The Revenant: A Horror in Dodsville

by Brian L. Blank

  I didn't look back as I squeezed through the opening, but the footsteps of our pursuers sounded like they were right on our tails.

  My bag didn't quite fit, and I yanked on it, using all of my weight. The backpack popped through suddenly and I lost my balance, falling to the packed dirt beneath me. The drunks tried coming in after us, but, as was the reason we chose this place, they couldn't fit. Not even close. I backed up away from the opening and sighed, thinking we were safe. They would realize the futility of their efforts and eventually leave us alone.

  Boy, was I wrong.

  "Come on out of there, you little shits," one of them said, sticking his head through the crack. "We don't want to hurt you. We just want to talk to you. That's all."

  My philosophy was to walk all the way to the back of the alleyway (a brick wall was built on the Main Street side, blocking any exit) and silently wait them out.

  Reed, however, had other ideas.

  "Why don't you homos just go home and suck each other off," he shouted at them. "You'll get more enjoyment out of that, anyway."

  "What did you say?" The drunk pulled his head out and spoke to his buddies. "What did that little fucker just say to us?" He didn't sound at all happy.

  Reed was about to shout something else, but I, fearing for my life now, slapped my hand over his mouth and held it.

  "Be quiet," I whispered, pointedly. "You want to end up in a hospital bed tonight?"

  I let go of his mouth slowly, and he didn't say a word. He only glared at me with deep anger. I had just censored him.

  The drunks talked among themselves for a bit. I could only discern a word now and then, so I couldn't make out what they were planning-- though scheming was probably a better choice of word.

  Reed sulked in the far corner of alleyway, not saying anything anymore. Although I couldn't see him in the complete darkness--the roofs of the buildings around us blocked out the entire space above us with their overhang--surely I could still feel his glare.

  "It's for the best," I said, half apologetically. I knew I was right, yet I still felt a bit like a traitor. "If we just--"

  Something small--and very hard--hit me in the side, just above my belt, in the flesh of my stomach. "Ouch!"

  "What happened?" Reed asked with sudden concern.

  As a reply another small hard object bounced off the brick wall between us. A couple of inches either way and one of us would have been struck.

  "I think they're throwing rocks at us." And as a conformation I was hit again in the shoulder.

  "Ow!" Reed exclaimed, as he had obviously been hit. "I'm bleeding."

  Reed picked up the rock in the darkness and launched it back at our attackers. I heard him grunt as he let it fly.

  He struck pay dirt.

  "Hey!" one of the drunks cried out. "They hit me. And look--damn if they didn't make me bleed."

  The rocks came flying down the alleyway faster. As Reed and I wisely lay flat on the dirt, facing away from the opening, most of the rocks missed us. Those that did hit us, however, were enough to cause us extreme pain. If we didn't come up with a plan notably soon, we would become victims of an old fashioned biblical stoning.

  I raised my head off the dirt and yelled. "We give up!"

  The rocks continued.

  "I said, we give up!" Louder this time. The rocks stopped flying.

  "Then get your asses out here," one of the drunks said, at length, after a brief discussion with his pals. "Now."

  I led the way out, rubbing the numerous bruises on my body. Reed followed silently. I squeezed through the narrow opening, and, as soon as my arm was outside, I was grabbed and yanked out and thrown emphatically onto the ground. Reed tried to shoot out of the opening, waving the crowbar in front of him. The drunks, however, had no problem in disarming him and throwing him down beside me.

  They formed a tight circle around us. Not one of them looked to be over the age of twenty-one. One had long, greasy dark hair and smiled as though he were high on something. A fat, short baby-faced drunk stepped forward and jerked Reed to his feet. The drunk's face sweated profusely and a trickle of blood lined his left cheek. Reed simply stared down at his shoes in defeat.

  "You the bastard that threw the stone at me?" the fat one asked.

  Reed didn't respond.

  I didn't like the way things were progressing. Not at all.

  "Want me to make him talk?" a short drunk, standing at most five and a half feet high, asked. He held our crowbar in his right hand, and he waved it in Reed's face.

