The Dead Parade

by James Roy Daley

  17

  Cars, trees, lights, and signs––the essence of the small town intersection––flew past James in one swift blur. He had gotten lucky. Then his luck ended. Less than two seconds later, tiny, razor-sharp teeth ripped a piece from his leg. Blood soaked through his dress-pants and ran a line to his shoe.

  James held back his shriek; his face pinched into a ball and tears rolled down his cheeks. He pulled his wounded legs together and lifted his feet high.

  The creature shifted its weight, repositioned itself, and primed for another assault.

  Keep your eyes on the road, James thought, with his fingers choking the steering wheel. Keep your eyes on that fucking road.

  But James wasn’t in control of the car, and his eyes weren’t on the road. He was looking at the blood pooling beneath his legs, the living shadow at his feet, the steering column, his lap, his shoes, the floor––he was looking at everything except the road. Then the car forged a new path. It drifted off the road and up a curb. It ran over a man: Doctor Anson. He had just come home from work.

  Anson slammed against the ground. Wheels rolled over his chest and kept on rolling. A second later the car hit a tricycle. The tricycle went flying through the air, spinning end over end in a blur of imitation chrome and red colored paint. As the tricycle was reintroduced to the planet the car connected with a young and slender elm tree, cutting it in half. Tree branches dusted the hood and smashed the window before spinning through the air. They bounced off the curb and rolled onto the street in broken fragments. Leaves scattered. Splinters flew.

  James was in a state of panic now. His hands were in front of his face and his eyes were crushed tight. He whispered, “I just killed a man. Oh shit… I killed him for sure.”

  The car kept going.

  James maneuvered his way back onto the road for several blocks before he lost control again. The car ripped through bushes, driveways, flowerbeds and lawns. It hit a fence and white pickets exploded. A barking dog gave chase. A young boy ran. A man yelled.

  And again, the creature opened its gapping maw.

  James looked down, feeling new pressure around his legs. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU––”

  The invisible intruder bit down again, tearing another hole in his leg. Fresh pain sent a shock through his system. His feet jerked away from the pedals and blood squirted across the floor. With his teeth clenched tight James kicked hard, accomplishing nothing. And in the top corner of his eye he saw something. Something big.

  He looked up and the color fell from his face.

  James understood that it was only a matter of time before the car ride would end, only a matter of time.

  Time was up. The car was about to hit a house.

  And a moment later, it did.

  18

  Anne stepped away from Mathew and picked up the phone, which was sitting on a table beside the bed. She dialed nine and waited patiently. The line clicked over and she dialed James’s cell phone number. The phone rang but no one answered.

  Dialed again, still no answer.

  She hung up the phone and walked across the room. She was thinking about James now. Not Mathew, James. She was worried and confused.

  Why did Mathew speak? Why did he say, ‘Run James?’

  This seemed to be a mystery without an answer, without logic or reason––unless James was in serious trouble. But even if James was in trouble, how could Mathew know? The answer was simple enough: he couldn’t know. Knowing was impossible. Besides, what dilemma could her son James be in?

  She picked up the phone a second time and dialed again. Same result. James must have turned his phone off, she thought. And he’s probably at his girlfriend’s place.

  Debra.

  Anne cringed. She didn’t want to call Debra. She hated that two-faced, lying slut.

  19

  Just around the time Anne was phoning James, Debra––the two-faced lying slut––opened her eyes. She had just finished a nasty dream about a zombie, which was a first. Debra rarely dreamt, and had never known the joys of an unsettling nightmare. She wondered where the nightmare had originated. She never watched zombie movies or read scary books. She considered all forms of horror entertainment stupid and adolescent.

  But the corpse within her dream wasn’t stupid. It was… Johnny?

  The nightmare faded away. She put a hand to her face and rolled on her side. Her eyes opened and closed, opened and closed. Her breathing calmed.

