Hindered Souls: Dark Tales for Dark Nights, page 8
"Go for it," I consented. He headed into the store. I pulled out my phone again, and started to call Nina. Then I decided not to. Not just yet.
I found myself at the side of the truck, leaning over the bed. I wanted to know if Jarlo had anything at all under those damn branches. It kind of felt like I had a right to know.
I pressed my hand against the side of the pile. Yeah, okay, I was checking to see if anything was kicking in there. I didn't see anything move. I started digging in among the limbs toward the bottom. I wasn't hitting anything.
Caught deep in the tangle, though, was a piece of material almost the same dark green shade as the truck. When I yanked it free, I held it up and kinda snorted. It was a thong.
"Looks like you're the real devil here, Jarlo," I joked to myself. I plied deeper into the sticks.
I pulled out a white bra next. There was blood on it.
Now I started tossing the sticks out of the bed. There were more panties, at least four more pairs by the count, three of them for sure blood-stained. There was another bra sticking out from the bottom of the pile. There was blood on it too, with long hairs matted to it. I wanted to believe this was just one of those fetish deals I saw sometimes in my club. But that’s not what this looked like. It looked like shit from a crime scene.
This time, I took out my phone, and dialed 911. If this guy was a serial rapist, or worse, killer, I couldn’t let him just sail on down the road adding to his collection. This was a chance to do something good and selfless. This was an opportunity to actually look out for other human beings, not just exploit them. Maybe it was because I was in the middle of nowhere with no one I knew around me. Maybe thinking outside of those circles freed my brain, or soul, or something. But I didn’t even think about just walking away and keeping my mouth shut. That still stuns me when I consider it. Like I said earlier, who was this guy reporting this crime?
The 911 call didn’t connect. And Jarlo had just come out of the feed store. He walked across the rickety wood porch, across the dirt parking lot, and came straight up to my face.
“You been watching that Devil?” he asked.
I retried 911 again as I spoke. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been watching.”
When he didn’t say anything, just stood there while I put my phone to my ear, I tensed up and swallowed. I had a bigger frame that him—he was a fairly skinny guy, Jarlo, and though I ain’t the brick wall I use to be, I’m still some kind of wall—so I felt like I could take him without too much trouble. Wildcard was I didn’t know if he was packing.
The 911 call failed again. I put away my phone with a frustrated huff, and looked him square in the eye.
“Can you wait for me, Jarlo? I wanna try the next exit,” I tried to con him. I wanted to get to a better phone in the store. “Let me run inside and take a leak real quick, alright?”
“Can’t wait,” he told me with a head shake.
“Hey, come on! I thought we were buds here. You and me versus the Big D! Come on, I’ll just be a second—”
I walked past him, toward the store.
“Stop,” he said angrily. I turned around. Yeah, he was packing. Nine millimeter. Looked like it needed to be broken down and cleaned.
He was holding it down, aimed at my feet. Most chumps who draw down on you like that ain’t gonna fire. But he was also loopy as hell, so that didn’t mean diddly shit. Not to mention he’d probably used that gun before.
“Okay,” I nodded. “Okay. Just…let me come with you, alright? Let me help you get where you’re going.”
“You gone far enough. I see that Devil coming back in your eyes. You can’t help me no more,” he concluded.
Jarlo glanced at the back of the truck, then backed toward the driver’s side door. He got into the cab. He had the gun up at the wheel at this point, but I knew I was too slow to rush him effectively.
“He ain’t gonna let you call the cops, neither,” he told me after starting the engine back up. “This be between me and him. He ain’t gonna let anyone else fight this fight.”
As he slammed his door shut, I yelled at him.
“Jarlo! Keep picking the right side! Alright?”
He hesitated, nodded, then mouthed back, “You, too.”
The truck drove off. I thanked my stars he was crazy enough to let me live. I went into the feed store, explained the whole nuts-ass thing to them, and they let me use their landline to call up the fuzz. Thus ended the Jarlo excursion.
