Deadroads

by Robin Riopelle

  It wasn’t a long drive, not long enough by far, so she took it slow, hardly any traffic at all, just white in the headlights as the sun fell behind her, starting its slow descent to the west. Nightfall would take forever around here, like the sun was just as reluctant to go home as she was.

  Home. Strange word. Toronto had been home now for a year and a half, first in a college dorm, and now with roommates in a shared house off Queen West. Every minute of every day there was stuff going on, and when there was lots going on, things didn’t stick out as much, just became wallpaper, which was fine by Lutie. White noise was good, things blended in, because otherwise, you noticed the weird shit.

  Like that. Take that, for example.

  She’d seen the ghost on her way into town and it was still there, no great surprise. She might not have noticed it this time in the fading light and the white on gray on white, but she realized she was looking for it. Just a guy, looked like it had lost its way, feedlot ball cap jammed on its head, wearing a plaid work shirt. The ghost looked at her as she slowed, pointed to something behind it, then back to her. Gray on white on gray—that was blood on its face, sad lost look in its eyes, in its very stance. It stood beside a makeshift cross jammed into the snowy verge, decayed flowers coated in snow and ice.

  There was no traffic behind her, none in front, either, so Lutie slowed to a crawl, unrolled her window. She didn’t get too close, kept her hand on the stick and her foot hovered above the accelerator. This was the kind of behavior her doctor told her not to indulge, but hell, she had time to kill, didn’t she?

  “Hey,” she said to the ghost. “Are you lost?”

  It looked surprised that she’d stopped; no one had probably stopped in a long time.

  “You should get going, eh?” She gestured along the thin road. “It’s cold out here. You should go home.”

  Again, that word. The ghost nodded to her, then lifted one arm. Behind it, Lutie could see the line of trees planted as a windbreak marking a far fenceline. “I don’t know…” it said, and Lutie knew she shouldn’t have stopped, that this was a sucker’s move. The medication was for exactly this—so she didn’t see shit like this, didn’t talk to apparitions made of thin air. But the medications also meant she didn’t feel, which was worse by far. Lutie regularly flushed the meds down the toilet and said she didn’t.

  “Sure you do. Don’t even think about it. Just do it.”

  The ghost farmer scratched his head and staggered a little, like he was a couple sheets to the wind. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.” She started to roll up the window, hadn’t really come to a full halt, had just slowed—I just slowed down, Mum, I’m not really stopping, I’m not really hearing voices, or seeing ghosts—and kept it open a crack, just to have some fresh air, just so she didn’t lose it. I can ignore them. It would be better to ignore them.

  When she looked in her rearview mirror, she couldn’t see the ghost anymore, just the sun slanting down. She’d drive by tomorrow, see if it was still—No, you won’t. You won’t get caught up in this. It’s not there, none of it.

  CFB Shilo was an open base, so she nodded to the guard at the gate, but didn’t slow down—I suppose he’s not there, either, eh Lutie?—and circled the maze of residential crescent streets until she found the one with the right name, a row of houses curving for no reason on the flat, flat land, pale blue aluminum siding blending into the early evening snow shadows. At least in cities like Halifax they had had the right idea: paint the hell out of the houses, make the place a little brighter. Here, though, the houses were on heavy meds, functional at best, as boring and unnoticeable as her car, as her clothes, as her presence in a classroom, at the back, not joining in the discussion, quiet not because she was shy, quiet because that meant she could get by and she had nothing to say to idiots, anyway.

  There was a price to pay when you were noticed.

  She pulled into a driveway, hoped it was the right house, because they all looked the same, then noticed her family’s SUV parked two doors down. She backed up and re-parked in the right driveway. Stupid CFB subdivisions.

  All the lights were on like there was a party, like electricity was free, like the planet wasn’t going to hell in a handbasket, and Lutie knew what she’d find when she walked in—Bree bitching about having to set the dining table, Mum with everything under control, Marshall playing a computer game up in his room, the Major sitting at the kitchen table, newspaper spread out before him, everyone just waiting for her to be back, and it felt stifling.

