by Troy McCombs
But when he grabbed the door handle and pulled, it did not open. Not only was the place dark inside, it was trashed, the walls busted, the chairs overturned and broken, the beauty mirrors cracked. A sign which said 'WE'RE OPEN' hung from the window. Another sign, however, which said, OUT OF BUSINESS, hung below it. This place had obviously been this way for a while, John thought, trying to remember the last time he had come to The Square. But he couldn't, and he knew he now had to go out of his way just to have a few strands of hair snipped.
He joined the Route 2 highway not five minutes after eating two pounds of hot wings in his car. The traffic on the road was fairly light; he shared his space mostly with big rigs and buses, both of which traveled this road twenty-four/seven. In the far distance, black clouds filled the sky, separating day from what looked like night. A storm was brewing from the west, near Lecorrd, two towns over. John hoped he could get in there and out before he got caught in it.
He flicked on his blinker and got into the left lane, behind an occupied school bus. The vehicle's narrow wheels flung small pebbles at his windshield. They bounced off it with great force, making him clench his teeth. That's all I need is a new windshield. I'll pull the money right out of my ass. But there seemed to be no visible damage that he could see.
His attention soon shifted when someone in the back of the bus moved from one aisle to another. His eyes locked onto a young, mentally disabled boy with a strange deformity on his face. His nose looked severed from his nostrils. His right eyebrow protruded farther than did his left. His hair was thinning in the middle. He had a crazed look in his eyes, a usually uncommon attribute for a child with this kind of disorder, Rollings thought. More often than not, they smiled, waved, and made him feel welcome. This one made him feel edgy.
Was he actually seeing a human being? Or was this just another illusion?
To test, John nodded his head and waved. The boy smiled and did the same. Definitely real.
The bus slowed, coming to a halt at the first traffic light. John's Town car stopped behind it. His attention wavered from the boy and to the Dollar General Food Market on his right, which used to be Big Wheel, an all-purpose store, years ago. The parking lot was almost empty, save three cars. The lights inside were on, but dim, and he could only see two workers moving around behind the check-outs.
Burrrrrr!
John looked left and at the passing barge sounding off in the Ohio River. Its horn sometimes woke him at night when it traveled from Fransford to Gerrison. Sometimes its powerful floodlight even seeped in through his only window and brightened his room, making calm, relaxing slumber impossible.
Except now he didn't have a window or a room. His quarters had been burned to nothingness.
Soon, a new substance invaded his senses. The stingy odor of diesel exhaust exuding from the buses tailpipe found its way up his nose, drawing a cough from him. He turned his head forward again and again made contact with the disabled young man.
The smile on the boy's face was gone. The intention in his eyes was questionable. Slowly, he pressed a finger to his own neck and ran it across, making a cut-throat gesture. A thick, gooey line of red accompanied it, as if he were actually slicing his throat open with the soft, pliable flesh of his index. Blood did not run, it stayed in place. No noticeable expression of pain appeared on his face, which made it all the more horrifying. John closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to clear away the realistic vision from his head.
When he opened them back up, the young man in the back of the bus was laughing, holding a torn ketchup packet up to the dirty rear window. None of it was the work of D'kourikai, but of a disabled kid trying to be funny.
The bus moved on, as did Rollings.
***
Sharton, The Friendly Town—according to the neatly engraved wooden sign standing by a group of pines off the side of the road—was a slightly bigger town than Bellsville, but not so spread out. The houses here were older and more dilapidated, the people dirty and mean looking, and the warm springtime air crummy and lung-insulting. The bad odor was attributed to the steel mill right across the river, where the smokestacks filled the horizon with massive amounts of toxins minute by minute. Some nights it turned the sky pink. The businesses here were actually thriving, due to the simple fact that most of them offered video gambling machines to the desperate local patrons who had nothing better to spend their welfare checks on.
By far, the worst county in the area. John was headed toward the end of town, where Hair Kings was located.
After pulling off a side road and driving down about a mile in, he pulled up to the barber shop, set his car in park, and looked up. A heavy sigh left his mouth. He shook his head. This one wasn't open either. It said WE'RE CLOSED, and that was all.
"What are you trying to tell me?" He said it mostly to himself. He then said, to any spirit or higher power involved, "I'm going back to the hospital, whether you want me to or not. I can't play this chicken game. I need to talk to Charlie, and I can't call him. My cell phone is ashes. My head still hurts. Okay?"
He looked up, tilted his head back, listening closely, as if daring an answer. None came.
He waited, but there was still no response, no sound anywhere close by.
"Okay.” He switched to reverse and backed up.
He met with the highway once again, this time driving toward Lecorrd Medical Center, farther into the blackened storm clouds. The rain appeared suddenly as he passed the Peterson Bridge, the closest link to Hamperton from Sharton. He flicked on his wipers. They squeaked from side to side, throwing the accumulating water from his windshield. Still, it was hard for him to see the lines on the road. Sharp lightning bolts flashed near the hills like angry blue scratches from a hungry jaguar. One clap of thunder was so loud it shook the floor under his feet. Lecorrd was still some four miles away, but the growing storm made it seem like twenty. Vehicle after vehicle passed him by. He was never good at driving in such weather, even though he did like the sound of the rain tinkling against the car. The other two elements he could have done without.
