by Scott Baker
‘I didn’t.’
Shaun looked across at his wife. She kept her eyes steady, but the muscles in her jaw twitched as her mouth became a grin.
‘He just would have hassled me about work. I’ll call him in the morning and tell him I can’t be there on Monday.’
‘In the morning we’ll be on a plane, Lauren. You know how hard I’ve worked to get him to accept me, so if he thinks I’ve dragged you away from work for nothing, that’ll be it.’
‘It’s not for nothing, it’s for your big break. And I’ve already married you, remember? You don’t need his permission anymore. We’re not teenagers, Shaun; he can’t keep me locked up in that little town forever, and he definitely can’t keep me from shopping in Soho.’
Like Shaun, Lauren dreamed of travel, of getting out of Masonville. She fantasised about moving to LA to do make-up and special FX for the stars. She loved cinema, costumes and the theatre. At college her tutors had told her she was bursting with potential, but her father had seen an end to all that, insisting she work in the family business. But she still dreamed, and Shaun loved watching the way she sparkled when she spoke of ignoring her parents’ expectations and doing something really interesting – something more than raising kids and baking pies. She would make people beautiful.
Shaun knew that she hated working for her father’s business, and didn’t see tobacco farming as a noble pursuit in life. But he also knew that she was determined to honour her family, at least until she and Shaun had the money to move. And, as she always said as she slumped on the couch after a day of meetings, ‘Life is full of sacrifices.’
She turned back to the road as Shaun sighed and rubbed his eyes. It was already seven, and getting dark outside. He looked back down to his papers and sighed again. He had moved on from the field of space–time years ago after becoming frustrated with an impasse he could not breach. Doing a crash course in his own theory again after so long was tougher than he had expected.
‘They’re going to have questions about this stuff,’ he said. ‘They’re going to have a whole bunch of questions I can’t answer.’
‘There’s nothing you can’t answer, baby,’ Lauren beamed with her trademark optimism.
‘I wish that were true.’ Shaun forced a laugh. Every day he faced questions he could not answer, but not because the questions were hard.
To Shaun, the science of how the very fabric of space, time and the universe was formed was as intuitive as breathing. He could not imagine anything more interesting. But then, he did have a problem. Apart from not realising that he was intellectually swamping his students, Shaun Strickland’s problem was – he did not realise that he was brilliant.
Shaun was reminded of a lesson just this morning as he struggled to get through to his class.
‘… it’s called the “Doppler effect”, and so the sound of the siren gets higher as it approaches you, because it’s catching up to the soundwaves it’s making. It’s moving towards them and therefore they’re shorter, and a shorter wavelength means a higher pitch. Then the ambulance passes you, and … vaaarooommm, it’s moving away from you, so it’s soundwaves are stretched out, making them longer and therefore the pitch is …?’
He took a moment to stare at the board. A neat scrawl of his handiwork and a logical, coherent train of thought, all there in white chalk. He knew that when he turned around, not one of the blank faces from North Carolina’s Masonville grade ten would have a clue what he’d been talking about. He therefore savoured the moment for just a second longer before he turned.
And there it was.
‘So, it gets deeper like?’ It was Tom Charbell, a boy who resembled a tree, who spoke. It was actually more than Shaun had expected. He sighed, smiled and took a breath to answer.
The bell. The stampede.
Shaun continued as if his class were still sitting before him, instead of halfway down the hall.
‘That’s right, Tommy. The same thing happens with light,’ he sighed. ‘An object moving towards us is catching up to its light waves, making the wavelength shorter and tinting the object blue. An object moving away is the opposite. The light arrives with its waves stretched out, and has a shift towards red. It’s how we know the universe is expanding …’
‘Why do we have to learn this stuff anyway?’ He heard someone grumble as the kids shuffled past. That was the question he couldn’t answer. If they didn’t know why, he couldn’t tell them.
No, it wasn’t that the questions were hard. What was hard was motivation.
