And this is the tie between The Penny Part 2 and 3 that I've been talking about. I hope you had fun with this little interlude. Thanks for reading!
The Very Cold Night
Part 3
The Very Cold Night
It was late in the night as Devil's 4runner drove along Route 150, southward. They were just passing Danville, and the snow had ceased to fall; now the only thing indicating winter was the ice-cold wind rattling the truck. Devil was focused on driving, and Caleb was sitting in the passenger's seat. Carlisle's slow, regular breathing from the backseat indicated his being asleep for some time. They had only been on the road for an hour or so, and the CD player was running (uninterrupted, for once), but Devil guessed that Kevin Carlisle was one of those guys who could sleep just about anywhere, at any time.
The CD playing was one Keegan had made for Devil as a farewell gift, although he hadn't phrased it that way (he'd just said, "For the road, dude", and Devil had taken it for what it was and said, "Thanks"), and it was full of Depeche Mode for some reason, a band Devil had never understood the hype about. But Caleb seemed to enjoy it and Devil was too tired to change it or even switch to radio, which would have been mainly static, anyway. The area they were crossing consisted of forest and nothing else.
Devil watched the still trees in passing, as much as he could see of them in the darkness, and it inevitably brought his thoughts back to Frankfort, or rather Georgetown. So much had happened in the last months, but right now it seemed far away. The year 2013 was still so young, young enough that Devil sometimes forgot a new year had already begun. Time practically raced by. Devil thought of Tanner then and had to swallow a bit.
Caleb was staring blankly out the window. He had little to worry about, Devil thought; he'd picked him and Carlisle up from Carlisle's mother's house in Coxs Creek in the dark and was absolutely sure nobody of relevance had seen them; but Caleb was about as haunted as one person could be, and sleep never came easily to him, either. He seemed to have done okay with Carlisle and his mom, Devil thought. He'd gained a bit of weight and lost the shadows under his eyes almost entirely. But the shadows in his mind were likely to remain, maybe forever.
Neither Caleb nor Devil felt like talking, and so they let Depeche Mode and Carlisle's breathing fill the void of silence between them. The situation felt alien to Devil, and in that it felt entirely too familiar. But, as often as Devil had had to pull an all-nighter to drive from A to B (be it within the frontiers of Kentucky, or from Kentucky all the way to the East Coast), he had kind of gotten used to it, appreciated it, even; the quiet of the night, and the darkness, they did have something to them. Being afraid of the dark was manifesting itself inside the heads of little children (and some grown-ups) through the fear of the unknown; and the fear of silence that a lot of people had nowadays meant that really they were scared of being alone, or figured out. And while Devil had always been scared of being alone, he'd never been afraid of the other two, and he knew he wasn't alone now, so he let the quiet and the darkness sail by the windshield of his beloved truck and thought to himself, whatever the fuck may come my way, I think I'm gonna take it on.
Carlisle started snoring in the backseat, and Caleb threw a glance at him.
"Wish I could sleep like that" he murmured, breaking the silence, and Devil's remembrance of the moment.
"Why can't you, though?" Devil asked, not looking away from the dark road.
"Not tired enough to sleep on the road" Caleb said with a shrug.
"What can you do" Devil said. The conversation ended then.
Devil thought of Nina and how much he was going to miss her; the first woman since he had been 23 to do something with his heart, the first woman Devil had let close enough since the time when he'd stopped being "Lil Man" Derek. Right now, though, as tired as he was, Devil was too excited about going home to fret about it much. He was finally going home, to Harlan.
An especially brutal gust of wind blew over the highway and made the trees to either side look like they were nodding at Devil. It looked almost like they were telling him he was right to be excited; they were saying, "Son, it's gonna be good."
This story is for my uncle J.