Our teaser and trailer were produced, written, narrated, and edited by Founder and Editor, Caitlin Simkovich.

Our teaser music is Night Sound, generously provided by the super cool, super talented Prom Queen (Leeni Ramadan) (@PromQueenMusic, @Leeni.Music on Instagram and @PromQueenMusic on Facebook). You can find and purchase her music on Bandcamp.com or stream it on Spotify. She can also be found on Tumblr and Sonicbids. Leeni is pure magic and you should definitely check her out.

Our trailer music is As You Were by AG Music via Melody Loops.

Image provided by Will Swann via Unsplash.

Sound effects for both were provided by various contributors via FreeSound.org, SoundBible.com, and Zapsplat.com.

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]]>All Roads EditorThu, 31 Oct 2019 13:45:26 +0000http://www.allroadsmagazine.com/the-dark-driver/teacher553d4b8de4b0fe84387378c6:5bc742c9c830253edcec7357:5dbae2e298044146cbed473cBy, Jeremy G. Butler

She stood there, at the head of the class, in the same spot she’d stood countless times over the years.  In the past, the faces looking back at her had always maintained a certain predictability; some filled with curiosity, others with confusion, the rest with outright boredom, but she regarded them all with the same warmth, fondness, and determination that any passionate educator would.

But not today.

Today the faces staring back at her were faces she could barely even recognize as children. The features were right, everything was in its place, they were same faces she’d seen every morning.  But it’s what stared back at her – or rather what didn’t - from behind those features that struck her cold.

Usually, whenever she stood up here, a book or piece of chalk in hand, she’d always felt like the captain of a mighty ship; taking the wheel of the SS Education, setting sail for wonder and enlightenment.  Today, however, she stood in silence, diminished.  The children stood too.  Each one beside their little desks, hands at their sides, tiny faces calm and expressionless.  But what she couldn’t see in those expressions she could feel in their gaze.  Each set of eyes regarded her with what, to her, felt like contempt.  Holding her in judgement, finding her guilty, the verdict of a nightmare trial to which she was never invited.  No, today she was no longer the captain; her students had her standing firmly on the plank.

Their patience struck her; the calm, dispassionate, matter-of-fact way they each regarded the situation.   The way they each regarded her.  It made her think back to her first few years, before she really settled in, when every troublemaker or disengaged student made her question her abilities. How she found herself in tears in the faculty lounge after a particularly rambunctious group of kids played a prank that, while ultimately harmless, was just disrespectful enough that it left her wondering if she’d wasted her time and money on her degree.  And it wasn’t the last time that she’d found herself asking those questions.  Today, however, as she stared back at the children in front of her, refusing to give them the satisfaction of indulging the lump in her throat, she realized she missed all of it. Her eyes started to well as she found herself missing the sounds of distracted giggles, passed notes, and whispered requests for the answer to number four.  Missing the energy, the spark, and the exuberance that made it hard for them to sit down and listen.  Good, bad, or otherwise, those children were alive.

And as she stood at the front of this classroom, the dozen or so children remained in front of her keeping perfect control of themselves, their outward appearance of complete respect mocking every request she’d ever made for it.  Her soul felt heavy, and she wondered if hers was the only one left in the room.

The bell rang and she jumped, covering her hand with her mouth to stifle a small, startled scream.  The tears she’d been holding back started to fall as the children filed out from beside their desks, one row at a time, into a perfect single-file line.  Her stomach pounded in her throat as she watched them make their way through the door and out of the classroom. When the last child in line, a boy with brown hair and what used to be a kind face, stopped and held out his hand, she just looked at it.  She wanted to run, to beg, to pick him up and put him through a window, but somehow, she knew that it wouldn’t do any good.  She finally sobbed as she reached out and took his hand, following the rest of the classroom down the hall toward the playground. They passed the other rooms, and she looked through the open doorways to see other teachers standing just as she did; found guilty, left waiting.  They watched her as she passed.  She was to be the first.

She thought that might be a blessing.

THE END

Also by Jeremy G. Butler:

A Slow, Steady March

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]]>All Roads EditorThu, 31 Oct 2019 13:26:28 +0000http://www.allroadsmagazine.com/the-dark-driver/doris-pembroke-cats553d4b8de4b0fe84387378c6:5bc742c9c830253edcec7357:5dbae05798044146cbed21f6By, J. Paré

Doris Pembroke’s house was consumed with photos of her cats. Twenty furry companions surrounded her, and it was time to eat. The cats waited patiently as Doris bent over each of their bowls, her plump upper arms shaking as food filled the empty containers. 

“Pebbles, Boots, Toothless…”

Doris called each cat by name as the pellets spilled out of the bag.

“Time to eat, my dears,” she called, then stopped for a moment to rest. Her hideous cat-printed dress stuck to her skin with perspiration and she was soon out of breath. She wiped her sweaty face with a cloth while the cats paced in front of their bowls, crying.

 “What’s the matter sweeties? Don’t you like your food?”

 The cats responded with a cry desperate for anything but the dry, stale food that was given to them.  When Doris could not ignore the wailing any longer, she got up and emptied the bowls. Searching her refrigerator, she found five unopened steaks. Cutting them into little pieces, she portioned the meat evenly among the cats then waddled into the living room and threw herself onto the old, worn out couch the cats used as a scratching post. There were no toys, no cat trees, just the used-up furniture that littered the dimly lit living room.  The walls were covered with china plates, each depicting furry little kittens on them. Doris would sit and admire them while she ate junk and flipped through the channels on her tiny black and white television.

With the cats fed, Doris thought she was free to carry on with her obsession . . . watching The William Moore Cat Show. But the rations weren’t enough to fill their stomachs and they began crying again.  Doris tried ignoring them, but they wouldn’t stop. She threw a bag of chips roughly on the table beside her and got up. But there was nothing else to feed them and she slammed the refrigerator door in frustration.

“I have nothing for you, go away.“ 

Still, they cried.

“Shut up!” She yelled, from the comfort of her chair. 

It wasn’t until two hours later that the cats finally gave up with their wailing and Doris finally started to relax. Little did she know that her beloved cats were about to turn on her. Three-hundred and sixty sharp claws itched in anticipation. They would be fed one way or another. 

THE END

Music Credit:

Halloween Theme 1 by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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]]>All Roads EditorWed, 30 Oct 2019 15:11:47 +0000http://www.allroadsmagazine.com/the-dark-driver/whisper-lane553d4b8de4b0fe84387378c6:5bc742c9c830253edcec7357:5db9a0ed3799b8041e9a8d71by David Lindquist

The door breathes
(I’m sure it’s the wind)
at the house on Whisper Lane.
The windows wink and the kitchen sink is never dry
At this lonely house
On Whisper Lane.
I knew a soul or two
Who once danced to a Victrola
Placed in plain view through the
Large sunken window,
Two lovers entwined
Let’s rewind and view them as they were, but
No more will they whirl and twirl
In the silent sitting room at
The house on Whisper Lane.

THE END

About the Author:

My name is David Lindquist and I am a Lancaster County, PA native living in the small village of East Earl. I am currently employed as General Manager for Sky Zone Lancaster, but previously worked 16+ years in Broadcasting at QVC in West Chester, PA. I actually put that Theatre Degree from IUP (Class of '92) to good use. Listening to and collecting music is my main hobby and I perform as a DJ on YNotRadio.net. My love of writing poetry started in High School and I find inspiration in the beauty and mystery of the little snippets of life that so easily pass us by.

Also by David Lindquist:

Gray

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]]>All Roads EditorTue, 30 Oct 2018 13:23:01 +0000http://www.allroadsmagazine.com/the-dark-driver/2018/10/30/the-perfect-dress553d4b8de4b0fe84387378c6:5bc742c9c830253edcec7357:5bd8587c7817f7ea46584061By, Caitlin Simkovich

The dress had been in her family for generations. Lovingly crafted by her great-grandmother, it was a masterpiece of intricate patterns traced with delicate lace and finely spun cotton. Elegant yet simple, it bore full sleeves, a long flowing skirt cinched at the waist, and just a hint of a train in the back. It was exquisite in its detail and execution. And, despite being slightly discolored from age, the condition was impeccable. Even time couldn’t wash away its enduring beauty.

It had been made for a daughter to wear on her wedding day. A tradition upheld and held dear by the women in her family since its creation. Often, she would imagine her great-grandmother sitting peacefully in her favorite chair, adding one tender stitch after another, until, at long last, it all came together. These thoughts and more came flooding to her as she soaked in the new morning. The sun had filled her small room with a delightful soft light and luxurious warmth. This past winter had been an unbearable one and everyone was grateful to be on the other side of it. She closed her eyes and basked in its pale yellow glow. Robins sang cheerful songs in tandem with those preparing for the day’s activities. She couldn’t help but to smile as she stared thoughtfully at the beloved garment hanging by the open window.

Through this window she could see the farm in full view, another long standing point of pride for the family. It had fed the community almost since the town was founded nearly a century ago. Outside she could hear the muffled voices of her neighbors, metal tools clanging, and a few of the remaining chickens squawking. The planting season was upon them and everyone was hard at work. She very much enjoyed this time of year and longed to join in. It was a time of hope and anticipation. A time for reflection and preparation. When the harvest would arrive several months later, a great feeling of joy and relief would wash over the whole town. It made her sad to think of leaving and that she wouldn’t see it come.

But, she reminded herself, this was not a day of sadness. This was a day of celebration. A splash of cold water to her face brought things back into focus. And as she stepped into the dress and slipped it on, she felt as if it were made for her. Sure, others had worn it before her, but to her it felt brand new. The connection to her kin and and family legacy that it provided brought a serene sense of calm as laces were tied and buttons fastened. She wove her hair into loose braids and brought them together at the base of her neck. A few blonde curls framed her rosy face.

Descending the stairs, she saw her father was already at the bottom waiting for her. Holding a crown of dried wildflowers, looking quite handsome in his suit, his smile was beaming. Beaming with just the slightest hint of sadness behind his eyes. She could sympathize. He was losing his little girl after all, his eldest and most precious. As a child they would often read together by the fire when the long work day was finished. She would crawl into his lap and map the words with her fingers. Tiny fingers, he would tell her, perfect for turning pages and plucking pests from fresh leaves. Now, she took his hand in hers and gently moved a stray hair from his face. She would be ok, her eyes told him. She was ready. She was happy.

Together they stepped onto a path that began just outside her family’s doorstep, landing first on loose dirt and eventually trailing off into soft grass. The morning's dew had not entirely evaporated and it felt a little wet and cold under her bare feet. Small bouquets of heather and goldenrod lined this neat but steady walk way. The birds continued their chirping songs and a light breeze brought a little relief to an unusually warm day.

It wasn’t a particularly long path, and up ahead in the distance, she could make out the figures of her family and friends. Figures she’d come to know her whole life, playmates, workmates, teachers, companions. They had all taken a respite from the morning’s work to participate in the afternoon’s festivities. She was thankful. These people had been her haven and it put her at ease to have them all by her side.

The procession finally ended at the foot of a large, majestic oak tree. As children they had scaled it’s tall branches, napped in its shade, and picnicked at its base. Offering relief and inspiration during the few moments of leisure they could steal, it was, and still is, an incredibly special and cherished place. Today, it would mark the spot of the most important day of her life.

Still holding her father’s arm, he led her to the middle of where the crowd had been gathering. They were met with kind greetings, embraces, and handshakes. A few handwritten notes were passed along, as well as some small gifts. Tokens of their love and gratitude. It was a truly lovely scene. Rows of chairs had been set up in a semi circle, colorful ribbons were tied to various tree branches, and wind chimes provided an enchanted melody. Later, there would be dancing. She loved to dance.

As was the tradition, there wasn’t much ceremony. Just a few solemn words and readings followed by a compassionate hand to the forehead by one of the elders. There were tears of course, but mostly smiles.

When it was over, she turned back to face the tree and an imposing hole about eight feet deep. It was expertly dug and impressive, made with care and not haste. As they led her down into what would be her final resting place, she released a contented sigh knowing what her contribution would do for her community. She felt proud to take part in this custom despite that it would mean leaving everything, and everyone, behind. They would all follow her eventually.

While the dirt began to fall on top of her, she laid back and stared up at the sky. Peeking through silky white clouds, was the clearest blue she had ever seen. A blue so sparkling and vibrant, it was like peering into the heart a rare gem. Made more beautiful only by the graceful sunlight.  

But the earth was dark and heavy. And over time the crystal blue gave way to brown, and then finally black. Above her, a few fallen leaves from the nearby tree swirled in the wind. The robins persisted and the voices became muffled once again. She could hear all of it, she clung to all of it. But saw only darkness. A darkness so deep and vast it was like swimming in a night sky without stars. A darkness, she realized, that would never leave her now. And once the sounds and memories from the above world were gone, the endless black would be all she’d have. A stark contrast to her golden locks and perfect lace dress.

THE END

Also by Caitlin Simkovich:

Winter Salvation

Bowtree Drive

You Are.

Perception vs. Reality

Photo credit: Katy Duclos, @katdu_photograph

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]]>The Perfect DressAll Roads EditorWed, 24 Oct 2018 20:00:19 +0000http://www.allroadsmagazine.com/the-dark-driver/2018/10/24/bowtree-drive553d4b8de4b0fe84387378c6:5bc742c9c830253edcec7357:5bd0cee2ec212d8c62dcf7efBy, Caitlin Simkovich

Disclaimer: This story contains subject matter that may be unsuitable for sensitive readers.

The jog is only supposed to take about forty to forty-five minutes. The route follows a paved sidewalk from the apartment complex entrance, crosses a two-lane residential road, and into an enclosed suburban neighborhood.  It’s a jog she’s made twice a week, every week, for three years. So, when Jill set out on that clear, crisp autumn evening, she had no reason to think things would go any different than they normally do.

Bowtree Drive is your typical sprawling, suburban neighborhood. Mighty oaks and maples line each street peppered with perfectly manicured lawns. They all connect to one another through a series of drives, lanes, and courts, many ending in archetypal cul-de-sacs. There is, at least officially, one entrance and one exit to the whole lot.

