AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Good.” His eyes are red. He takes a puff off his inhaler and puts it in Balder’s hands. “The air might be crap there.”
He hands me a disposable blue lighter we found half-buried by the Taco Shack. I put it to the dry seaweed, which starts to smoke immediately. The flames eat through the cardboard pretty fast. In seconds, they surround Balder in a hot orange halo. I lift my foot, Gonzo gives the surfboard a final push, and the sea does the rest. The water’s pretty choppy. It buffets our makeshift pyre back and forth, and finally over, till the only thing left on the peach-pink horizon are those crazy bull horns.
And then, even those are gone.
An hour later, the United Snow Globe Wholesalers truck, license plate number USGW 3111, pulls out of the hotel parking lot. One minute after that, we follow.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
In Which the Coyote and the Roadrunner Go Again
“You still see him?”
“Yeah. He’s four cars up,” Gonzo answers. “Dude, shouldn’t we be going after Dr. X and your cure?”
“Not going,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going after Dulcie.”
“Cameron, this is crazy.”
“Just keep an eye on that truck.”
For the next hour, we drive in silence. No talk. No music. Nothing but the white noise of asphalt under tires. The road sways in the afternoon sun. Little waves of clear heat spiral dance in front of me, bathing everything in shimmery motion. I keep glancing in the rearview mirror, expecting to see Balder in the backseat, and the emptiness of it presses down on me, along with the last sight I had of Dulcie. The signs are starting to blur into big globs of reflective green and white that hurt my eyes. Sometimes on the sides of the roads I see things that aren’t there: Mom and Dad holding each other. Balder running through the grass toward a glimmering hall. Glory switching out the bag on an IV pole. The old lady with her garden shears; she waves to me. The coyote. The road-runner. The Copenhagen Interpretation playing Hacky Sack with the Calabi Yau. Just a bunch of travelers on the same road. But I don’t see Dulcie, no matter how hard I try to make her appear.
The Caddy veers over the yellow line, nearly hitting a big truck, whose horn blast has me swerving back into our lane with a jerk.
“Holy shit,” Gonzo says, putting his hands on the dash.
“Sorry,” I say. I pull the car over to the shoulder and rest my head on the steering wheel. I’m clammy, and my muscles ache.
“You okay?” Gonzo asks.
“Yeah,” I lie.
USGW 3111 turns on his blinker and hits the exit, stopping at a Freedom Waffles. There’s a salvage yard on a dusty yellow road to the right of the diner. I park beside the chain-link fence and the mile-high towers of tires and cut the engine.
“Can you keep watch?” I ask, and then I remember how Gonzo got our asses stranded by not looking out for the bus. Seems like years ago. “Never mind. I’ll keep an eye out.”
“No, man. It’s okay. Get some sleep. I’m on it.” And I can tell he is.
“Thanks. You know, for everything. You’re a great wing-man,” I say.
Gonzo smirks. “Yeah. Well. That’s what you get when you sign up the Dwarf of Destiny, cabrón.”
I climb into the backseat, shut my eyes, and go to sleep.
I’m a roadrunner. I look down and see those big bird feet and that’s when I know I’m dreaming. I’m standing in the middle of a cartoon desert landscape. It’s two-dimensional, a bunch of squiggly lines and paint. There are no anvils rigged over my head. No fake holes painted on a backdrop. No explosives rigged to a fuse that will trigger a domino effect of roadrunner-snuffing devices. Nope. I’m alone out here. Just me. And then I see the coyote sitting in a chair, watching TV, his paw in a big bowl of popcorn, like he could care less. At first I think it’s a trap, but then I realize that he really doesn’t care about chasing me. I say, “Beep, beep,” and he keeps flipping channels with his remote. Finally, I give up and hop over to him.
“Aren’t you going to chase me?” I ask.
He looks at me. His yellow eyes are weary. “What’s the point?”
He’s got me there. “I don’t know,” I say, sitting on the edge of his chair. “Because it’s what we do.”
“Huh,” he says. He offers me some popcorn. I peck at it because I’m a bird now.
