Borderlands 4 Read online

  Some cars also sported vanity plates:

  1 EYE AS

  LIAS 93

  0 LIAS

  Finally, plastered on nearly all the rear windows were squares of clear acetate bearing swirling-eye logos like the one on Parker’s lapel.

  Must be a religious thing, Sam thought as he left the lot and started across the road.

  That’s when it happened.

  Headlights appeared out of nowhere. An engine roared. Twenty feet away and closing, the bug-spattered grill of a delivery van raced toward him.

  Sam froze. In his head, a disarmingly calm voice whispered, You’re gonna die.

  Tires squealed. The van lurched to the left and crossed the center line, missing Sam by inches.

  The driver yelled as he raced by: “Frickin’ bastard!”

  Sam barely noticed the shaking fist. He did, however, notice the four letters that stretched across the van’s rear doors:

  LIAS

  Beneath the name, a honey-bun eye stared back at him with swirling rage.

  In the 7-Eleven lot, an old man in overalls and a striped engineer’s hat pumped kerosene into a five-gallon drum. “Ought to look both ways,” he said.

  But Sam had looked both ways, hadn’t he? He distinctly remembered seeing that the road had been clear before he tried crossing … or, at least, he thought he remembered it that way. God, maybe I’m too tired to think.

  He walked past the fuel islands and into the air-conditioned brilliance of the 7-Eleven. A burly man in bib overalls and a red vest stood by the coffee counter; he held a Styrofoam cup in a gnarled hand. A young woman with big, honey-colored hair stood behind the cash register. Both people stared at Sam with eyes that said, Ought to look both ways.

  Sam decided not to ask for help. If the place had buns, he’d find them. He started down the first aisle.

  “Can I help you?” the woman said.

  “Just looking,” Sam said.

  He found the baked goods. Wonder Bread, Hostess cakes, Dolly Madison pies—no buns, honey or otherwise. He walked through the other aisles, making sure.

  The woman called again from the register. “Are you sure I can’t help you?”

  Sam completed his circuit of the store and approached the counter. “Are there any other stores around? A Dunkin’ Donuts, or maybe an all-night diner?”

  “There’s the Railcar Diner down the road.” Her charm bracelet rattled as she pointed south. “It’s around the bend, maybe a quarter mile.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said.

  “Hope they got what you want,” the woman said.

  Sam stepped back into the breezy, country night.

  The diner’s flashing sign came into view on the far side of the road as Sam powerwalked around the bend. Beneath the sign, a half dozen tractor-trailer rigs surrounded a restaurant that looked as if it had been fashioned from a train car. Sam’s side of the road was dark, the shoulder extending back toward a dim presence of trees. The road was clear. He looked both ways to make sure, then – as he started across – a voice called out behind him: “Evening, friend!”

  Sam turned.

  The scenery had changed. Where there had been only darkness moments before, he now saw a building fashioned from concrete slabs and plate glass. A glowing sign stood in an evergreen garden. It read:

  CIRCLE OF LIAS

  Beneath the words, a swirling brown eye stared into a spotlight’s glare.

  The voice spoke again: “Nice night for a walk.”

  Sam scanned the angular heap of concrete and glass, the evergreen garden, and the empty parking lot that surrounded the building. He saw no one.

  Now I’m hearing voices.

  No sooner had the thought formed than the building vanished. Then, with a flash, it returned. No, not returned. The building hadn’t gone anywhere. The light illuminating the Circle of Lias sign had simply winked out, making the building seem to disappear.

  “Got a short somewhere,” the voice said. “Can’t seem to keep the lamp turned on. Pity too. The sign’s a beauty.” A man emerged from the shadow of the garden’s wall. He wore a white shirt, sleeves rolled along his forearms. He looked at Sam, nodded, winked, then said: “Guess you’re here for the big to-do. Should be a fine weekend for it, if it don’t rain.” He extended a pale hand. “I’m Friend Rawling. You?”

  Sam shook Rawling’s hand, released it quickly. “I’m only here for the night. Just passing through.”

