“Not the crashes,” Faye said. “The man. Look at the man.”
“Which man?”
Faye pointed out the crooked figure in each photograph, from ’28 to ’09.
“And?”
“It’s the same man,” Faye replied.
There was a pause while Megan went through the photographs again, reading the captions, her brow furrowed as she counted the years. She shook her head, set the photos on the table between them, and sipped her rosehip tea.
“Impossible,” she said.
“The camera never lies.”
“It can’t be the same person,” Megan insisted. “Not with these dates. And honestly, Faye, the pictures are so grainy it’s difficult to tell anything for certain. It may not be the same man at all.”
“It is.”
“Then they’re fakes. It’s the only explanation.”
“I need you to be outside the box on this.” Faye sipped her own tea. Twinings Earl Grey. Very normal. “Shouldn’t be hard for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve heard you talk about auras and energy signatures. You once said that even inanimate objects have residual energy.”
Megan nodded.
“So is it possible for a road to have energy?”
“Yes, of course. Drive down any road where a fatal accident has occurred and it feels... different.”
Faye took another sip of tea. Her hand trembled. “A person’s energy manifests as an aura. A corona of colour around our bodies. But what if a road’s energy – its evil energy – manifests as a physical presence? A demon.” She tapped the photograph from 1957. The sideways man glared at the camera and his eyes were like probes. “Something cold and hateful. Something that kills.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“Outside the box, Megan.”
“There is no box.” Her voice was sharp, touched with impatience. She sipped her tea and the expression in her eyes softened. She reached across the table and patted Faye’s hand. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I can’t get behind this line of thinking. It’s too negative. And damaging.”
Faye tapped the photograph again. “What do you see?”
“It’s eerie, yes, but I’m telling you it’s not the same man.”
“Megan, please.”
“You want help from me?” Megan finished her tea, set her mug down too hard, and stood up. “I can recommend an excellent shiatsu practitioner. Failing that, a bottle of Jacob’s Creek and a night of hot sex. But all of this...” She waved her hand dismissively over the photographs. “You’re still hurting, Faye, and looking for a reason why Timothy died. You’re looking for something that doesn’t exist.”
It did exist, though. Faye had seen it – seen him – with her own eyes. Megan had kissed her goodbye and left, and Faye sat for a long moment, feeling both alone and full of resolve. She flipped through the photographs for perhaps the thousandth time. So much twisted metal and spilled blood. But there were no accidents here. There had never been an accident on Thornbury Road. The sideways man was responsible for it all. He had killed so many people. He had killed Timothy. And one way or another, she was going to stop him.
THERE WERE THREE lay-bys on Thornbury Road, and she started out parking in one of them and staying there all day, listening to the radio, eating junk food, only getting out if she needed to take a piss in the tall grass.
She waited.
Her rearview and side mirrors were positioned to give her optimum viewing without always having to crane her head. She had 10x42 binoculars with a dandy Mossy Oak camo and the seller on e-Bay said they were the kind used by the SAS. She had 1x26 night vision goggles and sometimes when it got dark she put them on, clambered into a tree where she couldn’t be seen, and perched like an owl. She had an elaborate digital camera that she didn’t really know how to use, but she could zoom in on a bird’s wing from one hundred yards away, and could push the button, which was all she cared about.
She had time.
She waited.
IT OCCURRED TO her after several weeks of being in one of three places that the sideways man knew her routine, such as it was, and was evading her. She thought she saw him on several occasions – a whisper of something dark in the binoculars, or in one of the mirrors – but by the time she positioned herself for a better look, he (or it) was gone. Maybe just dead leaves lifted by a breeze. Or a large crow taking wing from the hedgerow.
She needed to take him by surprise, which meant rethinking her strategy. Sitting in a car eating pizza wasn’t going to get the job done, and she was getting fat, too. No way she could give chase on foot with her stomach bouncing ahead of her, even if he was a cripple. She stopped with the junk food. Switched to raw vegetables and water. She left her aging Mondeo in the Waitrose car park just off the Paisley Wood roundabout, packed a duffel bag with her equipment and supplies, and walked from there. After a few weeks she started to jog. Then run.
She lived in the trees and the long grass, moving stealthily along Thornbury Road, blending in by painting her face and the backs of her hands with green and brown. No one saw her. Not even the deer. She sometimes skulked to within feet of them and they carried on eating leaves, oblivious. During quieter moments she worked on her strength. Sit-ups and push-ups, mainly. At first she could only do three or four of each. By the summer of 2011, eight months after committing to this new way of life, she could do three or four hundred.
She often sat beside the road where Timothy died and talked to him, feeling so desperately alone and with no one else to talk to. She couldn’t go to her so-called friends and family. They had no idea what she was going through. And they didn’t want to know. Not really. Better for them to live in ignorance. Timothy had always been her rock, though. He had always listened, and in doing so could make all the cracks in the world – and there were many – disappear.
“You once told me that I was fragile, like a book is fragile. That it can crumble with age, that its pages can tear and its cover fade. But even so, it remains a thing of beauty and depth. A limitless treasure that should be shared and remembered. Of all the wonderful things you said in our short time together, this was my favourite. It made me feel... alive.”
