We passed a few miles in silence, then I looked down and saw something that eclipsed every horrible thing that had happened so far. The tattoo of my son’s name – the one along my vena amoris – had been inked over with three sixes. Part of me was still clinging to hope that this was all some elaborate prank. Not anymore. No one sane would consider this a joke. I balled my vandalized hand into a fist. Squeezed until it hurt.

“You see them before they left?” I asked. “Rox, Cassie?”

He shook his head. “No, she just called. Said she was leaving and why. Asked if I’d watch the house. Wait for you to come home. Assuming you would. Left those pictures for you to find, I guess.”

We had a couple of hours before we hit the roads leading up into the Smoky Mountains. Plenty of time to think. Too bad my pickled brain was operating at half capacity. Busy burying dead brain cells and consoling the bereaved. I didn’t have the luxury of idle relaxation, though. I had to get ahead of this thing, quick. I was already so far behind.

“How much of what I’ve told you do you believe?” I asked, expecting to hear ‘none’.

Unlike me, Al takes time to think before he speaks. As a result, he rarely has to apologize for something he says. “I’m still working that out,” he said. “But, for now, let’s assume that everything you told me is true.”

“I’ll take that as a starting place,” I said. I thought about showing him my defaced tattoo, but that type of self-sabotage wouldn’t be completely out of character for me while wasted. It proved little. “The question is, when will it end?”

“And you’d never met any of these people before?”

I borrowed a page from Al’s playbook, leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and remained quiet while reflecting on the faces I’d seen. The first image I saw was the puckered scar traversing Solomon’s neck. My eyes snapped open. “Let me borrow your phone,” I said.

Al dug it out of his front pocket and handed it to me. There was a time I knew the phone numbers for close to twenty people. Now I don’t even remember my own. But Solomon had requested a vanity number, DEAD RISING, and that was hard to forget. I dialed it and waited, certain he’d ignore the call due to the unrecognized number, but he answered on the third ring.

“Holy shit, Solomon!” I said.

I’m not sure what I expected, but not laughter. Certainly not the cold, humorless laughter I was hearing now. “Ah, the new initiate. You having a good time?”

“Jesus Christ, man. You knew this shit would happen? What the hell is going on?”