by Zack Klika
Copyright © 2018 Zack Klika
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher at [email protected].
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Letter From Zack
Prologue
Wednesday, 10/11/17
A threesome.
That was the only thing on Mark’s mind as he sped down the tree-lined dirt road, his mom’s Ford Taurus kicking up dust clouds into the cool night sky. To be fair, the car was practically his. He just had to maintain his grades for another year and then the champagne-colored beast would go off with him to whatever college took him in.
The threesome had been Stacy’s idea. At first he was worried. Worried because his girlfriend of three years suddenly wanted to let another woman experience the most intimate part of their relationship. Was she getting tired of just his moves? Was he no longer able to satisfy her on his own? Was he going to have a say in which one of her friends she would invite? Was it a trick to test his love for her?
His thoughts leaped between euphoria and paranoia. In the end, he decided that Stacy had just entered a phase of experimentation that many seventeen-year-old men and women experienced in small towns like Clarksville, Tennessee. Any understanding boyfriend would encourage and help realize those fantasies in whatever way he could.
So he agreed to it. She teased him at first, saying she wanted the third person to be the starting quarterback, Trevor Strong, from their high school’s football team, the Ragin’ Raccoons, appropriately named after Tennessee’s state animal. Her jokes went unchecked. After all, Mark was the second-string quarterback, and if anyone had earned the right to proposition the starting quarterback with a threesome, it was him. Years of warming the bench had earned him that much, at least.
Moonlight struggled to pierce through the treetops hanging over the dirt road that people rarely used. The road was actually a shortcut between Clarksville and a smaller town north of Clarksville, but to use the shortcut meant you had to use the Fork Creek bridge. A haunted bridge. A bridge that ran parallel to Fort Campbell, one of the largest Army bases in the US.
Slight curves in the road were carved into Mark’s memory after bringing Stacy to the bridge so many times before, often scaring her into close proximity. Tonight was no different, well, except for the third person in the car. After a final curve in the road, the path straightened and the trees gave way, revealing a tall looming figure in the distance. The bridge.
“Here it comes,” said Mark to the car’s two female occupants.
Focus, Mark thought. Just like coach always says. You gotta focus.
Stacy bounced up and down in the passenger seat like a child on Christmas morning. The dilapidated bridge was rapidly approaching.
“Hit the lights, hit the lights,” said Stacy, practically squealing.
“Maybe we can leave them on,” said Lesley from the back seat.
Mark figured she was joking around.
“It’s only scary with the lights out,” he said, shooting her a grin in the rearview mirror and holding her gaze for longer than he should have.
He could sense Lesley was worried, and wondered if she was scared of the bridge or the clock that was ticking down to an awkward sexual experience with her best friend. There were two options for teenagers in Clarksville, Tennessee: experiment with alcohol and drugs, or do stupid stuff like hook up on a haunted bridge. Mark hated drugs. He hated alcohol even more after a night out with Trevor had ended with vomit, parents, and cops.
Stacy slid onto Mark’s side when he cut the lights out and rolled all the windows down. She ran her fingers through his thick, perfectly combed auburn hair. He thought it looked brown. She swore it was auburn.
His eyes were adjusting to the surrounding darkness, the night playing tricks on his imagination, when a gust of cool wind howled through the car’s windows, making a sound that resembled a woman’s tortured scream. It sent chills down his spine. But he sat up straighter. This was his night. He might have had a rough go of playing football the past nine years, always ending up in Trevor’s shadow, but tonight he was the starter and he was going for a Hail Mary pass that would immortalize him amongst his peers and maybe even garner the elusive shoulder clap from his dad for a job well done. He shook that last image from his mind.
“There she is. Screaming for her life,” whispered Mark, playing the part more convincingly now.
The Taurus hiccuped over the metal threshold of the bridge, then continued idling down the creaking wood and steel beams that made up alternating portions of the path. Soft light from the moon gave a clear outline of the bridge’s Warren truss construction, triangles of rusted metal connecting on each side, both rising as high as the surrounding treetops, making Mark wonder if he was on a bridge or in a massive bear trap.
Lesley pulled her coat on. “Can you roll the windows up? It’s cold out.”
Mark cut her off with an index finger to his lips. “Can you hear that?”
Everyone froze as the car continued rolling forward. Mark saw Lesley inching closer to her window. He noticed she had a nicer butt than Stacy. But then he noticed the smell of the foul water that surged below them.
Focus.
He leaned closer to Lesley when she wasn’t looking, reaching farther and farther into the back seat. And at just the right moment, as another gust of wind swept through the cabin of the Taurus, he grabbed her thigh. She spun on him, her face pale with fear, but anger consumed the former emotion when she realized it was ju
st him. Stacy started laughing uncontrollably.
