18 Wheels of Horror

by Eric Miller

  Clint “Herc” Walker, the cop killer, the minister. “I’m unarmed,” he said, ducking out of the Trans-Am. Eaten by disease, he looked like a dweller in darkness, not meant to stand in the sun. Eyes even pinker and more rat-like, skin like the transparent membrane of an onion.

  “You’ll want to raise your hands,” Clay said.

  Herc did.

  “You shouldn’t have come here, Herc.”

  “I recognize you. You were at the bar last night.”

  He’d gone to the house to talk to Junior again, he explained. Son thought he was just another born-again, a Bible thumper. Which he supposed he was. Finding the place empty, he drove out here, a place he swore he’d never visit.

  “I’ve heard what my son does.” Herc glanced at the chained pit bulls. “What I saw at the house was bad enough. Is he in there?” He nodded at the trailer.

  Clay shook his head.

  Herc peered past him, into the ring. Swallowed.

  He wanted to try one last time with his son before he called police, he said. Kept calling Scott, Junior’s childhood friend. Scott usually answered.

  “I don’t suppose he’s in there, either,” Herc said.

  “Try him again.”

  Herc dialed a number.

  Wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka

  He sighed.

  “I was hoping I could save him. My son. But he didn’t want to be saved. Him, Scott, the whole gang, they were headed for a reckoning. And you gave it to them. What you’ve done here, it’s…”

  “Monstrous,” Clay mimicked Doo-Rag.

  “…something I might have done, if I hadn’t spent my youth busting heads in bars.” Herc smiled with one side of his face, the way some men smile after crying.

  “I used to be a vindictive SOB. You may have heard I killed a man. A deputy. I was drunk that night, but I’d been fixing to kill him anyway. He stole the woman I loved.”

  Every brawl, Herc said, was practice for when he would finally kill that man. Then all that rage, all that vengefulness, caught up with him. God forgave him for what he did, but his body wouldn’t. That was God’s price, he said, giving us vessels that can’t sustain our darkest impulses.

  “God will forgive you for what you’ve done,” Herc said. “Even I can forgive you. It’s not too late for you, if you stop now. Let those people go. Kill me instead. I’m dead anyway. Take my car. Disappear. With your health, the sky’s the limit. Save yourself. Be born again. All that rage and vengefulness, it doesn’t have to kill you.”

  “Maybe, not yet,” Clay said, approaching Herc. “Still, you’ve given me an idea.”

  He pressed Jimmy One to Herc’s forehead. Kidney cancer, nasty way to send a man to the underworld.

  “Maybe not even the sky’s the limit,” Clay said.

  And pistol-whipped him unconscious.

  Herc, the born-again, saving people.

  Offering them redemption.

  Clay got in the Trans-Am. Keys were in the ignition. Rosary draped over the rearview mirror, Christ on a chain of death and rebirth. And Clay’s face in the glass—a mask of puke and gore, a mask he couldn’t take off.

  Monstrous.

  ***

  Flight 1580 to Athens landed right on time.

  Dressed in the airline’s new blue uniform, Shem Steward rolled his luggage through the jet bridge into the airport terminal. He bought coffee and gummy bears and took a table in the nearest food court.

  Not that he needed caffeine, but he still enjoyed the ritual, sitting down with a cup of Joe and “playing” at drinking.

  In his down time, sightseeing, Shem had learned something about Greek myth.

  This ancient king of Thebes, Laius, gets rid of his baby because an oracle told him he’s going to sire a son who will kill him. Years later he’s traveling to Delphi in his chariot when he encounters a young man walking toward him at the crossroads. Young man won’t give way, so Laius tries to run him off the path. Young man gets so enraged he kills Laius. Young man turns out to be Laius’s grown-up son.

  Moral of the story: Don’t be a King Shit like Laius.

  The young man, he’s got troubles, too.

  When he gets to the crossroads, he’s already upset. The oracle tells him he’s going to kill his father and marry his mother. And because he’s a King Shit like his dad, because he won’t share the road even with a sovereign, he fulfills the prophecy and doesn’t realize it till way after.

