by Jim McKenna
Could she be ill? Her body looked different. She was still firm and toned, but the muscles and sinews had taken on a raw, primitive feel. It was like she had gone from the sculpted look she craved to one of power and performance. Was that even possible? Ken knew a lot of health nuts and fitness freaks, and hell Cari was one of them for that matter. It was that look of health that seemed to have gone away, even if the fitness remained.
And there was the smell. More than once Ken caught a sort of animal reek around Cari. It was a meaty, carnivore smell. Her diet had changed, he knew that. She rarely ate anything now but meat. Was this a diet thing? Like Adkins? And didn’t Adkins dieters sometimes get a reek to their breath? Maybe.
Or perhaps she was pregnant. It could be. They had tried hard a few years ago but nothing came of it. And sometimes couples had success by accident after trying with all their might and failing. Lord knows they made love enough to make it happen.
The sex had changed, too. Cari had always been a clever, inventive lover. She had encouraged him to try many different games and fantasies, and she was always open to his suggestions. But lately all their sex was urgent and intense. There was none of the gentle coming together he loved more than anything else. When he came to her she grabbed him, consumed him, and rode him hard. She wanted to be taken, bent over and rutted.
And she bit now, too. Not little love nibbles but bites, and more than once she’d drawn blood. That was a bit much. And it was scary, too. The night before he left on this trip she danced for him in their bedroom, and she stripped then knelt between his knees. She was expertly blowing him as she’s done so many times when just as he climaxed she bit the tip of his penis. But that wasn’t all. She bit and then sucked the wounded tip hard. She had come up apologizing and laughing, but it was weird all the same.
Stranger still, she swallowed his cum.
Cari never did that. And later that night Ken dreamed he awoke in the night, and Cari was sitting in the corner across the room, her knees drawn up to her chin, and she stared at him with glowing yellow eyes.
Ken decided they should go away for awhile, and was making some space on his calendar for an overdue vacation. He felt bad being gone for the last week. This was the last time he would leave her for so long. He hoped so, anyway. Cari meant the world to him, and he didn’t want anything bad to happen just because he wasn’t paying attention.
Ken drove down the freeway past his hospital listening to local news, hoping to catch up on anything he missed. There was a heavy snow predicted for next week. Two big fires broke out in the same neighborhood. And some psycho freak killed another woman, this time near the western rail yard. That made four and the police were admitting to a serial killer.
Ken came off the freeway and onto the avenue and then into his gated community. He parked in the driveway, and headed for the door. Inside the house was quiet, but there was a smell. Ken wrinkled his nose and frowned. He walked through the main room into the kitchen.
His eyes went wide. His jaw dropped.
There was blood everywhere. Blood and meat. Blood and meat and bone. Matted fur and skin was tossed on the floor. The sink was full of pink and purple organs. And meat was cut and stacked on nearly every flat surface.
“Oh God! Cari! Cari?” Ken looked around frantically for his wife, and then he saw her through the backdoor. She stood in the yard, her back to him. He flung open the door and ran to her.
“Cari, oh my God! What happened? Are you -“
His words died on his lips. Raw terror took all of him and his bladder let go.
Whatever this was turned like a wolf, and with teeth bared charged him. Ken screamed, and the cleaver crashed through his skull all the way to his nose.
Melanie couldn’t wait any longer. She had to go in.
No one had heard from Cari or Ken for four days. Calls went unanswered. Knocks on the door ignored. Melanie didn’t have a key to get in. Finally after consulting with people from her father’s hospital Melanie called the police and requested a welfare check. She drove to the hospital and got keys to the house from Ken’s secretary. Then she drove to the house.
She saw the police cruisers driving up to the house as she got out of the car. She waved to them and walked to the door. The two officers, a man and a woman, got out of their prowlers and quick-stepped up behind her. They wanted to go in first but Melanie ignored them.
