by Steve Lang
"That's very interesting. I'm a business owner in the area, too. I have an internet brokerage business, and I think we might be able to help each other. I help textile companies increase their bottom line. I'd like to meet with you for about twenty minutes someday this week to show you a quick overview of the concept." She paused a moment to allow that to sink in.
"You may or may not be interested, but if nothing else, you might be able to point me in the right direction, as we are looking for some special people. I also might be able to refer people I know to you. Would 11 a.m. Wednesday morning at the Panera by the mall work for you?" She paused again, her smile growing. She wrote some information in her journal. "Great, thanks Don, I'll speak with you then. Have a great day." Tina hung up.
"Wow that was great!" Dianne said.
"You can do it, too. It's literally a script, but we modify it to fit the situation, or business industry, rather." Bobby said.
The calls went around the circle and when it was time for Dianne to make her call she nervously picked up her phone and dialed the number on a business card in front of her. She let it ring a few times, and then, to her surprise, the person on the other end picked up.
"Hello, uh, is this Jason Wembly? My name is Dianne Trainer and I have your business card here." Dianne began.
The man on the other end was not Jason Wembly, but Hugo Ross, a farmer in Iowa who had been the recent door-to-door call of one Jason Wembly.
"Yeah, this is uh, Jason. How can I help you?" Hugo got up and walked into his kitchen to write down the number of the caller and her name.
"As a matter of fact, I am in the home improvement sales business." Hugo grabbed one of Jason's cards from his living room coffee table. "You can help increase my bottom line? Sure, that sounds great. Who can't use a little extra money now that the holidays are coming up, right?" Hugo sat down on the couch. "You want to meet at the Panera by the mall on Wednesday? Can we make it Friday? I'll be out of town until then." Hugo said. After a few more moments, Hugo bid the strange lady on the other end of the phone a good day, and hung up.
Hugo put the clown mask he had been wearing back on and placed his left hand on the right knee of Jason Wembly's body. He sat still for a moment, trying to understand what had just happened, and now he had an appointment to keep. Jason was getting stiff and had begun to stink up his living room, and Hugo would have to get him in the freezer soon. But before he did, he was determined to finish their conversation. He turned his head to the glassy-eyed corpse of the salesman who had stopped by earlier. Jason had a deep maroon gash in his neck from where the butcher knife had caught him, and the once white dress shirt he wore was now soaked in the thick clotting mess of blood that had drained from the laceration. Through the mask Hugo's voice was muffled.
"As I was saying. I just don't need anything you're selling. I mean, there was a time when I wanted to write a computer program that could turn me into a hologram of myself, but that was crazy. I know that now. They told me so at the center." Hugo leaned his head back on the couch. "I just want to be left alone, you know. Hey, dude. Have you ever had one of those days when the buzzing in your head is so loud you think the whole world must hear it, too?" Hugo pressed his thumbs into his eyes to alleviate the pressure, and then he turned his head to Jason, who stared in silence at the floor with his death gaze.
"You're starting to freak me out. I gotta' get you cut up and in storage before I head to North Carolina."
Hugo dragged Jason into his kitchen and hoisted him onto the island counter where he began to saw him into pieces and carefully packaging them for his freezer.
"I think you're going to keep me fed this winter, man you must have worked out. You got lots of muscle, mister." Through the clown mask his words came out so muffled that, had anyone been in the kitchen with him, it would have sounded like mumbling.
Hugo sawed off the head and placed it on the counter next to him.
"See, now we can really get down to brass tacks. I have an appointment to keep this Friday, but I don't want to drive all that way." Hugo stopped cutting for a moment and thought. "What if you come with me?!" He placed a hand on Jason's head. "That way neither of us has to be alone, right? You'll be my new co-pilot!"
Hugo picked up Jason's and began to move his mouth. He tried to mimic what Jason would sound like if he were talking to him in reality, but it just came out as a low murmur.
"Hugo, I think taking a road trip is just what we need. Besides, we might be able to get some more people to move in here with us. I like it here."
A few hours later Hugo had Jason packaged and stored for later, and now exhausted as he was, he began to get excited about meeting Dianne. Hugo knew a little bit about the Internet and had used it in the past to put his resume online for jobs. There was one site in particular he knew about that might have Dianne's street address. It was a resume-posting site where people could tell the world about what they do in their careers, and put their resumes and contact information for anyone to see. He remembered that he had written down Dianne's name and phone number. In about fifteen minutes from the time he sat down, he knew almost everything about Dianne from his Internet search. He was not sure a trip to Panera would be the best recourse though. Hugo was shy, and tended to avoid large crowds, so he put her address in the map software on Jason's phone and brought up the entire route to Dianne's house. In fourteen hours they would be together, face to face.
"Who knows?" He told Jason's head. "Maybe we'll get along very well." He went upstairs to pack.
Back in Charlotte, North Carolina, Dianne was elated because she had managed to book three appointments for that week, two on Wednesday, and one on Friday. She called her husband Felix, who supported her efforts, was just as excited as she was. Dianne had never been good with crowds, or talking to people, and it took a great deal of courage for her to show up at the coffee shop where her team was making calls, but she did it.
