Gary A. Braunbeck is the author of 10 novels and 10 short story collections, as well as nearly 200 published short stories in the fantasy, horror, science fiction, western, romance, mainstream, and mystery fields. A ravenous reader since childhood, he rarely ventures outside except when forced to at gunpoint (we exaggerate for effect… but not too much).
His novels include the critically-acclaimed Coffin County and Far Dark Fields (both set in his fictional town of Cedar Hill, Ohio), and among his short-story collections are Things Left Behind and the award-winning Destinations Unknown. His work has garnered five Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award. He lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife, author Lucy A. Snyder, and five cats who hold him prisoner every day until they are fed.
Merge Right
By Gary A. Braunbeck
efore realizing that he was screwed to the wall, that he was beyond merely lost, that somewhere between 8:45 and 11:00 p.m. the universe as he knew it (or thought he’d known it) had ceased to function under anything even remotely resembling the acknowledged laws of physics, Matt Leigh ventured outside one winter evening, set the urn containing his wife’s ashes on the passenger seat of his car, buckled it in place, took a mental snapshot of the home he had shared with her, and drove off to fulfill her last request.
Scatter my ashes at Niagara Falls in winter.
Part of him cursed himself for ever having decided to do it – God, how lame could you be? – and then just as quickly realized that Lauren had liked lame, had always been something of a traditional romantic at heart (one of the things he’d always loved about her; after all, they’d honeymooned at Niagara Falls), and considering how miserable the last few weeks of her life had been, it would have been a betrayal to her memory to do otherwise.
As he merged onto I-71 and headed toward Cleveland, he glanced over at the urn, felt the sudden tightness in his chest that always preceded a crying jag, and swore that this time he wouldn’t allow it to get the upper hand; there had been too many times in the past few months that he’d broken into tears before he was even aware of it, the people around him lapsing into an uncomfortable silence, unable to maintain eye contact because he was blubbering like an idiot. The public breakdowns were bad enough, sure, but the solitary ones were even worse, somehow more embarrassing, because he felt defeated, frightened, alone, and – worst of all – weak. Christ, when he lost it at that memorial service they’d held for Lauren at the high school where she’d taught Science, he thought he’d implode from the humiliation.
There might have been a time, once, not so long ago, when he was a different sort of man, a kinder man, a man of compassion and selflessness who did not feel at all embarrassed or self-conscious about letting his feelings show, about wearing his heart on his sleeve, but then came the baby that was too sick to live and Lauren fell in on herself after the funeral and said almost nothing for a full month until one night she surprised him with a tight hug and a deep kiss and a “I’m going to treat myself to a long, quiet bubble bath,” and she did, and that’s where he found her a little over an hour later, the remaining foam stained to a sick-making shade of pink, the water a distilled red, her face so calm, so relaxed, so peaceful. Her note, taped to the bathroom mirror, had for the most part been brief and to the point: I’m sorry, Matt. I hope you’ll forgive me. I love you. Scatter my ashes at Niagara Falls in winter.
This, followed by something that he hadn’t understood at all: All matter is composed of quarks and leptons. Written in a different color of ink.
He assumed that she’d written the note on a piece of paper that she’d used to scribble some notes for class. That would be just like her – never waste anything if you can find another way to use it.
Later, he confessed to one of his friends that he’d been suspicious – no, he’d known she was going to do it, and did nothing to stop her. “She was so unhappy,” he said. “And nothing was going to make it any better for her. I tried, I really did, but nothing I did or said got through to her.”
“Bullshit,” said his friend. “You’re just trying to find a way to blame yourself for being the one who’s still alive.”
Maybe that was right. Maybe. But Matt had spent so much time looking into himself since Lauren’s death that he didn’t know what to think or believe. There were times he thought some part of him was relieved that she’d done it. God, how many times had Lauren told him (in those rare instances when they had a conversation lasting more than two minutes) that she couldn’t look at him because the sight of him was just another reminder of what they’d lost? He could never bring himself to admit to Lauren that he felt the same way whenever he looked at her, and hated himself for it.
