9 Tales Told in the Dark 12

by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

  “Drive to town,” she told herself. “Get help. You’re no good to anyone dead.”

  She started the engine. Watched the fuel gauge shoot all the way up to a quarter of a tank and refuse to go any further. She recalled Freddy asking everyone to remind him to get gas when they left on Sunday.

  It would have to be enough to get far enough away from danger. Most mid-size sedans like Freddy’s got at least 20 miles to the gallon. Most had about 13-gallon tank. At a quarter from empty she could drive at least 60 miles. There had to be someone within that distance.

  “I’m going to get help,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She put the car in reverse.

  Thump.

  And not the good kind of thump.

  She pulled forward. Then reversed in another direction. There was no thump this time. Her three-point turn skills got her facing the right direction; or the wrong direction, if her sanity was of any concern.

  The sight broke her.

  “Nooo.”

  Earl lay over a log. His skin had been removed. Same as Ben’s, expect she couldn’t see his head. She had knocked it off when she reversed. She floored the gas pedal and careened down the gravel road.

  The sun began to set behind her. It would be dark before she reached any tip of civilization. “I’ve got to get help,” she kept repeating. “I’ll be right back.”

  A pair of headlights made a truck visible before she would’ve seen it in the dust she was kicking up. She slammed on her brake, and so did the truck, for the road was only really wide enough for one car at a time.

  The truck pulled off to the side to let Cindy pass. She edged forward, and inspected it as she passed. It was a park ranger!

  She stopped, rolled down he window.

  “I need help!”

  Cindy was embarrassed. She clutched a water bottle to stop her from shaking, but it wasn’t proving much use.

  “And…did you all happen to see any stones?” the park ranger asked. Her name badge read Donovan, so it must’ve been a last name.

  “What?”

  “Stones… stacked up, several on top of each other.”

  “No. That’s just a story,” Cindy said. “Did you find Marla or Tina?”

  “No. I haven’t seen anyone. I usually drive up these roads on weekends to see how many overnighters we have. Anyway if you didn’t see any stones then that’s fine. It’s kind of a ghost story around these parts. Lots of pranksters.”

  “It’s not a prank! I saw their bodies.”

  “Would you feel safer if you came with me. You said the one body was right on the road.”

  Cindy agreed. The park ranger had a shotgun mounted in the rear window, and a pistol on her belt.

  Donovan threw out a flare next to Freddy’s car. “It’ll be dark soon. I don’t want some idiot running into your friend’s car.” Then she drove back to the campsite.

  “Now, you can be honest with me,” Donovan said. “If we find different paraphernalia up there, there would be charges. Unless you told me first.”

  “Just beer. I think.”

  “Lot of people come out here and do shrooms or LSD. They think it gets them closer to nature. It doesn’t, but nature sure makes them a lot of fun. I used to—”

  The windshield cracked. Blood filled the cracks. A naked breast stared at Cindy. An ass bled through a small hole, right in front of Donovan.

  The body was bent to hell. Its orange flesh could’ve belonged to Tina or Marla. There was no head and no way that Cindy would’ve been able to identify either of those bimbos. Then she noticed there were four legs entwined. Another breast pointed up to the darkening sky.

  “Holy shit! We’ve got ourselves a bona fide psychopath!” Donovan picked up her radio and started reporting to anyone who would listen. “Holy shit. Holy shit-shit!”

  Her door window shattered. Something grabbed her head, slammed it down into the broken glass. In the struggle, Donovan found her pistol, shot the floorboard next to Cindy’s feet. Cindy screamed and tried to open her door. The lock foiled her for only a second.

  Cindy ran and ran and ran. They hadn’t gotten far. She could do it, she told herself she could run faster than ever before. She ran all the way back to Freddy’s car and the burning flare.

  She had kept the keys. She clutched them in her hands, made a fist with a key between each knuckle. It was all she had.

  She didn’t stop until she was in the driver’s seat. She wouldn’t have hesitated another second except she recognized the arm clinging to the steering wheel.