"See! I told you you'd do great!" Pearl said. Tina and Bobby clapped for her, and smiles were all around the table.
Dianne went home and tried to relax from her wired high. The calls had been fun, but after an hour of dialing strangers and keeping her energy up, she was spent. She had taken a day off from her job to make those calls, so she was overjoyed that it had been a success. Felix would be home soon from his job at the robotics factory and she was going to take him out to dinner to celebrate her breakthrough. Dianne drove home and made herself a cup of tea before laying on the couch to take a nap. Her phone rang a few moments after she lay down, and it was from Jason Wembly's number. She stared at the phone for a minute. "What if he was calling to cancel their appointment?" She thought.
"I'll let the voicemail get it."
Half way across the country, Hugo sat on the edge of his bed, thinking he might break their appointment. Fourteen hours was a long drive, and he did already have a roommate. He found a three-gallon pickle jar and placed Jason's head in it after packing his bag, and it sat with him on the bed. No answer, and he hated leaving voicemails. It was too much like talking to himself.
"Sorry man, but you're stinking the place up." Hugo said as he tapped the jar. "She didn't pick up and I don't leave messages. Looks like we're going on the road, my man." Hugo said.
He put two full gas cans, some rope, and a knife in the trunk of his eighty-five Cadillac. Hugo then placed the head in a jar next to him on the passenger seat and started his car as the sun set on another day.
"My daddy always carried two gas cans around with him on long trips, just in case he took a wrong turn and ran out of fuel. It's just smart, you know? Ready to roll!" Hugo yelled. He set the car in drive and headed down the road.
Dianne called her husband after the phone went to voicemail from Jason's call.
"Felix, we're heading out to dinner as soon as you get home." She could hear the road in the background as he drove.
"Hey sweetie! Fine by me, then neither of us has to cook or clean. I love it."
That nigh
t the two of them ate dinner, drank wine, and made love like they were teenagers again. This was the last night Dianne would sleep without knowing that true horror exists in the world. The next day, Dianne went to work and drudged through another day at what she affectionately called her J.O.B., or Jump Outta' Bed economically indentured slave detail. Dianne was a help desk operator at a major cable company, and received call after call of problems from users who had locked themselves out of their computers or had clicked on a phishing email and had the Active Directory account locked by the security department. The incessant bitching from people on the other end of her phone about problems she could neither help them with or cared about became like the buzzing of flies inside her head by the end of most days. She revealed her theory to a co-worker one day when they were out for a walk.
"I think that people are so frustrated because no one will listen to them, and when they finally get a live voice on the other end of the phone to help with one problem, they feel like its open season. These people effectively dump their purse on the table for you to look at. You know what I mean?" Dianne told her friend, Stacey, who nodded agreement.
"Like I care about your personal life, right?! I just work for the paycheck like everyone else in Corporate America!" Stacey said.
"I know, I've had it with these jobs. I'd love to spend more time with my family, you know? I just feel like there's something wrong with the way things are going these days. There's got to be something more than flushing eight or more hours down the toilet every day for a company that would fire you if they could figure out how to automate your job for less than they pay you." Dianne said.
The two walked on, but that conversation was what brought Dianne to her first meeting for the network marketing business she was now building. She was fed up with the broken, failing system of endless days at a job where her closest interactions with people were behind a computer screen, and where faceless corporate overlords who controlled her ability to pay her bills would decide when she could have a day off.
Dianne left work at four o'clock and drove home through rush hour traffic; another day when the stress from her job caused the buzzing sound in her head to increase. When she got home, a strange looking, rust covered Cadillac was parked out in front of her house less than a foot from the mailbox. She pulled up the driveway and opened the garage with her remote, and once inside, closed the door behind her. She assumed one of the neighbors had a friend over for drinks or something, but it always peeved her to see a car she did not recognize blocking her mailbox. If the mail carrier saw a car parked in front of the box they might deliver the mail, but there was no guarantee. She got out of her car and walked into the house. Sitting in her living room was a tall, portly man in a ragged dark blue suit with his head rested on the couch, and he was snoring. The stranger had a large head, and had not shaved in more than a week from what she could tell. Her heart rate began to increase as her mind went into panic mode. Dianne backed up into and tripped over a sneaker left in the wrong place by her husband. The man snapped awake.
"Who are you?" Dianne asked.
"Wuh, oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry to have fallen asleep in your living room. I meant to shut my eyes for a few minutes and, well after driving fourteen hours to get here…"
"Who are you? What do you want?" Dianne was backing toward the knife block on her counter.
"Sorry, I'm the guy you talked to on the phone. We have an appointment Friday."
"Jason? What are you…why are you in my home? You need to leave." Dianne was really scared now.
Hugo stood up, and when he did she could see that there were pizza stains on his jacket, and he was wearing a clip-on tie.
"Please forgive me. I only wanted to meet with you in person, away from the crowds. I don't do well with them. Can we sit and talk for a few minutes? I want to hear about how you can save my bottom line, you know, like you said. Then I'll leave."
"OK, fine. Let's sit down at the table." She said.
