Truck Stop

by John Penney

  “You going to be okay?” she asked, growing more worried.

  “Yeah, I just saw one,” Roger answered unsteadily.

  “A ghost?”

  Roger nodded. “Yes.”

  Kat looked back at the old shed, unnerved. “Where?”

  “Back there.” Roger registered Kat’s unease. “It’s okay. They’re probably everywhere back here. You won’t see them. They can’t reach you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m used to it,” he answered, doing his best to convince himself. Then he reached out for her hand. “Come on.”

  They continued deeper into the junkyard. Roger shone his flashlight through the maze of junk and stopped on the old, rusted-out truck cab. “It’s over here.”

  They passed around the truck cab and reached the edge of the burial pit. Rivulets of water were still streaming down into the gaping hole. Roger passed his flashlight to Kat. “Don’t get too close to the edge,” he said. “But try to keep the light aimed down there so I can see.”

  “You’re going down in there?” Kat asked, surprised. She didn’t remember this being part of the plan. “You said you found Lilly’s stuffed animal up here.”

  “All the bodies are down there, and everything else nearby is washing down in there now anyway,” Roger said, as he paused on the muddy edge of the pit and looked down into the darkness.

  Kat knew why they had come out here, but now, seeing Roger poised on the edge of the deep pit, it seemed like a terrible idea. “Roger, are you sure you want to do this?”

  Roger took a shaky breath. It was the same question he was asking himself. There was every rational reason not to do this, but this wasn’t about anything rational. This was about his daughter and about learning if she was dead or alive. He answered the only way he could. “I’ve got to know,” he said.

  He grabbed the edge of the rusted truck cab with one hand and started lowering himself, feet first. “I need more light,” he called up to Kat. “Give me more light.”

  Kat leaned closer to the edge and adjusted the angle of the flashlight beam. The pale light illuminated the bottom. It was filled with murky water now.

  Roger let go of the truck cab and held onto the muddy edge with both hands. He let himself slide down slowly, controlling his speed with his tenuous grip in the muddy walls.

  He looked over his shoulder beneath him. His feet were just above the water when there was a loud whoosh!

  A hand burst out of the murky liquid and grabbed his ankle. Roger recoiled, horrified, as a young woman, covered with blood, pulled herself out of the black water. Her eye sockets were empty holes of bloody flesh, and her jaw had been hacked off on one side so that it drooped open at a hideous angle.

  Kat saw Roger frozen above the water. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Roger took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened them again. The woman was gone. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

  He lowered himself the rest of the way. The water reached his waist by the time his feet sank into the muddy bottom. He looked back up at Kat. “Give me the shovel.”

  Kat held the shovel out to him.

  “Don’t get too close to the edge,” Roger reminded her.

  She stretched her arm as far as she could, and Roger grabbed the handle at the bottom. “Got it!”

  Kat let go of the other end and took an unsteady step back from the muddy ledge.

  In the pit, Roger dipped the shovel into the murky depths and started dredging the bottom. He could feel the scoop catch on several solid masses; some were hard, like stone, and the wood handle of the shovel vibrated.

  He pulled it upward; the items were heavier than he expected, and he strained in his effort. The dingy water washed away as the scoop broke the surface, revealing a rotted skull and several fingers.

  Kat choked back a sickened reaction and looked away.

  “The light! Don’t move the light!” Roger yelled up at her.

  Kat was forced to re-aim the flashlight at the bottom.

  Roger carefully examined the old remains in the pale light. The teeth had been pulled from the skull; the tips of the fingers were missing. Roger dumped the remains onto a muddy ledge and went in for another pass with the shovel. This time it hit something even heavier. Roger grimaced, pushed against it; his mind raced at the possibilities of what it might be. A torso? A leg?

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Kat called from above.

  “Nothing. It’s something heavy.” Roger bore down with all his might, working the shovel back and forth. Then the shovel slipped off whatever it was under.

  Roger crashed back into the muddy wall. The wet, heavy earth gave way.

  Kat leaped back as the edge of the pit slid downward. “Roger!” she screamed.

  The mudslide oozed into the bottom of the pit, exposing several more dismembered corpses. Roger struggled to avoid the onslaught, but it was no use. It pinned him against the opposite side.

  Kat dropped to her knees and reached down. “Take my hand!” she shouted.

  Roger shoved the newly exposed rotting body parts out of his way and groped for her hand.

  She strained and leaned out as far as she could; they reached each other. Kat leaned back and pulled with all her might.

  Roger kicked and struggled to free himself from under the muck. He crawled up the sloped side of the pit on his knees and made it to safety on the edge.

  Kat let go, out of breath. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Roger coughed as he squinted and wiped the mud off his face.

  Kat reached down to pick up her flashlight and stopped cold. A horrified look crossed her face, and she emitted a hoarse whisper. “No….”

  Roger looked over at her, puzzled “What’s wrong?”

  She was staring into the pit; the shocked look frozen on her face.

  Roger turned and looked where she was aiming her flashlight. There was a woman’s dismembered arm among the newly exposed remains, with a bracelet on its wrist. It was woven strands of silver with delicate jade inlays.

