News

Milwaukee

C.D.W.

Editor's Corner

Interviews

Fiction

Poetry

Guidelines

Newsletter

Products
 

About the Magazine

Editor-in-Chief:
Kenneth Brosky

Managing Editor:
Stephanie Nolasco

Associate Editor:
Janelle Kennedy

"The Ride"

       Shane Nelson

           Dean had been thumbing for almost six hours when the guy in the Cadillac picked him up.  He had a moment of suspicion—average Joes didn’t pull over in the middle of the night to pick up hitchers—but only a moment.  It was cold and the thought of spending the night in some rundown barn wasn’t appealing.  Besides, he thought, I can handle whatever comes up.

            Dean opened the passenger door.  A wave of abattoir stink washed out and knocked him back a step.  Then the smell was gone, leaving his nose wrinkled in disgust.  He leaned into the car again. The Caddy’s interior light was dark; behind the wheel, the driver was a featureless hump.

            “Thanks,” Dean muttered, tossing his pack into the empty backseat and climbing into the Cadillac.  The car was moving before he closed the door.  Dean buckled up, listening to stones pinging against the undercarriage as they accelerated up the gravel road.  Dean could see a vague outline of the driver’s face in the moonlight.

            This smells bad, Dean thought.  He was an authority on hitching and had come to recognize which rides smelled bad.  A luxury car rolling down an untravelled road was odd.  It was double-odd that the driver pulled over for a stranger when it was midnight.  Beggars can’t be choosers, Dean thought.  You need to put some distance between you and the mess in Bachman.  He reached into his jacket pocket and touched the object nestled there.  You can handle this.  It’s just another ride.

            Dean refused to give the driver the satisfaction of speaking first.  Nervous people spoke first; Dean Meade never got nervous.  After a few moments, the man behind the wheel spoke.

            “Good thing I came along.”  His voice was pleasant and Dean felt the unease creeping from him.  “You mighta been stuck out here all night.”

            “Yeah,” Dean replied. “I’m used to it.”

            “I bet you are,” the man chuckled.  The glow of the console bathed his hands in green light.  “You hitchhike a lot?”

            “When I have to,” Dean replied.

            Dean was used to the small talk that went on with drivers who picked him up.  Most of them were looking for company on tedious drives.  Dean did his best to maintain a polite level of interest.  He had a series of prepared answers and had so far encountered few difficulties.

            “So,” the man behind the wheel said, “I didn’t catch your name.”

            The driver’s face was hidden by a sheet of shadow.  Dean felt a stab of anger.   The driver wasn’t ducking in and out of the moonlight to hide his identity, but Dean still felt angry.  He stopped looking at the driver—doing so made his vision swim.

            “Name’s Richard,” he lied.

            “Good to meet you,” the driver said, peeling one hand off the wheel and extending it. The man’s grip was clammy and cold; Dean broke the handshake, unobtrusively wiping his palm on his thigh.  The moon rode high behind a few sketchy clouds and for the first time Dean could see the edge of the man’s jaw and the glint of a pair of glasses.

            “I didn’t get your name, either,” Dean said.

            “Aaron,” the driver said.  Dean saw that he was wearing glasses “So we know each other, now.”

            Dean could smell that rotten, dead stink again. He looked at the driver and saw the moonlight dancing on his glasses.

            “Aaron?” Dean croaked.  “That’s a…” His voice trailed away.

            “That’s a what?”

            Dean said, “Nothing.  It’s just… I had a brother named Aaron.”

            “Had?”  The driver said.  “What happened to him?”

            Dean closed his eyes but could still see those glasses…

            … sitting on the edge of the raft, lenses dotted with beads of water.

            It’s July, 1981, the day Dean Meade killed his brother.

            Dean and Kevin made the raft themselves, cinching together six-foot lengths of discarded telephone poles.  The raft has brought them into the glimmering centre of Lake Amersham on this bright Wednesday afternoon. The water slaps against the raft.  The shore is two hundred metres distant.