She opened the door and walked inside. The house looked normal. Then she froze. A sense of danger washed over her like a wave. And right behind that a horrible smell. She took three more steps in and the police came in behind her.
There was ragged breathing and a sort of growling from the great room to the right and Melanie stopped again, listening, her eyes wide with fear, unwilling to go any further.
It came from around the corner, stalking like a giant beast on two legs. The skin was covered with dried blood, and patterns were scratched into the filth on the thighs, arms and stomach. It was sinewy and naked and her hair, once long and bright gold was transformed into filthy dreadlocks caked with blood and gore. They flew out like whips as the creature that had once been Cari growled and snarled and whipped her head from side to side, and Melanie saw glowing yellow eyes in the feral face. In the right hand a huge cleaver flashed. Melanie saw two more knives impossibly attached to the thighs, held in place under the skin like living, bleeding sheaths.
The first policeman shoved Melanie out of the way, and shouting aimed his gun at the thing. His partner came up behind and she did the same. The beast crouched and charged and both officers fired dozens of rounds. Most took her in the chest and she went down immediately. The cleaver flew into the air and landed harmlessly on the floor.
The police were on the radios, shouting over their own deafness from the gunshots. Melanie stared in shock at Cari lying on the floor, the ropes of bloody hair whipped out under her like a fright wig. What had happened here? What had she done? Where was her father? Melanie reeled and turned away.
At her feet the cleaver lay on the flagstone floor. The broad blade bright and shining. The steel looked both cold and warm at once. The sight of it cut through her shock. To her it was beautiful there in this dark and horrible place. Melanie reached down for the blade.
“Please don’t touch that, Ma’am,” the female officer said. Melanie glanced at her and saw how she too was staring at the cleaver. Not looking at it, but staring, like Melanie was.
Ignoring her, Melanie knelt and picked up the cleaver. Her fingers wrapped around the handle and drew it into her palm.
There was a rush of cool air over her skin.
Melanie smiled.
Lot Lizards
1.
The woman walked from truck to truck in the darkness of the lot, and Brad watched her like he would a bird or a squirrel from a seat on a park bench. She had to be clever in her movements and watchful for just the right signs of interest from the few drivers who were seated behind the steering wheels of the semis. She found no takers in the row opposite Brad so she crossed to his row, and he knew she was making her way towards him.
This made Brad uncomfortable, because he did not like interactions with other people when those people wanted something from him. So he sat still, smoked, and made ready to do his part in the game. He would look down at his phone as she passed, making sure she knew that he wasn't watching her, even though he had been. And he guessed she knew already that he'd seen her. That was what lot lizards did after all.
But before she got to him she found a driver who'd talk to her. He was an old man in an old Kenworth parked right next to Brad’s Peterbilt, so that Brad could see both woman and driver out his passenger window. Every driver - not trucker but driver - knows to give a fellow driver his space and respect it. They’re all out there doing the same job, so everyone knows what another has to do and wants to do. And no one wants to be watched when things could go wrong.
It’s like when a driver is making a complicated back up maneuver in a busy truck sto
p lot. No one who is already parked is going to sit in his truck and watch the action. Or rather, there not going to let the guy making the back know he’s looking. Instead everyone will be there in their seats, and they’re all reading, writing in a logbook or looking at something on their phone. But take a closer look and you’ll see that everyone is really watching, peeking up now and then to see what might go wrong. And what applies to backing a truck in a tight spot applies equally to picking up a lot girl, or lizard as their known. So you are not supposed to be caught looking, but everyone is watching a rough back in a tight spot, so to speak. And so Brad watched without seeming to as the woman talked to the man.
First he thought the old guy was keeping distance from her. She was still on the ground and had not climbed on the steps to talk easier through the window. Then he saw that both smoked, and both were smoking the same kind of long cigarette. So she’d bummed one from him and that got the thing started. Brad had a much better view of her now that she was so close. She was surprisingly pretty for a lot lizard, who always look pretty bad. A black woman, in her late thirties he guessed, with a slim build and nice legs and ass. Her face looked rough and tired but not eaten up from drugs as was so common. The man, he was old, he wore a wife beater and his skin was pale. He had a round, seamed face and a puff of snowy white hair around a pink bald head.
