“What year were you born?”
Jon could feel the blood going down his cheek and dripping off his face, onto his shirt. “Nineteen ninety-eight.”
The man’s eyes danced between the license and Jon’s face. He put it next to the wallet and pulled out Jon’s college ID. “White Haven College, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What you studyin’?”
“Psychology.”
“Studyin’ the brain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You figure out what’s been goin’ on? Why these people are losing their damn minds? Can psychology give me an answer? Huh?” The barrel of the rifle came close again, making Jon flinch.
“No, I’m sorry. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“What a waste. All that money yer payin’ to learn about the brain and ya can’t even give us a diagnosis. Guess those doctors don’t really know what’s what after all, huh?”
Jon didn’t respond.
“Alright then. What you got in that there backpack?”
“My laptop. A phone charger. Some clothes.”
“Let me see it. Take her out slowly and put it down on the ground there.”
Jon’s trembling arms lowered. He opened the passenger door, taking out the backpack without moving his hands any more than he had to. He placed the backpack on the asphalt and raised his arms again in the air.
“Now, step back. I don’t want you movin’ an inch ya hear me? I see you move at all I’m gonna shoot you no questions asked. Got that?” the man said.
Jon nodded and stepped back with his back toward the pile of snacks, hands still raised. Blood dripped off his chin. The man emptied the backpack. Everything inside spilled hard onto the asphalt. The two McDonald’s milk bottles fell out and rolled around. A snap sound came from Jon’s laptop as it fell. The rifle barrel sifted through the items as if they were contaminated. Shirts were picked up and examined. The man kicked the phone charger to the side and flipped over the laptop.
“Rusty!” an older man’s voice shouted from behind Jon, but Jon didn’t turn to look to see who it was. The old rifle was still aimed at him and he wasn’t interested in getting shot.
“Why you pointin’ my rifle at that boy?” the old man continued. The voice sounded aged but still as harsh as the gunman’s backwoods drawl.
“Grandpa, this here sonofabitch was stealin’ from our vendin’ machine! Look there! He broke it and everything! Look at all this glass I gotta clean up! I was gonna shoot ‘em in his ass!” Rusty replied.
“Put that damn rifle down right now!” the grandpa commanded.
Jon stood with his right eye widened as Rusty lowered his weapon. His heart relaxed a little, but his hands still shook like leaves. His forehead bled like a waterfall of red.
“You just wait till I get over there,” the old man said. Jon could hear he was approaching but still refused to move his body. The old man walked around the front of the Honda, glanced down the contents on the hood, and then walked between Jon and Rusty. He grabbed the rifle.
At first, Jon thought it was his own grandfather. The wrinkly face. Short, all white hair combed to the side. Brown eyes underneath tired lids. He even wore an outfit similar to his grandfather. A short-sleeved, checkered button-up shirt with khakis and tan orthopedic sneakers. Velcro instead of laces. It was the go-to senior citizen attire. Grandfathers all over the country looked like this, even in the unknown small town of Huntington.
“Jesus Christ, Rus, look at him!” the old man shouted as he reached in his back pocket and brought out a handkerchief. He wiped away the blood on Jon’s face and held it on the gash, making Jon grit his teeth.
“Young man,” the old man said to Jon. His old and angry eyes scanned Jon up and down, taking in his ruffled, brown hair, tired eyes, and bloodstained face and shirt. Jon could see an almost concerned look in his eyes. “You can put those hands down.” His voice was stern and rural. “Now, I ain’t gonna shoot ya unless you give me a reason to. Unlike Rus’ here, I’m not gonna scare ya, alright? Can you hold this handkerchief there for me?”
“Ye-yes, sir.” Jon was thankful for the old man’s rescue of the situation, but still felt a great sense of unease.
“What exactly happened here? What’s yer story?” the old man asked.
Rusty interjected. “He was tryin’ to rob us! I seen him smash o–”
BANG. The old man shot a round into the sky, making a shattering echo in the air. Jon and Rusty both jolted. “Would you shut up! Now stop it! One more word outta you and I’ll shoot YOU in YOUR ass!” the old man yelled.
