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A Beginning Ends
by Brian D. Moore
Sucking sandwich bread from between his teeth, he leaned in close and checked them in the rearview mirror. He pulled back, smiled at himself, and then winked.
Looking good, Mr. Mail Room Supervisor. He couldn’t quite believe it himself - and at a bank, no less - then twisted the mirror so he could get the whole effect with the white shirt and snappy tie.
That’s right. I’m talking about you. His dad had been right; a fresh start in a new town was just the thing. There was no stopping him now that he was on the right track.Leaning back in his seat, he scooped in a breeze with his left hand. The cool air prickled his skin, but felt fresh after the long winter. He checked the dashboard clock - 12:20 - right on schedule to make it back from lunch with a few minutes to spare.
He reached over and tucked his empty sandwich bag into the little cooler. He didn’t like to eat in his car, but he’d rather risk a few crumbs on the carpet than waste his lunch-hour jawing with the brown-baggers. Plus it felt right in his car, alone, taking a breather from thinking about how a Mail Room Supervisor should behave. And it fell damn good to have his own car. He rubbed his hands along the steering wheel; only fifty-six more payments and it was all his.He pinched a few crumbs off the console, flicked them out the window, then settled back into his seat. Ahead of him, the road snaked through fresh-plowed fields then rose over a hillock to meet the brilliant blue sky. Shadows cast from roaming puffs of cloud rolled across the fields and a rich organic scent rose from the turned earth. He pulled in a deep nose-full and caught the clean scent of the fir trees lining the ridge off to his left.
It feels so good to be outside.
His mind drifted to his old crew wasting away inside, shuffle-stepping along in single file. He shook himself out of it. He’d been lucky to leave home when he had - before things got out of hand again. He’d just made it. You’re on the outside - look around you - be alive. Yep, he’d been damn lucky.He sped up to enjoy the tight feel of his new car as he wound it through the low hills. Jabbing on the radio, he rolled the tuner through the nearly empty airwaves, pausing at each station to wonder if that’s what bankers listened to: farm reports? talk? violins? He shrugged--he wasn’t ready for any of those, yet, and reached to shut it off. With his hand on the knob, he stopped. Everything didn’t have to change at once, did it? Now that he was away and making it, what could it hurt?
His hand spun to the end of the dial and paused before backing the tuner into the station lurking there. He braced himself for it but still flinched when the first frantic beats throbbed through the car. He kept the volume low at first, waiting, testing. Slowly, the black vapor swirled into his eyes. It came in so slowly, long streamers whisping at the edges of his vision, that he thought he was in control and turned it up. The fog billowed in response and churned into his brain where it eddied and began collecting into misshapen forms. The music’s energy had him then, and he cranked it up until it thumped against his chest, his heart racing to keep up and his palms slapping out the beat on the steering wheel.
Then the tempo slowed and deepened and he swayed with it, forward and back, forward and back, until the pace sped up again and then the forms clotted into leather-clad heathens who whirled through his brain, stomping and circling and closing in. He pumped his foot on the gas pedal as he leaned into the big curve past West Creek. The tires squealed in his pulse heated ears and his head bobbed at the musical effect.Pulling out of the curve, he was set to floor it when he spotted a car parked on the narrow shoulder with its driver’s side tires still perched on the road. Hitting his brakes, he swung to the middle of the tight two lanes and swept past it. The car was empty. He turned back to the road and that’s when he saw her.
A hundred yards ahead, a tall girl wobbled along the sloped shoulder on narrow-heeled city shoes. She wore a yellow dress that blew against her legs and a long sweater belted tight around her waist. Her right hand held the short strap of a black purse, while the other stretched flat down her thigh. The ogres in his head bled into the clean serenity of the scene before him, and flayed it. He squeezed his eyes shut then snapped them open and saw her clear, stepping closer to the ditch and hunching her shoulders as he drew near. She shouldn’t be out here, he thought. Not alone. He checked the clock—12:22—he had time.
Slowing to match her pace, he leaned over and peered up at her through the passenger window.
“Hey,” he said.
She looked up at his car through a shield of blond hair, then back down to pick her way over the uneven ground. A hand reached up to hook her hair behind her ear, but stopped, trembling, just short.
It must be the music, he thought, and rolled the knob to subdue it. “I saw your car back there,” he said, his voice flat in the sudden country stillness that echoed in his skull before his hungry mind locked onto the muted thumps and the throbbing beat rushed back in. He wiggled his palm against his ear. “Looks like you need a lift.”