Even at dusk, there was still plenty of activity buzzing through the neighborhood. Children could be heard laughing, dogs barking, and a symphony of lawn care equipment created the playlist for this evening’s run.

As she crossed over into Bowtree Drive, Jill was struck at how beautiful everything looked this time of year. The fall foliage was still alive with incredible reds, rich oranges, and just a few subtle hints of youthful green peeking through. It paired remarkably well with the deep pinks and purples of the darkening sky, making everything look as if it were on fire.

Halloween decorations hung proudly from mailboxes, garage ports, and front door knockers. Pumpkins carved with menacing faces guarded porch steps, witches were arranged as if they had crashed into trees, and orange and black lights were strung in spider webs, occult stars, and other spooky formations. However, the most impressive of the bunch, Jill thought, were the thick, spectral lights projected onto her neighbor’s normally beige siding. Neon green ghosts swirled and stalked in a repetitive, but entrancing, pattern.

“Marvin has really outdone himself this year,” she whispered to herself between panting breaths. “I have to give him credit, even if he is a crabby, old miser.”

Rounding the corner of Marvin’s house, she steadily made her way onto the next street, taking a mental picture of this moment as the sun seemed to race below the horizon. The dusk air getting increasingly cooler with each passing minute.

Little by little, the activity of the day began to wind down. Noises dissolved into calm and outside lights dimmed or darkened completely as everyone moved inside to live out the rest of their evenings.

Because there were no street lamps, only the pale light coming from inside the homes themselves, Jill had a near perfect view into the lives of her neighbors. At least of those who kept their curtains open.

Many of the houses sat on slight inclines, perched a small distance from the street. From there she could catch small glimpses see of families sitting down to dinner, watching television (JEOPARDY! for Mrs. Samuelson, some sort of sports game for the Davidsons, or the nightly news for the guy who lived at #219), while other homes were completely dark.

She waved as she watched Bobby, the McLaren’s oldest son, close the garage down for the night and shut the overhead light off. Fallen leaves crunched under her feet as Jill turned onto Silver’s Court and soldiered up one of the meager hills she’d tackle on her journey.

Suddenly, she had the piercing feeling as if someone were watching her. Following her, tracing her every move.

“Don’t be crazy,” Jill thought to herself. “Nothing’s out here but you.” She tried to suppress her growing fear, but couldn’t quite shake it.

Looking up toward the houses, Jill searched hoping to see if perhaps one of her neighbors was watching her from one of the windows. She saw no one. Just the blue glow of televisions, empty rooms, or total darkness.

The cold air was now whipping at her cheeks and scorching her throat. As she slipped on a pair of gloves from her coat pocket, a twig snapped. She stopped, her ears desperately trying to listen for something more. Her head whipped around to see if there was anyone behind her, but there was no one.

She began jogging once more, quickening her pace. The road was flat and it was easy to pick up a little speed without too much effort. Just when her heart rate was settling back to normal, she heard another twig snap, and then leaves rustling.

There was definitely someone behind her. She was sure of it. Jill tried to keep her pace steady and her mind clear.

The footsteps were picking up speed now. More twigs, more leaves broke behind her. As she ran, she tried to convince herself that whatever it was meant her no harm. This was a residential neighborhood after all.

The panic set in when she heard the panting, getting increasingly excited and increasingly closer. She could sense whatever it was right behind her, and then, it moved to her side. 

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice shaking. “What do you want?”

There was no answer. The footsteps and panting continued.

After a couple more paces, she finally turned her head and forced herself to face whatever it was that had been following her.

It was a dog. Mrs. Greyson’s dog, Lilly, to be exact. A black and white and very friendly Australian Shepherd.

“Oh, Lilly” Jill said, and breathed a huge exhalation of relief. “You scared the crap out of me. What are you doing out of Mrs. Greyson’s yard?”

Lilly only sat there staring, smiling at her in the way that dogs seem to smile at a human they are happy to see.

“We’re not far, let’s see if we can get you…” But before Jill could finish and grab a hold of her collar, Lilly dashed off into the darkness. And just like that, everything was quiet again.

Jill took a few extra deep breaths and did some light stretching before continuing on her way.

“Of course it was a dog,” she laughed. “What did I think it was going be?” And turned to make sure Lilly wasn’t coming back for round two.

She was so relieved that she didn’t notice the dark mass rise in front of her. A mass that, in any other light, would have revealed itself instantly. But in the dark, it could be easily mistaken for an ill-trimmed shrub or stack of garbage bags filled with an afternoon’s work of raked leaves.  

The figure rose out of the shadows and towered over the Linden’s ruby mailbox.

When Jill turned around, it was standing right in her path. She had to stop herself abruptly to avoid running into it and nearly fell to the ground.

“Oh Jesus!” She exclaimed, catching her balance at the last minute. “Sorry about that. I didn’t see you there.”

No answer.

“You sort of came out nowhere.” Still, nothing. Jill eyed the figure curiously.

“Mrs. Greyson? Mrs. Greyson, is that you? Lilly was just here if you’re looking for her, but she ran off down Carson Drive.” She paused. “Mrs. Greyson?”

Still no answer. 

“Sorry, my mistake. Goodnight.” She side stepped around her neighbor, or at least who she thought was her neighbor, and continued her run. Once again, she heard footsteps behind her and when she looked back, the figure was walking, briskly, behind her.

Jill picked up her pace slightly. When she did, the figure picked up its pace as well. Eventually, Jill broke out into a full sprint. The footsteps behind her followed suit and she could hear them quickly pounding behind her. Jill gave it everything she had, her legs flew and her heart raced. She felt a side cramp coming on and prayed it would hold out until she could get out of there.

She ran and she ran with the figure seemingly right on her tail. Then, just as swiftly as it had appeared, the footsteps stopped. It was gone.

Jill stopped and doubled over, panting.

“What the fuck was that?” she whispered, barely able to catch her breath. She did a full 360 trying to see if she could spot the figure again. 

She walked a little bit to bring her heart rate down and stretch out the side cramp that refused to subside. She was at the corner of Trudeau and Rosedale Streets when the figure appeared again, strolling leisurely out of the hedges that divided Annie Willis’ house from the Patterson’s. Once again, it stood directly in front of Jill.

Her way out was blocked, the exit to Bowtree lay straight ahead. Thinking quickly, Jill darted to her right and made a break down Forest Drive. She’d never come this way and didn’t know how she was going to get out of this, whatever this was. All she knew for certain was that she didn’t want to tango with the orchestrator of this twisted game.

Before becoming completely absorbed in darkness, she caught a glimpse of the figure cutting through the trees in Mr. Hannigan’s yard. It was going to try to meet her on the other side of the circle.

"Clever," Jill thought.

She skidded to a stop and made a quick left through another patch of evergreens, holding her hands in front of her face to keep the branches from scratching her up or knocking her out. When she cleared the thicket, it appeared as if she was alone. The figure hadn’t seen her change direction, or at least, she hoped it had. Jill didn’t recognize the house she had come to but made her away around to the other side and crouched behind a perfectly coiffed row of Boxwood.

 “Shit.” she exhaled. “Shit.”

Her legs and side screamed, her head pulsed, and her throat burned. She crumpled herself into a little ball, as little as she could manage, and wedged herself between the waxy plants and powdery siding. Despite her fear, Jill knew better than to scream. Any noise at all would give herself away instantly. It was a risk she wasn't willing to take. 

She'd deviated from her usual path and couldn’t tell how far away she was from the exit. In the darkness, it was impossible to make out any of the street signs. Her desperation was mounting. Jill tried surveying the house to see if anyone was home, for any signs of life or help.

All the lights were out, no voices could be heard, and to her utter terror no one appeared to be home. She was on her own.

“Am I making this up?” Jill thought in a moment of hysteria. “Is this really happening?" Trying, in any way possible, to rationalize the bizarre and horrifying chain of events of the evening. 

Then, when nearly all of the hope had left her, a familiar sound caught Jill's attention. A sound like ocean waves moving through a seashell. She concentrated and realized it was the whir and hum of cars. Cars...passing over Route 79, the very road separating Bowtree Drive and her apartment complex. It was so close, she could practically feel the breeze as cars, trucks, and motorbikes passed innocently on by.

With her spirit renewed, she crept out of hiding on her hands and knees. Crawling, as silently as she could through the damp grass, she followed the sound, followed until she saw it. In the distance, a mere stone's throw away, was the entrance to Bowtree Drive.

Safety was within reach.

All that was left to do was run the 200 feet to the Bowtree sign, cross the two lanes of traffic on Route 79, and land in the warm glow of the street lamp at the edge of her complex. She just needed to get there.

Her legs felt like jelly but something told her she needed to move and she needed to move now. To keep going and Do. Not. Stop. Her mind raced. You cannot stop. 

Thinking the unthinkable, she ran for it, sprinting as fast as her legs could go. Her footsteps were heavy on the asphalt and she gulped at the air in large, loud bursts.

From the periphery of her right-hand side she heard bushes rustling again when another set of footsteps joined her in hot pursuit. Jill pushed as hard as she could, the side cramp returning in full force without sympathy.

“Almost there” she exclaimed “Please God, I’m almost there.”

The other footsteps raced after her, unrelenting. She knew the figure wasn't far and was gaining distance at an alarming rate. Breathing that was not her own was hot on her neck and made her skin crawl. She pushed even harder, ignoring all her body’s begging to stop.

Bowtree Drive.

She could see it, she could almost touch it. She dug deep and with one last burst of energy, she barreled towards the entrance opening.

A hand landed squarely on her shoulder. She pushed forward. Another hand, then suddenly, there were headlights.

A horn blared.

The sound of a car swerving. Then nothing.

When Jill opened her eyes, she was standing on the sidewalk just outside of her apartment complex, bathing in the life-giving glow of the street lamp. She couldn’t believe it. She had made it to the other side.

A blue Honda pulled in front of her and rolled down the passenger side window. The driver – the guy at 219 who watches the nightly news – smiled at her as he leaned over from the driver’s seat.

“Evening”, he said.

Completely out of breath, the only thing she could was nod.

“Perfect night for a run, isn’t it?”

Again, she nodded, readying herself in case she needed to make another quick getaway.

“Yes, it is.” She wheezed.

“Yup, yup. Say, you may want to tell your friend to wear something brighter next time. Or maybe one of those reflective vest things. It’s hard to see you guys in the dark and I almost ran the two of you over just now. “

“My friend?” Jill stared at the man, wide-eyed, confused.

“Yeah. Your jogging buddy, the fella that follows behind you each week? I’ve been meaning to say something for a while now but could never seem to catch you.”

Jill just stood there. The color totally drawn from her face.

“Well, anyway, have a nice evening. And be safe getting home.”

With that, he clicked his turn signal and drove off into the darkness. As his car passed by, her gaze fell just beyond the road. Jill stood in horror, the blood draining from her body. Standing directly across from her, was the figure dressed all in black. A mask covered his face and from his right hand, a small glimmer was caught in a nearby road light.

Jill willed her feet to move, but they were frozen, concrete. Paralyzed, she watched as the figure waved its left hand, fingers wriggling in a demented hello. Then, it pointed directly at her as another car whizzed by.

Jill frantically tried to peek around the passing vehicle to see what the figure was going to do next. To see if it would come after her. But it was gone. Vanished.

With that, she bolted for her front steps, desperate for the security of a locked door. As she raced, her neighbor’s words echoed in her memory in terrifying repetition:

“You may want to tell your friend to wear something brighter next time…. the fella that follows behind you each week.”

Frantically pulling at the railing, ascending each step and floor as fast as she could, Jill tried to stifle her thoughts, but the words just kept coming.

“…the fella that follows behind you each week.”

“Your jogging buddy.”

THE END
 

Also by Caitlin Simkovich:

The Perfect Dress

Winter Salvation

You are.

Perception vs. Reality

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]]>Bowtree DriveAll Roads EditorWed, 24 Oct 2018 19:53:53 +0000http://www.allroadsmagazine.com/the-dark-driver/2018/10/24/the-trace-prelude553d4b8de4b0fe84387378c6:5bc742c9c830253edcec7357:5bd0ccef0d9297905f44e12dBy, Chuck Beikert

Disclaimer: This story contains subject matter that may be unsuitable for sensitive readers

Brandi and I have driven between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Hammond, Louisiana a dozen times or more. Between moving back and forth twice and visiting each other’s families at the holidays we had established our route, our habits (she; stop at the first Waffle House we see on the way down, me: fill up with gasoline at Dodge’s Fried Chicken in Tupelo on the way back up). There's even a song we sing about a lonely stretch of Kentucky road that lies between Lexington and Elizabethtown; The Bluegrass Parkway Lament.  If you ask me about it, I might sing it for you sometime.  

Twelve-hundred miles from my Father’s back porch to her Daddy’s front is certainly a long haul but driving is still the most affordable means to get from point “A” to point “B” if one has the time.  As college students we almost always had more time than money so drive we did.  I usually took the first shift and tried to knock out 700 or so without stopping too much.

In late October of 2003 Brandi’s aunt passed away.  It was the middle of the semester but since neither of us were what we would call “behind” at that point, we simply made a few apologies to our professors and set out in our 1988 GMC to attend the funeral of Maudie Flowers. I met her briefly at the funeral of her sister Genevieve in 1999.  At ninety-six, she was burying her sister who had died at ninety-nine.

“I’ll live to be a hundred!” she told me assuredly.  “Gen’vieve used to sneak a cigarette. I never did.”  True to her word she died on the 28th, three days after her one-hundredth birthday.

We left after a supper of meatloaf and baked potatoes at my parent’s house, my mother’s customary tears and my father’s insistent handful of cash in the driveway speeding us on.  We hugged them and kissed them and then I drove.  We listened to the local rock and roll station until the signal faded.  As Jim Morrison begged me to break on through to the other side, his psychedelia gave way to pragmatic beer bottle honky-tonk and the high lonesome bluegrass that filled the airwaves of northern Dixie.

