by Matt Drabble
Suddenly the pickup’s lights came on full beam and the light was amplified by the cab mounted spotlights that blasted her car. She struggled to see in the burning glare and then the truck accelerated into her. The impact jerked her forward and she felt the muscles in her neck twang painfully. The screech of metal on metal was deafening and she felt her panic rise. The rental car veered to one side and she fought desperately for control. It was a fight that she lost. As the rental car lurched to the hard shoulder the pickup rammed her a second time more violently and then she was spinning. The car’s tires scrabbled through the gravel as they searched frantically for purchase. The car was tilted on one side where the hard shoulder ran away to the fields beyond. She thought for a moment that she could pull it back, but then the front tire exploded in shredded rubber. The car sank away and rolled. Her world became one of spinning and turning as she was bounced around the car’s interior despite the best efforts of the restraining seatbelt. Her vision blurred as her head cracked against the side window and everything went black.
When she opened her eyes again she was momentarily struck dumb by a monstrous pain that wracked her head. She tried to reach up and touch her face with her right arm, but it hung broken and useless. She used her left and her fingers came away red and sticky with surely too much blood. Despite the pain she managed to turn her head to the side and could see out through the car window. For some reason that she couldn’t immediately fathom why the world outside was upside down and it took her a moment to realise that she was the one who was the wrong way up. She tried to free her seatbelt but the mechanism was crushed and jammed shut. She attempted to slow her mind and not allow the panic to overwhelm her reason. She took deep breaths and slowed her racing heart as she heard gravel crunching footsteps approach.
“Hello?” She called in a weak voice, “Can you help me?”
The heavy footsteps said nothing and she fought harder to stay calm.
From her prone position she could only see the bottom of the figure’s legs. She could not tell from the shape of the legs whether they belonged to a man or a woman and even now she felt aggrieved at having to ask for help.
“I’ve been in an accident,” she tried again. “I’ve called the police,” she said, hoping to dissuade the man - if it was a man - from any unpleasant thoughts that he might be having. She didn’t know if it was the same person that had run her off the road, but she figured that it was best not to take any chances. She was feeling calmer now, that was until she smelled the fuel leaking from the petrol tank and spilling out across the road. “Oh God, the petrol’s leaking, please you have to help me,” she begged.
The legs lowered and a hand touched the floor before the car window. Slowly the body bent down and a face came into view. If she’d had the energy she would have screamed. The face was a skeletal mask of madness with eyes burning with insanity and inhumane mirth. The figure held out an empty hand and pulled its sleeve up. The figure closed its fist and passed the other hand over it. When it opened its fist again Dixie saw the lighter and despite her lack of energy she screamed nevertheless.
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Tommy woke to the shrill scream of sirens. Denver Mills was a quiet corner of the world and to hear the peaceful night air shattered stirred him from a fitful sleep.
As usual his dreams were black and smothering. Hands reached for him out of the darkness and choked the very breath from his body. The Captivating Cosmo X was always there behind the thin veil of sleep; always dancing beyond the shadows and always sharpening his guillotine blade. That glinting razor sharp metal edge was forever honed and hungry and the sound of it falling was imprinted on his brain.
He wandered to the window of his father’s house. The dark night beyond was lit with the flashing red and blue whirls of the small town’s only fire engine as it raced by on protesting suspension and a whining motor. The old girl was rarely used for anything other than town parades every summer and Tommy could not actually recall a memory of it being in active service during his childhood.
He craned his head out of the window and caught the faintest whiff on the wind of smoke. He leaned out further and saw a black plume somewhere off in the distance. Already lights were coming on in neighboring houses as sound sleeps were disturbed by unexpected noise and excitement. Fire always seemed to draw a crowd. Tommy remembered that women were always told to cry fire and never rape, because fire would always attract an audience.
He was not in the mood for a night drive and knew that he would no doubt hear all the gory details in the morning as the gossips spread the tales across the town. He walked back somewhat reluctantly to his bed and dry swallowed a couple of sleeping tablets in the vain hope that they would send him back to sleep. He lay there and thought that he would never sleep until his eyes drooped and he had no choice but to venture forth into the shadows again.
The phone on his bedside table illuminated the room as it sprung into life with a vibrating soft ring some two hours later. He groggily leaned over and picked it up.
“Tommy?” The voice on the other end asked awkwardly.
“Ally? Is that you?”
“Can you come?” She pleaded.
“Where are you?” He answered.
It was only when he was pulling out of the driveway two minutes later that he realised that he hadn’t even asked her what the problem was. She simply needed him and he simply went.
He walked into Ally’s Diner, suddenly wondering why she hadn’t changed the name from Nan’s after she bought and saved it. Ally was sitting at a booth with McEwen. His face was ashen and crushed and Tommy feared the worst.
“What’s happened? Is it Trotter?” He asked nervously.
“No, nothing like that,” Ally answered as McEwen stared down into a cooling mug of coffee. “There was an accident out on the main road into town tonight, a woman was killed, she was Lee’s agent.”
