Bent Highway: Chapter Fourteen

Screech

“Well, look who woke up.” Harold jammed his hands into the Levis and rocked back on a pair of black boots that would have given Uncle Lester a hard-on. “That genetic mutation hyper-thyroid man give you some memory pills or what?”

“Who are you?”

“Hey, you’re the one that recognized me, Rumpelstiltskin.”

“But who are you?”

“You’re old buddy Harold, you remember. Drinking colds ones on the porch, watching the ladies go by, shooting the shit.”

“I don’t know you.”

“Well make up your fucking mind, M. Which one is it?”

Harold walked toward me, his hands still in his pockets, which gave him an odd gait, like a drunk that went from your best buddy to a swinging lunatic in a handful of steps. I had been standing in front of the poplar tree, and I figured I had two options. Let him come to me, or turn into the field and run like hell. I kinda wished I’d pick the chicken-shit option. 

I reached down and grabbed the crooked limb that I’d been eyeing since Harold pulled up. It was only about three inches round and a few feet long, but I wanted something in my hands. Harold’s hands flew out of his pockets, metal flashed and in a blurred motion, which slowed down for a half a second, tiny knives flew out of his palms.

Time bent.

A knife stuck into the tree branch and gave that circus thrower’s sound after they had just missed the girl tied to the wheel. I was not so lucky with the other blade. The pain didn’t come right away. I watched it plunge into the leg that Walt had not cut into all those years ago. Was it years? I grasped the grip of the throwing knife, slid it out of my leg, and flung it at Harold.

“Yeah, right,” he said as it flew by him.

And he was on me. I broke the branch across his back, but I had almost no room to swing. I don’t think it would have made a difference anyway. He backhanded me hard, sent me flying. My body bounced off the gravel. Another blur of motion, another snip taken out of the moment, and a black boot drove into my stomach. I gasped, trying to swallow air back into my body, pinpricks of light flashed in my peripheral. Harold grabbed my throat and lifted me off the ground.

“Hey, don’t pass out yet. You’ll miss it all.”

His thick fingers tightened around my neck. Red speckles dotted his white shirt. I realized it was my blood not his.

“You know... the part where the bad guy, that would be me, tells all to the dying hero. Now in those shitty movies, I always hate when the fucking cavalry would show up and save his ass. I mean c’mon, Hollywood, is that all you got? Except in the 70’s, you know they knew how to make ‘em them - some good existential nothing matters kind of shit. You a movie fan, M?”

The pricks of light were gone, and Harold’s shape blurred. There was another string of words that came out of him, but it didn’t sound like any language I knew. I thought I heard another hawk screeching, long and loud. A hot wind came up and blew against my face - I was barely aware of Harold’s tightening grip. Sorry Walt, I gave it a shot.

The screech got louder. It didn’t sound like a bird anymore - it was more machine-like. 

Then I fell.

It took a long time to hit the ground.

The screech stopped. I knew the sound - something from cop shows, when Starsky, Rockford, Banacek, or whoever the hell was going after the bad guy, that’s what it sounded like - tires burning around a corner.

The pain which had drifted to the edge of my mind flooded in. I coughed, spit up blood, and the yard came into focus. There was a flash of orange, a pair of boots that tugged at a recent memory. A shotgun blast reverberated through the air, echoing long after it should.

Always wanted one of those cars.

Someone shut off all the lights and I went out.

* * *

I awoke running across the yard. She ran at me, grabbing my shirt and ripping the collar. The flames were already several feet high.

“He’s inside, you have to get him. Please. Now!” She swung me around.

“It’s too late!” I yelled. Then softer, “It’s always too late.”

The flames engulfed the mobile home. This time I didn’t even make it to the door.

Behind me, Chalk Girl screamed.

* * *

I awoke on the ground. The scream had turned into a screech, and this time I saw the hawk, swooping down, grabbing something from the ground, and soaring into the air. I though I could hear the cries of whatever small rodent the hawk had grabbed, but I may have imagined it.

The yard was empty. The sky the colour of a tie-dyed 70’s t-shirt, swirls of pink and purple, and the last fading line of yellow. The mobile home still intact. I rubbed my neck, and stared at the tire tracks. A dust cloud rose up from the road. I waited to see what would emerge. Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be the green sedan, Harold was long gone. My truck’s headlights shone through the dust. 

She pulled into the yard and I got in.

She drove back out to the highway. Neither of said anything for the first twenty miles. 

Mile twenty-one I broke the silence. “You going to take me back there again?”

She stared straight ahead.

“Some things can’t change. You must know that now,” I said.

“Everything can change. We just have to enter at the right time,” she said.

“We have to learn to live with it.”

“You and Dr. Phil can fuck the right off.”

Another twenty miles went by.

“What do you know about the Charger?” I asked.

This time she turned to look at me. “What, the car? Walt talked about it, but I didn’t follow.”

“You’ve seen Walt?”

“He was the one that told me to go back and get you. He’s kinda pissed. What about the Charger?”

“It’s hard to put it together, but I think I saw it. I certainly heard it, and they just might have saved my life.”

“If he wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

I knew she wasn’t saying his name on purpose. 

The edges of a town lifted out of the horizon - yellow lights from scattered house, and the white and red glow of a gas station appeared. The sky was a wash of deep black, the stars shone through like slits in fabric revealing a fiery light underneath.

“What did Walt say about the guys in the muscle car?”

“Only that he had misjudged them.”

“About what?”

“You can ask him yourself in a few minutes.”

“He’s here?” I asked as we entered the town. 

“In a bar.”

“Of course he is.”