Pressure (Book 1): Fall Read online

  Heading deeper into the disgusting, but all-too familiar, room and toward the stalls, he could hear somebody in one of them either talking to himself (which was disturbing) or to someone else on the phone (which might have been even more disturbing). Charlie wondered (a): who the Hell was he talking to at this early hour, and (b): why did the guy feel the need to do it while taking a dump?

  Charlie and his brother (older, married with children, and living in San Diego) used to call each other while crapping as a joke, letting the other in on the joke by farting or flushing the toilet while still on the phone. And after a while, when the joke grew stale, they moved onto some other, equally disgusting bit of levity to demonstrate their particular form of brotherly love. But he doubted the knucklehead having that conversation on the commode was joking.

  “...c’mon, Baby. You know I do,” the disembodied voice behind the stall door said in what Charlie supposed was meant to be a whisper, but it echoed through the otherwise empty room.

  Welcome to the death of civility, he thought, shaking his head as he located the one empty stall, confirmed there were no surprises in the bowl, checked to be sure there was sufficient toilet tissue in the dispenser, and then squeezed himself inside. It was a tight fit, as he’d known it would be.

  In his observation, there were essentially four body types among truckers. Among regular people as well, but Charlie was a trucker, so he couldn’t care less about any of those other people. First, there was the thin and wirey type, who had always been and would always be thin and wirey. Then came the beefier, but still more or less in shape variety (the “less” designation being a result of the horrible diet of truck stop food). Charlie fell into this category. Then there was the diet-what’s-a-diet version of humanity, clearly out of shape, but not caring at all. And finally, there were the super-maxi-jumbo people, of whom it would take three Charlies to make one of them. Of these four types, only the first could comfortably fit into the majority of truck stop bathroom stalls.

  Charlie had to sit diagonally upon the pot and lean to one side to avoid the incompetently-placed, four inch wide tissue dispenser, which had been installed at mid-shoulder height right next to the toilet, which had been placed six inches from the stall’s wall, and, thus, two inches from the dispenser. As if this indignity wasn’t enough, once he’d finished his “morning constitutional,” as he liked to refer to such activity, he had to turn himself into a contortionist to get at the dangling end of the roll of tissue, which (naturally) was behind the same cramped shoulder jammed against the dispenser.

  To add insult to even more insult, after he washed his hands, he discovered the automatic, “no-touch” paper towel dispensers were, of course, empty.

  “...but Sugar Buns...” the disembodied voice protested.

  Charlie headed for the door, the foul mood into which he had awoken simmering into anger in the pit of his stomach, but some perverse need made him stop. He listened to the disembodied conversation a bit longer.

  “You know what I’d like to do with your sugar buns, baby,” the man said in what Charlie felt sure was supposed to be a sultry voice. It sounded both comical and asinine to his irritated ears.

  Something needed to be done.

  “Hey, Sugar Buns,” Charlie said, loud and clear. “It’s a toilet stall, not a fucking phone booth.” And with that, he headed back toward the coffee, feeling vindicated, and thus, marginally better.

  Wiping his wet hands on his pants, and quelling the lump of anger fermenting in his belly, he returned to the coffee area, where the pathologically perky attendant still performed her duties as living impediment.

  The brief loosening of the knot in his stomach tightened at the sight of her. With his anger turning slowly into an unfocused rage, he stepped to the island, deftly darted his hand to her side and retrieved two brown packets of raw sugar and a blue cylinder of creamer. The cylinder was empty.

  Should have brought my gun, he thought, quelling the urge to commit mayhem, and grabbing a different - this time full - cylinder. As he poured the condiments into his mug, he heard the attendant chirp: “Did you feel the earthquake this morning?”

  “Earthquake?” He asked, not really paying attention. He noticed that the trucker with the decision-making disorder had finally made up his mind and moved on to (presumably) get in someone else’s way.

  “We had an earthquake this morning. Isn’t it exciting?”

