Dark Avenues

by Brian J Smith

  The hole was so clean and hollow it made Grandpa whistle with glee. Pete sighed, slid the old man onto the ground next to the edge of the grave and lowered him inside.

  Clay approached the grave and held the lantern low enough to see his grandfather’s face. Pete and the old man shared an uncomfortable glance, then fixed a somber glance back at Clay. Clay saluted his grandfather; Grandpa gave another cocky grin and returned it using the slowly decomposing arm.

  “I’ll see you boys later.”

  They laughed and then set to work filling the grave with dirt. They told him he could talk while they did as long as it had nothing to do with his and Grandma’s sexual escapades (or as Pete said it es-ki-pates) When the grave was fully covered, the forest became quiet once again save for the crickets still chirping in the darkness.

  Pete stomped his boot onto the hard-packed dirt to make sure it would hold. At least for now. Clay held the lantern as high as it would go for him to see when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A second grave had been dug up on the far right side of the tree; it too had a grave marker like the one he’d placed.

  “Tanks for diggin’ the other hole.” Clay said, then snorted. “It’ll save me the trouble of having to do it next year.”

  Pete leaned the shovel against the side of the tree and stared down at the open grave with a hangdog expression on his face. His six-foot-three frame outlined by the flickering orange glow coming from the lantern, he scratched his beard distractedly.

  Thin pockets of dirt clogged their cuticles and stained their rough-hewn hands. A sheen of sweat coated their foreheads, trickled down their cheeks and glued their shirts to their backs.

  He pivoted from beside of the tree and gave his brother a somber look. Tears welled up in his eyes, glistening in the light. Clay’s cheeks flushed, his features softening with both fear and confusion.

  “Not you, too.” Clay pleaded.

  Pete slipped a hand inside of his coat pocket and produced a thin slip of gray paper, its edges jagged and thin. He stretched his arm out from his side it toward his brother’s face and held the slip of paper pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

  “It’s not mine.”

  Clay sighed, his breath issuing from his lips in a quick horror-struck wheeze, and stared at his own obituary.

  UNCLE BUBBY

  I know this isn’t a horror story but I had to include this one. My love for crime-noir stories have started since I read Max Allan Collins’ “A Matter Of Principle” at the age of twelve and then decided to move onto Jim Thompson’s “A Hell Of A Woman”. This story was inspired by another noir story called “Attack” by Ed McBain (Writing As Hunt Collins) and this day I still read it every chance I get.

  I’d also just become an uncle for the forth time and as strong as I think I am I’ll always think about the obstacles my niece and nephews will have to face in life. I’m sure I share this fear with a lot of other parents and, like all writers, I shed that fear on paper.

  Hell hath no fury like a parent scorned, right?

  SOMETHING moved along the front of the house sitting across the street. Bright colorful neon flickered from the electronic sign beside of the Mom and Pop I’d been parked at for nearly an hour and glinted off the front bumper of my burnt-orange pickup like broken glass.

  A young skinny girl in a short-sleeved pink shirt and frayed blue jeans stormed out the front door and down the front porch stairs toward a blue Oldsmobile Cutlass, mumbling under her breath. She reached in the driver-side window, jerked her arm back out of the car, slapped a pack of cigarettes against her right hand, slipped one between her lips and lit it with a bright-pink Bic. The breeze drifted into my front cab, bringing the mingled aromas of pine sap and wood smoke across my face; the soft purr of Friday night traffic was a lullaby in the night.

  I lowered the visor and looked at the dog-eared photo taped onto the inside. In the photo, a rail-thin redhead with pale freckled skin wearing a strapless white dress and brown leather boots with neat-black curlicues stitched along the sides leaned against a thick oak tree; MAY 99 was scrawled across the lower right-hand corner in bright golden font. I’d only seen her a few times in the past before she wore that dress or knew what a glamour photo was.

  It was only a few days ago when I discovered she was gone, a letter scrawled in both desperation and fear. All I knew was that her name was Hailey; beautiful little Hailey.

