Intrigue (Stories of Suspense)

by Aaron Patterson

  It’s different every night. It started out as a middle-aged woman in an old-fashioned dress, her hair up in a bun, just sitting there in the corner in a chair—except in that corner of his room there is no chair. And the face—the face is never clear. There are visual rumors that surround it, but it disappears when he looks straight at it. Every night it changes a little. One time it was a boy in an old baseball uniform, the ones with the huge duckbill caps. He had a bat, and when K looked at him, he stood and started walking toward his bed. He looked angry, wielding the bat like a weapon. K reached for the light as fast as lightning, and once it came on, there was nothing. Of course. But lately the watchers are seated again—with one profound difference—every night, they’re closer and closer to the bed. It’s a kind of hell, but one he can displace, for now, by simply turning on the light.

  With resignation he pursues the cock-crow of the day to chase down his share because it’s all he has left. And he wants to keep what he has. He fears losing it again. He fears, even more than that but also on a much deeper level, that he’s in fact losing his mind a little more with each horrific vision. Shocking things are losing their shock value.

  As he winds himself like a clock by showering and making coffee, he takes a look at the news on his clattering old Mac PowerBook G4. He can feel his resolve for something more melting away in a familiar landslide of popular culture made real by utter permeation. This ridiculously popular person is in the news, that stock is having historic gains, experts say the economy is unexpectedly doing this or that, the currency is up or down based on conspiracy A, B, or C, and still more experts fire off rants against rivals who in the end say exactly the same nonsense. All of it comes together to inspire something better: his morning bowel movement. He soon finds himself in his car commuting to work at his normal shift.

  The traffic report comes on after K has merged onto the freeway. Of course. There’s a horrific accident on the freeway with all lanes east- and west-bound completely shut down at the wye, which is just where he’s heading. This kind of thing happens just often enough to make the blood boil. I-84 being the only real traffic artery in this town, the growing pains are real and the commuters feel the strain of a small town pumping whatever iron it can muster to look good in the weight room of the Pacific Northwest. The freeway system shows signs of the strain brought about when populations explode—his trouble is that the next five miles of freeway are without an exit and he’s stuck with no escape to an alternate route.

  But traffic is still moving steady as he glances at the Speedo. Seventy-five; a respectably normal speed. He switches the station hoping to get another traffic report. He passes under Cloverdale in a mile, under Five Mile Road in another mile, and still traffic moves along at speed. He has a good view of the road ahead, can even see the wye in the distance, with the downtown connector branching left and I-84 branching right. It’s totally clear.

  His heart skips a beat; he might actually be to work early and avoid the ire of the Boss Authority. The thought of his employment situation threatens to bring on another episode of severe heartburn. He can’t think about how badly he’s lost, and so much.

  The traffic report comes again, this time with specific details. There’s a horrific crash right at the junction of the wye; someone rammed directly into the barrier at the fork in the road dividing the downtown connector from I-84. Reports continue on all stations that an eighteen-wheeler—a fuel truck—is involved and burning violently, with newsmen pleading to motorists to stay far back from the area; there are explosions. There’s a motorcyclist somehow involved as well. Multiple other cars are still piling up. Both east and west are completely shut down; the freeway, the connector, everything.

  K slows and looks ahead, nearly at the wye himself, and laughs. This must be some kind of publicity stunt. War of the Worlds or something.

  He looks into his rearview mirror and sees a motorcyclist, long red hair streaming out from under the helmet in the wind. He makes a note to be careful. He signals to get into the left-center lane, which he needs for his exit at Franklin Road, and observes some idiot in front of him flicking a lit cigarette out the window on the passenger side. Fire season, fool. K watches it come to rest at the base of a tuft of dry grass right about where the divider is between the connector and I-84. He thinks about dialing 911 to ask that a brush truck come and at least check on it.

  While checking his mirrors again he notices the fuel truck. His heart begins to race and his mind pulses with disbelief as to whether or not he’s looking at something real. The traffic report echoes back. The air in the car becomes peppery with anxiety. He carefully steers his car left along the sweep of the connector curve, passing the dividing barrier at sixty-five.

