by J C Walsh
DEATH
HIGHWAY
J.C. Walsh
Death Highway
By J.C. Walsh
Edited by Jenny Adams
Copyright © 2019 by J.C. Walsh
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise, without written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Any semblance to actual persons living or dead, business, events, or locales is purely coincidental. The author has taken great liberties with locales including the creation of fictional towns.
Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibibited.
Cover © 2019 by Allison Carmichael.
SPECIAL THANKS
I would like to thank my wife Colleen for the amazing support through this wild journey. To my friends and family, especially my parents for encouraging my creativity and always believing in me. To Armand Rosamilia for being an inspiring mentor and pushing me to finally get my first book released. To Chuck Buda, Tim Meyer, Frank Edler, and Todd Keisling for their friendship and support. To my brother, for being the sole inspiration of the main character so many years ago. And to you, the Reader, thank you for taking a ride on Death Highway. I hope you leave the same way you’ve entered.
PART ONE
THE RED PLANE
1.
This is how the world ends. With me stuck inside a cell, unable to see beyond these walls as I feel every cut, every little slice of death inflicted. The worst thing about doing time is not the time itself, but what’s transpiring inside of me. I am helpless, forced to fight the madness spreading from the bleeding wounds. It all started with the accident, the day my best friend’s car exploded in my face. The Universe spoke.
Its irregular breathing was an ominous sigh echoing through my ears. I felt its hot breath in the ambulance. Then again as I lay in my hospital bed, close to dying from the severity of the burns. The doctors later said it was a miracle they were able to save me.
My family was there. I couldn’t see them, not at first. At first, I thought they were an illusion shimmering over me. The veil over my eyes eventually lifted; it could’ve been minutes later, hours, hell even days. Time did not exist when all I did was lay still, nerves screaming in pain, trying to burrow through and exit my burnt flesh. My right side, afflicted by third degree burns, was bandaged up from the leg, to my face, and my head. I must’ve been there for some time; the bandages had gone from white to a yellowish red. My new friend was the click of a button, my body welcomed the morphine as it entered my body. My head was a chart, what’s your pain level? Well, since you asked, it was a super ten, now it’s a six. I counted the seconds before the next escalation.
Laura’s face hovered over me, plastered to the slow ticking of time, tears frozen on her face. She was on my left side while my Grandparents stood by me on the right. I didn’t want them anywhere near those bandages. I didn’t want what was burrowing through to burn them with its pain. All their faces were grave, I was buried inside. Was I dead? Or was I between the world of the living and the dead? The flesh of our world was peeling away red; I don’t know how I know this, but I do. The accident. I remembered the accident.
Then came the healing. The whole process was a blur of agony. Days of skin grafts and scrubbing to keep the wounds clean, to keep me clear of infection even though I knew I was already infected inside. Days were spent watching myself peel away, becoming the new me underneath. A monster.
The doctors did what they could, but the damage was bad. The patchwork of scars mapping the right side of my body made me think of small twisted roots of a tree. Those areas of my body are so tight it’s hard to move. They told me physical therapy and stretches would help loosen up the flesh, make mobility easier. More days spent in a blur. It’s the veil I don’t want to lift, to relive those moments of pure torture. The memory makes me grit my teeth, my pain level says hello at an eight.
Why am I thinking of all this now?
It’s almost time.
My mind becomes a racket ball of chaotic imagery. Memories. I am an outsider to these memories, unable to piece them together properly because I am watching someone else’s life play out, someone that looks like me. I can’t hold onto one damn image to see if it’s real or not. When I think I grasp it, the memory disappears in a wisp of smoke between my scarred fingers.
Ants. That’s what the scars feel like years later. It’s never one ant crawling along those areas. It would be so easy to flick the little sucker, send him flying on his way. No. It’s a fucking congregation. A cluster fuck of ants that begin their onslaught in one spot. The itching and burning turns to pain. Pain level starts at a four. I can’t help but focus on it, how it momentarily stays in that one spot, a dull achiness. Then it spreads throughout other scars. Pain level four becomes a six, then an eight. The needle is way past ten and I’m in the red, baby; I’m ready to murder someone.
“Don’t tell me you’re there again.” Jesse says from the bottom bunk.
“Where?” I’m staring at the ceiling. No pictures of loved ones to help me get through my years of being incarcerated. It’s blank for a reason. I don’t trust those pictures, the stories behind them, I don’t want them inside of my brain while I search for the truth of who I am. What I am.
“You’re thinking too much.”
Jesse has been my cellmate ever since I became a resident of The Rhode Island Correctional Institute. I tell Jesse everything; he’s the closest thing I have to a friend.
“Weird dreams again,” I reply.
“Your red place?”
“Red Plane.”
“Same thing isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Few days left, buddy. You’re out of here. Don’t get lost on me now.”
He’s right. My sentence is nearly up, must be the reason I’ve been thinking about the accident lately. During my two year stay, I kept my head down the entire sentence, stayed out of trouble the best I could, behaved like a good boy. Sure, there were scuffles here and there. Nothing serious. Thankfully the board of corrections didn’t let the small fights stain my reputation. I’m lucky they recognized, with each conflict, I was defending myself and not the instigator. I never lost my temper, I kept my attitude at bay, and I did what the programs insist. I was a model prisoner. I was saved!
