The road was nicknamed Idlewood Pass by residents of Clarkston at one end, and Clarkston Pass by residents of Idlewood at the other. It was a long dirt road, void of life, except for the animals that called the surrounding woods their home. The Old Mill Road crossed its path at the midpoint between the two towns. Very rarely would this intersection see any kind of traffic, especially not this late at night.
Now, careening down the pass, on route towards Idlewood, came an old dark green 1966 Dodge Charger. It passed the spot where the porcupine had stood so still and quiet. With the headlights off, it swerved back and forth in the darkness of this stretch of road, sometimes missing the ditch by mere inches as it swerved back onto course, leaving a dusty trail behind. Small, pale hands clutched the steering wheel with a steel grip as they maneuvered the car in swift, jagged movements. A young woman sat in the driver’s seat. She appeared to be in her early twenties. Her slim and svelte body leaned forward in the seat, while her eyes struggled to remain open and focused on the road. Her long and wavy dark brown hair cascaded down past her shoulders. Her eyes, which closed longer than they remained opened now, were of a deep green color. These pretty and innocent eyes struggled to stay awake, their beauty cloaked by the heaviness of their eyelids. The young woman passed out just as the old, beat-up Charger approached the Old Mill Road intersection.
* * *
The country music blaring from the old Ford truck shattered the silence of the night. Travelling on the Old Mill Road, the Jenkins boys were all crammed into Carl’s old blue and white pick up. As the truck approached the intersection, the driver gasped as a dark shadow appeared directly in front of the truck’s headlights. A dark car with no headlights on had cut directly in front of them at full speed. Carl only saw the car at the last second, and without any hint of the car’s presence by sign of headlights, he had nearly hit the driver’s door with full force.
He’d turned the steering wheel a quick and dramatic left, nearly rolling the truck as they were going so fast themselves. The truck came to a grinding stop in a cloud of dust in the middle of the intersection. The voice of the country singer wafted out through the opened windows of the truck and into the dark night air, mixing together with the dirt and grime that welcomed the twangy tune. Finally, as the dust settled around the truck, voices could be heard atop the music.
“Hoooooooooooo...that was close!” called out one voice.
“Fuck...spilled my beer,” said another.
“What the hell!? Who the fuck is stupid enough to drive through here with no fucking lights on,” said a third voice.
One at a time, three men stepped out of the truck. The driver, Carl, jumped out, slamming his door shut and spat on the ground next to his pickup. His anger was obvious as he walked around to the front of his truck, and looked up ahead to see if he could spot the car that he’d nearly crashed into just moments prior.
Stuart, who was Carl’s younger brother, got out of the truck on the passenger side and flung his now empty beer bottle into the woods, making it clang against a tree. Thomas was the last out of the truck. Tom, as he was nicknamed, was also a Jenkins, but he was a cousin on their dad’s side of the family. Following Stuart’s lead (or Stewey as the older boys called him), he also flung his empty beer bottle into the woods and headed off to the front of the truck where Carl stood. Eventually, it was Stewey that spotted the car. He called out: “Look, the car’s over there!”
The three of them made their way over to the car that had gone off the road and was now sitting lonely in the ditch. Their shuffling work boots made the dust rise up, illuminated by the rays of the truck’s headlights, shining on them as they walked towards the immobilized car. As they got closer to the vehicle, Tom was the first to recognize it. “I know that car. Ain’t no other Chargers like that one around here, not with that shitty patchwork!”
Carl stomped over to the car, his boots kicking some loose rocks and flinging them on the side of the green car. “You better have some fight left in ya, prick!” he yelled out as he got to door, his large and dirty hands grabbing the handle. His heart racing from anger he yanked open the door with brute force and bent over to grab the careless driver of the green Charger.
“Get him out of there, Carl. Bring him over here, and we’ll do a number on him too!” Stewey called out from behind the ditched car.