  He sees a sudden twitching movement in his mirrors and looks. It’s the motorcyclist, cart-wheeling through the air at speed, punted by the sudden lane-change of the fuel truck. Its driver panicked at nearly missing his connector turnoff because he was in the wrong lane. The truck driver did not see the motorcyclist until it was too late.

  The truck’s tires screech ominously. One of the drive tires on the driver’s side blows out suddenly, sending chunks of rubber flying into the air, adding the slightest amount of offset drag to the truck as the driver tries to bring everything back into line. He overcompensates with a fast right-left steering motion and starts to lose it. He can feel the trailer starting to come around, rotating its backside to his right as the truck’s hitch moves leftward, the truck threatening to jackknife. He tries by reflex to correct it, feeding in more countersteer, locking up the brakes, but he can’t undo it.

  Since his trailer’s nearly empty, it rotates faster on its yaw axis than the tractor and starts into a skid at sixty miles per hour, cracking the whip, coming sideways quickly as the truck slows rapidly. The weight and kinetic energy of the trailer pull the whole rig around, and with the additional force supplied by the driver’s steering inputs, it’s just enough for the drive tires to bite the road laterally, causing the truck to slam over hard onto its right side.

  The loose tank pressure vents along the top of the trailer tank snap wide open as it slams down onto the roadway, digging in its shoulder like a football lineman, painting the whole area with kerosene. It skates freely on the metal of its tank, aimed squarely at the divider barrier between the connector and I-84. The loose vent on the tractor’s tank holds, but not in the concussion that follows.

  Impact.

  All three liners to the trailer tank crumple like paper as it runs topside into the barrier, and as kerosene vapor and liquid are displaced forcibly into the open air by those physics, they encounter the clump of dry grass, a now-burning wick for the flame of the un-extinguished cigarette, and explode violently.

  The motorcycle and its rider are flung head over heel at speed, and in the same instant fly over the guardrail into oncoming traffic on I-84 West below.

  As the truck comes to rest, it hinges on the pintle hitch that joins it to the trailer, disfiguring the steel like so much taffy. It swings around and slams into the guardrail of the connector overpass, loosening the vents slightly more, the premium fuel in the tractor’s tank surging wildly. The tank cannot withstand the compulsion of the fuel to get out—slamming back and forth inside—and outside spraying in rapid bursts through whatever cracks in the vents it can discover. The kerosene in the trailer erupts massively, ripping through aluminum and steel in a plume of orange fire. In that extreme heat the small bursts of premium fuel ignite too, manifesting as brief flamethrowers.

  In the last surge against the pressure vents on the truck’s tank, the bulk of the fuel load finally breaks open to meet the free bloom of fire outside. An explosion as strong as a ten-thousand pound bomb rips through Boise. The ensuing pileup is immense, and everything is burning.

  TWO

  Allan Haight is up early, as much because of advanced age as anything else. The stupid thing about stereotypes is that they’re stereotypical because they’re true. Allan doesn'
t care much at all for conventional wisdom, though. His exercise regimen, for example, is to get out of bed first thing and grind the coffee beans. Then the day can start. Running on a hamster wheel for extended periods everyday is not exercise—sweating is only natural outdoors, where Allan Haight is in his element.

  He’s not sedentary. His life and body are marked with his obsession for boating, mountaineering, links, even cycling; and he loves an endorphin rush at the end of it as much as anyone. When he awakes on a given day it’s certainly not a goal of his to go to some cattle drive of a gym and parade though the free-weights and ellipticals, showing off and drinking in whomever else is there for the sake of vanity alone. Today he might pack the old '66 Ford pickup and head to the Owyhee desert for a few nights under the stars, or rack his mountain bike and hit a few trails north of Boise. He might even book the jet for a trip to Newport, where his yacht is berthed, and shove off for a little expedition in fishing or diving.

  There’s no limit. Allan has reached the station in his life to have earned it and he is comfortable with it—though he’s no longer young, he’s certainly not old yet, either, and he enjoys enjoying his life.