  At the side of her bed was a table. On the table was a small stack of fashion magazines. Behind the magazines was a love letter, written by James. It was in plain view and had been read by all of Debra’s friends. Keeping the letter exposed was important to Debra. It kept James wrapped around her finger. Just looking at it brought a smile to her face.

  Boys could be so dumb; so easy.

  Next to the letter was a retro style alarm clock. It was stylish and expensive, a Christmas gift from her mother. Debra didn’t like the clock or her mother, but the clock sustained impeccably accurate time. And the time was 11:35 am.

  Her mouth was dry. The taste of last night’s alcohol coated the grime of her teeth. She sat up and thought, what happened? Then it came to her and a whore’s grin crept upon her face.

  Oh yeah, girls-night.

  Girls-night was a pussy-pass for Debra and her tight-lipped friends. It was the perfect slut move, the one night she could keep her boyfriend away, the one night she could justify being angry if he called or dropped by. Girls-night afforded Debra the freedom to do what she wanted––with anyone, with everyone.

  There were always plenty of boys at girls-night.

  Although her mind was fuzzy, Debra remembered most of the evening. She remembered having dinner at a restaurant and drinking a few pints of beer before changing her drink to vodka and OJ. She remembered going into a bar, doing some shots, flirting with men, and women, flashing her tits a couple times, and sitting on some guy’s lap. She remembered telling her friends not to say anything, like always. And her friends laughed, like always. As if they’d tell. She remembered one of her girlfriends kissing a hip-hop thug, which pissed everyone off. The guy was a first-rate loser that wouldn’t fuck off, which threw a downbeat twist into the party. She remembered going back to a friend’s house, making out with some dude, getting felt-up, and scoring a phone number. Then the night gets blurry.

  If Debra had been asked why she acted this way, she’d say, “I was drunk.”

  Being drunk was the only excuse Debra needed. Besides, as long as James was kept in the dark, it was no big deal. No big deal at all.

  In fact, Debra got drunk all the time. She had lots of girls-nights.

  It was no big deal.

  20

  James lifted his head and opened his eyes.

  The car doors were open. The back tires were spinning and the front tires were flat. A sea of bricks sat across the crumpled hood. The windshield had a spider-web design imbedded in the glass. The smell of gasoline was strong and a small fire was aflame beneath the hood.

  James coughed. “What the hell—?”

  A few seconds slipped by before he started thinking the car would explode. The thought seemed logical, perhaps likely.

  A few feet back, a brick fell from the hole in the wall, followed by another. He could see dust rising and settling, turning and falling. Beyond the dust he could see that the bricks, framework, drywall, and furniture, were slammed together in a splintered mess. Beneath the car more rumbling and settling occurred. It seemed that everything was finding its place.

  He lifted his foot from the pedal; the back tires stopped spinning.

  Memories came: his family, the gun, Johnny’s suicide, the creature inside the car, the vicious attack on his legs––it was a lot to swallow. He wasn’t sure what to think.

  Suddenly the fire beneath the car doubled in size. If the car were going to explode, it would do so soon. He needed to escape. Running––that was the important thing now. But James couldn’t move; h
e couldn’t run. Something was holding him down. After a moment of panic he looked at his chest.

  The seatbelt was on.

  James muttered something negative. He didn’t remember putting a seatbelt on but then again, everything happened so fast. He probably clicked the belt without thinking. And he always wore his seatbelt, just in case.

  James unbuckled. The belt slithered across his waist.

  Blood dripped from his nose.

  Then he heard a voice inside his head. Run James, the voice said. And for some reason he thought of Mathew.

  He put a hand on the door and pulled himself from the vehicle. He dragged his feet through a heavy pile of broken brick. Hot pain burned both shins. He coughed twice and noticed that his lungs hurt. Then he rubbed a hand across his face and small stream of red smudged across his cheek; the wound was minor, but throbbed once he noticed it.

