The Clock Man

by Eric Lahti

  The Clock Man

  and Other Stories

  by Eric Lahti

  The Clock Man and Other Stories

  Copyright © 2015 Eric Lahti

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without written permission from the author.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Copyright © 2016, Eric Lahti

  Dedicated to my wife and son.

  And everyone who believes magic doesn’t require a wand and a cloak.

  Also by Eric Lahti:

  Henchmen

  Arise

  Saxton: The Hunt & Uneasy Allies

  Saxton: Yee Naaldlooshii

  Contents

  Zona Peligrosa

  The Hunt

  The Protectors

  Awaken

  The Clock Man

  Eve

  Exceeds Expectations

  Duérmete Niño

  Zona Peligrosa

  The freeway outside the tiny convenience store has many names: Canam Highway, US Highway 85, Interstate 25. It’s four lanes of asphalt laid down in the 50s that runs over a thousand miles from Las Cruces, New Mexico to Buffalo, Wyoming, running like a black ribbon through deserts and mountains. Though not as prestigious as the former Route 666 – now rechristened Route 491 after too many people worried about the Devil – Interstate 25 transmits goods, tourists, and copious amounts of drugs from the south to the desperate north.

  Follow US Highway 380 west through San Antonio – the one in New Mexico, not the one in Texas – and that road runs smack dab into Interstate 25. Before continuing on, stop off at the Owl Bar & Café and have a beer and a green chile cheeseburger. After lunch, keep heading west, go under the Interstate and follow the dusty road off to the left. Down just a bit is the gas station that time forgot. Fortunately, the gas station has a sense of humor. Out front is a sign, probably painted in the last century, that proudly proclaims this is the last chance for gas for over a hundred miles. Go the other direction and there’s a gas station less than a mile away. Heading west, though, the sign is actually a lie. The forgotten gas station is the absolute last chance for gas on that dusty little two-lane road. There was another gas station a little over a hundred miles away but it closed over fifty years ago.

  The gas station is the last vestige of a once sprawling Whiting Brothers network, which is kind of interesting since the company is essentially dead and its corpses scatter the near-endless miles of Interstate 40. This last remnant is little more than a mechanical cash register, an old-fashioned credit card machine that may or may not work, and a variety of tchotchkes and stuffed things. But it does have gasoline; a truck drains and refills the tanks once a week even though the last time a car was filled here was years in the past. The lights are still on, the soda machine out front still works, and the ancient analog gas pump still dispenses fuel.

  Inside the old gas station is a young man named Zapp Blander who has worked here full-time for the last two years. In that time he’s helped three customers purchase ancient Zagnut bars (don't eat them) and filled one guy's Escalade with gas. He's gone months at a time without seeing a soul walk into his gas station. Still, the paychecks keep coming and Zapp keeps showing up for work every day. He spends his days reading books by Walter Gibson, Lester Dent, Warren Murphy, and Richard Sapir. Zapp figures if he can read one book a week Gibson and Dent alone should keep him in reading material until the end of his life. Add in the works of Murphy and Sapir and he'll have all the action and adventure he can have until the end of time.

  Zapp considers his real job to be reading and drawing. He loves to read about the adventures of strong guys conquering evil and has a secret wish to be more like them. At five foot eight, though, he's hardly the action archetype. Zapp's also acutely aware of the irony of having the perfect name for an action hero when he can barely throw a football.

  Today's adventure, a rollicking tale from the thirties, has the Man of Bronze himself facing down the evil John Sunlight. Like all tales from Doc's library it's an over-the-top adventure, filled with the baddest of the bad guys and the best of the good guys. Zapp is leaning back in his chair, feet on the counter when he hears a strange noise outside. In the normally silent world of the Whiting Brothers gas station, any noise is a strange noise. Zapp looks up from his book and sees a brief black blur as a car pulls up and passes just beyond the doors. A few moments later a man walks in flicking his keys around his finger. He’s a big guy, dressed in leather like a biker but flashes Zapp a warm grin and disappears into the bathroom.

