had her.

It was all so easy.

Samantha whispered something in her boyfriend’s ear, stood up alone, gave poor Darren a quick peck on the cheek, and went to the girls room.

Darren sat all by himself, looking pathetic. He gave Frankie a puzzled expression.

Frankie raised his glass to Darren, who raised his own, then came to join Frankie in the corner booth.

“Scram,” Frankie said to the girls in his booth, and the teenie-boppers withdrew with sulks and whimpers.

Darren said, “Hey, Frankie.”

“Where did Samantha go?”

“Girls room.”

“Keep an eye on that one,” Frankie said.

Darren chuckled. “Oh, she’s okay.”

“I know, but you gotta be sure, right?”

The chuckle died. “I’m sure.”

“How?”

“I just am.” Darren sat down in the booth with Frankie. “She loves me something fierce.”

“Yeah?”

“Says it all the time.”

“Maybe too much?” Frankie wondered aloud.

“No such thing.”

“Maybe she protested too much,” Frankie said, faking some Shakespeare.

He’d learned that in school last year, before he dropped out for the music scene. He liked quoting Shakespeare. It reminded people Frankie was not just a pretty face on a billboard, but smart, too.

Darren laughed. “You don’t know her, Frankie.”

“I could.”

The drummer’s look turned serious. “She’s my girl.”

Frankie shrugged.

He’d already won, but didn’t care to rub it in. Poor Darren.

“Oh, I know that,” Frankie said. “She’s your girl. Of course she’s your girl. But admit it, Darren. You’re worried about her.”

“Hell, no.”

“Don’t get me wrong, kid, she’s a great girl. One of the best. A real keeper, you ask me.” He poked a finger at Darren’s black leather jacket. “But she’s still a girl. And you know what that means.”

Darren shifted in his seat. “Keep your hands off her, Frankie.”

Frankie raised his hands in a gesture of peace, laced his fingers together behind his head, and leaned back in his seat. “Tell her to keep her eyes off me.”

Darren clammed up.

Frankie said, “Yeah, you saw that, right? The look she gave me?”

“Go to hell, Frankie.”

It was time to put an end to this. “Race you for her.”

Darren looked confused. “What?”

The room grew silent.

Frankie looked around. All eyes were on him and Darren. Frankie raised his voice a little. “You heard me. Drag race. Let’s go.”

Some other guy muttered, “Drag race,” and the phrase spread like polio around the room.

Darren stood up. “This is stupid.”

“Here to the Devil’s Tunnel,” said Frankie.

“You’re nuts, man.” Fear sparked in Darren’s eyes. “That’s forty miles.”

Frankie knew it wasn’t the miles or the tunnel that pumped fear into Darren’s veins. It was the road itself—and the legends of that road.

“Blood Alley,” they called it.

But Frankie wasn’t scared. He was top cat, and everyone knew it.

Frankie took the last sip from his glass, letting the sound of air and soda rattle in the straw. He paused for effect, then set the glass down with a hard, ice-chattering thunk.

“Winner gets to take Samantha home.”

“No way,” Darren protested. “That’s my girl, Frankie. That’s my girl.”

“Didn’t say she wasn’t. But if I win, I’ll drive her home for you. I’d be doing you favor.”

“I’ll drive her myself.”

Darren started to walk back to his own table, but when he saw that his girl wasn’t there, he stopped.

Frankie knew the crowd was itching for a fight. But it wasn’t a fight that Frankie wanted. Not with knuckles and elbows. Frankie fought with steel and rubber and an iron will. He fought with the smell of burning gasoline and the roar of a fine-tuned engine.

“Then race me,” he said.

He waited for an answer that didn’t come. The room was quiet, except for the wind outside and the howl of a coyote.

Frankie taunted his friend some more. “What’s the matter, buddy? You worried?”

Darren turned back around. The boy’s jaw was clenched. He lowered his voice. “I’d beat you in a fair race.”

“I’d like to see that.”

Frankie stood and stretched.

Darren threw some quarters on the table to tip the waitress. “You’re on.”

Samantha returned from the girls room. She looked around at the crowd, glanced at Frankie, then went to Darren’s side. “What’s happening?”

“Drag race!” someone shouted.

Samantha beamed. “Really? Who’s racing?”

Darren’s reply was low and surly. “Me and Frankie.”

“What’s the prize?” she asked.

Frankie smiled. “You are.”

4

Frankie was first to his machine, a spanking-new, matador-red, two-door, four-speed 1957 Chevy Bel Air hardtop. He’d bought the hot rod six weeks ago—next year’s model, first off the lot—and paid for her out of his royalty jackpot. Then he hired a race mechanic to tune, tighten, and tweak her to within an inch of perfection.

Everyone was jealous.

Frankie’s red-metal demon may not have been the fastest speedster on the open road, but in Frankie’s capable hands she handled like a dream. With that Chevy he could hug a curve like Don Juan at a bordello.

Darren had a different approach to racing. He did his own engine work, and he was one of the best. He’d retrofitted a Red Ram hemi engine into an old three-window Deuce Coupe with the suicide doors.

He knew how to work under a hood like Frankie under a skirt.

The two band mates hadn’t raced each other since Frankie smashed up his old wheels six weeks back. Darren’s lemon-yellow Deuce Coupe was probably faster than Frankie’s Chevy on the straightaways, and Darren had an expert touch on the downshift, but he was far too cautious on the curves. Darren didn’t have the guts to gamble, didn’t have the balls to push his machine hard when the time was right.

There was a reason that this treacherous stretch of highway—from the Last Stop Car Hop to the Devil’s Tunnel—was called “Blood Alley.”

A lot of teenagers had died here.

Darren and Frankie both knew the legends, had heard the ghost stories around an open campfire, beers in hand, girls clutching their guys for warmth and protection.

Frankie laughed at those stories, but Darren never did. The poor sap half-believed the crazy tales. His superstition dogged him on the road.

In a tight turn, Darren was yellower than his car.

Frankie knew better.

There were no phantoms on this road. There was no Highwayman, no ghost car, no army of spectral minions waiting in the darkness beyond the highway’s edge.

Blood Alley was just an urban legend the cops dreamed up to keep the crazy kids from causing trouble.

It was a desert highway, narrow, two lanes of dimly-painted blacktop, nice and straight on the valley floor, but when it reached into the mountains the road wound through the foothills till it plunged into the heart of the Devil’s Tunnel.

A cautious driver slowed into the curves.

The road had no paved shoulder for safety, no shoulder to cry on. If your tires left the road at 90 miles per hour, they’d hit the rough dirt hard and—even money—send your car rolling over sagebrush and cactus until coyotes found your bones.

Darren was cautious by nature. He’d play it safe on the mountain curves.

That was where Frankie would win.

Not just the race, but the girl too.

Frankie saw Samantha jump into the passenger side of Darren’s coupe. She slammed the door and leaned out the open window to blow Frankie a kiss.

“Good luck, Frankie!” She added a wink and a smile.

What a tease.

Frankie zipped up the front of his black leather jacket and buckled himself in. He started his engine, then pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road. He settled into the eastbound lane.

Darren pulled his Deuce Coupe right up next to Frankie’s Chevy. The coupe idled in the opposing lane, facing the wrong way, but there was little danger here—theirs were the only two cars on the road for as far as the eye could see.

Side by side, Frankie and Darren stared each other down. They gunned their engines in neutral as teens gathered on both sides of the road, cheering and shouting.

A dark-haired short girl in a cheerleader outfit stepped between the two cars and raised her arms high.

“Ready?” she asked.

I’m always ready.

The cheerleader screamed, “One, two, three!”

She brought her arms down fast.

Frankie floored it and laid some rubber on the road.

With a thunderous roar, his car shot down the lane. The force of the acceleration pressed him hard against his seat and nearly knocked his teeth into his throat.

He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the cheerleader with her skirts up, blown by the wind from the cars. He caught a glimpse of her white panties.

That’s what it’s all about!

Frankie kicked it from first to second, second to third.

Darren’s car surged ahead of him.

Frankie noted it calmly. He wasn’t worried. The road was straight. That gave Darren the early edge.

Just keep pace, Frankie thought. Don’t give up too much ground, and you can take him on curves.

He shifted into fourth, trying to jump quickly to top speed, but by the time he hit the one mile marker Darren was a full car length ahead.

As Darren changed lanes—pulling directly in front of Frankie—Samantha leaned out the passenger window and waved back at the singer. Frankie kept his eye on the girl. She waved a yellow scarf and let it go.

Frankie saw the scarf flutter in the wind towards him.

He reached out and snatched it from the air. He pulled his hand back into the car, held the yellow scarf to his nose, and sniffed it. A rich, heady perfume. Sexy as hell. The scent drove him wild.

Frankie smiled and let out a holler. “Coming for you, Baby!”

The first curve slid up on them fast.

It veered left.

Darren slowed into it, but Frankie kept his foot pressed hard on the accelerator. His body swayed to the right with the force of the turn, but the tires held the road.

By the time they both came out of the curve and onto the next straightaway, Frankie had tightened the race by a good ten yards.

A light in Frankie’s rearview mirror caught his eye.

He glanced up into the mirror and saw another car behind him. It was far back—just a pair of headlights in the darkness of the desert—but approaching fast.

Real fast.

What the hell?

Darren and Frankie were zooming at top speed, pushing 120 miles per hour, yet the car behind them was closing the gap.

Nothing on the highway moves that fast.

Frankie blinked, and shook it off.

It made no sense. Some kind of illusion, like an oasis. The desert tricked your eyes, played with your mind. Frankie couldn’t afford to lose focus now. If he lost focus, he’d lose the game.

And the girl.

He ignored the headlights behind him and kept his gaze forward. This drag race was between him and Darren.

That’s all that matters, he thought. Just get the girl.

The next curve was made for Frankie—a long sweep, veering right, banked a little, but not enough for this screaming pace.

Darren’s brake lights sparked as he went into the curve. Darren slowed to maybe 80 miles per hour. He cut a wide arc, drifting into the outside lane.

Frankie chuckled to himself. He had no intention of touching his brakes. Not on this ride. Not with that hot little tease, Samantha, waiting for him at the finish line.

As he pushed 100 miles per hour into the curve, he thought of Samantha’s soft, white, smooth flesh, her plump little titties, her silky legs, and what lay between.

He stayed in the inside lane, cut a tight arc, and tried to slip past the Deuce Coupe. Frankie’s right two wheels lifted from the pavement. Threatened to flip.

Frankie leaned his body to the right—into the curve and over the passenger side of the seat—to keep his car balanced on two wheels.

The Chevy shuddered and shook around him.

Tires screeched.

Wind sang in his ears.

The restless air whipped around inside the car.

Samantha’s yellow scarf in his hand fluttered and flapped against the dashboard. The air caught the scent of Samantha’s perfume. Frankie inhaled it deeply as he came out of the curve.

The Chevy’s two right wheels hit the pavement hard. Back on all fours, like a pouncing cat.

Darren’s yellow car was much closer now. The red Chevy was only inches behind, and in the eastbound lane. Darren was in the opposing lane. To keep his lead, he needed to get back over to Frankie’s side.

But Frankie, launching faster out of the turn, had the momentum now. The nose of his Chevy crossed the line of Darren’s rear bumper and sped forward, gaining inch by inch.

Darren tried to return to the right lane—the safe lane—but Frankie wouldn’t let him back over.

The cars touched.

Darren’s rear fender knocked on Frankie’s door.

Fat chance, buddy.

The coupe danced away lightly, settling back into the other lane. The road was straighter here, and Darren must have thought he could regain his advantage. But they were in the foothills now. The upcoming turns would weigh heavily against him.

For a quarter mile the cars raced side by side.

The road dipped. Frankie felt his stomach drop. His gut always gave him problems, and he didn’t like these sudden dips, but he wasn’t about ease up and lose the girl.

She’s mine now.

The grade increased. Frankie heard the tone of his engine change as the cars sped uphill.

Darren’s engine sounded tired. Maybe Darren was tired, too. Frankie wondered if maybe, just maybe, the poor boy’s heart wasn’t in it anymore after the humiliation of that last turn.

Frankie was on his game tonight.

The cars remained side by side. Frankie looked over at Samantha, who sat in the passenger side of the coupe.

She screamed and giggled and returned Frankie’s look.

Headlights appeared up ahead.

An oncoming truck.

Heading west.

We got company—

Darren and Samantha were still in the westbound lane, directly in the path of the barreling rig. The road had no paved shoulder, no place to escape. Just two lanes and a dotted yellow line.

Frankie kept pace beside Darren.

Again, the fender knocked on Frankie’s door.

Not you letting you in.

He blocked his rival from the eastbound lane—

Forcing Darren into a game of chicken with the truck.

Brock-bock-buckock, you chickenshit.

One way or another, Darren had to get back into the safe lane.

He either could pull ahead of Frankie—

Or drop back behind.

There was no way in hell Frankie was going to let him get ahead.

The cars jockeyed for position.

Frankie kept his advantage.

He looked to his left, past Samantha. Saw Darren hunched over the steering wheel.

Darren glanced back at him.

They locked gazes, a test of wills.

Darren’s face lit up as the truck approached, headlights glaring. If he didn’t drop back behind Frankie—and quick—he’d kiss those headlights with his own.

Your choice, buddy. Lose the girl or lose your life.

Samantha didn’t look scared. An erotic thrill played across her features.

She digs this.

Samantha must have known that Darren was a chickenshit, that Frankie was master of this road, that soon she would be spending the night with the new king of teen pop, the idol of millions.

Frankie saw his future play out across her face. He wanted to touch that face, that future. The future was his, and he would claim it.

He called out, “Samantha!”

Her eyes were bright with excitement.

He held Samantha’s yellow scarf out to her through the open window.

She reached her hand out and grabbed the other end.

Frankie didn’t let go of the scarf. Instead he steered his car a little to the left, closer to Darren’s coupe, and pulled on the scarf to bring Samantha closer to his Chevy.

She took the hint and leaned out her window towards Frankie.

He leaned out his window, his face close to hers, ready to kiss her at 120 miles per hour.

Her ruby lips were lit up by the headlights of the onrushing truck.

Their lips met.

Soft and warm and trembling.

With that kiss Frankie knew he had her.

5

Frankie heard the truck honk.

Then a squeal of tires.

He felt Samantha’s lips pull away from his. She fell back into Darren’s Deuce Coupe as the car receded.

Darren cut quickly into the right lane behind Frankie’s Chevy.

Frankie ducked his head back inside the car as the truck whooshed past his window.

Samantha sat back in her seat as the big truck rushed by. She felt the most amazing thrill. It wasn’t the near-collision that set her heart racing, but the boy in the other car.

I just kissed Frankie Lamarque!

She had been a fan for months, had dated Frankie’s own drummer, and now she had finally kissed the star himself.

Frankie Lamarque!

Frankie, the boy all the girls wanted. What would Karen say? What would Jodie say? What would her mother say? Ha! She had kissed Frankie. Frankie, Frankie, Frankie.

It sounded like a song. Their song. Now Frankie would write songs about her, about his race to win her heart, about their very first kiss. Karen and Jodie and everyone at the soda shop would hear it on the radio, over and over. They’d hear Frankie sing his love for Samantha, and they would giggle and dance and be secretly jealous—or openly jealous. Wouldn’t that be a scandal!

The thought made Samantha quiver inside.

She could hear Frankie’s song already, hear it in the wind that rushed past her window. Even the wind sang like Frankie. It sang of the cars, the kiss, the scarf.

Samantha looked down at the yellow scarf in her hand, the scarf Frankie had held in his own hand only moments before. That would be in the song, too, maybe even in the title. “One Yellow Scarf.” Soon all the girls would be wearing yellow scarves. It would be a chart-topping hit for Frankie Lamarque, his biggest hit ever. He would love her for that moment, for that kiss. She had inspired Frankie to greatness. Frankie was already great, and no mistake, but that kiss would transform him into—what?—the greatest teen idol ever. Samantha would be his muse, his life, his…

Wife!

And why not? Why not Samantha and Frankie? Samantha Lamarque! It was like a romantic movie, like destiny, like some ancient prophecy fulfilled. Biblical, almost. So many nights Samantha had stayed awake, hugged her pillow tightly to her chest, wondering if she might ever dare kiss him, and now she had. She really had. Suddenly her life with Frankie seemed not only possible, but inevitable, and in that instant her whole new wonderful life flashed before her like—

A flash in the mirror.

She looked back and saw headlights behind them. A pair of strange headlights. Eerie. Gaining on them.

Another car from the diner?

It had to be. But whoever it was, he was going real fast, terribly fast.

No, she thought. Something was wrong. “Darren…”

“It’s okay, everything’s okay.” Darren didn’t look over at her, but at Frankie’s car straight ahead. Darren had hit the brakes at the last possible moment, his car had fallen back to avoid a collision with the truck, and now Frankie was winning. The two hot rods were only inches apart, speeding faster than Samantha had ever gone before. Darren looked grim with determination.

“I’m gonna win this,” he said. “Frankie’s mine.”

“There’s someone behind us.”

Darren glanced up at the mirror. Reflected light filled his face. His eyes went wide. “Hell.”

“He’s fast, whoever he is.”

“Too fast,” Darren said. He sounded worried. “That ain’t natural.”

Samantha turned back around to see the headlights barreling down on them.

Behind the headlights was a car like nothing she had never seen before. Older, like from the 1920s, maybe. It was sleek and black and looked like a demon with those bright headlights, that coffin-nosed hood, and a speed like nothing in this world.

The demon car was coming fast, coming close, coming straight for them.

“Darren—”

“I see it.”

“Do something.”

6

Samantha stared into the headlights behind them as Darren veered left, driving into the oncoming lane.

The demon-looking car stayed right on the tail of the Deuce Coupe.

Closer, closer.

Darren returned to the right-hand lane.

The demon car kept after him.

Samantha had heard terrible stories about this road, about teenagers who died here, about a ghost car that came out of the darkness to punish kids who did bad things. But Samantha was a good girl. She’d done nothing wrong. And besides, those were just crazy, made-up stories, stories to frighten gullible teenagers into not driving drunk late at night or racing each other on the highway.

Just stories, that’s all.

What was the name they gave him? Something weird and creepy and—

“The Highwayman,” she said.

Darren answered, “No such thing,” but she heard the doubt in his voice.

The demon car was only a few feet behind. Gaining. Close enough that she could see the driver’s face in the glow coming up off the dash.

Samantha couldn’t take her eyes off him. The driver wore a dark slouch hat and a black canvas duster. His face was gaunt. His eyes were pools of shadow.

The driver grinned at Samantha. He had one gold tooth. The other teeth were decayed, like the grimace of a corpse.

“The Revenant,” she said.

That was the name of the Highwayman’s car. That’s what the stories said.

The Revenant, a death car from the mouth of Hell. A sleek, black monster with demon eyes and a coffin-nosed hood.

The Revenant.

It came and it killed and you never had a chance. No one in those stories ever survived. Not one. Once the Highwayman had you in his headlights, you were his, and there was nothing you could do.

What was it he did to those kids? After he killed them? Samantha couldn’t remember. She wished now that she had paid more attention to those stories.

Darren tried to shake the Revenant, but it was no use. They were nearly bumper to bumper now. In a few more seconds, the two cars would hit. Samantha gripped the back of her seat, bracing for impact.

The gap narrowed between the Highwayman’s car and Darren’s coupe.

Two feet…

One foot…

Six inches…

Three inches…

They were going to hit…

But—

Nothing. No impact.

The Revenant kept coming closer and closer…

What the hell?

Then she understood.

And screamed.

Darren looked at her. “What? What happened?”

Samantha kept screaming as the front bumper of the Revenant penetrated the back bumper of the coupe and—

Passed right through it!

She recovered her voice. “Darren, faster!”

“I am, I am.” His voice was tense.

The ghost car entered the Deuce Coupe.

Samantha watched in horror as the Revenant’s front grille emerged from the back of her seat. The bright glow from the demon-eyed headlights filled the inside of Darren’s car. Samantha backed away from ghostly headlamp, but there was nowhere for her to escape. She was trapped inside the coupe with the Revenant only inches away.

“No!” she screamed, “No!”

The ghost car was inside the real car.

And it was still coming.

Coming to get them.

The hood ornament was a death’s head. It penetrated Darren’s back and emerged from his chest. The coffin-nosed hood of the ghost car glided through his torso.

Darren cried out in agony.

“Darren!” she screamed, helpless.

The Revenant touched and entered Samantha’s body. She felt an icy chill as the coffin-nosed hood of the ghost car passed through her.

Samantha saw the Highwayman behind the wheel of the Revenant. The ghost driver powered his death machine forward, faster, faster, and—

The Highwayman entered Darren’s body.

The ghost driver disappeared completely into Darren. Then the ghost car shimmered and faded away.

Something else happened. Samantha didn’t understand it, but knew her boyfriend was being…changed…transformed.

It looked like torture. Darren’s chest heaved. His neck tensed. His head snapped to attention. Darren turned to face Samantha, his eyes wide. His once-blue eyes now glowed a ghostly green.

Darren was… what?

Possessed.

His very human scream became the Highwayman’s death-rattle laugh.

7

Frankie Lamarque gripped the steering wheel. His fingers were sore and stiff. He shook them to get the blood flowing again, then wiped sweat from his forehead. He’d been clenching the steering wheel much too hard. The near-miss with that oncoming truck left his pulse pounding.

Relax, calm down. The race isn’t over yet.

Poor Darren had nearly bought the farm back there. Frankie couldn’t afford to lose his drummer. Darren was one of the best. Good thing the kid had enough sense to stop fighting for the lead. Instead, the little drummer boy had dropped back to safety, in second place, right where he belonged, backing up Frankie. Darren had always been the sensible one. Frankie was the leader, the risk-taker.

Sometimes he had to remind Darren of his proper place.

Frankie snuck another glance in the rearview mirror. He had seen a pair of headlights behind Darren’s coupe, but now that other car was gone.

Where’d it go?

There were no exits on this stretch of the highway. Had the car pulled over to the dirt shoulder? Dropped back out of sight? Turned off its lights?

A crazy thought entered Frankie’s head. For a moment he wondered if the stories were true. Stories about a ghost car. About the Highwayman, the Revenant, and teenagers dying on the highway, on a murderous desert highway known as—

Blood Alley.

The Highwayman felt his new hands on the wheel, his new foot on the accelerator. The passenger window was rolled down—a cold wind buffeted his cheeks and stung a little in his eyes. It was thrilling to see the world once more through human eyes. That sharpness. That clarity. It felt good to be flesh and blood again. A new body, a new life—if only for a brief moment.

The Highwayman knew his purpose, and kept to his goal. These three mortals had trespassed, and they must be punished.

There were two cars racing on Blood Alley.

He was now in control of one.

The body he possessed was young, strong, full of life. The Highwayman liked young mortals best. They gave him a thrill when he entered their bodies, claiming their lives. But he could not stay long in this living cage. The rigors of life demanded his absolute focus. The act of possession drained him, and soon he would have to retreat into the shadows.

But not yet.

Not yet.

He was driving a Deuce Coupe. The engine was well-tuned. It hummed brilliantly. The night was dark beyond his headlights. There was a girl in the car beside him. She wore a red sweater and a frightened expression. She was screaming and crying. It made him feel stronger. He fed on her screams, like an actor on applause.

Let her scream, the Highwayman thought. Let her cry.

He wanted a witness to his mayhem.

The other car was a Chevy, in the lead position. The driver was good, but no one could match the Highwayman. Not on this road. Not on Blood Alley.

That’s what the mortals called it now. Blood Alley. He had heard that name whispered on the wind. It made him proud to know that his righteous revenge sent ripples of fear into the living world.

Yet still the mortals came.

The Highwayman was being taunted, tested. He was up to the test. These mortals would not survive to the tunnel. They would not get off Blood Alley alive.

The Devil’s Tunnel marked the end of his domain. The Highwayman was bound by his own curse, and could go no further. He was a victim too, trapped forever on Blood Alley.

No, he thought, not forever.

He longed to leave this dark stretch of road—as he had many times in his mortal life—yet in death, it seemed, he had no choice. This road was his universe now, his eternity, his playground. He would make the best of it. He had ten more miles in which to kill these meddlesome mortals, ten more miles to toy and tease and torture them. If they reached and cleared the tunnel, the game would end.

They will not reach the tunnel.

Not tonight when there was a thin red moon in the heavens and hot blood in his veins.

Blood.

He felt it pulse through the body he possessed.

The boy’s name was Darren. He could hear the girl screaming, “Darren! Darren, stop! Darren, what’s happening?”

Idiot.

Her name was—what?—

Samantha.

That was the name Darren knew her by. The Highwayman, possessing Darren’s body, witnessed the boy’s frightened thoughts. Darren screamed inside, but the Highwayman would not let him release the scream.

That would come later.

The Highwayman controlled this body now, controlled its movements, its breathing, its voice. Everything but its thoughts.

A chattering distraction.

The Highwayman could not afford to be distracted now. The road sped beneath him. He could feel the two-lane blacktop thrum under the racing wheels of the Deuce Coupe.

His highway. His road.

Blood Alley.

It sang to him and kept him to his purpose.

Frankie shook his head to clear his thoughts. No such thing as a haunted road. He had other things to worry about. This was no time for ghost stories.

The coupe kept pace behind him, then surged with renewed force.

It rammed Frankie’s back bumper.

He felt the jolt in his neck and spine.

What the hell?

Darren’s car slid to the left and started to pass. Frankie saw the coupe grow larger in his side mirror. The front end of Darren’s car was dented.

He’s nuts.

Darren loved that car. He polished it every day and twice on Sundays. Now he had gone and smashed up the front end of his only treasure. For what?

A girl? A grudge?

Makes no sense.

Samantha stopped screaming. She was tired and exhausted. Darren—or whatever he was now—ignored her. He seemed intent on driving. Samantha felt the urge to get out of the car. She needed to escape. Now. Or it would be too late.

The car was going fast, over 100 miles an hour. If she threw herself out the door, would she survive?

Maybe not.

Could she wrestle the wheel from Darren and take over control?

He’s too strong.

A struggle might spin the wheel and kill them both. Yet the urge to leap overwhelmed her.

Get out, she thought.

Samantha put her hand on the handle of the door.

Darren looked at her and laughed. “Leaving so soon?”

It was not Darren’s voice. Not entirely. There was something darker in his tone. Something ancient and evil.

Get out—get out—get out—

She looked out the open window.

The road raced beneath her at a frightening speed.

Jump, she thought.

Do it.

Do it now.

Save yourself.

She turned the handle.

The door opened a crack.

The wind outside resisted her, and slammed the door shut.

Frankie saw a sign zooming closer: “DEVIL’S PASS—10 miles.”

You’re on the Devil’s road now.

It climbed steeply, winding into the foothills.

The Deuce Coupe pulled up even with the Chevy.

Frankie shouted out the window, “What the hell, Darren?”

He saw Samantha in the other car. Her face was white with fear.

“Frankie! Help! Get me out! Get me out!”

Something’s wrong.

He saw Samantha screaming, saw the terror in her face. She seemed to be struggling with the passenger side door, trying to open it.

Frankie checked his speedometer. Both cars were going 118 miles per hour up the hill. “Samantha, no!”

She opened the passenger door, leaned out of the car, both hands on the handle, her face down, watching the road fly under her.

If Samantha hit the pavement at that speed, she’d be killed for sure.

Was she playing around? Was she crazy?

What the hell’s going on?

Frankie looked past Samantha and saw Darren behind the wheel of the coupe, but there was something different about him, about that look in his face, even in profile.

Darren’s gaze was steely, determined. He stared daggers at the road. Darren hunched his thin body forward, his chest mere inches from the wheel, his head directly over the dash, as if leaning forward might make the car go faster. Darren’s face—dimly lit from below by the lights of the dash—looked contorted.

There was something demonic in that look.

Something evil.

Darren turned his head to look at Frankie, and in that instant Frankie knew it wasn’t Darren in the car. Something had happened to him. Something had changed him, twisted him into a boy with the face of a gargoyle.

Those eyes.

In the darkness, Darren’s eyes glowed green.

8

Samantha held the handle of the half-open door. She looked down through the gap. The road was a rapid blur. She felt her stomach tighten. Terror gripped her. A scream caught in her throat.

Get out!

The car lurched to the right, throwing Samantha’s weight against the door.

It opened wider.

She held onto the handle as her head and chest leaned out. The speeding car created a hurricane wind that buffeted her, ripped at her clothes, threatened to push her out. She released a scream.

Darren laughed. It sounded like a death-rattle in his throat.

He spun the wheel to the right.

The coupe sideswiped the Chevy. The passenger door hit the Chevy hard.

The door slammed shut, throwing Samantha back into her seat.

Frank felt Darren’s car slam into his own. For a moment he lost control. Tires skidded. His Chevy ran off the road and onto the rocky shoulder. The car shook violently. His teeth chattered. Frankie bit his tongue and tasted blood.

With a tug on the wheel he brought his car back onto the road.

“Darren!” he shouted, but it was no use.

Slow down, he thought. You’re gonna kill yourself. It’s just a race. Don’t die for this.

He took his foot off the accelerator.

But another thought overrode the impulse.

Samantha’s in the car.

He couldn’t just give up on her. Something strange had happened to Darren. The kid was freaking out, turning into some kind of hopped-up maniac.

Those eyes.

Darren looked possessed by some kind of demon.

No, not a demon.

A ghost.

It didn’t matter. A demon, a ghost, or the Devil himself. Samantha was in trouble, serious trouble. If Frankie stopped his car, then that ghost, the Highwayman, whatever he was, would have Samantha.

What would he do? Rape her? Kill her? Something worse?

To save Samantha, he had to stop the other car.

But how?

A plan formed quickly in Frankie’s mind.

Get in front, he thought, then slow down. Make Darren slow down, force him to stop.

He’d seen a police car do that in the movies.

Maybe it only worked in the movies, but he had to try something. Frankie didn’t have time to think it through clearly, but it was some kind of a plan and he had to act now.

Frankie felt another jolt as Darren’s car slammed into him.

And again. And again.

Darren pulled his car onto the left shoulder, away from Frankie, then came back to sideswipe the Chevy.

Frankie tapped his brakes.

Darren’s car swerved to the right.

Frankie’s Chevy dropped back, but not fast enough.

The rear of the coupe knocked the front of the Chevy.

Hard.

Frankie felt the left front end of his Chevy lift up. His tire must have caught on the coupe’s running board. Now it was riding up the wheel well. His Chevy rose into the air as the other car got under him.