It’s too soon, he told himself now. She’s only been gone a few months, it’s too soon to do this. Turn around, go back home, and wait until next winter. Keep her around a little longer.
He reached up and wiped his eyes, then pulled in a hard, loud, snot-filled breath.
Jesus Christ, babe – why? Why’d you do it? We could have gotten through it. I would have done anything to make it better for you, I was just too wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself to notice how much more you were hurting. I loved you so much. So much. Do you have any idea how much I miss you?
If he turned around right now, he could be back home in half an hour. The weather report called for another two or three inches of snow tonight, and New York was supposed to get twice that much. Okay, sure, he’d known this before, but had decided he’d rather try braving the snow at night rather than have to deal with both the snow and traffic. Six hours from start to finish, one way; seven if he took it slowly.
He checked his watch. Not quite 6:30 p.m. The plan was to leave at 6:00 and get into Niagara Falls between midnight and one a.m. He’d booked the hotel room a week ago. He’d get up in the morning, have breakfast, check out, and then walk across the Rainbow Bridge, where he’d scatter her ashes. Matt wasn’t sure if it were legal or not, and didn’t really care. So what if he had to pay a fine?
You could have checked, he thought. Another reason to turn around. What the hell good is any of this going to be if you get there and find out it’s against the law?
He shook his head. It wouldn’t make any difference. He was just trying to find a way to chicken out. Again.
He looked at the urn once more and said, “Don’t worry, babe. I won’t let you down, I promise. I just…I can’t stop thinking about how miserable you must have been, y’know?”
And then he heard Lauren’s voice in his head, saying to him the thing she always said whenever his mood turned dark: You need to think about something funny, Mr. Grumpy-Pants. You need to think about something that will make you smile.
“Easy for you to say,” Matt whispered. “You’re not the one who’s been left to sift through the detritus. You’re not the one who’s been left with a list of unanswered questions longer than your arm. You’re not the one who…” He bit down on his lip, stopping himself. To say it out loud would be to give it form, to move it from the world of one’s private thoughts into the physical world. Okay, okay, maybe that was a bit existential, but nonetheless, Matt feared that if he said it, if he gave it voice, if he spoke the words, then the terrible thought in his head would always be out here in the world, following him, reminding him that there was a time when he’d told the universe that, despite his claims of relief, he still felt as if his wife had abandoned him, had lied to him somehow, and that some part of him hated her for it. As long as the thought remained in his head and only in his head, then it was safe…safe enough. It was something he could push back, file away, learn to ignore. But once spoken….
Deciding that he needed a distraction, Matt flipped down the visor and selected a compact disc from the sleeve mounted on the back, slid it into the player, and adjusted the volume. The disc was one he’d made for Lauren for their last anniversary, a compilation of her favorite Peter Gabriel songs. Though Matt personally preferred the stuff Gabriel had done wit
h Genesis back in the day, he’d come around to appreciating the solo material, thanks to Lauren (although “Shock the Monkey” still got on his nerves no end). He’d promised himself that he’d play this for her along the way.
The disc opened with a live version of “In Your Eyes” – the version Lauren preferred – and Matt found himself humming along. Somehow the song seemed to fit the night outside because it was the perfect contrast; where the song was rich, deep, and warm, the night was bleak, impenetrable, and so very cold. The music, it seemed, was protecting both husband and remains-of-the-wife from the elements.
He double-checked to make sure his cell phone was charging, flipped the visor back into place, and opened a can of Pepsi he’d taken from the small cooler on the passenger-side floor; he’d stocked the thing with sodas, a couple of sandwiches, and some snacks before leaving; this way he’d only have to stop to use the bathroom. The car had a full tank (and had always gotten damned good highway mileage, even in bad weather when he had to drive at a crawl), so he wouldn’t have to gas up until it was time to start the trip home.
