Inherit the Dead

hurried to his car, raising his collar against the blustering sea wind and pouring rain, he couldn’t help but feel that he’d just escaped a scene from Sunset Boulevard.

A butler. A goddamn butler! You almost laugh it’s so damn funny, so damn corny, the man standing there in the entranceway, in his tux.
    You imagine yourself knocking on the door and the guy opening it and saying something like, ‘Good day, old chap,’ and you just smile as you get your hands around his neck and squeeze and squeeze while the woman screams and screams, all of it like some old black-and-white movie that your mind is spinning as you wait and wait, telling yourself it’s okay because it’s all going as planned and because you’ve waited so long that it feels right to be waiting a little longer, like you have been on some long winding road that you need to follow to get to the pot of gold, like you are about to win the goddamn lottery.
    So you sit shivering in the damn rental car, eyes closed, envisioning all the great things you are going to have.
    But then the pictures start: all the stuff you don’t want to see, don’t want to remember, your mind spinning again and you can’t control it, shivering so bad and it’s not because of the cold.
    You tell yourself to stop. You squeeze your eyes so tight against the ugliness and pain, but you know the only possibility of stopping it, of surviving, is to do this, to make others suffer as you have, and to make them pay.

5
CHARLAINE HARRIS
    G il’s Gas & Auto office windows were shining through the pelting cold rain. The garage bay doors were down, but that wasn’t surprising on a day as miserable as this one. Perry saw lights coming from the narrow windows in the bay doors, too. There were two trucks parked to the right of the building, and a Lincoln in one of the customer slots. Perry pulled the collar of his trench up, flung open his car door, and dashed to the entrance. A bell rang as he pushed open the door and practically jumped into the office.
    Like every garage in the world, this place smelled of oil and metal and rubber, and it was none too clean. The coffee in the pot was past stewed, the Formica on the service counter was chipped, and the middle-aged woman leaning against it was equally past her prime. But she didn’t like to think so. She was retrieving the keys to the Lincoln from the extended hand of a man half her age, a tall and brawny stud in mechanic’s overalls.
    The woman and the stud both turned startled faces toward Perry, whose trench coat was dripping copious amounts of rainwater onto the floor. The water could only improve the dirty linoleum, Perry figured. It was obvious from the woman’s body language and the way the mechanic was smiling as he handed over her keys that the twohad been in deep flirtation. The woman’s seductive slouch vanished like a raindrop in the desert as she turned to look at Perry. The mechanic’s face went completely blank. There was a moment of silence, broken only by the drip of the water from Perry’s coat.
    Finally, the fortyish woman broke the little silence. Turning to the stud, she said, “Randy, when you get the part for the car, give me call. I’ll bring the car in myself.” She did everything but write her phone number on his hand.
    “No chauffeur?” Randy asked. His overalls were tight, dark blue, and his name was stitched on his chest in red. He looked good in them, and he knew it. Even in the chilly weather, his sleeves were rolled up to exhibit muscular arms, tattooed with dark pseudo Japanese patterns.
    “No chauffeur,” she said, looking at him in a very meaningful way. “I’ll come . . . in person.”
    “I’ll call you,” Randy said, grinning. “That part should be here in a couple of days.”
    “I’ll look forward to it,” she said, fluttering her fingers, and passed Perry in a waft of Blu. She picked up a Burberry umbrella propped by the door and, stepping out and snapping it open in one practiced move, she hurried to the Lincoln.
    “Can I help you?” the mechanic asked. “I’m a little short-handed today. Our girl’s out, and we’re closing soon.”
    Perry approached the counter. He could see now that there was a space heater on by the desk behind the counter. The office felt warm and cozy. To Randy’s right, a door was open into the service-bay area. A car was up on a lift, and there was another Gil’s Auto employee under it, looking up into the car’s workings. He was older and