Free The Indestructible Man by William Jablonsky Page B

so I can get that bastard.”
     
    For a second my hands relax, and he starts to slink through the doorway. Then I remember what Brother Stewart said about the devil being silver-tongued and sounding like Joe when it really wasn’t, and I know I have to stop him. I reach for the ax handle, and before he can get up I swing it hard as I can. Joe is on his belly, calling my name and trying to crawl away, but I bring it down on him again and again, until he’s quiet and still and I’m sure the evil has finally left him.
     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     
    Dirt and Shit
     

     

     

     

     
    It’s Saturday night and I’m following Jeff home from Yukon Eric’s on a two-lane road just outside of town. I’ve had a little more than I should’ve, but it’s a clear night and I’m not that bad off. I’m a few car lengths behind him but keeping up, then up ahead I see this cloud of dust covering the road, so thick it blocks out everything past it. I honk for Jeff to watch it, and slow way down—out here somebody could come barreling through and plow right into you, or a deer might run out of the cornfield. But Jeff keeps gunning it until the dust swallows him up, pickup and all.
     
    I head in slow, not knowing what I’ll see—maybe Jeff’s truck flipped over in the ditch, maybe aliens for all I know. But just when I’m about to barrel in, it disintegrates, and I only catch a few furls against my windshield. The next thing I see is Jeff’s truck, sitting on the shoulder near the cornfield, headlights on and hazards blinking.
     
    I get out to check on him, figuring he’s just had a little close call. His truck’s caked in thick brown dirt, the window’s wide open and he’s holding the steering wheel like he’s about to rip it out of the dash. I ask if he’s okay but he just sits there, gripping the wheel and looking off into nothing.
     
    “Hey.” I grab his shoulder and give him a little shake. “You okay?”
     
    His face is covered with dirt, and he wipes one cheek clean with the palm of his hand. He stares at the grime for a minute, then looks up at me real slow, scared like he’s just looked into the face of God. Before I can even pull my arm out of the truck, he floors it and takes off at a good hundred miles an hour, kicking up a trail of dust behind him. I jump in my car to chase after him, but he’s already two miles up the road and I know I’ll never catch him.
     

     
    Next morning I call to see if he made it home all right, but there’s no answer. On the fourth or fifth try the phone’s busy. It stays busy for the rest of the afternoon, so I take the hint.
     
      Monday morning he’s not at work. Roger, the foreman, says he called in sick, only Jeff doesn’t call in sick unless he’s about to drop dead. He’s supposed to help me load a bunch of heavy steel beams onto the truck, but since he isn’t there Mike, one of the new kids, has to help me, and not five minutes in he accidentally drops a beam on my foot. It takes everything I’ve got not to blow my stack, but I keep it to myself. Mike’s a nice kid, a couple of years younger than Jeff and me, and we’ve sort of taken him under our wing. The nurse checks me out later and says I’ll be okay, so Mike’s off the hook. But not Jeff.
     
    When I get home I’m sweaty and tired and my foot still hurts, so when I call Jeff I’m in a shitty mood. After about a dozen rings he finally picks up.
     
    “Yeah?”
     
    “Hey,” I say. “What’s the deal? Roger said you called in sick.”
     
    “I know,” he says. “I’ve been thinking.”
     
    “Everything all right?” I ask him. “You were pretty shaken up.”
     
    “No kidding.”
     
    “So what happened? Abducted by aliens or something?”
     
    “No,” he says, and sounds disappointed in me for thinking it. “I’m not sure what happened. After I went into the dust it was like I could see something I couldn’t before.