  The remaining drunk sighed and stepped forward. He had long, wavy blond hair and a kind face--the all-American boy. "Hold on a minute," he said, and the other three seemed to relax a bit, almost as though Blondie was their leader. "Let's not do anything rash. Give him a chance to apologize."

  Fatty gripped Reed's forearm a little tighter and pulled him up close. "All right, shit-for-brains," he said. Some sweat from his faced dripped down into his mouth, and he spit it out at Reed as he spoke. "Apologize and live."

  Reed stared at the ground.

  "Let's do em," Smiley suggested, his grin even wider than before.

  Shorty raised the crowbar again. He looked sideways at Blondie, as if waiting for the word to let loose.

  "The back of his leg," Blondie said, nodding in reply.

  Shorty walked slowly and purposefully behind Reed, then slapped the crow bar down and struck Reed right behind the knee. Reed cried out in pain and fell to his knees, grabbing at the back of his leg.

  Fatty let him drop, but kept hold of his arm. "How about now?" he asked Reed.

  Reed whimpered, caught his breath, and held it. His body tensed, like a grasshopper that's about ready to leap, and jumped to his feet. In the same motion as he stood, he lifted up his good knee and slammed it into the groin of Fatty. Fatty went down like the proverbial sack of shit. He let out a grunt as Reed's knee made contact, and let out another one as he hit the dirt.

  Before Reed had a chance to even break the circle, Shorty grabbed hold of him. He turned him around and held onto both of Reed's arms behind his back. Reed breathed excitedly, smiling as though he were the one in control of the situation.

  "Why, you . . ." Fatty said as he staggered to his feet. He walked up to Reed and slammed his fist into Reed’s abdomen.

  Gasping for breath, Reed spit into Fatty's face. "Fuck you!" he said, and forced a smile again.

  Fatty's eyes seemed to sink into his skull. "You little shit," he whispered in a dangerous, narrowed voice. "I'm going to kill you."

  Blondie grabbed him by the arm. "Hold on," he said.

  "What are we going to do with them?" Smiley asked, grinning like a five year old at a carnival.

  A train whistle sounded in the distance.

  Good, I thought, my mind churning. The train would make the perfect barrier if we could get on the other side of it just before it passed. But how . . .?

  "Let's beat the fuck out of them and throw them naked in the river," Shorty suggested, speaking only inches away from Reed's ear.

  “You homos would really enjoy that, wouldn’t you?” Reed said.

  The sound of the train engine groaned from down the tracks. Come on, I thought. Think!

  But Blondie was well ahead of me. "No," he said. “I have something else in mind for our friends here." His three lackeys looked silently upon their leader, waiting for his revelation. "Let's put their heads on the tracks and watch the train smash out their frickin' brains."

  In an uproar of laughter, I was dragged to my feet and both of us were taken to the tracks. I began to cry, pleading for them to let us go. Reed's smile had disappeared, but he didn't say anything. He just looked at me without expression.

  One of the two drunks who had me kicked me in the back of the leg knocked me down to my knees next to the tracks. Reed was treated in a similar manner on my left. A hand squeezed the back of my neck and pushed my head down onto the cold steel of the track. My ear folded under me, and I cried out
for a minute in pain, still pleading for mercy. The train vibrated and hummed in my ear. Although I faced away from the approaching train, I could feel it closing in on me.

  Reed's head was pushed down on the tracks. He faced the train, and, thus, he also faced me. The reflection of the train's headlight shined in his eyes. I could detect no fear there. He didn't babble like a baby, as I was doing. He simply gave me a cold stare, as though he blamed all of this on me. That stare was enough to shut up my embarrassing gibbering. The reflection in Reed's eyes grew brighter.

  Behind me, the engineer must have finally seen us as the train whistle sounded with one steady blast. The tracks no longer hummed; they rumbled as though a stampede of bulls was charging us. The train's wheels were right behind me. I was going to die.

