Highway To Hell (7 page)

“Yes, Venice is always lovely, I love it in February time. I don’t know why, there is just something about it, and in the summer it’s just too hot. Anyway, are you sure you’re alright, dear? You don’t look at all well. Maybe you should have a lie down.” The concern in Marion Dubois’ voice was genuine. She hadn’t seen how bad the nosebleed had been, nor did she notice the change of clothing, yet the change in Helen’s appearance, her white face, cold hands and distant starry eyes was unmistakable.

Helen didn’t hear her, however. . .

All she heard was a deep guttural growl not unlike that of a hungry stomach. Helen stopped working and looked up. She knew she was in the salon, she could see it, including the hideous piece of modern art that occupied the majority of the wall opposite both the main entrance and Helen’s regular workstation. However, Marion Dubois was gone. In her place was a shriveled elderly woman, someone she didn’t recognize but looked as though she belonged in a fairytale, possibly offering an apple. The hag looked at her, and Helen simply stared at her. She was a witch, complete with a large hooked nose adorned by a large hair-sprouting wart. Her eyes were as black as coal and they held Helen’s gaze and she could feel her skin begin to burn and prickle with heat.

Helen began to sweat, her hands were clammy and her heart increased to such a tempo that it felt as though it was pumping in slow motion. Her mouth was dry and her tongue felt bloated and useless in her mouth. The witch’s hand, which she only then remembered she was holding, tightened around her own. The grip seared her flesh, while the long, gnarled nails – more like talons – sliced into the meat of her arm. Delicate tendrils of smoke rose from her arm, seeping between the witch’s fingers as the flesh continued to cook beneath her grip.

The witch continued to speak, her words vile guttural sounds. Helen shook her head as the hot, sulphur-rich breath hit her.

“Helen… Are you sure everything’s ok, dear? You really don’t look very well,” Marion asked again, repeating the question that had until that moment gone unanswered.

Helen rose from the table without saying a word. The world around her started to burn. The walls of the salon caught fire and the floor melted away around her feet. The black and white vinyl floor tiles bubbled while the fixtures all sank into the floor, giving the entire place a strange, lopsided, Salvador Dali feel. Helen looked around. She saw the girls leaving their clients and rush towards her. Only their faces had twisted into something inhuman, their eyes glowing like fire embers. Ms. Dubois was also there, standing, her arms still held out as if demanding Helen turn her attention back to the manicure. Her face was expressionless, her mouth continuing to open and close like a fish as she (or so Helen presumed) chatted away, oblivious to the world around her.

“The baby.” Helen dropped her hands to her stomach, clutching at the belly that was yet to swell, as she said what would prove he be her final words before she collapsed. Her life was over before she hit the floor, her eyes glassed over as if intoxicated. With her last breath exhaled as she fell, her final words were destined to remain a mystery.

~

IV

Sammy

“I can’t believe you, I really can’t,” Mandy Jenkins snapped, her temper flaring after an evening of drinks with her friends, most of them fellow students.

“I’m sorry, babe, I am, but you know I don’t like it when people start talking about that sort of stuff; it annoys me,” Sammy Westford answered, never taking his eyes from the road. Mandy had woken him and begged Sammy pick her up from the bar she was in because she had drunk way too much to drive, and didn’t want to have to take a taxi back to her place because her roommate would get angry with her for coming home so late. Mandy had been unlucky enough to make friends with a devout Christian called Emma Wilkinson during her freshman year at university and had never been able to shake her off since. Although Mandy herself had been raised to be a rather devout Catholic, her parents to their credit understood her decision, or simply recognized her stubborn streak and allowed her to go her own way, find her own path.

