“Jesus, you’re a lifesaver,” the man said. He nodded at the quad. “You got tools on that thing? Something to take this bumper off with?”
Up close, the man was barely a man at all. He looked like a college kid. He had dark hair, and he wore shorts and a tight T-shirt. There was a little barbed-wire tattoo going around his upper arm.
You don’t have to say anything to him, the Gravel Man said. You’re not going to help him.
“Did you hear me?” the kid asked.
Owen nodded. “I don’t have any tools.”
“Well, just call the cops, then.” His voice was full of fear. “The guys that did this might come back. Tell me you got a phone.”
Owen only stared. This was another moment that didn’t take a smart person to understand. He knew this much: Like the buried gun had been left just for him, this young man tied to the car had been left here. Just for him.
“Hey!” the kid said. “Are you listening?”
“What is this?” Owen whispered. He heard a shake in his own voice.
Go around the front of the car to the passenger side. On the floor in front of the seat there’s a claw hammer.
Owen understood what he was meant to do. A wave of fear ran up his back, making him flinch.
“I can’t do this,” he said.
You can start with his head. The screaming won’t last very long that way.
Owen’s knees threatened to give. The kid was screaming something at him, red-faced angry now, but the meaning of the words didn’t come through. Owen’s own pulse was thudding in his ears, and his own voice in his head was muttering No, no, no, no.
The Gravel Man’s voice was louder, though.
You’ve seen that I can make you hurt, but I can make it worse than it was before. Worse than anything you ever felt.
“I can’t do it.”
Get the hammer and beat him to death with it.
“I can’t!” Owen screamed.
The young man fell silent at that. He looked confused. That was the last thing Owen saw before the feeling dropped on him like an engine block.
He saw his grandmother’s grave again, but this time Grandpa wasn’t there. There was no one there but himself, and the ground before the headstone was torn open in a deep gouge that exposed the coffin. Down there, framed by dirt and clay, the coffin lid creaked.
Your fault, Owen. Your fault, your fault, your fault—
“I can’t do it, no matter what you make me feel.”
I can make it hurt. So much hurt you’ll have to pass it off onto him. You won’t have any choice.
“I can’t.”
You will.
Before Owen could say any more, the coffin lid swung open, and in the same awful moment he found himself pitching forward and down, off balance, into the pit. He could hear himself screaming, but the sound wasn’t enough to block out the Gravel Man’s voice.
Do you know the word putrefaction, Owen? Do you know it, dummy?
He saw her bones, dirty white in the sun, half a second before he landed on her ribs and snapped them like pretzel sticks. His hands and knees splashed down in the bottom of the coffin, two inches deep in something wet. Wet but thick like gravy.
Putrefaction is what happens after you die, even if they embalm you. Putrefaction means you turn to soup.
Screaming louder now. He reared up, and his hands came up to cover his eyes, but they were thick and dripping with—
Soup. People turn to soup. Your grandmother is soup because it killed her to have to raise you—
How he got back onto the quad, he didn’t know. He was aware of the young man screaming again and rattling the chain, no longer mad but simply terrified. Owen saw all that and then his hand was on the ignition and the four-wheeler was roaring, and a second later he was off. He saw the desert blurring past. He felt the wind searing his face. The young man and the lime green car were far behind him, and—
And what was this? The Gravel Man’s voice had lost some of its hold on him. It was only faint now, barely getting to him. Hadn’t that happened once before? That first night in the desert, driving fast in the pickup, concentrating hard on the ground rolling through his headlights. Wasn’t that all it took? He gave the quad everything. He couldn’t even see his speed through the vibration and the tears. He didn’t care. Faster. Just go faster. He felt his control of the machine slipping away. Felt it want to flip out from under him with every little jarring dip in the ground. That didn’t matter. The distraction was working, that was what mattered. The Gravel Man was speaking, but Owen couldn’t make out the words.
In the next instant he crested a rise and found himself airborne. His stomach heaved upward and his shoulders clenched. Then the wheels came down and the shocks compressed and the chassis slammed against the undercarriage, and his hands took over and killed the throttle and worked the brakes.
He was atop the next rise by the time he stopped. His breath was ragged, and the engine was growling low and guttural.