Coda

by Keith Knapp

  She now moved about the parlor lazily, drunkenly, trying to clear her head from the darkness of her slumber. If this was what waking up with a hangover felt like, she wanted no part of it. Consider her a straight-edge from now on.

  Her fingers massaged her left shoulder, stiff from the accident on the freeway, and became intertwined in a hole in the fabric she didn’t remember being there. She looked down, and yes, there was a hole in her shirt. Three, to be precise.

  But there were holes everywhere. She was a mess, her clothes were a mess, this whole fucking week was a complete and utter mess. Just like the shithole she now found herself in.

  Years of neglect and no customers had resulted in the floor having just as much dirt on it as there was outside. Half an inch of dust mites (with dust mites on top of those dust mites) had settled on the tops of the counter and three tables, creating tiny hills and mountains. Nothing in the room had seen a rag or a bottle of Windex in years. The muck on the windows gave the room a yellow, dirty feel. The place looked exactly how she felt: like complete shit.

  The ice cream buckets (a total of three) were covered by a large sneeze guard device; patrons could look but not touch, sneeze or spit on the merchandise. The ice cream had melted long ago, leaving nothing but the sticky residue left behind by ants, roaches, and other vermin that had since moved on to bigger and better things. The smell of rancid milk wafted into her nose. Her throat tensed as her mouth filled with saliva—here comes the barf.

  Don’t puke don’t puke please don’t puke I don’t wanna puke right now.

  Jody swallowed and held it down. The bitter taste in her mouth threatened to bring the vomit right back up, but she willed it into place. She put a hand on the counter and took a few deep breaths, letting the cold chill that had suddenly come over her pass. There we go. Better. Not much, but enough.

  An old crank phone was attached to the wall next to the cash register. Lifting the partition separating the employees from the customers, she slid behind the counter, picked up the receiver and held it to her ear. She didn’t hear a dial tone, but she had no idea if that was normal or not. The only other place she had seen a phone like this was in old John Wayne westerns her father had shown her as a child.

  Mimicking the cowboys of those movies, Jody reached out and gave the crank three strong turns. The old bell inside gave out a sorry ding of a sound with each turn. She pressed the receiver close to her head.

  “Hello?” she said into the mouth piece. She felt silly. But what else could she do? “Hello?”

  When an operator didn’t answer (she was pretty sure that’s what was supposed to happen next) Jody gave it three more quick cranks—ding-ding-ding!—and waited again. Convinced that there was no one on the other end waiting to take her call, Jody placed the receiver back in the cradle and plopped her hands down on the counter in frustration. A puff of dust erupted from beneath her hands. But it wasn’t the hard wood of the counter she had come in contact with. No, it was something with some give to it.

  An old leather-bound ledger was revealed when the dust had settled. About the size of a magazine, it looked like it had seen its fair share of action. Of course, Jody thought, everything around here looked like it had seen its fair share of action. Or in-action, as the case may be, what with all the dust and abandonment issues the place seemed to have.

  She dragged the ledger closer, leaving behind a rectangular dust-free zone on the counter top, and flipped it open to read:

  MA & PA BANKS ICE CREAM TREAT SHOPPE

  DAILY REVENUE

  Jody creased her brow. Not at the pedestrian name of the establishment, (was that really the best they could do?), but at the name of the apparent owners of the place.

  A memory flashed into her mind: the Baskin Robbins her father would take her to as a child. Once a week they went there, he with his traditional vanilla and her with her traditional strawberry, and talk about school, TV shows, and when she had gotten old enough, boys. Yes, there were some good memories of her father in there.

  They had befriended the nice old couple (who had been married since the beginning of time) that ran the establishment. Their last name had also been Banks. She couldn’t remember their first names.

  She flipped to the next page. The barely legible scratchings of whoever had kept the book read:

  Shipment Record

  1/1/1897 to

  1897? Have I gone back in time?

