Hey everybody!
Hi Dr. Mike!
Anyway, to get in the spirit of that oh-so-special corporate holiday, I have completed a story of mine for you all to read. It's one of them spooky things or something...
and since I have taken my time to set this whole thing up... If you do read the story, please leave me a comment and tell me what you think... I'll be sure to respond with any questions in good time...
IF YOU WANT TO READ A COPY OF THE STORY ON A WORD DOCUMENT, JUST LET ME KNOW, AND I WILL BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO SEND ONE ALONG TO YOU...
well, bon apatite...
& Happy Halloween everybody...

I
“Sky’s a little gloomy today don’t ya think? Think it’s goin’ to storm?” asked Jeremiah. He turned and faced Duncan who was currently looking out the passenger side window. Duncan arched his head upwards, craning a position so he could view the overcast sky.
“Yup.” Was all he said as he refocused his attention on the trees flashing on by in the distance, which seemed to be floating by the car instead of the other way around. Jeremiah could not see any individual trees, only a sea of green, orange and yellow drifting by melding into cohesive background. The darkened sky seemed to soak up all the colors of the surrounding forests and make them ugly. They were the ugliest goddamn trees in all of West Virginia, and Jeremiah hated them. Perhaps on a clearer day, a different day, those trees would have fashioned differently in Jeremiah’s mind, but that day was not today. Today, those trees, that bleary sky, everything was miserable and so damn ugly.
At first Jeremiah did not really mind the passing scenery, but after hour two of dreary forests and plain outcrops cut into the road, Jeremiah’s annoyance with this drive began to grow steadily worse. But it wasn’t just the scenery that bothered Jeremiah; a growing animosity began to build up within him against his passenger who seemed to be contently viewing it. Jeremiah had tried many times to instigate a conversation with his partner, but Duncan only spoke one worded responses and then he would return gaze to back outside the car; he would continue to just watch.
An awkward silence had been standing uncomfortably between the two since they had left the 2nd National Bank of Warwick, West Virginia. With nothing on the outside of the brown colored, two door, 1979 Buick LeSabre Turbo to occupy his thoughts, Jeremiah nervously fussed with the radio, trying to find a station that would come in, but none would. It was only static, and it had been this way for the past thirty miles on the lonely Route 33. With nothing to look at, no one to talk to, or anything to listen to while he was driving, Jeremiah began to do something that was he had been dreading, and that was to think about the events that led up to today.
Duncan had come to him. This was weeks and weeks ago. It was sometime in September right after the big hurricane down in the south. But that wasn’t when all this started. It had begun at the beginning, like most things do, when they had first met. Jeremiah ran into Duncan at the local pool hall about three months ago, when Duncan was hustling Old Man Caelum out of his drinking allowance.
II
Tommy’s Pool Dive was a dimly lit pool hall and bar, densely rank of past cigar smoke, stale spilt beer, and urine. It was the normal bouquet of places like Tommy’s. The hall was a dimly lit because the grime and yellowy smoke film had coated the few light bulbs a place like Tommy’s contained. But people who frequented these types of places never usually minded the kinds of things such as shadows. The pool tables were in horrible condition, the felts were all torn, and the pool sticks were as warped as the people who usually played with them. But as it was the only place in town to get a game of pool, and a nice cold beer, the patrons of Tommy’s weren’t the kind to complain about those kinds of things anyway. At least Jeremiah wasn’t of that sort.
There were only three other people in the hall that day. There was Tommy, the guy who ran and owned the pool hall/bar. He was a scruffy stout man, who seemed to match the persona of his bar. Jeremiah had never seen him wear anything except variety of flannel shirts and the same grey toned work slacks.
At the corner table in the back (there were only five tables at Tommy’s) a young boy, probably straight out of one of the local high schools, with sandy colored hair, was leaning over the table ready to sink in the eight ball as Old Man Caelum stood nervously nearby chalking his cue. Caelum ran the local “mom and pop’s” grocery store down on Main, but he sold out years ago to the Meglomart’s chain, which didn’t build on Main, but on a little plot of land just north of town. The giant superstore was going to move into this territory either way he liked, so when they made the offer, which wasn’t huge, he just figured he’d make a buck before Meglomart simply shoved him out of business. Now, under strict economic supervision by his wife, he lives every man’s dream, away from her and down at the bar.
Jeremiah headed over toward Tommy and ordered a Blue Ribbon, (canned beer, never draft, one can’t trust the cleanliness of the glasses here). Tommy, who was currently looking at some motorcycle magazine, huffed and gave Jeremiah a sour look. As if to say that he had much better things to do with his time than to do such a laborious task as serve his customers. But he finally rose and reached into the cooler for the beer.
After Jeremiah paid the burly man, he sat down on a wobbly stool (they all were wobbly) with his back to the bar, and started to watch the pair in the corner. The boy, whose name he would later learn was Duncan, already had sunk the eight, and now they were beginning to rack a new game. To the looks of Caelum’s face, Jeremiah believed it was probably going to be his last. But the money went onto the table and they began to play again. The boy did a fine job soaking the poor sap. After the break, he let Caelum have one turn, and then he ran the table. The old man paid up and then left bitterly for home to see if he couldn’t pull his own swindle on his dear, dear wife. Of course that wasn’t the exact phrase Old Arty Caelum used; he used a term of endearment that would probably cause an Irish priest to blush.
