by Brian Keene
“We’ll pay you,” I offered in desperation, pulling out my wallet. I opened it, and a picture of Terri smiled at me from behind the plastic sleeve. “I’ve got sixty bucks.”
“Sorry, guys,” the cop said. “Really, I am. I’d like to help you. But I can’t. I’ve got to stay.”
Charlie and Frank both checked their pockets. I stared at Terri’s picture.
“I’ve got forty,” Charlie said. “Frank?”
“Thirty-seven. How about it, Officer? That’s almost one hundred and forty bucks.”
“And,” I added, “I can write you a check for more when we get there.”
He paused, and I thought that maybe we’d convinced him. But then he sighed.
“I’m sorry. I’m just going to stay here.”
“But why?” I asked, frustrated.
“I’m afraid to go back out there. Afraid of what I’ll see. Good luck. Hope you make it home safe.”
We didn’t argue with him. Instead, we started off again. I cast one glance over my shoulder and he was still sitting there, slumped behind the wheel and crying. His sobs echoed through the night.
It was a lonely sound.
I knew how he felt. I’d missed my wife during the entire journey, but at that moment, it became a solid, tangible thing, swelling deep inside my gut and threatening to explode. My eyes started watering again, and this time it had nothing to do with smoke or fumes. My lips felt numb.
“Thanks, guys,” I said, my voice cracking.
Charlie tilted his head from side to side, cracking his neck. “For what?”
“For coming along with me. For not letting me do this alone.”
“Safety in numbers, remember?” Charlie winked. “And besides, this is just an extension of our carpool.”
“And I needed the exercise.” Frank grinned. “Doctor’s always on me to do more walking. Well, he got his fucking wish.”
His laughter was infectious. We walked together, side by side down the center of the road, and when the darkness swallowed us up, we didn’t notice.
8
We reached Hereford, which would have been Exit 27 had we stayed on the interstate. It was a small town, no industries or shopping centers, and only a single bar. The streets were empty, no traffic or pedestrians. Televisions flickered in the windows of some of the homes, but many more were dark and lifeless. Everything looked yellow in the sodium lights that lined the sidewalk.
“I don’t know about you guys,” Frank wheezed, “but I need something to drink.”
His face was as pale as cottage cheese, and his clothing was completely drenched with sweat.
“You okay?” I asked, concerned. “You don’t look so good.”
“Don’t feel so good, either, to be honest. I’m too old for this shit.”
“We can stop,” I offered. “Take a break?”
Frank shook his head stubbornly. “I’ll be okay soon as we find something to drink. I’ve never gone this long without a beer. Must be withdrawal.”
He smiled, trying to laugh it off, but I could see that he was serious.
“Yeah,” Charlie agreed. “I’m thirsty, too. Don’t know about a beer, but I’d kill for a bottle of water right now.”
The Exxon gas station and convenience store was still open, so we stopped there. A bell rang as we walked through the door and the lights were on inside, but there was nobody behind the counter.
Charlie cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello?”
The fluorescent lights hummed softly in the silence. In the back room, the air compressor kicked on, making sure the soda and milk aisle stayed refrigerated.
“Hey,” Charlie yelled again. “Anybody home? You got customers!”
“It’s deserted,” Frank said. “Maybe the clerk vanished with everyone else.”
Something didn’t feel right to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The compressor suddenly shut itself off. My ears rang in the silence. I sniffed the air and caught a faint trace of cordite.
“Doesn’t look like they have a public restroom,” Frank observed.
“Maybe they’re in the back, using the crapper.”
“Screw it,” Charlie said. “Let’s just take what we need and go.”
I started to protest, but he cut me off.
“We’ll leave our money on the counter, Steve. That way we’re not stealing.”
Frank frowned. “It smells like gun smoke in here, don’t it?”
I nodded. “I smelled it, too, but I thought it was just me.”
Charlie headed down one of the aisles and grabbed a bag of potato chips.
“Hello,” I called out. “Anybody here?”
