Highways to Hell (13 page)

The old Chevelle was parked in a corner of the convenience store’s parking lot, its front end pointed toward the street. An Escalade with fake bullet hole stickers on the driver’s side door rolled to a slow stop at the nearby intersection. Heather Campbell tracked the Escalade’s snail-like progress through squinted eyes, an ugly scowl painted on otherwise lovely—albeit haggard—features.

“Why do people do that?”

Josh Browning, slumped down in the shotgun seat, blinked at her through eyes bleary from smoking too much weed. “Huh?” He sat up straighter, and his head swiveled slowly to the right. He squinted at the Escalade, which was now sliding through the intersection on its way, no doubt, to some appropriately white trash destination. Then his head wobbled back in her direction. “Why do people drive Escalades? All sorts of reasons, I guess. It’s an individual thing. It all depends on what you want out of a car and—”

Heather heaved an exasperated sigh. “Why do people put fake bullet hole decals on their fucking cars, man? Would it kill you to stop blazing up for a just a few minutes and pay some goddamn attention to what I’m saying?”

Josh glanced at the crumpled joint hanging pinched loosely between his thumb and forefinger. He shrugged and stubbed the lit end out in the Chevelle’s overflowing ashtray. “Sorry. I guess people do that because they think it makes them look badass.”

Heather’s scowl deepened. “It makes them look like fucking idiots.”

“Yeah.”

“If you were a real criminal, like of the violent, dangerous variety, why would you tool around in a shot-up ride?” Josh opened his mouth to reply, but Heather was too worked up and steamrolled right over whatever he’d been about to say. “You wouldn’t. Not at all, man. You’d want to lie low and be fucking inconspicuous. Shit!”

She stomped the Chevelle’s floorboard with the heel of a boot.

Josh’s expression became worried. “Hey...calm down, all right?”

Heather heaved another big sigh. “I just hate stupid people.”

“I know. Stupid people suck.”

Heather was nodding. “They should all die.”

“Yep. Totally agree.” Josh sounded more than a little nervous when he cleared his throat. “So...are we gonna do this thing or not?”

Heather glanced at the loaded .38 clutched tightly in her white-knuckled right hand and felt her chest grow tight. “I can’t believe I’m doing this again. I swore I wouldn’t.”

Josh shrugged, smiling weakly. “Hey, I’m against it, remember? You want to call it off, that’s cool by me.”

Heather was shaking her head before she finished. “No. We need money. Now.” She opened the door on her side and swung one long leg out of the car. She glanced at Josh. “Get behind the wheel and start the engine. I’m gonna make this fast, so be ready to go.”

Josh gulped. His eyes were shining with fear now. “Okay.”

“And don’t blaze up.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

Heather slithered out of the car and started quickly across the parking lot, a lean, long-legged, hip-swiveling slice of black-clad beauty. A stiff breeze stirred platinum-blonde hair. Stylish black shades hid eyes a startling shade of blue. A purse with a long strap hung from her right shoulder. Not so stylish, but it was right for the job. The hand gripping the gun was shoved down inside it. The clerk behind the counter wouldn’t see it until it was too late.

Her heart hammered in her chest.

I don’t want to do this
. Not again.

Three years ago she’d robbed a liquor store at gun point. Her boyfriend Craig had been the instigator that time. The motive that time had been “fun” rather than monetary. A highly risky piece of thrill-seeking. Craig was dead now, one of the many victims of the Flaherty Brothers Traveling Carnivale and Freakshow. She had hated him by the end, but there had been a time when she’d allowed herself to fall fully under his bad boy spell. It hadn’t hurt that he’d been such a good-looking son of a bitch. For a short while, she’d gone along with any crazy idea that entered his twisted mind. Like doing an armed robbery just to have done it.

This was different.

Everything was different since the freakshow.

She almost never slept anymore. She was afraid to close her eyes for fear of seeing the horribly deformed monstrosities from the freakshow in her dreams. The coke habit she’d developed went a long way toward staving off sleep and the nightmares that came with it. The downside to that was that coke wasn’t cheap. She and Josh moved around a lot. Staying in one place more than a week made her nervous. Josh did a bit of day labor here and there wherever they landed, but they were perpetually low on funds. Yet never so low as they were now. Today they didn’t have a single penny between them. The time had come to take someone else’s money. She didn’t like it, but desperation had a way of narrowing your options down to the single grimmest one available. There would be time for regrets later, after her life had finally settled down. Until the memories of the freakshow at last began to fade.

But for now...

She pushed through the double doors at the front of the store and strode confidently inside. Except for the pimply clerk behind the counter, the store was empty, as she’d expected. The store was located off a sleepy exit just inside the South Carolina border. The area was sparsely populated and the store itself was a ramshackle relic from another age. There were no security cameras. Someone else would come along sooner or later. There was no way around that. But if she did this fast, she should be able to get gone long before that could become an issue.

