The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

John Milton, Paradise Lost

---

Outside, the shriekers and howlers rode a hot night wind. Inside, Jeb Donner drained a warm Corona and prayed to Ashtarte that the wards he'd purchased in Graytown, carefully spoken over his eighteen wheeler, would hold.

"Another?" The bartender, a small gnollish figure, swiped a soiled towel over the oak counter, the cloth drinking up the moisture-bead rings.

"Please." He grinned. "It's hot as hell tonight."

The ugly little man laughed at the joke. "Go figure." Another bottle materialized and Jeb took it, the temperature of the glass matching that of his hand. "Where you headed, Driver."

Donner took a pull, swished the suds around the inside of his mouth. "Mesquite."

The bartender's eyes rolled. "Thought they had plague in Mesquite."

"Nope. Not yet."

Nodding, the keeper of The Last Leg Saloon moved down the counter, his rag darting out to capture each spot of spilled beer. "You're the second one today, then."

Donner's eyebrows arched even as his body tensed. "Second driver?" It would be like that devil Gruentorgle to double up, just to make sure the shipment got through. His way of kissing ass.

"No," the bartender said, shaking his head. "Second one bound for Mesquite."

Relief settled into his shoulders, relaxing them. He drained off the last of the tepid beer and clinked the bottle down on the counter. Mesquite was an out of the way town, squatting on the edge of the Eighth Ring, secluded from the rest of the desmesne by the Kuorouac Mountains.

A shrieker, safely outside the circle of protection, blasted the wall, its wail rattling the glasses that stood like a smudged, empty army along the shelf. Down the line of the bar, a shit-miner shook his head. "Out in force tonight," he said to no one in particular.

Winter nights meant shriekers and howlers through-out the Ring. Up north, along the inner edge, they called them shredders -- their voice could flay a man, twist metal, unless protected by ward or sanctuary. Donner had seen their work and come close to being their work one too many times. He'd pulled in to The Last Leg well before sundown, spending a solid hour checking and re-checking his spells and his rig.

"You'll want a room then?"

He nodded. "Private, if you got it." At the little toad's scowl, he reached deep into his pocket and bypassed the gold coins for the carved stick. He held it out to the bartender, who blanched as he recognized the marks.

"Gruentorgle, eh? Yeah, private's fine. No problem." He scribbled the name down on a credit-slip and produced a key with the carbon copy. "Got my last one. Check-out's at ten."

"I'm gone once they shut up." He nodded at the wall, which rattled again in answer as the noise outside reached a crescendo. He needed to hit Jessolm Pass just after dawn to be in Mesquite before dark. Then, spend a night in luxury at one of those fancy hotels they boasted, and make his delivery next morning before heading back. A shame, but a job's a job.

He stood and stretched out the road-knots that bound his legs and arms. A dull ache in the small of his back urged him toward the stairs, knowing a bed was near. "Well, I'll catch you on my way back through."

The bartender winked. "Not like there's much choice."

That's when Donner saw the girl for the first time and wondered how he'd missed her before. She sat in the corner, quietly sipping a Merlot, watching him. Beside her stood a battered mountain bike and a backpack. He smiled and she smiled back.

Why not, he thought. Ignoring exhaustion, Donner picked his way through the uncrowded bar. The dim light hit her in a way that made her pale skin glow, and as her head turned to follow his approach, candle-light glinted off her long dark hair. She had a nose-ring, gold and very subtle. He liked it.

"'Lo," she said.

"Howdy." He nodded at the bike. "You ride that in?"

Her smile broadened, showing teeth. Her eyes, deep and gray, flashed in amusement. "Yeah."

His own grin grew. "Liar."

Her eyes, now suddenly blue, widened and he could see she fought not to smile as she faked insult. "I never lie."

Donner leaned in. "You just did. Name's Jeb. Jeb Donner." He stuck out a hand and she took it, her grip cool and firm. He waited a moment, not wanting to release her. "And you are?"

She shrugged. "When I know, I'll tell you."

New arrival, then, maybe. Or just playing games.

"Can I buy you a drink?" Standing over her he could see down the neck of her shirt, see the two perfect globes of white disappearing too soon into her sports bra.

"Already have one."

"Can I sit down?"

She raised her eyebrows expectantly. "Sure. I was just leaving."

"Leaving? So soon?"

She stood, stretching, arms up over her head. Nearly as tall as he was, she stood near him, the smell of her sweat a perfume to his nose. The air around her seemed cooler and it washed over him. His eyes followed her long legs, the line of her neck, the curve of her ears. Easily half his age, he realized. She brushed by him to grab her pack. "'Night, Driver," she said as her hip lingered, pressed into his groin. Then, she slipped up the stairs.

