The Nightcrawler

by Mick Ridgewell

  Roger looked up the road. It was dark, but for the streetlights illuminating the black pavement. Turning in the opposite direction the scene was the same. A fog seemed to hover just above the tops of the light standards. In the distance the two rows of lights merged. A brightness different from the street lamps blossomed, causing Roger a sense of unease. As it got closer he realized headlights were headed his way. Closer and closer they came, now two distinct orbs. Squinting, Roger struggled to see the oncoming demon. The rumble of the laboring motor indicated a high rate of speed. The lights were close enough to make out now. That car. The same car, the same dream. A big red noisy car. New but not new. Or was it old but not old? It didn’t make sense. Speeding straight at him. Each streetlight extinguished as it passed. The headlights bright and blinding, freezing him to the spot. Then darkness. He saw himself lying on his back looking at the stars. His body in the same grotesque position as the dream he had in old Pete’s truck. Roger knew what would come next but he was helpless not to look. That same guy. Why did he look so angry, staring down at the twisted, bleeding body? Close your eyes, Roger, and he’ll go away. When he opened them again the guy was gone. Somebody else stood over him. Come closer. Help me. Roger fought the confusion that pushed him toward panic. He seemed to be communicating to this person without speaking. It was a girl. She came closer and held out her hand. Big sister Lisa had come to his rescue. He wanted to reach for her but couldn’t. Then she began to back away. Not walking, more like floating. Her legs weren’t moving. He screamed her name. LISAAAA!

  Roger woke confused and terrified. His breathing came in heavy gulps and sweat dripped from his face, as he sat bolt upright in the dark.

  Beth rushed in, flicking on the light.

  “Hey Vermont, are you okay?”

  They both blinked and looked to the floor until their eyes adjusted and he saw Beth standing in the doorway. “What the hell? I thought you were being murdered in here.”

  He told her about the dream. About the car and the guy. The angry guy.

  She was sitting next to him on the bed hoping to offer some comfort, her hand on his leg. He just stared blankly at the wall.

  “Who’s Lisa?” she asked.

  Without looking at her he answered in a monotone almost trembling voice, “My sister.”

  “She died when I was ten. She was twelve, almost thirteen. We were tobogganing near the pond at the park. She wasn’t supposed to use that side of the hill. She slid right out on the ice. All the way to the middle of the pond. She got halfway back then she was gone.”

  “As far back as I can remember Mom called her my guardian angel. She saved my life when I was two and after that she was my protector. Then she was gone.”

  He looked at Beth and she wiped a tear from his cheek.

  “Sounds like she is still your guardian angel,” Beth said, then leaned over and kissed his cheek where the tear had been. “It’s the middle of the night. I’m going back to bed.”

  She staggered back to the door, yawning while she walked. She stopped at the door, turned to look at Roger, like a mother looking in on a child who had just had a bad dream.

  “Good night, Roger,” she said and turned out the light.

  Roger’s dream was a vague memory, replaced by the vision of Beth, standing at the door in her little nightie. It took all his control, combined with a huge fear of rejection to keep him from following her across the hall.

  It took hours for him to get back to sleep, but when he did, he had no more visits from demon cars or dead sisters.

  Chapter Nine

  Around one o’clock Scott took the I-69 exit to Ft. Wayne. He got off the highway minutes later at W. Michigan Ave. feeling hungry and needing gas. He pulled into a full service Mobil station. A scruffy man in blue overalls approached the car. The patch on his right breast pocket indicated his name was Sam. He looked older than he probably was and very familiar. His shoulders slumped, he appeared beaten down by the knowledge that unless his lotto numbers come in, this is as good as it gets.

  “Filler up, mister?”

  “Ya. And check the oil and coolant,” Scott instructed him dismissively.

  There was a small confectionary and Scott went inside. He picked up a small Coleman cooler. A bag of ice and two six packs of Dr. Pepper, some chips and a bag of M&M’s.

  “That all?” said the woman by the cash register.

  “And gas,” he answered pointing to the car.

