Revenant (20 page)

At least while he had been unconscious he had been breathing slowly, not using much air, unlike now when panic was starting to take over and he could feel himself breathing heavily, nearly panting, feeling like he had just run ten miles. He forced himself to slow down, to conserve air, to
think.

Gordie knew he was out here, and the Paskagankee Police dispatcher had been doing his job a long time. He would expect Mike to check in after searching the house, whether he had found the couple he was looking for or not. If enough time went by and no communication had been received, Gordie would send another cruiser to investigate. Either Harley or Sharon would be dispatched.

And they would find an otherwise empty house with a dead body on the floor of the basement. Who knew whether either one of them would think to check the closed freezer? And, really, even if they did, what were the odds they would get here quickly enough to discover anything beside his cooling corpse huddled in the bottom of the thing?

Mike realized he was starting to breathe heavily again and forced himself to calm down. Panicking would do no good. But it was definitely getting hotter in here, a sure sign that the oxygen was rapidly disappearing.

He forced himself to be still and think, although it was becoming harder and harder to concentrate. Brett Parker and the young woman had been lying on the floor when he first entered the basement. They had both been unconscious but not suffering from any apparent serious injuries. Manning was undoubtedly long gone, but what were the chances he would have killed both of them before leaving or taken both as hostages?

Maybe one or both of them were still out there and had awoken and recovered sufficiently to help him. Maybe if he screamed loudly enough, some of the sound would force its way out of this metal coffin and alert them to his presence.

Maybe.

But there was a risk; a big one, the way Mike saw it. If neither of them had regained consciousness yet, or if Manning had killed both before leaving, or if they had both already gotten up and made their way out of the basement, he could scream his fool head off and the only result would be to burn through the remainder of his oxygen that much more quickly, effectively condemning himself to death.

He tried to stay calm and weigh the options. Sweat continued to drip; he was soaking, he felt like he had jumped into a pool with all his clothes on. The decision was simple, really. In all probability he was going to die inside this freezer. There was no getting around it. And if that was the case, he wasn’t about to go down without a fight. If yelling for help brought the end about more quickly, so be it. At least he would go to his death knowing he had tried.

Mike took a deep breath, wondering whether it would be his last, and bellowed as loudly as he could.

30

Driving a car was hard when you were dead, and coordinating all the muscular activity needed to shift a manual transmission properly was damned near impossible. All of the problems he was having took what had been a lifelong dream—putting a Porsche through its paces—and made it seem like more of a pain in the ass for Earl Manning than the joy ride he had been expecting. Plus, a fire engine red Porsche 911 would stick out like a sore thumb with the authorities, who would undoubtedly already be in the process of launching a massive search for Software Boy and the suddenly missing chief of police.

He should have taken the minivan. He knew that. It would have been easier to drive and might have made blending into the scenery at least a possibility. Goddammit.

Thinking logically had never been Earl’s strong point—he wasn’t sure he had ever even
had
a strong point—and being dead had scrambled his faculties even more, but one thing he knew was that it would be suicide to return to that piece of shit house in the woods and try to change vehicles now, so all he could do was continue on in the Porsche and hope for the best.

It would be suicide
; that was a good one. Could someone who was already dead even commit suicide? How could you kill yourself if you weren’t alive to begin with? Earl wasn’t sure, but he thought that might be what the eggheads called a conundrum. Whatever it was called, it was the sort of philosophical discussion that would have kept the alkies and barflies at the Ridge Runner busy for a good long while, that was for sure.

The Porsche weaved back and forth along the remote Paskagankee roads, mostly staying on the right side, occasionally drifting across the centerline whenever Earl became distracted, which seemed to be happening more and more. He knew enough to keep to the lightly-traveled roads as he headed out of town, and so far, since leaving The Fucking Devil Max Acton’s house, had seen only a handful of vehicles.

He glanced over at his billionaire passenger, slumped in the sports car’s other bucket seat. Parker had been moaning and occasionally twitching, and Earl guessed he would be regaining consciousness soon.

He wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. It would make him much harder to control, which was bad, but on the other hand, Earl figured a guy who had invented and sold enough computer software to end up one of the richest men in the world couldn’t help but be smarter than he was, and he definitely needed some serious brainpower.

Because, well, here was the thing: Earl had no goddamn clue what to do next. He had outsmarted The Fucking Devil Max Acton precisely by
not
planning anything out, by just acting on instinct and attacking when The Fucking Devil’s attention was elsewhere.

He had known enough to take cover in the only available hiding place when the cop showed up, catching the guy by surprise and somehow taking him down.

And he had even been bright enough to take a hostage.

But what now? Sure, Parker was rich. Maybe he even had research and development connections in the field of human reanimation, if there was such a thing. But he was from the west coast, his research facilities would be three thousand miles away, and the minute they even tried to use the guy’s ATM card to get a little operating capital the authorities would be on him like, well, like Earl Manning on a free beer.

The situation was just about fucking hopeless. Earl felt himself getting worked up, agitated, like he did when his Ma tried to make him do stupid shit like take out the garbage or clean their ratty trailer. If he could breathe, he’d probably be hyperventilating right now, but, of course, that wasn’t a problem, was it?

Earl spied a fire lane cut into the trees, coming up fast on the right. He hit the brakes, too hard, and the Porsche skidded along the deserted road, the car’s ass end trying to overtake the front. Parker’s limp body tumbled into the passenger side foot well and wedged itself into the tiny space. Earl concentrated on keeping the goddamn car from flying off into the trees and forgot to hit the clutch with his left foot and the fucking engine died and he slammed his hands on the steering wheel in frustration as the car came screeching to a halt, somehow stopping right in the middle of the road.

