by Tim Waggoner
But if she wanted to stop the blue-black car…
She gritted her teeth, looked quickly both ways, and flew through the intersection, hanging a left as she did, tires protesting loudly. She expected to feel absolute terror as she continued in pursuit of the car, her speedometer hitting twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five…but she didn’t. Instead, she felt exhilarated…felt free. She was surprised to find herself grinning as she drove, gaze fastened on the Bruisemobile’s rear bumper, foot pressed firmly on the gas.
Street signs passed before her eyes, white letters on green: McKitrick, Peach Orchard, Bloomsdale, Harvey, a dozen others. Traffic signs were blurs of white on red, black on yellow: STOP, NO U-TURN, SLOW CHILDREN, SCHOOL ZONE… Modest houses gave way to larger, more expensive homes, which in turn yielded to upscale businesses: doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, boutiques…The blue-black car wove in and out of traffic as if the other cars on the road were standing still, and Susan kept pace, nearly colliding with other vehicles a half dozen times—horns blaring, middle fingers raised, faces contorted in anger—but still she drove on, one mile melting into the other, as if she traveled through a dream.
As night began to close in, Susan found herself trailing the Bruisemobile down the unfamiliar streets of a residential section she’d never been to before. A trick of the fading light made everything look distorted, as if she were viewing the world through rippling water. The trees were twisted, coiled things that jutted forth from the ground like splintered bone protruding from torn flesh. Shadows clung to their scaly bark like some sort of dark fungus. The surface of the street was hard, ridged and shiny, reminding Susan more of a beetle’s shell than asphalt. The yards were devoid of grass, the bare earth gray and pebbly, resembling the rough hide of a lizard. She almost thought she could see the ground rise and fall, rise and fall, as if it were breathing. The houses were lopsided, patchwork conglomerations of building materials and architectural styles: brick, stone, metal, and wood, held together by red, raw strings of what looked like muscle and sinew; Cape Cod, ranch, Victorian, colonial, Tudor, two-story, split-level…
Susan felt a cold numbness wash over her, and a thought drifted through her mind: You’ve gone too far. It almost made her laugh. Way too far.
The blue-black car slowed, brake lights glowing a sour yellow-green, and then it turned and pulled into the driveway of one of the nightmarish houses. Susan no longer entertained fantasies of stopping, getting out and confronting the driver. She was no longer sure that there even was a driver. Wherever the hell she was, whatever the hell was going on, she only wanted one thing: to get back to normalcy and sanity. To get back home.
As she passed the house, she saw the Bruisemobile’s doors open. A little girl climbed out of the back, and…something else…disgorged from the driver’s seat. A mass of solid darkness that moved like roiling black fog.
Susan forced herself to look straight ahead and search for a place to turn around. She braked, whipped the Civic into the next driveway, tires juddering on its uneven, insectine surface. She stopped, threw the car into reverse, and hit the gas. The Civic curved back into the street, and she put it in drive and jammed the gas pedal to the floor. For a second—an awful, sickening second—the car hesitated, and Susan feared it was going to stall, but then it leapt forward, engine roaring.
It had gotten too dark to see and Susan flipped on her headlights. She screamed as they revealed the little girl, now standing in the middle of the street, looking at Susan with those big, big eyes and smiling.
The sound of the impact was softer than Susan expected, a soft thud that she felt more than heard. She slammed on the brakes, and the Civic skidded to a halt. She put the car in park, leaving it running, lights on, hot engine ticking. She opened her door, got out, nostrils recoiling from the smell of burning oil. She walked back to the girl who now lay against the curb, arms and legs sticking out in awkward, broken angles, looking as if she were nothing more than a rag doll tossed down by a bored child.
Out of the corner of her eye, Susan saw the shadowy mass that had been behind the wheel of the blue-black car begin to slide toward her, flowing down the driveway like a wall of solid darkness. She ignored it, knelt down at the girl’s side. Got a good look at her face. It was a familiar face, though one Susan hadn’t seen in a mirror for twenty-four years. It was the face of a four-year-old girl who had once lived when others died.
