Shock Totem 8.5: Holiday Tales of the Macabre and Twisted - Valentine's Day 2014

by Shock Totem

  “I thought Barb worked the closing shift?” Megan said.

  “Called off. Says she’s snowed in.”

  “Snowed in? She’s the only one of us with four-wheel drive.” Megan deposited her coat and hat in the break room.

  “I told Dale I’d cover her shift so you wouldn’t have to close alone. He said to stay open until they upgrade the snow emergency to level three.”

  “How much business does he think we’re going to get?” She scanned the booths and the row of stools lined up at the counter, all of which were empty. “Have you even had any customers?”

  “A few.” Kate’s phone chirped in her pocket, and she pulled it out to examine a text. “At any rate, I don’t think we’ll be open for long.”

  Megan nodded.

  “My neighbor,” Kate said, slipping her phone back into her pocket. “She’s watching Randall.”

  For the next hour, they talked amongst themselves and tried to keep busy, discussing the storm and Barb and Dale and the men who frequented the diner, but mostly their children. As it turned out, Randall also attended Wright, though he was a grade ahead of Jack. Megan wiped down the tables and vacuumed while Kate restocked the various dispensers and scrubbed the hard to reach parts of the grills. After a time, they took a break to fry themselves eggs and a few strips of bacon. The weather report cut in and out of the little radio Kate had moved out of the break room. Now and then Megan looked to the fractured window and the heavy snowfall beyond, but each look conjured images of David parked behind the diner, prepared to run her down the moment she set foot outside, and so she kept busy and tried to put the window out of her mind.

  “Dammit,” Kate said. She had her phone out again.

  “What’s up?”

  “Randall. He threw up all over my neighbor’s couch. She can’t get him to stop crying.”

  Megan nibbled on the last of the bacon and watched Kate launch into a series of replies, thumbs flitting across her worn out flip phone. She took out her own phone and checked the screen. No messages. No emergencies from her own sitter.

  “Go on,” she heard herself say, the words sounding very far away. “This place is dead, anyway. I can finish up by myself.”

  “What? No, I’m sure he’ll be okay,” Kate said, but there was worry in her voice. “I couldn’t just leave you here.”

  “If it was Jack, I know I’d want to go.”

  Kate chewed her lower lip, seeming to consider the option. “You’re sure?”

  Megan nodded. She tried not to look at the shattered window.

  “Thank you.” Kate disappeared into the break room and returned a moment later with her coat. “Stay warm and drive safe. Thanks again.” Kate pushed through the doors and was gone.

  “Shit.” Megan looked over the rows of vacant booths. She’d known the diner would close early, that business would be slow and the tips wouldn’t cover the cost of leaving Jack with the babysitter, but she’d never been one to shirk her responsibilities. Now a new set of concerns overtook her financial woes, concerns involving response times and isolation and whether winter tires were included in the budget for the police force.

  She locked the door and returned to the counter. She’d stay open, but anyone desperate enough for pancakes or coffee would have to knock. A gust of wind rattled the windows and made the diner’s ancient ceiling creak. Halfway down the line of windows, the spider web of cracks inflicted by the bottle stood illuminated in frost. Megan shivered.

  By the time the snow emergency was upgraded, it was after nine and the streets were dead. There had been no customers, and in the last few hours she’d seen nothing but plows on the strip. Across the road, a gas station and fast food restaurant had gone dark. The world was white and empty.

  She switched off the radio and listened to the wind howl against the sides of the diner. Would she be able to hear an engine idling over the storm? She didn’t know. She fished her cellphone from her pocket and considered calling the police now that Dale wasn’t around. But for what? To escort her to the Datsun less than twenty feet from the door? She returned the phone to her pocket and pulled the zipper of her coat to her chin.

  When she finally set foot outside, panic seized her in a wave. All at once, the wind carried with it the roar of engines and screams and curses and other nightmarish sounds, and the snow was a fog through which the her worst fears appeared and dissolved like the clouds of color on the weather segment of the news. Her breath caught in her throat, and she slipped in her dash for the car, hip smacking the ice and snow with force. Crawling. Scrambling. Sprinting once again. One more limp to hide. One more bruise to cover. She hit the door and tugged the handle ineffectually as snow slid from the roof and widow and down her coat, fresh tears freezing to her face in the process until she remembered the keys clutched in her numb fingers.