A low moan answered me. We glanced at each other, surprised.
“Behind the counter,” Frank whispered.
We ran to the register, and looked over the counter. A Filipino man lay on the floor. He’d been shot in the chest. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth and pooled beneath him on the tiles. His eyes were open, staring at us in alarm. He coughed, spraying the lottery ticket machine with tiny flecks of red.
“Charlie,” I shouted, leaping over the counter. “Call 911. Frank—check in the back room. See if you can find blankets or something.”
The manager (he had a name tag that said his name was ‘LOPEZ’ and he was the ‘MANAGER’) looked up at me and tried to speak. More blood spilled from his lips. He was obviously in shock. His skin had the color of paste and was cold and clammy to the touch.
“Shhh,” I quieted him. “Don’t move. We’re gonna help you.”
Lopez the manager raised his head and whispered into my ear, spattering my shoulder with blood.
“Maraming salamat . . . kaibigan.”
I didn’t understand, but I smiled, trying to look confident and reassuring and feeling anything but.
“Fuck!” Charlie yelled. “Steve, 911 isn’t answering!”
“Keep trying. This guy’s lost a lot of blood. We’ve got to get him help, fast!”
“I’m trying.” Charlie hung up the store phone. “It’s just like that cop said. Nobody’s there to answer the call.”
I slapped my head, frustrated. In my panic, I’d forgotten about that. Then a thought occurred to me.
“Do you think you could make it back to that cop?” I asked Charlie.
“Maraming salamat,” the man on the floor repeated.
“What’d he say?” Charlie asked me.
“I don’t know. Did you—”
Thunder crashed, cutting me off. Then it roared again. On the floor, Lopez flinched and squeezed my hand. His expression was terrified.
That’s not thunder, I thought. Somebody’s shooting . . .
A third gunshot rang out, echoing through the store. I felt the concussion vibrating in my chest. My ears felt like they’d suddenly closed up. Charlie and I both jumped and the manager began to whimper.
“The back room,” Charlie whispered.
My ears were still ringing and I had to strain to hear him.
“What do we do?” Charlie asked.
I jumped up. “Frank? FRANK!”
He hollered back. His voice sounded weak, and in pain. “Steve . . . Charlie . . . Run!”
Before we could do anything, the door to the back room flew open and two skinheads stormed out. Both wore tight blue jeans, black combat boots and leather jackets with patches sewn on the front that said, ‘Eastern Hammer.’ My stomach fluttered. The Eastern Hammer skinheads were notorious in the mid-Atlantic portion of the East Coast, especially in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Their headquarters was supposedly in nearby Red Lion. They’d been accused of and—in some cases—tried and convicted of a number of hate crimes, including murder. Supposedly, they were linked to the Sons of the Constitution militia group that was based down south.
I thought back to the Thornton Mill Road overpass. It seemed like years ago, but it had only been a few hours. The child molester, swinging from a noose, his shit splattered all over the highway. Skin
heads, they’d told us. Skinheads had killed him. Charlie had been skeptical. I wondered what he thought now. I risked a glance in his direction. His eyes were wide. Then I looked back at the two youths. The tall one had a forehead like a caveman, his brow protruding a half-inch from the rest of his face. The shorter of the two had a long, pink scar on his right cheek and clutched a still-smoking pistol in his hand.
“Get down, you motherfuckers,” the taller one shouted. “On the floor, right now!”
“We don’t want any trouble,” Charlie said. “We were just—”
“Fucking do it,” the other one, Scar-face, spat, motioning with the gun. “If I have to say it again, I will waste your ass.”
I held my hands out in front of me, and noticed Lopez the manager’s blood was all over them. I must have stepped in it, too, because the soles of my shoes seemed stuck to the floor.
“Steve . . .”
“Are you fucking deaf?” Scar-face glared at Charlie. “I told you to—”
Charlie ducked, sprinting for the door. The skinhead fired as the door swung open. Charlie darted through. Glass shattered. The door buzzer rang, almost drowned out by the gunshot. And then Charlie sped across the parking lot and was gone—vanished into the night.
