Heading west on I-80 from Omaha ranks high in the running for the most boring drive on the face of the earth. You see road. You see corn. You see truck stops and gas stations. And then more corn. And then more road. Welcome to Nebraska, the Cornhusker State, the state whose nickname comes from its most exciting pastime because god knows it’s certainly not driving. It’s roughly 350 miles from Omaha to the I-76 junction near Big Springs, which you can take into Colorado and eventually into Denver, where you can finally see something besides corn and road. Or, you can stay on I-80 at the junction and continue through the blessed end of Nebraska and into Wyoming, where you will eventually see something besides corn and road.
Omaha - 350 miles to go
Jack Morton only needed to get to I-76, five hours away, where the three corpses wrapped up and lying beneath the custom floor of his Escalade were to be transferred to someone else. He didn’t know whom, didn’t care, didn’t want to know, and wasn’t told. It had taken years for Jimmy Doyle to convince him to finally junk the Eldorado that Jack had had since he got into the business. Jack resisted. The old Caddy had been the look Jack wanted to have, plus a trunk big enough to sleep in, along with a couple of broads if you were lucky. Jimmy always laughed, then reminded Jack that it wasn’t the sixties anymore and that he didn’t even think chicks were called broads anymore. It wasn’t until the transmission finally gave out in Reno that Jack finally walked away from the old boat, and not just figuratively. He knew what had happened right away when he heard the high-pitched hum and couldn’t get it over thirty, right there under the Reno Arch. At that moment, he knew it was fate. If a town and a car ever belonged together, it was Reno, Nevada and a late 1980s Cadillac Eldorado. He left town in a rental.
That was five years ago. Now, he was pulling out of the house in Elmwood Park in the pouring rain, where the wet work had been done. It was dawn. The conventional wisdom says that if you have to transfer contraband, you should do it at night. That’s what the gangster movies tell you. While that may be true in a big city where you need to hide the goods from nosey neighbors, if you’re going a long distance it’s better to do it during the day. The teenage kid behind the counter in Bumbfuck, Missouri won’t remember you paying for gas or buying Slim Jims if you’re just another American Joe passing through along with the rest of them in the middle of the day. Things go south, she may remember the guy who wandered in at two in the morning looking oddly refreshed, especially when she hadn’t seen another face in three hours. That goes double for staties on the night shift. The secret isn’t doing your dirty work while you’re hard to see. It’s doing it while you’re invisible.
What Jack Morton couldn’t stop thinking about was why the contraband under the floor at that particular moment was corpses. He had helped get rid of bodies before, and in that case the gangster movies are right. If you can’t outright destroy them with acid or pigs or a meat-grinder in a timely fashion, you have to dump them, and that never means more than a few miles from the job itself. But across an entire state? That was unheard of, and in Jack’s more pensive moments, he suspected it was unheard of because nobody but nobody would ever want to do it.
“Jesus, I don’t want to know,” Jack had said the night before he made the pickup. “There’s rules for a reason.”
“I know, I know,” Jimmy said, “but this, I don’t know. Maybe I need to tell someone about it, you know what I mean? It gives me the willies.”
Lincoln - 295 miles to go
Jack had never been a breakfast person, but going through the college town he felt his stomach rumble and hunger overcame him. He knew he could have driven farther, but this would be one of the last places with civilization before he made it to the transfer point on the other side of the state, and he wanted to stay blended in and out of sight every chance he got.
What he really wanted was coffee, but the last thing he needed was a colon pitstop so he drank a small glass of orange juice instead. He ordered something light from the senior menu—even though he barely met the requirement and looked ten years younger—then went back to the Escalade parked on the street while hunched over with his collar pulled up against the rain. He hit the unlock button on the fob then stopped. He would have sworn it made the sound it does when it’s already unlocked, but he didn’t bother to test it. A passing car splashed his ankles with water and he started moving again. He reached for the driver’s door and opened it, then closed it again and went around to the back.
“What the hell?” he said, but not loud enough for anyone to hear him.
The floor panel nearest to the back door was open, revealing the narrow ends of three large white canvas sacks. He reached a hand in and felt around to confirm what his eyes were already seeing: everything was as he had left it. He closed the panel and told himself that it was only a faulty latch.
“Fine, whatever,” Jack said. “Go ahead and get it off your chest. We’ve known each other long enough.”
“The boss thinks he’s cursed,” Jimmy said.
