Runaway Train

by S. W. Capps

  “Well, if you ask me, fathers are overrated anyway.” He looked up. “When I was ten, my dad bought me a new bicycle, a bright yellow Schwinn with streamers and everything. When I was sixteen, he handed me the keys to a new car. And for high school graduation, I got a string of pearls.”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a lousy job.”

  She flashed a bittersweet smile. “I had everything a kid could want, Stacy. But what I really wanted—what I needed—I never got.” The smile faded. “My father never hugged me, never told me he loved me, never even said, ‘Good job.’” Tears welled in her beautiful eyes. “And when he divorced my mom, he went months without bothering to tell me why.”

  “That’s…” Stacy felt uncomfortable. He appreciated Katie’s candor, but it came too easy—and too soon. “…rough.”

  She wiped her eyes. “Listen to me, carrying on like this on a first date.”

  First date? He hadn’t asked her out, didn’t even know what she wanted when he showed up this morning. And with his demo tapes mailed, he had no intention of—

  She moved closer, her skin flawless, her mouth inviting. Stacy’s pulse quickened. Before he could say another word, she leaned in and kissed him, every nerve in his body on overload. When they parted, both were out of breath.

  “So…” He exhaled. “…what are we going to do on our second date?”

  ***

  He killed the camera and thanked the principal. As she left, Stacy packed his gear, glad to be working alone today—he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face! His date with Katie was all he could think about. He liked the woman. Liked her a lot. And he was sure she felt the same.

  A bell sounded, kids gushing from the building like water through a busted levee. Within seconds, he was surrounded. “Bill Stacy!” one of them screamed. “From Channel 8!” another added. “Bill Stacy, Eight News!” Guarding the camera, he made his way through the mob—it felt like a scene cut from The Wizard of Oz, the one where Munchkins discover speed.

  As he reached the car, someone shoved a Pee-Chee at him. “Will you sign this?” The kid was serious. “Mine, too!” another begged. He tossed his equipment in the trunk, signing autographs for twenty minutes. The experience was surreal. He couldn’t wait to tell his mother.

  “Base to Mobil 4.”

  He grabbed the handset, still smiling. “Mobil 4 here.”

  “Stacy. Larry Toole. What’s your 10-20?”

  He started the engine. “Leaving the school now.”

  “Get to the interstate. We’ve got a Signal 82. And a bad one.”

  “But…” Stacy was confused. “…I didn’t think we covered accidents, at least that’s what Meeks said.”

  “I’m not Meeks.”

  He pulled out of the lot, punching the accelerator. “Which exit?”

  “Lake Murray Drive. Now haul ass.”

  He hopped on I-35, arriving at the scene minutes later. He could see a jackknifed truck up ahead, a smoldering trailer behind it. Four OHP units blocked traffic, along with three fire engines, two paramedics, and an ambulance.

  It was a bad one, all right.

  He grabbed the camera, a trooper stopping him just shy of the carnage. That was fine with Stacy. He could shoot more than enough from here. “What happened?”

  “Fatality. Twelve-year-old girl.” Stacy took a breath, the air thick with fuel and burning flesh. “Guy was pullin’ a ski boat, his daughter in back.” The trooper waved someone by. “A semi clipped the trailer. Boat flipped over and exploded.”

  Stacy swapped tapes, shooting the snarled traffic, the rescue vehicles, the mangled steel. He zoomed in on the yellow tarp. Just shoot it and leave. But as he focused, a gust of wind revealed the body. Without thinking, he moved from behind the viewfinder.

  It was a mistake.

  The thing on the ground no longer resembled a little girl. It looked more like a manikin, the torso black, the clothes burned away. Moments ago, this charred corpse was a human being, with dreams, hopes—a life. Now her fingers were curled claws. And white smoke billowed from the hole that was once her mouth.

  Stacy stepped back, mind spinning out of control. What a horrible turn of events! Before he got the call from Toole, he was signing autographs at the elementary school. Now he was staring at the blackened remains of a twelve-year-old girl.

  He wondered what it would take to wipe the smile off his face.

  Now he knew.