The tall one nodded at his companion. “Go get the fucker, Skink.”
So Scar-face had a name.
“He ain’t gonna do shit, Al,” Skink said. “Cops are busy elsewhere.”
Skink and Al. Even their names seemed surreal.
The tall one, Al, spit on the floor. “I said go after him, goddamn it!”
“What about this guy?” Skink pointed at me.
Al smiled. “I’ll take care of him.”
Cursing, Skink ran after Charlie, his boots crunching on the fragments of broken glass.
Al glowered at me. “Come out from around there, shit-head. Slowly.”
“Look,” I said. “We don’t—”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP AND MOVE!”
Too afraid to open my mouth, I did as he said, stepping over the manager’s body and almost slipping in his blood. Lopez’s eyes were open, but I couldn’t tell if he was still alive. I wondered what had happened to Frank and feared the worst. I crept out from behind the counter, my hands still in the air, and left bloody footprints on the floor.
Well, I thought, I guess that guy Tony was right and Charlie was wrong. There really are murderous skinheads running around tonight.
I wondered if these were the same ones who’d apparently hung the child molester from the overpass. The one in front of me, Al, was young—maybe in his early twenties. He looked nervous, but angry. His sloped brow creased in frustration.
The thug studied my face. “You got one ugly fucking nose, you know that?”
“S-so?” I cringed at the tremor in my voice. I sounded anything but brave.
“Jews got noses like that.” He cocked his head. “You a kike?”
“No,” I lied. My voice was steadier this time. My fear was slowly being replaced with anger. Believe it or not, this was the first time in my life that someone had ever called me a kike to my face. I didn’t like how it felt.
“What’s your name?” Al demanded.
“Steve.” I took another step towards him. “What’s yours? I mean, I know your name is Al, but what’s the rest?”
I realized I was babbling, but couldn’t seem to stop. My voice rose in pitch.
He reached inside his coat and pulled out a knife. “Don’t you worry about my fucking name. I’m asking the questions. Get over here.”
I glanced around for a weapon, for anything to defend myself with. The cash register, the lottery and credit card machines, a display rack of candy bars. Nothing.
“Hey,” Al snarled. “I see you. You’re checking out the register. You are a fucking Jew, ain’t you? Worrying about the money.”
I inched closer. “You shot the manager.”
“No, I didn’t. Skink did.”
“How about our friend? He went in the back. Did you kill him, too?”
Al grew angrier. “I’ll cut your fucking throat if you don’t move faster and do what the fuck I tell you.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” said a man’s voice from behind me.
I froze. So did the skinhead. He stared over my shoulder, his eyes narrowing. I thought I recognized the voice. It sounded vaguely familiar. The temperature inside the store suddenly dropped. I saw my breath in the air, drifting like fog. In the back, near the pet food section, the fluorescent bulbs exploded. The rest of the lights grew brighter. I heard the electricity surging through them. The hair on my arms and head stood up and static crackled across my skin.
“He is one of God’s chosen,” said the voice. “One of the one hundred and forty-four thousand spoken of by John the apostle in the Book of Revelation. He is a saint of the tribulation, and he has many miles to go before he dies. It will not be by your hand, Albert Nicholas, nor will it be tonight.”
Al was visibly startled. “How the fuck do you know my name?”
“I know everything.”
I wondered whom the new arrival was, and if they were friend or foe, and what the hell they were talking about. What was it he’d said about me? I was a saint of what? I focused on the voice, trying desperately to figure out where I’d heard it before. But I didn’t dare turn around.
“Get your ass in here, nigger,” the skinhead snarled. “Or I’ll cut you, too.”
“Cut me?” My savior, who judging by the skinhead’s reaction was black, laughed. “Think again, Son of Cain. Not with that you won’t.”
“What? You don’t believe me, fucker? Look at the size of this blade.”
The skinhead glanced at his knife. I did, too.
We both screamed at the same time.