            Dean Meade is eleven.  He is on his knees on the edge of the raft, swimming suit dry, skin a deep, rich tan.  His blonde hair juts around the crown of his head like a nest of thorns.

            Kevin Meade is eight.  He is in the water, tasting it in his throat, feeling the panicked constriction in his chest.  His eyes are terrified as he slaps at the raft.

            “Come… on… Dean,” he gasps, treading water.  He reaches for the raft.  Dean pushes his brother backward and down, driving him under the water where he flounders against the green darkness before breaking the surface with a gasp.  His legs grow exhausted as he struggles to hold himself above water.  He swims toward the opposite end of the raft.  Dean follows, never saying a word.  Again he drives Kevin backward and down.  There is a roar and then silence as the water closes over Kevin’s head.  He kicks toward the surface, breaking through and gasping.

            “Dean…”

            Dean leans forward until the raft shifts beneath him.  He pushes him under again.  He watches as Kevin breaks the surface, this time coughing.

            “Lemme up, Dean!” he shouts. “C’mon!  I… can’t… swim… anymore.”

            Dean is blank.

            “Dean…” Kevin sobs.  “Pleeeeeeze! I won’t tell…”

            Dean pushes his brother beneath the water.

            Pushes him.

            Again.

            Finally Kevin disappears beneath Lake Amersham.  Dean peers through the water and watches as his brother’s body sinks, eyes staring, lungs filling with lake water.

            Dean waits until he is certain his brother has drowned.  Then he lies on his stomach, the boards rough beneath his chest, the sun beating between his shoulder blades.  He stares at his brother’s glasses. 

            The glasses stare back.

            Reaching out, he gently pushes them into the water.

            “Yes,” the driver said.  “Summer was nice.”

            Dean blinked.  “What did you say?”

            The gravel road had ended.  Ahead, shining beneath a cold September rain, highway 38 ran east and west. 

            “Excuse me?”

            “You said summer was nice.”  Dean looked at the man behind the wheel.  “What did you mean?”

            “Summer was nice?” the driver asked.  “I never said that.  That doesn’t make any sense.”

            “I heard you,” Dean said.

            With highway 38 clear in both directions, the man pulled the Cadillac onto the blacktop.

            “You misheard me,” the driver explained.  “I said: I hope there’s no ice.  Freezing rain… you know?”

            Dean stared at the shape behind the wheel. The moon was gone, vanquished by the clouds that so suddenly delivered autumn rain.  He slumped in his seat and listened to the hiss of the tires on the highway.

            “I had a brother once,” the driver said. “We got along most of the time.”  The man’s voice grew softer.  Familiar. “Sometimes he’d kid around too much.  Sometimes he scared me.  Did you ever scare your brother, Dean? Did you ever scare him too much and—”

            Dean said, “Knock it off, Aaron.  I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”  His voice quivered like a plucked string, resonating fear and anger.

            “What did you call me?”

            Furrowing his brow, Dean asked, “What are you talking about?”

            “Aaron,” the driver said.  “You called me Aaron.  Why did you do that?”

            Exasperation edged Dean’s voice.  “Because it’s your name.  I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but—”

            “My name isn’t Aaron,” the driver interrupted.  Dean looked at him.  He looked burlier than before.  His hands were bigger, knuckles knotty.  A beard hid the lower half of his face. “You must’ve misheard me. I said my name was Irwin.”  His lips peeled back from his teeth and he expelled a mouthful of rancid, rotten air.

            Dean is standing next to a blue pick-up in a honky-tonk parking lot.  Music throbs from a squat brick building; poking a loose tooth with his tongue, Dean counts the staccato beats of the music.  Beer signs—Miller, Schlitz, Pabst Blue Ribbon—sizzle behind smoky windows.

            The honky-tonk’s doors open and a man saunters out, one arm slung around a peroxide-blonde.  He’s wearing Wranglers and cowboy boots; an ample beer belly hangs over a belt buckle.  The hand resting on the woman’s shoulder clutches a half-empty bottle of Miller.  The couple are halfway across the parking lot before they see Dean.