  Kat started trembling uncontrollably, and she dropped the flashlight.

  “Kat? What is it?”

  Kat reached down and touched the identical silver bracelet on her own arm—the twin to the one her mother owned. “It…it’s…” she stammered. Tears spilled down her face, her kneels buckled, and she reeled.

  Roger caught her before she collapsed. He looked from the bracelet to the one on the dismembered arm, and it all became clear. “Your mother,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Russell groaned softly and stirred on the table in the diner. Bart grabbed a glass of water that he had standing by. “Hold on. Here.” He cradled Russell’s head in his hand and brought the glass of water to his lips.

  Russell swallowed dryly, tried to take a sip. The water met his lips and trickled into his mouth. He started to cough and choke.

  “All right. Okay, slow. Slow.” Bart pulled the glass away until the coughing subsided.

  Russell started to shake his head as he tried to focus his bleary eyes on Bart. “Nnn…no, I…I….” he whispered hoarsely.

  Bart leaned down close to Russell, trying to hear. “What?”

  “It…it…wasn’t….” Russell trailed off, growing groggy again.

  “Russell?” Bart raised his voice, trying to wake him again but it was no use. Russell was asleep. Bart carefully slid his hand out from under Russell’s head and set the glass down. He was considering what to do next when a low thump came from across the dark, shadowy diner. Bart looked over. “Hey guys, get in here. He was starting to talk.”

  Bart waited for Kat or Roger to answer, but instead there was nothing. “Kat?” he tried again.

  There was still no answer.

  Bart stood, looked across the diner. A faint yellow glow was emanating from the kitchen. Bart grabbed his flashlight and started toward it.

  __________

  Kat sobbed uncontrollably in R
oger’s arms as they made their way to the edge of the junkyard. If he hadn’t been there to help her, she would’ve collapsed.

  Everything Kat had ever felt about her mother was racing through her mind at once; her thoughts were scattered and her words couldn’t keep up. “This whole time, I…I thought she had left again. I thought she didn’t want to see me. I thought…she…” A new wave of tears wracked her body, and she couldn’t continue.

  Roger pulled her close, doing what he could to comfort her. His mind centered on Russell. They were both victims of that monster in the diner now, and it fueled his rage even more. “I don’t give a shit how hurt that motherfucker is. I’ll beat him awake. I’ll fucking choke him until he tells me where Lilly is, and then I’ll kill him for what he did to your mother. I swear I….“

  Roger stopped abruptly.

  Kat collapsed against him, looked up at him through her tears. She could see a wary expression on his face. “What?” she sniffed, growing frightened.

  Roger didn’t answer.

  Kat looked over in the direction he was staring. The back door to the dark building was banging eerily in the wet breeze.

  “Roger? What is it?”

  “I closed that door tight when we left.”

  “What do you think…?”

  “Shhh…” he cut her off. They continued up to the swinging door. Roger raised his flashlight and peered inside.

  The long, dark hallway was empty.

  Roger looked back at Kat, put his finger to his lips, and stepped inside. Kat clung tightly to his arm.

  They crept quietly past the shadowy doors to the sleep rooms and showers, which were all tightly shut. They reached the door to the diner. It was partially open. Roger exchanged a look with Kat, then pushed it further.

  Pale smoke hung in the air inside the diner. The faint sound of something frying came from the kitchen. Roger swung his flashlight beam across the dark diner and stopped at the table where they had left Bart and Russell.

  There was blood everywhere. Russell’s lifeless body lay in a heap on the floor in front of it, his throat slashed open from ear to ear.

  Kat stifled a scream. Roger silenced her with a look and moved his light over to the kitchen. A flickering yellow glow played against the walls.

  Roger stepped around the counter, reached out, and pushed the kitchen door open.

  Bart was slumped face down on the red-hot cooktop, a knife sunk in his back. His face popped and sizzled as it fried against the scalding surface; his shirt smoldered.

  Kat screamed.

  Roger hurried over, shoved Bart off the cooktop. His lifeless body tumbled back, revealing his bubbling and smoldering face.

  Roger choked and coughed on the sickly smoke and shut off the burner. He looked around frantically, grabbed a butcher knife, and held it out to Kat. “Here!”

  Kat backed away, trembling, shaking her head. “There’s a pistol under the register.” She turned and bolted out of the kitchen.

  “Kat! Wait!” Roger called after her, but she was gone.

  Kat ran into the diner and raced behind the cash register. She reached into the shelf underneath and felt around frantically. “Shit.” She looked up at Roger as he hurried in. “It’s gone. Roger, it’s gone! What do we do?”

  Roger rushed over to the front door, twisted the lock shut. He aimed his flashlight at the door to the back hall. “Can you lock that?”

  “I think so.” Kat grabbed a large ring of keys from a drawer by the register. “It’s one of these.”

  Roger took the keys from her and hurried to the hallway door. He examined the lock, then started trying one key after the next, hoping for a match.

  Kat looked across the dark room at Russell’s lifeless body, lying in the pool of blood under the table. “We were wrong this whole time. We were wrong about him.”

  “Yeah, and that means whoever did this is still here.” Roger found the right key, twisted it in the lock. He tested the metal door, then backed away, still not satisfied.

