deserve such torment but like they said, God works in mysterious ways. And the Big Guy couldn’t get much more mysterious than this hellish horseshit.
The driver said, “I don’t care what we do with it as long as we get rid of it quick. Fucking head’s haunted, man.”
“I told you, that was reflex action,” the passenger said. “Like when you cut off a snapping turtle’s head, it can still bite the shit out of you. I got the scar to prove that shit.”
“No, man, did you see his eye? It was still looking at us. Seeing us, man.”
Pedro’s heart (not the unbeating one) sank at the thought of his daughter Maria opening up the hatbox and seeing her father’s hideous dead head. That he would have to
see
her seeing him filled him with horror. And murderous rage.
He wanted to tear into these assholes so bad he could almost taste it. Taste
them
. Not their assholes, their throats, where rich blood ran in tasty arteries, blood that would pump into his mouth in thick spurts if only he could sink his teeth into their tender flesh.
Ay yi yi!
Pedro wasn’t sure, but he thought his mouth maybe watered a little.
14
Cruz Control
Bobby Cruz couldn’t remember how he got here. Didn’t really know where
here
was. Wasn’t sure it mattered very much, if at all. Here, there, everywhere. Nowhere.
There were lights. Streetlights. Neon signs. Few cars cruising the streets. Tires hissing over wet pavement.
Damndest thing. He felt like he was in someone else’s body. A stranger’s body. Walking around in it, taking it for a lazy spin the way punk-teen carjackers used to go joyriding on “borrowed” wheels.
But that wasn’t quite right either. There was something else going on here. A strong feeling that he was under the control of someone or some
thing
else. Something was taking
him
for a joyride. But that wasn’t right either, because there was no joy here, and there wouldn’t be any. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he knew that he did. No joy.
He’d been manjacked and he felt certain that he was heading for one hell of a crackup.
And somebody was watching it all happen. Watching
him
. He looked up at the night sky.
When he saw the eye he remembered.
He was on a story. The sacked reporter going undercover and incognito for a border-crossing exposé. Then he remembered being stuck in the back of the old U-haul truck with the monster flies attacking him and his fellow travelers.
And the weird dude in the red hoodie. Lord of Flies.
And that fucking crazy eye up there seeing everything. Maybe even making it all happen.
Was seeing believing?
And that was where his memory went blank. Whatever happened after that, he had no clue.
No matter. There was a bigger story here. Much bigger than the one he’d set out to do. It didn’t take a crackerjack reporter to get that.
And Bobby Cruz felt that he had been chosen to write it. He was to be the scribe who sets it all down for posterity.
All he had to do was sniff it out.
Scare it up and write it down.
The Real Story
by Bobby Cruz. Or whatever it was to be called. He would be told when the time came. He had faith in that much. Someone or some
thing
would clue him in.
A bar up on the right. Beer lights flashing in the windows.
Yeah, he could use a drink. He had a bitch of a thirst that wouldn’t quit.
And who knew? There just might be a lead to his big story waiting for him in there.
Something told him it was.
15
Apparition
Magda Menendez was good and dead. Her flesh was meat-locker cold in this barren land’s night winds. Dead. Yet aware of everything. She didn’t understand how this could be. How she could be so intensely aware of her surroundings. How could death be such an eye-opener?
The panties on the rape tree fluttered like little pastel ghosts. A coyote yipped in the distance. A scorpion strutted by. A spider skimmed over sand.
It was true: Magda was trapped in a broken and abused body, decay already eating away at the edges of her timid
The driver said, “I don’t care what we do with it as long as we get rid of it quick. Fucking head’s haunted, man.”
“I told you, that was reflex action,” the passenger said. “Like when you cut off a snapping turtle’s head, it can still bite the shit out of you. I got the scar to prove that shit.”
“No, man, did you see his eye? It was still looking at us. Seeing us, man.”
Pedro’s heart (not the unbeating one) sank at the thought of his daughter Maria opening up the hatbox and seeing her father’s hideous dead head. That he would have to
see
her seeing him filled him with horror. And murderous rage.
He wanted to tear into these assholes so bad he could almost taste it. Taste
them
. Not their assholes, their throats, where rich blood ran in tasty arteries, blood that would pump into his mouth in thick spurts if only he could sink his teeth into their tender flesh.
Ay yi yi!
Pedro wasn’t sure, but he thought his mouth maybe watered a little.
14
Cruz Control
Bobby Cruz couldn’t remember how he got here. Didn’t really know where
here
was. Wasn’t sure it mattered very much, if at all. Here, there, everywhere. Nowhere.
There were lights. Streetlights. Neon signs. Few cars cruising the streets. Tires hissing over wet pavement.
Damndest thing. He felt like he was in someone else’s body. A stranger’s body. Walking around in it, taking it for a lazy spin the way punk-teen carjackers used to go joyriding on “borrowed” wheels.
But that wasn’t quite right either. There was something else going on here. A strong feeling that he was under the control of someone or some
thing
else. Something was taking
him
for a joyride. But that wasn’t right either, because there was no joy here, and there wouldn’t be any. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he knew that he did. No joy.
He’d been manjacked and he felt certain that he was heading for one hell of a crackup.
And somebody was watching it all happen. Watching
him
. He looked up at the night sky.
When he saw the eye he remembered.
He was on a story. The sacked reporter going undercover and incognito for a border-crossing exposé. Then he remembered being stuck in the back of the old U-haul truck with the monster flies attacking him and his fellow travelers.
And the weird dude in the red hoodie. Lord of Flies.
And that fucking crazy eye up there seeing everything. Maybe even making it all happen.
Was seeing believing?
And that was where his memory went blank. Whatever happened after that, he had no clue.
No matter. There was a bigger story here. Much bigger than the one he’d set out to do. It didn’t take a crackerjack reporter to get that.
And Bobby Cruz felt that he had been chosen to write it. He was to be the scribe who sets it all down for posterity.
All he had to do was sniff it out.
Scare it up and write it down.
The Real Story
by Bobby Cruz. Or whatever it was to be called. He would be told when the time came. He had faith in that much. Someone or some
thing
would clue him in.
A bar up on the right. Beer lights flashing in the windows.
Yeah, he could use a drink. He had a bitch of a thirst that wouldn’t quit.
And who knew? There just might be a lead to his big story waiting for him in there.
Something told him it was.
15
Apparition
Magda Menendez was good and dead. Her flesh was meat-locker cold in this barren land’s night winds. Dead. Yet aware of everything. She didn’t understand how this could be. How she could be so intensely aware of her surroundings. How could death be such an eye-opener?
The panties on the rape tree fluttered like little pastel ghosts. A coyote yipped in the distance. A scorpion strutted by. A spider skimmed over sand.
It was true: Magda was trapped in a broken and abused body, decay already eating away at the edges of her timid
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