The Dark Trail

by Will Mosley

  “Sorry, Greg,” Ben coyly said.

  “Forget about it, Ben. Just don't let it happen again. Besides, I now know I was wrong.”

  “Wrong? About what?”

  “That kid wasn't a pilot. He didn't fly worth shit.”

  Chapter 1.

  March 10

  The air was cool and musty and the alarm clock's red digital numbers, which read 4:50am, sat on his side table ignited the dark room like a torch light. He threw the sheets back and stood at the side of the bed, eyes still closed, and stretched. His joints cracked and popped from his lanky limbs and from underneath the matted body hair, breaking the almost deafening silence. Xoscha Mills didn't bother turning on the lamp or any of his bedroom lights because he knew that outside – day and night – they were watching him and he didn't want them to know he was awake.

  He reached out to the wall on his left, against which the head board rested. Once his hand touched the wall, he dragged his fingers along a few inches ahead of his walking pace until he touched the intersecting wall. With his right hand he reached out and grabbed the threshold of the bathroom. Once he turned the door knob, the rest of the journey to the toilet – pushing the dirty clothes aside with his feet and locating the toilet – would be a cinch. He'd done it numerous times over his two week stay. Navigating through a dark house with closed eyes, he could now see the floor plan of the house in his mind and didn't need to waste his eyesight, or create a hazard by turning on lights and revealing his location to them. After all, that was what they wanted.

  It was only this room that he could never fully remember. The layout was always changing. Once he got a hooker home, clothes were usually flung without care and furniture would get knocked over during rough intercourse. Sometimes barricading the door to the patio off the master suite was necessary in case 'they' decided to make an impromptu visit with guns drawn. All the while, the rest of the house went unchanged and didn't require a hand-on-the-wall to navigate. His inherent distrust of prostitutes didn't help. Many of the girls stole stuff or moved things around. The one in the bed now – either Erica or Arial, he wasn't sure – seemed okay, but he never could tell. The skinny ones, like the one behind him, had Meth habits and that definitely meant things would come up missing.

  He slid one bare foot across the bathroom floor ahead of him until his toes touched the base of the toilet. There was no seat to lift. He removed it after too many whores had left it down.

  He stood over the toilet bowl for a few seconds, his penis out, waiting for the urge to pee to return. A moment later, the warm liquid rushed from him and splattered against the floor tile. He corrected his aim blindly, throwing the stream against the toilet and wall, until he at last heard water splashing.

  The sheets ruffled in the room. “Why don't you just turn on a light, hon? Wouldn't that be easier than pissing in the dark?”

  She couldn't understand. If he had sat her down with a pad and pen and drew out who they were and what they wanted, she still wouldn't understand with her simple, whore mind. In all honesty, he didn't truly understand either. They had tampered with him – with his mind – and he wasn't sure that the memories of the past were correct. He turned toward the sound of her voice.

  “When you get your own place, you can do as you like. Don't tell me how to do stuff!”

  “Well, I just figured –,”

  “I ain't paying you for figuring.”

  “Okay, okay. Geez.” The girl said. She stood up, met Xoscha at the bathroom door, then tied off her blonde hair that cascaded from brunette roots, in a scrunchie. She wore a tight, tank top that stopped at her mid-drift and thong panties. Under the red glow of the alarm clock, he surveyed her breast, taut against the tank top as if trying to escape.

  “You woulda made a fine, fine wife.” He said to himself.

  “Well, it's not too late.” She whispered affectionately, running her fingers through his matted chest hair.

  “You're a whore. It is too late.” Xoscha chuckled. “No man wants a whore, missy.”

  “You're an asshole!” She snatched her arm back. “You weren't saying that last night!”

  “You still have a pussy. I didn't say a man didn't want good sex, now did I? I said no man wants a whore. You stop being a whore, clean yourself up, put on a dress or something, you know, and you'll find you someone.” His voice was vocal noise filtered through gravel.

  “Well, I need money and this is the only way I know how to make it. Now, could you please move so that I can pee?” She asked. Xoscha walked through her and she jumped from his path.