Frankie tried to correct.

Too late.

The Chevy rolled. Frankie rolled with it. The metal case around him jarred and spun and flipped him over and over again. He felt the car bouncing, turning, flying, landing. A crash and scream of metal. His seat jostled. The door caved in, then flew off, disappeared, and Frankie could see only the black night sky where his door had been.

A thousand stars swept by him in a blur.

The sky vanished and became the ground, then the sky, then the ground.

Frankie’s seat belt tore loose, and he was out of the car, in the air, alone, his stomach reeling, the fierce wind all around him. He saw the red crescent moon and felt the sharp bite of the cold desert air on his burning skin. His body tumbled, then came to earth in a slow dream from which he feared to awake. In the dream he heard a shriek of steel, a roar of flame, and a sound like his own voice crying.

The ground came up to catch his fall.

But it wasn’t the desert floor. It was a long black scar with a dotted yellow line. The road rose up to meet him.

Blood Alley.

Frankie gritted his teeth. He was going to hit. He was going to die. Somewhere on the wind he heard a song. His song. The one that had given him a fast and famous life, and would make him immortal.

Polish the chrome

Put down the top

We’re leaving home

Drive till we drop

To the Last Stop Car Hop

Last Stop Car Hop

In the moment of impact, Frankie fell into nothing.

9

The Highwayman glanced in the rearview mirror.

He saw the Chevy tumble and roll. It flipped high in the air, the driver side door tore off, and a body flew out over the highway. The body landed hard, bounced, rolled, came to a stop.

The master of the road had claimed another soul.

As the Deuce Coupe raced up the winding mountain road, the Highwayman gripped the steering wheel hard.

He felt stronger now. Taking a life infused him with a sense of justice. It was justice he craved, and justice he deserved. There had been no justice in the living world, not for the Highwayman. But that was another life. Long ago. Now, here on Blood Alley, he was the final judge and executioner, passing sentence on the living and the dead.

The coupe approached a sharp turn. The Highwayman maintained top speed. He knew this road, every turn and dip and crack. Just up ahead was a cliff and a drop. Hundreds of mortals had died there—and two more were about to be added to the tally.

Approaching the turn, he raced past a sign that read: “35 mph.”

“Slow down! Slow down!” the girl screamed.

He ignored her.

The girl lunged at him and grabbed the steering wheel.

She tried to wrest it from the Highwayman’s grip, but he was too strong, even in this borrowed body.

He backhanded her, catapulting the girl across the seat. The back of her head crashed against the door handle. The door flew open but she caught herself on the frame, the upper half of her body leaning out, her hair whipping in the wind. Her head was injured. Blood flowed from the wound, streaking the air.

She was alive and conscious. She looked up at him, and he saw that the fear had left her. The Highwayman could read the resignation in her face. He recognized that look.

She’s made her decision.

The mortal was ready to end it now, ready to throw herself from the car. She kicked her legs against the floor and against the seat to push herself out. Her upper body fell toward the road.

With one hand the Highwayman grabbed her leg.

He felt her body shudder as her head hit the pavement. He held onto her. He couldn’t see her head now, but knew her bloody skull must be sliding on the road, skin and bones worn down by the merciless blacktop. Her arms spasmed. A tortured scream pierced the roar of the wind. She was alive, but not for long.

This ride’s not over yet.

The Highwayman saw the guard rail coming up fast. Thirty feet—twenty feet—ten feet—

In the moment before collision, the Highwayman stepped out of Darren’s body. The car continued on without the ghost driver.

He heard the girl’s dying scream as the Deuce Coupe punched though the railing.

The car launched off the cliff and sailed through the air in a long, slow, downward arc before striking a tree and bursting into flame.

The Highwayman stood alone on the edge of the cliff. Wind whipped along the steep ridge but hardly disturbed the brim of his slouch hat or the black duster that cloaked him from shoulders to knees. He cast no shadow on the mountain.

As the lunar eclipse ended, the ghost became translucent, faded, and disappeared.

10

Mojave Desert, California

Friday, May 24, 2013

Claire felt powerless. She was exhausted. It had only been ten or fifteen minutes since they’d started pushing her boyfriend’s red Hummer H3 down the road, but it seemed like days and felt like years. She was getting dizzy, and losing track of time.

Even with Claire, Trevor, Dakota, and Ethan all pushing together, the Hummer was unbearably heavy. Fat tires rolled on the hot asphalt, making a sticking sound in the heat.

The road looked level, but there were lots of little dips and rises. Claire felt each one of them in her arms and legs and back. She considered herself to be in pretty good shape, but not for this.

Not for this.

The day was hot and getting hotter. The air was dry, but that was small consolation. Claire was used to the swelter, living in the sun-blasted Mojave desert, in crappy old Palmdale, but they were well beyond the city now, and she was beginning to miss that oasis of civilization, such as it was.

Through the shimmering desert air, she could see what looked like a gas station up ahead. She couldn’t yet read the sign, but from the shape of the building she knew it was a station. Maybe it had a garage. Claire half convinced herself she saw two buildings, maybe even three. They didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

The desert’s playing tricks on us.

The sun was hot and the road was hard and Claire could feel blisters forming in her flats. She wasn’t dressed for this. She should be wearing a comfy pair of sneakers and those old denim shorts, not this yellow summer dress that billowed in the breeze and gave Ethan a good long look under the hood. She could feel the wind on her thighs and the weight of Ethan’s glances. He tried to hide it, awkwardly.

Whatever.

That weirdo was harmless enough. And besides, he was dating Dakota. If he tried anything strange, Claire’s boyfriend Trevor could beat him up. But Ethan was just being Ethan, and Claire didn’t feel like confronting him, so she let it pass.

This was going to be a long road trip. Best to be civil.

Claire wished she hadn’t come along, though of course she had no one to blame but herself. It was her idea, after all. Last week when Trevor learned of his uncle’s death in a car accident, Claire suggested they both go to the funeral. Trevor’s whole family would be there, and it would give Claire a chance to meet his relations.

Trevor couldn’t see what the big deal was. But why would he? He already had a family.

I don’t.

Not a real family, anyway. Claire wanted to know what Trevor’s family was like. Maybe they would accept her as one of their own.

She had persuaded Trevor to let her go with him to the funeral service by appealing to his sense of adventure. School finals were over. They’d both finished yesterday. Next week was graduation. His uncle’s death had cast a cloud over Trevor’s spirits, but together they could turn his sad obligation into a fun road trip, and once the funeral was over they could spend the rest of the Memorial Day weekend hiking in the mountains.

Things hadn’t started out well this morning, with the Hummer breaking down thirty miles outside of Palmdale. No one could get a cell phone signal. A road sign had promised a gas station up ahead, and Trevor had insisted on going forward—always the optimist—though his mood now had a harder edge. This morning he had teased Claire because she didn’t know how to drive.

A side stitch stabbed her.

Claire stopped walking and let the others push for a while. She bent over and took a few deep breaths. The pain subsided. She felt out of shape, out of her element, and out of her mind.

She wiped sweat from her forehead. Standing in the middle of the road, Claire regained her bearings. She could see for miles in all directions. Here the Mojave desert was vast and desolate and oddly beautiful. Joshua trees and sagebrush filled the open plain, surrounded by rolling foothills and white-capped mountains. The highway was a straight shot through the desert, but she could see where it started to twist and curve as it negotiated the distant hills.

Despite the holiday weekend, here were no other cars on the road. She found that disconcerting.

Claire watched the others push the Hummer. They were all sweaty and tired. Trevor leaned hard into the open doorframe on the driver’s side, keeping one hand on the steering wheel. He was the strongest of them, and did most of the work.

His car, his responsibility, she thought.

If Trevor had taken the Hummer into the shop for a check-up before the trip—like she told him to—they wouldn’t be in this mess.

Damnit, Trevor—

They were supposed to be in Cedarview tonight, in time for the funeral service tomorrow morning. The plan was to check in at the lodge by four o’clock, take a quick sunset hike along the mountain crest, and have a nice steak dinner at the restaurant on the summit.

We’re not going to make it.

They had no choice now but to press on.

Ethan pushed half-heartedly. He didn’t seem to care. All he cared about was his music, whatever he was listening to on his iPod. Ethan was a good guitarist, but a bad traveler. He’d been grumpy even before the breakdown. He was only here because he was dating Trevor’s younger sister, Dakota.

Dakota walked beside Ethan, pushing with one hand while playing Angry Birds on her Android with the other. She seemed bored by the road trip, and reluctant to chip in when things went bad.

Only Trevor pushed on the Hummer with any real force. The others had basically given up.

So have I, Claire admitted to herself.

Trevor glanced back. “Come on, Claire! Help out, will you?”

She caught up with the others, put her hands on the back corner of the Hummer, and gave it her best.

They rolled the car slowly past a road sign. It was an official warning from the California Highway Patrol’s Safety Task Force: “Stay Alert, Stay Alive!”

Claire noticed something else. Chained to the bottom of the signpost was a bicycle painted all white.

“Weird,” Dakota said.

Claire had read about these on the Internet. “Ghost bike.”

Hanging from the handlebars of the white bicycle was a handwritten sign in large block letters. It faced out toward the road for passing motorists to read: A CYCLIST WAS STRUCK HERE. Flowers decorated the memorial. Stuck in the rear spokes was the faded photo of a red-headed teenage boy in a bicycle helmet.

Dakota said, “He must have died right here.”

Claire nodded. “This is where it starts.”

“Where what starts?”

“Blood Alley.”

11

The roadside memorial puzzled Claire.

What’s the point?

The ghost bicycle would rust, the pictures would fade, the flowers would die and blow away to nothing. Passing strangers in cars and trucks would look, shrug, and continue on.

But one thing was clear—the bicyclist killed on this highway had a family that loved him. No doubt his mother or father had built the memorial. Here, days or weeks ago, his girlfriend stood weeping. Here a priest or a rabbi left a prayer on the wind. Here his classmates bowed their heads in silence. That moment had passed, those footprints were gone, but the memories would forever haunt this place.

That, of course, was the point. No death should go unmarked, no life unmourned.

Who will mourn for me? Claire wondered.

She did not know her real parents. She had only a few clues about who they might have been. She didn’t even know if they were alive or dead, but it comforted Claire to imagine her parents sleeping in their graves, with pretty little tombstones side by side in the smooth, green grass. The quiet image carried a kind of justice, absolving them of the crime of abandoning their daughter.

That sense of abandonment still lived inside her.

Claire had always felt alone in the world, an outsider. She liked to think of this as her unique strength, this ability to survive in an uncaring world, without the love and protection most kids took for granted.

Her foster families had all been fakes. Flim-fams, she called them, making a joke of her private little horror. Life, after all, had played a joke on her: abandoned, fostered, abandoned again.

Rinse, repeat.

It toughened her on the outside, made her cold and cruel when she didn’t mean to be, but on the inside she felt everything, and treasured her wounds. The world had rejected Claire at birth, so she rejected it. Her families were never her real family. Her friends were never her real friends. She didn’t trust the girls who tried to befriend her—and trusted boys even less.

When Claire was younger, boys didn’t matter. But now that she had a cover-girl face and boobs you could see across a football field, boys were a problem. Though she welcomed the confirmation that her mother had been beautiful, Claire’s physical allurements threatened to tear down the wall she’d so carefully built around her.

Boys stared at her. They even asked her out. But she never wanted to go to the party, or the movie, or bowling, or burgers, or drives, or any of it. She just wanted to be left alone. And they wouldn’t let her. It didn’t matter how much she shook her head and walked away. The boys would follow her. It didn’t matter how simply she dressed, or how plainly she did her hair. Some of those boys just didn’t give up, and she felt powerless to stop them. She didn’t mind the teasing so much. It was the hunger in their eyes that frightened her.

To protect herself, she pursued Trevor.

He had scarcely paid her any attention. As captain of the varsity swim team and the cutest boy on campus, Trevor had all the girls he could handle. But once she and Trevor got to talking and spending time together, he liked her well enough to ask her to go with him to see the meteor shower. They’d driven out to the desert, just the two of them, with beers and a blanket, and watched falling stars all night.

Well, not all night.

Trevor had kissed her, and she kissed him back. He unbuttoned her shirt, and she helped him with the rest. He covered her with his naked warmth, and when he entered her she welcomed him, and told him she liked it. And it wasn’t exactly a lie. She liked it more and more each time, and soon they were a public couple. The boys stopped staring at her—and the girls started. Claire didn’t mind that so much, those jealous glances. No one could threaten her now. That was the thing she liked most about Trevor. He kept the other boys away. She was Trevor’s girl, and no one messed with Trevor’s girl.

With Trevor, she could finally relax, and be herself.

Whoever that is.

She didn’t know the answer. Maybe there wasn’t an answer. She supposed a lot of people felt like that, like outsiders, strangers to themselves, but Claire was an orphan and felt it to her core. She was making a conscious effort to change, to let herself be vulnerable, to open herself up to experiencing…what?

Love?

She didn’t know what that meant. The flim-fams said they loved her, but it wasn’t real, wasn’t true, wasn’t fair. Love was a game they played to control her.

Claire had run away from her current foster family. The Powells. It wasn’t something she had planned, not really, but when the moment came she grabbed it like a brass ring.

The Powell family reunion had been a large affair, full of cousins and conversation, mothers and memories. The morning of the reunion had been awkward, the afternoon unbearable. Claire excused herself at lunch and walked away. No one followed her out. No one even noticed. She called a cab and found a hotel. She had saved up some money from working at the restaurant, and had used it then to buy her freedom. It took eighteen hours before the first voicemail and text messages reached her.

She deleted them unheard, unread.

Finally Trevor came for her. He stayed with Claire three nights in that cheap hotel. Now she was never going back. Graduation was next week, UCLA was next year, and the summer was hers to do with as she pleased. The rent-a-folks wanted her to come home—for their own peace of mind, if nothing else—but their home wasn’t her home. The Powells didn’t love her like a real family. She wasn’t one of their own.

She belonged to no one but herself—

A voice broke her thoughts. Trevor said, “Take the wheel.”

He sounded weary, pushing on the open door frame. She could see the tightness in his muscles, the exhaustion in his eyes.

The sun was higher now. She was losing track of the hours. This desert made a mirage of time.

Trevor glanced back. “Claire! Take the wheel!”

That startled her. “Me?”

“Yes, you! Now!”

“Trevor, you know I—”

He came back, took her by the elbow, and guided her to the open door. “Just steer it to the garage.”

“But—”

“Claire!”

Reluctantly she climbed into the driver’s seat. The leather seat was hot and sticky. The cab was warm, her clothes were damp. Beads of sweat formed like goose bumps on her skin. When she touched the black steering wheel it burned her fingers. Her hand recoiled.

Trevor closed the door, then went behind the car for the final push.

The vehicle rolled slowly.

He knows I can’t drive.

Mr. Powell, her foster father, had offered to teach her, but she didn’t like being in the car alone with him. Mr. Powell was always telling her what to do—Do this! Do that! Behave yourself! Instead, she wanted to learn things on her own, to live or die by her own mistakes.

Claire had planned to take lessons from a real driving teacher. Some day. She never got around to it. She didn’t have her own car, and besides, Trevor always drove her places, so what was the point?

I should have taken drivers ed.

Of course, she knew what you were supposed to do with the pedals and the gears and the steering wheel. She had watched lots of people drive. She had even played some of Trevor’s video games where you raced against another player. But it felt different actually sitting in the driver’s seat.

What the hell am I doing here?

“Just steer it to the garage,” Trevor had said.

Simple enough. So simple, even she could do it. Trevor trusted her with the wheel, and his trust meant everything. She wasn’t about to let him down.

Nervous, Claire put her hands back on the hot steering wheel.

Ouch.

But the heat was bearable. Her first reaction had been more shock than pain.

Just steer it to the garage.

She saw the gas station up ahead. It had a garage. That’s where they were going. To find a mechanic.

Then everything will be okay.

There was a cement curb and a shallow ramp descending to the level of the gas station. The pavement dipped towards the gas pumps, which were next to the garage.

All Claire had to do was make an easy right turn into the station, where they would find a mechanic and get the car fixed, then they’d be back on the road and in Cedarview by sunset.

Okay, she told herself, you can do this. Just turn the wheel in the direction you want to go.

To test the wheel, Claire turned it to the right, towards the gas station ramp. The turn didn’t feel like what she’d imagined. Much more resistance than Trevor’s Xbox steering wheel.

This is supposed to be easy—

Trevor screamed, “Not yet!”

She jerked the steering wheel back the other way. But now she was too close to the curb. She could feel it rubbing up against the side of the tires.

“Straighten out!” Trevor yelled.

She turned the steering wheel hard to the left.

The Hummer drifted toward the yellow median line, then crossed it.

Too far, she thought, then corrected back the other way, trying to keep the wheels in the lane.

Trevor pushed hard on the rear of his Hummer H3.

He barked to the others, “Push, damnit. Push!”

The metal was hot. His muscles were sore. The sweat kept dripping into his eyes. He tasted salt on his lips, felt his muscles bunch and tense.

Trevor was nearly spent, and the others were useless. Ethan and Dakota were just going through the motions, letting the all-star do the real work.

It was starting to piss him off.

“Push!” he screamed, more at Ethan now than Dakota.

His little sister was a waste of oxygen.

She gave him a look like it was all his fault, and tucked her cell phone in her jeans pocket. Ethan put his meager strength to the task. Dakota added a token effort.

It wasn’t much, but it helped. The Hummer picked up speed. They were going to make it.

Almost there. Almost there.

“Now!” Trevor yelled to Claire. “Turn the wheel now!”

“Okay,” she said, sounding nervous.

He saw the front left tire turn slowly to the right, and for a moment Trevor felt a surge of pride. He knew Claire was scared of driving, and the video games hadn’t helped much, but he also knew she could do whatever she set her mind to. Claire was a smart girl, but easily intimidated.

This was a big moment for her.

Claire’s first foster parents had died in a car accident when she was six. He knew the memory of that collision still haunted Claire, held her back. Trevor had always encouraged her to practice driving. She refused. Now here she was, behind the wheel of his beefy H3, taking the wheel in her own hands.

And she had Trevor to thank for it.

After his car was fixed, he might even let her drive on the—

He felt a hard jolt.

The right front tire was on the ramp, but left front tire had struck the curb. It rode up, almost got over the curb, then fell back into the gutter.

The car was stuck.

Shit.

He’d given her a perfect chance, he’d put his faith and trust in her—and she blew it.

Typical.

“Claire!” he screamed.

She poked her head out the window and turned back to him with a guilty look.

“Sorry.”

Joshua was behind schedule and low on gas. His back ached and his joints were stiff. As his big rig rolled down the desert highway—approaching Blood Alley—he could feel the old pain return to his left knee. It always acted up on this stretch of the road. Blood Alley brought memories, and memories brought pain.

Ten years ago, Joshua had almost died here.

That damn left knee wasn’t going to let him forget it.

Now the old trucker was driving a tanker truck full of petroleum, a two-tank behemoth barreling its way from Long Beach to Las Vegas.

The trip hadn’t started off so well. A few hours ago Joshua was forced to change a tire in Sylmar. He had skipped the scheduled gas station fill-up so he could clear out of L.A. before rush hour.

Now the gas gauge taunted him.

The irony of a petroleum truck running low on fuel wasn’t lost on Joshua. If his rig crapped out on empty, he’d never hear the end of it. He had no choice now but to refill at the next station—this one just up ahead, coming into view.

Joshua saw a car parked on the station’s curb.

Three kids were behind the vehicle. Their backs were to him, but from their clothes and hair they seemed young. High schoolers, by the looks of them.

The car was a bright red Hummer, and the kids were pushing on the back end, trying to get their vehicle into the station. The emergency lights weren’t flashing, but it looked to Joshua like the car was stopped dead.

Don’t want to die on this road, he thought.

God knows, too many have.

He took his foot off the gas pedal and applied the brakes. The 40-ton semi truck slowed with a groan.

The cab shook and rumbled.

Joshua felt the slosh of petroleum in the twin tanks behind him, and knew he had to be careful. If he broke too fast—if the wheels locked and slid—the big rig could jackknife.

Not a great idea when you’re hauling 9,000 gallons of liquid fire.

Joshua honked to warn the kids.

They turned to him, saw the tanker truck approach, and jumped aside.

Joshua’s tanker truck slowed and stopped just inches from the back of the red Hummer.

When the dust blew past, one of the kids, the tall athletic one—some kind of jock—stepped up to the cab.

Joshua rolled his window down.

“Sorry about that,” the jock said. “Broke down a couple miles back.”

Joshua leaned out the window. He felt the sun on his face. “You picked a bad road.”

“Well, we didn’t really mean to—”

The kid saw Joshua’s face.

A look of horror flashed in the boy’s eyes, and he glanced away.

Joshua eased back in his seat, settling into the shadow of his cab.

The kid’s reaction didn’t bother him. Joshua got that look a lot, on account of the burn scars. Truth be told, his face was a melted ruin. The accident ten years ago hadn’t taken Joshua’s life—not quite—but it did take his looks. Now everyone stared at the hideous thing his face had become. It wasn’t cruelty Joshua saw in their eyes, but a flash of revulsion, chased by pity.

If they knew the real story….

But no one listened to Joshua. No one paid any attention to a crazy old man who was hard to look at and harder to believe. Years ago he would tell his tale to anyone who’d buy a pint and bend an ear, but no one ever took his story seriously, so now he just kept the truth to himself.

Joshua nodded to the red car ahead of him. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Don’t know,” the kid said. “Just broke down.”

“Need a push?”

“Sure, that’d be great.”

Joshua saw that there was already a driver in the car, someone to steer, so he started up his truck again. He eased it forward until the front bumper of the big rig nudged the back of the Hummer.

Then he gently pressed down on the accelerator pedal.

The red Hummer rolled forward. Its tires touched the curb and met resistance, then easily rolled up the little concrete ledge.

To make sure the car didn’t roll back, Joshua gave the Hummer a final push. The smaller vehicle rolled free, towards the station.

Someone screamed.

A girl’s voice, high and hysterical. It was the driver in the car.

What’s she hollering for?

The Hummer continued to roll.

A gentle slope in the concrete led down to the gas pumps. The red car picked up speed on the slope. It was headed for the pumps. The driver turned—

But in the wrong direction.

What was she doing? Why didn’t she just pull up alongside the pumps? Why didn’t she slow down?

Didn’t that girl know how to drive?

Ah, hell, Joshua thought.

But it was too late now.

12

Trevor’s dead car had come to life.

Now it was a runaway.

Trevor saw the Hummer roll toward the gas pumps. Claire was at the wheel, but didn’t know how to drive.

He ran after the car, calling out, “Brake! Brake!”

From inside the car, Claire yelled, “Trevor!”

“Hit the brakes!”

“They don’t work!”

Trevor knew damn well the brakes worked. Claire was panicking.

Probably stomping on the gas pedal.

If the car kept rolling, it was going to smash right into the gas pumps.

In matter of seconds.

Trevor sprinted for the passenger side. He reached the car, grabbed the door handle, and pulled.

He jumped inside, scrambled over the seat, grabbed the steering wheel, spun it to the right, and yanked up on the handbrake.

The Hummer skidded and stopped beside a gas pump.

Trevor took a deep breath.

“That’s it,” he said. “I’m teaching you to drive.”

She gave him an icy stare.

Standing on the curb, Ethan watched Claire climb out of the Hummer. She slammed the door and marched toward the roadside diner.

She looked pissed.

They were all pissed, all except Ethan. He rarely got mad at anything. In fact, he was pretty Zen about most things. But he was definitely tired and hungry and in no mood for more travel.

There was a small building next to the gas station. Dinah’s Diner. It looked like a dump, but Ethan caught the smell of bacon.

At least there’s lunch.

The prospect of food made him feel better already.

Trevor called out, “Wait!” He chased Claire to the diner.

Ethan shook his head and said to Dakota, who stood beside him on the curb, “Here we go again.”

“They always fight,” Dakota offered, without looking up from her cell phone. She was scrolling through text messages. “I don’t know what my brother sees in her.”

“A sparring partner.”

Ethan caught Dakota’s frown. “What’s the matter?”

“No signal.”

“Welcome to the middle of nowhere.”

Dakota stopped punching buttons on her phone and looked up blankly at the horizon. She was still sweating from the heat and the exertion of pushing her big brother’s car. Her dark hair was a windblown tangle. It stuck to the skin of her forehead. Ethan thought it looked sexy. Dakota looked like she’d just gone three rounds on the bed sheets.

Ethan wanted a fourth.

He brushed the hair from her forehead.

Dakota ignored the gesture. She looked back down and tried her phone buttons again. “I’m not getting a signal.”

“I am,” Ethan said. “You’re delicious.”

“I’m hot.”

“Yes, you are.”

He wrapped an arm around her slender waist, pulled her close, and gave her a soulful kiss. It had been too long. They’d hardly touched each other since the car broke down.

Dakota broke contact. “Ethan—”

It was a tease, of course. Ethan knew she liked it. She always said he was a good kisser. He gave her some more, brushing aside her hair to nibble an ear.

She pushed him away. “Not in front of my brother.”

Ethan licked her neck. “Your brother’s a little busy right now.”

She shoved him harder, but giggled.

“Later,” she said.

He reached around and grabbed her ass through her jeans. She had a firm butt that fit nicely in his hands. He gave her tight buns a quick squeeze.

She squealed in surprise—and, he noted, delight.

They hadn’t had sex in five days. Dakota would be feisty tonight. The image of a Cedarview hotel room, destroyed in a rock-and-roll frenzy of wild debauchery, flashed through Ethan’s mind.

Never had sex in a hotel before.

Tonight was the night. If they ever got there.

We’ll get there, Ethan told himself, then said to Dakota, “I’ll get the mechanic.”

Trevor caught up with Claire on the porch of Dinah’s Diner. “Would you please wait!”

The front door was dirty glass. Claire yanked it opened. A small bell on the door chimed a welcome.

Oh no you don’t, Trevor thought, and grabbed Claire’s elbow. The bell banged an alarm against the glass. Trevor shut the door and blocked Claire’s entrance. “Just wait.”

She wrenched her arm free. “Wait? Of course I’m going to wait. We’re all going to wait because you don’t plan ahead.”

“We planned this trip together.”

“I planned this trip,” she said. “Who booked the hotel? Packed the bags? Printed the map? I did your laundry, Trevor. What did you do?”

“Homework, swim practice—”

“Video games. But you didn’t get the car checked, did you? Did you even listen to what I said?”

It was an old argument. Trevor was tired of it. “Let’s not fight.”

“Let’s.”

The look in her eyes could start a brushfire.

This is going to be a long trip.

Trevor sighed. He raised his open hands to calm her. “It’s probably just a broken hose or something. It’ll be fixed in no time. A couple of hours at the most. Time enough for us to grab some food, cool off inside, and then we can get back on the road.”

Her left eyelid trembled. Never a good sign.

“Broken hose?” she said. “Right. Like you even know what you’re talking about.”

Trevor felt a flash of anger. “At least I know how to drive.”

A look of hurt washed over her. The spark of anger left her eyes. Her lower lip quivered. Claire dropped her gaze, shoved him aside, and rushed into the diner alone.

Ethan stepped into the garage.

It was dark and empty, smelling of grease and sweat and burnt coffee. Something stirred in a far corner. A scratching sound.

He called out, “Hello?”

The only answer was the echo of his own voice.

He glanced around. As his eyes adjusted, he saw tools and supplies, cars on jacks, tires leaning against a wall. A soft blue light spilled from under a closed door. A computer monitor, probably.

Ethan knocked on the door.

“Hello? Anyone here?”

He opened it and peaked inside.

The office was lit by the dim light of a flashing screensaver. No one was in the office, but it was clear that someone worked here. Paperwork hid the desktop. On the wall hung a calendar of buxom girls in cop uniforms. A baseball trophy sat on a shelf. The room had filing cabinets and a coffee pot that wanted cleaning.

Ethan stepped back and closed the office door. He found the back door and opened it, then glanced outside.

Behind the garage was an auto graveyard with hundreds of wrecked cars. The desert wind sighed and moaned through the grim yard. Ethan saw the twisted, tortured bodies of classic Chevies, Fords, Cadillacs, and Studebakers. Some ripped apart. Others crushed beyond recognition. Flies buzzed over metal skeletons. Ravens pecked at car bodies as if they were corpses. A snake curled around a steering wheel. A lizard sunned on a dashboard—

A voice behind him said: “That your Hummer out there?”

Ethan jumped, then recovered.

He turned to the man, who stood too close behind him. The mechanic was a large, imposing figure with leathery skin and smears of grease on his face.

Ethan said, “Uh, no, it’s—”

Trevor stepped into the garage, his frame silhouetted in the open front door. “It’s mine.”

The mechanic addressed the newcomer. “What’s wrong with it?”

Trevor shrugged. “Broke a hose or a belt or maybe a gasket.”

“You have no idea, do you?”

“Not a clue.”

13

Dakota stared at the pay phone outside Dinah’s Diner. She had promised to call her mom, but there was no signal on her cell phone. If she didn’t call, her mom would totally freak.

Why do I always regret my promises?

She frowned at the ancient pay phone. It was dirty and rusty and didn’t look like it would even work. Dakota had seen people use pay phones, of course, in the movies, but she’d never actually used one before.

Opening her wallet, she found the secured credit card her mom gave her for emergencies. There was supposed to be three hundred dollars on it. More than enough for a few long distance phone calls.

Dakota didn’t like to carry coins. She hated change, the way it clinked around her makeup and dirtied everything inside her purse. Her bag was a jumble, but at least it was mostly clean. She hated dirt.

Now here I am in the middle of the fucking desert.

Out here, dirt got in her hair and clothes and eyes. She could taste it in her mouth and feel it grating in her nostrils.

She hated everything about this trip. But she had no choice. The funeral was tomorrow morning. At least they would spend tonight in that Cedarview hotel, where she could wash the desert out of her hair. In the morning they would all go to the funeral, pay their final respects to an uncle she hardly knew, fulfill their family obligations, then head back home on Sunday.

Of course now, with the car trouble, they would probably get in late to the hotel.

Which meant she had to call her mom.

Sooner the better.

Mom would worry. She always worried. It drove Dakota crazy, made her feel like she wasn’t trusted to do anything.

Why couldn’t Mom just let things happen? They were going to happen anyway. That’s what Ethan said.

