The Ferryman Institute (27 page)

A blinding light suddenly exploded into life behind them. Fog lights? Alice squinted into her side-view mirror, trying to make out the source. It looked like a large SUV, only it had a spotlight mounted on the side. Was it the police? There were no flashing lights or sirens, only the hand-controlled beam next to the driver-side door. She couldn't make anything else out, as the light was far too bright.

“Shit,” Charlie said under his breath. She looked over at him. His face was blank.

A booming loudspeaker voice abruptly cut through the night.
“Charles Dawson! You are under arrest! Please, pull over immediately. No innocent bystanders need to be harmed!”

Alice looked at Charlie, and he right back at her. Their eyes connected for a soul-searching second.

“So remember everything I said about being a fugitive and being excited by it?” Alice said. “I take it all back.”

H
ang tight!” Charlie yelled as another SUV, nearly identical to the one behind them, moved up on their left. They were already in the right lane—if another one caught up and pulled in front, they'd be boxed in. He slammed the accelerator to the floor and the car responded with a burst forward. Had he been alone in the car, he would have driven with a death wish, knowing full well that it wouldn't matter. However, having Alice next to him changed things. Charlie had never been directly responsible for another person's death before and he preferred to keep it that way.

They'd gained some distance from their pursuers, probably having caught them off guard with the sudden acceleration, but the two SUVs were already gaining the ground back.

“How do I make this thing go faster?” he cried over the revving engine.

“It doesn't go fast! It's a Jeep, not a Ferrari!” she shouted.

He glanced furiously between his side-view and rearview mirrors. “But really, make it go faster.”

“Well, when you put it that way, let me just flip the emergency turbo-boost switch!”

He looked over at her. “Seriously?”

“No!”
she yelled back.

One of the SUVs was nearly on his bumper while the other moved into the blind spot on Charlie's left. Charlie considered trying to cut off the blind spot SUV, but it was tight—if his estimations of each car's positioning were even marginally off, they'd definitely get clipped. At their current speed, that would mean bad things for his passenger. On the flip side, if he didn't do something fast, their pursuers might take that option into their own hands.

An orange
Road Work Ahead
sign whizzed by on the right. About a thousand feet ahead, the lanes shifted tightly to the left in a small
S
. A line of cones stood nearby, tracing the start of the curve and blocking off a straight corridor lined with concrete barriers that ran for at least a quarter mile.

The plan occurred to Charlie from completely out of left field. In actuality, calling it a plan was being more than a little generous.
Suicidal last-ditch effort
was probably more accurate.

“Hold on,” Charlie said. “This is going to be a little on the tight side.”

“What are you doing?”

“Improvising.”

“Improvising?” There was a moment's pause before Alice evidently caught sight of the orange cones. “No, no, no. That isn't a road! Cars drive on roads!”

“Yes, hence my use of the word
improvising
.”

In Alice's defense, she had a point. The pavement over in the work zone looked completely ripped up, with chunks of asphalt lying about like land mines. Unfortunately, Charlie wasn't seeing much in the way of alternatives.

“I hope I don't need to remind you that only one of us claims to be immortal.”

Charlie smiled wryly. “Good thing the other doesn't care about dying then, right?”

“Gee, thanks, Clarence, I really hope you get
your fucking wings
!” she screamed as the work zone loomed ahead of them.

The lane began curving to the left. Charlie initially began to follow it, just long enough to steer the other two SUVs into that course. Then he threw the wheel hard to the right, aiming for the work zone corridor. If he took the turn too tight and the brakes too hard, he would roll the car. Not enough and their journey would end with the concrete barrier—and abruptly at that.

Charlie knew better than anyone that life and death were often separated by very fine margins. He was willing to accept that, in this case, even he was pushing his luck.

The tires squealed as Charlie struggled to keep the car under control. Both he and Alice snapped against their seat belts as the whole chassis shuddered in its arm-wrestle against physics. Alice was screaming, having built it up in a gradual crescendo that was just now reaching its peak. The passenger side of the car kissed the concrete divider and kicked back to the left before coming to a full and complete stop. Somehow, aside from some dings in the paint, they were sitting in one piece. The trailing SUVs sailed past them before stopping on their own about three hundred feet down the road.

“Holy shit,” Alice said in stunned exasperation. “I don't even . . . I can't believe . . . What the fucking fuck just . . .”

“Couldn't agree more. You all right?”

She looked at him, visibly shaking, but Charlie could see no obvious bleeding or misplaced bones. Generally a good thing, that. “Almost, uhh . . . spilled some water on my pants. Other than that, peachy.”

“You're doing great,” Charlie said as reassuringly as he could,
given the circumstances. He had already popped the car into reverse and was backing out onto Route 3. A stray car or two had sailed by slowly, obviously wondering what was going on, but none of them stopped to help.

He could see the reverse lights on the SUVs up ahead. If he got into a street race with them again, he'd inevitably lose. He needed to buy himself a little space. He continued to push the Jeep backward along Route 3, and with the SUVs following in the same fashion, it seemed like the cars were going to simply resume the chase in reverse. However, as soon as Charlie was sure the coast was clear, he whipped the car around in a 180-degree spin.

“What the hell are you doing now?!” Alice shouted. Apparently she didn't much enjoy driving into oncoming traffic.

Charlie didn't reply, focused solely on his rearview mirror. He floored the Jeep, hoping that the other two SUVs would buy it. “Come on,” he whispered to himself. “Come on . . .”