            The blue pick-up belongs to the cowboy.  Every window has been shattered.  Both headlights have been put out.  There are dents in the doors and hood.  Sitting on two flat tires, the truck lists drunkenly to one side.  Next to it, Dean Meade is grinning.

            “Fucker,” the man bellows, shoving the blonde aside, the bottle of Miller still clutched in one hand.  He storms toward his truck.  Dean steps back, one arm behind his back.

            “You’re dead,” the man says. “I thought I gave you enough inside, but now I’m gonna take you apart.”

            Dean says, “Come on,” and steps forward.  The man’s grey eyes fill with animal loathing.  He lunges.  Dean steps aside and brings his arm from behind his back, exposing the tire iron.  He swings it, catching the man in the ribs.  There is a heavy whump! that knocks the man aside, two ribs broken.  He careens off the pick-up and staggers to one knee.  Stepping behind him, Dean swings the tire iron a second time and shatters the man’s collarbone with a resounding crunch.

            Across the parking lot, the blonde screams, “ Don’t hurt my Irwin!”

            Hurt is only a vague word in Dean’s vocabulary.  As the man crumples, Dean grabs the tire iron in both hands and brings it down on the back of Irwin’s head.  There is a ripe splitting sound and Irwin hits the ground, twitching.

            The woman is coming, a warbling scream trailing behind her.  “Irwin!” she screams.  “Leave my Irwin alone.”

            Dean swings the tire iron in a quick, overhand arc.  It shatters the blonde’s cheekbone, scatters her teeth, pops an eye from its socket.  She goes down, the scream reduced to a wet gargling sound.  He stands with a foot on either side of her shoulders.

            He swings the tire iron again and again.

            Dean shook his head and scattered the images.  Squeezing his eyes closed, he concentrated on the repetitive thump of the windshield wipers.

            He looked at the driver.  A car passed and in the wash of its headlights Dean saw a blonde woman sitting behind the wheel.  Then the car was gone and there was nothing but blackness and that unidentifiable shape behind the wheel.

            Get out, Dean’s mind screamed.  This doesn’t just smell bad, it smells rotten. People’s faces don’t change. And that shadow isn’t right, either.  You’ve travelled in cars at night—even if it’s as dark as a busload of assholes, you can see something.

            He sank his hand into his pocket and clutched the object inside.

            “That’s the worst part about this,” the man behind the wheel explained.  “It’s such a long ride, you know?”

            Clearing his throat, Dean spoke.  “How far you going?”

            “Hell,” he said. “I’m going all the way to the end of the road.”

            Dean listened to the voice screaming in his head.  Right here, right now, on the side of this fucking road if you have to.  Just… get… out.

            “There’s a newspaper in back,” the driver said.  “Why don’t you grab it and read me a few stories? Pass the time.”

            Dean’s hand froze in his pocket.  Newspaper? The backseat was empty except for his backpack. Just the same… if there is something back there to read, I’ll need to turn on a light.  Then I can finally get a look at this guy’s face.

            Dean unbuckled his seatbelt and leaned into the back of the Cadillac.  He could see his pack lying on its side.  Next to it was a copy of The Gazette.  Dean ignored the fear in his stomach—it wasn’t there before!— and snatched the paper off the seat.

             “Start with the headlines,” the man behind the wheel suggested.  “That’s where the best stories are.”

            Dean unfolded the newspaper.  “Pretty hard to read without a light.”

            “There’s a reading light on your visor.  Interior light’s burned out.  I like riding in the dark.” 

            Dean flipped the visor down.  His fingers encountered a button and he pressed it.  A light sprang to life. Dean could see the newspaper.  He could see his hands, forearms and thighs.  Raising his eyes, Dean could see his face reflected in the windshield.

            He shook the paper, straightening it.  Then, shifting in his seat, he looked at the driver.  The light was weak, but it would cast a thin glow over the man’s face.  Now I’ll see what you really look like, Dean thought.

