by Aaron Polson
“What? Spin out on the flat mile and end up in the ditch?” Maggie shook her head and brushed her auburn hair away from her face, pulling back into a loose ponytail. “Listen, sweetie. You get me out of this mud-hole, and I’ll make sure we find a dark, quiet spot for some real romance.” Her hand slid onto his lap, and stroked the inside of his leg.
Jimmy slowly straightened in his seat. He glanced at Maggie. “I love you, babe.”
“I know.” She smiled, but her face suddenly dropped into a stunted frown. “What the hell was that?”
“What was what?”
“I saw something move behind you.” She shivered. “Look, the sooner we get out of here, the better.”
“Don’t freak on me.”
“I’m not, I just …want to get back to town, okay? Civilization?” She waved her fingers toward the blue glow of Springdale. “I don’t like this road. The stories—”
“—are mostly silly legends to scare kids; to keep people from driving too fast.”
“Well, they’re working. I’m scared.”
“Right. I’ll get us out of here, then.” Jimmy pushed his door open with a squeak of rusty hinges.
“Where are you going?” Maggie’s voice eked out with a taint of panic.
Jimmy had slipped from the car, but momentarily ducked back into the dim glow of the dashboard lights. “Just going to find some wood or something I can wedge behind the tires. You know – for traction.”
“All right,” she said slowly. “Just hurry, okay?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Maggie jabbed the automatic locks as soon as Jimmy slammed his door. She huddled on her side of the car, feeling a bit chilly in the April darkness. If he would just hurry, she thought. She twirled a bit of hair on her finger. This place is creepy, but the old full-moon trick is kinda sweet. He’s a—
Maggie’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud bang on her door. Jimmy’s face hovered just outside her window.
“Gotcha,” he muttered, loud enough to be heard through the glass.
Maggie snapped the door open, smashing it across his knees. “Damn it Jimbo, I nearly wet myself.” She stood up next to the door, and looked into the darkness, past her doubled-over boyfriend. “Jimmy …who's that?” she asked, shivering.
Jimmy let a pathetic little groan slip out of his mouth as he rubbed his knees. “Just some guys. They can help push the car.”
Three figures shimmered in the moonlight. They appeared to be teenage boys, somewhere between sixteen and nineteen, but they all seemed strange. Their faces were pinched together, too gaunt and pale, even in the moonlight. Maggie tried to muster a friendly smile, and the boys’ lips cracked open in response. They wore dirty clothing, streaked with dark stains.
Most likely mud, Maggie thought. Gross.
One stepped forward and stretched out a withered hand. His fingertips were stained black. “I’m Dan. This here’s Lonnie and Earl. We can help,” he said. Maggie couldn’t see his lips move. A taint floated with his voice, like the sound of a light wind cutting through a strand of old trees. The other two stood behind him like chimps; the one introduced as Lonnie poked a finger into his mouth and scratched at his gums, digging out something black that shone in the moonlight.
A rancid odor oozed off the boys. It was wet and fishy—the scent of a riverbank after a flood.
Maggie quickly slipped into the car and slammed the door shut. Jimmy said something to the three, and sloshed through the mud to the driver's side. He tried to shake the thick muck from his shoes before shutting the driver’s door and slipping the gear shifter into neutral, but it was no use.
“Who are those guys?” Maggie whispered. She caught herself with one hand against the dash as the car lurched forward. The back of her neck burned like some dull razor had plucked out the hairs one by one. “I haven’t seen them around school.”
Jimmy shrugged, maintaining a solid grip on the steering wheel. “Probably home-schooled or something.”
“Home-schooled? Really?” Maggie cast a curious glance at Jimmy’s profile. “They look a little freaky to me.”
“Yeah, well, some of those home-schooled kids are religious fanatics, you know. Maybe these guys are part of some wacky cult. They seem nice enough, though.”
Maggie turned to look over her shoulder. The yellow faces of the three strangers grinned in the back window, showing bent and browning teeth. Their eyes were cold and black, so she quickly snapped her eyes back to the front of the car. “They make me feel dirty. The way they leer at me.”
“Babe, if they’re religious zealots, they probably aren’t used to seeing hot numbers like you. Really.” Jimmy leaned over and kissed her on the neck. Maggie pushed him away and flashed a tepid smile.