  She checked the LED display behind her. Scanned the bar codes on the items in front of her and said, “Fifty-nine dollars.”

  Scott gave her three twenties and she handed him a single without looking up. Service with a smile, he thought.

  “Can you recommend a place for lunch close by?”

  Still not looking up she replied, “Charlie’s, across the street.”

  When he got back to the car, Sam was leaning against the pump. Scott walked past him and opened the door.

  “Nice car, mister,” Sam said. “Oil’s down about half a quart, maybe less. You want me to top it up?”

  Scott just waved him off. He wondered, was it just his luck today or did all the lowlifes in Michigan smell this bad? Back inside the car he heard what sounded like “okie-dokie” and that tongue clicking sound. A chill ran down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck bristled up against the collar of his shirt. With a flurry of movement, Scott started the car, put it in gear and drove to the edge of the road. Framed in the rear-view Sam leaned against the storefront.

  “For Christ’s sake, Scott,” he scolded himself. “Get that bum out of your head. He’s at least a hundred miles behind you.”

  This worked like a pep talk. Scott considered himself a realist. In his mind, there were no monsters, no ghosts or goblins. Bigfoot is an old Indian myth, perpetuated by tourist centers of the north-west. If you can’t see it, or feel it, then it isn’t real. That is what Scott Randall believed and it’s worked out for him so far. Since it was not possible for a panhandler from Detroit to follow him, then it only made sense to forget about the fucker and enjoy his road trip.

  He took his foot off the brake pedal and began to cross the street. The loud scream of a car horn brought his concentration back to the road. A light blue, maybe grey blur streaked by, missing the front of the Charger by inches. Panic and instinct took over and he pounded his foot back on the brake with all the force he had.

  The car stopped with the nose jutting out onto the road. Scott took a deep breath. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. So, this is what junior in the Honda felt like when the front end of his car was scattered all over the road. Well maybe Junior felt worse. Scott checked for traffic, and then proceeded to Charlie’s.

  It didn’t look like much. The neon sign by the road definitely lacked inspiration. “Charlie’s” in big red print. Below that, printed in blue, “Good Food”. The building was a small wood frame structure with a second level over the restaurant. There was probably an apartment, maybe two on the second floor. Clean looking, and nicely painted white, with green trim. The door looked like something from an old farmhouse. Panels on the bottom, and windows at the top divided into nine sections. An Open sign hung on the inside of the door.

  It looked even smaller from inside. The front wall along the windows was lined with booths. The tabletops were all reddish brown Formica. A narrow aisle separated the booths from circular bar stools along the length of a bar with the same surface as the tables. The bar reminded him of the soda shop he used to go to when he was a kid. Behind the bar was a woman dressed in a sleeveless denim shirt. The lines on her face were deep but it was obvious that there was a time when she could take her pick of the boys. A time before life etched out its map on her features.

  “Sit wherever you like, hon,” she said. Her voice had a deep sexy quality and her expression was warm and friendly.

  He sat at a booth beside the window. There were paper place mats on the tables with the menu printed on them. Scott picked one up
and began to scan the selections.

  How ya doin’?” He got a start as he turned to see the woman from behind the bar standing next to him. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare ya. My name’s Grace.”

  Scott just smiled and said, “What’s good here?”

  “I saw ya talkin’ with Sam across the street. Now if you was to ask him he’d tell ya to get the chili.” She looked across the street at the Mobil station. “He comes in every Monday for the chili. It’s on special on Mondays. He sure is a sweet boy. Always smells like Aqua Velva. Just a sweet boy.”

  “Sam. Sam standing at those pumps across the street?” Scott looked over to see a young man in blue overalls.

  “Well the other Sam isn’t so sweet is he?”

  “Other Sam?” Grace asked.

  Scott could see confusion on her face.

  “The Sam who filled my tank wasn’t a kid. He was a lot older than you are. Scruffy and he smelled worse than the men’s locker room after a big game. And, I tell you something. There’s a guy panhandling in Detroit right now who has to be his brother.”

  “Ain’t anyone over there like that, mister.”