I drove into Tennessee and past Nashville onto a windy 444-mile-long road called The Natchez Trace Parkway; two lanes of heavily wooded blacktop that graze the northwestern tip of Alabama before cutting a diagonal line through much of Mississippi.  Between the ancient stands of trees, The Trace, as we call it, sports wide stretches of pasture and points of historical interest.  It offered us respite from semi-trucks and highway traffic in general and we enjoyed counting the wildlife as we meandered southward relaxing along its length.  It runs from SR 100 outside Music City, USA all the way to Natchez, Mississippi. The Trace is dotted with Native American landmarks as the trail was originally a trade route for the tribal merchants and the French settlers throughout the region. Such thoroughfares are often paved in blood and tears and The Natchez Trace is no exception.  The cursed town of Rocky Springs, the Emerald burial mound, Witches Dance, and Red Dog Road all bear intricate history of both struggle and triumph.  We talk less on that road than on the highway and often sleep fitfully while the other is driving.  Brandi and I have watched both sunrise and sunset many times on this trail.

She was folded into a ball and fast asleep in the middle of the night when I decided to pull over for a rest room break.  We’d gassed up somewhere in Tennessee and taken advantage of the facilities at the “Flying J” a couple hundred miles before but the giant Pepsi-Cola was empty, and I had been looking for a spot for the last forty-five minutes.  Rest areas are few and far between on The Trace and I was considering a clandestine pee behind some tree when I finally saw the blue sign marking the next tiny oasis. I thought briefly about waking Brandi.  When I bumped off the road into the gravel lot and she didn’t stir I decided against it.  I killed the engine and clicked off my seatbelt regarding the tiny white and red hut.  It was dark all around with only a slight silvery moon to rival the stars.  The rest rooms on the Trace employ motion detector lighting inside so I was accustomed to them being deserted and dark.

I opened the men's room door and the light blinked on and off no less than six times. A loud buzz settled into a quiet drone as the fixture warmed and remained steadily lit.  My face looked distorted and tired in the wavy metal mirror.  I stuck out my tongue and my reflection stuck out a bigger one from a wider mouth.  Sunken eyes, too close together narrowed and I rubbed them until I saw stars inside my head.  I decided against using the commode. There was no identifying the origin or composition of what lay within the bowl, so I swept the leaves and sticks that had somehow found their way in through the vents at the eaves out of the sink and into the wastebasket (containing an empty package for Fruit-Of-The Loom Fashion Briefs) and pissed in the stainless basin.  Gross, I know, but I assure you that I rinsed it out and even swished pink soap powder around a little bit leaving the place undoubtedly cleaner than when I had found it.

The door banged shut as I returned to the car and a moment later the light went out.

Brandi was awake and munching on some crackers.

“Chicken-In-A-Biskit?” she asked in a very cute and sleepy voice.

I ate a couple and waited while she ran knock-kneed and pigeon-toed to the Ladies’.  The light flickered on and I heard her groan in mild disgust.  Apparently, the other side was just as well maintained as mine had been.

It was dark and quiet. I leaned against the fender listening to the autumn insects singing their final songs. I could hear another sound as well...faint breathing; labored and not human.  The scant moonlight offered little illumination and the surrounding trees choked whatever light fought to filter through.  I was startled when the door of the ladies’ room banged shut. There was my smiling girl looking at me. We laughed at my jumping.  I asked her if she could hear the breathing. She said she could and we stood there a moment longer.  There was a wet rattle each time breath was drawn in and a low whistle on the way out.  The sound drew closer and finally in the very dim moonlight we saw the outline of a bull.  It was ambling behind a wire fence surrounding the small parking area.  

“It sounds just awful, the poor thing.” said Brandi with genuine concern.  We approached the fence and I stopped to tell her,
“It might be electric.  Don’t touch.”

When the bull swung its big head around to look at us we could see its eyes were gummy with conjunctivitis.  Globs of mucus hung from its nostrils and swayed when it moved.  It coughed and lumbered toward us, wheezing.  Brandi’s soft heart compelled her to reach out for the creature and I snatched her wrist before she could touch it.  The bull then bellowed a startling bawl and we both jumped backward.  He continued to bawl and shake his head adding the clunky sound from the large bell around his neck.  Snot flew out to either side and Brandi finally recoiled.  In the distance another of his kind bawled out in response and more distant clunky bells could be heard.

We'd had enough and turned to get back in the car.  She looked at me, only her eyes smiling at first, and then she giggled a bit.  I kissed her forehead and reached to open her door.

Then, the light in the Men's room came back on.  I imagined the sick buzzing of the fixture like desperate houseflies stuck between panes of glass.  We looked at one another and then back to the restrooms. The light on the Ladies’ side flickered and came on again as well.  Ours was still the only car in the lot nor had any others passed during our time there.  A slow wind stirred the remaining leaves into dead applause.

Our tires squealed as we shot down the road with our hearts in our throats.

A mile or so away we looked at each other and laughed until we were crying.  We guessed that a mouse or a squirrel had tripped the light and tried to forget it.  Neither of us wanted to guess how TWO mice had turned on TWO lights.  Neither of us wanted to remember the lonely bull.  Brandi asked if I was ready for a break and I gratefully accepted pulling off to the side and switching seats.  I promised myself I would stay awake with her until we reached Jackson where we would leave the Trace and take I-55 dead south.  I had barely finished making that promise when I broke it.

I dozed and when I woke up I was holding a ball in my hands.

I looked at Brandi and asked her where it came from. She looked over at me with teary eyes.  Her hands gripped the wheel tight.  She was crying again but this time she wasn’t laughing behind the tears.  She was half-mad with mortal fear.  She looked down at the ball.

It was a bit bigger than a basketball.  It was greyish white and wet.   When I thought about dropping it I felt it become sticky as if it didn’t want me to let go.  I began to turn it over in my hands and I could feel something like a framework inside, bones.  Arms and legs were folded under it.  As I stared at it the legs fell limp and the arms stretched out to the sides and pointy fingers flexed. The head began to rotate up to look at me. I could tell somehow that there would be no eyes, no nose, and no mouth. I also knew that if it ever "looked" at me that I would never return from sheer madness for having seen it.  I thought it was Brandi screaming but when I looked at her she had her teeth frozen in a terrified grimace.  I felt little fingers dig into my shoulders and the scent of unwashed crotch swam into my nose.  It was me screaming and I kept on until the thing in my hands stopped me.

“Hush, now. You hurry home, you hear?  Hurry home.” The words had come from the thing, but they weren’t out loud.  They swam through my head the same way the smell had into my nose.  I looked down at the thing’s feet and saw its toes hooked in my belt as it strained to put its head close to mine.

“Hurry home, now friend.”

I wrenched myself awake and stared at Brandi who was bopping along to “Goodbye, Earl” on the radio. She looked at me and laughed in a fashion totally opposite of the way she had just looked a moment before.

“Have a good nap?” she asked cheerily?
“Not really.” I croaked as a trickle of sweat ran down the back of my neck.
 

The End

Also by Chuck Beikert:

Busy Travis

Henry's First Hit

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]]>The Trace: PreludeAll Roads EditorWed, 24 Oct 2018 19:46:05 +0000http://www.allroadsmagazine.com/the-dark-driver/2018/10/24/a-slow-steady-march553d4b8de4b0fe84387378c6:5bc742c9c830253edcec7357:5bd0cbbb08522953060faf89By Jeremy G. Butler

Disclaimer: This story contains subject matter that may be unsuitable for sensitive readers.

1.

Maybe if Carl Wallace hadn’t had those extra beers with dinner, or had gotten a little more rest the night before, maybe he wouldn’t have been sleeping quite so heavily in that very moment.  He might have felt it, that tiny pin prick that struck the back of his left hand.  It was fast - the injection, transfer, withdrawal, and extraction over in an instant – and under normal circumstances it would have been sharply painful.  But what should have startled him awake only prompted a soft moan and a subtle grimace, both quickly replaced by a solid return to deep sleep.  Otherwise he might have woken up in time to see the…thing responsible.  In the dark he would have probably shrugged it off as just another damn bug and, his instincts being what they were, he probably would have flattened it.  That could have made things a lot better for everyone else.  But instead, the fog of exhaustion and alcohol provided a perfect cover for this intruder (which, with its scarlet wasp-like body and scorpion tail, certainly was not just another damn bug) to simply march away.  Six legs moving confidently over the relatively endless peaks and valleys of his blanket, to the edge of the bed, where it spread its wings and flew away, perching in the far, high corner of the room.  A perfect place to watch.

And wait.

The next morning Carl woke up, still feeling a bit hungover from the excesses of the night before.  There was the vague sensation that something wasn’t quite right, but it was buried under an all too familiar headache.  He turned on the shower, hoping that it would start the process toward making him feel human again, like it always did.  And again – under normal circumstances – it absolutely would have.  But still, something just felt…off.    As he stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped half-heartedly in a towel, willing himself to believe that he felt better, he absentmindedly scratched an itch on the back of his left hand.  It was dull, superficial; just enough to trigger a reflex, but not quite enough to command his full attention.  Not yet, anyway.  The rest of the morning was spent in the usual fashion – getting dressed, making a quick breakfast, and heading out the door for work.  By the time he left he had done a decent job of convincing himself that he felt fine.  He didn’t immediately realize how hard he had worked to not look directly at himself in the mirror.

Meanwhile, his little visitor from the night before just sat there, perched in the far corner of the room.  It hadn’t moved an inch from where it landed, but anyone who had been paying attention to it would have sworn that it had gotten just the tiniest bit…bigger.

2.

Perhaps if he had taken an extra moment to get a good look at himself as he was getting ready he would have been prepared for what greeted him as he walked through the office door.  “Jeeeeesus H. Macy, dude.  Did something run you over?”  Ahh Dickens.  Good guy, nice enough, but maybe lacking a bit, well, socially.  His shortage of gracefulness was especially noticeable this morning; at least until he thrust a small latte cup in Carl’s direction.  Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.  “Beer truck,” Carl said through that familiar hungover groan.  “You know how it is.”  He took a sip of the coffee, hoping the beer excuse was enough to sufficiently end the discussion, especially because he knew that whatever was wrong wasn’t exactly your run-of-the-mill hangover.  Dickens just laughed.  “And the damn things don’t even leave a note!”   He clapped Carl on the back, who tried like hell not to let his face show just how badly it had hurt.

Wait, why did that hurt so badly?

It’s a question he tossed around in his mind for the rest of the day.  And soon enough it was joined by other questions.  Like why was it so hard to get comfortable in the same chair he’d been sitting in for the last three years?  Why was it so hot in his office when the thermostat was set to the same brisk 71 degrees it was always on?  And why the hell did his hand itch so much?  It was that last question that had his full attention when his boss walked into his office.  “Carl?”  He didn’t like the look of concern on her face when he looked up at her.  “OH, Leslie, hello!”  Act normal act normal act normal.  “Are you okay?  You look…well, you look…exhausted.”  Well, at least she had more tact than Dickens.

“Yes ma’am, I’m fine, I just, uh, overestimated my tolerance last night.”  He chuckled as he made the drinky-drinky gesture with his right hand.  He didn’t want her to see the marks on his left hand from where he’d been scratching it so hard just moments before.   He hoped his little charade would be as effective as it had been earlier.

“Noooo... I’ve seen hangovers before.  This…well this isn’t that.  This is something else.”  Dammit, why couldn’t she be as dense as Dickens?  “You have sick time, yeah?”  He sighed.  “Yes ma’am.”  “Good, use some.  Go home and rest.  And if you need to go see a doctor, be smart and do it.  Okay?”  He sighed again.  “10-4.”  He started shutting down his computer as she walked toward the door.  Just before she left his office she turned around and said “Seriously, take care of yourself.  I don’t want to see you back here until you’re feeling better.”  She gave him a warm little half-smile, then turned and walked away.

She wouldn’t see him back there ever again.

The ride home was especially excruciating.  Carl didn’t realize just how much being at work had sort of forced him to ignore everything that was wrong, and without that distraction keeping the worst of it at bay, everything started to break down.  Getting a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror certainly didn’t help things.  He couldn’t help but recoil at his own pallid, almost waxy face; his eyes draped by circles that seemed to be getting darker by the second.  At first he was convinced he had some sort of flu.  Fever, chills, aches, skin sensitivity; they were all familiar from the last time he had it.  But there was something else, something he’d never felt before, almost like a pressure that he couldn’t place, like there wasn’t quite enough room for him in his own body.

And that damn itch was still there.

“It’s just the flu, that’s all it is.  Just make it home, take some medicine, and you’ll be fine.”

He kept repeating that to himself, but it was the making it home that was proving to be the most difficult.  The sweat from the fever ran into his eyes, making it hard (and painful) to see, while abdominal cramps kept him lurched over, leaving his steering rigid and erratic.  His difficulties didn’t go unnoticed by other drivers on the road and earned him a few honks and less-than-friendly gestures.  He didn’t (couldn’t) pay them any mind – he had one sole focus:  just make it home and you’ll be fine.

Somehow it worked, although he overshot his driveway by about a foot and ended up parked halfway in the yard.  He shut off the engine and stepped out of the car just in time to vomit in the grass, the sight of which appeased the few nosy neighbors who happened to be home at this time of day and watched him make a parking lot of his lawn, their whispers of “Well well what have we here” turning into compassionate exclamations of “Oh, that poor man.”

The sudden purge brought with it a certain sense of relief though, and left Carl feeling just better enough to stumble in through the front door, lock it behind him, and stagger to the kitchen.  He took a quick dose of flu medicine and a few vitamin c tablets, then leaned against the wall as he sort of dragged himself down the hallway into his bedroom, removing articles of clothing as he went.  It felt like an eternity, but once he made to the bed he collapsed, asleep before he ever hit the pillow.

It was 2:45 pm.  He wouldn’t wake up for the next 16 hours.  And across the room, perched high in the corner, the insect that wasn’t exactly an insect kept a still, silent watch.

And it was definitely getting bigger.

3.