  The Old West-style buildings. The crank phone. The absence of anything even remotely familiar. She was either on the Universal backlot…or yes, she’d gone back in time.

  She pushed the ledger to the side and moved to the cash register. She quickly located the “open” button and pressed it. The drawer shot out with a dead dink of a sound.

  Inside were a few paper bills and a handful of Indian-head pennies. Although Jody had never seen one first hand, the profile of the Indian on it was a dead giveaway.

  She pulled out the small stack of bills. What looked like five one-dollar bills now rested in her hand, but they weren’t like any bills she’d ever seen. On one side of the paper silver dollar (that’s what the writing on the bottom told her it was) was a woman with her arm around a small boy. The woman was pointing toward a book on the right of the bill. Jody didn’t recognize the two people, but she could clearly make out the Washington Memorial behind them.

  She did, however, recognize the portraits on the flipside of the bill. Two people, separated by the number “1,” looked up at her. On the right was the one and only George Washington, his wry smile concealing his poor teeth.

  To the left of the “1” was a girl Jody recognized even more quickly than the first President of the good ol’ U.S. of A. It was that of a girl she had seen every day of her life. And the picture was moving.

  The picture of Jody Baker in the dollar turned to face the Jody Baker standing in the middle of the ice cream parlor and smiled.

  24.

  “What a shithole.”

  No one could argue with Jillian’s spot-on observation of the hotel lobby. Unlike the bathed-in-shadows saloon, the hotel had an abundance of light shooting in from the windows, one every five or six feet. Mike counted eighteen of them. A skylight added to the radiance, making the inside almost as bright as the outside. When noon hit, this place would be baking.

  What was left of the carpet was spotted with brown and black stains from one corner to the next, creating an almost checker-board pattern. Tears, holes and scruffs filled in the gaps wherever there wasn’t a stain; there was no telling what the original color of the carpet had been. Two red couches, just as blemished and torn up as the carpet they sat on, book-ended a shoddy coffee table that looked like it had been repaired more times than it was worth. The caretaker of the place hadn’t been in in quite some time, which seemed to be the ongoing theme of the town.

  Mike walked to the rotted wooden relic of a front desk. The desk was just long enough for two people to stand behind. The corners were chipped, the top surface scratched. On the wall behind it were fifteen hooks where Mike assumed the keys to the rooms were kept when they weren’t occupied. Either they had lost all the keys or the hotel was packed, because every hook was empty—only the room numbers stenciled underneath the hooks remained.

  Gingerly, Mike’s hand reached out to the tiny desk-bell in front of him. He opened his palm and tapped the bell twice.

  Stopping him from hitting it a third time was Jillian’s hand. Mike jumped. He hadn‘t even heard her approach.

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jillian asked.

  “I don’t know, you got a better idea?”

  She didn’t.

  * * *

  The kid named Brett was staring at her. His eyebrows formed an upside down “V”—what Sophia called the Worry Look. Even though her mind was elsewhere (Jody dear God where are you why aren’t you here) she was very well aware of the conversations going on around her. Something she picked up during her years as a waitress at
Chili’s before she fell into the lucrative career of hostess at Chili’s: keep your ears open and remember everything. It was a surefire way to get a good tip. Dig into the customer’s personal lives a bit and there was the good chance you’d end up with an extra five or ten percent. An old manager had once told her that. This sage advice had worked to her benefit many a time.

  Slowly, dreamily, her thoughts drifted from Jody and headed in the direction of her estranged ex-husband—although “estranged” wasn’t strong enough a word. The man had been an asshole, pure and simple. It hadn’t started out that way—he had been a real charmer on day one—but that was how it had ended, with her on the floor and the blood of an asshole on the walls.

  Sophia shook the memory of Jack Welling from her mind. There was no point in thinking about it, what was done was done and her and Jody had come out on top.

  Sort of.