  “The name’s Scott.”

  “Like I said, Scott, ain’t but one Sam over there. There he is. Ya see ’im? Such a sweet boy.”

  Scott looked across the street. Even from this distance, he could tell that that wasn’t who he saw fill his tank. He was just a kid. His blond hair was shining in the sunlight. He stood in front of the store right where the old Sam had been when Scott drove away.

  Scott started to feel something in the pit of his stomach. Sweat began to bead from his forehead. The lift his pep talk had given him minutes earlier had melted away, leaving a puddle of doubt. He looked up at Grace standing there. She was looking through the window at Sam. She had a look of adoration on her face. She looked like a mother watching her boy climb into the school bus for the first time. Turning her gaze to Scott, the look of fondness for Sam changed to concern. He was looking right through her, his hands still holding the paper placemat. They were trembling. The paper fluttered as though a stiff breeze were blowing across the room.

  “You feelin’ okay, mister?”

  “What? Oh, sorry I’m fine. Just a bit hungry.” He forced a smile onto his face. “Grace, I’m going to have a turkey club,” he said with a jovial tone, trying to put himself in a better mood.

  “Good choice, mister,” Grace said jotting it down on her pad. “Anything to drink? Made a fresh jug of lemonade this morning, squeezed the lemons myself.”

  “Lemonade sounds great. And please call me Scott.”

  “All righty, comin’ right up, Scott.”

  Scott watched her walk away. Her denim shirt was tucked neatly into tight jeans. He stared as she crossed the room to the kitchen. Her long ponytail hung to the middle of her back, shiny and dark. It was a stark contrast to the faded denim. His mood had brightened as he watched her ass until she disappeared through the swinging door to the kitchen. Alone in the dining area, he stared across the street.

  The Mobil station looked deserted. He saw no sign of any Sam, young or old. He looked over at the Charger. The sun glared off the glass and chrome. The red paint almost glowed. He concentrated on the hood. Thinking about Sarah, her hot naked ass had been buffing that hood just hours ago; he began to feel aroused.

  A slight thud brought him back to the present. Grace had returned and set his lemonade on the table. The tall glass garnished with a piece of lemon wedged on the rim already dripped with condensation.

  “There ya go. That’ll pick up your spirits.”

  She leaned on the table to look at the sky. “The guy on the radio said we might get a storm today. Sure don’t look like it. Does it?”

  Scott agreed, not that he could tell anything about the weather. While she was leaning on the table looking toward the sky, he was gaping at her breasts thinking “Amazing Grace”. She noticed but didn’t seem to care. She just stood up and grinned.

  “Your club will be ready in a minute,” she said and returned to the kitchen.

  Again, he watched her until she was out of sight, and then looked back to the pumps across the street. Sam was cleaning the windshield of a blue minivan. He looked like the Sam that Grace had described. Letting go of his paranoia, Scott looked around Charlie’s. He hadn’t noticed until now that he was the sole diner. The only sounds were the muffled sounds of the traffic passing by outside and Shania Twain coming from a radio behind the bar.

  “There ya go,” Grace said setting his plate down. “You ain’t touched the lemonade. I can get you something else if you like.”

  “It’s fine. So is it always this slow in here?” he asked as he sprinkled salt on his fries.

  “We do okay for lunch. Business really dropped when the McDonald’s went in just up the road.”

  “Grace, I really hate eating alone. Would you like to join me?”

  “Well, I could use a coffee break,” she replied with a mischievous grin. She walked away and returned moments later with a glass of lemonade. “Decided it was too hot in here to be drinkin’ coffee.”

  Scott ate almost without speaking. Grace didn’t really need anyone’s help carrying a conversation. Scott would smile or nod at the appropriate moments and she would go off again. How she’s owned Charlie’s for seven years. That she was married once. It didn’t last as long as her marriage with Charlie’s. Scott thought she probably used that line more than once but he laughed just the same. Her look turned somewhat somber when she told him about her daughter. She called her Sandie. Grace had given Sandie up for adoption a month after she was born. Kids shouldn’t raise kids, she said.