  ***

  “’Morning, Mom.” Stacy held the phone to his ear, wiping sleep from his eyes. It was seven in the morning in Oklahoma, five in Oregon.

  “’Morning, sunshine.” It felt good to hear her voice. Since moving to Avalon, he’d called her twice a week, knowing she missed her boy as much as he missed his mother. But finding time lately had been difficult. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.” He offered a half-chuckle but knew it didn’t fool her. His mother had a sixth sense about such things. Like the time Dexter Monroe took Stacy’s book. Without a word, she marched out the door and found the neighborhood bully, shaking him down till he handed it over. She had no idea who she was messing with, nor did she care. She was there for her boy without reservation. Stacy, after all, was her life. “How’s the nightshift working out?”

  “I don’t mind it. Fewer doctors. And less work.”

  “Since when is ‘less work’ a good thing?” It was a valid question. Helen Zwardowski’s work ethic was second to none. Over the course of Stacy’s lifetime, she’d juggled dozens of jobs and cared for a child, all while putting herself through nursing school. True, they’d never had much money. But they always managed to get by.

  “There’s more to life than work, Stacy.”

  He’d never heard her say that before. “Mom, are you all right?”

  Sons had a sixth sense, too.

  “I’m fine, honey…” There was a pause, Stacy moving the phone to his other ear. “…I’ve made some mistakes, that’s all. I just don’t want to see you repeat them.”

  “What mistakes?”

  “Never mind. How’s the job coming?”

  He glanced at the clock. “Okay, I guess.” He rubbed his forehead, the bedside scanner beginning to chirp. For the past few weeks, he’d had trouble sleeping. At first, he blamed the workload, then the horrible accident. But it was more than that. “The guy I’ve been telling you about…my new boss…” He ran a hand through his untamed curls. “…I’m just not sure we see eye to eye.”

  “They hired him for a reason, Stacy. Maybe you can learn from him.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And besides, you won’t be there long, right?”

  The scanner sounded again, something about a missing cat. “Already mailed the tapes. Should hear something in a week or two.”

  “Things always seem to work themselves out. In the meantime…are you making friends?”

  He looped the cord over his finger. Should he or shouldn’t he? “Well…I…did meet a girl.” He hesitated, waiting for a response. None came. “She’s a reporter, too. We sort of…went out the other day.” He waited again. More silence. “Are you going to say anything or not?”

  “Follow your heart, Stacy.”

  Chapter 5

  December 1987

  (NEWSWIRE): PRES. REAGAN AND SOVIET LEADER MIKHAIL GORBACHEV AGREE TO ELIMINATE MEDIUM-RANGE NUCLEAR MISSILES ... SMOKING BANNED ON ALL FLIGHTS UNDER 2 HOURS ... U.S. DOLLAR CLOSES YEAR AT RECORD LOWS VS. YEN AND MARK

  “So what do you think?”

  He stared at the sign, the words KEGT: THE GREAT 8 emblazoned in red. Stacy turned to Katie, adorable in her matching scarf and mittens. It was thirty degrees outside, with freezing rain in the forecast and winds out of the north.

  “I think I know where my next raise went.”

  She grabbed his arm and led him to work, the sound of banging filling their ears. “What is that?”

  “No idea.” He held the door and followed her inside, tracking the
noise to the studio. Most of their slack-jawed coworkers were gathered near the set, at least what was left of it. A twelve-man construction crew was busy gutting the thing.

  “Never liked the old set anyway,” Thad shouted over the din. “Always thought it clashed with Chett’s yellow teeth.” The sportscaster responded with his trademark finger pistols—replacing index with middle.

  Stacy searched the room for more victims of the new regime. By now, he and his coworkers were gun-shy. When changes happened at Channel 8, they looked for missing employees. No one appeared to be gone, but there were two new faces in the crowd. A man in a pinstripe suit stood next to the rubble, hair enormous. Stacy couldn’t stop staring. He’d never seen a mane so thick. Behind him was a bespectacled black man. He knelt in the corner, examining the switches of the Ikegami. Long and lean, he looked like an Olympic sprinter, or at least someone who’d been running for a while. Stacy watched him peer through the lens, a sudden realization striking him—KEGT had no black employees.

