by Billy Wells
Garth peered through the small section of windshield at the road ahead and could no longer tolerate the duck lodged in the windshield ogling him with its one open eye. Consequently, after driving almost blind for another 500 feet up the road, he pulled over, got out of the car, and gripping a handful of feathers, pried the duck’s carcass from the windshield and discarded it. Moving to the rear, he pushed the two ducks blocking the back window off on the ground.
Returning to the car, he sped away. The shattered glass and blood splatter still made visibility almost nonexistent, but even if he had a bucket of water and a squeegee, he couldn’t spare any time to clean the window with the raging inferno almost riding on his trunk lid. He wondered why he didn’t see the flashing lights of a stream of fire engines speeding cross the bridge with sirens blaring to fight the fire.
His question was answered a moment later when he saw the approaching funnel of a tornado churning up the land in front of him. Stomping his brake pedal almost to the floorboard, he came to a screeching halt and sat spellbound in the middle of the road between the storm and the raging inferno.
In a matter of minutes, the twister would run headlong into the forest fire burning out of control on a fast track toward the Bay. He couldn’t tell if the twister or the flames would get to him first.
In the distance to the right, he saw a culvert and the first gigantic leg of I-10 leading to the bridge. Would the culvert half submerged in water next to the concrete stanchion give him shelter from the storm?
He pulled the trunk release, and getting out, raced to the rear of the car to retrieve his satchel of money. To his dismay, he found the trunk battered so badly with dents from the ducks that had bombarded it, he could not get it open. He looked about the ground for something to use as a crowbar, but found nothing. Desperate, he placed the tips of his fingers into the narrow slit and tried with all his might to wrench it free, but it wouldn’t budge.
The ominous funnel of death was almost upon him, giving him no choice but to abandon the satchel and make a run for the culvert.
Sprinting ahead of the wall of death, Garth leaped down the embankment and scrambled inside the huge cylinder of concrete that stood next to one of the massive legs of the highway bridge.
Minutes later, he saw telephone poles hurtling through the air like toothpicks. Enormous green highway signs atop the bridge lifted off the ground and sailed high into the whirlwind. And then, like a giant buzz saw, the twister settled on his Chevy and split it into two halves. The trunk lid burst open, and the leather satchel flew apart, sending streams of greenbacks into the wind as if they were shot from a cannon.
Suddenly, the sky erupted with the hardest rain Garth had ever seen. The downpour and the twister began to drown the raging forest fire. Like magic, the inferno ebbed, and the debris began to smolder. Garth shuttered in horror inside the culvert as the tornado continued to churn up the ground and the water around him.
The driving rain caused the water in the culvert to swell abruptly, and before he could climb out, the rushing torrent had swept him into the turbulence. Grabbing hold of a limb from a fallen tree, he held on for dear life and went for the hellish ride of his life into the rampaging floodwater.
After another hour of fighting the whirlwind to a state of sheer exhaustion, the wind subsided, and the rain stopped. Garth fell back against the tree limbs and watched the clouds slowly melting away. The sun began to rise on the distant horizon, and the tree with him aboard finally came to rest at the edge of a swamp. Struggling to his feet, he peered into the aftermath of toppled trees, churned up highway, and startling devastation as far as he could see. Sections of the interstate had been swept away. The landscape in all directions was a wasteland.
All he had was the clothes on his back and $23 in his pants pocket. His car and the satchel with $200,000 were gone. He struggled from the muck of the swamp and, planting his feet on solid ground, thought how lucky he was to be alive.
When he had nicked himself shaving yesterday morning, he wondered if it was the beginning of a shitty day. Little did he know then, the shit storm that lay ahead. He looked at the morning sun lifting into a new day, filled with promise and hope. There would always be another bank to rob.
Then, he saw the fifteen-foot gators with hungry eyes and gaping teeth that surrounded him. This day was also starting on a sour note, and he was pretty sure it was going to be even shittier than the day before.
CHARLEY
When Marie came down from her bedroom and entered the kitchen to start breakfast, she saw a trail of muddy footprints across the ceramic tile floor. The tracks came from the laundry room. Upon further inspection, she found they started at the door to the outside, which stood ajar. Returning to the kitchen, she followed the footprints to her daughter’s bedroom.
Entering the pink polka dot decorated space, Marie found her little nine-year-old, Mandy, with golden curls and blue eyes buried under a pile of blankets.
“Mandy, have you been sleepwalking again?”
The little girl opened her eyes and yawned broadly. “I don’t remember getting out of bed, Mommie.”
Looking more closely at the carpet, Marie noticed bits of grass in the fiber. Pulling back the bedclothes, her hand shot to her mouth to stifle a scream. Her eyes widened from the sight of streaks of mud and pieces of leaves and grass covering Mandy’s feet and the lower part of the bottom sheet.
“You’ve been outside again,” Marie said, trying not to lose her composure. Where do you go in the middle of the night? You could’ve been killed. There are big gators not far away in the swamp.”
