The cubby is empty.
Martha’s special leather Dickinson is gone.
So, too, is George’s hunting knife.
George backs away from the door. Looks everywhere all over the parking lot, but it is hard to see. The snow is falling sideways, and seemingly, upside down in this wind. He sees no moving person. The howling wind further obscures his senses. He notes the outlines of cars and trucks in the parking lot. Kyle’s is gone.
Had to be fucking Kyle, that prick. Bob, Eli, the others, they’re still in the bar and wrapping up to come to shift. Kyle’s got a universal fob. That prick.
George is alight now. He jumps his big body into the cab, yanks the door shut. He cranks on the engine and immediately heat blasts into the double cab and up on the windshield. He hits his powerful windshield wipers, which makes short life of the layer of snow that accumulated while he was inside.
He doesn’t wait for the engine or cab to heat; he jams into reverse, rocks the tires back and forth a few times, and guns the gas to launch out of his parking space, swerving onto the mountain road, which, thanks to the Mountain’s extra tax payments, has been plowed and salted ten times already tonight.
Richard’s Mountain is the Vermont mountain that consistently holds the record for most open lift days with clearest access roads. And such aggressive maintenance means the mountain is always short on, and therefore, hiring staff. Always.
That bastard, Kyle! I’ll knock him into next winter!
George’s rage to get to the mountain and find Kyle, who surely took his knife and book, makes George feel he is driving through the thickest of road shadows, snagging his progress. He can’t get there fast enough.
A fear tickles at the back of George’s mind. He looks in his rearview mirror and sees headlights approaching. He thinks maybe the headlights approach too fast, but whoever is behind slows and keeps at a distance. In truth, although the roads are plowed and George thought he was gunning it, he crawls, as does whoever is behind him, at 20 m.p.h.
In looking again in his rearview mirror, a sudden recollection replays in his mind. That same day, the very day he proposed to Martha, they were driving home to Vermont. She was smiling in a cushiony happy way in the passenger’s seat of George’s civilian Volvo, as they crossed the Mid-Hudson Bridge. It was then that George, like tonight, had a creepy feeling on his neck when he looked in his rearview mirror. Tonight, as he does the same, he tells himself he is not seeing what he saw back then, again, now, tonight. Back then when he looked in the rearview on the Mid-Hudson, in broad daylight, there, in the car behind, the driver of a gray Ford four-door wore a robot head make out of a cardboard box. Two holes for eyes. Red balls, or suction cups, were glued on as buttons. And wires, maybe un-bent hangers, were antennas.
The robot waved at George through the rearview mirror.
Back then, George fluttered his eyelids, thinking he was hallucinating. He opened his eyes wide, and sure enough, still there. A man, George could tell from the hairy waving hand, with a cardboard-box robot head, was driving, riding up on George’s bumper, as if following.
“I’m pulling off for gas in Poughkeepsie,” George said to Martha.
“Maybe I’ll get us some Combos and Cokes in the store then,” Martha said. “And a bone to bring home to Cope.”
“Sounds good,” George said, distracted and keeping one eye on the still-waving robot behind. He didn’t want to alarm Martha. Didn’t point any of this out, which he might have normally, had he thought this to be some roadway stranger prank. George felt it was something different. He’d tell her once they were safe off the highway.
They pulled into the Poughkeepsie gas station. He remembers pumping the gas and feeling safe, for he didn’t see the robot driver pull off behind them. Martha was in the store. There were no other customers. When done with the gas, George pulled up to the air machine on the side of the station to plump one of the Volvo’s tires. Then, in a snap, as Martha came out and rounded the station’s corner, the gray Ford pulled in fast, drove to the side of the station a half-length beyond George, who was busy with the air nozzle on the driver’s side front tire. The man with a robot head sprung from his car, ran to Martha, stabbed her three deep times in the chest, and, later confirmed, in the heart, returned to his car and, before throwing his body back in to speed off, yelled to George, “Payback, rude boy.”