Bending down to look at the driver, Carl’s face went from angry to bewildered confusion. “What the fuck!? Hey bitch....wake up! You almost killed us back there!” Slumped over in the driver’s seat was a young woman, her small frame covering not even half of the large steering wheel that her body pressed up against. She was facing Carl, her long brown hair covering most of her face. It was obvious that she was passed out cold. Carl called out to the other Jenkins and waved them over. “Ya gotta come see this!”
Tom and Stuart walked around to the side of the car where Carl was now standing with his hands on his hips. His anger had now turned into amusement as he admired the young girl, her long legs stretched out, her skirt just high enough for him to get an eyeful of her thighs. “That’s one nice piece right there,” he said as the other two men peered inside the car.
Tom bent down and spotted the faded black and white fuzzy dice hanging from the Charger’s rear-view mirror. “I know her. She’s that girl from Idlewood who works at the Clarkston liquor store. I’d recognize those long brown curls anywhere!” His hand moved a few strands of her hair out of her face to get a better look at the pale sleeping beauty.
Carl nudged the girl, trying to wake her up. “Hey, wake up! You can’t be drinking and driving, didn’t ya know?” Stewey and Tom burst out laughing, their own drunken state obvious.
“She’s passed out, stone cold drunk she is,” said Carl as he reached in and started to pull her out of the car. “Fuck this, guys. Let’s take her back to the cabin. I bet we can teach her a lesson about getting drunk and having some fun with the boys!”
As Carl pulled her limp body out of the Charger, her legs still inside the car, Tom got in closer and carried her feet. “That little bitch wouldn’t even look at me last night when I was buying beer. Stuck up one she is.”
Tom and Carl lifted her up and out of the ditch. While they carried her towards the truck, Stuart ran ahead of them and jumped in the box of the pickup. He pushed aside the tools and the greasy fluid bottles that littered the box. Her arms dangled down as her body was clumsily carried by the two large men.
They crossed the headlights of the truck again, dust clouds rising up to the young girl’s back and legs. She coughed dryly with her eyes still closed as the dust got into her nostrils and mouth. As they approached the truck, Stewey pulled open a large tarp and spread it across the box of the truck. They lifted her up onto the open tailgate and Stewey dragged her onto the tarp.
“Ya coming, turd?” Carl asked Stuart.
“Don’t call me turd, dip shit. And no, I’m gonna stay here and make sure she doesn’t try to jump off if she wakes up.”
Carl rolled his eyes at his younger brother’s obvious state of obsession with the young girl and headed back to the front of the truck. As he slammed the driver’s side door shut, Tom picked up a cold bottle of beer from the case at his feet.
Drops of cold condensation stained his old faded blue jeans, as he brought the long neck to his mouth and gulped down a long swig of the cold brew. He handed a bottle to Carl and they joked about how they had started the night with bad luck at the pool hall but somehow lady luck had found them on this dark dirt road.
As the truck’s massive engine revved the box of the truck vibrated and the girl moaned and stirred a bit. Stewey put a hand on her shoulder, and smiled down at her. His short stubby fingers pulled down the girl’s light jacket that had ridden up to her waist when he’d dragged her into the truck’s box. His gaze moved down to her bare legs, where her knee-length skirt was now hiked up to her mid-thighs. He rubbed her shoulder
unconsciously. He glanced at the small curve of her breasts under her tight jacket and bending down he whispered in her ear, “Tonight, I’ll give ya what ya always needed baby.”
* * *
As the massive truck made its way down the dirt road, the young girl managed to open her eyes for a few brief moments. Her head got dizzy as soon as she saw the tree branches overhead, with the dark outlines of clouds in the backdrop. Confused, she wondered where she was. The last thing she remembered she had been in her car, trying to keep her eyes on the road. Her thoughts were unfocused, zooming in and out, just as fast as she was now zooming down the road. She could feel someone touching her shoulder. She struggled to open her eyes again, her lids heavy. She managed to open one eye and peer to her left. A man was sitting next to her. He smiled down at her and said something as his hand moved closer to touch her left breast. The loud roar of the engine muffled what he had said. Her mind screamed out for him to stop but her body, so weak and without energy, did not react in the least.