Jeremiah was not quite that impressed with the kid’s technique, and he decided to show Mr. Young Buck a trick or two. And he did with ease. Not only did Jeremiah get all of Caelum’s money back, he shorted Duncan’s wallet fifty dollars more. Then when Duncan wasn’t paying attention, Jeremiah bumped into him and took his wallet for good measure’s sake, one good turn and all that. Though, later when Jeremiah went to buy the lad a beer for being a “good sport,” he noticed the wallet was empty. Frustrated, like hell he was going to buy the kid a beer with his own money, Jeremiah walked back to the table and tossed the wallet back at the kid. Though he expected it, he became very fuddled when there wasn’t the shocked look on the Duncan’s face, but in its stead, a big wily grin.
“Didn’t think you’d give that back,” the boy said opening it, though knowing he probably wouldn’t find anythin’ there. “I figured you’d throw that skin away when you found it contained nothin’.”
“You knew?” asked Jeremiah.
“‘Course I knew. You have some pretty heavy hands,” said Duncan. And then he did something that really surprised Jeremiah. He went to his jacket, which was resting upon a stool next to the table, and pulled out another wallet and threw it to Jeremiah. “I thought we were goin’ to trade. Damn shame if you ask me, I kinda liked the color of your skin.”
Jeremiah caught the wallet and stared dumbly at the seemingly foreign object in his hand. Then, automatically, his right hand reached towards the left breast pocket in his vest, where he kept his wallet. Of course it was missing, as if it could have been cloned and his wallet’s evil doppelganger was actually staring back at him from his hand.
It was a normal reaction, for everyone to disbelieve such things to be possible. Everyone thinks that there is no way someone can reach into my pocket without me feeling a thing, but it happens all the time. And the sad part was that Jeremiah knew it. Though, Jeremiah, never expected in a million years, he would be taken by such a parlor trick. And for some reason, maybe he knew just why, but was afraid to admit that he was outdone by some young punk who beat him at his own game. Perhaps it could have been entirely something else altogether, but a rage began to mount within him. Jeremiah was angry, angrier than he had been in years.
Next to him lay his pool cue and he lunged out in one quick motion and with a flick of the wrist, he broke the stick on the pool table. Over at the bar, Tommy’s head popped up from his magazine and cried out in protest, but then he shrugged and went back to reading. Though on the back of his head, Jeremiah could feel Tommy’s eyes watching intently over the top of his magazine. Jeremiah began to shake the stick threateningly and advance toward Duncan. The grin on the boy’s face stole quickly away and his eyes opened wide with fear. He began to walk slowly away from the man who outweighed and was taller him. The fact that the man was waving a stick menacingly was probably the real reason Duncan began to recoil.
The cowering pleased Jeremiah, and as quickly as the rage had appeared it began to fade just as fast. Jeremiah threw the stick aside and the clattering of the cue upon the brown linoleum echoed around the empty hall. Now Tommy spoke up.
“Now what in the hell di-ja ruin that damn fine stick if you ain’t gonna clobber him o’er the head, fer?” yelled Tommy, as he began to get up and move from around the bar. For a stout man in his forties, Tommy could move quite quickly. “Jeremiah, why don’t you get back to yer pretty faced wife of yers and git? Git on outta here.” Tommy picked up the broken cue and waved it accusingly toward the pair. “Git ‘fore I beat the both of you with this here stick!”
“Whatever you want buddy-boy. Take her easy with that there stick fella. I’ll get goin,” said Jeremiah grinning as he backed his way toward the door. When he reached the handle with his outstretched arm, he turned back to the kid. “I just saved you from a lesson I had to teach the last person that stole from me. I made this exception ‘cause you gave it back to me before I found out,” he said and then walked out the door. As he headed for his car, he could hear Tommy informing Duncan pretty much the same thing, telling him to “Fuck off” so he could read in peace.

It was Duncan who sought out Jeremiah, but this was months later, long after Jeremiah forgotten all about Duncan and the incident down at Tommy’s. He was at home that Saturday afternoon, watching his Blue and Gold Mountaineers play Maryland. It was half-time and the score was currently 7-3, with his Mountaineers on top. He was up getting another beer from the fridge when the phone rang. Curious, since no one ever called, he counted on the person calling to be his wife, who was currently out shopping with her dumb-ass brother, Christian. But it was not Jenny whose voice rang out on the other end.
“Hello?” said Jeremiah into the receiver.
“Jeremiah?” said the male’s voice. Jeremiah didn’t recognize the owner of the voice.
“Yes, yes, this is him. Who—”
“Jeremiah, I have a proposition for you. What would you say to making some easy money?”
“Who are you and how did you get my number?” Jeremiah blurted.
“Duncan—”
“I don’t know any Duncan’s. You have the wrong number,” said Jeremiah getting ready to hang up the phone.
“Jeremiah! It’s Duncan, the boy you took at the pool hall and threatened a while back. I asked Tommy for your number. I got a proposition for you,” replied Duncan. Jeremiah had to think back on that one. Vaguely he recalled something of that nature, then it hit all at once.”
“Duncan, oh yeah—now I gotcha… What do you want?”
“I have a—”
“Yes, yes, I heard that part already. What do you want?”
Duncan then asked Jeremiah to meet him down at Tommy’s where he would wait for him. Jeremiah was reluctant to agree to this, as his game was on. That was until he peeked into the fridge and found he was out of beer and Tommy’s had the game on down there. After a bit more persuasion by Duncan, Jeremiah told him he’d be down there in a few minutes.
There at the bar, it was quite a bit more crowded than normal days, but it seemed that everyone was down there for the same thing he was, to see the Blue and Gold march over the Terrapin’s, which happened to be some sort of turtle mascot, 31-19. In between commercial breaks Duncan told Jeremiah of his so-called proposition. It actually wasn’t that bad of a scheme. He had to give the kid credit.
What Duncan proposed was that they could scam people out of their money by acting like an organization that collected relief money for the hurricane victims. Acting like some sort of Red Cross agency, they could travel and scam wealthy old people from their cash. Old people were always the easiest prey in this game.
