The Crossroads

by Chris Grabenstein

  For an instant, Judy wished she still lived in New York City. In a high-rise apartment building. Someplace without creeks.

  Then she heard a tire blow out.

  The car skidded slightly and Judy carefully eased it off the road. She came to a stop right in front of an old graveyard about a quarter mile west of the crossroads. She could see the flashing red light blurring in the distance.

  That meant George and home weren’t far away. He could drive out in their other car and rescue her. She reached for her cell phone.

  The battery was dead and she had forgotten the car adapter.

  She looked up and down the highway. There was no traffic. No tow trucks cruising the highways she could flag down like a taxi in Times Square. There was nobody on the road at all.

  Except, all of a sudden, Judy sensed somebody staring at her.

  Somebody outside the car.

  She turned slowly to the left. To the window.

  She practically jumped out of her skin.

  The storm moved closer.

  Zack sat on his bed with Zipper, stared out the window, and counted the seconds between seeing lightning and hearing thunder.

  “I used to be afraid of thunderstorms,” he comforted his dog. “Now I just pretend it’s somebody bowling in the clouds. A giant probably. And he uses the moon for his bowling ball.”

  Zack heard the familiar gurgling from behind his bathroom door. The rainwater was probably flooding the cracked sewer lines—sending more gunk upstairs to burble out of his toilet.

  It was a good thing their new house had so many bathrooms. Zack’s was currently off-limits and would be, his dad said, until the plumber showed up.

  So Zack had rolled up a spare towel and jammed it into the crack at the bottom of the bathroom door.

  He didn’t want the odor oozing out to make his bedroom smell farty, too.

  But what if the lightning moved too close and an electrical spark made all that trapped gas explode?

  Zack tried not to look worried. He didn’t want to scare his new dog. Besides, he’d already unpacked his G.I. Joe firefighter action figure—the one Judy said knew how to handle “hazmats,” hazardous materials like sewer gas.

  But Judy wasn’t home.

  If the bathroom blew, Zack would have to do all of Joe’s voices himself.

  There was a big burly man standing six inches from Judy’s door.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” he said, oblivious to the slashing sheets of rain. “Car trouble?” His voice sounded muffled because Judy had kept all the windows rolled up tight. She feigned a smile and waved to signal she was fine, just fine.

  “Front left tire,” the man said. “She’s blown.”

  The man wore some sort of navy blue uniform—so wet it looked black. Raindrops guttered off the bill of his cap—the kind milkmen and airplane pilots used to wear. There was an embroidered patch on its crown: Greyhound Scenicruiser. A name tag was pinned to his chest: Bud.

  “Didn’t mean to spook you,” Bud said. “Do you require roadside assistance?”

  Judy lowered her window. A crack.

  “My name is Bud.” He pointed to his name tag to prove it.

  “I’m Judy. I’ve never had a flat before.”

  “Wish I could fix her for you. But I can’t.”

  “Oh. Bad back?”

  Bud didn’t answer.

  “I live just up the road,” Judy said. “I was going to call my husband, but my phone died. Can I borrow yours?”

  “My telephone?”

  “Right. Can I borrow it?”

  “Sorry, ma’am. I don’t have a phone out here. They have one down at the filling station, if I remember correctly.”

  The rain pattered on his hat and shoulders.

  “I could talk you through the tire change. Do you have a spare?”

  “Yes. I think so. In the back.”

  Bud waited.

  Judy had always considered herself a good judge of character. She hoped she was right because she judged Bud to be kind of spooky but not dangerous. Grabbing her tiny umbrella, she stepped out into the rain.

  Bud stayed where he was.

  “The jack’s in the back,” she said.

  Rain blew sideways and the flimsy umbrella did little to keep Judy from getting drenched as she walked to the rear of the car. Bud followed. When the light from the emergency flashers hit his face, each burst made him appear ghoulish, like someone flicking a flashlight on and off underneath their chin.

  Judy opened the hatchback and hoped Bud’s bad back wouldn’t prevent him from rolling the spare tire up to the front of the car.

  Apparently, it did.

  So she pushed it up the pavement with one hand while balancing her worthless umbrella in the other. Bud followed behind her. The way he dragged his feet, like his shoes were ill-fitting cinder blocks, Judy figured the guy’s back must be killing him.

  Bud talked Judy through the tire change. He told her what to do and Judy did it.

  “Sorry I couldn’t take care of the job myself,” Bud said when the tire was changed.

  “You helped plenty. Thanks!”

  “Guess you owe me one.”

  “Guess so.”

  “Say—do you live around here?”

  “Yes. See that tree with the cross? Down there near the intersection? Well, that tree is in our backyard.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “Yep.”

  “Sort of an eyesore, isn’t it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The old wooden cross. The rusty bucket of dead flowers. It’s an eyesore, all right.”

  “I guess.”

  “You folks ought to chop it down.”

  “The memorial?”

  “The whole tree.”

  “Oh. Okay. I’ll mention it to my husband.” She climbed into her car.

  “We’d appreciate it!” Bud snapped her a crisp two-finger salute.

  Judy nodded and eased back onto the highway.