Dakota had been reading all about Zen. Ethan had given her a book about it, and she’d been practicing, meditating, changing her outlook on life to be less like her mother’s. But it was harder than it seemed.

I’m Zen, I’m Zen, I’m totally Zen.

The car, though. That was a problem. Hard to be Zen about that. At first Trevor thought there was a hose broken or a cooling problem, or maybe a battery thing. Ethan thought it was the transmission.

Claire, of course, thought it was a curse.

She was a weird one, Claire. She was crazy about ghosts, claimed she always wanted to meet one, and she watched all of the ghost hunter shows on TV. And horror stories. Those were Claire’s favorites, curses and legends and things that screamed in the night.

For a natural blonde, that girl has a dark soul.

It had something to do with Claire being adopted or something. And something to do with that couple she lived with years ago, the ones who got hit by that car. Somehow, for Claire, it was all tied in with ghosts and spirits and dead things come to life.

Dakota didn’t like to think about those things.

Zen, I’m totally Zen.

Credit card in hand, Dakota stepped up to the pay phone, but couldn’t see where the card was supposed to go. There was no card slot or anything. She thought these phones all took credit cards, but maybe this phone was, like, really, really old.

It only takes change?

What was this, the wild west?

Dakota stuck her finger in the change return slot. No coins. Her finger came out dirty.

Gross!

Feeling icky, she took a tissue from her purse and wiped her finger clean. If she needed change, she could probably get some from Ethan or Trevor.

Or she could call the operator—call collect. She’d never done that before, either, but she knew it could be done.

The phone receiver was metal and covered with greasy fingerprints, so she used the tissue to pick it up. It was hot in her hands, but the tissue helped.

Dakota studied the pay phone’s keypad.

“O” was for operator, so she dialed “O.”

That didn’t work.

Then she saw the operator button.

Zero.

She dialed zero and waited.

Dakota put the phone receiver to her ear, but without actually touching it to her head. She made sure there was a good gap, so the germs wouldn’t get on her. But it made it harder to hear, with the wind all around. She heard the dial tone, then a ringing sound.

“Operator,” said a female voice on the line.

“Can I make a collect call?”

“Number, please.”

She gave her mother’s cell phone number.

“Who should I say is calling?”

“Dakota.”

“One minute.”

A minute seemed like an awful long time to wait for a phone call.

It didn’t take that long.

“Karen here,” said her mother.

“Hi, Mom—”

The operator said, “Will you accept a collect call from Dakota?”

“Oh, dear. Of course, I will. That’s my daughter. Of course. Dakota?”

The operator hung up.

“Hi, Mom.”

“What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”

“With my phone, yeah,” Dakota said. “There’s no reception out here.”

“Where are you? What’s wrong?”

“We stopped at a diner on the highway. Everything’s okay.”

That was a lie, but Dakota knew you had to work your way through a few lies to get to the truth.

“Whose phone are you calling from?”

“It’s a pay phone.”

“Pay phone?”

“It’s okay, Mom. It’s kind of cool. Like an old movie. You’re supposed to use coins, I guess, but—”

“I remember pay phones,” her mother said curtly.

“Well, I lost the signal on my phone, that’s all. Sorry to call collect.”

“What’s going on?” her mother asked. “How close are you?”

“I’m not sure. I wasn’t paying attention. We had to walk some of the way.”

“Walk? What are you talking about? What happened to the car?”

“Trevor had some car problems.”

“Oh, god.”

“No, it’s okay. we pushed the car to a—”

“Pushed?”

“Yeah, to a garage. But it’s okay now. There’s a diner here, and a pay phone, and everything. Trevor’s talking to the mechanic now, I think, and the mechanic says…”

What?

“…says we’ll be back on the road in no time.”

Her mother asked, “What’s the name of the diner?”

“Dinah’s Diner.”

“That’s a terrible name.”

“They got a B grade in the window, so it can’t be too bad.”

“Oh, god.”

“That’s a passing grade.”

“Dakota, don’t eat the food. B is for bacteria.”

“Don’t worry, Mom, we’re fine. There’s food in the car, snacks and stuff.”

“Call me when the car is fixed.”

“Sure, Mom.”

“I mean it.”

“I know,” Dakota said. “Ethan needs something. I gotta go. They need help or something.”

Another lie. She had to sandwich the truth with a lie, so her mom could swallow it.

“Dear, we’re at the hotel already, waiting for you.”

“See you tonight, then,” Dakota said.

“Call me back within the hour.”

“I will. Love you.”

“Remember to call. Collect if you have to.”

“I will. I said that.”

“I’ll have my phone with me.”

“Bye, Mom.”

She hung up.

Jesus, she thought, and went into Dinah’s Diner, suddenly hungry.

The lighting inside was dim, and the place was nearly empty.

A guy sat at the counter, drinking a beer. His back was turned to the door, and he didn’t look around when Dakota entered. His hair was thin and graying. He wore an old bomber jacket and a baseball cap.

That trucker who pushed us in, she thought.

Dakota found Claire sitting alone in a corner booth and joined her.

“I called my mom,” Dakota said.

The seats of the booth were cracked plastic upholstery. When she sat down, her seat whistled.

Claire sipped her coffee, then set her cup aside. “I thought your phone didn’t work.”

“I used a pay phone outside.” She pulled out her cell phone. “No reception, but the battery’s fine.”

She opened the mobile app for Guitar Hero.

“Don’t waste your battery on a video game,” Claire said.

“Relax, Claire. Jesus. You really need to Zen.”

She put her ear buds in, and fired up a new game.

14

Claire sipped her coffee in silence. She deliberately ignored Dakota, who sat on the other side of the table scowling through a game of Guitar Hero on her cell phone. Claire was in no mood for games.

The man in the bomber jacket was still sitting at the counter, Claire noticed. He was in his fifties, maybe older, and he kept his back turned to the door. He drank alone. Dark beer in a tall glass. The man stared straight ahead, lost in his own thoughts.

Something caught Claire’s eye. She glanced out the window. The glass was dirty, like everything else. Outside, across the road, next to the ghost bike memorial, a man stood alone. Claire hadn’t seen him there before.

The mechanic? she wondered.

He didn’t look like a mechanic. He was old and gaunt and pale. He wore a slouch hat and a black duster. He stood perfectly still beside the road and stared directly at her.

The man seemed familiar somehow, but something was wrong with his eyes. They had bright greenish tint. Claire wiped dirt from the glass pane.

Who is that guy?

“Hey, Dakota,” she said.

But Dakota was busy playing her game. Music blasted from her ear buds. She didn’t look up from the screen.

Claire glanced back at the man across the road. She felt drawn to him somehow, like he was calling to her. But all he did was stand and stare.

Some old hitchhiker, Claire decided.

A semi truck drove by on the road between them—for a brief moment blocking Claire’s view of the old man—but when the truck roared of sight, the hitchhiker was gone.

What the hell?

For a moment she wondered if the man had been there at all.

Don’t go crazy, now.

It was a constant fear of hers, going crazy. She didn’t talk about it to other people, not even to Trevor, but she had crazy thoughts sometimes, thoughts of hurting herself or hurting others. Terrible thoughts. Dangerous thoughts.

She wondered if somehow she had inherited a streak of madness from her unknown parents. According to her biology teacher, most things were genetic—the way you looked, the way you thought, the way you were. If you didn’t know your parents, how could you possibly know yourself?

What if her folks had been schizophrenic? Paranoid? Suicidal? She was pretty sure suicide ran in families. Her English teacher said that about the Hemingways. Claire figured that a parent had to be at least a little bit crazy to abandon a child.

She would never do that. No matter how crazy she was, she’d never do that.

Never.

Claire had been thinking a lot about her parents recently. Sometimes it was all she thought about. It was enough to drive her nuts, with or without genetics. All those Internet searches, emails to potential relatives, phone calls to state officials. Nothing ever panned out.

Still, she had a few potential leads on who her parents might have been.

A grave marker in Missouri…

A lawsuit in Nevada…

A last name…

Fowler.

There had once been a family of Fowlers living near Cedarview. Claire had read a blog post about an alleged phantom named Fowler. Locals hinted at a tragic past but wouldn’t talk on the record to the ghost-hunting blogger, who had called this road “Blood Alley.”

That was about all the blog post said, but it was more than enough to pique Claire’s interest. Not much of a lead, perhaps, but Claire vowed to follow all trails until she reached a dead end. It was one of the reasons she had insisted on going with Trevor on his funeral trip.

A waitress made the rounds with a fresh pot of coffee. Claire smelled hazelnut in the steam. The service worker was older, maybe in her sixties.

Claire pointed out the window to where the hitchhiker had stood. “Did you see…”

The waitress smiled like an aunt. “What, dear?”

Don’t go crazy, she reminded herself, then said, “Nothing. I’m just really tired.”

The waitress lifted the pot of coffee, making it a question. Claire nodded. The waitress refilled her cup.

“Do you have a phone book?” Claire asked.

“Don’t know if we do.”

“I haven’t got any reception on my phone, and I was hoping to find a number.”

“Maybe I can help. I know most of the folks who live around here.”

“There’s a family that lived here once. Up near Cedarview. I checked online, but there was no phone number listed. I’m hoping to find them.”

The waitress smiled again. “Try me.”

“The Fowlers,” Claire said.

The smile melted from the lady’s face. A shadow seemed to pass over her features.

Claire said, “You know the Fowlers?”

The waitress nodded. “Farmhouse up the road, near the foothills. But they’re long gone now. You’ll find no Fowlers in these parts.”

“Did you know them?”

“Heard the stories. Rumors, really.” She pursed her lips in disapproval. “People say the most terrible things.”

“Like what?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Never you mind about that.” The waitress glanced out the window. Her mood softened. “But I saw one of the children once. Becky, I think. Poor girl.”

“What happened to her?”

“The Devil knows, and he ain’t saying.” The waitress adjusted the collar of her work shirt. “Story was, the father killed his wife.”

“How?”

“Stories don’t agree on how. And what he did to his poor daughters…well, that’s not for me to say.”

Claire imagined all the horrible things a father might do to his daughters.

“Where are they now?” she asked.

The waitress shook her head. “Police went to his house to rescue the girls. Fowler resisted. Ended up dead. They found the daughters, all right, but…it was too late.”

Dakota paused her game and took out her ear buds. “Anyone still alive?”

She’d been listening all along.

The waitress leaned in close, and gave Claire a stern look. “My advice, you stay away from that place.”

Claire gripped her coffee cup tightly, and met the woman’s gaze with her own.

A family of Fowlers had once lived around here. The parents were long dead, but what happened to the children? Claire needed to know more. This trail was leading her somewhere. She would follow it to the end. “You said this farmhouse is up the road. Well, that’s where we’re going.”

“We’re headed into Cedarview for a funeral,” Dakota said. “My uncle. He drove his car off a cliff.”

The waitress took a deep breath, then lowered her voice in warning. “You’ll see that farmhouse, all right. An old ruin, but you’ll see it. Might be tempted to slow down, pull over, take a look inside. But you keep driving, you hear? When you see that house, you just hit the gas hard. Hit the gas and don’t look back.”

Claire looked away. She didn’t care to argue about it.

But one thing she knew for certain: if she ever saw that old farmhouse, the home of the Fowlers, nothing in heaven or hell could keep her from going inside.

15

The bumper was hot in Ethan’s hands as he helped Trevor push the Hummer into the garage. He was glad to help. He wanted to make a good impression.

Ethan had been dating Dakota for weeks now, but he’d only met Trevor this morning. Of course, Ethan knew all about Dakota’s older brother.

Trevor was hard to miss on campus, smiling at the girls, fist-bumping the guys. A smile from Trevor made the girls seem prettier. A fist bump from Trevor made the guys seem taller. He was captain of the swim team, and even the rival coaches said he had Olympic potential. Everyone looked up to him, especially his sister Dakota, though she tried hard not to show it.

Dakota was the hottest girl Ethan had ever been with. He didn’t want to blow it. If it was going to last, her family had to like him. Ethan would meet the rest of the family tonight in Cedarview, but now was his chance to get on Trevor’s good side.

The Hummer came within a few feet of the open garage.

“I’m gonna steer. You got it?” Trevor said.

Ethan nodded, too winded to speak.

Trevor stopped pushing and jumped into the front seat.

Ethan huffed and grunted, moving the car by himself out of the sun and into the garage. The H3 slowed and stopped as Trevor applied brakes. Ethan slumped down on the back bumper. He wiped his forehead with the bottom of his t-shirt.

The vehicle rocked as Trevor jumped out of the driver seat. “You did great.”

The door slammed shut.

“Thanks,” said Ethan.

Trevor sat down next to him on the bumper. He offered Ethan a water bottle and kept a second one for himself. The water was warm but welcome. They drank together in silence. Trevor guzzled his, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Ethan stared at the roadside diner across the lot. He saw Dakota in the window. She sat across from Claire.

“You’re lucky,” Trevor said. “My sister doesn’t like everybody.”

“She sure does hate her ex.”

Trevor chuckled. “Don’t worry about him. He’s Little League.”

“What does that make me, J.V.?”

They both knew Ethan was no jock. He’d done a bit of cross country, but dropped it for the marching band.

“Nah, you’re different,” Trevor said.

In the window Dakota waved to them.

Ethan waved back.

“Don’t worry about the family stuff,” Trevor said. “You’ll do fine. I’m not saying you’re the Majors, but my sister likes you. I like you. Mom’ll be crazy about you.”

He likes me?

That surprised him. Jocks didn’t usually like Ethan. He wasn’t one of the team.

But then Ethan remembered, Trevor likes everybody.

The real test would come tonight. “I’m more worried about your dad.”

“Don’t be,” Trevor said. “Just talk about golf.”

“I don’t play golf.” Ethan was about to add that he played chess, but then thought better of it. “I wouldn’t even know how to putt.”

Trevor reached over and put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “Let Dad take you out on the golf course, give you a few pointers.”

He gave Ethan’s shoulder a friendly squeeze, like they were teammates on the field.

Ethan liked that idea. Teammates.

“You’ll be fine,” Trevor assured him.

Ethan relaxed a little. He wiped sweat from his brow, and felt good again. This was going to be a great trip. He had work to do, of course—preparing for the SAT. Ethan had already taken the test once, and did okay, but he needed to boost his Critical Reading score if he wanted to get into a top school. He’d brought some vocabulary flash cards to study on the road. But it was the other test that troubled him. The compatibility test with Dakota’s family.

Trevor’s hand was still on Ethan’s shoulder. The hand squeezed harder, strong fingers digging under Ethan’s collarbone.

A jolt of pain shot down his arm.

He couldn’t move.

“One more thing,” Trevor said with his patented smile. “If you break my sister’s heart, I’ll kill you myself.”

The diner had the creeping quality of déjà vu. Claire hadn’t felt it when she first stepped inside, but now the sense was overpowering.

Fowler…

A name from her childhood. A name she’d once heard whispered when Mama Johnson thought Claire was asleep on the sofa.

Fowler…

She had been five years old then, and thought Mama Johnson was her real mother. One day looking for a missing crayon, she saw a paper with her name on it: “Claire.” It caught her eye because she’d just learned to spell her own name. The name on the paper looked like “Fowler, Claire,” but she wasn’t sure what the first part meant. She thought maybe it was a different person with her name. She’d taken the paper and showed it to Mama Johnson, but Mama just got mad and sent her to her room.

Claire never saw that paper again, nor did ever she see the name “Fowler, Claire” in that house again, but Mama Johnson had been very upset about it, so the memory remained.

Fowler…

Claire sipped black coffee and wondered about her earliest childhood memories. Could she trust them? Were they real, or the inventions of a lonely little girl?

Her true family might be here somewhere, down this desert highway. She had bounced between so many different families. Two years here, three years there. But she never belonged to any of them.

Is this where I belong? she wondered.

Fowler…

Claire had searched for that name on the Internet. There were Fowlers scattered all across the country, and a few living near Cedarview, where tomorrow’s funeral would be. She hoped that this road trip might give her a chance to meet the Cedarview Fowlers.

And even if that proved to be another dead end, she understood now that it really was the search that mattered. If she kept at it long enough, and learned from her mistakes, and never gave up hope, then one day she might finally arrive at the truth.

Fowler…

The diner’s familiarity intrigued her.

What is it about this place?

Then she realized—

The roadside memorial.

It had rattled her. There was something about seeing the ghost bike and imagining that poor boy who got hit.

She felt connected to him somehow.

In her purse Claire kept a notepad, a diary of her search. She pulled it out.

“What’s that?” Dakota asked.

“None of your business.”

Claire jotted down: Roadside memorial. Ghost bike. Boy killed on highway outside Dinah’s Diner. Blood Alley.

Dakota removed her ear buds. “I used to have a diary, but I could never keep it going. I tried a blog once, but I got bored with it.” She set the cell phone aside, and craned her neck to see the diary. “Is that about me?”

“It’s private.”

“Why?”

“It’s about my parents.”

“Oh, right.” Dakota nodded and sat back. “Trevor told me. You’re adopted.”

“Fostered.”

“Like with pets?”

Claire clicked her pen and closed her diary. “I’ve got a foster family. The government pays them to be my parents. They do it for the money.”

“I wish I was adopted,” Dakota said wistfully. “My parents are nothing like me.”

The front door opened. Trevor entered the diner with Ethan right behind him. Trevor was grinning.

Always the optimist.

Ethan looked like he’d just run a marathon and collapsed a foot from the finish line.

“Everything’s fine,” Trevor said, sitting down beside Claire in the booth.

Ethan sat down next to Dakota, and put his arm around her.

Dakota removed his arm. “You’re all sweaty.”

“Yeah,” said Ethan. “Doing man’s work, while you ladies cool your calluses in the air conditioning.”

“I don’t have calluses.”

“Exactly.”

Trevor said to Claire, “We should be on the road by dark.”

The waitress stepped up to the table and said in a solemn tone, “There’s a motel back the way you came. Not more than five miles. You could start out in the morning.”

Ethan pulled out a deck of SAT flash cards from his back pocket. “We have a funeral in the morning.”

He flipped through the cards, testing himself.

The waitress said, “You know there’s an eclipse tonight. Lunar eclipse.”

“Yeah,” Dakota said. “We heard it on the news.”

“There’s things they don’t tell you on the news…”

The old trucker set his beer down on the counter. He kept his back to the others. There was dust and gravel in his voice. “I wouldn’t drive Blood Alley tonight.”

Ethan looked up. The flash cards froze in his hands. “Blood Alley?”

“That’s what we call it,” said the waitress. “On account of all the accidents.”

She pointed to a wall with photos and news clippings.

The wall was twenty feet off, but Claire could make out a few words from the headlines:

ACCIDENT…

TRAGIC…

KILLED…

HORROR…

It was another memorial, an homage to gruesome events. Claire saw a dozen photos of car accidents, but couldn’t make out the details.

“The road is dry and thirsty,” the old trucker said. “It drinks blood.”

The room went quiet, and Claire’s heart stopped to listen.

The waitress started it up again with a laugh. “Oh, don’t mind old Joshua.” She waved a dismissive hand at the trucker. “He likes to scare the tourists.”

Claire heard the wind howl. A mournful sound for a mournful place.

“It’s a haunted highway,” said the trucker, Joshua.

“Haunted?” Dakota echoed.

“By the Highwayman.”

“Killed his family during a lunar eclipse,” the waitress put in. “Then killed himself. They say he comes back when the red shadow’s on the moon.”

“The Highwayman?” Trevor scoffed with amusement. “Never heard of him.”

“He’s heard of you. You’re on his road.”

“It’s a state road,” said Ethan.

Joshua shook his head, but kept his back to the group. “You kids know nothing. State road? In the daytime, maybe. But one night, when the dark is quiet and the moon is full, and your sins lay heavy upon your soul, you might just meet the Highwayman, riding his ghost car down Blood Alley. Lots of people seen him. Few live to tell the tale. Those what don’t…why, they’re still riding that road. Riding it forever.”

Dakota said, “But that’s just a story, right?”

Joshua answered low and mournful. “He gets inside you…deep inside your head…makes you do things…crazy things…”

“Like what?” Trevor asked.

“Take a turn too fast on a dead man’s curve…play chicken with a pretty pair of headlights…drive off a cliff to see if you can fly…but you gotta fight him off. Gotta know who you are—who you really are.”

The waitress leaned in toward Claire. “You see anything strange, Honey, you take the very first exit—”

“No exit,” Joshua said. “No escape. The only way off Blood Alley is through it.”

He set a twenty dollar bill on the countertop and stood up from his chair.

“You’ve seen him?” Claire asked. “The Highwayman?”

“Once.” Joshua turned to her. Burn scars covered his ruined face. “I best be going before it gets dark.”

16

Claire watched Joshua shamble to the door. He limped like a wounded knight-errant heading out for one last battle.

Joshua pushed on the door handle. The door seemed to fight him. He forced the door wide against a fierce wind that rattled the bell and riled the trinkets on the counter.

A souvenir display rack spun like a pinwheel and toppled.

Postcards fluttered to the floor.

Joshua passed through the exit, and the door threw itself shut, rattling the windows.

Claire looked out. She saw Joshua lean into the wind, a cruel sandstorm that nearly knocked him back, as if the desert were trying to keep him off the road. He reached the cab of his big rig and pulled himself inside, stepping into his armor.

Dakota said, “Let’s go back.”

Ethan smirked. “You don’t believe him, do you?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but started flipping through his flash cards again.

“The funeral’s tomorrow morning,” Dakota said. “We’ll never make it, anyway.”

“We’ll make it,” Trevor insisted. “The car will be ready in a few hours.”

Dakota gave the window a worried look. “It’ll be dark in a few hours.”

Trevor dismissed it with a shrug. “We can drive all night if we have to.”

Claire heard the petroleum tanker truck start up its engine. She watched the big rig ease onto the road.

Blood Alley, she thought.

The old trucker seemed to believe the story, but that didn’t keep him off the highway. Maybe, like the waitress said, he was just trying to scare the out-of-towners. In any case, Trevor was right. They had to continue with the trip. The Fowlers lived up ahead, and Claire wanted to see that farmhouse.

She said, “I vote we keep going.”

“Great,” Trevor said. “Show of hands—who wants to stick to the plan and keep driving tonight?”

He held his hand up.

Claire and Ethan added theirs to the count.

Trevor stared at his sister. “And who wants to chicken out and go home?”

Dakota looked pissed, and stared right back.

“Three votes to one,” he said. “Cedarview, here we come.”

The mood at the table was a little tense. Claire excused herself to the restroom to fix her hair and makeup. Seeing Joshua’s burnt face had sent shivers through her soul. In the bathroom mirror, Claire’s own blemishes looked smaller now, but these imperfections were her own and she knew how to fix them. The routine of it calmed her nerves.

When she was done, she left the bathroom and wandered over to the memorial wall. It displayed dozens of photos of those who had died, mothers and fathers and children all struck down on Blood Alley.

She read a few of the articles. One was headlined, “LAST STOP FOR TEEN IDOL.” It told of Frankie Lamarque, a seventeen-year-old singer who wrecked his 1957 Chevy on the highway. He was drag racing with the drummer from his band.

The article focused on Frankie, the teen heartthrob. There was a girl with them, Samantha. The drummer, Darren, was her boyfriend. The article speculated about a love triangle, and quoted several friends of theirs. The singer and his drummer had gotten into an argument at a diner, then settled their fight on the road. The girl was the prize.

But nobody won the prize that night. All three had died. Frankie’s car overturned, and he was killed instantly. Miles ahead, Darren’s car went over a cliff.

Strange, Claire thought.

The article didn’t say why Darren drove his car over the cliff. It left the riddle unsolved. After Frankie crashed, why did Darren keep on driving? Did he know the singer was dead? Was he afraid of being blamed?

His Deuce Coupe had smashed through the safety rail and plunged more than a thousand feet before hitting the trees below. Some said the driver lost control. Others said it was suicide.

There was one thing everyone agreed on: Frankie Lamarque died young and full of promise.

He had only one hit record, “Last Stop Car Hop.” Claire couldn’t remember if she’d ever heard it before.

Oddly, the diner where the drag race started was named after the song. Frankie had bought the Last Stop Car Hop with his own money. He wanted a place for him and his friends to hang out and escape the hustle and bustle of L.A. He was known to take girls for long drives in the desert. Frankie loved the desert.

And it killed him, Claire thought.

The article didn’t use the phrase “Blood Alley.” It didn’t mention “The Highwayman.” If there was a local legend about a ghost on the road, it went unreported at the time.

Maybe that’s how the legend started, Claire thought. With the death of a celebrity.

The idea made sense. Teenagers would trade stories, the stories would grow in the telling, and the legend of Frankie’s death would evolve over time into a myth about a haunted highway that took the lives of young drivers who crossed it at night.

Claire chuckled at the thought.

But as she scanned the other articles, her amusement died.

In 1972 there was a school bus accident. A girls softball team was traveling from Palmdale to Cedarview after a night game when the bus overturned. All the girls were killed. The article offered no explanation, but a photo showed the bus severed in two pieces. Black sheets covered a dozen corpses in the road.

A gruesome image. Bloodless, yet horrifying.

Claire thought of the girls under those anonymous black sheets. In their final moments, what had they been thinking? About the game, or boys, or school? Claire imaged them in the moment before impact: sleeping, reading, checking their make-up in the window. Gone now were their petty jealousies and their fondest dreams.

All gone.

Something had happened to those poor girls on that road, something sudden and terrible.

And then silence.

But why, Claire wondered, had they all died? Yes, the bus rolled over. One would expect severe injuries—perhaps a few fatalities. But no survivors? None at all? It hardly seemed plausible.

And what tore the bus in two?

The cause of the accident remained a mystery. Desert roads were full of animals crossing at night, rabbits and dogs and coyotes. Deer were common enough in the mountains. Big horn sheep were known to live in the hills.

Something made the driver swerve. A car or an animal or…

A ghost?

Claire imagined a ghostly figure standing in the middle of the highway, and the bleary-eyed driver catching a glimpse in his headlights. He turns to avoid the phantom in the road, and then… what?

The bus overturns?

Everyone dies?

Unlikely.

Claire read the other articles. They were long on tragedy and short on answers. A woman trapped in a car fire. A collapsed bridge, with two semi trucks down in the ravine. An overturned bank truck.

One headline read, “TUNNEL FIRE AT DEVIL’S PASS.” Nineteen people had died in the inferno. Horrific. Incomprehensible. Unexplained.

The most recent article was an op-ed piece that summed up the history of accidents and called on state officials to close the road. Next to the article was a color graphic illustrating the deadliest collisions over the past sixty years. All of them happened on the fifty-mile stretch from Dinah’s Diner to the Devil’s Pass, with most of the casualties in the tunnel itself.

There were no answers in any of the articles, none that would satisfy Claire. The answers lay on the road ahead.

I’ll be down that road soon enough.

17

Trevor wanted to be alone. His sister was getting on his nerves.

He went outside and stood on the porch, where a strong wind whipped at his clothes. Tumbleweeds rolled across the desert and over the road like soccer balls spinning out of bounds.

Trevor squinted against the angry dust, walked into the wind, and crossed the highway to check out the ghost bike memorial, but once there he quickly got bored. The dead kid meant nothing to him. It was someone else’s tragedy.

Returning to the garage he found the mechanic at his desk, writing up an estimate.

“You need a new timing belt,” the man said. “Lucky it didn’t damage the engine.”

Trevor didn’t feel lucky. “What’s the damage to my pocketbook?”

“Six-fifty for the timing belt. Another three-fifty for the water pump.”

“Water pump?”

“You need to get those replaced together. I got all the parts in the yard out back. Lucky thing about that. A car just like yours came in off the road last year. Totaled, of course, but the guts are good.”

“Anything else?”

“That’ll get you to where you’re going.”

“Cedarview.”

The mechanic punched some numbers into an ancient adding machine that spat out paper from a roll. “With tax we’re talking…twelve hundred, or near as makes no difference.”

Trevor nodded stoically. The cost was more than he was hoping for, but less than he feared. At least the car was fixable. The mechanic was quoting him high—Trevor was sure of that—but they were out in the middle of nowhere. Towing the Hummer back to Palmdale would take additional time and money, even if he could get a cheaper quote from a mechanic in town, which was by no means a sure thing.

Better to suck it up and get the job done now.

He could put the bill on his credit card and talk to his dad about it when they got to the hotel. The important thing was to get back on the road.

“How long?” he asked.

“Four, five hours. We’ll get you out of here today.”

The hours passed slowly.

There was little to do on this concrete oasis but hang out in the diner. They all had lunch, burgers and fries and a boxed salad for Claire.

Afterwards, Dakota and Ethan bought plastic water guns from the gift corner and ran around the gas station shooting each other.

Claire stayed inside and read some chick-lit novel she found on the paperback rack. On the cover of the book was a pink handbag. That was more than Trevor needed to know.

He spent most of his time with the mechanic, Darryl, who spun war stories of Iraq as he worked steadily on the car. When Darryl excused himself to go to the john, Trevor wandered out back to the auto graveyard.

The sun hovered on the horizon, casting long shadows. Trevor walked among the hundreds of wrecked cars. The strong wind whistled through twisted metal. He found a wrecked Deuce Coupe. Its frame was crushed and blackened by fire.

Peeking inside he saw a charred woman’s shoe with a broken heel.

He strolled around the front half of a school bus that had been ripped in two. The shell of the bus was rusted, but he could make out faint lettering on the side. It said PALMDALE.

That was Trevor’s high school. He had ridden in buses like this, on the road to away games and swimming competitions.

Trevor climbed onto the wreckage to watch the sunset. He stood atop the ruined hulk of the school bus, his back to the approaching darkness.

He heard the garage door open.

Turning, he saw Darryl step outside and glance around.

“Over here,” Trevor said.

The mechanic spotted him. “Whatcha doing up there?”

“Admiring the view. Quite a collection.”

Darryl nodded and looked at the colors in the sky.

Wind coiled around the wrecked cars in swirls and eddies. A dust devil formed, spiraled up over the graveyard, and was blown apart.

The mechanic said, “Gonna be a bad one tonight.”

“Yeah?”

“This devil wind. Screaming down the mountain. I’ve seen it knock a big rig clean off the ridge. Bang two trucks together like toys. Wicked weather.” He leaned against a demolished semi truck. “I kinda like it.”

“Blood Alley,” Trevor said.

Darryl laughed. “You been talking to Joshua.”

“The old trucker.”

“This is his route. Only he won’t drive it tonight, on account of the moon.”

“He already left, a while ago.” Trevor hopped down from the bus. “You don’t believe in the Highwayman?”