Jeremiah saw only two flaws with Duncan’s plans, even though the plans themselves were flawless and bound to work, none the less there was two flaws and Jeremiah pointed them out to him after the game was over.
“One, for these kinds of operations, you need cash to make cash. Just like any ole’ startup business, you gotta have money to make money and you ain't got any money.” Jeremiah said then added, “Do ya?” Duncan slowly shook his head and respectfully let Jeremiah continue, “And then there’s another problem. This here grift calls for two or more people, and even if I were goin to do this here thing, when I used to play this game I made it a point to always work alone. So, sorry chump, you’re gonna have to find yourself somebody else,” said Jeremiah as he rose from his wobbly stool.
“Buh-bu-but…” stammered Duncan. His face was contorted into a confused state, and this was all he could say as he watched Jeremiah disappear from the bar.
Jeremiah thought that would be the end of it, but the boy was persistent. He had to give that to him. Eventually Jeremiah wore down and finally agreed. Duncan’s cause was helped when Jeremiah lost his retailing job from the pharmaceutical company he worked for. Together, they decided to get the startup money the easy way instead of setting up another grift for it. Namely, the easy way was always just plain stealing the money from a source instead of laboriously coaxing another to give it you. And that is how they ended up working the 2nd National Bank of Warwick.
III
No, I don’t wanna do that. Thinking about that shit’s only gonna make me go berserk… he thought to himself. Again Jeremiah began to fuss with the radio knobs, turning them frantically in desperate hopes to find anything, anything at all. Hell, even that NPR News wouldn’t seem so bad right now… he considered briskly. Every once in a while he would find a frequency amidst the dial fuzz briefly, but he could never find the “just right” position. Finally, frustrated and exhausted of trying, he raised his fist back as far as the seat would let him and punched the damn thing.
“Damn it!” He exclaimed as he felt the pain begin to well up into his hand. “We had to steal a car with no damn tape player, CD player, or anything. Now we’re out in the middle of God knows where with nothing for me to listen to except God damned static and nasally breathing from you over there.”
“Jeeezus Christ Germ, don’t tell me you are going to try and blame this on me too.”
“Did you hear me say it was your fault?”
“No, but I know that’s what you’re thinking. You blame me for the job, and now I know you are blaming me for this fucking excuse for a getaway car.” It was true. It was exactly what Jeremiah was thinking. It was his fault.
“Well, we wouldn’t be in this mess if you had fucking kept yours in tune. I mean come on, how professional is it to have your damn car break down the day before we went to work. Two things you were responsible for, a car and a gun. Fucked both of them up didn’t you.”
Saying this deeply satisfied an itch that had been dying to scratch ever since Jeremiah had run out of the Bank only a few hours earlier. It was like when he was a kid and he contracted chicken pox. The doctor said to him, “Now don’t ya be a scratching boy. ‘Cause yer only liable to make it worse for ya if yer do.” And for days Jeremiah was a saint with oven-mitts on. He followed his doctor’s advice keenly, but the urge to scratch became too unbearable for this eight-year old to handle. Oh, how good it felt to scratch and scratch away at his red sores. He scratched them until they bled, and yet he cared little. How could this feeling of relief be so wrong? No, he was not finished scratching here. He would scratch till he saw blood. He needed it. He craved it.
“Oh—oh—oh… I see. Gonna’ blame me for the weather now too aren’t you? It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t think you meant for me to bring a real gun. I don’t own a real gun.” Duncan declared quite strongly at the beginning, but by the end of “I don’t own a real gun,” he was talking very quietly, as if he was regretting saying anything at all once he had started.
His mousiness always had pissed off Jeremiah. Why doesn’t he get some fucking balls for once? He thought to himself, then almost immediately answering himself, ‘Cause he’s still a fucking kid…
“A fucking toy Duncan! You brought a fucking toy! And look what happened… See? Whad-ju’ expect?” Jeremiah reached into the glove box and drew out a black painted plastic gun. The nuzzle of the gun was painted red. It was the kind of toy gun one could buy at the local dime store. It was the kind of guns kids played cops and robbers with in their backyards.
Jeremiah pointed the gun and swung it aimlessly in the air, and then as if the toy needed a place to point, a place of craving to be its own, the toy finally rested its aim upon the temple of Jeremiah’s passenger. He pulled the plastic trigger of the toy and it gave off a sorrowful plastic Rat-a-tat-tat-tat. “How the hell are you going to do anything with this piece of shit? We were going to just walk right in and it would be a cakewalk like it is on TV? This is fucking real life. When I said bring a gun, I fucking meant a real one you jack-hole!” Jeremiah said then rolled down the window and threw the plastic gun out violently. He smiled a malevolently as he watched the thousand pieces of plastic jump and break upon the asphalt in the rearview mirror. That’s the end of that!
Duncan jerked around and looked painfully to the gun breaking apart upon the road, then returned his penitent gaze towards his partner. “What the hell did you do that for? That was Matthew’s! Now I am going to have to go buy my cousin another one.”
“You and your twit relatives can just deal with it. What the hell were you thinking? Huh? Fucking putz!”
Duncan, hurt by his statement, frowned and turned his guilty looking face back toward the window. Oh, you’re not getting off that easily… Jeremiah thought to himself. He then slammed on the breaks, sending the both of them careening forward into the dash. Duncan’s head collided with the glove compartment and then he thrust back into the seat.
“What the fuck dude?” Duncan cried out in distress.