That whole damn thing is still so out of place in my life. I get up, I have coffee, I check my stocks and watch the news. I check in at the club, I shoot the shit with the regs, and I even tell them about the cross-country ride I took last year. I don’t ever tell them about Texas, though. Talking about Texas is like speaking another language. Yours, I guess.
And every day, I’m still trying to figure out just what the devil was said. Dumbass pun intended. I do know that before, I didn’t sometimes find myself wondering what some schizophrenic rapist-murderer, or whatever he was, was up to at the moment. I guess ‘occasionally’ is understating it. More like every time my mug hits that mirror. Every time I wonder if I missed a chance to pick the right side.
But, you know…you got something else to say, just say it. Let me know if I’m doing this life shit right this time. Or whatever. Amen.
Treehouse
by Robert Allen Lupton
The sycamore tree in the back yard was the main reason Marilee and Garth loved the house. The hollow trunk was twenty feet across and the opening bricked over.
“It’s a true colonial built in 1785 with the original Franklin Stove. The windows and insulation were updated about twenty years ago,” said the realtor.
Marilee said, “Tell us about the tree, why’s the hollow bricked closed?”
“There are pictures taken after civil war when the tree was fifteen feet across. The hollow trunk was open. The opening was bricked closed during the great depression. My grandmother said tramps and hobos liked to sleep inside the tree.”
“Did your family own this house?”
“No, grandma lived down the street. She said the homeowners found two dead men inside the trunk. Everyone figured the men had built a fire to keep warm and suffocated from the smoke. The wife was so terrified the husband walled the hollow closed.
Garth tapped on the brick enclosure and said, “There’s a sycamore this big in a park in Pennsylvania. The trees live five or six hundred years and become hollow when they turn three hundred. This one is bigger than six hundred square feet inside. I’ll run electricity and install a door and windows. It will be the best guest cottage in the world. I want the house, let’s buy it.”
****
Garth and Marilee worked on the dormant sycamore that winter. They removed the bricks, cleaned away the mortar, and used them to build a patio and fire pit. An electrician ran power for lighting and electrical outlets. The fifteen foot tall opening was framed and two casement windows and a glass door installed. They wanted to the trunks interior charm, so they left the rough wood untouched.
Garth accosted the electrician because he fell asleep twice when he should have been working. The man said the tree made him feel weak and dizzy.
The framing crew complained that working inside the tree made them groggy. One of the men cut himself badly cutting lumber and another fell off his ladder.
Marilee painted and stained the framed opening and decorated the inside of the guest house with furniture, carpets, and tapestries. They installed a television and reading lamps.
“Garth, I’m tired. I guess I’m getting old, I’m exhausted after working in the tree house.”
“Me, too. I’m glad we’re finished. You did an amazing job, it’s a real elfin house. After dinner, let’s chill a couple bottles of wine, watch the game, and spend the night in the tree.”
“Could we build a fire and snuggle on the patio before we go to bed,” asked Marilee with a sparkle in her eyes?”
“You’ve read my mind.”
After dinner, they walked arm in arm to the hollow tree and sat together on the couch.
They never made it to the patio, they went to sleep watching the game.
Two days later the realtor found them on the couch, their desiccated bodies covered with tendrils sprouted from every direction and encasing the couple inside a web of fine rootlets. The tendrils twitched in her direction, crawling mindlessly across the wooden floor and probing blindly through the air. The roots behaved like they could see or smell her.
She screamed and ran away.
She refused to list the home because the mortgage company wouldn’t agree cut down the tree or tear out the guest house and re-brick the opening.
The new realtor sold the home the first week it was on the market. The newlyweds thought the elfin bungalow was perfect for his parents.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
by Theresa Braun
I chucked my work phone into the gutter, watching it shatter into a small shit storm of fractured plastic and metal. A feeling of satisfaction pumped through my veins. Ha! They’ll probably take that out of my paycheck—bastards!