“Look, we’re almost there,” Jimmy announced. He straightened in his seat and peered into the cone produced by the headlights. “We still on for that dark, quiet spot?”
“I’ll think about it,” Maggie muttered, crossing her arms across her chest. She couldn't shake the crawling sensation of the boys’ eyes on her back.
“See, safe and sound,” Jimmy said as the headlights lit up the yellow sign at the end of North 1800. “I’ll just thank them, and we’re off.”
“Jimmy, don't ….”
“Just a quickie. They really helped us out of a jam.”
Jimmy stepped out of the car.
Maggie stared at her feet for a moment, looked at Jimmy's open door, and slowly brought her gaze to the window next to her. A flat, leering face with bloodshot eyes and stretched, chapped lips floated an inch from the window.
“You're purdy,” the face gibbered, its voice muffled and cold. Maggie let out a small gasp, quickly turned away from the window, and reached for the door lock. Her thumb flicked the switch, but the lock wouldn’t cooperate with Jimmy’s door hanging open.
Jimmy poked his head into the car. “Hey, Maggie. This guy owns a ‘57 Chevy—stock everything. They other guys have nice rides, too. Vintage. They say I should come out sometime, race with them.”
“That’s nice, Jimbo. Once you get that old jalopy of yours running again, anyway.” Maggie’s voice crawled with sarcasm. “Can we go?” she implored. She heard a slight scratching sound.
Outside Maggie’s door, pale fingers felt for the handle.
“Yeah. Just a sec.” Jimmy’s face vanished again, but Maggie still heard his voice. “Look, is there anything we can do to thank you?”
Maggie’s door popped open, and she nearly collapsed in the mud. She would have, if not for the strong arms that caught her. She plucked at them with her fingertips, feeling cold, wormy flesh—they way she imagined the white belly of a catfish would feel just after it was pulled from the river.
Maggie’s mouth dropped open, but no sound escaped, as a rotten hand slipped across her lips. Another set of hands moved over her body, and she squirmed against the invasion. Jimmy's face was pale in the darkness, and she only saw him in profile as the arms dragged her into the thick, swishing grass around the ditch.
“You see, buddy,” Dan said to Jimmy, once Maggie was several yards away, “we’ve been out here a long time. Too long, really. Your girl there … she’s pretty. Earl, Lonnie, me—we’ve been dead a long time, but those urges just don’t go away. It’s real lonely out here.”
Jimmy turned to the car, and caught a glimpse of Maggie’s flailing feet as Dan’s greasy companions pulled her further into the grass. His stomach dropped, his heart throbbed frantically, and something big and hard crashed against the back of his head.
Dan stood over him holding a rusty tire iron. He bent down, breathing his filth on Jimmy's prone form. “Don’t worry, buddy,” he sneered. “We’ll take real good care of her.” Then, he raised the tire iron, and cracked it repeatedly against Jimmy’s skull, until blood and brain matter leaked out.
When he finished, he dragged Jimmy’s body to the ditch and joined his friends across the road.
And so,
the Old Flat Mile filled its belly on hot, young blood once again, while its children enjoyed a feast of their own.
6: The Eyes Have It
Calvin sat at his computer with his face bent toward the flat screen, watching as an arrangement of glowing dots came together in the image of a young woman. Her body jutted from a car door at a queer angle, and dark streaks marred her face. The car was inverted, flipped upside down, and resting in a patch of mud. The woman was dead, and this was merely a photograph, a digital copy of the corpse. Calvin found something intoxicating about her eyes and guided the cursor to her face, enlarging the image with a few clicks.
Those eyes were blue, electric, addictive.
The doorbell sent a quick jab into Calvin’s ear. He closed the image and hurried to the door, surprised by a visitor on a Wednesday night. Gina worked on Wednesday’s, and he couldn’t imagine anyone else who cared enough to make a personal visit to the Sentinal’s photographer at home, especially after ten. The wreck, he thought, must be the cops. He shoved his camera bag behind a chair.
Calvin opened the door, and noticed Gina’s eyes were rimmed with red. She held her hands bunched in front and shuddered slightly before opening her mouth. “I quit, Cal. The boss, Brad…he made a pass. Touched me. I pushed him and ran out.”