Duncan began to rub his forehead with one hand and the back of his neck with the other. Jeremiah looked to the bland tan colored dash and saw a slight depression in the glove box where his partner’s head had just previously landed. There was a little blood filtering into the sun baked cracks. The sight of blood had Jeremiah grinning from ear to ear on the inside. It was his fault, his entire fault. The car, the bank, hell even this crummy weather, it was all Duncan’s fault. He knew what he should do, and by God, he had only just started to scratch.
“Sorry man, there was a deer…” Jeremiah said in the most cheerful voice he could conjure. “I missed it though—good thing—wouldn’t want to mess up the exterior of this baby…”
Jeremiah was being sarcastic. In fact, earlier that day as they fled, the exterior of this stolen Buick had been smashed and dinged up quite extensively. With his forehead bleeding, Duncan was just wide-eyed and dumbstruck.
“A deer?”
“Yeah man, a deer…” Jeremiah repeated.
“What the fuck dude?” His voice was much higher now than it was before. It could have been due to the gash in his forehead, or perhaps the berating Jeremiah gave him. Either way an itch was being satisfied in Jeremiah’s eyes. “You will smash into several pricy cars, run over an old woman crossing the street, but when a deer crosses your path, you’ll stop? What the fuck man?” “I can’t kill a deer," said Jeremiah. "They’re so graceful. ‘Sides, that old woman was about to croak anyway. She lived a wholesome life—‘sides—I bet she’s probably grateful for the favor I preformed. I know when I get that age, I hope someone euthanizes me.” Jeremiah said and he began to chuckle to himself.
“Whatever dude, let’s just get goin’ again.” Trying to change the temperament between them to something lighter, he quickly added, “Where the hell are we again?”
Jeremiah paused briefly to think about it before answering. “Somewhere outside of Buckhannon, I think. Actually, we may have missed 119 sometime ago. But you got me all worked up and I missed the turn.” Jeremiah said and then turned the wheel around at an emergency turnaround between the separated highways. He paused before entering the counter lane, looked both ways, and then sped off giving the car more then enough gas. After completing a wide angled turn on the barren highway, the tires having a quaint disagreement with the pavement, he floored the gas pedal and the car took off again. The tires screeching in annoyance as bits of gravel underneath spat out the backside.
Duncan simply gave a sharp look toward his driver and then resorted to looking out the window again without saying anything. While he was staring out the window into the bleak sky, his nasally breathing became worse, and his breathing rather shallow and hard. He tried to nurse his forehead with a napkin he found on the floorboard the best he could. It was a plain white generic napkin and it could have been from anywhere. Not that it mattered to Duncan at all from whence it came. To Jeremiah, this trivial fact of the origin of the napkin mattered to him the least. This is because he knew the bleeding was not going to be slowing down anytime soon. Jeremiah was going to make sure of that.
Listening to the silence and the persistent annoying wheezing from Duncan infuriated Jeremiah. He sequestered his anger and took a deep breath. After awhile he saw what he was looking for and turned the car down a dirt and gravel road. Patches of grass, tanned over the summer months earlier by what had been documented as a record setting season (At least that is what the fat, pompous, weatherman with wired brim eyeglasses had said on local newscast), grew wildly between the two indented lines in the road where the tires had worn in grooves. Brown, dying thorn bushes sprouted alongside of the path everywhere.
Duncan didn’t even notice the change of scenery, as he was too concerned over the state of his head to worry about anything else at the moment. Good… thought Jeremiah. After a few minutes of traveling down the beaten path, Jeremiah stopped the car and turned off the ignition. Surprised, Duncan looked up and then over to Jeremiah.
“What the—where are we Germ?”
But Jeremiah did not respond. Not with words anyway. He simply pulled a revolver out from the inside of his jacket and shot Duncan three times in the sternum, once in the heart, and the other two in both of his lungs. He would have put a shot in the head, for good measure’s sake, but that would have made quite a mess. Plus, there was the off chance that the bullet would leave the car if he shot Duncan in the head. No, there was no room for mistakes. So, instead of a quick death, Jeremiah had to watch poor Duncan’s horrified face as realized what was happening to him. He tried to call out but only a gurgling noise emerged from his throat and blood began to spew out slowly from his mouth, trickling down his chin. Duncan grasped his left hand over his chest, which was immediately engulfed in the red blood that was pumping out of the gaping holes in his chest. When you shoot somebody at close range, it is never as neat and clean as it is on TV and in movies. Duncan’s other hand leapt out toward Jeremiah. Though the hand was probably reaching out in confusion for help, Jeremiah thought the lunge looked a little spiteful and he thought Duncan was trying to take Jeremiah along on his one way trip. Jeremiah desperately tried to move away from the enclosing hand, and right before it was about to reach Jeremiah the arm dropped limply away, back to the owner’s side. The struggle was over, as was his life.
Smugly Jeremiah straightened himself up from his cowering position. He quietly put the smoking revolver back into its holster, where it sat snuggly against his chest. The warmth of it sent shivers down his spine. He spat on Duncan’s face and smiled. He was a fucking spaz, always a fuck-up. Even as he lay dying, he sought help from his killer. What the fuck was he thinking? Jeremiah thought to himself.
“What Duncan? What’s that? Why did I shoot you, you ask? Well, that there is a very good question... But hey there Duncan, you’re not looking so good.” He began to pat his dead companion on the shoulder as he continued. “Yeah, next stop we should really get you something for that bleeding. And oh my God! That nasal blockage you got there has got to go…” Jeremiah began to laugh again while he stared at his fallen comrade.