Brad was waiting for his co-driver, a fellow employee of H. P. Wheatley Trucking named Danny. Brad picked up Danny at the Wheatley terminal in Phoenix few hours ago. The two of them were on a recovery run to get an abandoned truck. Brad was a solo driver. So was Danny. Neither of them wanted to be stuck in a team truck with another driver. This was put out there as a favor and it was hard to refuse.
Brad had come in to the terminal yard after delivering to an electronics warehouse in west Phoenix. He had a message to come in and talk to dispatch when he arrived. He kept the empty trailer attached to his Pete and went in. The room was cool and bright. Strong coffee bubbled in a pot by the door and he helped himself to a cup. Macy sat behind the desk and gave him a warm smile, making sure he had a nice view of her ample cleavage as he stood at the counter. Macy always did that, and Brad figured she liked the appreciative gazes of all the lonely drivers coming in there though the week. He'd never once seen her without a low cut top. He asked for Eric, his dispatcher, and she called him to the office.
Eric was fat, like most all men in the trucking business. He was also nearly a foot taller than Brad and always had a harried, tired look about him. They didn't see each other very much. Brad only got in to the terminal once a month or so and sometimes that was at odd hours. They got right to it.
“We got an abandoned truck up in Maine”, Eric said. “The driver I guess he quit or something and the truck is parked there in some abandoned lot. We got a call from Maine State Police and we told them we'd send someone to get it. I want to send Danny Freed and I need to you drive him there. I’ll bonus you for it, plus you can team drive and you can have all the miles. You know Danny?”
“Sort of,” Brad said. “We met when I got hired and I know him to talk to him. He’s bringing the truck back here?”
“Yeah. I’ll get you a load out of Boston maybe. You okay with this? You got the hours?”
Brad nodded. “Happy to help,” he'd said.
He caught a little more movement to his right and now the woman was in the driver seat of the truck. She was lighting another of the long cigarettes. He couldn't see the man. Brad looked out at the lot and saw Danny making his way across the lot, a duffle bag in one hand and a big coffee in the other. Danny was a big man, hard to miss with his enormous gut. He waddled his way to the truck and as he approached Brad slipped into the passenger seat. Danny would be taking over the driving, but that's not why Brad moved over. The fact was on 369 Peterbilt trucks the passenger doors did not open all the way due to the position of the air cleaners. Danny saw Brad move, adjusted his trajectory and opened the door.
“Ready to roll, man?” Danny boomed as he climbed inside to the cab.
“Yep. How was the shower?” Brad asked. He saw Danny’s hair was still wet and combed back from his forehead. He smelled of Old Spice.
“Good. Let me get settled in and we can take off.”
The truck rocked as Danny made his way into the sleeper berth to put away his stuff and then back out again. He got back in, logged into the computerized logbook, and they started. Just before they pulled away Brad checked once more out his window. The woman, the lot lizard, now stood in the space between the seats facing the curtains to the back. She looked around indifferently, and for a second Brad wondered what she was doing when he saw two old arms with gray hair reach out from the sleeper and stroke her legs and ass, rubbing and feeling her before retreating. The arms pulled back and Brad looked up at the woman, who was looking back at him. Danny pulled the truck out slowly, and as she was left behind Brad saw a thin sad smile on her lips, as she tiredly slipped through the berth curtains.
2.
“We got a load,” Danny said when he heard Brad moving around in the back.
Brad hadn’t slept well. He was a solo driver and not used to bedding down in a moving truck. To make things easier for the few days they would be in the together, Danny and Brad agreed to swap out bedding on the lower bed instead of moving around all the stuff Brad had stored in the upper deck. “A load? Is it on our way?”