Darryl laughed again and shook his head. He picked up a rock and chucked it across the highway. “A ghost that appears during a lunar eclipse? Listen, it’s a narrow two-lane road. People get a little reckless. Come up fast on a slow car. Take a chance. Try to pass. Bam! Another metal carcass for my collection. I don’t need any Highwayman to stir up business.”

He tossed Trevor the car keys.

They went inside and settled the bill. Trevor eased the Hummer out of the garage, honked three times to hurry the others, and gassed up for the rest of the trip. The next station was in Cedarview.

As the tank swallowed gas, Trevor leaned against his car on the leeward side. With the sun setting and the temperature dropping fast, the wind seemed even stronger than before.

The highway sign across the street shook violently. Something snapped. The gale ripped the sign off the post. The thin, lettered metal sliced through the air, hit the roof of the diner, and skittered into distance.

Trevor heard an unearthly screeching as the chained-up ghost bike rattled and railed against the bent metal post, which was now angled nearly forty-five degrees. The front wheel of the bike rose up, spinning. The painted-white bicycle frame, shoved by the wind, slid up the post and over.

Briefly it flew, then crashed down on the blacktop.

Bounced and flipped.

For a moment the ghost bike found its bearings and pedaled free on two wheels, as if ridden by a phantom. But the wind shifted and smacked it hard from the highway, crashing the ghost bike into a Joshua tree. The rear wheel spun for a while, then died.

Trevor returned the gas nozzle to the pump and got into the driver’s seat. He leaned on the horn. Ethan stepped out of the diner first, followed by Claire. Together they dashed across the parking lot to the Hummer and hopped inside. Claire rode shotgun.

Ethan climbed into the back. “Holy shit! Did you see that?”

Trevor said, “Where’s Dakota?”

“Bathroom.”

“Figures.”

Trevor started the car, drove the short distance back to the diner, and idled in the handicap spot.

He honked again, then said to Claire, “Will you go get her, please?”

Claire unbuckled. “She’s freaking out a little.”

“She can freak out in the car. We have to get moving.”

Trevor saw the glass door open. Dakota came out and went straight to his window. He rolled it down.

“Let’s go back,” Dakota said, tense and teary.

Oh, god, he thought. “Get in.”

“We could leave in the morning—”

“Get in,” Claire echoed.

“But the Highwayman—”

Trevor, Claire, and Ethan shouted in unison: “Get in!”

Dakota got in.

Trevor backed the car out. “Buckle up.”

They hit the road at sundown.

18

From the passenger seat, Claire watched in the mirror as the lights of the diner receded into the distance.

The sky was deep blue, fading to black, giving the stars a chance to assert themselves. In the vast open space between the road and the far-off hills, Joshua trees swept by in parallax.

Trevor drove silently, while Ethan and Dakota squirmed in the back.

“Stop it,” Dakota said.

“We could leave in the morning,” Ethan teased.

“I’m not scared.”

Ethan mimicked the old trucker’s deep voice. “One night, when the dark is quiet and the moon is full, and your sins lay heavy upon your soul…”

Already the first sliver of Earth’s shadow crawled across the lunar surface, giving the moon’s pale face a blush.

She saw the reflection of Dakota and Ethan in the window glass. Dakota jumped and squealed. Ethan laughed, as if pleased with his own naughtiness.

Trevor put a hand on Claire’s thigh. “I’m sorry for dragging you along.”

“I wanted to come,” she reminded him.

You couldn’t have kept me away.

Claire put her hand on his. Trevor had been tense all afternoon, but looked relaxed now behind the wheel.

They were on the road, and everything was fine.

Claire felt a jolt. Her purse jangled at her feet. The Hummer had run over something.

“Just a stick,” Trevor announced.

“Big stick,” Claire said. “Maybe slow down a little.”

“Don’t worry, I saw it. A little debris from the wind. Didn’t seem worth swerving around.”

All we need now is a flat tire.

Claire reached into her purse for her cell phone. She checked the signal.

No bars.

There wouldn’t be any coverage until they got closer to Cedarview. To save the battery, she powered the phone off, then turned again to the window and watched the rough shoulder of the road.

She could still see the reflection of Dakota and Ethan in the back. Dakota read aloud from Ethan’s SAT flash cards, and gave him clues with her body language.

She played with her hair. “Coquette.”

“A flirt,” Ethan answered.

She rubbed her body against his. “Conjugate.”

“To join together.”

She nuzzled his neck. “Concupiscence.”

“Kiss?”

She went for his ear. “Concupiscence.”

“Lick?”

She put a hand down his pants. “Concupiscence.”

“Hard?”

Ethan gave up, turned Dakota over, and got on top. They weren’t wearing their seat belts.

Keep your clothes on, Claire thought.

Trevor looked at Claire, making it a question.

“Lust,” she answered.

Trevor glanced in the mirror and scowled.

He turned on the radio, and dialed from the fading signal of an alt-rock station to classical…to country…to oldies.

Claire heard the DJ say, “…Stop Car Hop.”

She reached for the dial. “Wait!”

A youthful voice sang from the speaker:

I met my girl by the cherry tree

We took it nice and slow

I asked my girl to marry me

But her old man said no

Trevor rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Claire said, “It’s Frankie Lamarque.”

“You like this shit?”

“His picture was on the wall. Back at the diner.”

“So?”

“Frankie Lamarque died on this road.”

The song continued:

Polish the chrome

Put down the top

We’re leaving home

Drive till we drop

To the Last Stop Car Hop

Last Stop Car Hop

“Fail.” Trevor changed the station to alt rock.

The figure of a man appeared in the headlights. He was standing on the side of the road. A hitchhiker in a black duster and a slouch hat. Arm extended, thumb signaling for a ride.

“Hey, look,” Trevor joked. “It’s the Highwayman.”

Is it? Claire wondered.

The hitchhiker looked exactly like the guy she had seen at the diner, the one who appeared beside the ghost bike memorial.

“Pull over,” said Ethan.

Dakota leaned forward. “No, don’t.”

Trevor drove past the hitcher.

As the pale, gaunt face passed by Claire’s window, the man stared at her with glowing green eyes.

A chill ran through her.

It’s him.

The car slowed down and pulled onto the dirt shoulder.

“Trevor, no,” said Dakota. “We don’t know who he is, where he came from, what he’s doing alone out here. He looks…mean, Trevor. He looks evil. Don’t open the door.”

Ethan laughed, enjoying Dakota’s panic.

Claire watched the hitchhiker in her side mirror. The man thrust his hand into the pocket of his duster and walked toward the Hummer, his neck and jaw lit red by the tail lights, his eyes shielded by the brim of his hat.

She said, “He is kind of scary-looking.”

“Go, go, please, just go!” Dakota urged.

A sense of danger crept up Claire’s spine.

She put her hand on Trevor’s arm. “We don’t have room.”

The hitchhiker was almost to the vehicle.

“We can fit three in the back row,” Trevor said, and unlocked the doors.

“Not comfortably,” said Claire.

It sounded stupid, but it was all she could think of to say.

The man stopped and stood outside Dakota’s door, staring in through the window.

Dakota locked her door.

Trevor shrugged. “Wouldn’t want to make Dakota feel uncomfortable.”

He floored it.

Tires spun, throwing dust on the old man.

Trevor and Ethan busted up laughing. They shared a fist-bump.

Ethan smacked the seat with the flat of his hand. “That was awesome!”

Claire felt terrible. What if the man was stranded, like they had all been this morning? What if he was desperate for help, and they just passed him by, like that story of the Good Samaritan? Yes, it was safer not to talk to strangers, or pick them up on the highway, but it seemed wrong to tease him and cheer about it.

She glowered at Trevor. “You’re such an ass.”

Claire checked the mirror, and saw the dust settle behind them.

The hitchhiker was gone.

19

The Highwayman stood alone on Blood Alley, watching the tail lights of the big red boxy car rush into the distance.

There were four teenagers in the car. Two boys, two girls. The boys had taunted and jeered him. The dark-haired girl had been properly terrified, but the blonde girl in the front passenger seat had stared directly at him through the window.

He’d sensed the fear in her, but also something else. A kind of hunger. Perhaps it was merely curiosity. The blonde girl was different from the others, though he couldn’t say why. She seemed… familiar. The memories from his physical life were unreliable—vague, clouded, distorted. But he felt somehow connected to this girl.

Behind him, another vehicle encroached on the road. The Highwayman turned to see a petroleum tanker truck advancing. The headlights found him. He stood his ground as brightness filled the air.

The tanker truck honked, then slowed, but did not have time to stop.

The Highwayman felt the return of an ancient rage.

Go away! Go back! You do not belong here!

The tanker truck did not heed the silent warning.

It swerved around the Highwayman.

As the truck roared past him, throwing dust and belching diesel, the Highwayman saw a German shepherd in the passenger seat. The dog snarled at him before vanishing from view. The tanker truck returned to the right-hand lane and continued down the road.

The Highwayman watched the tail lights diminish.

Behind the truck a metal chain slid along the blacktop. Caught in the undercarriage, the long chain bounced and twisted, throwing sparks. The loose end whipped like a dragon’s tail through the darkness.

There were others on his road tonight. Not many, but none were welcome here.

Trespassers.

Tonight he would teach them. Tonight he would remind them how the highway got its name.

Tonight is a night for blood.

With the power of his will, he summoned the Revenant from its slumber.

He did not see the ghost car approach out of the cold wind of the dark night, for his back was now turned to it, but he felt the ghost car speeding up behind him. His mind thrilled with anticipation. In a moment the phantom car and the unmortal driver would be reunited. He kept his back to the Revenant and raised his arms in front of him, as if to grip an invisible steering wheel. The ghost car drove into the Highwayman’s back. The coffin-nosed hood of the Revenant passed through him. The steering wheel passed through him. It settled into his waiting hands as the driver’s seat caught and cradled him.

The Highwayman took control.

The Revenant raced toward the distant lights of the tanker truck. The Highwayman accelerated, chasing his prey.

Behind the wheel of the tanker truck, cruising along at a cool fifty-five, Stanley took a few deep breaths and felt himself relax. Not all the way, not back to normal, but it was a start.

This breathing trick was something his second ex-wife had taught him. Whenever she’d call to bitch about money, Stanley would finish the conversation as politely as possible, say goodbye with a smile in his voice, hang up the treacherous phone, and take a few deep, relaxing breaths.

Breathing is life, he reminded himself. Control your breathing, and you control your life. It was something he’d heard once on talk radio, and to Stanley it made a helluva lot of sense.

He’d been thrown off course by that crazy old bum standing in the road, but he managed to avoid hitting the man, and now he wasn’t about to let some wandering homeless fleabag ruin his lovely ride.

Charger, however, was still growling at the passenger side mirror.

Stanley turned down the volume on the country music station.

“What’s the matter, Charger?”

He reached across the seat to scratch his German shepherd behind the ears.

“What you need to do is take a few deep, relaxing breaths. No, I mean it. I’m telling you, buddy, that shit flat-out works.”

The dog kept his gaze fixed on the reflective silver.

Stanley considered him a good guard dog, but his talents were wasted. Out here on the highway there was nothing much to guard against. Sometimes, in a fit of excitement, Charger would bark at a jackrabbit or coyote or hawk, momentary diversions that made Stanley bust out laughing.

But now Charger growled at the mirror for minutes on end. There seemed no point to it. Usually his dog loved these long drives. They’d crossed a million miles of blacktop together, he and Charger. This growling was different.

Something’s up.

Bright light bounced in from the mirrors and filled the cab of Stanley’s tanker truck. Checking his own side mirror, Stanley saw behind him a pair of demon-eyed headlights and an old-fashioned front grille. It was some kind of classic car, ancient Americana, black as night, with a coffin-nosed hood.

And it was coming toward him fast.

Too fast.

Charger barked and barked, with rising intensity.

Stanley checked his speedometer. He was still going 55 miles per hour. The other guy must have been going 90.

What’s your damn hurry?

The black car hurtled straight for the tanker truck. It wasn’t passing.

They were going to hit.

“Jesus.”

Stanley accelerated, but the black car was nearly on him.

The headlights disappeared from view.

Stanley gripped the steering wheel tight with both hands, bracing for impact, but—

Nothing.

The dog turned in frantic circles on the seat, barking and growling.

Stanley checked both mirrors. He couldn’t see the car, and Charger’s mad antics weren’t helping.

“What the hell?”

Charger barked louder, toward the sleeper berth behind the seat.

“Hush now, buddy. What are you—”

The black car honked as it emerged from the back wall of the sleeper berth.

A ghost car, Stanley realized, too late. It didn’t look like a ghost. It looked real, but could pass through metal.

Headlights bathed the cab in blinding light. The grille of the ghost car powered through the back seat.

Charger yelped and dropped to the floorboards for safety.

At the shivering touch of the phantom metal, Stanley screamed.

The steering wheel of the ghost car passed into his back and out through his chest.

The dog barked and growled as the ghost driver entered Stanley’s body. Stanley’s chest heaved. His neck tensed. His head snapped to attention. In the mirror, his eyes glowed green.

A voice that was not his own echoed in Stanley’s tortured mind:

I am the Highwayman. This is my road.

Stanley’s very human scream became the Highwayman’s death-rattle laugh.

The possessed driver straightened in his seat. He adjusted his hands, gripping the steering wheel at ten and two.

Stanley tried to fight off the intruder, but his body would not respond to his commands.

The Highwayman had complete control.

Stanley’s head turned to the right. His eyes stared at the growling dog shivering on the floor of the cab.

They locked gazes. A test of wills.

It’s me, Charger. Don’t you know who I am?

The Highwayman answered, You are not who you are.

To prove it, the Highwayman made Stanley power down the passenger window. An angry gust roared through the cab as the truck sped forward. Against his own will, Stanley’s lip curled.

His voice growled.

He snarled at his dog.

Charger whimpered, turned, jumped back onto the seat, then leapt out the window.

In the mirror Stanley saw his dog land, roll, and regain his feet.

A mournful barking receded in the distance.

Stanley stared at the radio.

Country music.

He had always loved country, but now felt a wave of revulsion from somewhere else inside of him. His hand moved to the dial and changed the station to hard rock. A smile came unbidden to his lips. He cranked the volume.

The petroleum tanker truck barreled down the road to the raging howl of “Highway to Hell.”

20

Trevor saw a white shape in the road ahead, and slowed down as the thing came into view. It was a Honda Civic, stranded upside down like a storm-tossed turtle.

“Accident,” he said.

Smoke billowed from the engine.

“Call nine-one-one.”

In the back seat Dakota answered, “Can’t, no signal.”

Trevor pulled over to the shoulder. He stopped the Hummer ten yards from the accident, and parked with his headlights aimed at the wreck.

Someone was inside.

Oh, no.

Trevor switched to high beams and saw a red-haired woman suspended by her seat belt, her legs above her chest, her neck bent, her head pressed against the caved-in roof. She turned her head slowly to face the glare. Blood flowed from a gash in her cheek. More blood dripped down from the seat overhead.

She had a desperate look in her eyes.

“Help me!”

Claire unbuckled her seat belt and opened her front passenger door.

Trevor saw gasoline leaking from the busted tank.

He extended his arm to stop Claire from leaving.

“No, wait—”

Too late. She was already outside.

Trevor turned to Ethan and Dakota. “Stay in the car.”

“Hell no.” Ethan stuffed his flash cards in his back pocket, then grabbed his leather jacket.

The guys got out, leaving Dakota alone in the Hummer.

Trevor slammed the door as Claire rushed to the overturned wreck. He ran after her. Grabbed her. “Gas leak.”

Claire saw it, too. “We have to get her out.”

Whoosh! The engine caught fire.

The flames spread quickly, feeding on the front tires.

Behind them Ethan yelled, “Truck!”

Trevor turned to see headlights behind them in the distance. A truck fled the horizon, speeding toward them. Some kind of big rig.

“He’ll have a CB,” Ethan said. “We can call for help.”

Ethan zipped up his leather jacket, jogged back to meet the oncoming rig, and waved his arms to flag it down.

The woman in the burning car cried out, “Oh God, help me!”

I have to get her out, Claire thought.

She broke free of Trevor’s grip and rushed to help the accident victim before the lady burned to death.

Crouching low and drawing near the wreck, Claire sensed that something was wrong. The flames leaned into the wind—and gave no heat.

Weird, she thought, but quickly suppressed it. No time for riddles.

Without help, the woman in the car would die.

The bleeding victim reached her hand out the broken window.

Claire tried to assure the woman. “I’ll get you out.” A tremble in her voice betrayed her.

She reached for the woman’s hand, but—

Her hand passed right through the bleeding woman’s hand.

Like it wasn’t there at all.

What the hell?

Then she realized:

A ghost.

The ghost woman screamed, “I’m burning! I’m burning!”

For a moment Claire stared at her. The car, the victim, the flames, the smoke. It all looked real in the red moonlight.

Crawling closer, Claire made a grab for the handle of the car door, but her hand passed through it, too.

She glanced back at her boyfriend.

“Uh, Trevor…”

The car exploded in a tempest of flame. She heard it, saw it, but did not feel it. The explosion had no impact. The light had no heat. An illusion of flames swirled around her.

Claire stood up slowly, engulfed in a phantom fire.

Trevor screamed, “Claire! Claire!”

He backed away and shielded his face, as if the fire had force.

He doesn’t understand.

The fire receded.

“I’m okay,” she said. “It’s not—”

“What?” Trevor looked stunned. “Claire…how can that…”

She stepped through and into the car—into the space where the car appeared to be.

“Some kind of trick.” Trevor’s voiced wavered.

“A ghost.”

“But it looks so…”

He didn’t need to finish the thought.

The ghost woman had looked as lifelike as Trevor or Dakota or Ethan.

Or that hitchhiker.

Claire saw a marker by the highway, a roadside memorial. It was too far away to read, but she knew what it said.

“Trevor, look. This is where she died.”

Trevor squinted at the marker. “Who?”

“I saw this on the wall. One of those old photos. Her name was Cassie—Cassie Klein. She was hit by a semi truck, and burned to death. Ten years ago.”

Trevor glanced nervously around, searching for answers.

“What’s happening, Claire?”

“Blood Alley,” she said. “It’s real.”

21

With his leather jacket zipped against the chill, Ethan jogged toward the oncoming truck. It was still a half-mile down the road, coming on at a fast clip. The truck driver probably couldn’t see Ethan yet, but he must have seen the Hummer’s lights.

The truck wasn’t slowing.

Of course, the driver had no way of knowing about the accident ahead. There were no emergency flares in the road. Trevor might have some in the car, but it was too late now.

Ethan needed to slow the truck down, get the driver to stop and help.

Dude must have a CB radio, Ethan thought.

They could use the radio to call for help, to bring an ambulance or policeman or someone to the scene of the accident. The woman in the car was trapped and injured, maybe even dying. Cell phones didn’t work out here. Unless they could find a land line, a trucker’s CB was their only chance.

Ethan stopped running and planted himself directly in the truck’s path.

He waved his arms wide for the truck driver to stop.

How long will an ambulance take? he wondered. He calculating the distance, speed, and time in his head like an SAT math problem. The nearest hospital was in Palmdale. That meant…half an hour? Not good.

But I have to try.

Ethan could see the approaching vehicle better now. It was a big rig with a rounded cargo container, some kind of tanker truck maybe—like the petroleum truck driven by that old geezer back at the diner, the crazy dude who tried to scare them with stories of “the Highwayman.”

But that old windbag had left hours before Ethan and his friends. The guy claimed he didn’t drive this road at night.

He must be past Cedarview already.

Which meant this tanker truck was someone else. There were probably a lot of long haulers running up and down this road.

But whoever this guy was, he wasn’t slowing down. If anything, the truck seemed to be accelerating.

He’s going too fast.

Ethan jumped up and down, and waved his arms wide to attract attention.

“Pull over! Pull over!”

Of course, the driver couldn’t hear him.

Ethan listened for sounds of the truck braking, but heard only the roar of the engine growing louder.

Doesn’t he see me?

Ethan stopped jumping.

He felt sweat on his scalp and a chill up his spine.

This guy’s a fucking maniac.

Ethan needed to get off the road, out of the way.

His muscles locked. His legs froze. Time slowed and his breathing stopped. His field of vision narrowed to headlights racing toward him. Any second now, the truck would brake, or swerve, or—

Move, damnit, move!

His muscles answered the call. His legs bent and sprang. He jumped to his right, across the median line. His body arched and fell and hit pavement. As he rolled, he saw the giant tires coming on fast.

Finally, the truck did swerve.

In his direction.

Like a missile on target lock, it kept on coming.

He’s trying to kill me!

Ethan rolled off the road, onto the dirt shoulder, and into the sagebrush.

Spikes and needles clawed at his hands and face.

For an instant the truck’s massive tires loomed over him, spinning forward, eager to crush, to kill.

Ethan rolled back toward the road, into the path of the truck.

The truck tires blew past him on either side.

He stared up at the underbelly of the beast. Something hot rained down on him. Drops of oil or transmission fluid.

The rush of steel gave way to the night sky overhead. The truck raced on. Dust roiled all around him.

Ethan was still alive.

That was close!

Something hit him on the head. It was hard as ice and cold as death. It scraped across his cheek, carving flesh from the bone.

Blood filled his eyes.

He heard the clank of a heavy metal chain, then felt something like an iron fist coil tight around his right leg.

It grabbed his ankle.

The metal chain yanked him hard—nearly tore his right leg from his hip—but the bone and socket held.

His body spun until his feet pointed to the back of the speeding truck.

To protect his other leg, he crossed his feet at the ankles. Dirt and gravel slid under his jeans and the back of his leather jacket, scraping hard at this clothes.

Ethan was dragged—chained and helpless—back onto Blood Alley.

In the back seat of the car, Dakota saw the truck coming straight for her.

Where’s Ethan?

Ethan had gone to flag down the truck. But the truck didn’t stop.

Bright lights grew brighter.

Her only thought was, Get out, get out.

She tried to unbuckle her seat belt, but the damn thing was stuck.

Oh, shit.

On the third try she got the buckle open and threw off the strap.

Dakota grabbed the door handle. Pulled on it.

Nothing happened.

Locked.

No time left.

The massive truck sped forward. It didn’t swerve, didn’t veer, didn’t care.

“Trevor—”

Her brother was outside. Trevor couldn’t help her now. He was too far away. The truck was too close. And getting closer.

Ten feet—five feet—three feet—

There was nothing to do but scream.

She screamed.

The tanker truck clipped the rear corner of the Hummer.

Dakota felt a sharp jolt throw her against the seat and over it. Her shoulder hit the rear window. She landed in the back, her fall cushioned by bags and suitcases. Her elbow smashed against the ice cooler.

A trash bag exploded. The air swirled with crushed cans and crumpled wrappers. The car spun circles around her like clay on a potter’s wheel.

Her neck twisted.

Her head collided with the back seat, the side wall, the back door.

The bright lights moved on.

And everything fell into darkness.

22

Claire saw the truck hit the Hummer. A scream of twisted metal pierced the air. The car spun off the shoulder, into the desert. Buried in the cry of the collision was a faint, desperate wail.

In a flash of horror Claire remembered, Dakota’s in the car!

The tanker truck had knocked the Hummer from the highway. It didn’t stop. It didn’t swerve, didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate, but kept on coming—

Straight for Claire and Trevor.

They stood together in the road beside the overturned white Honda, which was engulfed in flames. But the white car was just a phantom, a ghost, some kind of illusion.

That truck is no illusion.

The twin beams of the headlights blinded Claire. The world went white around her. She knew the Hummer wasn’t the real target.

It wants me.

Trevor stood between Claire and oncoming rig, but he paid no attention to the pressing danger, staring instead at his damaged car—“Dakota!”

“Trevor, move!”

He wasn’t moving.

Claire grabbed his arm and pulled him off the road.

They tripped.

Tumbled.

A sharp pain shot up Claire’s right arm—elbow to shoulder—a shock of cold fire that pierced her neck and lit up her vision with white sparks.

She rolled from the asphalt to the dirt.

Truck tires spun past her, inches away.

Flying gravel pelted her.

Claire squinted and shielded her face with one hand, but could still see dimly under the truck as it passed right through the ghost car, into the darkness beyond.

The ghost car shimmered and faded away.

Something snaked past Claire. A heavy metal chain. It moved like a living thing. One end of the chain was caught in the truck’s undercarriage.

The chain was taut—dragging something—a human body—

Ethan!

The chain held Ethan by his ankles.

He was on his back, sliding feet-first down the road behind the speeding tanker truck, screaming, “Aaaaaahhhhh!”

Trevor cried out, “Ethan!”

Ethan swept by Claire. He reached out for her and caught her hand in his. But Ethan’s hand was wet and slipped away as he raced on down the road.

Claire looked at her hand. It was wet with Ethan’s blood.

She scrambled to her feet. “We have to help him!”

Trevor was up too. He ran past her. “The car!”

They both ran for the Hummer.

It had settled not far from the road, but was pointed in the wrong direction. Trevor was the faster runner. He reached the Hummer first. He jumped in, started the engine, and swung the car around before Claire could get to it.

“Wait!”

Trevor threw open the passenger door. “Get in!”

She did. “Where’s Dakota?”

“Back here,” came a weak voice behind her. Dakota sounded like she was in pain.

“Buckle up!” Trevor warned.

He powered the Hummer back onto the road and chased down the tanker truck.

Ethan slid on his back, his right ankle in chains. The chain was still caught on the undercarriage of the tanker truck, which roared on ahead, going way too fast. Ethan’s leather jacket scraped the road. His body vibrated, his teeth chattered, his back was hot from the friction.

Head up!

His neck tensed as he struggled to keep the back of his head off the road. He could feel his short hair brush the hard surface beneath him. His head was no more than an inch from the pavement, which rushed under him at a frightening speed.

Head up, damnit!

If he relaxed his neck, the back of his head would meet the blacktop and he’d be dead in seconds. The only thing that kept him alive was his tough leather jacket and the fact that he was facing up.

He needed to get free of the truck.

With his left foot he kicked at the chain. The damn thing wouldn’t let go.

Moving his unchained leg was risky, and several times he nearly flipped over, but he found that he could twist his torso and press his shoulders down to keep himself oriented.

Don’t flip—don’t flip—don’t flip—!

If he flipped over onto his stomach, that was it, the end, finito, and goodbye. He’d grind his face on the highway.

But if he could just keep his back to the road—a little longer, a little longer—he might survive. He might get free.

Head up—don’t flip—head up—head up!

Ethan summoned every muscle, every nerve.

A few more minutes. A few more seconds. Hold on!

Head up—head up—head up—!

Moments ago, after the chain grabbed him, Ethan had brushed past Claire. She was lying on the shoulder of the road, but he was sure Claire saw him. They had made contact, his hand in hers. It felt like hope.

Now that hope was gone.

Don’t give up, you fucking bastard.

There was still hope. He was alive. As long as he was alive, there was still a chance.

Ethan wasn’t alone. He had friends on this road. Claire would tell the others. They were going to help him, somehow, Trevor and Claire and Dakota—

Where are they?

The road raced under him, tearing at his jacket and jeans.

Oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god!

The back pocket of his denim jeans ripped open. Something fluttered past him.

Flash cards.

The SAT flash cards he’d put in his back pocket.

Gone now.

Doesn’t matter.

He didn’t care about the damn SAT test. He didn’t care about college. He didn’t care about anything but—

Head up—damnit—don’t flip—!

But the flash cards did matter. They had been in his back pocket. Between him and road. One small measure of protection.

Gone.

The darkness grew bright around him.

A light approached from behind. Ethan didn’t dare look back—head up!—but he knew the approaching glare could mean only one thing.

Headlights.

Trevor, the hero of their high school, was coming to save him.

Hurryhurryhurryhurry…

23

Trevor gripped the wheel in his sweaty palms. His muscles were tense, his senses keen. He was alive with the pulse of adrenaline’s fire.

He saw Ethan in the road ahead of him, not more than fifty yards now, but he couldn’t tell if the boy was still alive. The poor kid was still being dragged by the tanker truck.

Ethan didn’t struggle, but screamed.

Headlights from the Hummer lit up the top of Ethan’s head. His back was to the road, his legs pointed at the truck and caught in a chain that dragged him forward at a frightening speed.

Trevor checked the speedometer: 109 miles per hour.

Jesus.

He was gaining on Ethan and the tanker truck, but the truck was going 80 miles per hour at least. It was crazy—commercial trucks never drove that fast. A driver caught speeding could lose his license.

This driver didn’t care.

Sadistic maniac.

The driver had crashed his rig into the Hummer, and didn’t even stop.

Did it on purpose.

Then he’d tried to run over Trevor and Claire, but missed.

And somehow Ethan had gotten caught by that chain and dragged, though the truck driver probably didn’t even know it.

Or does he?

Something white bloomed from Ethan’s back, then scattered and swirled through the headlights like feathers from a busted pillow.

When the pieces hit the windshield, Trevor saw they were flash cards, those SAT vocabulary cards Ethan carried with him. They must have fallen from Ethan’s pocket. Flash cards hit the windshield and flitted away.

One stuck to the glass long enough for Trevor to read:

Malevolent.

Ethan’s body came more fully into view. The Hummer was almost on him.

Trevor eased off the accelerator.

Claire screamed, “Don’t run him over!”

“I know, I know.”

This would be tricky. They were close now.

Ten feet away—five feet—two feet—

The top of Ethan’s head disappeared below the hood.

Too close.

Trevor slowed a bit more, to keep an even pace. The steering wheel vibrated in his grip. His hands were slick with sweat.

“I’m gonna get beside him,” Trevor said to Claire. “See if you can pull him in.”

Claire nodded and unlocked her door. She kept her hand on the handle, ready to push it open.

Trevor cocked his head to the left and checked for oncoming traffic, but didn’t see any headlights coming. The Hummer and the tanker truck were alone on the highway.

It was time to make his move—

Trevor angled left, changed lanes, and powered ahead, coming up beside Ethan.

Claire threw the door open. “Ethan!” She leaned out, secured by her seat belt, and reached for him. “He sees me. He’s alive.”

“Get him in fast!”

Trevor saw Ethan’s bloody hand in hers—

The hand slipped away.

Claire screamed, “Ethan!”

The tanker truck swerved left.

Into Trevor’s lane.

Ethan was pulled left, toward the Hummer—

“Oh shit!”

Trevor tapped the brakes. The Hummer fell back. The steering wheel lurched in his hands, threatening to spin out of control. He clenched the wheel tight.

