I had a rough conversation with my boy today, about him and his girl. It put me in mind about the time I found my ma sitting alone in the kitchen on a hot summer day after she had a doctor’s appointment, looking out the window and across the empty, overgrown fields. She’d tried calling my dad at work about something, she said, but he wasn’t there. I asked was Dad gonna be home late and she said no. She told me to sit down; I did. Most boys have their rebel phase around fifteen, but I’ve been a mama’s boy all my life.
I sat opposite her at the kitchen table, not knowing what to do or say. She reached out and grabbed my hand. Didn’t say anything, but kept a hold on my hand. Tight. She had that look, when you want to say something but can’t, you know what I mean? Then she got up and went to the cupboard, took out a two-thirds full loaf of white bread and jar of peanut butter. Setting it on the table with a couple of knives, she said, ‘I’m going to eat all of this, d’you want to help?’ I said sure, not like I had anything better to do, and we set to it.
Now, the peanut butter was smooth and I’m a crunchy guy, but it didn’t matter, not with the white bread, and I could still lick out the bits that stuck to my teeth. That was always my favourite part with peanut butter. It tasted sweet somehow. Time we finished, my ma had flakes of PB smeared around her lips.
She held my hand again and looked at me for what felt a lot longer than the few seconds it had been, then turned and looked out the kitchen window. The sun had started to set and hovered above the fields. ‘It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?’ she said, before coughing. I agreed with her.
Things were good back then, I thought.
Conrad Gardner’s writing has previously been published by AutoFocus, Superlative, and AEL Press. He is based in Herefordshire, England.
Jim Nash sat in the backroom at the Keno machine looking on as the wrong numbers lit up, confirming his continued failure. He grabbed the bottle of Budweiser sitting next to the machine, its beading moisture dampening his hand, and took a heavy swig, swilling it around in his mouth, savoring the carbonated bubbles as they popped on his tongue. He put the bottle down and grabbed a half-smoked cigarette from the adjacent ashtray, inhaling and exhaling like a monk meditatively calming his ever-accumulating nerves. Jim was as bald as a monk, that was for sure—all his hair was on his face.
Jim wasn’t from White River—he was an out-of-towner. No one in town really knew him, and that was the way he liked it. That was why he moved out here to bumfuck South Dakota in the first place, out near the reservation, where the population was sparse. He loved it.
Grabbing another beer from the cooler and making a gesture to the cashier as if to signal his intention to pay for it later, Jim walked back into the gaming room and slid another five-spot into the hungry mouth of the Keno machine, which subsisted on a healthy diet exclusively of leafy greens. Jim didn’t give a shit whether he won, he just enjoyed sitting there, drinking beer and smoking cigs as the numbers lit up. He scratched at his long, scraggly, salt-and-pepper beard, rubbing away the collected alcoholic moisture collected on his moustache.
Jim lost again. He didn’t have much luck when it came to Keno, or gambling in general for that matter. He patronized all the numerous local gambling establishments, even the Rosebud Casino, but he couldn’t win the big bucks anywhere. He would win the big bucks someday, though—he felt that in his ageing bones. He could wait until then; it was no problem for him. What he would do with the big bucks, he had no idea. Maybe move to Colorado, build a house on top of a lonesome mountain.
Jim lifted himself from the barstool next to the Keno station—an indent of his ass remnant on the cushion—and paid for his beers. He walked out the door—out onto the gravel road. White River, being as small of a town as it was, had narrow gravel roads everywhere other than Main Street. Jim twisted the key in the ignition of his green, 1993 Ford F150, pulling out of the parking lot onto the road. He drove from the side street out onto Main in the direction of Mission, the adjacent, small Lakota-Sioux reservation town. From there, he would drive to the other side of the reservation, to Rosebud Casino. It was Friday evening—that’s what Jim did on Friday evenings. He lit a cigarette and continued down the road.
Turning up the AM radio, Jim caught the staticky action of the Todd County Falcons, who were playing the neighboring—though out of state—rival Badgers from Valentine, Nebraska. Jim liked football; his eyes widened hearing the excited voice of the commentator.
Jim stared out the opened window as he sped down the road, cool wind from the outside autumn air brushing against his face. He smiled. Jim had no real human relationships—he connected with nature: with the wind, the rain, and the trees. That’s what he told himself, at least. It didn’t matter, anyway—he didn’t need any friends. That’s why he had moved out to bumfuck South Dakota in the first place—to escape people; especially people who were ‘invested in his life’. He hated that. He wanted to be left alone.
It was halftime. Jim, annoyed with the lengthy commercial for the local Buche Foods grocery store, switched from AM to FM, to the indie rock station, and turned up the volume. It was Svefn-g-englar, bySigur Ros. Jim leaned back, enjoying the ambience. It was such an amazing song—it fit in so well with the naturally bleak, endless dry plains of South Dakota.
The streets of Mission were empty. They were always empty—the only places anyone went downtown were a small coffee shop and an amazingly shitty pizza place. Jim wasn’t sure how anyone could truly fuck up pizza to the point that it was nearly inedible, but this place managed it. It tasted like soggy dough topped with semi-solidified, overly sweet ketchup. The streets were even more empty than usual, though, because everyone was up at the high school watching the football game. Jim put the pedal to the metal and exited the small town, onto highway 83—that straight road through the beautifully barren South Dakota steppe; its tall, golden grass waving in seemingly endless unison, like an Elysian hay-sea.
The radio continued, now playing Your Hand in Mine, by Explosions in the Sky. Jim liked emotional, ambient music. He wanted the music itself to make him feel something, not the words. Sometimes, when he got good and drunk, music could be powerful enough to make him cry. He would sob like a bearded baby. Not even for any real reason, either—just the beauty of the organized chords.
