The Things We Bury - Part 2: No Big Apocalypse [Completed]

Chapter 6: Mayfly (Part 9 of 11)

Author's Note: When a writer has to explain his own writing, it's a sign some bad writing took place. Well, it seems like I botched things pretty badly in part eight. Amy's vision in the graveyard was supposed to be a big a-ha moment, but I don't think anybody got it, so here's me explaining it... Essentially, this was not a new vision. It was the same one she had back in The Music Box shortly before her rescue. Amy never saw the other woman talking clearly but assumed it was Ylva because someone called out her name (turns out it was Moore using Amy's alias). The scene was supposed to reveal that it had been Amy herself all along.

Now with that episode of crappy writing out of the way, onto the next...

***

Maxwell felt no joy of the open road.

All the driving brought back sickening memories from his youth. It was a reminder of those disastrous road trips his family took because they were too poor to afford a real vacation and Bertrand was too drunk and lazy to plan any further than get in the car and drive.

Worse still, it invoked those desperate car rides when he was older—the constant moving around he did with Bertrand to avoid the law catching up with them. Just when Maxwell was feeling comfortable somewhere, he'd come home from school and find the car packed up and that would be the end of that town. It would be the end of that life and he would have to start all over again from scratch.

It didn't matter that it was years ago or that he was no longer a child. The unspooling miles of the road always lead to disaster.

Even after they had stopped for the night and put the search for Amy on hold, Maxwell felt stuck in the car. It was still with him like poison in his blood. He lay on the bed feeling it circulating through his veins, making his arms and legs heavy and their muscles cramped up.

He was in a cheap motor lodge in the last border town of the day—how many had they passed through? Fifteen? Twenty? They all blurred together. Maxwell wasn't one to drink, not normally, and never alone. But tonight he drank tequila out of plastic cup. The place was too crumby to have real glasses, only thin, disposable ones wrapped in cellophane left beside the bathroom sink. There was no mini bar either. Luckily, it was the sort of town where you didn't have to go far to find a liquor store. Or a gun store either, not that Maxwell had been lacking in that department.

His only company for the evening was the silent TV playing an obnoxious looking comedy. It was the same movie that had played on Maxwell's last trip to headquarters in Philadelphia, when he met with Roger Crandall.

Damn his soul to hell, Maxwell thought, knowing that at that moment, the son-of-a-bitch was probably having brandy and cigars, or whatever the hell the hipster equivalent of that was. Craft wheat whiskey and a hookah pipe? He was probably sitting somewhere, gorged on locally sourced, grass fed pork and hand-milled corn flour pasta, all thoughts of manhunts and werewolves banished from his mind. Until he got into the office the next morning. Then he'd ask for a status report and tut-tut that situation wasn't resolved yet.

R.J. and the girl were still in the wind and Maxwell was happy to leave them there.

If they could just manage to stay off the Agency's radar until they got out of the country, Maxwell would gladly waste his time patrolling border towns with Annie Oakley. And if R.J. got sloppy and used a credit card or was detained by police, Maxwell just hoped it was far enough away to become some other agent's problem.

It was a cowardly attitude, hoping someone else did the dirty work when the time came. But if the dirty work had to be done, he didn't want to be anywhere near it. Going full bore after Amy didn't seem the least bit brave.