  “Don't turn that light on, missy.”

  “My name is Erica, not missy. And I can't see in the dark. I'm gonna have to turn the light –,”

  “If you cut the light on, I'll cut your throat.” Xoscha addressed her calmly. “Your choice.” He stared into her, waiting for acknowledgment, but the demand did not require an answer, only obedience. She could see the slim outline of his body and could feel his eyes piercing her as if she were already dead. “Can you cook?”

  In the kitchen, auburn colored stove burners glowed against the blackness and several pans were stacked up and sizzling in the sink.

  Erica plated the scrambled eggs, bacon and toast on two wiped clean plates and pushed several stacks of newspapers and clothing to the middle of the table to make cleared areas to eat. Xoscha sat silently in the dark as Erica laid his plate in front of him.

  “Smells good. Thank you.” He said.

  “Sure. I'll apologize ahead of time for the egg shells. I don't know if you'll find any, but I never had to cook in the dark. It's tricky.”

  “Just a consequence of what I have to go through. Don't bother yourself with it.”

  Their forks clanked against the ceramic plates in the dark as they ate. The neighborhood was quiet and each noise, be it the chewing sounds inside of their mouths, the clanking, or even breathing only emphasized the rich quiescence.

  “Did you get up earlier this morning?” She asked and Xoscha shook his head. “Oh. I thought I heard a bike outside. I thought you were going somewhere.”

  “I don't have no bike.” Xoscha returned. Silence began to drape over them once more and Erica searched her mind for words that would keep the conversation moving.

  “So, what are you going through?” She asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You said that you were going through something. What is it? Someone after you? You one of those spy's or something? A hitman?”

  Xoscha laughed. “I have a strange feeling you'd like that, wouldn't you?”

  “Well, it would be interesting. I don't really ever turn any interesting tricks. Businessmen mostly. Some thugs.”

  “I'm not a spy, honey.”

  “Oh yeah? So what do you do?”

  Xoscha leaned back and belched. “I do handy man work for people. Stuff like fixing plumbing and sheet rock repair. Nothing too exciting.”

  “Well, I suppose that it could be interesting.”

  “It's a way to earn money. Nothing special.”

  “Is that what you've always done?”

  The question was simple and Erica watched his silhouette freeze in thoughtful consideration. He stared deep into her with eyes questioning the situation and her involvement in it. The reflection of the distant street light in his eyes sparkled, even seemed to brighten, and Erica used that as a gauge of his eye movement. He leaned towards her, one arm bent and resting on the table, the other moved underneath it. Either a question or an answer was about to come from the man and Erica laid her fork down eager to hear it. The familiar hammer cocking of a revolver clicked from underneath the table sent a single pulse of cold terror down Erica's spine, shattering her nerves, freezing her muscles, pasting her to the chair. She wanted to jump up and sprint for the door, but she would surely be killed. She wanted to grab the fork and shove it into his jugular vein, shove deep past his throat and way back into his spinal column for putting her in this situation, but the fork laid inc
hes from her hand, benign, useless. His breathing was now loud, slow and focused, not that her senses had become more alert, which they had, instead he breathed with the anger of a teased bull. That glint of light in his eyes was unmoving.

  “So, you're one of them. Who is it that you work for?” His voice was lower and more direct than before. His deep, slow breathing was indicative of preparation, readying himself for an attack. The hand that rested on the table was clinched, and the faint light casting over his hand drew shadows of rope veins that ran behind his knuckles.

  As her heart pounded against the walls of her chest, as molten terror ran through her veins, she settled on displaying calm; the same brand of insane calm that Xoscha exuded. “Okay, please listen.” She said deliberately. Her hands revealed the slightest tremor. “I have no idea what you're talking about, okay? What I'm going to do is this,”

  “You ain't going nowhere.” He said, watching her movements. She didn't look at the fork, but she knew where it was and its proximity to her hand, and he was close enough to her, leaning halfway across the small square table, that if she could just grab the fork and –,

  “And don't touch that fork, either.” He said and scooped the fork up from the table without breaking eye contact. There was no hope now. He had confiscated her only offense against him, and it seemed that he was reading her mind.