Rusty looked away with a pissed-off look on his face. He crossed his arms and kept quiet.
The old man continued talking to Jon. “Now, young man, explain to me your situation here. Sit down, sit down.”
Jon pushed away from the stolen goods and sat in the back of the Honda. He did his best to recount everything that happened. After a barrel to the head and being front and center to a rifle blast, Jon had to compose himself for a moment. His ears were ringing.
Jon explained the pain and horror that played out in White Haven College and the death of the others. He talked about how he couldn’t reach his parents over the phone and how he only had the one voice mail from his father about heading to his grandparents’ house since grandma had been “acting up.” Jon almost cried explaining how much he wanted to get home. He also explained how he was so hungry and needed to find anything to fill his stomach so he wouldn’t fall over on his journey back.
The old man’s expression didn’t move at all during the tale. Neither did Rusty’s as he remained looking down at the asphalt like a child put in timeout.
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t think anyone was around. I haven’t found anyone else in the daytime that could help me. I’ll give all this stuff back and be on my way. Okay? Please… I don’t want any trouble. I just want to get to my family.” Jon finished his story with his hand pressed on the hole above his eyebrow.
“Well. . . Jon, right? Issat yer name?” the old man asked.
Jon nodded. He was so exhausted.
“I sure am sorry to hear all this.” The old man’s eyes were still and as cold as Rusty’s were. It must have run in the family. “All that’s been happenin’ ain’t too pretty and I’ll tell ya we’ve had a great loss ourselves. A tremendous loss to the family so I know that you must be hurtin’ deep down. We know that pain.”
Rusty nodded his head with his eyes still shooting downward. The old man’s eyes remained focused on Jon.
“So, we’ll let you get back home as none of us here can say where yer folks are or if they’re livin’. And if what yer sayin’ is true about all that happened to ya, and I believe it as you look quite rattled, I think you should come with Rus and me back to the house. Clean yerself up. Get you something better than all this here junk food. Hell, it’s probably all expired anyhow. Not sure the last time we had the delivery boy around here.”
Jon didn’t know what to say, but his lips were saying thank you even though his mind was saying he was dying of blood loss.
“Turn your car off and follow us back to the homestead, alright? Can you walk?” the old man asked.
Jon nodded.
“Getcha cleaned up and on yer way before sundown. Least we could do as my grandson here doesn’t know the first thing about hospitality. Speakin’ a which, Rus, why dontcha clean up this young man’s belongings.” The old man turned around and glanced at Rusty as he started heading toward the checkin door of the motel. He spoke again, quieter now, almost to himself it seemed. “Your father would’ve been disappointed in you treating him like ‘at with a gun. Yer wearin’ his clothes and all. Whatsa matter with you?”
Rusty heard it as his body tightened. It was if he was out in the winter cold. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them, looking up at Jon. His eyes shined but no tears fell. “C’mon. Turn her off. Follow grandpa and me back to the house, alright?” He nodded his head over tow
ard his grandfather and began scooping up Jon’s things, shoving them into the backpack.
Jon nodded and closed the back door of the car where his stash of food was. His body still trembled in fear. The handkerchief shook but held its place on his beaten head. He went around to the driver's side and shut off the Honda, placing the pink-ringed set of keys in his pocket. Rusty finished filling back up his bag and handed it over to Jon without saying a word. Jon slipped it on and the two of them followed toward the old man, into the lobby where it smelled like the 70s, or at least what Jon thought the 70s smelled like. Musky.
The checkin area of Mirch’s Motel looked stuck in the past, frozen in time four decades ago. A big, golden clock shaped like a sun was on one of the wood-paneled walls. Brown-striped carpeting covered the floor. The white corner counter had maps and a tan rotary phone. Wow, Jon thought in his pulsating pain, the last he saw a rotary phone was when he was little at his grandparents’ house. That was way back before his dad made them switch to a modern phone with caller ID as they were being prank called over and over again one summer.