  “Good morning, people.” Everyone turned, Larry Toole entering the studio with a surgically-enhanced blonde. Stacy, along with everyone else, found himself staring at her breasts—the low-cut blouse helped. “I see you’ve found your way to ground zero.” Someone laughed uncomfortably, the crew hammering away. “Out with the old, in with the new, I always say. The new set’ll be ready by six. And it’s going to kick serious ass! Rotating backdrops. Levitating monitors. The competition won’t know what hit them!”

  Stacy’s eyes moved from breasts to boss, Toole’s follicles, both real and synthetic, fused in symbiotic harmony. “Today marks the beginning of greatness, folks. You saw the sign out front. The Great 8. It’s got a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” Several people nodded, Katie among them. “From now on, when we tag our stories, it’s ‘Jennifer Riggs, Great 8 News’. ‘Katie Powers, Great 8 News’.” He turned to Stacy. “‘Bill Stacy, Great 8 News’.” We get it. “In order to be great, we have to believe we’re great. When we believe it, the viewers will, too.” He paused to light a cigarette.

  The ratings results were in, Channel 8 finishing last again. But Toole expected as much. He expected something else, too—a slight spike in the numbers—which is exactly what he got. Under his direction, KEGT was showing signs of life. “We’re going to give our viewers more. We’re going to entertain them, dazzle them, shock the hell out of them if we have to. Starting today, we’re going to inject this little market with the big-city glitz of Entertainment Tonight and the in-your-face punch of A Current Affair.”

  Toole stepped to the base of the disappearing set. “Before I send you out on your assignments, I want to introduce three new people.” He pointed to the man with the healthy tresses—perhaps he’d hired him out of ‘hair envy’. “Reg McNair joins us from Lawton.” The new reporter smiled. “Manning the camera is photog extraordinaire Julius Candelle.” The young man ignored his intro, examining more switches.

  Thad leaned in and whispered to Randy, “Amazing what they can teach chimps to do nowadays.” Stacy couldn’t believe his ears. In shock, he watched him walk over and greet the new hire, patting him on the back and smiling.

  Stacy hated him now more than ever.

  “And last but not least…” Toole turned to the buxom blonde. “…I’d like you all to meet my new co-anchor, Lisa Lynn.” The woman smiled, teeth whiter than her pearl necklace. She had a 140 I.Q. but acting dumb had gotten her much further than acting smart. “Lisa’s just starting out in the news business. But she did win the Miss Texas pageant last year.”

  Stacy looked at Katie.

  She was seething.

  ***

  “That was my job, Stacy. Mine! Wilhelm and I had an understanding.” He handed her a gin and tonic—three parts gin, one part tonic. She killed it in one gulp. “I’ve done everything they asked! I’ve paid my dues!”

  He’d never seen Katie like this before. He’d also never seen her apartment, a far cry from his own. Nagel prints lined the walls. And the furniture was new. She even had a real bedroom and bath. “Why don’t you go talk to him?”

  “I did talk to him!” She grabbed the remote. “You know what he said?” Stacy shook his head, opening a beer. “He said my writing wasn’t good enough. As if that’s why they hired ‘little Miss Texas’!”

  He had no idea why she hated Lisa so much. In truth, they were a lot alike. Both had won beauty contests. And both wanted to anchor. Katie’s first shot at reading the news came in third grade. She and her friends produced a weekly newscast on 8mm film—private school had its benefits. At the end of the year, the little journalists showed their reel on ‘Family Night’. Katie’s mother was there, her father away on business.

  “Goddammit!” She hit the power button, the TV hissing to life.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “I’ll put another log on the fire.” As he stoked the flames, he watched his old pal, Lamont Hatchett, grace the screen, the man, saddled to a longhorn steer, promising ‘easy terms’ and ‘year-end clearance sales’.

  Stacy walked back to the sofa, the TV going black. Out of the void came the ear-piercing whoosh of a rocket blast, accompanied by detailed graphics of Texas and Oklahoma. The flying states came together at the Red River, a synthesized beat lauding their union. “Get ready, Texoma!” a narrator growled. “This is the Great 8 ten o’clock report.” A sizzling comet zipped around the map, the states dividing to reveal a giant 8. “With the Great 8 News Team, led by award-winning anchors Larry Toole and Lisa Lynn.” Stacy and Katie looked at each other. What awards? The giant 8 exploded, electronic fragments raining down to form a wide shot of the new set. “Prepare yourself. The news starts now!”