They had been on the road just shy of four hours when the last rays failed. They had agreed that Lauren would drive until it got too dark for Shaun to read. Unlike many people, public speaking wasn’t something that fazed Shaun. Probably, he thought, because having an audience that was keen to hear him, that had a vested interest in what he was talking about, was a luxury compared to ninth-grade boys who seemed to have mastered little more than the projectile physics of throwing ‘spit-balls’ at the board.
Now, though, Shaun was tired. Lauren was going strong, and insisted that he should get some rest and that she could sleep on the plane.
Shaun’s wife knew he was brilliant, although she often didn’t understand what he was talking about. Not that it mattered. There was no one she would rather be with. Some girls were impressed by muscles, but it seemed that Lauren got off on neurons, on having someone who always knew what to do, someone she could trust completely.
Shaun’s head bounced against the window in an irregular rhythm … thunk thunk, ka, thunk thunk … he didn’t really notice. He was tired and knew that he should drive soon. Waking from a minor doze, he adjusted the papers on his lap so he could put them into his bag. Through weary eyes he looked up at the road ahead, just in time to see something burst from the forest and out into their headlights.
Lauren never had a chance. She screamed, shattering the blanket of lethargy in which Shaun had wrapped himself. The tyres screeched as the back end of the Chevron fishtailed, but it was all too late. The impact came with a sickening thud, and it happened while the car, weighing more than a tonne, was still travelling fast. The full momentum of the vehicle slammed into the object, sending it sailing down the road. Papers flew from Shaun’s lap, slamming against the dashboard and exploding in a frenzy of white chaos. His arms sprang out against the roof and side of the cabin to secure himself as Lauren fought the wheel, struggling with the weight of the car and trying to keep them straight to avoid rolling. The coffee she had been sipping splattered on the inside of the windscreen, burning her face as it splashed back over the cabin.
Then it was over.
All at once the car came to a stop.
Silence.
Lauren’s hands gripped the wheel, her knuckles white, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Even though the car had stopped, Shaun found his arms wedged in place. His heart pounded in his ears. He felt sick, the aftermath of receiving a sudden jolt of adrenaline into his tired body. Breathing deeply, he looked over at Lauren. She stared straight ahead.
‘Are you okay?’ No response. ‘Lauren.’
She flinched back with a short yelp and looked over at him, her eyes focusing.
‘Are you okay?’ he repeated, slowing his own breathing.
She paused as if doing a self-assessment. ‘I’m okay, I’m okay …’
‘All right, just breathe … I think we hit a deer.’
Lauren stared straight ahead.
‘That was no deer.’
CHAPTER 3
Mist rose up from the ground, causing the thick yellow headlights to appear opaque in the surrounding darkness. The car shot its beam diagonally across the road, firing into the trees. The road that could be seen was empty, and the buzz and click of forest insects punctuated the silence. Thirty feet from the car an object lay still, large, unmoving.
The sound of Shaun’s door opening creaked loudly as it resonated in the night and pierced the air. His feet crunched on the gravel as he stepped fo
rward cautiously, leaving the door ajar in case he needed to retreat. The engine rumbled to life as the car started up again. He looked back at Lauren’s silhouette moving her head around trying to get a clear view.
‘Just back up a bit, straighten her out.’ Shaun could see his breath carried off by a gentle breeze as he spoke. He shivered involuntarily, and zipped up his jacket, all the while stepping slowly towards the object lying still on the tarmac. The large black four-wheel drive reversed and swung around so its headlights pointed out onto the road ahead. He squinted off into the darkness beyond the lights. Whatever they hit was still out there, at the edge of the cone created by the low beam. He edged forward.
‘Switch it to high,’ he called back to Lauren. She had never been good with shocks, and moving the car was keeping her mind occupied; he didn’t want to give the panic a chance to take hold.
Coming around the front, Shaun saw the windscreen and grille. They were covered with blood. The coffee spilled on the inside of the windscreen had initially obscured their view, but now he saw it clearly.
