Strange Highways

You think I went away to New York City and changed into someone else, something else, some monster?"
     "She's in there," is all Joey can say.
     "Yeah, all right, she's in there, and I put her in there, but I didn't do it to her, didn't hurt her."
     Joey tries to pull away.
     P.J. grips him tightly, presses him against the rear bumper, nearly forcing him backward into the open trunk with the dead woman. "Don't go off halfcocked, kid. Don't ruin everything, everything for all of us. Am I your big brother? Don't you know me any more? Haven't I always been there for you? I've always been there for you, and now I need you to be there for me, just this once."
     Half sobbing, Joey says, "Not this, P.J. I can't be there for this. Are you crazy?"
     P.J. speaks urgently, with a passion that rivets Joey: "I've always taken care of you, always loved you, my little brother, the two of us against the world. You hear me? I love you, Joey. Don't you know I love you?" He lets go of Joey's shoulders and grabs his head. P.J.'s hands are like the jaws of a vise, one pressed against each of Joey's temples. His eyes seem to be full of pain more than fear. He kisses Joey on the forehead. The fierce power with which P.J. speaks and the repetition of what he says are hypnotic, and Joey feels as though he's half in a trance, so deeply in P.J.'s thrall that he can't move. He's having difficulty thinking clearly. "Joey, listen, Joey, Joey, you're my brother - my brother! - and that means everything to me, you're my blood, you're a part of me. Don't you know I love you? Don't you know? Don't you know I love you? Don't you love me?"
     "Yes, yes."
     "We love each other, we're brothers."
     Joey is sobbing now. "That's what makes it so hard."
     P .J. still holds him by the head, eye to eye with him in the cold rain, their noses almost touching. "So if you love me, kid, if you really love your big brother, just listen. Just listen and understand how it was, Joey. Okay? Okay? Here's how it was. Here's what happened. I was driving out on Pine Ridge, the old back road, cruising like we used to cruise in high school, going nowhere for no reason. You know the old road, how it winds all over, one damn twist and turn after another, so I'm coming around a turn, and there she is, there she is, running out of the woods, down a little weedy slope, onto the road. I hit the brakes, but there's no time. Even if it hadn't been rainy, there wouldn't have been time to stop. She's right in front of me, and I hit her, she goes down, goes under the car, and I drive right over her before I get stopped."
     "She's naked, P .J. I saw her, part of her, in the trunk there, and she's naked."
     "That's what I'm telling you, if you'll listen. She's naked when she comes out of the woods, naked as the day she was born, and this guy is chasing her."
     "What guy?"
     "I don't know who he was. Never saw him before. But the reason she doesn't see the car, Joey, the reason is because just then she's glancing back at this guy, running for all she's worth and glancing back to see how close he is, and she runs right in front of the car, looks up and screams just as I hit her. Jesus, it was awful. It was the worst thing I hope I ever see, ever happens to me my whole life. Hit her so hard I knew I must've killed her."
     "Where's this guy that was chasing her?"
     "He stops when I hit her, and he's stunned, standing there on the slope. When I get out of the car, he turns and runs back to the trees, into the trees, and I realize I gotta try to nail the bastard, so I go after him, but he knows the woods around there and I don't. He's gone by the time I make it up the slope and into the trees. I go in after him, ten yards, maybe twenty, along this deer trail, but then the trail branches off, becomes three paths, and he could've followed any of them, no way for me to know which. With the storm, the light was bad, and in the woods it's like dusk. With the rain and the wind, I can't hear him running, can't follow him by sound. So I go back to the road, and she's dead, just like I knew she'd be." P.J. shudders at the memory and closes his eyes. He presses his forehead to Joey's. "Oh, Jesus, it was terrible, Joey, it was terrible what the car did to her and what he'd done to her before I ever came along. I was sick, threw up in the road, puked my guts out."
     "What's