The Dark Roads (26 page)

Chapter 1

Valdez, AK

September 2, 2021

12:52 AM  74*

Richie's breath was shallow and labored. He'd been carrying Amanda over one shoulder for almost a mile and the effort was beginning to tax his strength. She was alive, her deep inhalations filling the gaps between his own ragged exhalations, and he took confidence from that. If the sound stopped coming from her partially open lips, Richie might just drop to his knees and give in to the exhaustion that seemed to be wrapping around his body like an overtight ace bandage.

"You're going to be fine," he told the woman, though she was unconscious and was sure to be ignoring his reassurances, "We'll get somewhere soon."

Where you gonna go?
the ghost of Elvis whispered into Richie's ear as it had made a habit of doing in recent days.

"Don't know, little brother," Richie replied to his partner in conversation, giving up on waiting for a response from Amanda.

Might be a place up ahead. You can't see it 'cause it's on the wrong side.

"Get bent," he said with a shaky laugh, "Buddy's the one who gives me shit over the eye."

I'm the King. I do what I want
, the voice in Richie's mind declared with a guffaw. Richie laughed along with it. The King
did
have a point, didn't he?

It wasn't overly hot, just yet, but Richie was sweating heavily and wishing that he'd managed to grab some water on his way out of the prison they'd escaped. Amanda couldn't be blamed for their lack of hydration, due to the fact that she'd been knocked out just before Richie had finally made a move on their captors.

He shook his head, the rusty laugh coming out again just before his feet caught up in themselves. It was only with incredible luck that he didn't fall to the dusty pavement, spilling Amanda onto the rocky surface to further her injuries. Somehow he caught his balance and kept moving.

What ya' laughin' about Richie?

"Not much. Just thought about the way I managed to get us out of that place. It reminded me of something."

Elvis said nothing in return. His ghostly traveling companion always went quiet when he knew there was a story to be told. Elvis had always been one of the great listeners when a tale was to be spun.

Richie's laugh sounded again as he thought about the half-smile that smoothed his long gone friend's features when they spent time reminiscing. He would grow impatient if Richie didn't spit something out before too long. No one spoke for a long time. Amanda's breath, thankfully, still sounded out in the darkness.

What about it?
Elvis asked, finally growing querulous at his silence.

"Okay," Richie said, "Don't get your panties in a wad."

Your panties are in a wad!
Elvis shouted, the words littered with giggles.

Richie smiled his odd looking smile. All of his scars made the expression a mostly unpleasant one, but the people closest to him still remembered that he'd once been handsome. Buddy didn't admit to that, refusing to let a man with one eye claim that he had ever been anything else, but he knew it just the same.

So many scars stood out on Richie's skin, a map of torn and burnt experiences that would not easily be read by the common acquaintance, that he'd stopped looking into mirrors out of simple mercy for his remaining eye.

"You are one ugly dude," Buddy had told him on their most recent walk around their new base camp, "But you're still not as bad as some of the mugs we've got around here."

"I don't know what to say to that. Is that... Did you just compliment me?" Richie asked, his brow raised in faux surprise.

"I wouldn't call it a compliment."

"You're hitting on me, aren't you?" he goaded Buddy, "I knew you had feelings for me, but I have to tell you, Buddy, that I don't play for
your
team."

"Well, if I had to pick a guy to get it on with..."

The laughter resonating from the center of Richie's mind stole him back from the memory. Elvis, or Richie's imagined presence of him, still had the loudest laugh on the vestiges of planet Earth. There wasn't much left for people to laugh at these days, but Richie, Buddy, and Elvis had always found some way to catch a grin. Where in the hell
was
Buddy, anyway?

Buddy said to stay but you left camp
, Elvis reminded him,
Shoulda' listened, Richie. Buddy was right.

"Do you want to hear the story, or not?" Richie asked with a sudden sharpness in his voice.

Silence from his dead friend. He took that as affirmation, and began to talk about something that happened before they’d found themselves hiding from the day like vampires in some cheesy book.

<><><>

Miami, FL

November 3, 2015

2:15 PM  95*

"I'm pretty sure that winter is never coming," Buddy said from the lawn chair to Richie's left.  

"It's still hot," Elvis confirmed from the other chair as he fanned himself with a comic book that he'd been paging through, “It’s gotta cool off sometime, right?”

Richie said nothing, just kept his head leaned back and his eyes closed. His smirk was the usual cocky one held by most seventeen-year-old boys. If either of his friends were paying attention, they’d have known that he could hear them and was purposely ignoring their complaints. It was true that the warmth was an unseasonably intense wonder this late in the year and that the sun felt more concentrated than it had in the middle of summer, but it was better than being cold.

They were wearing trunks and flip-flops long after the garments should've been shoved into a closet and replaced by jeans and close-toed shoes. That, in itself, was a victory over the less loveable of seasons. Richie had always abhorred being chilly and if his parents would've allowed him to move even further south to stay warm all year, he would've taken them up on it. He would have had to find a way to bring Buddy and Elvis along, probably Benny too, but he was sure that such obstacles could have been surmounted.

"Getting a nice tan, are you, Richie?" Buddy asked with a soft punch to the arm, "The only guy I know who could smile in a frigging oven."

"I
am
looking very olive-skinned, aren't I?" Richie responded without changing his posture.

"You look like one of those old-school Romans. What do you think, Elvis?"

