No Justice, No Peace
by S. C. Mills
7 minutes reading time (1,650 words)
Originally published in Elegant Literature #038: Dear Death [ebook]
Reprinted in Twisted Horrors: A Queer Horror Anthology [paperback]
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The low summer sun transforms the hundreds of shiny cars into a sea of mirrors, searing Luis’s eyes. His toes are cooking, too, as the asphalt beneath his trusty huaraches cedes the day’s heat. Hands behind his back, he ambles around the used car lot, studying price tags, performing for security cameras. Hoping the hot day excuses the nervous sweat on his brow. Or hoping he just looks shy, like he’s checking out the inventory after-hours to avoid pushy sales guys.
But Luis isn’t browsing. He’s been itching to get his fingers on a specific cobalt-blue Silverado for a psychic once-over since the hit-and-run during last summer’s protests. Eyewitnesses got the plates, but the owner, Eric Hughes, had already reported the truck stolen and given a tight alibi. Nobody saw the driver. A year later, the cops admitted defeat—they released the vehicle from impound just a few days ago. Unfortunately for Luis, it went straight back to Hughes’s locked garage.
When—not if—the cops drop the ball, Luis is always there to pick it back up. Personal, familial experience has taught him if he doesn’t investigate certain crimes, no one will. So he staked out the truck owner’s house, watching the family of four going everywhere on Earth in their other luxury cars. Thankfully, only a few days later, Hughes sold it.
Luis can’t exactly fault the guy. Car’s haunted. Course he wants rid of it.
Now, Luis strolls past a dozen Silverados, tapping tires with his bare toe. Trying to look like he could afford some barely used fancy-ass truck. Fresh crew cut, itchy polo. Ugly cargo shorts.
Luis taps the last car and feels it—that sideways-slip in his sight, the ground twisting under him—symptoms that say an object’s got history. Sometimes, like this time, it’s the murder weapon that’s itching to snitch, by way of a vision of the victim’s last moments. But his gift’s also triggered by touching a person’s most precious possessions—anything that might be sheltering a bit of somebody’s soul. The first time, when he touched his twin sister’s metronome and saw what really happened between her and her cop husband, he was horrified and shocked into a depressive spiral. A couple years and several confused therapists later, and this is all just part of his work, his calling. Not personal.
He lets the car’s story suck him in, crashing a hallucination down around him.
He’s still at the dealership, but he also stands in the middle of an empty interstate on a starless night, on an overpass deep downtown. The highway is a vision, layered above the used car lot’s reality. The real daytime sun still burns behind a charcoal-gray haze, like he’s looking at it through sunglasses on a cloudy winter day. Seeing both scenes at once is dizzying enough; smelling them both is even worse. The sulfurous smell of the lot’s hot asphalt collides with the familiar black pepper and burnt onions scent of tear gas. His nose stings and his eyes water. This time, it’s only the phantom remnants of that chemical of war. Thank God for small favors. He caught enough lungfuls of the real stuff for a lifetime last June.
“No justice, no peace!”
Chanting protestors, arms linked together, stretch five rows deep across the highway. A wall of armored cops, batons crossed over shields, hold their own silent line nearby.
Luis stands in the middle, caught between them, heart thumping hard. Stupid body still can’t tell the difference between vision and reality. He puts out a shaking hand, fingers sliding over the Silverado’s hot vinyl price stickers. Reminds himself he’s here, in the empty car lot. This nightmare is over and done. Beyond his control.
Besides, he’s got enough trouble in the present day. The security guys behind the dealership’s cameras will only let him linger, touching cars and acting crazy, for so long. He’s landed one trespassing charge already while pursuing his passion for extrajudicial justice. Luis searches the crowd for the doomed soul whose unfinished business drew him here: Jordan Davis. College student and barista, aged twenty-two. Tall. Deep brown skin. Short brown curls.
The one person present that night who didn’t walk away.
The same pickup that’s under his fingers now is also barreling onto the highway in the past. It emerges from the unblocked off-ramp, behind the protest line. Three tons of fast-moving steel cut through the superimposed ocean of used cars, a streak of deadly cobalt amid lines of lifeless, grayed-out machines.
“No justice, no peace!”
Brave protesters hold the line, still chanting, their voices warbled and weakened by the distance of a psychic vision. The car accelerates, engine roaring. Some people break and run. Moments later they all do—cops too—screaming and racing for the highway’s shoulder. Luis’s stomach twists with the sure knowledge that the worst part’s yet to come. He slumps onto the truck, helpless, nauseated, as the wet crunch of tires over a body reveals to him where Jordan made their stand—
“THIS LOT IS CLOSED. PLEASE VACATE THE PREMISES.” A loudspeaker in the present, attached to the car lot’s security cameras, crackles out a warning. Startled, Luis leaps off the truck, nearly losing contact.