“Oh, wonderful,” Jack said, then laughed.
“No, I mean it,” Jimmy said. “Think about it. Six months ago, his wife hangs herself.”
“She was on meds for years,” Jack said. “It was a matter of time. Everyone knew that. I mean, God rest her soul, of course.”
“Let me finish,” Jimmy said. “His wife, then after that, his two kids drown in the backyard, at the same time. Then, his favorite dog is poisoned. And did you know what happened just last week?”
“No, what?” Jack said, humoring the man.
“His father gets shot and killed in a hunting accident,” Jimmy said. “Now, you think that’s all just coincidence?”
Silence lingered, then Jack sighed. “Jimmy, listen,” he said. “The wife was a long time coming. Paulie, of all people, was watching the kids. He went inside for some nose candy and forgot about them. The dog ate some chocolate after a party because he wasn’t kenneled properly. And the guy who shot his dad—accidentally, as you said—was drunk as a skunk. It’s a horrible chain of events, I’ll give you that. Very unlikely, but nothing more than coincidence.”
“Yeah, well, the boss doesn’t think so,” Jimmy said, “and he didn’t want to take any more chances.”
Kearney - 168 miles to go
The sky grew eerie as Jack drove past the interstate town of Kearney. The rain lightened and he began to see shades of green and purple in the sky. Had Jack not spent the last five years in a region of the world known for tornados, he would have thought an alien invasion was only seconds away. He switched the radio to an AM station and within seconds was met with the discordant buzz that portended a message from the Emergency Broadcast System.
This is not a test. Seek shelter immediately. If you see a tornado, do not attempt to outrun it.
“And if you don’t see the tornado,” Jack said, “grab your ankles and kiss your ass goodbye.”
But Jack did see it, up ahead and off to the left, forming out of the wall cloud in a cone that was half invisible until the funnel met the ground and drew debris up into its vortex before spitting it out. Then he saw the overpass.
If you see a tornado, do not attempt to outrun it.
Jack saw it, then attempted to outrun it.
Self-preservation would, for the moment, trump his directive to avoid the attention of the authorities. He gunned the engine on the Escalade and it roared into life. He shot past the speed limit, then, a moment later, past the speed of the average motorist on I-80. He saw that two cars ahead of him had already pulled into a shallow ditch on either side of the road, then he shot past them like blurs.
The overpass came into focus, clear of vehicles. The twister still lingered off to the left, now larger, and Jack had no idea which way it was headed. He had already committed to his course. The Escalade approached triple digits on the speedometer and Jack saw that he would beat the tornado to the overpass with time to spare. The twister even appeared to be headed south. Jack let out his breath without knowing he had been holding it the better part of a minute.
Then, the engine stalled.
The Cadillac decelerated and coasted on the straightaway. Jack panicked, threw it in neutral, and tried to restart it. All it did was turn. He slammed on the breaks, parked it, then turned the key all the way back to the off position. Up ahead, the overpass stood out like an oasis. Jack moved his eyes to the left, where the twister now appeared to have changed course again. This time, if Jack had to put money on it, he would have bet it was headed straight for him.
He turned the key over and over with no effect. The engine was flooding. If he failed one more time, he wouldn’t be able to try it again until he and the Escalade were scrap parts somewhere in a Nebraska cornfield. He took a breath, held it for a flash, then tried one last time. The engine turned over and thundered back to life. He threw the shifter into drive and took off.
Whatever spare time he may have had was obliterated. Even if he could beat the twister into the overpass, he would have no time to brake until he was underneath. Seconds away from shelter, debris began to shoot past his grill. Wooden fencing and whole stocks of corn flew in front of him. Long blades of grass and ears of corn beat into the side of the truck.
He entered the overpass while in top gear, then hit the brake with both feet. His body slammed into the seatbelt and he let out a cry. He strained his arms to keep the wheel straight. He felt the bodies underneath the floor thump up against the panels. Overhead, the freight train of wind and rain pillaged the backcountry road that sat above him and the freeway behind him. He felt the rear end of the Escalade lift off the ground, turning the front end of the vehicle toward the center barricade. A screaming wind crashed into the back window. A moment later, the storm put the truck back down and continued on its course.
