by Laird Barron
The father's transformation is complete, and he's turning towards you, still grinning, but his eyes blaze and bulge and pin you with a hatred stoked by the fires of hell. As he turns with the shotgun, you lean forward, almost casually, and plunge the trench knife into his shoulder.
The grin becomes a rictus, and he drops the Remington as blood soaks through his white shirt. The dizzying stench of gasoline fills the car.
(this is your life charlie this is you you ain't no better NO BETTER you're NOTHING AT ALL)
Your father bursts into flames.
You look away from the blinding flash. The Galaxie is parallel to you and the westbound lane rises up, liquid as an ocean wave, plowing into the Galaxie, physics driving the front-end every-which-way.
You look away, and your father is still alive, still burning, the flames curling and flowering against the ceiling of the car, but not harming the material.
Through the windshield and fast approaching is the road, rising up to smash into you, to take you along with the family in the Galaxie, and you recoil but your father grabs you by your shirt with a flame-soaked hand, setting it on fire, and it burns, it burns. Pulling you towards the flames, you and your dead father watch the road rush to greet you—
~
Charlie sat bolt-upright in his bed, the scream clogging his throat.
He choked it back and swung his legs over the side. Thick darkness filled his bedroom except for the elongated rhombuses on the ceiling of streetlights coming in through the windows. It took him a moment to reorient himself, to remind himself that he was
(in williamsburg)
in Schlossen.
He took a deep breath. The Temoins. Seeing the boy's footage by accident a week ago. Harrigan's shocked expression at being seen. What had happened to all that? It shouldn't nag him, but it did, a meat hook twisting in his brain.
(my point is just go with the flow)
He closed his eyes.
His father waited behind his eyelids, still burning, still trying to take Charlie with him, not in the Temoins' car but back on the farm, where the events of last summer had really happened.
His eyes popped back open.
"Jesus," he muttered, and dry-scrubbed his face.
He pulled his hands away wet. He'd been crying in his sleep.
"Jesus," he said again, his voice furry with disgust.
~
Two weeks to the day that Charlie puked in the woods of 526, he pulled his Studebaker Champion to the shoulder in a plume of road dust and set the brake.
He stepped out and although he felt the slight chill of a morning breeze on his face, he heard no crickets, no scurrying of animals in the underbrush.
He slammed the door—wincing at the sound—and looked up and down the highway.
No traffic.
(not enough traffic goes through here)
526 became a four-lane through Anbeten...but it was empty.
A strange tickle traced the nape of his neck, spread tendrils along the surface of his skull. He looked around, taking in the hillside, the road itself, remembering it washed in confusing emergency lights.
Here. Right here where...
(the highway ripples like a sheet over and over and over again)
Charlie walked down the single broken white-line in the center slowly, watching the asphalt, then stopped a few yards in.
Right here.
From shoulder to shoulder, the asphalt was broken and cracked in a million-different fissures, turning the concrete to pale macadam. Charlie traced the course and saw it continued almost to the horizon-point. Beyond the sides of the highway, rocks jutted like crooked teeth. Along the edge of the woods to his right, the trees slumped back, revealing their root systems.
Charlie hunkered down. That creepy-tickling sensation rippled across his skull again. The area hadn't had a good rain since the accident and, up close, he could see the ghost limning of blood.
"Here," he said, then reached his left hand out and touched one spot, like a religious supplicant. Pins-and-needles tingled across the palm, then faded. "Right here."
He closed his eyes, seeing the film unfold—the road rising and rounding and curling forward, a wave of Portland cement and lime, the Galaxie crashing into its center.
(who were these people?)
He didn't expect an answer, but a random memory bubbled one up:
(inseparable from the land dug in like ticks)
"The land claimed them," Charlie muttered. He opened his eyes and shook his head. Questions filled his mind like helium, none with ready answers, none with easy routes to the answers. It'd been his third day on the job, but so much of that night had seemed wrong—
(getting bad getting worse shouldn'ta run out like that)
Charlie staggered, the tickly-sensation at the nape of his neck exploding into a fuzzy pressure in the center of his brain. He caught his balance, cupping the back of his head, and looked at the road.
(why did i come here?)
No answer to another question, but it brought another wave of dizziness, more pins and needles in his hand.
(forced)
(that's just silly)
(so's a highway rolling like carpet)
He started back, the click of his Police Issue shoes too loud in his ears, the tickling pressure almost like an internal wind in his mind. Not a single car. Not a single animal. The hillside rose across the westbound lanes, seemed to lean towards him, as if to push him further into the valley at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
He slid into his car and almost flooded the engine starting it. When he shifted into gear, the tickling began to recede—enough he could drive, anyway.
Just before the emergency turnaround that would let him head back west, he reached a VDOT depot, heavily screened by trees beginning to feel the autumn burn.
He slowed, peering down the slope through the wide gate. The two garages, the salt storehouse, the woods beneath, but the entire lot appeared empty—not a single personal vehicle in sight.
(today a holiday, or something?)
He sped away, faster than he should've. He already had enough on his plate without wondering about the mysterious road workers. Probably not much work to do on 526, anyway.