  Jody. She had to keep her mind on Jody. Had to think of where she could be. Figure out where she might have gone. She couldn’t feel her anymore, but that was okay, that didn’t mean Jody was-

  -no, don’t think about it. Jody’s not dead. She can’t be.

  And there was the memory again, there was Jack. Asshole Jack.

  Get out of my head, you shit-kicker.

  Up the stairs to her right. Second floor. Maybe Jody was up there. She had been hiding, heard the bell, and soon she’d be on her way to the staircase, look down, see her mother, run down the stairs and they’d embrace and never ever ever let go of one another.

  But that didn’t happen.

  “No one’s here,” Mike said. “This place is closed.”

  “This whole fucking town is closed,” added Jillian.

  BUH-DUH-BAM!

  Something on the floor above fell with a thunderous crash. Filth and dust drifted from the ceiling and landed on the six faces now looking directly up. Roscoe barked then sneezed.

  Dropping the leash, Sophia hightailed it for the stairs. Her legs cleared the wooden steps two at a time. She pushed herself to move more quickly, using the guardrail to propel her forward faster, faster, faster. With every two steps she took, with every two creaks of the wood below her feet, her daughter’s name echoed in that special space between her ears.

  Jo-DY, Jo-DY, Jo-DY.

  The landing to the second floor held no surprises. Like any motel Sophia had stayed in, she found herself looking down a hallway of rooms. The red carpet (it matched the couches downstairs) was well-traveled but not stained. Scrapes of black dirt marred the walls, however. To her left was another hallway leading to more rooms.

  The buh-duh-bam had come from one of the rooms to her right. Sophia scurried to the nearest door in that direction, turned the knob, and pushed it open. Expecting to find an old and ratted (and unkempt) bed, maybe a nightstand or two and a dresser to give the occupant a place for their clothes (and maybe one of those objects would now be laying on the ground) and hoping to find her daughter, she was instead faced with an empty room save for the carpet (which wasn’t red—they had gone with blue in here).

  Mike, Jillian, Brett and Rachel came up behind her as she closed the door. Roscoe brought up the rear and slid himself between the humans to stand by Sophia’s side.

  “What are-” Mike started, but Sophia was already on to the next door. She pushed it open, peered inside. This one was more vacant than the last: it was even void of carpet. The wooden planks of the floor were warped and jolted up all over the place. Slamming the door shut behind her, she proceeded to the next one.

  Buh-duh-bam!

  There it was again, the same buh-duh-bam. No, it wasn’t exactly the same—this one was a little smaller and not quite as loud. It came from the room at the end of the hall.

  Sophia ran to the last door on her right, her sneakers bouncing to a stop as her hand reached for the knob. She turned the cold metal in her hands and opened the door.

  A bookcase lay on the floor, hardbacks and paperbacks scattered around and underneath it. Clearly this massive piece of furniture (standing upright, it went from floor to ceiling) was the source of one of the buh-duh-bams. Across from the bookcase was a dresser, also laying down on the ground as if recently killed.

  But finding the causes of the buh-duh-bams didn’t do anything to satisfy Sophia’s curiosity or calm her nerves. In fact, it made her heart race even faster and made her mind even foggier. Standing there, his chest heaving in and out (most likely from knocking down one bookcase and one dresser) was Jack Welling, King of the Assholes.

  25.

  Jody cautiously stepped out of the ice cream parlor and into the daylight, the dollar bill with the creepy moving portrait of her on it still in her hand. Her eyes floated away from the bill and down the street, then at the bill again, hoping that the picture of herself had changed to a picture of whoever it was supposed to be. But no, it was still her, smiling with pursed lips, her own eyes looking back at her as if the Jody in the picture knew something the Jody in real life didn’t. At least it wasn’t moving anymore. Jesus, why did she even still have the thing? Because the picture had moved, that’s why. Not something you see every day. Further investigation would be needed, but not right now.