  She collapsed in the driver’s seat and took gaping breaths and sobbed until her lungs could offer a frustrated scream. The overhead light cast jerking shadows as she brought her hands down on the wheel, and the horn blared under their combined weight. She fumbled along the door until her fingers found the lock and pushed. She’d made it.

  The snow on the driver side window had been knocked loose during her struggle with the door, and through it she could see the empty parking lot and diner. No Camaro. No David. She leaned back and tried to breathe. Only then did she notice the thing on the passenger seat.

  It was a Mason jar, like the ones her mother had used to preserve peaches, only bigger, perhaps the biggest she’d seen, though much of it was empty. At a glance it looked as though the jar contained some strange red fruit, slick and nestled in a bed of snow with something like a library card tucked beside it. As she leaned closer, the contents redefined themselves. A human heart half covered in large salt crystals, the kind with which one might salt a sidewalk, filled the center. Much of the salt had gone pink in color, and a thin layer of blood had pooled at the bottom of the jar.

  Megan covered her mouth and turned the jar until the face on what was an Ohio driver’s license was visible. The dark hair, the pinched nose. Even with the streak of dark red over the photo, she’d recognize the man anywhere.

  A second wave of panic threatened to overwhelm her as she fumbled out her phone and guided a shaking finger toward those three digits every member of society knows. She pressed the first two and stopped. Perched on the dashboard in plain view was a box of candy hearts.

  Slowly and deliberately, she closed the phone and slid it back into her pocket. The box looked fresh, unopened. Atop the box sat a solitary blue heart. Five sugary red letters faced upward—SMILE.

  Zachary C. Parker is a recent graduate of Bowling Green State University. He is currently serving as an editor at Shock Totem Publications and writing freelance in the game industry. In his free time he reads, murders people living inside his word processor, and tests the grandfather paradox with the time machine in his closet. To find out more, visit his crucially underdeveloped blog at wordsbytorchlight.com.

  HOLIDAY RECOLLECTION

  UNLEARNING TO LIE

  by Mason Bundschuh

  She was fierce and wild, all summer-tanned and smelling of honey and mystery, and I was stupid enough to love her. I should have known—no, I knew; even then I knew, for she always went quiet when I pressed my earnest and awkward love. But that is what we do when we are young, tumble headlong against all caution.

  It took her months to break the silence; that was when I learned to lie about matters of love.

  She asked if it broke my heart that she didn’t love me. Then and only then did I truly see her and not the fabricated icon I’d venerated all those months.

  No, no. It’s okay.

  I’m sure she didn’t believe me. I don’t think I meant for her to. Such are the little knife twists of love. But she was polite and did not call my bluff.

  “It’s okay,” I said, “I understand.”

  But I didn’t understand. I didn’t, even when she married my best f
riend and asked me to play a song at their wedding. Even when her children appeared, and life moved on, and I forgot how her hair smelled and the particular electric color of her eyes. And not when I got the call that her husband left her for another man’s wife.

  One part of me (the foolish part that shames me every day) thought, If you had picked me. But then in a rush came a memory, hidden under scarred self-loathing, of a time long after that wasted summer when I didn’t tell the truth and lied to a girl who asked if I loved her.

  Those lies you can’t take back. Too late I understand.

  SAUCE

  by Catherine Grant

  Bill stared at the last plastic container of Tawny’s marinara sauce in the freezer. He wanted the sauce more than a cold beer on Super Bowl Sunday, but he knew that if he ate it today, it would be the last vision of Tawny he would ever have. Unless she came back to him, of course. It was a hope that had once burned so deep, but after three months that red hot optimism had faded into cold, gunmetal gray.

  When Tawny left him, swearing at him in patois as she packed her bags, her big brown eyes afire with anger, she was at an end, a woman broken, who could not be put back together, especially by Bill’s careless hands. Now, there was nothing left of her in the apartment save for ghosts of perfume on the bedsheets and a drawer in the bathroom full of mysterious toiletries that he hadn’t been able to throw away.

