L.C. did the unthinkable.
The silence in the police station, the unblinking eyes of his fellow officers.
The lack of protest from his partner.
The dumbfounded expression on the captain's face.
"Yes. Time off. "
Never a sick day; never a suspension. Even after the death of his family and against the orders of his superiors, he went back to work. They sent him to psych, he came back with a clean bill of mental health. They sent him to medical, and he came back fit for full duty.
No one else - none that L.C. could imagine - could raise or lower their blood pressure, their body temperature, their heartbeat with less effort than breathing. He knew the right answers, he knew the right numbers, he knew what he had to say and do to keep working.
Now he was taking a vacation to go "sight seeing" across the United States.
He expected the captain to ask if he was joking.
He expected to hear the captain to snort, to chortle, to ask, Sight seeing, you? Hah!
His request was approved so fast, he had not set foot outside the captain's office and his request was already approved.
The three-thousand-one-hundred-twenty-four mile trip from Driftwood to Salem, Massachusetts was not his idea of some grand vacation and once outside of Driftwood, outside of Colt County, his connection would be severed. That flawless instinct, that one-hundred percent arrest record, all of it would stay behind until his return.
Then the anxiety would come; that emptiness that formed being away from Driftwood.
Perhaps he did not obey the call of the city itself but he needed Driftwood. Perhaps the city hated him in as many ways it did, considered him a traitor and fought his every demand but Driftwood needed him, too.
As far as he knew, he was the last of his kind. At least for now. Driftwood without citywalkers was a fragile dam without safeguards. Any semblance of balance would topple and without a doubt some weird shit would happen in his absence.
L.C. sped up, driving for the city limits. He passed and sped past a patrol car and expected the officer would pull him over, but they never did. He saw the high beams flash behind him, and gritted his teeth. The department was encouraging his 'vacation'.
They wanted him to go. L.C. grumbled to himself. "You miserable bastards. I hope you all get a terrifying dose of the strange luck. I'm not rooting for you."
He felt a cold drop in the pit of his stomach, and slowed to a stop as he reached the border leaving Driftwood and Colt County. He could see faint shades the shape of people standing on either side of the road. They blurred the rain and obscured his headlights in the pallor of the late afternoon gloom beneath the storm clouds.
"To hell with you, I have to go. Entertain yourself with someone else."
The engine died in L.C.'s late model American Classic.
"I'm leaving."
He could feel the protest nagging in the back of his head.
"I don't care. That's your problem. I have something to have to do. I'll be back."
Doubt.
"I promise."
The tinny sound of AM talk radio faded in and out of his radio, the angry sound of hissing static growing louder between the weakening radio reception.
L.C. sighed, and put his vehicle in neutral. He unbuckled and opened the driver side door, sliding out of his seat and put his shoulder into the door. He refused to slip on the slick, wet asphalt. Despite the flat grade of the road, his truck felt heavier but it moved. "I'm leaving and if you don't let up, I won't come back."
There was a feeling of panic in the pit of his stomach. You do not mean it.
"Oh, yes. I do mean it. You step aside now and I mean right now or you can find yourself someone else to hate."
...making more.
L.C. shook his head. "Good, then do it! Go make more and leave me alone."
Whatever it is, we acted rashly. Return. There will be amends.
"Amends? I'm not sorry and I don't care if you are. Step aside or I don't come back."
The truck rolled with greater ease. L.C. returned to his seat, wet and frustrated. He put the truck in park, closed the driver side door, buckled himself, checked his mirrors and turned the key in the ignition. The engine struggled a moment and then roared to life. Within moments, his favorite AM talk show was coming through loud and clear - loud and clear enough for AM radio - and he was leaving Driftwood.
It didn't cut out quite how he thought it would.
Instead of being severed from his connection to the city in some dramatic and quite possibly painful fashion, it was more like watching someone grow smaller on the horizon until the distance was so great they were a soundless speck and then too far gone to see or hear.
It was still uncomfortable.
He could clearly see as the storm rains decreased but the further on he drove L.C. felt in very many ways blind and deaf.
This was how regular people lived?
How the hell could they cope?
Living life entirely by chance seemed not only dangerous but stupid. The rest of this trip was going to be a guessing game. Obeying traffic laws. Trying not to hit animals as they crossed the highway.
Navigating with a map.
"Ugh." L.C. made a disgusted expression, and continued on down the highway. He would spend an absurd portion of his trip looking for interstate eighty and ninety if he wanted to get where he was going without getting lost.
* * *
"Huh." David stared out the window from the drawing room to the deck outside and watched the wind blowing.
Karen sat near the fireplace, warmed by the fire. She was reading a short work by some obscure author she considered mediocre at best. "...it's like he wrote this in his teens, or something. It's a good story, but gosh. Every other word is 'softly'."
David glanced over his shoulder. "How often do we get gale force winds like this?"
