Mockingbird (A Miriam Black Novel) by Chuck Wendig

Author:Chuck Wendig [Wendig, Chuck]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Chuck Wendig, psychic hell, Miriam Black's back, she knows when you die
ISBN: 9780857662347
Publisher: Angry Robot
Published: 2012-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-THREE

As The Swallow Flies

In any town, in any city, the bus is like the filter in a filthy swimming pool: It catches the dregs, the rotten leaves, the dead toads, the used rubbers. This one’s no different. The guy at the front smells like piss and Doritos. He’s dressed in the latest hobo chic, though whether he’s homeless or just a hipster is unclear.

Then there’s the emo kid with more metal than face: He doesn’t just look stoned, he looks like he stood under a drug bomb, a real bunker buster, and took the entire blast right to his slack-jawed, hazy-gazed face.

Behind him, the doofy dude in the side-cocked trucker hat who must have taken a bath in Drakkar Noir. He bobs his head to music nobody else can hear.

Across from him, a morbidly obese house-cow, her graying hair shoved under a shower cap like a tabby cat trapped in a plastic bag, talking on her cell phone super-loud about her Valtrex prescription.

And then Miriam.

Sitting in the back.

She waited at the bus stop for a couple hours. Just making phone calls. Tattoo parlors and artists all over the tri-county area. From Bloomsburg all the way down to Harrisburg.

Every call, the same question: You ever give someone a swallow tattoo?

Turns out, the answer was yes. Dozens. Hundreds. The swallow tattoo? Hugely popular. Totally common. Sailor Jerry, they say. Ed Hardy. Suddenly it’s not a needle in a haystack: It’s a needle in a basket of needles.

She tried to describe it.

She told them it was plain. Nothing fancy. Mostly just the shape of the bird—like a silhouette with the eye cut out. Inked on a man’s chest. Not above some girl’s tit. Not on some flabby bicep. Man. Chest.

No, they said. Nothing like that.

But then she talked to Bryan. Guy who ran a joint called Ink Monkey. He said he’d done some like that. Real simple. He echoed her words: nothing fancy.

She hung up with him.

Then she got on the bus.

The thing is, this guy’s tattoo studio is in a town called Ash Creek.

Miriam knows that town. Because it’s where she grew up. Or, rather, just outside of it—but Ash Creek was their mailing address.

That’s why everything’s starting to look familiar.

The bus drives past an old farm stand, The Honey Hole! She knows that stand. She used to walk there sometimes—she’d bring a buck, drop it into the box, and take a few honey sticks.

The stand was once brick red, red like a freshly painted barn. Now it’s got a rotten cock-eyed lean. Paint’s peeling and most of the color is gone. The letters of the sign have faded. Now it just says, he Honey Ho.

The pit of her stomach feels like a bundle of snakes breeding.

Don’t think about that.

Get your head in the game, Black.

The feeling inside is tight, like her internal organs have been cinched up in a series of binding knots.

It’s the feeling you get as a child when you know school’s going to start but you don’t want to go.

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