The world exhales another death rattle. I will be released into a dying world.
I’m not confident I can save it.
When I first arrived, I was still a timid animal. Afraid, yet my eyes stayed focused and not wild. I didn’t trust the many faces watching me from their cells. I felt like weak prey waiting for the cages to open, for the predators inside to pounce on me once they were let free. Jesse had saved me. Brought me out of myself, from the animal that knew nothing but to bare its teeth. I did it to my family and friends when they did their best to support me; I’ll do it to anyone else dare that dares get in my path.
I didn’t want to talk to Jesse when I had first entered my cell. I stared down at his smiling face as he lay on the bottom bunk. From what I had heard, inmates didn’t like taking the top bunk, whether because they were the new guy, or because the current one didn’t trust the new guy. Defiant by nature, I had taken the top bunk.
But, instead of getting shanked early on, I learned quickly of his positive and happy demeanor; it slowly relaxed me. He loved to talk a lot, maybe too much. Then again, I didn’t talk enough, someone had to fill the dead space. His outgoing personality had given me something to focus on in the early weeks of my sentence. It was a pleasant distraction instead of trying to see through that blank ceiling, into the Red Plane, trying to piece together my mind, a
nd rid myself of the gnawing pain deep inside my flesh.
Come to find out, Jesse is a free-spirited speed junkie with a fond love of muscle cars, much like myself. We talked about the thrill of driving fast, defying the mundane world and its laws, with the roar of the engine, and the world whipping by on both sides. True freedom. Talking with him in the early days had brought a happiness that I thought had died with the other half of me, but it also filled me with sadness. I’m not free anymore; I am part of something the mundane world shuns more than driving fast cars.
We also share the common love for the bottle. Jesse was a drinker, his other addiction. Put two and two together, and its pure disaster.
“While you were street racing against the grim reaper, Randy, I was driving with him in my lap. The grim reaper was my road soda. It landed me in jail many times. Finally, my luck ran out and I hit someone. Here I am.”
“The worst thing is,” he said, “even though the guy is paralyzed from the waist down, he didn’t press charges.”
“How’s that the worst thing?” I asked.
“Well, if that was me paralyzed, I’d fuck up his entire life, make sure I got revenge on the person who had put me in that wheelchair. But he wasn’t like that. Maybe it was because he was coming out of a bar when I hit him, maybe he had also had a few to drink. I don’t know. I won’t rat on him, either. To be honest, I think they forget to check his blood alcohol the moment they found the open bottle of vodka in the car.”
I cringed. “Vodka?”
He ignored me and continued his story.
He said it had happened so fast he had no idea what he had hit. All he saw was something white and round hit the windshield, and the other object that bounced off the front of his car was the size of a small horse. He looked in the rearview mirror to find, to his dismay, a human body unmoving in the middle of the intersection, his motorcycle a wreck of metal nearby. Pieces of both Jesse’s car and the guy’s motorcycle were scattered all over the street. Within minutes, the place was an array of colors from the lights of firetrucks, police, and ambulance. The intersection looked like a mini war zone.
“The funny thing is, my car was still drivable. I thought about jumping back in and getting the hell out of there. But I couldn’t leave the guy like that. I knew it would haunt me for the rest of my life. I ran to the middle of the intersection, my cell phone was out, and my thumbs moved over the numbers to dial 911; at the same time, I watched the guy’s chest to make sure he was breathing. A cop pulled up. Ironic, he was at a Dunkin Donuts nearby and had seen everything while he had his car parked in the lot, having a coffee, and, yes, you guessed it, a donut.” Jesse laughed, “He was a nice guy. Even when he discovered my passenger, he calmly asked me how much I had of that bottle. And, well, here I am. What’s your story?”
I kept it short and sweet. I was starting to like him, appreciated his story. Wasn’t ready to fully tell mine. So, I told him I was street racing in an old industrial area. Before I knew it, I had lost control of the car and collided with the other racer. His car caught on fire; I tried to help. I was on fire and there was an explosion. I blacked out and woke up in the burn unit. Once I was healed and had done the physical therapy, a clean bill of health was pushed. The state couldn’t wait; they wanted my ass in the can. The state of Rhode Island was sick and tired of street racing plaguing their city. Once I was ready to stand trial, the court was able to sentence me for two years for a misdemeanor for the street racing and accidental manslaughter, since someone had died during the race.
So, Jesse and I had become good friends. For two years we had shared the same cell, we shared the same interests, and, as luck would have it, we both worked in the automotive work shop in the prison. I saw it as luck, but Jesse saw it as fate. Despite everything I had been through, and the strange cosmic feeling rattling inside of me, I was still skeptical of the concept of fate. Within time, I began to see what he did. Still, on those days we have our talks, I’m glad to occupy the top bunk, while he speaks his positive wisdom from the bottom. He will never see the smile on my face when I think about what hope could mean. Nor will he see the haunted look in my eyes, betraying my smile. I don’t see redemption. I see red. I don’t think I am seeking it, either. Once I am out of this place, I seek the road to damnation, and only then, may I find redemption.
