by Shane Staley
He could see Fisher assembling giant jaws in his mind. “They roar?”
“They do, louder than thunder.” Chandler boomed the roof of the car with his fist. Fisher looked sold. “Then you’ll get help?”
The boy wilted, averting his eyes. “Can’t. Maybe I could get a pry bar from the shed and unstick your legs.”
“No, no, that wouldn’t be strong enough. And I’d need paramedics here to make sure my arteries don’t bleed out. They’ll put tourniquets on my legs, an IV in my arm. I’ll be covered in tubes like a robot. You could watch all that, too. Wouldn’t that be good?”
“Good.” The boy’s freckled face set hard as cement, his eyes narrowing and dodging, just like Steven’s face when Chandler came home from a road trip, and “good” was how Steven had been, and “good” was how school went, and “good” was everything, and nothing.
The boy stood up and Chandler was again faced with filthy, bruised shins. The sweat on his head and neck froze into beads of ice as fever melted into clammy chills. Was he going to starve or dehydrate or freeze or bleed to death solely because a ratty ten-year-old boy didn’t want to help? He had to close the deal before the customer walked away. “My cell phone. I had a cell phone with me when I crashed, a little black phone this big. If it was still working, and if there was a signal here, I could call for help myself.”
The boy’s calves tensed. “I don’t know nothin’ about that.”
Chandler pleaded, “I’m dehydrated, starving. I’m going to die here. Please, son, can you bring food and water?”
“Maybe.” The moccasins padded off into the forest, seeking out emergent mushrooms to trample.
* * *
Gusts shook the trees, loosing a hail of chlorotic, brittle leaves that piled in drifts around the car, blew in through the driver’s door and swirled around the cracked dome light. Chandler wrapped his arms around his face and despaired. He hadn’t eaten more than a couple handfuls of mixed car-detritus in almost two days, and he hadn’t peed at all. He figured he’d remember peeing upside down. He was going to die like a mouse in a forgotten trap. No more motel phone calls. No more asking the kids what they had for dinner. No more time-lapse home life, a brief exposure to his family once every few weeks. He didn’t regret being away so much, he figured it made rotting here in the car less traumatic for everyone.
A rapping on the door pulled Chandler’s nose from the crook of his arm.
Fisher’s lips parted over the sharp edge of a broken tooth. “Brought food.” He rummaged inside a burlap bag and handed over a fistful of leathery brown strips.
Chandler gnawed at the dry, salty strands and snuck words out between chews.”Thank you. What is it?”
“Jerky.”
“What kind?”
“Cow.” Fisher gave the man a dented, scuffed soda bottle filled with urine-colored liquid and shifting brown sediment. “This here’s crabapple cider.”
Chandler struggled to pour it over his top lip onto the roof of his mouth, but the sour juice ran into his sinuses and golden geysers shot from his nostrils. He wheezed, “Thank you.”
“Ain’t nothin’.”
Chandler tore off another bite of meat. “You didn’t tell anyone I’m here?”
“Nope.”
“They won’t miss this food?”
“Sir laid in plenty this summer. Cold cellar’s full.” The boy threaded his head between the seat and the mangled dash to see where Chandler’s legs went, then recoiled from the shadows. “That looks bad. Awful bad. I think that’s knee bone stickin’ out.”
“I try not to think about it.” Chandler fought a wave of nausea, willing the meat to stay down, or up. “Do you raise cows?”
Fisher sat cross-legged beside the driver’s window, absently picking his nose. “No, we get cows when we can. We don’t keep ’em long. We turn ’em straight into meat and hide.”
“You buy them? Where does the money come from?”
“Sir knows where to get paper money. We got whole box of it under the floor.”
“Do you have electricity to run light bulbs,” Chandler poked a tapered candelabra bulb with a hunk of jerky, “like this?”
Fisher wiped his finger on his shirt. “No, Nettie and Ma’am make candles from the cow tallow. They dipped heaps of candles this season.”
