Bassler Road: A Clifton Heights Tale
Page 2
“Gonna fuck you up, cheater! Fuck you up BAD!”
#
Swaying in the thing’s grip, hands clawing and flailing, Jarred tried to scream but only gurgled. He felt the warm flush of his bladder releasing and somehow that was the worst thing; that he was going to die pissing his pants.
The thing threw him into the truck’s bed. He fell against a wooden crate for oil and rags and jumper cables and cried out, his back throbbing where the crate’s corner had dug him. His throat burned as he gasped for air.
The truck rocked slightly on its shocks. Jarred looked in horror to see the thing that had been Jenny crouching on the tailgate, its green eyes burning the night.
“Jarrrrrrred,” Jenny’s husky voice whispered as It swayed with an oddly seductive grace, “don’t play coy, baby. You want me. I know you do. I could feel the lust coming from you the whole time, rolling off you in waves.”
Jarred recoiled, disgust and fear churning his guts… but that voice. That voice. It sent waves of desire washing over him, which mixed with his disgust and fear to create a horrific emotional stew that threatened to drown him. He believed she wanted him and could almost believe he wanted her, and even worse, a part of him thought… why not?
Why not let her have him, and let her take him?
Because then it would finally be over.
OH NO, NO JARRED, the thing whispered in his head, IT’S NEVER OVER, LOVER. NOT OUT HERE IN THE DARK. IT’S JUST YOU AND ME AND THE DARK AND WE’RE GOING TO BE HERE FOREVER AND EVER, JARRED.
FOREVER AND EVER.
“N-no,” Jarred whimpered as he cowered against the truck, “g-get a-way!”
“What’s wrong, Jarred?” the thing cooed. “Is it because I’m not Angela? Not a fat little secretary to screw just because you can?”
“S-stop it!” he screamed, hands groping for something, anything, “STOP IT!”
Darkness covered parts of Its face and the desire pulsing through his guts almost convinced him she was whole, desirable and fresh. But weak light from the cab illuminated a slip of decaying, leathery skin; enough to hint at the phantasmal reality hiding in the shadows.
“Because that’s all it was, wasn’t it? You weren’t even attracted to Angela. You just knew she’d let you screw her and that’s what got you off. The power. The power of a stupid little lawyer in a stupid little town, a big fish in a small pond screwing his secretary and ruining his dedicated wife’s life.”
Jarred whimpered as he blindly groped in the crate for something to defend himself with – a tire iron, a crowbar, anything – and desperate hope surged as his fingers curled around something wooden wrapped in worn, cracked tape.
The thing settled onto its haunches, gathering itself. “Let’s get it on!”
It sprang forward, a dark blur of decayed flesh, gnashing white teeth, blazing green eyes. Without thinking, he yanked the wooden object free of the crate and swung it with every ounce of strength he had, and only as it passed did he see…
It was a bat.
An old, worn Louisville Slugger.
His son’s old baseball bat. The one he’d given Bryan for his twelfth birthday, back when things had been good between him and Linda, back when they’d been happy.
And as the bat swept past, images flashed by, of the last time he’d seen it, at Bryan’s last Little League game, after he’d spent the whole morning giving his son some pointers from his own high school baseball days. Bryan hit four homeruns that day; a Webb County Little League record.
But Bryan was gone now. Both he and his sister Jane refused to speak to him.
The bat swung by.
And Jarred felt a force vibrate in his shoulder, A strange resonance flowing down his arm, into the bat, a sensation that had been absent from his life for years, perhaps ever since that last baseball game.
Love.
Intense love. Parental love, the love a father feels for his son, his love for Bryan and Jane and his love for Linda, coupled with a desperate desire to see her face glowing with that love once more.
The bat connected with a squelching thud.
His arm shook and a fantastic splash of the whitest light he’d ever seen brightened the night as the baseball bat glowed and pulsed upon impact.
The thing shrieked, landing on its back, scrabbling and clawing. The sickening smell of burning meat filled the air and the thing rolled and kicked and scrambled its way off the tailgate.
Jarred lay there, frozen. He wanted to cower and hide, but a trembling kind of courage drove him forward, out of the truck’s bed, baseball bat held before him.
As he shakily stepped down onto pavement, the thing stopped flailing and crouched on all four, glaring at him, growling. The bat had dug a wet, seeping trench in the thing’s right temple, above the eye, exposing rotten, blackened viscera and a strip of gleaming white skull.
But the thing’s tortured flesh changed.
Swirling like silly putty. The trench filled in and the thing’s face melted and churned until it slowly hardened into a new visage, one that sent cold shock flowing through him.
It stood slowly, smiling at him cruelly with Linda’s dead face.
“No,” he rasped, his fingers tightening on the bat’s handle, circling away from it. “You’re not Linda.”
The thing laughed and snapped its teeth. “Why not? This is the dark, after all. Dead things abide here. You and I both know Linda is dead, don’t we?”
Jarred lifted the baseball bat and pointed it, noting with a detached sense of awe that it still glowed faintly. “No,” he said again, more firmly this time, “you’re not her.”
The thing feinted and Jarred felt ashamed as he skittered back several feet, almost slipping and falling. It laughed as they continued to circle each other. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? Fact is, I am Linda, and she’s me. We’re all here in the dark, waiting for you. Only fitting, after all, seeing as how you killed Linda…”
The bat shook.