At 6:30am the alarm started going off, but it took another 20 minutes for the sound to actually burrow its way into Carl’s subconscious and start pulling him out of the fog.  By 6:55 his eyes were open, at least partly; a thick crust of fluid had almost cemented them shut.  He managed to force them open but it proved to be difficult – and painful; the process costing him a few eyelashes.  But that would turn out to be the least of his worries.  As he went to reach for the alarm clock to turn it off, he noticed his left hand seemed to be stuck to the pillow case.  Stuck with what he couldn’t tell, as his hand was tucked underneath the pillow, but whatever it was he was certain it wasn’t good.  Ultimately the incessant chirping of the alarm clock proved to be the bigger immediate concern than the mystery underneath his pillow, so he braced himself and pulled hard.  The sound of his hand tearing free from the cloth of his pillow case (combined with the feeling of a giant scab being ripped off) made his stomach turn, but it’s what he saw once he had it free that actually made him ill.  A thick, black abscess, maybe an inch in diameter, had formed in the middle of the backside of his left hand; deep and slick, matted with blood and pus.  Where it had come from he had no idea, but he remembered how badly it had itched the day before.  He tried to convince himself that he’d just scratched it too hard and maybe some dirt underneath his fingernails had infected it – nothing some antibiotics wouldn’t take care of, right?  But as he reached to turn off the alarm clock he could have sworn he saw something pulse inside the abscess, and that’s when his stomach turned.  Luckily he was able to roll out of bed and make it to the bathroom in time, the sheer determination distracting him from just how much his whole body ached.

After what felt like an eternity of retching, certain that he was going to see everything inside of himself fall into the toilet in front of him, his stomach settled, the dry heaves stopped and he sat on the floor, exhausted.  He leaned back against the bathtub and forced himself to keep his eyes closed, lest he find himself looking at his hand again.  While he was able to find some relief in his settled stomach and the cold porcelain of the bathtub against his skin, he just couldn’t understand why everything hurt so bad.  He finally accepted that this wasn’t just the flu; the body aches were far more severe and everything inside him felt like it was on fire.  Not from fever, but like his actual insides had started to combust.  He needed to get up, take stock of himself, but the only relief he had at the moment was that cold bathtub pressed against his back and he didn’t want to leave it.  After about ten minutes, the pain and the worry eclipsed whatever solace he found on the floor, so he managed to get himself to his feet, leaving every muscle and joint he had resentful of it.  Once up he steadied himself against the wall, eyes still closed, until his body settled and he felt confident he could actually stand and walk.  He took the several steps over to the mirror and, eyes still closed, placed his right hand on the edge of the sink to prop himself up.  The left dropped to his side, as comfortably out of view as possible.  He took several deep, calming breaths, trying like hell to brace himself for what he was going to see once he finally opened his eyes...

It was the bathroom sink; he was still too scared to actually look in the mirror.  He took the opportunity to turn the water on and splash a little on his face, being extra careful not to bring his left hand into view.   There was still a cup on the counter from when he brushed his teeth the morning before, so he filled it up and drank, swishing and trying to rinse the memories of getting sick out of his mouth.  He spit and stared at the sink, trying to will himself to look up.

“How bad can it be?  You’re just sick.  It’s not like you’re a monster.  Your skin isn’t falling off, you didn’t throw up your own organs (his brain interjected – “not yet, anyway”).”  He winced at the thought, still staring intently at the sink.  “You need to know what to tell the doctor, right?  Just look in the mirror.  It’s probably not any worse than it was yesterday.”  He thought about the glimpse of himself he caught in the rear view mirror of his car.  He instinctively closed his eyes again.  He didn’t want to see, he didn’t want to know.  But the imagination is a wonderful and terrible thing, and what it decided to show him was his own body covered in dozens of the oozing sores that had taken over the back of his left hand.  The thought horrified him, but it also steeled his resolve.  “There’s no way it’s that bad, no way.  No way.”  He said it once or twice more just to make sure he had convinced himself.  He took one final deep breath and, with his eyes still closed, lifted his head.  He exhaled and opened his eyelids.

He was right – it wasn’t as bad as what his imagination had shown him.  But it wasn’t much better, either.

He leaned forward and stared intently at his own face, the rest of his body just visible in the periphery.  There was no color whatsoever; he reminded himself of a corpse.  His eyes were sunken into dark pockets, the waxy complexion of his washed out skin intensified under the vanity lights.  The only sign of anything alive in what he was seeing was the mixture of saliva, water, and vomit still clinging to his lips and the corners of his mouth.  That alone was all he could bear; he didn’t want to see anymore.  But still he forced himself to shift his gaze downward.

If the sight of his own face had scared him, the rest of his body was downright horrifying.  The same waxy complexion covered his torso, but it was highlighted by angry red hives and lumpy cysts that, while not yet full-blown lesions like the one on the back of his hand, weren’t far from it.  Thankfully that’s when the tears came, blurring his vision and keeping him from seeing anymore.  He knew he needed to call 911.  But the tears were followed by the tingly black vignette that usually signaled a blackout, and with his legs rubbery from the full impact of what he’d just seen, the thought of taking the 15 steps that would lead him back to his bed seemed like an impossibility.  But the impossible seems less so when your life is on the line, and he started to believe that his was.  With that realization at the forefront of his mind, he struggled to keep himself on his feet, and shambled back to his room, his movements taking on the same living corpse-like characteristics of his own skin.  What normally took him 20 seconds seemed to take an hour, but he eventually made it and sat down on his bed.  He looked at the night stand trying to find his cell phone, but…why wasn’t it there?  Where was it?  He always put it on his bedside table at night, but it was gone.

That’s when it hit him.  He remembered, with horror, coming home yesterday, parking (and puking) in the yard.  At the time his cell phone was the furthest thing from his mind.  Now, he needed it desperately and even though it was only out in the front yard, not 100 feet away, when he thought of actually making the trek all the way out there he realized that it might as well have been three states away.  Defeated, terrified, he collapsed back onto his mattress.  “This is where I’m going to die,” he said to no one.

In the periphery, he thought he saw movement on the far side of the room, like an insect flying.  “That’s a big ass moth,” he thought to himself.  He closed his eyes.

4.

It was 10am on Wednesday morning, and back at the office Leslie sat at her desk thinking about Carl.  He had looked terrible yesterday and she hoped he was feeling better.  She thought about calling him just to check but decided against it.  After all he hadn’t even called into work (which she attributed to him not being able, as opposed to just not doing it) so she decided that he was resting and it was better if she didn’t bother him.  Still though, she was worried.  “If I haven’t heard from him by Friday I’m going to go to his house and check on him.”  Down the hall, Dickens was thinking the same thing.

And 10 miles away, in a cute little house on a street full of cute little houses, something terrible was happening to Carl Wallace.

5.

He was right about the movement he though he saw, though it wasn’t the moth that he assumed it was just before he fell back to sleep.  His little guest had gotten too big to just sit quietly in the corner anymore, and had Carl not been so preoccupied with his own deterioration, he would have noticed.  Though, it’s less likely that he would have believed what he had seen.  The tail had completely retracted inside of the insect’s abdomen, and three of the legs had fallen off, but what would have made him recoil was the fact that its body had started…changing.  The deep scarlet had started to become more flesh-like and soft.  And if Carl had really gotten a good look he would have noticed that the little bug’s face – for lack of a better term – had started to shift and show features that he would have found, well, oddly familiar.  The process had indeed begun, and the visitor needed to find somewhere safe to complete it.  So it flew away from the wall and took shelter in the shadows and space underneath Carl’s bed.

But Carl was also changing, he just wasn’t awake to experience it - it was a blessing he didn’t know to be thankful for.  By late afternoon the cysts he had seen had doubled in size, and underneath the skin that covered them – which had started to dry and thin – there was evidence of something…moving.  His stomach and chest heaved, but not with breath, as Carl’s had become shallow and strained.  By nightfall his body had withered as the tissue and muscle underneath his skin had been eaten away, while the cysts had gotten even bigger.  The abscess on his left hand had grown as well, its black infection spreading out to just below his wrist.  Had a doctor seen it there would have been an immediate amputation, but instead it - and the rest of him - continued to rot freely.  And by sunrise, Carl Wallace was dead.

His corpse, however, continued to writhe and heave.  Something was inside of him.

And it wanted out.

6.

By Thursday afternoon the cell phone that was still sitting in his car showed three missed calls; two from Dickens and a third from Leslie, both growing more concerned with the fact that they hadn’t heard a thing from him.  His neighbors were starting to worry as well, seeing as his car had been parked in his front yard since Tuesday afternoon.  They all kept an almost round the clock watch on his house, not sure exactly what they were expecting to see, but knowing that whatever it was, they were going to be ready to help.  A couple of them had flirted with the idea of calling 911 or the police department just to have someone come check on Carl, but they all stopped short, not wanting to embarrass themselves by causing a scene for nothing.

Everyone kept telling themselves the same thing; he’s fine, he’s just sick.  Let him rest and he’ll call back or come outside when he’s able.  But even so, a text notification popped up on the screen of his phone.  It was from Leslie, the message inside reading “If I haven’t heard from you by tomorrow morning I’m coming to check on you.”  One of the neighbors, and old retiree named Joe Gumbal, had the same idea – “If I haven’t seen some sign of improvement by tomorrow I’m calling someone.”

Inside the house, the scene was far more grim than any of them would have dared to imagine.  Carl was still dead, of course, but what was inside of him certainly was not, and those cysts all over his torso were just about ready to rupture.  They swelled and pulsed from the movement underneath, straining the paper-thin flesh that covered them.

But all of that was starting to pale in comparison to what was happening under his bed.

What used to be a small insect that looked like a wasp was now a mass of organic matter that looked like…Carl Wallace?  Or, well it would soon.  The metamorphosis was staggeringly fast; the insect had processed the small amount of Carl’s DNA that it had extracted that first night and grown exponentially, to match both Carl’s height and weight in only a matter of days.  The transformation wasn’t entirely complete yet, though; several of Carl’s features had yet to be defined and the massive lump of biological clay that lay underneath the bed was working just as fervently as whatever it was inside the real Carl up above.

But their work was nearly complete.

7.

As the sun broke on Friday morning, a hand reached out from underneath the bed, followed by its arm.  It braced itself against the floor, and newly-formed muscles strained to pull the new Carl Wallace, identical in every way to the old one, out from the shadows.  Nobody, not even his own mother, would have been able to tell the difference.  The new Carl had every physical characteristic, down to the scars and birthmark, not to mention the speech pattern and the memories; this was an absolutely perfect copy.  There were still the remnants of the transformation, however;  New Carl stood tall in old Carl’s bedroom, covered in the same sort of fluid and material that newborn babies bring with them out of the womb.  He knew he needed a shower, but there were some things to attend to first.

8.

Just as dawn started to creep over the horizon, the new Carl Wallace stepped outside, wrapped in a bathrobe, and headed toward the car parked in the front yard.  After he sat down in the driver’s seat, he noticed the cell phone that had been left behind.  He turned it on, noticed the missed call notifications, and then read the text message from Leslie stating her intentions to come see him.  “Well that just won’t do,” he said out loud to himself as he typed out a reply.

“Hey Leslie, sorry, it’s been a rough few days, but I’m on the mend.  No need to come all the way out here.  Give me the weekend and I’ll be good as new.  Make sure Dickens knows as well.  Thanks!”

Satisfied that he’d averted that particular crisis, he started the car and parked it carefully in the driveway, then stopped the engine and got out of the car, closing the door behind him loudly enough to wake up one Mr. Joe Gumbal.  The New Carl was already crossing the threshold of his house by the time Joe had opened his bedroom window to see what all the racket was.  He smiled to himself when he saw Carl’s car parked where it should be and his young neighbor seemingly up and around again.  He also enjoyed the breeze that came in with the sunrise and decided to leave his window open as he crawled back into bed.

9.

Back inside, New Carl was busy scrubbing away any trace of what his body had been through overnight.  He stepped out of the shower confidently, comfortable in his new skin and made his way back into the bedroom.  He stood over what little remained of his host, waiting for the final stage of this venture to come to terms.  And within moments the largest of the cysts on the real Carl’s body opened up, and a dozen small insects crawled out; their small scorpion-like tails protruding from a wasp’s abdomen, deep crimson from nursing on Carl - eating him from the inside out.  Soon another cyst ruptured, and more were birthed.  Within minutes the original Carl’s corpse had purged itself of hundreds of these insects, and all that remained of the man he used to be was a husk; skin and bone that had been cleaned and drained and left in such a shape that they would have crumbled to the touch.

New Carl watched, astonished, as a parent always is watching the life they created grow.  And even though these new little miracles were only babies, it was time for them to leave their nest and venture out.  They had jobs to do, after all.  So, with pride, New Carl walked over to the bedroom window and opened it.  And one by one, each of the insects that covered the bed spread their wings for the very first time and followed the early morning breeze out into the world, their tails coiled up in anticipation of acting upon their one and only instinct.  And Joe Gumbal’s open window provided a perfect opportunity for one of them.  The rest would soon find opportunities of their own. 

New Carl was beaming as he cleaned up the mess left behind in the bedroom, knowing that before long each of his children would have realized their full potential, their destinies carried out over and over again, until they each bore witness to the very thing their father had the privilege of seeing himself.  And the process would start anew.

And that’s when the real work would begin.

THE END

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]]>A Slow, Steady MarchAll Roads EditorWed, 24 Oct 2018 19:40:39 +0000http://www.allroadsmagazine.com/the-dark-driver/2018/10/24/gray553d4b8de4b0fe84387378c6:5bc742c9c830253edcec7357:5bd0ca7b15fcc038c1f42d3aBy, Jaime Burchardt

Disclaimer: This story contains subject matter that may be unsuitable for sensitive readers.

Just yesterday, Lango was determined to go through this species reassignment. Today, it wasn’t ideal lying naked on a cold metal table while having human skin act as a cushion for his head.