Susan picked up the girl, so small, so feather-light, and cradled her broken body in her lap. And as the darkness came for them, tears began to fall from Susan’s eyes. Tears of sorrow, tears of guilt, but mostly, tears of relief.
THE TONGUE IS THE SWEETEST MEAT
He draws the straight razor across smooth belly flesh. Slowly, lovingly, watching a line of red swell in the razor’s wake. It’s the second cut he’s made—the first was a quick swipe that laid open the throat—and the feel of metal parting skin, of a newborn mouth opening wide to reveal the warm wet secrets it contains, is the most intoxicatingly transcendent feeling he’s ever experienced.
It’s his second cut…but it’s far from being his last.
* * *
Tom felt the impact more than heard it. The steering wheel vibrated in his hands, and his seat juddered, drawing the belt tight against his stomach and chest. His head jerked forward, but before it could slam against the steering wheel or smash into the windshield, a wall of white came rushing toward him. It wrapped around his face, cut off his vision, sealed his mouth and nose so he couldn’t breathe. Panicked, he tried to let go of the steering wheel and claw at the rubbery white mass that was smothering him, but whatever it was had pinned his arms, and he couldn’t move them. Tiny white flashes of light burst against the blackness in his skull, and he knew he was on the verge of losing consciousness—and perhaps losing much more.
But then the white mass began to recede, to shrink and grow flaccid. It pulled away from his face and he could see and breathe again. He took in a shuddering gasp of air, and then looked around, trying to figure out what had just happened.
Through the windshield, he saw a car on the snow-slick street ahead of him—a dark blue Grand Torino—and it was sitting at a forty-five degree angle to him. The rear bumper was dented and hanging half off the car, and the trunk was crumpled and partly open. On the bumper were a couple stickers: one read Jesus is coming, look busy! and the other said Friends don’t let friends drive Chevys.
The last thing Tom remembered, he’d been on his way home from work. He’d been listening to an audiobook on the CD player, Investing for the 21st Century, but he’d been thinking about his last patient of the day, a German shepherd whose body had been so riddled with tumors that there was nothing that could be done except put the dog out of her misery. The dog’s owner had begun sobbing violently when he’d told her the news, and all Tom had been able to do was stand there impotently, wanting to give the woman comfort, but even with all his years as a vet, he hadn’t known how.
As he’d been replaying the awful scene in his mind, he’d caught a glimpse of red lights through falling snow—taillights, he guessed—and then he’d been engulfed by the white mass. No, by his car’s airbag, he realized. He’d been in an accident.
He was still fuzzy-headed, but at least now he was starting to get a handle on the situation. He took a quick inventory of his physical condition, gingerly moving both arms, both legs, then cautiously turning his head from side to side. None of these actions produced any significant pain, and though he knew there was a possibility he was in shock and might be more injured than he knew, he thought he was okay for the most part.
A rapping on the driver’s side window startled him, and he turned toward the sound, wincing as a jolt of pain shot through his neck. Maybe he wasn’t that okay after all.
Looking in at Tom was a red-faced man with a shiny bald head, a bulbous nose, and saggy jowls. He looked like he was in his late forties or early fifties, about ten years older than Tom. The man was opening and closing his mouth, spra
ying spittle onto the outside of Tom’s window. Tom could hear the man’s voice, but he couldn’t make out the words. It was as if the man was shouting nonsense syllables, so enraged that he’d momentarily lost the capability of speech.
Still somewhat dazed, Tom frowned at the red-faced man as he tried to make out what he was shouting. The man pounded the heel of his fist against the window several times, and when that failed to provoke a response in Tom, he made a circular motion with his hand to indicate that he wanted Tom to roll down the window.
Now that Tom understood. He rolled his window down and cold winter air rushed in, making his eyes tear.
