The waffles suddenly gained an unpleasant heaviness in his stomach, and he pushed away the plate.
“Hey Mom, to tell the truth I ain’t feeling so good. I think I ought to go back to bed.”
“Uh huh.” The skepticism in her voice preceded her as she walked over to him and put a palm to his forehead. “Sorry, bucko. But you ain’t feverish, and you’ve already missed too much school this quarter. You don’t get any more sick days unless you’re running a high fever or have limbs missing.”
“Thanks,” Russell grumbled.
Another glance at the back porch revealed nothing, but did little to settle his stomach either. Even as nightmares went, what he experienced last night had been pretty horrific. Now in the “bright” of morning, it seemed more distant but not entirely banished to the realm of dreams.
“You’re welcome. Now hurry up and eat because I’ve got to get heading to work.”
Russell sighed and retrieved his plate. He managed to force down a few reluctant swallows of breakfast while his mother went back to her bedroom to finish “getting ready.” Then he settled for pushing pieces of waffle around their shallow lake of syrup. A few long minutes of that and his wait finally came to an end as his mother returned from the bedroom.
“Okay, Russell,” she goaded, “let’s get this show on the road. Don’t forget your backpack this time.
Russell grumbled again, and pushed away from the table. He fished his backpack from where it had fallen behind the old couch, then took his time in retrieving the school books that fell out in the process. His stomach still didn’t feel happy.
“Come ON, Russell!”
“Yeah, I’m coming!” He put the last book in the backpack and trudged to where she waited at the front door.
His mother opened the front door and he followed her out into the pre-dawn gloom. The warm humidity wrapped him in a smothering blanket, promising another hot day ahead. Most of the stars were fading, but the dim countryside around them still rested in different shades of gray and blue. Only the beginning of orange showed along the horizon in the east. The chickens at old Murphy’s place down the road would be clucking and crowing in another fifteen minutes or so, but not even the morning birds were awake to disturb the hush yet.
“Hey, Mom?” He frowned as he watched her lock the front door with a twist of her wrist. “How about letting me have a key to the house? I’m old enough now.”
“You don’t need one,” she answered and shouldered her purse. “I get home before you do. Besides, it ain’t just about age, Russell. I’ll wait until I can count on you not to turn your bike around after I’ve driven off, and come back here to watch TV all day instead of going to school.”
So much for that idea.
“Thanks for the trust, Mom,” Russell groused, and slouched down the front steps.
He went around to the side of the little front porch, where his bike leaned, and paused. Once again, unease stirred in his stomach. The bike rested against the house where he left it, next to the darkness of the space beneath the trailer…a space easily big enough to conceal a large dog.
Russell studied the black gap with suspicion.
“He’s dead.” The boy gritted his teeth and forced himself to grab his bike. “And dead is dead. The only thing it means is no more doggy bullshit while riding my bike.”
“What was that?”
“Huh!” Russell looked up to see his mom still on the porch and frowning at him. “Oh! Uh… I saw that dog, Purvis, dead by the road yesterday. I guess a car hit him.”
“Oh.” She finished adjusting the contents of her purse and headed down the steps and toward the car. “Well, that’s sad. I know you didn’t like him, Russell. But he was just an old dog. It’s not good to be happy about anything dying. It happens to us all, you know.”
“Gee, thanks for that depressing thought.”
“It is what it is,” she replied airily and opened the car door. “Try not to get into trouble at school, and have a good day.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Russell groused and climbed on his bike.
The boy waited as she got in the car and fired up the engine. He watched her pull away, then pedaled down the driveway behind her. They both turned onto the gravel road leading to the highway, Russell following closer than his usual surly distance. The car’s tail lights were bright in the pre-dawn murk—cheerful red beacons of the only other human presence in the area. But only for a few more seconds.
Russell could just make out the outline of his mother’s hand raise in the rear window and give a wave, before the car accelerated down the road ahead of him. He paused and watched with glum resignation as her tail lights receded in the distance. They dwindled down to a single, far-away point then disappeared entirely when they reached the distant highway.
“Bye, Mom,” the boy sighed then resumed peddling.
Russell coasted down the gravel lane, in no hurry to get much of anywhere. With the house locked and dark behind him, he could only go forward.
Every nerve was on edge as he pushed on.
Rock crunched under his wheels with unnatural loudness in the morning hush. Only the sound of his breathing accompanied the background noise of the gravel. The two somehow combined to make the early silence more profound. The boy took solace in the thought he could probably hear a cat trying to tiptoe up behind him in this quiet.
Another couple of minutes brought him to the point where the lane running toward the Keller house branched off from his own. Russell brought the bike to a halt, and peered into the murk of the tree covered road.
Decision time.
Common sense told him he could now ride his normal route safer than ever before. Hell, he could even take his time from now on. For the first time since he started this routine, he could actually take it easy without worrying about what would happen if he ever fell or needed to stop. Yet…somehow, going down that path seemed to be tempting fate.