  Moral of the story: Don’t be a King Shit like Oedipus.

  For some of you, life’s a Greek tragedy: You can’t accept how things are, but if you think you’re the one to fix them, you’re begging for a beat down.

  You’re a King Shit.

  You’re doomed.

  And doom followed Shem from city to city. Guts, Shem called him, born of horror and disgust, the shadow of the shadow of a man named Clay Haller. Shem sort of looked like Haller, only bald and mustached, his co-worker was sure he resembled someone famous but couldn’t place it. Guts knew, though, Guts who stalked Shem across oceans, who needed no food or rest. Guts, like that golem Haller became long ago.

  That day on Sin Mountain, pointing a gun at a dead man’s head, Haller saw he would take his war to the skies, where no birds soared.

  Since then the puking stopped and Shem Steward felt strong as ever. Like Guts, biding his time, studying his adversary, a creature of rage like his creator, waiting to give the King Shit a taste of his own medicine.

  Till that day of reckoning, Shem had work to do.

  That job in a bubble thirty-thousand feet in the air, a microcosm where chaos didn’t reach. Annoyances yes, but only the occasional Laius type. Like the guy in 26C, wouldn’t stop texting while they readied for takeoff. Ignored Shem’s request three times, finally said he’d stop when he finished his message and not a moment before.

  His skintight T-shirt said, “Contents of this shirt may cause choking.” Woman next to him, staring at something across the aisle, had a dime-sized bruise on her throat.

  Sitting at the table, Shem popped a gummy bear in his mouth and watched people go by. His coworker waved and rolled her luggage over.

  Her name was Absolut, like the vodka, like Shem’s attitude toward guys like 26C. Cocoa-skinned, big dark almond eyes, men rubbernecking when she sashayed down the aisle. His partner in coach sashayed toward him now, back from the deli with a mountain of curly fries she placed between them.

  “That’s right, you don’t eat,” she said, “except for those things.” The gummy bears. “How do you do it?”

  “I put one in my mouth. Then I chew it.”

  “Haha. I mean, how is it you never get tired or hungry?”

  “I’m just made funny.”

  While Absolut dug into her fries, Shem noticed someone watching them across the food court. Guy his size, wearing black jeans and a matching hoodie. He slunk off behind the magazine rack, and Shem knew from experience he was gone, like a shadow into a shadow, the shadow of Athens, the shadow of a chariot waiting at the crossroads.

  26C walked past, pausing mid-text to give Shem the stink eye. The woman next to him on the plane trailed after him, hauling their carry-ons.

  Shem watched 26C go into the men’s room.

  “That jerk,” Absolut said. “The whole flight he kept looking at me like I was naked. Where are you going?”

  “Restroom,” Shem said, standing. “I have a delivery to make.”

  “Eww, Shem. Too much. You’ve just put an awful picture in my head.”

  Shem smiled with one side of his face, the way some men smile after crying.

  “Tell me about it.”

  To writer Tim Chizmar, the life of a long haul trucker always looked zen, as if truckers don’t choose to drive, it chooses them. He sees it as a life that only a select few will understand. Since graduating from Edinboro University with his BA, Tim has written and sold many short stories and screenplays. When he is not writing, Tim is a film director, comedian, and producer living i
n Hollywood, CA or at least that’s where he is until the road calls to him…

  CARGO

  Tim Chizmar

  MY NAME IS LARRY AND what I’m going to say doesn’t make much sense. I’m currently quite fucked. I know that. I’m just hoping that maybe you can help me—see I don’t belong here, nobody does. This is insane. But the money was too good for me to ask any questions. I never should have looked in the back. He told me not to look—what I saw—wasn’t right—it wasn’t right. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. As I said name is Larry and I hope you can help me.