            Dean’s breath escaped in a thin wheeze.  There was still a shadow drooped across the driver’s face, obscuring his features. Dean could see nothing but the man’s hands wrapped around the wheel.

            He doesn’t have a face, Dean thought.  As insane as that is, it’s the only thing that makes sense.

            “Something wrong?” the driver asked.

            “No.”

            “How about the headlines, then?”

            Dean looked at the newspaper.  “Sure,” he said.  He cleared his throat, meaning to distract the man behind the wheel before making his move.

            When he read the front-page headline, the idea of surprising the driver was forgotten.

Twin Girls Attacked; Mother Missing

By Neil Soiseth

(Gazette Staff Writer)

            The community of Bachman remains in shock after a brutal assault left two young children in hospital.  Shortly after seven a.m. Bachman’s postal carrier discovered signs of a break and enter at the home of Alison Crane, a single mother of two.  Police responded to discover Mrs. Crane’s twin daughters beaten and unconscious.  Both children were airlifted to Wascana Hospital for treatment.  Police continued their search of the Crane home and surrounding township, but Alison Crane’s whereabouts have yet to be determined.

            According to RCMP Constable Terry Stoddard, the motive for the attack doesn’t appear to have been robbery.  “It’s clear the perpetrator had no intention of robbing the family.  There were signs of sexual assault and it appears the attacker may have been familiar with the family.”  The police wouldn’t disclose the nature of their evidence but doctors confirmed that both girls had been sexually violated.

            Alison Crane is not considered a suspect.  Constable Stoddard feels evidence suggests she may have been a victim as well.  “Her car isn’t gone and her personal possessions are in the house.  At the moment we feel she may have been abducted.”

            RCMP continue to investigate, though they say they have some evidence the might lead to the attacker’s identity.  Official sources suggest they may have a composite sketch available for release within the next forty-eight hours…

            Dean lowered the paper into his lap.  His hands were quavering and it took all the effort he could muster to still them.

            “Dean, you all right?”

            “Uh…”  Dean felt terror filling him.  How could they know? he wondered.  I left this morning… they can’t know anything.  They couldn’t even have got the story into today’s paper.

            “I’m fine.”

            “Don’t blame you for being shook up,” the driver said.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “That story,” the driver explained.  “It’s pretty shocking.  Not something you get used to.  But who would want to get used to such a thing, right? I find it hard to imagine having to write about it, let alone do it.”  The man behind the wheel clucked his tongue.  “I mean… could you?”

            Dean said nothing.  He dropped the newspaper into the back seat.

            “Yeah, well,” the driver sighed.  “It’s an ugly world.  But I guess you already know that.”

            You don’t have a clue about what I know, Dean thought.  He held his tongue, thinking about the story he had read.  If the cops had leads then he’d have to be careful.  He’d have to make certain his trail was cold.  Ride with this loon for as long as you have to, Dean told himself.  Then thumb another ride, haul ass to California and sink out of sight.

            “I’m tired,” Dean said. “Mind if I catch a few winks?”

            The driver laughed.  “Knock yourself out.”

             “Thanks,” Dean said.  Without another word he switched off the visor light and settled into his seat.

            He fell asleep with his hand buried in his pocket.

            He knows he is dreaming because everything has a strange, bright quality.  Edges are too crisp, shadows too deep.

            He is standing in a grassy yard, muscles glistening, shirt around his waist.  He is pruning trees, listening to the tinny sounds coming out of a radio balanced on a leaning fence.

            Now he is repairing the fence, that same radio playing rock and roll.  He watches while a woman removes clothes from a line in the yard, standing tip-toe to remove clothespins, the hem of her blue dress rising higher and higher, exposing her sleekly muscled thighs.

            Now he is on the porch, hands and forearms spattered with paint, drinking lemonade.  She is in the porch swing, laughing while the breeze stirs her hair.  In the yard her daughters are playing.

            Twin daughters play in the backyard sprinkler, swimsuits soaked through.  He is sitting in the shadow of the house, watching.  Heat throbs and he squeezes himself until it hurts.

