More Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse (10 page)

Johnson looks away and another jolt of the
train nearly breaks his hold on the spike. He hears moaning.

No, not moaning.

Laughing.

She’s laughing at him, the sound so awful
around the protruding spike.

The train jostles him again. He knows he
can’t hold on much longer. He hears the matron’s words clearly in
his mind one last time.

Do you have the gumption?

* * * * *

* * * * *

(alternate version)

With each stride, Brenda Chapman’s running
shoes hit the dirt trail with a muffled, yet satisfying, smack. It
was a hot, humid day at Cone Hill Park and Campground. Sweat
blossomed across the front and back of Brenda’s gray tank top. Her
purple headband was soaked through. She dug in, straining, as the
trail rose sharply. When she got to the top of the hill, she slowed
to catch her breath, walking in a circle, checking her pulse. She
glanced at her watch. So far, she’d made good time, and now it was
downhill for a bit – at least until it was time to turn around and
jog back the way she’d come.

She liked this trail. Not far from home,
never crowded, and she was out in nature, damn it! No cars honking
as they passed, no same-old, same-old of the suburbs in which she
lived. There were some small drive-up campsites spread throughout
the park, but they were rarely in use. And today – she couldn’t
imagine camping in this kind of heat. But jogging; that was another
story.

She stretched, propelling her arms in
circles, rolling her head on her neck. No view up here to speak of,
since the hill was covered in thick, leafy trees. But she liked the
trees, and here their branches reached over the narrow trail,
turning the sunlight into an overhead mosaic.

A thick layer of old, fallen leaves created
a soft, earthy mattress just off the trail, and for a moment,
Brenda imagined lying down on them. Just lay there and stare at the
branches. But no, she thought. I’m a warrior princess! I’m goddamn
Xena!

Besides, she had a wedding dress to fit
into. Time to get a move-on!

She took a deep breath, checked her posture,
and continued her jog down the trail. Her wedding was in a month
and she’d already trimmed off the fifteen pounds she’d wanted to,
so now it was all about keeping them off and working on her tone
and stamina. Besides, jogging in these rolling hills was a great
way to relieve stress. Gee-
suz
there was a lot of stuff to
get ready for a wedding!

A forest-green fiberglass outhouse at the
bottom of the hill marked her halfway point.
The Biffy
Palace
. It stood on a circular gravel surface about twenty feet
in diameter. A service road continued on its way behind the
outhouse to the highway beyond.

Brenda usually just circled it, pretending
to use its gravitational pull to fling her back the way she’d come.
She’d seen that in a movie once, only it had been a spaceship flung
around the sun, not a jogger flung around a pre-fab outhouse.

But this time she actually had to use it.
She wasn’t a big fan of small, confined spaces, but when you had to
go, you had to go. As she neared, she noticed the small indicator
just below the door handle was red.
Occupied
. That was a
first. She considered just going off trail a few feet to pee
au
natural
, but she figured with her luck, that would be about the
time a troop of Boy Scouts came hiking along. She jogged in place,
waiting.

When the door finally opened. a startled
female looked out at her.

Brenda smiled, wiping sweat from her cheeks
with the back of her wrist. “Hello,” she said.

The other woman smiled back. “You scared
me.” She wore a thin pink dress and sandals. Long red hair spilled
over her shoulders.

“
Sorry,” Brenda said.

“
It’s okay.” The woman’s face was
beaded in sweat. She stepped out and stood in front of the
outhouse.

Brenda wondered why she didn’t step aside.
She nodded at the outhouse door. “I need to – ”

The redhead quickly moved aside. “Oh, geez,
of course.”

Brenda jogged inside and shut the door.
Latched it shut.

Occupied
.

The sun shone through the fiberglass in a
toxic-green glow. The venting slots near the low ceiling did
nothing to relieve the stifling heat. The air was deathly still.
Three distinct scents vied for the number one spot in Brenda’s
nostrils; the smell of human waste, of course, and trying to cover
that was a pungent chemical odor – a strong disinfectant of some
sort. It made Brenda’s eyes threaten to water. And to top it all
off was the cloying scent of vanilla – as if a hundred automobile
air fresheners had been tossed inside this tiny fiberglass hut.