It was three seconds and done. Martha died of blood loss and body trauma ten minutes later in George’s arms. He cried to police that a man in a robot costume did it, had followed them over the bridge. Had called him “rude boy,” and that this was “payback,” but George had no clue what any of it was about. The police could only confirm, given the strangest angles of two separate exterior cameras at the station, that indeed a gray Ford with no plates pulled in, as George said, and a man, of whom all they could see were his legs and thrusting knife, stabbed Martha. They could see George fully, airing his tires, and caught unaware and in shock the full three seconds the murder took place.
When George got home, after all the official fuss, three days later, Cope sniffed Martha’s dried blood on George’s sweaty undershirt and fled into the Vermont mountains.
In looking through the rearview now, George calms a half fraction to realize he can’t make out the driver behind, as it is too dark between snowfall and the driver’s headlights colliding with George’s taillights, and so, not much can be seen except a blur of black and white. So George cannot confirm, this way or that, whether a man dressed as a robot pursues him again. But he has that same prickling feeling.
Chill the fuck out and get to that asshole Kyle.
George pulls into staff parking at Richard’s Mountain. He wastes not a second in parking, exiting, and shouting to the General Manager of the mountain, who’s waiting on staff in the parking lot, wearing his multi-pocketed managerial coat.
“Where’s Kyle?” George yells.
The General Manager walks up to George, looking up from a shielded clip-board and from under a wide brimmed hat. Snow falls between and on the two men. “Prick’s gone, George. Just left. You seem about as pissed as I for that fucker.”
“He just left the bar. He couldn’t have gotten here more than ten minutes before me.”
“Yeah, that’s right. He got here about five minutes ago, and I was waiting for him. After he parked, I made him give me the keys, and told him to hike his sorry ass with security back to his staff cottage and clear out by 2:00 a.m.”
“Holy shit. What the fuck did he do?”
“He ain’t who he says he is. He started last week, yeah. Promises about referrals, all that shit. Well I let him start, dumb fucking me, while I wait on references and background to clear. His name sure as fuck isn’t Kyle whateverthefuck he said his name was. When I faxed his picture to all the referrals, not a one knew who he was. So I have a cop buddy run his prints. This prick just got out of Rockingham Prison two weeks ago. He ain’t no Kyle, he’s some Brett Brickadick, whatever, asshole, who cares. Did nine years for killing a lady in Keene while robbing her in a home invasion.”
“Well the bastard stole my knife and worse yet, the book I gave Martha to propose.”
“Not the Dickinson?”
“Yeah, the Dickinson.”
“Shit.”
As they were talking, another couple of staff trucks had pulled in. Bob, Eli. A few others. They didn’t interrupt the big boss with George, and quick-stepped to the staff lounge to punch in. Another car arrived as well, a non-descript Bronco that could have been gray or white. That person now walks toward the big boss and George. A parking lot lamp shines a cone of light around the big boss and George; this new man remains in the blackness just beyond. His features are undefined given the snow and shadows.
“Ah, Reeker. Reeker, come on here, come closer. Reeker, this is George, head of engineering. You’ll ride with him tonight. He does cold side of the mountain, so he’ll show you what working a blizzard is all about. We have to be open by 9:00 a.m., no m
atter what. We got a record to maintain.” From one of ten exterior pockets on his manager’s utility coat, the big boss pulls out and shoves a giant, weather-proof walkie in George’s hands. He does the same to Reeker. “Take him up.”
George hadn’t really focused on Reeker as he approached and the boss said all this. He was fuming so hard in his mind his eyes where clouded, which was doubly easy given the blinding snow. But now, now that Reeker is in the spotlight, George shrinks within himself.
A round-head man, with round neck, round torso, round arms, round legs. He can’t tell if he’s bald, for Reeker wears a thick knit hat.
“Hi there, I’m Reeker,” Reeker says to George.
George outstretches his hand, shaking. Reluctant. He’s speechless.
The big boss is called to address something in the staff lounge and runs off.
“Right, then,” George says to Reeker.
George is not ready to accept that he might be standing in the presence of the Spine Ripper. Nah. That’s nuts. He’s just spun up about Fake-Kyle, he tells himself. I’m spun up. The news sketch could have been any round, white man. I just want to tell Karen tonight.
As if on a mind call, George’s walkie sizzles.