“You know—I know you asked, but you never did ask exactly how my last partner and I disbanded, did you. Oh, sure you asked, but you never did quite ask for details, did ya buddy-boy? Well, I got to tell you buddy-boy, you and he can talk about that and all the circumstances of his demise when you meet him down at the bottom of this here quarry’s lake. Did I mention that you look like hell buddy-boy? Did I?” he said and then began to laugh heartily. He laughed until the swelling in his belly began to hurt and the tears started to well up in his eyes. Then he laughed a little longer, all the while still patting the shoulder of the corpse next to him. He sat there and patted Duncan’s shoulder like one would while sitting next to a friend at a bar, while sitting telling a good story.
“I guess now’s a good time as any to tell you about Phil. Did ya ever meet Phil, Duncan?” He paused and looked to the motionless body next to him. As if he was waiting for a reply. “Oh, of course you didn’t. Phil was way before your time. You were still a suckling back then, weren’t ya there buddy-boy?
“Well, actually, there’s not much to say about poor dead Phil. He was my partner on a couple jobs. That is until he made a few mistakes, just like you made a few mistakes. You see, poor, dead, miserable fuck Phil was stealing from me. Few thousand here, a few thou— there, you know, it all adds up. Anyway, I found out about it, and brought him up to this here abandoned quarry.
“So you’re probably wonderin’ why I shot you, aren’t ya buddy-boy? Oh don’t bother saying so; I can clearly see you’re dying with anticipation. You see, Phil there cost me lots of my money, my hard earned money, and you, by fucking up like you did, did the same. You cost me my money. And that’s like stealing from me, ain’t it? Oh, I wasn’t plannin’ on killing your ass, but you just irritated the hell outta me kid. And when I passed that old rusted quarry sign on the opposite side of the road, I just thought to myself, hell? Why not?
“What’s that you ask? How do I know this quarry’s abandoned? Don’t you worry your pretty little head about me getting caught or nothin’. This here quarry shut down ages ago. It closed down in the seventies; you know when most of the stuff shut ‘round here. Yup, they dug, they took, and they got the fuck out. It all went down during the economic recession, when the cost of diggin’ all this rock up was higher than the demand for it. It’s simple economics, buddy-boy.
“Sure, now and then, some punk ass kids ‘round your age stumble upon this here quarry, and they go swimming with their cute naked little girlfriends, but they do that shit all the way on the other side where the slope runs down and meets the water. Plus, they only do that stuff in the summertime. It’s all the way into October now. ‘Fraid no one’s to be found swimmin’ this time of the year. Nope, you’re not goin’ to be found out down here. And neither am I. You’re just gonna have to think of another way to get me into trouble, ‘cause no one is coming to your rescue now. You’ll be lost forever at the bottom just like Phil. Phil ain’t never been found, and now his fate can be shared by you. Isn’t that just wonderful?
“So, there you have it Duncan. Wasn’t quite justified homicide, but I dunno, what d’you think? What? Oh, that’s right. You’re dead and it doesn’t matter anymore. Well, it’s been real lovely, our little chat and all, but now I gotta get going. So long Duncan, and please do say hello to Phil for me down there,” said Jeremiah, laughing feverishly, all the while patting Duncan on his shoulder.
IV
When he regained control of himself again, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his cellular, flipped it open, pushed nine, and then send. The phone dialed a preset number and immediately the tone switched to a ring. After three rings, a velvety southern accent picked up on the other end. God, that accent made Jeremiah lust for her. It was his wife, Jennifer, who picked up on the other end.
“Hey baby, it’s me… get Christian on the phone for me… I’m all right; just go get Christian... I’ll be home shortly… Okay… Alright…” His patience was waning. He loved his wife, but she could talk up a storm if you ever let get going. He had been on the job for a few weeks now, and that could only mean it was hurricane season when it came to Jenny. Quickly he angrily belted out, “Damn-it baby, just go get the damn stupid ape…”
Almost immediately he regretted using the tone he did. Though it worked, now there would be hell to pay once he got home. He was not looking forward to the daunting task of getting his wife out of the bathroom. He had his mind on other things right now.
After a brief pause Christian picked up the phone and the conversation began again. Jeremiah told him a story and ordered him to come get him. Christian was Jenny’s dumb kid brother. Jeremiah could never remember what the doctors and Jenny said was wrong with the damn ox, so he just called him dumb. He wasn’t retarded per say, it was more like he was locked into a perpetual state of childhood. He could do normal things like drive a car just fine, but the doctors said he shouldn’t really live under his own supervision (and Jennifer totally agreed). So after her parents both had died, Christian moved over to his house and bunked up in the attic. And he knew when he married Jenny that eventually that day would come as it did. It annoyed the hell out of Jeremiah, but he put up with the brute because he loved his wife. Though he let the man-boy stay in his home, Jeremiah often treated him with disdain. This attitude toward her gigantic kid brother was the cause of many of their fights, especially as of late. But Christian never seemed to mind. As long as he had his pal Jubee, things were all right by him.
And because of his pal Jubee, Christian was reluctant to agree to pick him up. After all, Christian’s favorite show was about to begin, and like hell he was going to miss that. Everyday at 5:30 pm, Christian always stopped what he was doing to watch that fucking clown jump around on screen for the children. It was a show on some cable access network and it was all that Christian ever talked about. “You know what Jubee would say… Last night on Jubee, Jubee did this…” God, it irritated the hell out of Jeremiah. His shelves were littered with the damn clown’s tapes and DVD’s. Christian had to own every goddamn one of his specials. And Jeremiah put up with it, because he had to. Today, for the first time ever, the annoying aggressively moral clown came to Jeremiah’s rescue. Jeremiah decided to use him to his advantage.
“Hey Christian, Jubee’s got’s lots of friends, right?” asked Jeremiah. He heard the phone drop on the other end. There was a quick struggle as Christian placed the receiver back up to his ear.
