Driftless by David Rhodes

Author:David Rhodes [Rhodes, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 2009-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

DON’T GO THAT WAY

OLIVIA’S HEAD HURT AND HER MIND SPUN DIZZILY FROM HER defeated struggle to retain possession of her purse in the parking lot. The countryside came and went with such unconscionable rapidity that it was better not to look out the window. She stared wide-eyed at the stubble-headed young man who had grabbed her wide-eyed at the stubble-headed young man who had grabbed her and crudely shoved her into his car. He sat behind the wheel staring madly into the windshield in front of him while she held onto the door and dashboard and was absolutely certain she would die. The sounds of the motor and radio alone were enough to kill a person. And what had the lunatic said before he’d abducted her?—something about not worrying? “Don’t worry, Ma’am . . .” She assumed this was a bit of black humor, perhaps something tattooed kidnappers with blood and jewelry all over their faces often said to their hapless victims before they smashed their cars into steel girders going one hundred and seventy miles an hour in the middle of the night. Since she had so recently lost all of her and her sister’s money in a casino and joined the world of the damned, she had not expected it to be inhabited. But apparently it was.

The little red taillights of the car ahead turned onto another road, and her driver tromped on the brakes—an action that almost planted Olivia inside the glove compartment.

“Better put on your seat belt, Ma’am.”

More black humor, she assumed, and she gripped even tighter to the door and dashboard as the car skidded through the corner and resumed its bellowing, wrenching acceleration. The idea of strapping yourself inside seemed like closing the lid on your own coffin. At these speeds, when the end came there would be nothing left of the car or anything inside it but several wagons of rust dust. She considered praying, screaming, weeping, and pleading all at once, but instead felt a more instinctive expression taking place as urine flowed out of her as freely as freedom itself, through her dress and onto the soft, clammy seats.

Everything inside the car seemed appropriately designed to resemble hell—black, red, and chrome—with some kind of jewelry in the shape of a skull hanging from the rearview mirror. A little demon with a red beard and oversized revolvers was mounted on the gearshift.

The car ahead of them—much closer now—turned another corner, and once again her kidnapper went into a braking skid that required all her strength to keep from being thrown out of the seat.

More accelerating, tire screaming, and engine noise.

The car ahead turned again, this time down a snow- covered gravel road, leaving a white cloud behind it. But this did not make the slightest impression on her crazed kidnapper, who of course drove into it without thinking about the inevitable consequences of driving as fast as mechanically possible without the benefit of sight.

They continued like this for what seemed like a

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