by Shock Totem
The one time Megan had tried this routine, she’d been struck with the image of herself replacing Barb, the front of her uniform pulled low to reveal withered and spotted breasts, lunch breaks filled with one lipstick-smeared Pall Mall after another behind the dumpster. The tip had been the largest of the evening, but the encounter had left her feeling dirty, and she’d made sure to spend the money before picking up her son, Jack, from the sitter’s.
At the opposite end from the college boys and Barb, a woman with dark hair and a thin face raised a mug to signal for a refill. She wasn’t a regular yet, but she had all the marks of one. Megan had seen her twice earlier in the week, ordering coffee and not much else, always paying with change and leaving a few nickels and dimes beyond what she owed.
She’d emptied a box of candy hearts onto her placemat and was busy turning them right-side up, sugary red letters displaying messages of love and other expressions.
“Candy hearts, again?” Megan asked, refilling the woman’s mug.
“I like to think of them as antacids,” she said. “Helps with the heartburn. Probably all in my head, though.” She offered a crestfallen smile that didn’t betray any teeth and popped a candy into her mouth. A dull crack issued from inside. In the unforgiving light of the diner, dark circles encroached on the woman’s eyes, painting them as cold cherry pits. A thick layer of foundation called attention to the poorly disguised bruise along the right side of her face. The signs of abuse made the candies difficult to stomach, another reason to hate February. Megan wouldn’t be surprised if the woman was staying at the battered women’s shelter a few blocks over.
“Placebo effect,” Megan said.
The woman nodded and blew on her coffee, ripples sputtering across the surface. “Something like that.”
The roar of an engine rose from the parking lot, and a pair of headlights flashed to life. The Camaro spun its tires, squealing on the pavement, before it fishtailed and straightened parallel to the front of the diner. For a moment, Megan had a clear view of the man behind the wheel, of David, a scowl on his face that reminded her of the way Travolta had looked in Carrie, the image grotesque and ridiculous and outdated. A bottle hurtled through air, arcing end over end to shatter against the window framing the booth. She flinched as a web of cracks radiated from the point of impact. Something was shouted from the Camaro’s open window, then the engine revved once more and the car shot off into the nighttime traffic, taillights swallowed by the dark.
The woman gave an appraising look but said nothing, for which Megan was grateful. Instead she popped another heart into her mouth and chased it with coffee.
“Well isn’t that wonderful,” Barb yelled. She handed one of the boys a sundae he likely hadn’t ordered. “Can’t you get through a shift without causing everyone grief?” The boys twisted around in the booth and stared at Megan as she stood in slack surprise.
“Excuse me?” Megan said.
“We never had this kind of trouble until Dale hired you on. You wait until he sees that window.” She turned back to the boys, stealing the occasional glance in Megan’s direction as she spoke in hushed tones.
Two police cruisers pulled in twenty minutes later, though Megan hadn’t heard anyone call them. She’d gone through the motions often enough in the six months since her separation that the questioning seemed a charade. One officer scribbled notes while the other spoke to dispatch between bursts of static. Barb pressed one manicured hand over her heart and repeated over and again how frightened she’d been, hanging on the note taker’s arm. Next came the same old words spoken with different voices. Yes, ma’am, we’ll take care of it. And yes, ma’am, we deal with this sort of thing all the time. Then they were gone.
At ten, they turned out the remaining customers and locked the doors. The last of the dishes were cleaned, the tables cleared, the grills scrubbed, and the drawers counted down in silence. As they closed, Megan stole occasional glances out at the lot, now empty except for her beat up Datsun and Barb’s pickup. The Camaro didn’t return.
• • •
Jack was fast asleep when Megan reached the sitter’s. She handed over half of the day’s tips in exchange for her son and buckled him into the back seat, admiring the tuft of thick black hair protruding from beneath the hood of his coat.
On the drive home, she watched him in the rearview mirror, his head tucked into his chest like a chick trying to keep warm. She also watched for headlights. As each set came into view, she analyzed their size, their brightness, always on the lookout for the particulars. The backstreets were shorter, but she stuck to the main roads when possible. In the weeks since David had started showing up outside the diner, she’d been assailed by dreams of the Datsun stalled at an intersection, headlights filling her vision before several hundred horsepower of American muscle crushed the little car’s frame and showered her with glass.
She turned on her blinker and swung into the Shady Oaks apartment complex.
“You smell like pancakes,” Jack mumbled, half asleep.
“You smell like a monkey.”
A repetitive baseline sounded somewhere in the building, but the stairs and hall were empty, as was their apartment. She’d made a habit of setting Jack just inside the door as she checked over the small one bedroom with her keys laced between her fingers, turning on each light and peering into the closets, under the bed they shared.
“All clear?” Jack asked.
“Yup. No monsters anywhere. Let’s get ready for bed. It’s late.”
“I brushed my teeth at Nina’s.”
Megan nodded. “Do you think you can brush them again for me?”
“No.” Jack crossed his arms, lips extended in a pout.
“If you go brush your teeth and put your pajamas on, we can make up the news before bed. How’s that sound?”