I feel the sharpened end of a tooth brush.
A fucking tooth brush, stabbing me in the neck over and over, spraying my blank ceiling with my blood. I don’t see the face; it’s shielded in a swirling blackness. I release my last breath, close my eyes. Wait for death. When it doesn’t come for me, I open my eyes to find I am alive, right in the middle of our usual ritual of conversations, and laughter. It’s like we were never interrupted.
So, yeah, it’s hard to trust what my mind shows me.
It’s not the first time the memory of my death had snaked its way into my thoughts, slithered into my dreams. Each time I woke from it, my neck hurt, and I tasted blood for a week.
The ceiling is blank.
I need to get out. I need to go to Death Highway.
The next day I am anxious from the moment I wake up. As the Correction Officer leads us through the mazes of cells, the noises from other inmates sound like mourning doves with brain damage. Their voices are jarring. Not even a cup of coffee can help the overwhelming feeling. You’re almost there, I tell myself. Don’t lose it now. Keep your head down, stay in line and get to work. Once we enter the work shop, I inhale deeply. Anxiety withers, pain level is dense. Purpose. Even if it’s just a few more days, I need this now more than ever.
Under supervision at a distance, the guards keep a watchful eye. Inmates mostly work on prison transports, but there’s the occasional muscle car that one lucky bastard can get his hands on. One of the inmates, who got his name because he used to be a bartender, Frosted Billy, gets to work on one of those cars, an old 1970 Ford Mustang, if my memory serves me right. A thing of beauty. Not going to lie, I’m a little envious. But sometimes just doing the work because it needs to be done is more satisfying than doing it just for fun. Jesse assists as we remove the rotors from an old transport bus, and then I go to town scraping away at the rust. This relaxes me; I feel like I am scraping away at my anxiety and I bringing my mind back into focus. Cleaning all four rotors and replacing the brakes takes a good part of the day.
A man is most powerful when he can use his hands.
The words bring glimpses of happier times, words that my Grandpa used. They cut through the fog of memory, keeping my head clear while I continue my path. I see the small boy I once was, standing on the step ladder, carefully bending over the front of the car to peak underneath the hood, watching Grandpa perform a tune up on the engine of our neighbor’s car. Sometimes he’d point at a part and then test me to see if I remembered what it was; other times he’d be very quiet while he worked, face stone-like with concentration, as the wrench rhythmically clicked back and forth.
I remember how strong he was. When I reached the age of twelve, the engine lift wasn’t working right. So being the tough guy he was, Grandpa decided to pull out the engine himself like it was nothing. Our good family friend, John Slater, was there. He couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched this man in his late fifties do something like that. Once he snapped out of it, he assisted Grandpa getting the engine block secured and tightly strapped onto the lift. John called him a crazy bastard.
“All right, inmates.” The Correction Officer’s voice brings me out of my memories, “We are done for the day.”
Jesse stands next to me while our fellow co-workers, all good guys I’m going to miss when I leave, start to file out. Jesse gets in line, I’m right behind him when the guard steps between us, stopping me.
“Not you, Jones.” His hand comes up, nearly striking me in the chest. His voice sounds more authoritative than usual.
“What’s up, Dave?”
By now I know the officers by name. I had never really had a problem with any of
them before, even the ones who occasionally liked to stretch the wings of their authority. Dave was hardly ever like that; he was always friendly, cooperative and just let us inmates do our work. If someone was out of line, then Dave did what his job required of him. If that led to him getting a little rough on one of the guys, who was I to judge? This is different.
“Evaluation.” He answers curtly.
Another officer starts pushing Jesse out the door, the confusion on his face matches my own. My thoughts are clanging around in my head, everything is cloudy. I don’t even remember the other officer’s name. Just Dave. Dave with his hand still inches from my chest, his jaw tight.
“Now?” I ask, trying to watch my tone, “Here?”
“Yup, someone will be with you in a moment.” he says. Dave takes a few steps back, the tense look is now grave, apologetic. He steps out of the shop; the sound of steel slamming shut is louder than it should be. The lock clicks into place.
I don’t trust the silence, it’s oppressive. I get the feeling I am not alone.
Footsteps sound from the back of the shop. A socket skitters across the floor from someone kicking it, hands slap on the hoods of cars. Maniacal laughter fills the empty space. They draw closer. I can feel their shadows upon me; I slowly turn to face my company.
There’re at least eight guys, all with shaved heads. Their shirtless bodies reveal the tapestry of tattoos decorating their skin. The imagery is arcane and ritualistic, spiced with an apocalyptic scene of men suffering to gods and monsters. The most recognizable of them all is one symbol, the swastika. Nazis. Not just your typical Nazis either. I’ve heard of these guys, seen them lurking around the prison yard while I’m weight training. Nazi Occultists. I have a bad feeling I may know why they are here.
