The Devil's Graveyard (33 page)

Lucinda and Candy both got up from their seats and headed for the door. As they were leaving, Lucinda tried one last plea. ‘Nigel, that Janis Joplin? Seriously, you can’t…’

‘Yes I fucking well can. Now get out!’

Emily opened her eyes. Her vision was blurred and her eyes stung. She was also rapidly becoming aware of a painful throbbing at the front of her forehead. She was lying on a bed staring up at the ceiling. She could feel dried tears on her face, but she couldn’t recall crying or remember why her head hurt. She reached a hand up to her forehead, wondering if it was as swollen as it felt.

From somewhere nearby, a voice like cold gravel spoke out. ‘How ya feelin’?’

The sound startled her and she sat bolt upright. She regretted it immediately. Her head pounded. There was a man sitting at the end of the bed she was lying on. And from what she could tell, she was no longer in the same room that Nigel Powell had put in her in. She quickly moved her eyes around to take in her new surroundings. The rapid eye movement made her head hurt even more. She was in another hotel room all right. It was similar to the one Nigel Powell had set her up in, only this one was slightly smaller and with a single bed instead of a double. And the creepy guy in black who had been rude to her earlier in the day was sitting at the end of her bed.

‘How ya feelin’?’ he asked again.

‘Who are you? What am I doing here?’ she asked him, fearful of what his answer might be.

‘Looked like someone was tryin’ to kill you,’ the man replied laconically.

Emily had a sudden flashback to the moment when she was confronted by Gabriel the biker-gunman. She remembered hitting him with a steam iron and knocking him down. As a ploy for escape, it hadn’t worked as well as she’d hoped. Then he had pinned her down and banged her head on the floor a couple of times. Everything was a bit of a blur after that. So how had she ended up with this guy? And what were his intentions?

‘What happened? I remember struggling with that biker guy and…’ She recalled seeing Gabriel’s face next to hers on the floor. The way his eyes had stared blankly at her for a second before rolling up into his head. ‘What happened to him? Is he dead?’

‘I shot him in the head. So yeah, probably.’

‘Oh my God!’

Emily was not a supporter of violence, the steam-iron incident notwithstanding. And she certainly wasn’t a fan of murder. At the moment, however, all she could think about was how incredibly cool it was to be sitting next to a man who had killed someone just to save her. That only happened in the movies.

‘You did that for me?’ she blurted out. The pain in her head had left her still a little dazed. She would otherwise never have let her guard down, even momentarily, to let him know exactly what she was thinking.

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s
awesome.’

As soon as she had uttered the word, she felt her face go scarlet with embarrassment. She rubbed her aching forehead, using her hand to hide the blush on her cheeks as she did so. To hide her confusion, she quickly asked more questions.’ But who are you? And why did you kill him?’ she asked.

‘You ever heard of the Bourbon Kid?’

‘Yeah. You mean that psycho guy with the drink problem who kills innocent people? He’s a freaking maniac. They should lock him up and…’ She trailed off. ‘That’s you, isn’t it?’ she said softly.

‘Yeah.’

‘Sorry.’

‘I don’t generally need a reason to kill someone, but when I walked into your hotel room it looked like the guy was ’bout to kill you. Had a gun pointed at your head.’

‘Oh God.’ Emily remembered the feeling as Gabriel’s gun had pressed against her skull. ‘He was going to shoot me, wasn’t he?’

‘No. He wasn’t.’

‘Huh?’

‘Turns out his gun wasn’t loaded. Seems he was just trying to scare you a little.’

Emily put her hand over her mouth.
Gabriel hadn’t been so bad after all
. ‘Oh God, you must feel so bad about killing him!’ she exclaimed.

‘No. I’d’ve killed him anyway.’

Emily frowned. ‘Why?’

‘’Cause, fuck him.’

‘Uh – like – okay. So who was he? What was he doing here?’

‘Name of Gabriel. He was some sort of preacher.’

‘A preacher? Why would a man of God pretend he was going to kill me? It doesn’t make any sense.’

‘The Lord works in mysterious ways.’ Emily looked at him sharply, to see if he as making fun of her. His face was expressionless.

‘Like, wow.’ She was struggling to take it all in. She rubbed her forehead again. All this thinking was making her head hurt even more. But she was curious to know something else. ‘Listen, if I’m not mistaken, when we met earlier you didn’t like me very much, so I’m kinda struggling to work out why you saved me from that preacher with the gun.’

‘You remind me of someone. Someone I used to care about.’

‘A girlfriend?’

‘Somethin’ like that.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘She’s in jail. For murder.’

‘That figures.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that.’

The Kid looked hard at her. ‘That was a well-timed apology,’ he growled.

‘It’s the blow to my head. I didn’t mean to speak disrespectfully.’

