Dark Ride

by Michael Laimo

  "Dude—he's still alive." Skiv stood frozen, feet rooted, mouth agape.

  Deke could see the man shivering something fierce. But strangely, unlike Skiv, he felt no sorrow, only a sudden wave of paranoia, as if there were ominous eyes set upon him from the depths of the dark cornfield. He wanted out of there. Fast.

  Perhaps this Halloween, the rage would end early after all. "C'mon, let's blow, before someone comes."

  Skiv turned and stared at his friend, mouth heavy with disbelief. "Dude, we can't just leave him here. He'll die."

  "He's dead already—look at him." The man's horribly wrinkled face was ghostly and ashen in the faint beams of the headlights, eyes now glassed over.

  "No. He's alive—c'mon, we need to get him in the car." Skiv crouched down next to the man, looking up at Deke.

  And that's when Deke lost it, screaming a bunch of foul-mouthed nonsense, demonstrating his refusal to accept any blame in this debacle. He flailed his arms like an aerobics enthusiast, storming about the clearing, kicking pumpkins in a wild tantrum.

  He then did something totally unexpected.

  Breaths heaving, eyes tearing, he leaned down and grasped a healthy-sized pumpkin by the stem, took four giant-steps—aggressively sidestepping Skiv who for a moment brought his arms to his face in defense—and swung the cold hard pumpkin down onto the old man's head.

  In the split moment before contact, Deke saw a strange movement in the man's once-dead features, a narrowing of the eyes, a sneer in his lips: reflexes not borne of fear, but of sheer hatred, and the promise of revenge.

  Deke wished at that moment he hadn't made the impulsive decision to kill the man, but it was too late.

  A horrible crunch echoed in the ever-growing darkness, a nasty merging of pumpkin and skull. A messy pooling of blood laced with whorls of pumpkin juice seeped from the aftermath, blotting the soil.

  The two boys stayed unmoving for what seemed an eternity. Deke broke the cold silence. "No—he's dead. Let's go."

  They staggered through the darkness, back to the car. Skiv was shocked, shaking wildly in the driver's seat. Deke stopped for a moment to bear witness to his work. Again he had the terribly eerie feeling of being watched. More than watched. Sized up. He spun and saw a carved jack-o-lantern postured upright within the chaos, its downcast brow aimed up at him. Staring…or so it seemed. Deke chuckled uncomfortably. He walked over to the pumpkin and picked it up, holding it to eye level. "You'll make a nice souvenir." He raced back to the Chevy, started it up and took off into the dark backroads, cradling the pumpkin in his lap the entire, silent ride home.

  Skiv dropped Deke off at the room in the split-trailer he rented. A couple with a young child lived in the adjacent half, but they were out, perhaps escorting their seven year-old around the park collecting treats from all the neighbors.

  He sat on the couch and covered himself with a blanket, thinking now that he should dispose of the pumpkin he stole from the dead man. He wondered what had compelled him to take it in the first place. As he stared at the spooky countenance of the carved pumpkin (its surface so potently smooth and orange) sitting on the tabletop across from him, he felt weirdly isolated and trapped in his lonely room, puzzled as to why he could not drum up the fortitude to simply rid himself of the evidence tying him to the murder.

  Perhaps it was the sheer loathe he had for the pumpkin that had him so enchanted? He shuddered, knowing for inexplicable reasons that even if he wanted to, he could never rid himself of it. It truly meant something: its villainous cast was an undeniable embodiment of his own roguish ways, his sinister self. The pumpkin, it was evil.

  And so was he.

  It grew late, and he sat drinking in excess, weariness enveloping his anguish, delivering him to a point of utter, irrefutable fatigue. Finally, he passed out on the couch, clutching an empty can of beer.

  He awoke to a wash of moonlight seeping through the window. Morning seemed years away. He tried to focus on the pumpkin.

  It was no longer on the table.

  He heard a sudden scraping noise at his feet that sent gooseflesh across his skin. He leaned forward and peered over the edge of the couch.

  It was there, on the floor, tilted slightly back, grinning face staring up at him.

  The pumpkin.

