She worked a tangle out of her long, black hair and then swept the wispy bangs away from her forehead as she glanced at herself in the mirror. She knew she was pretty now; she wasn't the same frumpy nerd who'd chewed on pencils in high school, who tended to sit in her secondhand clothes at an otherwise empty table in the lunchroom. In the half decade following her graduation, she'd blossomed and was acutely aware of the catcalls that were sometimes hurled in her direction as she walked down the street. But Matt? He was the type of man sculptors aspired to capture in stone and granite. Rugged, so good looking that she sometimes got moist just looking at him, always so smartly dressed in his turtlenecks and blazers and crisp jeans. For all intents and purposes, he looked as if he were ready to grace the cover of some men's magazine at any second.
“You want me to take over for a bit, darlin'? You look tired.”
His eyes shifted lightly, just enough so she knew he could see her from his peripheral vision. Something about that brief second of contact made her feel warmer inside than all of the air whooshing out of the heater vents and coaxed a smile. She looked at her left hand and wiggled it from side to side gently as she watched the light bounce off the golden band encircling her ring finger.
“I'm okay . . . just want to hurry up and get there, ya know? All this driving . . . .”
His voice trailed off as his gaze shifted to the dashboard. He frowned again and pecked at the plexiglass with one finger, as if trying to encourage a stuck gauge into movement.
“Why don't you see if you can find anything on the radio, Mona?”
She used to hate her name. It caused images of old, chain-smoking women to sprout like weeds in her mind. She always envisioned them so very clearly: fingernails stained yellow, hair all up in curlers, and loose dressing gowns dotted with pinhole burns from falling ashes. But when Matt said it, it made her feel as if she were framed in a gallery somewhere, put on display for long lines of people to admire as they discussed her more subtle features in low whispers. Funny how something as small as the way someone says your name could make you feel so special, so cherished and secure.
Her fingers flipped on the stereo and the car was flooded with static. She scrambled for the volume knob and lowered it until the sound coming out of the speakers seemed more like the hiss of a distant waterfall and began guiding the little needle across the dial with slight twists of her wrist. For the most part, there was only white noise and an occasional high pitched whine that seemed to surf the peaks and troughs of the atmosphere. But then there was a burst of noise and she turned the dial back more slowly, trying to narrow down the transmission into something that could actually be heard.
“ . . . until tomorrow morning.” The disc jockey's voice was soft and rhythmic, almost as if it were pulling itself into creation from buzz of background interference. “In other news, the badly mutilated body of a Fosterville woman was discovered early Thursday morning. Found in a dumpster at an I-77 rest stop by maintenance crews, police chief Robert Hallohan said it was too early to tell if this most recent murder is related to the string . . . .”
“Turn that shit off, sweetie. I was thinking more along the lines of music.”
The announcer's voice was swallowed in fresh burst of static that continued until Mona had reached the other end of the spectrum where it finally resolved into the twang of banjo and a nasal tenor that droned on and on about lost love and regret.
“Still can't find anything but shit-kicker tunes, baby.”
Since they'd left the interstate, the selection and quality of radio stations had decreased exponentially. At first, they'd driven through quaint country towns that looked as if they'd sprung full-blown from a Norman Rockwell Christmas card: snowmen kept silent vigil in yards bordered by picket fences, people hunkered in the cold and shuffled along sidewalks while their scarves flapped like banners in the wind. Though it had still been daylight, it was obvious that the insurance agents and grocers had strung colored lights around plate glass windows and giant green wreaths hung from every other lamppost. Matt and Mona had found a classic rock station and they blew through these towns while the Beach Boys harmonized about The Little Saint Nick and The Boss informed everyone that Santa Claus was coming to town.
As the quiet little hamlets gave way to scattered farms and livestock, however, finding something worth listening to had become more difficult For about ten minutes, they'd tuned in to some station that had the cajones to assault its listeners with the breakneck rhythms of Slayer and old school Metallica; but they lost the station when they entered a stretch of road where the hills pressed against the blacktop so closely that it was like driving through the bosom of Mother Earth. By the time they'd emerged on the other side, heavy metal was nothing more than a memory and hard-drinking country ruled the roost. Now that darkness had fallen and the landscape was nothing more than snow covered mountains and trees as far as the eye could see, the Bluegrass that she'd found was almost like a Godsend.
