The fingers are cold, clamping over her mouth. A sudden tree of terror bursts from her spine upward through her chest, its branches spreading down her arms to her fingertips. The hand pulls her back against the headrest and flattens her lips against her teeth, compressing the scream that has no time to emerge. She writhes in the seat, trying to get free, but the grip is unyielding and she can't even turn her head. One of the fingers worms its way between her teeth and she tastes cold salt, dirt, and blood mingled together against her tongue. Simultaneously gagging and biting down, she shuts her eyes and feels tears springing up from them, her stomach clenching spasmodically.
Relaxing its grip slightly, the thing crawls up between the driver and passenger seats, and only then does Sue manage to twist her head enough to look over to see who it is. She spots the white T-shirt and bloodstained face. Then the smell hits her. A cloud of foulness clings to him so densely that it almost seems to pulsate from his flesh.
"Susan," Jeff Tatum says. "Remember me?"
She stares at him, her stomach roiling with nausea and shock. Like Marilyn's, his shot-out eyes are beginning to come back, and now Sue has a closer look at the results. Instead of empty sockets, there are now black, jellylike orbs quivering inside his skull, the way she imagines shark's eyes must when they're first beginning to take shape. What must the world look like through such eyes? she wonders bleakly.
"It's better this way, Susan. You'll see when you get here. You don't feel anything anymore. It's like the best drug you ever had."
He pulls away so she can respond. "What do you want?"
"I'm just a messenger, here to deliver a reminder."
"Which is what?"
His fingers go up to tease the tatters of flesh around his shimmering, embryonic new eyes. "To stay on the route, if you want to see your daughter again."
"When I saw you before, you told me not to go any farther."
The ruined face flushes with anger. Without the slightest warning he swings his right hand at her face, slamming her in the cheekbone, knocking her backward into the door. "Don't youever fucking argue with me, you stupid bitch. I know what's best. I'll decide if your little Veda comes back to you dead or alive. Or have you forgotten that already?"
"No," Sue says levelly. "I haven't forgotten." The blow to the face has had a paradoxical effect of restoring some cruel kind of alertness; it occurs to her now that she might be able to use this moment to her advantage, if only in a minor way. "There's something else I haven't forgotten, either, Jeff."
"I'm not Jeff anymore. Jeff is gone."
It's an old poem. You have to remember it. It can help you.
And despite everything that's happening Sue finds herself mouthing the words. They come out as little more than a whisper-but they come out just the same.
"From Ocean Street in old White's Cove…"
"What's that? What did you say?" Jeff Tatum pauses, seeming to hesitate, his head cocked as if he's listening to some sound far off in the distance. A wave of uncertainty has come over his face, or what's left of it, reflected primarily in the looseness of his mouth.
"Across the virgin land he drove…"
Tatum flinches, averting his face, cringing from her like an old Universal Studios vampire from sunlight. "You ought to shut your mouth," he growls, but it doesn't sound like much of a demand. It's almost like a plea. She's vaguely aware of his voice becoming more boyish, less hateful, as he retreats.
Sue sits up, propping herself on her elbows. "To paint each town and hamlet red, with the dying and the dead-"
"Stop it, I said!"Tatum has moved away from her entirely, drawing his body toward the door, but he can't find the handle."You shut your mouth, you fucking stupid bitch!"
"He walked through Wickham and Newbury." She's speaking faster now, and louder too. "In Ashford or Stoneview he might tarry, to call a child to his knee, where he slew it-one, t-"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"At this point the thing has turned totally around to face the door and the voice is simply a shriek, pained and helpless. When he snaps his head back toward her again Sue sees something else emerging through the soulless sockets-an entirely new expression, the face of a young man awakening from a very realistic nightmare, perhaps one in which he has no eyes. He screams one final time, a protracted howl, and then falls silent. When he eventually raises his head to look at her, the only expression on his ruined face is puzzlement.
"Ms. Young?" Jeff's voice is quiet, gentle. "Are you there?"
"Jeff."
"What happened to me? Was there an accident? I don't remember anything. We were talking, and then-"
"It's all right."
"No, it isn't. I can tell." He turns his head to the right and left as if he's hoping to see something through his hideous new eyes. "What happened to my eyes? Is it bad?"
"Can you see anything?"
"Yes, I can see but…everything's red and shiny, like it's wet." He pauses. "Everything's covered in blood."
Sue nods. "There was an accident."
"Listen, Ms. Young, you need to listen to me. Turn around. You can't go any farther down this route."
"Jeff, I need to ask you about Isaac Hamilton and the Engineer. What's he trying to do here?"
"Hamilton," Jeff says.
"Yes, Jeff-Isaac Hamilton. What's he doing?"
"His victims. The route brings them back. Then Hamilton takes them. Takesus. " From deep in his chest he produces a harsh, humorless cackle, and she's losing him now, she can feel it. "Windows to the soul. That's what he says."
"The Engineer?"
Jeff's mouth opens, makes a weak gasping sound. The sound becomes: "…Hamilton."
"Wait," Sue says, "so was Isaac Hamilton controlling the Engineer?"
"You…you can't…" His voice falters, stranded between words, and Sue hears an edge creeping back into it. Beneath the crusted blood Jeff Tatum's mouth pinches tight, the muscles left in his jaw tensing, as if he's struggling with something, another voice that only he can hear.
"No.Shut up. I don'twant to."
"Jeff?"
"I don't…No, you're lying, you're lying,you're lying to me- " And all at once his hands fly up, plunging his fingers into his own black eyes, and his voice explodes with a scream."NO!" The scream drags out, dissipating and becoming a wild, hysterical laugh.
Sue doesn't wait for the transformation. Twisting around sideways in her seat she plants both feet on Tatum's bloody chest and propels him backward into his door, and while he's jammed against it, still in the throes of whatever inner turmoil is ripping him apart, she lunges forward and pulls on the handle. The door swings wide and he tumbles backward out of the Expedition. Sue yanks the door shut, slams down the lock.
The poem is like a charm. It beats him back.
In front of the Expedition she sees Jeff flash through her headlights, but he's not coming for her. He's headed toward the fence. In seconds he's over it, scurrying past the police station and into the headlights of the van waiting beyond.
Across the hollow winter night Sue hears a metal door slide open, then shut again a moment later. An engine revs, grows louder, and then pulls away. She thinks of Marilyn. Is she in there too, with Jeff and Veda?
Sue looks into the back of the Expedition at her own passenger, waiting to see how the rest of the night will play itself out. It's just her and the Engineer, straight to the end of the line. They don't have much time left.
"All right, you sadistic piece of shit," Sue says. "Let's hit the road."