According to the surgeon, Lango’s member had already been detached, but he couldn’t feel or move anything except his eyes and mouth. He could still hear everything, though. He saw the surgeon oozing back. He had been gone a while; probably to wash out his tentacles. His blob-like body supported said tentacles, with tiny fingers coming out of each end. Though his four eyes weren’t covered, his mouth was with a surgical mask. How practical.

“Continue? Deal?” the doctor asked in a gurgly voice.

“Yes, I still agree. To look like you, you get to devour my thing. Hope you brought salt,” Lango weakly joked.

“No salt, blood pressure” said the doctor. He moved Lango’s phallus slightly when he suddenly felt an earth-shattering pain wake his body up from the numbness. “Whoa...what?!”

“You felt that?”

“Yes!”

“Nerve endings still attached.”

He took off the mask to reveal a moist hole with circular rows of teeth. Before Lango could ask ‘why’ through the pain, the doctor leaned down. “This way faster.”

Lango looked at the ceiling to avoid the sight. It’ll be worth it. It’ll be worth...now, just screaming. Screaming should block out the noise, he thought. 

THE END

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]]>GrayAll Roads EditorWed, 24 Oct 2018 19:28:15 +0000http://www.allroadsmagazine.com/the-dark-driver/2018/10/24/busy-travis553d4b8de4b0fe84387378c6:5bc742c9c830253edcec7357:5bd0c6b0f9619a56964e3b6eBy, Chuck Beikert

Disclaimer: This story contains subject matter that may be unsuitable for sensitive readers
 

Traffic.

Even on a day as beautiful as the one in question it turned Busy Travis into a stressed out mess.

Busy Travis liked to be on time.  He’d missed out on the ends of baseball games, skipped dessert, skipped breakfast in order to ensure his timely arrival at whatever destination lay ahead.  On those occasions when extenuating circumstances had made him late, which happened with alarming damn frequency in his own opinion, he would begin to perspire and curse everything under the sun.  Damn cars, damn drivers, damn roads, damn clouds, damn trees, damn job.

His job.  Awaiting him at the bank was Old Will.  Old Will had trained him eight years prior if you had to be trained to sit in a chair behind security glass and push a single button twice a day.  They worked a pair of mag-lock doors between the public side of the bank and the secure loading facility where hundreds of thousands of dollars moved in and out almost daily under armed guard.  Buzz them in, buzz them out.  Read a book.  Do a crossword puzzle.  Bite your nails (if your name is Busy Travis.) Plan your next Disney vacation (if your name is Old Will.)
He thumbed his cell phone to life and tapped on the “Favorites” button.  The one and only number listed under that heading was WORK, just like that, in all caps.  Lower case letters made Busy Travis suspicious.

An ambulance wailed behind him as the phone in the fishbowl began to ring.  The fishbowl was what Old Will called their office.  In truth, calling it an office was a stretch.  There was a wire waste basket. There were monitors for every security camera on the first floor, including the loading dock even though they were forbidden from responding to any incidents they might witness on them.  There was an older model PC that mostly got used for playing solitaire or finding creative ways to view explicit videos not blocked by the network web filter.  There was no printer. There was a tiny refrigerator containing exactly one can of diet root beer. Old Will was perpetually on some kind of diet.  Under the desk were mounted two weapons, a Winchester pump action twelve gauge shotgun and a Desert Eagle semi-automatic pistol.  Calling the office a fishbowl made Busy Travis want to unload both of them into Old Will’s face.

“Fishbowl! William Hortert speaking.” A sunny voice came through the speakers in Busy Travis’ Dodge Dart.

“I’m stuck in traffic.” spat Busy Travis through clenched teeth while he envisioned Old Will’s expression as he emptied the Desert Eagle into his abdomen.

“I’m catching the 4:03 bus my boy.  Whether you’re here or not!” it was a lie and they both knew it.  The fishbowl was never allowed to be empty and no one had a key to open it after business hours anyway.  Neither of the guards had one and the only way in was to be buzzed in by the guard on duty.

“There’s never traffic at this hour.  I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Well hurry…” Busy Travis disconnected the call before Old Will could place the unrealistic demand on him.  

“Hurry Up?” he mused.  As if hurrying was an option.  To his right an ugly woman stared straight ahead and blinked her eyes at the unmoving cars.  The ambulance shoved its way through those that had wedged out left and right to let him through.  Busy Travis saw the driver laughing as he passed by.  The tires rolled over road jerky, an unidentifiable mammal chewed and flattened by unceasing commuters and the siren brayed on.

Time passed and wheels turned slowly, pausing more than stopping.  The strand of brake lights visible in the gentle upward curve of the roadway blinked on and off like cheap Christmas lights avoiding rhythm.  Busy Travis didn’t like the radio but he drummed his fingers absently on the steering wheel in time to Toto’s Africa, plainly audible from the ugly woman’s car.  When he realized he was doing it he stopped and frowned at himself in the rear view.  He performed a hundred kegel exercises staring at himself in loathing.

Before he reached the point of incident a fire truck came through singing the same song as the ambulance in a lower, less organic pitch.  Busy Travis wondered if they would sound well together and frowned at himself again. One hundred more kegels.

After seeing the ugly woman pick her nose twice and smelling one potent whiff of marijuana they had crawled up around the bend enough to see that the cause of delay had been a one vehicle collision.  A thousand feet ahead a concrete abutment divided the roadway from the ramp toward the bridge.  Crashed into that was a hulking refuse vehicle flanked by the ambulance and fire truck.  Firemen stood with hoses at their feet as water ran off the road surface into huge drains.  The steaming garbage truck had hauled its final load.  Tainted water poured from its intact trash compartment. The cab was scorched white and crushed on the far side.  The ambulance drifted slowly into the right lane and blinked his emergency lights once before proceeding at a non-emergency pace toward the Catholic hospital, or maybe the University Medical Center.  Busy Travis wondered if the Sanitation worker was in the back.  Was he ok and just going in for examination or was he injured?  Superficially or irreparably? He didn’t pretend to himself that he cared.  He wondered about it the same way he wondered about the lottery, which he never played.

Rubberneckers.

Eleven minutes late just to get a look at a wet garbage truck.  He envied the people who had seen it ablaze.  He wondered if the driver had been burned.

“I missed my bus!” hollered Old Will when he’d buzzed Busy Travis into the fishbowl.

“I’m sorry.  It’s my fault.  I should have left earlier.” Busy Travis had a habit of eschewing excuses in favor of taking responsibility and serving mea culpa with a side of steely-eyed stare.  Old Will never flinched but looked at Busy Travis’ shoulder or shirt pocket rather than meet his gaze.  He’d look briefly with pursed lips after every sentence but then look away again as if to punctuate his meaning.  Somehow he never felt satisfied that he had impressed Busy Travis and the looking away was supposed to communicate that he didn’t really care either.  Old Will was 57.  Busy Travis was 41.

“What happened?  Somebody crash?” Old Will always wanted to make peace in the face of potential conflict as well.  Now he was sorry for griping about the bus.  He needed Busy Travis to let him off the hook.

“If I had left earlier it wouldn’t have mattered.  Can I pay your bus fare home?”

“I have a pass.  Don’t fall asleep now.  Bank President was here today.  Might come back again.”

“I certainly won’t be sleeping.  Can I call you a cab?”

“I’m going Sonny.  Read your book or whatever you do in here nights.  Nobody’s scheduled except for that coin load going out.  They’re destroying all of those pennies.  Then they’ll melt them down to make more pennies.  They’re already pennies for Christ’s sake!”

“Circle of life.  Don’t forget your newspaper.”

“Do you want the crossword puzzle?”

“ No, thank you.”

“Too small for me now.  I got stronger glasses but they make me tired or something.  I get headaches.”

“I take aspirin for headaches.  I think they have some at the store on the corner.”

“Ok my boy, ok.  You have a good one.’

“Thank you Will.  You as well.”

Old Will folded his paper under his left arm and rose from the tall chair at the desk.  Passing in the small space caused his belly to rub against Busy Travis’ arm.

“Sorry.” said Old Will not looking.

“OK.” Said Busy Travis staring at the back of Old Will’s head and imagining a claw hammer protruding from blood matted hair.

When Old Will was gone and had passed by the last security camera that mattered Busy Travis set about cleaning the office.  From beneath the desk he retrieved a bottle of blue glass cleaner and a partial roll of paper towels.  The janitor left the partials outside of his supply room on a folding chair.  Anyone could grab them and keep around as their personal stash.  The dispensers in the customer lobby restrooms and the employee facility got new rolls every Tuesday and Thursday whether they were empty or not and they never were.  Busy Travis had eight partials at his apartment and two in his car.  

He began by cleaning the immediate work surface of the desk.  The daily coffee mug ring and an ever changing melange of cookie, muffin, bread-crumbs all were swept into the wastebasket before a liberal dose of the ammonia cleaner was sprayed. The computer keyboard also got inverted and tapped on the edge of the basket. Busy Travis avoided wiping away a scribbled phone number on the cream colored desk surface before he copied the information on a sticky note and stuck it to the top of the computer monitor.   

“Looking more like an office all the time.” He said out loud.   His ghostly reflection in the bullet-proof glass frowned back.  He owed one hundred kegels.  The glass bore all of Old Will’s coughs and sneezes of the previous twelve hours and Busy Travis sprayed generic Windex (sold cleverly as WINDOW cleaner) and wiped them away.

He read.  He searched for images of burning garbage trucks.  He read the Wikipedia entry for horseshoe crabs and then another about coconut crabs.  After the bank closed he put his feet up on the desk and slept for 15 minutes at a time, his cell phone alarm waking him regularly vibrating in his blue uniform shirt pocket.  He raised his cap to look at the monitors and through his window and lowered it again.  He did this every evening before eating his apple and graham crackers.  Tonight he’d also eat Greek style yogurt and peanut butter.  Busy Travis hated Greek Style yogurt but he had been ashamed to buy the old kind when a woman was standing next to him in the dairy section.  He had chosen plain because she had picked up a plain just before him.  He’d hoped she would look at him but she replaced the plain and selected Honey flavor instead.  Busy Travis had frowned.  

“Honey flavor?” he thought.

At nine o’clock Sergio, the front guard came to the mag-lock door with a grinning young woman.  

“Trista Travis, Travis Trista.” had been the exchange and Busy Travis buzzed them through.  He watched, leaning back in his chair as first she performed oral sex on him, then he on her, before he entered her from behind while she bent over a pallet of shrink wrapped bills.

“The Million Dollar Fuck.” Sergio called it even though there was rarely a million dollars in the entire bank.  He had been screwing girls on stacks of one dollar bills for almost four years cheating them by at least 900 thousand dollars every time.  Busy Travis didn’t mind.  Sergio was always good enough to keep all the action in the frame.

Sergio left and Busy Travis read.  He ate his apple and his graham crackers.  He dipped each into peanut butter and then plain yogurt and didn’t mind the Greek style as much that way.  Nonetheless he vowed to maintain his resolve next time and buy the traditional American style yogurt, the runny kind prone to separation.  Strawberry banana or peach.  Either way.

At midnight the coin truck would come and remove twenty three sacks of coins.  There would be armed guards ready to repel anyone foolish enough to make a grab in the brief space between the truck and the building, a space barely wide enough for the burly men to stand while their partners loaded the sacks.  The men would weigh the sacks and signal thumbs up to the guard at the right of the truck who had his weapon slung on his shoulder and a clipboard in hand.  At every thumbs-up gesture he would make a check mark on a carbon form indicating the weight of the sack was correct.

Busy Travis set an alarm for 11:50.  He pulled down his cap and dreamed of a farm.  A big locust tree grew in the center of a hayfield and he and his father chopped it down with long-handled axes, sweating through their clothes and telling each other jokes.  He couldn’t remember the jokes or they didn’t make sense but he knew they were jokes because they were laughing.  They felled the tree and then dug underneath the stump.  A man came in an old Ford truck with dynamite and it was huge, red, and cylindrical.  Busy Travis always dreamt of sweaty sticks of dynamite, with big drops of nitro-glycerin running down the sides.  In his dreams the man always wiped off a drop and slung it against a rock to produce a terrifying report.  He  jumped at the sound, both in his dream and in his chair, his sleeping body jerking violently.  A puppy in the man’s truck would hop up at the window and put his paws on the glass yipping.  Busy Travis would go over to the truck and look at the puppy wishing that he could open the door and play with it.  The Dynamite Man and his Father would stuff the explosive under the tree stump and then walk toward the truck, every time.  Every time Busy Travis would be looking at the puppy.  His father would yell “No!” and Busy Travis would look in his direction.  His father would be running with a look of horror on his face, his eyes wide, his arms flailing.  A rush of air at his feet from under the truck and a short but awesomely loud popping sound followed by a whine, a soaring high note that went on and on.  The tree stump would crack into a hundred flying pieces and batter the side of the truck fragmenting the windows.  The Dynamite man and his Father would fall flat on their faces with the backs of their shirts on fire.  Each and every time Busy Travis would look in at the dead puppy on the truck seat.

At 11:50 he awoke at the first note of the digital tune he’d chosen for his alarm.  He’d listened to the entirety of the tone initially when he first set the alarm but each time since he’d heard no more than one or two notes before turning it off with that fear in the pit of his stomach that every alarm caused him to feel.  This afternoon he’d felt it when the ambulance passed and again when the fire truck came.  He felt it now as he shook off the dream and straightened his cap.  He stood and smoothed out his shirt and looked at the monitors.  To his surprise the coin truck had arrived.  

Early arrivals weren’t unheard of but they were very uncommon.  All of the trucks were GPS monitored and forbidden from speeding or any course deviation.  Therefore they maintained a very tight and efficient schedule.  Normally they were spot on time.

Busy Travis rubbed his eyes and saw the driver lean out the window and wave toward the security camera.  He didn’t recognize him but it didn’t matter.  The first two years he had been employed at the bank the same crew had come in every time.  An old man driving and handling the coin bags with two armed guards, younger and well muscled. A fourth would sometimes join them but Busy Travis had ascertained that on those occasions a trainee had been assigned to the crew.  After the old man retired an ever changing cast of personnel had begun to rotate in and out. Seeing an unfamiliar face became a familiar occurrence.

