Black Stump Ridge (3 page)

He said nothing for a long time. The silence stretched until she could almost see it, like a wall of clear taffy – shimmering and impenetrable – standing between them.

Fred opened his eyes. His voice trembled. “How long you gonna be in town?”

“I guess that depends on you. I can stay a week, maybe more, if you tell me the story.”

He nodded. “I’m assuming you got a hotel room somewhere in town.” He waved his arm, encompassing the Del Mar Motel in its sweep. “I can’t see you wanting to sleep here.”

“Actually, it’s a motel room,” she laughed. “I’m not doing
that
well.”

“All right. Go back to your room and get a good night’s sleep. I need time to think about this. Come back, say noon tomorrow. I can’t promise my answer will be different. I just need time to think about it.”

Amanda studied his face. His skin was waxy beneath the gray stubble of his beard. Pain and something else – fear? – haunted his expression. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Kyle. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Don’t thank me, yet. I just said I’d think about it.”

“I know, and I think I understand.”

He stood and turned to go up the steps.

“Mr. Kyle.”

He stopped, his postures that of a man who expects a heavy blow from behind.

“Would you rather have Wendy’s, McDonald’s, or Burger King for lunch?”

“Save your money, girl. Most of my meals come out of a bottle these days.”

She shrugged. “I can’t stop you from drinking, but I really don’t want to eat alone. You can either tell me what you want or you can take your chances on what I think you should eat.” She studied him for a moment. “Probably Wendy’s. I figure plain salad. Maybe a grilled chicken breast – skinless of course. A baked potato with a little margarine but none of the fixings.”

“You’d be wastin’ your money,” he growled.

He turned and looked at her. For the first time she saw something in his eyes besides pain and sadness. There was a twinkle of amusement as they verbally sparred. For just a moment she saw the man he’d been twelve years before. She looked away as she tried to understand a new realization: that man had been attractive. More than that, he’d been sexy.

“Just ’cause you bring somethin’ don’t mean I’m gonna eat it.”

“That’s true.”

“If you’re dead set on seein’ me eat somethin’,” he capitulated, “how ’bout a Whataburger?”

“Whataburger?” She frowned and then brightened. “Omigod! I haven’t had Whataburger since, well, since we moved to Missouri after Dad died. Where do I find one?”

He laughed. “I ain’t for sure. I don’t get around much since I only use the bus. Should be one near your motel. You can spot it by its orange and white striped roof.”

“Oh, I think I saw one not too far from here. By the highway, right?”

“Could be. Could be.”

“Okay. Whataburger it is. And, don’t order some little sandwich and nothing else. If you do, I’ll just add to it.”

“All right, all right. I know when I’m beat. Get me a double meat Whataburger with mayo, ketchup, onions and lettuce. A jalapeno on the side. Large order of onion rings. They still make the best rings in this whole God-forsaken city. An’ a slice of hot apple pie. That better?”

“Much.”

“One more thing, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“What’s that, Mr. Kyle?”

“Bring a quart of whiskey with you. Jim Beam.” He reached for his wallet, and then remembered it was in his room. “Just give me a minute to get you some money.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Kyle. I’m sure I can afford a bottle of Beam.”

“Make it Kentucky Driver. It don’t cost as much.”

“I’m not worried about the cost.”

“I ain’t bein’ kind, I’m bein’ practical. I don’t want it for the taste. I want it to kill the pain. Cheap will do just as good for that. Maybe better. The good stuff’s for the good times. We won’t be talkin’ about any o’ them.” He turned and shuffled up the steps. The door locked with a sharp snick.

Amanda stared at the empty stairwell. Her thoughts raced. At last she turned, walked around the car, and opened the door. She scribbled Fred’s food request on the paper lying on the center console. She stared through the windshield for a moment.

“Where the hell’s the closest liquor store?” she asked the reflection in the small rearview mirror.

