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  Well, she was stuck with him, since Charlie had nowhere else to go. He didn’t even have his wallet, just a ten-spot he’d stuffed in the pocket of his sweat pants weeks ago. Enough to pay for food, if Lil Bit would notice him.

  The drunks escalated their insults. Apparently, having failed to charm any women at the topless bar across the street, they were now intent on kicking some ass before they called it a night. “Come on, turdface, step outside,” the Rebel said. “Just you and me. We’ll go a few.”

  Charlie was big, six feet four inches, but he was in his forties, overweight, and relatively nonviolent, so he ignored the invitation. He just wanted some coffee. He didn’t even care if it was good, so long as it was hot and not laced with ammonia or bleach. After that, he’d figure out how to survive the night. Or maybe, if he got a chance, he’d make a run for it.

  Right then, he decided that no matter what, he wasn’t going home, not until Susan got down on her knees, apologized for what she’d done, and begged him to come back. Which might not happen for a while. Or ever.

  His thought was punctuated by a flash that lit up the sky. As the lights went out, a loud boom rocked the diner. The guy in camouflage drawled, “What the hell?”

  As the diner’s occupants murmured in concern, another bolt landed just behind the building with a blinding flash. A few seconds later, Charlie noticed a greenish-yellow glow through the rearmost side window—like some kind of radioactive fire.

  The lights flickered back on. The rain let up.

  His antagonists, apparently having short attention spans, refocused on their ham, eggs, and grits, so Charlie decided to take the opportunity to slip outside, check out the fire, and mosey off into the night, thereby avoiding the whupping he’d been promised. He slipped off his stool unnoticed as his antagonists grumbled and chewed.

  Charlie stepped outside. He walked around the diner and saw something on fire behind the building. Whoa. Make that someone. Fighting panic, he ripped off his soaking wet bomber jacket and tossed it over the prone figure, putting out the flames and raising a cloud of acrid, funky-smelling smoke and steam. Whew.

  The poor wretch lay motionless. Charlie picked up his coat and saw a six-inch-wide hole in the back of the victim’s black leather jacket. Sure that nobody could survive a direct hit like that, Charlie reached for his cellphone … which he’d left at the house. Damn it. He’d have to go back inside and use the pay phone to call 911, which meant facing those assholes.

  He debated the issue for a moment, looking back at the diner, then into the night. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw signs of life. The victim’s fingers drummed the concrete. Shave and a haircut, two bits. The body folded in on itself, fetus-like, and then jackknifed open with alarming speed. Charlie watched in amazement as the once-dead creature rolled over on his back and started to rise, yawning and stretching as he did so. His eyes fluttered open, showing rolled-up whites. Charlie yelped in horror at the zombie-thing, now standing in a crouch.

  “Do not be afraid. I’m here to help,” the fellow said in a raspy voice crackling with static.

  “I’m not afraid,” Charlie claimed as a deep chill swept through his body. “Just curious.”

  The guy he’d given up for dead held out his arms as if to suppress applause, then coughed out smoke. Shaking his head, he wavered unsteadily on his feet. He was short, with long, unkempt, iron-gray hair, and looked old beyond his time, like a wizened drug freak, scrawny old biker—or jazz trumpeter Chet Baker near the end of his days. He removed his jacket and examined the hole, which was bordered by a circular scorch mark. He sniffed it, said a rueful goodbye, and tossed the garment over his back into the Dumpster.

  The stranger staggered around briefly but wouldn’t let Charlie touch him, contorting to avoid a helping hand—as if he was an extraordinarily clumsy Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix. “You do not want a piece of me,” he warned. “Not when I’m fully charged.”

  Charlie caught a whiff of the fellow and nearly gagged at the stink of homelessness—and something worse. The lightning must have triggered multiple excretory functions, yielding a horribly vile stench that could knock out a skunk at thirty paces.

  As he stood with mouth agape, the stranger stared at Charlie with coal-black eyes. “What do you want, a friggin’ wish for saving me?” He broke out cackling. “Go ahead. Make my day.”