Dianne was trying to figure out this man's motivation for breaking into her house, and she suspected it was not for a business meeting. He walked over to her dining room table and pulled out a chair, and just as he did, Dianne saw her husband's car pull up the driveway. The stranger did not see the car and sat down at the table with his hands clasped together, smiling. Dianne could not figure out what to say next and this man frightened her. Something about his disheveled appearance and odd, jerky mannerisms. Dianne thought about her pistol above the refrigerator, and she could see Felix outside, looking into the window of the beat up Cadillac. He drew away with a start, alarm washing over his face, and quickly brought out his phone.
"Well, as I was saying on the phone, we can help you turn your business around by shopping for paper, office supplies, and whatever you need online, and mostly with free shipping. You also earn cash rewards every time you shop." Dianne cut her eyes out of the window and she could see Felix typing on his phone. A moment later she heard the chime of an incoming message.
"I'm sorry, do you mind? It might be my husband trying to reach me." Dianne said.
"No, no worries." Hugo smiled at Dianne, but sweat stood out on his brow as he began to fiddle with his suit jacket.
The text read: Are you home yet? I'm calling the police. There's a car out front with some guy's head in a pickle jar. Not safe, probably, I don't know. I'll call you in a few minutes.
Dianne's faux smile faded as she looked up from the text.
"Who are you, really?" She stood and backed up to her refrigerator.
"I'm uh, Jason, uh Huxley, you know, the guy you called." He began to giggle nervously.
"You mean Wembly?" Dianne asked. The stranger in her house suddenly looked out the living room window and saw Felix dialing a number on his phone next to the Cadillac. Dianne reached for her pistol as the man ran over to their window.
"No, no, no, that guy is going to ruin everything." He reached for the door handle and threw open their front door.
Dianne had not used their pistol very often, but she had been given a tutorial on how to check to see if it was loaded. With trembling hands, she pulled the slide back a little and saw that there was a bullet in the chamber. The stranger was running out of the door now and Dianne could see that he was approaching her husband on the lawn. She ran through the door and aimed her pistol at the back of the stranger who was now wielding a large knife over his head.
"Stop!" She screamed. Felix had not seen the approaching man and dropped his phone in surprise.
Felix's limbic instinct told him to put his hands up in a defensive gesture, and as he prepared for the attack, a single bang rang out in the late afternoon air. The attacker fell to his knees, but managed to regain his footing once more. Dianne fired again, this time the shot went to the left and entered his trunk where it penetrated one of the gas cans, igniting it into a ball of flames. The trunk began to smoke as the second gas can blew, knocking the trunk lid off its hinges and hurling it through the air like a deadly Frisbee.
"My car! You shot my car!" He squealed in fury. Hugo turned back around to run at Dianne when she fired another shot into his abdomen.
"Ouch, lady. You're gonna' pay for that!" He screamed.
The pain in Hugo's body felt like he was being thrown into a roaring fire. He had been shot in the back, and now his stomach had a hot coal lodged in it. The resolve to keep going after her had been broken, and now all he wanted to do was get away. Hugo limped toward his flaming automobile and jumped in the passenger side as Felix ran toward his wife. She dropped the gun and began to sob as he picked it up and held her. Hugo fired up the engine, and as he did the fire surged through his fuel line, causing the engine to explode through the badly rusted firewall of his Cadillac. In a moment he was a screaming, writhing torch, trapped inside the car. Dianne watched as the man who was not Jason Wembly grabbed the pickle jar beside him, held it to his chest, and went still.
Later, after the police and fire department left, a detective explained
as much as he knew about the disappearance of Jason Wembly, and also told the couple they had been fortunate. They linked the car and license plate to a dozen vanishings of men, women and children in Iowa. For years Dianne would see the image of that man in her dreams burning like a marshmallow on a stick over hot campfire coals.
The next week, she was at the call workshop as she promised to do every week, only this time, she was greeted by the sympathetic eyes of her friends who had seen all of the horror on the news. Tina looked across the table at Dianne and placed a gentle hand on hers.
"Are you sure you want to do this now? I mean, after all that's happened? You might need time to sort things out before firing back up again."
Dianne looked at her with calm serenity, and smiled at the three of them.
"You know, I thought about bailing on this, but then it occurred to me what a simple phone call can do. You really do meet all kinds of people in this business. After my encounter with that guy, making calls doesn't really bother me anymore. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen, right?" Dianne laughed and began to dial a number from her stack of business cards. She was first in the circle to call from then on.
danger in the swamp
Four college students traveling home for the Holidays become lost in a bayou forest where the GPS in their phones doesn’t work, they have no map, and the locals are hostile to outsiders.
Darkness enveloped Rob Weller's Toyota 4Runner as it sped along I-59 on the way to New Orleans for Christmas vacation. He was bringing his three friends home with him for the break and it had been a nonstop party from UNC Charlotte in North Carolina all the way through South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. He had been wearing a Santa hat through all four states and it was beginning to itch, and his scalp was soaked with sweat, but he kept it on anyway. They had a briefcase full of illegal drugs and were using them to stay awake and energized for the trip. Susie Wainright was riding shotgun, Doug Tramp sat in the right rear seat, and his girlfriend Jackie Ross was beside him.