That being said, Emma was a good friend, one of the best Mandy had ever had; even if her strong religious views and firm standpoint on sex before marriage had made for some rather interesting conversations when Sammy and Mandy had first started dating.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Sammy. You fucking embarrassed me in there tonight. I mean, Jesus Christ, would it kill you to try and behave around my friends just once?” She gesticulated with her hands. Sammy didn’t have to take his eyes from road to know that she was mad with him. She was drunk and therefore she was mad at him, although he would admit that on this occasion her anger, although a little excessive, was justified.

“I don’t want to argue, Mand, you’re a bit drunk and those guys took the piss, and only because I don’t have a college education or drive a fancy car. I work hard to make my way, and you above all people should know that I enjoy what I do. I’m proud of who I have turned myself into so don’t get angry with me, or take their side; not tonight.” Sammy wasn’t angry with her. Mandy didn’t go out often and seldom did she get drunk, but whenever she did it was always the same routine. She would call him up, he would go get her, and then they would argue about how he was rude to her friends. It was a cycle that stemmed from the main difference between them; their backgrounds.

Sammy was a 22-year-old construction worker, someone who came from a family of borderline degenerates, someone who was never given much of a chance in life. His two brothers were petty criminals, and his sister lived on benefits in a house provided for her and her four children while she chased child support payments from the four different fathers. His parents divorced before he was even born. Sammy was the baby of the family, the youngest by quite some way, and it was his conception, in fact, which had placed the final lid in the coffin of their relationship, with his father questioning his mother’s fidelity. The question was never answered; his father always preferred to pose such important questions with his fists or other handy appliances rather that with his tongue. Sammy called him his father, but in truth he was only the father of Sammy’s sister, who was conceived while his mother was engaged to another man (who for the sake of the record was not the father of either of Sammy’s brothers). Sammy never knew his own father, and he in turn escaped his family as soon as he graduated high school. Although he had the brains for it, he knew with a strange levelheadedness at an early age that he wouldn’t benefit from going to college. He liked the idea of working with his hands, and so he packed his bags at the first opportunity and moved to a different city, away from his family in Denver, and began a series of cross-country adventures before finally landing in Baltimore, where he had been ever since, living just outside of the main city in the suburb of Edmonson. He had moved around a lot, living in rented accommodation, moving from city to city, working construction for whatever company was hiring, before he was finally offered regular work with Whiting-Turner Construction, whom had now been his employers for 2 and a half years.

Mandy Jenkins couldn’t have been more dissimilar to Sammy if she tried. Her family were rich, her father a doctor, head of cardio thoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins while her mother was a stay-at-home mom, dedicated to her children, never moaning, always willing to spend her time aiding them in whatever they needed, from conversations or advice through to simple transport, something that would have never crossed Sammy’s mother’s mind.. She was too self-obsessed to even notice Sammy had moved out of the house until three weeks later. The first phone call to check on his whereabouts came three weeks after he had left home, just as he was about to pack up his bags and move for the second time.

Mandy had one brother who, while only in first in his year at Stanford, had already been headhunted by some of the largest law firms on both coasts, not to mention a few from abroad. Mandy herself had chosen to follow her father into the medical profession, choosing dentistry. It was in a bar near the University of Maryland where she just begun her second year that Mandy met Sammy.

Their meeting was unremarkable, although over the years as their relationship developed so did the embellishments they made to their tale. It went from a case of being squashed together at the bar trying desperately to order drinks, only for Sammy to turn around and sacrifice his turn so that Mandy could order, only for them to find themselves trapped against the bar and unable to get back to their respective groups (which was as close to the truth as the tale ever got), to something far more interesting, versions of which included Sammy climbing onto the bar and walking across it, jumping to the floor only to sweep Mandy into his arms and walk out of the bar with her. Their story became a game to them; they took it in turns to create the most embellished version possible just to see how many people believed it. The one constant was the mutual instant attraction.

