Man of Wax (31 page)

Carver makes a stop just outside Iowa City to gas up. I’m still asleep, my head tilted just so that the audience only sees the gas station parking lot and nothing more. Then Carver gets back in the car and we continue driving.
 

In Omaha, I wake and we switch, so now it’s me driving, the audience with a good view of the dash and the steering wheel. One would think this is boring stuff but just as Simon says, the promise of what’s to come whets the audience’s appetite, keeps them watching miles and miles of highway, of an endless horizon. They’re holed up in their dens or offices or cubicles or hotel rooms watching and wondering everything I’m going through, because surely they’ve been told already what the final part of the game will be, what the Man of Wax is expected to do once he reaches his destination.
 

In Cheyenne, where I’d stopped and it first started to rain at the beginning of the game, we stop again to gas up. This time we go inside, grab some water, some snacks, then ask for the key to use the bathrooms around the side. There is no key, the woman behind the counter tells us, and I go first, enter the darkness until I find the switch and flick on the lights. Take a piss, not caring at all that everyone else who wants to is watching me pee, and then zipping back up and washing my hands, stepping back outside as Carver goes in to do the same.
 

Then it’s back in the sedan, Carver driving this time, the day wearing on, the sun heading closer and closer to the horizon. Neither of us has talked this entire time. We haven’t played the radio. There have just been the sounds of the car, the sounds of the road, the constant rush of wind every time one of us turns down our windows to smoke.
 

Maybe we do this on purpose, wanting to bore the living shit out of all the viewers, hoping that their minds will wander and decide to do something better with their time. Certainly I don’t want them to still be watching when I finally get to California, when I make my way up the highway toward Smith River and the Paradise Motel.
 

Of course, the majority of the audience probably knows this already and has walked away from their computers, gone to watch TV, check email, pay some bills, screw their significant others, do some shopping or laundry or both. They’ve already calculated how long it’s going to take me and Carver to reach our destination. They may even have alarms set on their watches or cell phones, may have notified the front desk to give them a wake-up call. They don’t want to miss what’s going to happen at the end of this game, because just as the Almighty Caesar has supposedly decreed, this has the potential to be an all-time classic, and they don’t want to miss out on the grand finale.
 

All the rest in between is simple build up, just drawing out the suspense. Highways and cars, deserts and trees, clouds and stars. Pit stops for gas, for food, for pissing and shitting.
 

This is what each and every one of the viewers saw as they watched from their special and secret places.
 

The following is what actually happened.

54

What seemed like a century ago I had woken up in room six of the Paradise Motel, my family gone, no idea where I was or how I had gotten there. That had been seven days ago, and here I was now again at the Paradise Motel. Only I wasn’t in room six. I wasn’t in any of the rooms. Now I was crouched on the beach side of the motel, Carver beside me, a rifle in my hands as the dark sky began to soften bit by bit by the rising sun.
 

We’d been here for close to two hours already, watching the motel closely, keeping tabs on the manager’s office and the two other rooms whose lights hadn’t gone out since we first arrived. Ronny and Bronson and David were with us, all spread out on different parts of the grounds. The night was silent, just the sounds of the early morning waves crashing against the beach, the occasional whoosh of traffic on the highway, the few early morning seagulls cawing from their perches.
 

Ever since we arrived I’d been going out of my mind with anticipation. Jen and Casey were in there, in one of those rooms, and I was being forced to stay crouched here in the dunes. That was why Carver wanted me close to him, because he knew my want, my need, to take off toward the motel, calling out my wife’s and daughter’s names. For seven days they’d been so far away from me, so far they might as well have been dead, but now here they were and I was being held back.
 

We were waiting for first light before we moved in. This had already been established with everyone, especially me. As far as Simon and everybody else was concerned, Carver and I were still on I-80, probably entering Nevada by now. We still had until about five a.m. Tuesday morning to reach the Paradise and none of the people here were prepared for us yet, and why should they be?
 

And so we waited, crouching in the sand by the tall grass, watching the motel.
 

The Paradise was U-shaped, the bottom part pointed directly out at the ocean, the two arms facing inland. There were no windows on the beachside, no sliding glass doors that opened onto small private patios, which seemed strange for a beach motel. There was, however, a kind of boardwalk that stretched out from the back, where weatherworn plastic chairs and tables sat upright and vacant. Between the boardwalk slats, weeds and grass had begun to sprout, looking as if they’d had all summer to grow and were now losing the will to live.
 

Ronny and Bronson were stationed on the other side of the motel, David across the highway with a sniper rifle. We’d kept in radio contact this entire time, though everybody had been mostly quiet. One guard was pacing the parking lot, going back and forth between the arms of the U. Occasionally he paused to light a cigarette. From where we were crouched we’d seen the red glow of the tip a few times already. There was also at least one person in the manager’s office. That would most likely be Kevin, who’d called me early Monday morning to give me my wake-up call.
 

There were two other rooms with lights on, but there was no way we could get close enough to see how many people were inside. One of those rooms, I knew, had to contain Jen and Casey.
 

Back home, the sun had already been up for close to three hours. People were getting up to take showers, to make breakfast, to get dressed for work. Life continued as it always does, a constant cycle that never stops. But here on the beach near the northern tip of California, the sun was just beginning to appear.
 

I kept glancing at Carver beside me. We hadn’t said anything for the longest time. Finally his eyes shifted to meet mine and we stared at each other. He nodded, touched his throat microphone.
 

“Everyone in position?”
 

Some light static from my own earpiece, then Ronny’s voice, confirming he and Bronson were in position. David’s voice followed a second later, confirming the same.
 