She wished to hear his voice. Even on the wind. Never did.
“Every breath is a word, and every word has purpose.”
She wished to see him again. Just a glimpse. Never did. But one time all the trees around her came to life, flaunting their leaves, and she looked at them with tears in her eyes and pretended it was him.
THE SIGN READ LAND FOR SALE. Faye saw it within an hour of it being posted. By the end of the day someone had slapped a red sticker on top of it and this one read SOLD.
THERE WAS A moment before building commenced on her new house that she really questioned what she was doing. It wasn’t the money. Timothy had been paying into a corporate pension since he was sixteen years old, and coupled with a sizable life insurance payout, Faye was able to buy the land and pay for the house outright. Nor was it the fact that she’d be so close to where he died. According to the architect’s design, she’d see that strip of Thornbury Road every time she looked out her bedroom window.
It was her parents. Their unending concern. She had told them about the house, showing them the strength in her words and a spine that wasn’t cracked at all, yet before she left her father had slipped that sheet of paper into her pocket and she’d found it when she returned home. Dr. Matthew Claridge, MA, MBBS, MRCPsych. That smiling flower. Tears welled in her eyes and she tried to fight them, and then she gave up. She cried deep into the night. Everything hurt.
She had her reasons, yes, but did she really want to live by herself in such a broken part of the world, chasing a shadow? Or did she want to be a smiling flower?
The next few days were spent in indecision. She kept that sheet of paper crumpled in her hand, and on several occasions reached for the phone – even dialled a few numbers before hanging up. She imagined Dr.
Matthew Claridge to have a soft voice and a never-ending box of Kleenex that he’d keep on a table between them, and she ached for those comforts. They seemed enough to sway her, and then a cyclist was killed on Thornbury Road and that made fifty-three dead, assuming Clyde Tummond was the first and she hadn’t missed any. Fifty-three, including Timothy, who’d told her she was fragile, yet deep, and could make all the cracks disappear.
Faye took a flame to that sheet of paper and watched it burn, and she never saw that smiling flower again.
HER HOUSE WAS built seven months later. Set back from the road, stylish and, though modern, designed to blend with the trees. Faye also had the builders construct a twenty-foot tower in her garden. For bird-watching, she said.
THE CROSSBOW SHE bought had 225lbs of draw weight and, despite her new muscle, she could only cock it with a rope cocking aid. She practised in her garden. To begin with, she couldn’t hit a rain barrel from fifty feet away. Within weeks, she could nail an apple from one-eighty.
SHE CAUGHT HIM when the April showers were at their freshest and the evenings had that crisp reminder of the winter passed. She was in her tower, watching the east side of Thornbury Road through the trees. A rustling sound from the blackberry bushes where her land met the edge of Copp Farm. She swept the binoculars in that direction, expecting to see a badger or deer, and there he was, scuttling through the foliage at the side of the road.
She didn’t panic. She lowered the binoculars, cocked the crossbow, and lifted it to her shoulder. One second later and his jerky, awkward body filled the sights. She targeted the middle of his forehead. Held her breath.
Pause.
The crossbow had an arrow speed of three hundred and fifty feet per second. The sideways man was a third of that distance away. He’d be dead in the blink of an eye. Too quick. Faye lowered the sights and targeted his crooked right leg. She curled her finger around the trigger.
“Suffer,” she said.
He dropped quickly, as if someone had yanked the leafy verge out from under him. He tried to get back up but fell again, and then he started screaming. Faye was halfway to him by that point, sprinting between the trees. When she reached him she saw that the arrow had passed through his leg. He clutched the hole it had left behind, blood flowing between his fingers. His endless eyes were filled with confusion. He pleaded for help and reached for her with one red hand.
She kicked him in the mouth and knocked out three of his teeth. He still reached for her, so confused. She kicked him again. Harder. The scream faded on his lips. He fell backwards into the leaves. His body resembled a gnarled branch hit by lightning.
Faye hoisted him onto her shoulder. An uneven weight. A bag of sticks.
She took him to her house.
“YOU CRAZY BITCH. Oh, you crazy fucking bitch!”
Twelve hours later.
Faye had fired one hundred and sixty nails into his left leg. Into his kneecap, his shin, his thigh. Sometimes the nails didn’t go all the way in and she had to drive them home with a hammer. After a while he stopped screaming. He fluttered in and out of consciousness. She recharged the gun and fired another one hundred-plus into his right leg. She thought he’d bleed more than he did.
Every now and then she read out the names of all the people who had lost their lives on Thornbury Road. In chronological order, except for Timothy. She saved his name until last. Vivaldi played in the background. Timothy’s favourite. He also liked Status Quo, but she didn’t think ‘Margarita Time’ quite fit the mood.
“Crazy... fucking...”
Admittedly, Faye was a little surprised to find a wallet in the sideways man’s jacket pocket. There was forty-five pounds in cash inside, some credit and store cards. She didn’t know what a demon would want with such things. They were props, she reasoned, allowing him to better blend with his current environment. The name on all cards and documentation was the same: Michael Cole. A very normal name. And while it all appeared genuine, it didn’t faze her. It didn’t stop her.