Something rooted him where he stood, mouth-open, memory of her touch alive on him, running the length of his body.

"Goodnight," he said. But she was already gone. Behind him, the bartender and the others at the bar laughed.

The bartender laughed loudest. "Don't you think we already tried?"

His eardrums told him when the bedlam outside died out, and he crawled to wakefulness reluctantly. Pulling on his levis, Jeb Donner thought about the girl with no name. She'd intruded into his dreams and they'd swum together in a deep, cold lake, naked beneath a night sky that was safe and speckled with stars, their noses filled with the scent of pine needles. Their ears filled with music. A nice dream, and the only one he could remember...ever. He wanted to see her again.

He stepped into his boots and headed down the stairs, his shirt unbuttoned and hanging open. The temperature had already climbed, despite the darkness that wrapped the saloon. When he saw the empty room and the lights out in the kitchen Donner cursed himself for forgetting to have his thermos filled the night before. It would be a long haul without coffee.

Someone had already unbarred the door, he saw, and another glance revealed the missing bike. Already gone, wherever it was she rode, crazy kid. Beautiful. But crazy.

He stepped out beneath the beginnings of a gray sky, pulling the door shut behind him. His Kenworth stood isolated in the asphalt lot, just this side of the safe-mark. Chips and dents stood out down the long, black tanker-trailer where the night-things had tried their best but the runes, painted in florescent green, had held. Grinning, he circled the truck twice to be sure and climbed into the cab.

He fired her up, the engine's roar sending shudders through him. Once she purred, he hit the switch and watched his gas gauge climb. Half his trailer was fuel, half cargo space; it was the only way to travel the wastes. While the truck warmed, he twisted and thrust himself half into the dis-used sleeper behind the seats. Rummaging around, his hand closed around an unopened Coke. He popped the top and poured the caramel-colored liquid into his mouth, feeling its aluminum-tinted warmth on his tongue. He checked his short-barreled Remington pump and his road map. Time to fly.

He gave the horn a farewell blast and rumbled out of the parking lot, onto the Eastbound highway. Beneath his headlights the road stretched out, rutted, strewn with sand and tumbleweeds. Gruentorgle had told him it was clear; he never lied about the road -- he lacked scruples in some areas, but the shipment to Mesquite was paramount. They were one of the last plague-free townships on the Ring's edge, and Baal wanted the delivery through pronto.

The first hour crept by, the sun slipping upwards in a brilliant scarlet ball that swallowed the western sky behind him. Its light poured out thick over the scrub and rock-strewn wasteland, glinting back from the twisted, shredded metal of burned-out cars out too late.

Watching the sun in his mirrors, Jeb didn't see the bike until he was nearly on top of it--

--and he locked up the brakes, his lap scalded by the hot coffee and his throat suddenly seized with panic.

Oh fuck oh shit oh fuck, he thought as the neighborhood slipped by in slow motion and the little girl on the pink bike grew closer and closer. He spun the wheel and the rig turned in its skid, tires screaming. He heard the metallic crunch, the wet thud beneath the tractor--

--and the bike disappeared with a clatter, bouncing out behind the trailer. He wrestled the Kenworth to a stop and fumbled the door open, falling onto the hot asphalt. His body shook uncontrollably with the sudden memory and he lay there, body coated in a sheen of suddenly cold sweat, mouth filled with the taste of gun-oil and carbon.

A pair of bare legs appeared in his line of sight and he followed them up, past the shorts, traveled over the small breasts jutting out from a cotton T-shirt, climbed the long, slender neck and finally settled on a mouth that didn't know whether to smile or frown.

"Looks like you wrecked my bike, Driver," the girl who had no name said with her hands on her hips. "Guess you're my ride to Mesquite, now."

It felt alien, her there in the truck beside him, hugging her knees to herself and looking out the passenger window. Donner found himself constantly willing his eyes back onto the road, occasionally treating himself to a sideways glance.

He held the rig at ninety, watching the line of mountains disappearing behind them in the mirrors. The sun stood over them now, filling the canopy of the sky with shimmering heat that penetrated the metal with an oppressive brutality. Waves distorted the highway and desert, casting the illusion of water puddles just beyond reach.

They'd rode in silence the better part of the trip over the pass. Now on a straight shot for Mesquite, Donner felt more conversational. "I'm sorry about your bike."

"Yeah. Doesn't matter. I shouldn't have left it in the middle of the road." The bike was a tangled ruin of aluminum and rubber; they left it on the shoulder. She shrugged and he caught it from the corner of his eye. "I had to pee. Should've taken it with me."

