Whispers in the Night by Brandon Massey Page B

. . My Trial” at me like I’d pissed him off. Since my choices seemed to be that or static, I let him yell at me while I drove.
    And drove.
    I knowed something was wrong after missing the exit that I usually take to get home. When I say I missed it, I don’t mean I’d passed it. I knowed I hadn’t. What I mean is that it wasn’t where I knowed it was supposed to be. I’d half convinced myself that I must have fell asleep at the wheel and passed right by the son of a bitch until I caught sight of a little glimmer on the horizon. Figuring it might be a gas station or a sheriff’s depot where I could catch my bearings and figure out where I’d made my mistake, I made up my mind to pull over when I reached it.
    And the nearer I got to it, the more convinced I grew that ol’ Nick was ridin’ with me, and that I’d indeed made my way onto his shit list for reasons as yet unknown to me.
    I was coming up on the Paradise Pub.
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    â€œYou can’t tell me you ain’t curious,” Carter told me, seating himself beside me once I’d come back inside. On the TV, photographs of people who’d died in some drunk driving accident flickered. Their vacant eyes set me trembling. A nice-looking black couple, a mildly overweight but gorgeous Latina, and her brother. None of them had survived.
    â€œI can’t tell you nothing if you done already made up your mind that you ain’t listening,” came my reply.
    â€œIt won’t let you leave, Lou. Remember those stories about a curse on the land that we always thought was bullshit? Well, I think it’s time we wrap our brains around the fact that they ain’t.”
    I ordered up a cup of black coffee, prompting Browder to eye me for a curiosity before going to get it. The coffee machine sat at the other end of the bar near Zadora’s stool. Overhead, coverage of the car accident continued to unfold.
    â€œLooks like the place will be seeing some new faces soon enough,” she told Browder, tipping her chin at the screen in a gesture that I didn’t understand, but would soon come to. He said something in reply that I couldn’t hear because Carter spoke to me at the same moment.
    â€œI’ll let you kill me if you want, Lou. I’ll sit still for it one time. You gotta experience it.”
    â€œGet the fuck out of here,” I spat, succeeding only in making him laugh till his eyes watered.
    â€œI wish I could, man. Goddamn if I don’t,” he said.
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    â€œI can’t believe you’re fucking serious,” Carter told me the next night, climbing into the passenger seat with me. I couldn’t believe he was actually coming along. Don’t know what had made me invite him anyway. He seemed all too content here.
    â€œOh, I’m heart-attack serious,” I told him, firing up my car’s engine. “We are shaking this fucking mob scene tonight.”
    I turned the car onto 7734, heading opposite the direction I’d traveled in some nights ago. If I couldn’t find my way home, then I’d get us back to Route 2 and consider my options once we got there.
    â€œYou think we can just motor out of hell like a couple of bored tourists? Don’t you understand that we’re home ? We’re home, Lou.”
    Not five minutes on the road and he was getting on my nerves already. “If you buy that, then what the fuck did you say yes for when I invited you?”
    â€œI came along so I could prove to your ignorant ass that the reason we can’t leave is that we’re right where we belong,” he told me. “Now stop the car.”
    The muzzle of his Diamondback kissed the side of my throat.
    â€œI ain’t gon’ ask you but one time,” he said, leaning on the gun, making its presence painful against my neck.
    I was sick of a lot of things in that moment, but mostly of him. “Fuck you and that gun. You claim