She approached the counter, hips swaying, her most radiant smile in place.

The scrawny clerk swallowed a lump in his throat and stared at her tits.

She pulled out the gun and pointed it at his face. “All the money from the register. Now.”

He blinked slowly and looked up at her face. “Huh?”

She screamed and shoved a wire rack of cigarette lighters off the counter. The fake Zippos clattered on the tiled floor. She shoved the gun’s barrel against his forehead. “Open the fucking register or I swear to God I’ll fucking kill you!”

He was shaking now. Tears leaked from his eyes.

“Do it!”

A trembling hand reached for the register.

A bell rang and Heather shrieked, nearly jumping out of her skin.

“Oops. Awkward.”

Heather backed away from the register and wheeled slowly around, trying to keep both the clerk and the interloper in her vision. Actually, it was interlopers, plural. A young girl with shaggy, dyed-black hair and pale skin. Her male companion was slender and wore a shiny black shirt with a flame pattern on the front. It looked like the sort of thing you’d buy from Hot Topic. The girl had a totebag. A hand was dipped casually inside. The young man stared at the gun in Heather’s hand, his eyes wide and radiating fear, but the girl only seemed amused. Heather glanced beyond them and saw an antique automobile parked in front of the store. A big red Galaxie 500. They must have driven up just as she was losing her cool with the clerk, which, by the way, had happened at a stupidly fast speed. She thought about Josh out there in the parking lot. The plan had been for him to lay on the horn if anyone came along. Probably he’d blazed up again and had passed out behind the steering wheel, the fucking idiot.

She pointed the .38 at the guy in the Hot Topic shirt. “Get yourself and your girl over here behind the counter. Don’t make me—”

“Talk to me, not him.”

Heather squinted at the girl. She was smirking. What the hell was wrong with her? She wanted to smack the expression off her insolent face, but there wasn’t time for that. “Whatever. Just do what I—”

The girl’s hand came out of her totebag. “Oops. Look what I have.”

Heather gaped in disbelief as the barrel of the girl’s gun came up and pointed at her belly. This couldn’t be happening. Not only was everything going wrong, it was going wrong in every most fucked up way possible. This was just insane. It was—

BAM!

The bullet punched through Heather’s stomach, propelling her backward into a potato chip display. The bags went flying and Heather tumbled to the floor, the pain ripping at her as she rolled across the tiles. She tried to bring her own gun around to aim at the girl, but it had slipped from her fingers. She slapped at the floor tiles, grasping for the fallen weapon, but her fingers found only smears of her own blood. Heather cried out and lifted her head.

The girl was at the counter now, aiming the gun at the trembling clerk. He raised his hands in a pathetic warding-off gesture.

The guy in the Hot Topic shirt was shaking his head faster and faster. “Roxie, don’t!”

BAM!

Blood exploded from the back of the clerk’s head and he slumped ass-first to the floor. The girl strolled over to Heather and knelt down over her. She pressed the barrel of the gun against Heather’s forehead and smiled. “Say goodnight.”

Blood trickled from the corners of Heather’s mouth. “No. No.”

The girl’s smile broadened. “Yes.”

Heather never heard the killing shot.

Back on the highway now and behind the wheel of the Galaxie, Rob glanced at Roxie, who sat slouched in the shotgun seat. She was sucking on a lollipop, a serene expression on her face. “You didn’t have to do that guy in the Chevelle. He was passed out.”

She shrugged. “Didn’t have to, no. That’s one of the joys of life, Rob. You can spare a moment now and then for a bit of pointless pleasure. It’s called freedom. You should revel in your freedom.”

Rob felt sick as he stared at the empty road ahead. “You’re crazy.”

“That’s not nice. Take it back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I forgive you. I am sort of crazy, after all.”

Rob couldn’t help it. He laughed. It was insane. Even in the face of such horror, she made him laugh. What was wrong with him? What was he becoming?

Roxie took the lollipop out of her mouth. “You know what the chick’s mistake was?”

“What?”

“Hesitation. If you’re gonna go around pointing guns at people, you gotta be ready to use them. She should have shot us the second she saw us, the dumb bitch. But she didn’t. You know why?”

Rob shook his head again. He could guess, but there was no point. Roxie wanted to pontificate a bit and it was best to just let her go on without interruption. “Why?”

“Because she didn’t have it in her. She wasn’t a killer. Not like us.”

“Like you, you mean.”

Roxie smiled and slurped on the lollipop again. “Like us, I mean. We’re the same, you just don’t fully see it yet. You’re the killing kind, baby. The sooner you admit it to yourself, the happier you’ll be.”

Rob shook his head and kept silent.

Maybe she was right.

The road ahead was long.

Sooner or later, he’d find out the truth about himself.