Jim stared out the opened window, letting the cool breeze invigorate him. It was sad. There should be bison grazing in these fields. Jim knew there were still bison in other nearby places, but there should be more. Colonizers had destroyed the life and land of the bison, just as they had the indigenous peoples. Tatonka meant bison in Lakota Sioux, Jim had spoken to enough people around the reservation to at least learn that.
About halfway to the casino, Jim pulled off the road into a drive-in fast-food restaurant called Moonlight Diner, his favorite place. Looking at the menu, his truck idling in its parking spot, Jim considered his options. He still hadn’t tried the Rocky Mountain oysters—he wasn’t sure that he would ever be able to bring himself to do that. Jim wasn’t at all a picky eater, but eating testicles was too much. He settled on fry-bread taco, a bag of flaming-hot Cheetos, and a banana milkshake. That would be plenty to fill up his stomach—soak up the previously consumed booze so he could level-headedly consume further.
The rest of the way from Moonlight Diner to the Rosebud Casino was a breezy drive. Looking up, Jim saw the Sicangu Village water tower, which stated that Water is Life. Jim always used the water tower as a signpost, alerting him that he had made it to the casino, otherwise—considering how much he enjoyed staring out into the fields—he might miss it.
“Water is life, and casinos are money,” Jim said to no one as he stepped out of the truck onto the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. “Supply casinos with water, and you’ve got both life and money.” Jim chuckled at himself, walking inside.
After grabbing a couple Budweiser’s and an ashtray, Jim went straight to his favorite slot machine, called Sky Rider. It featured artwork of several women who rode dragons. Dragons were good at collecting gold, Jim knew that from reading The Hobbit so many years ago. He trusted them to handle his money.
Jim never played poker, craps, or blackjack—he lost all his money too quickly doing that shit. Plus, he had to talk to people to play those games. Jim just wanted to sit back, relax, drink a few beers, and smoke several cigs—just like he did at the gas station Keno machine, though in a different location.
Jim slid a ten-spot into the greedy, squealing machine, subsequently mashing the BET ONE button again and again to no financial avail. Eventually, he leaned back in his black, fake-leather chair, taking a momentary break. He would lose all his money too quickly at this rate—he needed to pace himself if he was going to spend the whole evening in the casino. His meager pension only went so far; if he spent much more, he wouldn’t be able to afford Buche’s overpriced ham, eggs, vegetables, and cheese the following week. Jim was never happy when he didn’t have the necessary supplies to make his morning Denver omelets; it was one of the most important parts of his day. He had been using the same frying-pan for years—a chipped nonstick pan that was light as a feather. Jim loved it—he could cook anything with that pan, especially omelets. Fluffy omelets, too—American style—not that rolled, gooey French mess.
Jim blinked. He had been zoning out. Sometimes thinking about food caused him to do that. He downed the last of his bottle of beer and lifted himself from the seat, walking toward the bar to get another round. The victory bells were dinging, the lights were flashing, it was Friday night at the casino. The sights and sounds always made Jim so happy. It didn’t matter to him that he never won—he didn’t give a shit about that—he just wanted to witness the atmosphere, to silently participate, in however small of a way, in the local culture.
“One bottle of Bud, please,” said Jim sliding a five-spot across the counter. The bartender took it, shoved it in her drawer—which dinged excitedly, just like the slot machines—and handed Jim his one-dollar change, which Jim subsequently dumped into the tip jar.
“Thanks, honey,” said the bartender. Jim hated it when people he didn’t know called him shit like ‘honey’, but he was in a good mood, so he let it slide. Normally, he would’ve been prone to do some serious bitching and grumbling.
He turned away from the bar right into the short barrel of a Glock G45.
Jim blinked. The needles of sudden onset terror and anxiety pricked his face and the back of his neck. He blinked again, now registering what was in front of his face. He felt so weak. His vision blurred. He moved to get the fuck out of the way, but he was too late.
The gunman lifted the pistol and whipped the hell out of Jim’s wrinkly forehead, bruising it black instantly. Jim fell hard to the red-patterned, dirty carpet. He was out cold.
* * *
Jim blinked. Everything was dark and foggy. He felt tired. Lifting his head, he again almost passed out, though forcing away the drowsiness and planting his elbow into the carpet, he lifted his body forcibly. Jim couldn’t tell if he was truly tired or not. The blow of the gun had fucked him up bad; that could be causing his drowsiness. Jim also more simply felt tired in stressful situations, and he was at the current moment stressed the hell out.
He got up and looked around the casino. No one was seated at any of the machines. It at first looked like the place was empty, but upon further examination Jim noticed that it wasn’t. There was a collection of people kneeling on the ground on the opposite side of the room, near the free soda and coffee station. Their eyes were sad and uncertain—they looked afraid. Another group of people were squatting near the glass of the front door, looking out into the parking lot. Jim limped over to where they were.
“What the hell’s going on?” he said, rubbing at his throbbing head.
“Fuck, dude!” said a younger man, who introduced himself as Curtis Kills-in-Water, “We didn’t think you were going to wake up anytime soon! We noticed you were breathing—we were checking on you! But no cops or EMT’s have been able to get in here yet.”
“Why not?” said Jim, removing a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it.
“Damn, bro!” said Curtis, “Look the hell outside!”
Jim peeked through the glass, seeing outside a black-masked figure encircled by several cop-cars; their lights flashing more brightly than even those inside the casino; their sirens wailing like they’d just won a million fucking bucks.
“Coppers got him, huh?” said Jim, chuckling under his breath while massaging his wound.
“Looks to be the case, my man,” said Curtis. He began laughing as well, but before he could get very far into it—before his sides could really begin aching with the cramp of true elation—a bullet pierced the glass. It then pierced Curtis’s skull, squirting blood and bone all over the screen of a flashing nearby slot machine.