  And then I was let go. The hands holding my head down on the tracks released me, and I frantically rolled backward. The train roared past me, only a few feet away. The engineer shouted something out of his window, but my mind wouldn't register the words. Of course, I thought. They had to let us go. They were too close to the tracks; the train would have killed them right along with us.

  I stared after the train as it continued down the tracks, heading out of my life.

  "Come on," Reed said impatiently behind me.

  I turned in time to see the drunks round the corner at the end of the alley, laughing so hard they could barely stay upright. "They're gone," I said, relieved. "And we're still alive."

  Reed waited until a building was between our attackers and us, then he started after them.

  I caught up to him. "Where you going?" I asked.

  No answer. Reed just continued his fast-paced, determined walk.

  "Why don't we go to the police and let them handle it?" I suggested, not liking at all how things were progressing again.

  "We'll handle this our own way," Reed replied. "Now shut up, will you?"

  As we reached the corner of the building the drunks rounded a minute earlier, Reed slowed down and crept up to the edge. I followed. The laughter of the drunks reached our ears from about fifty yards away. Reed slowly peeked around the corner, and I joined him. The drunks were standing by a green Plymouth Duster, waiting while Blondie searched his pockets for the keys. He pulled them out and waved them in front of him.

  "For a minute there," he said, "I thought I might have dropped them by the tracks."

  The three lackeys thought this statement to be funny.

  Reed and I stepped back in the shadows as the car approached us. It passed, turned right on the next block and disappeared behind the feed store. The sound of its engine diminished a minute later.

  Reed was smiling again, and I knew that he had a score to settle. We walked back to the narrow alleyway in silence. After retrieving our backpacks and crowbar, which lay next to the tracks, Reed put his arm around me and squeezed.

  "Don't worry about it," he said.

  Those were the last words spoken between us that night.

  Two evenings later, Reed tapped on my bedroom window. I yawned and crawled out of bed, thinking he wanted to go on a ghost hunt. "Let's go," he said excitedly after I opened my window and asked him what was up.

  I got dressed quickly, as I could tell something exhilarating was brewing, and met him on the front step. He carried none of our ghost hunting equipment, and I could see no sign of his bike.

  "What's up?" I asked again, a bit confused now.

  "Just follow me," he replied, and began to walk away.

  "Where's your bike?"

  He stopped, turned, and faced me. "Just shut your mouth and follow me." He smiled. "You'll see in a couple of minutes. I don't want to spoil the surprise."

  We walked down the streets, obviously heading to the other side of town, with me constantly nagging Reed about what he was up to. A mile and a half later I ended my complaining in the middle of a sentence. We turned down a street and suddenly the meaning of our excursion came clear. The green Plymouth Duster rested silently under a street light half way down the block. It was almost two in the morning, and all was quiet. All the houses around were completely dark. The neighborhood was sound asleep.

  Reed pulled two ice picks out of his back pocket and handed me one. "Let's go to it," he said and immediately set to task. I joined in.

  Although we were clearly visible under the streetlight and the scrape of our ice picks squealed loudly in the night air, I felt no fear. To the contrary, I got goose bumps from the exhilarating feeling of cold revenge. Reed scratched out the words "Fuck You" on the hood. I laughed quietly and wrote a message of my own on the trunk. Blondie would be more than a bit pissed when he read, "I'm a flaming faggot. Call me for a blow job," in the morning.

  Reed sauntered over to a garbage can and returned with its lid. Before I could raise a protest, he held it high over his head for a second and then came down hard on the driver's side window. The glass exploded as though a bomb had been set off nearby. Reed reached in and unlocked the door. A light turned on in the house.

  "No time," I said. "They're coming."

  Reed either didn't hear me or refused to. He pulled his ice pick out of his pocket and slammed it into the car seat. The sound of ripping cloth filled the silence around us a second later.

  The picture window lit up.

  "Let's go, Reed," I said in an urgent tone, hoping he would get the message.

  Reed made one more rip and relented just as the front door of the house opened and the bright porch light turned on. We sprinted down the street.

