The Suicide Motor Club by Christopher Buehlman

Author:Christopher Buehlman [Buehlman, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: calibre
Published: 2016-06-07T06:00:00+00:00

28

ONCE THE MEN IN THE VAN HAD ARMED THEMSELVES, THEY WAITED IN THE REAR for Hank, who had climbed back in the driver’s seat, to signal them. He watched the bright patch of sunlight make its way toward them, a lake of gold flooding the brambly woods and foothills. He raised his hand, had almost flicked a pistol finger at the squat form of the motel when he hissed, “Wait!”

The sun hit the road just as the cruiser drifted east, light winking on the chrome and glancing off the windshield. The Jasper County sheriff turned his head to look at Hank, his mirrored shades revealing nothing of what he made of the parked van, the tattooed man behind the wheel. Hank felt the weight of the pistol on his lap like the devil’s hoof, ready to press him and his prior convictions right through the van seat and asphalt straight into twenty years of hell. He didn’t tell the others why they were waiting any more than he told them that if the cop had stopped, he would have shot him in the face. The cruiser rolled east, around the curve in the road but still visible, small, smaller, gone.

“Now,” he said, pointing. He slid out the driver’s door while the others chunked open the rear doors, making Judith blink as light flooded the cargo area. Shane was the last one out, and he hesitated before he shut the doors.

“Come on! Now!” Lettuce said from outside. Shane slid his .38 revolver along the van’s floor to Judith, who dropped the cross she had absently held and took up the gun. The doors shut, obliterating Shane’s silhouette and throwing her back into darkness. She crawled into the driver’s seat to watch Shane and the other men file across the road, crouch down in the brush opposite while a station wagon rolled by, its driver oblivious, a child in the backseat turning his head toward the van, or slightly behind it. Judith’s left hand crossed over her body; the fingers drifted down to make sure the keys were in the ignition. Her right hand, out of sight, clutched Shane’s gun. Her eyes stayed fixed on the Avalon Garden motel.

She nearly jumped out of her seat when the strange man stepped up to the window.

A young man, baby-faced even,

Shoot him

wearing an ersatz Indian bonnet, sunlight blazing on the white feathers,

Shoot him!

holding something in his hands.

She thought she should raise her right hand, point it at the man, but couldn’t.

He’s not one of them

“Are you really a nun?” he said, squinting in the strong July sunlight.

He’s a human being

NO shoot him now now NOW!

She started raising her right hand

Too slow

but he was already moving, his question just a distraction

this is going to hurt

and he jabbed the stock of his rifle up at her with the speed and violence of one new to manhood. It caught her on the right eyebrow, and she thought she smelled rubber, but maybe she was mixing that up with

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