The Deep Hours of the Night

by Jonathan Schlosser

  “Please, Kelsey.”

  Nothing.

  Adam sat in the dirt, leaning back against the car. It was stolen. He didn’t know whose it was except that it had been parked in the driveway and the keys had been in the ignition. And it hadn’t been blocked in by the others. He’d wondered when he got in who it belonged to, but now he didn’t care at all.

  He dropped his head and massaged his fingers in little circles against his temples. Things didn’t spin, or lurch, and the contents of his stomach seemed fairly determined not to come rushing up his throat. The alcohol was wearing off. At least there was that.

  Thirsty Thursday, they called it. Or Freedom Friday. Or Smashed Saturday. Or Slammed Sunday. It didn’t really matter; all it meant was that each day of the week had its own little title that made it all right to drink until you couldn’t see. Or think. Or consider what you were doing when you led your girlfriend out of the hallway where you’d been making out so contentedly. Or drive, when you were taking her somewhere the two of you could be a bit more alone.

  “It wasn’t my fault.” Adam spoke softly, but the words sounded huge and ominous in the night. Even the raven had fallen silent. “Just a deer, you know? A damned deer.”

  They were everywhere. If Hazard Number One was state cops with quotas to fill, Number Two was deer. And the margin was close. This one had come out of the brush at a dead run, muscles moving beneath its smooth coat like pistons. Adam hadn’t seen it, hadn’t slowed, hadn’t even had time to think about which side the brake pedal was on before the car had been bucking forward, throwing him against his belt and Kelsey against the back of his seat.

  The car was more rust than steel and had crumpled beneath the weight of the suicide. Adam had jammed the wheel to the left, slamming his foot into the floorboards twice before he found the brake. He’d felt Kelsey hit behind him and heard the crunch as her head connected with something hard, like a watermelon being struck with an axe. She’d hit a support, probably, the ribs of the driver’s seat. It should have been padded over, but the padding had long-since rotted away to expose the metal.

  Then he hadn’t felt her anymore. Just that initial contact, then she’d rebounded away. Landed on the back seat and not fallen off again even when he found the brakes and slewed the car onto the shoulder.

  She shouldn’t even have been back there. If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t have. He remembered she’d laughed about it, almost falling over (more from the alcohol than any true humor), saying she’d be in the back getting ready. All he had to do was drive somewhere safe as fast as he could. She’d draped her coat over the back of the passenger’s seat, making a show of it, then begun working at the buttons of her blouse.

  Adam swore again, slamming his hand against his knee. He knew he should be crying, by all rights, but he wasn’t. A voice way back in his mind said something about trauma and shock and how he’d cry later. He shook his head, and far off the raven cawed once more.

  So what now? That was the question of the ages, wasn’t it? Surely John Wilkes Booth thought the same thing after he shot Lincoln, or Timothy Mcveigh after he blew up the Murrah Federal Building. What now?

  Adam stood, staying back from the car, and stared down at Kelsey. Her blonde hair fell across her face in a way that was almost attractive, but streaks of blood ran through it. Her blouse had been unbuttoned to the middle of her stomach, and he could see that her chest wasn’t rising and falling beneath it, not even shallowly. Her eyes were closed, so he couldn’t tell if they’d rolled back in their sockets or not, but he knew they had. He knew.

  Lights. Adam jerked his head around, staring down the black snake of pavement. A car was coming, not fast but very definitely coming. And there was nowhere else to turn out here; they’d drive past him, see the wreck of the vehicle, the blood-soaked, mangled corpse of the deer, and stop. Even if they weren’t the cops, he’d have no choice but to report it. And the next blood-soaked corpse wouldn’t be quite so innocent.

  Or this car, this very one, was the cops. He hadn’t exactly been subtle – hadn’t been thinking straight enough to be – when he stole the convertible, and there was a good chance it had already been reported.

  Biting his lip, Adam climbed back into the driver’s seat. He touched the keys; his hand was shaking. He lowered his head for a moment, until he had himself under control. He was in the middle of nowhere in a stolen car with his dead girlfriend in the back seat. And, though he no longer felt drunk, he would blow quite a number if the police decided to give him a breath test.

  He drove slowly this time, watching the trees. The line of them looked like a wall of soldiers hemming him in. Finally he spotted a break, a small dirt road winding its way to the north. The area had been logging country, once upon a time, and there were hundreds of these abandoned roads, only used now by hunters in the fall or snowmobilers in the winter.

  The lights were closer. Adam couldn’t make out anything behind the glare, but the approaching car seemed to be slowing. Any moment now and the red and blues would slash the darkness, tearing it apart and dragging him away in chains.

  Adam pulled down the two-track. The road curved back and forth as it cut between the trees, avoiding those blockages that would have been too much trouble to remove. The trees rose up, spikes stabbing into the soft underbelly of the sky. Their shadows fell in long, hard lines that reminded Adam of fangs. Incisors. Teeth made for cutting and ripping things to pieces. Teeth made to do the same job as the unprotected back of his seat: Rip away lives.

