Intersections Read online

The disciples kneeled and bowed their heads before their newly formed master. The shape ignored them, staring instead at the truck’s taillights, twin demon eyes fading into the darkness. Her name was Molly, and oh how he longed to have her. But first, he needed a name. From Jeremy’s skull, the proper designation appeared.

  “I am Mr. Shady.”

  15

  “I can’t fucking believe this,” I said to Shannon.

  I sat in the truck’s bed with my hands over my ears, but there was no not-hearing what was going on in the front seat. We were parked in a wooded lot that must’ve been at least several miles from the Dayton International Airport. The truck’s suspension creaked with a steady rhythm. One man grunted and the other moaned. The squeaking built in intensity until one man gasped and said, “Oh, shit. Yes.”

  The ride here had been terrifying. The truck had passed several Shadys, but fortunately, none could keep up with our pace. The last to chase after us appeared to be female. She’d collapsed in the road, and the dark slickness covering her had faded—revealing a blond woman in nursing scrubs.

  Shannon had pointed at the clock on the dash. 4:02.

  The Devil’s Hour was over.

  After that, I was left to simmer in my sorrows while the pickup barreled through the night. Jeremy had killed himself and then sacrificed his soul to save my own. I’d spent the last years of my life hating him for not loving me enough, only to realize that the strength of his love wasn’t the real problem. No, it was my lack of perception? Or his pride? Or maybe just good old-fashioned lack of communication?

  I’d curled into a fetal position and sobbed in the bed of the truck. Shannon had done her best to soothe me, patting my back and telling me it was going to be okay.

  From the truck cab, a preacher’s voice had rambled over the radio: “Friction is how we move forward. There are peacekeepers and there are peacemakers. As we move forward and rub against one another, we need to lubricate ourselves with the oil of the Holy Ghost. We must be anointed. Adversity is sometimes necessary. Friction is necessary.”

  I crawled to the rear of the still-moving truck’s bed and hung my head over the side, letting the wind drown out the sermon. The rushing air whistled through me, scrambling my aura and offering not quite peace but white noise. I stayed like that—letting the air scrape away my tears and feelings—until the truck slowed. Except we weren’t at a warehouse. We were in the country.

  Shannon said, “Uh, I think we have a problem.”

  The truck crept down a gravel road into a desolate parking lot, maybe for a nature center. A sedan was parked nearby. The driver—a middle-aged man in khakis and a polo shirt—got out of his car and into Mr. Noble’s truck.

  They’d talked long enough for us to realize that Mr. Noble had lost his job some time ago, was deep in debt, and was only pretending to go to work. Oh, and he was secretly raging gay.

  Now, his head worked frantically at the other guy’s lap. Judging by this dude’s moaning, Mr. Noble was awfully good with his mouth. The men’s keys, cellphones, and wallets cluttered the dashboard. The windows were cracked. A travel mug sat perched in a plastic cup holder on the driver side door. I sneaked another look to see what Mr. Noble was doing with his lips and tongue. His companion clutched Noble’s short hair and grunted. Jeremy had never writhed like that when I gave him head. Frank did, but he was totally enthralled.

  “They’re putting on quite a show,” I said. “And I don’t think they’re lubricating themselves with Holy Ghost oil.”

  Shannon shook her head. “I can’t believe Tara’s dad is gay.”

  “You have something against gay men?”

  She stared at me. “You know how many times I heard that man call someone a faggot?”

  I shrugged. “We should probably go.”

  We climbed out of the truck and walked down a tree-lined gravel driveway that emptied onto a desolate country road. Farmland sprawled in all directions. I had no idea where we were.

  “Let’s try that way.” I pointed at a field, its soil neatly combed into long rows. From that direction, I could hear maybe the thrum of interstate traffic. “We’ll cut through that field. Hopefully we’ll end up at a road and can somehow hitch a ride.”

  “This blows,” she said.

  We hopped a leaning wire fence and jogged over the tilled dirt. I was grateful that it was early in the season. Otherwise, corn or soybean stalks would’ve skewered our ghost feet.

  The movement liberated me somehow, as if I could run away from Jeremy’s loss. We picked up speed. I clutched her hand and my shoe, and soon we zoomed across the field—a golden comet streaked across the groomed soil. Dawn was coming, and bats flapped over our heads and nipped at bugs. The field ended at a sparse forest, and we moved between the trees. We eased to a steady pace, not wanting to impale our feet on a random branch.

  “How was your viewing?” she said.

  “Do you care?”

  “Well I asked.”

  “To be honest, it was fucking miserable. Hardly anyone showed up, which shouldn’t be a surprise. I’ve spent the past few years since . . .” I almost said his name. “. . . since the divorce, disconnecting myself from everyone that ever cared for me. The one guy who did show up . . . his name’s Frank. I got involved with him right after my divorce. Thing was, he was married.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. I was a mess. It was a bad choice. He fell so hard for me. I knew it was wrong, that he loved me far more than I loved him. But I let it go on. I needed to be needed. And then, when I broke it off, I tried to be gentle, but I demolished him. His marriage. His three kids. I left it all in shambles. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”

  God, how he’d begged and cried. Snot and tears had slid down his red face. He’d done everything but throw himself at me. I hadn’t thought anything could feel worse than getting divorced. I’d been dead wrong.

  “The thing is, I’ve spent the years since playing the victim. I told myself that the reason I became a zombie was because I was so hurt by Jeremy. The truth is, I just don’t want to hurt anyone else the way I hurt Frank. I didn’t want to do that again. I guess I’d rather feel nothing at all than risk causing hurt like that again.”

  Silence throbbed between us.

  “Well, my viewing was well-attended,” she said. “Everyone was there.”

  I sighed, stung by her words. “I’m sure.”

  “Even people I didn’t know. Friends of my parents, I guess. And they put on quite the show. They always do. You know, we have this big house with big cars and a big garden, but inside it’s practically hollow. No art on the walls. A bare minimum of furniture. A pantry full of tomato soup and ramen noodles. I was never allowed to have friends over, because my mom didn’t want them seeing how we lived—rolling debt upward from one credit card to the next, gambling away the savings, drinking away my college fund.”

  “That sucks.”

  “But what really sucked about my funeral was that everyone was memorializing this girl that didn’t really exist. I never . . . y’know, came out. I never showed the world who I really was. I was just as bad Mr. Noble back there. Mom always talked about how much I shined. The thing was, that light was artificial. It wasn’t really me. I never let anyone see my real shine.”

  “What about your friend? Tara?”

  “Yeah, she saw me shine. And she loved it. She loved me. And I pushed her away because I couldn’t handle it. So, I made myself someone else. This Shannon construct, and all I could think about at the funeral was how that pile of skin and bones wasn’t really me. It was going to rot around poor Bastion, and it wasn’t even me.”

  “Bastion?”

  “He was a stuffed animal. A black and white cow. I’d had him since I was little. They put him in my coffin, and now he’s all alone in the darkness forever.” She sobbed and shook her head.

  “Earlier in the sewer, you kept saying you were sorry. Why?”

  Before she could answer, a chill passed through me. She