by N. M. Brown
For what seemed like a hopeless eternity, there was nothing, and Claire felt a knot of despair forming deep inside her body. As her tears dripped from her face and fell upon the hot asphalt of the parking lot, Claire felt herself slip out of reality and into some infinite dark realm.
Then a loud banging from within the bus jolted her back to life.
‘Mom,’ a small, scared voice said.
‘He’s here!’ she screamed. Her voice was loud and strong enough to wash out over the car park, like a wave of maternal instinct.
Despite this, for years following the incident, Claire would dream about this moment – only, in the syrupy paralysis of nightmares, no sound would come forth from her barren throat. In the dream she would claw weakly at the metal flanks of the rapidly departing bus while it stole her child away.
But in reality, her scream had attracted attention.
The woman with the clipboard hurried across the parking lot and stood assertively in front of the restless bus with her hands held up. The rumbling bus engine finally died and the door of the vehicle hissed angrily open.
Claire was vaguely aware of the people who gathered around her as she frantically grabbed at the handle of the luggage compartment, ripping off one of her nails in the process.
An elderly man wearing a bus company uniform leaned in front of her and then inserted a small stubby key into the body of the bus. He ushered people back and then opened the compartment. Daniel scampered out of the darkness and into his mother’s arms. His face was streaked with tears and a damp patch had darkened his denim shorts. His mother buried her face in his soft neck and sobbed. After a moment, she cast her puffy eyes towards the Californian sky, where a small god had had a change of cruel heart.
The elderly bus driver, who appeared to be as rattled by the experience as Daniel, shook his head as he explained to the crowd that he had just loaded a bundle of toys into the hold for his twin son and daughter's birthday.
‘I swear, I only went for a smoke,’ he said in a dazed voice. ‘I guess I should have checked again.’
A small smattering of passengers who had also descended from the bus confirmed they had collectively known nothing of the small stowaway.
But the crowd of onlookers were only interested in the happy reunion in front of them. As the audience returned to normal life, Claire and Daniel made their way back to the car, where the baby remained locked in oblivious sleep. Daniel, who was being carried, had his arm curled around his mother’s neck. As they moved through the lanes of cars, the boy smiled and waved at the bus driver, who responded with a relieved grin and waved back at the departing child.
However, once the mother and child were out of sight, the elderly driver’s expression changed to that of pained frustration. He turned to one of the passengers – a large man wearing a Hawaiian shirt – and patted his broad shoulder.
‘Don’t worry, Wendell,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll have plenty more chances.’
Chapter One
Vicki had already picked up the telephone handset and quickly replaced it three times before she finally summoned the confidence to dial the number. She was sitting in front of the green-glass dining table, in what had once been, prior to the divorce, her parents’ beach apartment. It was a tasteful, single-storey building with smooth whitewashed walls and a small balcony overlooking the booming ocean. It featured a wooden deck leading from the house and directly onto the bone coloured beach. If Vicki actually allowed herself to drift into her memories, she could remember countless seasons spent here in the cool white sanctuary. Looking out through the patio window, she could see the sun-bleached balcony where she had often sat as a small child. Back then she was often wrapped in a blanket upon her father’s knee, watching shooting stars streak above the dark ocean, while her mother had sat comfortably inside, sipping black tea. Her father had pointed out constellations and told his daughter that everybody’s lives were written in the stars, like a secret message only some people knew how to read. He read fairy tales to her and told Vicki that everyone had a destiny – that perhaps she would grow up to have her own adventure with princesses, quests and monsters.
But now she chose not to think about that; her past had been a lie.
In front of her, on the table, was an iPad displaying a moving slideshow of photographs featuring two smiling female students. Gazing intently at the pictures as they faded smoothly from one to another, Vicki barely recognised her own image, and found herself in the bizarre position of being envious of her own life – or, at least, of the one presented on the screen. The photographs had been taken three and four years earlier, so she looked younger, obviously, but the difference was more than simply superficial.
Back then, Vicki had been optimistic about the world and life – and this had shown in her untroubled eyes. Partly, she’d taken confidence by osmosis from the girl standing by her side in many of the photographs. They had been physically alike – both petite with long, light brown hair – and many of the other students had assumed they were sisters, but this shared physicality was their only similarity – at least initially.
Vicki was a mouse-like, self-conscious young woman, whereas Laurie was confident and strong. She had to be. When she was six years old, her father had gone out to buy some cigarettes and never returned. Laurie’s mother responded to this sudden change in her domestic circumstances by sinking progressively into a cave of clinical depression. Therefore, throughout most of Laurie’s childhood, she served as the emotional support for her mother, rather than the other way around. She told Vicki how she would often return home from school to find her mother in the dark bedroom, sitting in her nightgown with an overflowing ashtray on one side and her wedding photograph album on the other.
Laurie’s upbringing, or lack of it, meant that she was self-reliant but also forgiving of other people’s flaws. Without the financial security or support of her family, she had managed to complete all her assignments whilst holding down an almost full-time job as a cocktail waitress in Jimmy Love’s Restaurant.