  Rawling flashed a smile, a gold incisor sparking in the spotlight’s glow. “Now don’t I feel like a fool! I figured you was a friend coming for a look at our new temple.” He turned, looking back toward the monstrosity of concrete and glass. “Ain’t she a sweet, sweet vision?”

  “Nice,” Sam said.

  “Had to build her. We outgrew the bakery. Got to the point where we had a fire hazard every Sunday.”

  “I’ll bet,” Sam said.

  “Tell you what. You got a minute? I’ll give you a tour.” He rubbed the blond fuzz of his crew cut. “You’ll see it before most of the friends do. You might even decide to join us for Sweet Saturday Celebration.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said. “But I have to get back to the Days Inn. My wife and daughter are there. My daughter’s waiting for a snack.”

  “I get it. You was crossing to the truck stop to get some buns for your honey.”

  “Honey buns,” said Sam. “My little girl’s got a thing for honey buns.”

  Rawling laughed. “Don’t we all!” He clapped his hands, wrung them as if kneading dough. “Sweet, sweet vision—don’t we all!” Then he reached out and clapped a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Your daughter’s a friend and doesn’t know it.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Rawling tightened his grip. “Forget the truck stop. All they got is day-old cinnamon swirls. If you want fresh buns—” He tugged Sam’s arm, leading him toward the concrete building. “You’ve come to the right place.”

  “You have honey buns?”

  “Thousands!” Rawling said. “Sweet vision! It’s Sweet Saturday Eve. Where’d we be without honey buns on Sweet Saturday Eve?” Rawling’s hand slipped beneath Sam’s arm, and before Sam could protest he found himself behind the building where a delivery van sat with its rear doors spread against a loading platform. Sam recognized the van. It was the one he had walked in front of not twenty minutes earlier.

  The van’s driver sat eating a roll on the edge of the platform. He looked up as Sam approached, nodded in recognition, then said: “Evening, friend.”

  Sam stopped.

  “Something wrong?” Rawling asked.

  “Sorry. It’s late. I really should get back to the hotel.”

  “I thought you wanted to see the facility,” Rawling said.

  “No, really. Actually, I have no interest at all. I’m just tired, and I want to get back”

  “A man must never get tired.” Rawling raised a finger as if quoting from a sacred text. “Guard against the manipulating hands of exhaustion and hunger.” He lowered the finger, waved it at Sam. “And you must never get so tired that you forget a promise to a child.” He turned toward the driver. “Put some little sweets in a box for our friend.”

  The driver popped the last chunk of bun into his mouth. Then he stood, flashed Sam a sticky grin, and vanished into the back of the van.

  Rawling smiled. “It’s more than coincidence, you know?”

  “What is?”

  “Your being here.” Rawling’s smile broadened. “Coincidence is a myth. Our unconscious kneads reality; events rise to satiate secret hungers.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Only by examining the rising dough of existence can we truly understand our inner cravings.”

  Sam forced a smile. Whatever. He just wanted to get the buns and leave.

  “Things have not been going well for you, have they?” Rawling said. “Your thoughts are troubled. Your life-loaf won’t rise. Events seem completely beyond your control. Am I right?”

&n
bsp; “Things have been better.”

  The driver returned to the loading platform. “Here go, Friend Rawling.” He handed Rawling a small, white box.

  Rawling passed the box to Sam. “Your daughter will like these. They’re small, soft as a wink. You want more, you come back tomorrow. Bring the family. We’ll talk.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said.

  “No thanks needed.”

  The driver stared at Sam. “Sweet as a box of winks!” Then he winked, first one eye, then the other. “Enjoy, friend.”

  Sam hurried back the way he had come.

  Thirsty now, Sam stopped again at the 7-Eleven, this time for water.

  The burly man had moved. He stood by the coffee pots, a Styrofoam cup steaming in his hand. The honey-haired woman had the register open, clearing the drawer of excess twenties, stuffing them into a night-safe slot. “Back again?”

  Sam nodded and walked to the cooler in the back of the store.

  The woman called after him. “Can I help you this time?”

  “Water,” Sam said.

  “There’s seltzer by the milk.”

