“What the hell is wrong with you?!”  I kicked the stupid juke but it went on playing some sappy song about an earth angel.  I musta dropped ten quarters in, but it wouldn’t play my song.  Earth Angel, huh?  “That’s a laugh,” I thought to myself.  “Ain’t no angels here at End of the Road.”

I looked around.  What a dump.  Half-drunk beers littered the tabletops, the glasses clouded with gray fingersmears.  The neon over the bar blinked and fizzled; made me sick to look at it.  And there was Jake, just slingin’ drinks and ignoring me, like I was invisible or somethin’.  He’s still royally pissed, I guess.  When he found the wedding ring that jerk-off Stan forgot to put back on after we did it, he looked like I’d stuck him in the chest with an ice pick.  “Christ, Jake,” I told him, “you’re only my boyfriend.  It ain’t like we’s married or nothing.”

Somewhere a phone was ringing, but nobody would pick it up; it was driving me buggy.  Well, screw Jake if he couldn’t take a little innocent banging.  Wasn’t the first time, and won’t be the last.

I drifted out the door, just to get away from the damn racket, and this big bruiser pulls up on his hog.  He’s wearing one of those leather jackets with the skull painted on, big tough guy.  Well, he gets off, all that leather creaking like an old couch, and then he walks right into me, practically knocks me over!

“Hey, what the hell am I, chopped liver?” I screamed after him, but he just pretended he didn’t hear and hauled open the door to the End and disappeared.  “Crap,” I thought, “I can still hear that phone.  Why don’t they pick it up?”

I stood there for a minute, looking at the sky.  “Why does Jake have to be so pissed?  It’s Friday night, for Chrissake!”  Well, the moon didn’t give a rat’s ass about my troubles, so I decided just to walk on home.

I started down Route 8 and it was weird, ‘cause it was so quiet I could still hear that phone ringing.  Only it wasn’t coming from behind me, back at the End.  It sounded like it was in front of me.  Coming from the mill.  I couldn’t even hear my footsteps on the road.  Just that sound.  Riiing, riiing.

I came ‘round the corner they call Deadman’s Curve (on account of so many drunks taking it way too fast) and saw the mill there across the weedy lot.  It looked huge and dark, and, I know this sounds nuts, but kinda hungry, too.  Like it was crouching.  Waiting.  And damn if the sound of that phone wasn’t coming from somewhere’s inside.

Gelson’s Mill had been out of there for nigh on twenty-five years, but someone was still calling.  What a hoot.  I decided, “What the hell, let’s find out who’s on the horn.”

I made my way across the weed-a-thon some uptight management-type probably once called a ‘lawn’, with that incessant riiiing, riiing of a phone echoing somewhere’s inside.  I pushed in the door to the front area, and the moonlight spilled in, making these shadows in the archway to the main part of the plant.  I knew where that archway led.  I’d been here before.  In fact, this is where I done it the first time with Jake.  Inside, on the floor of the abandoned mill, on a cheap K-mart blanket.  How romantic it all was!  What a glorious first date!  What a bunch of bull!

The phone was in there, somewhere.  Now I was getting sick of this stupid game, so I just waltzed right into the plant and took a look around.  Enough moonlight was getting in the broken windows that I could see all right, but there were weird shadows all over the place.  And someone was in here with me.  I could feel it.

The sound of the phone was coming from the left, behind some big oil-clotted machine.  There was all kinds of stuff here, catwalks and channels in the floor, so you really had to watch where you were going.  I said, to hell with whoever’s here, I’m answering that damn phone.

I moved off to the left and came around the big machine, and that’s when I saw it.  There, in an open space behind all the mill works, was a blanket.  It was sitting just as pert as you please in a patch of white moonlight.  And there was a phone in the middle.  Jangling away, just scraping at my last nerve ending.  I didn’t care that there was no cord to the phone - hell, maybe it was one of those cordless things they got nowadays.  I strode right over to it and picked it up.

“Hello?”  I said.  Just “hello” like it was an ordinary phone call on an ordinary day.  The person on the other end breathed for a minute.  I waited.  Then she spoke.

“Wake up, sister,” she said.  “Look around.”  Only it wasn’t a she.  It was me.

I looked around, just like me had asked me to, and then I saw it.  Leaning up against that steel thing.  Sitting in a puddle of black ink, only it wasn’t ink, if you know what I mean.  There I was, well, part of me anyway.  The top part.  I guess Jake had decided he would do away with the bottom half.  The naughty half.  What he did with it, I can’t imagine.  But he left the nice part sitting up, hands folded neatly in a lap that no longer existed.  He cared enough to do that much.

I turned back and spoke into the phone, spoke to me a little sadly, a little ruefully maybe.  “I guess I’m chopped liver after all,” I said.

—
© 2009 MK Wolfe.  All Rights Reserved.
www.wordzworthproductions.com

The Marradith Ryder Series Part 8

Ok, so the hot wiring the car took longer than I expected.