  As she folded up the bill to place it in a pocket, her eyes rack-focused to the ground. A few inches in front of her shoes were footprints. Not footprints. Paw-prints. She had been right: a pack of dogs. Big dogs by the size of those tracks.

  A growl came from the small alley between the ice cream parlor and the sheriff’s station. The growl subsided as one of the beasts poked its nose around the corner. The nose twitched and pecked at the air, picking up Jody’s scent. It was soon followed by a set of razor-sharp black teeth. A pair of glowing yellow eyes nestled underneath a white patch of fur shaped like a diamond ogled at her.

  It was way too big to be just a dog. Closer to the size of a small pony. A weird, maniacal, evil pony. And those teeth, they went on forever. Three of the ugly black things stuck out from beneath the dog-thing’s mouth.

  Jody’s fingers went to the three holes in her shirt.

  They dragged me here. Fucking things dragged me here. And now, what, they’re gonna jump me?

  Diamond Patch craned its neck back toward the alley and went ruff. Two more of the animals came out of the shadows and into the street. They all stared at her, sizing her up. The one on the far left—all black fur, looking like night itself—had a strip of jeans stuck between its teeth. Blackie lifted a paw and shook its head, trying to get the damn thing out, then gave up.

  Jody dragged her right foot backward, thankful that the strip of jeans hadn’t come from her. The dried blood on it told the tale that the dog-thing had not gotten it without a fight. Before her left foot could mimic the other, before she could break out into a heart attack inducing sprint, all three of the dog-things stepped forward. Their eyes remained locked on her—she wasn’t going anywhere without the animals pouncing.

  “Was I not supposed to leave the ice cream shop, huh?” she asked Diamond Patch.

  The dog-thing growled back at her.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  I also don’t want to go back in the ice cream shop. I’d really like to find a way out of here.

  There had to be somewhere she could go, somewhere she would be able to beat them to. To her left was an old saloon, maybe sixty or seventy feet away. They’d catch her for sure.

  The sheriff’s station was just thirty feet away. She could make that in a few seconds. She judged the distance between herself and the alleyway to be twenty feet—no doubt the creatures could cover that in less than those few seconds. But if she ran fast enough, maybe she’d make it.

  Maybe.

  All together the dog-things took another step toward her.

  And now she didn’t have much of a choice. They were going to attack her no matter what.

  The one with the denim in its mouth growled, and that seemed to do the trick—the little piece of blood-sprayed jeans fell to the ground. Diamond Patch s
macked its lips. A droplet of drool fell from the animal’s mouth.

  Jody’s feet were already taking her toward the sheriff’s station before the saliva hit the earth. Five giant leaps and she was at the door.

  Diamond Patch gave chase, followed by his small battalion, all three of them eerily silent. She felt the animal’s hot breath on her ankle as she cleared the entrance, slammed the door shut behind her and began looking around for something, anything, to block it.

  The sheriff’s office was more of a mess than the ice cream parlor. What remained of a desk sat in two pieces against the wall. It looked like it had been punched apart then thrown around for good measure. Or maybe gnawed apart. Bullet holes littered the walls, but there was no blood.

  Optimistic for the first time in what felt like days, Jody grabbed an end of the desk-half closest to the door and tugged. Those things outside looked strong, strong enough to maybe gnaw on a desk, but this could buy her some time.

  If she could move it, that was.

  Try as she might, the antique wooden furniture wouldn’t accompany her to the front door. It didn’t weigh that much, did it? Pushing it did no good either, so it wasn’t a question of attacking it from the right direction.

  On the third push she heard an almost-inaudible crack. Wood beginning to splinter, and it had come from the desk.

  Bending at the knees, Jody peered at the bottom of the thing, at the legs, and saw that there would be no moving of this half of desk today. Each leg had been messily nailed down by someone who did not wish it to move.

  The animals outside sniffed the perimeter of the doorway. The shadow of one of them moved to the west side of the door, where the knob was. It clawed and scratched at it, trying to get a fix on the knob.