  “I don't know what you want from me?”

  “I want answers.” He croaked in the pitch blackness.

  “I don't have any answers to give you! Who do you think I am? You said it yourself, I'm just a prostitute!”

  He let out a low, throat laugh. “You know what you are. Oh yeah! You know exactly what you are. You want me to think that you're just a whore, but I know better than that. You even screwed me to keep up the illusion. They trained you good just like they trained me. But you see,” He stood up, placed his pistol on the counter and hoovered over her like a barkless Pine. “I'm not stupid. I know that you guys messed with my head.” He pointed to his temple, then pressed the finger increasingly harder against it, gritting his teeth at the pain. “They changed something around in here so that now, up is down and down is up, you see?”

  Erica was wide eyed and couldn't draw a full breath. “God, no! I – I do not see! I don't know what you're talking –,”

  “And then,” His attention was pulled to some far away place and his eyes finally turned from Erica. “And then they wanted me to... to kill. And I killed, and killed, and I was so good at it.” He formed his thick, hairy hands into claws and seemed to be talking to someone outside this room, someone in the past. “To look at man's face just before death takes him... to see his eyes scream out, 'NO! PLEASE STOP!'... they made me kill those people. Hell, I enjoyed it, but that's not me. I didn't want that. But an order is an order, you know. It became an art form to see how much pain I – we could inflict. Oh, and there were others! That's right! It wasn't just me, you can't pin this all on me! And I was in the desert for so long, and it never rained and all I wanted was just a little rain. Just once. And then, and then,” He cut his eyes to Erica and his cold insanity stunned her, making her joints and muscles immoveable. “You. You were the leader. You're the one who told me to go and stay in the desert for all those years!” He laughed in a loud, mad heckle. “And you just walk right in here and think that I wouldn't recognize you! What balls on you, lady! What fucking balls! Do you know what you've done to me? Why didn't you just kill me when you came in?”

  Erica looked around the kitchen for any escape. There was a small window above the sink, but he was in the way. And there looked to be a door, maybe exiting to the backyard, on the other side of the room. She wouldn't make it from the room alive if he were to stay on his feet.

  “Okay, uh, what's your name again?” She placed her palms on the table.

  He shook his head. “You know my name. You damn well know all of our names! Don't play games with me.”

  “Oh! Okay.” She spoke slowly and made sure to remove any trace of condescension from her voice. “I'll just call you Michael for now.”

  “It's Xoscha and you know it!” He screamed. “David Xoscha Mills!”

  “Okay, David,”

  “Xoscha!” He barked.

  “Okay, Xoscha, please sit down and I will tell you what I know.”

  Xoscha didn't move at first. He stared at Erica through the blackness listening to some inaudible connection between them. After several motionless seconds, Xoscha reluctantly moved to his seat, tracking her movements like an animal.

  “Okay, Xoscha, here's what I know. Please listen, okay? This is all that I know. I am a prostitute and have been a prostitute since I was 15 years old. I have never seen you before we met last night –,”

  He slammed his fist on the table. “Bullshit!” The plates jangled, the glasses fell over, water splashed and spilled between the two, fury was in his eyes and her time was now. She sprang from her seat in one clean motion, pushing the chair away from her, thrusting her body forward with the tenacity of avoiding imminent death, and headed back through the entrance of the kitchen. But out of the corner of her eye, like a tiger about to pounce from high grass, Xoscha was already up and coming toward her maybe a fraction of a second before she ever decided to make a run for it, and one word flashed through her mind: How?

  Chapter2.

  March 7,

  Monday began like any other with only four exceptions, and the exceptions were never discussed. Tatem, Jacob and Guillermo left their trailer homes, which were situated at the base of a banked hill against a high, chain-link fence and hidden by dense rows of leafless trees that lined highway 17, and met each other in the gravel parking lot of the mining company. Each day, the three men, Tatem, with his slightly darker than fair complexion and mocha eyes, and Guillermo, darker than Tatem, but with an unruly mop of black hair, or Jacob, a Hebrew, thin and wiry with the same dark skin, took turns replaying last night's television episodes to each other. The Pennsylvania winters lasted far into what the rest of the country considered spring. None of the men had gotten use to it and longed to get underground. It was still cold down there, but not like the arctic blasts that violated exposed skin on the surface.