Aside from the competing odors, it was just
plain hot in there.

An oven
. Brenda pulled off a long
length of toilet paper, wadded it up and mopped the sweat off her
face and neck. She quickly peed, pulled up her shorts, squirted
some hand sanitizer in her hands and pushed the door open.

Still sweltering outside, but at least the
air was fresh and moving. However hot it was outside, the inside of
ye olde Biffy Palace felt exponentially hotter.

She took a deep breath, bracing herself for
the return half of her jog. The redhead she’d encountered earlier
was nowhere in sight, and Brenda wondered if she was braving one of
the park’s shaded campsites.

She started back up the hill, looking
forward to a nice long shower when she got home.
Looking forward
to settling into Mark’s arms in their queen-sized bed
.

Usually, Mark jogged with her, but today
he’d said, “Not today. I love ya babe, but it’s just too damn hot
out there.” Now, as she jogged her way back up the hill, she saw
his point.

A sharp whistle startled her. A man shouted,
“Hey! Hey you!”

She looked for the source of the noise and
spotted him just off the trail about twenty feet ahead. She slowed.
Stopped. Jogged in place.

“
Yes?”

“
I need your help.” He wore jeans, a
t-shirt, a baseball cap pulled low over a pair of sunglasses and
close-cropped hair.

“
With what?”

“
It’s my wife. Something’s
wrong.”

Brenda grew wary. Something didn’t feel
right. “Where is she?”

“
Just over here.”

“
I’ve got a phone in my car,” Brenda
said, keeping her distance. “I’ll call for help.”

“
I already did that. They’re on their
way. But please – until they get here, I really need some
help.”

Damn it, if the guy really needed help,
she’d hate herself for ignoring him. But still…something about
him…

He was tall and lanky with ropey muscles. He
wore a leather belt with a large knife sheathed on the side. A
small strap of worn leather to keep the knife secure was
unsnapped.

Was that it?

Trust your senses, Brenda told herself. This
did not feel right.

She was about to apologize again, offer more
help in finding more assistance, but as she opened her mouth, he
leapt at her, pulling the large serrated knife from the sheath.

Shit!

She spun around and sprinted down the hill.
She heard the man’s footsteps behind her, heard him shout “C’mere,
bitch!”

Jogging down a hill was one thing, but
sprinting in a near-blind panic was something else.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t
happening,
she told herself, her heart racing. Then
– Watch
your footing
.

The man stumbled behind her; she heard him
grunt, “Shit!”

She glanced over her shoulder. Had he fallen
on his knife?

No such luck. He sprang up.

Don’t look back again. You can outrun
this guy
.

But as she neared the bottom of the hill,
neared the gravel surrounding the Biffy Palace, she realized he was
fast. Very fast. She heard his breath come out in controlled
grunts. He sounded much too close.

Her foot hit the gravel and slid out from
under her. It wasn’t much – she didn’t fall – but a sharp pain shot
up her calf. Damn it!

Should she try to outrun the son of a bitch?
What if he caught up to her? What if he threw the knife and it
caught her between the shoulder blades? The Biffy Palace loomed in
front of her, looking like an oasis in a desert of gravel.

She jumped inside, slammed the door shut and
slid the latch in place.

Occupied
.

Just in time. He pounded on the door,
letting loose a string of obscenities.

Brenda turned in a circle in the cramped
quarters, her heart trying to flee her chest. “Go away!” she
shouted, realizing the futility of the words after they’d left her
mouth. Did she really think he’d shrug and say,
Okie-dokie?

He pounded and pulled at the door. The tiny
building rattled and shook.

Brenda prayed for the latch to hold – there
was no place for her to get a good grip on it – and she was
surprised when it
did
hold. She sat on the toilet seat lid
and watched the latch closely. “Go away!” she yelled.

The pounding stopped.

Brenda looked up, watching the door. There
was the scrape, scrape, scrape of feet on gravel, as if he was
pacing back and forth right outside the door.