Jim, screaming involuntarily like a rabbit cornered by a coyote, and fell back to the ground, though this time on his ass. He looked back outside. Pops from guns rang out in the parking lot, mixing horrifically with the blaring sirens and the music playing inside the casino, which no one had yet turned off. Come and Get Your Love, by Redbone played loudly throughout the gaming room as if it were oblivious to what was going on. The slot machines, also unaware of the severity of the situation, continued ringing, dinging, and singing—even the one covered in blood—advertising their games.
Jim clutched at his chest, which was quickly tensing up. He again felt weak—his arm had gone numb. He started blacking out, though through the shifting fog of his deteriorating vision he saw the gunman sprinting back into the casino.
A hail of bullets trailed the gunman, but none hit him. Turning behind his back, he fired a shot, striking and killing a police officer instantly. The bullet pushed into the cop’s sweaty brow, through his brain, and then outward, flying into the air and taking his policeman’s cap with it, which spun through the air like one from a Mario video game Jim had seen local kids playing.
Blood and brains painted the parking lot.
Jim fell onto his back, struggling to maintain consciousness. He wasn’t successful.
* * *
“We have to help him!” shrieked the voice of a middle-aged woman. She was pointing to the floor at Jim. She was wearing a casino employee’s uniform, but Joe-Ben didn’t give a shit about that. Joe-Ben was frantic; he had fucked up his plan. He had merely wanted to rob the casino; he thought he was doing something good by doing that, anyway. Casino owners were thieves themselves when you really got down to it.
Joe-Ben wasn’t from the reservation; he lived in nearby Valentine, Nebraska. He had played linebacker for the Badgers, playing every year against the Todd County Falcons of the reservation. Joe-Ben liked the reservation—he thought Mission was a nice enough little town—he just hated the Rosebud Casino. His father had spent the majority of Joe-Ben’s childhood at the casino, blowing his money and ruining his liver. He never came to any of Joe-Ben’s football games, and now he was dead, buried back in his hometown—back in Omaha—miles and miles from his wife and kid. It was a fitting resting place. Joe-Ben, feeling robbed by the casino, wanted to rob them back. Plus, he was broke as a fucking joke—he needed the cash.
It was the casino’s fault; that’s why he had never had a relationship with his father. That’s what Joe-Ben thought, at least.
Joe-Ben blinked.
“We have to help him!” again yelled the lady. Joe-Ben looked at her. She was wearing a manager’s nametag which read Sarah Afraid-of-Horses. Joe-Ben then looked to the ground, where Jim lay writhing, detached from reality though still in pain.
“I don’t know what the fuck to do for him, lady,” said Joe-Ben.
“You have to let the EMTs in here so they can get him to a hospital.”
“No can do,” said Joe-Ben.
Sarah turned away.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Joe-Ben, pointing the pistol at her, but Sarah didn’t listen. She returned a moment later with a glass of water, which she tried to give to Jim. Jim sloshed the water around in his mouth, only capable of swallowing a little from within whatever subconscious realm he at that moment inhabited. He smacked his lips, sticking his tongue in and out like a rude child. Then he again passed out.
Sarah Afraid-of-Horses knelt by Jim, doing what she could to keep him alive. Joe-Ben stood stone frozen, unsure of what he should do.
“Fuck!” he eventually yelled. “I can’t go out there, lady! I just killed a fucking cop!”
“That’s on you,” said Sarah, “You need to face the consequences of your actions. You can at least still do something good by allowing this old man to continue living. If you don’t leave soon, he’s going to die.”
“Aw, fuck that old man!” said Joe-Ben aggressively, though his cracked tone of voice communicated doubt and intense guilt. Without another word, Joe-Ben dropped the gun and exited the casino, his hands above his head. The police, which had now converged in force in the parking lot, quickly tackled and cuffed Joe-Ben, grabbing him by the back of the head and shoving him into a nearby cop car.
EMTs rushed into the casino, lifting Jim onto a stretcher, and wheeling him to an ambulance.
Sarah Afraid-of-Horses looked on as the ambulance pulled away. She wondered where they would take the old man. He probably wouldn’t last all the way to Rapid City, but that was probably where he needed to go. Sarah then saw a cop walking toward the casino entrance. Sarah hated cops, but she knew she would have to talk to this one. She wondered whether he had seen his friend get blasted; she didn’t want to have to explain all of that to him.
She looked across the gaming room. Casino patrons were still mostly cowering in the corner, though they had begun to emerge back out into the open. Sarah noticed the blood sprayed all over the nearby slot machine. It was one of the most popular games at the casino—Sky Rider. They would have to get that cleaned up ASAP, she knew; it was a real money-pit, that one. She breathed heavily; it was going to be a long night.
* * *
Jim Nash awoke only briefly on the way from the Rosebud Casino to the hospital. His chest still hurt; his breathing was heavy. He was confused.
“Wha… where the hell am I?” he said to no one.
“Stay with us, sir,” said an EMT, “We’re going to get you to a hospital.”
“A hospital?” said Jim, “Why?” Jim couldn’t remember a thing; his memory had been wiped clean—a tabula rasa. That was okay with him, though. He didn’t like knowing things; he didn’t like being acquainted with people. He was only comfortable in quiet, foreign places where people left him alone. He didn’t even dwell on why he was in the ambulance—it would sort itself out, soon enough. He was sure of that.
Jim Nash wondered if he had a family. He then closed his eyes, this time never to open them again. The stretcher was quite comfortable, really.
Robert Pettus is an English as a Second Language teacher at the University of Cincinnati. Previously, he taught for four years in a combination of rural Thailand and Moscow, Russia. He was most recently accepted for publication at Allegory Magazine, The Horror Tree, JAKE magazine, The Night Shift podcast, Libretto publications, White Cat Publications, Culture Cult, Savage Planet, Short-Story.me, White-Enso, Tall Tale TV, The Corner Bar, A Thin Line of Anxiety, Schlock!, Black Petals, Inscape Literary Journal of Morehead State University, Yellow Mama, Apocalypse-Confidential, Mystery Tribune, Blood Moon Rising, and The Green Shoes Sanctuary. Money Games is one of the stories he recently wrote. He lives in Kentucky with his wife, Mary, and his pet rabbit, Achilles.
