This Time of Night

by Jon F. Merz

  Jack shrugged. "Didn't drive tonight."

  The man nodded. "Very wise. Did some drinking did you? No use risking life and limb in an accident. Good choice to take public transportation."

  Jack was starting to wish he'd taken a cab home after all. Instead, he smiled. "I guess."

  "Mind you," the man continued, "these rides can get pretty dangerous. Never know who'll show up."

  Jack smirked. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Just what I said. Anything can happen."

  Jack frowned and rolled the ball-point pen he was holding down across his knuckles. In a pinch, the pen could be a formidable weapon. And Jack knew several ways to inflict severe pain on an attacker if he had to.

  The brakes hissed again and the train moved out of the station. They passed through a long tunnel and emerged inside of the next station down. The doors slid open and both the mechanic and the man with the groceries exited the car.

  Across from Jack, the man winked.

  Jack gripped the pen. "What?"

  "Shhh," said the man pointing down the car. "Watch."

  In that instant Jack caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned to get a better view and saw ripples like heat off a scorched stretch of summer highway fluctuating down by one of the exits.

  Jack whirled his head around looking at the man across from him, but the man had his hand up staying Jack's question.

  Jack turned back and saw the shimmering form become more solid, albeit opaque. It began to take shape. Not into one, though, but two distinct masses emerged from the haze. As Jack peered down the train, he could make out two men. Seated across from each other.

  If looks could only kill, Jack decided, these two would be anything but alive.

  Their clothing, though, was the strangest part of it all.

  Vintage 1977. One of the men wore platform shoes and bell-bottom pants with a fringe vest and nothing else. The other wore a taut maroon velour top with cowboy boots and jeans. Clothes aside, the men weren't there for a beauty contest. Their stares indicated blatant hatred for each other.

  And then Jack heard them speak for the first time, an almost hollow eerie sounding pair of voices.

  "I want the stuff, man."

  "You can't have it, slick."

  "It's partly mine."

  "Partly whatever you can take from me, man."

  Jack heard the metallic snikt of steel being released and knew instinctively one of the men had just popped a switchblade open.

  It was the man with the velour top who now stood. But he didn't wave the blade around trying to intimidate his co-rider. Instead, he merely held the knife. Loosely, by the look of it. Further evidence that he was skilled with the tool.

  And prepared to use it.

  The man with platform shoes held up his hands. "Hey, man, be cool. No need for the rough stuff."

  "Isn't there? I want the stuff."

  "Be cool, man, you can have it. No sweat." The man with the platform shoes reached behind him and then there was another awful metallic sound of release as a second knife joined the party.

  The subway train lurched through another tunnel and the lights vanished, plunging the car into total darkness. Jack halfway expected there to be two dead bodies when they emerged into the lesser darkness on the other side of the tunnel.

  The lights came back on, but blinked off and on with annoying consistency. Deepening shadows danced around Jack as the subway car slid down the tracks among city lights and a waxing moon.

  And all the while, the two men circled each other.

  Like choreographed dancers, the blades slashed the air time and time again. Both men seemed extremely competent with their knives, neither over-committing themselves and risking the loss of balance. At another time, in another place, they might have been superb fencers dueling for points rather than survival.

  At the point when they both appeared to be tiring, the train lurched horribly, spewing the two men into the corner of the train car. Jack felt his ears cringe as two sickening sounds of steel puncturing flesh followed by two separate moans reached him. Jack stared down the car as they blinked in and out of tunnel darkness.

  When the lights came back, Jack saw the darkening stains of blood puddles spreading all over the end of the car. The man in the velour top was toppled over the man with the platform shoes, locked in a strange embrace. And as Jack watched, the life in their eyes blinked out simultaneously. Then their bodies vanished in another bout of shimmering haze.

  Jack exhaled for the first time in a while and felt his face damp with sweat. The man across form him looked sad.

  "I wondered if they'd show up," he said quietly.

  "What was that?" said Jack.

  The man looked at him. "That, young man, was proof that life exists not just on this plane."

  "What?"

  "Ghosts. Spirits. What have you. That's what we just saw."

  Jack frowned. "Come on."

  The man spread his arms. "You saw them as easily as you se me. The proof was before your eyes. This time of night is when they walk. When they return to where they died. Those two men died almost twenty years ago. They'd been lifelong friends, but heroin, that cursed narcotic, it drove a wedge between them more powerful than mere friendship could ever bridge. They died killing each other. Tragic."

  "And you-you've seen them before?"

  The man nodded. "They've shown up several times, but it's been almost a year since I saw them last. I thought perhaps they'd made the jump finally to the other side. I guess I was mistaken."

  "That what you meant by dangerous?"

  "Actually, no. Those two are harmless to the living. They stay content to relive the moments of their death all those years ago." The man sighed. "There are other spirits, who aren't content to stay away from this plane. Sometimes a serial killer will show up. Sometimes some psychotic murderer will creep in and you can never be sure if they're prowling for another victim."

  "Why the hell," said Jack, "would you ride this train then?"

  The man shrugged. "Nothing much else to do."

  The train slowed down and Jack realized they were at the final stop. Forest Hills. The car jerked to a halt and the doors slid open.

