The Chase

The daylight relented to the cooling desert dusk, as it always did. The last lingering ribbons of red and orange rays grasped toward the clouds with stretched-out fingers. The clouds floated lazily, undisturbed and indifferent to the sun’s plight. Fast approaching, a cavalry of glittering stars rode in on steeds dark as night, beating back barbarians over the lip of creation, as it always did. Until finally, the great blinding eye closed in an inevitable slumber. It dreamt only of its own awakening, reinforced by red-hot envy for what the night hides from it. Forever chasing secrets in the dark.

Sue’s body had succeeded. It did what a body was meant to always do. Survive the suffering presented as a gift. Her skin was red and burnt. Feet bare and bleeding. The desert had denied her passage through its kingdom and banished her back to the world where she belonged. A dusty demon awoken from a nightmare.

With her last moments of consciousness, she willed her legs to breach the cusp of the horizon, collapsing down the hill and into a dried gully. She lay on her back. She looked up and witnessed in awe the battle in the sky.

“A Great War.”

Her dry, cracked lips mumbled an incoherent prayer to any God that would listen. The nocturnal beasts emerged from their sandy dens and watched with lingering interest as the land gently held her and she passed into the worlds between.

The Sun emerged in relentless pursuit of night. Sue was merely collateral damage. She baked. Her eyes struggled to focus until she raised her hand to her brow and saw a large rectangular structure made of concrete and a thick steel corrugated roof. It was right in front of her, just past a cactus's shadow that resembled a cowboy waving, as if leaving on a months-long cattle drive.

The structure was brutally unremarkable. Built to last in the inhospitable alien terrain. Hugging an empty, endless highway that was barely visible through the swirling dust devils. Sue pulled herself out of the sand and stumbled toward the gunmetal-gray door that led to a restroom. She burst into the small, foul-smelling room and leaped to the sink. She turned the faucet on. And as if the heavens themselves opened up to bless her very existence, icy, cold, crisp, and clear salvation came forth in endless grace. She greedily placed her lips to the faucet and sucked down gulps of water. Her throat was like a dry riverbed being flooded by the rush of spring mountain snowmelt. It was the most pleasure she had ever experienced.

The room glowed gently from the sunlight creeping below the door and rang out in joyful cackles as she splashed and played in the water, using her hands to bring the water to every part of her body. Rubbing it in until her skin was slick with a brown slurry. The clinging dust retreated, revealing a red, cracked face in a steel plate polished into an unbreakable mirror. She saw who she was, and that she still was. In that moment, her knees gave way and she fell to the cool concrete floor and embraced a collection of old paper towels and soiled newspapers as a pillow. She fell into a deep sleep. The bathroom was filled with decades of graffiti and the stink of travelers past. She felt safe in its concrete womb.

Sue woke to black. She had to blink and touch her face to convince herself of existing. The myriad of aches and pains that soon flushed her nerves was confirmation that she did. She exited the safety of her concrete mother and wandered out around to the front of the rest stop. There was a single street lamp that stood tall like a midnight giraffe. The light was warm and orange. She stood just outside the ring of light for fear it would reveal her to the unknown villain just at the edge of her vision. Hunting her, patiently and without distraction. She came to see the darkness was her ally. A confidant that she could whisper her many secrets to. The light sought only to expose her.

She embraced her nocturnal nature. She walked along the edge of the luminous cone, listening intently to the sound of the desert. A low wind that danced with the dusty bushes. Birds of prey on the hunt. Desert rodents scurrying from hole to hole in search of a meal. And then nothing. Silence. Sue couldn’t see it. But she could feel it out there on the edge of the moonless dunes. Stalking between the cacti. Waiting. She’d give it no such pleasure.

The sound of a melancholy country ballad came blaring over the hidden horizon as two headlights came cutting through the cloth of deep night. And in the time it takes to blink, the headlights flashed across the visage of an antediluvian malefactor.

Sue locked eyes with it.

Sue darted out into the road and made herself known to the oncoming vehicle. The pickup truck came to a screeching stop just inches from Sue’s unblinking stare.