“What is your fuckin’ problem? Do you see what you did to my car?” The man still sprayed spit as he shouted, only now without any barrier between them, the saliva pattered against Tom’s face.
“I’m…sorry,” Tom said, not really sure whether he should be or not, but unable to think of anything else to say.
“Sorry?” The man sounded incredulous, as if Tom had just proposed he stuff his head up his ass and keep stuffing until he disappeared altogether. “Fuck sorry! I want to know what the hell you’re going to do about my car! It’s a classic, you know that? You sure as hell better have insurance, motherfucker!”
Deep inside Tom, a tiny flicker of anger flared bright for an instant. He wanted to wrap his hands around this asshole’s throat, dig his fingers into the flesh, and feel the trachea crush beneath the pressure like a fistful of dried leaves. But the mention of insurance cut through the last of his mental fog, and he squeezed his anger into a tiny ball of emotion and pushed it far down inside himself, stowing it away in the cool dark recesses of his deepest self, where it could do no harm.
He forgot his anger and tried to concentrate. What did two people do when they had a collision? They exchanged insurance information while they waited for the police to arrive. Tom undid his seatbelt, opened the door to his gold Saturn—which sported the vanity plate PETDOC—and stepped out of the car. His legs were shaky, and at first he feared they weren’t going to support his weight on the slick road surface, and he’d collapse to the asphalt, unable to rise. But he managed to remain upright, despite the layer of snow on the street.
Now that his mind had cleared, Tom took a good look at the man whose car he’d hit. He was a bit under six feet, around the same height as Tom, but he carried at least forty more pounds, most of it stored around his middle. He wore a red jacket with a NASCAR logo over the left breast, jeans, and old tennis shoes. Snow was still coming down, and Tom watched the flakes land on top of the man’s bald head and instantly melt, as if the man’s fury had raised his body temperature to the boiling point.
Tom’s coat was lying on the backseat of his car because he’d had the heater on. He wore only a white shirt, tie, dark blue slacks, and Rockports. The thin fabric of his clothes did almost nothing to insulate him against the cold, and he started shivering.
Mr. Nascar stepped forward and leaned his face close to Tom’s. “Well?”
Tom knew the man wanted him to say something, but he had no idea what. He’d already said he was sorry, though he probably shouldn’t have. He knew that neither party should assume responsibility at the scene of an accident. That was a good way to find yourself slapped with a lawsuit. Better to wait for the police to arrive and determine who was at fault.
Tom went instead with the next thought that popped into his mind. “Are you all right?”
Mr. Nascar looked at Tom as if he’d just told the man to go fuck his grandmother with a rusty chainsaw. “Does that look all right to you?” He stabbed his forefinger toward his damaged vehicle.
Tom was aware of the other drivers on the road slowly detouring around the freshly created accident scene. He could sense their gazes on him and Mr. Nascar, could feel their intense interest in the mundane drama taking place outside their windows. But he knew none of them would stop to help. He wouldn’t in their place.
Tom started to say that he hadn’t been talking about the car, that he’d wanted to know if Mr. Nascar had been injured, but he kept his mouth shut. The man seemed unhurt, and everything Tom said, no matter how innocuous, only seemed to infuriate him more.
“Look, let’s just exchange insurance information while we wait for the police to show up. I’ll call them right now.” He reached for his cell phone, but then he remembered that it was in his jacket pocket, and his jacket was in the car.
Without telling Mr. Nascar what he was doing—Tom figured the less he said at this point, the better—he turned to open the back door of his Saturn. But before he could touch the handle, Mr. Nascar grabbed Tom by the arm and spun him around.
“Do you think I’m a fuckin’ idiot? I’m not gonna let you get in your car and haul ass. You’re gonna stay right here!”