  It was Freddy’s. He…no… Cindy didn’t want to think it…but…he must’ve. He must’ve escaped or evaded their attacker. He must’ve made it back to the car, sure that he could escape to safety. Except the keys were gone. Cindy had them.

  She checked her mirrors. Looked back at the danger she was sure had chased her. She locked the doors. She started the engine. There was no drama, no stuttering engine. It started right up and Cindy pulled away, certain she never wanted to stop driving.

  But gas runs out.

  Remember that.

  Seek alternative fuel sources, America.

  Especially when a car is carry more weight than it was designed for, like say a trunk full of stones.

  THE END.

  IN HIS ELEMENT by Jim Lee

  Carlson returned to the back of the delivery truck with a steady, deliberate stride. He was neither slow nor lazy, but he also did not hurry. Just went about his business at what surely was the ideal gait. Methodical—this was the word that fit him. And now he put out a pair of strong arms, fixing the last crate of frozen food between rock-solid handholds.

  The physical toil of day-work, the unending yet varied manual labor kept him fit. And yet it was not his true and native element.

  Carlson paused a moment; glanced over his shoulder to the west.

  Beyond the motley array of shops and homes and grimy taverns, the sky was a shockingly bright crimson. The constant pall of dust from Riverton's coal mines took credit for its spectacular sunsets. Of course, the fact that he recognized as much (or even that he cared) set Carlson apart from the usual run of working class stiffs.

  Not that he needed to be reminded of his uniqueness. Oh, no. Dwight W. Carlson was acutely, profoundly and even joyously aware of his special status. He was, mostly certainly, no ordinary man.

  The night, his element was coming on, and that fact alone was enough to stir him. Night was his domain; his true home.

  And when he chose, it was his hunting ground.

  Wrapped protectively in inky blackness, Carlson was invulnerable and unsurpassed.

  He allowed himself a brief grin. Then he wrestled the crate off the flatbed Ford and carried it into Mr. D'Angelo's ice-house.

  “Dese the last?” the Italian shopkeeper said then nodded before Carlson grunted a reply. D'Angelo's accent was heavy, but over the past five weeks Carlson had grown able to instantly decipher it. “Is good. Close up and lock now, yes? Good. Here your pay. . .”

  Carlson accepted the money with a polite murmur. Then he squinted at the blood-red sunset again and asked if he would be needed tomorrow.

  “No.” the fat little grocer shook his head. “Next week. Wednesday, maybe. Or Thursday—is okay?”

  Carlson shrugged. There were plenty of odd jobs a willing man could pick-up in this town. D'Angelo's market wasn't any better (or worse) than the others. “I'll stop by Tuesday evening then,” he promised. “See what you have to say and all?”

  “Is good, Carlson. More of that Mr. Bird-eye's fancy froze vegetables, they come next week. Will need help—for unloading, storing away, putting bout for sale, huh? That Mr. Bird-eye fella, he gonna be rich, all the stuff he sell!”

  Carlson laughed. Raised his arm in a parting gesture and walked off. He turned a corner, then another as he considered how backward this Pennsylvania coal town really was. He looked up. Saw the marquee of Riverton's smaller movie house. Emil Jennings in “The Way of All Fl
esh” was still playing!

  Carlson had never seen it, though the title sounded vaguely amusing. Still, he had other things to take care of—other (better) ways of passing the evening. He moved through the gathering twilight, kicking wastepaper and stray cats from his path with equal indifference. He paused at van Rijan's newsstand. Purchased the evening paper and (after a bit of intense browsing) a magazine with certain interesting aspects.

  He had to read something. Find something to occupy the idle minutes and his restless mind. It was too soon—his latest hunt still too fresh a memory and its location entirely too near-to-hand for him to venture out again.

  He shook his head. Flexed his free hand inside his overcoat and marched straight back to the hotel that had been home for the past five weeks.

  The night was his element. Carlson never felt uncomfortable or cold in it. Not in the last decade, anyway. Not since the Great War and his discovery of his proper place, his destiny. And not even on a blustery, mid-December night such as this. The darkness. It was his singular ally, his one true friend.

  Yet now, for just the time being, he retreated from it.