  Jack looked at the man. "It's been interesting."

  The man held out his hand. "My name's Ted."

  Jack extended his hand, but the motion was cut short by an abrupt shout from the other end of the car.

  "Hey, let's go, buddy. End of the line."

  Jack saw it was the conductor and nodded. He turned back to Ted.

  There was no one there.

  "What th-?" He turned back to the conductor. "Where'd he go?"

  "Where'd who go?"

  "The guy siting across from me," said Jack. "He was just here."

  The conductor rolled his eyes. "Hey, buddy, come on, will ya? I want to go home. There was nobody there. Trust me."

  Jack shook his head and walked to the door. The conductor clapped hi on the back. "Tipped a few wet ones back tonight, huh, pal?"

  "Well, yeah, but there was this guy there-"

  "Listen," said the conductor. "Best thing you can do now is grab a taxi home and slide yourself into bed. Get some sleep."

  "I guess."

  "Take it from me," said the conductor, "it's the best thing. I've seen a lot of crap along this route. You don't want to be here after closing. It's like a metal graveyard, if you catch my meaning."

  "I think so," said Jack. "Thanks."

  The conductor smiled. "No prob. Things always get a little weird on this last run. What with the ghosts and all."

  Jack stopped. "Ghosts?"

  The conductor shrugged. "Call 'em what you want. I know what I've seen. We don't call this the 'Ghoul Express' for nothing."

  "For the last train," said Jack, "it was one helluva ride."

  "It always is," said the conductor. "It always is."

  The Progression of Hope

  “Eternity On-Line” was one of th
e coolest on-line mags back in 1997. Steve Algieri was a helluvan editor and I had a lot of respect for what he was trying to accomplish. Each issue of one of his magazines had a theme and this was my attempt. The story had to center around a historical figure. I chose John F. Kennedy. This is not a political story, although the reader might infer something political out of it. That wasn’t so much my intention, and this piece certainly isn’t anywhere near horror. But it is strange…

  Dawn came as it always did: in a burst of electrical current leaping across thin filament until the bright burn of light flashed throughout the room dismissing the dark for a temporary ten hours.

  If he could have blinked, he would have. But his pupils hadn't dilated in more than twenty years.

  He'd been dead that long.

  At least, that's what his body was. Hell, who could have argued with the useless cadaver that lay flaccid on the cold metal tray at the morgue at Bethesda Naval Hospital? Gaping bullet holes, massive internal trauma. Pulse entirely absent. Breathing non-existent. And no reaction to light from the eyes.

  In their place, he would have pronounced the same conclusion. Dead.

  But he'd been snatched from the other side, held in some kind of twisted limbo state. Captured forever, a mute witness to the passage of time.

  Twenty years was a long time. And contrary to what he'd always thought, when you hung around forever, time didn't flash by, it crawled.

  He measured it in two increments: light and dark.

  In the light, he watched the passage of time in the form of the thousands of people passing by him. In the darkness, he did nothing.

  His name used to mean something. But he'd taken it for granted. How often had someone walked up to him and said it? Perhaps a million, perhaps more. In that simple utterance lay the grand definition of what he was, what he had been, what he might have chanced for.

  After all, wasn't a name the epitome of personification?

  He didn't think it was back then. But then, he'd never really paid much attention to his name, beyond feeling very superior indeed whenever anyone called him "President Kennedy."

  He'd been loved by the majority of the country. He'd been loved by more than one woman. But he hadn't been loved quite enough to stop the bullets of an assassin from robbing him of his life that day in Dallas.

  And somehow he ended up here, staring out of the plain canvas and half inch of colored oil paint at the passersby who visited the Smithsonian every day.

  It always annoyed him that Marilyn's painting wasn't nearby.

  He'd thought a lot about time travel when he was younger. When he had more time for such things. That time he'd been stranded on the island in the Pacific during the war. He'd thought about it then.

  What would it have been like, he imagined, to voyage through time, to see the future-visit the past? His push to put men on the moon was part of his zest for science and technology. It the moon was possible, maybe time travel was as well.

  Of course, he never figured he'd experience it this way. Not as part of some damned painting of himself.

  A group of school children wandered over to him. They were dressed in loud colors and flashy patterns. Hair was longer now than it had been when he'd had a body to move around in. Most of them worked sticks of chewing gum around drooling jaws.

  Their teacher was almost painfully uninterested in mentioning his credits. She stuck with the basics. And ended with the assassination.

  The kids seemed interested in that part.

  It pained him to watch them move away. It was his only chance to hear snippets of conversation. To learn about the future. To savor his own from of time travel.

  He'd always pictured himself as a keen observer, but this was nothing more than a prison for him. He wanted so desperately to cry out, to attract attention. But of course, he couldn't.

  Over the years he'd learned a bit. He knew about Vietnam. It made him dizzy to think about 50,000 American lives lost. Who could have imagined such a tiny country would have cost the US so much? Certainly not him. Not when he had started the whole thing.

  And that damned Castro was still firmly in charge of Cuba. If only the CIA's poisoned cigars had done the trick. Damned Communists.

