Highway To Hell

by Alex Laybourne

  “No, thank you, dear, just a dash of milk,” Marion answered. She came to the salon regularly – at least once a fortnight, although if she had the time Marion Dubious would have been there once a week. Her husband had died five years earlier of a heart attack at the age of 57. He had been an obese man who had treated her cruelly but at the same time given her everything she could ever ask. In return she had loved him, and even now part of her still did, but through his death she had discovered freedom and life to be a powerful tool in moving on both emotional and physical levels. She was dating, not men her own age, but those somewhat younger. Her years in captivity, as she herself referred to them, had apparently kept her looking young, not to mention the home gym she had had built one summer many years ago when she first hit 40 and wanted to get back into shape; it began as an attempt to entice her husband back into the same bed as her. Not for the sex, no – when it came to that she had a better time on her own anyway – but simply for the company, especially on those cold winter nights.

  “Ok, I’ll be back in a second then, but you know the drill. Got a new magazine shipment in, second drawer down, same place as always,” Helen called as she walked into the small kitchen area.

  She hurriedly grabbed two mugs from the cupboard and set them down on the counter, creating a clean spot between all the dirty mugs and plates. She made a mental note to have a word with Gwen, the young girl who helped them out in the afternoons after school. It was her job to keep the kitchen area clean, and recently she just seemed to have lost her motivation.

  As Helen scooped two teaspoons of instant coffee, as she levelled the cup for Ms Dubois off with her fingertip – she knew Marion didn’t like her coffee too strong. She sneezed; a rather violent sneeze that caused her head to whiplash. Her brain hurtled forward and collided with the front of her skull as if she had slammed the brakes on without warning. Rubbing at the sudden pain in her temples, massaging them both with her index fingers while the water boiled, Helen took the time to check the mirror. She gasped when she saw her face. Her skin, although usually rather pale, was now ashen. Her blue eyes had lost their normal sparkle and instead looked dusty as if she hadn’t used them in years. Crow’s feet seemed engraved into the skin around her eyes, and even her hair, a vibrant auburn, had a sad and worn out look to it. Good God, take a look at me, she thought to herself, opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue as far as it would go. She didn’t know why she did this; it was a habit she had picked up in childhood and now, ten years out of high school, she still couldn’t take a look at herself in the mirror without pulling a funny face.

  Coffees in hand, Helen walked back into the salon with a smile spread across her face, her mind once again wandering from the task at hand, instead focusing on her big plans for the long weekend.

  Helen sat down behind her station and waited for Marion to have a drink and replace her cup before she got down to business. Beside her she had a small gurney, which made it look as though she was about to perform surgery, only in place of gleaming scalpels with blades of all sizes Helen’s was filled with nail files, lotions, varnishes, polishes of all colors, with a drawer filled with all other manner of small vials filled with liquids she had learned to pronounce effortlessly over the years without ever understanding what they were.

  She picked up Marion’s left hand and moved it into position, leaving the elbow on the table. She pushed the headache out of her mind; it had subsided to nothing more than a dull thud anyway. It would pass in a few moments. With arms positioned as if they were about to wrestle, Helen slid a support underneath the raised arm and once Marion’s arm was settled, she picked up the first file on the tray and began to work on the nails.

  “I tell you, I just can’t believe how free I feel, my life has completely changed since I started just having some fun. I mean, it took me a while to get used to living alone, of course, but then again you know that, I’ve said it often enough. But I mean, really, it’s such an enlightening experience to find yourself single and with a city like this around you. Why anybody ever thinks of settling down is beyond me,” Marion said, the words spewing out of her mouth as if a locomotive powered them from the tunnel that was her mouth.

  Helen never said much. It was often hard to take a side because Marion simply ran on and on like a broken record, rehashing the same arguments time and time again, often within the same visit – and more often than not she would revisit a topic from the other viewpoint anyway.

  “Well, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do miss having someone around, somebody to talk to whenever I want, or to keep me company in that house, but I think I’m going to sell it anyway. Move to a more popular area. The suburbs were good enough once upon a time, but now it’s just too far to commute, and I don’t drive. I think I’m going to learn though,” Marion continued, and at the same time she managed to continue reading the magazine she had picked out and also acknowledge Helen, on both personal terms by praising her workmanship.

  Helen liked Marion Dubois, not only because she was always happy, bubbly and full of stories that helped to pass the time, but because she did all the talking. Helen could just get on with her work, throwing in the occasional congratulatory phrase or non-committal thought on something and that was it. Helen preferred it that way; she wasn’t one to brag about things, or to go out and have crazy alcohol fuelled adventures with the girls.

  She preferred a simple life; working, going home to her wonderful husband, cooking dinner together and then settling down on the sofa to watch a movie. It was a safe life, a simple one, but she enjoyed it.

  Helen finished cleaning the first hand and then began the process all over again with the second, when out of nowhere a wave of nausea swept through her, followed by a dripping sensation in her nose. To her own surprise as much as Marion’s, Helen noticed that her nose was bleeding. The blood was dark, as good as black, and poured from both nostrils at an alarming rate.

