Dark Dreams, Pale Horses

by Rio Youers

  “Jesus Christ!” The sound warbling from the speakers felt like large hands clutching—reshaping—his brain. The gold letters wavered in his mind, meaning nothing; a bizarre image induced by the radio’s shrill voice. He turned down the volume and cranked the tuning dial. The sound faded for one hopeful moment (there were bursts of music and conversation) but then crashed back in. Jonathan gritted his teeth and hit the on/off button.

  “That was not the oldies’ station,” he said. He wiped his eyes with a trembling hand, recalling one aspect of his terrible dream: the Cadillac’s speakers blaring human screams as blood coursed around his bare ankles. He looked at the radio. Stan had said that the AM band was crystal, last time he checked, but Stan was a dirty liar.

  He reached for the radio again, but couldn’t bring himself to turn it on. That sound…it was horrible. Maybe he’d try again later, when his heart wasn’t pounding so hard.

  “Maybe,” he said, blinking those letters, UAB, from his mind. He shifted into drive and accelerated into the flow of traffic, south on I-59, a pink missile targeting the American Dream.

  His unease dissipated after a few steady miles and he began to settle into the moment. He waved at everybody who waved at him—and quite a few people did, he found; the car was a real head-turner. He stopped for gas just outside Tuscaloosa, and decided to call Julie from a payphone.

  “I picked up the Cadillac this morning. It’s just like Elvis’s. Except for the dent in the front.”

  “That’s wonderful, Jon. Are you having a good time?”

  He paused before answering.

  “Jon?”

  “Yes, darling.” He looked at the Cadillac, glimmering in the sun, parked so that the damage faced away from him. “I’m having a lovely time.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Of course. I love you.”

  The Cadillac’s engine drummed a steady beat as he pulled away from the gas station. His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror …

  The first chinks appeared in his state of mind.

  There was a tall, smoke-like figure hovering in the road behind him. Jonathan frowned and wiped his tired eyes. When he returned his gaze to the mirror, the figure was gone.

  NEW ORLEANS, LA.

  He tried the radio again south of Meridian—got a shot of mind-altering noise to begin with (a three-second blast, but it was enough to darken his soul and make him want to turn-tail for Birmingham). He scrambled across the dial and managed to find a religious station. A stentorian, deeply southern voice warned colorfully against Satan’s deceptions:

  “And there will be times, I DECLARE, that the devil’s hand will seem kindly and smooth, like the hand of your own sweet GRANDMOMMA. But don’t be deceived, my brothers and sisters. Let the love of God guide you AWAY from that deceptive hand, because it will lead you only into SIN and WRATH and HELL. Praise Jesus hear me NOW. Praise JESUS!”

  Jonathan raised his eyebrows. “Welcome to God’s Country.” He gingerly reached for the tuning knob. This sermon, however colorful, wasn’t humping his camel. He wanted American flavor of a different kind. He wanted rock and roll.

  “Take the devil’s hand and be SURE your sins will follow you through the gates of HELL—”

  He held his breath and tuned out, sliding the needle to the far right of the dial, and there, like one of God’s miracles, was an oldies’ station. Jonathan beamed and drummed his fingers on the wheel. Doo-wop bounced from the speakers, probably from the year this Cadillac rolled off the production line.

  It turned out to be a wonderful drive to New Orleans, and Jonathan would later regard it as one of the few highlights of the trip. For those five hours, at least, everything was perfect. The Cadillac thrummed along at an easy fifty-five and the sun fluttered a wing of golden light against the windshield. At one point he passed a truck hauling a huge trailer, as shiny as a silver dollar, and he could see the Cadillac reflected there—could see himself behind the wheel, captured in a brilliant moment, as if on film. Twenty-five miles later a clutch of attractive young ladies in a Mustang convertible ripped by in the passing lane, all smiling and waving, and he returned the gesture emphatically. He even added a couple of toots for good measure. The radio played non-stop rock and roll from a golden age: Dion and the Belmonts, The Fleetwoods, The Coasters, and, of course, Elvis Presley. Jonathan sang along and drummed the wheel, guiding the Cadillac through the lush heart of Mississippi and across the Louisiana state line. Glaring billboards demanded his attention, directing him to the best of everything that the Deep South had to offer. The Cadillac shimmered among them, another chip of the American Dream. The oldies’ station finally faded. Jonathan rolled the dial—

  That dark sound again, rumbling through the speakers and setting his teeth on edge.