  Darkness came as it always did: at six o'clock in the evening. Closing time.

  Tonight was different though.

  Tonight, the President had a visitor.

  "You look well," said the old man leaning on the push broom. He wore his hair cropped close to his scalp. The universal military look. His glasses rode the bridge of his gnarled nose and when he smiled, only five teeth showed.

  "You can talk now, you know."

  And then there was the most indescribable yet exquisite sensation of regained muscle control. He raised his eyebrows, feeling his forehead crinkle, his eyelids opened more than they had in a long time. He blinked.

  "Oh, my God."

  The old man laughed. "That's the usual reaction."

  Kennedy looked at him. "How-?"

  The old man shook his head. "Nope, can't tell you. Against the rules and such. I'm just here to see how you're making out."

  "How I'm making out? For God's sakes man, I'm dead!"

  "Uh...yeah. You are."

  Kennedy stopped and frowned. "But I'm not dead. I'm stuck in this painting."

  The old man smiled. "Oh, you're dead all right. You saw your body right? Remember floating above it while all those people worked on you?"

  "Yes."

  "Those bullet wounds. Nasty things. They used those 5.56 millimeter rounds, you know. Not much room for mistake there. Massive trauma wounds and whatnot."

  Kennedy nodded. "I guess not."

  "And the funeral, well that was a helluva show." The old man smiled. "They did you justice with that one."

  Kennedy glanced around. "But how did I end up here? What about-?"

  "Heaven?" The old man laughed again. "What about Hell too while we're at it, eh?" He shrugged. "They don't exist, John."

  "Don't exist? Of course they exist."

  The old man raised his eyebrows. "Oh? And you've proof have you?"

  Kennedy shook his head. "Well, no-but-"

  "'Course not. You're just riding along on all those silly notions everyone has about death and dying and afterlife jazz, aren't you?" He shook his head. "We should have nipped that train of thought in the bud a long time ago."

  "Well, what is there if not an afterlife?"

  The old man rested his elbow on the broom handle. "Well, there's an afterlife, yeah, well, maybe 'afterlimbo' is a better term. Really depends on what you did with your life when you had one. You know," he gestured at Kennedy, "before your current state of affairs, don't mind the pun."

  Kennedy frowned again. "But I thought I led a decent life."

  The old man chuckled. "You always were one for the jokes, weren't you?"

  "I'm not joking."

  The old man frowned. "What, are you kidding me? Decent life? You had countless affairs, plotted to kill other human beings, brought the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust, and began a war that would last longer than any in American history. You call that decent?"

  "Better than some I've known."

  The old man raised a finger. "You haven't the right to judge anyone, John. Certainly not while you're being judged yourself."

  Kennedy sighed. The wooden frame around him rattled against the wall. "So, this is my penance?"

  "Maybe. You always were a sci-fi fan. We thought the prospect of time travel would appeal to you."

  "This isn't time travel."

  "Of course it is. You've been hanging there for almost twenty years now. You've borne witness to a lot of changes in the world, haven't you?"

  "If you call watching the fashion world come full circle three times, change, then yes, I suppose I have."

  The old man shook his head. "You're a bitter man, John Kennedy."

  "I'm a dead man," said Kennedy. "You could grant me the honor of a decent death."

/>   "A decent death? What is that, anyway? You haven't even earned the perspective most of your fellow time travelers acquire after a few years. You're still clinging to the notions of your live body and mind. You're past those now. You've got to start thinking in the bigger picture."

  "I'll pardon the pun," said Kennedy. "How am I suppose to think in a bigger picture if no one clues me in?"

  "Well, that'd be why I'm here. See, it's judgment time."

  Kennedy frowned. "Not the judgment time I'm thinking of, is it?"

  "Nope. See, you're catching on."

  "So, what is it, then?"

  The old man gave a half-hearted sweep and smiled. "Two possibilities. One choice. And you need to make it tonight."

  "The possibilities?"

  The old man smiled. "Possibility one is that there is an afterlife. That your little sojourn in that canvas is your penance for past sins and now it's time to move on."

  "Move on to where?"

  "Well, now that'd be telling, wouldn't it?"

  "Yes."

  The old man ignored him. "Possibility two is that there is no afterlife, that you are destined to hang there for the rest of time eternal, to watch, to crave life, to only have memories of your past to help you in your anguish."

  "That's not a possibility. That's a living hell."

  "Well, a limbo hell, yes."

  Kennedy sighed. "And I make a choice of which one I believe?"

  "Yes."

  "And if I guess correctly?"

  The old man shrugged. "You guess correctly, your reality changes. You learn the ultimate perspective. You see things as they truly are. Not as you want them to be. Not as mortals dream them to be."

  "If I'm wrong?"

  "Then your worst notions of mortal fear and hell come true."

  "It's not much of a choice."

  "I can come back in another twenty years," said the old man. "See if maybe someone's been along offering a better deal than this. Truth be told, I don't think anyone'll be by save for about half a million tourists with their cameras flashing." He turned to leave.

  "Wait," said Kennedy.

  The old man stopped sweeping. "You'll make the choice?"

  "Yes."

  "Excellent. What will it be?"