“God danngit! You Summna-bitch! You trying to kill us both?!”

A small man in coveralls, with greasy hair and a dirty face, came hobbling out of the old pickup truck. He gave Sue a look up and down and nodded in a manner that said it wasn’t the strangest thing he’d seen in his lifetime. He turned around and got back into the truck and gave one curt wave out the window at Sue.

“Well, Gawddammit. Get in the gawddamn truck or get the hell out of the way, girl!”

Sue walked to the passenger side and got into the truck. It smelled of stale cigarettes and old dog. The latter revealed itself in the middle seat, curled up in a dark lump of fur that slowly expanded as it breathed in the dark. The man turned the ignition and caused a loud screeching until it finally turned over, gurgling and humming. He lit a cigarette and blew a billowing cloud of blue smoke that filled the cab and drove on down the road. The country music played lowly on the wind.

“Suh-weet baby Jesus on the cross! What on Gawd’s green earth are you even doing out here? There ain’t nothing one way or the other for at least forty miles. And nothing ain’t much more than a gas station or diner. Bobo and me have been driving for six hours straight! Coming out Idyllwild! Delivering a package to an old friend. Idda taken the interstate but the roads was washed out. So Bobo and me took the sceeeenic route, Ha! Ah! What’s another couple hours, right?! Seems like neither of us are in any rush to git where we’re goin’ anyhow. Sometimes, I like to imagine it’s back when there weren’t no roads. When this old truck woulda been just an old horse. Ridin’ for hours and hours under the sun and stars. Staring into the fire just like our ‘primitive’ brothers did. They knew what was out there just beyond the firelight. Boy, did they know. We got to forgottin’. We let the world get so full of light that we forget what’s out there in the dark. But old Bobo and me, we aint forget. We see just fine. I can tell you aint forget either. Yea, I got a nose for these kinda things. And don’t mind Bobo, he’s jus’ old and flatulent. Dying ah cancer, but then again so am I. That’s life, tho’! I had a good run, I tell you what. But I figure every day I chase that sun over the mountain is a day I give praise to the good Lord! He ain’t good all the time, mind you, but he give me the love of a good woman! If you can believe that! Bobo here is as good a friend as any man could ask for. I got plenty old too. Didn’t have much, didn’t need much. Did plenty of running from the devil…but you know what they say, you can’t run from him until you run into him first. We’re all sinners. But you already know that. You know you say a lot, for summin that don’t say a lot. I like that. Good quality in a friend.”

The Man, Bobo, and Sue drove on into the night. Every so often, Sue would look into the rearview mirror and catch a glimpse of her pursuer in the bed of the truck, there and gone in a moment’s time. Eventually, the sun brokered a short truce with dawn and soft hues of gold and blue swayed gently across the jagged mountain peaks. In the distance, closing fast, stood a tall sign in the shape of a three-armed cactus, still glowing neon from its night shift with the words: The Blue Cactus Motel: Vacancies. The small parking lot was empty, and the long building that housed ten rooms and a glass-walled office stood stark against the red land in its turquoise-blue trim and pink wall paint job. The man pulled into the parking lot and put the truck into park.

“Well, good luck, you’re gonna need it!”

He handed the small brown paper parcel to Sue that had been sitting in the center console. Sue took it with an inquisitive look. Written on it:

LT WALKER IS A BASTARD!!!

“I figure you’re gonna need it more than my friend will. Aint gonna get the job done, but might slow her down. God speed, friend. I’ll see you on the other side.”

Sue slammed the door shut, and The Man drove away down the road, more melancholy country ballads playing out the open window.

Sue walked into the office. The room was the antithesis to the natural world in all its intricacies and imperfections. Meticulously staged in every way. Everything just so. Down to the average measurement between any given item in the room. It was decorative witchcraft. Its perfection was cause for alarm to the psyche. It vibrated in your soul. The coolness of the AC unit was painful against Sue’s skin. Every obtuse angle was an offense to the eye that caused one to wince. Everything in Sue’s body screamed for her to run.