The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes again was the flash of a bright red light, then everything went black. She passed out again to the sound of the steady and loud pounding of each heartbeat, echoing in her head.
The truck that carried her groaned in an almost mocking fashion as it hit a pothole and shook her body. The truck was the first to violate her tonight, but it certainly would not be the last.
* * *
Carl turned off of Old Mill Road onto a bumpy and hardly visible trail. If not for the two thin dirt tracks in the grass, he could have easily gone off the road and ended up getting stuck out here in the boonies. With no cell tower for miles, there would have been no way of calling for help either. It would be a long walk back to Clarkston, so he tried to keep the truck as steady as he could as he made his way up the makeshift driveway.
After a few minutes, there came a clearing in the woods and the cabin came into view. It wasn’t much to look at anymore. When the Jenkins brothers were young, their parents had kept the cabin well-maintained. Their mother had always kept it clean and organized, everything in its place. After she passed away when they were teenagers, and their father took to the bottle, the cabin had become a dark place. Darkness had pierced through not only the walls and floors of the cabin, but it had also seeped into the boys’ lives.
Their father passed a few years after their mother, and so the cabin was now theirs. They lived in Clarkston in a cheap apartment, but they came to the cabin to drink on most weekends. As the headlights approached the old place, it was clear they hadn’t inherited their mother’s appreciation for cleanliness.
The front porch sank lower on the one side. The paint on the wooden siding was cracked and peeled. The window shutters were, for the most part, loose and about to fall off. The large bay window that had once been the prominent source of light in the boys’ childhood was now cracked from top to bottom, the result of a beer bottle thrown in a fit of rage one night a few years back. It wasn’t much to look at now, but Carl, Stuart and Thomas all filed out of the truck in hurried anticipation.
The young woman with the nice legs started rustling about when Tom slammed his door shut. Stuart was about to start towards the cabin when Carl yelled out to him, “Stewey, help me carry her inside, will ya!?”
Stuart turned around and glanced in the box of the truck as he came back. “Fuck off, Carl. I told you to stop calling me that you prick!” Stuart fidgeted with the zipper on his vest, trying to get it up. He peered back down at the girl, who was still passed out, but stirring on the tarp. Carl’s laugh punctured the quiet of the deep woods, and he teased his younger brother, as he had always done since they were kids. “You’re cute when you’re mad, little Stewey.”
His younger brother cursed under his breath and pulled the tarp down onto the tailgate. Carl bent down a bit and looked up the girl’s skirt. “We got us a hot one tonight boys!”
Stuart climbed into the box again and picked up the woman under her arms as Carl carried her legs. As they lifted her off the truck, her small and delicate voice whispered, “Where am I?”
Carl’s grin widened, and he gripped his hands tightly around her calves as he answered, “Why, you’re at the Jenkin’s love shack, and you’re gonna get the royal treatment tonight!” The three Jenkins erupted in drunken laughter as they made their way up to the cabin’s front porch steps. Carl turned to face Tom who was trailing behind him and said, “Tom, you go get some firewood!”
Tom stared at Carl for a brief moment and was about to protest when he realized that there was no use. Carl always got his way, no matter what. He turned and headed out down the trail that lead to the wood pile.
The two brothers carried the woman inside. The cabin was dark, as no electricity ran through these parts. Carl turned on the battery-operated lamp at the entrance, so they could see where they were going. There was a stench of stale alcohol and old overflowing ashtrays mixed in with the pungent odour of the uncleaned bathroom. Empty beer and liquor bottles littered the counter tops and table. Several food containers and grease-stained brown paper bags from the Clarkston takeout were strewn about on the floor and coffee table. “Shit, guess the maid didn’t show up again!” Stuart joked.
Carl and Stuart made their way to the largest of the bedrooms, where their dead parents’ bed still stood, void of blankets. It only had an old soiled sheet that was ripped down one side. They plopped the woman with the long brown hair onto the bed. Carl turned on the kerosene lamp near the bed while Stuart pushed her up higher. Her skirt moved up to her thighs and her pink lace-lined cotton panties were exposed.