‘Je-sus!’ Shaun exclaimed at the sight. Then, as Lauren flicked on the high beam he followed the light to the object on the road. It had flown so far – a full thirty feet from where the car had stopped – and now lay motionless. Large, brownish and steaming from warmth in the cold night air, it looked like an animal. Whatever it was, it was alive, or had been until they hit it. He moved forward. What was that? Was it wrapped in something? He started to move faster as a chill shot through his body. No, no, no.
Shaun broke into a run for the last twenty feet. He could not believe it. He looked back over his shoulder and waved to Lauren to bring the car up. It was his turn to panic. As the tyres crackled and popped on the asphalt he looked down at the shape at his feet. It was the shape of a man.
At first he didn’t believe what he was seeing – nothing could have prepared him for this – but with a quick shake of his head, Shaun threw off the remnants of shock and knelt down, reaching out with one hand to check for a pulse. He hesitated as he got a better look at the figure under the increasing light of the approaching headlights. My God, he thought, who is this guy?
The figure lay in a fetal position facing away from the car. He was clothed in what appeared to be layers upon layers of rags. He was impossibly dirty, filth, grime and now blood covering the tattered clothing. A leather cap was pulled tightly over a mass of tangled hair, and the figure’s closed eyes were barely visible between his bushy eyebrows and overgrown beard.
Shaun snaked his hand down into the rags around the man’s neck, worming his fingers in search of the warmth of skin. There was so much blood. The rags the man wore were slick with it, his hair matted, and his beard was covered in fresh streams. Then Shaun’s fingertips found flesh, and he waited.
Lauren stepped out of the car, but kept the door open as if it were a shield. ‘Shaun, that’s not a deer, is it?’
Shaun looked up. ‘He’s alive, but only just. Call 911, my cell’s on the back seat.’ A tingling sensation made Shaun look down at his fingertips. They were now dotted with small bumps. He tried to wipe them off but could not. What were they? Blisters? Did this guy have a disease?
He didn’t want to risk moving the man in case there was some kind of spinal injury, but he brought his head down to see if he could detect any breathing. He immediately wished he hadn’t.
The gentle breeze stopped. The smell hit him like a runaway bus. He gagged and fell backwards.
Popping her head up from the Chevron, Lauren saw Shaun sitting back covering his nose and mouth. ‘You okay? Shaun, what happened?’ she asked urgently.
‘This guy smells like piss!’ The comment broke the tension a little, but Lauren didn’t laugh. He could barely see her face, but her voice was too high. He knew she was feeling nervous.
‘I can’t get a signal,’ she said. ‘It’s not even showing one bar, and I’ve turned it on and off a couple of times.’
That was Lauren’s answer to anything technical: turn it off and on again. Funnily enough, it usually worked. Usually, but there was nothing usual here.
‘Ah, shit,’ Shaun said as he sat up to have another go. ‘Move around a bit, stand on the car, see if you can get anything. It’s got a hot-switch for emergencies.’
‘No, nothing,’ Lauren called after climbing on to the roof.
‘How long has it been since we passed another car?’ Shaun called back as he sat up, satisfied that the man was breathing.
‘I haven’t seen a car the entire time we’ve been up in the mountains. At least a couple of hours.’
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Shaun knew what this meant even before he dared to think it. You can’t leave this guy here, Shaun’s brain cut in. You’ll have to take him to the nearest hospital. Who knew where that was?
‘Lauren …’ he started.
‘Oh no.’ She knew.
‘It’s a man. It’s a guy and he’s hurt really bad.’
‘Shaun, we have to get to the airport.’
‘Baby …’ Shaun left it hanging. He knew that it was only token resistance. She was clinging to the belief that their plans had not been totally disrupted. But, damn. What was a raggedy old man doing out here in the mountains in the middle of the night? And what the hell was he thinking running onto the road like that?
‘Can you bring the car round? I don’t want to carry him in case he’s …’ What? Shaun’s brain interjected. In case he’s totally fucked up? Too late for that.