Despite having next to nothing in common – different background and varied interests – they made it work. Sammy was a fan of action movies, particularly those from the 80s and early 90s, while Mandy was more interested in the old Hollywood pictures, and of course a good romantic movie. Sammy read sports magazines and the occasional comic book, while Mandy had developed a taste for the classic English authors such as Thomas Hardy and the entire Bronte family. Yet despite it all something between them clicked. The only thing they shared was a mutual indifference to any one style of music. They had been together just over a year now, and they had learned everything about each other. Sammy had been slow to open up, and still hadn’t told Mandy everything about his past, or his family, but she knew that and was happy to wait. Mandy’s parents had reserved their judgment of him, listening at first only to the background tales of his youth; however after having met him a few times they both admitted he was one of the good guys.

They argued, of course, but most of the time it was over silly things, as is the case in any relationship. Their current interaction wasn’t so much of an argument as more of a drunken conversation after an incident between Sammy and Nathan Woodrow, a student friend of Mandy’s who was infatuated with her and determined to try and score points against Sammy every time they met.

“Why not tonight, Sammy? What’s the problem with having this conversation tonight? Do you think you can take me home and get some action from the drunken girl?” She slurred her words, slashing the air with her hands.

“Listen, Mand, I am sorry, that guy is a cock, and just the thought of him makes me want to slap him in the face with a brick. I’m sorry but it’s true, he baits me every time and I always fall for it, because he’s an ass, and he wants you, to take you from me. I don’t want to fight about this, so let’s just go home, and we can talk in the morning when your head has cleared a bit,” he reasoned, staying calm as best he could. Sammy forced himself to keep his focus on the road, not even allowing himself the chance to throw her so much as a sly glance.

“That’s just like you, Sammy: never talk it out, just let Mandy cool down and she’ll give it up anyway. You never want to fight, you never argue back; well this time I’m not letting it go,” she snapped, and there was a tone of pure frustration in her voice that made him believe her.

“Come on, Mandy, I don’t like fighting. You know what I saw my parents go through, not to mention the string of stepfathers I’ve had. I’ve seen what arguments turn into,” he said, trying to steer the conversation in a new direction.

“Well you can’t hide from everything, Sammy. You were happy enough to fight with Nate back there.” She threw back the catalyst that had caused the fight in the first place, just in case he had forgotten.

“Drop it, Mand, Jesus, just pipe down and let me get you home alright?” Sammy found his patience slipping. His grip tightened on the steering wheel, and although he knew he would never hit a woman no matter what the circumstances, he could still feel rage building deep down inside him. He forced it down: an argument was the last thing he wanted, and he would avoid it at all costs.

“Why, are you gonna ignore me, sleep on the sofa, wait until morning and hope it’s all blown over?” She continued to push, somehow intent on making a big deal over a snide comment that Sammy made when he arrived – despite the fact that Nate had been throwing his own snide remarks around about Sammy the entire evening or close to it – and his refusal to sit down and have a drink.

“No, I was going to propose, you silly mare. I busted my balls getting everything set up the way I wanted before you came home.” Sammy blurted it out, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer. He had been planning the best moment for several weeks, the ring purchased a few months before, just in case the opportune moment arrived early. He had spent the bonus he had been given by his boss on a bottle of expensive champagne and a punnet of strawberries, coupled with scented candles, and a plan for a hot bath scattered with rose petals. Only for Mandy to call and say she was going out for drinks instead.

“What?” Mandy’s mouth stopped after that one word, her mind all of a sudden sober, as if the previous sentence had blown all of the windows out of the car, letting the cool night air and steady rainfall wash the alcohol away.

“That’s right, I had this whole romantic evening planned, and everything was perfect until Nathan got in the way,” Sammy began but stopped himself; he had finally turned the corner in their disagreement and didn’t want to go throwing any more fuel onto the fire.

“You were going to propose?” Mandy asked in a moment of clarity so stark and sudden that it slapped the remaining haze of her drunkenness and all thought of arguments out of her mind.

“Yeah,” Sammy answered her, not certain that an answer was needed.

“Were,” Mandy repeated.