  "Hey," a voice sounded from behind us. Then a few seconds later: "What the fuck!"

  "I think he’s discovered his reconditioned car," Reed said, and we both began laughing.

  * * *

  Melissa's eyes rarely turned away from mine as I told my story. There was an undenying deep love behind them for Reed. I faltered a few times during the story, remembering a time when a woman held that same look for me. But that was over a year ago and the times were still too painful to recall completely. Maybe that was the reason I felt myself attracted to Melissa. . . .

  The kids had tired of the swing set and moved on to the merry-go-round. A small, adorable blonde girl, about five years old, had fallen off, and the rest of the group stood around her with guilty expressions on their faces. They had obviously spun the merry-go-round too fast for her.

  "Did you ever have any more trouble with them?" Melissa asked, after she realized I had finished with the details.

  "I don't suspect they even knew we were the culprits," I replied. "We ran into them a couple of times and they shied away from us. I think they were afraid we'd go to the police with the story."

  The little blonde girl had been appeased, and the merry-go-round was in full action again. We watched them in silence for a minute.

  "We should probably head back to Mrs. Klaus's," Melissa said at length. "If your leg is up to it, that is. I noticed the grimace on your face during the walk here. And I don't think it was caused by thoughts of Randy, either."

  "Speaking of Mrs. Klaus," I said, changing the subject. My leg had hurt me, but I didn't want her to feel sorry for me. If she liked walks, then I wanted to be able to go with her. "There's been a little misunderstanding." I stood and pulled her to her feet. We started the short haul back to the mansion.

  "Why's that?"

  "She told me she would be staying at the boarding house on First Avenue. And the manager there pretty much laughed in my face about just the idea of Mrs. Klaus staying there."

  "You're sure that's where she said she’d be?"

  "Yea," I replied. "That makes it a bit discomforting. This entire scheme of hers letting us stay at her home in her absence didn't set right with me from the beginning. And now this."

  "She's been under a lot of strain," Melissa said. "I'm sure she's a bit confused about things right now."

  "Maybe so," I said, not convinced. She'd have to be more than just a little mixed up not to know where she was staying. "Anyway, I'll give her call la
ter on. There was no answer the first time I tried around lunch."

  "There you have it," Melissa said, as though all the mysteries of life had just been solved. "You can call her and straighten everything out."

  A familiar brown station wagon passed us slowly. I didn't have to look twice to see who the driver was. Inspector Pierce had found me again, and I was sure he wasn't too happy about my banging up his leg. Of course, he didn't know I had already paid for my sins.

  "Do you know this guy?" I asked Melissa as the station wagon pulled to the curb just ahead of us.

  Melissa withheld judgment a minute as Pierce got out of the car and leaned against its roof. She shook her head. "No," she said. "Should I?"

  "Hurt your leg, O'Neal?" Pierce asked before I had a chance to reply to Melissa. "I noticed you're limping a bit."

  I ignored him and kept on walking.

  "Where you staying now?" Pierce asked after realizing I wasn't going to answer him. "I didn't see your rented car in any of the logical places."

  I still ignored him. Maybe it was better if he didn't know where I was staying. I would see less of him that way.

  "Not speaking, huh?" He paused as we reached his car and walked on. "At least tell me what you're doing on a walk up here amongst the rich folk?"

  "No law against that, is there?" I said, breaking my vow of silence.

  "He does speak," Pierce said, with mock enthusiasm. "And isn't this Reed's girlfriend? Didn't waste much time in moving in on her, did you?"

  Melissa broke her stride and walked with exaggerated steps up to the curb in front of his car. "Exactly what do you want?" she demanded.

  "Be seeing you around, O'Neal." Pierce ignored Melissa. "Count on it." He slid back into his car and slammed the door. He did a U-turn and disappeared a minute later around a corner on the next block.

  Melissa stared at me in disbelief, still standing at the curb with her hands on her hips. "Would you mind telling me what the hell that was all about? And how did he know who I was?"