“Oh, yes. Yes he sure does. Jubee has got’s tons of friends. There’s Donald and Susie, Gracie the les-bean mail lady, Paco, a-a-a-and—” Christian rambled off excitedly. It had been a whole day since he had talked to anyone about his pal Jubee. Irritated, Jeremiah cut him off.
“Um, yes. Yes, he’s got’s lots of friends Christian. But let me ask you this buddy-boy, say that Jubee’s pals Susie and Donald’s car broke down. Would Jubee go to help them out or would he make his friends wait until his television show was done?” asked Jeremiah patronizingly. There was a pause over the line as Christian thought about it, and thought about it. “Goddamn it man. I haven’t got all day. I’m on a cell phone and you’re wasting my minutes here! Now, would or wouldn’t Jubee go pick up his stupid-ass friends or not?”
“Oh, he most assuredly would go do that.” “Good… Now come and pick my ass up!” said Jeremiah irritably, then he was quick to add, “…just like Jubee would.”
“But—”
“Tell Jennifer to tape the damn show for you, so you can watch it when you get back,” said Jeremiah, then quickly added, “How ‘bout that kiddo? Sound good?”
Christian finally agreed and Jeremiah had to repeat the directions several times to his oafish brother-in-law before understood. After the conversation ended, Jeremiah placed the phone back in his breast pocket and started to get to work. He had stopped rather conveniently at the edge of the precipice, and below was a pool of rainwater that had been collecting for many years. The place was called Fleisher’s Quarry, at least according to the battered rusty sign at the entrance of the dirt roadway.
And here he was thirty minutes later collecting every bit of evidence he could, so if they ever found the remains of poor Duncan here, they couldn’t trace it back to him. He wasn’t worried about the prints because they would wash off in the basin below. Quietly and efficiently he worked until the job was complete. No way anybody gonna’ find out… He thought smugly to himself. Nobody, after all had found out about Phil, did they? Hell no one even missed that poor bastard and his ugly cowboy hat.
He leaned over the front seat and grabbed the small satchel that was in the backseat. It was only about a grand, a miniscule thousand bucks, was all that they had been able to steal. Thanks largely to the cooling cadaver in the seat next to him. Then he searched Duncan’s pockets for a wallet and found it contained several fifties and about two twenties. He stuffed the money into his pocket and climbed out of the car, pulled another smoke out of his breast pocket, and lit a smoke.
Jeremiah then rolled up his window so that only a bit of a crack was available. After all, he didn’t want Duncan to be able to float his dead bloated carcass to the surface later, did he? He cracked the window so that some water would get in, but no bodies could get out. He switched the gears to neutral and began to rock the car back and forth. When the momentum got going, he let go of the car and it careened into the unnatural lake below. There was a giant splash and then there was a loud piercing horn blast that rang out across the valley. After a minute or so, the horn’s loud blaring cut out as the car slowly sank beneath the water. Jeremiah listened a little closer. He could still hear the horn going off, though its sound barely audible from underneath the water. After the car’s total submersion, all that was left to be seen were the bubbles which caressed the already disturbed surface. And the sound of the horn disappeared completely as the car fell to the quarry lake’s floor.
Jeremiah watched the LeSabre for a bit longer; satisfied, he threw the rest of his smoke down into the murky water and walked away. He crossed to a large rock jutting out of the ground several yards away from the drop-off and sat down, pulled out another Pall-Mall unfiltered, and began to wait for his ride to appear. Sitting there with nothing to entertain him, his memories of the day’s events began to wash through his mind.
V
After about an hour and seven cigarettes later, when the Sun had finally poked through the clouds from up above, a faded blue, dilapidated pick-up truck began to wind its way down toward him, kicking up storms of dust as it went. The truck stopped about twenty feet Jeremiah and a large, blond haired man in his late twenties jumped down from the cabin. Christian was a boy who was too big for the overalls he was wearing. He had on a green John Deer trucker hat, and he wore a great big, dumb grin across his face. This was a face that greatly displeased Jeremiah. Every time he saw the great big oaf, he just wanted to kill him right then and there. It was probably because of that pretty little sister his that the great big dumbbell wasn’t dead yet. Jeremiah mustered all his strength to find a smile from within. All he could manage was a contemptuous smirk. It was the best he could do.
“How’d you get stuck here?” Christian pleasantly asked him.
“That’s none of your business.” said Jeremiah. “But enough of this jibberin’. I’ve been waitin’ out here forever. Where the hell you been—Wait… Don’t answer that. Why don’t you climb up in the bed big guy, and we’ll get the hell outta here, what do you say? Would you like to ride in the bed of the truck, outside in the nice crisp air? ‘Sides, you want to get back and watch Jubee, right?”
Christian grinned ear to ear and nodded his head foolishly. “Oh yeah, that sounds like fun, you know what Jubee would say abo—”
“Oh shut up about Jubee and get up on back there.” Jeremiah said crossly. Christian’s smile began to fade, but as he climbed aboard, he forgot quickly about the reply and he began to smile once again.
“Oh, this is goin to be fun, yeah Jeremiah?” asked Christian.
“Tons,” replied Jeremiah as he climbed into the cab. As he closed the door he drew a deep breath and sighed heavily. He looked at the blazing sun battling the clearing horizon. The sparsely littered clouds had turned pink and the whole thing just looked wonderful.
And I thought this was going to be a crummy day… thought Jeremiah as he turned the key in the ignition. Jeremiah put the truck into reverse, then reached over to the radio and pushed a CD into its slot. Johnny Cash began to sing “The Man Comes Around” over the speakers. Jeremiah put the truck in first gear and started to take off the dusty dirt road. As he reached the highway, he looked back toward the quarry a final time, as if he were saying a silent prayer for their souls. It had to be done… he thought to himself and reverently turned back around, pulled out another cigarette, and took a left back onto the barren highway, sped up, and disappeared into the purpling twilight night, a twilight sky which didn’t seem that gloomy anymore.