“Mandy looked at her dirty feet and finally said, “Charley wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”
“Stop talking about Charley. He’s just a figment of your imagination. He can’t protect you from the gators and the snakes. He’s not real.”
Mandy looked at her mother and decided it was useless to debate the existence of Charley. After all, no one could see him, but her.
“Wrap the dirty sheet around yourself and get in the bathtub. I don’t want you tracking mud all over the house. I just cleaned the carpets yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, Mommie. I don’t remember sleepwalking.”
“When you’re clean, get dressed, and come to the kitchen for breakfast.”
Thirty minutes later, Mandy sat down at the table in the nook and started eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes. Harold, her mother’s live-in beau for the last three years, lowered the morning paper and said, “I heard you went walking in the swamp last night.”
Mandy continued eating and said nothing. She had loved her real daddy so much, but this man, who came to live with them after her father disappeared in the swamp, scared her. He was tall and muscular with a short military haircut. He had an enormous spider tattoo on his bicep, which made her skin crawl. Sometimes he had a very bad temper and hit her mother. She hated him and wanted nothing to do with him.
Seeing the sour look on Mandy’s face, Harold grabbed her wrist and pulled her chair around to face him, “Look at me when I’m talking to you. Mommie just started a new job, and our insurance won’t kick in until the first of the month. If you get hurt, we’ll have to pay through the nose.”
“I can’t help it. I don’t know when I’m sleepwalking,” Mandy whined.
“Well, I have no choice, but to lock you in your room every night for the next two weeks. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you company while Mommie is waitressing. I know a few bedtime stories. How would you like that?” Harold said, leering at her with a cruel smile.
“Take your hands off her, Harold!” Marie shouted, picking up a frying pan from the stove.
“Do you see the way she looks at me? She may not like me, but damned if she’s not going to show me some respect. She needs discipline; the kind she’s never gonna get from you.” Harold released her, and Mandy slid her chair back in its place. With a stern expression, she ate another spoonful of Frosted Flakes without looking in his direction.
“Like, Daddy?” Mandy asked, with big, inquisitive eyes.
Marie turned away and did not answer.
“That’s what happened to Daddy, isn’t it? The swamp swallowed him up.” The little girl said, demanding an answer.
Turning back, Marie replied, “Nobody knows what happened to Daddy. He went hunting that morning with Harold, and we never saw him again. It hurts me every time I think about it. I believe losing him would be easier to deal with if we only knew what really happened to him, but I guess we never will.”
Marie looked at Harold coldly. “You were with him that day. Mandy wants to know what happened to her dad.”
“Like I’ve told you both a million times, one minute, he was right behind me, and the next minute, he was gone. I searched everywhere, but couldn’t find a trace. He must have gone down in the swamp.”
Mandy looked at him suspiciously. “But you didn’t hear him cry out?”
“Like I told you before, I was listening to songs through my headphones on my IPod. If he called for help, I never heard him. Jesus! It’s like you think I’m responsible. He was my best friend. Why would I want to hurt him?”
“Is Daddy in heaven?” Mandy asked.
“Yes, darling, I’m sure he is. I’m sure we’ll all meet him up yonder someday, but until then, we need to keep you out of the swamp. If you’re not afraid, you should be. I’ll have to see about some kind of gate on the door to your room.”
“I’m not afraid. Charley will protect me.”
Harold lowered the paper and asked, “Is Charley here now?”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
Mandy did not want to play this silly game, but she answered anyway, “He lives in the swamp.”
“Can we meet him sometime?”
“No! He’s my special friend. No one can see him but me.”
“Well, little darlin’, if he was here now, I’d give him a piece of my mind. I’d tell him he shouldn’t be messing with a little girl your age. He must be some kind of pervert.”
Mandy jumped up and scurried away to her bedroom.
“Harold, I wish you would stop badgering her,” Marie shrieked, as mad as a wet hornet. “I thought when you moved in with us she’d get to like you, but how can she when you’re such an asshole?”
He leapt from the chair and backhanded Marie with a blow that sent her flying across the kitchen floor. “Don’t talk to me that way! I’m the boss in this family. Get that through your thick head.”
She picked herself off the floor and ran upstairs crying.
A half an hour later, Marie emerged from her bedroom and called to Mandy, “The school bus will be here in ten minutes.”
* * *
Later that afternoon, Mandy returned home early due to a special teacher’s meeting Marie had forgotten. When she got off the bus, she could hear her mother and Harold arguing at the top of their lungs through the open window. She regretted that their house was isolated in a grove of trees, and no neighbors lived close enough to hear them. She imagined Charley had already told her everything they could talk about, but she decided to sit on the secluded swing in the side yard and listen anyway.
Harold shouted, “If you want the kid to like me, why do you keep insinuating I’m to blame for Quint’s disappearance? You know, and I know we did it together, and you were the one who came up with the idea of killing him for the insurance.”
“For God’s sake, hold it down,” Marie shushed.
Ignoring her, Harold continued to rant, “You were the mastermind that said the $300,000 life insurance policy would be our ticket out of this crummy town, and you needed my help to lure Quint into the swamp.”