Lisa followed Duncan up the road, shining her torch beam down to dodge the clumps of horse manure. The thrill of sneaking out of their house in the middle of the night was fading; they walked up this road every morning to catch the school bus.
“This is a stupid idea,” she mumbled.
Duncan’s torch was fixed on the tall, shaggy hedge beside them, and when he stopped she stumbled into him.
“It’s a superb idea,” he said, covering his hand with his jacket sleeve and tearing at the brambles and nettles in the hedge. “Ha! Found our portal.”
Lisa watched him pulling away more clumps of vegetation and snapping back brambles and branches. When he stood back, and she could see the hole in the hillside, its earthy edges fringed with torn leaves.
“It’s smaller than I expected,” she said. “Are you sure this is it?”
He nodded and snapped off another tendril of bramble. “It’s exactly where Tom said it was, he came up here with his stepdad last summer.” Then he grinned, holding the torch under his chin to make his face gargoyle-ish. “Let’s go inside!”
They had to bend almost double to squeeze through the opening, but after a metre or so the tunnel opened up into a small cavern which they could stand up in. Two arched passageways branched away from the cavern ahead of them. It was dry and cool, and the rich brown earth of the walls and floor was packed solid. A fine dust like cocoa came off on Lisa’s hands where she touched the wall. She wrinkled her nose and wiped her palms on her jeans.
Duncan rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a tent peg and a ball of bright orange twine. He drove the peg into the ground of the entrance passageway with his heel, and tied the end of the twine to it before walking backwards a couple of paces, letting it unravel.
“So we won’t get lost,” he said, pleased.
“What about the roof?”
“Well, it’s been there for two hundred years, I don’t see why it would fall down now.”
Lisa looked uncertain.
“It’ll be fine,” he said brightly and started down one of the passages.
“What about your bag?”
“Just leave it there, no one’s going to nick it are they?” he called over his shoulder. “I want to see if we can find part of the actual mine.”
Lisa followed him, treading gingerly on the packed earth. “Is this not the mine?”
“No, just an adit. They cut them to drain the water away. The mine proper is further in.”
Lisa tried not to trip over the twine that he reeled out behind him like plastic spider thread. She thought about people digging these tunnels by hand, burrowing into the hillside.
“Grandad was a miner, wasn’t he?” she asked, hoping Duncan’s cheerful chatter would fill the gloomy corridors.
“Yeah! Well, Great Grandad. Bill Bennett. He was a hero.”
“Tell me the story again.”
“There was a cave-in up at Boswellen, and three men were trapped behind a wall of rubble, and Bill took his lamp and his pick and he dug them out. Took three hours. One had died but the other two survived. They were all in the paper, Mum got that photocopy from the library.”
The passage had started to grow narrower, and Lisa had to turn sideways so that her shoulders didn’t scrape the dirt from the walls.
“Duncan-”
“Hey, look – I think this is where the adit joins the mine!”
She looked over his shoulder and saw the passage ended in a rounded wall with a slanting, oval-shaped hole about half a metre wide and a metre high. Duncan crouched down, shining his torch through the crevice.
“It is! The walls are rock, and I can see the supports. Look!”
She crouched down beside him and peered through the hole at jagged walls glistening in the torchlight, logs jammed in at odd angles. She looked down.
“Train tracks?” she said, frowning, and Duncan tilted the torch beam downwards and laughed in excitement. “Did they have trains down here?”
“Yeah, kind of. Not engines. They had tracks like these and they’d run carts up and down to get the copper up to the surface.” He stood up and stepped back, sizing up the hole. “We can get through there.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” she murmured as he knelt down and reached into the crack, twisting his torso to fit the slant. He didn’t answer, wriggling through the gap until his legs and then his trainers disappeared. She crouched down and peered into the hole. Duncan’s face appeared on the other side, bleached in her torch beam.
“See? Easy! You’ve got to come through, Lise, it’s wicked.”
As Lisa stumbled to her feet on the other side she coughed and brushed at the earth on her arms and her legs, then stepped carefully out of a loop of the orange twine they had brought through with them, like threading a needle. It was colder here, and when she reached out to touch the rock it was damp. It looked black, streaked with dull greens and reds and she tapped it with her fingernail. She couldn’t imagine how anyone had carved a whole tunnel into something so hard. How could a man, someone tall as their Dad maybe, even swing a pick in this cramped space? She thought about Bill Bennett and the miners trapped behind a wall of rubble.
“Did lots of miners die in the mines?” she asked Duncan, who was inspecting one of the wooden supports a few feet away.
“Oh yes,” he said, picking at a bit of sodden wood. “Thousands.”
She swallowed. “Are there ghosts, then? Do you think?”
“Probably! Let’s go a bit further.”
As Duncan started walking down the track and whistling, picking his way between the rusted sleepers, she felt a pit in her stomach as cold and dark and damp as the one they were standing in. She picked the twine up from the floor and let it run through her hand as they walked. It made her feel safer somehow to be tied together like mountaineers.
They reached a sharp curve in the track and Duncan stopped. He turned around and said “Hey, I have an idea. Let’s switch our torches off. Just for a few seconds. It’ll be completely dark, really pitch black!”
“I- I guess. Can we go back after though? I don’t really want to be down here any more,” she said quietly, trying to sound casual. Duncan looked surprised.
“Sure. Yeah, ok. We can always come back.”
She nodded.
“All right,” he said and held his torch aloft, thumb on the switch. Lisa did the same and squeezed the twine with her other hand. “On three: 1… 2… 3!”