Eventually, Jack was able to pry his aching white hands from the steering wheel. He caught his face quickly in the rearview mirror and didn’t recognize it. He stifled a gasp. He turned the engine off, got out of the vehicle, and surveyed the damage. Only minor dents peppered the body. He popped the hood and tried to determine the origin of the stall, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t quite good enough to be a certified mechanic, but he was close, and he knew where to look for the usual suspects. He checked, then double checked, then checked again. Clean as a whistle. That’s how he kept it, and that’s why he got back behind the wheel again wishing more than anything that he would have told Jimmy Doyle to shove that five grand up his ass.
“What kind of chances?” Jack said.
Jimmy sighed. “Look, this didn’t come from me, alright?”
“It’s your confessional, Jimmy,” Jack said. “I really don’t want to know.” “Alright alright,” Jimmy said. “A year ago, the boss sends out a couple of heavies on this kid. He made a loan, kid didn’t pay. It was only supposed to be a couple of broken legs. Not enough dough to warrant a permanent vacation. Anyhow, things get out of hand and the kid buys a one-way ticket anyway. He’s a nobody so the boss slaps the heavies on the wrist and calls it a day. Thing is, it was the wrong kid. Turns out he’s got three older sisters.”
“The three from the job?”
“That’s right,” Jimmy says. “They find out what happened to innocent little Tommy and eventually it leads them to our fair organization. Don’t ask me how because no one knows. Boss’ll work on that part soon enough. Anyhow, the sisters put a curse on the boss because they’re all part of a coven.”
North Platte - 73 miles to go
The sky had turned back into gray and the rain lightened up an hour out of Kearney. By the time Jack reached North Platte and the home stretch of his trip, he could even see patches of blue in the distance. No sooner than he finished filling the tank and gotten back on the road, however, he began to hear thumping from the rear of the Escalade. He checked the dash but the gauges were all normal. Not even the tire pressure alert was flashing. He listened as he drove, trying to feel out the problem. It wasn’t the tires.
The more Jack thought about what had happened earlier—how that tornado had seemed to change course and head right for him, how the truck had stalled for no reason and not once in the prior five years since he had bought it brand new, how that panel had popped open on its own—the more he wanted to finish the job as soon as possible. If that meant driving with a noise from somewhere in the back that he couldn’t explain, so be it. If the Escalade kept moving, he wasn’t going to stop.
“What?” Jack said. “A coven?”
“You know,” Jimmy said, “witches.”
“Witches?” Jack said. “Unbelievable.”
“At first the boss thought the same thing,” Jimmy said. “Didn’t see them as a threat. Of course he didn’t admit to the kid because that could lead to the cops snooping around. Then, it starts with his wife. After his old man, like I said, he didn’t want to take any more chances.” “What about the guys who hit the kid?” Jack said, now with genuine interest.
“No one’s seen them in months,” Jimmy said. “They got straight.”
“You know they got straight?” Jack said.
“Well, I mean, that’s what I’m told,” Jimmy said.
“And now I’m tapped with driving three dead witches across the state,” Jack said. “You want to know more?” Jimmy said. “I’ll tell you.”
“No,” Jack said. “No, I really don’t.”
Big Springs - the end of the road
Jack pulled off the freeway and onto the road into town ahead of schedule. When he made it to the grain elevator minutes later, the van he had expected to see was the only one around. He flashed his brights and two men stepped out of either side of the van in the rain, which had started to come down heavy in the tail end of his trip, around the time that the thumping had finally stopped. Not that Jack would have been able to say as much, seeing as how he had drowned it out with the radio blasting, which he turned on somewhere around Ogallala.
Jack stayed behind the wheel of the Escalade. The two men approached the back and opened the door. He heard them open the first panel, then the second. He heard them whisper to each other, then they opened the third panel. They reached in and pulled something out, then another, then a third. Jack found himself impressed by their efficiency. Three bodies in as many seconds. There were professionals and then there were professionals.
They closed the back door and approached the driver’s side. Against protocol. All of it off by far. You stay behind the wheel so you never see each other. Jack gulped. He felt a bead of sweat run down his forehead. He wondered how quickly he could reach into the glove box, pull out the .45, and plug both these guys before they could do anything about it. No. That would make him a dead man for sure. Maybe not today, but soon. And that’s assuming the ammo was still good.
Jack reached for the button on the door and rolled down the window.
“Your Jimmy’s guy?” one of the men said.
“Yeah,” Jack said, not turning his head.
“We got a problem,” the man said, and not without a touch of aggression.
“What is that?” Jack said.
The man held up one of the white canvas bags for Jack to see.
“There’s nothing here,” the man said.