“How much further did you say it was to this cabin, anyway?”
Matt sniffled and cocked his head to the side as if he'd developed a crick in his neck. He always did that when he was thinking and it was one of the thousand little things that Mona loved about this man.
“About an hour, hour and a half taking weather into account. Daddy liked his seclusion. I ever tell you about the time he brought me up here for my first hunting experience, darlin'?”
Mona giggled and rolled her eyes as she popped open the glove box. She was sure there was a half-eaten Snickers buried somewhere in all the paperwork and receipts and her stomach gurgled as she searched.
“Only about a million times, baby.”
“He was a good father. Maybe not a good man . . . but a good father, nonetheless.
Mona stopped rooting through the glove box and placed her hand gently on Matt's thigh. She hated hearing that distant sound in his voice, that tone that made it sound as if everything within her new husband was as hollow and empty as the promises her own father had used to make.
“You miss him, Mattie?”
He looked over at his wife with a smile that somehow didn't match that pain in his eyes. Steering with one hand, he placed the other on top of hers and squeezed so gently it almost seemed as if he were afraid of crushing her bones.
“I don't know if I miss him, per se. But he understood, ya know? I could tell him about . . . .”
“Mattie! Look out!”
Mona's voice was a shrill squeal and her hands flew to the dashboard as if she'd suddenly realized it was rushing toward them and needed to be held back. Matt snapped his head back to the road just in time to see something large and brown in the road ahead. It's eyes were silvery in the oncoming headlights and it's white tail twitched as its haunches tensed.
Matt slammed his foot onto the brake as if he intended to ram it through the floor and jerked the wheel to the left. At the same time, the car seemed to be embodied with a life of its own: the tail end swung around in what seemed to be a slow motion spiral while the world outside the windows blurred.
Something hit the front of the car with enough force that Mona felt the dull thud within her chest and there was something rolling across the hood, something with antlers and spindly legs that clattered against the windshield. The glass shattered into a spider web of cracks and she vaguely heard Matt cursing. A tree seemed to hurl itself toward them and Mona's scream was drowned out by the crash of the car's hood crumpling around the trunk. She pitched forward so sharply that it felt as if her head were about to wrench free from her neck and for a moment everything seemed to still be spinning even though she knew perfectly well that the car's inertia had been brought to a halt.
Mona watched steam drift from underneath the buckled hood of the car and it almost seemed to possess some sort of gravity that drew her in. It was so pretty, so ethereal against the dark backdrop of the night. It was how she'd always imagined a soul would look upon exiting the body: soft and billowy, seeming to be trapped
somewhere between substance and a dream . . . .
Perhaps it actually was her spirit. When their little Honda smashed into the tree, maybe she'd hit her head or snapped her spine. Maybe she was simply sitting there, watching her soul drift off into the atmosphere while her body struggled to come to terms with the fact that she was dead. Within minutes, her empty shell might simply collapse onto the seat as a great and final darkness settled her world. She had no delusions about Heaven . . . not after the type of life she'd led. But Hell would be fine; just as long as Matt was there by her side and they could spend . . . .
Matt.
The thought of her husband was like a splash of cold water on Mona's face. She jerked, as if startled from a dream, and then scrambled for the seat belt.
“Matt! Are you okay, baby? You okay?”
Matt had his head thrown back over the seat and one hand cupped his nose. His eyes were squeezed shut so tightly that creases formed at the corners of his eyes, giving subtle hints of the old man he'd someday become.
She scampered across the seat and grabbed him by his shoulders.
“Oh shit, baby . . . oh shit . . . you're bleeding.”
Spurts of blood leaked between Matt's fingers and trickled through the grooves formed by his knuckles.