  He climbed the marble stairs, entered the Gothic Revival hotel's lobby. Alonzo Kupp sat behind the desk. The man caught Carlson's eye. Grinned and motioned him over.

  Carlson chewed his lower lip.

  He had intended to read in one of the lobby's padded chairs. But a bob-haired, tassel-fringed, short-skirted cliché of Jazz Age brainlessness was all-too-handy there—exchanging loud and labored witticisms with two doltish male admirers.

  Carlson watched her shift in the chair, her torso twisting under the immodest garment as she turned from man to man. In a moment, her skirt would 'accidentally' ride up, revealing a length of slim thigh and cause yet another round of cackling amusement.

  Well, the hell with that!

  Carlson turned to his wartime acquaintance with near-relief. “So, Kupp—how are you this evening?”

  The hotel clerk's grin was constant, but not entirely foolish. “I was about to break for supper. Want to join me? Or would you rather keep eyeballing that flapper from a safe distance?”

  Carlson pursed his lips; decided to ignore the last comment. “The hotel dining room?” he asked, reflecting that he was rapidly growing tired of the unimaginative fare they offered—as he always did, when he'd remained in one place too long.

  Kupp shook his head. “I remember how you always liked your steak,” he said with a wink. “There's this little cafe over on Pommeroy Avenue. Does 'em to perfection!”

  Carlson frowned. But then a fresh squeal came from the off-blonde creature across the way and he cringed. He reminded himself that the time simply wasn't right and quickly accepted Kupp's invitation.

  The men said nothing as they walked to the cafe, coats tight around them—shielding Kupp against the cold, with Carlson pretending to follow suit. A few flakes of snow descended, but the ground was just warm enough to prevent any accumulation.

  At the cafe, they ordered and said a few words about old times.

  They had not been friends, exactly. Merely two Army draftees, assigned to the same hospital unit as corpsmen and orderlies. Their meeting now, ten years later, had been sheer coincidence—Carlson passing through, on the move as always; Alonzo Kupp supporting a wife and child by clerking at Riverton's oldest and largest hotel.

  Still, it was somewhat good to see someone who remembered Carlson from the beginning. From before it all . . . changed.

  Each man asked about one or another old comrade from the War, but neither had kept in touch with those spoken of. At length, Kupp shook his head and Carlson unfolded his paper to read of the day's events.

  “Another whole new country,” Kupp said from memory, having read the same edition an hour earlier. “This one in the Near East. Seems the Brits just let it go independent.”

  “Yes, I see. Iraq. But Britain intends to continue handling the place's defense.”

  “Right—so it's only sort of independent.” Kupp paused then asked, “That's what used to be called Mesopotamia, right?”

  “Indeed.” Carlson put the paper aside and nodded. Perhaps Kupp was, despite appearances, someone he could actually relate to on a meaningful level? “That's good, Alonzo. Had no idea you were such a scholar! Meaning no offense, but most people in this one-horse town seem unable to grasp anything beyond grubbing out their own meaningless existences.”

  Kupp chuckled, nodded. “That's Riverton, for certain. But I like to read. Keep up with what's happening in the world. You too, obviously.”

  “Yes, me too.”

  Presently their steaks arrived and they were as excellent as Kupp had indicated. Rare, with just the proper hint of blood when one sliced a piece. Carlson watched in open delight as the dark fluid welled up on his plate.

  And he remembered—oh, yes, how he remembered!

  The bastard offspring of an Indiana farm-girl and an unknown father, Carlson spent his formative years in an orphanage—at the ragged edge of a town so small, it made Riverton's dirty streets, choking coal-dust atmosphere and nearly 10,000 ignorant, unwashed, largely immigrant people seem positively cosmopolitan by comparison.

  His youth and young adulthood had passed aimless and uncertain. Carlson drifted—both physically and emotionally, spiritually.

  He was in and out of trouble. Nothing too serious, but almost constantly.

  Then the Great War came. And in 1917 he found himself shipped across the Atlantic to France.There, soon, it all changed. Dwight W. Carlson discovered exactly who and what and most important why he was!

  “I never knew all that,” Kupp remarked as he slowly chewed the skin from his baked potato.