  His house is palatial, especially in terms of being in little Eagle, Idaho. Eagle’s got some nice houses, to be sure, but Allan's is exceptional. It is arranged as a series of hallways and rooms around a central garden, situated so as to take full advantage of the sun in its path across the sky in every season. The southernmost rooms are primarily used in the winter, to take advantage of the solar heat, and the northernmost rooms are primarily used in the summer, being shaded by the pair of huge globe willows rooted in the soil of his central courtyard. The architecture is Italianate, none of it poorly executed or badly constructed.

  He walks across travertine tile to the kitchen, where he breakfasts on organic foods and Starbucks coffee, black. After this he showers and dresses, then heads to the library in the southeast wing. He adores watching the sun rise over the foothills through floor-to-ceiling French doors, framing the east side of his mahogany-paneled library. He sits in his favorite leather chair behind his immense desk and enjoys his second cup of coffee.

  He fires up the computer. Two thirty-inch OLED displays come instantly to life. He browses his usual Web sites for bits of news at his leisure, but in fifteen minutes he’s done with that. He turns to a large piece of furniture standing behind his desk and turns a black knob. Lights come on, along with a low whistle as the old radio warms its tubes. Allan is nothing if not a romantic, even if he is a confirmed bachelor, and he makes listening to this old radio a daily ritual. It helps to provide structure for him, the reassurance of something real in a virtual age, something mechanical in a digital world. Eventually, as he sips his coffee, the broadcast becomes clear on the AM band. He soaks in more news, this time the local stuff with weather and traffic reports, as the sun climbs higher. It looks to be a hot one again today. Hot and dry.

  He leans back in his chair and closes his eyes, listening to the announcer’s voice coming through the darkly varnished cabinet. There’s a report about a huge wreck at the connector and he sits up, opening his eyes wide, feeling. He turns to his monitors and watches the television news feed.

  Incredibly, Channel Seven had a chopper in the air as the accident unfolded, and they are broadcasting footage of it. Already, they’re replaying it like 9/11. In the cycling and recycling reel, he sees the motorcycle and rider bounce off the front fender of the truck and go flying, barely missing the car in front as it exits the freeway at Franklin road. He sees the explosion. He sees the car that had nearly been hit screech to a stop on the off ramp, sees a man get out and attempt to run back toward the scene of the accident. It seems he’s trying to make his way toward the injured, to offer assistance.

  The camera zooms in on him as he tries to get closer. Another explosion, enormous, rocks the area, and he falls. He steps back, looking around, looking agonized. Allan knows what he’s doing today. He begins making preparations to go see his friend K.

  THREE

  K throws his car into a skid on the shoulder of the Franklin off ramp, barely setting the brake before he’s out, running back along the white fog-line toward the wreck. Cars are still pummeling each other; shattered plastic bits are flying everywhere, small hissing explosions are reporting at intervals from the tanker as gasoline vapors trade space with oxygen and flame, like milk emptying from a tipped plastic jug.

  He sprints about twenty feet toward the wreckage until a massive thundering secondary explosion from the truck—like a bomb—picks him up and knocks him down. His ears are ringing. He’s flat on his face on hot concrete, turned around, disoriented. He regains his feet by pulling himself up from the bumper to the trunk lid of his car. He’s been thrown… He turns around and wonders what to do. He can’t get down to the westbound lanes without taking his own life in his hands, and it’s clear that it’s unsafe to go farther in the direction of the tanker. Right now he’s standing directly in the middle of a lane where, seconds ago, cars were traveling at sixty-plus miles per hour. But now it’s stark and barren, looking strangely picturesque: a concrete tangle of bridges and roads set off by a centerpiece of fire.

  He decides to get in his car and try to get farther down the ramp, where he might be able to do something to help. He realizes quickly, however, that the only way he’s going to be able to get close to the scene is if he gets back on the freeway going the correct direction westbound, and that would make him part of the problem more than part of the solution. Besides, even on a good day that’ll take ten or fifteen minutes. Since he already drove through the scene prior to its becoming a scene, he’s out of position for helping the victims. He returns to his car, buckles up, and starts to drive on in resignation. Harsh reality dawns on him that what just happened is larger than he’s able to grasp. Am I cursed?

