Faces in the Fire (7 page)

He pushed the pedal to the floor, knowing it would do him no good. All of Cross Trucking's rigs had governors installed, preventing them from traveling above seventy-five miles per hour. He was maxed out.

Kurt glanced in the rearview mirrors again. The truck behind him was gaining; evidently, it had no such governor slowing it down.

Ahead, on the right, a highway sign announced a turnout for a chain-up area. He smiled. Yes, of course. He was about to go over Lookout Pass on the Montana/Idaho border. It would slow him to a crawl, but it would also slow the truck behind him. That would give him time to think of something.

He hit the beginning of the pass as fast as he could, using the inertia of the moving load to propel him, keeping the accelerator floored until he had to downshift once, then twice.

He glanced at his rearview mirrors and was unsurprised to see the form of the other truck behind him, hovering in the waves of heat radiating off the highway's surface. He still had a few minutes of lead time; if he could get over this pass, maybe even somehow get rid of the trailer . . . well, no, that wasn't an option. He'd need a few minutes to pull the kingpin and unhook the pig's tail that held the trailer, then jack it up off the fifth wheel.

Kurt downshifted again, slowing to a crawl. Behind him the other diesel slowed as it began to climb the pass, and Kurt felt a sense of relief. A sense of hope. He'd half expected the other truck to keep accelerating, to keep gaining on him as he tried to outrun it.

Maybe he could just cut the trailer loose. Really, all he needed to do was pull the release lever to unlatch it. Something inside told him he needed to avoid whoever—or whatever—waited in the truck behind him. If he could get to the top of this pass, cut his load loose, he could get down the opposite side, get away somehow. The other truck would still be climbing while he freewheeled it. And the other truck would still be hauling its own load, slowing it down.

After one more corner he was at the top of the pass; the road flattened for a quarter mile or so, offering a pullout. Without thinking, Kurt wheeled into the pullout and brought the Peterbilt to a halt with a hiss of air brakes. The entire rig shuddered as he hit the parking brakes and spilled out onto the pavement. He stumbled on the concrete surface, turning to look for the diesel he knew was behind him. He couldn't see it, but he heard it, and he saw the chug of black exhaust a couple turns behind him. He had a few minutes, at most.

Kurt scrambled to the front of the trailer, unlatched the safety chain from the pintle hook, and pulled the release lever; inside, he heard the safety jaws holding the trailer's kingpin retract, and the trailer shifted just a bit. For a moment, Kurt thought the trailer might start to roll away, but it stayed put.

He heard the other diesel, so very close now, even saw the twin smokestacks coming into view around the last corner approaching the top of the pass. He ran back to the cab and climbed inside once more.

He'd forgotten to release the electrical and air lines connecting the trailer, but that didn't matter now. They would simply snap off. Nothing mattered now, except outrunning the demon, the phantom, the ghost that pursued him.

Kurt put the rig into gear; it chattered as he tried to move it too quickly. The tires began turning slowly, ever so slowly, and within a few seconds, he felt his truck moving. Sparks danced from the road's surface as the trailer's hitch snapped away from his truck and fell to the concrete. Now much lighter, he topped the rise at the top of the pass and began moving downhill; the big red Peterbilt—almost an exact double of his own, filled the rearview mirrors. His lead was now only a few hundred feet.

Odd; his pursuer wasn't pulling a load. Kurt could have sworn, when he'd watched the truck in the rearview mirrors before, that the truck was hauling a shipping container on a flatbed. But now, it was just the truck itself, like his own. If he hadn't ditched his trailer at the top of the pass, he would have been doomed for sure.

He felt gravity beginning to work with him rather than against him. He gained speed, moving around one turn and then another. Behind him, the other truck kept pace. He wasn't sure how the driver was managing, but he had a couple miles of downgrade on the Montana side of the pass to increase his lead.

Kurt peeled his eyes away from the rearviews and concentrated on the road ahead.

Forward, always forward. Like a shark. Todd had said that. Yes, like a shark. Not a catfish.

