Ralph woke up, the cold air sending a chill along his naked body. He stood as his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the diner’s back room. Shivering, he braced himself on the large sink they used for washing dishes and tugged on his underwear.
His back stung as he pulled his tee shirt on; the long, parallel scratches running down his back erupting in protest to the touch of the rough fabric. Jenny’s nails had done a number on him.
He stood still for a moment and felt as though he had forgotten something. He’d had that feeling a lot lately. Ralph ran a hand over his face and touched the tears which had begun to dry on his cheeks. After a moment, he tugged on his pants and tried to find his socks. A fresh round of sobs wracked his body.
Ralph felt violated, broken in some horrible and indescribable way. It felt like his soul had been shattered and crudely repaired by unskilled hands.
He got himself under control twenty minutes later, put on the rest of his clothes and locked up the diner for the night.
Out in the parking lot, the night air cut through his black leather jacket and froze his legs through the blue jeans he wore. He stared down at the shattered glass and jagged pieces of metal where his car had been, the memory of Holt’s accident coming back. He caught flashes of the sheriff’s half-face, the image burning in his mind’s eye like an accusation.
Jenny had said something, hadn’t she? She’d said they’d seen worse. He didn’t know how that was even possible.
What have I done?
The question had been repeating itself, screaming in his mind like a skipping record for months. Over and over his thoughts danced across the gaps in his memory, the cracks in his mind matched those in his soul.
What have I done?
Ralph swallowed and looked around, wondering how he was going to get home.
His car.
Something about his car worried him.
What have I-
Ralph shut his eyes and slapped himself across the face. Trying to concentrate felt like stumbling through a labyrinth cloaked absolute darkness. He was lost among a thousand blind turns, punch drunk from running head first into the walls.
Something about his car, something about the night before. What was it? His car was important, maybe the most important thing ever. He had to get to it soon, but why?
Ralph let out a frustrated snarl and began walking up the road to Brown’s Junk with fear twisting in his guts, fear he didn’t understand.
***
Susan felt a rush of water flood her nostrils and sat up with a start. She coughed and choked, her arms flailing as water splashed around her.
Drowning!
The water stung her eyes and she locked them shut against the onslaught as her hand touched something cold, hard and smooth. She clung to it and forced her eyes open, catching a blurry glimpse of the motel bathroom around her.
She’d fallen asleep in the tub.
The bath had turned cold but without a clock in sight she didn’t know how long she’d been asleep. Susan leaned back and caught her breath, the feeling of panic waning as the day’s events came back to her.
After a minute, she stood. Her legs were still shaking but she gripped the metal rail for support and pulled the plug.
Her body shivered while she dried off and got dressed. Mary and her daughter hadn’t thought to bring a change of clothes. Susan put on the shirt and underwear she had been wearing earlier. It bothered her, but it felt less creepy than sleeping naked in a cheap motel.
Back on the bed, she thought about watching television, but thought more of the strange dreams she’d had while asleep in the tub. She couldn’t remember any of them, really, just broken images and memories of feelings.
She’d been in the woods, pictures of trees and rocks frozen in her mind. It felt like she had been thinking of someone, maybe remembering a conversation. No details came to her. Had she been walking? Walking with someone?
A memory came to her of rustling leaves and fading light.
Susan wrestled with it a few minutes, feeling as if she’d forgotten something important. Eventually she gave up and turned on the TV.
“…we’ll tell you just what effect this rebate is expected to have. Last month, a fire in Fitzwilliam left a family of four with only the clothes on their backs. Find out how an entire community has come together to help them in their time of need.”
“The State Police and FBI are looking for new leads in a mystery nearly two decades old. Learn what a couple of adventurous fishermen stumbled across and how you can help find a missing woman.”
“And finally, it’s no surprise that the cost of heating is on everyone’s mind as the days grow colder, but it might surprise you to learn just-“
Susan changed the channel, slowly wading through the networks, trying to find something that would make her laugh. She wondered why every channel felt the need to put their news on at eleven o’clock. How many people actually stayed up to watch it?