  Zapp knows regulations require customers buy something before they use the bathroom but this is one of the first people to ever even walk into this place and the first one who just walked straight to the shitter like he owned the place. He manages to get a finger in the air, the universal sign of wait a moment, and says, “Wait,” but Zapp’s words fall into empty air as the bathroom door closes.

  There’s more noise outside and a beat up truck rolls across the gravel outside. Zapp jumps at the sight. Months of nothing and now he’s got two customers at the same time. Two men, jumpy looking guys, walk up to the door. One of them looks around, like he’s expecting to see something other than scrub brush and lizards. His buddy shoves him aside and kicks the open door. It flies open and slams back closed again, hitting the second guy in the nose.

  “What the …, “Zapp asks no one in particular. He’s known about the door’s problems for a while, but never felt pressed to actually do anything about it.

  The first guy pulls a shotgun from behind his back and points it at the door. Glass flies across the room when pellets hit it at close range, blowing a huge hole in the door. Zapp instinctively holds up his arm but none of the debris comes near him. He watches in a kind of horrid fascination as the guys outside examine the door. They were obviously expecting it to blow the glass clear out of the door but physics is a harsh mistress and thick glass doesn’t always do as it’s told.

  The second guy shoves the first guy out of the way and pushes the door open. This time he’s ready when it comes flying back at him and grabs it unsteadily before it can slam into his nose.

  The two guys walk into the aging Whiting Brothers gas station like paranoid rabbits, jumping at everything in the small room. One of them sees a stuffed jackalope – a kind of hybrid antelope/jack rabbit statue that’s common around the Southwestern United States. His eyes blink rapidly and a terrified squeal oozes from his throat. The guy points his shotgun at the stuffed rabbit and pulls the trigger, turning the fake critter into a mass of dusty fur and sawdust.

  Zapp’s been robbed enough times in other jobs to know these guys are just a pair of meth heads jonesing for a fix. The problem with meth heads, though, is they’re completely irrational even at the best of times. A few years ago Zapp had to give a tweaker the whole cash drawer – even though the drawer was empty – before the guy would leave.

  The first guy, a skeleton looking bastard in an old Iron Maiden t-shirt and a pair of jeans that should have been washed months ago, finally notices Zapp and stops dead in his tracks. These two were obviously hoping the place was abandoned and finding another person in the building has interrupted their fever dreams of getting in and out without being seen.

  “Hi,” Zapp says, waving his fingers nervously in the air. He assumed the standard hold-up position as soon as guys walked in, hands up and no sudden movements.

  The second guy, a stringy Iggy Pop looking freak runs straight into the back of the first guy. They both jump and turn their guns on each other. It takes their drug-addled minds a long time to realize they’re both on the same side but when they finally
click the guys turn back to Zapp. The second guy smiles a toothless grin that should look menacing but only manages to look silly.

  “Give us the … cash!” Iron Maiden yells.

  “There’s no money here, guys,” Zapp says. “I haven’t had a customer in years.”

  “Don’t fuck with us!” the second guy yells. They’re all about the yelling. “We’re not retards. Open the fucking cash register and give us the cash.”

  Zapp works at the old analog cash register but it won’t open. He smacks it and the old machine lets out a delighted ding. The cash drawer grinds partway open and Zapp has to tug it the rest of the way. He motions to the empty drawer but realizes the tweakers can’t see it. With a huge amount of effort he turns the register toward the guys just in time to see their heads explode.

  Behind them is the guy in leather who had walked in just before the tweakers. He watches calmly as the dead bodies drop to the floor, looking down the barrel of the biggest goddamned gun Zapp has ever seen. “Do you have any more of the jack rabbit things with horns?” the guy asks. “My gal would think that’s the funniest shit she’s ever seen.”

  Zapp stares at him in complete shock, struggling to comprehend what kind of man would blow away two guys and then ask about a jackalope. “You … you shot them,” he stammers.