Lisa screamed as a pale face swam out of the blackness where Duncan had been standing moments before. Then it was Duncan again, in the torch light, worried and holding her arm, the twine dropped at his feet.
“Are you ok? What happened?”
“I saw one! A ghost!” she cried, hot tears prickling in her eyes.
He squeezed her shoulder. “What did you see? Exactly?”
“His face,” she said, miserably. “Right where you are. It was really close!”
“Was it definitely a face?”
“Well,” she sniffed. “It was kind of blurry.”
He smiled. “It’s ok, I know what happened. I think you saw an after image. You were looking at me, right? When we switched the torches off? It’s kind of an echo in your eyes. An optical illusion.”
“An illusion?”
“Yeah. Nothing to worry about. I’m sorry, I should have thought.”
“S’ok,” Lisa said biting her lip and staring at her trainers. She felt like a little kid.
“Let’s get out of here,” Duncan said and swung the torch around the passage one more time. “Goodbyyye!” he called out in a spooky voice. They listened to the echo until it had faded, then stood in silence. Lisa noticed a sound she hadn’t heard while they were walking, the sound of water ticking on stone. Drip drip drip.
It seemed to be getting louder. Or maybe closer.
She glanced at Duncan, who was frowning. So he’d heard it too. Around the noise the silence was stifling. She wanted to say something – or rather, she wanted Duncan to say something – but the words stayed curled in her throat. It was louder, and longer, and the drips didn’t sound clean and clipped any more, but more like ragged crunches.
Footsteps, she realised, as her stomach twisted. They were footsteps.
She opened her mouth but no sound came out and she clutched at Duncan’s arm in the dark. They stared ahead to where the tunnel curved away. Now they could hear other sounds accompanying the trudging steps: a low rumble, the scrape of metal on metal, the faint squeak of a wheel. They waited, watching down the trembling torchlight beam, unable to move, unable to blink. As the steps reached the corner of the tunnel Lisa felt her heart stop.
She saw a boy, a little boy. His hair stood out in damp tufts, and he was naked from the waist up, skinny body smeared with grime, sweat, and bruises. He was in a kind of harness, pulling a cart loaded with rocks. Behind him and behind the cart was a girl, even younger, dressed in stained rags with hair hanging down in oily strings beside her sunken face. Sweat beaded on her brow as her small arms strained, pushing the cart forward. They looked at Lisa and Duncan with hollow eyes, but they didn’t stop.
“Run,” Lisa said, grabbing Duncan’s hand. He stared at her blankly, mouth hanging open. “Now!” she yelled and tugged him backward. He seemed to come out of his trance and they ran back down the track. The scraping, creaking, rumbling behind them never stopped, and never slowed, and they didn’t look back.
When they reached the crack in the wall into the adit Lisa pushed Duncan into it and he scrambled through. She wriggled through the gap as soon as his trainers were clear and they pelted along the tunnel. Lisa could see the grey glow of moonlight ahead and with a new surge of energy she dived through the entrance, brambles scratching her cheeks and catching at her hands. Then she was out in the air again under the fresh bright stars. Duncan emerged from the hedge too and they stood panting on the tarmac.
He grimaced. “My bag!”
Before Lisa could say anything he ducked back into the brambles and disappeared.
She shifted her weight from foot to foot as she counted out the seconds, and the minutes, and started to feel panic rising in her throat.
There was a rustle and Duncan reappeared, clutching his bag. He started walking fast down the hill. When she caught up with him she tried to catch his eye but he just looked ahead.
“What happened?” she asked, finally.
He said nothing.
“Duncan!” she demanded and he flinched.
“When I grabbed my bag,” he started to speak, not looking at her. “I tried to get the twine too, I hadn’t noticed I’d dropped it. So I started pulling it back along the tunnel. I’d reeled up a few metres of it and then I couldn’t get any more,” his voice dropped to a whisper. “Like someone was holding the other end.”
They walked on in tense silence. Soon they could see down the hill to the cluster of houses that made up their hamlet. She could see a light was on in their house. That meant they wer in trouble, but right now she didn’t care. She even felt glad. She was just happy to be out of the ground and walking away from the adit.
She glanced at Duncan, who was still hurrying and looking at nothing.
“The twine was probably just stuck. Maybe it got caught in the tracks or something,” she offered. “No.” Duncan shook his head and turned to look at her, eyes lit with fear. “When I tugged on it, something tugged back.”
Sarah Jackson writes gently unsettling stories. Her short fiction has been published by Wyldblood Magazine, Ghost Orchid Press, and Tales From Between. She lives in east London UK and has a green tricycle called Ivy. Her website is https://sarah-i-jackson.ghost.io.
At their annual family reunion inside the National Guard Armory in Hays, Kansas, he was placed at the head of the table – once occupied by his mother, and, before her, his grandparents, great-aunts, and great-great uncles – the spot reserved for the eldest.
Words and sounds ricocheted, reverberated.
She used to-
He said-
Then she-
When they were-
At one time, he-
It was the same thing every year: photos, newspaper clippings, gossip. And he loved it. Maybe it was the only reason he came.
His favorite cousin stood next to him. He watched her push one chair away, then pull out another almost identical chair, and plop down. God, she looks like our grandmother. Then he heard a slap, slap, slap as if she were dealing cards. He looked at the photographs splayed across the table. She’ll have her own agenda for this.
She detailed each picture. Descriptions written on the back. The 1953 Flood, The Grand Canyon, Pikes Peak, Grampa John, Aunt Josephine. Then, more photos – Pauline and Eddie – That’s your mother and my dad. Pauline and Adolph – That’s your mother and Uncle Gus. Followed by newspaper clippings interspersed with her commentary.
Check the dates.
Gra’ma died in March of 1918.
Grampa remarried in December 1918.
Uncle Johnny was born in April of 1919.