VI
To say life for Jeremiah returned back to normal when he got home would be far from an understatement. Though for a couple of months it seemed like it may turn out that way. At least Jeremiah could admit that during this time, life was great. After he made up with his wife and the money started to pour in, his sex life was great and he felt better than he had for several years. Though he was only thirty-nine, the past few years he had increasingly felt his age slowly creeping up on him. Now, he felt like he was a vibrant twenty-one again. To his best guess, this new vitality had occurred after he pushed Duncan and the car into what he now jokingly referred to as his “Fountain of Youth.” Everyday (and night! Oh, what animals had he and his wife become) that passed, he believed his decision to dispose of Duncan had been the right one.
Jeremiah was getting rich now, because he wisely revamped Duncan’s plan so that he could do it only with one person. In stead of working upon a mark in person, he devised in a way he could actually get people to send him money over the internet. Jeremiah called it the “net-business” when he was around the house. Though his wife knew all about what he was really up to, they had long ago set up a “don’t ask—don’t tell” policy when it came to Jeremiah’s actual income. It worked out for a much happier marriage that way. As long as the money was constantly coming in, his wife was a happy camper. Not that she was a greedy or immoral person by nature, it just that most marriages tend to fall apart when money becomes an issue. Jenny thought of it this way, though her husband may get his income in less than proper situations, how is her husband any different than those big nasty corporate guys who make their money much the same way? In both cases it was thievery, though one may have been socially condoned and the other strived for, Jenny couldn’t really see much of a difference between them. As long as there was a consistent supply of income available, Jenny didn’t really care where the money was coming from. It’s not like her husband was some kind of drug dealer, rapist, serial killer or anything. Jeremiah was just a simple man who took advantage of other simple men. If they offered their money to Jeremiah, far be it from him not to take the poor schmucks.
The scam itself worked by simply calling up the marks and selling them on the site he set up. They placed donations with their credit cards, which were sent to a dummy fund somewhere in the Cayman Islands (set up by a friend of a friend, who owed Jeremiah a favor), then rerouted to a bank in Switzerland. Then all Jeremiah had to do was log on to his account via the same world-wide-web and just watch his money pour in. “Hey Fakir presto!—shim-sham-badda-bing— legerdemain—CHA-CHING!” he exclaimed after he hung up the phone on what he knew was going to be his first successful mark. And it was a very fat mark, found later by Jeremiah with three clicks of the mouse, two hours later. It was—it was all so beautiful… so very fucking beautiful… thought Jeremiah as he stared contently at his computer screen.
After the first week of the plan in action, he made out with several thousand dollars, and over the next few weeks that total just kept on increasing. The way things were working out now, he wouldn’t have to find a new job for a long time. Hell, with the hurricane season this year, bringing so much destruction, he might not even have to work again. His only reluctance was that he hadn’t thought of this scam or ran into Duncan earlier. This would have worked wondrously right after 9/11. All those people bleeding for a chance to be patriotic! He kinda wished for another plane or bomb to blow the entire country up (since he lived in West Virginia, he figured he’s never have to worry about a thing like that affecting him). All those people dying didn’t really concern him; he was only interested in those who remained alive, those who had extra cash and a guilty conscious to boot.
It was just so simple, and people were so gullibly willing to open their checkbooks for anything to help those poor saps out there. What made it best was that they were too inconvenienced to verify where the money was actually going. Jeremiah believed that deep down, people really didn’t care all that much about where the money went, but what really mattered was they felt better about themselves for doing the act. And that was just fine with Jeremiah, he felt good about it too. He even gave Jenny permission to go out and buy Christian that new Jubee video he’d been crying over for months now, Jubee’s New Clown Car.
VII
It was a Wednesday evening when Jeremiah’s new life began to fail for him. And it all started with a strange phone call. Jenny had taken Christian, which Jeremiah was insistent about, out to get his new Jubee DVD, and Jeremiah had the whole house all to his self for the first time in what seemed like a long time. And even though he was home alone, he spent the evening as he usually spent his weeknights. And that was in his workshop in the garage working on something or another. Lately, he had been spending more and more time out in his workshop, since he had so much money coming in, he had added quite a few new toys for him to play with as of late.
This Wednesday, he was changing the oil of his slick, brand new, black 2005 Dodge Charger. He was under the car when the phone rang upon the far wall (something else novel to the house as he just put the jack in last week). This unexpected noise surprised him. Jeremiah’s reaction to the loud piercing ring made him crack his skull on the oil pan, as he tried to sit up, forgetting where he was momentarily.
After a long series of undecipherable curse words, he rolled out from under the car on a skid and began to wipe his hands off on an old pair of underwear. (Old towels, socks, and yes, even underwear were tossed into a box in the garage, labeled “Rags,” when his wife had deemed they were no longer use-worthy and trash. Though she threw them into the trash, Jeremiah always dug them out and put them in his box, deciding that even if he couldn’t wear them anymore, they were still “plenty good.”) When he cleaned off the extra grime and grease, he picked up the phone, which oddly enough was still ringing after fifteen rings.
“Hello?” asked Jeremiah.
But there was no answer on the other line. An uneasiness grew in the pit of Jeremiah’s stomach. He repeated the questionable greeting once again before deciding to hang up. Just as he was taking the receiver down from his ear, he thought he heard a crackle or what could have been a voice brake out from the other end, and Jeremiah quickly put the receiver back up to his ear.
