by Kevin Lucia
Bassler Road – A Clifton Heights Story
By Kevin Lucia
Copyright 2008 - © Kevin Lucia
Originally Published as “Darkness Road”, 2008 – NextGen Pulp Magazine, Issue #1
2013 - Released in Things Slip Through
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Welcome to Clifton Heights, New York. Just another average Adirondack town, and nice enough in its own right.
Except after dark, or under the pale light of the moon. Or in a very private doctor's office at Clifton Heights General Hospital, where no one can hear you scream. Or on a road out of town that never ends, or in an old house sitting on the edge of town with a mind - and will - of its own.
Maybe you shouldn't have left the interstate, my friend. Maybe you should've driven on to the next town.
But you didn't. You saw our sign, turned down our road, figuring on just a short stay. And maybe it will be.
Or maybe you'll never leave.
Anyway, pay a visit to The Skylark Diner. I'll be there. Pull up a chair and let me tell you about our town. It's nice enough, it really is.
Except after dark. Or on cold winter days when no one is around, and you're all alone…
Bassler Road
Jarred Simmons jerked awake, his heart hammering, expecting to see guardrails or trees looming in his headlights, but after several seconds of clutching the steering wheel he realized he was still traveling safely forward on Bassler Road.
“Sonuvabitch.”
He breathed deep and relaxed. “That was too close. Gotta stay awake or I’m dead.”
But his eyes felt heavy, exhausted. Everything blurred and mixed together. He felt little distinction between him, his Dodge RAM and the road, which stretched out before him into the night.
He rubbed the back of his neck. His last cup of coffee had worn off and his thoughts felt jumbled. His eyes burned, his face felt heavy and he had to force himself to focus on Bassler Road, which seemed much longer than he remembered.
Granted, he rarely drove this way, so he didn’t know how long Bassler Road actually was. He usually left town the other way, southeast, out toward Woodgate and Utica, but his GPS had plotted the quickest route to the Interstate along Bassler Road, and his sense of direction wasn’t worth shit on a good day, so he’d followed the GPS’s prompts, no questions asked.
But the damn thing didn’t seem to be working, now. Said he should be on Interstate 80, but this was still clearly Bassler Road, framed by dark, looming stands of Adirondack pine, stretching forever into the night’s horizon.
Where the hell was the interstate?
A dull pressure throbbed behind his eyes. His temples ached. Not only had he been awake for several days straight, but those shots of Wild Turkey he’d downed a few hours ago weren’t helping, either. In retrospect, it had been foolish to hit the road without sleeping it off, but at the time getting away immediately had seemed the best thing to do. This, of course, said little for the logic-enhancing properties of Wild Turkey.
“That’s the last time I drink alone,” he lectured himself in the rearview mirror, knowing it was a lie. His reflection – that of a balding, chubby-faced middle-aged man – said nothing in return, but the accusation lay there, swimming in watery-gray eyes.
Weak eyes.
Weak.
Jarred frowned at the barren road. The night blanketing the landscape looked like nothing he’d ever seen before, even as an Adirondack native. Thick, swirling, like a living, breathing thing, it swallowed the light cast by his headlights and seemed to press in all around him.
Where was the damn Interstate?
He was trying to keep his eyes open and himself awake when he saw it, down the road, on the right.
A white flutter.
Stark against the darkness, waving.
Or thumbing for a ride.
He eased off the gas and as he neared the waving white form, he saw a bag on the ground and long, flowing blond hair. A few more feet and the waving flutter solidified into an extended arm and a raised thumb. Jarred rolled by, slowing along Bassler Road’s shoulder.
He parked the Ram.
And when he glanced over his shoulder and looked out the back, a shiver of unease rippled down his back at what he glimpsed through the trees.
Bassler House.
Old Bassler House, out in its unused cornfield, where it’d been rotting for decades. Clifton Heights’ own spook house, also a rumored party spot for the varsity football team. Jarred didn’t believe in haunted houses so its gothic, shadowed image, seen through night-shrouded trees didn’t bother him at all. It was just an old house. A more practical worry nagged him.
He should’ve passed Bassler House long ago. It was just past the Commons Trailer Park. How was he passing it only now?
He shook off the question, focusing instead on the person who’d flagged him down, and that didn’t make him feel any better, because she was just standing there, staring at his truck instead of snatching up her bag and rushing toward him.
And then another thought, just as unnerving: she was standing right where Bassler House’s front drive might open up, as if she’d come from inside the old house and had been waiting here by the road, and not just waiting…
But waiting for him.
Suddenly, the girl sprang into action. She grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder and jogged toward him. Several seconds passed, and as he heard the approaching hitchhiker’s feet scrape the gravel shoulder, an odd premonition flitted through his mind: drive off, right now, leave her here and find the interstate.
His hand tightened on the shifter.
The urge to drive away swelling.