She loved to watch him consider things, his face scrunched in concentration while he decided what shirt to wear or whether he wanted the crusts cut from his sandwiches. He weighed everything, examining all the angles.
“Okay,” he said, then started for bathroom.
Once they’d washed up and changed, they climbed into bed and turned on the TV for what Jack had dubbed “making up the news.” This consisted of Megan turning the TV to the local news and muting the volume so she could silently read the subtitles while the two of them took turns making up their own stories for the newscasters. Fatal accident on I-90 became Tyrannosaurus Sighted, Cars Crushed Underfoot. The latest celebrity drama morphed into Aliens Invade Hollywood, Wear Too Much Makeup in Poor Attempt at Disguise.
The eleven o’clock news was well underway when Megan hit mute and enabled the subtitles. A reporter with overly-large teeth and a drab suit jabbered hurriedly into a microphone. Behind him, several cruisers sat parked at the local precinct. A pair of officers passed and disappeared inside. Boxes of text formed above the reporter before disappearing under the weight of new lines.
—previous three incidents, contents include both a human heart and current driver’s license of the presumed—
“There’s a party going on at the police station,” Jack said. “It’s the police chief’s birthday and everyone is invited. They have seven chocolate cakes and two vanilla cakes.”
—too early to confirm the identity of the victim, initial tests match blood type displayed—
“How old is the chief, Jack?”
“Seventeen million.”
“That old, huh?”
“Yeah. They used a dump truck to bring the candles and a flamethrower to light them all.” Jack made a whoosh sound and swept his arms over the top of the blanket.
—more information as it becomes available—
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Nope. The firefighters are invited. Everyone is invited.”
A balding weatherman dressed in gray gestured to a cold front overtaking the Midwest, swirls of green clouds falling apart only to reappear and crumble once more. For reasons Megan couldn’t understand,
Jack always ceased his interpretations during this segment, shushing her if she tried to talk.
The sound of an antique telephone issued from her purse. She’d forgotten to silence her cell. The two of them exchanged glances as the phone rang a second and third time.
“Is it him?” Jack asked.
“Of course not,” Megan said. “It’s just a wrong number.” In her mind’s eye she could see David, his forearm draped over the top of yet another payphone, a cigarette burning to the filter between his fingers. And if she picked up the phone, she’d hear nothing but quiet breathing in the space between her ear and the receiver, the same breathing she’d listened to every night for months before she’d worked up the nerve not to answer. The phone went to voicemail, and before the caller could try again, she reached into her purse and set the ringer to silent.
Jack stared at her, his expression close to the one associated with his decision making, only darker.
The news had moved to a woman standing beside the highway. The occasional taillight flickered in the background.
“Looks like another dinosaur sighting,” Megan said.
Jack pointed to the tree line behind the highway, the phone call forgotten. “Those trees are perfect for Bigfoot. I bet the reporter will find a million Bigfoot tracks in there.”
His words came out so matter-of-factly that she couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
• • •
The next morning, Dale pulled Megan into his office, which was nothing more than a massive desk crammed into a nook beside the walk-in freezer, and asked about the events of the previous night. When Dale had interviewed her, she’d said nothing of David or her pending divorce, and when faced with her new boss’s inquiries and offers for help, she still clung to the idea that she could have a fresh start, that she could be something other than the center of attention. And so it was with this hope that she brushed his questions aside with apologies and promises that there would be no further incidents.
Aside from the occasional glare from Barb and the usual chaos of the breakfast rush, the morning was blissfully uneventful. Kate, another recent hire who had a boy around Jack’s age, helped break the mood with pinches of dialogue between taking orders and refilling coffee. Every now and then the two of them would look to the shattered window and then to each other, making exaggerated frowns that lightened the mood more than Megan had thought possible.
It wasn’t until noon that the Camaro appeared, David’s stark, black hair, gray eyes, and pinched nose clearly visible in the light of day. He was eating a hamburger. A paper sack sat on the dash, and now and then he would reach inside for a handful of fries. Ketchup dotted the front of his blue coveralls. Apparently he’d decided to spend his lunch break outside the diner rather than at the garage. Or perhaps the police had gone there looking for him.
If he was on his lunch break, he’d be gone within the hour. Still, she hated the idea of going about her job while he watched undisturbed. Another part of her, the part that yearned to dissolve into anonymity, liked the idea of bringing a few police cruisers into the parking lot for the lunch crowd to gawk at even less. With steady, measured steps, she rounded the counter, took the phone from the wall, and punched in three numbers at random. Outside, David straightened in his seat.
She tried to think how many times an emergency call might ring and after a moment fed details into the receiver, mouthing the words husband and violation and restraining order. Halfway through reciting the diner’s address, the Camaro cranked to life and disappeared into traffic.
She hung up the phone and leaned back against the counter. The clink of forks and knives and the drone of the jukebox seemed diminished, as if wrapped in layer upon layer of plastic. Somewhere behind her, a customer called for an extra set of silverware, and when the request was not honored, called more loudly. It was a long time before Megan could reply and even longer before her shaking legs could support her.