“Real funny,” Lesley said. “I’m ready to go home.”
“Don’t be like that,” said Stacy.
No response.
“Come on, I’m just messing around,” Mark said.
Before Lesley could reply, the Taurus lurched to a stop, and all three of them were flung forward. Mark hit his forearm on the horn, which scared the hell out of him and made Stacy laugh even harder. Lesley shook her head.
“I’m not falling for it again,” said Lesley, sneering now.
“I didn’t do that,” Mark said through a slack jaw.
He looked through the windshield, unable to make out anything on the bridge. He flipped the lights on. Nothing. The empty bridge with rusted beams led the way to a thick forest in the distance. Everyone looked around the car, inspecting their areas. Nothing was there. Mark put the car in reverse and backed up slowly.
Stacy stopped laughing.
A woman wearing tan tactical boots, camouflaged pants, and an olive undershirt was sprawled out in front of the car, bloody from head to toe, one eye open wide, the other swollen shut. Where there was not blood, there was a milky-blue skin tone. Mark had never seen a dead body in real life and noted that the dead woman’s one good eye followed him like the eyes of a painting. He figured she was dead because insects were crawling in and out of her mouth.
He was right.
Stacy and Lesley let out bloodcurdling screams that echoed throughout the forest in every direction. Mark shook his head and closed his eyes as he white-knuckled the steering wheel.
This isn’t happening, he thought to himself, his hopes and dreams turned into despair and nightmares.
Chapter 1
Thursday, 10/12/17
Lee Parsons checked his watch as he waited for the train to finish crossing: 12:15 p.m. Gonna be late, he thought. Each railroad crossing bell shot a needle of pain through his right temple. And the country setting was making his allergies flare up. The crossing gates lifted once the last railroad car passed. A final warning bell rang out, making a point to jab Lee’s temple the hardest. He pressed a knuckle against his right eyebrow to push the pain away. No use.
Five miles later his beater Honda was sputtering down a gravel driveway, the windows rolled down, Three 6 Mafia on full blast, the bass thumping hard in the trunk. It had to be if you wanted any street cred as a drug dealer. And today Lee was a drug dealer.
He was at his best when he was selling drugs to the housing project community where he had spent his first seventeen years. Something about the rows of identical red brick homes lined along trash-littered streets spoke to him, made him feel like he belonged. Getting out wasn’t easy, but selling drugs was. He’d saved up for three years, got robbed at gunpoint by a teenager he never saw, but who sounded familiar, and then saved up for another two years before renting a room in a soldier’s home off base. The soldier’s name was Mason, and he had one rule: No drugs allowed. A perfect rule for someone like Lee who was trying to turn his life around.
Renting that room was the best thing Lee had ever done for himself. Mason turned out to be more of a father figure than a roommate. He helped Lee apply to the local college and showed him the ins and outs of applying for grants and scholarships. He even helped him land a job with True Security Inc., a home security company. Lee handled security camera and motion detector installations. A year later, just before deploying to Afghanistan, Mason helped Lee get his own one-bedroom apartment near downtown Clarksville. That was six years ago. Mason never made it back from Afghanistan. Lee still worked for True Security Inc., but college was on hold because of back-owed tuition. And drugs found their way back into his life.
Cool breezes shot across the farmland run amuck where Lee found himself. A white, two-story paint-peeled home covered by trees sat amongst thirty years of built-up clutter. Tractor tires, busted televisions, rusted sheets of metal, varying sizes of cracked and chipped stones, leftover wood from an attempted addition to the porch long forgotten about . . . you name it, it was collecting dirt around the home. Borderline junkyard, if you asked Lee. The land belonged to Buck Miller, a redneck’s redneck.
The buyer.
Lee parked just short of a kiddie pool that a rottweiler was sunbathing in. The dog’s face was tilted up, its mouth open, catching dust-filled rays of light that pierced through the treetops. He turned the car off and strode to the doorway, where a screen door had been propped open, the dog ignoring him all the while. Under normal circumstances it might have seemed like an inviting gesture.
Nothing about this trip was normal.
Lee’s six-foot slender black frame, fresh fade, clean kicks, and navy blue polo with the True Security Inc. logo on it made him feel out of place. He paused at the front door and scanned the area, fighting the urge to let his nervous slouch set in. His watch read 12:30. Five minutes. In and out, Lee thought. He knuckle-tapped the wood siding and whistled twice. The dog remained motionless. After a few seconds, someone inside the home let out a yell.
“Whoop whoop, yeah!”
Lee headed in.