  Charlie, nonplussed, managed to say, “I should call 911 and get help.”

  The stranger waved off the idea. “No cops. We’ll handle this ourselves. That’s the rule.”

  Obviously, the guy’s brain was fried. Charlie shook his head. “I’m confused. Didn’t you—”

  “Walk here? Yeah. ” He pointed toward the Interstate. “From there. Nearly had a wreck. Truck driver saw some fool asshole about to jump off the bridge and lost control of his vehicle. My job to come in and save the guy. Trucker, that is. Used all my power.”

  He looked at Charlie knowingly, but the fool asshole had no response to that.

  “So I was looking for food,” the stranger continued. “But it takes days to build up energy that way. Mighty inefficient. Just when I’m feeling low—voltage, that is—I get myself a charge, and I’m good to go. Circuit breaker boxes work too, but you rarely get useful instructions from ’em. Less natural, I guess you’d say. Plus, you don’t want to do what the power company tells you, do you?” He studied Charlie’s blank face. “Well, maybe you do. I don’t.”

  The rain started coming down harder. Charlie shook his head and said, “Let’s get you out of the weather.”

  “Let’s get me out of this weather,” the stranger agreed.

  “What I can’t get over is, is … how the hell did you survive?”

  “Two things. Survival is never the issue for me.”

  Charlie waited, but there was no second thing coming. “OK,” he said. “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee. If they’ll serve us, that is.” He bent down and picked up his jacket, which now smelled of smoke and homelessness in addition to already being tattered, with a busted zipper. He tossed it in the Dumpster to keep the other jacket company and gestured for the stranger to follow. The old fellow started walking. It appeared to be a new experience for him—he looked like a tightrope walker with cerebral palsy. Horrible to behold. Charlie stepped toward him, but the stranger waved off his helping hand, causing Charlie’s hair to stand on end. By the time they reached the diner entrance, the stranger had adapted to this mode of transportation, more or less.

  If Lil Bit was unhappy to see Charlie return, she was horrified to see—and smell—his friend. She acknowledged the newcomer’s arrival with a loud groan.

  The Rebel laughed and punched his buddy. “Retard got hisself a spaz for a pet.”

  Charlie turned to address the men in the booth: “This guy just got hit by lightning! Cut him some slack.” He hoped that this strange news would break the ice and relieve the antagonism that had been building up.

  No such luck.

  “You’ll think you been hit with lightning when I’m through with you, bitch,” the Rebel said.

  Charlie whispered behind his hand to his new companion: “They’re looking for trouble.”

  “Well then, today’s their lucky day.” The old man regarded the drunks disdainfully, drawing murderous looks in return.

  Charlie shook his head at the stringy-haired bantam’s bravado and slipped onto a counter seat. The stranger did likewise. “Two coffees, please,” Charlie said, hoping this time that Lil Bit would acknowledge his order.

  Feeling a static charge in the air, Charlie snuck a sidelong glance at his companion. Under the fluorescent light, the guy appeared to be not just old, but also terribly weathered—and abused. Veins threatened to break through the old man’s paper-thin skin, which was darker than white and lighter than black. His grubby, uneven facial stubble looked like he’d hacked at it with an old knife, and he had the bloodshot, color-drained eyes of an ancient alcoholic. And he smelled worse inside than out—rotting teeth,
with a hint of carrion. When Charlie leaned back, he noticed long bumps—or ridges—under a tight, wet, and remarkably unburned T-shirt that proclaimed It’s Better in the Bahamas. Were those welts? Was this guy so old he’d spent time on a chain gang? What kind of hellhole had the poor guy been in where they flogged people? North Vietnam?

  “What’s your name?” Charlie asked.

  “I’ve got a better question,” the stranger said. “Who are you?”

  “Who am I? Charles Sherman.”

  The stranger laughed. “Are you going to settle for that?”

  That was rude. “Well, people call me Charlie. How about you?”

  “I’m not from around here,” the stranger said. “And I’ve been places you’ll never want to go. Unless you’re even stupider than you look.”