Chandler imagined a hovel somewhere in the woods, black with soot from a cooking fire, with skinned, gutted livestock hanging from nearby tree branches. He didn’t know there were hillbillies in the Cascades, not like this. Wait, a hidden shack? Of course, that explained a lot. “You and your folks are hiding something, right? Listen Fisher, I don’t care what your family does out here. That’s no interest of mine. Do you make meth, or something? Is that it?”
“Sir says what we do’s nobody’s business but ours.”
Chandler spoke too fast, selling too hard. “Exactly. You can trust me, I wouldn’t tell anyone. All I want is to go back to my family. They’re missing me, just like your family would miss you. You can understand that, can’t you?”
Another gust, and Fisher was pelted with a sleet of dry needles. “Gotta go before the storm hits.” The boy stood, rolled up the bag and stuffed it under the frayed length of cord that belted his pants.
“Wait.” Chandler dropped shards of meat. “Could you ask someone else to come here? A neighbor, maybe. I don’t know how I’m still alive, trapped like this.”
The boy was sullen, resigned. “Sir traps meat all the time. We find a lot of them still kicking in the trap. They last.” He turned to leave.
“The jaws of life,” Chandler blurted, sloshing cider on his forehead, “You’ve never seen anything like them in your life.”
“Yeah.” The boy sounded farther away than he actually was. “I’d like to see that, but I’d get in trouble. I’ll try to bring food tomorrow.”
Chandler dragged his arm across his face, mixing sour cider with salty tears. Soft sell, he lectured himself, let the boy come back when he’s ready. “I’ll see you tomorrow then, Fisher.” Chandler shoved a hunk of jerky back into his mouth to mute his sobs.
* * *
Just beyond the brown, desiccating smear of ketchup, rain flecked the passenger’s window, coalescing into tears that swelled and raced down the glass. Frigid, moist air rushed in through the driver’s window, along with the moldy, charred odor of decaying leaves and the tang of wet bark. There was another smell, fetid like sewage, skulking somewhere in the car. Chandler was grateful that his lower legs were hidden in shadow. He plucked the last strand of jerky from the ceiling.
A faint, lilting giggle, drowned in rain. Bare, mud-spattered feet approached the car, then skinned knees plunked onto the ground beside the vacant window.
“Nettie?”
The girl tucked an ear against her shoulder and peered into the car, scolding, “Fisher says you ain’t no cow.”
“No, do I look like a cow?”
“Don’t know.” Her snarled hair trailed in the mud beside the window. “Fisher says we’ll get in trouble if we tell ’bout you, ’cause you ain’t no cow.”
Chandler painted on the same agreeable smile he wore at conference tables. “You don’t like Fisher?”
“He’s a dumby.” She clowned an icky face.
“That’s right, and you’re smart enough not to listen to him.”
Nettie grinned her corn-yellow teeth.
“And you came to see me. That makes me very happy.”
The girl reached under the torn, damp hem of her calico dress and pulled out a naked doll, as if she’d just given birth. “I brought you this, to keep you comp’ny.” There were gaping holes in the molded plastic where its legs had been and its head lolled hard side to side, knotted to the neck stump with twine.
“Thank you, that’s very nice.” Chandler admired the maimed infant. “And I’ve got something for you, something I know you’ll like.” Nettie’s eyes swelled with greed as he screwed the chunky ring off his finger and dropped it into her e
ager palm.
“Pretty!” She slipped it onto her thumb.
Swag always works, Chandler mused. Now to close the deal.
“Nettie?” he teased her attention away from the shiny gold. “Nettie, can you do something for me?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Can you tell a grownup, an older person, that I’m here and that I need help?”
“Mmm, I don’t know.”
The customer was sold and didn’t know it, she just needed a nudge. Chandler whispered, conspiring with her, “That dummy Fisher wouldn’t help me, but I know you would. You’re not like him. You’re smart, and pretty.”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’ll tell someone where I am, so I can get out of here and bring more pretty things for you?”
“I guess,” she spun the oversized band around her thumb. “More pretty things?”
He had the signature on the contract. “Lots more, just like that ring and better. You run on home and tell Sir about me. Do it right away, Nettie.”
The girl leapt to her feet and scowled, “Fisher’s a doody head.”