Busy Travis hit the button on the roll up door and the truck backed into position at the dock entrance.  The guards took their places at either side of the rear doors and the driver opened them and walked toward the entrance of the security office. 

Busy Travis bristled.  Armored Truck guys never came up to the office.  They had digital scanners to check in and out.  There was no need to enter the public side of the bank, ever.  There was no reason.  None.  Busy Travis tapped his foot.  He tossed his apple core and his rubbish into the wire wastebasket in shame.

The driver tapped on the glass and said something.   Busy Travis pointed to the round brass grill in the hole at the center of the glass and made a talking sign with his other hand.  The driver corrected and spoke through the louvers.

“Crapper’s busted.  I gotta take a leak.  Can you let me in so I can use yours?”

“That’s irregular.” Intoned Busy Travis but he calmed a bit hearing the unthreatening voice come through the speaker hole.

“I know buddy.  I gotta piss though and we’re on a schedule here.  Help me out?”

“How do you know the rest room out there is out of order?” 

“There’s a sign on the door, come on buddy!”

Busy Travis moved toward the button to let the driver in but first glanced at the security monitor that displayed the camera aimed at the right side of the roll up door.  To the extreme right the rest room door was visible and it was plain white, bearing no sign of any kind.

Busy Travis reached under the desk and felt the grip of the Desert Eagle.  He reached beyond that and felt the stock of the shotgun mounted just to the rear of the button that deactivated the mag-lock.  He looked at the driver quizzically.

“Can you buzz me in?” he asked performing the dance of urgency.

“I am.  Try the door.”  As he said it he was wrapping his hand around the grip of the pistol.

“It’s not working.”  He tried to shake the door which was impossible.  It was solid steel and the mag-lock was built to rival the force of a pick-up truck yanking with a log chain.

“I don’t know what could be wrong with it.  It was working today.”  He had the pistol halfway out of the plastic holster. Busy Travis disengaged the safety.

“Can you try it again?  Maybe push it a few times.  It might be worn out.”

“I’m doing that now.  Try the door again.”  Busy Travis had the .50 cal pointed directly at the driver’s groin area.  He had no doubt that the bullet would still do significant damage even after slamming through the wall in between them.

“It’s no good.  I’ll have to piss off the loading dock.”

“That’s charming.  I’m sorry.  I hope you make it.”  He eased the gun back into the holster reengaging the safety as the driver turned around and flapped his arms. 

Busy Travis looked underneath the desk to see the weapons perched there.  He loved looking at them and he usually took each one out during his shift to admire them in solitude.  He was looking at the wooden stock on the shotgun when the fire hose crashed through the speaker grill.

Water gushed into the office with terrific force knocking Busy Travis onto the floor and underneath his chair.

“You couldn’t just buzz me in, huh? Well now you’ll drown in there you creep.  I was gonna just put a tiny little bullet through your skull but this’ll be more fun to watch.”  Water was halfway up Busy Travis’ calf, filling the miniscule room faster than he could ever have imagined, not that this was a thing that he’d ever imagined.  He saw the two guards, their rifles leaned against the front of the truck, filling black duffels with stacks of cash.  They had broken the shrink wrap from Sergio’s stack and taken thousands in small bills immediately.  They now appeared to be hunting higher denominations.

Icy cold now, the water passed his knee caps in seconds.  Busy Travis climbed on top of his chair and shook in terror while the truck driver shrieked with laughter.  He turned and shouted at his compatriots.

“Faster you two!  Three minutes!”

Busy Travis looked at his clock high on the wall as water reached his crotch.  11:55.  Five minutes until the real coin truck came.  They needed to be gone before the other arrived.
He climbed off the chair and water was above his navel.  He took a breath and submerged under the desk to grab the Desert Eagle.  Thumbing off the safety he yanked it from the holster and held it up in front of his head, showing it to the driver.

“Nice gun.  What are you going to do with it?” he laughed as he looked at the time on his wristwatch.

“I’m going to blow your head off!” shouted Busy Travis as water touched the bottom of his nametag.

“Better hurry then, unless you have an oxygen tank in there I’d say your time is about to run out!”

Busy Travis reached the button and pushed it and hooked the door handle with his foot.  He yanked but the door held fast.

“Oops!” said the driver holding up the wire that should have connected the mag-lock to the button.  It failed in the “locked” position.  Busy Travis was trapped.

He thought about firing the pistol through the hose and even pointed it at the driver’s face once but before he could act he was underwater.  He had a giant lung-full of air but it didn’t last long and he blacked out.

He dreamed very briefly of playing with the puppy.  They ran side by side and looked into one another’s eyes.  Then someone was shouting at him.

“Travis Bisbee!  Travis?  Can you hear me?” a paramedic wearing rubber gloves and aiming a flashlight directly into his eye screamed, somehow calmly.

“I think so.”

“Are you Travis Bisbee?”

“Busy Travis.”

“Travis what day is today?”

“Today?”

He looked to his right and saw the driver of the bogus coin truck lying face down on the floor in a pool of bloody water.  Beyond him were the two bogus guards slumped over Sergio’s Million Dollar Stack.  They were both dead and looked as if they had been killed in the act of love.

“Yes, Today Travis.  What day is today?”

“Today…” Travis trailed off.  He felt very tired and wanted a pillow and blanket.

A slap across his face, light but deliberate brought him back.

“Stay with me pal.  You’re lucky to be alive.  Never saw anything like it.”

Police officers were standing in front of the fake coin truck.  The guards from the real coin truck stood with them, their rifles slung over their shoulders.  They were answering questions and looking in disbelief.  Water was everywhere.

“What happened?” asked Busy Travis. He was almost ready to put it all together but he was shivering now and still so tired.

“Those guys showed up just in time.  Ahead of schedule. They got here and caught these three robbing the loading dock.  They found you floating by the ceiling in your office.  You’re lucky they were able to smash the security glass with that fire axe.  It took them almost three minutes but they got you out of there.  You weren’t breathing.”

“How….?” He trailed off looking at the serious men with their serious rifles.  Both now looked in his direction and offered him thumbs-up.

“I don’t know how anything bud.  Listen, you’re alive.  Now help me out.  What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Traffic.”

“Traffic?"  What kind of traffic?  Did you have a lot of people through here tonight?”

“No.”

“What traffic?  Commuter traffic earlier? Are you a commuter pal?”

“Yes.  I’m a commuter.”

“You remember the traffic?”

“Yeah.  I remember.  I saw the garbage truck.”

“Ok Travis.  We’re going to get you to the ER and let the doctors have a look at you.  Hold still and we’re going to put you on the board here.”

“I wanted to…” Busy Travis vomited a volume of water then and coughed hard.  His lungs hurt and felt cold but after coughing he felt a little better.  He was seeing stars.

“You wanted to what pal?”

“I wanted to see the garbage truck on fire.”

THE END

Also by Chuck Beikert:

Henry's First Hit

The Trace: Prelude

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]]>Busy TravisAll Roads EditorWed, 17 Oct 2018 18:24:02 +0000http://www.allroadsmagazine.com/stories/2016/10/30/the-girl-in-the-green-dress553d4b8de4b0fe84387378c6:5bc742c9c830253edcec7357:5bc77c79e2c483a9da1b166dBy, Phil Keeling

Savannah kept its secrets, and it kept them well.

It was a necessity: it had a long history of being conquered, after all. That devil Tecumseh Sherman had arrived, spattered with gore and flames lapping at the leather of his boots, and Savannah’s people fixed a drink and let him in. Better to grant the outsider access than to take your chances with him burning your front door down. Someone had to pay for those doors, and it was almost never the person who destroyed them. This strategy for outsiders continued for generations, right up to the introduction of kitschy trolleys and dehydrated, sun-stroked tourists. The bricks in Savannah’s walkways were made up of drinkers, not fighters. Anything that could be killed for was a more worthwhile victory when gained over a few glasses of whiskey and wine. So the image of Georgia’s first city as a town of peaceful drunks wasn’t completely undeserved, but it was easy to question their motivations as hosts and hostesses.

Sheriff Tom Shellens was familiar with such motivations, because he was a Savannahian. He had been born to a dock worker and a waitress, both of whom lived south of Gaston street, in a narrow townhouse with a two-hundred year old oak frame and sturdy iron bars on the windows. The Shellens weren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but they were locals: something that the old money families on Savannah’s famous squares could never take away from them. It afforded them a place in the social ladder, albeit on one of the lower rungs. And as a Sheriff, he had seen secrets: bribes and violence and human ugliness. But what swayed at the end of the live oak before him was a secret of the older kind. He pondered its reflection in the river below and an old secret returned, unbidden, to his memory.

When Tom was a little boy, Halloween had been his favorite holiday in the world. The camouflage and the spoils: Halloween was a glorious warzone to the right child. There was smoke in the evening haze, and the heavy cream smell of pancake makeup settled into Spanish moss and around the rungs of ladders. At the end of the nighttime skirmish they would strip themselves of their costumes, the false faces and polyester rags would gather in the corners of children’s rooms all over the world: a ritual sacrifice in the name of white sugar and the mystery of strangers behind doors and windows.

As he grew older, Tom would sometimes wonder if the strange, pagan holiday had meant the same thing to his father. Had he even celebrated it? Every year it was more and more difficult to remember the details of his father. The angles of his fingernails, forever outlined with miscellaneous grit, and the pungent scent of brackish salt. Even today, Tom liked the smell: it was the smell of strength and comforting security.

Tom had just turned ten years old and the chocolate bar in his grip seemed massive. He had purposefully grabbed the one with almonds in it. Not because he liked them, but because his mother, a notorious candy thief, hated them. He was dressed as Blackbeard, just as he had been dressed last year, and the year before that. As he got older, various pieces of the costume began to get too small, so piecemeal replacements would be found. Eventually he would have replaced so much of the costume that nothing from the original existed. He didn’t know why he insisted on the dread pirate year after year: he knew he liked the sword. It was grey plastic, but if he concentrated enough he could imagine it as a true blade. A cutlass that could tear through rigging and sailor alike. He liked the sword because he liked the idea of being scary. He imagined his black yarn beard filled with burning fuses, casting his face in a skull-like grimace. He imagined the terrified whoops of the sailors and rival pirates who drew his wrath. He saw his home and filled it with silks, Spanish bullion, and exotic treasures from around the world. He was caught in these bloodthirsty fantasies when he came upon a mansion just off of one of the city squares.

The enormous manor was a quiet one: nothing Tom would have ever called foreboding. But perhaps that was the point. During the night’s plunderings of candy it had caught his attention, and he escaped his father’s guarding eye to investigate. Years later he would never be able to pinpoint exactly which mansion it was: the majority of the memory had gotten hazier and hazier as time wore on, and the colorful streets of Savannah was thick with manors, townhomes, and elaborate city gardens. As Tom had become an adult, it had become less than a memory, but more than a dream.

The mansion was painted white. Or it was white plaster. He didn’t remember brick or the rough gray textures of fitted stone. He did remember that it seemed to loom out of the background, the gentle swirl of mist seeping in and through its walls and gazing windows. It was the time of year that burned in the daytime and chilled at night, so the cool autumn breezes that blew in from the river would worm their way into the soil, sending the silent shriek of steam upwards and around the streets and houses. Savannah lived in a cloud in those evenings, his mother would always say. But to Tom it looked like every terrible werewolf movie he had ever seen.

He remembered pillars. The mansion had pillars. The windows were dead, black eyes, with not even a candle to illuminate whatever was hidden inside. No shutters were pulled—no curtains were drawn. It was as if the mansion wanted you to believe that it had nothing to hide.

“Don’t mind me,” the towering house seemed to say. “My life is an open book.”

But it was a lie. It was an illusion of innocence, and somehow little Tom Shellens knew that. But the only way to be certain was to get closer. The only way to know for sure was to see for himself.

The pillars of the mansion seemed like teeth, and the dead eyes seemed to call to him. It would be such a simple thing, to peep inside the windows. It would only take a minute. Without even being aware of the hows or whys of the situation, Tom found himself creeping up the wooden steps to the front door. Were they wood? Or were they stone? Even as he climbed the staircase he wasn’t sure he could fully tell. The solid oak door was mirrored on either side with glass windows as tall as either of his parents. It would be the easiest thing in the world to get in close, and peer inside. And while he was at it, he could try the door—see if it was open. The possibilities of what might be hiding inside swam through his head like lazy eels. To hell with chocolate bars with almonds!

Suddenly he was at the top of the steps, mere footfalls away from his goal. Why shouldn’t he? Why shouldn’t he see what was inside this monstrous house? There could be anything inside. He was dizzy with fantasies of pirate’s treasure and sword battles to be had in the darkness that called his name. His face was mere inches from the glass: glass as black and opaque as the eyes of bottom-feeding fish.

But no uncovered window should be this dark. Not this close up.

There were no shutters—no drapes. But the inside was like India ink dripped into a goblet of water. Nothing but swirling dark faced him.

He didn’t feel good. He didn’t feel like himself. Then a sudden shimmer of confidence seized his foggy brain like the arm of a mousetrap. He didn’t feel like himself, because he felt like a pirate!

Tom wasn’t sure what he would have done if his father hadn’t torn him bodily from the stoop of the black mansion. He didn’t know how much closer he could have possibly gotten to the glass, or why he had felt so drawn to it. He had been deaf to everything but could tell that his father had been shouting. He knew that his child’s brain had trouble understanding why his father seemed so upset. Why his powerful arms seemed to wobble and shake beneath his meager weight. Why the normally gruff, baritone of his voice now seemed shrill and aching with fear. He wondered why, and then had a flash of something horrible pass through his eyes, ever so briefly.

In his mind’s eye he could see the blackened window again, but its glass had been smashed inward, with a small body that had pushed its way through. A body that was made of a cheap pirate costume and a yarn beard. The window was lined with long panes of shattered glass like tearing fangs, and the child pirate’s frame seemed to sigh downward on and over them, the unseen ends of the teeth pushing the costume upward at chaotic angles. And when the bleak red juice came, it seemed to pour out of the little figure all at once; soaking the front stoop of the mansion, and gurgling into the unseen darkness of the room within, coating whatever secrets were held inside.

