Lost Highway Read online

  Lost Highway

  Bijou Hunter

  Copyright © 2016 Bijou Hunter

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  *****

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For more information about this book and author visit:

  http://www.bijouhunterbooks.com

  Cover Design

  Photographer: ArtofPhoto

  Source: Depositphotos

  Cover Copyright © 2016 Bijou Hunter

  Dedication

  Freckles, Tigger, Pooh, and Roo for teaching me love

  Mustang Sally for standing by my side

  Aimie Grey for enduring my bitching

  Saucy Sarah for her patience

  Darling Debbie for jumping on the Bijou train

  Naughty Nicole for making me giggle at her fart rainbows

  Book Summary

  Trapped in a violent world with no escape…

  Quill promises her salvation…

  Odessa threatens his survival…

  Can love exist in the Lost Highway?

  Odessa Miller survives a car accident only to become stranded in a place where butchery is a way of life.

  The mysterious Quill saves her but proves to be no hero. Affection is an alien concept to the experienced killer whose only concern is protecting his territory.

  If Odessa hopes to survive, she’ll need to embrace the secret horrors of the Lost Highway.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Epilogue

  About Bijou

  Chapter One

  Odessa

  My captor wears a skull mask.

  I hang from his shoulder as my consciousness comes and goes. The man treks through dense brush, leaving behind my car and the Lost Highway. Despite my mind reeling from the pain, I remember the crash. The way the car shuddered before flipping over. I can still hear the metal grinding and feel the glass shattering around me. What I can’t recall is how I went from the car to this man’s care.

  A flash of his mask is all I have until he lowers me onto the ground. My body is weightless. I can’t remain upright until he props me against a tree.

  I watch him silently move around nearby. He opens a worn, brown knapsack and I see the flash of a blade in his hand. My gaze lifts upward finding a world shrouded by massive trees. Leaves flutter down around me, and I recall autumn arrived a few weeks back. I’d decorated my house with the customary pumpkins on the front porch and pinecone wreath on the door. My boyfriend John told me that I’d become predictable. I thought immediately if I ever stopped being predictable, the first thing I’d do was dump him.

  The masked man’s footsteps are soundless as he approaches me. Leaning down, he presses a water canister against my lips.

  “Drink,” he says none too gently.

  I struggle to swallow the warm water he pours into my mouth. My lips feel alien, swollen and uncooperative. I can’t keep up with the stream of liquid, and much of it splashes against my bloodied shirt.

  The man shows no reaction to the mess. He’s on the move again. Shoving the canteen in his backpack, he scans the area with the eyes of an enraged beast. I sense someone is hunting us.

  Not alone in the car when I crashed, I’d picked up a hitchhiking woman. I’d wanted the company, and she looked desperate. Was it her idea to take Route 201 rather than a well-used road? Or had I been the one to suggest we try the notorious Lost Highway?

  The masked man’s body goes rigid as movement approaches from the woods. When I follow his gaze, I spot the flash of white from an approaching figure.

  My mind returns to the road just before the crash. The woman’s name was Kim. She didn’t want to talk to me but finally opened up about leaving behind a bad job and relationship.

  “We’re not so different,” were the last words I said to her before spotting the spikes in the road.

  I tried to dodge them, but it was too late. The car jerked once the tires blew. I’d nearly corrected the swerving car when I heard the shot and a hole opened up in the engine. Kim screamed, and I couldn’t control the vehicle.

  The masked man stalks in my direction before pausing. Hesitating, he looks away from me to where we were heading. I think he might leave me for whoever is coming. His indecision doesn’t last.

  He barrels toward the tall, burly man bursting from the brush. Bashing into each other, their battle lacks finesse. The large men grapple for the second man’s weapon.

  As they struggle, I recall crawling out of the shattered car window. Kim was already on her feet, reaching for her bag when an arrow tore through her hand.

  Her scream woke me from my daze. A primal urge to escape overtook my pain and confusion. I scrambled from the car and looked at where Kim ran down the road. Leaving a blood trail behind her, she screamed for help, but there are no police on the Lost Highway.

  The men fight feet from me. I don’t know who to root for, but I do know I’m in danger. Using the tree to stand, I realize my right leg is torn open below the knee from an animal trap I stepped in earlier.

  Hobbling away from the men’s struggle, I panic as the memories flood back.

  Once I saw the wild men attack a begging Kim, I ran into the woods. The dense brush hid me from those predators, but the Lost Highway is teeming with threats.

  As I run now, the masked man yells for me to stop. I know his voice from when he found me in the animal trap. I’d swung an ax at him. Dodging it easily, he told me to stop, or he would kill me.

  “Never touch me,” he said, snatching the weapon from my grip.