She selected the handsaw. He hissed and shook his head when he saw it in her hand. His ruined legs twitched, but of course he couldn’t move them; they were nailed to the floor. Faye crouched and pressed the jagged blade to his right leg, three inches above the ankle. She started to saw. He passed out when she was halfway through the bone. When he came to – ash-pale and close to death – both severed feet were bundled into his lap.
“No more walking for you,” Faye said, setting the saw aside. She was smeared with blood. It was even on her teeth. “Sideways or otherwise.”
“Crazy bitch.”
She picked up the nail gun, pressed the nose piece to his forehead, and fired two inches of galvanized steel into his brain. He didn’t die immediately. His eyes rolled crazily for a little while. Blood trickled from his nose.
Faye walked from the basement, leaving him close to death and with his feet – which had covered so many miles, over so many years – gathered in his lap. She walked from her house and into the pink grapefruit light of early morning. The grass was heavy with dew and the air smelled of new leaves and daffodils. She picked one, then pinched one of its petals between her thumb and forefinger, trying to turn it upwards in a smile. But it only bruised and drooped. A sad face.
MEGAN’S VOICE CHIMED in her mind: You’re still hurting, Faye, and looking for a reason why Timothy died. You’re looking for something that doesn’t exist.
Faye saw the sideways man multiple times that day. On a bicycle. Driving a tractor. In nearly every vehicle that passed her on Thornbury Road. She sat in the spot she had come to think of as hers. The place where Timothy had died.
“Does exist,” she said.
Her trained ear picked up the rumble of an approaching truck. She counted to ten. Stood up. Looked to her right. The truck – an eighteen-wheeled monster – rounded the bend. She would step in front of it at the optimum moment, giving the driver no chance to brake or steer around her. Not that he would, of course. Faye knew that, in the closing second of her life, she would see his buckled body propped behind the wheel, his timeless eyes reaching deep.
And like him, she would find what she was looking for.
THE CURE
ANIL MENON
Menon’s story echoes one of the earliest road stories there is, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, with its theme of a spiritual or, rather, a metaphysical journey. We encounter four travellers, all heading towards an Indian temple for their own different reasons. The physical journey is really the least part of the tale, however. Like the Canterbury Tales, the meat of the piece is in the stories the characters tell each other – and here one story in particular throws a stark light on the protagonists and their personal journeys.
WE HAD ONLY been traveling into the dark for some twenty minutes but already regret had set in. My back ached, my legs were cramped. The Toyota Indica could carry a total of four people comfortably. In a pinch, it could carry five people. I’d learned shared-taxis in India are always in a state of pinch. Mrs D’Mello, her daughter Francesca and I were crammed in the back, the driver, Mani, and his precious cargo were in front.
Back in LA, Kusum had been studying the Google map. “Okay, Gabe, the distance from Salem to Dindigul is just over a hundred miles, so let’s say, a hundred-and-twenty miles in all to reach the Muthuswamy temple. Basically, we’re looking at about two hours by car. If we–”
Then I lost my cell connection. Notwithstanding my wife’s brisk, stoutly cheerful tone, I knew she missed me. Kusum always turned aggressively plural. We’ll need to do X. If we take this road Y. We should probably make sure Z.
Miss you too, cuddly-cakes, I thought. But I’d have to wait till I got back to Chennai or Madurai to tell her that. My American cellphone worked everywhere except where it needed to work. And it wasn’t because I was surrounded by tall hills, part of the Palani range in rural Tamil Nadu. The place had nothing to do with it. Everybody and their great-grandmother had a cellphone in this part of the world. Mrs D’Mello and
her daughter certainly seemed to have no problem with their connections. I was the primitive here.
The word invoked a twinge of white-guilt. Primitives and heathen cultures, heart of darkness and oriental exoticism. Old toxic frames were hard to replace. I missed Kusum even more. She would tell me I hadn’t gotten everything wrong.
I suspected I’d picked the wrong driver. Mani was being so damn careful with his precious – a seat-belted, restrained and amply-padded LED TV set – it was likely the journey would take three, not two, hours. At this rate, we would reach the temple well past 2 AM. Sucked toads.
“Lean back, you’ll be more comfortable,” said Mrs D’Mello in her motherly manner. “Francesca, shift just a bit, look at how Gabriel is sitting.”
“Pasty white thighs squashed together,” intoned Francesca, “mid-forties belly bulging shyly over his Ralph Lauren belt, his pink face sweaty with the effort to be amiable, his mind churning–”
“Don’t mind her,” said Mrs D’Mello, with a very quick flash of teeth. “Francesca, just shift a bit. A little more. Francesca, this is not right. You’re not being very nice.”
“And whose fault is that?” hissed Francesca.
“No, no, I’m fine,” I lied. Pasty white thighs? What the fuck? I smiled at Mrs D’Mello, to show I hadn’t taken offense. “It’s the car’s low roof that’s the real problem.”
“We’re lucky to have gotten a taxi, Gabriel,” said Mrs D’Mello, looking relieved. “If you hadn’t come along, I don’t know what we would have done.”
The Future of Horror Page 80