  Charlie grimaced at the insult. After a moment, curiosity overcame resentment. OK, the guy wasn’t going to say who he was. He’d try a different tack. “Where are you from?”

  “I just told you.”

  “Not exactly. Uh, how old are you?”

  “What year is it?”

  Charlie told him.

  The stranger nodded and said, “Sounds about right.”

  “Huh? Never mind. Forget I asked.” Obviously, the guy’s brain was cooked.

  Lil Bit, who had been staring at them with a curled lip, pointed to a sign above the grill: Pancake Hut IS Home of the Sausage Cake. She blinked in surprise and yelled, “Harley! Where’s the sign?”

  The middle-aged white man working the grill wiped his hands on his apron and looked up, then turned to Charlie and said, “Supposed to be a sign says, ‘We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to You.’” Gray hair tufted over the top of his T-shirt.

  “The one you had to take down after Pancake Hut got sued for discrimination?” Charlie asked.

  “They didn’t say squat about stink,” Lil Bit countered.

  “Just serve us some coffee and we’ll be on our way,” Charlie said. “Ways, actually.”

  The stranger beamed impishly at Lil Bit. “That’s right. A cup of joe would go down good right about now, yes ma’am.” She responded by moving to the far end of the counter and fanning her face with a rag.

  “That reminds me,” the stranger said. In a wire rack on the wall, there was an Atlanta Journal-Constitution, already read several times. He reached over and grabbed the Metro section, then leafed through it. “Hmm.” He handed it to Charlie, pointing to a local brief:

  Raccoon Gets Revenge

  Georgia Department of Natural Resources officials report that Forsyth County woodsman Phil McRae got more than he bargained for last week when he went raccoon hunting. After his hound treed the animal on a private farm near Lake Lanier, McRae shot the raccoon, which then toppled from the limb and struck the hunter on the head, chipping three vertebrae and sending McRae to the hospital. Currently recuperating at home, McRae was unavailable for comment.

  Charlie shook his head. “Unbelievable.” He jabbed the page. “That’s my brother-in-law.”

  His companion, wearing a wistful expression, nodded. “That was some of my best work.”

  Charlie looked at him skeptically. “Are you a reporter?”

  “No. I was the raccoon. And he’s a liar. He missed me. Do I look like I got shot?”

  If Charlie had been drinking coffee right then, he would have sprayed it over half the restaurant. Instead, he shook his head and tried not to laugh. Recovering, he said, “Now I know why Phil didn’t show up for Christmas dinner. The varmints never tell me anything.”

  “Varmints?”

  “My in-laws, from Forsyth County. The Cutchinses, more specifically—my mother-in-law’s family. Phil married my wife’s older sister, Sheila. I married Susan. Their maiden name is Powell, but take my word for it, they’re Cutchinses. And Cutchins is as Cutchins does.”

  “Ahh … I wondered why I was out in the woods. Now I know. That explains a lot.” The stranger nodded thoughtfully. “Now it’s coming to me. You’re the one.”

  “The one?” Charlie asked. “The one what?”

  The stranger cleared his junk-filled throat and said, “So what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a writer.” Charlie caught the waitress’s eye and stirred a nonexistent cup of coffee with an invisible spoon. She scowled and turned away.

  “Earn a living at it?” The stranger started mimicking Charlie’s act, pouring imaginary sugar into a phantom cup—then spilling it and rubbing make-believe crystals around on the counter with his palm.

  “Not right now. Got some things going on, though.” This was true only if he counted as a prospect the one literary agent who hadn’t bothered to write him a rejection letter. (Agents tended to promptly decline to represent his work, so the fact that Barbara Asher hadn’t responded gave him hope, even though she’d held his query for nearly a year.)

  “So you’re looking for work.”

  “I will be in the morning.”

  “I know of a job you can start tonight.”

  Their steadfast refusal to admit they hadn’t been served seemed to be getting on Lil Bit’s nerves. “Get out,” she snapped.

  “You can’t tell us to get out! That’s illegal!” Charlie protested.