And didn’t everyone have the internet anyway? She’d heard newspapers were struggling with the digital age, but they made more sense to her than watching the news on television. At least the paper gave you a crossword puzzle and comics.
Crossword puzzle.
She frowned. The thought seemed to come out of nowhere, felt almost like a whisper in her ear. Still…
Susan shut off the television and tugged on her jeans, remembering she’d seen a few newspaper boxes next to the office door. She dug in her pocket, found nearly two dollars in quarters and headed out of the room.
A crossword puzzle sounded like a great idea.
The night was chilly, her wet hair and still-damp skin made her wish she’d thought to put on her sweater.
She looked at the cars around her as she walked toward the office. She saw SUVs, sedans and a pickup truck illuminated by the yellow glow of the lights shining down on the lot. Her mind was doing its thing again, latching onto the meaningless, making her question every mundane detail around her.
Susan wondered briefly how many people really needed SUVs or pickup trucks. Did any of these people take their cars off-road? Did the owner of the pickup ever put more than groceries in the back?
The license plates also caught her attention. She saw cars from Vermont, New York and one from California which made her wonder what had motivated those people drive so far. Was it the fall foliage?
The leaves were beginning to turn color and soon autumn would set the hills on fire, an annual occurrence that drew people to New England from all over the country. She supposed being a local made it hard to see the attraction, which disappointed her a little.
Susan didn’t like to think she took many things for granted, but maybe she did.
When had she last taken a walk in the woods or gone fishing with her father? That last thought made her feel a sharp sting of regret. Bill Holterman would never win “Father of the Year”, but he used to take her fishing and hunting quite often when she was younger and now she found she missed it.
She’d loved the outdoors back then. Now it was a struggle to even notice it.
Maybe that’s what her dream had been about, some long lost memory of the walking through the woods with her father. She didn’t think so, but maybe.
Maybe it’s just the call of the wild.
She reached the office and saw a sign hung on the door that read “Back at Midnight”. She looked at the selection of newspapers in front of her.
Susan vaguely remembered the machines were called “honor boxes”, the theory being you’d take only one paper once you put in your money and the door opened, even though nothing stopped you from walking away with the whole stack. They’d always made her smile for some reason. The machines were a symbol of undying optimism in a world that needed more of that sort of thing.
She dropped three quarters in the slot and pulled out that day’s Cedarford Gazette. Susan had heard the Sunday puzzles were better, but she doubted the next morning’s edition had even been printed yet.
Besides, to a crossword buff, “better” meant harder and she hadn’t done one in a long time.
She looked down at the change in her hand and was debating whether or not to buy the Union Monitor too when she heard a door open and close nearby. Susan looked up and saw a man in a shirt and tie walking in her direction.
She folded the paper and started back toward her room. As they passed each other, the man smiled and muttered a greeting. He was older, perhaps fifty, with a thinning head of dark hair. She smiled back, the awkward knot in his tie forcing her to stifle a small laugh.
A large box truck rumbled down the road as Susan got back to her room. Once she reached the door she found it locked and remembered she’d left the keys on the nightstand. She cursed under her breath and rattled the knob in vain, part of her wishing she’d shared a room with her mother after all.
She glanced in the direction of Mary’s room and saw a pickup parked in the space next to their car. Her mother had company and the lights in the room were off.
Susan felt hatred well up inside her for a moment. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to pound on her mother’s door and start the screaming fight that was years overdue.
Don’t fuck with me or I’ll fuck you back.
Her mother’s silent threat echoed in her head. Her father lay in a hospital bed, almost certainly dying, and while she felt grief and worry for him, Susan was also worried for herself.
Without her father, she’d be left alone with her mother. As she stood outside the door to her room, she thought of the special sort of hell that would be.
She turned back and hit her head against the door, feeling well and truly screwed.
“Trouble?”
The voice startled her. She turned and saw the man with the thinning hair and crooked tie standing to her left. Something in his demeanor put her at ease when otherwise she’d have been suspicious.