Now, read this.
Grampa’s second wife was a nun at the convent next to the church.
Across the street from his house.
Then he saw the photo labeled – Pauline 1937. An old photo, a print-out actually, in various shades of coral and sienna. The photo of the woman who bore him, and who knew everything worth knowing about him.
His mother as a young woman in a flapper’s shimmering dress, long cigarette, bell-shaped hat, and wavy hair. His mother in her mid-twenties, fresh out of nursing school standing outside a plain frame house with two bare steps leading to the peeling front door. Her head bent – demure or disappointed? Lonely? Isolated? Eyes cast down – remorse or regret? Hands forming a cradle – embarrassment or expectation? That’s my mother before me.
His mind drifted toward her stories – of dancing in Chicago at the Palmer Hotel, skating in the below-ground ice rink, the unexplained large white leather cigarette case with the engraved initial on top – the one she kept jewelry in all her life.
He was dizzy with memories. Stories from ghost towns, graveyards, country schools. School books in German with her name written in them. Nashville wanderings, then to Topeka, then Goodland. That period in her life when she followed another independent, young woman from Goodland to Pratt. The woman who would become his Aunt Gayle. That one photo – the old one in sepia tones – sealed it all. She had a life before me!
That’s it! That’s who she was. He had completed his mother’s puzzle –loops and sockets, keys and locks – photos on the table, letters nestled in the bottom of cedar chests, stories about her brothers and sisters. She – the Volga-German ethos crystalized: Strive! Achieve! Achieve more! He had heard the words himself, and more likely than not, so had everyone at the reunion. Achieve! But don’t think too much of yourself. Achieve! Do better than we did. Achieve! But you’re no better than anyone else.
He had long been puzzled about her stories, searched for stray pieces. From Hays, Kansas, to Nashville, Tennessee, nursing school and graduate school. Why had she abandoned Nashville to go to forlorn Burlington, Colorado, then tiny Topeka, then isolated Goodland, Kansas, then to desolate Pratt, Kansas?
Still more questions. Why would a professional woman, the head of a county public health agency, a women in charge of an entire department in a building twenty feet off Main Street, marry a man so clearly a momma’s boy, a raging alcoholic who morphed into a dry drunk with an anger quotient that never balanced?
That elegant lady who wore Chanel-inspired clothing before it was commonplace, who eschewed traditional nursing whites before it was acceptable. Who, as Director of multiple nursing departments, dominated hospital corridors before it was in her job description.
#
And now, in the National Guard Armory, tides of relatives rushed forward. He felt dizzy again – familiar faces with no names. Younger bodies with faces of his long-dead granddad and his septuagenarian cousins with youthful voices without accents, faces of all ages as familiar and unfamiliar as yesterday.
He sat where his mother once sat, where the great aunt after whom she was named sat, her father, a great-great uncle before that – at the head of the table reserved for the oldest – the one most likely not to be here next year.
Thomas Elson’s stories appear in numerous venues, including Blink-Ink, Ellipsis, Better Than Starbucks, Bull, Cabinet of Heed, Flash Frontier, Ginosko, Short Édition, North Dakota Quarterly, Litro,Journal of Expressive Writing, Dead Mule School, Selkie, New Ulster, Lampeter, and Adelaide. He divides his time between Northern California and Western Kansas.
The sun shone through the side window and caught her full in the face. Marilyn rubbed her eyes and sat up. The car’s stuffy interior stank of baby poop. She checked the back. Ethan dozed in his car seat, his perfect little chin resting on his chest. She covered his bare arms with the blanket, smoothed his hair, pushed the Chevy’s door open and pulled herself up, wobbling. Sometime during the night when the moon went down, she had edged the car off the two-lane highway into the darkness. Now, in the dawn’s glare she found herself on a gravel turnout, surrounded by an ocean of Nebraska corn.
Closing the door quietly, she moved into the field, squatted, and peed. With only blackbirds and crows watching, she dug the compact out of her purse and stared at her face, red from half-a-continent’s-worth of windburn. Somewhere west of Philly, the car’s AC had quit. The summer heat had turned her peach-fuzzed cheeks into leather. She pulled a comb through her bobbed blonde hair and turned slowly to study the countryside. Except for a few pump sheds, the rolling plains held no shelter. A smudge of brown smoke hung above the closest rise. She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. A pickup truck pulling a tractor on a flatbed drove past. It slowed for a moment, but kept moving and disappeared over the horizon.
…no cities…no yammering…just sun and the wide open…should’ve done this months ago…had Ethan in some farmhouse with only the old women watching…
Her son’s high-pitched squeal broke her reverie. At the car, she found him wide-eyed and flailing. She opened all the doors to air out the Chevy, changed his diaper and cleaned him with baby wipes before burying the smelly mess under dirt clods at the edge of the field. She unbuttoned her blouse to nurse. His body felt soft against hers, heart beating with a reassuring rhythm. Her muscles relaxed, the tenseness replaced with a warm glow. The silence returned, the tarmac empty of traffic. The heat came on strong. As her baby fed, Marilyn hummed a childhood song and fanned him with a folded newspaper that pictured a longhaired brunette version of herself.
With Ethan strapped in his seat, she collected her cigarettes and lighter and stepped outside. She never smoked in any space with Ethan; it might be too late for her but the child deserved a chance. She stared into the fields and thought about the past week: emptying their bank account, buying a used car, listening to TV news in that sleaze-bag motel room, and hardening her heart.
A flock of blackbirds exploded from the greenery. The cornstalks jerked along two rows. Something charged toward her, coming on fast. Marilyn flicked the cigarette to the gravel, hustled inside, and locked the car doors. She fumbled in her purse for the key, inserted it in the ignition and twisted, grinding the starter. But the tired engine wouldn’t fire. A girl clutching a fist-sized rock burst from the field and rushed the Chevy. She halted in front of the car and placed a hand on its hood, her chest heaving. She looked maybe sixteen, well developed, with shoulder-length hair the color of corn silk.