This image came to Tom in an instant, and it must have shown on his face. When his father locked eyes with him, there was a deep swell in them both, as if they were both attempting to catch their breaths after a long game of hide and seek. They stared at one other, and Tom sobbed until he couldn’t anymore. His father stood there on the stoop of that mansion and allowed his son to recognize his own fear. It was the least he could do. As Tom’s father carried him from the porch onto a sidewalk that seemed miles away, there were no words that need be spoken. They both understood: there were places that you did not go. Places that, if you go too far, will trap you miles from where a father’s love can save you. The lesson for the evening—for the lifetime—was learned.

Over his father’s shoulder, Tom watched as the mansion got further and further away. His breath and the heat of his hands on the window had left the only traces that he was ever there at all. And then, for a long, low moment, Tom swore that he could see two shapes on the window try to match the prints of his own. They were like hands, but far too long, with narrow, impossibly bony fingers that ended in points. The tips tickered and tackered on the inside of the window, threatening to pull down and create a moaning screech against the fogged glass. Two albino-white hands cutting through the darkness—the only things in the hidden darkness of the mansion that Tom would ever be able to see. Until what appeared to be a thick, purple slug wormed its way up the middle of the glass and disappeared. Before Tom closed his eyes, the massive, bruised tongue licked the glass again, attempting to get at the condensation of breath on the other side.

When Tom’s father disappeared, they moved to the nearby town of Thunderbolt. His father’s dockworker paycheck had kept them far above water, but now that it was gone, they would have to live more frugally. At least that’s what Tom and his mother both assured each other was the reason for their move. It made sense, didn’t it? But he was never sure. It sometimes felt like they were running, instead.

Tom’s mother had always maintained that his father had run off with another woman. “Off to start another life with one of his whores,” she’d say. And when she said it, it was in a voice altogether unlike her usual one. She would be speaking in the sweet, low tones that Tom had always heard from her, and suddenly the words would grate out of her, like hostages escaping their prison during a riot. And she knew it, too. The words seemed to take his mother off guard—as if she had never meant to utter them. And then she would move onto another topic, hurriedly. Like anything else in the world would be a better subject for discussion. But his father was a good man. He didn’t drink—he didn’t gamble his paychecks away. He was loving and caring to both his son and his wife. Tom didn’t believe his mother’s words. And he didn’t think she believed them either.

Something forced her to believe them.

Without either of them knowing the specifics, a horrible thing had happened. And then something had shut off in both of them. What it was exactly that had gone away wasn’t clear. But when Tom tried to remember the last time he had seen his father, it was like a light being turned off, with a long, pale finger flicking the switch. And then he would be wondering what was for dinner and assuaging the pain of his missing father with words of condolence that didn’t sound appropriate at all for a moment of such pain and longing.

My father is gone. He might be dead. He might be rotting. My father is gone.

Oh well. Ho-hum. These things happen.

Sheriff Tom Shellens wondered what sort of appropriate comfort he might be able to offer the two terrified goth kids leaning on the cruiser some 50 yards behind him, as far away from the river as his deputies would let them get. He wondered if comfort would be necessary this time tomorrow. He almost never thought about that mansion anymore, and he wondered about that. Was it a moment that he had forced out of his head? Or had it been forced out by something else? Did the deepest parts of his being have anything to do with that amnesia? He almost never thought about the mansion anymore. Except for on nights like this. He wondered if the shivering, half-naked kids behind him would also eventually forget the specifics of this horrible night. 

It was a common enough occurrence. Bonaventure Cemetery drew all kinds. From the historian to the mild-mannered tourist to the fishnet wearing freaks. Sheriff Tom Shellens had been called out at 4am to remove trespassers from the Cemetery on many occasions. Built in 1846, Bonaventure was 160 acres wide and covered in Spanish moss, marble tombs, and haunting sculptures. Whether it was kids humping or performing new-agey pagan ceremonies or just plain vandalizing Confederate headstones, there was rarely a dull moment. This, however, had marked the first occasion that one of those kids had called to report themselves. Well, not report themselves, exactly. But to report what they had found.

"Christ," the Sheriff said to the corpse. "I fucking hate Mondays."

It had been a photo shoot. That was the story, anyway. No big surprise—they’d found the two of them with a camera and several pieces of lighting equipment: tripods with flash bulbs attached to what looked like short, fat umbrellas. The two of them were both college-aged, kids really, with the dark makeup splatter of what passed for being rebellious in this day and age. The boy was dressed comfortably enough in dark jeans and a grey sweatshirt. The girl seemed less comfortable, dressed as she was in an elaborate lingerie ensemble. All black, buckles snapped to garters that pulled on nylons beneath a leather corset. This was all before she concealed herself beneath an over-sized trench that probably belonged to the boy. Tom knew that the two deputies that he had met there would have been sorry to see the disappearance of all that flesh if it had been any other day in the world. She was a pretty girl, with pale skin and unnaturally black hair: Tom wondered what the appeal of all the lingerie was. Wasn’t the entire point to just take everything off? He wouldn’t have even known where to begin. 

Whatever effect she had been attempting to produce an hour ago, it was a moot point now. They cradled each other, both weeping against the other’s shoulders. If this rendezvous had been anything beyond a professional photo shoot, then Tom felt sorry for them. A dead body was not the ideal backdrop for talking someone out of their panties.

At least it wasn't in the company Tom tended to keep.

The graves and mausoleums that the young photographer had set his lights around were just on the eastern lip of cemetery. From there was a border of dirt road that circumnavigated all 160 acres of it and danced just along the edge of the Savannah River. The tombstones and flickering lights of their makeshift studio did not sidle to the edge of the river in any meaningful way. But that distance couldn’t disguise the shapes that hung from the massive branches of the live oaks that lined the water.

Most of them were what one would expect: the twisted, gnarled insanity of the Spanish Moss that crept in clumps and curtains from trees, creating shade on even the sunniest of days. The sun was just coming up, and it seems to bring a breeze with it that rolled out over the river and shook the creeping vines. The breeze was not enough, however, to move the figure transplanted within them.

With the sun behind her, the body seemed as black as the night that was slowly being pushed away. At first, Tom took this to be a trick of the light: the sudden brightness of the sun creating a silhouette from which nothing was distinguishable. It was only when he noticed that the sun didn’t seem to affect anything else about the body that he realized that she was a permanent shade of charcoal black. Her dress was a delicate, pale green, with intricate stitching and white lace edges. Despite the charred black skin of its wearer, the dress seemed almost untouched, as if the river breezes had kept the fabric clean and new. It wasn’t only her dress that gave him the general idea that she had once been a woman. Her body—what was left of it—was slight and feather-graceful. She hanged there like a morbid dress store mannequin that had been left on a funeral pyre. With the fresh, almost pastel shade of the green dress against the smoke black flesh that wore it, it occurred to Tom that the corpse was entirely the polar opposite of the wan, shuddering, would-be model that now wept against his squad car.

The corpse’s face had no features—only mounds and holes. It was almost more of a lunar landscape than a face, Tom thought. Her eyes were double pools of squid ink—staring forever into a skyline that could do nothing but stare back. Even the first hesitating rays of sunlight couldn’t fill them. They grasped at the light greedily, like two celestial black holes, threatening to drink up all the light in the world. In a horror movie, her mouth would have mirrored the sentiment: a mute scream of fury or frustration or loneliness—all in defiance of a world that she loathed or ached for. But the truth frightened Tom far more. Her lips were pursed delicately, like a serene Roman statue’s. There was no frown and no horrifying smile. Just calm acceptance of a fate that seemed inevitable, or even favorable, to the sport of life. It was almost as if her mouth didn’t exist at all.

"She looks dead," said Jerome Abernathy, one of the deputies. Relatively new to the team, but a good man. Smart. Not generally given to making blindingly, stupidly obvious observations. But Tom knew what he meant. 

To say that the girl in the green dress looked dead was absolutely superfluous. But it was the first thing that had occurred to Tom, as well. Not even that she had once been alive and then died. But that she had never been alive in the first place. The rope that she dangled from was rough and coarse—the sort of rope that would turn a shrimping boat captain’s hands into spun steel. But the weight her body placed on it was nothing. The black grey of her skin was scaled and dry—like the outside of a burnt marshmallow. As Tom got closer, he could just make out two long, narrow slashes that made their way up her inner wrists and arms like twin exclamation points. What was once moist flesh that had pulled away from the even drag of a razor bristled like a desert of scales. Where thick blood should have dripped, only the dimmest motes of silt fell, barely visible but for the sun’s rays shining through them.

She had done this to herself.

And it meant absolutely nothing. It opened no doors. It didn’t even crack a window.

"Yeah," said Tom absently. "She looks dead."

Suicides Tom could account for. Hell, hangings he could account for, he noted sadly to himself. But putting the two together with a body that seemed to have burst into flames sometime shortly after the bars shut down put him in a position he had never before felt in his life. He didn’t know why, but something about the body made Tom think that it was some sort of a sign. A dark portent of things to come.

He hated the girl in the green dress.

He hated the way she made him feel. He hated the memories that seemed to come unlocked in his brain when he looked at her. Why wasn’t she swaying? Shouldn’t a body, no matter how light, rock back and forth in the breeze? He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his back on the river, the trees, the moss, and the girl in the green dress.

When he opened his eyes again, both of his deputies and the young couple were staring at him. They were paler than they had been previously. Their eyes looked strained, as if they had just been informed of a death in the family.

“Are you okay, sir?” That was Ricky Morales, a young man—not much older than the art students who had called them on this November morning.

Tom had been doing something. He didn’t know what. But when he closed his mouth, he realized for the first time that it had been open at all. His entire mouth felt how the dead girl’s skin looked: dry as an English art critic.

He sincerely hoped that he hadn’t been screaming.

“Cut it down,” Tom said.

Morales didn’t move. He knew that wasn’t the proper protocol in a situation like this. Then again, there had never been a situation like this. Was there really any proper way to handle a dead ash woman in a tree?

“Sir?” Morales asked, looking for some sort of clarification.

“Do it.”

The end of the rope wasn’t directly tied to the thick tree branch that supported it. Instead, its length wound around the branch and then to the oak’s massive trunk, some twenty feet below. When Ricky Morales noticed that pulley system, he breathed a sigh of relief: he hadn’t been looking forward to scaling the damn thing. Not for what he was convinced was a dead demon. His abuela had told him stories of the darkness that enveloped the world. Stories of la llorona—the specter of a weeping woman who had long ago lost her children. His abuela had told him that devils strode among the living—free to come and go as they pleased. He had never believed her.

He was beginning to change his mind.

When she came down, it was as if someone had thrown a fistful of wet leaves. Gravity took its toll, but with no urgency, and little effort. The rope almost appeared to be the heaviest part about her. When the girl in the green dress hit the leaf-strewn ground of the riverbank, it was as if she imploded on two ends. Her legs didn’t collapse beneath her so much as they ceased to exist. They telescoped within themselves, disappearing beneath her skirt and dancing against the bank like blackened coins. The rope that had supported her bug’s nest frame just moments ago came down with a force that collapsed her ashen head, her neck, her face. And then, in an instant, that serene mouth and those bottomless eye sockets were extinct from every place in the world but the minds of those who had seen them personally.

"She's gone," Abernathy said, continuing his unspoken decision state the obvious for Tom's benefit.

"I'm glad," said Morales. And by the sound of the long, low shudders that let loose from their lungs, it was clear that the art students felt the same way.

Tom approached the remains of the green dress, though it was a bit hard to refer to them as “remains”. Despite the fall and the pile of staining ash that now weaved its way in and out of the skirt and arms, it was in pristine condition. He thought, momentarily, of giving it to his daughter.

"She'd hate it," he said out loud.

"What was that, Sheriff?" asked Abernathy.

"Never mind."

It was the dress of an old-moneyed girl on a beautiful spring day. Tom's daughter Tamara hated old-moneyed girls, and wasn't fond of spring. Neither was Tom, for that matter.

He stooped to inspect the ashes that the dead girl had left behind, and another breeze picked up from the river. They scattered like grim confetti over the calm eddy of the Savannah River, carried away and out of sight. It was alarming how fast the entire dune of blackened ash had disappeared. As if it had never been there at all. And suddenly Tom was just a grown man standing in a cemetery, holding delicately onto a green dress, the significance of which was starting to cool on him. He inspected the fabric and nodded, as if something in his mind had been made up.

"Yeah," he muttered. "Tamara would hate this."

He bundled the dress into a ball, watching its lace crumple beneath his dirty fingers, and tossed it unceremoniously into a nearby wastebasket. The girl in the green dress was beginning to blur in his mind. Her lips. Her eyes. The ash of her skin. And not just for him.

Even now they were all starting to forget: the goth kids, Morales. Abernathy was making a poor show of not staring at the goth girl's legs.

The memories were dancing out of sight.

Like Tom had forgotten the black mansion in Columbia Square. Like the horrors that hundreds of other Savannahians had almost certainly forced from their minds over years, decades, centuries.

Maybe more.

As Sheriff Tom Shellens gazed out over the last floating wisps of charred skin that bobbed downstream, he was already having trouble remembering the specifics of what had brought him out here in the first place. He turned back in the direction of the art students. Their black makeup was smeared, but they seemed calmer than they had been before. And why shouldn’t they be? There was nothing worth worrying over. Kids get in trouble all the time—it wouldn’t ruin their lives. He would take them in for trespassing. They wouldn’t complain much.

Savannah kept its secrets, and it kept them well.

Chapter Two: Low Country Tower Seven Podcast, Episode 54

(HEAVY METAL THEME MUSIC PLAYS, FADES OUT AS CRICKET BEGINS TO SPEAK.)

