Characters in Mile 81

“Copy all available units, but it’ll be ten minutes before the first one gets there. That’s Unit Twelve. He’s Code Seventy-three in Waterville.” Al Andrews, no doubt chowing down at Bob’s Burgers and talking politics. “Copy that.” “Give me MML on the wagon, Seventeen, and I’ll run it.”

Mostly she was happy on the farm with Amelia and their motley menagerie of dogs, cats, and livestock, but she sometimes missed those days of touring—the one-night stands, the matches under the lights, the rough camaraderie …

Johnny, Carla, and four-year-old Blake all wore glasses; everyone on both sides of their family wore glasses; even Bingo, the family dog, probably needed them. Bingo was apt to run into the screen door when he wanted to go out. Only Rache had escaped the curse of myopia.

Mommy? Come out! I hurted myself. You have to come out n kiss it bet—” “Stop right where you are, Blake Lussier.” Carla would have been proud; it was her she-who-must-be-obeyed voice at its most forbidding. And it worked. Blake stopped four feet from the side of the station wagon.

“Any sign of her?” “Nope.” “Any sign of anyone?” “Carl, give me a ch—” He saw the cell phones and the wedding ring lying beside the partially open door of the station wagon. “What?” Carla craned to see. “Just a sec.”

Mommy? Come out! I hurted myself. You have to come out n kiss it bet—” “Stop right where you are, Blake Lussier.” Carla would have been proud; it was her she-who-must-be-obeyed voice at its most forbidding. And it worked. Blake stopped four feet from the side of the station wagon.

he commanded one of the Hustler girls on the wall, and giggled. Then he said, “Let me see your shaved pussy!” and giggled harder. He sort of wished Craig Gagnon was here, even though Craig was a dweeb. They could have laughed about the shaved pussies together.

This’ll just take a minute.” She opened the doors so she could get at the locker built into the trailer’s left side. DeeDee decided this would be a fine time to exit the vehicle, but Julie restrained her with one beefy shoulder, once again murmuring, “Soo, baby, soo.”

He turned to Carla, and thus did not see the car door opening wider, like a mouth. “Carla, I think there’s blood on this one.” He held up Doug Clayton’s cracked phone. “Mom?” Rachel asked. “Who’s in that dirty car? The door’s opening.” “Come back,” Carla said.

Only Rache had escaped the curse of myopia. The last time she’d been to the optometrist, she’d read the whole damn eye chart, bottom line and all. Dr. Stratton had been amazed. “She could qualify for jet fighter training,” he told Johnny and Carla. Johnny said, “Maybe someday she will.

How many times had he seen that exact same expression on the face of five-year-old Ellen Golding? “Listen, Rachel,” Jimmy said, “I know you’re scared, but you’re safe in here, and I have to do my job.

Pete walked back to the two little kids with his saddlebag in one hand and his Richforth magnifying glass in the other. He sort of wished George and Normie were here, but so what if they weren’t?

… the stampeders are once again stampeding.) The beauty of the parked cruiser, at least in Maine State Trooper Jimmy Golding’s opinion, was that you didn’t really need to do anything. You just pulled over and let nature (human nature, in this case) take its guilty course. On this overcast April …

“They all look empty. Do you think there was an accident?” “Don’t know, but nothing looks dinged up. Hang on a minute.” Johnny Lussier got out, went around the back of the Expedition he would never finish paying for, and walked to the cab of the Dodge Ram.

His eyelids fluttered. Then the screams stopped. Pete rolled over on the filthy mattress and went back to sleep. The thing that looked like a car ate Julianne Vernon, clothes, boots, and all. The only thing it missed was her phone, which now lay beside Doug Clayton’s.

some shitbrained yokel had yelled one night—in Tulsa that had been, if she remembered right. She and Melissa, the girl she’d been grappling with in the Mudbowl, had looked at each other, nodded, and stood up facing the section of the audience from which the yell had come.

All his attention was on the iPad propped against the lower arc of the steering wheel. He was playing a Scrabble-like game called Words With Friends, his Internet connection provided by Verizon. His opponent was an old barracks-mate named Nick Avery, now with the Oklahoma State Patrol.

He spoke stoutly enough, although he was afraid, a little. George and his friends were headed up to the sandpit behind the bowling alley. There they’d play a game Normie Therriault had invented. Normie was the leader of the Rip-Ass Raiders, and the game was called Paratroops from Hell.

One driver was listening to Toby Keith, the other to Led Zeppelin. Both had his particular brand of pop music turned up loud. In the restaurant, Pete Simmons heard her, but only from a great distance, like a fading echo. His eyelids fluttered. Then the screams stopped.

It’s at the—” “Quit while you’re ahead,” the 911 woman advised. She sounded more amused than ever. “How old are you, kiddo?” “I’m six, almost seven. My name is Rachel Ann Lussier, and a car, a bad car—” “Listen, Rachel Ann or whoever you are, I can trace this call.

“It’ll wind up in the garage, gathering dust,” his father had said, but although the ant farm project had concluded in February (Pete and his partner, Tammy Witham, had gotten an A), Pete hadn’t tired of the magnifying glass yet.