  UAB.

  Turn around, he thought. Forget the dream.

  He came close to stomping on the brake, but the sound sputtered out and every cold feeling went away. Dixieland floated from the speakers, clear and hot. Jonathan knuckled little cups of sweat from beneath his eyes and steered the Cadillac toward New Orleans.

  Two hours later he was sitting in a restaurant on Bourbon Street. Cajun boudin, followed by crawfish étouffée, with a slab of mud pie for dessert. Jonathan lowered his belt a couple of notches and joked with the waitress to roll him out the door. Bourbon Street blazed and bustled, but his tired mind sought a moment’s quiet. He sauntered to the banks of the Mississippi and watched a riverboat—loaded with tourists—churn the gray water. There was so much to see and do in New Orleans, and he had already decided that he would come back with Julie one day, and do those things together: the carriage ride through the French Quarter; the museums; the haunted history and swamp tours; the incredible music and cuisine. Jonathan had not been in New Orleans long before realizing that it would be a better place with his wife beside him. He watched the muddy river flow and his heart ached for Julie, so many miles away. A moment’s homesickness touched him. She would be in bed now, curled on her side with one arm beneath her pillow. The glowing digits of the alarm clock would read 02.11. Her paperback book would be lying open, pages-down, next to it. The lamp would be off, but she would leave the landing light on and the bedroom door open just a crack, so that the light would creep into the room and fall across the empty half of the bed. He knew all this because it was his life, too—in the same way he knew Julie, how she slept, the small noises she made and the way her delicate fingers flexed against the bed sheets. It was all his—the house, every piece of furniture, every picture and ornament. Not his in a materialistic sense, but in a spiritual one. Julie; the worn places in the carpet; the kitchen drawer that popped off its runner every time he opened it; the stand-by light on the TV; the pizzas in the freezer; the pictures of his children hanging on the living room walls. It was his life, and it continued to exist so many miles away—a trick of love, and of soul—while he followed his dream.

  A small tear glistened in the corner of his eye and he nudged it away with the tip of his pinky. Some of the tourists on the riverboat were waving—he wasn’t sure at whom, but he waved back, nonetheless. He walked back to the bustling French Quarter. Bright signs pronounced the magic of The Big Easy: jazz and sex and voodoo and food. Street performers cast their talents at the masses. Incredible sound bled from every building: music and voices and laughter, like an auditory rainbow. Jonathan wanted to sample it all, from the burlesque to the beautiful, but tiredness had, once again, gotten the better of him. His legs ached and his mind felt loose, floating behind him on a piece of string, like a balloon. He had been so diligent in the planning of this trip, but hadn’t accounted for how exhausted he would be. He should have allowed a couple of days to beat the jetlag. Still, it was too late now, and he wasn’t going to let it spoil the party.

  The bars were smokin’ hot, filled with lithe bodies and jazz/blues. Jonathan’s energy level spiked, not to the point where he could stay out all night, but enough for him to get a taste of New Orleans. He drank voodoo
cocktails, got a little giddy, and was enticed into dancing by a Cajun beauty with black satin skin and blue eyes. She rolled against him as the band played “Hummingbird” with electrifying grace. Jonathan, danced with the uncertain rhythm of a fifty-one-year-old Englishman, before slinking away for a glass of cold water.

  He got back to his hotel just before eleven P.M. New Orleans was just getting started, but he was finished. He undressed, collapsed on the bed, and was sleeping within two minutes. The burning need to urinate woke him in the small hours. He staggered, somewhat disoriented, to the bathroom, bumping into things in the gloom. His hotel was close to the French Quarter, and he could hear the nightlife still—a vivacious rhythm that brought him back to the here and now.