But the moment passed with a click as the passenger-side door opened to reveal a tanned, young (much younger than he’d imagined) face framed by strawberry blond hair spilling onto soft shoulders. Her white dress turned out to be a faded, tie-dye sundress. Brilliant green eyes danced as the girl smiled. “Hey! Thanks for stopping! Totally awesome of you. It’s freaking freezing out here!”
Jarred blinked, realizing with a hot sense of embarrassment that he was staring like an open-mouthed idiot at a teenage girl young enough to be his daughter. Clearing his throat, finding his voice with some difficulty, he swept empty Styrofoam coffee cups and fast food wrappers off the passenger seat. “Yeah, uh… sure. Don’t mind the mess. Hop in.”
The girl climbed into the Ram with a feline grace that seemed beyond her years. She settled into her seat, deposited her bag between her legs onto the floor, closed the door and put her seatbelt on. With a sigh, she covered her face with her hands and leaned back.
“Thanks so much! Thought I’d be stuck there forever.”
Jarred said nothing as he shifted the truck into gear and pulled back onto Bassler Road.
#
Jarred risked several guilty, sidelong glances at his passenger. The instant she’d climbed into the Ram the cab had filled with a sweet, lingering fresh scent, and she exuded a warmth that flushed his cheeks and made his neck burn. Slowly waking desire clashed with intense guilt, making him feel like a dirty old man stealing peeks at such a young, inexperienced girl.
not so young, really
and you don’t really know how inexperienced she is
do you
“So,” he said, sneaking another guilty peek, “not to pry, but why are you hitching way out here instead of somewhere in town? Gotta be easier picking
up a ride there, this late.”
Chancing another sidelong glance he caught the girl’s shy smile as she gazed into the dark, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “I live back in the Commons. Just got into a HUGE fight with my mom and said screw it, I’m outta here.”
She looked at him, green eyes bright and alive. “So I packed my bag and decided to hike out to the interstate along Bassler Road instead of going through town. Didn’t want to run into anyone I knew, didn’t feel like answering any questions.”
She raked her fingers through her hair and smirked, as if amused at herself. “Good thing you came along, though. If not, I’d still be walking.” A puzzled frown replaced her smirk as she gazed ahead. “Bassler Road’s a lot longer than I thought it was.”
He looked back down the road, which seemed endless, framed by high trees reaching for dark skies on both sides, road lights glimmering weakly. “Yeah,” he whispered. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”
“What about you?”
He glanced at her again and this time couldn’t help eyeing the girl’s trim, curved body beneath that flowing dress, (she couldn’t be much older than nineteen) and it took significant willpower to drag his eyes back to the road. He forced himself to, however, not only because this girl was so very young but also because he was in no position to ask anything of any woman ever again, not after…
No.
Don’t start.
“So… what about you? I got pissed and stormed out on my trailer-trash mom. How come you’re out here, so late… alone?”
He looked over, startled at the sultry emphasis she put on the word. Her deep, green eyes seemed to be drinking him in, almost hungrily as she lounged in her seat, nubile legs tucked underneath her. Guilt and arousal fought for supremacy and he found himself stammering, at a loss for words, feeling like a love-struck, sex-obsessed teenager. “Uh… heading to Poughkeepsie. Visiting a friend, spur of the moment, so I packed my bags and…”
She nodded, eyes never leaving his.
And he wondered if she sensed his lie. “And you’re taking Bassler Road because…”
At least this he could answer truthfully. He waved at the GPS mounted on the dash, which, of course, still showed him traveling on the Interstate he’d yet to find. “GPS said the quickest way to Interstate 80 was leaving town down Bassler Road, but the damn thing doesn’t seem to be working very well. Keeps telling me I’m on Interstate 80, when…” he gestured at the dark road ahead.
“Ah.” She glanced ahead, then gave him another one of those quietly smoldering looks (which made her seem so much older), and asked point blank: “So. She leave you, or are you leaving her? And don’t bullshit me. I know these things.”
He opened his mouth to protest but his guilt won out. He looked away, eyeing the wedding band on his finger. He’d no right to wear it, had meant to take it off dozens of times the last few months, but somehow he’d always forgotten to.
“So?”
“I…”
He paused, licked his lips, remembering the hot, stabbing pains of betrayal, despair, and failure. He swallowed thickly, his throat raw, but he managed, “She left.”
“Divorced? Or just separated?”
“Not divorced. We’re just… not together, anymore.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she murmured, with what sounded like real empathy. “Did she cheat?”
He looked at her but she’d turned away and he couldn’t see her expression as she gazed into the dark night. Before he could answer, she continued. “I bet she did. Before he left, MY Daddy couldn’t keep it in his pants. He cheated on Mom all the time, even when she was right there in the next…”
She stopped, gasping slightly.
A small sob, her shoulders quivering.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, because he had no idea what to say. So much implied in that small sob, and that last part: “even when she’s right there, in the next…”
room?
The implications turned his stomach, and like ash cooling in the wind, his guilty lust faded away. He returned his gaze to the road – the empty, endless road – and the silence stretched out between them until he said, “Didn’t get your name, by the way.”
“Jenny. Jenny Tillman.”