“Karen to George, Karen to George,” Karen calls. She has deep cracks in her voice from frying her vocal cords to an earned brokenness, after spending twenty years of her life as an estate auctioneer and then crying herself voiceless at her husband’s grave—a grief so deep she had mental and physical laryngitis a full year, some years ago. George always smiles to hear the strength in how she owns her scars, as if her grief and her vocal strain are braided with her soul. He gets it. He does. Now, widowed at age fifty-two, and having moved here from sunny California to start over, Karen’s worked as Safety Captain for the past two years.
“George here, Karen. Good night to you, over,” George says. His heart is a pure mixture of excitement to hear her, but outright fright in looking at Reeker who doesn’t blink, staring at George in a way that is not seeing George, but seeing thoughts he has about George. The man has black eyes. The man has dead eyes. George, the lumberjack, feels two feet tall and ten pounds total. He fears Reeker could chew him; literally, eat him alive. George eye-measures Reeker as taller and bulkier than even himself. He’s a large man to a large man.
“How about we finish those decoys tomorrow. By a fire. I’ll make you chili, over,” Karen says on the walkie. Because the truth is, Karen and George have played at being best friends for the past year. She doesn’t like to duck hunt, that’s not her thing. But she does like to paint decoys with George in his heated greenhouse painting room, while they listen to crime podcasts and audiobooks. And she makes him chili. George always tells Karen how he likes her sun-washed blonde hair under her hot pink hat, and how he truly loves her chili. Yes, the feeling is a mutual one, George is sure.
“I never say no to your chili, Karen. I’m heading up with the new guy, Reeker, over,” George says, but only half in the conversation, for he’s staring back at Reeker. Something is off. The man hasn’t blinked.
“Tell him to turn his walkie on, over,” Karen Safety Captain says.
Reeker doesn’t look down at his walkie as he turns it on. He stares on at George, nimble like a master surgeon with the switch on the walkie.
“It’s on, over,” George says.
“He number four? Over.” Karen asks.
On the back of Reeker’s walkie is a round #4 sticker.
“Yes, ma’am, over,” George says.
“Good check, I got him. And you’re eight-ball as normal? Over?”
“Yes, ma’am, number 8, over.”
“Alright then, good check. Take him up. You have cold side, as usual. Don’t let your Cat tumble on the steeps. River’s a rager in this storm, over.”
“Copy. You in your perch? Over.”
“Snug as a bug, and my dashboard is lit like a Christmas tree. All set, over.”
“Alrighty then, we’re heading up. Out.”
“Out.”
After driving George’s regular Cat out of the barn, past other Cats and several snowmobiles, all with thick, deep treads, George and Reeker sit side by side. Reeker had given a few, rather sparse, answers to George up to now about where he came from and who he was. All George knows is Reeker had come in from another mountain out west and he was living in an apartment in Bloom, Vermont. That is all.
The roar of the Cat engine, the corkscrew-howling wind, and the crush of Cat treads on snow, causes a clatter of vibration through the cab. Reeker sits straight as a pin, silent, and staring out the window, never blinking despite the wild thrust, back and forth, of the scrapers and the thudding of heavy falling snow on the windshield that makes most men blink.
They’re halfway up Front Face when Reeker swivels in his seat to face George. He says nothing. Waiting two beats, fearful to acknowledge a man staring at him in such close quarters, for he fears doing so will make it true, George finally braves a slow look at Reeker.
Reeker’s black eyes stare back, and in this moment, all doubt leaves George. This is the same man who he’d seen naked and bathing in a stream in the spring. And this is the same killer the news had warned about in a victim’s sketch.
Reeker tunnels cold eyes, black eyes, dead eyes, no emotions into George. Says nothing.
Nobody at Malforson’s will believe this tale, if George lives to tell it. But son of a demon from hell, I’m looking into the dead soul of the Spine Ripper.
Then, as George is about to slam on the brakes and punch him square in the jaw, or do something, Reeker spins to his own door, opens it, looks over his shoulder, and yells, “Forgot my thermos,” before jumping out of the moving snowcat.
George slams on the brakes, jams the locks on both doors, and searches the rearview mirror through the back glass, which also has wild scrapers scraping, to see nothing. No Reeker. Nobody. Nothing.