  “Living the dream,” he mumbled. His reflection was comical: gray hair standing in quills, silver stubble sprinkled on his chin, and sleep lines stamped across his puffy cheeks. With his eyelids hanging as if they were lined with lead, he trudged back to bed. The Cajun beauty danced in his mind. The way she had moved against him, her hips crashing like waves. It was as if her body effused the dark, magical spirit of the city. He imagined, for one fanciful moment, the pink Cadillac growling along the highway, the radio playing sultry blues and the Cajun beauty grinding her supple body in the passenger seat. Take me all the way, baby, she said.

  “All the way,” Jonathan said drowsily to the empty room, not aware that he was curling his lip like Elvis. Just thinking about the Cadillac sent a jolt of excitement through him, equal to a thousand Cajun beauties. He had to see it again. Had to. It would underscore how real this was, and fill him with a fat, pink glow that would follow him, bouncing, into sleep.

  He threw back the sheets and climbed out of bed. He had parked the Cadillac so that he could see it from his room, so all he had to do was walk to the window and twitch the curtains. Just a quick look was all.

  The shape of the window hovered in the darkness. Jonathan grinned as he stumbled toward it. He blinked his sleepy eyes, grabbed the rod that moved the curtain along the rail, and inched it over—just enough for him to see into the parking lot.

  The grin left his face like a piece of elastic snapping back to its original size. A shuddering breath pushed from his body and every warm feeling inside him turned instantly to blue, crackling ice.

  There was a man standing next to the Cadillac: a tall, shadowy figure that appeared to be looking up at Jonathan’s hotel window, as if he knew exactly which room he was in. The lights in the parking lot were not bright enough for Jonathan to define any detail, but he knew that he had seen this man before. His startled mind sorted through fragments of memory, and it came to him: after he had stopped for gas just outside Birmingham…that long, smoky figure had been standing in the road behind the Cadillac.

  Impossible, he thought. He couldn’t have followed me all the way here. He couldn’t have—

  This trembling train of thought was interrupted by another memory:

  Ahhn gohnah awwwn oooo.

  “I’m going to haunt you,” Jonathan said, looking at the tall gray man. He shook his head and a frost of sweat glittered on his skin. It couldn’t be him. There was no way. He remembered his stubby black teeth and the flapping, soupy hole in the middle of his face. The vagrant. The poor boy, Jonathan thought. Was it possible that he had been followed all the way from Raleigh, North Carolina? His heart made crazy sounds at the thought, while tiny sailboats of logic journeyed to put his mind at ease. How could a homeless, penniless bum travel nine hundred miles in two days? And if he found a way—in the unlikely event that he decided to spend money on trains and buses instead of food—how did he know which hotel Jonathan was staying at?

  The pink Cadillac, he thought. It’s like a neon sign on wheels.

  But no…it made no sense. It wasn’t possible.

  Music thrummed from the bars in the French Quarter. Iridescent smog splashed the darkness, as if all the city’s light and energy had rained magically skyward and formed a luminous puddle in the night. The man standing next to the Cadillac lifted one arm and pointed at Jonathan. The light appeared to shine through his raggedy gray body.

  “Oh Jesus,” Jonathan said, snapping the curtain closed. Sweat ran into his tired eyes, and although he knew it couldn’t be the poor boy—it just couldn’t be—the idea had taken root in his mind and wasn’t to be denied. His legs trembled. His heart was a shotgun with endless ammunition.

  This is what comes of not getting enough sleep, he thought. You start hallucinating, your mind just—

  He creaked the curtain open.

  The poor boy was a little closer now, edging toward him on his misty legs. Jonathan staggered away from the window, stumbled over the edge of the bed, and thumped to the floor.

  “I should’ve given you the five dollars,” he blurted, feeling absurdly like Ebenezer Scrooge addressing the Ghost of Christmas Past. It was too dark to determine anything of the shadowy figure, other than his long shape, but Jonathan knew that his hair was black and stringy, that his hands were made of clay, and that the center of his face was a wuffling, fleshy crater rimmed with slime and crusty boogers.

  Ahhn gohnah awwwn oooo.

  Jonathan struggled to his feet and suffered a moment of paralyzing indecision. Should he hide in the closet, scrunched between the trouser press and the safe? Should he run screaming from the room and demand that the front desk call the police? You’re overreacting, he thought. It’s not the poor boy. It’s just a guy—a regular guy—returning from a night out. He saw the Cadillac in the parking lot and paused to check it out. What’s wrong with you?