  Harley stepped over to stand by her, arms folded across his chest, fists clenched. “No it ain’t,” he said. “You ain’t a—ain’t a minority.”

  “I sure am,” said the stranger.

  “This chain discriminates against nearly everyone,” Charlie grumbled. “Why bother to open the doors?”

  The Rebel spoke up. “That’s why I come here. They keep it clean. At least until you two came in here. I don’t know what’s worse, nigs or homeless assholes.”

  Grinning, Charlie’s companion swiveled to face the guy.

  “That’s right,” the young man said, jabbing his finger at his cap so hard he looked like he was mimicking a suicide. “This here means I stand for somethin’. And you two can get the hell out of here so I don’t have to look at you. Or smell you, you filthy fucks.”

  The stranger turned to Charlie. “What do you think of his hat?”

  Charlie bit his lip. He’d nearly gotten killed on the Fourth of July over a Rebel flag—at a family get-together, of all places. This guy was just like the varmints, and he saw no point in arguing with such people.

  The cook chimed in: “We told you to git. You’re stinkin’ up the place. Now git.”

  “We should leave,” Charlie said. The stranger spun and hit the tiled floor with both feet. With blinding speed, he grabbed the Rebel cap by the bill. Flicking his wrist, he tossed it like a Frisbee over the counter. It landed on a burner and erupted in flames.

  Arching out of his seat like a hunting bow, the Rebel yelped, “The sumbitch tased me!”

  The stranger strode to the door, calling out over his shoulder to Charlie, “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “I’m gonna kill both of you!” the Rebel shouted, flopping around as he tried to exit the booth.

  Charlie slid off his stool and sprinted outside, shouting, “We gotta move, man! You know he’s got a gun!”

  The stranger kept his back to Charlie as he walked at a leisurely pace to the MARTA bus stop on Hanover Drive. Charlie caught up with him and looked at him in alarm. “You’ve got to be kidding! This is your idea of a getaway?”

  The Rebel, moving slowly, struggled with the restaurant door on his way out, then stomped over to a Chevy pickup and opened the passenger door.

  “He meant what he said!” Charlie cried out. “He’s going to kill us!”

  “Ha! That would be doing you a favor.” Charlie’s companion eyed their adversary in the distance. “He recovered quicker than I expected. Too bad.”

  “Too bad?” Charlie face was contorted in worried disbelief.

  The Rebel bolted toward them, but when he saw they were just standing around at the bus stop, he slowed to a leisurely saunter and laughed contemptuously. As he neared, Charlie saw the silver glint of the man’
s pistol under the light from a streetlamp.

  Charlie gulped, his throat bone-dry.

  Just then, a bus appeared on the overpass, barreling toward them at highway speed. Its wheels left the pavement when it hit a bump, and for an instant, Charlie thought it was flying. The Rebel was in shooting range when the vehicle slid to a screeching stop right in front of the stranger. “Don’t look back,” he told Charlie.

  The bus door opened. The stranger climbed aboard and Charlie followed, scrambling up the steps, shouting, “Get us out of here! Get us out of here!”

  The driver, a plump black woman wearing shades, looked down at Charlie and said, “So loud. Tsk, tsk.”

  Before she could close the door, a shot rang out. Charlie grabbed his companion’s arm and felt a sharp pain. Then there was only darkness.

  * * *

  A kick to the shin awakened Charlie, who was lying in the aisle on the bus. He blinked and looked up at the stranger. “Did I get shot? In the arm. Shoulder.” He ran his right hand up his left arm seeking points of pain but found none.

  “No such luck,” his companion said. “You touched me.”

  Charlie shook his head. He didn’t feel right. He must be crashing after the adrenaline bender he’d gone through. Reminding himself that he was lucky to be alive, he looked around. They were the only passengers on the bus, which was squealing to a stop. It was past twelve o’clock. Did that make it a new day, or a long night? “Where are we?”

  “End of the line,” said the driver, standing up and stretching. “Bayard Terrace. Close to it, anyway.”

  Charlie’s eyes widened at the unfamiliar name. “Can I ride back?” he asked the driver.