The Demon Road Trilogy: The Complete Collection: Demon Road; Desolation; American Monsters

“It was things like that, y’know?” Glen continued, oblivious. “Things like that that made me fall in love with America. A country so big you can do something as crazy as that as a hobby and never get caught … wow. I’m not saying I want to do something like that, but I appreciate the fact that I could. Land of the free, right? Home of the brave.”

Glen settled back, lost in his own overwhelming sense of wonder, and Milo didn’t speak again for another two hours.

By the time they stopped off at a Budget Inn in Jasper, Georgia, Milo looked a lot paler than he should have. His face was gaunt, his eyes distant. He got out of the Charger slowly, almost like it didn’t want him to leave, and only when they had left it behind them in the parking lot did he regain a little of his spirit. He told Glen to shut up three times as they checked in.

For his own reasons, Glen attempted an American accent that sounded like a cross between John Wayne and John Wayne’s idiot brother. Amber thought that the woman behind the desk would ask her for proof of age, but the woman seemingly couldn’t have cared less. Amber went to her room with a small bag containing necessities, a vending-machine sandwich, and a lukewarm can of Coke. The water in her shower took forever to heat up, but eventually she stood under the spray and closed her eyes. She worked a full mini-bottle of shampoo and conditioner into her hair, which had dried out in knots and tangles following her dip in the river, and when she was done she stood in front of the bathroom mirror naked.

Unimpressed with what she saw, she resisted the urge to shift. She didn’t see the point of feeling even worse about herself.

She turned on the TV. Every second channel had a preacher in an expensive suit talking about God and the Devil. She watched for a bit, hoping in vain to hear some words of comfort, but all she got was fear and greed. She flicked over to a horror movie, but that failed to distract her, so she turned the TV off, and all the lights, and climbed into bed. The mattress was uncomfortable and unfamiliar. The pillows were simultaneously too thin and too soft. She lay in the darkness. Voices came through the walls. TV sets played. Toilets flushed.

She thought about Milo and Glen and Imelda, and the trucker and Brandon. She thought about the Ghost of the Highway, and she thought of her parents, and how they were probably coming after her even as she lay there.

She got up, dragged a chair in front of the door, and jammed it up against the handle like she’d seen people do in movies.

She went back to bed. Sleep was a long time coming.

(#ulink_4cb4ec02-11f8-5e0a-a9f6-940261ca650f)

THEY SET OFF EARLY the next morning. Milo looked healthy and strong again, and he must have been up for a while because the Charger was gleaming when they got in. Glen told them all about his night. It wasn’t very interesting.

When he realised nobody was answering him, Glen dozed for an hour in the back seat before checking on their location on his phone. “Ooh!” he said. “We’re going to be passing Nashville! Can we stop?”

“No,” Amber and Milo both said.

Glen looked hurt. “But … but this might be my last chance to see it. I’m dying, remember?”

“You haven’t mentioned it,” Milo said, making it the second joke he’d told since Amber had met him.

“Can’t we even just drive through?” Glen asked. “You don’t even have to go slow. Come on, please? Elvis started out in Nashville – it’s where he recorded his first record. Elvis!”

“He did that in Memphis,” Milo said.

Glen frowned. “Isn’t Nashville in Memphis?”

“Nashville and Memphis are both in Tennessee. Which is where we are.”

“Oh. Are we going to be passing through Memphis?”

“No.”

“But I’m dying. Why are you in such a rush, anyway? Isn’t it time you told me what’s really going on? We’re friends. We’re on this trip together. That bonds people, y’know. We’re bonded now. We’re inseparable. We should have no secrets from each other. I’ve got no secrets from you. I told you all about the monster who attacked me and gave me the Deathmark and my quest to find The Dark Stair. What’s your quest?”

“Don’t call it a quest.”

“But what is it?”

Amber turned to him. “We’re dropping you off in Wisconsin. That’s as far as you’re going with us. Believe me, it’s safer for you not to know anything beyond that.”

He blinked at her. “But … but we’re inseparable.”

Amber turned back. “Not nearly as inseparable as you think.”

Glen went quiet. A few minutes later, he was tapping away at his phone again.

He chuckled. “They have a Toledo in Ohio,” he said. “Hey, do you think that’s where the phrase Holy Toledo comes from? Do you? Hello?”

“There’s also a Toledo in Spain,” said Milo with dull exasperation. “It’s a holy city.”

“So that’s where it came from?”

“I don’t know, Glen.”

“Makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it?”

“I guess.”

Glen nodded, went back to tapping.

They found a Walmart in Knoxville and pulled in.

“What’re we doing here?” Glen asked.

“Need to buy some clothes,” said Amber.

“Need help?”

She frowned at him. “No.”

She ignored his look of disappointment, and got out. She pulled her cap down lower and turned her face from the security cameras on her approach. Once inside, she scanned the signs for the clothing section, and picked up a few toiletries on the way over. She added some fresh underwear to her basket and followed that with a pair of jeans a little longer than she usually wore. She grabbed a belt, a new top, a few cheap bracelets, and went looking for a light jacket. When she had everything she wanted, she took them to the dressing rooms.

Once inside the cubicle, she tried on the clothes, looped the belt through the jeans, and turned to the mirror. The jeans were comfortable around her waist but gathered at the ankles. She looked like a girl wearing her big sister’s pants. Then she shifted, and her glorious red-skinned reflection grinned back at her. She tightened the belt, noting how the jeans were now the perfect length, how her T-shirt was now flatter around the belly and fuller around the bust. She added the jacket, turned and admired herself, imagining for a moment strolling back through Walmart like this, and wondering if the cries of alarm would dent her confidence. She doubted it.

But discretion, as ever, was called for, and she unbuckled her belt and reverted, and the jeans gathered at her ankles and her belly swelled to its usual proportions. Sighing, she changed back into her own clothes, put everything else into the basket, and left the cubicle, the cap once again pulled low.

She waited in line behind a woman who smelled really bad, and when she was gone the Hispanic boy at the till gave her a smile.

“Hi there,” he said.

“Hi,” she responded.

He started passing her items over the scanner – one at a time, slowly. “I like your eyes,” he said.

Amber blinked at him. “What?”

“Your eyes,” he repeated. “I like them.”

She blinked. “These?”