‘Yeah.’ He seemed to lose interest for a moment. Then he spoke again, more urgently. ‘Look, you gotta get out of this place. There are people tryin’ to stop you winnin’ this competition. An’ they’re ready an’ willin’ to kill you.’

‘Why? What’s going on? That biker guy – Gabriel, did you say? –he told me that three of the other singers were killed. But Nigel Powell said they had, like, food poisoning, or something. Which is it?’

‘They’re dead.’

‘Poisoned?’

‘No. I killed them.’

‘
What
? You killed Otis Redding, Kurt Cobain and Johnny Cash?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why would you do that?’

‘James Brown offered me a lot of money.’

Emily looked stunned. ‘
Julius?
Why?’

‘He wants to win.’

She rubbed her forehead yet again. All this new and frightening information was a lot to take on board with a pounding headache.

‘I’m sorry, but I am
really
confused. And my head hurts, which isn’t helping me to think straight.’ It suddenly occurred to her that she had lost all track of time. ‘Oh God, have they announced the finalists yet? How long have I been out? I’ve got to perform in the final.’

She jumped up from the bed and on to her feet. The sudden movement made her feel dizzy and a little sick, so she quickly sat back down. The Kid stood up and positioned himself neatly between her and the door.

‘Listen to me, ’cause this is important,’ he said. ‘This competition is a joke. Only it ain’t a funny one.’

‘I know.’

‘
No. You don’t
. You don’t know shit. So shut the fuck up and listen. Seems all the previous winners of this show sold their souls to the Devil when they signed Powell’s contract. An’ now they’re all brain-dead zombies barely able to think for themselves. I just got jumped by Buddy Holly and Dusty Springfield in the parking lot, an’ they looked like they’d been decomposin’ for quite a while.’

There was a long pause as Emily waited for the Kid to validate his bizarre statement. He didn’t.

‘What are you talking about? Are you on drugs?’ she blurted out at last.

‘No. Just don’t sing in the final. You need to get the fuck outta here. I’m gettin’ out, too. You wanna ride? I’ll take you to the next town. Right now this ain’t a safe part of the world to be. There’s fuckin’ undead folks all round this place.’

His ravings were beginning to irritate Emily. ‘Undead? I’m sorry, but nothing you’re saying makes any sense,’ she said with a distinctly schoolmarmish tone to her voice. ‘And again, not wishing to be rude, but you are well known to be a psychopath, so when you talk about undead people and deals with the Devil, I’m inclined to think it’s because of your – uh – mental problems.’

If she had hoped to provoke him, she failed. ‘Just don’t win the competition, okay?’ he said, the gravel in his voice more evident than ever.

‘Look, I’m sorry, I really am. And I thank you for your concern. But it’s been my dream to sing for a living, especially at a place like this. And the million-dollar prize money would change my life. It’s everything I’ve worked for my whole life. It’s for me, and it’s for my mom. I want her to know that everything we did was worth it. She’s sick. My mother is sick.’ She could hear her voice rising, but decided to continue anyway. ‘She only has a few months left to live, and I want to make her last days special. We’ve got nothing at the moment, and with this money, I could get her properly cared for. And she’d know that I’d finally stepped into her shoes. I haven’t come this far only to throw it all away because you think there’s ghosts here.’

‘So win the contest, but don’t sign the contract.’

‘No.’

‘What?’

Emily shook her head. ‘No. If your mother was dying, but you had the chance to keep her alive for a little bit longer, wouldn’t you do everything you could?’

‘I killed my mother.’

‘Oh.’ For a moment she was too stunned to speak. Then she plunged on, desperate to explain her situation. ‘But –’

‘Just. Go. Home. Your mother will understand.’

Something inside Emily snapped. ‘Yeah, I’m sure she’ll be very sympathetic as she lies there in a shitty care home drawing her last breath. And I can say, “Yeah, sorry, Mother, but I passed up the chance to get you some proper care because a psycho with a drink problem told me I’d be selling my soul to the Devil if I won the show”.’

The Kid appeared unruffled by her aggressive sarcasm. ‘You
know
this show is rigged.’ he replied. ‘You were secretly handpicked for the final. Don’t get all fuckin’ moral about it now.’

Emily raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh,
I’m sorry
. Are
you
lecturing
me
about morality?’

‘Yes. I am.’

‘Well, that’s pretty rich. Coming from you, and all.
Excuse me
if I don’t think you’re quite the right man to sit in judgement on others.’ Her tone softened as she continued. ‘Look, I’m grateful to you for maybe saving my life and everything, but I have to win this show. It means everything to me. So I’m sorry, but I’m going to sing in the final. The only way you can stop me is by killing me. So make your choice. Either let me out of here, or pull your gun out and finish me off. I’m not afraid to die, you know.’

‘Yes you are.’

‘I’m not. I’ll never be afraid to die for what I believe in.’

The Bourbon Kid reached one hand inside his jacket. ‘Okay. Then I guess you’ve given me no choice.’