  “Yeah,” the guy says simply. “I woulda been here sooner but I couldn’t find the toilet paper. I was at a Mexican/Greek joint up in Albuquerque earlier today. Don’t know what you call it but it wasn’t pretty if you know what I mean.”

  “You didn’t have to shoot them,” Zapp almost yells.

  “Well, no, not technically,” the guy says, “but I already had my gun out.”

  Zapp looks around the little store and wonders what to do. The guy has put his gun away, but there’s still the matter of the blood, skull pieces, and brains scattered across the floor and walls. Unsure of what to do, Zapp brushes a piece of skull off the Man of Bronze.

  He decides there’s nothing else to do but move forward. “You didn’t have to kill them,” Zapp says.

  The guy in leather shrugs and says, “They were wasting time and I needed a present for my gal.” He snaps his fingers and adds, “Got any more of those rabbits? Maybe in the back.”

  Zapp motions around the small store and says, “There is no back. This is it; just a small store with old candy bars and fresh corpses.”

  The heady smell of copper hits Zapp’s nostrils and he nearly chokes. Bile rises in his throat and his old familiar buddy nausea drops in for a visit. His stomach convulses, convinced the ageless Zagnut bars are at fault for the way he’s feeling.

  “You okay, bud?” the guy asks.

  Zapp covers his mouth and shakes his head. “I’m fine,” he mutters through clenched lips and tight fingers but he’s not fine. He’s about to add insult to injury and if he doesn’t make it to the bathroom soon the insult is going to be added to the injury on the floor.

  The guy stands stock still, waiting patiently for what everyone in the room knows is going to happen soon and violently and all over the place. Zapp tries desperately to keep his peanut brittle, cocoa, and coconut breakfast down in his gut where it belongs but his gut has plans to evict its current tenants.

  Zapp’s stomach seizes and acid rises in his throat. He’s going to toss his cookies and there’s nothing in the world that can prevent that but he still fights tooth and nail to stop it. Another seizure and he can feel little chunks making their way up.

  “Just let it go, man,” the guy says, “you can fight it all day but you’re gonna lose.”

  Screw him, Zapp thinks and fights puking with everything he’s got. His stomach spasms again and he squeezes his eyes shut and does his best to ignore the coppery scent of the blood and everything else that’s spilled into the air since the tweakers died. Thinking about the smell heightens it and his guts erupt.

  When the heaving ends and the dry heaves finally taper off to gags and the gagging edges back a general feeling of weakness, Zapp finds himself leaning on the counter and wishing he was dead. “Y’all done?” the guy asks him.

  Zapp nods and pants.

  “First time around a dead guy,” the guy says, more a statement than a question, but Zapp nods anyway and wonders if this idiot will ever shut up.

  “I usually kill ‘em from a distance if I can,” the guy says, either unaware that Zapp doesn’t want to listen or simply doesn’t care anymore. “These boots are pricey and hard to come by. My gal got ‘em for me, personally, and she’d be a might bit pissed off if I got blood or brains or whatever all over ‘em.”

  Zapp can’t help himself and looks at the guy’s boots. They seem unremarkable, a pair of decent looking engineer boots with rubber soles. The same kind of boots sold at a dozen stores in the area.

  The guy must have caught Zapp’s eye because he says, “I know, they don’t look like much, but she had to skin a damned thing to get ‘em. That’s why I wanted one of them jackrabbits with the horns on ‘em. They kind of look like some damned freaky pet and I think she’d get a kick out of that.”

  Zapp’s voice is harsh, but he manages to say, “There might be one more over there by the drinks. Look on top of that shelf over there.”

  The guy turns and looks around while Zapp decides he needs to pilfer a Coke from the old fridge. He opens the top and finds a single warm bottle rolling around dejectedly. Good enough, he thinks, and reaches in. His grip is still weak, but Zapp manages to hold the bottle long enough to pop the top on the bottle opener on the front of the dead machine.