  He grabbed a nearby chair and wedged it up under the knob. “There.” He stood back, caught his breath. “No one’s getting in through there without us knowing it.”

  Roger turned, crossed over to the large front windows. He looked out at the shadowy trucks in the dark parking lot. “Fucking freaks,” he said. “It could be any one of them out there. You know I heard that sicko mother and her son together in the shower earlier.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Together. Same shower. They were up to some freaky shit. And that other old lady. There’s something going on with her too.”

  “But it could also be someone else, couldn’t it? Someone we don’t know,” Kat said as she stepped up behind him.

  Roger shook his head “I doubt it. Whoever it is knows this place…knows it well…they’ve been dumping bodies back there for years. Like that fat fuck with all the guns. He’s been around.”

  “So when the police get here, we just….“

  “Forget the police. It could be hours before they get here, and those are hours that Lilly might not have. If she’s still alive, every second now could mean the difference between life and death for her.”

  “So what do we do? We can’t go after all of them.”

  Roger stared out at the ominous collection of trucks for a moment in silence, and a dark look crossed his face. “No. We can’t go after all of them, but we might not have to.” He trailed off; his mind raced as a desperate idea began to form.

  Kat saw the look on his face and grew concerned. “What? What is it?”

  Roger didn’t answer.

  “Roger?”

  He looked back at her. “I could reach over and find out.”

  “Reach over? What’re you talking about?”

  “I could make contact with one of those victims back there in the junkyard. They could tell me who killed them.”

  “You mean you’d cross over?”

  “Yeah, and I could find out who the killer is.”

  “But you said it almost killed you when you tried it before.”

  She was right, of course; he had almost died when he had done it before. It had been a reckless thing to try, and he had done it when he was in a particularly reckless state of mind. At the time, he was a sophomore at Davis, and he had tried many self-destructive things in his attempt to drown out the noise and visions that made his life so unbearable.

  He had been dating Claire, a twenty-year-old sophomore from San Francisco. They met at a frat party when they were both stoned. After that, most of their dates were spent downing Xanax and Vicodin together. Eventually she had tried to get sober, and she said the only way would be to leave him. Roger had been devastated, but he was used to the instability of life as a victim of his psychic gift, which required him to be a functioning junkie. Roger’s solution was the usual numbing of his feelings with his opiates.

  Several months later, he heard that Claire had died of an overdose. Even in Roger’s heavily medicated state, it cut deep. She had left him to get clean, and she hadn’t been able to follow through with it. It was strange, but Roger was jealous of the drugs she had chosen over him; it was as if she had cheated on him. He couldn’t help but think that if only she had stayed with him, maybe she wouldn’t have overdosed.

  Alex, Roger’s roommate at the time, had been an animal science major. They had spent long hours together, and Roger had opened up to him about his encounters with the dead. Alex was a believer, and he was endlessly fascinated by it. Roger couldn’t remember exactly whose idea it was at first, but once the seed was planted, it grew quickly.

  Roger would cross over and seek out Claire. Roger had always known that stimulants seemed to trigger his visions, so this time they would take it a step further and try to force one to occur. Alex managed to get some synthetic adrenaline from the veterinary school, and Roger scored some coke from his Vicodin dealer.

  That night they broke into the dorm room where Claire had overdosed. Roger ingested the d
rugs and slipped over to the other side.

  In the years since this had occurred, Roger had forced himself to forget what happened next, and for the most part he had been successful. But the one thing he could never forget was the feeling of Claire’s icy, dead touch on the other side. She had held onto him, desperate not to let him return.

  Back in the living-world, Alex saw Roger drifting away; his body was shutting down, and he was close to dying. Alex went into a panic. He pounded on Roger’s chest to get his heart going again and had all but given up when Roger returned.

  The two of them never spoke about what they had done. Of course it was a story they couldn’t tell without having to answer too many questions. The next semester, Alex transferred to UCLA, and Roger lost touch with him. Roger went downhill quickly after that. It was the beginning of his big slide into the heavy narcotics that almost took his life.

  To Roger, this was now just another chapter in his tortured life. A lesson he had learned. Another nuance in the ways his “gift” could destroy him.

  Of course Roger knew the risks he would be taking if he tried this again, but with precious time ticking way that Lilly might not have, it seemed well worth it.

  Roger gently put his arm on Kat’s shoulder and looked at her reassuringly. “That was something different. I know what to watch out for now. I’ll be careful.”

  But Kat was still dubious and frightened. The one person she could count on now was talking about risking his life.

  Roger could see she still wasn’t convinced. “Kat, I’m telling you, this could work. Any one of those victims could tell me who the killer is. And if I end up seeing Lilly on the other side too, then at least I’ll know.” As hard as it was to say, it was the truth. He could find out for sure.

  Roger looked away from her. It didn’t matter what she said now, he was convinced, and he was going to do it. “I’ll need uppers. Uppers and speed. Lots of it, like caffeine, only more, so I can heighten what I feel, heighten my senses.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Roger dumped a six-pack of Red Bull, several Monster Energy drinks, and a couple of packages of NoDoz onto the booth table.