"You really ride it all that ways?" It made no sense to him -- seven hundred miles lay between The Last Leg and the closest city. And a good hundred miles between the saloon and where he'd hit her bike. The math made no sense.

"Yeah. I left around midnight. It's cooler then." She said it with a matter-of-fact voice as if it were no big deal. "Got about twenty miles per hour."

Midnight. No way. He looked over at her, eyes narrow. Twenty miles per hour? Maybe; she looked strong. "You're kidding, right? You hitched or something."

She shook her head. "No. I rode."

"But the shriekers?" She didn't answer. After a minute slipped by he decided to change the subject. "So what's in Mesquite for you?"

"Not sure. I just know I need to go there." He stole a look; she stared at the horizon, eyes seeming far away. Like a lost child, he thought. "What about you, Driver?"

"Delivery."

"Delivering what?"

A delicate question. He didn't know how much to say, particularly in the light of her newness to this Ring. And she seemed so young. How did he explain Baal's peculiar means of widening his sphere of lordship? He decided to take the direct route. "Plague."

"Plague?" Disgust and surprise flavored her voice. "Why?"

"I just drive it there," he told her. "I don't ask questions."

"Maybe you should."

He looked back to the road, avoiding her penetrating stare. Her eyes flashing and amber. "It's just how it works. It's my job. I deliver the goods. A month, maybe two months later they're ready to bargain."

"Bargain?"

"Yeah. Ready to do whatever it takes to get the vaccine." He risked a glance back to her. She sat frozen, eyes locked onto him. "Look," he said, "don't kill the delivery-driver if you don't like the package."

"You're a monster."

"You ever have the plague?" Meanness rode his voice, twisting his mouth into a sneer. She shook her head. "Well, I have. It isn't pretty. You itch, then you break open in sores. The stink is awful and you lay there in the pus and blood while your skin cracks and cracks and the worms twist themselves out of you." Her eyes went wild and her mouth suddenly bulged, a small hand coming up to press her lips shut. He cursed and slid the truck to a halt, waited while she threw up out of the open door, then started them rolling again.

"Sorry," he said. "Sometimes the job just gets to me. Sometimes--

--shit just happens as casual as a cup of McDonald's coffee spilling in your lap and a little girl going underneath your truck. You're only doing forty but it's enough. And she lays there, twitching and calling for her Mommy or her Daddy or her Sissy to save her, to help her, to take her home and everything fucking falls apart around you--

--I just kind of snap." He shook his head, swallowing the acrid taste in his mouth. Again, the intrusion, like a fist, left him disillusioned. Foreign memories. His memories. Twice in one day.

"You okay?"

Donner realized he hadn't accelerated, hadn't shifted. Just let his foot off the pedal. The truck lurched to a halt. He looked at her. "No. Guess not."

This time, he threw up, his stomach twisted around the memories of a time before this.

Three hundred miles out of Mesquite the temperature gauge shot into the red and Donner pulled to the side. The girl lay curled in the sleeper, eyes closed, lips moving. "Better wake up," he said. "We've got trouble."

The sun hung dangerously low and already the wind whipped across the desert floor. He dropped lightly to the road and went to the front of the rig, climbing onto the bumper to pop the massive hood with one hand. He smelled the antifreeze burning on the engine block and traced the radiator hose to the point where it had burst. A quick fix.

The girl climbed out of the truck. "We okay?"

"Will be." He brushed past her, reaching under his seat for his tool kit. Inside, he found the duct tape. He'd started out with a spare hose, but had traded it to another trucker for a half-case of Valvoline three days before. He climbed back under the hood and wrapped the hole, burning his fingers and forearms in the process. Then, he unclamped a water-can from the side of the rig and up-ended the contents into the steaming radiator. "Time to go." His watch showed less than ten minutes lost, but what had been a comfortable cushion of time was now whittled away. The tape wouldn't hold at the speeds he'd counted on.

They made fifty miles before the tape gave out and he re-wrapped, this time using twice the amount. The sun squatted on the horizon ahead of them and his eyes went from it to the odometer. "We're not going to make it."

Night settled on them and he fired up the headlights. The engine ran hot and Donner kept the speed under sixty now; the roll of tape looked suspiciously thin after two more stops. A knot grew in his stomach and he glanced at the girl. Her face, limned in the dashboard glow, rested against the passenger window, eyes open and dreaming. As the wind picked up, a keening wail came to his ears from far away, answered by another, closer shriek. He looked back to the road. They came, relentlessly, and he wished he'd never traded that hose away.

Suddenly, the cab filled with hot dry air and the outside noise slapped him harder. She'd rolled the window down.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

She looked at him, a strange light in her eyes. A smile played at the corners of her mouth and it opened, round and inviting. He waited for her to speak, but she didn't. She sang instead.