Susan saw him clearly now, the bare bulb above her door casting a brighter light than the pathetic glow in the parking lot. He looked familiar, though she was sure they’d never met.
An emotion stirred inside her then, a feeling tickling the back of her mind, but she didn’t know what to make of it. She felt oddly comfortable, friendly.
“Yeah,” she said, the hint of a laugh escaping her. “Locked out.” Susan tried turning the knob again and demonstrated the truth of what she’d said.
“I see.” He frowned and looked toward the office. “I don’t believe anyone will be back for a while. If you’d like, I can take a stab at it.” He turned back and gestured toward the door. Susan gave him a curious look.
“What, pick the lock?” She asked.
“If you’d like.” He smiled. In his face, Susan saw long, hard years, but they looked sort of good on him. He didn’t look haggard or beaten, just well-worn and world-wise. He was handsome, right down to the tie, and she wondered briefly how he smelled.
What the hell are you thinking, Susan?
She laughed a little, a nervous reaction to the blood she felt settling into her cheeks. Susan felt an odd pull of attraction that seemed both out of place and strangely familiar.
“What are you, a cat burglar?” She asked, pushing aside the feeling that had come over her.
He laughed and reached for something in his pocket as he stepped forward. She moved a little to her right, giving him room to work as she saw him pull out a small leather case and remove two thin metal tools.
She thought he smelled nice and Susan shivered a little. She felt more blood flow into her cheeks as she tried to push away the thoughts which grown more insistent. That familiarity, that attraction, that feeling of ease and comfort he inspired in her. They didn’t feel like her own emotions. Susan bit her lip.
“No, not a cat burglar,” he said.
He knelt down and started working on the door. She wondered how he could see what he was doing in the dim light. He looked up and seemed to sense her question. “It’s more about feeling than seeing.” Susan nodded.
“You do this a lot?” She asked, trying to focus on what he was doing instead of what she was feeling. He shrugged.
“Sometimes, though usually when I need to get through a locked door I’m in a hurry.”
She watched as he worked at the lock, feeling a little more secure when she saw it was taking him a while. If he’d popped it open in seconds, she’d never get to sleep that night. Not alone, anyway.
And with that thought, her mind began to wander again. She thought of his arms around her and wondered what else his deft fingers could do.
Susan! What the fuck, girl?
“What’s your name?” He asked the question without looking up. She was glad he kept his eyes on his work.
Her face felt hot and she was certain it would be cherry red if she looked in the mirror. One embarrassing, inappropriate thought led to the next, reminding her of the rude things her friend Carla usually said.
I’d like to buy a ticket for that ride.
“Huh?” She said.
“Your name?” He asked again.
“Oh, Susan.”
“I’m Jack” he said. “Can I ask what’s with the newspaper? I thought young people all used computers now.”
“Oh. I was bored, couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d do a crossword,” she said. Jack laughed and she found the sound a little contagious.
“What? Something wrong with that?” Susan asked.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just, I knew someone else who was like that. She did crossword puzzles when she couldn’t sleep.”
“Well, I haven’t done one in years. The mood struck me I guess,” she said. It seemed she was in the mood for all sorts of things that night.
Susan!
“I suppose it’s better than television. And on that note, I think that’s it.” She heard a click and he pushed the door open as he stood up and put away his lock picks.
“Just don’t mention this to anyone, if that’s alright. This isn’t a service I’m really supposed to provide.” Susan nodded and laughed again.
“Well, thank you very much, Jack,” she said.
Susan stepped closer to him then, stuffed the newspaper under her arm and grabbed his tie.
“Sorry. I just can’t stand this,” she said.
Jack stood there, dumbfounded as she pressed her body against his and stripped off the tie. Her fingers worked quickly, twisting and turning the fabric with practiced grace, working it into a perfect Windsor knot in a matter of seconds.
Jack reached up and touched it when she was done, a look of confusion and wonder in his eyes. She stood against him, looking up with an amused expression that was also a little inviting. He stared at her.