His forearm swipes across his eyes, wiping away tears. From the gas, of course. He’s seen too many deaths this way to be crying over one more. Right? He refocuses on the ghost Silverado, squinting at the driver.
Time to get what he came for.
The truck accelerates straight toward him, dirty blue hood and white-chrome bumper smeared red. Luis takes a deep breath. He concentrates only on the past, the speeding truck, and what he wants it to do. It’s his vision, so he’s in control—the ghost-scape freezes. He stares into the cab. The driver is college-aged, bald, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace, bloodshot eyes wide. A picture of rage.
And familiar.
The truck owner’s adult son, one of the family of four: Simon Hughes. Luis is certain. He must’ve seen the guy a dozen times while watching the family house.
The loudspeakers crackle again. “SECURITY ALERT. PLEASE VACATE THE PREMISES. WE HAVE NOTIFIED THE POLICE.”
“Shit,” he mutters. “Shit.” The game’s up. Cops’ll be twisting his arms behind his back again any minute. His shoulder twinges with an echo of pain from last summer, his last time in handcuffs.
But he can’t run. Not yet. He ducks down, looking under Hughes’s truck, then bends his upper body to see around it. His mission isn’t over, not until—
“Who the hell are you?” A clear treble voice rumbles through the haze of night-over-day, vision-over-reality. “Wait—where are you?”
Jordan appears next to the trunk in a bloody tank top and loose ripped jeans. A crushed gas mask dangles from their broken arm. With every step forward, their spine slips and twists, exposed bone splintering against bone. They survey the frozen protestors, giving no sign of pain. Above them, the present-day sun still burns, low and dark, over the parking lot.
“Are we…” Disbelief creeps into their voice. “At a car dealership?”
“Yep.” This is usually Luis’s favorite part of his gift, when he has more time to chat. Ghosts say the wildest shit. “Weird story. No time to explain. Sorry. I’m Luis. You’re a ghost now. Uh, you know that, right?”
Jordan looks down at themself. “Pretty fucking obvious, isn’t it?”
Most of them know right away, but Luis’s sister didn’t. He had to be the one to tell her.
Jordan limps directly through the row of Silverados to stand with him. “So that’s the guy?”
Luis nods. “Simon Hughes here lives with his parents up on Western and Eighty-Ninth. Green house, white door, giant-ass tree out front. Corner lot.”
“Why’re you telling me this? I’m too dead to do shit about it.” Jordan’s eyes narrow. “Wait. You’re not calling the cops on him.”
“Hell no. I—”
“Wait. I’m sorry. You wouldn’t, would you.” Jordan swipes blood out of their eyes and squints at him, or maybe past him. “You’re Camila Arcia’s brother, aren’t you?”
Luis’s heart drops into his stomach, which threatens to evict it along with his dinner. “You can see her? She’s back again?” He spins around, stands on tip-toes to look over the car’s hood. Nothing.
“Oh, no. So sorry, dude. Only saw you guys on the news. Chanted her name. You know.” Jordan winces. “She looked a lot like you.”
“Right.” Luis’s ears burn hotter than the asphalt. Stupid of him. His twin got what she needed and chose to move on. “I get it. But I—”
The sharp wail of real, present-day sirens cuts the air. They both flinch.
“—absolutely gotta run.” Luis trails a hand along the truck, keeping contact while backing away. He chides himself to stay on task. “But listen: You’re corporeal again. Kinda. So, you can do shit about this guy. Shake walls, throw dishes, scare people. Worse, if you want. You know. Ghost shit.”
“So I’ve got powers.” Jordan’s forehead wrinkles. “What are the limits? What all can I do?”
“So far, it’s varied from person to person.” Luis shrugs his good shoulder. “Seems like it depends on what you need to do, and it lasts until you decide to move on. Or until you get the justice you deserve.”
Jordan frowns. They look at their hands, then thrust their clenched fist through the car door beside them at ignition height. They tilt their head, twist their arm, and yank up. The truck shudders to life, barely audible under the scream of approaching sirens.
“Go. I’ll distract the cops.” A grim smile lights up Jordan’s blood-smeared face. “I think I get it. No justice…”
“No peace.” Luis salutes Jordan, then the cameras. Job done, he takes off, weaving among parked cars, sandals pounding asphalt.
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