The three of them passed by a set of wooden furniture with orange cushions on them, toward a cracked door opposite the entrance. There was a framed oil painting of a town on the wall. It looked to be Huntington from back in the day. On the opposite wall there was a sign that read:
MIRCH’S MOTEL
HUNTINGTON’S FINEST
“The name’s Hal Mirch,” the old man said as they exited through the door and went back outside, now standing on a rocky path that cut up a wooded hill toward a white house. “Been runnin’ this motel since I was round yer age.” Hal turned and locked the door behind them with a key ring so large, Jon wasn’t sure how he’d fit it in his pocket. “Time sure changes though, huh?”
Jon nodded. Rusty kept quiet.
Hal continued talking as they began walking up the rock path between the rows of trees. “We’ve had some evil stuff blow through Huntington, but never somethin’ like we been seein’ lately.”
“Dad said it was the devil’s work,” Rusty said as he walked with his head down. His face looked aggravated.
“Yup,” Hal said, “yer daddy’s right. We thought we’d seen it all workin’ this motel over the years. People cheatin’, boozin’, druggin’, fightin’. But whatever’s gotten into these folks that are tearin’ each other apart for no God-given reason is beyond me. We were watchin’ on the TV that people were driving cars into crowds. Killing children even. Devil worshipping whackos. . . Maniacs… That’s why I hope you can someday forgive Rus for his actions. He’s got his daddy’s temper and he thought you were, well, one of those whackos ya see. One of those whackos that-”
“Stop! We don’t have to talk about that! He don’t need to hear it!” Rusty yelled with his eyes shut.
“Alright, I’m sorry. Jon, it’s just we’ve had a tremendous loss in our family and-”
“ENOUGH!” Rusty shouted and ran off into the woods, kicking over shrubbery and snapping twigs with every step of his sprint. Jon and Hal stood watching him fade into the greenery until his white shirt vanished behind a fat tree trunk.
“Rus!” Hal screamed at him. “Rus, c’mon!” But it was no use. The only response was the sound of leaves rustling and distant branches breaking.
Hal turned back to Jon, who was still dabbing at his gash. “Jon, I’m sorry. He’s been going through a lot, we all have. He just needs to be alone right now, he’ll come around. Let’s get you inside and clean that thing up.”
“What happened?” Jon asked, almost in a whisper, not wanting Rusty to hear him and come rushing out of the woods with a sharp stone, looking to slice his throat open.
“I’ll tell you once we get inside. Can’t have him hear it, I don’t think he can take it.”
Chapter THIRTY-EIGHT
Ramblin’ Man
Hal Mirch’s house had no neighbors. The place was lonesome in a clearing. An old, two-story country home with paint peeling on the sides that used to be white but was now covered in a dark residue. The porch made a squeaky sound even from just looking at it. If the motel looked like it was from the 1970s, the Mirch residence looked like it was from the 1870s.
As Hal and Jon approached the house on the rocky path that led to the rotten porch, Jon noticed a plot of dark dirt on the ground with a cross made from sticks at one end. Just above it, a face stared at them from one of the side windows. The figure was shaded behind the screen of the window and Jon’s heart began to race as he thought it was Rusty, already back at the house, waiting to shoot him with another gun they had. A pistol or another hunting rifle. But as they got closer, the figure seemed to have hair. Old woman hair. Glasses, too. Perhaps it was Mrs. Mirch.
“Watch yer step, this place is old. Older than me even,” Hal said, but there wasn’t a smile when he said it.
The porch squeaked just as you’d imagine and the front glass door eeeeched open from rusty, dirtied hinges. Hal popped out his enormous key ring and jangled them around to find the right key. He led Jon inside.
That musky smell didn’t just find its home in the motel, it made itself comfortable here too.
There were black and white and faded photographs on the walls. Portraits of family members. Shots of picnics and fishing. They were all placed in brass and chipped frames that hung on teal-painted slats of wood. White wooden stairs headed to the second floor. A little study was on the left with a single vintage desk and two small oak chairs. To the right were two white steps that led down into a dining room with a mahogany table where the light shined in. That’s where that old woman was sitting, Jon thought, but no one was there now.
“Can you make it upstairs?” Hal asked.
“Yeah, I can.”
“I want you to head up there and go to the guest room, first room on yer left. Sit down there on the bed. I’ll be right up with a washcloth and some bandages. Bathroom’s across the hall.”