  He was about to proclaim his ignorance when a younger and thinner, bottle-blonde woman behind the cashier’s counter burst out: “Marla, come look at this!” Off Marla trotted, leaving Charlie with unfettered access to everything, of which he took full advantage. After successfully gaining the necessary caffeine and additives, he headed toward the counter, where he discovered that the commotion had been caused by a wall-mounted TV set, from which blared the doom of two Alaskan cities.

  “...the damage in both Anchorage and Fairbanks is massive, John,” the female reporter said with a kind of restrained glee. “No official report on the death toll yet, but it’s feared to be in the hundreds. Power is out, as you can see, here in Anchorage . . . ” She indicated the darkness around her, aided by a deft pan from the camera operator. The loom of the camera’s light and the flashing blue and red of nearby emergency vehicles illuminated enough to show a pile of rubble that used to be some form of building, in front of which the reporter stood. “...and communications between the two cities are almost nonexistent, although rumors indicate Fairbanks got it much worse,” she added, as if she were reporting on some sporting event between two rival cities.

  Sucks to be them, Charlie thought, clearing his throat to get the attention of the younger woman behind the counter. She ignored him.

  “And we felt the earthquake all the way out here,” she marveled, still staring at the TV.

  “I know!” Marla exclaimed. “It must have been huge.”

  “Yes, yes, and the end of the world is nigh,” Charlie said, impatiently, sipping his coffee, the infusion of caffeine, combined with the morning’s dose of frustration having activated the sarcasm center of his brain. “But in the meantime, do you suppose I could pay for my coffee?”

  Both women glared at him.

  “How can you be so insensitive?” Marla demanded, no longer chipper.

  “I’m weeping for them on the inside,” he replied. “But they’re twenty-five hundred miles away from us, and I’ve got six hundred miles to drive in the next . . . ” He looked at his watch. “...ten hours, so can we take care of business?”

  Clearly offended on behalf of the people she’d never met in cities she’d never even considered visiting, the young woman behind the counter gave him a dismissive wave and said, “Just take it and go,” before resuming her vigil on the televised tragedy.

  And so Charlie did.

  5

  Truck Stop

  North Platte, Nebraska

  It was all a lie, of course. Charlie didn’t actually have to be anywhere for three more days. He was headed to Reno and planned to spend the holiday and whatever portion of Christmas Eve remained (after he finished driving) firmly ensconced in some hotel or another, with a nice, thick slab of prime rib, and maybe a cold beer or two. More of a sanity break, really, just to get out of the walk-in closet-sized truck cab where he lived, worked, ate, and slept for roughly twenty-eight out of every thirty days. The fact it would be Christmas was just a bonus.

  The six hundred miles was more of a goal than a requirement, and he knew it, but the faux-timetable was a good excuse, and he’d learned that sometimes you just have to beat certain people with a verbal stick to get them to pay attention. The two women would bond, he rationalized, over their mutual hatred of him. And then they’d move onto something completely unrelated, and he would soon be forgotten.

  He, in his own right, had almost forgotten how cold it was outside. Opening the door reminded him with sharp knives of icy wind.

  The girl was still there, wrapped in her parka. Seeing her, the m
eaning of her cryptic comment about no longer paying bills after the world ended suddenly dawned on him. The earthquake, he thought. Funny...

  As soon as he appeared, she went into her pitch. “Excuse me, sir, but (blah, blah, blah) . . . ” He cut her off with a wave of his hand.

  “You already hit me up, girl.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Sorry.” He was about to move past her when she added: “Are you by any chance heading west?”

  “Yep,” he said, and kept walking.

  “Could you maybe give me a ride?” She asked with a note of not-quite desperation.

  His lizard brain gave an internal and unequivocal YES! And the rest of his brain was actually tempted to agree - for all of about three seconds. Then he remembered the cargo he was hauling, and common sense prevailed.

  Not that he wasn’t horny. He was always horny. He always had been, ever since he noticed that girls were something different, something delightful. But hitchhikers and munitions were a bad combination. “Sorry,” he said. “No can do.”