One Halloween, during the Social Studies Spooktacular Ball, Vicki and Laurie had excitedly dressed in matching zombie costumes purchased from Walmart, which made it impossible for anyone to tell them apart. Over the course of the evening, they had relished switching identities – Laurie was able to fade comfortably into the background, and Vicki got to adopt an air of confidence entirely foreign to her. She had moved crazily on the dance floor and made out with at least two masked men.
Now, in the sterility of the silent beach house, Vicki’s past seemed like another life – one she yearned to somehow recreate.
Vicki hesitantly dialled the number, brushed her fringe from her eyes, and held the phone to her ear.
‘Hello?’ the voice sounded unchanged since the last time Vicki had heard it.
‘Hi. Is that Laurie?’
‘Yep?’
‘It’s Vicki.’ She paused. ‘Vicki Reiner.’
In the momentary silence that followed, Vicki anticipated the horror of Laurie failing to remember her at all. Perhaps their friendship had been nothing more than the convenience of sharing a living space, and Vicki had magnified it in her mind. However, her doubts were dispelled when she heard Laurie squeal with delight.
‘Oh my god. Vicki, how are you, girl?’
On the other end of the line, Vicki felt a mental sigh of relief.
‘I’m good,’ she lied. ‘How are you doing? What you up to?’
‘Ah, you know me. Same old underachiever, but with a little bit of style. I’m flipping burgers for six bucks an hour. Where are you?’
‘Still in Oceanside, still being a parasite, and still bumming around at my parents’ empty house.’
‘Well, babe, don’t you go beating yourself up about it. If I was down there on the Californian shore, I’d never want to leave either.’
‘Actually,’ Vicki said then took a deep breath, ‘that’s why I’m calling.’
‘Yeah, what’s up?’
‘You fancy coming down to stay for a break, just for a change of scenery?’
‘You mean it?’ Laurie said in a breathless voice.
‘I really, really mean it.’
‘Hell, yes!’ Laurie screeched.
Chapter Two
At the same time the sausages were starting to brown beneath the gas grill, Dennis McLean poured a ladle of golden corn oil onto the large griddle and spread it around with an old, three-inch paint brush he kept in a plastic jug next the hob for just this reason. He was a big man, and at sixty-seven-years-old, he was starting to carry his spreading weight like an uncomfortable burden. His wife was forever telling him to lay off the red meat, but with his own walk-in cold store filled with every type of animal, cutting back on the flesh was not an easy option.
As the oil began to hiss and splatter, Dennis waddled into the double refrigerator and removed a rectangular Tupperware box. He then returned to the stove, where he laid out several slices of streaky bacon on the hot griddle and glanced through the emerging smoke at the numerous bodies filling the booth seats. Eddie Gee’s Diner had, as far as the chef could recall, never been so busy at 10.00am on a Monday morning. It was a small place, located three miles off the interstate, ran solely by Dennis. On most days he would take care of the place up until noon when his temperamental sister-in-law would help out. Although her version of helping basically involved standing at the back of the fire escape smoking menthol cigarettes, and occasionally carrying a plate of food to some ravenous customer – but only if she felt like it.
Most early mornings, the diner had a steady rush of customers – mainly seasonal fruit pickers and farmhands looking to fill up on pancakes and grits. After that busy spell things usually died down until around noon. But for some reason, today was different.
Just as Dennis was using a cloth peppered with coffee grounds to wipe down the counter after the last of the breakfast customers had departed, the gruff rumble of the coach engine caught his attention. He glanced up through the sheet glass windows to see the trembling silver vehicle sitting out in the parking lot, dominating the space like a big metal beast. At first he thought it was a modern Greyhound that had taken a wrong turn off the highway, but on closer inspection, Dennis realised the bus was a much older model than that.
The group of people who had emerged from the silver vehicle appeared, to Dennis, to be part of some tour, or maybe a business. The latter seemed less likely, given their mismatched appearance and lack of interaction with each other. Forming a steady stream of bodies, the visitors had come through the door and spread around the place.
The travellers who were all males had mostly asked for coffee – which was great because this meant they could simply help themselves from the three Sunbeam coffee pots located on a hotplate to the side of the serving counter. However, two or three of the visitors had also requested hot food – bacon, sausage and grits, mostly.
Dennis used a single practised hand to break each of the six eggs from a pack into a plastic jug, then stirred in half a quart of cream. He added a couple of handfuls of Longhorn cheese and then poured this into a cast iron frying pan. As the mixture bubbled, he walked to the counter and glanced at the cheques pegged on a wire hung at eye level. If it had been a normal morning, he wouldn’t have used paper orders – relying instead on his rusty old brain – but today with two dozen strangers descending on the place like a plague, it was a necessary evil.
Dennis turned off the grill and plated up the food, placing each dish under the hot lights. He came around to the front and carefully carried the meals to the customers. Once he was finished serving, Dennis returned to the service bar, took down each of the paper orders and – with a sense of accomplishment – impaled them on the brass bill spike at the far side of the counter.