  I’ve been a truck driver for as long as I can remember. Since I got Lucy Jane Parnell pregnant in the 11th grade with what would be our first son. In my years as a king of the open road I’ve dealt with all the standard bullshit from lot lizards and bend-over Billys at truck stops to white line fever, raging slabs, and more. I felt there was nothing I couldn’t deal with. That’s why when I took the meeting with my new employer I accepted the job without hesitation or any questions. There’d never been a problem I couldn’t deal with. My own will always being stronger than that of an asshole I’d run into or a surprise I’d run into on the road. I’m sure some of you men get what I’m saying here, swig of beer for the working man! Am I right? You’re goddamn right I am, Sure, there were red flags and, maybe, if I’d had more schooling I’d have seen it coming. But I’m a tad bit hardheaded and that’s just how I’ve always been wired. Besides, it’s hard to pay bills with hugs, kisses, and good intentions. Sometimes you just need a risk to get your blood pumping.

  For me that risk came from this fat little Hawaiian shirt-wearing S.O.B. that said he had a job for me to run some cargo out to Erie, Pennsylvania. Truth told, I was just pleased to see that a response to that ad I put up at the Laundromat lead to some real cash. What he wanted to do was for me to transport a “black load” or “dark load” or as he put it to my face a “don’t touch/don’t look and we won’t have to have problems” load. His beady little eyes stared holes into me and he stressed how important this was to my future. Before that meeting I’d only ever heard of this Hawaiian shirt fella before in passing whispers from other drivers at trucks stops, tough men telling tales of his mystery jobs and solid pay, and long ago I’d decided that having never met him suited me just fine. Still, sitting across from him in the doughy flesh with his eyes twinkling at me, my mind wondered what this was really about.

  The whole thing had a mafia/mob feel about it and it’s not something I wanted to be associated with long term. Hard to raise your family behind bars, besides I’ve seen too many guys end up in the slammer for something even more innocent than this. Who knows what I was being asked to run, guns, drugs, dead bodies?! Still there was that thrill of risk that anything could happen once I was on my way. The more we talked the more I felt a stirring, a strong feeling that I wanted my own personal story to share at biker bars when the boss man in the colorful shirt’s name came up in conversation. Dammit, at that moment in my thinking I knew that he had me sold on the idea.

  The boss man said his name was Tim Chizmar. He wanted this mystery load done—yesterday. Ten hours to drive and a deadline by a man who doesn’t like to be kept waiting. I tried to tell myself this was a one-time thing and to look on the bright side. Hell, there was no snow or ice and for October I couldn’t ask for better conditions. So there was that. He had said I’d be driving a Western Star, I remember how he had eyed me up and added that it had an automated manual with 12 speeds and 4 reverse. He had asked if I could handle that. I was used to all this and told him so.

  He made a few more things very clear to me at that meeting, in between sloppy bites of his barbeque wings and talking with his mouth full, shooting bits of meat in all directions—fucking fat slob; even now, after everything that I’ve experienced, I still remember his words, “You don’t look in the back of your truck. You don’t question the cargo. You just deliver the goods and when you get there you don’t look at who unloads it.”

  He continued, “Half money up front, the other half when you return, you do not look at what is in the back, ever. We understand each other?”

  “We understand each other.” I had lied. Truth was I just wanted to get it over with anyway. The gross little Hawaiian-shirt Man eyed me up and dabbed his mouth with a napkin before continuing with all the details of my drive. I looked at the purchase order, the guy who bought this drive from Chizmar was Eric Miller.

  Who the fuck is Eric Miller? I remember thinking.

  ***

  In a few days’ time I kissed the wife and kids goodbye, left her some advance money from the job, picked up the truck from where the Hawaiian-shirt Man said to meet him, and I hit the road.

  You’re still with me right? Good because I’m not fucking around when I say I need you. There’ll come a point where you see how my future depends on you. I’m desperate and scared and…and…I’ll calm down. You need to understand. I’ll explain.

  ***

  So I’m driving this truck and it’s okay at first, my Dwight Yoakam tunes are playing and I’m living the dream. Cars drive by with kids, fists raised, pumping their arms for me to toot my horn, I do it and they are happy. Cars on the road make room to let me pass and flash their high beams to let me see for merging better. I was just thinking this would be a breeze when I noticed the shadows on the floor of the cab thickening. They collected like a living thing. They pooled and splashed around my feet, thick like oil. It crawled up my legs like millions of wriggling worms.