            Melissa and Dawn are asleep.  Alison is in her bedroom, brushing her hair.  Now he is standing in the doorway, looking at the girls.  He moves forward.  His hands clench into fists and drive like hammers.  He gasps and tears at blankets and nightgowns and hair and skin, scratching, biting, penetrating.  Music plays in the distant bedroom while Alison gets ready for bed, Roy Orbison singing Only the Lonely.

            Now he is dragging her through the gloom. “My girls,” she sobs, “please don’t hurt them.”  She is wearing nothing but a pair of blue panties. He pulls her into the trees, branches scratching.  He doesn’t hear what she says as he throws her down.  She screams and he drives her face into the loamy soil.  When he is finished he draws the knife.

            Now he is in the house, standing in a blistering shower, blood swirling in the drain and he thinks of Psycho and laughs because what did Alfred Hitchcock know anyway? When he finishes he shaves his beard and moustache and rinses the sink with bleach.  He can’t stay much longer so he packs and stands in the bedroom doorway where the two bloody girls lie tangled in sheets.

            Now the yellow Cadillac is pulling over to the edge of the road.  Now he runs to the passenger door and opens it, throwing his pack into the back.  He smells something awful, black, rotten, rancid, and when he leans into the car he is staring at Alison’s face.  Her mouth is crammed with soil; earthworms tumble from between her lips as she says, “Don’t hurt my girls,” and the blood begins to pump out of the hole in her throat.

            He steps back and feels something cold against his skin.

            Consciousness lay beyond a thin membrane of sleep.  Dean grasped for it like a drowning man.  He heard echoes of conversation in his ears.

            “I didn’t catch your name.”

            “I didn’t throw it… The name’s Richard.”

            Dean’s fingers grabbed the membrane and tore it open.  As his eyes fluttered open a thought came to him.  He’s been calling me by my real name the whole time.

Dean sat upright, hands locked to the dash, a scream behind his teeth.  There was a moment of confusion in which he thrashed against the seatbelt.  He twisted in his seat at the sound of the driver’s voice. 

“Dean? What’s wrong?”

            Dean drew a breath and the abattoir stink rushed down his throat. The man behind the wheel didn’t have a face.  There was nothing but a fathomless black hole, a round nothing. 

            The driver asked, “Are you all right?”

            Dean pawed at his jacket pocket until he found the switchblade.  He pulled it free and pressed a button.  The spring-loaded blade leapt out with a metallic snap.

            “Pull over,” Dean said.

            “You don’t know what you’re doing,” the driver warned.

            “Now!”  Dean pressed the blade against the driver’s throat.

            “All right,” the driver said.  “Just take it easy.”  He stopped the Cadillac.  There were no lights in the distance—the highway was flat and black, yawning in both directions.

            With his free hand, Dean turned off the Caddy’s engine.  Leaving the headlights burning, Dean unsnapped his seatbelt, then the driver’s. 

            “Get out,” he said.

            “Dean, listen—”

            “You can’t know my name,” Dean hissed.  “I never told you my name.”

            “But you did,” the driver said.

            “Get out!” Dean screamed.  The driver opened his door and stepped into the rainy night.  Dean followed, the knife pointed at the man’s back.  When they were standing in the empty lane, Dean kicked the door closed.

            “This isn’t going to change anything,” the driver said.

            “Move to the front of the car,” Dean ordered.  When the driver didn’t move, Dean jabbed him with the knife.  “Go.”

            The driver moved into the glow of the headlights.  “I had to give you the ride,” he explained.

            “Shut up and turn around.”

            “I told you—”

            “Turn around!”

            The driver turned so the two were face to face.  Dean drew a breath.  The driver’s face was long and pale, his hair dark, his lips thin.  He no longer had a pulsing blackness where his face should have been.

            “It’s a long ride,” the driver said.

            Dean suddenly felt very alone.  The darkness pressed upon his shoulders, crushing him.  He hated the look of sorrow and compassion on the man’s face.