  “Come on,” she pleaded. “I’m clean and I give really good blowjobs.”

  He burst out laughing, and the unfocused rage that had been building since he’d crawled stiffly out of bed, faded away to nothing. “I’m sure you do,” he laughed. “And I’m sure you’ll find somebody happy to give you a ride. You have such a wonderful sales technique.” Still laughing, he walked away, as an absurd thought danced across his mind: End of the World Blowjobs! Get ‘em While They Last!

  Two

  “Pride goeth before destruction,

  and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

  Proverbs, 16:18

  1

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Jake Campbell, age 39, was hungover. Truth be told, he was still semi-drunk and should still be in bed, sound asleep and snoring the alcohol fumes out of his system, but the nightmare woke him again, so sleep was out of the question.

  He shivered convulsively as he stumbled from his bedroom to the coffee pot. With robotic efficiency born of endless repetition, he scooped out the whole beans, dropped them in the grinder and set them to be destroyed. The noise sent a bolt of pain through his temples like a shot from a crossbow, but he endured it for the requisite time to create a sufficient grind, then dropped this into a filter in the coffee maker, filled the carafe half way with water, poured it into the reservoir, and flicked the machine to on.

  His brain had registered none of this, nor did it pay much attention as - moments later - he relieved himself of excess alcohol. It did, however, remind him to flush and wash his hands. He momentarily considered returning to the bathroom for a good brushing of his teeth, since his mouth tasted like two very large dogs had been holding a pissing contest inside it, but dismissed the idea as far too complicated. He waited, leaning his body against the kitchen counter as the coffee gurgled into the pot.

  He eyed the lacquered cedar box of goodies on the end table next to his recliner and thought about smoking a joint to take the edge off the pain in his brain pan, but rejected the idea as bordering on insanity. Not that he thought smoking pot was insane, nor that he held any legal concerns. Recreational marijuana was now legal in Nevada. Of course, technically, his employer, Reliable Construction Materials and Testing, could ask him to pee in a cup, but they never had, and there seemed to be no reason for them to do it now.

  He worked as an Inspector, which meant he spent his day standing around, drinking coffee and smoking far too many cigarettes, as he watched other people work. Occasionally, he would point at something. At the end of the day, he wrote a report. At the end of the week, he collected a substantial paycheck.

  So the occasional doobie wasn’t going to affect his ability to perform that job. Doing coke or heroin or meth might, and smoking pot while at a construction site, with heavy machinery running around and even heavier loads of steel and/or concrete flying overhead attached to the tower crane, would be borderline suicidal, but a little toke early in the morning, hours before work, would have little or no effect.

  His reasoning for not blazing away at that moment, even for medicinal purposes to help ease his headache, was precisely because of the cause of that headache. He’d gotten drunk last night, for no apparent reason he could remember. Really drunk. And since he couldn’t remember, the idea of an herbal hair of the dog would be lunacy, so he didn’t do it.

  He lit a cigarette instead, breaking his own rule about smoking inside the house. It tasted like shit. Of course, he’d never actually tasted shit before, so he really had nothing with which to compare it, but the thing tasted the way shit ought to.

  He paused momentarily to wonder why he’d be thinking such scatological thoughts, but then dismissed it from his throbbing head. He looked at his surroundings and spied the reason for the agony in his skull. The empty bottle of last night’s tequila sat there on the counter, next to a three-quarters empty container of margarita salt and the desiccated remnants of half-a-dozen thoroughly squeezed lime wedges, mocking him. Why had he gotten drunk? He still couldn’t remember.

  He did remember the girl, Rachel. No. Wait. She’d told him her real name. What was it? Danielle McGinty - Dani, for short. Now why had she done that?

  This particular train of thought was interrupted when his eyes registered enough black liquid in the pot to fill his cup. He did so, shivering again as the evil brew slid down his throat. He liked his coffee strong - far too strong for the likes of mortal men, so his friends rarely allowed him to make it for them more than once. But none of them were there at the moment, so he simply did not care.

