Hero: Baisez-Moi [4/5]

Manufactured by Benway

He awoke the next morning in the front seat of the truck with a backache and a stiff neck after two hours sleep. He stared at the door to her room for a good half hour, and wondered if there were some way to get away with Lee and Artie. As if on cue, her door opened, and she stood there, bleary-eyed. For a moment, it looked as if her eyes were bloodshot again, but as he looked closer he saw no signs of yellow. He got out of the SUV and brushed past her without speaking. He showered and shaved, and they were on the road by 9. They reached Minneapolis at 4 and crossed the Mississippi. Emma had not said a thing all day, sleeping almost all the time and refusing lunch. Lee told him that her vital signs were OK. He gripped the wheel, imagining her in agony. No one would blame him for taking a dying woman to an emergency ward and then going to lunch and not coming back.

As he entered Minnetonka, he was surprised to see a police cruiser pull in behind him and begin to flash its lights. He looked through the mirrors, and there were no other cars on the road. He began to sweat. He pulled the car over onto the shoulder. The cop turned off the flashing lights and got out of the cruiser. He found his license and read the name several times to make sure that he knew. The cop stood at the window of the car, face impassive, eyes hidden by shades.

"License," said the cop.

He handed it over.

"Get out and assume the position," said the cop.

"What did I do?" he said.

"Get out," said the cop, stepping back from the door and drawing a pistol.

He looked at where the cop was standing. He thought of opening the door suddenly and using it to knock the cop out. It almost certainly wouldn't work and there would be dozens of witnesses from the passing cars that had now appeared in great numbers. Many of the drivers and passengers were staring at the cop's gun.

"Get out," said the cop. "Last warning."

"What seems to be the problem, officer?" said Emma, sleepily.

Artie and Lee were with her, and Artie had an arm around her neck. They had done something with their image analyzers and now looked white, with blond hair. They might have passed for her sons, which he supposed was the idea. The cop lowered his pistol.

"Speeding," said the cop.

"He wasn't," said Lee. "I was looking at the speedometer. He was going slow and I told him he should go faster."

"He was speeding too slow," said the cop.

"Speeding too slow," said Emma. "Officer, I told him not to exceed the speed limit. He's a very good driver, very loyal. He does exactly what I tell him. He's driving me to the Mayo Clinic for a bone marrow transplant, and I asked him not to go any faster than the limit. I had my son here keeping an eye on him while I slept."

"Cancer?" said the cop.

"Leukaemia," she said.

"My little girl had leukaemia," said the cop.

"You poor man," said Emma. "I'm sorry if we've been a bother."

The cop handed back his license.

"Keep to the limit," said the cop.

"Yes, sir," he said.

Artie grabbed the license as he put up the window. An image of a huge birthday cake with a question mark in pink icing appeared.

"He's 20 today," said Lee, looking at the license. "Happy birthday."

He felt an irrational urge to reverse the SUV into the cruiser. She had to know.

"When's your birthday?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Lee. "Artie lets me use his. We share."

He glanced over at her, but she had appeared to have returned to sleep.

*****

The sun was setting as he found a motel just the other side of Wilmarth. They had dinner, during which he was presented with a slice of angel food cake with chocolate icing, his favorite. Lee had explained that they couldn't have a sparkler because it would attract too much attention. After he had sent them to bed in their room, he went into her room with the bloodwork kit. She was waiting for him, sitting on the edge of the bed. She didn't look up. Long blonde hair hid her face.

"You know why I did it," she whispered.

"You read my mind," he said.

"What did you expect?" she said.

"How could you tell me those stories?" he said. "They were horrible."

"Yes, they were," she said.

He opened the kit, and sat down on the bed beside her. He took her arm and pulled up the sleeve. Her felt the muscles in her arm. He wrapped the hose around her biceps.

"It's not your birthday today," she said, not looking up.

"No," he said.

"It's next week," she said.

"Yes," he said.

She turned to him. She stared into his face. Her eyes were huge for her face. He could not tear his gaze away. She raised her hand to his face. He was vaguely aware of the hose falling from her arm.

"I'm not-" he said.

She was so fast, he didn't see it. She swept him into her lips and kissed him. Kissed him for the first time. He'd never been kissed. Not like that. So light, but when it ended-

"I love you," he said.

"I know," she said.

"I'm scared," he said.

"Me too," she said.

"Why?" he said.

"Love you too," she whispered. "So rare, so innocent."

He was trembling as he took her shoulders in his hands. He could feel the strength in them. Her eyes were the world. His hands found their way down from her shoulders to her breasts. They were firmer than he would have thought, but still soft. Down, down past her ribs to her waist. Down, under her waistband where there was only room for one hand. The hair, so wiry, not like the soft cornsilk that framed her face. She moaned, and put her hand behind his head. She pulled him down to the mattress beside her. She pushed the medikit off the bed with her hand.

"Look," she said.