Oh no you don’t!

He regained control, but his hands were numb.

The tanker truck pulled ahead. The Hummer lost ground. Trevor saw Ethan diminish in the headlights.

Something wet smeared the road.

Blood.

It was coming from Ethan’s leather jacket. His jeans or his jacket must have torn through to the skin. He was bleeding his life out on the road. Ethan was still alive, but fast becoming a skid mark.

No time! No time!

Trevor accelerated.

Ethan wished for death, but remained alive.

His awareness slipped away, falling into murky pools of memory. Dark and deep. He wanted to dive in, wanted to escape the pavement and the pain. But memories, too, were painful. Black pools of regret. Vast lakes of wasted time. Missed chances. Things he might have done. Girls he should have kissed. Waves of emotion crashed ashore inside him. Death was no cure for regret.

The only cure was to live, and live well.

The legs of his jeans were shredded now. When his legs touched the road, raw skin met the blacktop, and the flesh was scraped away.

This is it, he thought. This is how I die.

His jacket was tough leather, and still offered some protection. If he kept his back pressed to the road, and his legs lifted, he might live another second more—and another—and another—

A lights appeared above him again. Bright and growing brighter.

Trevor.

Ethan’s head was raised from the road, eyes forward, but the front bumper of the Hummer was now above him.

His head was under the car.

Tires spun on both sides of him. His ears filled with the thrum of rubber on asphalt. If he wanted to die, all he had to do was twist his shoulders and throw his body under one of those tires. It would all be over. Quick and merciful.

But he didn’t want to die.

Live, damnit, live!

Ethan reached both hands into the air, stretching up to find the bumper. He grabbed it and pulled. He was never good at pull-ups, but somehow he found the strength to lift himself up off the burning asphalt.

For a moment he hung free in the air, suspended between the car’s bumper and truck’s chain.

The Hummer gained on the truck. The chained slackened.

Ethan felt the pull of gravity bring him closer to the road. He reached one hand to grab the front grille guard, turned this body over, and climbed onto the bumper.

Facing down, he saw the road rush below him, black and red. He was bleeding fast. He could feel his body weaken from the loss.

If he slipped now, with his face to the road, he would fall straight into his grave.

Ethan secured his grip and tucked his legs. Glancing up, he locked gazes with Trevor behind the glass. Trevor had that look of gritty determination that so often carried him through swim meets and baseball games.

The look of a winner.

It gave Ethan a sudden surge of hope.

Riding the bumper, he felt a change in the highway as the road descended, sloping down toward—he glanced back—what is that?—a suspension bridge. It spanned a deep gorge. They were dipping into a valley, where the road crossed a dry riverbed.

They were going even faster now. The tanker truck gained on the downhill run. Ethan felt the sharp tug at his ankle as the metal chain grew taut. He slipped a little from the bumper—but caught himself and held on.

Barely.

24

Trevor knew Ethan couldn’t hold on much longer. He sped up—the needle inching past 98 miles per hour—to give the chain some slack and Ethan a chance to climb up onto the hood.

The Hummer had a sunroof. If Ethan could get to the roof, they could pull him inside and remove the chain.

But Ethan wasn’t climbing.

He was clinging to the front grille guard. Frozen by fear. Ethan looked weak and helpless. His face pale. His hair slick with sweat and blood.

Trevor needed to get him inside.

But how?

I have to go pull him in.

It was the only way. Claire and Dakota weren’t strong enough to lift Ethan’s weight, and Trevor wasn’t about to ask them to go outside and risk their lives in a rescue attempt.

He said to Claire, who sat beside him, “Take the wheel.”

She looked stunned. “What?”

“Drive!”

“Why?”

Trevor unbuckled his seat belt. “I have to go get him.”

Claire’s look of surprise gave way to terror. “I can’t drive.”

“You have to.”

He grabbed her hand and slammed it down in on the steering wheel.

She recoiled, wrenching her hand free.

“No! Don’t make me do this.”

She was trembling now.

Trevor kept his voice calm. “If he stays there, he dies. If he falls, he dies. I have to go get to him.”

Dakota said, “I’ll drive,” and climbed over to the front.

The needle bobbed around 100 miles per hour.

“Don’t slow down,” Trevor warned.

To make room for Dakota to slip behind the wheel, Trevor moved his driver’s seat back, then carefully switched his feet on the gas pedal, now pressing down hard with the ball of his left foot instead of his right. He half stood up from his seat, keeping pressure on the accelerator.

Dakota slid under him, trading places.

He gave her the wheel. “Got it?”

“I can’t see.”

Dakota’s view was blocked by Trevor’s body.

“Keep it straight,” he said. “You’ve got a bridge dead ahead.” He inched his foot to the edge of the accelerator pedal. “Put your foot on the side of mine.”

She did. Their feet touched together on the pedal.

He eased his foot off the accelerator, giving her control of the car.

Trevor opened the sunroof, then said to Claire, “Hold onto my legs.”

“Right,” Claire said, visibly relieved that she could do something to help.

Cold wind buffeted Trevor as he climbed out through the sunroof. He snaked forward on his belly, sliding over the edge of the roof and down the windshield.

They were coming up fast on the bridge below.

Dakota kept pace with the truck. She had a steady hand at the wheel.

Behind Trevor, Claire held his ankles. When he glanced back he saw her head and shoulders sticking up through the sunroof, her blonde hair whipping in the wind.

Trevor himself eased down the windshield and forward on the hood. He reached his right arm out for Ethan, keeping his left palm flat on the hood to brace himself.

His left hand, wet with sweat, slid forward on the smooth metal. He dried his hand on his shirtsleeve, then pressed his palm again to the hood.

It held.

With his free hand he grabbed the collar of Ethan’s leather jacket.

“Gotcha.”

As he pulled on the jacket, Trevor felt resistance.

He pulled harder.

No use.

Ethan looked up at him. Blood flowed into his exhausted eyes. All the fight had drained out of him.

Trevor screamed, “Push yourself up!”

Ethan nodded.

With one hand Ethan let go of the grille guard and grabbed Trevor’s wrist. Trevor pulled him up over the grille guard and onto the hood of the Hummer.

Trevor pushed with his left hand against the hood and shouted to Claire, “Pull me in!”

She tried, but Claire was weak. It wasn’t working.

I’ll have to bring Ethan in myself.

As the tanker truck raced onto the bridge, the chain around Ethan’s ankle grew taut.

It yanked at Ethan.

Trevor held onto the kid, and felt Claire’s hands slip from his ankles.

Oh, shit!

“Trevor!” Claire screamed.

His foot came free of her hands. Trevor slid across the hood, then caught the front grille guard with his left hand.

The road sped under him. The left front tire spun inches from his dangling foot.

The Highwayman felt alive.

This new body belonged to the long haul trucker, Stanley, but the heightened sensations were achingly familiar.

The Highwayman could feel the cool desert wind… tight jeans hugging fat thighs… thin hair brushing a wrinkled brow… the resistance of the gas pedal under the sole of a cowboy boot.

He felt the road change as the big rig reached the suspension bridge. Thick suspension cables sung past the cab windows. A wind swept up from the gorge and made the petroleum tank shudder.

A faint scent of mesquite and creosote laced the desert air. The Highwayman inhaled deeply.

Up ahead, a pair of headlights betrayed another vehicle, a postal delivery truck entering the bridge from the opposite direction.

Ignorant of danger, it cruised toward the Highwayman’s petroleum truck.

This new trespasser had picked the wrong night—and the wrong bridge. He would not live to see the other side.

This will be fun.

The Highwayman swerved into the opposing lane.

25

Dakota’s head was pounding. Her neck felt hot and her left shoulder ached. Her vision of the road blurred, then focused, then blurred again, like a camera lens adjusting.

Whiplash? she wondered.

Minutes ago, when that truck smashed into the Hummer and knocked it off the road, she’d been tossed around pretty hard. Now something was out of whack. She should be in a doctor’s office, not behind the wheel of Trevor’s H3, chasing down the maniac who almost killed her.

But she had to be strong. Ethan’s life depended on her.

I’m here, Ethan. I’m here.

She was in the driver seat now. It was all up to her.

What the hell am I doing?

Trevor had never let Dakota drive his car before. Everything felt wrong. The seat was too far back. She had to sit forward to reach the pedals. The steering wheel was slick with Trevor’s cold sweat.

He’s as scared as I am.

The revelation hit her hard. Dakota had always thought of her older brother as fearless. He always seemed to toss his troubles away with a laugh and smile.

Not tonight.

The road ran fast beneath her. The needle on the dashboard tickled the 100 miles per hour mark. A flat tire could end it all.

Dakota wanted to slow down, but couldn’t. She had to keep on the tail of the speeding truck. That was the key to Ethan’s survival. If she eased up on the gas, even for a second, the Hummer would drop back further, and Ethan would be dragged onto the road.

She needed to go faster.

Put some slack in the chain.

Only then could Ethan climb for safety onto the speeding Hummer.

Dakota applied more pressure to the gas pedal, closing with the truck.

As the Hummer crossed onto the long suspension bridge, Dakota saw dim headlights approach from the other end—a third vehicle on the bridge.

“Great,” she muttered, and clenched the steering wheel tighter.

Lights from the third vehicle shone on the suspension cables, and Dakota noticed for the first time that the bridge was enormous, like the Brooklyn Bridge or the Golden Gate, except it didn’t span a body of water, but stretched out over a deep, dry—

The tanker truck swerved into the wrong lane.

Oh, no!

The lunatic driver was aiming his truck for the oncoming vehicle, like a game of chicken. Only it wasn’t a game.

More like a suicide run.

“Dakota!”

Claire’s warning was muffled. She was standing up with her shoulders through the open sunroof and her head sticking outside.

“I see it!” Dakota said.

She had to stay behind the tanker truck. She jerked the wheel to the left, matching the movements of the maniac ahead.

Trevor slipped from the front grille, but recovered his grip.

Dakota straightened the wheel, then saw Ethan pull himself up onto the hood. His face was gashed and smeared black with grease. He looked exhausted but alive.

As Ethan climbed over the grille guard, Dakota glimpsed the back of his jacket. It had been scraped thin by the road. Blood seeped through the leather.

Oh, God.

Another few seconds on that road would have killed him.

Don’t let him fall.

Trevor helped Ethan up onto the hood.

Ethan’s jeans were shreds. His legs were a bloody ruin. He tried to swing one leg over the guard grille, but his muscles didn’t cooperate.

Trevor unhooked the chain around Ethan’s ankle. Ethan was now free of the tanker.

Dakota eased her foot off the gas pedal.

The Hummer slowed.

“Careful!” Claire screamed above her.

You’re not helping, Bitch.

Ethan and Trevor clung to the hood. If Dakota tapped the brakes, the boys could be tossed forward.

Ease off slowly.

100 miles per hour—95—90—

Suspension cables glided past the Hummer in geometric waves.

The tanker truck pulled ahead.

Trevor helped Ethan up onto the roof.

The pulpy flesh of Ethan’s legs smeared blood across the windshield. Dakota’s view of the bridge was painted red.

“I’ve got you,” Claire said, and started to pull Ethan inside, but—

A scream of metal.

The back end petroleum tank rose high into the air. Its underbelly was suddenly exposed.

The Hummer rushed toward it. The distance between them collapsed.

The vehicle ahead of her had come to dead stop—

Collision!

The air shimmered with shattered glass. A hailstorm of shards pelted the Hummer’s windshield.

Claire screamed and ducked her head inside.

The tanker truck jackknifed in the air, taking out suspension cables.

The third vehicle—a postal delivery truck, accordioned by the impact—leapt into the web of suspension cables on the other side.

Dakota applied pressure to the brake pedal.

Trevor slipped from the roof.

Nearly fell.

Dakota gasped. She took her foot off the brake. If she stopped suddenly, she’d throw her brother from the vehicle.

But she was heading straight for the collision.

The back of the petroleum tank rode up the rails, snapping suspension cables. Thick cables whipped through the air like a cat o’ nine tails.

One cable struck the back of the Hummer and smashed the rear window.

Dakota steered to the right, returning to her proper lane to speed past the destruction, but—

The postal truck tumbled into her path.

No way out!

26

Dakota saw the gap narrow.

On one side was the railing of the bridge. On the other was the tumbling postal truck.

In moments, the gap would close. She’d be trapped on this side of the bridge with nowhere to escape.

She couldn’t hit the brakes, or Trevor and Ethan would fall from the hood.

Faster, she thought.

The speedometer read 105 miles per hour. The highest mark was 110.

“Hold on!” Dakota pressed the accelerator to the floor and jerked the wheel to the right. A small adjustment. The Hummer roared into the gap, threading the needle.

The postal truck smashed into her side door. The metal buckled, but held. The Hummer jumped to the right, recoiling from the impact. Dakota heard a loud crash as her head hit the window, but she hardly felt it.

Right in front of her she saw Ethan struggle to stay on the hood. He grabbed onto a windshield wiper blade. His body slid. The wiper blade tore loose in Ethan’s hand. He slid to the edge, about to fall, but Trevor grabbed him. How Trevor stayed on the hood, she didn’t know.

The Hummer’s tires rode up onto the bridge’s sidewalk. The passenger doors scraped the railing. Sparks flew.

Claire screamed words that made no sense.

Dakota ignored it. She focused on the road as the postal truck flew past her. The Hummer cleared the impact zone.

In the mirror, Dakota saw a new threat behind her. The petroleum truck rode the rail, plowing through suspension cables.

A suspension tower buckled and bent, pulled down by the weight on the cables.

It toppled toward the Hummer.

Claire looked up through the sunroof.

The suspension tower fell toward her.

“Dakota!” she screamed.

“I know! I know!” Dakota answered.

The Hummer was riding with two wheels up on the sidewalk. The car steered away from the rail, and bounced back onto the road.

Claire didn’t know how fast they were going, but it wasn’t fast enough. The suspension tower was toppling. They had to outrun it.

“Faster!” she screamed.

Trevor helped Ethan to the sunroof.

Claire grabbed Ethan’s wrists and pulled him inside.

He fell through the open roof, his weight on top of her. She dropped down heavy onto the back seat. The weight of Ethan’s limp body crushed the air out of her.

He screamed in agony. His back and legs were slick with blood.

The tower landed right behind the Hummer.

It crashed onto the span of the bridge.

Concrete and asphalt exploded on impact.

The petroleum tanker truck continued to ride up on the rails, sliding along, taking out one cable after another.

The rails snapped and broke away.

The tanker truck flew out over the side of the bridge.

But the cab of the truck was still caught in a web of suspension cables.

The Highwayman rode the tanker truck down.

He saw the ravine below.

The cab was enmeshed in thick suspension cables.

The petroleum tank flipped over the cab.

The tanker fell in a long arc, first out from the bridge, then down and back toward it.

Heading straight for a support pillar.

The tank smashed into the pillar.

Nine thousand gallons of petroleum ignited in a fireball.

The pillar buckled.

And collapsed.

Trevor rode on top of the Hummer, gripping the edge of the sunroof. The H3 was almost to the end of the bridge.

He glanced back.

The bridge was giving way. The center dropped out.

Behind the Hummer, the great span of the road broke into sections. Metal and cement tumbled into the ravine.

The car bucked and tilted, rear wheels dropping down, nose rising up. The section of the bridge directly under the Hummer was falling away. Trevor could hear the road break and crumble under the back tires.

He lost his grip on the sunroof.

There was nothing for him to hold on to, no ski rack, just smooth metal that slipped under his hands as he slid back toward the rear of the car and the chasm below.

He tried to kick himself forward, but his feet flailed in the open air. His shins bang against the back edge of the roof as the metal rushed under him, giving way to emptiness.

His knees went over the edge.

Then his waist.

Then his chest.

If only there was something to grab—

The tire!

Trevor kept a spare tire mounted to the back door.

As he slid and fell from the roof of the car, Trevor grabbed for the spare tire, felt hard rubber in his hands, and held on tight.

He tucked his legs in. His feet found purchase on the back bumper.

Beneath him, concrete and metal plummeted into the ravine.

The Hummer’s rear wheels spun in the empty air.

But somehow the front tires kept their grip.

The last remaining section of the span snapped and swung down toward the face of the cliff. The car climbed up toward the end of the bridge as the angle of the broken road got steeper and steeper.

Ten degrees—twenty degrees—thirty degrees—

27

Trevor clutched the spare tire mounted to the back of the car. He struggled to hang on. He saw nothing but air between him and the dry riverbed hundreds of feet below. The bridge had collapsed beneath him, but the car hadn’t fallen.

Not yet.

The back wheels spun in the open air, but the front wheels gripped the last section of bridge as it bent down toward the chasm.

Down and down—

He felt the car surge forward.

The Hummer found traction, powered up the broken bridge, and reached the end just as the last piece of the bridge fell into the gorge.

Trevor felt the car skid to a stop on the shoulder of the road. He heard the crunch of gravel beneath the tires. Dust blew past him, gritty as a hailstorm.

For a moment he held on, not wanting to surrender his tenuous safety, the feeling that maybe, somehow, they’d all made it to the other side of the collapsing bridge alive.

The engine idled, then stopped.

An eerie stillness enveloped him. It seemed surreal after the race across the bridge. No wind, no roar, no screams.

Ethan?

The silence could mean anything.

Trevor had done what he could. It was a miracle the other boy had survived being dragged so long, but his injuries…

He’s okay, Trevor thought, willing himself to hope beyond all hope.

Exhausted, he placed one foot and the ground, then the other, and released his grip on the spare tire. He struggled to stand. His knees were weak. He braced himself against the vehicle, then sat down on the back bumper, looking at where they’d come from.

He tried to process what had just happened. Seconds ago, there had been a bridge across the chasm.

Now the bridge was gone.

He heard a car door open, and Claire’s voice behind him calling, “Trevor!”

“Claire,” he said.

And then she was there, standing beside him. Her hair was a mess and her shirt bloody.

The fear in her eyes nearly undid him.

She hugged him tight, buried her head in his neck, and broke down sobbing.

The Highwayman stood at the end of the broken bridge, staring across the chasm at the vehicle parked on the other side.

He saw two teenagers, a boy and a girl. Their spoken words carried across the gulf.

“Trevor.”

“Claire.”

The first name meant nothing to him.

But the second name—Claire—stirred something.

Not a feeling, but a memory.

He could not quite grasp the meaning of it, but this girl was different.

We are connected, you and I.

It thrilled and disturbed him.

The four teenagers had survived their first test.

So be it.

He had let them live, toyed with them on the bridge.

But the night was young, and his grievance old.

Now the kids were trapped on his road, with a broken bridge behind them and no exit ahead.

Only the grave.

They would not live to see the Devil’s Tunnel.

To ensure his conquest, the Highwayman summoned the fog.

Claire held Trevor tight. Her boyfriend was cold and trembling. She had never felt him shudder like this, had never known him to be afraid of anything.

He was afraid now. They all were.

She wiped her wet cheek on his shoulder, and looked up at the gap in the road behind them, where the bridge used to be.

Someone was standing on the other side. It looked like a man, but stood still as a statue.

Not a man, she thought. A ghost.

It was the same figure she’d seen out the window of the diner. The same man they had seen hitchhiking on the road. It wasn’t a ride he wanted. He was following them.

But why?

She knew his name.

The Highwayman.

A legend come to life.

No, not life.

The Highwayman was dead, long dead, and he wanted them dead as well.

That much was clear.

Somehow, he had caused all this. The truck, the chain, the chase, the collision. Because of him, the bridge was gone. Because of him, Ethan bled. The Highwayman had powers she could not begin to comprehend. He was less than a man, but more than a ghost.

He doesn’t want to haunt us.

He wants to kill us.

The Devil’s Tunnel was the end of Blood Alley, the farthest reach of the Highwayman’s domain. Here the road was quiet and empty.

Something stirred within.

From the black, hellish mouth of the mountain tunnel came a wisp of white fog.

The fog snaked along the desert road, gathering strength as it went.

A bank of fog rolled down the mountains and across the plain.

There were no living witnesses, but as the fog moved, shapes appeared like faces pressing through a bed sheet. Visible in the roiling white mist were the dead souls of a mother and child. A withered hag. Teenage twins. And hundreds more.

All were victims of Blood Alley.

They each released a silent scream before being swallowed up by eddies of whiteness, to be replaced by other tortured souls.

28

Dakota sat in the back seat with Ethan cradled in her arms.

His jacket and jeans were torn and soaked with blood. His skin felt cool to the touch. Dakota put a hand to Ethan’s chin and gently turned his face to hers. His eyes were open, but unfocused.

He didn’t seem to recognize her.

Wiping sweat from her boyfriend’s cheek, she said, “Ethan?”

His eyes found hers.

Recognition returned.

She ignored her own tears. “I’m here, Baby.”

“How bad?”

His voice was thin and raspy. The frail words seemed to sap all his energy.

“We’ll get you to a hospital.”

“Can’t… feel.”

Panic surged through her.

Oh God.

“That’s a good sign,” she lied. “Endorphins.” She had learned that word in her AP Bio class. “It means your body is—”

“Bad?”

“You’re bleeding a little, but—”

“Show me.”

“No, Baby, you need to rest now. We’ll get you to a—”

“Show. Me.”

He tried to look down at his legs. He craned his neck, winced, and lay back.

“Don’t move, Ethan. Stay still. We’ll get going again soon, and find you a—”

“Mirror.”

“I don’t have a—”

“Show me!”

He withered her with a look.

She nodded, and pushed away her tears.

Dakota’s purse was on the floor near her feet. She bent over, reached in, and felt for a compact. Opening the case, she angled the magnifying mirror to show Ethan his wounds.

The flesh of his back was red and raw and wet.

So much blood.

Ethan’s face went white. “Oh, man…”

“We’ll get help.”

Dakota pulled the phone from her pocket and checked for a signal.

No bars.

But she couldn’t tell him that.

Instead, she dialed 911 and hit send.

Nothing.

There would be a doctor in Cedarview, she knew, but how long would it take to get there?

Too long.

We have to go back.

Claire held Trevor close, feeling his strong heartbeat against her chest.

She looked over his shoulder at the Highwayman standing on the other side of ravine. He wore a black duster. His slouch hat obscured his face. From this distance she could not read his expression, if there was one, but his face was pale and Claire saw a green glow where his eyes would be. He seemed to be staring directly back at her.

The ghost became translucent, faded, and disappeared.

He’ll be back, she knew.

As long as they were still alive, and on his road, the menace would return.

We have to move on.

She let go of Trevor.

“Well, that was lucky,” he joked.

Trevor gave her a quick smile, but Claire saw through it, to the false optimism beneath.

“It wasn’t luck,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s toying with us.”

Trevor walked to the edge of the ravine. He looked left and right. “No other bridges across.”

Claire joined him at the edge, and looked down. From somewhere in the mountains, a thickening fog slinked into the ravine and crept over the dry riverbed, through the narrow channel, toward the broken bridge. It swirled around the wreckage below, where one support post had been blown apart and two trucks were nothing but twisted metal.

So familiar.

“I saw this,” she said. “Back at the diner.”

“What do you mean?”

“Those pictures on the memorial wall. There was a newspaper article about it. A bridge collapsed. A suspension bridge. Two trucks collided. A petroleum truck exploded, and the bridge went down.”

Trevor gave her a look of disbelief. “You’re saying this happened twice?”

“No, that doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re remembering it wrong, Claire, what you read.”

“I know what I read.”

Trevor backed away from the edge. “There has to be another explanation. Maybe you’re…psychic or something.”

She quoted the man in the diner, Joshua, the man with the burned face. “The road is thirsty. It drinks blood.”

“That’s just a story,” Trevor said.

Fog filled the ravine, moving in like a tide.

Claire said, “I read it on the wall. There was more—will be more. Frankie Lamarque dies five miles past the bridge. Nine miles, a school bus is torn apart—”

“Frankie Lamarque is already dead.”

“And this bridge collapsed years ago, long before we got here.”

“Claire, you’re not making sense.”

“It’s happening again.”

“What?”

“Everything. I don’t know why. Blood Alley, the Highwayman—”

“It’s just an accident, Claire. An accident on a bridge, an old bridge that should have been condemned or repaired years ago. It could have happened on any night. Bad luck it happened tonight. Good luck we survived.”

“Then how do you explain the white car? The woman who was trapped? The ghost flames? How do you explain that?”

“I don’t have to,” he said. “All I have to do is drive.”

The fog rose to the level of the highway.

Claire said, “We have to get off this road.”

“And do what? Cut across the desert? We can’t go back—so we go on.”

The fog curled around their feet and ankles.

“Ethan needs a hospital,” he said. “There should be one in Cedarview. It’s less than an hour if we hurry.”

The fog was already to their knees, and rising.

“Then hurry,” she said.

They jumped back in the car.

Trevor took the driver seat. Claire took shotgun.

She buckled up, then turned back and saw Ethan in Dakota’s arms. The boy’s face was pale, his leather jacket torn. Blood pooled on the seat beneath him.

Dakota’s cell phone was open in her hand.

“We have to go back,” Dakota said, with a strain in her voice.

“We can’t,” Claire answered. “The bridge is gone.”

“I can’t find a signal.” Tears came to Dakota’s eyes. “Nine-one-one—I tried, but no one answers.”

The phones won’t work, Claire knew. Not on this road. Not tonight.

But what she said was, “It’s okay, we’ll get him to a doctor. In Cedarview.”

“But that’s an hour away!”

Trevor buckled up. “Not if we go fast.”

He turned the ignition key.

The car engine grinded and sputtered.

Trevor turned the key again. “Come on, come on.”

Still, the engine didn’t catch.

Claire watched the fog rise to the level of the windows. “Trevor…”

The H3 was swallowed by a white mist.

Claire looked back. The rear window of the Hummer was already broken, busted open by the suspension cable on the bridge.

Fog crept in through the breach like a pale tentacle.

Claire warned, “Dakota, behind you!”

Dakota glanced back. “What?” She gave Claire a strange look. “It’s just fog.”

The engine churned and died.

Trevor punched the steering wheel. “Come on, damnit!”

Claire held her breath as the pale tentacle of fog became a ghostly human arm with a bony, withered hand.

It clawed the air.

And reached for the back of Dakota’s head.

Closer, closer…

Pale fingers brushed against her hair.

Dakota flinched.

And screamed.

29

The engine caught and roared to life.

Claire felt the acceleration press her body against the seat as the Hummer leapt forward through the fog. Trevor kept the pedal to the floorboard.

The spectral hand receded with the mist.

Claire said, “Dakota, are you all right?”

“I felt—”

“What?”

“Cold.”

“It’s fine,” said Trevor. “Everything’s okay.”

Looking ahead, Claire saw only the bright glow of the Hummer’s headlights in the fog. Visibility was nearly zero. Only the rapid pulse of the median line showed through the mist. A glance at the speedometer told her they were going at least 60 miles per hour.

“Trevor—”

“Right.”

He eased up on the gas, and dropped it down to under 20.

“Hurry, please,” Dakota said from the back seat. “I think he’s blacking out.”

“Talk to him,” Claire said. “Try to keep him awake.”

She’d heard that on some TV medical show. It seemed the thing to do. If not for Ethan, then for Dakota.

“I’m sorry,” Dakota whispered to her boyfriend. “I shouldn’t have let you come with us. I knew. Don’t ask me how, but I knew. I had a bad feeling, and I didn’t say it. I should have said it. But we’ll get there soon, Baby, I promise, and everything will be—”

The Hummer jounced and shuddered.

Oh no, not the engine, was Claire’s first thought, then she recognized the problem. The car had gone off the road and onto the shoulder.

He can’t see the turns.

Trevor steered the car onto the blacktop. Claire shot him a look.

“I got it, I got it,” he said.

He slowed down even more, driving at a crawl and leaning into the steering wheel, as if putting his face closer to the windshield might give him a better view. He squinted at the road.

Claire saw a light, barely visible in the mist. Not a car. Something lit up the right side of the road.

Too high up to be headlights.

A sign of some sort, maybe. Like a neon sign on a building. She couldn’t read it, but it was definitely a sign.

Maybe a gas station or a storefront.

She saw the edges of a building, a wall and a sloped roof, black geometry in the swirl of white air.

“Wait, stop,” she said.

“Why?” Trevor asked.

“Look.”

“Where?”

“A building.”

“What building?”

And then it was gone. Lost in the fog.

Claire peered out her side window at a swirl of mist. White billows formed tenuous shapes before dissolving into nothing. She couldn’t quite make out the images. A car? A man? A face? Claire thought she saw a man in the fog.

The Highwayman. Staring at her. Then gone.

The fog thickened.

The median line disappeared.

Trevor was going faster now. Claire stole a glance at the dashboard. The speedometer climbed past 20 miles per hour.

Too fast, Trevor.

They all wanted to get through this fog as soon as possible, but they needed patience—something Trevor always lacked.

Claire said, “Slow down.”

Something appeared in the road.

A coyote.

White fur, yellow eyes.

Trevor slammed on the brakes.

Tires skidded.

The Hummer was about to hit the animal but—

It passed right through the coyote.

Another ghost, Claire realized.

The car came to a stop.

No impact.

Trevor kept the engine running. “Everyone okay?”

“Jesus, Trevor,” said Claire. “I told you to slow down.”

Trevor looked back. “Dakota?”

“Yeah.”

“Ethan?”

Ethan groaned. He was clearly in a lot of pain, but still alive.

Dakota said, “Trevor, I think I saw something.”

“An exit?”

“No.”

“What?”

“Something in the fog.”

“Me, too,” said Claire.

Trevor checked his side mirror. “Coyote.”

Claire scanned the road behind them, looking for the mysterious light they had passed. “We have to go back to that building.”

Trevor shook his head. “There’s no building on this stretch. Nothing for forty miles.”

“I saw a light, Trevor.”

“We need to keep moving.”

“Ethan’s in a bad way,” Dakota said.

“We need help,” said Claire. “There’s some kind of building back there. We just passed it. They might have a land line.”

Trevor said, “Do you see any telephone poles? Use your brain, Claire. No poles, no phone.”

No time.

Claire unbuckled, opened the door, and stepped out.

“Claire, where are you—”

She slammed the door behind her.

30

Claire marched back down the road, alone in the swirling fog. Cool mist heightened her senses. She heard the breeze whistle through the sage, small creatures scamper and slither on the desert floor, and the receding sound of Trevor’s voice.

“Wait…”

She ignored him. Trevor wanted to keep going, but this might be their only chance to save Ethan. There might be someone in the building. Or a phone or computer or radio. Some way to reach out for help. She had to at least try.