His weapon was no longer a knife. Instead, he now clutched a live, thrashing snake. It was about twelve inches long and had brown and yellow scales and beady black eyes. Its tongue flicked across his knuckles and the tail coiled around his wrist. The creature’s head weaved from side to side and then darted downward. It sank its fangs into the flesh between Al’s thumb and index finger.
“Fuck!” Shrieking, Al ripped the serpent loose and flung it across the store.
I watched it twist and sail through the air and crash into a junk food display, sending bags of potato chips flying. When I looked back at Al, I screamed again.
Al was gone. A white, crystalline statue stared back at me instead, a statue that looked an awful lot like him. Powdery residue fell from its shoulders.
“No harm shall come to you,” the voice whispered behind me, and I finally recognized it. The voice was that of Gabriel, the black guy from the crash site. The one wearing the tie with a cross on it who’d caught me when I passed out.
I spun around. The store was empty. Gabriel was nowhere to be seen.
“I know it’s you,” I called. “Gabriel? Are you following us?”
Silence.
“Gabriel? Thanks for the help. That’s twice today.”
The temperature inside the store returned to normal. I jumped when the compressor switched itself back on.
“Come on out, man.”
Gabriel didn’t reply. Outside, through the broken glass in the door, I saw a lone car cruising slowly up the street. One of its headlights was out.
“This Phantom Stranger shit is getting old, Gabriel.”
I turned back to the statue of Al. Hesitantly I reached out and touched the coarse, white substance. Then I brought my fingertips to my mouth and tasted.
Salt. The skinhead had been turned into a pillar of salt.
“Holy shit . . .”
I backed away from the statue. Salt granules crunched beneath my feet. I checked the aisles, but they were empty. There was no sign of Gabriel—if he’d even been here. I felt a little part of my mind slip away and tried to get a grip. Last thing I needed to do now was lose it. I had to get home to Terri. What had just happened couldn’t have happened. Knives
didn’t turn into snakes and skinheads definitely didn’t turn into pillars of salt.
And half the human race didn’t vanish in the blink of an eye, either . . .
Looking around the store, I saw the snake’s tail disappearing beneath the coolers, and I decided that it was all very real after all.
Biblical, in fact.
I checked on the manager, but he had no pulse. His skin was cold. His eyes stared sightlessly. I reached out to close them, but couldn’t bring myself to touch them. Eventually, I closed my own eyes and just did it.
Then I remembered Frank.
“Fuck!”
Being confronted by Al and Skink, Charlie’s fleeing, and everything else that had happened after it had made me forget all about Frank. I cursed my stupidity. He’d called out after the gunshots. Was he okay?
I ran into the back room and found him lying dead on a stack of skids. His glassy eyes gazed at the ceiling and a thin line of blood trickled from his open mouth. There was more blood on his shirt; so much, in fact, that I couldn’t figure out where he’d been shot.
“I’m sorry, Frank. I am so sorry, man.”
He hadn’t deserved this. He was a good guy. He’d joked and laughed for most of our walk, even though he seemed sad underneath it all. Well, of course he’d seemed sad. Still carrying a torch for his ex-wife—it was apparent to strangers like us even if he was oblivious to it himself. No kids or even a beloved pet waiting at home. The only thing Frank looked forward to was the next beer. And now he wouldn’t even have that. Even though I’d only known him for an evening, it felt like I’d lost a good friend. I tried to remember things about him, and was surprised by how little I actually knew. I had to think about it for a minute before I could even remember his last name. Some eulogy. It wasn’t fair, Frank dying like this, gunned down so senselessly by two racist scumbags. All he’d wanted to do was go home.
Maybe now he had.
Frank’s blood was on my hands, literally and figuratively. I reached out to shut his eyes, swallowing the same revulsion I’d felt when doing the same for Lopez.
After closing Frank’s eyes, I pulled out my cell phone and attempted to call 911 again. At the very least I should report what had happened. But in truth, after what the cop had told us, I didn’t even expect to get a signal, so imagine my surprise when I saw that the phone showed five bars.