Chapter 2
They hit the road doing 90. By the time the sun rose, they had left Battery City far behind. Its glass towers gleamed like pillars of salt in the rearview. Receding and receding and receding, until they slipped at last beneath the demarcation of the horizon.
Frank felt, for the first time, the knot of tension between his shoulderblades begin to ease.
He half turned, just enough to see Gerard out of the side of his eye. He was alert, steady; his eyes skewed into slits against the rising sun. Both of his hands were on the wheel, and, though he held it loosely, his knuckles still showed stark and white. A tangle of wires spilled out of the ignition beneath his wrist. Frank had done the hotwiring job, but then he had turned the driver's seat over. Good motorists were rare since the gas rationing of the war years, but Gerard seemed at home behind the wheel. Just like a little rich boy with a little rich boy's hobby, Frank thought. He managed to muster up a little of the old contempt, the old self-righteousness, but it quickly died away.
"Are you tired?" Frank asked. It occurred to him that neither of them had spoken in a long time.
Gerard's lips moved, making a subtle frown. "I'm all right."
"It embarrasses you when I ask you things like that, doesn't it?" When Gerard didn't answer, Frank laughed. "That's because you're such a big tough guy."
"You're flirting with me," Gerard said mildly.
Frank turned away, making himself watch the wasteland instead. "I was just making conversation."
"I don't mind."
"You don't mind conversation?" Frank said.
"No, I suppose I don't."
Outside, the desert slid by. It was not the dead land that Frank had expected it would be. Scrub grass grew in the ditch along the side of the highway, studded intermittently with a knobby Joshua tree, twisted and strange like Martian cactus. Only the power lines were without life. They stood in listless disrepair, no longer resembling sentinels or soldiers but only awkward unwanted reminders of the world that had gone by.
"I can't believe I gave up indoor plumbing for this," Frank said. "We're going to be shitting behind sand dunes and wiping our asses with Gila monsters from here on out."
Gerard said nothing. Frank shifted around in his seat to look at him. "Well?"
"What?"
"Don't you have an opinion on that?"
"No. I don't have any opinion on that."
He didn't once look away from the road. Though Frank watched him for a long time, Gerard did not turn or hesitate or even blink. It seemed to Frank that he could see a terrible and inexhaustible will intermingled with the delicate lines of Gerard's pretty face. He would keep going for a long time now, simply out of momentum. When the rest of them were nothing but a handful of forgotten dust, Gerard would still be pressing on, calmly and steadily, toward that far horizon.
Frank felt his heart beat faster. A strange and unfamiliar fear gripped him.
He reached out, setting a hand over Gerard's and pinning it to the wheel. He could feel the cold brittleness of his fingers in spite of the growing heat of the day.
"Let's stop up here," Frank said.
"Stop?" Gerard replied, as if he did not understand.
"I gotta piss. Besides, we should take a look around. Figure out where we're going."
"East," Gerard said quietly. "We're going east."
But he took his foot off the accelerator and eased over onto the shoulder. Flipped the turn signal and everything, Frank noticed, with something that was a mixture of amusement and irritation. He hopped out, and picked his way through the tumbleweeds and cactus, his back to the car. He had the impression that he could think more clearly without Gerard distracting him, but as he unzipped his pants and stared out at the hazy, bluish mountains in the distance, he was not thinking about anything in particular.
A flash of movement in the grass caught his attention as a huge grayish jackrabbit ambled out from the shadow of a rock. It sat up on its hind legs, bringing its pinkly twitching nose to the level of Frank's hip. His stomach curdled in disgust: the thing was the size of a goddamn bulldog. The rabbit cocked its head in his direction, revealing a knot of naked flesh wedged between its ears, sprouting a mass of purple tentacles that coiled around the rabbit's head like blind snakes.
Frank shoved his cock back into his jeans and bent down, keeping one nervous eye on the creature. The rabbit watched him with dull animal curiosity but no fear. It twitched its pink nose, revealing a pair of orange over-long incisors. Frank retrieved a stone and threw it. It struck the ground near the rabbit's stubby tale and kicked up a cloud of red dust. The rabbit loped off without haste or concern.
"Fuck," Frank said aloud, wiping his palms on his jeans. His voice seemed very loud to his own ears. "Shit. Gross."
He hurried back to the car. Gerard had come around the front of it and was leaning against the hood staring into the distance. There was a cigarette clamped between his lips, looking alien and out of place against the bow of his mouth. Frank circled in front of him and Gerard's gaze dropped to his face. For the first time, his steady eyes seemed to flicker as he drew Frank into focus.
"You smoke?" Frank asked.
"Sometimes."
"Sometimes?"