  Feeling lightheaded, as if caught in a nightmare, he wrenched his feet up onto the couch and yanked the blanket up over his body for security. Below he heard a thud, and then the pumpkin appeared over the edge of the couch, the corner of the blanket clenched in its juicy jack-o-lantern teeth.

  Deke felt the horrible dead weight of the pumpkin as it settled on the couch, near his feet. He stared with terror as it inched toward him. Shuddered at the cold feel of it as it crawled beneath the blanket, between his feet.

  He wanted to kick and scream and flail, but fear had him paralyzed. And then the door to the trailer bounded open. Twisting, Deke saw the pumpkin carver in the threshold, face crushed, gummy with blood and bits of pumpkin flesh. A strange hiss issued forth—not from the carver nor from the pumpkin under the blanket—but from the Skiv's severed head that the carver held at his side by the hair…

  Deke tried greatly to wish away the nightmare before him, but to no good fortune. The pumpkin carver held Skiv's head up. There was a gasp, then a gurgle, and then Skiv's eyes shot opened and looked at Deke. In a guttural voice, Skiv said, "Rage, man. Rage. Black blood oozed from his mouth.

  At last Deke screamed, but only momentarily for the pumpkin under the blanket had slithered out and righted itself on his chest six inches from his face. In the moonlight, Deke watched its carved face staring back at him, brow angrily downcast, crescent-shaped nose dripping orange sludge, triangle teeth chomping, up and down, up and down, producing a horrible slurping noise.

  Deke wrenched his sights away in fear—only to see the pumpkin carver walking towards him. The old man held out Skiv's head, grasping it not from the hair, but from a hideous protrusion emerging from the crown. It was going through a terrible transformation: cheeks monstrously swelling, eyes falling from their sockets, skin turning a juicy shade of orange.

  A thick green stem protruded from the top of Skiv's severed skull.

  A split moment after Deke noticed his own skin showing dull traces of orange, he again looked at the pumpkin on his chest.

  It grinned, distinctly vengeful, then it bore down on him, clamping its surprisingly sharp teeth on his neck.

  To Be

  So what do you want to be when you grow up?

  Remember that one? I do, as clear as pie. I was a kid, maybe five or six years old, at a family picnic in our backyard. The sky was blue, my relatives were chit-chatting, and there was red and blue syrup from a bomb pop all over my chin and hands. Like a witch from a cloud of fog, my Aunt Ethel appeared out of nowhere and loomed over me, her reptilian skin pulled tight against her face, her protruding dentures dripping saliva like venom from the fangs of a snake. She placed one of those veiny claws of hers on my shoulder and I cringed, fearing the worst: that she was going to kiss me. Dear God how I hated that! Her lizard lips would pinch my face as if she had a broken chicken bone lodged somewhere in her mouth.

  Well, this time I got lucky. She spared me the grief—no kiss. It was just the question I had to do battle with, and that would be easy enough.

  I smiled and remembered saying, "Oh, I don't know Aunt Ethel," and I cringed and let the "oh" stretch out long and whiney like most kids do when they're encountered with embarrassing questions. But the truth was that I was faking it. I had her fooled. I really wasn't embarrassed. I just didn't want to be bothered with her nonsense. Heck, as far as I was concerned the whole damn world could have gone to rot so long as I had my bomb pop.

  "How about a fireman?"

  I shrugged, disinterested.

  "A pilot? A doctor? I know! A policeman! That's it Mikey! You're gonna be a policeman someday!" And with that she giggled, grabbed my shoulders and planted one of those abrasive chicken-bone kisses sma
ck-dab on my left cheek.

  You know, I have to look back and laugh now. Call it ESP, clairvoyance, whatever, but somehow—and don't ask me how—my Aunt Ethel knew.

  I would become a cop.

  I sometimes think of her when I put the uniform on, the midnight blue so crisp against my skin; the badge shining brightly like a star upon my chest; the gun holstered firmly against my hip. And as I leave the house today donned in my tailored gear, I am smug, and cherish my good fortune to be a cop. But I also wonder: what would it be like to be all the other things Aunt Ethel had said I could be?

  How about a fireman?