Ahead of Claire, a faint voice echoed: “Wait… wait… wait…”

That’s not Trevor.

The voice was much younger. And not a single voice but a pair, whispered in unison. The voices of—who?—what?—young girls?

Claire stopped.

“Who’s there?”

Trevor again, behind her: “Where are you?”

The young girls’ voices echoed. “Where are you?”

And then: “Why are you here?”

Pale faces formed in the mist. Two young girls. Twin sisters, no more than eight years old. As the mist receded, the girls moved forward without taking a step. They stood together holding hands. They wore matching country dresses, light blue, and yellow shoes with little black bows. Perfect white stockings pulled tight to the knees. Braided blonde hair. Dimpled cheeks.

Claire called out, “Hello?”

The children stared at her with curious eyes. “Hello, Becky…”

“I’m not Becky,” Claire said. Where are the parents? They must be here somewhere. “I need help!”

“Yes… yes… yes…”

All Claire could think about was Ethan bleeding out his life in the back of the car. She had to make these girls understand. “Someone’s hurt!”

“Where does it hurt, Becky?”

“Please. Go get your parents. Can you help us?”

“Help us… help us…”

Claire walked toward them.

The twin girls withdrew into the fog and disappeared.

“No, wait…”

Claire followed them into the thick whiteness.

Something snagged her foot, and she fell forward, landing hard with hands and knees. The ground was smooth and hard and—paved? Could she still be on the highway?

Claire stood, disoriented, and looked around for the headlights.

“Trevor!”

The fog thinned, and she saw a neon sign flicker ahead. Most of the panel was dark, but letter by letter the sign lit up. It buzzed and flickered.

Red letters: first a “t” then a “p” then an “o,” forming the word “top.”

An “S” changed the word to “Stop.”

Truck stop? Claire guessed. The girls must have gone inside.

She walked toward the sign.

Behind her, a car horn honked. The Hummer.

Trevor’s frustration cut through the fog. “Damnit, Claire.”

More neon letters lit up, forming two words now: “Stop Car”

Claire looked back and saw red tail lights approach.

The rear of the Hummer emerged from the fog. Trevor was driving in reverse. He backed up beside Claire, and paced her as she walked.

Trevor powered down the passenger window. “Get in.”

“There’s a building,” she said, pointing at it. “They might have a phone.”

She saw the final letters illuminated, completing the sign: “Last Stop Car Hop.”

“Trevor, look,” she said. “It’s from that song. Frankie Lamarque owned this place before he died.”

“I don’t care. It looks like a dump.”

Trevor was right. It was a 1950s diner, out of business for half a century. Window frames clung to broken shards of glass. Doors sagged on their hinges. Outside, speaker boxes were mounted on poles next to each parking stall. Inside, the building was dark and secretive. It bore the weight of gloom and neglect.

Parked in the lot were two old cars—classics from the fifties, maybe, or older, but they looked brand new. One was a red Chevy. The other was a bright yellow Ford coupe. The owners were nowhere to be seen.

Claire crossed the driveway.

Trevor said, “Wait for me.”

He’s stalling for time, she knew. If I wait, he’ll talk me out of this.

“I’m going in.”

“Claire—”

She entered the diner alone.

31

The main dining area was dark and cavernous, revealing only the dim outlines of tables and booths. Faint light spilled from a room in the back.

An office, she imagined.

Claire thought about using the flashlight app on her cell phone, but there was moonlight coming in from the broken windows and that other light from behind the office door.

Save your battery, she counseled herself, like a prudent TV sitcom mother, like the mother she never knew, and probably never would. Careful now.

After letting her eyes adjust, she walked in further, past a sign that read, “Please Wait To Be Seated.”

Her movements stirred dust. Cobwebs fluttered in her wake. She continued past tables and booths, past a row of stools guarding a countertop, past a dead juke box, and arrived with tentative steps at the opening to a back hallway, where she could see light seeping around the edges of a closed door.

“Hello?” she called out.

No one answered.

Must be a phone here somewhere.

Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, and she saw a restroom sign above the entrance to the hallway. Moving into the hall, she felt cobwebs cling to her bare arms and face. But these webs were old and twisted, the monuments of spiders long dead.

Nothing to worry about.

Something brushed her cheek, and she waved it away.

Her spine shivered, and she let it pass.

“Hello?”

She saw an old pay phone between the two doors of the bathrooms. Claire picked up the receiver and listened, but the phone was dead.

Hanging beneath the phone was an old phone book. It dangled from a cord.

The Fowlers once lived around here.

Searching for her family records on the Internet, she’d found reference to the Fowlers in scans of old newspapers, but none of the online directories listed anyone by that name. The earliest directories she could find were from the 1990s. By then, the Fowlers had left the area.

But here was an old phone book.

Frankie Lamarque’s diner must have gone out of business not long after he was killed, which meant this phone book probably dated back to the fifties or sixties. Finding a home address for the Fowlers might be too much to hope for, but an old phone number could be just the clue she needed.

Worth a try.

Claire flipped open the phone book.

Too dark to read.

She tugged on the book, and it came free of its moorings. She carried it back to the dining area. Neon light spilled in from a broken window. Claire set the phone book on a table near the window, and opened the directory to the letter “F.” She ran her fingers down the listings, found “FOWLER, Eldritch,” and ripped out the entire page. She raised it to where the neon light was brightest—

The entire room lit up.

A beam of light traced an arc across the walls. Claire glanced back and saw headlamps through the window. For a moment she was blinded, but then the headlights moved on, and her eyes adjusted.

It was the Hummer parking outside.

Trevor parked the car in a stall next to a speaker box.

The place was old-fashioned, like from the fifties, like that diner in Happy Days or American Graffiti or some old movie with greasers in white tee-shirts and black leather jackets sipping malts, dancing to jukebox rockabilly, and drag racing their hot rods to get their kicks.

He thought of James Dean and the young Marlon Brando. Movie stars with tight-sweatered girls itching for a ride on the bad boy’s bike.

He could picture himself in a scene like that.

Those were the days.

Parked nearby were two other cars, a classic red Chevy and a yellow Deuce Coupe. They weren’t falling apart like the rest of the place, but looked brand-spanking-new. Perfect restorations.

But where are the owners?

They must have been driving by, then stopped to check out the historic location. They’d probably parked, gotten out, and wandered around. Might be inside the crumbling diner right now.

With Claire.

“Wait here,” he said to Dakota. “I gotta check this out.”

He stepped from the Hummer and stalked his way to the coupe. The windows were dark. If there was anyone in there, Trevor couldn’t see them.

“Hello?” called out.

The classic coupe sat silent.

Trevor took a few more steps across the broken concrete, crushing weeds that pushed up through the cracks. He looked in the window of the yellow coupe, then checked the red Chevy.

Both cars were empty.

Claire returned to the back office door. It was closed. A placard on the door read: “Manager.”

The light was on in the office.

Claire stepped up to the door and knocked.

“Hello?”

She waited for a dozen heartbeats, then turned the cold, cob-webbed handle, and pushed the door open.

No one was inside.

The overhead light was a bare bulb, but the cobwebs made it look like a chandelier. A wooden desk supported a manual typewriter and a rotary phone. Gray file cabinets lined the back wall. Golf trophies were arrayed on top. The wall by the desk boasted a framed diploma.

Claire stepped in, leaving footprints in the dust.

Hers were the only footprints. How long had it been since anyone was here? Years? Decades?

Who turned on the light?

She found the light switch by the door. It was covered with undisturbed cobwebs. With her sleeve she wiped away the thin, sticky filaments. She flicked the switch to the off position.

The light stayed on.

Wrong switch?

She looked for another switch, but didn’t see one.

It didn’t matter. She came in to find a phone, and there was a phone on the desk. An old rotary. If the lights worked, maybe the phone did too.

Who’s paying the electric bill?

Claire pushed the thought aside and went to the phone. She picked up the receiver and held it an inch from her ear, but heard no dial tone.

Disconnected?

Following the phone cord to the wall, she discovered that the end of the cord was frayed, as if gnawed by a rodent.

Claire returned the receiver to its cradle and opened the top desk drawer. She found pens and pennies and nickels. She picked out the shiniest penny from the loose change. The back face showed two stocks of wheat.

Wheat penny. She knew they didn’t make those anymore. The front face showed President Lincoln, and was dated 1929. Stock market crash. It was all she’d learned about 1929. The coin was very old, but looked freshly minted. Might be worth something.

She tucked it in her pocket.

Claire closed the top desk drawer and tried the side drawers. Inside she found, among various other files, a folder with news clippings from the Los Angeles Times, Palmdale Post, and South Antelope Valley Press. Mixed in with reviews and articles about the Last Stop Car Hop were reports of accidents on the highway. She recognized some of articles from the memorial wall at Dinah’s Diner.

One of the headlines caught her eye: “Fowler’s Last Stand.”

She unfolded the clipping. It was the front page of the Palmdale Post, dated September 5, 1933. Under the headline was a large black-and-white photo showing a farmhouse surrounded by cops. Four policemen aimed rifles at the front door of the house.

Intense.

The caption read: “Local police surround Fowler residence, moments before the shootout.”

Two other headlines screamed from the front page: “Heartbreak and Horror at Fowler Farm” and “Locals Leery of Lunar Eclipse.”

Claire’s eyes were drawn to the first article, which began:

In the shocking aftermath of the Fowler shootout, authorities are now piecing together clues as to the secret life of highway obstructionist Eldritch Fowler, a life of murder, rape, and incest—

The silence was shattered by a burst of music. It blared from outside the room—from the hallway or the dining area or the parking lot.

It was Frankie Lamarque, singing:

I met my girl by the cherry tree

We took it nice and slow

I asked my girl to marry me

But her old man said no…

Claire guessed it was blasting from someone’s car, but Trevor wouldn’t play that song.

Someone else is here.

Tucking the news clipping into her pocket, she hurried out of the office, down the hall, and back to the dining area.

The jukebox was now turned on, and playing way too loud.

Claire covered her ears. She went to the jukebox and searched for a volume knob, but couldn’t find one. She looked through the glass. A 45 rpm vinyl record spun inside. The label read: “Frankie Lamarque, Last Stop Car Hop.”

Polish the chrome

Put down the top

We’re leaving home

Drive till we drop

To the Last Stop Car Hop

Last Stop Car Hop

Claire grabbed the back of the machine. The jukebox was heavy. It took some effort, but she moved it another inch from the wall. She saw the electrical cord plugged in. She reached through the cobwebs and pulled the plug from the outlet.

The jukebox continued to play.

What the hell?

Trevor’s voice behind her: “Claire.”

She stood and saw Trevor near the door.

“How did you turn this on?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I was outside. You find a phone?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t work.”

A phone rang.

The sound came from the back office.

Claire hurried back down the hallway. Trevor follow, with the music still bouncing off the walls.

She entered the office and answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Claire…” It sounded like the twin sisters in the fog.

“Who is this?”

“We’ve been waiting for you—”

She hung up.

32

Dakota cradled Ethan. She tried to comfort him as he shivered in her arms. He was damp with sweat and blood. She touched the skin of his cheek.

Cold as ice.

Ethan lay on his side, across the seat, with his back to the front of the car and his head in Dakota’s lap. The back of his leather jacket had been worn down to nothing. She could see the boney white of his spine, and moist red muscles where the skin should be.

Oh God, Baby.

She smelled urine.

It didn’t matter.

I’m so sorry.

Ethan would be clean again, and strong, and healthy, and beautiful, once they got him to a hospital.

“I’m not going to let you die,” Dakota said aloud, because he needed to hear it, because she needed to hear it, though she worried it was yet another promise she couldn’t keep.

She heard a crackling outside.

What is that?

It sounded like a PA system turning on, like those ancient outdoor speakers they had at school.

Where are we?

They were parked somewhere on the desert highway—

Blood Alley.

—past the bridge—

Destroyed.

—heading for Cedarview.

Too far.

How much further? She didn’t know. They didn’t have a map, and their phones didn’t work here.

Why are we parked?

Since leaving the bridge, she had barely paid attention to anything but Ethan.

We should be moving.

Nothing else seemed important now.

Why aren’t we moving?

Nothing else seemed real.

Where’s Trevor?

She glanced out the window. Trevor had parked at some dusty old diner. Light flickered from a neon sign, and music played inside, but the place seemed completely run down. She saw a row of speaker boxes, one for each parking stall.

The Hummer was parked next to post with a two-way speaker box mounted on it. The speaker was outside the driver’s window.

Two other cars were parked at the diner. One was red and the other yellow. They were old cars, like on TV. She didn’t know much about old cars. But she knew one thing. Cars had drivers.

Someone else is here. They’ll help us.

A voice from the speaker box said: “May I help you?”

It was a male voice. Old and raspy, like the voice of her uncle before he died.

“Hello?” she called out, but the man on the speaker couldn’t hear her. All the windows were rolled up. The sunroof was open, and the back window was broken—How did that happen?

She needed to roll down the driver’s window, but Dakota couldn’t get there with Ethan in her lap. She lifted him gently and maneuvered out from under him.

Ethan groaned.

“Sorry, Baby.” Dakota eased him back down onto the seat. “I’m getting help. I promise. I’m not going to let you die.”

She climbed into the driver’s seat, then hit the button for the window.

The glass didn’t lower.

Power windows.

She saw the key in the ignition. She turned it and powered down the window.

“Hello?”

No one answered.

“Hello! Someone! Anyone! Who’s there? Can you hear me?”

The voice from the speaker box said again, “May I help you?” The static was loud and thick. It was hard to make out the words.

Dakota reached out and grabbed the speaker box from the stand. There was a cable attached, but the box was free to move. She pulled it through the window and raised her voice, speaking directly into it.

“Help, please! My boyfriend’s hurt.”

“Your boyfriend’s dead.”

“No, he’s alive, he’s here, but he’s—”

“Let him go, Dakota.”

“What? Who are you? How do you know my—”

“He is ours.”

She dropped the speaker box on the floor.

Claire searched the dining area as the jukebox played:

Bye-bye, Daddio

We gotta go

To the Last Stop Car Hop

Last Stop Car Hop…

Trevor followed her. “Who were you talking to?”

“Nobody,” Claire lied. “The line was dead.”

But someone’s here, she thought.

Claire cased the room, walking around the deserted tables and chairs, looking for footsteps, broken cobwebs, anything that might reveal who was here before them.

Outside, a pair of headlights flared on. She thought it was the Hummer, but then saw it was another car, the yellow one. There was something familiar about that car. Claire recognized it from somewhere. But where?

That other diner, she realized.

She had seen the same old car—hours ago—in a newspaper photo on the memorial wall. The car had been burned and mangled at the bottom of a cliff. It drove too fast, veered off the highway, and smashed through a guard rail.

Now here it was, looking brand new. The same car. The car that had been drag racing against—

Frankie Lamarque.

Claire saw Trevor dart for the door. He opened it and shouted out, “Hey!”

Trevor ran outside, trying to flag down the yellow car, but the driver ignored him. The car rolled out of the parking lot, onto Blood Alley, then stopped and waited. The second old car, a red Chevy, joined the yellow car on the highway. The two cars idled side by side, then revved their engines in bravado.

A drag race.

Trevor ran toward the cars. Before he could reach them, they burned rubber and roared off into the darkness.

Claire stepped out of the diner. “They can’t help us.”

“We can catch ’em,” Trevor said, crossing back to the Hummer.

Claire saw Dakota in the driver’s seat.

“We’re fifty years too late,” said Claire.

“What are you talking about?”

“That’s Frankie Lamarque.”

Dakota climbed into the back as Trevor opened the door. The window was rolled down, with a wire running into it from the speaker stand. Trevor didn’t seem to care. He jumped in and started the engine.

“Get in!”

She did, and saw a speaker box on the floor near Trevor’s feet.

Trevor reversed out of the parking stall. The speaker box flew up and slammed against the window frame. The cord snapped. The speaker box fell into Trevor’s lap.

The speaker emitted a mad death-rattle laugh. “Hahahahahaha—!”

What the hell?

Claire grabbed the box and threw it out her window. It bounced onto the highway, laughing madly. Trevor crushed the speaker box under his tires, then chased the ghost of Frankie Lamarque.

33

The car accelerated. The engine revved higher. Claire felt herself pressed hard against the seat. She double-checked that her seat belt was fastened, and watched the speedometer needle climb past 90 miles per hour as the rpm needle redlined.

Her boyfriend’s hands were clenched, choking the life out of the steering wheel.

“Easy, Trevor.”

Far up the road, two drag racers jockeyed for position.

This can’t end well.

From the back seat Dakota said, “What’s going on? Who was that on the speaker? Who are we chasing?”

“Nobody,” Claire answered.

“Why won’t they stop?”

“They’re already dead.”

Claire looked back at Dakota. She saw the younger girl holding Ethan’s hand, and stroking his hair.

Trevor grimaced. “You don’t know that.”

Claire said, “They died on Blood Alley. Fifty, sixty years ago.”

“Ghosts?” Dakota asked, sounding confused. “But they look real. The cars are real.”

“Are they?”

Dakota looked down at Ethan and said nothing. She was crying silently, but the shivering of her shoulders gave her away.

Claire watched the road. She felt safer knowing what was coming, even if it was coming way too fast.

“Trevor, slow down.”

He didn’t. The speedometer needle crept past 100 miles per hour.

You’re gonna get us all killed.

But it was out of her control. No sense fighting it. Trevor had the wheel, he knew what he was doing, and Claire was the last one to tell him how to drive. She might not know much about controlling cars, but she knew that distracting Trevor now was a recipe for disaster.

To take her mind off the road, Claire reached into her pocket for the pieces of paper she’d tucked away—the news clipping from manager’s office and the page from the phone book. She flattened the pages, then flicked on the overhead light.

Trevor flicked it back off. “Not now!”

Claire scrunched her face in frustration. She held the torn page under the passenger side window to catch the dim, reddish moonlight, and searched the list of names.

She felt Dakota reading over her shoulder.

“Put your seat belt on,” Claire said.

Dakota leaned back. “What’s that?”

“A clue.”

“Phone numbers? For the hospital?”

“Fowler.”

“Who?”

“That guy who used to live out here.” Claire skimmed down the list of names. There was only one person named Fowler. “Eldritch Fowler. There’s a phone number, but no address.”

“We need to call a hospital!” Dakota screamed, her voice trembling.

She’s starting to lose it.

Claire said calmly, “Phones don’t work.”

“Try again,” Trevor suggested.

Dakota pulled her cell phone out her pocket and turned it back on. She wiped her eyes, and pressed numbers on the screen.

“Save your battery,” Claire said.

Dakota re-pocketed the phone. “Still no signal.”

“Not on Blood Alley.”

“Stop calling it that.” Trevor’s voice was as tense as his hands. “It’s just a highway.”

Claire reached for his right hand, still clenched tight on steering wheel. She put her hand on top of his. It felt cold. “Then slow down.”

Trevor pushed her hand away. “Claire, please—just let me do this.”

She felt a hot rush of rage. “Don’t get mad at me.”

“I’m not.”

“Fine.”

Just trying to help.

Claire crossed her arms.

Dick.

She sat in angry silence, staring ahead at the tail lights of the dragsters.

We’re not getting any closer.

Claire opened the clipping from the Palmdale Post. In the dim red light of the lunar eclipse she could only read the headline: “Fowler’s Last Stand.” She studied the news photo, which showed armed policemen surrounding an old farmhouse.

That house looks familiar.

The waitress at Dinah’s Diner told them the farmhouse was on this road.

Can’t be too far now.

She was able to puzzle out more of the words. “Fowler… ordered to sell… refusal… eminent domain… courthouse… seizure.”

Someone was trying to take his home, she realized. But why?

Claire had studied something about eminent domain, but forgot exactly what it meant. Mr. Steinitz had talked about it in history class. Something about how the government could just take away a person’s land if they needed to, as long as they paid the owner. The landowner didn’t have any choice, especially if the government needed to build a dam or an aqueduct or—

A highway.

Dakota said, “What’s with the Fowlers?”

“Nothing,” Claire lied.

“Why are you so obsessed with this?”

“I’m not obsessed. It’s just…”

“What?”

You won’t understand.

Claire took a deep breath to calm herself, and lowered her voice. “I think maybe my mom was born around here.”

Trevor let up on the gas and looked over at her. “You sure?”

Claire knew little of her birth mother, who went by several names and never stayed in one place for long. Most people who her knew her mother had called her “Barbara Smith.” But Claire figured out that wasn’t her mother’s real name. Not her family name, at least. “Smith” was a name for hiding her past, and Barbara seemed to have something terrible to hide. She’d given Claire up for adoption at birth. Claire had been a premie, and nearly died a dozen times in her crib. Because of the long ordeal, a nurse at the hospital remembered baby Claire well, and the mother too. That had been the start of the trail, Claire’s first big break in unraveling the story of her past. The evidence was slim, the memories fuzzy, but all signs pointed here.

California.

The Mojave Desert.

Blood Alley.

“My mom was from California,” Claire said, “but ran away from home. She disappeared for years. Came back pregnant.”

“With you?”

Claire nodded. “I think so. Unless I had a brother or sister. I don’t know.”

“Who was the father?” Dakota asked.

“All I have is a name. My mother’s last name before she changed it.” Claire held up the news clipping: “Fowler.”

Dakota said, “If your parents gave you up, what makes you think they want to be found?”

“They don’t.”

Claire felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Trevor, trying to get her attention.

“Look,” he said.

They were much closer now to the drag racers. The red Chevy was in the right lane, with the yellow Deuce Coupe trying to pass on the left. Side by side, the two cars bumped into each other, then veered apart.

Headlights appeared on the road ahead.

A truck coming their way.

This is how Frankie died, Claire realized.

The two drag racers held their lanes, claiming the width of the highway, offering no concession to the oncoming truck.

Claire said, “They don’t know they’re about to die.”

Trevor gained on the Chevy.

Don’t get too close.

“Samantha!” It was a young man’s voice, coming from the red Chevy.

Frankie’s voice, or someone else?

The window of the Chevy was rolled down now. The young man reached his hand out through the window, toward the coupe racing beside it. In his hand was a bright yellow scarf.

Through the open window of the other car, a girl’s hand reached out and grabbed the scarf. The young man didn’t let go. Instead, he steered his car a little to the left, closer to the Deuce Coupe, and pulled on the scarf to draw the girl to his Chevy.

She leaned out her window.

He leaned out his.

It’s him.

“That’s Frankie Lamarque,” Claire said.

The boy and girl kissed, silhouetted by the headlights of the onrushing truck.

Claire heard the truck honk. Then a squeal of tires. The yellow coupe dropped back and cut quickly into the right lane, behind the Chevy and just ahead of the Hummer.

The truck whooshed by.

Sound without wind.

Strange.

Claire turned to watch the truck fade into nothingness.

Ghost truck, she thought.

“That was in…sane!” Trevor looked to Claire for confirmation.

“Watch the road, Trevor.”

“I am.”

“There’s gonna be an accident.”

The Deuce Coupe didn’t give up the race, but returned to the left lane and pulled even with the Chevy.

Frankie shouted out the window, “What the hell, Darren?”

The girl in the Deuce Coupe yelled, “Frankie! Help! Get me out! Get me out!”

She’s terrified, Claire thought.

The girl wasn’t afraid of the near collision, but of something inside her car—she was terrified of the driver, Darren.

Frankie yelled, “Samantha, no!”

Samantha opened the passenger door and leaned out, watching the road fly under her.

She’s gonna jump.

The coupe sideswiped the Chevy. The passenger door hit the Chevy hard. The door slammed shut, throwing Samantha back into her seat. The cars banged into each other again and again. The Chevy slowed and dropped back. The Deuce Coupe sideswiped it. The front end of the Chevy lifted up. It rose into the air as the other car went under it.

The Chevy rolled, bounced, and tumbled.

The driver’s door was torn off.

A body flew out—

Frankie.

The body landed, rolled, and came to rest in the road.

Beside the road, where the body fell, was some kind of marker.

A statue.

As the Hummer raced by, Claire saw the bronze bust of Frankie Lamarque.

A roadside memorial. Wreaths, cards, fresh flowers.

The Hummer drove right over Frankie’s body in the road, but Claire felt no bump of the tires because the corpse was a ghost.

“Oh my God,” Dakota said. “What do we do?”

“Drive,” Claire said.

“But those people…”

Trevor and Claire exchanged a look.

Now he believes me.

Trevor said, “They were dead already.”

34

The Hummer’s headlights glided over the road, giving the median line a steady pulse.

Claire looked back at Ethan. His eyes were closed. His face showed no expression. But his chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm.

He’s still alive, she thought.

She reached back to hold Dakota’s hand, which was slick with Ethan’s blood.

Trevor said, “Everyone okay?”

“No, Trevor. We’re not okay.” Dakota’s tears had left her, but her eyes were red and her voice still trembled. “Ethan’s not okay. I’m not okay. None of us are okay. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Claire saw a light far off in the distance. “There’s a house up ahead.”

Trevor eased up on the gas. “Something in the road.”

It was a large tire. He swerved around it.

“What was that?” Dakota asked.

“Tire,” said Trevor.

But is it real? Claire wondered. She thought back to the wall at Dinah’s Diner. The tire might be a phantom relic from some long-ago crash. The school bus?

“There’s an accident up ahead,” she said.

Trevor replied, “I don’t see it.”

“You will.”

Paper money swirled above the road.

The bank truck. She’d read about a bank truck accident.

A hundred dollar bill flew into the windshield.

And through it.

It fluttered a moment between Trevor and Claire, then sailed out the back as Trevor drove slowly ahead. More money followed. A flock of currency floated through the Hummer. Claire reached out to grab one of the hundred dollar bills, but her hand passed right through it.

Trevor laughed. “If I were a ghost, I’d be rich.”

Claire saw a vehicle in the road. “Trevor!”

It was the bank truck, laying upside down across the highway. Trevor hit the brakes. The Hummer skidded. He regained control and steered slowly around the truck.

Beyond the bank truck lay a smoldering school bus, torn in two.

And corpses.

Too many corpses.

They were teenagers, girls wearing softball uniforms or cheerleading uniforms, though some of clothes had burned beyond recognition. Some were still burning. Most of the young victims lay silent in the road. A few crawled, bleeding, crying.

Trevor’s eyes were anguished.

Claire put a hand on his knee to comfort him. “They’re not real, Trevor.”

“They were.”

Cool air breezed in through the sunroof. Despite the horrific scene, the air did not smell of burning flesh or gasoline, but of mesquite and creosote, the natural smells of the desert.

“It happened years ago,” Claire reminded him. “We can’t help them now. We can only help Ethan.”

Trevor nodded, and eased the car forward through the carnage. The Hummer weaved in and out of twisted metal, broken bus seats, and mangle corpses.

Claire studied the victims as they passed. “Nineteen people died.”

Dakota said, “Claire, what’s happening?”

“We’re seeing the old accidents on Blood Alley.”

“Why?”

“He wants us to see this. He wants us to know. Maybe because—”

“No, I mean, if they all died…why are we still alive?”

Because of me.

The thought came suddenly, but she knew it was true. She felt it. There was some connection between herself and the Highwayman. He could have killed them already. But he was leading them on. Towards something. Towards—

The farmhouse.

A bleeding cheerleader stepped out of the darkness and onto the road. Her clothes were torn, her face gashed and dripping blood. A shard of window glass protruded from her forehead. Below the cut, a fold of skin drooped and covered one eye.

Trevor slammed the brakes. Too late. The Hummer plowed straight into her.

And passed right through.

When the Hummer came to a stop, the wounded girl stood where the car was. Her legs were hidden beneath the floor, but her torso appeared between the seats.

Horrified, Dakota raised a hand to cover her mouth. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

The dead girl turned to face Claire.

Can she see me?

The fold of skin on the cheerleader’s forehead began to peel off. She touched her head. Felt the loose skin. Curious, the girl pulled on the skin to see what it was.

Her entire face peeled off, exposing muscle, bone, blood—

Trevor hit the accelerator. Tires burned rubber as the Hummer picked up speed, leaving the cheerleader behind. He drove over the corpses in the road, but the tires never felt them.

The burning school bus lay directly ahead, blocking the road.

“Stop! Trevor!” Dakota yelled. “Oh my God!”

Trevor drove into the burning school bus.

And through it.

As Claire passed through the flames, she felt no heat. A dying woman knelt on the floor of the bus. Her chest was torn open. Her intestines had spilled into her lap, but her exposed heart was still beating. The woman stared at Claire. Claire screamed. The woman screamed. Claire’s head passed through the woman’s head as their screams became one.

The Hummer cleared the wreckage, and raced into the darkness.

Trevor laughed and eased up on the gas.

“Are you insane?” Dakota asked. “You could have killed us!”

“Relax,” said Trevor. “They’re just ghosts. They can’t hurt us.”

Claire said, “You don’t know that.”

35

When they reached the desolate farmhouse, Trevor pulled over to the shoulder and idled the car. The farm stood fifty yards from the highway. There was an old gray barn out back. There was no driveway, no access road. Just a short stretch of desert leading to the porch.

The porch light was turned on.

“No lights inside,” Dakota said.

Claire held up the news clipping, comparing the farmhouse to the one in the photo. “It’s the Fowler’s house.”

“I don’t think anyone lives there,” Trevor said. “The place is falling apart.”

He was right. The original color had peeled from the wood, and there were holes in the wall large enough to stick a hand through. A screen door hung loose from a single hinge, and creaked softly in the wind.

Claire said, “If the light works, the phone might work.”

“No telephone poles,” Trevor pointed out.

No electrical lines either, Claire noted.

Dakota asked, “Who would want to farm in a desert?”

They were at the edge of the foothills. Claire saw trees in the mountains. In a rainy year, the farm might have been viable.

Not this year.

The Fowlers hadn’t lived an easy life.

“We’re not going in there.” Trevor shifted into gear and rolled forward.

Claire pulled up on the handbrake. “I am.”

She opened her door.

Trevor grabbed her arm. “Claire, don’t—”

She wrenched her arm free. “This could be the answer.”

“This place has nothing to do with you.”

“It has everything to do with me.”

Claire stepped outside.

“It’s just some rotting old building,” Trevor said.

I have to know who I am.

She walked to the house and heard the Hummer following her, rattling behind over rocks and sagebrush.

When she reached the front porch, Claire hesitated. The steps were rotted wood. One of the boards had busted through.

The Hummer parked behind her. Its headlights threw Claire’s shadow across the porch.

