Rachel jabbed the power button for the radio. The display illuminated with little green digits, but no sound came from the speakers. She pressed the volume “+” button to continued silence.
“Maybe because it smells like swamp-rotted assholes and the radio’s a piece of shit?” Rachel exclaimed, driving her closed fist into the radio.
“Still… can’t complain,” said Todd.
“I can.”
“I can’t argue that,” Todd agreed. It took Rachel a few moments to recognize the jab.
A sound of rustling plastic came from behind them.
“What was that?” Rachel asked.
Both chanced a look in the back seat but saw nothing.
“Car’s old, could be anythin’,” Todd said, shrugging a dismissive shoulder.
Rachel poked a button on the radio and a cassette ejected from the tape player to swing suspended by its oxide ribbon. The speakers roared to life and both she and Todd jabbed blindly in search of the volume. Todd hit the power button and the car fell into silence… almost.
“Jesus H. fucking Christ!” a voice behind them complained.
“Was that the radio?” Todd asked. His eyes remained fixed forward, but they looked confused and worried.
“Radio’s off,” Rachel said. She turned in her seat and shrieked.
“What? What?” Todd scanned every direction, expecting to see a vehicle barreling toward them.
Rachel didn’t answer, only stared in terror into the back of the car.
Todd pulled to the side of the road so he could see what had Rachel so troubled. At first, he thought the mottled green fingers poking out from between the rear seat sections was a prank, until they wriggled as if offering a dainty greeting.
“Well, that’s just fucked up,” he said, eyes glued to the deteriorated digits, but Rachel was already out of the car, standing ten feet away.
“What are they?” she asked.
Todd rolled his eyes. “Ain’t you ever seen fingers before?”
She took a few timid steps toward the car and looked in the rear passenger window. “Not like those.”
They watched with fascination as the fingers clutched the leather seat and then shot forward until the putrefied limb was exposed to the elbow. Rachel jumped back with a shriek.
“That there’s an arm,” said Todd.
“Whose arm?” asked Rachel, wide-eyed, her fisted hands to her mouth.
“Ain’t sure, but I imagine there’s a body attached to it.”
Todd leaned into the glove box and hit the trunk release. He then climbed from the car and walked to the rear. Rachel stood behind him as he lifted the lid, both turning their heads to avoid the assailing stench.
“Hey, Rach! There ain’t nothing in here. Even the stink is gone,” he said, hoping she’d be pleased by this revelation.
“No way! A stink like that? Where would it go?”
“Beats me. Just up an’ left, I guess,” he said. “Ain’t no body in there for that arm to connect to, neither. I’m starting to suspect something ain’t quite right with this here car.”
“Ya think? I told you I didn’t want this… Oh, Todd! Oh, shit… oh, shit!” She pointed in the window and Todd stepped beside her to look inside.
“Holy freaking basket of batshit! Now, that there just ain’t proper!” Todd said, backing from the car.
A full arm had extended from between the upper and lower seat section, which was bad enough, but a head was also pushing its way through—with difficulty, judging by the expression on its gangrenous face.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” it said, grimacing. Another hand appeared and extended.
Terrified but intrigued, Todd moved back to the window. “Reminds me of when Gertie was calving.”
“Fuck Gertie!” snarled the thing in the car, both its hands latching onto the front seat. It pulled itself up, and within seconds a tall, lean man in a bedraggled flannel shirt and jeans was sitting in the back of the car. He was—or had been—handsome, despite his surly countenance and before his festering flesh.
Rachel found herself unable to look away from the cold, soulless eyes or the thin, tight lips.
“What in the hell are you two idjits looking at?”
Idjits? She only knew one person who pronounced ‘idiots’ that way. “Father?” she said.
“Well, it ain’t the goddamned pope!” Said the ghost of Lionel Freemont, with a dry rasp.
Yup, that’s him, Rachel thought. “You’re dead?”
The man looked at his blotchy, frog-belly arms, then back at Rachel. “Still sharp as a sponge, I see. Stupid shit.”