  As he drives slowly on though, he feels the strangest urge to stop and somehow get closer, maybe try to help. He stops and starts the car a few times as he wrestles with his conscience and unreal reality. Finally he slams the car into reverse and backs up at high speed along the ramp, making the gears howl in high pitched protest. When he’s back in position on the overpass atop the westbound lanes, he yanks the parking brake up as forcibly as he can, arresting his backward motion almost instantaneously. He snaps the buckle button and flips his seat belt across his torso, dashing it off the side window with a loud bang. He flings open his door angrily, enraged at himself for being in this position and for being pulled into it further by his own indecision. He can feel the extreme heat from here. He walks to where the bridge is rooted to the ground opposite the burning wreckage and hops the guardrail.

  He stands on the rough mixture of rubble at the extreme shoulder of the road, and it’s hot. Everything is hot, even this far away from the burning tanker truck. He’s faced with a steep embankment of what looks like loose material. He descends, attempting to dig his heels in and slide as he goes but finds the earth to be hard and lumpy, the root mounds of the wild grass baked hard by the summer sun. He does the best he can, carrying too much speed and crashing into the Jersey barrier with his hands. He feels the violence of stinging tendons and ligaments in his wrists.

  Once he has a chance to look around, he judges the situation afresh. The westbound traffic is three lanes wide, disgorging itself onto both shoulders, in disarray but stopped at least. Cars stretch back for quite a distance. Some people are out of their cars and trucks, some are stuck inside, all in total shock. One woman runs back up the shoulder of the road screaming, headed east and to God knows where.

  There’s something in the chaos that he recognizes, and the images from his mirrors come flashing back. It was days ago, when I saw that. Now it’s crumpled. K looks at the motorcyclist’s body, limply smack in the middle of the westbound lanes. The motorcycle is about a football field away, itself surrounded by crumpled vehicles that look as if they’ve been dumped there by a child at play in a sandbox. An asymmetrical trail of dest
ruction leads from the motorcyclist to his position at the underpass and then beyond. He looks back to the rider’s body. Immobile. He’s blank.

  But a plume of hair, a ponytail, rises and falls in a dance against the concrete, harsh breezes jerking the copper strands. He stands as in a delusion, in an eternal moment, not connecting the significance. Once the connection is made in his mind he’s in a rush, sprinting to the motorcyclist’s body, not knowing if his “No! No! No!” is something he’s screaming or holding back.

  He skids to his knees beside the body, watching his hands as they make decisions his mind would not dare. He carefully lifts the dark visor of the full face helmet. There, encased in it, are the eyes he knew…perhaps once loved? These eyes he never looked into deeply, honestly. They’re clouded, the face contorted into a hideous mask of shock. It’s Rosa. He has no reason to check her pulse but he does, gently holding the backs of his first two fingers to her neck, between helmet and collar. Her cooling skin tells more. He jerks away from her corpse. He feels alarmed and wonders if he feels enough alarm.

  He walks, looking back and forth at those forever haunted souls now in the wreckage. He can hear sirens, heightening his awareness, coming. He knows; he decides there’s nothing to be done. Dejected and numb, he retraces his steps. He gains the summit of the hill with difficulty, stepping over the guardrail at the top, returning to his car. Like a machine he gets in and drives.

  Where else would he go but to work, just around the corner: Best Buy.

  He’s about thirty minutes late, and feels he cares far too much about it. He has some trouble engaging in his normal routine at work; even more trouble than normal. It comes out rather quickly that there’s been a horrendous wreck on the freeway, and it doesn’t take long for K to volunteer that he missed it by a hair’s breadth, if by volunteering this information he can take away some of the pressure he feels about it. He can’t help but wonder all kinds of outrageous things about himself, about the radio in his car, about his own soul and the blackness therein, about God, if there is one, and if “she cares,” as he hears. He’s desperately in search of a menial task to take his mind off everything. He walks the aisles of the television department looking for pricing and display discrepancies.