All Fall Down. Mark Edwards

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      Prologue: Patient Zero

      California

      John Tucker sneezed violently, jerking the steering wheel to the left, the car swerving and almost clipping the median strip. A truck rumbled past in the outside lane, its horn blaring deep and low, and John raised his middle finger and shouted a curse that nobody could hear.

      He was twenty-eight years old and had nothing. No woman, no job, no apartment and no money – apart from the five hundred bucks Cindy had given him.

      He’d met her in Hollywood, only a few days ago, though it felt like weeks. He had just spent the last of his money on a night in that sleazy pit, the Capitol Hotel. On that hot summer’s evening he’d been contemplating a night on the streets unless something miraculous happened.

      John had been sitting in a bar, the last of his cash gone on a beer that was warm from where he’d been nursing it so long, staring down at the tabletop, his long greasy hair blocking out the world. He became aware of a presence by the table and a female voice. ‘Mind if I join you?’

      She was beyond beautiful. Long dark brown hair, a heart-shaped face, hypnotic eyes. She was wearing a leather biker jacket over a white T-shirt that hugged her breasts. He managed to croak, ‘Sure.’

      She sat down opposite him. ‘Thanks.’ Her voice was soft and southern, from someplace like Alabama or Georgia. ‘I’m Cindy.’

      ‘Are you an angel?’ he asked.

      And she’d laughed, the sweetest laugh he’d ever heard.

      ‘Well …’ was all she said.

      That night, during which she bought him several beers, shrugging off his half-hearted protests, he told her his pathetic story. About coming to LA to be a rock star, about how the band never took off and his bandmates had either drifted into regular employment or embraced drugs and booze, leaving him to his own addiction.

      Not alcohol. Not smack. No, he got dizzy from the spin of the roulette wheel, the whirl of the slots, the roll of the dice. The weekend after the band finally broke up, he’d taken off to Vegas and hadn’t surfaced until he’d lost everything, emerging in a daze into the desert heat without a cent left to his name.

      It had been the same for years. Everything he earned, he threw away in Vegas, driving to Nevada with that sick feeling deep inside him, the itch he had to scratch. But Lady Luck never favoured him. She’d tease him, sure, then snatch it all away.

      He told Cindy all this, his eyes stinging with the shame of it, and she reached across the table and stroked the back of his hand with long gold-painted fingernails. Her own eyes were wide and shining with compassion, but she kept smiling.

      ‘You can be saved, John Tucker,’ she said. ‘All you need to do is open your heart.’ She squeezed his hand and leaned forward, dipped her face coyly and looked up at him through her lashes. ‘Will you come with me, John? I feel like you shouldn’t be alone tonight.’

      They had left the Capitol Hotel bar around midnight. In the parking lot, John had whistled when Cindy opened the door of a gleaming white Porsche Cayman. He moved to open the passenger door but Cindy shook her head. ‘Take your car and follow. Don’t worry, I’m gonna to take it nice and slow.’

      The way she looked at him as she said this made him wobbly with lust.

      He’d followed her for two whole hours along the highway until, finally, she’d pulled up to the gates of a large house. All the lights were off so he couldn’t see well with only starlight to go by, but it looked like some kind of ranch house. The kind of place he’d expect a woman who drove a Porsche to live.

      She opened the gates and he followed her through. When the cars drew to a standstill all he could hear was the throbbing of crickets and his own heartbeat. Cindy opened the door of his car and leaned inside, putting her hands behind his head. He thought she was going to pull him into a kiss. Instead, she tied a blindfold around his eyes.

      ‘What’s this?’ he asked, excited.

      ‘Shush …’ She took him by the hand and led him across a crunchy path and into the house. All was silent. She steadied him as she led him up a staircase, then he heard a door open with the faintest creak, then shut behind them.

      ‘Can I take this off now?’ he asked.

      She put her finger to his lips. He tried to put his arms around her, to grab her butt and press himself against her, but she slipped out of his embrace like a wisp of smoke.