Page 138 of College Town

Lawson keeps his hands on the wheel, but turns his head toward Ray, who motions with the gun.Go on.

“Why are we going up McGarry Road?” Lawson asks, belly quaking with dread, but his voice somehow level. “There’s nothing there.” But an old closed-down mineshaft. Visions of ducking under the old wood lintel and into the dank-smelling, echoing darkness fill his mind and push a cold sweat through every pore. Even when they were kids and dared each other, he never went two feet beyond the dilapidated, once-orange caution barrier at the mouth of the shaft. Urban legends abound of dumb kids going down in there on dares and never coming back out. Everything from a werewolf to a horde of pale, worm-skinned goblins are rumored to live down in those old tunnels. Lawson would rather get shot point-blank than be forced to go down in there.

“There’s nothing up there,” he repeats, aiming for reasonable, tasting the salt of his sweat when he licks his lips.

Ray smiles, and motions with the gun again. “We’ll be up there, when you make the fucking turn,” he says, pleasantly.

Lawson faces forward, and puts his foot back on the gas. Makes the turn. Begins a climb he knows well, but which he hasn’t made since the last time he was up here with Tommy, twenty years ago.

The Town Car follows.

“Do you work for Gino Giacoletti?” Lawson asks.

“What do you think?” Ray counters.

“I think you’re probably gonna regret doing this.”

Ray snorts.

Despite governmental obligations, the county’s never done the best job maintaining this road. Lawson remembers the pavement buckling, pale and cracked, and the shoulders overgrown and strewn with trash. It’s worse, now. Instead of random cups and bottles, whole entire black plastic bags of garbage line both sides: people who refuse to pay for or can’t afford a trash pickup service coming here to dump their Hefty bags. Last year’s dead, yellow grass lies folded over the edges of a road that’s all but crumbled into gravel, rutted, and potholed, and jolting the car from side to side so that Lawson can only move at a crawl. Trees crowd in close on either side, branches laced overhead like fingers. What was once an abandoned place has now been reclaimed by the wild, and in the low, gloomy light of late afternoon, it feels distinctly haunted.

Lawson’s already shaking head to toe, but manages a mighty shudder in helpless response.

“It’s spooky up here,” he says. “You sure this is where you wanna go?”

Ray doesn’t answer, his attention fixed through the windshield, the gun fixed unwavering on Lawson despite the bumping of the car.

It takes a good ten minutes to reach the overlook, and in that time, Lawson tries to come up with some sort of plan. His phone’s in the cupholder, still, and his work shoes are sturdy and supportive; he didn’t take his jacket off when he came out of the store, so if he takes off on foot, he won’t freeze to death, and if he can snatch his phone, he can call for help.

But that’s what would happen in a movie: he’d fling his door open, roll out of the car with his phone in his hand, dodging the gunshots that landed harmlessly in the dirt and kicked up sprays of dust and gravel. He’d plunge into the underbrush, and keep low, and when he emerged on the main road down the hill, a swarm of cops would be waiting, a trauma blanket ready to wrap around his shoulders.

In real life, he’d get two steps before Ray shot him in the leg, and then he’d lie on the ground, bleeding and weeping, while the inevitable played out.

He feels so useless. So helpless, and stupid, and what use is it being this tall and big-handed if he’s just going to be a fucking hostage? He can’t even say goodbye to his parents, or to Tommy, who doesn’t even know he’s surrounded by traitors.

Oh God, oh God. He’s spiraling, breath sawing in and out of an open mouth, hands slipping on the wheel they’re so sweaty.

“Pull yourself together,” Ray says, disgusted, the first flare of temper touching his voice.

Lawson tries, if only to keep from getting shot.

They reach the top, and this, at least, is just as Lawson remembered it. The great big gravel clearing ringed by knotted hardwoods. Cigarette butts and crushed beer cans everywhere, the bright glitter of smashed glass. No one’s here, now, but there’s evidence everywhere of young people: parking, partying, fucking in their cars. At the far end, the black, yawning mouth of the mine shaft is screened with grapevines, the old caution barricade long since collapsed.

Lawson stops his car in the center of the clearing, and throws it in park. His pulse is high and reedy and he can feel it in his teeth. “What now?”

“Turn the car off and get out. Stand in front of the hood.”

Lawson hesitates a moment, until Ray says, impatient now, “Do it.”

He’s seen this movie, too: the part where he walks away from the car, empty-handed and defenseless, and then gets told to get down on his knees. Then the gun kisses the back of his head, and he has the distinct thought ofI’m going to diebefore Ray pulls the trigger.

Oddly, this is a calming thought. He doesn’t want to die, has felt lately like he might finally, finally be approaching a turn-around in his life. That something good might happen, at long last. He worries about his parents – what will Mom do? Hire someone else to help with Dad? They can’t afford that. But maybe Tommy will help them. Tommy might be sad to lose him, but he’s beautiful, and wealthy, and he can find someone else. Yes, someone like him won’t stay single. And if he feels guilty about Lawson’s death, then he can look after Mom and Dad for him. That seems like the sort of thing he’d do.

Yes, it’s notideal. It’s notgood. But it’s acceptable.

He leaves the keys in the ignition and climbs out of the car. Walks around to the front of it, and hears Ray doing the same. They meet at the Honda’s grille, and Ray frowns.

“The fuck are you smiling at?”

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