  He sipped again as he took his cup toward the recliner. He was about to sit when he noticed The Shrine, perching upon its glassed-in shelf on the opposite wall. Maybe that’s why he’d gotten drunk. Wouldn’t be the first time. Wouldn’t be the last.

  The words of the framed citation mocked him, though he couldn’t read them from across the room: Valor Above and Beyond the Call of Duty. The small leather case sat below the citation. It was closed, and he kept it that way, because he couldn’t bear to look at that damned medal.

  His mother had forced him to build The Shrine - had badgered him relentlessly, and finally threatened to gouge his eyes out with a speculum if he didn’t. He was fairly certain she wouldn’t have actually carried out the threat, just as he was absolutely certain she wouldn’t have shut up about it until he did what she wanted. It was her way.

  “You earned it, and you need to be proud of it. Just as I’m proud of you,” she’d said, as a way of explaining her belligerence.

  In point of fact, he did not think he had earned it. Oh, he’d done what the citation said he’d done, all right. That much was true. That much came back to him in High Definition color and Surround Sound in his nightmares. But the reason for the medal itself had been purely political.

  Before that night in the desert, the Coast Guard had exactly one Medal of Honor recipient in its history: a Signalman 1st, named Douglas Munroe, who’d gotten it posthumously for action off the beaches of Guadalcanal, during the Second World War. Apparently nobody had told Petty Officer Munroe that Coast Guard Signalmen weren’t expected to operate .50 Caliber machine guns in the heat of battle, but he’d done it anyway, and he’d saved a lot of lives, at the cost of his own. He’d been a hero.

  In Jake’s case, and to Jake’s mind, the Powers that Be had decided seventy years between medals was long enough. The media had latched onto the story of what he’d done, and media attention, plus public enthusiasm, plus the Coast Guard’s red-headed bastard stepchild status as one of the Armed Forces, plus an ex-Coastie Senator from Oregon who sat on the Armed Services Committee, had equaled a flurry of behind-the-scenes political maneuvering. The nomination process got fast-tracked, and Jake suddenly became a recruiting poster-child. But he hadn’t been a hero – certainly not one who deserved to be mentioned alongside Munroe.

  Yeah, he’d saved lives. And yeah, if you held a gun to his head he might admit that what he’d done
qualified as above and beyond. But none of that helped with the nightmares.

  If his mother was right, and if he had earned it, he’d done so by killing a whole bunch of people. He didn’t think she was right (most of the time), and even if she was, he’d found that living with it proved to be much harder than earning it. The goddamned Shrine reminded him of this every goddamned day.

  Did they really have to make a movie about it? He thought, for the thousandth time as he sipped more of the black brew. He understood the poster-child bit. That much was easy. The Coast Guard needed people. They were a tiny service with an enormous job, and if the media mentioned them at all, it was usually as an afterthought. So he’d gotten it. He didn’t like it, but he’d gotten it. That fucking movie, on the other hand . . .

  Deep down, he knew the answer: of course they had to make a movie. Human drama, action, violence - the only thing his story had been missing were hot chicks. No women survived the plane crash, but that didn’t stop Hollywood from adding two of them.

  He’d never seen the movie - could never bring himself to watch it, even though they’d offered him another shit ton of money (and a limo and a five-star hotel room, and a date with the starlet flavor of the month) to appear at the premier - but he had taken their money for the rights to his story. He wasn’t a complete idiot. And it had been an awful lot of money.

  Unfortunately, once the IRS got their grubby hands on it, there hadn’t been enough left for him to take the rest of his life off, but that had been just as well. Sitting around doing nothing would have driven him insane. But the economy had been booming, so when his enlistment came up, he took off like a bullet, tossing the twelve years he’d already put into the service right out the window.

  His mother had not been pleased with his decision. “Eight more years,” she’d said. “Just eight more years and you could have put in your twenty and walked away with a nice pension.”