“Oh I’m so sorry,” Tommy said to McEwen. Whilst his mouth apologized his brain was unapologetically thankful that the haunting monster of his dreams had not yet returned.
“She was on her way to see me,” McEwen said softly. “I always made her come here as I don’t fly. Oh God, If I hadn’t made her then she would still be alive,” he said looking up to Tommy for reassurance.
Tommy had none to give. His own mind was a calculating process; the simple logic was that if McEwen had gotten on a plane, then the woman would not be dead.
“It was just an accident,” Ally soothed.
“Yeah,” Tommy agreed. “Just an accident, it’s not your fault.”
“Why was she coming here?” Ally asked gently.
“I have an exhibition coming up over in Hillwood City. I’m afraid that I’m not too good with travelling and people and arrangements, and kind of life in general outside of my studio,” McEwen smiled, embarrassed. “Dixie was from Hillwood and she was picking me up and going to take me there.”
“Will you still go?” Tommy asked thinking practically.
“Oh man I don’t know. I guess that I should right?” McEwen said looking up for the guidance of adults.
“Maybe you could dedicate it to her memory?” Ally suggested.
“I guess I need to make some phone calls,” McEwen said unhappily.
Tommy was about to offer to help when he caught Ally’s harsh stare and so kept quiet. She obviously knew McEwen a lot better than he did. They both watched as their friend stood up and wandered out of the diner. His shoulders were slumped and his head was bowed as he left.
“Shouldn’t we help him with all that?” Tommy asked after they were alone.
“He needs to do a few more things for himself Tommy,” Ally answered firmly. “He spends way too much time inside his own head and it’s not healthy.”
“You know when I got your call in the middle of the night I feared the worst,” Tommy said in a small voice.
“Trotter?” She asked already knowing the answer.
Tommy merely nodded as he looked out of t
he diner window and prayed that the sun would rise again soon. Nightmares had a way of fading when struck by the cold light of day and he could only hope that today they wouldn’t buck the trend.
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Dale Midkiff welcomed the dawn with his usual gruff grunt. He was sixty three and still manacled to his farm whilst his ungrateful wife and children lived on opposite sides of the country.
He dragged his aching carcass out of his lumpy bed and cursed the day as was his manner. He was a tall man but now one stooped by time and pressures. He owed the bank, he owed his neighbors, he owed his suppliers, and it seemed some days like he owed God himself.
There had been a time when life had been good. The farm had turned a healthy profit and he’d had the warm and loving embrace of his family to come home to after a toiling day in the fields. But that memory was now distant and lost in the mists of time. It wasn’t difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when his world had turned to the brown sticky stuff.
He had been lying in bed next to his wife Irma some 20 odd years ago and his good fortune had been pricking around the corners of his mind. His bank account which had once been walking a thin line between success and failure was now swelled beyond measure. It should have been a celebratory day for him, and any doubts that he’d had were washed away with Adrian Todd’s check. Irma had been fretting over their finances as usual and he had wanted to tell her that their troubles were over. He’d been elected by fate as the foreman in the Arnold Trotter trial. It was the biggest event that had ever hit Denver Mills and he’d been catapulted into the front row. Adrian Todd himself had approached him just a few days into the trial armed with blank check book. Todd was the big man around town and everyone walked in awe of him. When he’d first approached Dale he’d been willing to help the man in any way that he’d wanted. Todd could make or break anyone in town and when he asked for a favor, you really had little choice. Dale knew that he wasn’t a particularly moral man by nature and the sight of all of those zeros had soon cleansed his palate of any lingering doubt. It had been a simple task that had not required any real effort on his part. Todd wanted to make cast iron sure that the jury went his way, but Dale had soon discovered that his influence was relatively redundant. The 11 other men and women on the jury had pounced on Trotter and held him up as the monster that the prosecution portrayed him to be; they had retired for all of about two minutes before returning a guilty verdict and Dale received his payoff. That night he had been desperate to share his good fortune with Irma, but unfortunately she proved to have had a stronger moral centre than he ever did. She had raged against his decision and had never looked at him the same way again. He’d pleaded with her that he had done it for them, that Trotter had been guilty and the rest of the jury had voted him that way, but it had made little difference. His marriage died that night. It had limped along for several more months, but the fatal shot had already been fired and it was only a matter of time from then on. Irma had left and taken their two boys with her. She had somehow managed to get over her distaste of his illicit income however and happily took half. As well as the money it was also the boys that he missed the most. It wasn’t out of any parental love that he missed them, more the fact that at 18 they were valuable laborers. With his workforce gone and wife leaving he was a rudderless ship. The farm struggled on, then shambled on, then ground to an almost complete stop. Now he was barely keeping the roof over his head and food on the table. All he had left was to hope that he expired before the farm did.
He shuffled down the stairs and switched on the kettle. He grabbed a bottle of cheap brand whisky and figured that he would Irish up his morning coffee. As he turned he was startled to hear the doorbell ring. Puzzled he moved to the large oak front door. There was no-one who should be out this early in the morning.