            “Walk into the ditch,” Dean said. This is when they know, he thought, when they figure out that it’s over.  They see the knife and know they’re going to die.

            “It won’t matter,” the driver said.

            “I don’t care,” Dean replied.  “Move.”

            The man walked into the ditch.  Dean followed, heart beating in his chest.  He was afraid—he’d never been afraid before, not when things reached this point.

            Both men stopped, two feet between them.

            “And now?” the man asked.

            Dean looked at the slope of the man’s neck, envisioning the next few moments.  Step forward, grab his hair, plant the blade into the soft tissue on the side of his throat, pull.  One quick motion and it’s over.

            “Dean…?”

            Dean reached forward.  He was quick, but the man was quicker.  The man spun, ducking.  Grabbing empty air, Dean stumbled.  The man grabbed Dean’s wrist and twisted.  Small bones snapped and the switchblade fell from Dean’s grasp.  He clutched his hand to his chest and fell to one knee.

            The man said, “This won’t change anything.”

            Dean got to his feet, his broken wrist clutched to his chest. Teeth bared, he lunged.

            There was a cold sensation as the blade penetrated his stomach.  A rush of heat followed as the man drew the knife upward.  Dean’s shirt was hiked out of his pants.  He could feel the warm rush of blood on his stomach.  So this is what it feels like, Dean thought, his intestines spilling around his feet in a steaming pile.

            Swaying, Dean looked at the man.  His face shivered, fading in and out.

            “You—” was all Dean managed before he collapsed.  He lay on his back in the rain, the grass soft and wet beneath him.

            The man knelt next to him.

            “Dean?” the man said.

            “Why…” Dean asked, his voice thick.  “Who… are you?”

            The man was moving away.  “Don’t worry,” he promised.  “It won’t always be like this.”

            Dean tried to speak but his voice was gone.  He listened as the Cadillac’s engine came to life.  A moment later the tires whispered against the pavement.  The car was moving, taking its headlights with it, disappearing into the darkness.

            Dean lay on his back, breathing silently.

            It took him almost two hours to die.

            Dean woke with a scream on his lips.  He scrambled to his knees and grabbed his belly, attempting to push his intestines back into his body.  He encountered no intestines, no blood, no wound from which his life was streaming.  The scream faded and a sickly wheeze escaped him.

            Just a dream.

            He was sitting in the darkness, a half-moon scratched into the starry sky.  Jesus, he thought, what a nightmare.

            He couldn’t remember choosing this particular place to stop and rest, but he had been running on empty the day before. He must have given up thumbing—he’d been at it for hours and hadn’t encountered a single vehicle on these Godforsaken back roads.  Now he felt a little more refreshed and hopeful.  The events of the night before were fresh in his mind—Bachman, have to forget about that—but they would fade.

            Dean glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost ten.  How long was I out? he wondered.

            “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered.  “Time to put some distance between me and…”  His voice trailed away as he walked to the shoulder of the road.  He was still trying to clear the sleep from his mind.  Christ, he thought.  That nightmare seemed so real.

            He walked down the road, listening to the crunch of gravel under his feet.  He had no idea if anyone would come along at this hour, but he kept walking just the same.

            Dean had been thumbing for almost two hours when the guy in the Cadillac picked him up.  It was midnight when the Cadillac rolled to a stop on the gravel shoulder.  Dean greeted it with a moment of unexplained fear—it was like déjà vu all over again, to use an expression—but only a moment.  Jogging toward the Cadillac, Dean thought: I can handle whatever comes up.

            When he opened the door and the abattoir stink rolled out in waves, driving him back a step, Dean felt his stomach go cold.

            Don’t worry, he heard.  It won’t always be like this.

            Leaning into the Cadillac, Dean looked at the driver.  His face was cloaked in blackness and the only thing Dean could see were two pale hands upon the wheel.

            Tossing his bag into the back seat, Dean climbed into the car and closed the door.  This is going to be a long ride, he thought.

            The car was moving before he pulled the door closed.