“And you’re still a mean old man!” Rachel shot back, sour memories eradicating her fear.
“You and your mother made me mean!” he said.
“Because you were never satisfied with anything we did!”
“Because neither of you could do anything right!”
“I hate you! You’re an asshole!”
“You’re a little bitch!” he said.
Freemont glared at Rachel as she glowered back, and she realized they were exactly where they had left off fifteen years earlier. Todd stood beside her, looking too baffled to be scared.
“And who the fuck are you?” asked the cantankerous old bastard.
“Todd Ingram.” Todd offered his hand through the open window. The ghastly man only scowled. Todd retracted his hand.
“You the son of that hack carpenter, Frank Ingram?”
“Yeah, that was my dad. He used to say you were the cheapest bastard east of the Pacific,” Todd said, responding to the insult in kind.
“Hah! That son-of-a-whore couldn’t make a straight wall with a steel I-beam.”
“Yeah? Well, speaking of whores, Daddy said there wasn’t a one that wasn’t on your payroll.”
“No wonder Mama hated you!” spat Rachel.
“I wouldn’t have needed them if she knew how to please a man!”
“Maybe if she had a man worth pleasing!”
“Daddy said your mama had quite a few men,” said Todd.
“Shut up!” both Lionel and Rachel yelled.
Rachel noticed a shadow cross Todd’s eyes. She had seldom seen this in their relationship, but she’d always remember the great displays of rage that followed.
“I think it’s time you got out of our car,” Todd said, his voice curt and unyielding. He opened the door and stood back.
“It’s my car,” said Lionel.
“No, we just bought it,” Rachel told him.
“They gave it to you.”
“Correct, which adds up to the same,” said Todd. “Our name is on the title, so get out.”
“Make me,” challenged Lionel, his chin proffered like a stubborn child’s.
Todd grabbed for his arm but his hand passed through as if he were smoke. “Well, don’t that just figure,” Todd sighed. “How do we get rid of a ghost?”
“I don’t know,” said Rachel.
“C’mon, you watch all those shows about ghosts and the periodontal stuff.”
“Paranormal,” Rachel corrected. In her mind, she reviewed past episodes of the dozen or so reality shows she used to watch that had the words ghost or paranormal in the title, while Lionel would smirk at them, looking smug and rather like the asshole he was.
“They often say ghosts have to be anchored to someone or something in this realm for them to stay.”
“Is it you, seeing as he’s your daddy?”
“He might be my father, but he ain’t my daddy,” Rachel said. “A daddy has to earn that title. It don’t make sense, anyhow. I’ve been his daughter all my life, and even after he died, but he shows up now?”
“Ever since we got the car.”
“Ayup,” said Lionel, patting the car seat in front of him.
Rachel snapped her fingers at a memory. “That makes sense! I think the thing… the… host, that’s it! The host has to be present when they die. It can attach to anything, like a doll, a dress, or a ca
r. We have to get rid of the car.”
“Well, I ain’t giving up this car!” Todd said. He climbed into the driver’s seat and motioned for Rachel to follow.
Rachel regarded the two men. How different they were. She congratulated herself for rebelling against her father by finding a compassionate man. The decision to support her husband was an easy one and she slipped into her seat, ignoring the dead man behind her. Todd shifted and pulled onto the road.
Freemont started a loud, tuneless humming, intent on irritating his car mates, but Todd had nerves of steel and the patience of the virtuous, and his wife carried a lifelong grudge that was close to impenetrable. Undeterred, the ghost increased his volume. Retaliating, Rachel jabbed the radio’s power button and cranked up the volume, introducing her father to the heavy riffs of AC/DC’s “For Those About to Rock.”
Lionel Freemont slapped his hands over his ears, a pained expression crossing his face. “Christ in a cradle! What is this clatter?”
A small, satisfied smile on her lips, Rachel bumped the volume higher yet and she and Todd nodded in rhythm while her father uselessly prattled on. AC/DC faded out and Lionel’s hands lowered.