George can’t safely turn the snowcat around at this angle on this part of Front Face. He has to continue straight up to Malforson’s lift landing and turn around. Malforson being a long-ago village founder, hence the bar name, hence the landing.
George’s nerves are on fire, electrified. Prickles, like a million pins, poke up from his core and out his skin, everywhere all over his body. Like when the paramedics gave him blockers to fend off possible tachycardia on the day Martha died in his arms.
He looks to the passenger seat and sees that Reeker has left his walkie, the #4 sticker facing up to the ceiling.
George depresses the talk button on his own #8, “George to Karen, George to Karen.”
He gets static in return. He tries several more times in his drive to the top.
At the top, the Malforson lift floodlights allow for visibility, although blurred through driving snow, around the entire landing area, where George starts to turn the Cat. The light bleeds into the snow-drenched evergreens some several dozen feet to the side and backside, which is the cold side of the mountain.
A seam between Front Face and cold side rivers down the side of the mountain, and mid-way down, after and between numerous evergreens, ski glades, and snowmobile trails, sits Karen’s Safety Headquarters, a log cabin that the staff calls “The Perch.” Down below Karen’s Perch, and still within the seam, are three staff cabins. One of which should be emptied by now by fired not-Kyle. And down below and behind those and where nobody goes at night, is the roughest part of a rumbling river that snakes around the backside base of Richard’s Mountain and through the village and along the highway, the highway stretch being where George had first seen the naked Reeker. He knows it was Reeker.
As George turns the Cat and marries his headlights with the floodlights of the lift landing, he sees running through the trees, down the seam, and toward Karen’s Perch—a man with a robot cardboard box on his head.
George blinks slow. He’s still there.
George doesn’t wait to consider doubts about all of his wildest tales colliding tonight. He doesn’
t care if he is insane and imagining his robot foe. He needs to face all of this lunacy. He stops the Cat, jumps out, and runs headlong for the robot man. It is not Reeker. The man ahead has the frame of a skeleton with skin. This man wears the same jeans and boots as fake-Kyle in the bar. George remembers logging Kyle’s mid-calf Timberland’s when he removed his snow-cleats in Malforson’s mudroom.
“Kyle, it was you! You killed Martha!” George yells. “Stop!”
Robot Man stops, turns, and pauses as George stops short. Facing George, he opens his coat, withdraws the Dickinson, and flings it flat, like a skipping stone, to sink deep in snow between two birches.
Next, he pulls George’s hunting knife from his back pocket.
“I guess it’s mano a mano now, rude boy,” Robot Man says.
In the cold, the smell of George’s breakfast sandwich, still hot given the aluminum wrapper, wafts. It blooms around him.
“Take off that fucking box,” George yells. His rage will not allow him to assess the danger of a man with an extended knife. He feels his rage and his need to remedy Martha’s murder makes him a triple lumberjack and must-be Kyle a toothpick.
Robot Man removes the robot box, throws it to the side.
“Remember me now, rude boy? Ten years ago?”
It is indeed Kyle, but George does not remember him from ten years ago.
“You’re a fucking psychopath. I have no idea who you are.”
“Of course you wouldn’t, rude boy. Of course some big man like you wouldn’t see an insignificant ant like me and would stomp on my foot and walk away. No apologies.”
“That day in the Strand? I accidentally stepped on you? This is why? That’s why you murdered her?” George’s voice is hysterical now, he can barely contain himself from launching at Kyle, hell with his own hunting knife in Kyle’s hands.
“You know, rude boy, that’s the thing with big men like you. You never think you need to care about the people you push out of your way. You never think that maybe, maybe us insignificant ants are mightier than you. Never think we’re a threat. Well I’m a fucking threat, rude boy. I’ll snake away from you, and I’ll kill Karen before you catch up. I’ll take all your life away, make you as insignificant as an ant. I was on my way for you, yeah, when I got popped 9 years ago. I’ve grown madder at you every single fucking day I sat in that cell box. I got your plate number. I knew who you were.”
Nothing Good Happens After Midnight: A Suspense Magazine Anthology Page 28