She took his hand in her own. She guided it up from below, and under her sweatshirt. Their hands pulled it up, revealing the hard wall of muscle on her stomach. All was white, unblemished. He moaned as he found her breast on his own. Soft, so soft.

"Want you," she breathed. "Beautiful man."

He felt harder and larger than he'd ever been in his life.

"Your first time," she said.

"Yes," he whispered. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Or I you," she said.

She took him into her mouth forever. When she broke off, she stroked his face softly, gently.

"You need protection," she said.

"Want you," he said.

"Get some," she said.

"Don't care," he said.

"I do," she said. "Might have some things you wouldn't want to catch. Besides, I need to do the bloodwork, to be sure. I'll be here when you get back. For you."

He kissed her, though not as well. He almost sat, up, then kissed her again. Better, that time.

"Go," she said.

She smiled. Not like the night before. Not a smile that he'd ever seen before. Small, scared. He drew back.

At the door, he turned to see her tying off the tourniquet, then ran all the way to the motel office. It was closed. There was a sign in the window promising a return within the hour. He ran down the highway, a half mile to the 7-11. He found the protection, and paid for it with shaking hands.

"More careful than most of your kind," said the scowling clerk.

He paid no attention whatsoever and ran all the way back.

When he opened the door, the grin that he'd had all the way back collapsed. She had fallen asleep. She was curled up in a fetal position as she always was when sleeping. The medikit was folded up and sitting on the night-table. He crouched down beside her.

"Emma, " he whispered.

She didn't stir. he touched her cheek. It was cold. Too cold. He lifted her head with the palm of his hand, revealing a puddle of dark thick blood under one nostril. He turned up her left eyelid. There was nothing but red, even the pupil. He put his hand on her neck. No pulse. It was colder still. Fifteen minutes. He started to weep. He heard a sound behind him.

"I'm not armed," he said..

"Is she-?" said Lee.

He nodded. Lee came over to stand beside him stone-faced.

"Leech sad," said Lee.

"Me too," he said. "Me too."

*****

Time passed, somehow. They wrapped her in a white sheet. He had to carry her to the SUV. For no good reason, they weren't seen. He drove west, listening to Artie making strange noises in the back seat. Lee remained expressionless, staring out the windscreen. He drove west along a perfectly straight road until he reached a river that was too large to ford. There was no bridge, the gravel simply ran straight into the water. He killed the lights. There was still almost a full moon.

He tore up a second sheet and used it to secure her body in the shroud. He picked her up and walked with it into the muddy shallows. Artie and Lee followed. He lay her down in the water, but did not let go.

"I don't know what else to do," he said. "Is this right?"

Lee stood at his side. There was a click as the image enhancer was switched off. Artie followed suit.

"Could bury her," said Lee. "Don't know what she would have wanted."

An image of a gang of monsters in green army camo digging away at a pit appeared.

"This flows into the Mississippi," he said. "It takes everything away."

"It'll do fine," said Lee.

"Anyone know what to say?" he said.

"Aren't you Christian?" said Lee.

"No," he said. "Haven't been to church in years."

An image appeared, glowing white in the night. From the glare emerged her face, her hair floating weightlessly around her head. She was smiling, not the smile that she'd given him, a smile somehow more beautiful that he knew she could have ever given. Her face faded into the white and the light faded away. He let go of the shroud and let the current take her body.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Please don't hurt her any more," whispered Lee, but not to him.

They watched as her body floated out of sight around the bend. In the SUV, he leant on the steering wheel and wept until the sun came up. As its light came in through the back window, he reversed the truck into the blood red dawn.

*****

They drove all day, crossing the Red River and then heading north. As they crossed US2, the temptation to turn and drive home was almost irresistible. Instead, he kept on driving north. Artie and Lee slept most of the time in a little ball in the back seat. He had a blanket over them, but their enhancers were still off. Hard as they were to look at, he resisted the urge to switch the devices back on. No-one noticed them at all.

He found the turn-off near Walhalla that he knew from the previous summer. He drove down a road that became a path, then forked at a gate. The gate was unlocked, as it had been then. He took the left fork and drove down into the bed of a dry creek. The rolling of the SUV in the creekbed woke up Lee as they passed under the washed out barbed wire fence. After another mile, he found a bank and drove up the side. He found a path through the wheat and eventually reached another gate. He got out, had a look up and down the road, then went back to the truck. He backed up, then accelerated and took the gate at 40. He almost overshot into the ditch on the other side of the road, then recovered just in time. When the dust settled, he looked over the front of the SUV. No damage, save for a tiny scratch on the paint.

"We there yet?" said Lee.

He drove up the road, until they reached a crossroads. A sign pointed to the left, saying Morden 9.

"I think we're there," he said.

"Looks just like North Dakota," said Lee.

Artie pointed at a farmhouse with a faded red and white flag hanging in a window.

"Except that," said Lee, switching on his enhancer.

"There has to be more different than just that," he said.

"Can only hope," said Lee.

He put the SUV in gear and drove away from the sunset towards the lights of the city.

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