Kurt saw the next corner, felt the incline of the road becoming steeper, checked his speedometer. He was pushing fifty now, and he wasn't going to make the corner. He spun the wheel into the turn, struggling against the big rig as the tires beneath him chattered.

His truck rocked, and for a moment Kurt was sure he was going to tip; he tilted at the precipice for a moment, and then the wheels on the left side slammed to the ground again, bottoming out the suspension. A deep, mechanical burning smell began to waft through the cab; maybe he'd snapped something in the suspension.

Immediately, another corner came, this one curving to the right, and Kurt turned into it.

Somehow, his rig righted itself once more. Then, a few yards ahead, Kurt spotted a runaway truck ramp, a giant turnout filled with deep gravel for trucks that had burned out their brakes on giant passes like this one.

Maybe he could hit that ramp at that last second, surprise the truck behind him. If he managed to catch the ramp, and if the other truck went by, it would most likely tumble off the steep cliffs beyond. Kurt was almost doing that right now.

He looked into his rearview mirror and felt a giant shudder; his neck snapped backward, and he realized the other truck had bumped him. Impossibly, it had kept pace, even caught him.

Now or never, he thought, and he wrenched the wheel to the right as hard as he could, guiding his Peterbilt onto the long surface of the runaway ramp. As he hit the gravel, his truck sank immediately, and Kurt felt his whole body being thrown forward.

Even as this happened, another shudder pushed his whole truck forward, and Kurt knew the other Peterbilt had somehow, inexplicably, followed him onto the ramp and rammed him from behind.

A long, slow metallic shriek froze the world around him, but Kurt felt his body lifted out of the seat and through the windshield—through the windshield as if it were nothing more than paper—across the giant hood into the gravel beyond. He tumbled forever, spinning until he came to a stop facedown in the thick, heavy gravel. He
smelled diesel, and that odd mechanical burning now stronger than ever, but beneath all that, the comforting smell he loved so much: pine trees. At least there was that. As he lay dying, he would be able to take with him the memories of fresh pine.

But his body wouldn't cooperate with his mind's wish to die. He felt it trying to stand, against his will, even though his legs wouldn't work. Nothing in his body would work. Maybe a broken femur or two. This thought struck him as funny, and he opened his mouth to laugh; instead, he felt liquid coming from his mouth. Blood, he realized. That meant a punctured lung or another internal injury.

After a few moments, though, his breath came back, and Kurt felt his legs, almost as if working on their own, bunching beneath him and forcing him to stand.

He turned and looked at the giant heap of twisted metal behind him. A thick, twisted column of bitter smoke erupted from the wreckage as angry orange flames rose toward the sky.

Amazingly, another man emerged from the wreckage.

Kurt stepped back, felt his right leg give out, and he went down again. The man, now free of the burning heap, moved toward him with a pronounced limp. One of the man's arms hung uselessly at his side.

Kurt struggled to his feet again. It wasn't Jonas, as he'd expected. And yet it was someone he recognized, someone from long ago.

(Stan. Stan ________.)

Stan something. His mind wouldn't give him the name of that kid . . .

(Stan Hawkins)

. . . from his childhood, that kid who had accidentally killed their gym teacher.

The man came to a stop in front of him, swaying. He spoke, and Kurt suddenly knew: it was the voice that had been speaking to him through the radio.

“It's not the ghosts outside haunting you,” the looming form said. “It's the ghosts inside.”

Kurt recognized the voice, still filled with broken static. But as the static filtered the voice, everything else suddenly cleared.

Looking into those eyes, Kurt remembered his past. And his future.

The man held out his hand, so Kurt—

65.

“Hello?” a voice said.

He opened his eyes a crack, closed them again as the light assaulted them in bright, rusty daggers of pain.

“His eyes moved,” the voice from above said. “He's coming awake.”

He tried to shake his head, but it felt weak.

“Just relax, Mr. Marlowe,” the voice said. “Take it slow.”

He tried to open his eyes again, and this time it was better. Colors began to resolve and come into focus. After a few seconds he made out two faces bent over him.