*
The clock on the wall read 2:00 p.m. Lee was slanted and stoned on the couch, oblivious to the time. His eyes were glued to the ceiling fan as it spun around and around, just slow enough for him to focus on one blade and follow its never-ending cycle of circles. What the exterior of the home lacked, the inside more than made up for. There were modern furnishings, a big-screen television. There was even a fun house mirror on one of the walls. Lee glanced at it but quickly looked away, almost hurling when he saw his distorted reflection.
“You don’t like the circus?” asked Buck from a chair across from Lee, perfectly poised as he took another hit off his do-it-yourself water bong. He had dark brown eyes, a buzz cut, and no visible tattoos. He wore faded jeans and a white T-shirt. Just a normal joe to an outsider. Lee knew better.
“Nah. I hate what they do to the elephants in there,” Lee said.
A plume of smoke from Buck’s lungs threatened to fill the entire room.
“The elephants?” Buck grinned.
Lee just nodded, lost in his own world. “Yeah, the elephants.”
Buck started laughing and Lee joined in. Danny Smith sat in a chair next to Buck. Matching buzz cut, but blond. He wore dark jeans and nothing more. No visible tattoos. He cracked his knuckles and smiled at Lee with penetrating blue eyes.
“Where you get this shit from?” Danny asked Lee.
Lee looked away from the ceiling fan for the first time in thirty minutes and met Danny’s fixed gaze.
“That secret’s safe with me.” Lee grinned.
Danny leaned forward and snatched a bowie knife off the glass-top coffee table, briefly displaying a swastika tattoo on the inside of his bicep.
“I could make you tell me,” he said and paused for effect. “Bitch nigga.”
Silence. Lee kept his cool.
Was this a standoff? The beginning of a hate crime? That last word meant nothing to Lee. Made him feel nothing. Words for the weak, he thought. Before Buck could intervene, Danny burst out laughing. Lee snapped into an unshakeable giggle fit.
“That’s fucked up,” laughed Buck. “I keep forgetting you two used to know each other.”
Danny settled back into his chair after ripping a hit from the bong.
“Shit, that bitch we dropped on the bridge was fucked up. So much for being Army strong,” Danny said, still laughing.
Lee barely caught what happened in those next blurry moments. Buck hopped out of his chair and hammered Danny on the jaw with two devastating right hooks. Danny took the punches like he knew he deserved them.
Lee snapped out of his giggle fit and stared back at the ceiling. The urge to run came first, but that wouldn’t do him any good. He remained still. Play it cool, he thought. Not my problem. He couldn’t believe Danny was just sitting there. He didn’t even wipe the blood from his lip. Lee thought back to a time when Danny wouldn’t have t
aken that kind of abuse from anyone. They went to Southeast High School together, and Lee had seen firsthand what Danny could do to someone who did him wrong.
Who’s the bitch now? Lee thought.
Buck leaned back in his chair like nothing had happened and took another hit from the bong.
“What you gettin’ into tomorrow night?” asked Buck.
Lee knew the question was directed at him, but he was scared as hell to answer. Still, probably better to act normal.
Words. Speak.
“Not shit,” spilled out of his mouth somehow.
“Run through the speedway. I got somethin’ planned after the races.”
Lee sat up, shaking his head clear. “Sounds like trouble.”
“Always is,” laughed Buck.
Lee stood up, his hands stretched towards the sky. “Yeah, I’m down.”
“A’ight, playboy.”
Lee bumped fists with Buck on his way out, unsure what to say to Danny.
“Later, man,” was all he could muster.
No response. Not a word. Not a look Lee’s way. Danny just stared at the television that was playing some action movie starring Keanu Reeves. His eyes looked more filled with more hate than humanly possible.
Lee stumbled onto the porch, squinting into the bright sun that beat down on him through the treetops. He shook his head again. It was late. He was late. Something shattered back inside the home. Not glass. Something wooden. Lee spun on his heel and listened. Buck was yelling at Danny. Because of what he said? he wondered. He continued down the steps, deciding it was best left alone, and passed the dog, which was still working on his bronzing.
*
Most of the sun was hidden behind clouds by the time Lee made it to his next meeting in an abandoned underground parking garage. Another bad investment on some developer’s part. He pulled into the entrance and went down a spiral ramp that was illuminated by long fluorescent lights overhead. The levels were numbered from one to three, three being at the bottom of the garage. Shouldn’t it have been the opposite, though? One at the bottom and three at the top? He was still high.
Eventually he made it to the bottom, the third level, and stopped next to a conspicuous black Crown Vic that was parked in the middle of the lot. The hard part was over, he told himself. But what he was about to do went against everything he stood for.