  “Something without bubbles,” Sam said.

  “You mean like ordinary water?”

  “Yeah. Plain, ordinary water.” He walked through the aisles, checking the shelves.

  “I got a faucet,” the woman said. “Get yourself a cup by the coffee. I’ll give you faucet water.”

  The burly man watched as Sam pulled a cup from the dispenser.

  “What’s in the box?” the man said. He spoke in a high falsetto, a kid’s voice in a man’s body.

  Sam did a double take.

  “The box,” the man chirped. “What’s in the box?”

  “Buns.” He handed the cup to the woman. “Honey buns.”

  The woman left the register, stepped into a back room.

  “Is that what you went to the diner for?” the man asked. “Honey buns?”

  “Yes,” Sam said.

  The woman returned with the water.

  “Only problem is,” the man said, “the Railcar Diner don’t sell honey buns.”

  A flashing cruiser raced by the front of the store.

  “I didn’t get them from the diner.” Sam drank the water, set the cup on the counter.

  The man’s boots gritted on the floor. “If I were you, Kate, honey. I’d have a look in that box. I think I seen him put something in it when he was checking out your sodas.”

  “Aw fercrysake!” Sam said. “You saw nothing of the kind.”

  “I know what I saw,” the man said. “He put something in there. Have a look, honey-girl. You’ll see.”

  Kate reached across the counter. “You mind, Mister?”

  “Hell no!” Sam tossed the box on the counter. “Take a look. It’s buns, is all. I got them from that Lias place up the street.”

  Kate picked up the box, raised the lid, peeked inside. “Oh my God!” The box slid from her hands, landing square on the counter. The lid fell closed.

  “What?” Sam said.

  “It’s like I said, ain’t it?” the man said. “He stole something, right?”

  Kate shook her head. She wouldn’t look at Sam. She wouldn’t look at the box. She stared at the burly man and said, “Not from no 7-Eleven, he didn’t.”

  That did it. Sam grabbed the box. “I’m sorry!” he said. “Play your chicken-shit games with someone else. I’m out of here.”

  He took the box and stormed from the store.

  This time, he had to wait on the edge of the road while a white van with an Eyewitness-News logo raced by.

  Evidently something big was going on in Coal Hollow.

  Three more cars passed. Sam waited for the road to clear; then he hurried across. Halfway to the hotel, something thumped against the lid of the box, a smashed raindrop turning gray against the cardboard. A second later, another drop struck his head, then another …

  The sky opened as he ran through the parking lot, soaking him by the time he reached the rear door. He grabbed the handle, pulled. It was locked.

  “Damnit to hell!”

  A sign on the glass read:

  USE MAIN ENTRANCE AFTER MIDNIGHT

  “Screw me!”

  Rain fell harder, pounding the concrete overhang that sheltered the door, fanning into a waterfall that spattered inches from his shoes. He leaned back against the glass, deciding to wait for the rain to let up before heading for the main entrance.

  Lightning flashed.

  Thunder roared.

  Out on the road, an ambulance screamed toward Coal Hollow, water rising in waves from its racing wheels.

  Minutes passed. The rain kept falling. Deciding he’d waited long enough, Sam charged into the storm and headed for the main entrance.

  The door to his room stood ajar.

  He pushed it open.

  “Okay, ladies. Dad’s home. Don’t all cheer at once.”

  Nobody cheered.

  Sam walked past the dark bathroom and into the main chamber where the television played to an open suitcase and a set of folded clothes.

  Cloe and Lisa were gone.

  He set the wet honey-bun box on the dresser and sat down to wonder if mother and daughter had convinced the night manager to open the restaurant.

  Something on the television caught his attention, a grim-faced news anchor with big hair and full lips who seemed to be staring right at him as she said: “An unidentified woman and young girl have been found mutilated not far from the Circle of Lias Temple in Coal Hollow. Suzanne Forester is on the scene with a live report.”

  Sam looked around the empty room while the scene on the television cut to cops and paramedics crowding the gates of an ambulance. In the foreground, a wide-eyed reporter stood beneath an umbrella. She, too, seemed to be looking right at Sam.

