Wolf Flow by K. W. Jeter Page A

the building's glass door at the bottom, she could see the Corvette waiting at the curb.
        

NINE
        
        Doot left the guy lying on the floor of the old clinic's lobby, wrapped up in the blankets he'd had to fetch back in from the building's porch.
        "I gotta go now." Doot slid the water bottle and the Pepsi and what was left of the food closer to the man, then stood up. I'll be back in the morning, see how you're doing. Okay?"
        The other nodded weakly, his head barely moving. He hadn't opened his eyes in all the time Doot had been half carrying, half walking him back into the building.
        He watched the man for a moment longer, the slight, quick motion of the chest rising and falling. Then he reached down and switched off the flashlight sitting on the floor. The lobby's walls vanished into darkness. He turned and headed for the moonlit outline of the door.
         What the fuck have I gotten myself into ? Doot beat himself over the head with the question as the motorbike sped as best it could down the road. He'd left his denim jacket buttoned around the injured man, and now the night's chill tore through the thin cotton of his shirt. It was more than the night that shivered goosebumps up his arms. Now that he had time to think-riding the bike at night always drew out his thoughts-there was also time to get spooked.
        He didn't even know who the fuck this guy was. He'd thought he'd heard a woman's voice coming over the pay phone's line, calling him Mike-that was all. Whatever the guy's name was, he was in deep shit. If Doot's father hadn't found him, the guy would already have sunk in the shit, and the brown waves would be rolling over his head. That was what worried Doot: if somebody had wanted this Mike character dead, then they probably wouldn't be too happy to find out he was still alive. And they wouldn't be too friendly with anybody who was helping him stay alive.
         You idiot . He squinted into the cold wind. What a fuckin' mess-he'd already gotten himself into it far enough that he didn't see how he could pull his foot out. If he just left the guy out there, and didn't go back again… Maybe, maybe not. The guy couldn't have dragged his ass all the way out to that old clinic building by himself, not the way he was beat up. Somebody would've had to have helped him. And if the people who'd beat the crap out of this Mike were still around, or came back, they might want to know who the local good Samaritans were. Which would mean more shit, heavy shit, for Doot and his dad.
        He didn't even know why he'd stepped in it. Going out there and dropping off some food and water for the guy, like his dad had told him to-that was one thing. But strapping him onto the bike and hauling him all over the place, right on the road where any pair of headlights could have caught them… Jesus H. Christ . He must've been out of his flipping mind.
        That was the big problem with living out here in the middle of nowhere. It was something Anne, his buddy from school, was always talking about, why she'd been scheming since she was ten years old on how to get out of here. People got so stupid and bored in a dump like this-he could see Anne flailing about with her hands when she said it, making bored a two-syllable cry up to the ceiling of her bedroom-that they'd jump off a cliff, with a six-pack, every can opened, pressed up to their guzzling faces, just to break the monotony.
        He knew she was right. This was a great place to live, if all you ever wanted to do was get blasted out of your mind and pile your daddy's pickup into a telephone pole, with a Metallica tape cranking away in the dash.
        Look at the way he'd fallen right into doing whatever that guy had asked him to do. He'd already been able to see the deep shit coming in like a tide-you didn't have to be a fuckin' genius to figure these things out-and still he'd gone and done it. He bit his lip, shaking