Not because I had any trouble doing it, but the neighborhood was just bad enough that no one wanted to park their cars there. Finally, Justin and I found what seemed like a suitable candidate; a midsized Japanese car, silver. We went through a whole little ritual; a quick search of the trunk, glove compartment, and a few other places to make sure there was nothing illegal inside. We switched the plates as well.

The car was clean.

Hooray. Theft from a law abiding citizen.

I got the car started with a touch of the steering column. Justin was impressed, I could tell.

He saw the tiny spark from my fingers as I did it. “You have got to teach me that,” he grinned.

I shrugged. “Hmmmph. Anyway, you’re driving today. I don’t want to get caught driving this thing. When they pull us over, I’ll be sure to tell them you kidnapped me, too.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Partially.”

That shut him up for a while.

We were leaving the state, and I couldn’t help feeling sad about it. This was where my family and I lived most of my life. I wondered if I’d ever see them again, or ever see our house again.

I wondered what Mom would say if she knew her car was at the bottom of the river.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked.

“There’s a couple of choices, but we’re heading North.”

I was surprised. This was an improvement,

He got us onto the highway and we lapsed into an uneasy silence.

Neither one of us brought up the fact that I woke up in his arms that morning.

Not that anything happened. My clothes were on, so were his, and there was a layer of blankets between us. When I woke his chest was against my back, his arms around my waist.

He was warm. It felt nice.

That bothered me. A lot.

It made me wonder about other things. Did he have a home somewhere, and was there a woman in his life? Did being a part of the Sojourners even leave time for that?

What kind of life could I expect if I was going to be one of them?

“When was the last time you ate?” Justin asked.

“Yesterday, probably around lunch. God. I didn’t even think about it.”

“Adrenaline will do that to you. We’ll stop and get a bite. I’m starving.”

“By the way, what do you eat?”

He glared at me. “Not humans, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

We turned into a diner a few miles off the interstate, a Mom-and-Pop diner. There was a good sized crowd inside. The front counter was full, mostly with laborers and truck drivers.

The regulars, I figured. The smell of coffee, eggs and bacon hit me the moment the door opened, making me even more hungry.

We took a booth towards the back. I noticed Justin looking around.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I wished we’d kept moving last night. Just being careful.”

I started looking around at the crowd myself. No one stood out. I didn’t feel the electricity in my spine; the closeness of a Wolf nearby. No one seemed to notice us.

“I think we’re okay.”

He tried for a smile, but it quickly disappeared.

I was relieved when the waitress came. Apparently, so was Justin. He unceremoniously ordered almost everything on the menu. She eyed him. I could tell she was trying to figure us out. Were we a couple? Was he my brother? He paid no attention to her eye batting and lip biting. He nodded politely when she came back with our coffee.

When our food came, we ate in silence.

There was a flat screen television over the counter, and I heard two men at the counter talking.

“Some guy in Fairfield went batshit,” I heard one of them say. “Turn the volume up.”

The waitress grabbed the remote and I watched the bars go up on the screen with dread.

“Justin,” I whispered, and he turned around.

The local anchorwoman was standing in a parking lot that looked familiar.

“This is Shannon Vega reporting from the LessCost Superstore in Fairfield, where

Ted Brown, store manager, went on a shooting spree nearly twenty minutes ago.

We are told that there are eleven confirmed dead, and nine injured. According to the information we have been given by the police department, Brown emerged from the back of the store with a loaded riffle and began shooting at random. When he stopped to reload, two customers attempted to subdue him. With one bullet left in the chamber, he jammed the riffle into his mouth and pulled the trigger.”

The cameraman took a sharp turn to the left, and zoomed in on a girl with tears in her eyes.

“I have with me,” Shannon paused, “Yesenia Lopez, an employee of LessCost who left on a break just before the melee began. Yesenia, is there anything that you can tell us about Mr. Brown’s state of mind? Are there any stressors in his life that you know of which may have caused him to act out today?”

The girl shook like a leaf. “I don’t understand, what happened, it was just a normal day.

He acted the way he always did. I can’t imagine why he’d do something like this. Ted had a wife and kids. I just can’t believe it.”

Shannon snatched the microphone back. “That’s the story here at LessCost Super Store, and we’ll keep you informed of further developments as they arise. Back to you, Tim.”

Justin turned around slowly, but I saw the look in his eyes. “That was the store you went to last night.”

“Yes.”

“Come on, we gotta go.”

“Justin…?”

“That’s not a coincidence. Ryder. They’re following us.”

___
© 2009 Lori Titus

Lori Titus’s The Marradith Ryder Series appears in episodes on Flashes in the Dark. Many of her short stories appear on MicroHorror.com, DemonMinds.com, and Shadeworks.org. An upcoming story will also be featured as a pod cast on SFZine.org. For more information see her at http://www.myspace.com/talesforthedark.