I looked up to find out where the hell I was and spotted a hanging sign that read ‘The Rising Sun’. It was just the sign I needed. Time to get shitfaced ‘til dawn. My buzz was already coming on. I realized I’d walked past this pub a few times while heading to my hotel, so I could stumble back there without much effort.
I passed the textured glass lit up from within the pub. The words above the corner door said ‘Public Bar,’ making me wonder if some bars weren’t public, and how I might get an invite to those places.
Inside, chandeliers cast ominous shadows on the wood paneling. The joint was too classy for any neon signs—not the kind of hole-in-the wall I was hoping for. My dress shoes clacked on the floorboards as I approached the bar. The glasses stocked on its overhead canopy leered at me.
A couple sucked each other’s faces at a corner table, the woman’s bare leg thrust up in her boyfriend’s lap, her hiked-up jean skirt giving me a view of her black panties. One of the man’s eyes opened and met mine in a warning to look away or there’d be trouble. I had no interest in ogling anymore of that side show. I could fire up the internet later if I wanted to see something worth getting hard over.
I parked my ass on a stool at the bar, trying not to spin on the seat as it rumbled and wavered. I felt like a kid on some kind of ride. Someone must’ve really loosened the thing. Maybe one of the regulars was Thor or some shit. Not too many regulars out after midnight, apparently. All the other stools were empty.
In a heavy British accent, the bartender spouted, “What ya hav’n, chap?”
“Whisky on the rocks.” I crossed my arms and planted them on the bar.
He didn’t ask what kind, but grabbed a bottle and glugged some of the amber-colored liquid over cubes of ice in a short glass. Loneliness hovered around me like buzzards waiting for the rest of my life to collapse. They wouldn’t be waiting long. My personal phone was still playing dead in my pocket. No one would be messaging me. My instinct was to dial up Jamie. Old habit, but I had to break it. She was probably deleting every trace of me from her digital and actual life. Hopefully, she wouldn’t smash all my old vinyl records while she was at it, but I knew I had to be prepared to kiss them all goodbye.
I needed to get my head together, figure out my next move. Getting the band back together crossed my mind. And not to play covers, but to create our own material. That had always been a kind of musical masturbation, but not just us jerking ourselves off. Someone else would hear that shit and say, “That turns me on, too.” That’s music. That’s what I missed. The days of playing with the band were long over. My life was spent.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone sit down next to me. Of all the goddam places to sit, you couldn’t give me some space? Turning would be an invite for conversation, so I stared into the mirror lined with shelves of liquor. Next to the back of the bartender’s bald head, I caught a glimpse of the stranger. His pretentious hair cut fell over his weathered face. His red collared button down must’ve just come right out of the damn package. There was something about this dude that was oddly familiar, like maybe I’d seen him in a billboard somewhere.
“How’s it going, mate?” The man made eye contact with the bartender and pointed to the empty space in front of him where there should’ve been a drink.
Is that a pick up line? Maybe I do know him. Regardless, I didn’t go in there to be bothered, but didn’t want to be an asshole. “Do I know you?” I didn’t turn my head. Yeah, I’m being an asshole.
“We’re all connected somehow or another.” Even his deep voice sounded familiar.
“I suppose.” This guy is so gay. Either that, or he’s about to appear on Oprah’s “Super Soul Sunday.” One good thing about the divorce—wouldn’t have to hear any of that garbage on TV anymore. My gaze was still fixed on the reflection ahead of me.
I’d be damned if I was going to get sucked into a philosophical conversation tonight. I couldn’t recall anyone that I ever knew who actually gave two shits about any of that crap. Well, maybe Jamie. With her, in the beginning, it was fun—to see her face light up, probably thinking about how we were deeply connecting. I pushed her out of my mind again.
A few minutes of silence allowed me to watch the water from the ice mix with my drink. The glass felt cool to my lips and I slugged most of it back. The stranger studied me in the mirror’s reflection. Maybe he’d pay up his tab soon and get going. He didn’t.