She caught movement in the corner of her eye, and glanced up at the window. A dark figure passed through the reddish moonlight.

Someone’s home.

Claire listened for sounds coming from inside the house, but heard no footsteps.

Dakota’s voice, muffled by the window: “This place gives me the creeps.”

The car horn sounded, and Trevor called out, “Hello!”

No answer.

“I’m going in,” Claire said.

She took the stairs carefully, testing each step before applying her full weight. The boards creaked under her. Trevor followed Claire up to the porch. Dakota got out of the Hummer, but held back to put on her sweater. It was chilly out. Claire considered going back to put on another layer, but—

No excuses!

Claire moved aside the broken screen and knocked on the front door.

Paint flaked off.

She looked up at the porch light. It was on, but the bulb was broken.

Trevor saw it, too. “That light,” he said. “That’s not natural.”

Claire peered in through the window. Moonlight stabbed the darkness inside. All she could see was a wooden floor.

“Looks empty,” she said.

She rapped lightly on the glass. “Hello?”

“Let’s go,” Dakota said, her voice high and tense. “There’s nothing here.”

Trevor jiggled the door knob. “Locked.”

Claire tried it for herself, and the handle turned free. The door opened a crack.

Trevor said, “Claire, wait—”

“I’ve waited all my life to open this door.”

She pushed it open, and stepped inside.

36

The farmhouse was dark and dusty and smelled of decay.

Something died in here, Claire thought.

She powered up her cell phone and turned on the flashlight app.

So much for saving the battery.

Claire stood just inside the doorway, looking into the small, bare living room. The only furniture was an antique table and three chairs. A ratty old rug still lay on the floor. If Eldritch Fowler had owned anything of real value, it was long gone, willed or scavenged or confiscated. No doubt other travelers had stopped to explore this empty house, and taken souvenirs. It was one of the few landmarks on Blood Alley.

The kitchen entrance was across the room to her left and a hallway straight ahead. From the front doorway, the kitchen looked bare. All Claire could see in there was a rusty Franklin stove.

The hallway drew her interest. It had the deepest shadows.

If you want to find answers, look in the shadows.

She crept toward the hallway. The floorboards creaked and groaned. A rectangle of moonlight spilled in from open door behind her, forming a trapezoid of reddish light on the floor. A shadow stepped into it.

Trevor.

“Careful,” he said.

“There’s something’s here,” she answered. “Something we’re meant to see.” With her light, Claire indicated the kitchen. “You check over there.”

“We should stick together,” Dakota said from the porch.

You should be watching Ethan. Claire kept the thought to herself.

She stepped into the hallway. There was a door to her right. With her foot she eased the door open and cast her light into the bathroom. It looked like an outhouse. No sink. Just a toilet with a shelf above it that held an old-fashioned water tank.

Claire saw graffiti carved into the bathroom walls:

“Who farted?”

“I did!”

“Who died in here?”

“Your mother!”

“Go away. I’ll kill you all.”

“Prove it!”

“I just did.”

She continued to the room at the end of the hall. It appeared to be a bedroom, but there was no bed, no dresser, no closet. Remnants of a broken lamp lay in a far corner. The window glass was broken. Tatters of cloth fluttered on a curtain rod.

Something flew past the window, screeching. Large and white and fast.

Owl, she thought.

Claire crossed to the window, which looked out on the barn. A man stood by the barn door. He wore a slouch hat and a black duster.

The Highwayman.

A floorboard broke beneath her. Her right leg fell through the wood. She felt a sharp pain on her calf and heard her summer dress rip.

“Ahh!”

“Claire!” Trevor hurried to her side.

“What happened?” Dakota said.

“I’m okay. I think.”

Claire’s right foot was stuck through the floor. She could feel the ground below. Her left leg was bent on the floor, her right hand bracing against the boards to prevent herself from dropping further.

Trevor grabbed her right arm and took some of her weight. Dakota supported her on the left. Claire eased her leg out of the breach. A jagged edge of wood had gouged her right leg. She saw blood on her dress.

“Ouch,” she said, though the worst of the pain was over.

Warm blood seeped down her ankle and into her shoe.

“Let me look at it.” Trevor helped her sit down on the floor, then knelt beside her to check the damage.

Claire held the light steady on the wound. There was a good bit of blood, but the cut looked superficial. “I’ll be fine.”

“We need to wash it clean. I’ve got a kit in the car.”

“I’ll get it,” Dakota said, and left the room.

“Watch your step!” Claire called out after her. “Now I feel like an idiot.”

“Think you can you stand?”

She nodded, and he helped her up. Claire turned back to see where the floor had broken through. She flashed her light into the dark hole.

There was something inside, something pale in the shadows.

She limped closer.

“Careful!” Trevor warned, restraining her from the edge.

“Trevor, look. There something down there.”

“Give me that.”

He took her cell phone examined the hole.

“Looks like a piece of paper,” he said.

“Can you reach it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

He knelt and put his hand into the hole, reaching all the way until his shoulder was at the level of the floor. “Got it!” He came back up with the paper trapped precariously between two fingers. He turned the paper over.

“It’s a photo,” he said.

“Of what?”

Something in Trevor’s expression changed.

He’s afraid.

“Trevor, what is it?” she asked. “What’s in the photo?”

He looked back up at her, staring.

He’s afraid of me.

“Trevor? Are you all right?”

He handed her the photo.

She saw that it was an old black and white photo of a young girl, a teenager, with a man who might be the girl’s father, but it was too dark to see the details.

“Give me the light.”

He did, and she looked at the photo again, under the light. The picture was old and worn—not black and white, but sepia. She knew the girl’s face in an instant.

At last I found you.

“Claire,” Trevor said. “It looks like you.”

37

Dakota crossed carefully through the living room, stepping over the ratty old rug. The room was dark, but the front door was open and she could see the Hummer parked outside.

Ethan was in car. She hadn’t wanted to leave him there alone, but he had told her to go. He was trying to be strong, foolishly so. Ethan thought he was going to die, and didn’t want Dakota to watch him suffer.

You’re not going to die, Ethan.

She’d gone inside to find help, but there was no help in the house. No phone, no supplies—

Something moved outside.

Dakota saw the figure of a man cross behind the Hummer. She heard no footsteps on the ground. The figure moved silently, like a shadow. He wore a loose, long jacket and a wide-brimmed hat. Dakota didn’t see his face.

“Hey!” She darted to door, but lost sight of the man.

He’s behind the car.

Dakota stepped out onto the porch. “Hey, you! Mister! We need help. My boyfriend’s hurt and we need to call nine-one-one.”

She jumped down from the porch, over the rickety steps, and onto the ground. She circled around to the other side of the car.

No one was there.

Where did he go?

“Hey!”

Dakota continued around the car, completing a circle, but didn’t see the man. She scanned the area. There was no one between her and the house, or between her and the road, or between her and the barn.

She was alone outside.

Dakota crouched down to look under the car, but saw no feet.

Freaky.

None of the car doors had opened, so the man couldn’t be inside.

Or could he?

She looked in through a window, and saw Ethan lying there alone across the back seats, eyes closed, moaning softly.

He’s breathing.

She moved forward and checked the front seats.

Empty.

Remembering her purpose, she went to the back of the car to retrieve the first aid kit. She opened the back door. Inside, everything was a jumble. Clothes, suitcases, trash. She moved things aside.

It’s here somewhere.

Ethan sat up in his seat.

“You okay, Baby?” Dakota asked.

He didn’t answer, but opened the car door and stepped outside.

“Ethan?”

She went around to check on him. He was walking away from her. Dakota saw that his back was bleeding badly, all down his legs and onto the ground, but he kept moving slowly, stiffly, with jerky steps.

“Ethan, wait.”

Dakota went after him. She reached him easily, and was about to grab his arm, but thought better of it.

He’s hurt.

She stepped in front of him.

“Baby, where you going? You’re—”

Ethan backhanded Dakota across her cheek.

She heard it more than felt it, a loud explosion inside her head. Then her legs gave way and she was on the ground. The world went black and the stars came out and she was on her back in the dirt and looking up and the world throbbed around her.

Dakota tried to speak but her lips were cracked and numb and all she could manage was to spit and cough. It tasted like blood and tears and betrayal.

Ethan?

She heard a shuffling sound, and raised her head to see her boyfriend shambling away, heading towards—what?

The barn.

Dakota struggled to her knees, and fell, and got back up. The world shifted around her until she held out her arms to steady it.

Wait!

She stumbled after him.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Ethan had never hit her before.

He would never do that!

He was gentle and kind and sensitive.

The physical pain was nothing. She could bear it. It would pass. But what disturbed her most was—

His eyes…

That look Ethan had given her when he raised his arm and the blow came down.

When he’d looked at her, his eyes glowed green.

Claire gazed at the sepia photo of the young girl and the older man. They looked like a father and daughter. The man was in his forties or fifties. The girl was a young teen. The father looked proud, smiling. The daughter seemed camera-shy, nervous, with a tight smile and dead eyes.

She was hiding something.

Faking it.

“It could be my mother,” she said.

Trevor adjusted the angle of the photo. “The picture’s way too old.”

He was right, of course. Claire was born in 1995. Her mother was seventeen at the time. But this picture wasn’t taken in the nineties, or even the eighties.

Maybe the thirties or forties.

The people looked like something out of the Great Depression. Like in that dust bowl movie, The Grapes of Wrath. Their faces were hard and lean. The girl wore a simple country dress and black shoes. The man wore a long dark jacket and a slouch hat. He almost looked like—

“It’s that guy,” Trevor said. “That hitchhiker.”

“The Highwayman.”

“It’s the same dude!”

“Eldritch Fowler. This is his house.”

Trevor paced with excitement. The floor trembled under each step. “So the ghost we saw…is the guy who lived here…and he’s haunting this place…because…”

“He’s not haunting the house,” Claire said. “He’s haunting the road.”

“Why?”

Claire pulled the news clipping from her pocket. “Eminent domain.”

“What’s that?”

“When the government wants to build a road, sometimes they have to buy up the land from whoever owns it.” She had read enough of the article to know the basics. “Fowler owned the land around here. The state needed the land for their new highway. But Fowler refused to sell. The case went to court. Fowler lost, but he refused to leave. So they sent cops here to evict him. There was a standoff.”

“And they killed him?”

“I think so. That’s what they say about ghosts, right? There’s always a crime. Some kind of…vengeance. Something that ties the spirit to the place they’re haunting.”

“But Fowler was a murderer. He raped his daughters and killed his family.”

Claire shook her head. “A cover story.”

“You think they framed him?”

“There was a standoff, and Fowler got shot. Then they made him look like the bad guy.”

“They killed him for the road,” Trevor said. “And now…”

“Blood Alley is his revenge.”

Somewhere outside, Dakota screamed, “Ethan!”

Trevor muttered, “Oh no,” and ran from the room.

Claire followed, but couldn’t run as fast. Her leg hurt. She limped down the hall, through the living room, to the front door. She saw Dakota running to the barn. Trevor ran after her.

Someone needs to stay with Ethan.

She stepped gingerly down the porch stairs. A car door was open. When she reached it, she saw that Ethan was gone. There was blood on the ground. A trail of blood. It led away from the car, toward the barn.

What’s going on?

Claire was about to close the door when she noticed that Trevor had left the keys in the ignition.

Bad idea.

She grabbed the keys, then headed for the barn.

Trevor reached the open barn door just behind Dakota, who hesitated at the edge of the darkness within.

“Ethan?” she called out, pulling her long-sleeve sweater tight around her.

There was no answer but the echo of her own voice.

Trevor felt a chill coming from inside the barn. It was much colder than the air outside. The place smelled of old straw.

“Wait here,” he said, turning on his flashlight app.

Light fell on the dirt floor. Spider webs and farm tools hung on a wall—hammers and scythes, rakes and pitchforks. A tarantula crawled along the rafters.

In the middle of the barn sat a 1930s combine harvester-thresher. Part tractor, part thresher. Painted bright red, it looked like a demon. The eyes were glass panels at the front of the cab. The jaws were rotating blades.

Trevor raised the light and saw Ethan at the controls, behind the windshield glass. The boy had an odd stare.

What’s wrong with his eyes?

Dakota stepped into the barn. “Ethan—?”

The thresher roared to life.

Startled, Dakota and Trevor jumped back.

Trevor said, “Stop playing around.”

Ethan grinned. The thresher lunged forward.

Straight for Dakota.

What’s he doing?

Dakota just stood there, in the path of the moving blades.

Trevor grabbed her arm. “This way!”

They ran for the door.

The thresher chased them. Sharp blades spinning.

Behind them, Ethan laughed maniacally.

They were almost to the door when Dakota stumbled.

Trevor doubled back. Grabbed Dakota’s hand. Pulled her up.

They ran out the door just in time.

Once outside, Trevor saw Claire limping towards them. She was halfway between Trevor and the Hummer.

Behind Trevor, something crashed through the barn. The wall exploded in a shower of splintered wood.

He turned and saw the thresher bearing down on them.

Oh, shit.

“Run!”

38

Claire saw Trevor and Dakota run out of the barn door, panic on their faces. Something crashed through the wall of the barn. A giant tractor with spinning blades in front. A combine harvester-thresher.

She froze.

Trevor yelled, “Run!”

Claire ran back for the Hummer. Her leg hurt, but she didn’t care anymore. Her breath quickened. Her vision narrowed. All she could see was the car ahead.

Get to the car.

Now.

Run!

She had the car keys in her hand. They bit into her palm as she tightened her fists and pumped her arms and kept her legs moving. Claire reached the car and flung open the door and jumped into the front passenger seat, then slammed the door.

Trevor and Dakota were far behind, on foot, chased by some maniac in a giant tractor with blades that could kill. They needed her help. But what could she do?

Keys.

Drive.

Now!

Claire moved over into the driver’s seat. Stabbed the key into the ignition. Turned it.

The engine cranked.

Wouldn’t start.

Trevor and Dakota tried to outrun the thresher. It gained on them. The blades spun only inches away. Trevor pulled Dakota to one side. They barely escaped the blades, as the tractor roared past them.

The thresher came straight for the Hummer. Close enough now for Claire to see the driver.

Ethan?

Claire tried again to start the engine.

Ethan and the thresher were thirty feet away—twenty feet—

The Hummer started up. Claire stepped on the accelerator. The engine revved, but the car stayed in place.

What?

She studied the controls.

I’m doing it wrong.

The thresher was ten feet away, and closing.

The car was in park.

Claire shifted into reverse.

The Hummer backed up.

The thresher smashed into the front end.

Claire wasn’t wearing her seat belt. The sudden jolt threw her out of her seat. She bumped her head on something hard and landed sprawled on the passenger seat.

The Hummer spun from the impact.

Outside, Trevor yelled, “Claire!”

The car stopped spinning.

Claire was dazed but shook it off. She saw the thresher turning, with Ethan in the driver’s seat.

Not Ethan, she realized. The Highwayman.

Claire climbed back into the driver’s seat. Buckled up.

I have to stop him.

The thresher turned back and aimed not at the Hummer this time, but at Trevor and Dakota.

Claire was too far away. She couldn’t help them. She pressed down on the horn and screamed a warning. “Trevor!”

Trevor saw the thresher coming for him. Ethan had smashed it into the corner of the Hummer, but he didn’t seem to care about the car anymore. Now Ethan—The Highwayman—was coming for Trevor and Dakota.

He wants us dead.

If they could get to the car, they could escape. The thresher was deadly, but it wasn’t fast. Faster than a man on two feet, but slower than the car.

But they couldn’t get to the car without running past the thresher.

Too dangerous.

And the barn was no protection. The thresher had smashed right through the walls.

Have to get to the car.

They’d have to run another way—the back way—

Around the house.

He stopped Dakota. “No, this way!”

They ran behind the farmhouse, with the thresher in pursuit.

Circling the house, Trevor saw an old chicken coop.

They raced past it.

The thresher smashed through the chicken coop.

Wood and old feathers went flying.

A piece of wood hit Trevor in the leg and almost tripped him up, but he caught himself and kept running.

Behind him Dakota yelled, “Trevor!”

He glanced back.

Dakota was on the ground.

The back of her head was bleeding. She’d been hit by debris.

The thresher was going to run Dakota over.

It was three feet away from her—

Two feet—

Trevor wasn’t close enough to reach her in time.

Nothing he could do but watch.

39

Dakota was sprawled on the ground. Something had hit her in the back of her head and knocked her down. She heard a mechanical roar in her ears, growing louder.

She turned and saw the thresher. It loomed like a giant above her. Coming closer. Without mercy. Steel blades spinning inches away.

Dakota rolled to one side.

The thresher blades sliced past her.

One of the blades caught the sleeve of her sweater.

Chewing it up.

The sweater pulled Dakota back toward the sharp cutting edges.

She heard Trevor shout, “No!”

Dakota twisted.

Got her arm out of the sleeve.

Wriggled out of the sweater as the thresher ate it.

She fell free of the thresher blades.

The deadly machine moved on, aiming now for Trevor.

“Ethan, stop!” she screamed, getting back on her feet. “What are you doing?”

Dakota saw Trevor run for the back door of the farmhouse. He would be safe inside. He tried the handle, but the door didn’t open.

Locked, she realized.

With his elbow Trevor shattered the window, then unlocked the door from the inside.

The thresher bore down on him.

Hurry, Trevor!

He opened the door.

Ran inside.

Slammed the door shut behind him.

Dakota heard another engine behind her.

It was the Hummer, driven by—

Claire?

The Hummer stopped next to Dakota.

Claire said, “Get in!”

Trevor paused inside the farmhouse. He’d stepped into  some kind of pantry behind the kitchen.

Safe.

The noise of the thresher grew louder.

He looked back through the busted window.

The harvester-thresher charged right at him.

It was going to ram the building—

Oh, shit.

Trevor backed away from the door.

The thresher burst through, obliterated the back wall, and tore into the house. Old wood splintered away.

Trevor turned and ran.

He ran into the kitchen.

Another wall exploded behind him.

The thresher emerged from the wreckage.

It couldn’t be stopped.

Trevor ran from the kitchen into the living room.

The thresher came after him.

Chewing up the floorboards.

Trevor ran for the front door, his feet pounding on the old ratty rug.

The thresher caught the rug.

Pulled it into the blades.

The rug slipped under Trevor’s feet.

He fell onto it.

The rug dragged him toward the spinning blades.

He rolled away.

The floor trembled beneath him.

Above him, he saw a flood of blood-red moonlight as the sky opened up.

The roof was caving in.

The house was collapsing all around him.

Trevor scrambled to his feet

He ran for the front of the house, the thresher at his heels.

No time to open the door.

He aimed for the window.

And dove through the glass.

Claire drove around the side of the house, with Dakota in the back seat. Trevor was somewhere inside the house. The thresher machine had smashed right into it. The house quaked with a terrible crashing noise that kept on going.

“Claire, let me drive,” Dakota said.

“I got this.”

She was getting the hang of it. Once the car was in the right gear, it really wasn’t that hard. You just pushed down on the gas pedal and turned the steering wheel and tried really, really hard not to hit anything.

Don’t screw this up.

The walls of the old farmhouse were caving in.

Claire rounded the corner to the front of house. She saw Trevor dive through a window pane as the house imploded behind him.

He landed on the porch, saw Claire in the Hummer, and ran for her.

The thresher emerged from the ruins of the house like an angry metal god.

It chased Trevor over the open ground, gaining on him.

Claire honked a warning. “Trevor!”

She drove straight for him.

Trevor ran straight for the car.

She was going to hit Trevor.

Out of the way!

The spinning thresher blades were inches behind him.

Trevor jumped up onto the hood of the Hummer.

Rolled over the roof.

The Hummer and thresher collided.

Claire felt herself thrown forward as her face hit the airbag.

Trevor rolled over the hood of the Hummer and felt the collision under him. He grabbed the sunroof and held on like a rodeo rider. Metal bucked beneath him.

He saw Ethan launched forward through the shattering windshield of the thresher and into the spinning blades.

The boy’s body was sliced apart.

Blood sprayed across the Hummer and into Trevor’s face.

The blades ground to a stop against Ethan’s skull.

When it was over, Trevor slid from the roof to the ground, and braced himself against the side of the Hummer. He staggered to the passenger side door and opened it. He saw Claire belted in the driver’s seat, head forward, with an airbag in her face.

“Claire?” he asked. “You okay?”

She looked at him. “Yeah.”

Dakota was in the back seat, moaning in pain.

They’re both alive.

The windshield was blocked by two deployed airbags. Trevor got a pocket knife from the glove compartment, and cut away both bags.

Claire gasped.

She sees it.

His girlfriend stared in horror at the thresher.

Ethan’s face was lodged in the blades, facing out with one eye open.

It glowed green.

The glow faded, leaving behind a dead stare.

Claire re-started the engine.

Trevor said, “Let me drive.”

“Okay.” She unbuckled her seatbelt.

Trevor glanced back at the machine. He saw the Highwayman step out of Ethan’s mangled corpse.

“No time,” he said, jumping into the passenger seat. “We need to go—now!”

Claire reversed the car in a cloud of dust and drove the Hummer back onto Blood Alley.

40

The Highwayman stood alone beside his old combine harvester. His house was destroyed, but that hardly mattered.

They took my home eighty years ago.

Now his only home was the highway.

The kid in the thresher was dead and diced and of no more use. Three more intruders remained. Having possessed Ethan, the Highwayman now knew who they were: Trevor and Dakota and—

Claire.

Claire was something special.

She looks just like her mother.

With a tilt of his head, the Highwayman summoned the Revenant. He heard the familiar roar as it emerged from the void beyond the darkness. The Highwayman stood waiting, his back to the ghost car. He raised his arms in front of him, as if gripping an invisible steering wheel. The Revenant drove into the Highwayman’s back. The hood of the car passed through him. The steering wheel passed through him. It settled into his waiting hands as the driver’s seat caught and cradled him.

The Highwayman took control, and returned to Blood Alley.

Claire’s hands trembled on the steering wheel. She was shaken by what had just happened. The house was demolished. The car was smashed. But they were alive.

And Ethan’s dead.

She fought back the press of tears. She was driving now, and had to stay strong. Claire saw a pair of headlights in her rearview mirror.

The Highwayman.

The car behind her looked real—sleek and black and dangerous—but all the ghosts on Blood Alley looked real.

She accelerated, and the headlights dropped into the distance.

From the back seat Dakota said with a quivering voice, “You killed him.”

Trevor moved back to calm his sister. “Dakota—”

“Ethan’s dead, and she… she…”

“It wasn’t Ethan who attacked us,” he said. “It was the Highwayman. He made Ethan do those things.”

“Liar!” Dakota screamed.

Claire said, “Dakota, I’m so sorry.”

“Shut up! Shut up! I hate you!”

Claire felt sharp blows to the back of her head. Dakota was hitting her. A burst of white light filled Claire’s vision and she struggled to stay on the road. The Hummer swerved to the rocky shoulder.

Trevor grabbed Dakota and held her back.

Claire corrected the wheel, and returned to the pavement. She checked the mirror. The ghost car was far behind.

Dakota sobbed into Trevor’s chest.

“We have to find an exit,” he said.

“No exit,” Claire said. “The only way off Blood Alley is through it.”

She saw a semi truck ahead, parked beside the road. Its cargo was a load of live chickens.

Trevor shouted, “Claire, look!”

“I see it.”

The road flew under her. She didn’t slow down.

“Pull over,” Trevor told her.

“No time.”

“He has a radio. We can call out on the CB.”

Risky.

Claire eased off the accelerator as she drove past, and glanced at the cab of the truck. She didn’t see a driver.

“Okay.”

She hit the brakes.

The car skidded and fishtailed.

Trevor yelled, “Foot off the brake!”

She took her foot off, and managed to regain control. Then slowed to a stop.

“Hurry,” she said. “He’s right behind us.”

Trevor opened the door and jumped out.

When he reached the cab of the semi truck, Trevor stepped up onto the running board and grabbed the hand rails. The truck rocked slightly. The chicken cargo squawked. Trevor peered in the window but saw no one in the seat. He gave the door handle a pull. It was locked.

Something moved inside the cab—a person in the sleeper berth behind the seat. Trevor tapped on the window glass. The man sat up and stared at Trevor. The truck driver’s hair was a mess. He had hammer in one hand.

Trevor said, “Hey! You got a CB?”

The driver stared at Trevor a moment, then waved him away. “Step down.”

Trevor jumped down from the running board.

The cab door opened. The man looked out. He wore a coffee-stained wife-beater and a frown. “What’s that you say?”

“Radio! You got a radio?”

The Hummer’s horn blared a warning.

“What’s the trouble?” the truck driver asked.

Trevor saw the demon-looking headlights racing toward him. It had to be the Highwayman, driving some ghost car.

He shouted to the truck driver, “Police! Call the police. My sister’s hurt. Her boyfriend was killed. Back at that farmhouse.”

“Stay there.”

The truck driver turned on the CB and grabbed the handset.

The ghost car was coming on fast, aiming straight for the semi truck.

The Hummer backed toward Trevor, weaving left and right. Claire was having some trouble with reverse.

Easy, Claire.

The trucker spoke into his CB radio. “…ten-thirty-three. Over.” He turned to Trevor. “What’s your name, kid?” He held out the handset for Trevor to speak.

Trevor stepped back onto the running board, and spoke loudly to whoever was on the line. “Trevor. Trevor Watson. We need help!”

The Highwayman drove his car straight into the back of the semi truck, through the cargo container. Headlights passed through rows and rows of live chickens. Birds flapped and squawked as the ghost car raced through.

The phantom vehicle penetrated the cab, then disappeared. Trevor saw the Highwayman enter the truck driver’s body. The man’s scream became a death-rattle laugh. The possessed driver turned to Trevor. His eyes glowed green.

He grabbed Trevor by the throat, wrapped the CB cord around Trevor’s neck, and pulled it tight as a noose.

41

The Hummer skidded to a stop.

Dakota jumped out and saw Trevor fighting with the truck driver. The driver had a cord wrapped around her brother’s neck and was choking him. Trevor’s veins bulged. His face turned blue. He couldn’t breath.

“Stop! You’re killing him!”

Dakota climbed onto the running board and starting hitting the guy’s arm and shoulder. “Let him go!”

Trevor punched the trucker in the face. Dakota heard a crunch as the guy’s nose broke under Trevor’s fist. Blood spurted from the man’s nostrils. The cord broke, Trevor fell, and Dakota fell with him, landing hard on the asphalt.

Claire screamed, “Get in!”

Trevor and Dakota scrambled into the car. Claire burned rubber and put some distance between them and the truck.

“That guy was crazy,” Dakota said.

“Possessed,” said Trevor, clearing his throat.

Dakota looked back and saw the semi truck pull onto the highway.

“Claire, he’s following us.”

“I know.”

Dakota said to Trevor, “What do we do now?”

“Go faster.”

Claire accelerated. Wind whistled through the sunroof and the broken glass of the back window. Dakota couldn’t see the speedometer, but she knew they must be going 100 miles an hour, at least. Claire seemed tense.

She’s never driven this fast before.

Trevor put on his seat belt.

Dakota did too.

“You’re doing great,” Trevor said to Claire. “Just keep driving. Keep your eyes on the road ahead and don’t slow down.”

Claire nodded.

Glancing back again, Dakota saw the truck’s headlights fading far behind. The semi couldn’t match their speed.

They zoomed past a parked car. Dakota saw it out of the corner of her eye. It was black and white. She knew what that meant.

Trevor said, “Cop.”

Dakota felt the Hummer slowing as Claire eased up on the gas.

“Don’t slow down,” Trevor said. “We have to get to the tunnel.”

“But I’m going to get a ticket!”

“Yes, you’re going to get a ticket. And if you slow down, you’re gonna get us killed.”

The police lights came on. The siren gave a short burst.

“I’m driving without a license!”

“And you’re doing a great job, Sweetie. Push the gas pedal down all the way, and keep your eyes on the road.”

Dakota saw the patrol car drive behind them, getting closer.

“What do I say when he pulls me over?” Claire asked.

“He’s not going to pull you over. Not yet.”

The police car caught up with them, and gave another siren burst. Over the loudspeaker: “Slow down now and pull over to the curb!”

“Ohmigod,” Claire said.

Trevor put a reassuring hand on Clair’s shoulder. “Just get us through the tunnel, and this will all be over.”

Dakota saw the headlights of the semi truck coming up behind the patrol car.

Claire said, “He’s going to throw us in jail.”

“No, he’s not,” Trevor said. “Not after we tell him what happened. We’ll tell him the truth, and it’ll be okay. He’s not the enemy, Claire. The enemy’s driving that truck. He’s a supernatural maniac with a big-ass truck who wants to fucking kill us. And we just got ourselves a police escort.”

“Pull over now!”

The policeman accelerated. Rode close to bumper of the H3. Party lights flashing red and blue. Through the broken back window, Dakota could see the policeman’s face. He didn’t look happy.

“This is your last warning. Pull over now, or—”

The semi truck rammed the patrol car from behind.

The patrol car knocked into the back of the Hummer.

Dakota felt the sharp jolt and heard the policeman scream into his handset, “…pursuit of suspects… need assistance… send all units—”

He was hit again, and the policeman lost control.

The semi truck forced the patrol car off the road, onto the shoulder, and straight into a Joshua tree. The car exploded in a fireball.

And the possessed trucker kept on coming.

Trevor saw the fireball rise above the desert.

Oh, man.

“What just happened?” Claire asked.

Dakota screamed, “He killed that cop!”

“What?”

“They’re gonna think we did it.”

Trevor saw Claire check her rearview mirror.

“Keep your eyes on the road,” he said.

She looked straight ahead.

Trevor looked back. The semi truck had fallen further away, slowed by collision with the highway patrol car. But it was accelerating again. Trevor had never seen a big rig move so fast on a straightaway. It didn’t seem possible.

“Go faster!” he said.

“I can’t.”

Trevor checked the speedometer. They were already redlined, going more than 110 miles per hour.

Jesus.

Claire wasn’t ready for this. None of them were.

I should be driving.

He knew it. They all knew it. No one knew it more than Claire, sitting there terrified behind the wheel. But there hadn’t been time to change seats—and at this speed it was suicide. Slowing down wasn’t an option.

Trevor felt trapped. He needed to do something, anything.

I have stop him now, before he kills us all.

The speeding truck closed the gap, and was nearly on their bumper. He was going to do to them what he’d just done to that cop.

I can’t let that happen.

Bright light from the truck’s headlamps flooded the car.