  God, she loved them, but it was a lot to handle, how much they loved her back. She sat in the car for a minute, preparing herself for it, telling herself to just take it, not to question it, just smile back. Take it easy.

  When have I ever been easy? she thought, finally opening the car door, locking it out of habit when nobody was likely to steal what she had.

  She went in the front because it was closest and she hadn’t actually lived in this house, didn’t know which way you were supposed to come in. It was unlocked of course, because her dad believed that you should keep your door open when you were in his position; the gesture was symbolic, as gestures often were, and Major Jim McGregor believed in the symbolic almost as much as he believed in salvation.

  The light and heat and smell of cooking were all-encompassing, and she could hear the blare of Marshall’s new favorite metal band thumping upstairs, the low throb of the Major’s voice in the kitchen, as easy and smooth as peanut butter in August. Then the peal of her mum’s laughter, and there was a nervous edge to it that caught Lutie by surprise. Karen McGregor didn’t have a nervous bone in her body, ran a tight ship. The Major had his own arena down at the chapel; the homefront was Karen’s.

  And she was nervous.

  Lutie had time to register this, then Karen’s voice came down the hallway, reeking of the east coast in its wide open As and Rs: “Are you home, Lutie?” Then her mother appeared in the foyer, where Lutie was knocking the snow from her city boots, dropping her mittens on the stairs.

  Karen smiled brightly, warm amber eyes gleaming in the dim hall light, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “Safe drive? Brandon’s not much, eh?” She flicked a strand of auburn hair past her shoulder, gold winking from her hand.

  Lutie startled slightly, alarmed at the sudden attention. “You’re not kidding. What—”

  “You have a visitor. Come into the kitchen.”

  A visitor? A visitor? Then caught the subject of the sentence—the visitor was hers. She padded in front of her mum in socked feet, pushed up the sleeves of her sweater, wondered that Karen was following her, not leading her. Maybe she thinks I’ll take off, Lutie thought, too off-guard to find it funny.

  Who would this be? Some soldier she’d gone to high school with, coming by the new chaplain’s place? A university friend—but none of them were from Manitoba, none of them would just drop in.

  There was no door between the hallway and the kitchen, and so she could hear the Major clearly. “Most of the guys come back okay, but you can imagine, one minute dodging IEDs on Afghan roads and then,” snap of his fingers, “shopping at the neighborhood Loblaws, it’s—” and he halted as she came into the kitchen, eyes to her immediately, telling her to take it easy, she knew that look, even as his voice was even and soft and steady.

  I’m no good at taking it easy, you know that.

  Beside him at the table, a cup of coffee in his hand, a young man followed the Major’s gaze. He didn’t look like he’d just come back on an AF transport, didn’t look Army-issue at all: short caramel brown hair in an understated punk cut, a pin through his eyebrow, tall as he stood in one fluid motion, dark brows coming up over tropical eyes, long-lashed and blinking. Dressed like he didn’t mean it. Ridiculously good-looking, had seen the sun sometime recently, which meant he wasn’t from around here.

  He licked his lips like everyone expected him to say something. “Hey, Lutie.” Followed by an uncertain smile, eyes serious as th
ey could be in a face plainly made for laughing. He looked like something was trying to get out of him—words, emotion, a joke.

  Ants in his pants.

  One hand came up like he was going to move towards her, then he jammed both of them into his jean pockets, looked to the Major first, then to Karen, but neither said a word.

  “Yeah?” Lutie said slowly, drawing it out.

  “It’s me,” the young guy said, a little half smile on his face, like he was talking to a cat in an alleyway. Like a smile would matter. “Baz.”

  FOUR

  SALT BLOOD

  Why drivers in Colorado, where it snowed every damn year, still got surprised by the first dusting and forgot all common sense was beyond Sol. Slow down; allow more time for braking; get snow tires. Assume when it’s raining and the temperature drops thirty degrees within hours there will be ice, especially on windy stretches like bridges and overpasses.

  People were seasonally-challenged: those first serious snowfalls, all hell broke loose.