The other choice lay straight ahead. He could continue down his own road and reach the intersection with the highway where the bus would pick him up at his designated stop. It would even be closer. But it would mean standing there with the Rawlins kids, and their fat mother who always seemed ready to jump on him if he even looked at either of her brats funny.
And worst of all, he would really be doing it because he was wussing out.
“He’s dead,” Russell repeated for the hundredth time. “Hell, he’s probably still lying right where I left him yesterday.”
And that’s what settled it.
Russell wanted to see the corpse. Looking down on Purvis’s stiffened body would prove it once and for all…that Purvis was gone…it was all over…and he had won. His lip curled in a defiant sneer as he looked down the shadowy road. The time had come to end this once and for all. Nothing would do that with more finality than one more good kick to the wretched dog’s carcass.
Setting his jaw, he started down the darker road.
In here, under the trees, there remained just enough light to see the road at this time of the morning. The gravel glowed a pale white in the gloom, making it an almost luminous path running razor straight to a vanishing point in the dim passage. It wasn’t a lot, but more than enough to navigate by. Hell, he’d been doing it every school morning at top speed for almost three years.
The bike glided forward in the murk. Even the noise of the gravel seemed to be swallowed up by the surrounding trees. Russell kept an eye peeled toward his left, trying to remember how far down the road the dog’s body lay. He only had an approximate idea, but felt reasonably sure he could find the place again. The trick was to be off by too little as opposed to too far.
As it turned out, he nailed it almost exactly.
Actually, he smelled it first and knew it must be close. Russell got off the bike and started pushing it along beside him as he scanned the ditch. He only covered about thirty feet before spotting the pitiful lump of fur. It lay where he left it, with even a few pieces of the gravel he had
thrown at it yesterday showing against its dark fur.
“Well,” he noted the gravel and its implications, “so much for dead dogs getting up in the night.”
At these close quarters the smell of death could not be denied, and he could hear the buzzing of flies as they feasted in the warm September darkness. The only other way to confirm it would be to go down there and touch it, and Russell decided he didn’t need that kind of proof. The dead animal smelled bad enough at this distance, and now he knew all he needed to know.
He scooped up another handful of dirt and gravel and threw it down on the corpse, just for good measure.
“Ashes to ashes, and crap to crap.” He grinned, now relieved of the last vestiges of doubt. “From now on this is Russell Road.”
Russell clapped the dust off his hands with workman-like satisfaction and picked up his bike. Time to go...the Keller boys would be out soon, and he wanted to share this little piece of good news with them. Andy’s snotty little brother would just have to come up with something new to goad him with. He threw one leg over the seat and prepared to peddle on…
…when the worst sound in the world came from the darkness behind him.
A low, ragged growl.
Russell froze, his knuckles turning white from their sudden intensified grip on the handlebars. It couldn’t be. His teeth clenched to the point of cracking as the import of what he heard slammed home. An acidic knot formed in the pit of his belly, joined by another in his throat. Almost unable to breathe, he turned his head toward the source of the dreaded sound.
Purvis sat in the middle of the road about fifty yards back.
The very dead Purvis from the night before.
Its pearly white eyes almost shone in the shadowy depths of the road, but not any more than the ghastly jaws full of teeth below them. If anything, the beast had even more of a canine’s deaths-head than before. And that deaths-head now focused on him with an intensity akin to hunger.
“But…but…” Russell choked and looked over at the body still lying in the ditch. “No…I…n-no…”
But it was.
Russell realized whatever lay in the ditch no longer counted as Purvis.
Not anymore.
Purvis was now the monster grinning at him from up the road. The one he should only be able to see as an outline against the pale road in this light, but he could make out easily nonetheless. The thing didn’t glow—not really—it looked more like bright moonlight fell on the creature and revealed it without illuminating anything else.
And as he stared in shock at the horror, Russell came to understand he would be running one more race. Only this one was for all the marbles.
Every single one of them.
Win or lose, there would be one last chase down this road. Because if he won, he never intended to set foot or tire on this road again.
And if he lost…
The beast rose to his feet, its eyes burning white with anticipation.
Russell didn’t hesitate a second longer, but drove his foot down on the pedal, causing his rear tire to spit gravel as it whirled into motion. He dug in hard, legs pumping in an adrenaline fueled rhythm he never knew possible.
Behind him, an awful, snarling howl split the darkness and announced the chase was on.
He risked a peek behind him, barely daring to take his eyes off the dark road ahead, to gauge the threat behind him and screamed in horror.
Despite its appearance, the dog must have regained the speed of its youth for it fairly flew down the road behind him. Its legs were a churning blur beneath it as it charged in pursuit. The beast had already closed almost a quarter of the distance between them and continued to gain.
Russell refocused forward, tears of wind and fear streaming out of the corners of his eyes. He knew he couldn’t afford to look back again. Every split second counted, and any move with even the slightest danger of losing control couldn’t be risked. This was all or nothing. His heart hammered in his chest as he somehow managed to increase his speed.