  I raised the visor back into place as a red Volvo pulled into the slot beside of me. I peered down at the passenger floorboard and cupped my hand over my eyes in a half-assed salute as if I were waiting for someone. I glanced back across the road, trickles of cold sweat sliding down my back and hips, and watched the bright-red tip of her cigarette weave in the dark.

  I slid my hand inside of my black racer jacket, tapped the six-inch barrel of my S&W 686 until the barrel prodded my right hip and snatched a few quick breaths to prepare myself. I waited for the driver of the Volvo to go inside before I slid out and shut the door behind me. The door coughed, spilling flakes of rust onto pavement; I didn’t want to leave my truck here but I couldn’t let them see me coming.

  An angry December wind tore at my cheeks, teased my hair and grazed the back of my neck. The thought of a beautiful sandy beach and my beautiful woman kept me from getting too cold. A brand-name gas-station-slash-convenience store sat on the corner of the next block, glowing brighter than an albino’s bare ass.

  The house–like all of the others slapped down beside of it–looked as if they’d been made out of glue and popsicle sticks. Once word got around to what I was doing, it didn’t take long for me to fire up the proverbial grapevine to find out where she was. The trail of breadcrumbs and back-alley snitches who would sell their Mothers for a buck had led me here.

  The town itself was just another cluster of middle-class housing tucked back from the highway like the classmate everyone liked to fuck with. A local VFW, a library no smaller than an airport bathroom and a post office had been tossed in somewhere along to give the place a false sense of belonging; a trailer park was scattered along the southwest side of town. I don’t think it even had a name and if it did I didn’t care about it.

  Somewhere, an education was being wasted.

  As far as I was concerned, this town and I had something in common. We didn’t exist.

  This was the part of me I tried to hide from everyone; the devil that sat on my shoulder and whispered sweet little lies in my ears, reminding me that the next move was as legit as reaching over for the snooze button on the alarm clock beside of my bed. I’ve had plenty of days and night like this, but they were tucked much further away than the houses on this block and stuffed deep into the pockets of my past where I’ve sworn to keep them forever.

  I kept my hand inside the front pocket of my jacket and hooked my fingers around the Wesson’s smooth-walnut grip. A gray Ford Escort glided past me, carrying a rowdy caravan of drunk college students that howled along with a techno beat that thrummed against the windows. When I caught the mingled odors of mildew and urine wafting from the front of the house, I bit down on my bottom lip to keep me from getting nauseous.

  She wasn’t as young as I thought. She looked like she could take care of herself, too. She may have been small-town pretty at one time before all that smack.

  I slipped the gun out of my pocket, flipped it in the air, caught it by the barrel and let her hear my footsteps. She turned, her pale cracked lips and heavy-lidded eyes wide with panic. She mumbled an incoherent plea, her cigarette moving along with the rhythm of her lips; a stream of warm piss trickled down her left leg, leaving a large concentric patch on her thigh.

  I gritted my teeth and struck her hard across the left temple; her hair flew around her head like waves of amber fire. She spun around on pain-stricken legs, dove face-first into the cold patch of mud beside of the Cutlass and lay there like a broken stick; the cigarette had flown from her hand, spewing bright-orange coals across the lawn and landed into th
e mud with a low snake-like hiss.

  I bent down to check her pulse to make sure she was still breathing and found tiny puncture holes in her arms; the faint imprint of a thin line hugged her left bicep. There was no telling how many pretty faces he’d turned to shit; she was another casualty on his list, a notch on his belt.

  I flipped the gun back around, scanned the property and skulked up the front porch stairs. The stairs groaned under my weight. I cleared the last step and crept across the landing when the front door opened with a low groan, spilling a carpet of amber-colored light across the porch.

  “I thought you were going–”

  A tall heavyset figure appeared in the doorway wearing a gimmicky tee-shirt, blue-jean cutoffs and light brown-wicker sandals. Our eyes met. He then peered over my shoulder, saw the girl lying unconscious beside of the Cutlass and took no time in putting two and two together.