“Yeah,” Danny called back. “St. Louis.”
Brad dressed, ate and brushed his teeth before opening the curtains and stepping into the front. They were near Amarillo, Texas. The sun was bright and Brad squinted against the glare. He cracked the window and sparked a Pall Mall.
Danny told him Eric called with a loaded trailer waiting in a lot in St. Louis and head for Boston. He said to get the trailer and take it with them to Maine, and deliver the load after they get the abandoned truck. “At least that helps ‘em pay for the recovery.”
It happened once in a while. A driver will have enough of the road, or one too many fights with dispatch and will just park the big rig and walk away. The last time Brad recovered an abandoned truck it was in Louisville, and in a bad part of the city. That time the driver had just vanished, and as far as Brad knew he was never heard from again.
“This truck that was abandoned,” Brad said, “did you know the driver?”
“I met him once or twice. Greg or Gary. It’s kinda weird, him bailing out. He was with the company for years.”
“Is he from Maine?”
“Dunno. Maybe he has family there. He lived out of the truck like you do.”
Like I do , Brad thought. Yep. That’s me.
Brad Foster had no actual home. His mailing and official address was the small San Antonio terminal for Wheatley Trucking. It wasn’t a good thing in Brad’s eyes, and it wasn’t a bad thing either. Somewhere along the line he stopped looking at life as good or bad, and he didn’t always know why.
Brad signed on to drive for Wheatley ten years ago. Up until that time truck driving was a fallback position for him. He first got his commercial driver license when he was twenty-five and paying his way through college delivering bread to grocery stores. A real nice lady who walked him through the process advised him that even if he never drove a big truck again, always keep the license current and Brad had done so. It proved a wise decision. Ten years later with the economy in crisis Brad got back behind the wheel.
It was tough at first. Living as an over the road driver is not for everyone. Wheatley hired him to drive two week runs with three days off in between. He would buy groceries to eat on and get in the truck with no idea where he was going until he made the dispatch call. During that time on the road everything he did became smaller. A closet reduced to a duffle bag. A bathroom became a shaving kit. A house became a small sleeper berth.
And Brad didn’t mind. He liked it. Brad was always a loner in the truest sense. He liked to have time to himself, not to do anything special but to just be by himself and enjoy hi
s own thoughts. Long haul driving is perfect for someone like that.
So Brad thrived while everything he built up until then withered and slipped away. His marriage was already over. His wife had collapsed under the stress of not enough money and too many fights and left him, taking her son from another marriage along with her. Brad moved out into an apartment close to the terminal.
Making a new life is tough when you have to do it in three day intervals. Brad moved into the little space and the boxes he brought with him remained unpacked for months. He kept saying he needed to go buy some things like plates, bowls, and spoons for the kitchen, but never quite made it to the store. Instead he brought the cooking gear from the truck back to the apartment with him. Then just as he was getting comfortable and deciding what to do next he was back out on the road again.
The road became his home. The road became the place he returned to for comfort. Brad started to see the whole of the country the same way others view their home town. It was the same thing, really. Going to the store, the gas station or the pharmacy was the same as being at home, just the streets were spread out for hundreds of miles. He knew good places to go to eat in those rare times he bought a meal on the road (Brad preferred the economy of eating his own food, cooked or at least heated in the truck). He knew which truck stops had barbers inside, or even a dentist. It was not like he wasn’t coming home anymore. He had moved to this new home, and there was nothing in his life keeping him in any one place.
The transition became official when after three years he decided to take some vacation time. He had two weeks off ahead of him and looked forward to the rest. Brad slept the first day. On day two he did some laundry, bought food and saw two movies. Day three found him at a bar, sipping at a beer he had no taste for and hooking up with a woman he took home for the night. It went on like that for two more days before Brad rang dispatch and asked if there were any loads going out. It was time to go home.
