Chapter 34
Ihadn’t even known the bastard was still alive.
Not until he showed up on the news—all cleaned up and godly, wearing a deacon’s robe like his soul didn’t reek of rot.
The segment was about church renovations or community outreach or some other bullshit, and there he was, shaking hands with a pastor and smiling like he hadn’t ever locked a twelve-year-old boy in a basement and told him no one would ever love him.
Foster father of the year. Deacon Harold.
They even said the town—somewhere—in nowhere New Jersey—like the universe was handing me a GPS coordinate.
Like it wanted me to recall where he was.
So much time had passed that I had thought I had forgotten the address but maybe I had forced myself to forget it.
Now that I remembered, I would never forget it again.
I didn’t sleep that night. Or the one after.
The nightmares came back with a vengeance.
I’d wake up drenched, fists clenched, and throat raw from yelling.
In one dream, I was back in that hallway again.
In another, he was kneeling in front of a congregation, and I was the one bleeding up on the cross.
By day three of no sleep, I couldn’t tell if it was him I wanted to kill or myself.
Instead of figuring it out, I packed a bag and drove south.
The drive there was just miles of highway, truckers, gas stations, and static on the radio.
Without any music to distract me, I opened the window and listened to the thrum of my tires and the occasional whistle of the wind.
By the time I drove into Tennessee, my head was buzzing.
I’d pulled off to use the bathroom and splash some water on my face.
The bathroom smelled like bleach and piss.
My reflection in the cracked and dirty mirror looked slightly feral.
I figured that made sense as I was about to take on the Tail of the Dragon.
Only someone slightly deranged would do that at dangerous speeds on purpose.
The Tail of the Dragon was eleven miles long with three hundred and eighteen curves.
It was a spine-snapping stretch of road through the borderlands of Tennessee and North Carolina, making it one of the most dangerous roads in the United States.
People went for the thrill of driving from one end to the other.
I went to see if the road would finally take me.
I mounted two cameras on the dash at sunrise.
One facing out and one facing in. Then I turned the key, hit record, and drove.
The first mile wasn’t bad. The road was empty.
Morning mist was still curling in, low and heavy like it didn’t want to leave.
It was quiet—too quiet—which was how I knew my brain was winding up to shatter me.
By curve nine, my grip on the wheel was white knuckled.
By curve fourteen, I was sweating like I was running a marathon.
By curve twenty-eight, the panic attacks and memories hit like gunfire.
Me at fourteen, cornered in the laundry room, him saying, “You want this, I know you do, Danny boy.” Age twelve, screaming into a mattress so the neighbors wouldn’t hear.
Age fifteen, dissociating while staring at the wallpaper in the hallway until the flowers melted in my vision like bruises.
I hit the gas harder. The tires screamed.
I nearly clipped the rail. But I didn’t care.
If I died here, it’d be cleaner this way than anything else I’d tried.
The road kept coming, curve after curve, the sharp switchbacks threw me against the seatbelt.
My chest heaved like I couldn’t take in enough air, sweat rolled down the back of my neck and soaked into the collar of my shirt.
I caught glimpses of drop-offs between the trees, the plummet off the edge made my stomach twist. For a second I imagined letting go, just taking my hands off the wheel and letting the mountain decide. But I didn’t.
Somewhere around curve one hundred, the back tires skidded wide.
I corrected too hard. The car lurched. The edge of the mountain blurred into view.
My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I saw black for a second.
And then—somehow—I was back on the road.
I didn’t slow down. If anything, I sped up.
I wanted it. The crash. The silence. The end.
The middle stretch blurred. My brain went half-numb, half-on-fire.
Every curve began to blend. Every turn brought the same thing, scenery flashing by, the engine growling at me, and my breath growing ragged in my throat.
I began to talk to myself so I could hear my own voice; to prove I was in this car.
Sometimes I cursed my choices, other times I reminded myself why I was doing this. They sounded the same to me.
The final curve nearly took me. A hairpin turn, almost blind because I couldn’t see around the bend until I was there. I almost didn’t make it. I actually saw myself flying off the edge, saw the crash, the blood, the fire. And then somehow, I was through. Alive.
After that last bend I pulled over, killed the engine and sat there shaking so hard I felt it in my bones. My pulse thundered in my ears. My throat felt raw although I had barely made a sound other than talking to myself. The camera light blinked steadily. Still recording. I was still here.
Goddamn it.
That night I uploaded the video. Twelve minutes of raw speed, violent curves, and a near-fatal crash.
STUNT #18: TAIL OF THE DRAGON
The thumbnail was a freeze-frame of the skid, tires nearly off the road, trees a blur in the background.
Within an hour, it was trending.
“You good bro?”
“I can’t stop watching this but it’s also making me sick.”
“Look at his hands on the wheel at the 4:27 mark. WTH.”
“I watched this five times. He’s dissociating.”
“Dead eyes.”
“Someone get him help.”
CARTER
what the actual fuck, Danny. I’m beginning to worry. Should I worry my guy? Answer your goddamn phone.
I didn’t.