Its light dimmed and his legs weakened at the knees. “No, no, no. I didn’t kill her. I never, ever wanted…”
The thing spread its hands. “Well, you didn’t draw the warm bath, pour a bottle of sleeping pills down her throat and cut her wrist for her. She did that all on her own. Gotta admire her efficiency, by the way. Most people botch their suicides, cause they don’t really want to bite it, but she wanted to, all right. Even had a back-up plan, swallowing those sleeping pills before slashing her wrist.”
His vision blurred as tears stung his eyes, and the bat trembled, wavering. “N-no, no, no, no! I never wanted that to happen! I didn’t want her to die! I would’ve done anything to make it up to her… anything!”
The thing smiled at his grief. “Well that’s too bad, buddy boy, cause she died, choking on her own vomit. Guess she really meant it when she said she couldn’t live with the thought of you sleeping with someone else.” It waggled a scolding finger. “And it’s too late for apologies, Jarred, because Linda’s here with us in the dark, and she wants her pound of flesh.” An oily tongue licked ruined lips, dribbling saliva all over. “And we’re only too happy to oblige.”
And then, sudden understanding strengthened Jarred’s knees, stiffening his arm as he once again held the bat rigidly before him.
This wasn’t Linda.
It couldn’t be.
He didn’t know much about religion or God or Heaven or Hell but he thought only two choices existed. He’d gone crazy and was hallucinating, or the never-ending road and its thick, unnatural darkness was real. If he was hallucinating, so be it. Nothing mattered anymore, so what could he fear?
If this was real, however – the road, the dark, this thing – then Linda didn’t belong here. She deserved better for her years of selfless sacrifice raising their children, loving him unconditionally at first, tolerating and suffering him later…
She deserved better. She didn’t deserve this.
But he did.
“No,” he whispered, the bat glo
wing and throbbing anew, “you’re not Linda.”
The thing stopped.
Arms hanging slack, face expressionless.
It stood that way for several seconds, and then its face twisted, skin melting and sliding and folding. Even in the midst of his newfound resolve, Jarred’s stomach clenched at the sight.
Finally, the features hardened again into the ruined face of the thing called Jenny, chunk of upper-right temple missing, strip of bare skull gleaming in the moonlight.
“Well, well,” its teeth clicked, “the spoiled little boy finally grows up a little. Doesn’t matter, because the dark is forever, Jarred.” It paused, face splitting into a horrible grin. “Time to get it on, lover.”
Two notions struck Jarred in a heartbeat. One, the thing knew nothing about the source of the bat’s power, and two, it was lying.
It screeched and leapt forward, its face melting and sliding as its entire body shifted and changed. Jarred stood his ground, squaring his feet and shoulders just like he’d taught Bryan so long ago, and as he cocked the bat behind his head it flashed, lighting the night with a pure white light… and he saw his arms around Bryan, helping him hold the bat high at just the right angle; shoulder dipped, head up so his eye would stay on the ball and as the distance closed and Jarred looked down the thing’s gullet at the writhing, damned souls nestled there he remembered his pride as Bryan belted his fourth and last homer of the day, remembered Bryan jumping into his arms afterwards, unembarrassed by his father’s embrace…
Its hot sulfur stink filled his nostrils. Cold green eyes penetrated his soul.
And he swung hard as he could, the bat flashing with the brilliance of a thousand suns, filling the darkness and canceling the night. The thing screeched and everything exploded into whiteness.
Homerun.
#
He slowly came to, sitting on the edge of the tailgate, crying quietly, cradling his son’s baseball bat. Eventually (how long didn’t matter, because he now understood time had no meaning here) his sobs subsided, tears drying up. He heaved one last sigh, wiped his eyes with his forearm and looked up.
The horizon had lightened. The sky still looked dull and gray but the night was over for now, though he suspected it would return soon enough.
He looked down; saw streaks of grime and dried patches of gore on his clothes, physical remnants of his battle and a horrifying reminder of his fate, of where he was.
the dark is forever
He hefted the bat onto his shoulder. Stood, closed the Ram’s tailgate and walked to the driver’s side, leaving the toolbox behind. He had a feeling he wouldn’t need it where he was headed.
Climbing into his truck he tossed the bat into the passenger seat, buckled his seatbelt and turned the key. The Ram started right up, its rumble a welcome sound in this gray dawn’s stillness.
He shifted and pulled onto Bassler Road, which stretched out into the gray horizon forever, lined far as he could see by crowded Adirondack pines. He still wasn’t sure exactly what or where this was but somehow, though he knew the journey would be long, there was an end somewhere, a place of forgiveness and maybe even peace.
And maybe, if he were very lucky…
He drove on.
Not surprised at all to see his son’s baseball bat glowing faintly from the corner of his eye.
Clifton Heights Stories:
The Sliding
A Brother’s Keeper
Way Station
The Gate and the Way
As The Crow Flies
Scavenging
Almost Home
Clifton Heights Collections:
Things Slip Through
Clifton Heights Books:
Drowning (coming soon)
The Jabberwock (coming soon)
About the Author
Kevin Lucia is a Submissions Reader for Cemetery Dance Magazine and his podcast "Horror 101" is featured monthly on Tales to Terrify. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies.
He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children.
He is the author of Hiram Grange& The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles. His first collection of Clifton Heights Tales, Things Slip Through was published November 2013. He’s currently working on his first novel.