  He’d spent the first month coming home to an empty, dark house, which had once been full of light and spices and the deep magic of meals prepared by delicate hands. After six weeks of takeout and fast food, Bill had opened the freezer and found the plastic containers full of chunky marinara sauce. He thawed one in the microwave and boiled a pot of spaghetti. Tawny had been an excellent cook, but her spaghetti sauce was the stuff of legend, a smooth, thick tomato puree with the right hints of garlic, onion, and even a bit of saffron. Bill poured it over the cooked pasta and drooled a bit onto his chin as he carried the plate to the living room.

  The first bite was heaven, a symphony of herbs and oil and tomato in his mouth.

  The second bite went deeper. The flavors were earthy, pronounced, even a bit too strong.

  With the third bite, Bill gasped as his vision clouded and he felt as if he were falling, dropping into a darkness that was as blue and dark as an ocean at midnight. He tried to catch himself, grab onto something, but his fingers found no purchase.

  The ground, concrete, jolted him. Bill lay on a boardwalk, near the ocean. It was night, and the air smelled of brine and bonfire. He stood, looked out across the sand dunes and down to the shore. A large group of people were near the water, drinking beer and laughing. They looked like college students, dressed casually in hoodies, denim, and cotton, stunning in their youth. One of them took out a guitar, and as he strummed a tune, some of the others began to dance, twirling and stumbling in the firelight.

  Two of the figures sat apart from the others, near the fire on a piece of driftwood. Their talk was soft, full of smiles and light touches, as they stared into each other’s eyes. Bill recognized the younger version of himself, pale and too skinny with a bad haircut. Then his eyes rested on Tawny, and she was exquisite as always. Her curly black hair swayed in the light breeze and she wore a simple cotton dress that accentuated her every curve. Her brown skin like burnished copper in the firelight.

  Bill remembered that night. He’d kept looking at her smooth, full mouth, wondering if her kiss would taste like honey. Later, when they’d shared that kiss, it had tasted like sweetness. His fingers lightly trailing the curve of her face and down her neck, her hands on his hips, an anchor among turbulent waters of desire. Bill watched as his memories unfolded in front of his eyes...

  When he awoke from the vision, he was on the couch, staring at the ceiling. The remains of Tawny’s sauce were on the floor, soaking into the carpet. Bill reached out with a shaking hand, dipped his finger, and then licked the sauce from it. The marinara was lukewarm and delicious, but the vision didn’t return. Not even after he scooped two more mouthfuls, hoping with each swallow that he’d be flung back into the dark blue deep, to the bonfire and beach. Bill sighed in resignation. He cleaned the mess, poorly, leaving a streak of red on the beige piling, and went to bed.

  Under the covers, he tossed and turned, smelling the occasional puff of Tawny’s sandalwood perfume. He dreamed, of her lips dripping with honey, her smooth, hot skin the color of copper. He woke hard and throbbing in the morning, his desire for the woman who had once shared his bed a painful weight on his groin.

  • • •

  The next week, Bill took out another container of sauce before he left for work in the morning. When he arrived home, the sauce on the counter beckoned. He cooked the spaghetti in haste, al dente, and ate ravenously. On the third bite, he tasted the earthiness; and on the fifth, he fell back into the water of his memories with a jolting splash.

  The beach was gone. Instead, he was at a party at the local American Legion hall. It was the first birthday party anyone had ever thrown him—his thirtieth. His parents were bad at celebrating anything with enthusiasm, and Bill hadn’t so much as received a cake since he was ten, maybe younger. Tawny scheduled a surprise party with all of his friends and family and made jerk chicken and rice and peas, with an artful skill that impressed everyone into silence when the food was served, including Bill.

  He watched his pastself open the door and walk into the hall, then look up in slack-jawed wonder. The room was decorated with white lights and Chinese paper lanterns, and the roar of “Surprise!” from his loved ones was deafening. Then Tawny was there, smiling warmly and wrapping her arms around him. She kissed him on the cheek and whispered into his ear: “For this, I want you tonight.”