  On the other side of the room a middle-aged woman wearing a scarlet flowered dress emerged with two young boys. She had dark skin, dark hair, and wore a pair of thin-rimmed glasses.

  “Dios mió,” she said, panic-stricken.

  James shook his head. Aside from ‘hola’ and ‘gracias,’ he didn’t know Spanish. Only English.

  “¡Mira lo que has hecho, has destruido mi casa!”

  “I don’t know what you’re telling me.”

  “¿Estas loco? ¡Mira a tu alrededor, todo está arruinado!”

  “I don’t understand,” James said. But then he did understand; it was so obvious.

  He was inside the woman’s house, inside her living room. The car had destroyed her home and the woman was frantic. Of course she was. Who wouldn’t be?

  The oldest boy rubbed his eyes and held his body against his mother’s waist. His fingers grappled the fabric of her dress. He had a dirty face, watering eyes, and chocolate ice cream stains on his shirt. Snot ran from his nose to his upper lip.

  The youngest boy pointed at the bricks and screamed, “¡Mama! ¡Mama! ¡Miro! ¡Hay un monstruo! ¡Veámonos de aquí!”

  James wondered if he had killed someone, a child perhaps. He hoped not. The last thing he wanted to do was kill somebody.

  The air turned cold and he realized what the child was saying. Children are more perceptive than adults. And they could see it—see the black skinned demon with eyes like sunken pits of coal. See the beast that was responsible for this nightmare.

  And they were afraid.

  They were right to be afraid.

  He was afraid too.

  21

  James edged towards the family. He saw a mangled tricycle at his feet and the urge hit: he needed to get out of the house. He needed to get away from the smoke, the car, the family, and everything else that was around him. He needed an open space. He needed to find a place where he didn’t feel trapped, a place he hadn’t destroyed. It was time to run, time to hide, time to go.

  The youngest boy was standing in a hallway. The hallway had to lead somewhere: a window, a door, outside.

  As James approached the boy, the Spanish woman grabbed his tie and pulled on it. She yelled something he didn’t understand and shook the tie angrily.

  “Stop that!” James barked. “I don’t know what you’re saying!” He slapped the woman’s hand and pushed her aside angrily. He stepped into the hallway, and said, “I don’t have time for this!”

  But he couldn’t help wondering: what was the family doing before the car arrived? Watching television? Eating ice cream? Playing video games?

  Damn. This wasn’t fair and he knew it.

  James took a deep breath and coughed.

  Then he thought about Debra. He loved her so much, maybe too much. He thought she was beautiful; he thought she was fun, and he wished they were together. He believed––the way all foolish lovers do––that without her he couldn’t go on. He needed Debra to hold him, to love and comfort him. He needed the woman he had fallen in love with now, in this, his time of need, to make things better.

  I wish I were lying next to you, he thought. I love you and I need you more than you’ll ever know. You complete me.

  He heard a child scream.

  And on the heels of that, the car exploded.

  22

  Debra’s hangover came in throbbing waves of sickness. She mumbled, “My brain is killing me.” Then she wondered if she was alone. Looking over her shoulder, she found the other half of the bed empty.

  Praise Allah for small miracles.

  After a minor struggle with her anally pleated sheets, she got out of bed and ran her fingers through her steel-wool hair. She pushed her drooping chest out and made dirty-girl faces in the mirror. This usually invoked a smile but today her heart wasn’t in it. The veins in her pale breasts seemed more noticeable this morning; Debra looked and felt like shit.

  There was a low-cut shirt on the floor. She pulled it over her skin and made her way to the kitchen. She drank a glass of water and popped a couple Tylenols.

  More memories came:

  She took a cab home with friends. Her friends came inside. They listened to house music, had a couple drinks of whatever was in the liquor cabinet, and hooked up with her dealer. (The dealer was a guy named Gary she nailed more times than she cared to remember.) They cranked a few lines of ketamine and Gary invited some friends over.

  And then…?