After waddling back into the tiled kitchen area, Dennis poured himself half a cup of thick, black coffee, and grimaced as he swallowed the bitter liquid. He could remember a time when he could drink a litre pot dry in one morning, but three decades of fried food washed down with coffee and Jim Beam bourbon had eroded his guts.
He picked up a cloth and erratically wiped grease stains from the various surfaces, as he glanced curiously across at the group seated by the window. He was most fascinated by the role of the younger man who sat with the coach party.
He had arrived at the diner on a green motorcycle about ten minutes after the bus had appeared. When he walked into the diner, the other customers nodded to him in acknowledgement, but he didn’t appear to recognise any of them. He stepped confidently to the counter and asked Dennis for a coffee. Then, while he was waiting for it, an elderly man came over to him and led him to a red leather booth seat where another two men were already seated.
The elderly man had instructed the newcomer to join them in taking a seat. For a moment, he glanced cautiously around before he finally sat down on the opposite side of the table from the three men. They were clearly together, whereas all the other men from the bus were simply scattered around the diner.
The elderly man, a larger one in a Hawaiian shirt, and a scrawny figure in a Mickey Mouse hat, sat opposite the young guy. To Dennis, it appeared almost as if the young buck was being interviewed for a job. As opposed to the rest of the customers who looked on quietly, the three amigos – as Dennis now thought of them – seemed much more animated.
At one point, the young guy brought some type of computer tablet from inside his jacket and laid it on the table. He worked his fingers across the screen as the three amigos looked on with wide eyes. There was a great deal of explanation going on, with the young guy frowning and nodding.
During the conversation, the elderly man said something and the youngster laughed loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in the building. The kid shook his head and stood up for a moment. Dennis figured the young guy was just about to leave, but the elderly man leaned towards him and quietly said something. Then it was the turn of the large man in the Hawaiian shirt to laugh, and the young guy’s expression changed as he sat back down again.
They got talking again, only this time Dennis figured the young guy looked much less comfortable than before. He said little but nodded enthusiastically in response to everything the other three said to him.
At one point, mid-conversation, the Mickey Mouse guy glanced up and spotted Dennis looking in their direction. He turned back to the group and scribbled something down on a paper napkin, folding it in two and handing it to the large man. After skimming the napkin, he turned his head to look at Dennis and tapped his head in a small salute. Dennis acknowledged the gesture with a small, self-conscious nod and focused his attention on gathering up grease smeared plates and empty coffee cups.
Although Dennis stopped watching the group in the booth, the last thing he noticed was the elderly man slide a manila envelope across the table to the younger man. After that, the youngster left without touching his coffee, climbed back on his bike, and departed in a cloud of dust and fumes. In his absence, the three amigos invited a few others from around the diner to join them at the table. When several new members had taken their seats in the booth, they all spoke quietly and intently. As Dennis busied himself with a mop – disinfecting the tiled floor behind the serving counter – he could only hear the general murmur of voices.
Eventually, the conversation between the men sitting in the booth seemed to draw to a close. Without any specific announcement, the smattering of customers stood up and drifted out of the door, towards the silent bus.
‘Hey,’ Dennis called to the departing travellers. ‘What about the bill?’
‘It’s okay,’ said a deep voice from over his shoulder.
Dennis turned around to find the large man in the Hawaiian shirt standing a bit too close behind him.
‘I’ll settle up for all of us,’ he said with a broad smile, and pulled out a brown leather wallet from his back pocket.
‘Ah, that’s good.’ Dennis smiled, his face creasing into a labyrinth of wrin
kles. ‘For a moment I thought I was about to get hustled.’
‘Not at all,’ the large man said. ‘I just wanted to query one thing?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Who ordered that?’ the large man asked and pointed to the last bill on the brass spike.
As Dennis leaned over the metal spike, narrowing his eyes to examine his own scrawled writing, the large man moved with the speed and agility of experience. He grabbed Dennis’s head in both hands and slammed it face-first on the vertical spike. The large man twisted the head slightly and held it there for a moment as the chef’s legs twitched and shook. Then, when the legs gave way completely, the large man allowed the body to slump to the floor. He then reached across the hot plate and picked up a piece of fried meat.
Tearing at the flesh with his teeth, the large man stood over Dennis McLean’s body until the spasms had dwindled to nothing. He then bent down, taking the body by the feet, and dragged it through the kitchen to the walk-in refrigerator.
Before the large man in the Hawaiian shirt left the diner that morning, he twisted the latch of the lock on the door, so it would remained locked, and tilted the hanging sign to “CLOSED”.
Chapter Three
At the dusty bus stop on the edge of the cluster of lifeless homes known as Burke’s End, Laurie Ann Taylor sighed with relief and blew her damp fringe away from her face. Her feet were hot and she really needed to pee. But now relief was within sight – she could finally see the approaching bus in the distance.