  He cursed under his breath, spewing a strand of saliva from the right corner of his lip and slipped a hand into the back waistband of his cut-offs. He had thick brown dreadlocks (a mistake on any white person) narrow blue eyes and a tiny silver ring jammed into his left nostril. He knew I didn’t come to talk about The Watchtower or Jesus Christ even at ten-forty-five at night.

  “You son of–”

  I fired, sending waves of recoil bursting through my arm. The first shot shattered his last two teeth; the second punched through his left nostril and out the back of his skull; chunks of soft red pulp sprayed the wall. He stumbled back inside the house, arms and legs flailing, and landed on a tacky overstuffed brown couch.

  His gun, whatever it might’ve been, flew across the room and out of reach. He slid down the edge of the couch, his eyes wide with horror, and slumped down in front of the coffee table. On the coffee table, a glass ashtray sat on the right packed with half-spent joints; the flat screen in the far corner of the room displayed an early episode of Dark Shadows.

  The wind flew into the room, sending mixed tendrils of gunpowder, marijuana and spent bowels across my face and stung my nostrils. I shook off the spikes of recoil still vibrating against my rotator cuff and held the gun down against my right thigh.

  I padded through the living room and through a door less entry into a wide dirty kitchen with lime-green walls. A round wooden table sitting on my left, cluttered with burnt spoons and severed strands of bright yellow tubing; a mountain of dirty dishes sat inside of a stainless-steel sink under a halo of buzzing flies. With each step I took, the dirty linoleum floor popped and crackled under my feet like bubble wrap; a roach skittered across the other side of the kitchen and disappeared inside the tiny space between the fridge and the stove.

  A trail of dirty clothes streaked across the hallway toward a scarred white door. Fist-sized holes peppered the walls; there was nothing more destructive than a junkie with no smack. I followed the dirty clothes passed the bathroom and scowled at the noxious stench permeating from inside; too busy going to La-La Land to flush the toilet.

  The door at the end of the hall was slightly ajar, allowing a jagged L of light to slice across the floor.

  “It’s okay, honey.” said a soft nasally voice. “Lay back and let it take you to a place you’ve never been before.”

  I nudged the door with the barrel of my gun and let him see me. The lamp sitting on the floor in the far-left corner gave the room a gaslight glow; more clothes and recycled syringes were scattered across the shit-colored carpet. A skinny bald man sat on the edge of an old bare mattress stretched across the opposite end of the room.

  I peered over his shoulder and saw a pair of skinny pale legs stretching toward the foot of the bed. He glanced over his shoulder at me, slid off the edge of the bed and stood, his hands bunched together by his side. His arms were corded with muscle and shrouded with bright-colorful tattoos; he looked like he’d done his fair share of time in a lot of places that guys like me would consider our home away from home.

  She lie naked across the bed, looking less and less like the beautiful little Hailey I’d seen in the photo, exposing a list of things that no man should ever see: dark-brown areolas on flapjack breasts and a patch of bright-red hair tucked between her legs. A hypodermic needle stuck out of her right arm and her bright red hair was fanned out across the mattress like a blood-red pillow. Her big green eyes were narrow and dark from the shot he’d just given her, sending her on a one-way ticket to Cloud Nine.

  “You want a taste, big man?” The pusher said, rousing my attention away from her.

  I tightened my grip on my gun. The light glinted off the edge of the second needle cupped inside of his right hand. His brown-black pupils widened; his fingers twitched as streams of high-octane meth pumped through his veins.

  “No.” I said, holstering the gun. “I just came for the girl.”

  “No can do.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I can allow to do that.”

  “We’ll see, shit stain.”

  He grunted, pivoting on the ball of his right foot and pitched the needle across the room like he was going for the bullseye. I crouched, heard the needle fly over the top of my head in a straight whistling path and ran across the room. The needle struck the wall behind me and wobbled like an old door stopper.