He wanted to cry or scream or hit something. Instead he turned the key to restart the car and it tried to jitter forward since it was still in gear. Earl forced himself to slow down, concentrating hard, and depressed the clutch before turning the key again and the engine fired up like the car had just come off the showroom floor, purring contentedly. Earl eased the Porsche into first gear and chugged forward, making the right turn into the fire lane and driving a couple of hundred feet until he was pretty sure the vehicle was out of sight of the road, not that anyone was likely to come by.

Then he shut the engine off and leaned down to the right. It was time the two of them had a little conversation, man to man.
Or at least corpse to man.
Earl snickered. He dragged Parker’s body back up onto the seat and raised his hand to slap the billionaire like people always did on TV when someone was unconscious—it seemed to work every time—and noticed his hostage’s blue eyes were open and he appeared more or less alert. He seemed to be working hard at looking anywhere but at Earl, but he was definitely awake, although he had not so much as uttered a word yet.

Earl smiled and Parker scrabbled his feet against the Porsche’s firewall, doing his best to shove himself through the passenger side door and into the woods. He had apparently learned nothing from unsuccessfully attempting the same maneuver at his house. A terrified whimper escaped his lips and Earl’s smile widened into a grin. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” he said. “That makes . . . well . . .” he pretended to count on his fingers . . . “one of us.”

“What do you want from me,” Parker whispered. “I gave that other guy the Codebreaker already; I have nothing more to offer.”

“That other guy,” Earl mused. “Oh, you mean The Fucking Devil Max Acton, the man whose throat I ripped out? The man who murdered me and then desecrated my corpse by cutting my heart out and bringing me back to life to act as his personal slave? Is that the other guy you’re referring to?”

Parker nodded slowly, clearly unsure where this conversation was going and whether agreement would be good or bad for his long-term health.

“Well, here’s the thing,” Earl said. “I don’t give a damn about the fucking Codebreaker, I have other things to worry about. Things like getting my heart put back in my chest and getting my life back. And not this crazy half-life of being dead, forced to do someone else’s bidding, either. I mean becoming a real, live person again, going to the Ridge Runner and drinking with my friends. It might not seem like much of a life to a rich snob like you, but it’s mine, and I WANT IT BACK!”

Earl had felt himself getting angrier and angrier as he talked, pissed off at the unfairness of what he had been put through, and by the time he finished talking, he was surprised to discover he was shouting, screaming into Brett Parker’s face. He would have been showering the man in spit, but, of course, he couldn’t generate saliva; he was dead.

Parker’s eyes were wild, his face white as a ghost. He shook his head. “What does any of this have to do with me?” He was still whispering, as if maybe he thought the sound of his voice at full volume might push Earl over the edge. And
that
pissed him off, too.

“What does it have to do with you? Are you really that stupid? You have all the money and all the resources. You’re going to use that money and those resources to figure out how to get me my life back.”

Parker shook his head. His bewilderment looked real. “I don’t know anything about what happened to you, and I don’t know anything about bringing the dead back to life. I . . . I don’t even think any of that is possible. I’m a computer software developer, a tech geek, that’s all. I don’t see how I could help you.”

Earl snapped. Parker was his only hope and the software billionaire had fallen right into his lap. That couldn’t have been a random occurrence; the guy had to be able to fix him. The universe couldn’t possibly be so cruel as to give him this rare opportunity and not allow him to use it somehow.

“BULLSHIT,” he screamed, and he turned the key and the engine started on the first try. He jammed the Porsche’s stick shift into reverse, remembering to depress the clutch despite the stress and his anger, and then stomped on the gas. The engine roared and dirt and dust and rocks flew from under the tires as they spun on the sandy surface of the fire lane and a second later they caught and the Porsche rocketed backward, Earl barely paying attention, somehow managing to avoid shooting off the narrow trail into a tree.

Parker screamed and Earl felt a rush of savage glee and in a matter of seconds, against all odds, the Porsche had reversed straight out of the fire lane. It bounced onto the crumbling pavement of Mountain Home Road, shooting sparks as it bottomed out on the slight rise of the shoulder and then flew into the air. Earl smacked the top of his head on the Porsche’s carpeted ceiling and he felt the car begin to cant slightly to the left, and then they slammed back down onto the road, sparks flying, thick black smoke billowing from under the wheel wells as Earl kept the accelerator jammed to the floor.

The engine screamed and the tires screamed and Parker screamed and the Porsche shot across the empty road, disappearing into the forest opposite the fire lane. It blasted through the branches of an ancient fir tree like a bullet and slammed backward into the tree’s massive trunk and the car exploded in a shower of smashing glass and twisting sheet metal.

And then it was quiet.

31

Sharon reached the top of the stairs and pushed Raven roughly through the doorway into the kitchen, anxious to get as far away from the overwhelming stench in the basement as possible. She was in a hurry to get medical attention for Raven and then transport her to a holding cell so she could continue her search for Mike McMahon.

She was frustrated and angry. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind this young woman knew more than she was saying, both about the dead body in the basement and maybe also about Mike’s disappearance, but she had clammed up and shown no signs of cooperating and Sharon didn’t want to waste precious time on a lost cause. Maybe once she had tossed Raven into the back of the cruiser and they were on their way to the hospital she could get the girl to open up a little.

But she was still pissed. She kicked the basement door closed after shoving Raven into the kitchen. The door slammed and the whole house seemed to shake, and she stalked forward and—

—What the hell?

A muffled sound came from somewhere she couldn’t quite put her finger on. It might have been in front of her or behind her or even above her on the second floor. Or maybe from the basement. The sound was brief and aborted and perhaps even a figment of her imagination.

She stopped dead still, grabbing Raven by the crook of the elbow to keep her from continuing into the empty living room. What had she heard? Had she even heard anything? It had sounded almost like a puppy whimpering or maybe someone snoring enthusiastically under a blanket.