Page 12 of Brimstone Hollow

I knocked back the rest of my milk so the ice cubes hit my teeth and my lips burned with cold.

“I don’t know,” I said. “They’re dangerous for each other.”

“Dangerous?”

“Yeah, like… combustible. Explosive.”

“Like sodium and water,” Tina said. And, when I scrunched my face in confusion she added, “Remember? From chemistry?”

“I think you had a better chemistry teacher than I did,” I said.

She rolled her eyes and said, “You put them together andkaboom!”

An explosive gesture erupted from her hands, but when she looked at me, she frowned. “You’re saying they loved the explosions?”

I leaned back in my chair and stared at her big, empty hands. “I think they both loved that an explosion was always possible. They both got a thrill out of living dangerously.”

“Not a great environment for a kid,” Tina said. “It’s a good thing you didn’t inherit any of that.”

Shaking my head now, clearing the memory as much as I can, I get up and walk back down the hill toward Honey.

“Let’s go,” I say to her. Then, I pause as I open the driver’s-side door, and read a little white marquee I’d missed on the way in. It features only the name of the church and the service times. Every Wednesday evening at sixPM. Every Sunday morning at nineAM. Every Sunday night at sevenPM.

I slide behind the wheel and rev the engine.

“We’ll come back tonight,” I say. “When there’s more here besides ghosts and bad memories.”

FOUR

BACK IN MOUNT ZION,I start looking around for accommodations, and it’s not long before I almost pass the Mount Zion Motel. I pull Honey in alongside a few other cars, most of which feature Ohio or Indiana plates. Families in town for the holiday weekend, then, or passing through on the way to visit their ancestral graveyard somewhere else.

A bell over the door clangs as I enter the small, dimly lit lobby. The teal-and-beige tiles, brown velour sofa, and rust-orange curtains give the impression that this entire room was assembled from a 1980s time capsule.

There’s a brass bell on the desk and I tap it, wait, and then tap it again. Eventually, a man emerges from the back room in a cloud of silver-blue cigarette smoke. He’s on the small side—barely taller than I am—and very skinny with wavy white hair brushed back from his deeply lined mahogany face. A pair of silver reading glasses sits just above the tip of his nose and a lit cigarette balances between his lips. He wears a western-style white shirt and light jeans with a silver-buckle belt. He barely glances at me while he clicks the mouse connected to the thirty-year-old computer. “How many rooms?” he asks.

“One.”

“How many nights?”

“Don’t know,” I say.

He gives me a look and I say, “I’m here for work and I don’t know how long it’ll take. Ideally, I’ll check out tomorrow afternoon.”

“Well, checkout’s at eleven.”

“Okay.”

“So… how many?”

“I guess at least two.”

He reaches under the desk and then slides a clipboard across to me. There’s a plastic ballpoint pen attached to the clip with a length of cotton string.

“Fill this out,” he says. “And I’m gonna need the card you’ll be paying with.”

I hand it over and start on the form. While I do, he click-clacks at the keyboard and then I notice him moving from side to side, looking around me.

When I finally catch his gaze, he says, “Goddamn, is that your car outside?”