  “I’m here in Coal Hollow, near the Circle of Lias Temple, where an unidentified woman and child have been found brutally murdered. Their bodies were discovered by the reverend, Friend John Rawling, the pastor of the Circle of Lias Temple.”

  The camera panned to Rawling.

  “Can you tell us what you found, Reverend?”

  “Wasn’t really me, Miss Forester. I didn’t really find the bodies. The person who found them was one of our volunteers. He was walking home after helping decorate our temple for Sweet Saturday when he found them lying a few hundred feet from the temple.”

  “And he reported it to you?”

  “That’s right, Miss Forester. And I called 911. And, Miss Forester—I’d just like to say that people shouldn’t associate this terrible thing with the temple here. The bodies were discovered on a state road—on Route 322—and not on Circle of Lias property.”

  “Can you describe the condition of the bodies, Reverend Rawling?”

  Rawling faced the camera, staring straight through the screen and into the room where Sam sat between the open suitcase and pile of folded clothes. “It was a terrible thing. Gravely terrible. That poor, poor mother and child—they were mutilated.” He winced. “Mutilated! They were lying on their backs, and—” He rubbed rain from his crew-cut head. “Their eyes—” He frowned. “Forgive me. There’s no easy way to say this. Their eyes had been gouged out. And in the holes, in those sockets where their eyes should’ve been, someone had dropped little, tiny, honey buns.”

  The camera panned back to Suzanne Forester.

  She gripped the microphone, visibly shaken. “As of yet, the police will not say if they have a suspect or motive for this bizarre double murder. They have indicated, however, that the night manager at a nearby 7-Eleven reported seeing a suspicious individual—a person who entered her store with a box containing four human eyes.”

  Sam flinched.

  “That as-yet unidentified individual, a haggard-looking white male in his late thirties, was in her store less than half an hour ago. Police assure us that a full search is currently underway.”

  Sam looked at the dresser and the soggy box that he had carried back f
rom the Circle of Lias Temple. He felt numb. Specks of light streaked the corners of his vision. His fingers trembled. He reached out, grabbed the box, drew it close, and raised the lid.

  There they were. Small and brown. Soft as a wink, Rawling had said. But Rawling had been talking about honey buns, not eyes—and these things in the box were very definitely eyes: four brown eyes staring every-which-way from their bed of bloody tissue paper. Four eyes, two large and two small, each trailing gray threads of optic nerve.

  A scream rocked the room. Sam snapped the lid shut and stood motionless beside the bed while the scream’s echo faded around him. He swallowed and felt a burning in his throat, and only then did he realize that the scream had been his own.

  Gotta move. Gotta do something!

  He crossed the room, slammed the door to the hall, engaged the bolt, and stumbled into the bathroom. He raised the toilet lid and dumped the eyes into the bowl. Boink, boink, boink, boink! Each eye rolled pupil-up as it landed, watching Sam as he wrenched the lever that flushed the commode. One of the eyes did a loop-the-loop, bounced back into the refilling bowl. It stared at Sam as the pipes hissed. Sam shredded the blood-soaked tissue paper from the bottom of the box. He dropped the pieces into the water. Again, he flushed the toilet. Again, the eye tumbled in the slugging current at the bottom of the bowl before popping back up with the returning water. It stared at him. It was one of the smaller eyes. The child’s eye.

  Hurry, Dad!

  The eye bobbed.

  Sam unbuttoned his cuff and rolled the sleeve to his elbow. He dipped his hand into the water and shoved the eye to the bottom of the bowl. Then he flushed again.

  The phone rang.

  Water gurgled through Sam’s fingers. The eye trembled against his palm, then caught the current and glug-glugged away.

  Now he grabbed the box, tried crushing it.

  The phone kept ringing.

  Sam pressed the smashed box between his hands, squeezing it until it resembled a battered softball. Too big, he thought, turning the ball over in his dripping hand. No way this baby’s gonna flush.

  He stuffed the wad into the wastebasket and covered it with toilet paper. Then he stood, turned off the bathroom light, shut the bathroom door, and stepped into the bedroom.