CRICKET: Alright, ladies and gentlemen, it’s begun. Not the global uprising, though: don’t panic! No, I can only imagine you would have already noticed that little detail by now, wouldn’t you? Or maybe you wouldn’t—maybe you’d already be dead. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

This is Cricket out of Savannah and welcome back to Low Country Tower Seven: where we will drag you, kicking and screaming, toward the truth, whether you like it or not.

And you never do, you fucking plebs.

And, you know, I was joking just then, but to be honest: based on the current state of readiness with your average American, I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of us would in no way shape or form be ready for some sort of uprising. Hell, sometimes I wonder how we’ve made it this far in the first place. This country used to be ready for anything that could be thrown its way: commies, Nazis, witches, and cloaked lizardmen—we could kick all of their asses, because we took absolutely no shit, no guff, no political correctness. And nowadays, I’m not so sure. This beautiful country of mine: it’s a fucking sacrilege.

We have to be ready for the world.

There’s evil out there, my friends: you can mark my words. And I’m not just talking about the obvious antagonists that we’re all aware of: those politically correct college professors protecting their fundamentalist Sunni buddies. Buncha smooth talkers.

No, there’s more out there than meets the eye, if you only know how to look for it. And that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? That’s why you come to me. Because I know how to look for it, and you know that.

You need me.

Because you’re just like me: you don’t want to be afraid anymore. And you need me to remind you. Being afraid is beneath you. You’re Americans, goddamn it, and you’re not interested in being pushed around by anyone, whether it’s the shadow government, or your own fucking dad! You can’t push around someone who knows the truth. But every now and then we need help, and that’s what people like ole Cricket are here for. I’ve seen that look in your eyes, but my help is something that you earn. Subscribing to this podcast is the first step to showing that you’re better than the other cattle and sheep that populate this planet.

And that reminds me, today's episode of the Low Country Tower Seven Podcast is brought to you by Wicker Man records on Broughton street. Bringing you the best from the the heavy hitting sounds of the deep south: all your favorite rage punk, satano-rock, and Scandinavian style murder metal from the Low Country and beyond. Because your parents aren't afraid of your Dungeons & Dragons habit anymore, and it's time to up the ante. Wicker Man records, because: fuck you, dad.

All right, all right. Now that that's done. So: why is it that there are so few of us who are willing to do what’s right, you might ask? The answers are more obvious than you’d think—and that’s what makes the question seem so silly.

At first.

The government isn’t going to help you because they’refine with you being afraid. Fear makes people easy to control: you know that, and I know that. The gun grabbers are coming, my friends, and you can bet your ass that when they come to this man’s doorstep, they’re going to be staring down a loaded forty-five.

(GUNSHOT SOUND EFFECT.)

And why shouldn’t I protect myself? The news is coming in every day with more and more evidence of the shadows and skulking shapes that are out there waiting for you and your family in your most vulnerable moments!

(UPBEAT THEME JINGLE PLAYS, ANNOUNCING: “THE BAAAAAACK NEWS!!!”)

Let’s take a look at the back pages, shall we? Because, of course, the real news is never on display. What have we got here, what have we got…

(THE SOUND OF NEWSPAPER PAGES RUSTLING.)

Voter turnout at an all-time low for the local elections—well that’s no goddamn surprise. And don’t tell me about voter apathy, you disingenuous bastards—I don’t know a single good-hearted American who isn’t passionate about voting and taking their piece of the pie.

But here comes the day to vote and what do we get? “None of it matters, Cricket—it’s Stalin or Hitler!” “The voting booth’s too far away!” “I can’t vote, Cricket: I’ve gotta work!” Suddenly all of your idealism and brains and good intentions go out the window!

But I don’t blame you—there’s something in the water. There’s something in the food. And what you need to do, is what I do. You need dig your own wells—you need to grow your own food. Take care of yourself, people—you don’t owe the bag boy at Food Lion jack shit. Before you know it, you’ll being drinking ice cold groundwater, and you’ll have fifty different recipes for beets, squash, and cucumber. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound appealing.

What else… What else…

(MORE RUSTLING.)

Alright, here we go: “Joshua Baird, 32 years of age, of Savannah, died of accidental drowning.” This was just this past Thursday. No other word on this Baird kid. Just “send flowers here” and blah blah blah.

32. Young kid.

And he certainly doesn’t look like he had one too many chromosomes or something like that. Nobody else think this is suspicious? And they don’t give you a single word about where it was that the poor bastard drowned. No need, if you ask me.

No, if this poor guy went down around where I think he did, then he was dead the moment his foot touched the water.

Now, I’m not going to name the spot in particular because I don’t want any of my younger listeners to get any cute ideas and try to play boy hero out there. No, I’m not going to be responsible for some epidemic of kids getting drowned.

Let me be perfectly clear: if that family pulls for an autopsy, they’re only going to get more questions. They’re going to get lungs full of water, and an ankle covered in bruises, scratches, and bite marks.

I know some of you think I’m going off the deep end when I bring shit like that up. “Cricket, you gotta focus on the government—the lies—the Bilderberg Group.”

And believe me: that shit is on my radar. Half the name of this podcast is “Tower Seven”, my friends—and don’t you forget it. I’m not blind to the masters pulling the strings. But the other half of this podcast’s name is “Low Country” and that puts a different spin on things. Because down here in the Low Country, we’ve got some unique problems.

A whole lot of you know what I’m talking about, and a whole lot of you don’t. And that’s okay. We all gotta start some place. There’s a lot for us to focus on, people. And I’ll take the crooked politician I know over the flesh-hungry creature I don’t. Say what you want about the beasts of big government—at least they’re just metaphorical monsters.

And people don’t want to hear it—they don’t want to know what’s going on. You’ve seen it. Hell, I saw it this past weekend. My sister had her first kid—that’s right ladies and gentlemen, Cricket’s the authority figure over a fledgling infant.

I gotta tell you, people. Holding that kid changed me. I went out for a quick drive, and before I knew it, I was visiting an old friend of mine. Been doing business with him for years. I’d tell you more, but I gotta protect my sources, you know?

So he sells me a nice little piece with a few extra clips—nothing flashy. American made, hell, he even threw in a few boxes of ammo. He’s a good guy—he knows I’ll be back. Because that’s what loyalty gets you. I know he’s listening right now—thanks again, big guy.

So I bring everything by—all wrapped up. It’s got a bow and everything. I tell them it’s a late baby shower present. And I tell you, folks: it’s unbelievable how ignorant people are. Even family.

Hell, especially family.

They’re going on about what a paranoid asshole I am and how I never listen and they’ve always been against having guns in the house. They throw those statistics at me, you know? How a gun is more likely to hurt a family member than an intruder and yadda yadda yah… And they never know where these statistics come from, do they? And when they do, it’s always some government funded propaganda machine—such bullshit.

And for the record, I did know that they didn’t like guns. But that was before, you know? Before the baby came into the picture. I mean, if that little kid put that much warmth and love into my heart, I can only imagine how much it put into theirs—so why wouldn’t you want to protect it?

That’s what the evolution of these pantywaist ideals has given us. Ribbons and trophies for everyone. Everyone loses because we all win. It’s imbecilic and it goes to such extremes that we are going to wipe ourselves out as a species before the things that go bump in the night even get a chance to dip their toes into our blood.

Unless, of course, that was their plan all along. Which is probably the case. I don’t have proof for that, but how much proof could you possibly need? It’s as plain as the nose on your goddamn face.

Anyway, I apologized about the gun. Made a big show of putting it away in my car. Went out, got the kid some clothes. Paid in cash cause I'm not an idiot. Whatever. But I did sneak back to their place the next night and hid it away. Yeah, I put everything in a nice airtight container so nothing rusts. Pried open some boards from the crawlspace under their front porch and gave it a little shallow grave. Nothing they need to know about right now, and sure they’d be pissed off if they’d caught me. I mean, I’m not crazy: I know how that would look. But it's better to bury a gun in case of emergency than to bury a family member because the gun wasn't around, am I right?

Hell: that's almost poetic.

And when the proverbial shit hits the fan, and they get a message from me offering a simple and patriotic solution for saving the lives of themselves and that little baby? They’ll thank me then.

Maybe if Joshua Baird, age 32, had himself a gun, he would at least have had a fucking chance.

Alright, enough for sucking my own dick. Up next we’ve got one of my world-famous guests. He runs a still out of Effingham County—makes his own vodka, and a brand of absinthe with more wormwood than a human should probably consume. Is it legal? Is it safe for bodily consumption? Probably a “no” on both counts, but who really decides what's right for their own body?

That's right, kids: you do.

Chapter Three: What Do We Do If They Don’t Drink?

The lobby of the Conrad Aiken Inn was filled with the smiling eyes of the armchair historian, the drunken whimsy of the visiting sorority sister, and the forced grins of the beleaguered tour guide. They filled the lobby to the breaking point every afternoon, and would disappear until their breath stank of ethanol, and their cheeks glowed like sinner-saints.

Simon hated them.

He hated them all. He glared out over their sea of grinning teeth and wished that they were all dead. This didn’t really have anything to do with the tourists themselves. He didn’t like them, but he didn’t like most people on afternoons.

Or mornings.

Or evenings.

The tourist locusts came from all over, looking to fulfill the expectation that they had built up in their heads for Georgia’s oldest city. The same way they had when they visited Baltimore the week before and Saint Augustine the week before that. The people of New Orleans knew which side their bread was buttered on, and so they would play up what they were known for. And the streets were alive with dead Voodoo practices and the stretched rubber band squeal of trumpets and trombones. It was in Savannah’s best interests to approach tourists in the same way; offering up to the outsider what they did best.

This was the reason that Simon gave for his drinking.

The Conrad Aiken Inn was a massive boutique hotel that overlooked River Street, Savannah’s tourist-laden answer to NOLA’s Bourbon. During the day, it was something of a generic, old-world style Riverwalk. But at night, the street and Savannah herself were in their prime, and the shops and hooch halls built directly into the stone would open their doors wide to the wet marsh air, drawing in guests with promises of oysters, libations, and innuendo-laden souvenirs. Men with saxophones and fiddles would play lazily on the sidewalks, and their notes would drift complacently over the murmuring water of the Savannah River.

The easy comparison to make was always to Louisiana’s own Sodom and Gomorrah, but Savannah had never reached the nitrous highs of New Orleans. It was far too much of a sleepy and lazy town for that. That said, it never reached the lows of The Big Easy, either. Discreetly violent and unabrasively queer, it was a comfortable mish mash of the South’s starving artists and obese debutantes. A swishing perfume of marijuana smoke in the stifling Low Country humidity. For Simon, it was the most perfect place to live in the world. The locals of the historic district were the same levels of drunk and sleepy as he was. His first few years of living in Savannah had come about by accident—the results of a post-graduation wanderlust that had led him from one friend’s couch to another.

Laziness and a disregard for ambition came to him naturally, and he’d never seen anything particularly wrong with that, no matter how much it seemed to confuse and concern friends and loved ones. Explaining this tendency to others was quite a bit like attempting to teach someone how to touch their nose with their tongue: an effort that only made you both feel embarrassed for the other the more you practiced it.

You’re either born to doze or you aren’t, Simon thought, checking the time on his computer again.

Naturally sleepy-eyed and low-speaking, Simon would have stood taller than most, if it weren’t for that aforementioned laziness and a round belly, full of all of the pointless and perfect food and booze that the lifestyle of a concierge provided. The general shift from bohemian bum to cultural attaché was certainly drastic, but in a way it made its own sense.

“I didn’t know it would be so sad-looking,” his most recent guest, an aging woman from Topeka, said to the slate sky that drowned the horizon over the Savannah river.

Simon had never been to Topeka. But he was certain that he hated it.

In those earliest Savannah days and evenings, Simon had found himself living on the government dole and getting day drunk on the front steps of all of the most illustrious Historic homes that did not belong to him. He had smiled and waved at out-of-towners in horse drawn carriages, tilting his half full cup of cheap wine in a toast to their own questionable health. They loved it. For years, Simon was essentially part of the grand tour of Savannah. And then he made the questionable decision to work for a living, and the tourism industry snatched him up. He was the true local, they figured—just the person who could offer advice on the best places in the Low Country to eat, drink and be merry.

Slowly, but effortlessly, he learned to loathe people.

Individually, people were not always terrible. But when forced into huge packs away from their home turf, he couldn’t help but notice how helpless they were. The simplest directions—the most obvious recommendations: nothing was too rudimentary that it couldn’t be repeated over and over again, in various speeds, tones and even languages. Being in charge of several hundred toddlers wouldn’t have been so bad if they weren’t so ungrateful for it all.

“I’m sorry,” Simon said to Topeka, attempting his best impression of a cheerful grin. “I’m a just a lowly concierge—they’ve made it very clear that our weather control powers are to be kept to an absolute minimum.”

The woman sniffed, as if considering to herself that the next time she visited Savannah, she would choose a hotel that made a more liberal use of their supernatural powers. She fixed Simon with a withering stare, which he responded to by smiling so hard that he was certain his skull would rip through his face and clatter to the floor. He made her reservations with a trolley tour, and for the moment she was satisfied.

Simon hated trolley tours.

If today’s hangover had a physical character, Simon decided, it would be a Christmas tree: intermittently bright with flashing bulbs: all dark green with reaching, vaguely scratchy edges. Not horrible, but if you could avoid falling into one, you probably should.

Some ten years ago, Simon had drunk like a bumbling satyr: in the pursuit of fun and a steadying of the nerves. He had always been somehow simultaneously lazy and tense at all times, like a vibrating slug that sweated its body weight in worry while traveling at two centimeters per hour. The liquid left him cheerful and calm. It left him a better man. In many ways, the booze had saved him.

Not to sound dramatic—but perhaps it saved me from himself.

He would roll that thought around in his head when he was particularly deep within the bottle. Sometimes it made perfect sense. And sometimes it sounded like a load of horseshit.
And as he got older, the drink became medicine. He drank to connect before. Now he drank to escape. He wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with that fact, but there it was.

This story is comprised of the first few chapters in a longer work titled "Drunken Vampire Hunting For Beginners”, also by Phil Keeling.

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