What was happening? What did he want? She
could see the knife so clearly in her mind, the serrations like
teeth, ready to bite into her flesh. Was he planning to rape her?
Kill her?
Both?
Christ.

His footsteps stopped. His shadow darkened
the glow of the door. He said in a calm tone, “Come out now and
I’ll make it easy on you. Okay? I won’t make you suffer like the
others.”

The others?
Oh, God.

She remembered the red-headed woman. Was she
nearby? Maybe she was calling for help at this very moment. Please,
please, please let it be so.

“
Come on, it’ll be quick.”

What did he want? Why her? “Go away,” Brenda
pleaded. She struck the door with the palm of her hand. Waited.
Listened. Heard footsteps on gravel pacing back and forth.
I
have to outwait him
, she thought. Eventually someone will come
along. Someone with a cell phone. What dummy wouldn’t have a cell
phone on them?
Just a dumb, jogging dummy who’s trying to stay
in shape for her wedding
.

She’d need to warn them somehow.
The guy
waiting next to the Biffy Palace has a knife! Call the cops!
Hopefully, they wouldn’t get close enough to the bastard to get
stabbed.

Why didn’t I stay home with Mark? He’d been
right. Way too hot, way,
way
too hot to be jogging.

In the meantime, she’d wait.

As long as she had to.

I’m not going to die in a
Biffy
Palace
for Christ sake.

If she had to wait for the end of the world,
she’d do it. Until then, this outhouse – this damn
Biffy
Palace
– was occupied.

There was graffiti on the walls. Phone
numbers, epithets, a squirting phallus, an eye with the words
Repent, for the End is Near
. Most was written or drawn in
marker, but not the eye – that was
carved
into the
fiberglass wall, etched above the toilet paper dispenser with a
sharp instrument. And what detail! There was a glint in the eye,
the beginning of a tear forming in the corner. The letters below it
were written in calligraphy. The time and skill it must have taken
to do all that…the
patience
.

Insane patience, Brenda thought. She
shivered at the image. Beautiful, but those words...

The End is Near
.

Wait, Brenda thought. I should carve my name
in the wall. The date, time of day.
Clues
, in case this
guy... In case…

And if she
carved
clues in the
fiberglass, that guy, that
madman
wouldn’t be able to erase
it. He could disfigure the writing with his knife, but it would
take time, and maybe if she left clues in a few spots, an obvious
spot for the killer to see, and then one not so obvious for the
cops to find...

Okay, what to write with? Car key! She
pulled her Honda key from her pocket and examined it. Normally,
she’d have her entire set of keys; house key, car keys for both the
Honda and her fiancé’s Escape, the key to her parents’ house, the
key to her office building. But when jogging, all those keys became
uncomfortable pressing against her thigh through the thin material
of her jogging shorts. She always pared down to the essential Honda
key, the rest of the keys waiting for her in the vehicle’s glove
box.

She hoped that using the key to carve into
the Biffy Palace walls wouldn’t render it useless. It would suck to
race to her car only to find the key no longer worked in the
ignition. But she had to take that chance.

Holding the key tightly, she pressed the tip
against the hard shell of plastic and began to scratch. It was
harder than she’d anticipated. She pressed harder, scratched
faster. There. Slowly, but surely, it was working.

BRENDA, she scratched.

Sweat dripped from her face, her neck,
adding to the large, growing stain on her tank top.

CHAPMAN.

She tore off lengths of toilet paper, mopped
herself off, and dropped the wet paper into the toilet.

952-555-6390.

Her hands and wrists were sore, but she
wasn’t finished.

Where else? She crouched on one knee and
scratched her name and number close to the floor. Her sports bra
and tank top felt like a hot, wet sponge. Sweat dripped in her eyes
and ears. Jesus, was it hot! And that scent, that cloying scent of
vanilla. Only it wasn’t really vanilla, was it? No, it was some
sort of
faux
vanilla. And that smell barely touched the odor
of chemicals and crap coming from the toilet. She reached for
another handful of toilet paper, her nose passing within inches of
the toilet lid. That shit and chemical smell combined with the faux
vanilla…