Even though she knew what had happened to her dad, Mandy could not keep from crying at the thought of her mother planning it with that scumbag, Harold.
Lowering her voice, Marie replied, “If you’d knocked him out and then drowned him instead of shooting him, we wouldn’t have had to wait three years for the insurance company to turn over the cash.”
“I didn’t have a choice, I tell you. Quint caught me with the baseball bat just as I was coming up behind him. I never planned to use the gun, but when he decked me, I had no choice but to pull the trigger. Like I’ve told you a million times, I could see it in his eyes. He was on to us. Somehow he knew what was coming down.”
Marie looked at him, fuming with disbelief at his incompetence and started slamming pots about on the kitchen counter.
Harold finally said, rubbing her shoulders, “Look, baby, all of this shit is water over the dam now. All that matters is you deposited the insurance check, emptied the bank account, and we’re ready to kick the dust of this one horse town off our shoes and buy a villa somewhere across the border. Open the briefcase; I want to see what three-hundred grand looks like.”
“I’m not your baby anymore, you bungling idiot.” Marie yelled, squirming away from him and running to a drawer on the other side of the kitchen. She pulled out a gun and pointed it at him.
“What are you doing, sweet thing? You said we’d go away together if I took care of Quint for you.”
“Are you really that stupid to think I’d actually go away with you?” Marie shrieked, swinging the pistol about like a wild woman. “Mandy hates your guts, and I fell out of love the first time you blackened my eye. You’ve been treating me like shit, and now it’s time for some payback.”
“What are you gonna do about Mandy. She’ll be coming in on the bus in another half an hour.”
“She’ll believe whatever I tell her. I’ll say you tried to hurt me like you did this morning, and I had to protect myself. Believe me, she won’t need any coaxing, she’ll be happy when you’re gone.” Marie said coldly, fixing a steady bead on her ex-beau’s midsection.
Suddenly Harold’s expression of disbelief vanished, and a broad, toothy grin lit up his face, “You know, Marie, I’ve been keeping tabs on that gun for weeks ever since we got word the insurance company was wiring the money. I hate to break it to you, babe, but I replaced the bullets with blanks just in case you decided to cut me out of our deal.”
Marie’s smirk disintegrated, but she stood her ground, still pointing the gun, as Harold came closer.
“I’ve also been checking the level in that bottle of rat poison under the sink every day,” Harold continued, rolling a toothpick around between his buckteeth. “And… I always let you take the first bite at every meal.”
Her hand began to shake, and her upper lip trembled as she squeezed the trigger six earsplitting times. With each loud but uneventful report, Harold sucked in his stomach and posed in a Superman stance with his hands on his hips with a wide grin across his face. When Marie tried to bolt for the side door, Harold easily blocked her path. Grabbing the frying pan from the stove and swinging it with all his might, he smacked Marie upside the head and sent her sprawling to the kitchen floor.
Standing over her, seething with unbridled rage, he gave her a brutal kick in the face for good measure. Leaning down, he crowed mockingly, “I guess you’ll be keeping Quint company down in the swamp instead of going with me to Mexico. Good riddance to bad rubbish, bitch.”
Looking out the window for Mandy and her school bus and seeing nothing, he muttered to himself, “The bus must be late. How convenient.”
He quickly picked up the briefcase full of money and placed it in the trunk of the car in the garage. Spotting a wheelbarrow, he placed a shovel inside it, negotiated it into the kitchen, and unceremoniously dumped Marie’s lifeless body into it.
After cleaning up a few drops of blood from the ceramic
floor, he tossed the dishrag into the barrow, maneuvered it through the back door, and headed for the swamp. The wet ground made the trip along the path difficult, but Harold finally reached the place where he had dumped Quint’s body three years before.
As he drove the wheelbarrow to the edge of the muck, Marie began to stir. Thrusting the handles upward, she went flying head over heels into the oozing, sucking bog. She was already up to her waist when she opened her eyes and tried to focus. The first thing she saw was Harold standing above her with the shovel.
“Well, honey pie, before you go, I’ve got one more thing to say.” Harold paused to gather the words he had been practicing to get off his chest for months. A sudden loud splash interrupted his concentration not far away to the right. Several birds, also spooked by the unexpected noise, left their perch in a nearby tree and rocketed into the sky.
Harold tested the ground with his shovel as he edged closer to Marie who continued to sink steadily into the muck. “As I look back on the friendship the three of us had before your greed set in, I have to admit, I really liked Quint. I guess you could say he was the best friend I ever had. But you turned my head with your bodacious tits and ass and seduced me into killing him for the money.”
Choking with emotion, he moved almost to the lip of the pit and spoke louder still, “I’ve felt a strong sense of guilt about blowing Quint’s brains out many times, but I’ve never seen one shred of remorse in your soulless eyes. There’s no denying, you’re one heartless bitch.”
Marie was already up to her cleavage when Harold raised the shovel and eyeballed her like a piece of shit.