RUN!

“Oh, hello! Welcome! Welcome!”

The room was whitewashed, down to the door handles and paper clips. A door behind the chest-high desk had opened, and a small woman with a beehive hairdo, also in a white dress, came marching out in high heels that went: CLANK, CLANK, CLANK! against the stainless-tiled floor. She climbed up a stepladder to the chair and began busily shuffling papers that seemed to be blank from Sue’s vantage.

“I see you’ve finally arrived. You’re late, you know. I have it right here in my log. Yup, right here!”

She threw open a white binder and leafed to a random page and threw it in front of Sue, slamming her finger down on a blank spot on a blank page.

“Late!”

Sue spoke. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine! Lucky for you it’s the off season! Or we’d be booked full!”

She looked Sue dead in the eyes and said, “We’re a very popular destination.”

“Okay,” Sue replied.

“OK! Now we’re getting somewhere. Sign in, and I’ll give you your room key!”

Sue picked up a white ballpoint pen chained to the desktop by a beaded chain and signed the blank page with her name.

“Date too!”

She dated her name.

“Thank you! We collect towels in the morning, and if you don’t want room service, put out the placard.”

She handed Sue a white key with a white tag that had the number ten stamped into it. When Sue looked up, the woman had gone.

Sue walked the length of the building, passing each numbered room until she reached ten. She unlocked the door and entered.

Sue sat down in the only chair in the room, located just in front of the room window, accompanied by a small round table and an ashtray. She put the package down on the table and she waited.

And waited.

And waited…

Night was back, and it had been quiet. A car could be heard coming down the road, only the third all day. As it passed under the neon lights, it revealed itself to be a Sheriff’s cruiser. It parked just left of Sue’s door. The cruiser’s door opened and shut, and out came a tall man.

Taller than one should be.

Lanky and lithe to a disturbing degree. A wide-brim hat rode his brow like a dark halo. His copper-capped boot heels scratched against the asphalt with every step until he stood tall and still in front of Room Ten.

Sue was hit with a sudden wave of nausea and dizziness. Bile burned and bubbled up her throat, causing her to spit and gag. With every cough, it felt like a fist was slowly closing around her heart, tighter and tighter and tighter! A low thrumming began to grow louder until it was a beating war drum from some long-lost battlefield. The cacophony of clashing warriors deafened her as if she herself were there. Screams for mercy, to mothers and God, all the same name. Until it was just too much, she screamed back her own battle cry.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Silence.

The chair was empty, and the package was gone. The door, without sound or source of force, exploded inward. Wood splinters like daggers stuck in nearly every inch of surface. Beyond it stood the tall shadow, its wide, angry smile spread across the upper trim of the door. The tall shadow slowly crossed the threshold with his left leg, which stretched out long and thin as if it was trying to reach all the way to the back of the room where Sue hid within the bathroom. It crept across the wall like a spider’s leg closing in on its prey. The bathroom door opened, and Sue’s hand threw a small circular object that landed at the foot of the door.

BA-CRAACK-BOOM!

The room turned into a hot white flash of heat and shrapnel. The front of the motel room was nothing more than a smoldering pile of wood and glass. Sue walked through the charred remains of the room and stepped over the pile of viscera and gore that was the Sheriff and dropped the grenade pin.

"I'll trade you."

She picked up the keys that had been thrown into the parking lot and got into the cruiser. She backed out and drove down the highway. About a mile down the road from the motel, the radio squawked into life, and a raspy voice crackled through the speaker.

“Did ya get her?”

Sue picked up the receiver and pressed the button.

“Not today, asshole.”

She ripped it out by the cord, throwing it out the window. And just as it hit the passing pavement, she saw it. Wearing a new skin.

A young beautiful happy-go-lucky hitchhiker with her thumb out, greeting her from the side of the road with a wave and a wink.

And as she passed her, Sue looked into the rearview mirror, watching her fade into the darkness, still waving.

“Not today.”