  The afternoon was so dark it might as well be night, and icy snow covered the overpass where a five car pile-up had closed the road in both directions, snarling traffic so badly everyone was going to miss their turkey leftovers. Sol drove along the shoulder, fast as was safe under the circumstances. A flower delivery truck was at the center of it all, petals and blossoms strewn across the wreckage like a NASCAR wedding gone terribly wrong.

  Three rigs were already on the scene, and more Fire Department personnel than Sol could easily count in the snow-speckled dark. One crew already had a casualty on a stretcher; an older woman wept in a firefighter’s embrace on the concrete median divider.

  Sol took his bearings: flower truck man, check, over there with a FD blanket on his shoulders, talking loudly in Spanish to anyone who would listen.

  A Volvo, barely dented, least of anyone’s worries, and there, the businessman that belonged to it, talking on a cell phone. The businessman looked pissed, was tearing someone’s head off and shitting down their throat. Maybe he was a lawyer. Probably wouldn’t appreciate a paramedic asking to check his blood pressure. In any case, Sol could tell what it was from here, no cuff needed.

  An SUV, long scrape along its side—its driver was the one being hauled away on the stretcher.

  A serious country truck, the cowboy inside it now outside, talking with a police officer, holding a bandage to his head as a paramedic tried to get a word in edgewise.

  Further away, a body was on the ground, a first-responder from the FD crouched close by, working it. They were beside a tiny import car, totaled, like a hard-shelled beetle crushed beneath a boot. Wayne met Sol’s inquiring eye; no one seemed to be in charge. Wayne gestured directions: I’ll check out the flower delivery guy, you see if the firefighter on the pavement needs help. Sol snapped on gloves, heaved the ALS bag with him. He crossed the median strip, running in the blowing snow but as he neared, he could see right away there was nothing to be done.

  As he hurried, a movement snagged his glance, hard to see, white on white among the scattered petals blowing across the roadway, snow and confetti. A blur—form of a woman, terrified, gesturing back and forth, frantic. Sol could see right through the ghost, it was barely there at all.

  He glanced into the wrecked car, smashed glass scattering light across the ice. A deflated airbag draped the mangled steering column. In the backseat, a child’s booster seat sat empty as a question mark. The firefighter looked up, face white. Beneath his hands the woman hadn’t stirred, eyes wide to the falling night. Not a scratch on her face, surprisingly, but the damage was massive: her heart, her lungs, her ribcage, all pulp. The firefighter shook his head and without much emotion, gave his assessment, “Injuries incompatible with life.”

  Sol wasn’t even going to run a strip; this woman was definitely dead. He didn’t need her ghost yelling at him to know that. The ME and investigators were doubtlessly on their way, so Sol sent the FD first-responder back to deal with the cuts and scrapes. Sol considered the dead woman for a moment, then looked to see if her ghost was still hanging around, wondered if it would be on its way shortly, no help needed.

  But no, the ghost was still there, on the edge of the lights the FD had set up, yelling and yelling, though Sol couldn’t hear it above the sirens and noise.

  Wayne was busy—his Spanish was pretty good, and he was getting an earful—so Sol walked slowly toward the ghost, kept an eye out for another EMT or fire crew or police that might call it in if they spotted Sarrazin talking to himself.

  “What is it?” he asked when he got closer, knowing he shouldn’t. You don’t talk to them, gars. Lesson number one. But the ghost, hovering near, staring at its body with an expression of dawning understanding, wasn’t confused, wasn’t even really surprised.

  It was frantic.

  When Sol came closer, the ghost calmed but didn’t speak, then seemed to remember something, turned, pointed to an area across the road, a planted landscaping effort, now populated by sparse grass and generic frost-burned juniper. The ghost’s mouth moved: Please. Then, with nothing more than that, it vanished, winked out, was gone. Had found the road home on its own.

  Sol blinked snowflakes from his eyelashes; the wind was blowing whatever snow was falling, caused what had already settled to eddy and flow on the pavement, a white tide moving across the road like a sidewinder. Standing, the ALS bag slung across his shoulder, his mind didn’t work quite as fast as his instincts: he started running to the bushes, knowing what he would find.

