Wildwood Road Read Free

keys. She lolled against the cold metal and the marionette image that had come to him earlier returned, but now it was of a puppet whose strings had been cut. A low hum came from her lips, but he could make no sense of it.
    “Honey, you are a wreck,” he said, smiling softly.
    One hand holding her in place, he thumbed the button on his key ring and the locks popped up. It took effort, but he managed to get her into the backseat, laying her down. Her eyelids fluttered once and she reached a slow-motion hand up toward him.
    “Love you so much,” she mumbled.
    “Love you, too,” Michael told her, and he watched her eyes close. She looked so innocent there, he could only imagine what she had been like as a little girl.
Not that you were a drunken little girl,
he thought, chuckling to himself.
    In the morning, he planned to tease her mercilessly.
    He shut the back door and then climbed into the driver's seat. The moment he was off of his feet he felt a tingling in his face, a little beer buzz working its way through his system. He started up the Volvo, its engine purring softly. He felt it humming beneath him as he opened his window and let the cold night air hit him. For several seconds he took stock of his condition. The truth was, other than that little buzz, he felt more tired than drunk.
    Both hands on the wheel, he took a breath and let the cold air wash over his face again. “You'll be fine,” he said aloud, his voice strange to him in the car's interior, his hands lit by the glow from the dash. “You'll be fine.”
    The window stayed open as Michael pulled out of the lot. He glanced back over the seat, one hand on the wheel, to check on Jillian. Wine and exhaustion had conspired to put her into a sound sleep, and she even snored a little. She murmured something and he smiled and returned his attention to the road.
    Part of the charm of the Wayside Inn was that it was on Old Route 12, which wound through half a dozen or more towns in the Merrimack Valley but never had much by way of traffic. In the many decades since Old Route 12 had been laid down, other major highways had stretched their fingers up into the region. Three separate interstates crisscrossed the northern part of Massachusetts, and anyone who was in a hurry was wise to use one of them. That left only local traffic for Old Route 12. This time of night it was absolutely deserted.
    The streetlights were far apart here, but they passed by overhead with a rhythm of their own, splashing light upon the windshield, illuminating the interior of the car. Black cable was strung from telephone poles, in some places crossing the road high above him. Much of Old Route 12 was lined with trees, and though there was the occasional strip mall or gas station or restaurant, it was mostly homes along that road. Some were recent—sprawling things built in the boom times at the tail end of the previous century or the opening days of the current one—but the majority were older. Michael had often admired the Federals, the Colonials, and the few Victorians along the road.
    The windows were all dark, but some of the homes had lights on in front. There were jack-o'-lanterns on the steps and scarecrows tied to lampposts. Down one side street, in a recent development of half-million-dollar homes, he saw a house whose entire lawn was a Halloween scene, with orange lights, giant pumpkins, and a Grim Reaper. It was as though the owners had confused Halloween with Christmas.
    The tires thrummed on the road and, in spite of the October wind in his face, Michael began to feel drowsy. The flicker of the streetlights began to lull him. He blinked several times, and when his head bobbed to his chest for the first time, he sat up straighter.
    “Shit,” he whispered.
    He slapped himself in the face several times, just hard enough to sting his frozen cheeks, and he opened his eyes as wide as he could.
Time for music. Something with a pulse.
    There was a long curve ahead, so he waited