Mona's head whipped to the side where she saw the battered animal kicking in the snow as if it could somehow find the strength to rise up on its shattered bones and scurry into the night.
“Fuckin' deer! Fuckin' piece of shit, apple eatin’, salt lickin’ son of a bitch!”
Her voice was a shrill screech and she punctuated each word by punching her fist into the foamy covering of the roof.
“Mona . . . baby . . . I'm oday, sweetie.”
Matt's hand muffled his voice, yet it still sounded as stuffy and congested as when he'd caught the flu a few months earlier. It robbed his voice of hard sounds, smoothing Ks and Cs into something that sounded more like a D and dropping the letter G altogether.
“Fuddin' busted my nose on the fuddin' steerin' wheel. You oday, baby? You hurt?”
Mona had leaned over the seat and pulled clothing from one of the duffel bags hurled forward upon impact. She snatched a t-shirt as if ripping a tissue from its box and wiggled her way back into the front of the car again. Bunching the shirt up, she pulled Matt's hand away from his face gently and winced. His nose had already swollen to the point that it looked as bulbous as a drunkard's and his palm had smeared blood across its bridge. Crimson finger marks trailed across his cheeks and his nostrils looked so much smaller surrounded by the puffy flesh that imprisoned them.
“Damn, baby . . . you whacked yourself good.”
She pushed the t-shirt against his face and, for the first time in her life, wondered exactly what was meant by apply pressure. How much pressure? Did she need to press the cloth against his injury so tightly that she risked hurting him? Or could she simply dab it against his face and allow the fibers to soak up the blood so it could begin clotting?
“Does that hurt? Shit, Mattie, this ain't right, it just ain't right.”
Matt took the t-shirt from her and pushed it onto his nose with both hands.
“You oday, baby?”
Mona had begun stroking his hair almost before the shirt was even out of her grip. She needed to be doing something . . . anything. She just couldn't sit there and watch her man bleed: she wanted to scoop him into her arms, to bury his face into her chest as she rocked back and forth, to somehow reach deep inside him and take the pain away.
For the first time in the last year and a half, Mona felt as powerless and ineffectual as she had during the majority of her life. She felt small and quiet, like a shadow that had fooled everyone into thinking it was a person . . . but this man had saved her from all of that. He'd shown her that she could be strong, that she was worthy of being loved, that she deserved to be treated so much better. And now, when he needed her most, she was trembling like a child as she sniffled away the tears that blurred her vision.
“Mona! Are you oday?”
“Shhh . . . I'm fine, baby, I'm fine. I just can't stand to see you hurtin'. Do you need something cold? I think there might be a pop in the cooler or I could dunk a shirt in melted ice or get some snow from outside or . . . .”
Matt chuckled and glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
“I been worse. 'member that time outside Ronoade?”
Mona forced herself to smile as she continued to run her fingers through hair that was as soft and fine as individual fibers of silk. It splayed over her hand, tickling the little webs between her fingers.
“How could I forget something like that?”
It was typical Matt, reminding her of a time when she had been strong and fearless. He'd been hurt so bad back then . . . much worse than a nose that bled like a staked vampire and which probably wasn't even broken. He'd really needed her and she had risen to the occasion.
“Turnin' oudda be one helluba honeymoon, huh?”
By the time the couple staggered out of the car, the deer was dead. Its body lay motionless in the snow; only the unnatural stiffness of its legs and an antler that looked as if it had been snipped off with a bolt cutter betrayed the fact that it simply hadn't laid down for a little rest. Mona expected to see red stains that had seeped into the drifts around it. But there were only a few drops, like tiny rose blossoms, directly beneath the beast's dark mouth.
“Piece of shit!”
She kicked the carcass and her combat boot thumped hollowly against the tawny fur . . . it's dark eyes never blinked, never shifted in panic or fear. They simply gazed into whatever void its spirit had slipped into as flakes of snow slowly melted on their surface.