An earsplitting roar shot into his ears and the steering wheel slipped hard to the right. One of those elements he disliked—thunder—racked the pain already behind his skull. The second, a jagged streak of lightning, struck his rear right tire. His car swerved off to the shoulder. The engine coughed and died. Even the lights went out.
I can't believe this.
It came to a complete halt by the side of the road.
"Come on!” He turned the key and pumped the gas. It did not struggle. It did not turn over. It did nothing.
He tried again.
In vain.
"Shit!" He smacked the windshield, frustrated. "What do I do now? It's you, isn't it?" He looked up. "I said I'm doing what I wanna do and you blow up my tire? God? Guardian spirit? D'kourikai? I don't have a spare. I already used it. I have no cell phone. It's like a freggin' Hurricane out here and—" He looked around. The roads were void of traffic. "—I don't have a way back. Either I'm stuck until someone comes, or I walk a few miles into Lecorrd!"
John took a moment to calm himself. Clarity slowly came over his mind, easing his headache and making the irritation deplete from his body. His dark eyes peered out upon a slick, empty highway. His hand rubbed the stubble of his cheek. He concentrated on the soothing pitter-patter sound of rain against the hood. He watched as the water flooded the road. He imagined it washing away his negative thoughts and feelings and cleansing him of all impurities brought on by this current uncontrollable incident, whether accidental or intentional. It even made him smile. He spoke to whomever was listening, "Okay, I am all ears—"
Abruptly, there was a rumble of thunder and a bolt of lightning. The bright, jagged shard of electricity touched down near the town of Lecorrd. Now he knew for certain where he needed to go, but not how to get there.
John grabbed the key again and turned. Nothing. He thought he even felt one of the rear tires deflate. He sure wasn't ge
tting anywhere in his Town car. It was now a brand-new scrapper.
He popped open his door and stepped out. Thick, angular rain pelted his body from the side. The sky flashed with intense pulses of blue light.
Closing his door, John took one step forward, recoiled, and gasped, suddenly overcome by a torrent of cold water. A Mack truck had blazed right past him, splashing through a huge puddle and drenching the psychic instantly from head to toe. Some of those cultivated feelings of relief dissipated. Some rage resurfaced. John had a few choice words to scream at the driver, maybe even flip him the bird if he was looking at him through his side-view mirror. But he didn't do anything...except laugh. He looked down at his soaking wet clothes, which were glued to his body, and couldn't help but think about the irony of it all. It was like one big cosmic joke orchestrated by some mischievous, celestial teenager in the heavens, a prankster with nothing better to do other than throw as many obstacles at him as possible, then sit back and laugh. Was there a point to it? To the flat tire? To the wild goose chase search for a barber? Or were they simply to bring satisfaction to some Higher Power?
John checked his watch. 3:37. He could have been at the first red light in the next town by now, had he had wheels and a working motor. No. That would have been too easy.
He walked along the shoulder of Route 2, cold and dripping wet. The rain did not let up. The wind blew worse, against his face, his unclothed arms. It felt like winter again. His shoes squished with every step. Lightning flashed across the river, some diffused and omnipresent, some in bolts and sporadic. Thunder sounded like hungry demons waiting for food in the sky. John continued on, no matter how bad he didn't want to, looking over his shoulder every few paces to see if any vehicles were coming. None came, not even after seven minutes. He could have used a lift, but that wasn't the only reason he was on guard; a jogger had been killed on this same stretch of road only a year ago, rear-ended by some drunk driver with a suspended license.
John's impatience grew. His pace increased. His sinuses started to bother him. Snot ran from his nostrils and his eyes became dry. He coughed a few times, breathing in the cool moist air. Pneumonia, that's all I need, he thought, coming around the steep, jagged hill. Cars whooshed past across the barrier three lanes away, either leaving Lecorrd or driving up the embankment to merge onto the road to take them into Pittsburgh. John stuck his thumb out, but no one took the bait. In their minds, what in the hell was a twenty-some-year-old man doing hitching a ride on a day like this? It reminded one passer-by of The Hitcher, a classic horror film about a wandering murderer with no valid identity who ends up terrorizing an unsuspecting driver kind enough to try to give him a lift.
I'm just about there anyway, he thought to himself as he walked up the road, stopped, and looked both ways to see if the path was clear. One immense Budweiser truck screamed past, and then it was. John ran across the four line highway and onto the opposite shoulder. He commenced to go down the hill, passing the Welcome to Lecorrd sign, and finally arrived at the place he intended to be all along. Sauntering along the guard-rail, John checked his watch again. It read: 3:50. It had taken him thirteen minutes to get here. The rain let up. The storm clouds scattered apart.
When John looked back up from his watch, a look of utter confusion emerged on his face. Down by the first traffic light into town, two vehicles—a black Toyota and a white Saturn—had just recently careened into each other at what looked like full force. Smoke poured from both hoods. Blood was splattered on both cracked windshields. Motorists were no longer sitting in their own cars; they were already examining the damage.