“Thank all that is fucking sacred and sane,” he said, then pointed at the cassette suspended from the player. “What in the holy jumping Jesus did you do to my Hank Snow tape?”
“Oh God. Is that who that was? I remember you playing that stupid tape every waking hour.” Rachel grabbed the tape and yanked. It unwound with a high whine but did not release. She wrapped the ribbon around her hand and yanked again until it freed with a satisfying snap that severed it in two.
“Hey!” Lionel complained as the liberated cassette passed through him and hit the seat. “Hank is not stupid!” he pouted.
“He sounded like a neutered goat,” Rachel said.
“You know… he does,” agreed Todd.
“And what do you know, smart ass?” Lionel challenged.
“Well, I know I ain’t no genius, but I know I’m probably a lot smarter than I really am,” Todd said.
Lionel held his gaze for an extended spell. Rachel looked confused.
“Did he just say…” he started to say, but froze. “Ho-lee shit, did I hear that right? Did the radio announcer just say President Trump?”
“Yeah, you heard right,” Rachel said, unable to contain her disgust.
“The orange angst monkey? That one?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you fuck-ups sure let this place go to shit since I’ve been gone, didn’t you?”
Though Rachel agreed, she wouldn’t admit it. “Trump always reminded me of you. You’re both deplorable.”
“Ha! He doesn’t hold a candle to me!”
“Told you,” Rachel said to Todd, who shook his head sadly.
“So schmuck, she give you the marry me I’m pregnant pitch like all the others?” Lionel asked.
Rachel’s face reddened until it felt ready to blister. Todd looked at her inquiringly and she became quite interested in the stitching of her Levi’s.
“You did tell me you were pregnant a couple months after we met,” Todd said, doubt coloring his words. “That’s why we got married.”
Lionel barked a laugh. “What a sucker!”
“I was!” Rachel said, trying to sound hurt by the allegation. “I miscarried, remember?”
“A stewed tomato and some puree in the toilet bowl. I’d put money on it,” said Lionel with a nasty laugh. Rachel looked out her window, staring into the distance and rubbing a tear from her eye.
“That true, Rach?” Todd asked.
“It was tomato sauce, not puree,” she admitted. “But you were the nicest guy around and I knew you’d love me and treat me right… and you have,” she added hopefully.
“Then what did he mean by ‘all the others’?”
Rachel remained silent. In the back seat, Lionel chortled.
“Well, were there others?” Todd pressed.
“Yes, but not a lot,” Rachel said.
Lionel barked again. “The Berman boy, the Simmons kid, the Jones kid, both McCready boys, the Harrington boy, the Keen…”
“Shut up!” Rachel roared.
Todd looked stunned. “But you were hardly sixteen when we met.”
“Whoopsie!” Lionel said, and then giggled impishly.
She turned to him, rage burning in her eyes. “You ain’t nothing but a heartless, ugly, green old man! I’m glad you’re dead!”
He stuck his bleached, swollen tongue out at her. It looked like a slug squirming from his lips.
She knew Todd must be feeling betrayed, because she would if she were him. “Todd,” she implored. “We’ve been married almost fifteen years… happily married. We love each other a lot, and I’ve always tried my best to make you a happy hubby, haven’t I?”
She watched his eyes for a sign. He glanced at her teary face and softened. Rachel saw the opening, dove in, and hit him where he lived.
“Like you always say, our sex life is crazy good from all the good crazy sex. And I love it, too.”
“I bet you do,” said Lionel, but they both ignored him.
“Why’d you lie to me ’bout all that stuff?”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t want me.”
“Couldn’t blame him. Tramp,” said Lionel.
“I was with women before you and you still wanted me. Why do you think it’d be different for me?” asked Todd.
“I don’t know. I was young and insecure and dumb…”
“Bingo!” said Lionel.
“And I wanted… needed to get away from that fucking son-of-a-bitch, the way he treated me and my mother!”
“Young lady! Is that any way to speak of your father?”
“Fuck you, you ain’t my father! You’re dead!”