Jon stepped up to the creaky second floor, which was lit only by the windows. An eerie place in the daytime, Jon wondered how spooky this place must be at nighttime.
The guestroom was plain with a white dresser and mirror. A brown end table with an uncovered lamp stood by a bed with flowery sheets. An armchair sat in the corner by a standing lamp that wore a dusty shade. In the middle of the room was a shaggy, brown rug. Nothing on the white walls but a cross by the closet door. There was a small window by the foot of the bed to provide some light.
Jon took off his backpack and placed it on the floor. He sat on the edge of the bed, holding on to the soaked handkerchief, trying to take in all that just happened. It was amazing his glasses weren’t broken. He slid them off his face and placed them on the end table. The switch on the lamp did nothing.
The gash pounded away at his skull as dizziness returned. With one hand, he zipped open the top zipper of his backpack. Out came one of the McDonald’s milk bottles filled with sink water. He was so shaken-up that he forgot to take his large cup of water from the car when they left the parking lot. Phone too.
Shit, the map app is probably draining the battery.
“If yer hungry, let me give you somethin’ better than that old vending machine crap so yer stomachs full,” Hal said from downstairs. There were sounds of cupboards opening and closing. Clinging and clanging of tin followed. Then, water running.
I’m gonna drain my fucking head out at some strange old man’s house with his crazy grandson. Jesus. I should’ve just kept going. God, I’m such an idiot.
Jon snapped out of his regretful thoughts when he Hal came marching up the loud stairs, holding a big, white porcelain bowl and a tall glass of water. An orange towel hung over his left shoulder.
“Howssat head holdin’ up?” Hal asked, placing the porcelain bowl down by Jon’s feet. Rolling around inside of it was a fat, grey bottle with a white cap. Rubbing alcohol. He put the glass of water on the end table and pulled down the towel off his shoulder.
“It’s still hurting pretty good,”
Jon said.
Hal hunkered down. “Lean forward and move yer legs apart,” he said, sliding the bowl between Jon’s sneakers. “Lemme see now.”
Jon pulled the soaked handkerchief from his head, trying not to rip off the scabbing blood and spill anymore out of his aching head. Fresh blood persisted from the gash, but Jon couldn’t feel it. His left eye was shut since the parking lot.
“Oh, it’s not so bad now. Looks like the hanky did its job,” Hal said as he squinted through his thick lenses. The white cap of the rubbing alcohol came off under his shaky hands. “More blood than damage from what I can tell. Now, this’ll sting ya a bit, alright?”
Jon nodded and Hal began to pour the rubbing alcohol just above the spot, holding the towel below Jon’s chin. It sent a jolting sting, making Jon flinch. But he knew the pain was worth it. Blood and alcohol splashed and dribbled down onto the towel and into the bowl.
“I oughta tell ya, if I had a nickel for every time my boy had to have his daddy pour this on his cuts, well, I’d certainly wouldn’t be livin’ in this old place.” Hal still didn’t show any signs of emotion. Not even a smirk came from his old lips. “My son was always gettin’ into trouble when he was young. Never much listened to me. Hell, who knows if he ever cared about what his momma thought.”
Hal put the rubbing alcohol down by the bowl and dabbed the now cleaned gash. Another jolt went through Jon as the cloth made contact. Then, it moved down to his cheek as Hal cleaned off the streams of red tears.
“Oh, now that’s not bad at all. With all that blood, you'd think Rus put a big ole’ hole in yer brain. This here can’t be more than a hair of a cut,” Hal said as he fetched a Band-Aid from his breast pocket. His hands were too shaky to get a good grip on the thin seal.
“Let me get that,” Jon said, now starting to open his left eye. He grabbed one of the Band-Aids and used his fingernails to rip open one end. Hal took it back and peeled off the remaining protected papers that covered the sticky side.
“I wanna apologize again for Rus. He takes after his father, who I guess took after me,” Hal said as he placed the bandage diagonally across Jon’s cut. Then he pulled another Band-Aid from his pocket. Jon tore it open for him and Hal placed it in the opposite direction, making an X-shape with the two bandages. “Good as new,” he said without a change in expression.
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