"Not since the seven died at the Heights."
"You should really come see this." David sucked in a deep breath and sighed. "Storm of the century."
Karen huffed a short laugh. "It's been the storm of the century for the the last quarter of a century. It's a wonder we're not under a lake by now. I mean the quarry's full of water but where does the rest of this rain go?"
David glanced over his shoulder. "Wind's pretty strong. Some of the trees are falling over."
"Good. Saves me the trouble. Bart hated the encroachment." Karen turned the page. "Trade paperback sucks. It doesn't fit with the rest of my books."
"You're really just going to sit there and read?"
Karen sat in silence a moment and listened to the wind rattle the window and howl through the flue. She dogeared the page in her book and decided she wouldn't read it after all. Perhaps she would E-Mail the author, if she and David ever got around to getting connected to the internet.
This J. Edward Nolan had a lot of questions to answer. How did he have even the most remote insight into his stories? She watched David sulking by the window. "Baby, it's Driftwood. It rains. It's been raining and blowing wind almost all our lives."
David shrugged. "It just feels different."
Karen stood up, and dropped the book in her seat. She twitted her fingers in the air. "Rain, rain, go away."
She waited and caught David attempting to glare at her.
"Karen."
"Let's go watch a video cassette, or something. I'm bored with this conversation. Staring out at the trees isn't going to make it stop."
"When are we going to get a laserdisc player?"
Karen rolled her eyes. "When they're like twenty dollars."
"They'll have time travel figured out before that happens." David turned away from the window and stared at the drawing room. For a moment - only a moment - he imagined his mother sitting by the fireside with a worried expression, hands on her lap. He shook an eerie sensation away but not before he could feel goose flesh crawling up his arm.
"You alright, baby?"
He nodded. "Just shaking off a creepy thing."
Karen nodded. "I wish they'd come."
David lifted an eyebrow. "They?"
"Oh come on. You've heard about old man Ebor's house. Hell, any of the old houses. Everyone in the know says so."
"What, they only come when it rains?"
Karen smirked. "Yeah. That they. There's a lot I would ask."
"They're gone."
She nodded, and held her hand out. David's expression lightened and he hurried over to her to take it into his own. Karen pulled him out of the drawing room, through the hall and into the living room. She sat on the sofa and pulled him next to her. "I know they're gone. It's not fair - hell it's not right - everyone else gets haunted and all we get is an empty house full of memories."
"Not even the best memories." David reached for the television remote and Karen slapped his hand.
"Not yet." She reached past him and snatched the control. "We don't get to divine who we can or can't see. Even the thought of it is heresy, you know?"
David nodded.
"I miss all of them more than my own family. More than mom and dad, who rarely call or write. I miss Bart. He really helped me when you were all puny and comatose."
"Yeah?"
"I don't talk about it. I mean neither of us really do, but I actually avoid it."
"Why?" David wrapped an arm around her and drew her in close. Karen lay her head on his shoulder. David kissed the top of her head. "It happened. I got hurt and then I got better."
"I thought you were going to die. I think I would have if I were in your place."
He shook his head. "No you wouldn't. You have a savagery to you that has so far insured your survival. That same savagery got me through it all. Besides, I had help."
"Don't get me started, jerk."
"What? You're still upset about Ammielle, Crimson and Blanca?."
"Not funny, David." Karen bit him.
"Ow!" David rubbed his shoulder with his free hand.
"Bart got me through it."
"Yeah?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I think we got one another through it." Karen kissed his shoulder where she bit him through his shirt. "I can't have that happen again."
"Well, I don't plan on it."
"No, you dork. I mean I can't handle anything bad happening to you again. To you, or our kids."
"I get it. I really do." David stroked her hair. "When was the last time you washed your hair?"
Karen bit him.
"Ow! Stop that!"
"The well is broken."
David laughed. "What do you mean the well is broken? I imagine the water table is more than abundant."
"I can't get the water in the shower to work. I can't get more than a dribble from the sink. I'm not going to wash my hair in bottled water."
David grinned, though she could not see it. "I mean, it's raining outside. Right now. How about I get you the shampoo and you can just shower in our yard. It's not like we've got neighbors who'll just happen to see you."
"No, David. I'm not doing naked rain showers for you."
"It couldn't hurt to try."
Karen sighed. "I'll boil some water and wait until it's only warm and wash my hair in that."
"Alright. I'm going to put on a movie while you do."
"No, dick. I don't mean right now. Stop changing the subject."
"I didn't know there was a subject." David continued stroking her hair. "Your hair isn't bad, I was just teasing."
"What are we going to do? With the registration and housing thing?"
"We'll have to trust that Detective Polovatski gets the job done. Until then, there's not much more we can do."
"Can we go visit Bishop?" Karen breathed David in, and exhaled into his chest.
"Right now?"
"No way. Have you seen those winds out there? They've knocked over trees."