She looked up at his car again and this time her eyes followed his voice into the car. She shook her head and fine hair swished across her lean face before the wind caught it and blew it away from him in yellow-gold streamers. Her bottom lip quivered, and then she dropped her glossy wet eyes and continued picking her way along the shoulder while he crept along next to her.
He looked ahead to where the road swept around another curve. There was nothing in sight except, way off, the steeple of the Lutheran church poking above a hilltop. Way off. Could she even make it all the way to town in those shoes? What’s with her, he wondered. His car was brand new: not some rusty beater. And he had on a tie. As he looked back at the church, wisps of black ribbons unwound from its maypole spire, swirling down into the fists of stomping hulks in patch-leather hoods.
He shook his head clear and then checked himself in the mirror. Everyone in this burg thought he looked like Joe Dependable. Leaning closer to the window, he laid his right arm over the back of the passenger seat. “Come on. I’ll give you a lift into town.”She didn’t even turn her head.
“It’s not out of my way. I’m headed back to work,” he said. “I work at the Bank.” The last word rang loud and very clear and he waited for it to take effect.
She stood still and faced him. He stopped the car, nodding to himself. Bending at the waist, she looked through the window, hooking her hair behind her ears before folding her arms across her sweater. Her eyes met his for a fast moment then darted away down his shoulder to fix on his arm. Following her gaze, he saw that his sleeve had ridden up, revealing a chaos of homemade tattoos. He tugged his sleeve down.
“I’m fine,” she said and straightened up. “I’ll just walk.”
She spoke slowly, her voice surprisingly deep, but shaky, and the last word vibrated up his spine to echo through the crowded darkness in his skull, masked heads turning towards the sound. He shook his head.
“You can’t walk from here. It’s nearly two miles,” he said. “Get in.”
She shook her head and started walking. His hands wrung the steering wheel but he didn’t move. He just sat still and let her go, watching her teeter on her heels with her purse held out to the side for balance, beasts crouched and huddled around her, one leaning in to sniff her hair. When she was a hundred feet away, the dark shadow edge of a cloud mass plowed across the field, jumped the ditch, and caught her in mid step. She wrapped one arm around herself and pulled her sweater tight around her neck with her other hand.
He took his foot off the brake and let the car ease up behind her. Her steps got quicker, her white shoes flashing over the gray gravel, but she didn’t look around. Away to the left, the protecting summit of evergreens petered out at the edge of a cattle feed lot. With the wind-break gone, the breeze kicked up and drowned them in the sharp stench of cow it dragged over the hill. She hunched her shoulders and ducked her head between them.
A fiend walked backwards in front of her, its long purple tongue darting in and out. She was running out of time. If she didn’t get in soon…. He held the wheel with his knee and adjusted his tie tight up against his neck. What’s with her? 12:24. This is crazy.Pulling his car around her, he angled it onto the shoulder to block her way, and threw open the passenger door.
“Come on,” he said, leaning out the door. “It’s too cold out there for a girl in just a sweater. Plus, it stinks.”
She stopped and took a step back and looked up at him before turning her head away with a small shake, her lips silently mouthing over and over, no, no, no.
“Come on, lady! I gotta get back to work - at the bank - I can’t be late.”
She took another step back, turning away from him, and pulled her arms around herself, her head still shaking.
“Suit yourself.”
He turned the wheel and floored it, tires spitting gravel down both sides of the car and the door swinging shut, a crowd of them slipping inside with him.
12:25. He could still make it back on time if he left her here alone. But she should take his ride. He checked for her in the rearview mirror but it was still aimed at him and framed skin creased tight around his piercing eye. In his black pupil, yellow fluttered then torched into a scarlet flash. He twisted around and saw her skirt whirling in the wind.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he yelled.
Around the next curve, he pulled off the road and backed down an overgrown shrub-shielded pair of ruts where a farmhouse had once stood. He stripped his tie from his neck, wound an end around each hand and then snapped it taut between his fists.
I am not that guy. I am not that guy. I am …TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY CLICK HERE
© Moore, 2005
Brian is new to the horror writing game, falling into it naturally because he writes while zombie tired and bleary eyed in the hours just after midnight. When he is fully awake, he works a day job and coaches youth sports in the Chicago area.