  Now he calls for me to stop, but the other man says the same thing and laughs. This place has no heroes, only monsters. They’ll both destroy me, just in different ways. I need to escape.

  I limp away from the battling men. The sound of their frenzied grunts from violent blows follows me. I don’t know who will win or if I can find safety in these blindingly, overgrown woods. Despite my questions, I must try to survive.

  My right leg feels dead, dragging behind me. Wiping sweat and blood from my eyes, I reach up to the gash on my hairline where the laughing woman hit me with a bat earlier. She watched me fall and hit me again in the leg. Somehow, I dodged her next strike and regained my footing.

  After the crash, I fled the dangerous road to find even more dangerous woods. I worry I’ve done the same now by leaving behind two violent men in the hopes of discovering an end to the madness.
<
br />   When an arm wraps around my waist and yanks me backward, I yelp in a ragged voice. Before I can identify my attacker, I feel the rushing wind of a trap snapping shut where I’d once stood.

  Staring at the device, I can’t imagine surviving its bite. I turn to find the masked man without his mask. He’s younger and more handsome that I’d guessed but no less fearsome. When he frowns, I tremble at what he has in mind for me. What if he hurts me in the way the other monsters will likely hurt Kim? Despite my terror, I gaze wondrously at my hero.

  “Thank you,” I say, lightheaded from blood loss.

  “Don’t run again.”

  “I won’t,” I mumble just as my legs give out.

  The once masked man tosses me over his shoulder and carries me back to where we rested earlier. I see what’s left of the tall, burly man. With his face butchered, he forever smiles at the canopy of trees blocking the sky.

  Chapter Two

  Odessa

  The day is bright when I wake again. How long have I been unconscious? I find myself on a twin-sized mattress resting on the floor of a white room. There’s no sign of the masked man.

  My body refuses to move. Only my eyes cooperate by scanning the small room. Bloody hand prints and writing cover the walls. Most of the words are prayers for escape, mercy, or death. I notice scratch marks on the battered door. Someone called this room their prison. Now I am its current occupant.

  I try to sit up, but my muscles refuse to hold me. All I manage to do is roll on my back. Rust colored spots cover the white ceiling. I wonder about the person once trapped in here. How long did they suffer before offered mercy?

  Eventually, the door opens. I hear the click of the lock first and the squeak of the hinges, but the masked man’s approach is silent.

  His face comes into view over mine, and I realize he’s probably in his late twenties like me. Tanned skin contrasts against his nearly black eyes and dark hair. I stare upon a face simmering with violence. My death plays out in his eyes, yet I don’t dare look away.

  “Hello,” I whisper.

  “Can you sit?”

  Shaking my head, I flinch when his hand reaches for me. He takes me by the shoulders and yanks me upward. Without any care, the man maneuvers me against the wall.

  Next to the bed rests a small tray with a chunk of bread next to a drink. He sets it on my lap. When I don’t move, he roughly takes my hand and wraps my fingers around the cup.

  “Drink,” he instructs.

  The water stings my chapped, battered lips. I drink down as much as I can manage, and my body awakens enough for me to reach for the bread on the tray.

  He steps back and stands in the doorway. His gaze dissects me, leaving me exposed. He watches me eat, and frowns when I choke after taking too big of a bite.

  “What’s your name?” I ask after finishing the chunk of bread.

  “You’re Odessa Miller,” he says.

  “Yes. How did you know that?”

  The man walks from the room. I stare at the open door and think of escape. If only I were physically able and knew where I was and how to find safety. Without those three small factors standing in my way, I would use the open door to my advantage.

  Returning to the room, he drops my suitcase and purse on the floor next to the bed.

  I stare at my belongings, still shocked by how little I possess in the entire world. Leaving John’s body behind, I took only my used junker with a single suitcase in the trunk.

  “How did you find them?” I ask when he says nothing.

  “They were on the road.”

  “Do you know what happened to the other woman?”

  He nods but says nothing.

  “Did you save me by bringing me here?” I ask rather than inquiring if he plans to torture me as he did the captive once held in this room.

  He doesn’t answer my question. I look around the room and then back at him. He only crosses his arms and studies me for a long time.

  “What happens now?” I ask, leaning over until I’m on my side.

  The man’s face remains set on violence, but he doesn’t harm me before taking the tray and leaving me in the locked room.

  I watch him go and think of how he butchered the man in the woods. My mind returns to the crash and how I ran until the laughing woman hit me with the bat. Her eyes crazed, she even tried to bite me. That was how I gained the upper hand. With her focus on biting my bleeding arm, I shoved the bat backward against her nose.

  Now resting on my side in the locked room, I stare at my forearm where her teeth grazed me. I recall how she struggled to steal back the bat from me. We fought for the weapon until she fell to the ground, and I stood over her. Our positions switched, I hadn’t given a second thought to lowering the bat on her face. Panicked, I wanted to live, and she stood in the way of my goal.