He reached the emergency turnaround and took it hard, rear tires struggling to grip the rise, sending out a startled rooster-tail of dust, and the sharp turn west.
The fuzzy pressure, the internal wind, went with him.
~
Harrigan dropped a stack of files on Charlie's desk, making him jump. "Aren't you off-shift now, Brooks?"
Charlie glanced at the wall clock on the far side of the bullpen. Ten after six. His shift was over at five.
He looked around his desk and couldn't piece together what he'd been doing since sitting down at four-thirty. The surface was blameless except for a typewriter, a green blotter, In&Out trays, and a sheet of paper on which he had, apparently, drawn a large descending spiral in black pen.
Around the bullpen, the evening shift had settled in to its routines. He knew none of the people, which wasn't surprising. Aside from the First Sergeant, Harrigan, and Caldwell, Charlie hadn't learned a single other person's name since starting nearly a month ago.
"Apologies, sir," he said. "Woolgathering." This was true. He'd been thinking about the Temoins. And 526. And questions without answers. Anbeten County had the file on the incident, and he couldn't show up and ask to see it without further questions being raised. Area 13 would have the initial call logs, down in the basement archives, but they wouldn't have many answers. Not to the questions he had anyway.
(how? what happened? who were the victims? what happened to the temoins?)
"Not much to go home to," Charlie said and his mouth felt numb, barely his own.
"Give it time," Harrigan said, but his tone said he didn't give much of a shit, either way. "What route do you take back to Schlossen?"
"Varies," Charlie answered. "I've been trying different routes f
rom the atlas."
Harrigan poked the files with a spidery finger. "There's a VDOT depot on 526—a little past Schlossen, but within spitting distance, so you won't be too far out of the way." His tone said he didn't give much of a shit if the depot was too far away or not. "They need these files for their yearly budget request. Drop them off, will you?"
Charlie pulled the files close with a hand almost as numb as his mouth. "Of course, sir."
Harrigan stepped back to allow Charlie room to stand. "And I'm going to start pairing you with Caldwell, get you onto more roads with less likelihood of getting lost."
"Yes, sir."
Harrigan nodded. "Then have a good evening, trooper."
Charlie nodded back and moved around the Master Trooper towards the door. Though he didn't look back, he felt the older man watching him.
Studying him.
~
The VDOT depot's orange incandescent security lamps guided Charlie through the open gate. He parked in front of the low, rectangular main office, cut the engine, and got out. He smelled wood burning somewhere.
As opposed to the other day, every available parking space was filled with pickups in varying states of decay, but all the garage bays were dark. A part of him imagined the crew he'd seen the night of the accident standing in them, staring at him with unreadable expressions, waiting...
"Stop that," he whispered. A cool breeze ran fingers up the back of his neck. The fuzzy pressure he'd felt last week had returned, nudging his brains. His left palm, healed, tingled with pins-and-needles.
He made his way to the office door, hand hovering over the knob. Should he just walk in? Knock? He leaned close to the glass, but could see nothing but a waiting room with its tall faux-wood reception desk. Where the hell was everyone if their cars were parked?
"Who cares?" he said, and opened the door. The pneumatic arm squealed, and he jumped.
Charlie pulled the door shut behind him, and looked around. Two black doorways greeted him—one behind the reception area, one to his immediate right. No sounds from either, no lights.
"Oh this is ridiculous," he muttered, and rubbed the nape of his neck. The pressure was stronger, sending tentacles down his shoulders and spine.
(i shouldn't be here)
"No shit, Sherlock," Charlie whispered and crossed the reception area. He dropped the folders on top of the desk—there; done.
(now i can get the hell outta here)
He crossed back to the door, not looking into either black doorway—
(afraid something's watching you? jesus)
—and nudged it open, trying to avoid that awful metallic squeal again. It was only when he was back outside, that he realized he'd been holding his breath since calling out. He let it out in a gush, whooped in another.
(this is ridiculous)
He said it aloud. "This is ridiculous. It's a fucking depot, for Christ's sake."
A fragile calm built into his chest, but it didn't diminish the pressure in his head, didn't make his shoulders relax.
(can we just say that something is wrong here? this isn't probie newness or something i can just look at askance. something is fucking goddamn wrong here)
"Yeah," he breathed, "but what?"
And then, of course, he heard voices.
An uptick in the breeze, a change in direction, brought the sound to him—a rumble of male voices, incomprehensible, coming from the other end of the depot, where the incandescents didn't reach.
Charlie took a step forward.
(now take one more step, turn left, and get back into your car this isn't your thing)
But he kept walking forward, towards the garage bay. The questions, the impossible mountain of questions, shoved at the front of his brain—
(where is everyone?)
(what is everyone hiding?)
—and were propelled by that internal wind. Even if he wanted to stop walking, he doubted he could. He could no longer feel his legs, or any other part of himself. He was being led.
Something wanted him to see this.
Fear filled him—a cold ice-hand clutching his heart, slowing his breath, sending the nerve-endings into a panic. Conscious thought left him.