  Hmm. A fireman. I guess that'd be cool. I could wear that special fire-resistant uniform and helmet, get all sweaty underneath. Carry a big axe. Break into a burning house in search of choking children. Yeah, I can picture it now: the little kids'd be hiding in a closet, all crouched up in the corner like frightened bugs, soot moustaches and beards circling their mouths. I can just picture their eyes lighting up like bright torches when they finally see me coming to the rescue.

  And then I'd fuck them over real good and chop them up into a bunch of burning pieces.

  Yeah. I'd like that.

  A pilot?

  I'd like to be that too. Think of the possibilities. I could bring my plane to thirty thousand feet, nestle that Dixie-cup oxygen mask over my mouth. I'd lock up the rest, then lower the cabin pressure and watch all the passengers—including the flight attendants—pass out like helpless little patients on anesthesia as they clawed desperately at the sealed compartments holding the masks. I'd trigger the pressure to slowly ebb back, then race into coach, rifle through all their pockets, take as much dough as I could. I could even grab a piece of ass on my way. Unzip and take it out, play my way with a few of the gals.

  I'd be back in my seat before anyone started to come around.

  Think about how much fun that would be.

  A Doctor.

  Now, imagine that. There's so much I could do! Sell drugs out the back door to desperate teens. That's a virtual gold-mine there just waiting for me. I could rape comatose patients in the middle of the night, men or women—I don't discriminate. And, God, I hadn't even thought of this before: how about an internal organ or two as a midnight snack? Fuckin-A. Screw the vegetables awaiting transplants. If I'm up for a meal, they'll just have to sit tight.

  Yes, I'd definitely like to be a doctor.

  But I can't right now. You know why? Because I'm a cop.

  Oh my God! Look where I am! All this daydreaming had me wandering around on auto-pilot, and I'm downtown now! Man, the streets are pretty damn dark this time of night. You know, even though I'm supposed to be one of this city's bravest, I still get kind of freaked out walking around these parts by myself.

  So I find an alley to hide in for a while. I walk all the way to the rear and I find a dirty homeless guy sleeping in a cardboard box. He looks like a pile of trash with all the filthy clothes he's got piled on top of him. I wonder if he's alive, so I give him a swift kick. He cries out. Yeah, he's alive. So I kick him again, and then again and again I kick. And kick. And kick.

  No one will miss him. I sure as hell won't. Why should I? I'm a cop.

  My shift is over, and I return home. I carefully remove my cop's outfit, and even though it's dirty, I hang it in the closet between the fireman and doctor's costume. I smile, and as I ever so gently finger through all the costumes in my closet, I think about Aunt Ethel, and wonder: what should I be, next Halloween?

  Contact Lenses

  Friday 1:00 PM

  The vinyl cushioning squeaked beneath Sam Morrow's jeans as he shifted his weight on the stool. Next to him, five identical seats, all worn, stood like soldiers in front of the glass display counter, but only his own held a customer.

  "Here's a mirror." The optometrist placed a small stand-up model in front of Sam, the type that magnifies one's face to twice its size, pointing out loud and clear all the imperfections riddling even the clearest perplexion.

  "Thanks." Sam carefully balanced the tiny clear circle on the tip of his right index finger. It appeared no different than the other contacts he'd worn in the past, save perhaps for the slight green tint. Could have passed for a tiny sea creature.

  Actually, everything at Poseidon Optical oddly stirred up images of the sea. Cheap green walls, sand-colored carpeting, odd briny odor hanging in the air. Hey, you get what you pay for, Sam thought. Discount place, bottom of the line everything else to go along with it. So long as the contacts were all right.

  He raised the lens to his right eye, popped it in with ease; years of wearing contacts had made Sam a pro. He rolled his eyes, bringing the lens restfully upon his iris. Droplets of tears and saline sprang out like tiny raindrops. "Hard to believe this little thing can make me see so clear."

  Utilizing a plastic tweezer, the optometrist retrieved a second lens from a small glass vial, gently handed it to Sam. "Did you know that extended wear lenses, like our eyes, are composed of 95% water?"