“Stop,” the girl ordered, “or I’ll break your fuckin’ windshield.” She raised the rock above her head.
Marilyn grasped the steering wheel with both hands and squeezed her eyes shut.
…it always finds me…I never get away clean…like a shadow I can’t ever shake…
She raised her head and studied the girl: ragged jeans, a faded pink T-shirt, a pretty dirt-smudged face punctuated with freckles. Marilyn reached inside her purse and grasped the pistol. It felt slippery in her clammy hand, like the last time she’d used it. She unlocked her door and climbed out, held the gun at her side, and moved toward the girl.
The teenager backed away and dropped the rock, stared at the pistol then at her filthy bare feet. She drew a forearm under her runny nose. “Look, I…I didn’t mean nothin’…wasn’t gonna hurt you.”
“What the hell are you doing out here?” Marilyn’s voice shook and sounded way too loud.
The girl shrugged.
“What do you want?”
“Water…and maybe a ride.”
“Are you from around here? What’s your name?”
“Lyn.”
“Lyn what?”
“You don’t need ta know.”
Marilyn paused and stared into the girl’s blue-flecked-with-gold eyes. She slipped the pistol back into her purse. “Come on, I’ve got some water in the cooler.”
Lyn flashed a smile before resuming her sullen pout. Marilyn opened the rear door. Ethan let out a howl. She lifted him into her arms then handed the girl a water bottle, watched her chug its contents. She passed her a roll of paper towels. Lyn doused her face liberally and scrubbed at it until her cheeks turned pink, as if they’d been slapped. The water drenched her T-shirt. She didn’t wear a bra. The baby stared unblinking at the girl. She reached a hand toward him but Marilyn pulled him away.
“How long have you been out here?”
“Long enough,” the girl said
“You’re not gonna tell me much, are you?”
Lyn grinned.
Marilyn opened the passenger-side door and motioned for her to sit. She placed Ethan in his car seat, slid behind the wheel, and gazed westward through the bug-stained windshield. She knew that she was too much of an adult for some freaked-out teenager to open up to. Still, she tried.
“Does your family live around here?”
“Yeah, well…they did.”
“Do you have brothers or sisters?”
“Nah, but I always wanted ’em. My parents stopped with me. I guess they quit while they were…behind.” The girl’s mouth tightened and she looked away. Marilyn paused in her questioning, then changed the subject.
“What happened to your shoes?”
“Lost ’em.”
“I’ve got some flip-flops in the back you can have.”
“Thanks. You got a cigarette?”
“Yes, but you can’t smoke in the car…it’s bad for the baby.”
“Right.”
The silence built between them. The girl seemed to study the littered front seat. She grabbed the newspaper wedged next to the center console, unfolded its front page, then stared at Marilyn. Ethan cut loose with a string of baby sounds.
Lyn muttered, “That’s about the only age guys are lovable.”
“What are you talking about?”
Lyn pointed to the newspaper with its black headlines – Woman Wanted for Killing Husband, Flees With Baby Boy. “That’s you. You know what I’m talkin’ about. That’s why you’re on this back road to nowhere.”
… shit, what do I do now? Damn teenagers can’t keep secrets…
Marilyn reached into her purse. It would be easy: order the girl out, march her into the field, put a bullet in the back of her head and let the harvesters chew up her rotting remains. They stared at each other. The girl looked ready to bolt, her goose-bumped arms trembling, arms with dark bruises around the wrists and above the elbows, hands with broken nails and bloodied knuckles.
Marilyn let out a deep breath. “So, am I going to find your story on a front page somewhere?”
“Yeah, maybe…but not for awhile. We’re in the middle of frickin’ nowhere, ya know.”
“Yes, I’m counting on that. So, are you gonna tell me?”
“No…well, maybe later. We need to get movin’.”
“Why would I take you with me? Why would you want to travel with a…”
“You’ll need help drivin’…and I look like I could be your daughter, or maybe a younger sister. The cops will be lookin’ for you with your kid – not a threesome. The same’s true for me.”
Marilyn smiled. “You have it all figured out, don’t you?”
“I didn’t…until now. We need to make it to the coast, to some big city, and get lost.”
“Really? Then what?”
“Hey, just get me there and I’ll find somebody to hook up with.”
“I’m sure you will,” Marilyn said and turned the key. The car started without hesitation. She checked on Ethan then pulled onto the shimmering blacktop. They drove into the empty morning with sunburnt arms resting on windowsills, the plains a blur of green and gold. A strong headwind buffeted the sedan and Marilyn concentrated on driving while Lyn slept.
…this actually might work…at least get us to the coast…there’s something about her I don’t like…but hey, killers can’t be choosers…
Near noon, Marilyn pulled the car next to a single gas pump outside some kind of country store with neon beer signs flickering in its windows. Lyn continued to snore. Ethan slept. She climbed out and stretched, staring all the while at her two passengers. Neither moved. A hand-lettered sign attached to a pole read, “Pay befor U Pump.” She pushed into the store, the AC chilling her bare arms and legs, waking her, setting her on edge. A fat man sat in a cushioned chair behind the counter, watching a TV soap. He stared at her. His gaze fixed on her breasts for a few long moments before he resumed his television ogling.
“Give me yer money first before ya pump gas,” he said without looking at her. “No offence, lady, but I get too many fools tryin’ ta rip me off.”
“I understand. I also need to get something to eat. Do you have a restroom?”
“Yeah, outside and around back. Sorry ’bout the mess.”