• • •
When two o’clock rolled around, she punched her time card, climbed behind the wheel of the Datsun, and set off to pick up some groceries before the elementary school let out.
On her way to the Dollar Mart, she took the route leading past St. Julian’s, the battered women’s shelter a few blocks from the diner. Old Victorian houses with wraparound porches and all manner of windows slumbered on each side of the street. Several of these houses, including the women’s shelter, had been converted into something new. A bed and breakfast. A funeral home. A consignment shop.
The shelter loomed ahead on her right. The massive brick structure gave a sense of security and stability. White shutters and a wide front porch softened the otherwise hard appearance. In what she now thought of as the Bad Days, back when she and David still lived together, she would drive down this street three or four times a week for no other reason than to look at the house and the women who sometimes sat on the porch in the evenings. Even now she wondered if she and Jack might not end up there still.
She scanned the porch for any sign of the customer with the bruised cheek and candy hearts as she passed. Had the woman had long hair? Short? Blue or brown eyes? She tried to conjure the woman’s face only to be met with a bruised and tired abstraction. In any case, the porch sat empty.
The radio promised record snowfall throughout the night and into the next day, and by the time she pulled into the Wright Elementary bus loop with a few modest bags of groceries the storm was underway.
Jack clambered into the backseat and fastened his seatbelt.
“How was school?”
“Ben and Cory said we’re going to have a snow day tomorrow!”
“Not if I send you out with a shovel.”
“Can I stay up late and watch the weather?”
Megan laughed. Other kids were already making plans for snow forts and her son was excited to watch the weather. “We’ll see if they announce a delay.”
“Okay.”
“Guess what I’m making for dinner.”
“Pizza?”
“Nope.”
“Macaroni and cheese with breadcrumbs?” In her son’s world, there were two types of mac and cheese. One came from a box, the other had breadcrumbs.
“With breadcrumbs,” Megan said.
“Awesome.”
That night they cooked dinner together. Megan poured the contents of a mixing bowl into a casserole dish and smoothed them with the backside of a spoon while Jack followed behind with measured sprinkles of crumbs. The two played Go Fish and War at the table while their meal cooked and cooled, then retreated to the bedroom with a bowl each to make up the news.
They tuned in to the continued search for Bigfoot, which was losing steam as the snow rolled in due to a shortage of snowshoes. Jack explained all of this around a mouthful of macaroni, fork clattering in his bowl all the while. Next came mutant basketball players hired to test anti-gravity boots, then Jack’s beloved weatherman. Waves of shimmering greens and blues washed over the screen as the man gestured excitedly.
“I want to make up the weather when I grow up,” Jack said after the report was over. A commercial for deodorant filled the screen.
“You’ll make a great weatherman.” Megan ruffled his hair.
When the commercials ended, a view of the police station appeared. The reporter from the previous night stood with his collar popped against the wind, microphone clutched to his chest. Behind him, a crowd gathered at the station doors.
—We have just received word that remains belonging to the fifth victim of what authorities are now calling the Mason Jar Killer have been—
“There’s a monster on the loose,” Jack said.
“What?” His words were so close to the mark that for a moment she’d forgotten the game. “Oh, Bigfoot. Right.”
“No.” Jack shook head. “This is something mad. It wants to tear people into little pieces.”
Megan jabbed a button on the remote. The screen went black. “That isn’t a nice thi
ng to say, Jack. I don’t like that very much.”
He shrugged his shoulders and pushed the remnants of his macaroni around the bottom of his bowl. “Sorry.”
“Let’s not make up stories like that in the future, okay? Finished?”
“Yes.” Jack speared the last of the macaroni and handed over his bowl.
“I think we’re all a little tired. Let’s get ready for bed, huh?”
As Jack showered, Megan washed the dishes and wrapped up the leftovers from the casserole dish, her son’s words echoing in her head. This was the kind of thing that made her mute the news in the first place, so much of it a constant stream of negativity. She didn’t want to smother him, but she didn’t want him exposed either.
She placed the mixing bowl in the sink. The dark thoughts came. David putting holes in the drywall. Jack huddled in his room. A wrench coming down on her knee, her shoulder, her thigh. And then screaming. Always screaming.
• • •
To Jack’s delight, school was cancelled. The temperature had fallen drastically in the night and several inches of snow coated the world outside their windows. Much of the day was spent in the same manner as the previous night, the two of them playing cards and watching TV in bed. After a lunch of leftover macaroni, Megan dressed for work and bundled Jack for the ride to the Nina’s. It took a full five minutes to clear the Datsun of snow and another five for it to heat while they waited inside the stairwell. Only when she took out her phone to check the time did she realize she’d received no phantom calls in the night.
“Well, that’s a first.”
“What is?” Jack asked.
“Nothing. What do you think about this weather?”
“I can see why the weatherman was excited.”
• • •
Megan stomped her boots on the welcome mat and gave the diner’s door a stern tug, securing it against the wind. Kate stood behind the counter.