“Why did you…”
Susan realized what she’d just done and blushed again, her cheeks turning into stop lights as she covered her mouth and stumbled back.
“Oh my god!” Susan said. “I’m so sorry! It’s like straightening the paintings in a hotel room or something. I’m really sorry. You think I’m a nut!”
“No that’s…” Jack trailed off as he watched her. “It’s fine, really. Thanks.”
They stood there for an awkward minute, then Jack seemed to shake something off and spoke.
“It was nice, to meet you I mean, Susan,” he said. He wasn’t quite stammering, but was in the neighborhood. “Enjoy your puzzle.”
She gave him an embarrassed smile, mortified beyond description and thanked him. She went inside and closed the door quickly behind her.
In her mind, she heard Carla Morris laughing. She imagined sitting next to her friend on the old log out behind the middle school athletic field where they always hung out, passing a bottle of Bill Holterman’s bourbon between them.
Didn’t know you were into old men, Sue. He need a pill or can he still get it up on his own?
Susan covered her mouth again, trying not to laugh herself hysterical in the motel room. She’d almost kissed him, almost planted her lips on his and tickled his tongue with her own. Even with his thinning hair and messed up tie, she thought he looked just fine.
She looked down and saw the newspaper at her feet, the inner pages slipping out. She bent down and gathered it up, shaking her head as she wondered where those thoughts had even come from.
***
Jack stood still for a moment, staring at Susan’s door. He started, like he’d been slapped by an invisible hand, and walked back toward his own room.
When he opened the door, Driscoll looked up from the paper he was reading on the bed, immediately noticing something off about his friend.
“What?” Peter asked. Jack looked disheveled somehow, almost comical. Jack shook his head and crossed the room to sit down his own bed, his mind working through the encounter he’d just had.
“I’m not sure,” Jack said. “No one’s at the office right now. They’ll be back at midnight.”
“Something happen?” Driscoll was smiling. “I mean, what?”
“It’s nothing,” Jack said. “A girl I met just now. I helped her get back in her room after she’d locked herself out.”
“A girl?” Driscoll laughed and stood up, dropping the paper on the bed behind him. “Did you get her number?”
“She might have been seventeen, Peter.” Jack gave his friend a look. Driscoll laughed again.
“You know,” he said, “from the look on your face, Jack, I’d think you were having a crisis of conscience.”
Jack rolled his eyes at him as Driscoll walked over to the dresser and started looking through the remains of the Chinese food they’d ordered. He turned back to Jack after a minute. “So, what about her?”
“What?”
“This girl who might have been seventeen,” Peter said. “You seem shaken. Must’ve been something about her.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She reminded me of someone.”
Peter stood looking at him as he used a pair of chopsticks to pull cold sesame noodles from the container he’d picked up.
“She reminded me a little of Brenda,” Jack said as he felt the knot of the tie and thought of crossword puzzles.
“Ah.” Peter ate quietly for a moment. “How’d that make you feel?”
“How did what make me feel?”
“Seeing someone who reminded you of her,” Peter said between mouthfuls. “How’d that make you feel?”
Jack thought about it for a while. He’d been surprised, shocked. Of course, there were certain other thoughts thrown in the mix, thoughts he wasn’t the least bit comfortable with, but…
Brenda had been like no other girl in school, nor like any other woman he’d known since. Meeting someone else that even vaguely reminded him of her was something he’d never expected, and in some way it delighted him.
Meeting Susan had made him happy in a way, happy that someone so new in life shared something in common with his wife whose life was over. It was like a part of Brenda had lived on.
“Better,” Jack said, smiling a little. “I don’t know why, but I feel better.”
***
Samantha Devlin woke up, her face pressed against the pillow, a hand wedged between her legs. Her breathing was rough, quick; sweat poured from her body. She sat up and shook her head, clearing away the cobwebs from her mind.
“What the fuck,” she said when she realized what she’d been doing as she slept. She groaned and laughed, falling back onto the mattress. “I seriously need to get laid.”