  “Excuse me,” she said, getting up from behind the table and half running back into the kitchen area, pinching her nose with one hand, using the other to keep her stable as she tilted her head back.

  Once out of sight, Helen was more panicked in her movements; she swept with her arms in desperate search of a cloth or piece of kitchen roll to help try and stem the bleeding. Once she had tissue stuffed up each nostril Helen slumped against the wall and rested with her hands on her knees. Her shirt was soaked through with blood, and she saw a puddle on the floor that covered enough of the linoleum to cause her speeding heart to skip more than a few beats in her chest. When Helen stood up the bleeding had stopped. She stood braced against the countertop, waiting for the shaking to stop. Helen took the spare shirt she always had hanging on the coat stand and headed back out to Marion. She gave herself a cursory check in the mirror and wiped away the remaining blood, offered herself a half-hearted snarl; old habits really do die hard.

  The salon was spread over two buildings, joined by a connecting door, one side dedicated to hairstyling and facials while the other section (where Helen was and her colleagues Rosie Singh and Martina Petrova were all busy at work on their own final customers) was set up for manicures, pedicures. The waxing rooms were split two at the rear of each salon area. Martina and Rosie chatted to their clients as they worked and didn’t even look up when Helen returned. Marion Dubois meanwhile had moved on to the matter of where she intended to spend her summer, and with which one of her suitors she was more likely to choose to take with her for company.

  “I’ll just go for the opaque this time I think, I’ve got a busy week planned,” Marion said. The stride of her conversation wasn’t even broken. Helen considered it a near certainty that Marion hadn’t even stopped talking the entire time that she had been gone.

  Helen heard her request, making a mental note on which of the many small colourful bottles she had lined up on the metal tray that she needed to use.

  “So Venice, I hear it’s beautiful there. Mark and I looked at it for our honeymoon, but we c
ouldn’t afford it,” Helen answered, feeling distant and generally strange.

  She found out two weeks before that she was pregnant, she hadn’t told anybody, not even Mark, her husband. He worked for a medium sized insurance company in the city. It was a low pay job, but given the current climate they were both just happy to still have work at all. She wanted to wait until the time was right before she broke the news to him, and she blamed that on her distracted mind and apparently rebelling body. She knew he would be happy, there was no question about his reaction, and they had spoken about having kids at some length already. Helen was just concerned that their financial situation wouldn’t be able to support them. They still had to pay off Mark’s student loan, their wedding, not to mention the mortgage on their recently purchased house. It all came down to the fact that they didn’t have the stability that family life demanded. Helen was fairly sure that she could pick up some extra shifts in the salon one girl had just quit a few weeks before and had yet to be replaced, but that was only a temporary solution because once she gave birth she would be out of work for a while, and that was when the extra costs would be noticed most.

  “Yes, Venice is always lovely, I love it in February time. I don’t know why, there is just something about it, and in the summer it’s just too hot. Anyway, are you sure you’re alright, dear? You don’t look at all well. Maybe you should have a lie down.” The concern in Marion Dubois’ voice was genuine. She hadn’t seen how bad the nosebleed had been, nor did she notice the change of clothing, yet the change in Helen’s appearance, her white face, cold hands and distant starry eyes was unmistakable.

  Helen didn’t hear her, however. . .

  All she heard was a deep guttural growl not unlike that of a hungry stomach. Helen stopped working and looked up. She knew she was in the salon, she could see it, including the hideous piece of modern art that occupied the majority of the wall opposite both the main entrance and Helen’s regular workstation. However, Marion Dubois was gone. In her place was a shriveled elderly woman, someone she didn’t recognize but looked as though she belonged in a fairytale, possibly offering an apple. The hag looked at her, and Helen simply stared at her. She was a witch, complete with a large hooked nose adorned by a large hair-sprouting wart. Her eyes were as black as coal and they held Helen’s gaze and she could feel her skin begin to burn and prickle with heat.

  Helen began to sweat, her hands were clammy and her heart increased to such a tempo that it felt as though it was pumping in slow motion. Her mouth was dry and her tongue felt bloated and useless in her mouth. The witch’s hand, which she only then remembered she was holding, tightened around her own. The grip seared her flesh, while the long, gnarled nails – more like talons – sliced into the meat of her arm. Delicate tendrils of smoke rose from her arm, seeping between the witch’s fingers as the flesh continued to cook beneath her grip.

  The witch continued to speak, her words vile guttural sounds. Helen shook her head as the hot, sulphur-rich breath hit her.

  “Helen… Are you sure everything’s ok, dear? You really don’t look very well,” Marion asked again, repeating the question that had until that moment gone unanswered.

  Helen rose from the table without saying a word. The world around her started to burn. The walls of the salon caught fire and the floor melted away around her feet. The black and white vinyl floor tiles bubbled while the fixtures all sank into the floor, giving the entire place a strange, lopsided, Salvador Dali feel. Helen looked around. She saw the girls leaving their clients and rush towards her. Only their faces had twisted into something inhuman, their eyes glowing like fire embers. Ms. Dubois was also there, standing, her arms still held out as if demanding Helen turn her attention back to the manicure. Her face was expressionless, her mouth continuing to open and close like a fish as she (or so Helen presumed) chatted away, oblivious to the world around her.