He pulled back the net curtain that hung across the side window and peered out into a large bouquet of flowers being held out for inspection. Even more puzzled now, he opened the door grouchily as he was starting to fear that he was on the end of somebody’s practical joke.
He opened the door and before he could even register the courier, the flowers were forced into his face and a jet of liquid squirted out from the centre. He was about to be enraged at the stunt, feeling that it was too early in the day for such pranks as being splattered with water. He was about to, when his senses suddenly realised that it was not water. Whatever the liquid was, it was far from harmless. His face erupted in screaming agony and he sank to his knees as the pain pierced his thoughts and mind. He placed his hands against his face to wipe away the burning only to find that his hands began to blister and peel. The flesh melted from his face and sticky globs of goo fell and splattered onto the floor. His mouth opened in a silent scream as his eyes were burned away in their sockets. From a great distance as his world faded he could hear a chuckling voice that sounded quite mad.
“Now you see me, now you don’t,” The figure cackled insanely.
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Tommy sat waiting patiently in the outer office. The room was comfortable and made for waiting. Long sofas were bookended by small square tables with various reading material. The large bright window was covered with a wooden slatted venetian blind and green potted plants added a sense of color.
He was here to sign the papers for his late father’s estate and it was a job that he wanted over as quickly as possible. He had not been close to his father and his death had not raised the sort of feelings that Tommy felt it should have. Today was a formality that he hoped would be brief, as his complicated emotions were not a can of worms that he wished to open and explore.
“Mr. Marsh?” A voice called from the inner office, “You can come in now.”
There was no receptionist at his or her desk and Tommy had been left to wait outside as dictated by a sign on the door.
The inner office door opened and an older woman with glasses and a Rubenesque figure smothered under a heavy brown cardigan exited. Her face was flushed and she was self-consciously smoothing down her hair as she squeezed past him without meeting his gaze. He stepped inside and saw Graham Moss hastily tucking in his shirt over a more than generous mid-life spread across his middle.
“Tommy, so glad to see you again,” Graham Moss greeted him.
As far as Tommy could remember he hadn’t seen the lawyer for over 20 years, but the short rotund man’s enthusiasm was infectious and he couldn’t help but grin in return. Moss must be close to his 60’s by now and his full figure and reddened face spoke testament to his lifestyle choices. His hair was a snowy white covering but still thick and lustrous.
“Sit, sit my boy,” Moss ushered him to a chair.
Tommy sat behind the large dark oak table and wondered just where the lawyer and his receptionist had been amorous. He squirmed in his chair and hoped that it had not been there.
“So what can I do for you today Tommy?” Moss asked curiously.
“Uh, you called me in?” Tommy responded.
Moss was a nice enough guy, but he didn’t have a reputation based on his keen mind despite his occupation. He had been the town’s main prosecutor when Tommy was a child and had been in charge of the Trotter trial. Tommy had heard that soon after, Moss had left the prosecuting side of the argument and switched sides to open a private practice.
“Oh of course,” Moss blustered in his cheery manner, “Your dad and all that. I’ve got some papers around here somewhere,” he said looking around the disheveled office at the various paperwork that was strewn about the place. “Here we are,” he said as he snatched up some white A4 sheets.
Tommy couldn’t help but smile. He wouldn’t want Moss defending him in a court of law for so much as a parking ticket, but shuffling some papers was well within his remit.
“We’ll make this quick and painless I’m sure,” Moss said consolingly.
At least he was right about that, Tommy thought five minutes later as they finished up. His father’s estate was straight and to the point, much l
ike the man himself had been.
“So I guess you’ve heard all about our resident nutcase,” Moss interjected.
“Who? Trotter?”
“The one and the same,” Moss replied with a gleam in his eye. “It’s like a movie script isn’t it? A fire rips through a loony bin where our most infamous resident is being held. The police are sifting through the remains trying to identify bodies and our very own psychopath who may or may not be on the loose. The whole town is positively on red alert.”
“Is the whole town really on red alert?” Tommy asked nervously.
Moss strolled to the window and stared out into the view. His office was located in what passed for the commercial district of Denver Mills. The buildings were taller here and tightly packed together as the daily throng went about their business.
“Well if they’re not,” Moss said all good humor having suddenly evaporated from his voice, “They damn well should be.”
“You were the prosecutor weren’t you?” Tommy asked thinking that maybe he could dig for a few details from a firsthand front rower.
“One and the same,” Moss agreed.
“Was he guilty?”
“The jury surely thought so,” Moss said, a little defensively Tommy thought.
“But that’s not always the same thing though is it?” Tommy probed.
“I think that it’s the future of Arnold Trotter that we should all be more concerned with, rather than his past,” Moss said distractedly as he continued to stare out of the window.
“Was he really the monster that you painted him out to be?” Tommy asked thinking back to his own research into the trial.
“That sounds like a rather accusatory question,” Moss mused. “I know that the…, occurrence was at your birthday party Tommy. I would have thought that you’d be glad to see that justice was done.”