  If the time comes to save my life with this man, I wonder if I’ll react again so quickly and violently.

  Chapter Three

  Quill

  Odessa sleeps too much. I watch her on the security feed and listen to her labored breathing. She needs to wake up and stop bleeding. I should shake her and force open her eyes. For now, I allow her to rest and dream of her life before the highway.

  I hold her wallet in my hands. The ID is a few years old. Her hair is longer and darker now. She lived in Missouri before finding her way to the Lost Highway. I open her suitcase. Like with her wallet, the luggage is old and tattered, perhaps used. The clothes inside aren’t folded. I press a shirt to my nose. No detergent. They aren’t clean. She grabbed them in a hurry.

  Nothing in her suitcase feels personal. The clothes are generic. I find no family pictures or trinkets.

  Odessa stirs in her sleep. She hit her head either in the car accident or during her struggles against the other Death Dealers. I saw her kill the woman called Velma. She also cut down the bald man from the Winnebago group that arrived some time back. After beating him to death with a bat, she took his ax and tried to kill me.

  The other woman from her car is with the Death Dealers I call Beavers. They show their teeth in an odd way when they laugh. They’ll hurt the woman for a long time. She might become like them, or she might be their dinner. I don’t know them well. They tend to stay on their side of the highway while I remain on mine.

  Except Dag crossed the line into my territory. Others might too. They want Odessa. Many of them prefer women prey. If more Death Dealers come, I’ll make them bleed. This side of the highway is mine, and no one survives my traps.

  I touch the screen where Odessa stirs. She needs to wake up and stop bleeding. I don’t dare clean her up. I don’t want to know her too well. Like the others before her, Odessa won’t survive. Besides, I don’t trust her. No one worth trusting comes to the Lost Highway.

  When she wakes later, I take her water and bread. She looks at the food and then at me. She isn’t truly this passive. I watched her kill two people in the woods. I know she wants to survive, and I know she’ll spill blood to regain her freedom.

  “Do you have a phone?”

  I don’t answer her question. Odessa’s eyes are clearer. She’s more aware now. Despite her improvement, she needs to move around and stop bleeding. This place won’t wait for her to catch up.

  “I want to call my family and tell them I’m safe,” she says in a rough voice.

  Her screams drew me to the road. I watched her run into the territory I don’t control. I’m not sure why I followed her. None of the other people I’ve brought here survived. I don’t want to learn more names. I can’t pretend their lives matter. They all end up dead, and silence suits me now.

  “My children will be worried,” she says after drinking the water.

  “You’re a poor liar.”

  Blinking rapidly, Odessa still hopes to talk me into allowing her access to the phone. “I won’t tell anyone where I am.”

  “You don’t know where you are.”

  Odessa swallows hard, struggling with her sore thr
oat. She screamed so much when she killed Velma and the bald man. When she fell silent later, the world felt unbearably quiet.

  “Who was the man in the woods?” she asks, playing her game.

  “He wanted to hang you upside down and bleed you. Afterward, he would hollow out your flesh and store small animals inside you. His name was Dag, and he is one of many.”

  Odessa’s eyes widen, but not nearly enough for a normal person. She takes in stride what I tell her. “What do you want?”

  I don’t answer. Odessa is afraid, but she isn’t ready to accept the truth. Once she knows it, I won’t have her around to admire. I decide to keep my secrets to ensure she’ll stay with me longer.

  Taking away the tray, I leave her in the locked room. Outside, the wind whips up without warning, and I watch the leaves hover in the sky. A storm is coming. The Death Dealers won’t attack until the weather clears. I have at least a day or two before I need to clean my traps.

  Until then, I admire Odessa on the screen and wait for her to stop bleeding.

  Chapter Four

  Odessa

  The house rattles under the thunder’s wrath. A splash of green colors the walls from the lightning.

  I force my body into a sitting position. My leg throbs and dried blood acts as the glue between the tattered pant leg and my flesh. Ignoring the pain, I struggle to stand. A window might allow me a view outside this room, and I need to know where my captor has taken me.

  Lightning sends streaks of green across the room again, and the thunder’s intensity nearly knocks me off of my feet. I hold onto the window sill and scan the scene outside my window.

  Absolutely nothing is visible. Even when the lightning strikes, I can’t see past the heavy fog hugging the house. I stare through the smudged glass until my leg gives out, and I’m forced to sit.

  This small room has two doors. One allows the man to come inside. I assume the other is a closet. Instead, I find a tiny bathroom with a toilet and shower but no sink or mirror. The room allows for no escape. Nothing can be made into a weapon to end a life.