He came around the side of the garage bays, and the salt storehouse reared up. The rumble of male voices became an indecipherable chorus. It came from beyond the storehouse and the limits of the depot. It came from the solid black wall of the woods.
The remains of the Galaxie squatted behind the storehouse, half-hidden by old oil drums. An equally-damaged sedan and a badly-painted pickup rested beside it. The pickup's driver side door had been punched in, and something black had dried on the inside of the drooping windshield.
(i've seen that truck before)
But his legs kept him going. A buzzing rattled through his head.
He stepped into the woods and darkness swallowed him. He blinked and, off to the left, he saw the flicker of fire. He made for it, not watching his footing but not losing it, either. His body knew where to step, avoiding most of the branches that would've crunched underfoot. His left hand tingled with pins-and-needles.
The first tremor vibrated beneath his foot, but he didn't pause. Up ahead, the men's chant rose to a shout, and another tremor immediately followed, reverberating out from the group. Visions of the Galaxie flashed behind Charlie's eyes, but it couldn't muster the fear of his body being out of his control, of approaching this group of men out in the woods in the night. The tremors continued, irregular in intensity and time. If he'd been in control of his legs, he would've fallen by now.
He slowed to a stop six yards away from the fire. A massive tree trunk provided cover, and he had enough control to get his body behind it. He gripped its bark and the ribbed abrasiveness was the only thing telling him this was real.
The men from VDOT stood in a loose circle around a massive fire pit. They weren't in their orange vests and jumpsuits now, but in jeans and buttondowns, John Deere caps and denim jackets. They stared at a haphazard pile of stones beside the fire, upon which a large oblong book sat, its black-looking covers nearly as thick as the sheaf of rough-cut pages between. The firelight turned their faces red, made their glazed eyes gleam.
One man stepped forward—the bald rooster Charlie had seen before. He held his hands up to the fire.
"This is our covenant!" he called, and the other man rattled something off, slick and guttural.
"You called to us," the rooster continued, "and we called to you!" He didn't speak the way Charlie would've imagined him speaking; his words were clipped, unaccented at all, and deeper than that whistle-of-a-chest could account for. It was the voice of a preacher really laying into the theme of his sermon.
"Our pact was made by both parties," the rooster said. "You signed with prosperity, and we signed with blood."
The men around him shouted, a loose-change-configuration of letters and sounds, like what a dog would sound like trying to form human words. Another tremor rippled underground. The men swayed, but kept their balance. Loose pebbles and stones fell from the—
(altar)
—but the homemade book didn't slip.
"We worship you!" the rooster shouted, and the fire seemed to chase the words—licks of flame reaching into the darkness. "We are your faithful, but you smite us! You condemn us after all our years of service!"
The men started to chant, but the hardest tremor yet erupted, knocking them off their feet; wood shifted in the fire and sent up an explosion of sparks. The book and the rooster stayed.
Charlie went to his knees, and it was then that he realized he'd gained control of his body again—
(from what?)
(never mind never mind)
—because he started crab-walking backwards, away from the fire and the men and the tremors.
A quick crumple of sound to his right and before he could turn, a thin root wrapped itself around his wrist, twirling up his forearm, and cinched tight. He tried jerking his arm away and the root pul
led tighter. His hand went immediately numb.
The hard wind inside his head:
(wait)
(watch)
One of the men barked—at least, that's what it sounded like. Charlie turned back and only one person was near the fire; the rest had retreated to the far edge of its afterglow. The rooster clutched the book to his chest.
The man was on his hands and knees, almost in the fire, his ballcap askew and his head hanging low. He barked again and a thickish-looking black fluid seeped from his mouth.
(blood)
"You," the man said, around the steady flow of ichor. His jaw worked like what he had said was badly dubbed.
(who do you think you are boy?)
"You," the man said again. His cap fell into the fire. He shivered, a dog trying to shake off the rain. "You offer...sacrifice for sustenance..." The last word dribbled away.
The rooster approached. "Yes, lord—we serve you."
"You...serve nothing," the man-thing said. More black dripped from his face. "You...take...from the land..."
The man-thing smacked the ground, and the ground recoiled, knocking the rooster down. The other men cowered.
"We give sacrifice!" the rooster said. "We gave you the witnesses!"
A portion of Charlie's already-frozen, already-overloaded brain pinged:
(the temoins he's talking about the temoins)
The man-thing shook his head. Droplets hit the stones surrounding the fire and sizzled. "Your sacrifices...have been...from others...Your faith...conditional..."
The man-thing retched—to Charlie, it sounded like a cat choking on a hairball. He spat something thick and black out onto the sodden dirt. This sent off more tremors. Pebbles and loose grit bounced. The makeshift altar fell apart.
With a lunge, the man-thing rocked back, onto his knees, and his face coated in blood. It seeped out of the corners of his mouth, the corners of his upturned eyes, his nostrils. The cords of his neck stood out like cables.
"Your sacrifices...have gone few...with less faith...less sustenance...you demand more...I demand freedom..."
The rooster shook. From his position on the ground, it looked feeble. "We made a pact! We are BOTH bound! We to worship, you to provide!"