  “She’s twenty-seven now,” Grace said with pride in her eyes. “I bet she’ll be finishing med school next year.”

  “I bet she will,” Scott said.

  Then he caught her wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “Sun sure is bright, isn’t it?” She mused, gazing across the street.

  When she looked back Scott was checking out her breasts again.

  “Not bad eh?” She cupped her hands under them. Her voice had regained the jovial tone she had when she first sat down. “They cost me a pretty penny. Money well spent, don’t ya think?”

  Scott flushed a bit. He could feel his ears turning red. He looked at her chest again as if by invitation, and then looked into her eyes. She was smiling like a teenage girl, just asked to the prom. She sat up as straight as she could. Her shoulders pushed back. Her chest seemed to be crossing the table toward him. He had an urge to reach over to meet them. He had only ever been with younger women, no older than twenty-seven, maybe thirty. Nevertheless, as he sat across from Grace, forty-five years old, maybe fifty, he was aroused. He wondered if she knew how turned on he was.

  The door opened and a woman walked in. She was about thirty, tall with short dark hair, small on the top, and big on the bottom. Scott thought she looked like a walking pear. She was wearing a white T-shirt that was loose on her shoulders and tight around the hips.

  “Hey Annie,” Grace called out, waving.

  Annie walked over to the table.

  “Scott, this is Annie.”

  “Hi Annie, it’s a pleasure.”

  Annie nodded but didn’t say anything. Grace excused herself and walked with Annie into the kitchen.

  Scott took a twenty out of his pocket and put in on the table. The price on the menu was $6.99. He felt somehow ashamed. She was a nice lady. Not old enough to be his mother, but maybe his mother’s little sister, and he checked her out like a butcher eyeing a side of beef. He stood up and left, not wanting to wait until she got back.

  He opened the car door, but before getting in, he heard a familiar voice. “You forgot your change.”

  Grace was standing a few yards away. She looked younger out here. The sun’s rays put a glow on her face that seemed to erase the lines he’d noticed inside.

  He just raised his hand up in front of him as if to keep her at arms length.<
br />
  “That’s okay, Grace. Keep it.”

  “Listen, Scott,” she said coming closer. “I live up top of Charlie’s. Would you like to come up and chat? It does get lonely up there.”

  He could feel an erection coming on. His wish to sneak away before she got back to the table had been replaced by a lust that over took him with a fury. He closed the car door and stepped toward her. With a pleased look on her face, she turned and he followed her to the stairs at the side of the building.

  Scott spent most of the afternoon up in Grace’s place. He had never known sex like that. She was like a piano teacher placing a child’s hands on the correct keys. Only her body was the piano and he was the child. She was setting the pace. At first, she slowed him down. If he moved too slowly, she would shift gears and he would follow. He felt like he was doing it for the first time. He was tempted to stay the night when she invited him, but decided against it.

  “You better stop in next time you’re in Michigan,” Grace insisted.

  He just nodded politely and went out to the car.

  Scott Randall would never see Grace or Charlie’s again.

  Chapter Ten

  Forest Glenn, Indiana, is a quaint little hollow not quite half way between Fort Wayne and Indianapolis. It’s mostly a residential community, home to commuters who make the daily trip to nearby Muncie, or Anderson.

  It’s Mayberry living at its best. With a population of less than two thousand, everyone knows everyone else’s business. The only commerce in town is on Main Street. Standing on the corner of Main and First is the Mercantile Trust, a classy looking building with a stone facade and columns framing the main entrance. A large white-faced clock with Roman numerals keeps time over the door. It’s been the only banking in town since Forest Glenn became a town. Looking out from the bank you can see Gordon’s Pharmacy, a sign in the window advertising Coca Cola, $5.99 a case. Opposite Gordon’s stands a newer two story brick building, The Forest Glenn Medical Center, a list of doctors and dentists displayed in brass on the marquee in front. Across from the bank, Amy’s Deli, in the window a poster promoting adopt-a-dog week at the Forest Glenn Shelter.