  I shifted my weight onto my left hip and snapped a left hook hard across his right jaw. He stumbled back, face scrunched in pain, and hit the wall. He shook it off, growled behind tightly-clenched teeth, and swung a fury of tight-knuckled fists at my face.

  I knew I could’ve taken him out with my gun but I wanted to take my time with him; I wanted him to know that he was out of business–for good. He buried a left uppercut in the pit of my stomach hard enough to knock the air out of my tires and stood back, fists poised and ready. Stars bursting across my vision, I hit the wall and cradled my stomach.

  He bounced on the balls of his feet like a boxer, hissed between thin pursed lips and threw a left jab. I snatched a quick breath, my vision wet and blurry, jerked my head to the side and heard his fist strike the wall. The brittle crack of broken bone echoed across the room as he gave a painful yelp and cradled his fist inside of his hand.

  I tore the needle out from the wall, in case he tried to go for it, and tossed it on the floor. I wrenched my hands around his neck, lifted him three inches off the floor and pinned him against the wall. When I began to squeeze, he grunted and slapped at my wrists; the backs of his feet struck the wall in a frantic flight-or-die dance.

  His eyes bulged out of their socks as the dark-blue pallor on his face now bloomed to a choke-purple. I ignored the chorus of moans coming the other side of the room where Hailey was still lying and pressed my fingertips into the sides of his neck. He gave a low dying wheeze and slumped over, spilling his courage down his pant legs and onto the floor in a brownish-yellow liquid.

  I dropped him like an unwanted letter, watched him slide down the wall into the puddle of his own excrement and took a second to gather my thoughts. I strode across the room, tore the needle out of her arm and sat her up on the edge of the mattress; her skin felt cold and waxy. I draped my jacket over her shoulders, slid my hands under her knees, raised her off of the mattress and carried her out.

  I set her on the porch, resting her head against the front porch railing and hurried back across the street to retrieve my pickup. I parked behind the Cutlass, letting the engine idle and carried her across the front lawn. The girl in the pink shirt was still splayed out across the driveway; she wouldn’t come to until later when I was nothing but a taillight in an endless stream of other taillights coasting down the highway.

  I opened the passenger door, laid her down on her side, shut the door and drove away.

  *****

  I was stretched across my hammock inside of my beachside hut, gazing out at the same bright blue ocean that kept me from getting too cold two nights ago when I had to become the person I promised I’d never be again and tried to purge those thoughts from my head. The gentle sigh of the wind and the susurration of the waves lapping
at the shore had lulled me to sleep a few hours ago but the dreams of death and dying that I’d collected over the years roused me awake. I sat up, stretched until my bones ached, threw my legs over the side of the hammock, took a sip from the mug of steaming hot coffee sitting on table next to me and listened to the ocean’s inner most secrets.

  A shadow floated across the corner of my right eye. I looked over in time to see my girlfriend Nohea step through the door, carrying a thin stack of mail in her right hand. Her long black hair was tucked around the left side of her head and cascaded across her neck like a sleek dark cape; she wore a peach-colored off the shoulder dress and a big exotic pink flower tucked behind her left ear.

  She flashed a smile that made my heart skip a beat, followed it with a wink and tossed a long white envelope onto my chest. I returned the wink and watched her saunter into the kitchen, her curvy brown body sashaying out from behind her.

  The letter was addressed to me from Newark, Ohio. A sticker of a giant red O was fastened to the tri-folded lapels on the back. I took another sip of my coffee, set the cup back down, tore it open and set the envelope on the small wicker brown table.

  “Hey, Big Bro. I can’t thank you enough for what you did by bringing my daughter home safely. Calvin was beginning to doubt you but I knew you’d find a way. I don’t expect you two to be the best of friends but I can’t only hope that one day you two can set your differences aside for Hailey’s sake. I know we didn’t talk about a payment but we insisted on giving you something for your troubles.”