The song sounded familiar but he couldn't place it. From a long time ago, he realized, a song about love and bridges laying down and silver girls sailing on, shining in their time. A song about night and darkness falling and pain all around, so sang the girl who had no name. The quietness of her voice ran fingers along his arms and he shuddered, blinking through tears. "What...what song is that? What does it mean?" She didn't answer, just kept pouring the melody past her lips.

That's when he realized that the keening outside had stopped entirely. And that the road before them had taken on a surreal glow.

"You're doing this?" She nodded, smiling. Just like in the song, he felt the easing of his mind.

She pointed at a turn-out just ten miles from Mesquite's closed gates and Donner down-shifted to a stop. She still sang, and in a daze, he followed her as she left the truck. He walked close behind her, watching the world change around them as they followed a path into a desert that slowly unfolded into forest. The sand became lush green grass and she stretched a hand back to clasp his and draw him up beside her. Then, she stopped singing and the silence wrapped them as completely as the grove of pines. His breath caught in his throat when he saw the lake.

"There now," she said. "It should hold until morning."

"You...." He didn't know how to finish the sentence.

"Me." She stifled a giggle. Then, she peeled away her T-shirt and shrugged out of her bra. The denim shorts fell to the ground and she came into his arms, kicking off her shoes awkwardly. She was cool to touch, soft and smooth. Her mouth sought his, her tongue slipping past the guard of his teeth. She tasted like cinnamon, and he resisted at first when she pulled away. "Last one in is a loser," she said and raced for the water.

Pulling off his clothes, he followed.

"It wasn't Mesquite I was looking for," she said. "It was you."

They lay naked in the grass, staring up at a star-scattered sky that grayed toward dawn. They'd made love all night, in the water, on the ground, moving to the rhythm of an unsung, remembered melody. They'd finished two hours ago and lain in one another's arms, silently drinking in the cool air.

Donner propped himself up on an elbow and looked at her. She suddenly seemed so far away. "Me?" She nodded, her hand absently tracing its way up his thigh, across the fuzz of his stomach. He shivered. "I don't understand."

"How did you come here, Jeb? Do you remember?"

He swallowed. Again, the taste of gun oil filled his mouth, the distant memory of wrapping his mouth around a cold, nickel plated barrel. His stomach lurched. "I...I killed a girl," he said. "With my truck. A long time ago." He considered saying more, then stopped and changed the subject. "What about you? Do you remember?"

"Yes," she said. Her hands paused their slow crawl over him. "I came here for you. To tell you Hell doesn't have to be what it's been for you."

He opened his mouth, but she stopped his question with a hand, then a kiss. She rolled onto him, pinned him down with her light, cool body. "Let's do it again," she said against his neck.

They did, and she lay on top of him for a long while afterward. Donner fell toward sleep, her body a blanket over his own. How long had it been since he'd needed a blanket? How long since he'd swum in ice-cold water or made love underneath the stars? Some part of him remembered that he had, long ago. But the memories hid in shadows too thick to penetrate. Drowsiness pulled at him, his breathing matching hers as his hands slipped from her waist. Bending her face to his ear, she whispered, barely discernible: "She was my sister. Her name was Hope."

He awoke in the desert, not far from his truck, naked and alone.

Stiff, sore and shaken he dressed, climbed into the cab and rolled that last ten miles into Mesquite. Then, he bought a radiator hose, put it on, and left without making his delivery. He dumped the trailer at the summit of Jessolm Pass and nudged it over the edge with the nose of his tractor, watching it bounce and turn and tumble as it fell. His truck-driving days would be over now. Baal's first lieutenant, Gruentorgle, would send him back to the Ninth Ring, but it didn't matter any more.

He reached The Last Leg just past dark and left his truck unwarded and unlocked. Ignoring the noise-storm that grew on the night air, he pushed through the double doors and looked in the corner where she'd sat. Empty. But he'd known it would be. She didn't belong here. She'd come for him, eased his mind with her song, moved on. Back home now in a place of cool lakes and bright stars, he thought, with her message delivered. Hell would never be same.

The bartender grinned at him from behind the counter. "Wanna beer? Corona, right?" The bottle clinked onto the counter as the gnollish man winked at him and ran a hand across his brow. "Hot as hell tonight, eh Driver?" Chuckling, he moved up the bar, rag sucking up the moisture like a demon drinking souls.

Donner didn't laugh, simply took a pull of the warm beer. The joke didn't seem funny anymore, and he opened his mouth to say so. Instead, he started to sing the girl's song in a rich baritone voice he didn't remember having. Inside, the temperature dropped. Outside, a small part of Hell became silent and still.

The End