Carver glanced at me once again. I had to squint to see his face clearly enough. I hadn’t had my glasses in the past six hours, and while I’d gone longer without them, I didn’t think I could go much longer. I needed them, because I didn’t want to have to squint when I saw Jen and Casey again. I wanted to be able to look at them without any problems and tell them just how much I loved them, how much I missed them, and how I would never let anything like this ever happen again.
 

“Okay,” Carver whispered, “we’ll go once David’s ready. David, the target in place?”
 

A pause, then David confirmed that yes, the target was in place.
 

“On your mark,” Carver said. He had a rifle strapped over his shoulder and now hefted it. I glanced down at the rifle in my hands, surprised by how comfortable I now felt holding it.
 

For a moment it was like time had stopped and the world held its breath. The waves continued to break against the shore, the sporadic traffic continued to drive up and down the highway, and the guard standing in the parking lot went to light himself another smoke. We watched him from where we were crouched by the beach, maybe fifty, sixty yards away. The tip of his cigarette glowed red as he sucked in all that nicotine. He never had a chance to blow it back out though, because in that moment David fired one shot. The rifle had a silencer, its dull clap drowned out by a tractor-trailer roaring past on the highway, but we heard the sudden intake of breath as the guard’s body jerked, then fell to the ground.
 

Carver, his hand to his throat mic, said, “Now.”

55

As the world continued spinning and the waves continued breaking and the light of the sun became brighter and brighter by the second, we rushed forward until we were almost touching the Paradise Motel.
 

It was Ronny and Bronson’s job to hurry into the parking lot where the guard had fallen to pick him up and carry him away, where they deposited his body in the sand and tall grass. Then they started around the front of the motel again, moving carefully right up on the walkway, peeking into the windows, trying to determine if any of the rooms were occupied.
 

We’d already established the ground rules: as long as whoever they found wasn’t my wife and daughter, they were free to be killed.
 

Carver and I went straight to the manager’s office. There was a door in the back of the office, a screen door, where light from inside suffused onto the small cement porch that contained a plastic patio chair and table. On the table was a glass ashtray. In it was a dozen stubbed out cigarette butts.

•
   
•
   
•

A
T
THAT
MOMENT
, on the other side of the motel, Ronny and Bronson were busy going from one room to the next. As Ronny would later tell me, almost all the curtains were closed in every window. There were only two rooms that had their lights on, and those were rooms two and five. They snuck up to each dark room and listened but there was no sound, not even the soft murmur of conversation, and they backed away.

•
   
•
   
•

W
ITH
A
STEADY
hand Carver gripped the screen door. We’d already worked out how this was going to go but now he glanced back, stared at me for a few long seconds as if asking if I remembered. I nodded. He continued opening the door. We knew nothing about this screen door, whether or not it was going to screech, but whatever the case we needed to act fast.
 

Only a little sound was produced as Carver opened the door, just a slight hydraulic hiss, and then Carver was rushing inside, his heavy boots somehow quiet as they stormed over the linoleum. I followed a second later, and I found myself in a back office, which smelled of beer and weed and sex. This last didn’t make sense but then we turned a corner and there they were on the floor, a man and a woman, just lying there naked on two stacked mattresses. White sheets covered their bodies. The one was definitely Kevin but the other I couldn’t make out, her face buried into her pillow. Beside the bed were crumpled condom wrappers and balled-up tissues.
 

Carver walked toward them slowly, his rifle aimed, until he was standing right next to Kevin’s side of the bed. With his right hand, he pulled out a switchblade from his pocket, flicked it open. Kevin continued to sleep, his eyes closed and his mouth open, emitting a slight snore. Carver extended the knife until the tip touched Kevin’s Adam’s apple. Kevin’s eyes opened for a second, as if blinking open in sleep, and then realization hit him that this wasn’t a dream and his eyes opened wide and he was just staring up at Carver, then at me, then back at Carver.
 

He made a noise, something that sounded like “huh?” and his legs started to kick. Carver pressed the knife right into Kevin’s throat. Kevin’s body jerked, stayed very still. He just stared up at Carver as Carver leaned forward. The girl still lying with her face in the pillow hadn’t moved at all, and for some strange reason I wondered if she was dead.
 

Carver whispered, “Where are they?”
 

Sleep had been chased from Kevin’s system and now he was wide-awake. His scarred face had flushed. He glared back at Carver, his chin raised because if he lowered it any the tip would cut deeper.
 

“Fuck you,” he whispered harshly, defiantly, and Carver cut his throat.
 

For some reason I expected Kevin to die instantly, but it took him awhile. Convulsing on the bed, gurgling blood, trying to breathe in air—it was so much that it caused the girl lying next to him to sense something was wrong and sleepily raise her head from the pillow. She saw what was happening immediately and started to scream. I was there a moment later, the rifle now strapped over my shoulder as I put my one hand over her mouth, my other hand on her shoulder to keep her in place. She still tried to fight me but by then Kevin was almost dead and Carver took his knife away from Kevin’s throat, the blade now dripping blood. Kevin gurgled for just a few more seconds before stopping altogether.
 

Next Carver pointed the knife at the girl’s throat, shook his head, whispered, “Shh.”
 

She stopped struggling but continued to shake.
 

“Are you going to scream?” Carver whispered.
 

With my hand still on her mouth, I felt her head as it moved from left to right and back again.
 

Carver looked at me and nodded once. I took my hand away.
 

“Now,” Carver whispered, leaning down across where Kevin lay dead in a growing pool of his own blood, “where are they?”