“Yes he is,” Chandler nodded.
* * *
The steady drizzle washed away time. There was no way to gauge how many hours had passed since Nettie had left. Drips bowed the delicate stems of forbs and drummed car’s undercarriage. Foot-shaped puddles formed in the mud beside the driver’s window, their surfaces rippling with each added droplet.
Chandler was a furnace again, his skin steaming, and he may have been delirious. He was sure a brown mouse had crept across the headliner, flashing glimpses of its pale underbelly each time it paused to nibble a crumb or a cereal flake. Then its pink feet padded across the felt toward the back window, out of sight. Then he wasn’t sure he’d seen it at all. Steady on. He’d persuaded Nettie. But what if Fisher got to her before she told someone? Even then, she had the ring. Someone would ask about the ring. He’d drafted an airtight contract. He was just awaiting delivery.
The water-feet beside the window overflowed as Chandler drowsed.
Clipped baritone speech roused him. A man’s voice. No, men’s voices approaching from the forest, barking at each other like hounds.
Fisher appeared first, tromping down wildflowers, casting scowls back at the men who followed him. Four or five adult male figures emerged from the trees a stone’s throw behind the boy. They were a shabby, filthy rescue party, but they carried tools and ropes and they walked with solemn, adept purpose. A tear, or a drop of sweat, dripped from Chandler’s brow for the arrival of adults. Actual adults.
The boy splashed through puddles toward the car, his auburn hair dripping, his expression as grim as ever. Was one of the green eyes blackened? It was hard to tell.
Mud-flecked shins approached the window. “Nettie told,” Fisher sniffed back snot, “Sir’s coming.”
“I know, thank you. Thank Nettie. I knew someone would come.” Chandler reached out to pat a bare leg but it dodged his hand.
“Sir said it’s what we gotta do, it’s the way the world works and all. Nothing I can do ’bout it.”
The man gushed with relief. “Oh, it’s OK, son. I’m just happy for help. I don’t care how it got here.”
“Boy!” one of the men snapped as he neared the car. “Get away from there.” His long, rust-colored beard disappeared under an armful of axes and other tools. He growled at Fisher. “Go on back to the shed and get my pry bar. No dawdlin’.”
The boy skirted the rescue party and hopped away through the forest.
“Thank you, thank you so much,” Chandler said as the men surrounded the car, peering in the windows.
The rescuers said nothing, grunting to each other and pointing out details of the hanging man’s predicament with thick, callused fingers.
“I’ve been here for days,” Chandler rambled, “Not much to eat or drink. I think I have a pretty good fever going. My legs are in bad shape, but I’ve held up.”
The men stepped away from the car and conferred beside the burl-ridden tree. Chandler could see them glancing back toward him, their hands in their trouser and overall pockets, steamy words puffing from their mouths. Hillbillies, he chuckled to himself. They were a stereotypical assortment of hillbilly types, all dressed in the most tattered array of flannel and canvas imaginable. A burly man with a hand-carved pipe stuck in his teeth tied on an apron covered in purple splatters and drips. The red-bearded man, presumably Fisher’s father, tossed a rope over a large maple branch near the car, then tied a triangular gambel to one end. Two men approached the driver’s door, one with a maul and the other with a yard-long iron pipe, and proceeded to batter and lever the warped metal.
“Are you going to get me out yourselves?” Chandler shouted among the clanging. “I think it’d be best to call for the paramedics, let them handle it, don’t you think? My arteries might bleed out if the pressure is removed.”
A third man joined the effort to free the door and it moaned open, scraping away the foot-shaped puddles.
A lanky man in overalls wedged his grizzled head between the pinned legs and the crumpled floorboard. “They’re s-stuck hard,” he stuttered back to the other men, “and they’re r-rotten.”
Chandler sighed. “I was afraid of that. It’s been days with no blood supply.”
The lanky man wiggled out of the car, shoving hard on the hanging man’s thigh. Chandler stifled a scream. “I’m OK, it’s just painful.” He hyperventilated. “Any movement feels like a knife stab, you know?”