  The gully wasn’t much. Adam almost didn’t see it, but suddenly the car was right on the edge, crumbling the clay and earth down over the side. He pulled to a stop – further over, where it was safe – and got out under the moonlight. It looked like there had been a small stream once, maybe even a river. Too small for the loggers to float their trees down, but maybe something for them to bathe in. Whatever it had been, it was gone now. The dry bed lay fifteen feet below, covered in brush and dead leaves.

  “Kels, babe, this is your last chance. If you can hear me, say something.”

  He worked the car through a quarter turn so it was facing away from the drop, backing up until the ground felt soft beneath the rear tires.

  Headlight beams filtered through the trees behind him, broken into fragments by the trunks and branches. The light bounced out over the gully, throwing weird shadows across the breach.

  Adam shifted the car into neutral. He got out and walked around front; the ground was a soft clay that tried to rise up around his boots. His feet pulled out with a sucking sound behind each step. He slipped once on the way to the front, then set his hands on the broken hood and pushed.

  A sharp beam of light fell over him. The voice that followed came from a megaphone, deep and full of authority. “Hold it right there. Step away from the–”

  Adam shoved, and the car fell. He’d expected it to take longer, but the bank just gave away behind the rear wheels and the vehicle pitched back. There was a screech as the underbody slid across rocks and the axel twisted and stuck, and then the front end swung up and caught Adam under the chin. His vision exploded and he fell back with a cry. Mud and clay leeched up into his pants, coated his hands as they plunged in. He shook his head, clearing it, just in time to see the car slide from view.

  Footsteps ran up behind him, chased by shouts that sounded as if they were from another world. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t make out the words. The tone, however, was unmistakable. Someone grabbed his arms and yanked him to his feet; another man stepped over to the edge of the gully, glared down into it for a moment, and then whirled to face Adam with both shock and dismay registered on his face. He shone his flashlight on Adam’s eyes, and that look changed.

  “I should have known.” The officer shook his head. “Who’s was it this time?”

  Adam swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It just came out, a reflex, even with the car right there, probably half-buried in muck and underbrush
.

  “You think I’m an idiot, Adam?” The officer sighed, then looked at his partner. “This his third time?”

  The man holding Adam’s arms grunted. “Fourth.”

  “Fourth.” The first officer cocked his head to the side. “You’re as crazy as they get, aren’t you? I told them to lock you up after all that talk last time. All that nonsense about a dead girl and how you didn’t mean to kill her or steal the car. They should have thrown you in Cedar Ridge, that’s what I told them. This time, I bet they listen.”

  Adam felt his eyes grow hot. “I hit a deer. She was in the back, getting changed, and it came out of nowhere.” He looked at the gully, wishing he hadn’t pushed the car after all. “Look, maybe she’s not dead. Go check. We can still save her.” His voice broke on the last word.

  The officer stepped forward, his face inches from Adam’s. “Listen to me. There’s no one else in that car. It’s a convertible, Adam; I can see right in the top from here. It’s just as empty as the others. You hear me?”

  “That can’t be true.” Adam pulled to the side; hands held him tight. “She must have fallen out. She’s down there right now, dying. I swear to you.”

  The officer looked past Adam, at his partner. “You’ve heard his story, haven’t you?”

  “Rumors.”

  “They’re probably true, as sick as they sound. He got drunk and killed his girlfriend in a car wreck back in, oh, ninety-nine.” The officer tapped Adam on the forehead. “Isn’t that right? Got in a serious crash that time. The car burned, the whole deal. Wasn’t much left when it was over. Since then, he’s been stealing cars and wrecking ‘em, just the same, then babbling on about how she’s inside. Reliving the same accident over and over, I guess.”

  Adam glared. “Listen to me–”

  “We have, Adam. We’ve listened to your story for over eight years, and it never changes.” He walked past, back toward the idling squad car. “This time maybe they’ll lock you up for good. No driving allowed over at Cedar Ridge. That would be a merciful thing for you, I bet.”

  The cop pulled him away, radioing in for a wrecker, and Adam let the tears go. They streamed down his face like the blood had down Kelsey’s, hot and violent. Adam yanked at his hands, but the cop’s grip was iron. Pain lanced through his shoulders. He twisted and thrashed until they snapped a pair of cuffs onto his wrists and shoved him into the back seat of the squad car. Then his protests died into a whisper.

  There, head lolling against the opposite window, a vicious, blood-filled cut marring her forehead, was Kelsey. She sat opposite of him, her hands also cuffed, her blouse falling open to reveal the black bra over breasts that would never again rise and fall with respiration or passion. As he watched, her eyes snapped open. They were rolled back, glazed balls of pure white. Her lips twitched, pulling upward in a smile.

  And Adam screamed.