"Sometimes I do." Gerard plucked the cigarette away from his lips and breathed a plume of blue smoke. "Are you ready to go?"
Frank felt his stomach wrench tight. He reached out, capturing the cigarette as Gerard tried to return it to his mouth. He took a jittery drag, tasting only ashes as he did, not knowing why he had expected anything else.
"You all right?"
"Me?" Gerard said.
Frank stroked the backs of his fingers along Gerard's jaw where his skin was blackened by a bruise. He slid the pad of his thumb along his lower lip to the vertical slit where it had split open, and bled, and scabbed over.
"You got worked over pretty good," Frank said.
Gerard tested the inside of his lip with his tongue. "Your friend hits hard," he conceded.
"The Manskinner?" Frank shook his head. "I wouldn't really call him a friend. But he does hit hard."
"I'm fine," Gerard said quietly.
"Are you sure? Your eye is pretty swollen…"
"I'm fine."
Frank withdrew his hand slowly. "Listen, if I've done something to piss you off—"
He didn't get a chance to finish. Gerard's hand came up his back, fingertips skating along his spine. He caught a fistful of Frank's hair and jerked him forward. Frank stumbled, off balance, and landed hard against Gerard's chest. His face was tilted up, and Gerard covered his mouth with a bruising kiss.
Frank moaned, twisting in Gerard's grip. He didn't know how he'd gotten here; Gerard had moved too fast for him to track. Inhumanly fast, Frank thought, feeling a barb of fear embed itself in his heart. There was something here, something telling him to be wary, but Frank did not pay it any attention. Later he could regret it, but for now he had this moment.
He pushed himself up against Gerard's body, feeling him move to fit them together. Gerard slid a leg up between his thighs, and Frank ground his hips against it, feeling cock twitch and strain inside his jeans.
Then he tasted blood, metallic and bitter. It flooded his mouth, and Frank pulled back, gagging.
The gash on Gerard's lip had split open, and a ribbon of fresh blood ran down his chin, bright against his pale skin. Frank passed the back of his hand over his mouth and it came away with a red smudge on it.
"Shit," he said. "Sorry."
"It's all right," Gerard replied. He had not reached to staunch the flow of blood at all. A few drops fell from the point of his chin and stained the lapels of his torn and dirty suit coat.
"Let me…" Frank fumbled in his back pocket and pulled out his bandana. Folding it over, he pressed it to the cut on Gerard's mouth. Gerard watched him over the crease in the cloth, his gray eyes strangely detached, as if they were windows onto a different face.
Frank dabbed up the blood as best he could, though it had already stained Gerard's lips a feral crimson color.
"There," Frank said. He laughed nervously. "Red's a good color on you, you know."
Gerard watched him in silence for a moment. He lifted his neglected cigarette and took a drag. It had nearly all burned down now, and when Gerard touched it to his mouth, a long column of ash crumbled from the end of it.
He flicked the butt away into the desert.
"I'll keep that in mind."
They drove through the morning until the sun was high, breathing the blue fumes from the car's aged air conditioning. The heat pooled on the asphalt in front of them, giving the illusion of water, oases that never came.
With the sun at its zenith, they passed a ruined suburb, glittering, menaced by the desert, in the valley just off the highway. The signs along the side of the road had all been torn out; the off ramps had been severed ruthlessly, like cut arteries. They passed beneath an orphaned, inaccessible overpass, caked with fading mandalas of graffiti.
"Do you think anyone still lives there?" Frank said
"This area is under quarantine," Gerard answered. He put his foot down hard on the peddle, and they left the gutted track houses and strip malls behind.
"Quarantine for what?"
"Vermin."
"What…?" Frank started to say. Then he stopped. He turned in his seat, looking out the back window. The Pegasus sign that marked the last gas station at the edge of town was quickly dipping out of sight.
Frank felt his throat tighten, his pulse surging. He could see it clearly: the heavy machinery rolling up the highway in the blue hour before dawn. The vehicles were stark white in the last of the moonlight, stamped with the Better Living logo. They laid into the roads, chopping the asphalt and concrete pillars into segments, carrying them away as if they could be reassembled. He saw it so clearly he might as well have been standing amongst them, the few residents of the suburb who came to stand in their pajamas at the edges of their regular and well-maintained lawns and watch, with bemused complacency, as the signs that might have said Rattlesnake Run or Sweetwater Creek or Gold Dust Trail were uprooted, as if, without a name, the suburb might all the sooner cease to exist.
Without the roads, there would have been no escaping that place save through the desert, braving the heat, the sun, the creatures that lived out there beneath the sand. If anyone were brave enough, or resourceful enough, or strong enough to attempt it, they were not the sort of person who would live in a planned suburb of Battery City. Better Living had known as much, had banked on it, and they had not been wrong.