 CHAPTER TWO

Fred spread the slats of the cheap mini-blind with his thumb and forefinger. He stared down at the roof of Amanda’s rented Impala. The car was motionless for several moments. At last, it moved forward. It circled in the small parking lot and headed for the exit. It stopped below Fred’s window as the traffic on the street halted for the traffic light. Despite the gravel dust powdering the darkened glass, Amanda’s left shoulder, torso, and upper legs were clearly visible through the driver’s side window. The shoulder harness angled snugly across her body. The strap accented the swell of her breasts beneath the white silk blouse. Her short skirt rode high on her thighs. He caught a tantalizing flash of white fabric. He sighed as he backed away from the window. The slats closed as his hand fell to his side. The coltish teenager was now a very attractive woman.

“Don’t even think about it, Fred,” he chided himself as he willed his growing reaction to subside. “That there’s Johnny’s little girl. He’d climb right out o’ his grave an’ kick your ass just for thinkin’ about it. Besides, she’s about half your age. Bad enough she sees you for th’ uncle you ain’t been in years. Don’t need to make it worse by actin’ like an old pervert, too. Next thing y’know they’ll be arrestin’ ya down by some playground.”

He looked about the room, seeing it and its contents as if for the first time. Worse, seeing them as someone else might see them. As
she
might see them. How had he fallen so far? Was it the drinking? Some, maybe, but the drinking wasn’t the root. It was that weekend, that horrible, deadly Thanksgiving that took his four best friends away from him and left him with the pieces of a shattered life.

He ignored the squealing protests of the ancient bedsprings as he first sat down and then lay back on the crumpled comforter that served as a blanket in colder weather. He clamped his clenched fists tightly against his temples. Memories raged through his brain like black and red thunderclouds. He squeezed his eyes shut but the images refused to leave. His mouth twisted open in a silent scream.

•

“Johnny! Look out!”

John Carlyle looked back at Fred. Actinic lightning flashes accented the joy on the man’s face – the adoration in his eyes.

“Can you see him, too?” Johnny shouted. He turned back toward the abomination rising above him. Fred watched, horror stricken, as the creature closed on his friend.

“Johnny! There’s no one there!” he shouted. From somewhere – from everywhere – from nowhere – the insane screeling of a demonic fiddle filled the air. “Run, Johnny, before it gets you!”

Waving tentacles reached for Johnny.

“You’ve come for me, Michael.” Johnny stepped forward, his arms rising and opening to embrace the thing standing before him. “You really do love me!”

His arms wrapped around the creature’s rubbery torso. Its tentacles seized his upper and lower body. Johnny’s burbling, ululating scream punctuated the wet, tearing, bone-cracking noise of his body as the being pulled it in two. The fiddle’s tempo increased. Its volume grew until it rivaled the crashing of the storm.

“Johnny!” The wind carried Fred’s scream into the storm-tossed mountains.

•

Fred’s eyes snapped open. He stared blankly at the cracked and yellowed plaster ceiling. With his eyes he tracked along one of the cracks until it reached the insect-speckled light fixture in the center of the ceiling. Despite the translucent cover and the daylight filtering into the room through the blinds, the fluorescent light stabbed into his eyes. He blinked and looked away. The small TV set mounted on the wall, the low table with its litter of empty beer cans and nearly empty microwave dinner containers all helped to bring his mind back – back from the mountains, back from the forests, back from the death. He raised a shaky hand to cover his eyes as his tears flowed down his cheeks.

He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. When she came tomorrow to push and to prod and to cajole and to beg he wouldn’t be here. He’d get up early and catch a city bus and go somewhere. To the library. To a park. He’d be anywhere but here.

He shook his head. No, that was a lie. Coward though he might be, he was afraid to not be here, too.

She had no right to do this to him. He’d been through enough. What made her think she could just come into his life like this and drag his soul over the broken glass and razor blades of those memories? Wasn’t it bad enough that he returned nearly every night? That he relived every horror? Revisited every death? Must he do it during the day, too?

