Everything Breaks by [email protected]

Author:[email protected]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2013-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

IX

I drove into Missouri in a cold clench, and by the time we reached Highway 71 and began climbing north, all the cells in my body were screaming with the effort of merely keeping the car on the road. The backs of my legs were screaming too as the plastic-covered padding of the front seat molded itself painfully around them and squeezed.

Meanwhile Bud sat grinning wide, the strong breeze from the open window spiking his few hairs. “Some fun, huh?” he kept calling across to me.

I gritted my teeth, pretending I didn’t hear, using sheer willpower to stay in control. It was just crazy to put something as flimsy as a human being into something as fast as a car and then to put that onto a stretch of hard and treacherous asphalt. Especially when some people behind the wheel were clueless losers who didn’t even deserve to be driving.

I had no idea where that last thought had come from, and I somehow knew I didn’t want to know. I focused on checking the fluorescent green dial of the dashboard clock, hoping it would hurry up and give me the excellent news that twenty minutes had passed.

Finally, finally, finally that happened, twenty minutes had inched by. I’d wiped my wet palms on my jeans so much by then I could feel clammy tracks down to my knees.

“So, Bud?” I called across to him. “It’s been over twenty minutes and we’re surely past where you thought your truck might be. I’m turning back at the next exit.”

I held my breath, wondering what he’d have to say. I could feel the car pulling against me, veering slightly right and left, trying to ease itself from my hands. The Olds knew I had no business on the road, so surely Bud had figured that out by now as well.

Bud took the map and snapped it open. “Lemme just check something here.”

I waited as long as I could stand it, then I asked, “So, do you . . . see it?”

He didn’t answer. A quick sideways glance showed me that he’d dozed off, still holding up the map. “Bud!” I guess I really yelled that, and when he jerked awake, I repeated, a little more quietly but even more desperately, “Hey, Bud, do you see it?”

He blinked and peered at me. “See what?”

“Your truck, Bud! Your pickup truck! We’ve been traveling for thirty-seven minutes now! You said twenty, at the most thirty! Do you see it on the map?”

Bud snorted a low laugh. “They’re not about to show a pickup truck on a map, son.” He grabbed my shoulder. “Listen, kid, try to relax a little bit, huh? Get back on the horse that bit you. No, on the dog that bit you. No, get back on the horse that threw you.”

I felt something warm go into my tense right shoulder from Bud’s wide, blunt-fingered hand. He was trying to get me past the awful thing that had happened, that was now clear, but I fought against relaxing like he’d advised.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.