Via Dolorosa(75)

He picked up the slip of paper, unfolded it.

In Emma’s handwriting:



Sleep-stirred,



Caught awake



You here with me—



My soul doth quake.





Downstairs, he located the Riviera Room, but it was empty. The night’s festivities had not yet started. The calm before the storm. A dais was pushed against one wall, stacked with paper cup towers and an empty punch bowl. A few crepe streamers were draped over the doorway and the windows. It was just barely daylight now, but the sun still managed to peek over and creep in through the high windows. The Riviera Room was a dance floor for dust motes.

He went back to their room and grabbed the Impala’s keys. Back downstairs, he was still only faintly aware that he was practically all alone in the old hotel. Before leaving, he poked his head into the restaurant but it was empty. There was no Roger behind the bar, either; there was no James waiting tables. A ghost town.

He heard a bang come from the lobby. Nick hurried into the main foyer and saw it, too, was deserted except for the broad-shouldered, hulking shape of the handsome Palauan coming through the lobby doors, wheeling behind him his table of trinkets. The banging had been one of the lobby doors yawning open and slamming into an aluminum trash receptacle. From across the lobby, Nick watched, unmoving, unspeaking. The Palauan’s shadow stretched long and tired across the lobby floor. The wheels of the trinkets table shrieked like a thousand souls in sufferance; a few string beads swung like a hypnotic pendulum from the side of the table. Securing a corner of the lobby, the handsome Palauan proceeded to rearrange the items on his table while humming gently to himself. At one point, he became aware of Nick’s presence and looked up.

“Bugs,” he said. “Outside.” Said, “Very big bugs.”

Nick only stared at the man—stared at his dark, densely-lashed, hypnotic eyes.

“Is there something you are looking for?” the Palauan asked.

“Someone,” he said.

“I have things,” said the Palauan. “Only things.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Your pretty wife—she has purchased many beautiful shells.”

“Yes.”

“She will be back?” asked the Palauan.

“I don’t know,” Nick said.

“Perhaps, then, we can find something for you.”

“There’s nothing I need.”

“I am certain, my good brother, that I have something you need.”

“I have to go.”

He found himself half in a daze, taking the Impala through the dark-twisted, wet streets of the island. There were very few vehicles on the road. He drove as if with a purpose, although he was not completely (or consciously) aware of his destination. Cicadas exploded like mortars on the windshield. Turning on the wipers only created a milky yellow glaze across the glass.

I can spin you out, he thought, directed at the car. I can spin you out and cough up dust just like Emma did that day on that dirt road.

He motored the Impala west along the evacuation route. Indeed, there were large blue signs on which had been printed a picture of a tornado, just as Emma had seen on the drive into the town. And thinking of this reminded him of the day he and Emma had crossed the causeway from South Carolina onto the island, and he could picture it as clearly as if he were watching it unfold in real-time before his own eyes. He recalled how excited Emma had been to see the island settled in the water as they approached. But there had been no seeing it: almost as if they had never gone anywhere, never left the mainland, there was no seeing it. He’d explained to her the peculiar topography—the reasons for her not seeing the glittering span of water that separated the mainland from the island—and she had tucked her poetry book down into the seat and had listened to him.

Now, around him, night was beginning to fall. Driving west, chasing the sun, a bright yellow glare sprawled across the Impala’s gluey windshield. He dropped the visor and squinted against the setting sun. He could still hear the sound of the solid little pellets thudding and popping against the windshield, too: the cicadas. Five minutes of driving and the windshield was smeared with muck. The wipers continued to worsen the condition.

It became apparent to him that he was now the only vehicle on the road. He did not know if that was the result of the cicadas or the threat of another impending storm. All he knew was that he drove and did not pass a single car.

After several more minutes of driving, the Impala rolled across a transition in pavement and began to climb the gradual incline preceding the causeway which communicated with the mainland. Still, he was the only one on the road.

In the seat beside him, Myles Granger said, “Shoot me. Shoot me in the head.”

“Hang on,” he told him.

“Shoot me in the head. It hurts. Please, Lieutenant. Kill me.”

“You’ll be okay,” he promised the boy.

“My legs,” groaned Myles Granger, his voice hitching and sounding extremely small, far away. “I don’t want to lose my legs, Lieutenant.”

“You’re not going to lose your legs, Myles.”

“I don’t want to die, Lieutenant.”

“You’re not—we’re not—you’re not—”

He couldn’t find the words. It was peculiar, all of it. They could all envision themselves killing others, killing countless others and never slowing. They could do it as well as any machine. But in the same breath, it was impossible to imagine your own demise. They were immortal; they would never die.