  As the camera moved in for close-ups, Larry Toole smiled, an aerial shot of Avalon sparkling behind him. “Good evening, Texomaland.” A smooth hydraulic lift hoisted a monitor over his shoulder, the on-screen graphic—FLU SCARE. “Health officials say it has all the makings of an epidemic…”

  Stacy sat bolt upright. “That’s not my lead-in!” Toole’s speech didn’t exactly breech the truth, but it stretched it. When the anchor finished, the director rolled Stacy’s package, a routine advisory on the need for annual flu shots. The words ‘scare’ and ‘epidemic’ were not only unnecessary but downright misleading. “Jesus, the guy’s here one month and he’s already—”

  “Shhhhhhh!” Katie raised her hand as Stacy’s package dissolved to a close-up of Lisa Lynn. The woman wore ruby-red lipstick, her cleavage in frame.

  “In a related story…” Her voice was high-pitched and shaky—a Minnie Mouse knock-off—nothing like the one she used in real life. “…two elderly Sherman residents were hospitalized—”

  Katie bludgeoned the ON-OFF switch. “Un-fucking-believable!” Stacy started to say something, but she wasn’t done. “Did you see that bimbo? It sounded like she sucked helium! God knows what else she sucked to get my job! We’re going to be the laughingstock of this market, Stacy. Did you see that skimpy blouse? She might as well have worn nothing! Maybe next time she’ll just sit there with her thirty-eight double-Ds flapping in the goddamn wind!” She wheeled and fired her empty glass at the fireplace, shards flying everywhere.

  “Katie…” He stood, taking her by the arms. “…you’re right, she’s awful. But that just means she won’t be here long. I mean, people aren’t stupid. They know when they’re being manipulated. A fancy set and fake boobs won’t change the ratings. When Wilhelm figures that out—”

  “You don’t understand, Stacy.” She stared at him, eyes welling with tears. “It’s always the same. I’m not good enough. I’m never good enough!”

  He didn’t know what to say, so he pulled her close and held her. Finally, “I think you’re good enough. I think you’re perfect.”

  She leaned back and looked at him. “You do?”

  “Yeah…” He brushed a tear from her cheek. “…and if Wilhelm thinks your writing needs work, then we’l
l work on it, together.”

  A fragile smile effaced her pain. “You’d do that for me?” He nodded. After a pause, she moved forward, kissing him on the mouth. He tasted salt, then felt her tongue. Heart pounding, he pulled her closer, moving his hands over her body. As the fire roared, she took his arm and led him to the bedroom.

  ***

  Making love to Katie Powers was like running a marathon. It started slow and steady, then turned to an all-out sprint for the finish line, a test of physical and emotional wills. At times, she looked deep into his eyes, at others past him. But her touch was undeniably electric, her movements catlike and deliberate.

  “Where to now, dude?”

  Stacy flinched at the sound of his new cameraman’s voice, a thin falsetto with an Oklahoma twang. Julius Candelle stared at him, eyes magnified through thick glasses. “Sorry. Make a left at the light.”

  Stacy was daydreaming again, the image of him and Katie raiding his addled brain. He hadn’t been looking for a relationship—now he was knee-deep in one. How much sleep had he gotten the night before? One hour? Two? Hard to say, but as the afternoon wore on, it was getting harder and harder to concentrate.

  “Seem a little out of it, dude.”

  Stacy stared at the man. The lanky camera op looked older than his twenty-three years, his expression one of wisdom. “Just tired is all.”

  “Too much partyin’ last night?” A silver cross dangled from his left ear, catching the December sun.

  “Something like that.” He had no intention of elaborating—his mother had raised a gentleman. “You can pull over any time.”

  Julius veered to the curb. “What you got in mind?”

  They stared at Banks Park, several kids climbing the jungle gym, a few others gliding down slides. “I just need some B-roll to go with the stats.”