  The eye doctor—Walter his badge said—didn't look like the type that gets out much. He had little hair, a bulge of fat riding his belt, and odd skin tone. Kind of green. Like the contacts, actually. Sam laughed inside. The guy's world was nothing but bifocals, astigmatisms, and extended-wear contact lenses. No doubt.

  "Really? Unbelievable..." Sam said, humoring him, trying not to sound disinterested. He gently inserted the second lens into his left eye, blinked and wiped the excess tears away from his cheeks with a tissue from a box on the counter. "I can sleep with these?"

  "For a week at a time."

  He turned and faced out the store window, peering into the busy city street. Everything shined crystal clear, as if illuminated. The buildings. Cars speeding by. People of all denominations. Even the sounds of the city had a distinctively clearer tone. He never realized how dirty and worn his old lenses had been until now.

  The optometrist offered Sam a dark green box, the word 'Merman' edging the lid. "This is a sample cleaning kit. Last you about a month."

  "Thank you," said Sam, accepting the box.

  "And if you need anything, call. Hours are on my card." The doctor nodded, slid his glasses to the bridge of his nose.

  Noticing the doctor's gesture, Sam asked, "How come you don't wear contact lenses?" He made the question sound more a gesture of conversation than that of curiosity.

  The doctor grinned. His teeth—dirty-green like his skin—chattered, and his eyelids stretched circle-wide beneath the lenses of his glasses. "Used to, but they irritated my eyes. It’s easier for me to wear glasses, yes it is."

  "Thanks," Sam said, ready to leave. He took the doctor's card and exited into the strange new world, a world alive with brilliant colors and bright lights.

  4:25 PM

  Holding a bag of groceries in each arm, Sam entered the front door of his apartment and placed them on the kitchen table. A small three-roomer, it accommodated all his things with just enough space to spare for a gal's change of clothes in case he got lucky. From one of the grocery bags, he grabbed the cleaning kit the optometrist gave him, shuffled to the bathroom and tore it open, carefully placing the contents on the porcelain counter.

  There were three small bottles: a can of spray saline, weekly cleaner, and moisture drops. Sam had a habit—albeit a good one—of going through the moisture drops excessively. He enjoyed the cool feeling of fresh, wet contacts.

  He unscrewed the cap, scanning the bottle. It read:

  Merman Rewetting Drops

  Use Only With Merman Lenses

  Sam painfully thought about the cleaners and drops left over from his other contacts. They'd go to waste now that he had Merman lenses.

  So what was so special about these lenses that they needed their own products? The big goof Walter the optometrist with the green teeth didn't say anything about this.

  Worrying about how much these new products would set him back, Sam gazed into the mirror, stretched his eyes wide to appreciate the l
enses upon his eyes.

  His expected admiration at once turned to loathe.

  The corner of each eye held a small dab of yellow mucous. Eye-goo, or eye-snot as he called it. These embarrassing little boogers were a common sight when he wore contacts, but only after a long tiring day when his eyes needed a break. Not now, just beyond a few hours wear. Perhaps his eyes needed to get accustomed to the new lenses.

  He cleaned his eyes with a tissue, placed a drop of Rewetting solution in each one. He then changed into shorts and went to the gym, allowing himself to disregard the unsightly stuff that had temporarily marred his looks as he escaped into the bright sunny world.

  6:38 PM

  Sam returned to the apartment, continents of sweat darkening his shirt. He had a damn good workout tonight—and why not? He knew he looked good with his new lenses. Well, felt good anyway. Didn't make a darn of a difference. Seeing everything around him so crystal clear pumped him up real good, gave him that little extra incentive to push harder. And push harder he did, seeing all those girls—unblurred and sexy instead of gray and muddied—kept him around the gym all the much longer.

  He shuffled to the bathroom, gazed into the mirror.

  "Gah!" Did someone see him like this? One of the girls from the gym? God, he hoped not. But there it was, plain as pie, eye-goo, eye-snot, two big wads of it filling the corners of his eyes, so much that no pink showed, only blobs of yellow hugging the whites. Jesus, any more and it would start dripping out. He quickly scooped each globule out with his index finger and wiped it on a tissue.