CHAPTER TEN

In the dream he was awake in the hotel room, knowing he must turn off the light or he’d run down the power of the motel. Cars were pulling up in the parking lot as the bombs went off. Lots of bombs.

And then he was awake. There were no bombs. No sound. No cars.

HE WILL KILL U!!!

A jolt of blue fire raced across muscles and arms. Above him the letters of the words were written in glowing yellow light on the ceiling. They seemed to grow larger as he stared at them. The room was dark.

‘I must be hallucinating,’ he thought. He closed his eyes and tried to rub them, but his arm would barely move.

I am so tired.

When he opened his eyes again he saw the words.

HE WILL KILL U!!!

I must be going crazy.

Sweating, he pushed himself up and realized he was breathing heavy. Too heavy. With more effort than it should have taken, he got the lamp upright and switched it on again. Nothing happened.

I must have broken the bulb.

He looked upward, and again the glowing warning remained above his head. The letters were made up of little stars and moons. Planets with rings. He knew those things, those glow-in-the-dark shapes. A girl he once knew. He remembered her to be sad. Or maybe he was the one who was sad. But she had put glow-in-the-dark planets and stars on her ceiling. He remembered lying next to her in the dark as music played nearby. He remembered the sadness though he could not say whether it had been his or hers.

Someone had written those words on the ceiling with glow-in-the-dark planets and stars. Standing with more effort than it should have taken, he stood on the bed to examine them. They were real. He peeled off a star. Held it between his thumb and forefinger.

He moved to the window and parted the curtains. The moon had fallen to the other side of the sky.

Dawn in a few hours.

He looked once more at the warning.

Taking his satchel, he opened the door and stepped out into the night. He crossed the walkway heading into the parking lot. His huaraches scraped quietly. He kept his eyes on the dark office door.

“No swim, my friend?” Mirrored Sunglasses stood in the doorway of the room next to him, his arm cradling a double-barreled shotgun.

“You’re not thinking of running off without paying your bill?”

Was he truly blind?

Ahead the moon sank into the black horizon turning the silver nightscape a dark blue.

“How’d you know?” asked Mirrored Sunglasses.

The Old Man swallowed thickly.

When did I last have some water? I am thirstier than I should be.

“Tell me. It won’t do you no good not to.”

“Some words written on the ceiling.”

Mirrored Sunglasses moved the shotgun to the other arm. He seemed to stare off, considering a different matter altogether.

“Shoulda knowed it,” he mumbled. “How ’bout that swim?”

“I don’t know what the problem is,” began the Old Man. “But I mean you no harm. Just headed to the old town east of here. Just going to look for salvage. That’s all. I won’t steal from you.”

“Right, you won’t. Can’t have people knowing I’m here. You’d tell. They’d come for my stuff. Come for me. I wouldn’t be king anymore.”

“That’s not true. Why don’t I just move on? No harm, friend.”

After a moment’s silence in which the Old Man thought he might just walk into the desert and be free of this nightmare, Mirrored Sunglasses raised the shotgun. It wasn’t dead on straight in his face, but it was close enough.

Two barrels with the right shot and he doesn’t need to see me move. Just squeeze at the sound of me. I’ll be nothing but shredded flesh and bones.

He thought of his own pistol hidden in his satchel. Getting it out? He’d know.

But he’s only got one chance to shoot you. Then he’s got to break the barrel and reload. Then fire again. Takes time.

“Think it’s time for that swim, mister,” said Mirrored Sunglasses in a voice that was both mean and low. “Start walking.”

The pool lay beyond a gate at the far end of the complex. The Old Man began to shuffle and by the time he reached the gate, the double-barreled shotgun hovered a foot behind his kidneys. The rusty gate swung open and landed with a clank.

“Move.”

The Old Man walked to the edge of the pool.

It was drained.

Along its cracked concrete bottom, hundreds of snakes lay sleeping and lethargic in the cool predawn. Occasionally one moved. A corpse lay on the far side near the steps, what would have been the shallow end of a filled pool. Beneath the snakes lay more humps that might be corpses.

As he neared the edge of the deep end, he heard Mirrored Sunglasses suck in air.

Barely thinking, the Old Man twisted and stepped back as he saw Mirrored Sunglasses raise the shotgun into both hands across his chest and rush at him as if pushing a plow.

Recoiling in horror sent the Old Man off the lip of the edge and saved his life. He fell and felt his hands grasping for the edge. A familiar childlike feeling as he found it. Then he swung hard into the concrete wall of the empty pool to hang just a few feet from the snakes.

Above, Mirrored Sunglasses’s feral swear turned to a scream as the expected resistance remained unmet and he sailed outward above a snake-filled concrete pool.

Hanging from the edge the Old Man heard the snapping crunch of a bone-breaking headfirst dive twelve feet below.

The snakes, hissing, snapped on the attacker in the cool dark shadow of the deep end. Rattles raged in unison as the Old Man, head swimming, heaved himself over the side of the pool and onto the deck.