I'm glad I wasn't driving when—John began to think. Suddenly, it came to him. A revelation in disguise. His tire going out and his engine dying was all for the best.
Had he been driving, he would have been the victim instead. The white Saturn, twisted beyond recognition, was lying in a heap in the far right lane, the same lane he needed to be in to get back to the hospital.
"Oh shit," was the only thing he could say. He slowed to an amble and watched the bystanders attend to one of the unfortunate victims, who was not moving. She sat in a painful-looking position in the driver's seat, either unconscious or dead.
"Doctor? Is there a doctor here anywhere around?!" A young businessman looked at everyone present. There was no response. Others whipped out there cell phone to dial 911. In the distance, on the road near the long-unused bulletin board, two police cruisers came barreling toward the scene of the accident, their flashing lights illuminating the darkening atmosphere pretty well.
News travels fast, he thought, shaking his head. But obviously, he dearly considered, some things are faster than news...
I should be where that lady is.
Even though he was thankful, he felt guilty. Again.
"She's dead!" A fat woman pointed a stubby finger to the one victim.
"Jesus, look at the...blood!" An older man looked away from the scene, sickened.
"Oh, this does not look good." A teenage boy squeezed his girlfriend's shoulder.
John continued walking forward, trying to tune out the whaling police sirens echoing through the valley, with a new burden of survival guilt resting on his weak shoulders.
I should be dead.
But he was cursed to be alive.
Rollings walked the streets of Lecorrd for almost half an hour. Lots of road construction was being done, and lots of people were running south to see where all the shrilling sirens were headed. He did not look back once. He did not stop at all. He didn't respond to anybody who asked him what the commotion was all about. He just forged ahead, oblivious, only his intended destination on his mind.
Rain slowly started to pick up again. There was hardly any more lightning or thunder, save very minute glimpses of activity from the clouds. The wind, however, was growing wicked, blowing all kinds of newspapers and stray fliers around.
At 8th and Perkins Street, in the heart of the business district of town, where mostly bars, cafes, and small casinos took up most of the block, John noticed a small, out-of-place building standing at the corner's end. The name of the business was not visible from his current location, but he felt strangely drawn to the place. Either he'd been there before or needed to be there sometime in the future. His psychic sense was working for him. For once.
He walked ahead faster, anxious to know what his mental antenna was trying to tell him. His beacon burned brighter the closer he got, a fiery little star about to burst. He felt like he was about to solve an important mystery, and even in this line of work, such a thing was pretty rare.
At 9th and Perkins, John stopped at the corner and looked across the street. The name of the building: Barber's Paradise. It was an older place, its brick walls covered in ugly graffiti, one of its front partitions cracked slightly in its upper corner. But the lights were on, a WE'RE OPEN sign hung in the door window, and people were inside getting their hair cut.
This must be the place …?
A loud clap of thunder roared from above, further drawing John's attention. He looked up, only to watch a large, direct bolt of lightning trail down from a black cloud, almost striking the roof of the barber shop.
"I hear you," he said to the sky, running across the street and entering.
The door closed behind him with a loud thud. A bell hanging overhead rang. Everyone inside turned to see who it was. The barbers halted in mid-trim. Four people were looking at him as if he had capsized one great party.
"Uh, hi." John didn't know what else to say, but he was embarrassed by what he said. An old man in the hot seat, nodded. The other man getting a trim looked away. One of the two barbers, both of whom were woman, smiled. "Take a seat there and I'll be with you shortly.”
John quietly sat down. He looked around the shop, realizing that this place was, indeed, eerily familiar. The checkerboard floors, the many recesses in the walls, the antique mirrors—even the oily smell lingering in the air—reminded him of something. That could have meant two t
hings: past or future. Prophecies and history were linked together like a sandwich. One was difficult to discern from the other. Either he had been here before or would return again later for some undetermined reason. Regardless, today meant something special.
John relaxed for a few moments, watching the breaking local news story on a small HDTV.
Jack Hillsmouth, probably the most well-known news anchor in the area, and sexist according to most women within a hundred miles, was standing near the scene of a car accident, microphone in hand and a smug little smile on his face.
"We're here now in Lecorrd where a fatal car accident which took place about thirty minutes ago. As you can see—” Jack pointed. The cameraman panned to the mangled vehicles. It was the same wreckage John had seen and had almost been involved in.
"—it's pretty bad. The man in the truck has been life flighted to Pittsburgh Hospital. The woman, however, in the other vehicle, has unfortunately died. The names are not being given out as of now. Also, out by the Peterson Bridge, not ten miles away, another car, apparently abandoned, has been struck by a semi sometime before this fatal accident out on Route 5. The car, a Lincoln—"
The video switched to another mangled vehicle, even worse than the others. John's eyes widened. It was his car. It was sitting near where he'd left it, but was ripped apart like a torn aluminum can. He could not believe it. He couldn't help but giggle.
"We do not know whom this belongs to, but nobody was hurt during the collision. We will report more as reports come in."
Now I gotta buy a new car that I don't have the money for.
The ring of the overhead bell pulled John back into reality. He looked up to see the old man, who now barely had any hair, leave the building.