Both men stared for a long moment. Carl broke the silence as he unbuckled his belt. “Go have a beer, Stewey. I’ll let ya know when I’m done with her.”
Stuart stared at his brother. He opened his mouth to protest just as Carl turned his back to him and pulled the woman’s legs down again, letting them dangle over the edge of the bed. Stuart knew it was useless to argue with his bully of a brother. He always got his way, and was always first. Stuart closed the door behind him as he heard his brother’s belt buckle hit the wooden floor boards.
* * *
The pile of firewood was a good walk away from the cabin. It had been the brothers who had hauled and split it a few months back, so now it was always Tom’s job to go fetch the firewood. This was a job that Tom despised, as he never got to start in on the fun with the brothers. He was always the last one to join in. He grumbled and cursed as he walked down the path from the side of the cabin, over to the small tool shed. The wood pile sat in the dark in front of the shed. Tom started filling the red wheelbarrow with firewood, making sure to fill it. He figured he didn’t want to keep running out here all night, so he would bring plenty to save himself some trips later on tonight.
As he grabbed a large piece near the bottom of the pile, he felt a sharp prickling sensation. “Ow, fuck!” he yelled out. A large splinter had pierced the skin just below his thumb and a small blood drop formed instantly. He brought his hand to his mouth and sucked at the blood and splinter. His teeth found the edge of the small wooden weapon and he pulled it out of his hand. “What a fuckin’ night this is starting to be,” he grumbled. The old wheelbarrow tipped over as he flung the next piece in too fast and all the other pieces fell out. Tom stared and shook his head. What a fuckin’ night indeed.
* * *
Stuart stormed out of the dark cabin by way of the back door. He fumed and cursed at himself for not standing up to Carl. All his life he’d been bullied by his older brother, and never dared to stand up to him. On the few occasions he’d tried getting up the nerve, he’d chickened out when Carl glared at him, his hands forming into large fists of fury. He knew better than to upset Carl. Upsetting Carl would mean he’d get a pounding.
Stuart walked out into the night and headed for the generator. It wasn’t always easy getting the old clunker going. Ever since Carl accident
ally put kerosene in the tank during one of his drunken moments, the old generator hadn’t worked right since.
Stuart got the small gas canister on the side of the generator and started working on it. He had to keep himself occupied to keep his mind off Carl and the girl that he had wanted a go at first. He’d been eyeing her ever since she started working at the liquor store earlier in the month. Now his brother was gonna have her first. He slammed the canister of gas on the ground and cranked the generator over and over again, trying to get it started.
* * *
The bedroom was dark except for the dimly lit lantern on the side table near the bed. Carl started touching the young woman, and as he did so she started stirring and moaning, still unconscious. “I wish you’d wake up bitch. I prefer a fight from whores like you!” He took a long swig of the beer he’d picked up on his way in the cabin, and started to have his way with her.
After a few moments, the young woman began to rouse and move about. “Oh, yeah baby, that’s it, you’re feeling me now, aren’t ya?”
Carl’s large hands were holding down her hips when she grabbed them with her own small, cold and wiry hands. Carl looked at her at once, his excitement rising as he felt her struggling body beneath him. Her eyes were rolling back in her head now, and Carl knew this was in no way a good thing.
Her back arched wide in a violent fashion as she let out an uncanny moan, much louder and stronger than a body this size could possibly let out. The woman thrashed her head to one side, whipped her hair out of her face and let it fall back down on the soiled bed. Carl’s eyes spread wide and fearful as he noticed two large puncture marks on her neck. Bright red blood now trickled from each hole and down into her cleavage that Carl had so openly admired just moments before. She jerked her head up and brought it within inches of his face, flashing her long, white canines at him. Her hot and putrid breath now hissed onto his face.
Dark Tales for Dark Nights Page 7