Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
That’s not even true. I know I can’t do it. Because I’m a fucking coward and I want to live. I settle for the new clothes and a shower.
We stay just the one night.
Then I help Ryet stagger his way into the truck, and I just… keep… driving.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE – RYET
Heaven. For Now.
I wake up latched on to Syrsee’s neck, sucking down her blood like it’s a fucking milkshake. But then, suddenly, I’m full. I push off her and sit up in my seat, looking around, confused. And very angry, for some reason. “Where the fuck are we?”
Syrsee puts the truck in drive and pulls back onto the highway. “I dunno. Arizona, I think. But I haven’t been paying attention to the signs for a while now, so who the hell knows.”
She’s angry too.
I look at her for a moment, staring at her. She’s wearing a black tank top and her hair is blowing around her face from the AC blasting out of the vents. She doesn’t look at me. She just keeps driving.
Fuck it. I turn away and stare out the window. Red mountains and plateaus in the distance and dirt in every direction. I close my eyes and let out a long breath as the hot desert sun beats down on my face.
It feels good.
Suddenly, Syrsee slams on the brakes so hard, I go flying forward, apparently not wearing a seatbelt. The only reason I don’t go right through the windshield is because I brace both hands on the dash.
When we come to a jerking stop, I turn my head slowly to look at her, then growl, in a very nasty voice, “What the fuck, Syrsee?”
She doesn’t look at me. Just throws the truck in reverse and starts backing up at high speed.
I look behind us, panicked that we’re going to slam into an oncoming car, but there’s no one there. The entire highway is deserted.
She brakes again. And again, I’m jerked around. I’m just about to yell at her when she flings her door open, gets out of the truck, and walks over to the right shoulder to stare up at a sign.
I squint my eyes, trying to read the sign. But there’s a glare on it from the sun. So I get out and walk over to her. She’s breathing hard, like she’s about to blow up or something.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”.
Now it’s her turn to slowly turn her head to look at me. Her eyes are narrowed down into slits, her mouth a straight line, her face flushed with anger. Then she points to the sign. “That.”
I look at it. It says ‘Petrified National Forest.’ But it’s been spray-painted over with some kind of graffiti tag. I look back at Syrsee, confused.
She starts spitting her words at me as she continues to point to the sign. “Do you see that? Do you? Do you know I could be getting a fucking pedicure right now?”
I… don’t know what to say. I have no idea what she’s talking about. “What?”
“I could be taking a shower, and being pampered, and… and… and eating something that is not a Slurpee or Lays fucking potato chips!”
“What?”
She turns and stands right in front of me, grabs me by the collar of my t-shirt, tugs on it and continues her rant. “I’ve been feeding you, asshole! For ten days! Ten!” She screams this. “And you… you… you have done nothing but drink me and pass out! Do you know how many times I wanted to kick you into the ditch and leave you there?”
I don’t say anything. I’m just kind of stunned.
“Do you?” She’s screaming. “And look!” She points to the sign again. “The horse and rider. They put this here for me!”
I look back up at the sign and… OK, I guess I can kinda see a horse and rider in that graffiti tag. It’s a figure eight on its side. Like a snake. But it doesn’t have a snake head. One end is a crude drawing of a horse’s head, the other a messy human face in profile.
“Only it’s not the horse and rider.” Syrsee has stopped yelling now, her voice rather soft. Almost… sad. “It’s me, Ryet. Me. The fucking night mare.”
She says that word in a very specific way. Night. Mare.
“What?” That’s all I can say because I’m so lost.
Suddenly, she’s crying. Not a held-in sob, the way I was in that last encounter with Jane. But a full-on ugly cry. It’s more like wailing. And she’s still ranting. Something about blood, and days, and clothes, and growling, and fear—she goes on and on about being scared.
And all I can do is blink at her because I don’t know what she’s talking about and she’s still tugging on my t-shirt collar like she wants to choke me. And… now that I look down at it, isn’t my shirt. It’s brand-new. Kinda stiff, and white, and too big. Because it’s blowing in the wind. Making it ripple across my back and something feels very, very strange back there.