While they had still been in the car and waiting for his bleeding to stop, Matt had suggested that she put the thing out of its misery. They'd been able to see it clearly: the way its body twitched with spasms of pain, the quick plumes of steam that snorted through its flared nostrils, how it had gradually lost the strength to even hold its head up any longer. It probably had been suffering . . . but, in all honesty, Mona had been perfectly fine with that.
Let the damn thing finish out the remaining moments of its life in pain and fear. Served the fucker right . . . it had derailed their trip, wrecked their car, and – most importantly – hurt Matt. Why should it be allowed peace when the man she loved, the only man in the world who mattered, probably felt like his face had gone twelve rounds with Rocky Balboa?
“Didn't realize we went off the road. Seemed like there was suddenly just this tree in our way.”
At some point during the wreck, the car had apparently went over a small embankment. Not steep enough to have caused them to flip, thank God, but the hillside was marred with deep, muddy ruts that looked like open wounds on the snow-covered earth.
For a moment, they stood with their arms wrapped around one another and listened to the soft ticking of the cooling engine. Though the clouds of steam had long since dissipated, the smell of antifreeze still hung in the air like the scent of a sweet flower.
Matt held his hand out and the keys jangled softly as he pressed a button on the black fob. Two quick chirps filled the night in perfect synchronicity with the flashing of the taillights. Mona shook her head and laughed in a way that only Mattie could coax from her: it was as if the sound simply bubbled up from inside her, as light and free as a bird in the sky.
“What?”
He tried to suppress his own grin as he looked at his wife, yet his voice still quivered with amusement.
“We wouldn't want anyone stealing that fine automobile of ours, now would be?”
“Oh, no. Heaven forbid. I hear there's quite a market for crushed up Hondas. All the cool kids are driving them these days.”
Matt squeezed her as best as he could through the thick layers of parka that separated them and then touched the tip of her nose with the cold, vinyl finger of his glove.
“Stick with me, kiddo, and we'll own five crushed up Hondas.�
�
He pulled the zipper on her jacket so that it was snugly beneath her chin and then cinched the drawstrings of the fur-lined hood.
“Come on, Nanook . . . let's get going. It's fuckin' freezing out here.”
“Tell me about it. You reckon we can find help, baby? I haven't seen a car since we turned off that four lane.”
Matt held Mona's hand tightly as he helped her up the incline, taking care to ensure that she didn't slip in the mud.
“We better.”
Once they'd crested the hill, Matt looked in both directions as if trying to decide which way they should go.
“Otherwise there's a good chance that we're gonna die out here.”
SCENE THREE
The truck bounced over the ruts in the country road with enough force that the passenger had to brace himself with one hand against the dashboard and the other pressed into the roof. The suspension creaked and popped as tires crunched through snow and every so often there was a loud thump from the bed at the same time the man bounced off the ripped vinyl seat like a rodeo cowboy.
“Damn it, Earl, slow the fuck down!”
The driver grinned but said nothing as he gripped the steering wheel with hands so large that it made the cracked leather look like a child's toy. Perhaps the extra weight the man carried around his midsection achored him more solidly to gravity than his lanky companion: his gut spilled across his waistline, overlapped a belt buckle shaped like a confederate flag, and caused his white tee shirt to ride up just below his navel.. The broad ass that spread across the seat, however, remained firmly planted in the trough it had forced into the springs and cushion over the years. Even the trucker's cap perched atop his scraggly mass of brown hair stayed in place, not so much as even jiggling as the front wheels plummeted into another snow-encrusted groove.
Whereas the driver's unshaven jowls were exaggerated even further by a smile, the passenger's narrow face held the expression of a man who expected to meet the Grim Reaper just around the next bend. His eyes were wide and round with pupils dilated both by the darkness of the night and also by the panic that made him his heart feel as if it were about to leap into the narrow confines of his throat. Thin lips quivered beneath a mustache that randomly curled over the chapped, pink flesh below them and his sunken cheeks were flushed with the warmth of fear. Even beneath the green coveralls that engulfed him, it was obvious that the man's entire body was trembling.
Shut The Fuck Up And Die! Page 2