  She wanted to reach the crossroads and turn the corner because every time she looked up at her rearview mirror, she saw Bud glimmering in her taillights—swinging his arms like he had an ax and was chopping down a tree.

  “Sharon?”

  Gerda Spratling stumbled around her bedchamber.

  “Sharon? Where are you, girl?”

  Miss Spratling found a small silver bell and shook it violently.

  “Sharon!” She jangled the bell even harder.

  Sharon slid open the panel doors.

  The storm had torn down the power lines to Spratling Manor. The only illumination came from lightning flashing through the casement windows.

  “Is everything all right, ma’am?”

  Sharon carried a fluttering candle that sent shadows skipping across the cavernous room. The candlelight made everything in the creepy old house even creepier—especially Miss Spratling.

  “Sharon, dearie, have I ever told you about Clint Eberhart?” A girlish smile crept across the old woman’s wrinkled lips. “Oh, he was the most. The absolute most. Thick, wavy hair. Such a dreamboat. Clint doesn’t think I’m ugly….”

  “Can I bring you anything, ma’am?”

  Thunder cracked. Glass rattled.

  “Bring me champagne!”

  Sharon tried to figure out what they sold at the gas station that might pass for champagne. Maybe ginger ale.

  “No. Never mind. Clint will bring the bubbly! Daddy promised.”

  “Yes, ma’am. If you require nothing further…”

  “Only that you be happy for me!”

  Sharon backed away. Inched toward the door.

  “Oh, Daddy!” Miss Spratling screamed. “You have made me the happiest little girl in the whole wide world!”

  Boom! Another blast of thunder rocked the bedroom. Zipper whimpered.

  “Hey, Zip—did you know that sound travels eleven thousand feet per second? And there are five thousand, two hundred and eighty feet per mile.”

  Lightning
flashed.

  “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five—”

  Thunder exploded.

  “Okay, see? That lightning was less than a mile away, ’cause for every four point seven seconds between—”

  The sky flared white. Thunder roared instantaneously with the flash. Then Zack heard an explosion—like a wooden crate being blown to bits by a stack of dynamite.

  The lightning must’ve hit something in the backyard!

  Zack and Zipper raced to the window.

  Wet oak leaves pressed against the glass and slid down like slow green hands.

  The big oak near the highway was tearing itself apart. Lightning must’ve hit it. One half of the huge tree crashed down behind the house. Dead branches snapped off it like crisp icicles. The other half slammed across the highway, blocking the crossroads with a barricade of branches.

  Zack and Zipper pressed their noses against the window.

  “Wow. Awesome.”

  Zack sensed movement. On the far side of the fallen tree.

  He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the shadow of a man walking through the woods. A man with a big swoop of combed-back hair.

  “Zack?” his dad called from downstairs.

  He turned to answer. “Yeah?”

  “You guys okay?”

  “Yeah. We’re fine.”

  When he looked out the window again, the man was gone.

  It feels good to be back inside a body—the same nineteen-year-old body he died in.

  He still wears the boots, blue jeans, and black leather jacket he wore on the final night of his life. His hair is still full and thick, still combed straight back with a wavy doo-wop flip, still glued in place by glistening Brylcreem.

  Wherever he goes, he leaves behind the minty scent of his oily hair cream.

  He walks away from the oak tree and down to the road.

  His flip-top Ford Thunderbird glimmers in the moonlight. The chrome grillwork on the convertible sparkles. There’s no hint of where the front end crumpled and slammed the V-8 engine back into the driver’s seat to crush his legs.

  He hops in. Grips the steering wheel. Listens to the bent-eight engine purr and roar. He is ready to peel wheels and raise hell.

  Raise some before he has to go there.

  He had been terrified when the lightning bolt struck his tree, afraid it was God calling in the loan on his soul, demanding payment in full and interest past due.

  When the tree split, he figured he was a goner, that it was time to move on, time to finally leave this limbo where he had been held prisoner for nearly fifty years.

  But it seems he isn’t heading downstairs for fire, brimstone, and pokes from the devil’s pitchfork. Not just yet, anyway.

  The stump. The roots. They sink deep into the earth. They hold him here. He doesn’t have to let go or move on.

  He glances up toward the second-story window of the house behind him.

  The boy’s bedroom.

  I’ll be back for you later, four-eyes. Never did like nerds who wore glasses. Counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder? What a baby.

  He has killed children before.

  He looks forward to doing it again.

  “That was pretty incredible, hunh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Zipper wasn’t afraid when the tree came down?”

  “Nah.” Zipper was on top of Zack’s bedspread, curled up against his legs. Zack was tucked in under the covers. “We’re both fine, Dad.”

  “Good. I’ll call those tree men first thing tomorrow. Get the backyard cleaned up.”

  “Cool.”

  “Good night, Zack.”

  His father flicked off the light. Closed the bedroom door.

  Zack didn’t dare mention the shadow man he had seen because his father would assume he was making up another story with what his mother used to call his overactive imagination. The way she said it? She meant Zack was a liar.

  He has a fierce hunger for a cheeseburger, fries, and a thick chocolate shake.