“I guess I can see why you’d want to get away from him,” said Todd.
“Did she tell you she used to sell herself on the corner of Bartlett and Prospect?” asked Lionel, waving the question at Todd like a lure.
Rachel spun in her seat and glared. “That is not true at all! Why are you doing this? Why are you such a shit?”
“I just want my family back,” Lionel said, choking on the false solemnity of the words.
“Oh, bullshit! You never wanted me around, and all you wanted from mom was a live-in slave.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Lionel laughed scornfully, then glowered at his daughter. “I just want to get back at the bitch. You are the only thing that mattered to her. She lost her nut when you ran away.”
“Get back at her for what?” Rachel asked. “All she ever did was cater to your whims.”
“She did this shit to me.” He gestured to his deteriorated body.
“Momma killed you?” Rachel asked, a satisfied sparkle in her eyes.
“Nasty old shrew poisoned my whiskey. In my own living room while I watched NASCAR, no less!” He said this as if there were no greater indignity. “Never figured she had it in her.”
“She poisoned you?” Rachel felt a burgeoning pride for her mother. She found it difficult not to smile, so she did.
“Sure, you think it’s funny now, but wait until I’m done with you, you spoiled rotten shit!”
Rachel sneered at the ranting presence in the back seat.
“Let’s go food shopping,” Todd said, nodding to the passing buildings through the car’s window.
“Really? What about him?” Rachel asked.
“He can’t leave the car. It’s his anchor, right?”
“I think so,” she said.
They both felt the brutal assault of an instant migraine as the car filled with the ungodly stench that had occupied the trunk earlier.
“Ha! I figured!” Todd barked, speeding the car into the plaza to an open space near the market. “Out of the car!”
“What? Why?” Rachel asked, confused and clutching her head.
“I think it might be like with a Wi-Fi signal, and weaken if you’re far enough away.�
�� Todd squinted at the pain.
“Don’t you dare dismiss me!” Lionel growled.
Rachel paused, but Todd insisted. “Go!”
Rachel quickly walked away, her head low under the weight of the headache.
“You get back here! Listen to your father!”
As Todd suggested, the farther she got from the car, the more the pounding eased. Rachel stopped about two hundred feet from the car, a point where the pain became tolerable. She was startled that Todd was not beside her, but still at the car, kneeling in the opened trunk, ass pointed skyward as he shifted around inside. It appeared he was grappling with something, but then he leapt out of the trunk and opened the rear door on the driver side. He had a hand pressed to the top of his head as if he were trying to keep it from splitting open.
“Get away from me!” yelled the wretched old spirit.
“Screw you!” yelled Todd.
“Todd!” Rachel cried.
“Arrhhhh!” Todd bent low to ease the pain.
Rachel started forward, wondering if the old man was somehow holding her husband there. She approached, but the pain increased, as did the putrescence. Fifty feet from the Grand Marquis, she was gagging and woozy from the slamming in her head.
“Stay back!” Todd hollered. He dragged the rear seat from the car.
“No! Get away from her, you recalcitrant fuck!” Lionel howled.
“Shut up! I don’t even know what recalcitrant means, you asshole!” Todd screamed in reply.
“Leave!” The older man swatted at Todd ineffectually, hands passing through him.
“Fuck off!” Todd hopped from the car, clutching something in his hand. He staggered to Rachel and displayed a small object.
“Was this his?” he asked. Rachel squinted at him, not comprehending. “Was this your father’s?” Todd’s breathing was hard and ragged, matching the pulsing warfare in Rachel’s head. He was close enough for her to recognize the object: a man’s ring with a large black onyx.
“Yeah, that’s his,” Rachel said, remembering how her father would turn the jewel side of the ring downward to get optimal impact when slapping her on top of the head.
Todd took three long steps, reeled back, and let the ring fly with every bit of his strength. It was an impressive throw, the ring disappearing into the distance. The only evidence it still existed was a distant, barely audible ping.
A Variable Darkness: 13 Tales Page 10