"I think he's gonna turn lobster," Elvis replied with a hard fought smile. He shifted in his seat to grab a soft drink out of the cooler they'd brought outside.

"Not me," Richie proclaimed, "I was born to live in the sun."

"Shit," Buddy said, his tone turning serious.

Richie finally opened his eyes. If Buddy was going to quit the jibing, then there must be something significant on his radar. He saw that Elvis was looking toward the direction in which their friend had thrown the curse word. He grinned as he located the source of Buddy’s duress.

"Something to be said for summer sticking around," Richie expressed as he stared at the sight before them.

The girl was much older than them, probably in her early twenties, and wore the same uniform that most of the Miami born Latinas donned when the sun was high in the sky. Tiny jean shorts, low slung on the waist, and a white bikini top were her only coverings. The tan skin was so tan that it made Richie's own pigment look like an albino coat in comparison. Her body was perfect, leading from painted toes to the luxuriant dark hair that swished back and forth as she walked.

The three boys gawked at her mercilessly, Elvis and Richie feeling truly fortunate to be wearing sunglasses, and therefore looking with complete discretion. Buddy, ever the conspicuous one with his clear-lensed, coke-bottle specs, didn't try to hide his admiration. It wouldn't have mattered if he had.

"Alejandra something?" Buddy asked in a low voice.

"Quevas," Richie added for him.

"Yeah," Elvis said, his mouth forming its charmingly dopey smile.

She waved to them, but didn’t stop to talk. The girl had lived on the same street as Elvis and his mother for the better part of a decade, and had grown used to the boys' stares as she'd grown into her body. All of them waved, Buddy being the most enthusiastic one of the group. He couldn't hide his interest if he'd tried, so he chose not to try.

"Why don't you go talk to her?" Richie asked his obviously enamored friend.

"Why don't
you
?" Buddy retorted, still holding the grin he'd given to Alejandra.

"I think I will," Richie answered his challenge, standing up from the lawn chair, the sound of wet skin coming away from a sticky surface barely registering.

"Right," Buddy said, "You're going to talk to her?"

Elvis watched in shock as Richie started toward the sight they'd been taking in at a near jog. He was trying to catch up to her, but having a hard time with the exertion in such heat. Buddy shook his head and turned to Elvis.

"You know he's about to get us into some shit, don't you?"

"What do you mean, Buddy?" Elvis asked, confused by the notion.

"She's got a boyfriend."

"So."

Buddy pointed to a Chevy that was parked half a block from where they sat. It was the boyfriend's car and if the guy was in it when Richie caught up to Alejandra, he'd be able to see the funny little white guy hitting on his girl.

Elvis' eyes widened and he nearly jumped out of his chair. Buddy grabbed his forearm, smiling up at him and squinting against the brightness of the day. Elvis was alarmed and badly wanted to warn their friend before he did something stupid.

"We'll go. You know we will, but let's just watch for a minute. This is gonna be good."

<><><>

Alejandra turned to Richie's call with an arched eyebrow. She looked quizzical and beautiful to the younger man and once he caught up to her, his words wouldn't come for a few hesitant seconds. His plan was easy to follow, however, so Richie was able to quickly regain the composure he’d misplaced. Still, it was nerve racking for him to speak with such a lovely woman.

"I'm not trying to hit on you or hold you up. I just want to have a little fun at my friends' expense, if you don't mind," he explained, completing his delivery with a beaming smile that was scant years away from the damage of a furious sun's rays.

She smiled back, was forced into the expression by the quality of Richie's innocent grin. The girl considered him from the depths of her aviator sunglasses for a short time, before nodding. When she spoke to him it was with slightly accented words that sounded, to Richie, like a kind of music. The words themselves weren't necessarily gentle, but the tone was enough to make up for what the verbiage lacked.

"Okay, but don't turn into a little creep about it. My man's not far away, you know?"

Richie looked around, noticing her boyfriend's car for the first time. He couldn’t recall the guy's name, but his reputation didn't require one.

He thought quickly, deciding on whether to continue this little joke or run back to the safety of Elvis' front yard. His solution to the problem was uncomplicated and obvious. He'd already started the thing, so finishing it was the best direction in which to proceed. Besides, the looks on his friends' faces would be enough to counter any beating he might receive.

"Nothing creepy, I promise," Richie said with his open palms raised to chest level, "Just normal stuff. We talk for a minute. You laugh like you actually think something I say is worth laughing at. We hug and I walk away smiling. The smile would be faked, but a hug from you might actually paste it to my face for a couple of years."

She laughed, abruptly, and he knew that it was genuine. Richie loved the sound of it even more than he'd loved the accent of her speech.

He couldn't help staring at her from behind the lenses of his cheap sunglasses, the thought of drawing the lines of her face engulfing his mind. She would be beautiful forever, long after the struggles of her life took away the beauty that she currently possessed and replaced it with the lines of age, and Richie could not wait to put ink to paper.

It would be better if he could see her while he drew, but his mind would hold enough of her image to suffice. Alejandra's eyebrows peeked out from behind her own shades as if to ask what was next.

"That's the spirit. Now we hug and I run like hell," Richie said as the driver's side door of her boyfriend's Chevrolet swung open within his field of vision.

"Is that Jaimie getting out of his car?" Alejandra asked with a snicker as she leaned forward to embrace Richie.

"Yes it is. He doesn't look very happy, either."