  But the Burger Barn is gone. Something called Chuck E. Cheese has taken its place.

  He wants that cheeseburger bad. Hasn’t had one in fifty years.

  He jams the Thunderbird into reverse and peels wheels.

  No one sees his car. No one hears it. They sense only a slight movement of wind, feel a cold swirl of air.

  He makes a hard left turn and heads toward the river.

  I’ll go down to the factory, he thinks. Follow somebody on lunch break. Find a cheeseburger.

  He has no concept of time. It is four a.m. Nobody will be going to lunch, especially no employees of the Spratling Clockworks Factory, which shuttered its doors in 1983.

  He pulls into a crumbling parking lot outside an enormous redbrick building—an empty shell three stories tall with arched windows. The giant Spratling Stands the Test of Time sign is rusty and faded.

  He had started working for Julius Spratling in 1951. He pushed a broom, cleaned up trash, and flirted with the factory girls—many of whom he took out back to his secret love nest.

  The machine shop. It was his passion pit—even after he was married.

  In the east, the sun begins to rise. Somehow he understands he has to leave. When dawn comes, he’ll be gone. But he knows he will return come nightfall. He senses it.

  He has work to do, unfinished business.

  He also has time.

  If that lightning bolt couldn’t send me to hell, what on earth can?

  “We’ll chop it up into firewood, mulch the crown.”

  Tony Mandica had brought a crew of six tree men with him to the Jennings house early Saturday morning.

  “Would you guys like some coffee?” Judy asked.

  “You got a bathroom we can use later?”

  “Uh, sure. Right off the kitchen.”

  “In that case, pour me a big ’un!”

  Judy smiled. Poured coffee into paper cups. Four of the new home’s five bathrooms were still operational. The one off Zack’s bedroom was a mess. Good thing the plumber was coming that afternoon, too.

  “Is your father here?” Judy asked Mandica.

  “Yeah. Probably someplace shady taking a nap. I swear, if his name wasn’t already on the truck, I’d fire him!”

  “Do you think he’d like some coffee?”

  “Never saw him turn down a free cup.”

  “Zack? Can you and Zipper take Mr. Mandica some coffee?”

  Zack really didn’t want to traipse around in the evil trees looking for an old man napping like Rip van Winkle.

  But Judy gave him that smile. What else could he do? Tell her he was afraid?

  “Sure,” he said.

  He took the coffee and headed into the woods. Zipper followed him.

  Zack saw the old man sitting on a big rock staring at the jagged stump left when the oak toppled over. He had a chain saw sitting near his feet, but it wasn’t running.

  Zipper barked and the old man looked up.

  “I brought you some coffee, sir.”

  The old man’s eyes looked as milky as bug guts.

  “I tried to bring this tree down once before.” The old man pointed at a cluster of angry gashes scarring the bark. “See there? That’s where I took my ax to it. Took a saw to it, too. Bent my ax head. Chewed up my saw blade.”

  The old man didn’t look at Zack and wasn’t actually talking to him, either. He was saying stuff to the empty air and Zack just happened to be the only person close enough to hear it.

  “When they come to me, I told ’em I’d chop it down. But I couldn’t ’cause it’s a devil tree.”

  The old man wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. The temperature was way over eighty degrees, but he was wearing red-checked flannel.

  Because the old man is crazy.

  “They wouldn’t let me be. Chop it down, chop it down, chop it down. Every night, they’d come at me in my dreams. Chop it down, cho
p it down, chop it down.”

  Zack placed the coffee cup on the ground.

  “I’ll leave your coffee….”

  The old man spun around. Glared at Zack.

  “It’s a devil tree, boy! You hear me? The gateway to hell! That’s why you never see no snow around it come winter. Hell’s too hot. Melts the snow outside its back door!”

  “I think I hear my father calling.”

  “God himself had to bring this tree down,” the old man ranted, “because no mortal man could!”

  “Okay. So long, sir.”

  Zack ran the hundred-yard dash back to his house as fast as he could. Zipper ran after him.

  Great. The oak tree wasn’t just evil; it was hell’s back door.

  Now Zack had something else not to tell anyone.

  While the tree crew worked on the felled tree, Zack walked up Stonebriar Road with his father, who had decided this was the perfect Saturday to go see if any other kids were living in the neighborhood.

  They walked past several houses still under construction.

  “When I was a boy, a bunch of us hung out together all summer long. We gave each other nicknames: Cowboy, Moose, Stinky. He, you know, didn’t shower much.”

  “What’d they call you?”

  “Ratfink.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because my father was the sheriff. The other guys were afraid I’d rat them out if we ever did anything bad.”

  “Did you?”

  “Nope. It’s against the guy code. A guy never rats out his buddies unless, you know, uh, one of their fathers needs to know something important. A guy always tells his dad everything important. That’s another part of the same code….”

  “But your dad was the sheriff. So that part of the code sort of violates the first part.”

  “Yeah.” Zack’s father was having trouble wiggling out of that one, so he changed the subject. “Hey, there’s a couple guys!”

  Zack saw four boys his age tossing a baseball around in an empty lot.