“You've been in an accident, Mr. Marlowe,” the nearer face said to him. A man's face, unshaven. The face abruptly spoke to the other one, a woman. “Go get Dr. Chambers,” it said, and he heard the squeak of shoes on a hard surface as the other face disappeared.

He opened his mouth to speak, but only a squawk came out.

“Like I said, Mr. Marlowe, you'll need to take it easy. You probably won't get your voice for a day or two. We just took you off the ventilator a few days ago.”

Ventilator? Okay, so he'd been in an accident. Immediately, images flooded his mind. A column of smoke. Fire. Looking out on the destruction. All of it came back to him.

And . . . images of before. As if a new door had opened. Not just a ghost door, but a much bigger door.

He looked at the unshaven face still hovering above him. “How long?” he managed to rasp. The guy was right; his vocal cords felt like shredded cheese.

A puzzled expression crossed the unshaven face, and it came closer. “What was that?” the face asked, a little too loudly and slowly.

“How long?” he asked again.

The face seemed surprised, backed away. “Um, maybe you should talk to Dr. Chambers. Just relax.”

He closed his eyes. Fine. He'd wait for Dr. Chambers. He felt warmth spreading throughout the rest of his body, and he moved his right hand.

“You moved your hand, Mr. Marlowe. That's very good.”

He kept his eyes closed, smiled. The Amazing Amnesia Boy had a new trick: moving his hand.

New footsteps squeaked on the floor, and the voice from above spoke again. “This is Dr. Chambers, Mr. Marlowe.”

He opened his eyes, looked at the face of Dr. Chambers. She had thick, curly hair and a warm, reassuring smile.

“You've been in an accident, Mr. Marlowe,” she said.

So he'd heard.

“You may feel weak for a time, because . . . ah, there's no way to put this gently: you've been in a coma.”

A coma. Well, that wasn't a surprise, was it?

“How long?” he tried to say again, but his vocal cords still wouldn't work. He wasn't sure if Dr. Chambers had understood his mouthed words, but she answered him anyway.

“You've been in a coma for almost a month. A long time, I know, but the good news is: you started coming out of it a week ago.” She smiled. “We've been expecting you.”

He wanted to ask more, but it was evidently impossible at the moment.

“I don't know what to say about your case,” she continued. “When they brought you in, we expected you to be shattered. Broken bones everywhere. But no major injuries at all—some old injuries, extensive injuries—but . . . I don't know, it's like you bounced. Sometimes we see that with drunk drivers. They're so loose, they get through their crashes without a scratch.” She cleared her throat.

He felt his brow furrow, and Dr. Chambers must have understood his confusion.

“You should just rest right now, Mr. Marlowe,” she said. “Take this slow. Your major injuries were to the brain, but, ah—” She paused.

(brain damage)

She was going to tell him he had major brain damage. Big surprise.

“Ah—” she continued. Her voice dropped. “Well, to be perfectly honest, Mr. Marlowe, there's so much we don't understand about the brain. You had major swelling, which put you into the coma. But the brain is so much more resilient than we can even understand. Your MRIs have been steadily improving as you've been waking up, and I have to say, I think you're going to make a full recovery.”

He smiled, closed his eyes again. And then, he slept.

66.

Doctors expected him to take several weeks, maybe even months, to recover. They told him to expect some grueling physical rehabilitation as he retaught his brain how to control his body. There had to be extensive damage, they told him, lingering effects. But then they did MRIs, CT scans, EEGs, a whole alphabet soup of tests and scans, and went quiet as all the results came back normal.

As everything showed a perfectly functioning brain.

When he surprised them by walking out of the hospital a week later, they were even quieter. Only Dr. Chambers spoke. She asked if he'd be willing to participate in a study, help her understand what had led to his recovery.

He smiled when she asked, said he'd be happy to.

After all, he knew, deep inside, that he'd fully recovered—from so much more than she would ever know.

His conversations with Todd had returned to him as he lay in the hospital bed that week. How sometimes, as humans, we need to move backward before we can move forward. That was what had done it. Moving backward.

That was what had brought him
through the fire.

As he was checking out of the hospital, the woman behind the counter handed him a large plastic bag.

“What's this?” he asked, holding the bag up to examine it.