Shaun stared at the body as the lights of the car came around. The engine buzzed loudly and he wondered if the man would be roused. Part of him wanted the shape to move, and part of him was glad it didn’t.
He examined the rising and falling chest, and then with a start noticed that the man wasn’t just curled up, he was curled around something, clutching it tightly.
‘How the hell did you hang on to that?’ Shaun wondered. He looked closer and saw that the man was holding a large bundle. Keeping his eyes on the man’s face as if it might suddenly spring to life, he reached down. He moved first one arm, then the other. Unconscious, the ragman offered no resistance. A limp forearm fell away and Shaun removed what the man had been holding. It was about the size of a large shoebox. There was something wrapped in rags and leather, and it smelled almost as bad as the man who had been holding it.
‘What’s that?’ Lauren asked as Shaun carried it over to the car, holding it away from his body as if it too might spring to life at any moment.
‘Don’t know. The old guy was hanging on to it for dear life.’
Lauren screwed up her nose as Shaun placed the parcel on the passenger seat. ‘Eeww, that smells dead! Is that animal skin?’ She winced as she opened the back door. ‘Are you sure we should touch that?’
She jumped down and moved around to the man’s legs. The mingled grime, blood and dirt nearly overwhelmed her as she helped Shaun carefully lift the man’s dead weight into the back seat.
‘How are we going to drive with that smell?’ she asked.
‘We’ll just drive until we get a signal, then we can call the paramedics. I mean, there’s got to be a town round here somewhere – how the hell else did he get out here?’
Lauren raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you seeing this guy? He’s probably lived out here for years. Smells like he hasn’t showered in a decade. You couldn’t tell who he was even if you did know him, under all that hair and grime.’
She was right. Still, Shaun agreed that it was weird. He checked his watch: 8.53 pm, so they had about two hours to get to the airport, and this was going to change things. Damn.
Crazy old fool, what the hell was he thinking?
Shaun opened the driver’s-side door as Lauren made to climb into the passenger seat, but stopped dead at the sight of the bundle sitting there. A sense of foreboding filled her. ‘I am not touching that thing,’ she protested.
‘Just put it at your feet,’ Shaun offered, keeping one eye on the inert form now lying across the
back seat. The man was hurt badly, bleeding from everywhere and nowhere; it was impossible to tell under the mud and blood caking his clothing. The cap he wore looked like a hunter’s cap that peaked at the front but came down to cover his ears and neck. Clearly he had been in bad shape long before they hit him. He looked like he had been through a war.
They sped on through the winding mountain roads, both feeling stunned after the accident, but relieved the man was alive.
Lauren shuffled her feet uneasily, trying not to touch the wrapped bundle that was slick with the man’s blood.
‘Who do you think he could be?’ she asked to break the silence.
‘The more I think about it, the stranger it seems. I mean, there’s nothing around here for miles, and it’s not like he was trying to wave us down or anything, he just ran out. He ran straight out!’
‘Perhaps he was running away from something?’
‘Maybe. But it’s not like he didn’t see us. I mean, one road, loud noise, bright lights, we kind of stand out.’
Lauren was silent. Her eyes were fixed downward. They were both thinking the same thing.
‘I don’t want to touch it,’ she finally said after a long pause.
The bundle slid on the floor towards her, bashing into her shins. She recoiled.
‘He was hanging on to that pretty tight,’ said Shaun. ‘I went through his clothes for a wallet or something, but there’s nothing. I’m betting that whatever that thing is, it’ll tell us something about this guy. It’s got to be important. You don’t get slammed by a speeding SUV and think of nothing but holding onto a package if it’s not important.’
Lauren made to protest again, but then sighed. The initial shock had subsided somewhat, and now she was curious – and, despite the horror of the whole episode, a little excited. She fumbled through the glove box for something to cover her legs with, finally settling on a patchwork of paper napkins, receipts and Kleenex. She reached down and hoisted the bundle onto her lap. It was heavy, as if it bore the weight of a terrible secret.