As the speedometer clicked past forty, Charlie got his wish. Both the chasers turned their respective cars around and quickly accelerated. Good—that was the first part of his revised plan. The second part would be just a touch trickier.

“Just a heads-up, this is about to get a little crazy,” he said.

“Oh, good, you mean it wasn't already?” The car picked up speed. “This is it!” Alice yelled. “This is how we're going to die!”

“Correction—you'll die. Immortal, remember?”

His passenger did not seem amused. “You know, you picked a helluva time to start cracking jokes, smart-ass. Did it ever occur to you that maybe—just
maybe
—I don't want to die in a horrific car crash?”

“Look at that. Sounds like we're making progress already.”

“I
meant
that I don't want to die in excruciating pain, you asshole, not that I don't want to die!”

Charlie eyed the approaching underpass. He'd made a note of it before, back when they'd been driving in the proper direction. Now it was his best shot at losing their tail. A car whizzed by on the right, its blaring horn no doubt a poor substitute for the creative string of profanity the driver was yelling inside.

Just beyond the underpass to Charlie's left of the highway was an exit ramp—a short, forty-five-degree uphill slope that ended with a stop sign. Across from the stop sign was an entrance back onto Route 3, allowing cars to get off and then right back on again. Charlie maneuvered toward it, the SUVs flying behind, closing in.

As soon as Charlie passed beneath the underpass, he threw the emergency brake and yanked the wheel to the left, causing the Jeep to drift in a tight arc. If Alice had a follow-up to her previous statement, it was abandoned in favor of screaming bloody murder.

While it was an impressive piece of driving by all accounts, it wasn't quite perfect. Charlie had overshot it, spinning the car more than the 180 degrees he wanted. The Ferryman cursed under his breath as he ripped the wheel back around to the right and crushed the pedal to the floor. The wail of burning rubber filled the air. The now oncoming SUVs seemed to figure out Charlie's course of action—they, too, swerved to their left, one sliding in behind the other to act as a safety net in case Charlie was bluffing.

The Jeep's wheels continued to spin, kicking up a plume of smoke as they floundered. “Go, goddammit!” Charlie bellowed as he pounded the steering wheel with his fist. As if waiting for that cue, the Jeep leapt forward, engine racing. The lead SUV barreled toward them, no longer attempting to get in front of them but instead trying to stop them head-on. Charlie ground his teeth as he
kept his eyes on the onrushing car, his mind trying to gauge the distances. It was way too tight to call.

“HOOOOOLLLL—” Alice yelled in one long string. Their front wheels were on the ramp, but the black SUV charged on. Time seemed to stretch out like an elastic band being pulled to its limit. Charlie was no physicist, but if there was any contact now—even the slightest tap—it would surely end with them becoming intimately familiar with a concrete wall.

A deafening crash resounded through the night.

Charlie waited for the Jeep to spin, roll, flip, or otherwise explode in a blaze of glory, thereby signaling the ultimate termination of this little adventure of theirs. But then another second ticked by with the sky very much above, the ground very much below, and the car very much not destroyed. Charlie's brain had to gently remind him that—while grossly unexpected—those were all good things. He chanced a glance in his rearview mirror to see the lead SUV finish crushing itself into the wall behind them. The front driver-side tire went flying past his window as car parts flew through the air like steampunk confetti. The entire front of the car was decimated, the body crumpling in on itself like a mechanical pancake.

Charlie knew that the passengers inside would be fine, at least eventually—they were immortal, after all—but there'd be no way to get them out of that kind of wreck without assistance. The question was, would the second SUV stop to provide it, or would it continue the chase?

Alice hollering
“Charlie!”
snapped his attention back to the road.

They were nearly at the top of the ramp now, approaching the stop sign at fifty and climbing. A souped-up Honda Civic was speeding across the overpass, tracking an unintentionally perfect
intercept course. There wasn't enough room to stop, given how fast they were both going. Without thinking, Charlie punched the horn and kept his foot pressed to the floor, urging the Jeep on.

Tires shrieked like banshees as the Civic locked its brakes. With mere seconds to spare, the Civic veered to the left. The Jeep caught air as it crested the ramp, the front driver-side wheel missing the oncoming hood by inches. Charlie and Alice flew over the street before landing on the opposite side. Charlie slammed on the brakes, causing the Jeep to slide to a stop where the ramp met the highway.

The pair sat for what seemed like a long while, Alice's heavy and somewhat irregular breathing the only noise. Finally, they looked at each other, turning at almost the exact same moment. Charlie let out a playful exhale of relief. Alice looked ready to puke.

Fine margins and all that.

“So,” he said, “that just happened.”

Alice's eyes had temporarily turned to glass. Her head swayed slightly from side to side. “Next time, can you just let me blow my brains out? I think it would be a lot less stressful than the heart attack you're trying to give me.”

“That's the weirdest way someone's ever thanked me for saving their life—again—but you're welcome.” Charlie accelerated back onto the highway, repeatedly checking the mirrors. For the moment, they appeared to be alone.

“And again, I didn't ask for that
or
this. Just so we're clear.” The quaver in her voice was slowly dissipating, though a trace of it remained.

It was a tough point for Charlie to counter. Despite the noble overtones, something about what he was doing for Alice felt selfish. He cared about the girl's life—he wanted to be clear on that—
but in a way, it was more symbolic than personal. He'd saved her because he was given the choice to do so. Because he finally wanted to be on the other side of the universe's perpetually balancing scales of life and death. Because someone had given him an opportunity and, consequences be damned, he'd chosen the path he'd always wanted to take.