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“Good for you. I need to check something in the library and then I’ll get going, too.”

“Want me to get the buffer out?”

Danny grins. He could get to like this kid. “Are you bucking for a raise?”

Jesse laughs. “Not likely.”

“Good. Here in Wilder County it’s RR, Republicans rule, and they keep a tight grip on the purse strings. Sure, get the buffer and roll it on down to 12. Keep meaning to ask if you’re by any chance named after the other Jesse Jackson. The famous one.”

“Yes, sir. I mean Danny.”

“You’ll get there, kid. I have faith in you.”

Danny takes his Thermos of coffee down to the library—another benefit of summer vacation.

4

He turns on one of the computers and uses the librarian’s code to unlock it. The passcode the kids use blocks anything resembling porn, also access to social media. With Mrs. Golden’s you can go anywhere, not that Danny is planning on visiting Pornhub. He opens Firefox and types in Hilltop Texaco. His finger hovers over the enter button, then he adds County Road F for good measure. The dream is just as clear now as it was when he woke up, it’s bugging him (actually scaring him just a little, even with morning sunlight streaming in through the windows), and finding nothing will, he hopes, put paid to it.

He pushes the button, and a second later he’s looking at a gray cinderblock building. In this photo it’s new instead of old and the Texaco sign is spandy clean. The glass in the office window and door is intact. The gas pumps sparkle. The prices on the signs say it’s $1.09 for regular and $1.21 for mid-grade. There was apparently no hi-test to be had at Hilltop Texaco when the picture was taken, which must have been a long time ago. The car at the pumps is a boat of a Buick and the road out front is two-lane blacktop instead of oiled dirt. Danny thinks the Buick must have rolled off the line in Detroit around 1980.

County Road F is in the town of Gunnel. Danny has never heard of it, but that’s not surprising; Kansas is big and there must be hundreds of tiny towns he’s never heard of. For all he knows, Gunnel might be across the state line in Nebraska. The hours of operation are 6 AM to 10 PM. Pretty standard for a gas-em-up out in the country. Below the hours, in red, is one word: CLOSED.

Danny looks at this dream-made-real with a dismay so deep it’s almost fear. Hell, maybe it is fear. All he wanted was to make sure Hilltop Texaco (and the hand sticking out of the ground, don’t forget the hand) was just some bullshit his sleeping mind created, and now look at this. Just look at it.

Well, I’ve been by it at some time or other, he reasons. That’s it, gotta be. Didn’t I read somewhere that the brain never forgets anything, just stores the old trivia away on the back shelves?

He searches for more info about the Hilltop Texaco and finds none. Only Hilltop Bakery (in Des Moines), Hilltop Subaru (in Danvers, Massachusetts), and forty-eleven other Hilltops, including a petting zoo in New Hampshire. In each of these, a line has been drawn through Texaco County Road F, showing that part of his search parameter hasn’t been met. Why would there be more info, anyway? It’s just a gas station somewhere out in the williwags—what his dad used to call East Overshoe. A Texaco franchise that went broke, maybe back in the nineties.

Above his main selection are a few other options: NEWS, VIDEOS, SHOPPING… and IMAGES. He clicks on images and sits back in his chair, more dismayed than ever by what comes up. There are plenty of photos showing various Hilltops, including four of the Texaco. The first is a duplicate of the one on the main page, but in another the gas station stands deserted: pumps gone, windows busted, trash scattered around. This is the one he visited in his dream, the very one. There can be no doubt about it. The only question is whether or not there’s a body buried in the oil-soaked earth behind it.

“I’ll be dipped in shit.”

It’s all Danny can think of to say. He’s a thirty-six-year-old man, high school graduate but no college diploma, divorced, no kids, steady worker, Royals fan, Chiefs fan, keeps out of the bars after a spell of bad drinking that led—partially, at least—to his split with Marjorie. He drives an old pickem-up, works his hours, collects his pay, enjoys the occasional binge-out on Netflix, visits his brother Stevie every now and then, doesn’t follow the news, has no politics, has no interest in psychic phenomena. He’s never seen a ghost, finds movies about demons and curses a waste of time, and wouldn’t hesitate to stroll through a graveyard after dark if it provided a shortcut to where he’s going. He doesn’t attend church, doesn’t think about God, doesn’t think about the afterlife, takes this life as it comes, has never questioned reality.

He’s questioning it this morning. Plenty.

The blat of a car with a bad muffler (or none at all) startles him out of a state that’s close to hypnosis. He looks up from the screen and sees an old Mustang pulling into the student parking lot. Pat Grady, his other summer helper, has finally decided to grace the Wilder High custodial staff with his presence. Danny looks at his watch and sees it’s quarter to eight.

Keep your temper, he thinks, getting up. This is good Advice to Self, because his temper has gotten him in trouble before. It’s why he spent a night in jail and why he quit the drinking. As for the marriage, that would have ended anyway… although it might have limped along for another year or two.

He goes to the door at the end of the new wing. Jesse has indeed brought down the buffer, and is busy moving and stacking desks in Room 12. Danny tips him a wave and Jesse tips him one right back.

Pat is ambling toward the door—no worries, no problem—in jeans, a cut-off tee, and a Wilder Wildcats hat turned around backward. Danny is there to greet him. He’s got a firm grip on his temper, but the boy’s who-gives-a-fuck attitude bugs him. And those motorcycle boots he’s wearing are apt to leave scuff marks.

“Hey, Dan, what up?”

“You’re late,” Danny says, “that’s what’s up. Punch-in’s seven-thirty. It’s now pushing eight o’clock.”

“Sorry ’bout that.” Pat gives him a my bad shrug and glides past him, jeans riding low on his hips.

“This is the third time.”

Pat turns back. His lazy little smile is gone. “Overslept, forgot to set my phone alarm, what can I say?”

“Here’s what I say. Punch in late again and you’re all done. Got it?”

“Are you shitting me? For being twenty minutes late?”