Somehow he was able to let himself slip into auto-pilot for a little while, becoming just another weary traveler out on the road: moving, moving, moving along. Sometimes this was the best way to do things; just take most of your conscious self out of it and let your body function by rote.
He merged onto I-271 N via exit 220 toward Erie, Pennsylvania just as it became fully dark and the predicted snow was beginning to fall. This was really, truly, sincerely it – Put-Up or Shut-Up Time. A little over a hundred miles into the trip. This was his last chance to turn around if he were going to do it.
“What do you think, babe?” he asked the urn. “Keep going or go home?”
He looked at the urn as if he actually expected it to respond, and then realized this was the second time he’d spoken to it. That couldn’t be a good sign.
Okay, he thought to himself. If you keep her – it, if you keep it around another year, how sure are you that you’re not going to continue talking to it like it’s really her?
“Good point,” he said to the urn. “Onward we go, then.”
A few miles after getting onto 1-271 he saw the sign telling him to Merge Right. So he did, noting that what had been a four-lane stretch was now only three. He glanced out over the concrete divider but saw no other cars traveling in the opposite direction, which seemed odd; it wasn’t quite 8:00 p.m.; there should still have been a decent amount of traffic on the road.
Unless the forecast changed and they’re calling for a lot more snow than was originally expected. Four or five inches would keep everyone home.
Up ahead, a gray car sat in the emergency lane, its taillights flashing, exhaust billowing into the winter night, sketching odd shapes into the air. Matt wondered if he should pull over and see if the driver needed help – were Lauren still here, she’d have pulled over – but then realized that it was exactly under circumstances like these that many serial killers had snatched their victims; no wonder so many people were now wary of a long stretch of dark, semi-empty road. Sure, odds were this was no serial killer, but that’s probably what all the victims thought when they made the decision to pull over and play Good Samaritan. Didn’t those two guys…what were their names? – Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole, right – didn’t they claim to have gotten a lot of their victims that way, by faking car trouble in hopes that some poor, unsuspecting Samaritan-type would pull over and offer to lend a hand?
Despite this line of thinking, Matt found himself slowing down as he neared the stopped car. He leaned forward, head turned toward the other vehicle, and tried to get a look inside. The dome light was off, but the illumination from the dashboard lights cast a soft bluish glow over the interior, and as far as Matt could see, there was no one inside the car.
He pulled a bit farther ahead and saw that the windshield wipers weren’t going, so getting a better look inside from this angle was out of the question. God Almighty, why was he even doing this? He could see the exhaust, the lights of the dashboard, the flashing taillights, it wasn’t like the car wasn’t working, so how much of an emergency could it be? Maybe the driver just needed to pull over and check the map, or make a call on their cell phone, or even – hey, here’s one that should have been obvious – run off into the bushes to take a leak. Matt could sympathize. There had been a few occasions where he’d thought he could make it to the next rest stop, only to find that his bladder had just been messing with him, had just been waiting for the moment when the rest stop entrance was parallel with the passenger door before announcing that, yep, okay, now it’s time to go with the flow.
He began to pull away when, once again, something made him hesitate. What the hell was wrong with him? The driver was just down there in the trees somewhere, writing his name in the snow.
But what if you’re wrong? said Lauren’s voice in his head. What if he pulled over because he was having a heart or asthma attack or a seizure or something? What if he’s inside, lying across the seat and dying? What if he can’t reach his cell phone? What if he doesn’t even have a cell phone?
Matt glared at the urn for a few moments, then looked at the other car once again. Three minutes, he thought, checking his watch. I’ll give this guy three minutes, and then it’s none of my business. This seemed practical. The car had been idling here well before Matt spotted it, so waiting an additional three minutes would give the guy plenty of time to finish his business, even if he had to do more than take a leak.
“You’re stalling,” he said aloud to himself. “And you know it. The guy’s fine.”