  I tore my gaze away from the eerie darkness that wasn’t darkness and blinked into the blinding light of the setting sun. All was normal outside my cab, but inside the darkness crawled ever higher. I felt slimy, as if I had been dipped in sewer muck. Funny how my kids enjoyed things like seeing Ninja Turtles skateboarding through sewer drains in cartoons, I’d seen that shit on their TVs and warned them that it isn’t all fun; it’s turds, piss, and garbage down there fuckin’ hell it’s not a place to eat pizza those stupid heroes in a half shell, my ass. My rant made my kids smile, they’d laugh missing the solid points I was making but anyway, I digress. My body was all of a sudden very gross and tainted by something not good, something wrong.

  First it showed up under the steering area by my feet squishing and splashing about and it was thick like oil. I knew it wasn’t a leak just like I knew this whole thing was madness. The stuff smelled like an old bookshop full of very old pages. I remember how the smell brought back my childhood memories. How as a child I would wait for my grandma, she would continually scour the stacks of moldy old papers. Her forever searching, I forever bored. It was so weird. But the truck ran fine and I had a load to deliver so I shrugged it all off and kept driving.

  Maybe this was a symptom of something, of what I didn’t know. Maybe a weaker American would stop but I thought I was stronger than that. I’d told myself that I’d see a doctor about this whole thing once the load was delivered and I could afford to see a doctor.

  It wasn’t much long after I decided to ignore the oil thing that I first heard the knocking coming from the back. It had to be loud and powerful for me to hear that all the way in the cabin.

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

  You have no idea how pissed off I was. I turned the radio up but it was as though the damn pounding turned up too. I was one fucking second away from pulling that truck off the road and into a tree just to stop it. Between the creepy crawly slimy feeling all over my body, the old book smell, and now this knocking…

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

  I was going out of my mind. That’s no bullshit readers—this is a straight shot from me to you. Swatting my legs to stop the blackness I began to panic. I’m not too strong to say that—shit what would you do? The smell, the books all around me, ink and pages, I couldn’t take it. I just didn’t have time for any hocus pocus bullshit. I pulled over to the side of a very busy highway. I got out and staggered a few steps. The pounding still rang out. I had no time for this, not on my job,
not in my life.

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

  A car sped past lighting up the night for a moment as it blew past. I watched them drive by as if in another world.

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

  I don’t know how I got back to the hatch. It was like waking after sleepwalking. My hands were on the handle. That’s when the pounding inside stopped. There would be no more secrets. It knew where I was. I would break the rule, the one rule I was given. Chizmar would be pissed but I was eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. I needed to know. I lifted it. As the gate rose, I heard typewriter keys clicking. The WORDS. They washed over everything.

  Such brightness all around.

  The papers, the cuts.

  Where’s my arms, my legs, my face?

  Where’s my dick?

  Where am I?

  Now I’m just here. HERE. Not that I’d believe any of it anyway.

  I’m another missing fuckhead, why should you believe me?

  ***

  Here’s why, there’s life and there’s death. I know things in here. I miss my family. I miss life. I’m not a creation. I was there and now there’s THIS. Whatever this is, I can see you. No not like some author’s creative fucking angle bullshit. I see you. I really do. I goddamn see you right now. You are holding me in your hands. I can see who you are and what you want. I see you. Stop reading right now. Go on, I dare you.

  I thought so. See. I’m really talking to you right now. Please don’t leave me in here. Don’t leave me in this book. I’m scared! It’s lonely in here…

  You don’t believe me. I can prove it to you. GODDAMN IT! Look at the facts. Tim Chizmar and Eric Miller! I bet that bastard Chizmar took credit for this story huh? Says he wrote it? Nah he absorbed it. He knew I’d look in the trailer, he knew it! Miller edited it too huh? Look at the cover. Miller was the guy I was taking the load to!