  “The baby.” Helen dropped her hands to her stomach, clutching at the belly that was yet to swell, as she said what would prove he be her final words before she collapsed. Her life was over before she hit the floor, her eyes glassed over as if intoxicated. With her last breath exhaled as she fell, her final words were destined to remain a mystery.

  ~

  IV

  Sammy

  “I can’t believe you, I really can’t,” Mandy Jenkins snapped, her temper flaring after an evening of drinks with her friends, most of them fellow students.

  “I’m sorry, babe, I am, but you know I don’t like it when people start talking about that sort of stuff; it annoys me,” Sammy Westford answered, never taking his eyes from the road. Mandy had woken him and begged Sammy pick her up from the bar she was in because she had drunk way too much to drive, and didn’t want to have to take a taxi back to her place because her roommate would get angry with her for coming home so late. Mandy had been unlucky enough to make friends with a devout Christian called Emma Wilkinson during her freshman year at university and had never been able to shake her off since. Although Mandy herself had been raised to be a rather devout Catholic, her parents to their credit understood her decision, or simply recognized her stubborn streak and allowed her to go her own way, find her own path.

  That being said, Emma was a good friend, one of the best Mandy had ever had; even if her strong religious views and firm standpoint on sex before marriage had made for some rather interesting conversations when Sammy and Mandy had first started dating.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Sammy. You fucking embarrassed me in there tonight. I mean, Jesus Christ, would it kill you to try and behave around my friends just once?” She gesticulated with her hands. Sammy didn’t have to take his eyes from road to know that she was mad with him. She was drunk and therefore she was mad at him, although he would admit that on this occasion her anger, although a little excessive, was justified.

  “I don’t want to argue, Mand, you’re a bit drunk and those guys took the piss, and only because I don’t have a college education or drive a fancy car. I work hard to make my way, and you above all people should know that I enjoy what I do. I’m proud of who I have turned myself into so don’t get angry with me, or take their side; not tonight.” Sammy wasn’t angry with her. Mandy didn’t go out often and seldom did she get drunk, but whenever she did it was always the same routine. She would call him up, he would go get her, and then they would argue about how he was rude to her friends. It was a cycle that stemmed from the main difference between them; their backgrounds.

  Sammy was a 22-year-old construction worker, someone who came from a family of borderline degenerates, someone who was never given much of a chance in life. His two brothers were petty criminals, and his sister lived on benefits in a house provided for her and her four children while she chased child support payments from the four different fathers. His parents divorced before he was even born. Sammy was the baby of the family, the youngest by quite some way, and it was his conception, in fact, which had placed the final lid in the coffin of their relationship, with his father questioning his mother’s fidelity. The question was never answered; his father always preferred to pose such important questions with his fists or other handy appliances rather that with his tongue. Sammy called him his father, but in truth he was only the father of Sammy’s sister, who was conceived while his mother was engaged to another man (who for the sake of the record was not the father of either of Sammy’s brothers). Sammy never knew his own father, and he in turn escaped his family as soon as he graduated high school. Although he had the brains for it, he knew with a strange levelheadedness at an early age that he wouldn’t benefit from going to college. He liked the idea of working with his hands, and so he packed his bags at the first opportunity and moved to a different city, away from his family in Denver, and began a series of cross-country adventures before finally landing in Baltimore, where he had been ever since, living just outside of the main city in the suburb of Edmonson. He had moved around a lot, living in rented accommodation, moving from city to city, working co
nstruction for whatever company was hiring, before he was finally offered regular work with Whiting-Turner Construction, whom had now been his employers for 2 and a half years.

  Mandy Jenkins couldn’t have been more dissimilar to Sammy if she tried. Her family were rich, her father a doctor, head of cardio thoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins while her mother was a stay-at-home mom, dedicated to her children, never moaning, always willing to spend her time aiding them in whatever they needed, from conversations or advice through to simple transport, something that would have never crossed Sammy’s mother’s mind.. She was too self-obsessed to even notice Sammy had moved out of the house until three weeks later. The first phone call to check on his whereabouts came three weeks after he had left home, just as he was about to pack up his bags and move for the second time.

  Mandy had one brother who, while only in first in his year at Stanford, had already been headhunted by some of the largest law firms on both coasts, not to mention a few from abroad. Mandy herself had chosen to follow her father into the medical profession, choosing dentistry. It was in a bar near the University of Maryland where she just begun her second year that Mandy met Sammy.

  Their meeting was unremarkable, although over the years as their relationship developed so did the embellishments they made to their tale. It went from a case of being squashed together at the bar trying desperately to order drinks, only for Sammy to turn around and sacrifice his turn so that Mandy could order, only for them to find themselves trapped against the bar and unable to get back to their respective groups (which was as close to the truth as the tale ever got), to something far more interesting, versions of which included Sammy climbing onto the bar and walking across it, jumping to the floor only to sweep Mandy into his arms and walk out of the bar with her. Their story became a game to them; they took it in turns to create the most embellished version possible just to see how many people believed it. The one constant was the mutual instant attraction.