“Jarred Simmons,” he said, wondering: why does that name sound so familiar?
Where had he heard it before?
But before he could ask, the Ram stalled without even a warning rumble. They decelerated abruptly and he cursed under his breath while fighting to bring them to a safe stop alongside the road without power steering.
“What is it?”
Oddly, Jenny seemed calm, apparently untroubled by the prospect of being stranded alone on a dark road with him. Given the implications of her past, this unsettled him considerably.
“I’m not sure,” he said, “just had an inspection, oil change and tune-up. Everything checked out fine. Damn!” He hit the brakes, slowed them to a stop, then parked the Ram and turned the ignition off, even though the engine wasn’t running. He snagged his cell phone off the dash, thumbed it on…
… and was greeted with a red X.
Perfect.
No service.
He tossed the cell back onto the dash and glanced over at Jenny. She sat still, hands folded in her lap, eyes fixed forward.
“Well,” he said, forcing a light-hearted tone, “guess I’d better get out, check under the hood. You’ll be okay in here?”
She said nothing.
And for a moment, Jarred was struck with the bizarre and macabre notion that Jenny Tillman was dead. The thought of his fleeting arousal for a corpse made his stomach churn.
But no.
That was insane.
She wasn’t dead. That was just the feverish fantasy of a tired, stressed mind. She still sat upright, after all, and he could see very clearly the rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed.
What the hell was wrong with her, then?
He reached out a tentative hand, perhaps to grasp her shoulder, maybe place a comforting hand on her back, or…
slip his hand under her silky hair
massage her neck, caress her soft skin
… but he made a fist instead, a vague premonition warding him off. He murmured, “I-I’ve got to get out, okay? Get the tool box, check the engine. You’ll be okay while I...?”
A slight nod. “I’ll be fine,” she said, but her voice sounded thin, insubstantial. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Sit tight.”
He opened the door and got out quickly, desperate for some reason to be away from his suddenly strange-acting passenger.
An odd, heavy stillness had filled the night and he shivered, shutting the door and walking around back, jingling his keys. At the rear he opened the tailgate and grabbed the handle to a small, red plastic toolbox and as he pulled it out onto the tailgate, he glanced to the front, where Jenny still stared ahead. He couldn’t help thinking she was hiding her face from him purposefully and dark fantasies leapt into his mind of her face decayed and teeming with maggots. With a grunt, he pushed those images away, picked up the toolbox and rounded the right-rear bumper toward the front…
A flicker caught his eye.
The passenger door hanging open.
And as he approached it, he saw the seat empty, and Jenny gone.
#
There’d been no noise, no creaking of the door, no feet scraping asphalt. But there was the proof before his eyes. Jenny Tillman was gone, vanished without a sound.
He stared for several seconds, unable to accept the visual evidence that, indeed, the passenger seat was now empty, and not only was Jenny gone but so was her bag.
An eerie chill rippled across his shoulders. Had he imagined the whole thing? Conjured up Jenny from the combination of too little sleep, too much stress, a little liquor still coursing through his system? And was that even possible?
“No,” he muttered, eyes refusing to believe the vacant seat. “
No, NO. She was real. She was.”
A slight scrape.
A foot, dragging across gravel.
He glanced up, and through the driver side window saw blond hair and green eyes flash by. He walked quickly around the truck’s front, driven by a horrible need for validation…
he wasn’t crazy, Jenny was real, dammit
… plagued by the sickening premonition that maybe it’d be better if the whole thing was an illusion, because then at least he’d be alone, and safe.
At the Ram’s front he saw nothing for a moment, then he caught the barest flutter of tie-dyed fabric disappearing around the rear. Guts churning, he rushed to the tailgate, wondering what the hell he was scared of. If he’d imagined Jenny it meant one thing: he was too tired and needed rest. If she was real, Jenny was probably high on something and having some twisted fun at his expense. She was from the Commons, after all. Trailer trash, just as she’d said.
Coming full circle, standing at the Ram’s open tailgate he saw nothing, save darkness and trees…
But he heard something.
A whisper.
Jarred cocked his head, ears tickling, either with a faint breeze or his fevered imagination, he wasn’t sure.
And as he stood in the night, holding the toolbox, he grew certain that somehow he had imagined the whole thing. He was strung out, also riddled with guilt. Easy for the mind to play tricks under those conditions. So he brushed off the ghostly sensation of whispering in his ears, turned to close the tailgate…
When a cold, slimy hand reached around from behind, clamped onto his throat and squeezed. Jagged fingernails dug into his skin as the hand lifted him into the air effortlessly. His stomach lurched as a rancid smell filled his nostrils: rank, oily, the odor of long dead things rotting in stagnant water. The hand squeezed tighter and shook him. He dropped the toolbox and grasped at the thing’s hands, realizing in horror that though his fingers dug deep grooves into the skin, no blood flowed.
Kicking and scratching, he looked down.
A withered, leathery, decaying face with cracked and bleeding lips leered at him, showing slimy, broken teeth.