She’d been dreaming. The details had left her immediately, but knew the dream had been intensely erotic. She remembered flashes of bare skin, the smell of sex, hands lifting her hips.
She sighed and closed her eyes hoping to find her way back to the dream. A loud series of beeps interrupted her.
“Fuck,” she whined and sat up. She fumbled for the switch on the lamp beside the bed, nearly knocking it over twice before she managed to turn it on.
Her laptop was still on, but it was the cell phone connected to it that was complaining.
“Oh come on, I thought I turned this fucking thing off.”
She hit the space bar and her laptop’s screen came up. Sam had left it connected to the internet and her phone’s battery was dead.
Sam disconnected the phone and got up to hunt for the charger she hoped she’d remembered to take with her. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found it and set her phone up to recharge on the nightstand.
“Arise!” She commanded, then turned back to her laptop.
She’d left her mail program open, which proudly proclaimed it had thirty-seven new messages for her to review. She slid the computer onto her lap as she dropped on the bed.
She was up now, and knew she’d be awake for hours. Sam looked at the clock. It was one in the morning and as her stomach growled, she wondered if any place in the area was still delivering.
Most of the email messages were from advertisers, public relations firms and other people that wanted cheap or free exposure on her site. Under normal circumstances she’d offer them a snarky reply but she wasn’t in the mood.
She sent them all to the trash and looked through the few messages which had been sent to her “tips” address. It hardly seemed worth it most of the time. Sam thought she might have gotten a grand total of two solid leads since asking people to send her information about strange occurrences or weird phenomena.
There was a sighting of Sasquatch near Seattle, two more hits about the crop circles she was avoiding, the usual crap. One message was huge. She opened it and saw someone had mailed her a dozen high resolution photos, all attached to the same message.
“Jesus, send a link next time.”
The first image looked like a scan of a missing persons bulletin from the mid-nineties. A couple, Frank Burns and his wife Cassandra, last seen August 1994. The rest were a combination of crime scene and autopsy photos.
Sam had seen her fair share of fakes, but these seemed real enough to be interesting, if not a little creepy. It looked like the photos were all of the man in the bulletin. Sam read the text of the message.
“Dear Sam, I am an employee of the Cedarford County Medical Examiner’s Office in New Hampshire…”
***
Ralph Harper had a lot of time to think as he walked. The diner and Brown’s Junk were on opposite ends of town and although Cedar Mills had a small population, its boundary encircled a large area.
He smoked, lighting cigarette after cigarette as he endured the chill air and put more miles on his boots than his feet liked.
He felt wrong.
That’s all the explanation his brain could muster. He’d heard people sometimes had dreams where they’re standing naked in a crowd. They feel helpless, confused and embarrassed all at the same time. Ralph had felt that way for months.
His memory was shot, his nerves seemed out of whack. He’d caught himself more than once just staring at the food as it cooked on the grill, watching it sizzle and burn. As he stared, he’d felt horrified, an indescribable terror flowing through his nervous system like lightning. The red flesh bubbled, browned and blackened, the smell of burning meat filled his nostrils.
He’d heard that scent and memory were closely linked, the result of some evolutionary advantage humans had picked up on their journey from fish to ape to man. Ralph didn’t know if it was true, but the smell of cooking meat tickled something in his mind. It sickened him.
Nothing made sense anymore, not even Jenny. Especially Jenny. They did things to each other that brothers and sisters weren’t supposed to do, things no one was supposed to do.
That night, as they’d done those things on the floor of the diner’s back room, he’d felt a wave of revulsion course through him. He’d almost vomited, but hung on. She’d known something was wrong, but he’d brushed it off, throwing himself into the act until they’d collapsed into a heap together.
He didn’t know if he could do it again. The thought of doing that to his sister turned his stomach inside out.
Ralph’s skull felt two sizes too small for his brain, his hands shook as he chain smoked and the world kept going in and out of focus. He was worse than ever and he hadn’t been good in a long time. Seeing Holt had shaken him, shaken something loose.