Hell, the guy was probably down there hiding in the bushes at this point, wondering what the person in the other car wanted. The thought brought the week’s first genuine smile to Matt’s face. He put himself in the other guy’s position: it’s dark, and he has to pull over to relieve himself, so he sprints down into the bushes to do his business, and when he’s finishing up, lo and behold, another car has pulled up alongside his and isn’t moving. Anyone could be in that car – the police, car thieves, or a pair of sickos who idolize Henry and Ottis. No way is he going anywhere near his car until the other vehicle is long gone.
Matt almost laughed, then thought of the poor guy down there freezing his nuts off – perhaps literally – and so sped up and drove away, quietly wishing the other fellow the best of luck.
With the exception of the snow – which swirled across the windshield like heavy smoke from a distant fire – the next forty minutes of the drive were smooth and uneventful, if a bit slow due to decreased visibility. Then Matt saw another sign instructing him to Merge Right slip into the glow of his headlights, and he did so, and the three-lane stretch of highway became two. Once again – a force of habit, he supposed – he glanced over the concrete divider and saw there was still no traffic heading in the opposite direction, and that’s when it occurred to him that he couldn’t remember seeing any other cars (aside from the empty one in the emergency lane way back there) since the last time he’d merged.
Maybe the rest of the world was staying in tonight. That was fine with him, were it the case. Just him and Lauren and the road all to themselves.
Okay, that’s the third time you’ve done something like that, thought of the urn as her and not a thing, an object. Knock it off.
He looked at the urn, reached out to touch her – it, reached out to touch it – pulled his hand back at the last moment, and then touched it, anyway.
“Why’d didn’t you talk to me about how you were feeling?” he whispered. “I would’ve listened. Why didn’t you…?”
He stopped himself from finishing the question. Who was here to answer?
Then, two more signs: the first said: Roadside Emergency, Dial *891.
The second: Merge Right.
What the—? Why did he need to merge again so soon? Now it was down to one lane on his side.
Checking the rear-view mirror to make sure no one was behind him, Matt pulled off onto
the emergency lane, put the car in park, removed the TripTik from the driver’s-side door pocket, and leaned down for a better look at the map. Maybe he’d let himself drift off a little too much and had missed an exit or something…but, no, according to the map, he was right on track, and wouldn’t hit any construction for at least another hundred miles.
He looked up into the rear-view mirror once again. There was still no one behind him. How long ago had he passed that car? Forty, forty-five minutes, right? And he hadn’t passed any exits since then, so where was the other guy? Matt had driven enough road trips to know that, for a while, anyway, you tended to share your side of the highway with the same group of cars; not only had he not seen any other vehicles, but the guy that he passed back there should have caught up with him by now.
Oh, Jesus, he thought. What if the guy really was hurt, or sick, or having a heart attack? What if he really was lying across the front seat and that’s why you didn’t see him?
Folding the map back into place, he unplugged his cell phone, checked for the signal, and dialed *891. At least he knew where he was, and how far back the other guy had been.
There was a single ring on the other end, followed by a click!, and then…nothing. Just white noise, a soft static hiss that Matt imagined would be the voice of snow, if snow had a voice. He closed the phone, said, “Shit!”, and then opened it again and hit the redial button. This time it rang three times before the click! and white noise came in, and just as he was about to close the phone again, a voice came on and said, “If tin whistles are made of tin, then what do they make foghorns out of?”
“What?” said Matt. “Who the hell is this? Listen, I’ve got an emergency I need to report. I’m on I-271, about – ”
“—the only way to get home is never to stop. Never to stop. Never to—”
Matt snapped closed the phone tossed it onto the dashboard. Screw this; he’d get off at the next exit, find a service station, and get his bearings once again. According to the TripTik, there was an exit less than four miles ahead. Hopefully the service station or fast-food joint would let him use the phone.
Mighty Unclean Page 22