  Debra turned the kettle on and stepped into the living room, expecting a sleeping body on the couch. The couch was empty but the coffee table was a different story. It was loaded with beer cans, wine glasses, tumblers, ashtrays, cigarette butts, remnants of powder and assorted rubbish that included everything from eyeliner pencils and lipstick, to an eight-inch ribbed dildo.

  “Huh.” She said, rubbing her eyes with her fingers. The aftermath of girls-night was always interesting.

  The kettle screeched and Debra turned it off. She made tea, sat on the couch, and pushed her feet into the heart of the mess. With the push of a button she turned on the television. Her fingers tapped the controller. Tap; tap; tap. She lifted a pencil from the table, put it into her mouth and nibbled on the end. She flipped channels until she found Dr. Phil talking to a girl that had run away from home to become a prostitute. The girl was saying she loved getting attention and hated her parents. Dr. Phil was saying she needed to get her act together.

  Debra could relate with the girl.

  Tap; tap; tap. After twenty minutes, Debra finished her tea, turned off the TV and returned to bed.

  Two minutes later the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Debra. This is Anne.”

  23

  After the explosion, James was on his hands and knees, disoriented. His white dress shirt hung from his body, black with dirt and ash. His tie sat low, resting in a pile of rubble. His hair was ashen with powder and his eyes were thick with dirt. The car was on fire and the heat was unquestionable, six hundred degrees and rising. Black smoke filled the air like smog over Los Angeles.

  James endured a long bout of coughing and pulled himself to his knees. Sound had become a constant ring, like a chiming bell that wouldn’t fade. And there was something inside that sound, a noise of some type hidden beneath the ringing.

  He coughed again, tasting filth and blood. But what about that sound, he wondered. Was a phone ringing? Was it the fire? Was it a siren?

  The fire was loud, but no, that wasn’t it. This sound cut through the fire. It was a high-pitched noise, different than everything else, an unrefined echo. It sounded like screaming.

  No—

  It was screaming.

  The family was burning.

  James had been standing inside the hallway when the explosion occurred and the walls had protected him. But the family was standing at the doorway and now they were paying for it. Now they were ablaze.

  A dancing inferno of arms and legs could be seen: a head swaying, feet kicking, hands grabbing at nothing. It was the woman. She was alive and burning, burning and screaming.

  And the boys, wher
e were they?

  The youngest boy was lying face up on the floor. His legs were in flames and a huge chunk of metal impaled his chest. Along the side of his nose the gray matter from his brain oozed, producing a small mound near his upper lip. The other boy was missing entirely. James wondered if he had escaped but he knew it was unlikely. He was probably lying on the floor, buried in the rubble.

  I need to get out of here, James reminded himself. The temperature was increasing and the flames were expanding. Plus the smoke was getting thicker, blacker. Deadlier.

  He pulled himself to his feet.

  The burning woman fell against the wall, twitching and screeching. Her mouth opened and closed as she hit the floor. Fingers curled and legs contracted. Her dress opened, exposing the bubbling skin beneath the flames on her chest.

  James turned away. The image was madness but the grilled, barbequed stench was worse. It made him feel nauseous and revolted at the same time. There’s nothing I can do for the woman, he thought. And he was right. He was in no position to help, not while the blaze was eating the walls and broiling him alive. He was right about another thing too: he needed to get out of the house.

  Avoiding the flames, James placed his hands on the shredded drywall, which was plagued with many holes. Some of the holes were big enough to crawl through. Others were like bullet holes.

  I’m in a hallway, James thought. Follow the walls… find my way out.

  James stumbled away from the room. The smoke thinned and the heat dissipated. He staggered past a pile of rubble, a box filled with plastic toys, and a small table with a rotary phone on it. He walked past a family portrait, a messy stack of newspapers and a closet. He found a doorway that led to the kitchen and heard a child crying.

  That sounds like a baby, he thought. Someone is in here.