Marilyn nodded and wandered into the store’s dark interior. A bar stretched along its back wall. But by the look of the dust-covered counter and empty bottle shelves, it hadn’t seen patrons for a long time. Rows of supplies on folding tables occupied the space. A bank of rumbling wall coolers full of beer and soft drinks filled a sidewall. She grabbed two bags of chips, a six-pack of soda, two packaged fruit pies, and a few candy bars and laid them on the counter along with three crisp twenties.
“I’ll be back in for the change,” she said, “and I’ll need some ice for my cooler.”
“It’s around the side,” he gestured. “Look, ma wife is making lunch in back. She can fix ya some sandwiches if ya want. Cost three dollars apiece.”
“No, but thanks for the offer.”
Marilyn moved to the entrance then froze. The Chevy’s front and rear doors on the passenger side stood open. The girl and Ethan were gone. She rushed outside, gazed up and down the highway and at the nearby crossroad with its rusting stop signs. The road stood empty of cars and people. She hurried around the corner of the building and almost collided with Lyn. The girl cradled Ethan in her arms, the baby pressed against her breasts.
“What the hell are you doing?” Marilyn yelled.
“Hey, shut up, will ya. I just got the little guy quieted down. I think the heat was gettin’ to ’im so I brought ’im into the shade.”
Marilyn’s heart slammed against her chest. She forced herself to slow her breathing and waited for the fear to subside. “Sorry. Thanks…thanks for watching after him.”
The girl grinned and rocked Ethan gently. “He wants ta nurse. No luck here.”
“Yes, if you would pump the gas and get some ice, I’ll feed him. I’ve already given the guy inside three twenties for fuel and food.”
“No problem.”
Lyn sauntered over to the ice machine, yanked a ten-pound sack from its smoking interior, and disappeared around the corner. Marilyn retreated deeper into the shade and nursed her hungry baby. The calm returned. She felt relieved, and grateful for Lyn’s help.
…at least she doesn’t treat him like a doll…maybe I can trust her…but not yet…let’s see how she does with the change…
Marilyn imagined the proprietor’s reaction when the braless teenager pushed through his dirt-smudged door. For a fleeting moment she felt concern and patted her purse, reassured by the feel of the gun. In a short while, Lyn returned.
“Everything go okay?” Marilyn asked.
“Oh yeah. That frickin’ letch behind the counter was gonna make a move. But lucky for him, his wife came out from the back. Here’s your change. The car’s gassed and I checked the water and oil. She’s down half a quart, but you can wait ’til the next fill-up.”
“Thanks. You did good, and sorry I didn’t tell you about that creep.”
Lyn gazed at Marilyn nursing. “Does…does that make ya feel good?”
Marilyn smiled. “Yes, it’s almost like I’m high. Calms me right down, just like Ethan.”
“Have you ever given the kid, ya know, formula from a bottle?”
“Sometimes. But it’s not as good for him.”
“Yeah, that’s what my health class teacher told us. Sorry I can’t help ya.”
“Don’t worry. With your looks, you’ll be pregnant soon enough.”
Lyn brayed loudly. “My mama always said the same damn thing.”
Ethan had finished nursing and dozed in her arms. After burping him, she slid him into the car seat and slipped behind the wheel. Lyn had washed the windshield and thrown away the crap littering the front seat. The girl opened cans of soda and a bag of chips.
“You want me to take her for awhile?” Lyn asked. “Ya know, I’ve been drivin’ since I was fourteen.”
“Not yet. Maybe after our next stop.”
With the car’s sun visors lowered, she drove into the shimmering heat and wind. Golden grain fields had replaced the corn and the land flattened even more below a cobalt-blue sky with mashed potato clouds pushing up on the western horizon. Sometime in the late afternoon, she pulled the car off the highway near a deep gully and an under-road culvert. She unfastened her seatbelt and opened the door.
Lyn stirred. “Why…why’d ya stop?”
“I have to pee. Watch Ethan till I get back, then you can go.”
“There’s nobody out here. Relax.” Lyn leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
Punch drunk from hours of driving, Marilyn grabbed the car keys and her purse and climbed out. She took a dozen steps and turned to stare at the girl and Ethan, motionless in their seats. She walked to the ravine and slid down its bank. Out of sight of the highway, she pushed her panties down and squatted. The wind blowing through the culvert howled like a banshee. A shadow fell across the gully. She jerked to her feet and turned just in time to see Lyn charge down the bank and snag her purse.
“What the hell…” Marilyn croaked.
Lyn reached into the purse and withdrew the pistol and Marilyn’s wallet. She thumbed the half-inch-thick sheaf of bills.
“So now you’re gonna rob me?” Marilyn asked, her face burning.
“Not exactly.” Lyn grasped the pistol at arm’s length and pointed it at Marilyn. “My plans have changed. A teenage mom with a kid is an even better cover…and your money will help me disappear.”
“But the cops could think you’re me.”
“Give me a fucking break,” Lyn snapped. “We don’t look that much alike.”
“I was only trying to help you.”
“Yeah, then why the gun?” Lyn laughed. “Turns out, you had a good reason for carryin’ it. Ironic, huh?” She sighted down the barrel.
“Please…please don’t. Please…my child…” Marilyn backed toward the culvert, stumbling over the uneven ground.
“Quit whinin’. You sound just like my Pop…my mama had more guts.”
A solitary semi roared past on the highway above them. Not even the crows heard the pistol’s crack. And the coyotes that crept from the fields near sundown seemed to enjoy their unexpected feast.
Terry Sanville lives in San Luis Obispo, California with his artist-poet wife (his in-house editor) and two plump cats (his in-house critics). He writes full time, producing short stories, essays, and novels. His short stories have been accepted more than 500 times by journals, magazines, and anthologies including The American Writers Review, The Bryant Literary Review, and Shenandoah. He was nominated three times for Pushcart Prizes and once for inclusion in Best of the Net anthology. Terry is a retired urban planner and an accomplished jazz and blues guitarist – who once played with a symphony orchestra backing up jazz legend George Shearing.