Trevor shielded his eyes. He could see the truck driver over the grille. The man was clearly possessed, his eyes glowing green.

“He’s too fast,” Claire said.

Dakota let out a whimper. “What do we do?”

An idea occurred to Trevor. He knew what he had to do.

I have to go out there.

He unbuckled his seat belt and climbed to the far back of the Hummer.

Claire said, “What the hell are you doing?”

Trevor was determined, committed, ready fore action.

Even if it kills me.

“He started this fight,” Trevor said. “I’m gonna end it.”

“Trevor, no—”

He opened the back door and braced himself as the truck came closer. He stood on the bumper, waiting for the grille of the semi truck to come within reach.

Almost there…

Almost there…

Come closer, you sonofabitch—

He jumped.

42

Trevor landed on the front bumper of the truck and caught hold of the grille. He clung tightly as the fierce wind whipped all around him.

The truck swerved left and right, trying to shake Trevor, but he hung tough.

Nice try, asshole.

Trevor edged along the bumper to the passenger side, then pulled himself around to see the cab door. The window was rolled down.

He planted one foot on the corner of the bumper and swung the other leg over the fender of the wheel well.

The mirror brace offered a handhold, but it was too far to reach.

Have to chance it.

He let go of the grille—

Pushed off the front bumper—

Slid over the wheel well—

And grabbed the mirror mount.

His foot found the running board below the passenger door. He grabbed the door handle and gave it a pull.

Locked.

The window was open. He reached through. The glass pane rolled up. He grabbed the top of the glass. It kept rising, digging into the palm of his hand and lifting him off the running board.

With his other hand he punched the glass. It shattered. Glass rained down, and Trevor fell, but he caught his hand on the door. Broken glass bit into his palm.

Ouch.

He reached in, unlocked the passenger door, opened it, climbed in, and dove for the steering wheel. He grabbed it and gave it a quick turn. The truck swerved onto the dirt shoulder.

The driver shoved him back.

Trevor punched the driver in the face. Again and again.

He doesn’t feel pain.

The truck driver elbowed Trevor in the jaw.

Trevor wrapped his arm around the driver’s neck, cutting off his windpipe.

The driver grabbed Trevor’s arm and wrenched it hard, dislocating it from his shoulder socket. Pain screamed through Trevor’s body. The driver slammed Trevor’s arm down on the steering wheel, breaking it at the elbow, then pushed the boy away.

Trevor’s broken right arm dangled at his side. He tried to move it, tried to make a fist, but nothing happened.

He saw a hammer on the passenger seat, grabbed it with his left hand, and swung it at the driver’s head. He missed the first time, striking the man’s shoulder. Then swung at the man’s head again and again.

“Die, motherfucker!”

On the fourth swing, the hammer crunched through and sank into the driver’s skull.

The man jerked his head away. The haft of the hammer slipped from Trevor’s hand. The driver grabbed the handle and removed the hammer from his skull. It came away dripping blood and brains. The driver examined the hammer, turned it curiously, and sank its claw into Trevor’s belly.

The boy fell back, gushing blood.

With his last ounce of strength, Trevor gave the steering wheel a hard kick.

The truck turned sharply.

And rolled.

The cab nose-dived into the pavement as the trailer rose high into the air.

Trevor flipped and fell and bounced and rose and fell again.

When he finally stopped moving, Trevor saw stars above him and a reddish moon. White feathers floated in the air. He lay on the highway near the roar of a fire and the smell of burning diesel. The dead body of the truck driver lay next to him.

But Trevor was alive.

Hurt, broken, bleeding—but somehow alive.

He struggled to rise.

Something’s wrong.

He looked down.

A sheet of glass was lodged in his chest. A piece of the windshield.

Oh, shit.

Blood pulsed down the pane.

I’m a dead man.

In the shard of glass he saw the reflection of a fireball, flames licking the sky.

The truck was destroyed, the driver dead.

I did it. I saved them…

Something moved on the road.

Trevor watched with horror as the Highwayman rose up from the dead man’s body.

43

The Hummer idled on the highway. Claire set the parking brake and watched the fireball in her rearview mirror.

Trevor…

She saw the Highwayman standing over two lifeless bodies, silhouetted by a wall of flame as the big rig burned.

Trevor, I can’t do this without you.

A car drove out of the flames. It was sleek and black and looked like a demon with two bright headlights for eyes and a coffin-nosed hood.

It drove into the back of Fowler’s ghost. The driver’s seat caught and cradled him, and the Highwayman took control.

Claire said to Dakota, “Buckle up.”

“But Trevor—”

“Buckle up!”

Claire released the parking brake, shifted gears, and floored it.

Dakota buckled up.

Claire wiped away tears as the highway hummed beneath her.

Dakota, too, was crying. “We’re never gonna get off this road, are we?”

“We’ll just need to make it through the tunnel.”

“Why does he hate us? We didn’t do anything to him.”

“We took his road,” Claire said, “without paying the toll.”

“What that even mean?”

“His name is Eldritch Fowler. Someone killed him so they could build this highway. They took his land, took his family, took his life. They buried him under this road, Dakota, and now he can never leave.”

“And he won’t let us leave, either.”

“There’s something else he wants,” Claire said. “I think he’s been toying with us all along. If he really wanted us dead, we’d be dead already.”

“Ethan’s dead. Trevor’s dead.”

“I’m not. There’s something he wants from me.”

“You? You think this is all about you, Claire?” Her voice was rising. “My brother’s dead and my boyfriend’s dead, and all you can think about is yourself?”

“He wanted me to find the photo.”

“What photo?”

“The one I found in the farmhouse.” Claire took the photo from her pocket and handed it to Dakota. “That girl in the picture—it could be my grandmother. Rebecca Fowler. The girls in the fog called me Becky. I look like her. We must be related. It connects me to him.”

“To the Highwayman? You’re his…what, his granddaughter?”

“I don’t know, Dakota. I really don’t know. I was adopted, I never knew my family. Now this. I think he wants me to know to the truth.”

“Then he should just fucking say it and let us go free!”

“Maybe it’s something he can’t tell me. Something I need to see. Isn’t that what they say about restless spirits? Unfinished business. They were hurt or wronged or betrayed in our world. Some dark, buried secret that needs to come out. Maybe the Highwayman just wants to set the record straight, to clear his name.”

“By killing people?”

“There was a crime, and a coverup, and a legend full of lies.”

“But the legend is true, Claire. It is a haunted highway. It’s pretty fucking real.”

“Maybe we can end it. Put his spirit to rest.”

What does he want to show me?

“Just get us through the tunnel.” Dakota was sobbing louder now. “I want to go home.”

The tunnel…

She remembered a news photo on the memorial wall. A picture of the Devil’s Tunnel. An image of the mouth of hell.

“Of course,” Claire said. “The tunnel fire. Nine people died last year in the Devil’s Tunnel. Before that, twenty-two. It’s the deadliest place on Blood Alley. That’s where he ends it. That’s where he…”

“What?”

“…lives.”

Dakota said, “If all those people died in the tunnel, then it must be a trap.”

“Joshua made it through.”

“Who?”

“The truck driver in the diner. With the burn scars on his face.”

“Claire, we have to find another exit. Another way.”

“Not tonight.” Claire sped on, more determined now than ever. “We have an appointment with the Highwayman.”

44

Responding to a call for assistance, Officer Carlos Ramirez punched his patrol car out of the Devil’s Tunnel and raced down the mountain at 90 miles an hour.

That damn eclipse always brings out the crazies.

Ramirez saw two sets of headlights in the distance, one vehicle approaching fast in the opposite direction, and another chasing behind.

Well, hello there.

He radioed in. “I have visual of the suspect. Five miles south of the tunnel.”

Ramirez slowed and pulled to the side, but left his party lights on. His orders were to report and pursue if necessary, while others set up a blockade at the tunnel.

The suspect’s car sped closer.

Ramirez clocked it going 123 mile per hour.

What’s your hurry?

“Suspect is driving a Hummer H3. Color is red.”

The Hummer sped by in a Doppler rush.

Ramirez pulled onto the road and joined the pursuit.

It appeared the other patrol car—Stevens?—was far behind, but gaining.

“Slow down and pull over!” Ramirez commanded over the loudspeaker.

He checked the headlights behind him, to see how Stevens was coming along.

That’s odd.

It didn’t look like a patrol car.

The headlamps were too close together and the hood was the wrong shape.

“What is that?” he said aloud.

Whatever it was, it moving fast.

Hella fast.

Bastard’s gonna hit me.

It didn’t.

The other car drove into the patrol car, and through it.

What—?

Ramirez was seized by an icy chill. It ran through his body, through his soul. His muscles tensed. He screamed in agony. His scream became something else, something other. A strange force had crawled inside him.

I am the Highwayman.

Ramirez heard the dispatcher on the radio. “Officer, is there a problem?”

The thing inside him answered with Ramirez’s voice: “Accident in the tunnel on Devil’s Pass. Repeat. Major pile-up on Devil’s Pass. Send all units.”

And then the thing inside him was gone.

Ramirez saw the phantom figure of a man leave his body. The phantom drove a ghost car. It sped forward, out of the patrol car, surging ahead.

The Highwayman.

He’s real.

The chill left him, but Ramirez’s hands on the wheel were numb and unresponsive.

The patrol car drifted off the road.

On the radio, the dispatcher said: “All units! Accident inside the Devil’s Tunnel. Multiple vehicles. Casualties reported. All units, all units.”

The patrol car rumbled off the road and into the desert. Ramirez gripped the steering wheel between his elbows and turned the car back toward the road. As he regained control of his body, Ramirez continued the pursuit.

In the mirror Claire saw the ghost car pass into the Hummer. The Highwayman was in the car, coming straight for her.

He wants me.

She was buckled in, driving fast, with nowhere to go.

The Highwayman entered Claire’s body.

Dakota screamed, “Claire!”

Claire felt a sudden chill.

You can’t have me, she told him.

I already have you, the Highwayman replied.

Her chest heaved. Her neck tensed. Her scream became more defiant.

“No!”

She spun the steering wheel.

The car veered left into the opposing lane.

Her body separated from the Highwayman.

And Claire was herself again.

The ghost car slowed, the Highwayman dropped back into the Hummer’s rear seat, and into Dakota’s body. Possessing her.

Dakota tensed and screamed. “Ahhhhh!”

“Fight him! Dakota! Fight him!”

Dakota’s eyes glowed green.

Her scream died, and she spoke with a guttural voice: “Claire…”

Claire returned to the right lane and tried to keep her eyes on the road. “Dakota, don’t give in to him.”

“Too late, Claire,” said Dakota.

Dakota removed her seat belt.

“Dakota, no—!”

The girl leaped forward and attacked Claire. Hitting her, choking her with immense, unnatural strength. Claire couldn’t breathe.

She’s going to kill me.

Claire elbowed Dakota in the face and pulled herself free from the girl’s death grip. Dakota grabbed the steering wheel and climbed on top of Claire. Claire opened the car door and tried to push the girl out.

Clinging to Claire, Dakota dangled half-way out of the car, her head nearly dragging on the asphalt. The yellow median line pulsed beneath her. She tried to pull Claire out the door, but Claire was strapped in.

“Fight him! Dakota! Please! Don’t make me do this.”

The green glow faded from Dakota’s eyes. The girl stopped struggling. For a moment Dakota seemed herself again.

“Help me,” Dakota whimpered.

Claire saw bright lights ahead, coming fast. An oncoming patrol car. Claire’s open door was partway in the opposing lane.

The patrol car struck the open door. The door slammed into Dakota’s head.

Claire heard the snap! of the girl’s spine.

The Highwayman was thrown from Dakota’s body. He landed on the road as the Hummer sped on.

Still driving, Claire pulled Dakota’s limp body from the doorway and moved her clumsily into the passenger seat.

“Leave me,” the dying girl said.

“We’re going to make it to the tunnel—”

“Let me go.”

“Hold on. There’s a hospital—”

Dakota’s eyes rolled up in her head.

“Dakota?”

The dying girl whispered, “No one gets out alive…”

And fell silent.

No!

Claire shook Dakota. “No!” Claire banged her fist on the steering wheel. She pounded on the car horn. She screamed her pain into the night. In a mad frenzy, Claire swerved from lane to lane. Finally, exhausted, she straightened out the car and wept.

“Don’t leave me here alone with him.”

45

The Highwayman rose to his feet. He saw that Officer Ramirez was back on the road, chasing Claire. The Highwayman stepped into the path of the patrol car, re-entered the body of Ramirez, and seized control.

Claire raced past a road sign: “DEVIL’S PASS—5 Miles.”

The lifeless body of Dakota lay in the passenger seat beside her.

No time for tears.

A patrol car pursued her. In the mirror, the driver appeared to be a policeman, but Claire sensed the presence of another.

Fowler.

The patrol car slammed into the back of the Hummer.

Claire gritted her teeth. “Oh yeah?”

Time to fight back.

She saw the patrol car coming up for another hit.

Claire swerved into the opposing lane.

And hit the brakes.

The Hummer dropped back. The patrol car surged, coming up beside Claire. As he pulled even with her, the possessed cop turned, smiled, and blew her a kiss.

“Kiss this,” she said, and spun the wheel in his direction.

The Hummer sideswiped the patrol car.

Knocked it off the road.

The black-and-white spun out on the dirt shoulder.

Tumbled over the desert.

Landing on its wheels.

Claire raced ahead, gaining distance, gaining time.

The road climbed and turned as it wended the last five miles toward the tunnel at Devil’s Pass. The Hummer slowed as it rose through the mountains. To the left was a guard rail. Beyond that, a sheer cliff.

A petroleum tanker truck idled on the shoulder ahead.

The trucker honked at Claire as she approached.

Dude, don’t mess with me.

The tanker truck pulled onto the highway, cutting Claire off.

“Oh, come on,” she muttered.

She sped into the opposing lane to pass the lumbering behemoth.

The truck driver stuck his arm out his window and waved for her to pass.

As she passed him, the driver honked again.

Asshole.

Then Claire saw the burn scars on the driver’s ruined face.

She recognized him.

Joshua!

It was the truck driver from Dinah’s Diner, the one who had tried to help them push their dead car into the garage, who tried to warn them about Blood Alley.

But he left hours ahead of us.

Claire powered down the passenger window.

Joshua shouted out to her, “Thought you might need some help!”

“He’s right behind me!”

Joshua nodded. “Tunnel’s up ahead. I got your back!”

“Oh, God. Thank you!”

Claire pulled in front of Joshua, her knight in shining armor.

Joshua crawled his big rig up the winding hill. With a full load of petroleum in the twin tanks, he wasn’t about to break any land speed records. He shifted from granny gear into second, then tested third. He saw a patrol car coming up fast behind him.

There you are, you dirty devil. I’m ready for you.

He saw the patrol car angling to pass.

“Not this time.”

Joshua steered left to block the opposing lane.

I’ll knock you right off that cliff.

Taking the hint, the patrol car fell back behind the tanker truck.

Oh, you know that trick, do you?

The patrol car swerved to the right.

The tanker truck cut him off.

Sidewinding from shoulder to shoulder, the patrol car searched for an opening, but Joshua was one step ahead of him, anticipating each move.

Together they swerved side to side, faster and faster until—

The tanker truck fishtailed.

Damnit.

Joshua lost control of the road.

The rear fuel tank scraped the guard rail, throwing hot sparks.

If the rail gave way, the tank would go over the cliff.

And so would Joshua.

The rail held.

The wheels found traction.

Joshua regained control.

He swung the tank off the rail and back onto the road, but gave the patrol car the opening it needed to pass on the left.

The patrol car surged forward.

It drove between the tanker truck and the guard rail.

Joshua saw the move.

“Big mistake.”

He turned hard left.

The tanker truck sideswiped the patrol car and drove the black-and-white against the rail. Metal screeched.

The rail bent and broke.

The tires of the patrol car flirted with the edge of the cliff.

In the mirror Joshua saw the Highwayman emerge from the policeman’s body and climb up through the roof of the patrol car.

The patrol car tipped and went over the edge as the Highwayman jumped off the falling vehicle and onto the tanker trunk.

All right, you bastard, come and get me.

46

In the mirror, Joshua saw the Highwayman coming for him, edging his way from the rear tank to the cab.

A thrill of anticipation ran through him. He’d waited ten years for this, a chance to confront the Highwayman again. On his own terms.

I’m ready.

For a decade he was haunted by a single question: “Why did I survive?” Year after year, the death toll rose on Blood Alley. Why did he live when so many others died?

Now he knew the answer. He knew his purpose. He knew his moment.

The moment is now.

Words came to him from the well of memory, a poem he once learned in school. He recited the words aloud:

“The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees…”

The Highwayman crept along the side of the rear tank.

“The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas…”

The Highwayman reached the hitch between the two tanks, and climbed up.

“The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor…”

The Highwayman stepped onto the closed sunroof of the cab.

“And the highwayman came riding—riding—riding—the highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.”

The Highwayman dropped down, passing straight through the metal and glass, into the cab.

And into the driver.

Joshua felt a chill run through his body.

Fight him!

A chill ran through his soul.

You gotta fight him—

His muscles tensed.

Gotta know who you are—

He stifled a scream.

Who you really are—

In the mirror, his brown eyes glowed green.

I am the Highwayman.

Still he struggled—know who you are—not giving up—know who—not giving in—

I am!

The green glow of his eyes faded to brown.

Claire rounded a bend and saw the Devil’s Tunnel up ahead.

Almost there…

Joshua’s petroleum tanker truck was right behind her as she entered the tunnel at 90 miles per hour.

It was a long tunnel lit by overhead fluorescents that flashed past her at a dizzying pace. The tunnel turned ahead. She couldn’t see the end, or how far the road stretched.

Almost there…

A tunnel light went out as the Hummer passed by.

And the next light.

And the next.

One by one they flickered and died.

Man and phantom struggled for possession of Joshua’s body.

I am the Highwayman! You are weak! You are nothing!

Joshua focused all of his attention on his right hand, which clenched the steering wheel.

My name is Joshua…

If he could reach the brake button—

You have no power!

Not the yellow one, but the red one—

This is my hand…

The red emergency breakaway brake—

Move it…

His right hand, under Joshua’s control, let go of the steering wheel. His human hand separated from the phantom hand, which still clenched the wheel.

Joshua reached for the red button, the emergency trailer breakaway brake. If he could pull the red button, the trailer brakes would activate.

But not the truck brakes.

At this speed, if the trailer brakes locked—with the truck accelerating and the trailer decelerating—the differential could rip the trailer from the truck.

Only one way to find out.

With every ounce of his will, Joshua pulled on the red button.

He felt the sharp jolt of the cab.

He heard the snap! of the trailer hitch.

He watched in the mirror as the rear tank uncoupled from the truck.

The truck surged forward, faster now, relieved of the weight of the trailer.

The trailer rolled free on the road behind, carried forward by inertia, but moving slower. Momentum overpowered the breakaway brakes and kept the trailer chasing the truck. The trailer drifted into the tunnel wall. The petroleum tank’s smooth metal shell scraped against the bricks.

Sparks flew.

The tank burst open.

Fuel ignited in the tunnel.

Whoooosh!

A wall of flame chased the truck through the narrow passage.

In the mirror Joshua saw the burning tank tumble after him.

One last thing—

He moved his hand to the yellow button.

The phantom hand left the steering wheel and repossessed Joshua’s human hand.

Nice try, old man!

Joshua strained to pull the yellow brake button.

The Highwayman resisted.

Remember who you are…

You are the Highwayman!

My name is…

Joshua!

His hand pulled hard on the yellow button.

The brakes engaged.

The truck skidded.

Scraped a wall.

Spun one hundred and eighty degrees.

And came to a full stop.

Through the windshield, Joshua saw the wall of flame rush straight toward him.

He saw the trailer tank burning and bouncing on the collision path.

Welcome to Hell…

The trailer crashed into the truck, and the second tank exploded.

47

Claire sped through the narrow tunnel, pursued by flames.

In the mirror she saw Joshua’s body thrown forward by the blast wave.

Flames reached the Hummer.

Engulfed it.

Claire heard and felt a thump! on the roof.

She looked up and saw Joshua’s burnt face peer down through the sunroof. His face was slack, without expression. Joshua was dead, but his open eyes glowed green.

The corpse slid off the Hummer.

Landed on the road behind.

The blast wave pushed the car forward even faster. The Hummer was surrounded by a roiling wall of fire.

Tongues of flame licked in through the broken back window and the open sunroof.

Travel bags in the back compartment caught fire.

All around her, the tunnel began to collapse. Chunks of falling debris dented the roof. A sharp shard fell through the sunroof and struck Claire in the arm, glancing off.

Dirt and cement fell into the path ahead. Claire jerked the steering wheel left and right and left again, dodging debris.

In the front passenger seat, Dakota’s corpse jostled with each bump and swerve.

The dead girl sat up slowly in her seat.

Claire’s heart stopped.

What—?

Dakota turned to face Claire.

“Dakota! You’re alive! Oh thank God you’re—”

The girl opened her eyes.

Dakota’s eyes glowed green.

No! It’s not possible.

The Highwayman had possessed Joshua, and Joshua had—

Oh, no.

Dakota lunged and grabbed Claire’s throat, choking her.

Claire tried to fight her off. With one hand she punched and jabbed Dakota, but she had to keep her other hand on the wheel and her foot on the gas.

With the Highwayman inside her, Dakota was too strong.

The phantom spoke in Dakota’s voice, “Claire…”

Far ahead, sirens wailed.

Police.

Someone must have radioed for help.

They can’t help me now.

Claire couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on the road ahead—

Oh, God, somebody help me!

Claire grabbed Dakota’s fingers, which were wrapped around at Claire’s throat, and pulled back on the digits as hard as she could.

Dakota’s fingers snapped.

The girl didn’t scream.

Claire gasped for breath

The air in the car was thin and hot and tasted like gasoline.

I’m burning.

She had to go forward, faster, to escape the conflagration.

Faster! Faster!

Claire noticed that her foot had slipped from gas pedal. She stomped on the pedal, and felt the engine catch its second wind.

Dakota punched and slapped her.

Claire grabbed Dakota’s hair and yanked her head down between the front seats.

A patrol car raced into the tunnel, unaware of the danger.

“Fowler! I know they lied about you. Let me go, and I’ll tell them the truth.”

“They know the truth!”

Dakota’s tried to free herself, but Claire clung tight to the girl’s hair.

“They think you killed your wife and daughters.”

“Yes!”

Dakota jerked her head back sharply. Her hair came out in a giant clump, leaving a bloody scalp. But Dakota was free again. She jumped on top of Claire. Straddled her in the driver’s seat.

Claire couldn’t see the road. She threw down the bloody clump of hair in her hand and tried to shove the other girl aside.

Dakota grabbed Claire’s face.

And kissed her.

Locking lips.

And souls.

Claire felt an icy chill inside her. Her muscles tensed. Her chest heaved.

Remember who you are…

Claire put a hand to Dakota’s throat, and pushed the girl’s head away.

But the phantom head of Eldritch Fowler remained, lingering, kissing Claire with an undying passion.

Finally, the Highwayman withdrew and re-entered Dakota’s head to speak with her voice. “I loved my children—very, very much.”

Claire understood the awful truth.

Oh God, no.

“It was you,” Claire said. “Nineteen years ago… you and my mother…”

“Yes!”

“But you were already…”

“Dead.”

Claire slapped Dakota’s face.

“Stay away from me!”

Dakota snarled a warning.

“I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!”

48

“Get off me!”

Claire tried to push Dakota away.

“Blood Alley is yours, Claire.”

Ahead she saw the flashing lights of an oncoming patrol car driving straight toward the Hummer and the rushing wall of flame.

The patrol car braked and skidded.

Claire swerved to avoid a head-on collision. She sped past the patrol car. It exploded behind her, feeding the flames.

Dakota started to grind herself in Claire’s lap. “Can’t you feel it? Blood Alley. Rolling under you like a lover.”

“What do you want?”

“You and me, Claire. We could ride this road forever.”

Claire saw another patrol car speeding toward her, lights on, siren wailing.

“Nothing can stop us, if you open yourself to me.”

Claire glanced up. The sunroof was open.

She drifted into the opposite lane at 110 miles per hour, aiming straight for the patrol car.

“Blood Alley—” said Dakota.

Claire let go of the steering wheel.

“This is where you belong—”

She put her hands on Dakota’s waist.

“This is who you are.”

She lifted Dakota up.

Forcing the girl’s head through the sunroof.

The Hummer hit the patrol car head-on, climbed the policeman’s hood like a ramp, and launched into the air. The top of the Hummer hit the top of the tunnel.

Claire felt a crash above her, and heard the sickening sound of Dakota’s skull being crushed, her body decapitated.

A torrent of blood rained down, splattering Claire.

The Hummer landed hard on the road.

Claire let go of the bloody torso. It fell back against the front passenger seat. Claire grabbed the steering wheel and regained control.

She saw more oncoming traffic, emergency vehicles responding to a distress call. Claire weaved in and out of the onrushing convoy. She swerved left to avoid an ambulance—right to avoid a fire engine—left again to avoid a patrol car. Playing chicken with a dozen vehicles.

A paramedic truck sideswiped the Hummer.

The front passenger door ripped off and fell away.

Behind her, vehicles drove headlong into the fireball, feeding it. Ten, twenty, thirty explosions. The shriek of metal and roar of flame.

Claire saw the end of the tunnel.

Almost there—

Dakota’s headless corpse sat up in the passenger seat. Claire saw the Highwayman’s head on the bloody stump of Dakota’s neck.

The dead girl’s body was still possessed.

The Highwayman laughed, revealing his one gold tooth.

49

In the passenger seat, Dakota’s corpse taunted Claire with a death-rattle laugh. The front passenger door had been torn off in the collision with the paramedic truck, and now the wind and flames rushed in through the gaping hole.

Claire took her foot off the gas, pivoted in her seat, and kicked Dakota into the flames. The corpse launched out of the car, bounced off the tunnel wall, and disappeared into the flames.

The enormous fireball chased Claire to the end of the tunnel.

And out.

Beyond the tunnel, Claire drove past a row of parked patrol cars, then hit the brakes and came to a stop. The Hummer was still burning. The fire had spread from the back compartment to the rear seats.

Get out!

Gasping and choking, Claire staggered out of the Hummer. She collapse on the highway and crawled away.

Two policemen rushed to her side and helped her from the burning car.

“You all right, lady?”

“I’m fine,” she lied.

“Medic!”

Firemen ran to the Hummer with water hoses, and quickly knocked down the flames. More firemen arrived. They jumped down from their red trucks, gear in hand, preparing to battle the horrific blaze inside the Devil’s Tunnel.

Too late.

The tunnel collapsed.

Explosions threw dirt, rocks, and cement high into the air.

It’s over, Claire thought.

But didn’t believe it.

An hour later, as the tunnel fire died and the rescue crews began to clear the rubble and search for survivors, Claire stood leaning against a patrol car, watching the first hint of sunrise over the mountains.

The medics had bandaged her cuts and checked her bruises, but she was still being interviewed by the detectives, O’Brien and Hunt.

O’Brien looked skeptical. “So they killed him?”

“For the road.”

Hunt checked his notes. “You say his name was…”

“Eldritch Fowler.”

“And he was your…”

“Father… I mean, grandfather.”

Another lawman, Officer Massey, arrived and addressed O’Brien. “Something you should see.”

Hunt said to Claire, “Stay right here.”

“Of course.”

The two detectives followed Officer Massey back into the Devil’s Tunnel, leaving Claire momentarily alone.

The burning smell was inescapable. Detective Hunt stood a few feet inside the passage. Further in, the tunnel had completely collapsed. At least a dozen units had driven in there. So far none had reported back to dispatch. Everyone feared the worst, but hoped for a miracle.

It would take days for the rescue team to work their way through to the other side.

Long, hard days.

Even here, at the outer edge, the asphalt had melted from the extreme heat.

Hunt stood with O’Brien and Massey at the edge of a newly formed break in the road, where the asphalt had cracked open to reveal an undocumented burial site.

Inside the cracked earth lay a human skeleton.

Poor bastard.

The skeleton had been buried with a dark slouch hat and a black canvas duster. His skull looked up at them. A morbid grin flashed one gold tooth.

“I’ll take him down to the lab,” Hunt said. “Try to get an I.D.”

O’Brien surveyed the rubble and carnage. “Bad night.”

Hunt concurred. “The red crescent moon. The devil wind. The road is thirsty.”

O’Brien shot him a skeptical glance. “You don’t believe that, you do?”

“What?”

“About the Highwayman. Ghost cars. Blood Alley.”

Hunt laughed. “Nah.”

He looked back to check on the girl, Claire. He didn’t see her. She wasn’t standing where she was supposed to.

I told that girl to stay put.

He stepped out of the tunnel and looked around.

The girl was gone.

And so was the Hummer.

50

Claire drove east, into the sunrise.

The road was smooth, the car responsive. The Hummer was smashed and burnt, but the engine purred and the wheels turned. Somewhere in the night, Claire had lost her fear of driving. She felt, for the first time in her life, a sense of her own power.

Now the only question was, “Where to go?”

Forward.

She turned the radio on to a station full of static, then dialed through a dozen songs before settling on “Highway to Hell.”

Claire smiled.

She adjusted the rearview mirror to check her own reflection.

In the mirror, her eyes glowed green.

She put a hand to her belly, which had already begun to grow, confirming what she had felt since the moment he entered her.

Something there had quickened in the dark.

There, inside her, was a new power.

Waiting to be born.

To be continued…

* * *

Thank you very much for reading Blood Alley.

I know your time is valuable. If you would take a brief moment to leave an honest review on Amazon, it would be greatly appreciated:

Blood Alley

Reviews help new readers find my work and decide if the story is for them, as well as provide valuable feedback to the author.

To hear about new releases, sign up to David Wisehart’s New Release Mailing List.

Also by David Wisehart:

Devil’s Lair

Endgame and Other Stories

Valentino: a play in verse

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the following for their feedback and support: Chris Soth, Matt Reagan, Philippa Burgess, Bradley Kushner, James Moll, and Chris King.

Copyright

Copyright © 2013 by David Wisehart

All Rights Reserved

Published by Wisehart Entertainment

www.davidwisehart.com

Cover photo by David M. Schrader

Licensed through iStockphoto

Cover design by Brittany Nielsen

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Content

David Wisehart
BLOOD ALLEY

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

* * *

Also by David Wisehart:

Acknowledgments

Copyright