CHAPTER 1: THE TASTE OF OIL AND GRAVEL
The petroleum fumes always hovered exactly four inches off the asphalt, thick enough to coat the back of the tongue before the lungs could even reject it.
Ben’s face was pressed hard against that greasy grit, the left side of his jaw taking the brunt of the weight. His gray hoodie was twisted tight around his throat, the metal teeth of the zipper biting into his skin just beneath the collarbone. He tried to draw a full breath, but the pressure between his shoulder blades was absolute—not the sharp, sudden strike of a young man’s fist, but the heavy, unyielding mass of an old engine block settling into the earth.
“Don’t twitch, son,” the voice above him gravelled. It didn’t have any heat in it. That was the part that made Ben’s stomach turn over—the complete absence of anger. It sounded like an old mechanic diagnostic, assessing a loose belt. “You’re just going to tear the seam on that coat.”
Ben’s fingers clawed at the pavement, his nails scraping uselessly against the rough aggregate of the refueling lane. Above him, the fluorescent bulb of the canopy hummed with a high, cracked vibration that seemed to vibrate straight through his skull. He could see the rear tire of the old pickup truck—dry-rotted, the sidewalls crosshatched with fine gray cracks like spiderwebs, caked in the white, chalky dust of the limestone quarry three miles south.
The weight left his back with a slow, deliberate creak of joints.
Ben didn’t get up immediately. He stayed there for three seconds, his chest rising and falling against the cold concrete, listening to the metallic clack-clack of the fuel nozzle being hung back on the iron cradle of the pump. The rubber boots of the old man shifted—heavy, oil-resistant soles worn flat at the heels from decades of pacing concrete shop floors.
“You got a lot of miles on you before you’re worth the trouble you’re looking for,” the old man said.
The driver’s side door of the truck groaned on its hinges. It didn’t close with a clean thud; it took two hard slams, the rusted latch finally catching with a loose, tinny rattle that echoed across the empty four-lane highway. The engine turned over on the third try, a low, spitting diesel idle that smelled of unburnt fuel and scorched oil.
Ben pushed himself up onto his knees, his hands trembling as they left the dark silhouette of his own damp print on the asphalt. His ribs on the right side felt hot, a dull, throb-throb that signaled a deep purple bruise by morning. He pulled at the front of his hoodie, trying to force the jammed zipper down, but the metal tab was wedged tight against a loose thread of cheap fleece.
The truck moved forward, its taillights two dim, rectangular scabs of red plastic fading into the heavy, mist-laden dark of the valley.
As Ben wiped the grease from his cheek with the back of his sleeve, his hand hit something hard and metallic lying near the base of the pump. It wasn’t a coin. He reached down, his fingers closing around a heavy, brass-headed key attached to a small, stamped aluminum tag. The numbers 42-B were punched into the metal, clogged with black grease. It hadn’t fallen from his own pockets. He looked out toward the empty highway where the diesel exhaust still hung in the damp air, his fingers tightening around the cold brass until the edges cut into his palm.