  The Coke is probably thirty years old, but the fizzy drink goes down as smooth as it ever does and settles Zapp’s grumbling stomach. He faces away from the mess on the floor and pretends nothing happened while he downs the old soda.

  “Will you look at that,” the guy says. “This one’s even nicer than the other one. How much you want for it?”

  Zapp waves a hand behind him, trying to tell the guy it’s on the house but the stranger isn’t having any of it. “Come on, I can’t take this for nothing; wouldn’t be proper.”

  “Saved … burp … my life,” Zapp says.

  “Yeah, but I enjoyed that. Hell, killin’ bad guys is almost as much fun as a guy can get with his clothes on,” the stranger says.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Zapp says and finishes his Coke. He’s got a god-awful mess to clean up and while he’s not anxious to get it started, he is anxious to have it done.

  “What?” the stranger asks, “Are you tellin’ me you ain’t never killed no one?”

  Zapp shakes his head slowly. The stranger, stuffed jackalope under his arm, walks closer to the counter and looks at the book. The face of the Man of Bronze stares back at him. “Doc Savage, huh?” the stranger comments, “I used to read his stories, too, back in the day. Ol’ Doc wouldn’t have a problem lettin’ the bad guys come to their untimely end. He never killed anyone, though, if memory serves. Didn’t have no problem lettin’ them fall to their doom or get crushed by stones, but he never pulled the trigger himself. After the war, of course. They never covered it in the books but I suspect ol’ Doc killed plenty in the war. That why you ain’t never killed anyone?”

  “I’m not Doc,” Zapp says quietly and for the first time in his life he realizes with absolute certainty that he is not one of the action heroes he so wants to be like.

  “No,” the stranger agrees, “you ain’t. But hell, even Doc had to become Doc at some point in his life. Ain’t nobody born Doc Savage. Guy like that has to be made.”

  “How do you make someone like Doc Savage?” Zapp asks quietly.

  “Doc tested his mettle in World War I. Fought the Germans before they went completely off the rails and became Nazis. It was a brutal war and it changed him, arguably for the better. Everyone needs to break out of their comfort zone if they want to change.”

  Zapp looks around the room filled with a mess he’ll wind up having to clean up and realizes he can stay here forever and have a safe
life reading or he can walk out the door right now and try to be someone interesting. “What do you recommend?” he asks the stranger.

  “You seriously never killed anyone?” the stranger asks with a cocked eyebrow like he’s having trouble believing there are people in the world that haven’t killed anyone.

  “Never,” Zapp says.

  “You’re sure. You’ve never killed anyone.”

  “Why is that so hard to believe?”

  “Dunno,” the stranger says with a shrug. “Just seems strange to me.”

  “I live in a quiet world,” Zapp says. “I read. I do other things that are boring.”

  “You just had a shotgun pointed at your face.”

  Zapp pauses, remembering just how big those shotgun barrels looked. He gulps and visualizes the jackalope exploding into a mass of fake fur and sawdust.

  “And you’re still here,” the stranger continues. “You wanna do something else interesting today?”

  “I am not having sex with you in the bathroom,” Zapp says.

  The stranger bursts out laughing. His laugh is loud and boisterous and obviously not concerned with anything in the world. “No, buddy, you’re not my type,” he says, wiping tears of laughter from his face. “Besides, my gal would probably gut the both of us.”

  “You are the strangest person I’ve ever met,” Zapp says.

  “Much obliged,” the stranger replies. “So, you up for a spot of fun or do you feel like staying here and cleaning up this mess?”

  The shop is a total mess; it looks like the set of a Japanese horror movie involving tentacle monsters and ghosts. By his best estimates, Zapp figures he’s looking at probably a full day of slogging through things that should have been left in bodies, a few mops, and at least the rest of the sponges.

  He looks from the floor to Doc Savage’s grimacing visage. What would Doc do?