The couple at the corner table had come up for air, both of the woman’s legs draped over her pimp’s lap—or maybe she was screwing him for free. Now that I could see her face as she rested her head on his shoulder, I thought I’d need to be paid to even consider tapping that.
As I looked down, the dings and gauges in the wood of the bar made me wonder if Shakespeare had once set a pint of ale down on it. I picked up my second glass and rattled the ice, then sucked a cube into my mouth and crunched it. When I set the glass back on the bar, it slid along by itself for a few inches and stopped. The trail of sweat from the glass shined before starting to evaporate.
“The place’s supposed to be haunted,” the stranger said.
Did he see it too? I don’t believe in that bullshit. But then again, my glass had just acted like it was slowly sliding into home base. “Yeah?” I didn’t want to hear about it, but thought it might take my mind off of things while I waited for the bartender to return. They always seemed to disappear when you wanted your check.
“Yep. Used to be an inn. The family that ran it killed some of the visitors and sold the bodies to medical science—a real bloody body snatcher scenario.”
“No shit.”
He traced the rim of his glass with his finger. “Strange occurrences are always happening in here, especially after closing. Can’t keep the bartenders too long. They eventually get spooked and literally throw in their towel.”
“I see. You the manager?” Where’s that damn bartender? Or maybe I should just throw down some cash and be done with it. I fumbled through my pocket for my wallet and slapped it on the counter.
“I’m the owner. Family business. Grew up with all the specters. They’re family, too.” His finger still circled the rim because I could hear the slight hum.
I drummed my fingers on the bar. “I’m sure you have some good stories.” None of which I want to hear. Guy’s friends are ghosts? I somehow attract all the crazies.
“I don’t mean to put you on edge, mate. But I have to say that you came in here with a pack of demons on your heels. Life’s been beating you down?”
I threw back the rest of my booze. “You don’t even want to know,” I muttered.
“Try me.”
The whisky burned in my throat and also burned away most of my giving a rat’s ass about what I might say and not say to this weirdo. It’s not like I’d ever see him again. “Last business trip of my life.”
“Congratulations?” He smirked, his cheek dimpled.
I laughed, swirling my drink that I thought I’d finished. Maybe I hadn’t. “Yeah. Congrats, alright. You’ve no idea how much corruption I’ve seen over my lifetime.”
“You’d be surprised.” He sneered, slurping the rest of his liquor and wiping his mouth.
“You don’t want to hear my problems.”
“That’s what I do—almost became a psychotherapist.” He motioned for another round to the bartender whose bald head gleamed.
“Therapist, huh? Okay, let’s see what you’ve got. Well, I should’ve never listened to my parents and walked away from that music scholarship.” I wondered if the dude behind the bar would do another sleight of hand and feed me more whisky.
He had this blank look like he’d heard all this before, but being in the pub business probably lent itself to hearing a whole bunch of shit. “Good old folks probably just didn’t want you to starve.” He chuckled. “What’d you end up studying?”
I wasn’t so sure what he was laughing at. “Business law.” Just saying the words made my veins twitch and my stomach crawl.
“What happened after graduation?” His green eyes bored into mine as if this question held the meaning of life.
I looked away and back to my glass. The bartender poured more whisky over the ice. I lifted my chin in thanks. “Married the love of my life.”
“Brilliant. Then what?”
“After years of my having to answer the phone on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and during sex, she left me.” I paused, swallowing some of my refill. “I suppose I drove her to it. I mean, I wasn’t even around to give her any kids.”
He grunted and I could see him nod out of the corner of my eye. “So, after all that sacrifice, I bet your company sold you down the river.”
“Yeah. Never got any thanks for it. Plus, I got so tired of covering up their cheating and skimming money. I finally snapped.”
“So, what’d you do, have to put up your own ‘employee of the month’ picture up?” he asked.