  He smiled and kissed her. The onslaught of friends and family came rushing to wish him a happy birthday, smiling and greeting them both in a flood of affection and well-wishes. His best friend gave Tawny the biggest hug of all, telling her that she was good for Bill, that they were good together. She smiled wide and hugged him back.

  Everyone ate and danced until late in the evening. Bill drank far too much, and by the time he stumbled into the apartment with Tawny, he was too drunk to perform. He took off his clothes and she tolerated his sloppy, whiskey-soaked kisses until he passed out on top of her, drooling onto her shoulder and pinning her to the bed with his weight.

  The memories kept coming, and Old Bill watched as Tawny sighed and pushed him off with some effort. She put her T-shirt and underwear back on in several fluid motions and lay on the very edge of the bed, her back turned to the naked, snoring man sprawled beside her. In the dim street light filtering through the windows, she cried softly.

  In the morning, Tawny made him eggs and toast to still his aching stomach. They ate in silence, her face a mask through it all. When he was done, Bill left his plate on the table and kissed her forehead before heading out. Tawny washed dishes, her shoulders slumping as her thoughts seemed to wander. When she’d finished washing the last plate, she turned around to the empty kitchen. A single tear fell down her cheek.

  In his logical mind, Bill knew all of this was just a vision, a shade of the past, but he could have sworn she saw him. Looking into her eyes, he felt tightness in his chest. Her emotions flooded him in waves, sadness laced with disappointment and seeds of loneliness that burrowed into the dry, cracked earth of his own heart. The pounding in his chest became irregular, faster, harder.

  Bill jolted awake. He stumbled, dizzy and sweating, to the bathroom and retched, gasping as the precious sauce flowed into the water like pureed pink construction paper, the discarded Valentine’s Day project of some child who tried to make papier-mâché. Bill flushed it all, willing the visions away.

  He went to bed.

  He did not dream of honeyed lips

  • • •

  A month later, there were two containers of the sauce left, and Bill found himself thinking about them more and more. How long would they last? When had Tawny made t
he sauce? A week passed, and they’d become the only thing he thought of, an ever-present companion that whispered to him from the cold dark of his apartment freezer.

  Just eat it. What will it hurt?

  Indeed, who was really hurt by a little marinara sauce? That night, Bill arrived home from work and couldn’t take the temptation any longer. Opening the freezer was barely a consideration. He grabbed one of the two remaining plastic containers, and popped it in the microwave. He didn’t bother to boil pasta. When it was heated, he grabbed a spoon and ate the sauce in dripping, heaping mouthfuls.

  After the seventh bite, he drifted away.

  It was Christmas, two years ago. They were with Tawny’s family, her mother and two brothers, both of whom could stand Bill only enough to be barely civil. He told Tawny they felt that way because he was white, but really, Bill knew that was a cop-out. They didn’t like him because, in his presence, Tawny seemed to shrink. Instead of being a tall, outspoken empress, she would become a quiet, obedient sidekick to Bill’s self-important diatribes about politics or sports. The evening wasn’t going well, and when one of Tawny’s brothers got up and walked away from the table, Bill only smirked.

  Later, at the apartment, Bill and Tawny lay in bed. He took up too much space but he didn’t touch her. Tawny didn’t seem to care. She’d grown used to his infrequent affection. She turned her head and looked at him, her brown eyes wet pools that reflected the moonlight.

  “Why do you have to egg them on?” she whispered. “Can’t you just not talk about those things? For me?”

  Bill only rolled his eyes and turned his back to her. Long after he drifted off to sleep, Tawny lay there, staring at the ceiling. With a tongue that knew no honey, she licked her dry lips.

  Old Bill watched and felt the waves of emotion returning to him, her sorrow feeding the garden that she’d planted on his previous visit to this dream world of memories. He felt the garden grow, sprouting vines and dark saffron-colored flowers that smelled of sandalwood and hickory bonfire. The dry earth of Bill’s heart cracked further, the fissures spreading out toward the edges.