Tom felt anger welling up inside him once more. He wanted to grab Mr. Nascar by the wrist, yank his hand away, and then spin the sonofabitch around and slam him face-first into the Saturn’s driver’s side window. He could almost hear the glass crack, almost see the blood gushing out of Mr. Nascar’s broken nose. Tom’s hand twitched, and for an instant he thought he was going to really do it, but then his hand fell limp as he reflexively forced his anger down, stuffed it away in the stinking garbage bag in his soul where he stored all his other negative emotions. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t, allow himself to lose control. Years ago, he’d witnessed what could happen when humans let loose the beasts that dwelled within them, and he would sooner die than let that happen.
“Really, Tommy? Because if you mean it, I have to tell you that being dead is a real mixed bag of nuts.”
Someone else besides Mr. Nascar had spoken. Someone Tom hadn’t heard speak in over twenty years. Tom felt a chill deep in his marrow that had nothing to do with the weather as he turned around to face the owner of that voice.
Unkempt sandy blonde hair, several day’s worth of stubble, a face that was asymmetrical, as if one side had slipped a few centimeters lower than the other. Nose crooked from when it had been broken by a baseball Tom had hit one year when they’d been on opposite little league teams, eyes dark and glittering with something that most people mistook for humor, mouth stretched in a wide grin. He was a couple decades older than when Tom had seen him last, and he wore a pair of orange coveralls with a zipper that ran down the middle and the words Ash Creek Correctional Institution on the chest. But despite everything that was different, everything that mattered—the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, that grin—had stayed the same, and Tom knew he was looking at Donald Frankel.
Except that wasn’t possible, was it, for Donald was—
“Dead? It’s true. The newspaper clipping that Trudy sent you didn’t lie.”
Three days ago Tom had received a letter from his sister who still lived in Akron where they’d grown up. Along with the letter, she’d enclosed a clipping from the Beacon Journal. It was a story about Donald, and with it Trudy had also enclosed Donald’s obituary.
“The paper said you’d died of a heart attack,” Tom said.
“Yep. Just like my old man. Remember? He keeled over at the plant two weeks before my trial. Guess heart disease runs in the family.”
As strange as it was to be talking to a dead man, Tom noticed something else equally odd. The snowflakes were no longer falling. It hadn’t stopped snowing, though, not in the sense that no more was coming down. The snowflakes were still in the air, but they were motionless, suspended in space. He took a quick glance around and saw that the line of cars that had been passing slowly by had stopped, their engines now silent. The only sounds Tom could hear were his own breathing and his pulse pounding in his ears. He turned to look at Mr. Nascar and saw that the man stood completely still, red face frozen in an unblinking mask of anger. Tom realized Mr. Nascar was still holding onto his arm, and he gingerly pulled free. Mr. Nascar wobbled a bit, like a mannequin that had been given a slight shove, but he didn’t tip over.
Tom turned back to Donald. “I’m unconscious, a
ren’t I? In a coma or something. My airbag didn’t deploy and I smacked my head into the windshield, and now I’m comatose and dreaming.”
“Two things wrong with that theory, Tommy. One, you don’t dream when you’re in a coma. And two, I’m real. This—” he gestured to indicate the motionless world surrounding them—“is real. We need to talk, Tommy, and I thought it would be best if we did so without any interruptions.”
Donald walked over to Mr. Nascar, and Tom examined his friend closely as he went. Donald seemed solid enough. His white shoes—which had no laces—left prints in the snow, and his breath curled out of his mouth like white mist in the cold air. For a dead man, Donald Frankel seemed awfully alive.
Donald looked at Mr. Nascar and scowled. “What a pussy. One good bitch-slap and he’d fall to his knees, sobbing and calling for his mommy.” Donald turned to Tom, derision plain on his face. “I can’t believe you were putting up with his bullshit.”
Despite the lunacy of being lectured by a dead man in a world where God had hit the pause button, Tom felt ashamed. “It’s understandable that he’d be upset. I mean, his car got banged up, and the accident was my fault…I think.”
Donald stepped away from Mr. Nascar and came over to Tom, his eyes smoldering, voice pitched menacingly low. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. All that matters is that you opened your mouth wide and let him crap down your throat, just like you always do.”