  There were two other men. Joe Corrigan, the mine foreman, and his assistant Billy Greenleaf. Joe always accompanied the men underground, never shying from physical work, rarely occupying the supervisor's lavish trailer either. But they were outsiders and no one understood why. That was just the way it was. Maybe because Joe and Bill didn't live on company property like Tatem, Jacob and Guillermo did.

  As breath vapor shrouded their faces in thin clouds, Joe and Bill would arrive in a Dodge Charger. Then, all five men would talk about what they – Tatem, Jacob and Guillermo – did the night prior. Inevitably, Tatem would bring up the old days and the guys that used to work in the mine, but had since left. They were two of the four exceptions and Joe would remind Tatem that, 'The past is in the past, and it didn't mean shit.' 'You're right, Joe.' Tatem would say, and the conversation would float aimlessly until work began.

  The mine elevator carried them six stories into the lightless tomb beneath the earth. Once they arrived, Joe would flip the switch and fluorescent light would race across the ceiling, igniting segments of the underground cavern in pale light, then the work began.

  The last two of the four exceptions was in Joe's shoulder holster, and in a holster on Billy's hip. They were new exceptions as of a week ago and when Tatem asked about them, Joe only shook his head and eyed Tatem with a cold, friendless stare.

  That night after work, Tatem didn't have a taste for his nightly beer. He sat on his sofa and flipped through television channels hoping to find a new program that he could tell Guillermo and Jacob about. The newness of the program would give him the edge on topics for the next day and make the other guys jealous. But weren't they also doing the same thing – trying to find new shows to tell the other two about? Surely, they were. With that thought in mind, and as he scanned each pro
gram, mindful of beautiful women, action, or an interesting plot twist, he lowered his eyes to the remote control and watched his thumb press the channel up button with freshness. It was a hard plastic device coated in silver with scores of multicolored buttons, and it was his first time holding it. As he changed the channels, he realized that every show that came across the screen was a new to him. There was even a thick film of dust coating the remote that he hadn't noticed and his thumb unconsciously rubbed it away before pressing a new button. He laid the remote on the living room table, left his trailer and crossed the gravel parking lot.

  At Guillermo's trailer, Tatem peeked through the living room window behind the television which faced Guillermo. Tatem watched the man, unblinking, staring into the set. His mouth was agape, his gaze was fixed and a Bud Light bottle sat on the table in front of him. Tatem walked around to the back of the trailer where, through its window on the opposite side, he could see the TV. Guillermo was watching the Fox program, 24.

  He walked around Jacob's trailer and saw that he, too, was watching the same program, also drinking a Bud Light, and with the same fixation. Was it possible that he, Guillermo and Jacob had never changed the channels? Or, was Fox's programming just that good?

  Before he entered the door of his own trailer, something new occurred to him, where did Joe and Bill live? Sure, Joe was a supervisor and he presumed that supervisors didn't have to live on site, but what about Bill? Shouldn't he have a trailer here, too? It wasn't as if there weren't enough trailers.

  Tatem followed suit and changed the channel to the program 24, but after twenty minutes of forcing himself to like the show, even though he had watched the show for as long as he had worked for Hunt mining, suddenly it didn't appeal to him. His subconscious was dumping thousands of questions into his consciousness like heaps of colorful garbage being forced out of a sanitation truck and onto the street, and his mind was having difficulty processing any of it. The questions didn't add up to anything. Last week, Joe and Billy began carrying guns like Keifer Sutherland did on 24. Though, Tatem didn't care for guns, why did these two guys have them? For protection, maybe? From who? If there were some threat lurking in the woods and the weapons were company issued, why hadn't he, Jacob and Guillermo received guns as well? And, where in the hell did Joe and Billy live? Tatem turned the TV off, undressed and slid under the crisp, cool covers of his bed.