“C’mon.” He pulled Gina inside, glanced into the night, and shut the door with a hearty click. She crumpled against his chest, sobbing. That son-of-a-bitch, he thought, wrapping Gina’s shoulders with his arms. Calvin had never like Brad, his roving eyes and plastic smile. “It’ll be okay…”
Calvin lay awake, listening to Gina’s breath as she slept next to him. He stared at the ceiling, but thought of the blue eyes in the photo. They had penetrated his lens and pulled his camera—one of those pictures that found him. Those eyes found him; they whispered to him. He was first at the scene of the wreck; the car lay in a ditch as he made his way home from a high school basketball game. Calvin had been the first to call the police.
The dead eyes screamed from across the room. He propped his head under one arm, and turned slightly toward Gina. The thin comforter rose gently with her breath. Calvin forced his brain to conjure her face. He tried to find her cheeks, the gentle curving slope of her chin, her swollen lips, and brown eyes, but the dead girl stared back at him instead, blocking everything in her blue gaze. His head began to ache, a dull, growing pain that squeezed against his skull. The whisper rose again, something white, nearly subliminal, but a voice. He rolled over and smashed his head under a pillow, trying to chase away the whisper.
“You’ll just have to move in.”
Calvin cobbled together his world-famous omelets while Gina leaned on his kitchen counter. She wore an old t-shirt, a knock off from Animal House that simply read “COLLEGE” in block letters. After a small sigh, she said, “Cal, that’s sweet, really. But…”
“But what? I’ve got a steady job. A little too steady maybe.” He glanced past Gina to the desk and his camera bag stuffed behind the chair. “We can make this work. You could start back at school—finish your degree.” He shifted the omelet with a flick of his wrist.
Gina closed her eyes and sighed. “I’ll pay rent, okay. And clean up a bit around here…earn my keep.” She pushed a dirty bowl across the counter to the sink. “Somebody has to.”
Calvin slid her omelet onto a plate. “If you want toast, the bread’s over by the ‘fridge.” He turned back to the stove, cracking two more eggs with a swift motion. “That was me ignoring your not-so-subtle jab, by the way.”
She slid around the counter and wormed between Calvin and the stovetop. “Thank you.”
He dropped the spatula on the counter and laid hands on either side of her face, trying to burn the deep mahogany of her irises into his brain. “I love you, okay? Now move before my eggs burn.”
Before he left for work that morning, he rummaged inside the top drawer of his desk, pushing away old pens and broken pencils until he found an old pocketknife. The blue handle was scratched, and the blade quite dull, but Calvin wrapped it in his hand and pushed it into the depths of his camera bag.
As one of only two photographers on the Sentinel staff, Calvin enjoyed the freedom to roam Springdale during his on-duty hours. A quick tag over his cell phone, and he could be anywhere he was needed in a matter of minutes. The small town life suited him fine—he’d never work too hard and still carry an air of celebrity. Medium fish in a tiny pond. Not wanting any interruptions, Calvin clicked off his phone when he entered the city morgue that morning.
“Well, well, Lenny. I can always count on my favorite minimum wage earning mortician’s assistant to be sitting on his ass.” Calvin worked up his best Cheshire grin.
Thin and pale and wearing a weak goatee, Lenny dropped his feet from the desk and eyed Calvin. “Shit. You gonna get me in trouble again?”
“Me? You’re kidding, right?” Calvin pulled a twenty-dollar-bill from his pocket and folded it in the palm of his hand. “How much laundry did you have to do at your mom’s place to save up for that jersey?” Calvin slipped the bill into Lenny’s boney grip.
“Screw you. This is vintage Magic Johnson. Got it on eBay for a steal. It’s all about timing, knowing what to look for.” Lenny smiled, a weak curling of his lips just above the beard. “Looking for anybody special today?”
“The girl…the Jane Doe…from the wreck yesterday.”
“She’s cold fish man. Tragic, she was kind of hot.”
Calvin teased him with wide eyes and a mock-shocked expression.
“Dude, you’re a freak—I’d never, you know…” Lenny popped off an obscene gesture. “You’ve got ten minutes. She’s in 14A.”