What about Johnny’s secret? The shame and fear he had shared with Fred before he died? Did Fred have the right to lay that at her feet? There was no way he could tell the story without revealing that, too. How much pain was she ready to take? How much could he deliver?

He sat up and looked around. He sighed, shook his head, and stood up. Out of habit he went to the small refrigerator and looked inside. Two six packs of beer still in their white plastic templates sat on the narrow shelf. He thought for a moment and then shut the door. Beer was not what he needed. Not tonight, at any rate. Tonight would be bad. Dreams. Memories. Nightmares. He needed something a lot stronger than beer. He needed anesthesia. Oblivion. He needed blackness so deep that no vision from hell could penetrate it.

He opened his wallet and took inventory. A monthly bus pass. Two twenties, a five, and three ones. He nodded to himself as he slipped the wallet into his front pocket. He stepped outside, locked the door, pocketed his keys, and headed down the stairs.

Maybe I’ll get hit by a bus or a car,
he thought as he walked across the dusty parking lot toward the bus stop. He chuckled to himself — a dry, whispery sound totally lacking humor.
Not likely. That would be a good thing. Good things don’t happen to me anymore.

 CHAPTER THREE

The hands on the Baby Ben alarm clock pointed at 1:17. The clock’s ticking echoed in the silent room. Amanda sat in a rickety, armless wooden chair. She ignored the wicker fragments poking into her butt. Fred stretched out on the sagging double bed. He wore another wife beater shirt, this one free of stains, and he’d swapped the work pants for a pair of Bermuda shorts. His fish belly white scrawny old man’s legs nearly glowed in the room’s dim light. Tightly closed mini-blinds blocked the early afternoon sunlight. Fred cradled the bottle of Beam on his lap, its seal unbroken.

Amanda’s eyes darted here and there as she looked around the room for perhaps the hundredth time since stepping inside. It was surprisingly neat, if a little small. Besides the door to the stairway, there were two others. One led to an unexpectedly large closet, the other opened into a tiny bathroom. Inside she could see a small freestanding sink, a toilet, and a shower stall.

Behind her stood a refrigerator. Next to that was a low, two-drawer vanity and a small round table. Three feet above the table, on a metal platform bolted to the wall, rested a modest twenty-two inch color television set. On the wall parallel to the bed were a small, window unit air conditioner and a set of shelves filled with canned goods and packages of dried foods, dog-eared paperback books, and DVDs. Recalling the conversation of the day before, she chose not to peer too closely at the titles. She was no prude, but if someone she knew chose to look at pornography, she preferred not to know about it.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Fred said without looking up. “I thought about it like I promised. Thought about it a lot. In fact, I didn’t get much sleep from thinkin’ about it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry. What’s done’s done. That’s somethin’ your father used to say all the time. Guess you know that, though. Anyway, it’s not the first night’s sleep I’ve lost from thinkin’ about it. Won’t be the last.” He shuddered. “Nope. Not the last by a long haul.”

She waited. He stared at the bottle. When he looked up she shivered. His eyes bore the look of a man staring out from the depths of madness.

“You want some?”

She shook her head.

He broke the bottle’s seal with his thumbnail. “Grab a couple of those glasses off the table behind you. I’m gonna pour you one anyway. You might find you want it before I’m done.”

She looked behind her at the round table. Five empty tumblers rested near the back. She grabbed one and passed it to him. He took it, filled it half full of amber liquid and handed it back.

“There’s ice in the fridge, if you want it. Hand me the other glass. I’ve decided to be polite, though it don’t bother me to drink from the neck.”

“Really, Mr. Kyle. I don’t want any.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself. How about you set it close by so you can get to it if you change your mind.” He tilted the bottle, filled the other tumbler, and took a big swallow. He re-capped the bottle, looked at it for a long moment, and then set it on the floor by the bed. He rolled the glass between his hands as if warming the drink.