  Carlson blinked. Saw the expression of sympathetic interest on the other man's face. He hadn't even been aware of voicing his story, but knew relief that it hadn't gone too far. Kupp was someone he could talk to, after a fashion and to a point, and that was most welcome. But that final, innermost secret was one Carlson could never share with him—or anyone, save his prey.

  And they were never in a position to discuss it, afterward.

  “Speaking of the Brits,” Kupp remarked, “what was the name of that nurse?”

  Carlson stiffened. “Nurse?”

  “Yeah. You know. When we were based next to that British hospital unit, a few miles back from the front. You must recall her. Your eyes nearly bugged out, first time you saw her!”

  Carlson remembered. He remembered seeing her emerge, blood and gore painted across the front of her uniform. And he remembered thinking her exquisite. That she was absolutely perfect like that—black hair tied back, cheeks pale with exhaustion from assisting the combat surgeons for hours.

  “Melanie,” he muttered now.

  “That's it.” Kupp snapped his fingers and grinned. “Melanie . . . Booth, right? Never gave you the time of day, as I recall.”

  “Somebody killed her,” Carlson said with careful even handedness. “Two days before we were ordered forward.”

  Kupp's grin disappeared. “Oh, yeah. Put that out of my mind, I guess. Sorry.”

  Carlson nodded. He had come to her, to tell her privately of his feelings and the impending transfer. And she had looked down her aristocratic nose at him. Looked down and sniffed. Said nothing, really—just looked and raised one dainty brow, and sniffed.

  It was enough—well-enough for Carlson, then 27 and desperate.

  Melanie was well-born, as they say. From an 'important' London family. A Lady—too good for an upstart, a poor bastard from a distant, upstart, bastard country like America. She'd have a Titled Gentleman—an Officer, or at the least, a Surgeon.

  And he could hope for nothing—nothing at all.

  The well-worn scalpel was simply lying there, on the convenient table. He used it in blind heat. In fury. His technique did not approach the skill of even the most slipshod Surgeon. But it was effective, for all that.

  When he was done, Carlson crept back to his unit, his tent. He washed
himself, three times over. Put away the scalpel and waited to be arrested.

  Somehow, he never was.

  “Dwight?” Shaking his head, Kupp touched Carlson's elbow. “Sorry. Never should've brought her up. I just didn't—”

  “It's all right,” Carlson answered abruptly. He pushed his chair back.

  The other man watched helplessly, as he rose to his feet. “Going back to the hotel?” Kupp asked and shambled to his feet. “I'll walk back with you?”

  Carlson shook his head. He paused to listen to the two old men at the next table. Baseball fans. And being from western Pennsylvania they were, of course, Pirate loyalists. Even now, on the verge of Christmas, the decrepit fools were debating the team's fortunes—its chances for 1928.

  All the one could talk about was their wily Manager, a Mr. O. Bush, and how he was going to direct them to another pennant. The other agreed Pittsburgh would take a second straight title. But his point was that Paul Waner was the greatest all-around star since Honus Wagner—yet another Pirate legend, of course.

  Carlson grimaced—appalled, but scarcely surprised by these men and their relentlessly provincial outlooks. 1927 was on its last legs. Lindbergh had conquered the Atlantic. Gangsters virtually ruled the city of Chicago. Sinclair Lewis had published “Elmer gantry.” Sea grave had broken 200 MPH in his Sunbeam Racer. Gene Tunney held his title against all comers. France's Alekhine had toppled that Cuban, Capablanca, from the World Chess Title. The KKK was on the rise, both north and south. Coolidge was still silent.

  And unknown to any of them, Dwight W. Carlson hunted and slew with impunity. In the darkness. In his element. He had done so five times that year alone and in as many different states. And each time he had savored his brilliance, tasted of victory . . . then moved on.

  And all these old men could talk about was baseball?

  Pirate baseball, at that.

  As if they'd never heard of Ruth (with his 60 home runs) Gehrig (whose 175 RBIs dwarfed Waner's 'brilliant' 131) or any of the other Yankees who had swept Pittsburgh in the Series!