The crowd around the door parted, making way for Fisher’s father, who unslung a chainsaw from his shoulder. He shifted a wad beneath his lip and spat goo on the dashboard, grumbling, “The legs are rotted?”
The other men nodded.
“What a damn waste.” He spat again. “I’ll pound that boy’s hide. I’ll learn him to put some value on life.”
Chandler watched the man fiddle with levers on the chainsaw, then yank the pull rope to no effect. “I’m sure he meant well. Fisher brought me food, kept me alive.”
The wrinkles around the man’s green eyes deepened to fissures as he studied Chandler. “My boy Fisher brought you food, eh?”
“Yes, I asked him to and he did.” Chandler held up the empty plastic bottle. “Jerky and cider.”
Several of the men laughed, but Sir remained stern, chewing as he peered up at the stuck legs. “Mr. James Chandler of 421 Sycamore St. has been living on my jerky?”
“Living on it,” the burly man guffawed, almost losing his bite on the pipe. He resumed dragging a sharply curved knife across a whetstone.
“Yes,” Chandler tried to act grateful, hopeful, but he was growing more afraid than he’d ever been inside the upturned car. “How do you know my name and address?
“From your pretty wallet, of course,” Sir winked, scrunching a freckled cheek.
“My wallet?”
The red beard fluttered as he jerked the pull rope on the saw, which coughed and died. “Says in there you’re an organ donor, which is handy.” The men doubled over and laughed in chorus.
The lanky man in overalls approached with his fingers wrapped around a thick wooden handle from which protruded a long, blackened metal hook. “A damn f-fat cow, ain’t he?” He displayed the wide gaps between his teeth.
“Enough candles to light up the valley for a year,” someone else chuckled.
“Amazin’ what a little tree felled in the right spot can catch,” said the burly man.
Sir snarled, “Enough of this chatter, we got work to do. Two shanks have already gone to waste. Let’s get the rest of it laid in before the storm gets ugly.” He pulled the saw’s cord and again and the engine started with a roar, idling to a putter as he adjusted the choke.
Chandler clutched at the passenger’s head rest, pulling away from the saw. “Wait, what are you doing?” he cried, but there was little time to struggle. A man in the rear seat grabbed his wrists and pulled his arms backward, stretching his body taut. A lig
ht bulb popped beside Chandler’s ear, crushed beneath a scuffling boot.
Sir snaked the chugging saw through the door and under the dash, testing a few angles before settling on the best.
Chandler screamed, “No, don’t!”
The man holding his arms lowed, “Moo!”
Sir squeezed the throttle and the saw settled into a steady whine, its chain a buzzing blur, spitting oil.
Halfway through the first leg, as the saw bucked against his femur, the amber fog gathered around Chandler, cocooning him in its dense vapor, shielding his eyes from the spray of bone chips and muting his screams.
NETHERVIEW
Gary McMahon
They were driving, just driving. They had nowhere to go and nothing to do. It was another boring Sunday; a small, dull gap between one working week and the next. They considered going to a local nature reserve but Ria wasn’t keen on the idea. So Roy suggested a drive, and after a few minutes of thought, she reluctantly agreed. Sometimes he wondered what they had in common, what they’d ever had in common in the first place.
“What’s that?”
He glanced to the right, where she was indicating, and slowed the car. The road was empty; there was no other traffic, and they had not passed another car in miles. “I have no idea…oh, hang on. Isn’t it a new housing estate?” He’d spotted the signs: COME & SEE OUR BEAUTIFUL SHOW HOMES!
“Can we?” She turned towards him, the sun catching in her hair, making it shine. She looked like an advertisement for a life he thought he’d always wanted but now wasn’t so sure he could achieve. “Please, Roy…”
“Yeah. Why not.”
He stopped the car, turned around, and headed back towards the entrance. There was a high fence around the site, a big double gate to let them in.
The gates were open, so he guided the car along the gravel drive in the direction of what he assumed was the sales office—a low, prefabricated hut that had been erected on a small square of yellow grass. There was a flagpole outside the office. It wobbled in the breeze. The flag was decorated with what must be the company logo: a snake eating its own tail.