  “He pointed at me,” Jonathan said. “That’s what’s wrong.” And also, it was the same shadowy figure he had seen in the rearview outside Birmingham. He had followed Jonathan here.

  Should he confront the man? Find out what he wanted?

  You’re fatigued, Jonny-boy. That’s all. You just need a good night’s sleep.

  Should he call the front desk and tell them that someone was snooping around the parking lot?

  The world moved in tormenting increments. The darkness mocked him. It seemed like a hundred years ago that he had been dancing hip-to-hip with a Cajun beauty. His cryogenic life—with his wife, his frozen pizzas, and his TV stand-by light—was now a previous life. He was detached from it, and from everything. He floated brainless and senseless in the darkness of his hotel room, waiting for something to happen.

  It didn’t.

  He waited.

  The city jumped. It pulsed.

  He waited.

  Sweat trickled down his face in thin lines.

  Elsewhere in the hotel, a door slammed. He heard giggling.

  Traffic rumbled and roared. Horns snapped. Somewhere distant, a freight train shuddered on its rails on route to Santa Fe.

  He waited.

  Nothing.

  Eventually—forty-three minutes later, according to the bedside clock—Jonathan moved. Mouselike, he skittered to the window and braved the crack in the curtains. A whisper of dawn mellowed the darkness. The pink Cadillac sat on its whitewalls, soft and pretty, like a chubby baby. There was no sign of the tall gray figure. Jonathan looked from one end of the parking lot to the other, but it was still and quiet.

  “Oh thank God,” he breathed, one hand clutching his bare chest. He retreated to the bed and fell into it, dragging the sheets over his body. He closed his eyes and tried to convince himself that the shadowy figure wasn’t real—that his incredible tiredness was inducing black waves of paranoia.

  Okay. Possible. Probable, even.

  But what if the shadow was real…not the poor boy, perhaps, but someone—some thing—that was following him?

  Jonathan didn’t think he would sleep; his mind was ticking and his heart smashing too hard. Exhaustion, however, proved very persuasive. He slumped into wide, shadowless dreams, and didn’t wake up until housecleaning knocked six hours later.

  HOUSTON, TX.

  The soothing light of morning provided some
relief, but not much. The idea that he had imagined the shadow man, or half-dreamed him, seemed more plausible, but Jonathan didn’t believe this to be the case. In truth, he didn’t know what to believe. His mind, therefore, locked itself in a panic room, of sorts: denial. Put it down to tiredness, paranoia, and coincidence, then batten down the hatches and never think of it again.

  If only.

  He saw the shadowy figure less than three hours later, in the parking lot of a café just off Interstate 10. He was halfway through a bowl of prawn fettuccine when he glanced out the window. It was a dazzling day, ferocious sunshine, with such clear and fresh detail it made every other day look like a faded painting. Jonathan’s mouth dropped open. A ribbon of fettuccine fell from his fork, slopped back into the bowl, and splashed sauce onto his T-shirt. He couldn’t blame what he was seeing on tiredness or paranoia now. It was real.

  “Dear Jesus,” he said.

  The tall figure (the poor boy, Jonathan’s mind insisted on calling him) was standing beside the Cadillac. It was so bright outside that Jonathan should have been able to see him clearly: the clothes he wore, the style and color of his hair, even the color of his eyes. But he was featureless—a dark smudge in the brilliance of the day. His posture suggested that he was looking at the car, head down and shoulders hunched, but then his body whirled with smoke-like motion and the blank map of his face settled on the window Jonathan was sitting at.

  Jonathan dropped his fork. It clattered on the table, then onto the floor.

  “Lemme get that for you,” the waitress said. She’d swung by to warm his coffee, but now offered her rounded tookus to him as she bent over to retrieve the fork. His eyes skipped her way. He could see the T of her thong above the waistband of her pants. “I’ll fetch you a fresh one,” she said.

  “Wait,” Jonathan said. He looked out the window again. The poor boy had drifted a little closer. “What do you see out there?”