Calvin nodded and waited for the buzz before opening the doors to the morgue cooler. He wore a light jacket with a flannel shirt underneath, but the air poked through with icy fingers. The chill and a sickly lemon-lime glow to the lights really set Calvin’s fight or flight ticker humming. He had to see the body, look at those eyes again, and exercise the blue-eyed demon.
“14A. Hello, honey, I’m home,” Calvin joked to bolster his own flagging courage. With a quick click and then steady whirr, the drawer slid out. Blue Eyes was there, under the plastic. He peeled back just enough to see her icy face, an unnatural field of frigid grey. Her eyelids swelled a dark indigo in the shadows.
Calvin’s fingers quivered slightly before he touched her eyelids. Pinching one between forefinger and thumb, he pushed up gently, just enough to see the eye. It was lifeless now, drained of the hum and electricity from his photo. Curiosity worked magic in his fingers, and the thumb grew courageous, touching the cold surface of her dead eye. A hum grew around him in the cooler, a whisper that wasn’t quite the sound of the compressor or fans.
He closed his eyes for a moment and jerked from the body, quickly pulling the shroud over the young face and snapping 14A home. Calvin shivered, pulled his jacket around his neck, and hurried from the room. Later, he would remember the touch as a slight buzz—merely a pop of static electricity.
Calvin and Gina sat at the kitchen table that evening, poking at cardboard take-out boxes from The Happy Dragon, a flagging Chinese restaurant in a town where burgers and fries were considered fine cuisine. Gina tried to catch Calvin’s eye, but he avoided her, lost in his own thoughts and cringing at the growing pain in his skull—another headache.
“I interviewed for a couple of positions today. One is with a vet here in town. I thought, maybe, if it works out I could try school again. Finish my bachelor’s at least, then see what happens.”
Calvin glanced over the lid of a container, scratching the back of one hand. “Sounds great.” He winced as he spoke, and his voice was stale. His head throbbed again. “Why are we using spoons?”
Gina frowned. “The forks are dirty. Sorry, I forgot—”
The phone buzzed, and Calvin sprang from the table before the first ring was a memory.
“Hello.”
“Hi Calvin, this is Maryann Spader. Is
Gina around? I can’t seem to get her at her place.” He looked at Gina and mouthed, it’s your mom.
She shook her head.
“Um, she’s not here,” Calvin said, frowning at his girlfriend.
“Could you, um, tell her to call me,” Maryann said on the other end, her voice somewhat thick and slow.
“Alright, I’ll let her know.” Calvin clicked the receiver home and returned to the table. “You haven’t told your folks?”
Gina’s mouth crawled into a little smile. “I…wasn’t ready, yet. I don’t want them to freak.”
Calvin’s knuckles whitened as he clutched his spoon. He closed his eyes, and his neck tensed. “Are you ashamed of me, that it?” he snapped.
Gina recoiled. “No…Calvin.” Her weak smile vanished under a hurt frown. “What’s with you?”
“What’s with me? My live-in is hiding the truth—”
The phone rang again, truncating his rant. Calvin pushed away from the table, glowering at Gina. He snapped the phone off the cradle. “What?”
“Whoa, ace. What’s up your ass?” Lenny asked on the other end.
Calvin sighed and tucked the receiver on his shoulder. He glanced back at Gina. “Nothing. Nothing. Sorry, just a little domestic squabble.” Gina walked away from the table. “What’s up?”
“Dude, the cops came in this afternoon. Crazy shit, man. They were asking about you.”
Calvin’s face flushed. A tense moment passed. He rubbed his index finger to his thumb and remembered how her eyes felt. “Me? Why?”
“Look, can you meet me later tonight, at the Idle Hour. I don’t feel really comfortable talking about it over the phone. I thought you might like to know.”
“Yeah, how about eight?” Calvin waited. “Twenty bucks work?”
“Great. See you then.”
Calvin stood at the kitchen table for a few moments, looking at the half-empty containers, and trying to remember what happened after he touched the eyes. He remembered the shock, the feeling of electricity, but then what? Calvin held his hands in front of him, examined the fingers, and scraped a bit of black dirt from under one nail. He scooped up the leftovers and stuffed them in the trash. When the kitchen was clean, he found Gina lying on their bed.