All details of the road disappeared. The world became a rushing black pipeline with a pale strip for a floor. He couldn’t even hear the sound of his wheels for the whipping of the wind in his ears. Yet he could barely make out the mutter of a rhythmic snarl somewhere behind him—the sound of a running killer closing in.
Ahead in the distance, off to the right, he saw a glimmer of light winking between the trees. Russell recognized it as Farmer Bollards house. Hope flared for a brief second as he considered the possibility of dashing in there. But that hope died as realized he couldn’t afford to slow down enough to make the turn into the driveway. And even if he somehow managed the turn he would still be in Purvis’s territory. The very heart of it, in fact. No, the beast would be on him before he ever made it to the door.
His only chance lay in going forward, getting across the little bridge marking Purvis’s territory and running on to the Kellers’s house.
Another ghastly howl sounded behind him, causing him to scream again. His heart almost withered at the nearness of it. He was losing this race. At the rate it seemed to be gaining, the death-hound would be dragging him down in seconds.
Finding yet even more strength he never knew he possessed, Russell pumped his legs hysterically and accelerated even faster. The bike now tore down the gravel road at an insane speed. But all the boy could think of was finding a way to dig down harder. He whipped past the Bollard driveway without hardly noticing, his eyes locked on the pale road in the blackness ahead.
Fire now tore at his lungs, and his throat felt like a great raw tunnel lined with bile. Even his hands hurt from being knotted on the handlebars. He had never pushed himself this hard before…didn’t even know it was possible too…and his body was starting to rebel. A red tinge started to appear at the edges of his vision. Russell knew he must be burning oxygen faster than even the great ragged lungfuls of air he took in could provide. Terror had allowed him to exert himself far beyond his body’s normal limits and there now existed the very real danger he was killing himself.
Yet given a choice between his heart exploding or feeling those grisly jaws close over his throat—he didn’t even consider it close.
The wheels of his old bike fairly hummed at these new, unprecedented speeds. But Russell barely noticed. His blood pounded in his head, and a rushing sound now filled his ears that had little to do with anything going on in the outside world. Somehow, the boy’s body maintained its insane pace despite its depleting stores. The redness at the edges of his vision thickened and his world funneled down to a fixed point ahead.
Russell now shot down the road at a speed he was too frightened to think about. All that mattered was staying ahead of the horror behind him. Even if just for a few more seconds, he would push it that much harder to gain another precious sliver of time. It didn’t really count as a thought process anymore, just an instinctual shriek to escape.
A triumphant howl rent the darkness from behind, and Russell could feel the monster close in.
And then the bridge rushed out of the darkness toward him.
A remote part of his mind that was still coherent enough to recognize it, saw the upcoming culvert and felt a tiny thrill of hope. The end of Purvis’s territory approached. A split second later that same part recognized the danger and gave a thin cry of warning.
But it was too late.
The bike hit the low bumps in the gravel where it crossed over the large galvanized pipe, and the front wheel shimmied. Perhaps at a slower speed the boy might have been able to recover….but at this breakneck velocity the shimmy became a wobble and a second later he lost all vestiges of control. Russell screamed in pure despair at the inevitable outcome. The wheel seemed to jerk sideways in his hands and the bike cart-wheeled, launching him forward over the handle bars.
Russell slammed into the crushed rock surface of the road at well over thirty miles per hour. He tumbled like a rag doll, feeling parts of his body tear and shred on the hard gravel, while at
the same time being too far gone to identify it as pain. The boy then slid the last few feet before coming to rest in a broken heap in the middle of the road.
Stars still rocketed and exploded across his vision, and it took precious seconds for his sight to return. When it finally did, he almost wished it hadn’t.
The thing that had once been Purvis grinned at him from thirty feet away.
It stood on the bridge, its dead white eyes fixed on him with the same mad intensity they possessed when it died. And when the wraith started forward toward him, Russell’s last feeble hope died in his chest.
This wasn’t about guarding territory. People didn’t come back from the dead for something like that, and apparently neither did dogs. At least not this one.
Purvis may have started out defending his domain, but over the years it became about something more. It became about the chase itself. Day after day of pursuing him down the road in front of his house, and watching him get away every time, took their toll. Catching him had become the center of Purvis’s entire existence—the one thing he never managed to do. And in the end that’s what he had come back for.
The same thing the stories said most ghosts came back for…
Unfinished business.
The ghost dog walked through the wrecked bike as if it weren’t even there. Seeing that caused the injured teen to break out in a startled fit of coughing before giving the specter a weak grin of his own.
“Y-you’re…not…even real,” Russell gasped with a feeble laugh. “You…caught me…but you still…lose. You…can’t…touch…me.”
Apparently, the dog thought otherwise.
Purvis stalked forward, his dead eyes fixed in feral triumph on his prey. The smell of decay filled the air around him. He looked down on the boy and uttered a hollow growl, a warning rumble of impending attack. Then his toothy jaws cracked open with a sound like splintering wood.
Russell just had time to find out how horribly wrong he was, before uttering one last scream.
Shades: Eight Tales of Terror Page 18