"Jesus," Frank muttered. He shook his head violently, but the image would not dissipate. "Fucking christ."
"Is something wrong?" Gerard said.
"You! You're what's wrong!"
Gerard did not reply. He tapped the brake and brought the car to a silky halt. He gave the tangle of wires below the ignition a tug, cutting the engine, and then he turned, without a word, making no sound at all, not even the creak of upholstery leather or the whisper of fabric.
Frank said nothing, could say nothing. He felt that he was choking, that his lungs were filled with ashes, with smoke the same shade of gray as the gray of Gerard's eyes.
"Have I upset you?" Gerard reached out to touch him, and Frank flinched away.
"You're a monster. You're all monsters."
"Shh," Gerard said. He moved again, slowly, and this time Frank let him pass the backs of his fingers along his cheek. He felt his balls draw up taut against his body in helpless arousal, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
"I wish I'd let them kill you."
"You don't mean that," Gerard said patiently, and Frank knew that he was right. Whatever terrible power Gerard might hold over him now, it was only because Frank had permitted it, invited it.
He forced himself to open his eyes, and Gerard began to withdraw his hand. Frank caught hold of it and pulled it to his mouth. He pursed his lips against the vertebrae of Gerard's knuckles as if he meant to kiss them, but he did not.
"What are we going to do?" he said at last. "I thought, once we got here…"
"You thought it would be easy, didn't you?"
"Easier than this. I thought it would all make sense."
Gerard sighed, gently extracting his hand from Frank's grip. He turned so he was facing the highway again, planting both hands on the steering wheel. By now, the AC had been off for long enough that the heat had begun to close in on them. Frank could feel it tightening around him like a fist. He watched a bead of sweat form in the pit of Gerard's temple, watched it trickle slowly down his cheek.
"You don't know where we are, do you?" Frank said quietly. "You have no idea where you're taking us."
"Away," Gerard replied. "As far away as I can."
Something in those words gave Frank pause. He felt a memory trying to surface, something he ought to have understood but, stubbornly, could not.
"Away from what?" he asked.
"That place."
"Away from what, Gerard?"
He saw the muscles in Gerard's jaw tighten subtly, saw his throat move as if his mouth was suddenly dry. Absently, he ran the tip of his tongue over the cut on his lower lip, exploring it.
"Someone's coming," he said at last.
"What…?"
It took Frank a while to see it too, but eventually a dark shape emerged out of the heat that obscured the road. It was a vehicle, coming toward them at a good speed.
"It's about time," Frank said, but he reached inside his jacket and touched the butt of his pistol, assuring himself of its presence.
Gerard did not seem to hear him. With a deft movement of his fingers, he twisted the ignition wires together, and the car roared to life. He put it in reverse and hit the gas so hard that Frank was thrown back in his seat. The tires shrieked as Gerard brought his foot down hard on the brake, simultaneously twisting the wheel so the car swung around, facing now back in the direction from which they had come.
He pushed the gas pedal to the floor, still holding the car steady, as the speedometer inched up past 100, past 110, and beneath the hood something groaned and then the whole chassis began to vibrate.
"What the fuck?" said Frank, but Gerard didn't answer.
They passed the suburb again, but this time it seemed no more than a dark blur against the landscape. Frank dared a glance behind them, but the car Gerard had fled from was long out of sight.
"Stop," Frank said. "Stop now."
But Gerard did not even look at him. Frank made a grab for one of his hands, clenched in a pale vice around the wheel, hoping that the contact might snap him out of it. Gerard jerked away, wrenching the wheel hard to the left. The car tried to spin out, but he brought it back under control, and then there was a sickening drop as they left the highway and came down hard on the unpaved access road that ran parallel to it.
A spume of gravel erupted behind the car. Gerard did not slow, even on the dirt, and Frank could hear the ping of small pebbles, like buckshot, against the sides of the car. A rock hit the window on his side with a sound like a skull cracking, and a spiderweb appeared in the glass.
"Fucking stop!" Frank said again, his voice pitched strangely now. "He's gone. What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Gerard turned, just barely, and looked at him with flat incomprehension. With eyes like the dead doll-eyes they might give a machine, like windows that opened upon some cold and distant abyss.
Neither of them was watching the road, and so Gerard did not even touch the brake before they went over the cattle crossing. Both the front tires blew, the hubcaps exploding off in either direction. Frank heard a mournful metallic wail as the rims hit the road. He felt a moment of weightlessness – he would learn later that the car had rolled – and then the sound of crumpling metal that seemed to come from somewhere far away, to be happening to someone else.
Then, nothing.