Jenny’s words. “We’ve seen worse, baby.”
What the hell did that mean? Ralph felt condemned, damned. He felt the weight of something hideous on his shoulders, but didn’t know what.
Burning meat.
He shook his head as tears filled his eyes again.
Finally, he came to the hill and walked up the dirt road leading to junk yard. The place was deserted.
Apart from the chain link fence, locked gate and an ancient mutt that had died the year before, Bob Hicks had never bothered with security. Ralph took hold of the fence and climbed up, dropping over to the other side with ease.
The lights were off, but the half-moon above let him see well enough. The front lot held several vehicles, most were totaled but a few had been government tows, cars which had been parked illegally or abandoned.
Hicks had a good racket going there, especially in the winter when the town and county officials kept him awake all night, towing cars so the snow plows could do their work.
It took Ralph nearly twenty minutes to find his car; he walked past it four times before recognizing the heap of broken glass and twisted metal. The front end was pulverized, but the rear was more or less intact. He stood staring at the wreck, willing himself to remember what it was that had brought him there.
His car. Something was important. Something he didn’t want anyone else to find.
He remembered doing something the night before. It was dark, cold. He’d been…somewhere. Outside? Ralph remembered trees, stumbling through bushes. He squeezed his eyes shut, tugging at the tattered strands of his memory.
He’d been carrying something.
He was in the woods, near the lake and he’d been carrying something. A bag? He clenched his teeth and his fists. He’d been out in the woods for hours. His muscles hurt, his hands were dirty. Ralph stumbled through the underbrush, a flashlight in his hand as he picked his way along a path, a heavy bag slung over his shoulder. Something in the bag was digging into his side with every step, no matter how he adjusted it.
The images faded and he shook his head.
Ralph stared at the remains of his car for another minute, then walked toward it. He reached the trunk and saw that the latch had held but the lock was smashed. He turned and walked back to the shop.
Hicks kept the place locked but without an alarm, getting in was just a matter of smashing the glass in the door and opening it from the inside. He was a mile from anywhere but didn’t dare turn on the light. The sheriff’s men would be out in full force tonight after what had happened and Ralph didn’t need one of them passing by and noticing his visit.
He found a crowbar and went back outside. A minute later he popped the lid open and peered into his trunk.
Ralph stood and stared.
His mind shattered in the moonlight.
***
Rachel Taylor woke up at seven thirty and smiled before her eyes were even open, which surprised her. She’d never been a morning person and usually got up feeling like a blind, angry bear.
That morning, though, instead of sliding half-heartedly out of bed to stumble toward the coffee pot, she stretched, threw off her blankets and headed into the shower.
There was a certainty about her, hanging in the very air. Something amazing was going to happen. It wasn’t exactly a feeling of anticipation, but that was the best word Rachel could come up with as the hot water flowed over her body.
It was going to be the best day of her life and she didn’t know why.
Ten minutes later she was brewing a pot of coffee as she flipped through a nature magazine one of her customers had given her, feeling the good mood swell inside her.
She didn’t dwell on the feeling or try to figure out the reason behind it. Most people probably would, their rational minds working to solve the mystery. Rachel didn’t bother. Happiness was something to be welcomed, not examined.
A good mood wasn’t a puzzle which needed solving.
Rachel poured her coffee and read about Bengal tigers as she sat, enjoying each moment without worrying about the next. She was half-way through her second cup when the phone rang.
“Absolutely!” Rachel said when Jenny asked if she could come in.
The woman seemed taken aback by Rachel’s enthusiasm but didn’t question it. If she had, Rachel wouldn’t have had an answer. Going to work just felt…right. She belonged there that morning.
Why else had Jenny called her in? Part of her was aware that how she felt, what she was thinking, didn’t make any real sense. It wasn’t knowledge or reason, it was faith.
Some people believe in a divine plan, that every single event is part of a grand design. They believe so wholly in its truth that to question any part would be no different from blasphemy.
As Rachel got ready for work, she understood that belief more than anyone.
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