  Glass and flowers had been sprayed this far, easily. Part of a tire, peeled into strips like a huge blackened banana, marked the trajectory of the crash. A police officer was just starting to assay the scene, marking on a clipboard, and he looked up quickly as Sol rushed past him. Coming up on the landscaping, Sol jumped over the nearest bush and saw a small crumpled figure, legs and arms akimbo, clad in pink, nestled among the dried grasses and snow, thrown nearly thirty feet from her mother’s car.

  Damn it, damn it, why didn’t people wear seatbelts, but Sol knew that all it took was a dropped juice box, a new Christmas toy just that small distance too far, and most kids this age—what, maybe four, five?—could press the release button, come unbelted at just the wrong time, just when a florist’s van took a corner too fast for balding all-season radials.

  This kid, this little girl, had gone through the windshield or a popped door, hurtling past her mother in the instant of her death, and had now landed here, arms all splayed as though she was trying to find her balance.

  Sol swung his stethoscope from his neck: she was breathing unsteadily—he called out for the cop to alert the other EMTs that they had a ped trauma over here, bring a backboard and a stretcher, get ready to load and ride. Soon there was intense action, five different pairs of hands, a board, clear airway, that was good, bleeding from a scalp laceration, somewhere else, too, for her snowsuit was sodden with blood, but without destabilizing the spine, Sol didn’t know how far he’d be able to examine her. Basic triage, though: if he didn’t find the cause, she could bleed out before anyone had the chance to worry about her back.

  Using his shears, he cut away the snowsuit, saw a penetrating wound along her back, nine inches of raw jagged opening. Field dressings, pressure, gentle on the back. Priority one.

  Time was of the essence, and for all the frantic action of the medics, things slowed to individual moments: the flutter of heartbeat, erratic. The listless loll of her arm as they got her onto the board, strapped her down unresisting. Sol rode in the back, and Wayne drove far too fast for the road, but Sol didn’t really care as long as the ride was steady.

  “Hi there, ma poussinette,” he said quietly, hardly able to hear himself above the siren and the rhythmic clatter of equipment rattling. She didn’t move, didn’t open her eyes, though her pupils responded to light, which was enough for Sol. “Hey, p’tite chère, your mom showed me where you were. She wants you to make it, okay? She’s looking out for you.” All the while he
kept one hand on her, right on her sternum above the strap, could feel her struggle to breathe.

  “Wayne!” he yelled through to the cab. “What’s the ETA?”

  “We’re here!” Wayne shouted back, and the rig lurched to the right as Wayne swung into the ER bay, the back doors opening to a whole team of white coats. Sol jumped to the ground, dragging the stretcher with him, swinging down the carriage and locking it in place, calling out her vitals to the doctors and nurses, one hand on her chest, medically unnecessary, but he couldn’t help it. He pepper-sprayed the team with his assessment, numbers and jargon fluent as any rapper on a roll. They wheeled her through the automatic doors, disappearing down a corridor, one nurse leaving them at the door of the trauma unit and coming back more slowly to get additional information from Sol and Wayne.

  Sol’s whole body was shivering, electric with spent adrenalin. Turning from the nurse for a moment, he ignored the busy waiting area—bound to be a back-up in the chairs, people showing up with stuff that they had ignored Christmas Day—and put both hands on his hips, walking a slow circle. He needed to regroup. The staff mostly knew him, allowed a moment.

  “You should get cleaned up,” the nurse said, staring at him. Marisol, if Sol remembered correctly, and he followed her gaze. His hands, he realized, his open coat, shirt, all were soaked with blood. Marisol held a clipboard, pen in hand, dark eyes serious. “Do you know her name? Anything?”

  Sol couldn’t speak, could barely understand her words.

  Wayne, thankfully, had ridden with Sol for the last three years on and off; it was generally up to him to do the talking. “The cops’ll get that for you,” he said.

  Marisol persisted. “Did she say anything en route?” Directly to Sol.

  Who blinked, then shook his head. “No,” he caught his breath. He didn’t know what Marisol was talking about. Then, “She came from the import car, the crushed one.” He looked to Wayne helplessly.