“Hello? Did you say something?” asked Jeremiah. The answer came back loudly in his ear. It was a blaring car horn. It shrieked an off-tone note through the receiver and frightened the hell out of Jeremiah, who then dropped the phone to the floor. The horn still pounding away, echoing around the garage as the phone fell. When the cordless hit the floor battery lid popped off the phone and the pack disconnected, as did the sound. A cold chill whipped through Jeremiah’s spine and goose bumps began to ripple up and down the back of his arms. He could think of nothing better to do but pick up his “rag” again and begin to wipe his hands off continuously as he stared oddly at the phone.
A long minute passed before he could take his eyes away from the fallen phone. Once he did, the moment passed and he shrugged it away as just odd. He stored it away as just some stupid asshole kid playing a prank. And his uneasiness subsided quickly as he climbed back under the car.
But that was just the first of many strange things that began to happen. There were more phone calls made to his house, at all hours of the day, but mostly they occurred while Jeremiah was trying to sleep. The shrieking car horn never called again, but the static rich emptiness on the other end, where the person calling refused to speak was always there.
At first they were infrequent, but soon the calls came almost every night. Finally, Jeremiah got so upset by them; he had the phone company (who couldn’t give out the identity of where the calls were being placed) switch their number to a new one. The weird phone calls stopped coming after that. However, Jeremiah’s sleep did not. So, Jeremiah fell into the bottle more often then not, to try and put him to bed. It was one of these late night drink-a-thons in which another strange thing occurred.
VIII
That damn clown! is what Jeremiah used to call him. It was several weeks after the last prank phone call and Jeremiah was coming home drunk and rather late from Tommy’s. When he pulled his new Dodge Charger into the driveway, he looked at the clock on the dash. The clock said two-thirty in the morning. He was sure to be in trouble with Jenny if he didn’t stay quite when he entered the house. He decided to park the car in the driveway that night, instead of pulling it into the garage. Their automatic garage door was so loud it could wake the dead, let alone his wife.
Quietly, he opened the front door and walked in holding his breath as he latched the door behind him. There was a loud click. Jeremiah stood still and patiently waited to hear the rustling of footsteps from above. Relieved when he heard none, he crept into the living room where he decided it would be best to bunk down for the night. Besides the actual climbing into bed, his own wonderful aroma (of smoke and beer that were quite heavy on his breath and clothes) was surely to wake his wife. No, he decided, it would be best for him to sleep on the couch that night. Except the only problem was, when he entered the living room, was that someone was already there resting comfortably in his spot.
It appeared that Christian had been doing some sneaking of his own. Sometime after Jenny had put him and herself to bed, Christian had came downstairs to watch his “favorite video in the whole wide world,” Jubee’s New Clown Car. In fact, since the show was still on, Jeremiah surmised that Christian had only just snuck down recently, only to fall asleep at the very beginning of the movie.
Since Christian was sleeping in Jeremiah’s desired spot, and waking the dumb bastard would only cause much more grief than simply coming home drunk, there were two choices for Jeremiah: a) he could sleep uncomfortably on the nearby loveseat, or b) go upstairs and deal with the consequences if he woke Jenny. He ended up deciding that one night of terrible comfort was more pleasant than spending a whole day in the same house with a bitchy wife.
And because he chose the former, a half hour later he sat miserably drunk, folded awkwardly on a couch, which now he realized was more for decoration than actual comfort. Realizing he wasn’t about to fall asleep anytime soon, he progressively found himself watching that damn clown on the television. The mute button was still on, but he became enthralled with the show just the same. Jeremiah had up to this point all together avoided watching this new episode of Christian’s, even with Christian’s insistent need to play it over and over and over again. Curiosity finally overcame Jeremiah and he grabbed the remote and very raised the volume of the television to where it was barely audible, even to him. He knew the soundtrack by heart, just by hearing it from the other room. He swore as he caught himself singing drunkenly along with one of the songs the stupid kids on the TV were singing.
On screen, Susie, Donald, and Paco were currently playing in the sandbox, pretending to be pirates looking for buried treasure, when that damn clown popped out of nowhere.
“Heeeeeeey there kiddos!” said the miserable clown. And everyone shouted back their greetings.
“Heeeeeeey there Jubee!”
Then the small banter progressed. Susie explaining to Jubee that she was a pirate captain searching for her lost treasure and that Donald and Paco were her mates. This whole scene went on until Jubee finally realized why he popped in to begin with. Jeremiah was almost to the land of nod when Jubee again shouted, “Heeeeeeeey there kiddos! Guess what I got today?” Jeremiah irritably snorted awake and began to watch again. The kids on the television meanwhile began to guess off the wall guesses to what Jubee had bought.
“Um… is it a new horn?” asked Donald.
“Noooooooooo…” replied Jubee squeezing his nose so it made a honking noise.
“I know, it’s a brand new bowtie,” exclaimed Susie.
“Nooooooooo…” responded the clown, spinning his bowtie.
“Es una bicicleta?” asked Paco.
And so on the scene went on, wrong guess after wrong guess, until finally the clown grew so upset that he started yelling the word “no.” This caught Jeremiah’s attention and he became riveted with the clown’s new attitude and body language toward the children. It irked Jeremiah to see a clown frowning so menacingly when his over applied make-up kept trying so hard to reinforce the opposite image.
“Goddamn it kids! What are you a bunch of fucking RETARDS or something? I just told you guys YESTERDAY that I was getting a BRAND NEW CAR!” cried Jubee. Donald, Susie, and Paco were on the verge of tears as Jubee began to berate them in what appeared to be now an ugly New Yorker’s accent instead of the happily cheery one the kids were used to. “Hell! The goddamn title of this DVD is Jubee’s NEW CLOWN CAR! Not Jubee’s new BOWTIE, you DAMN IDIOTS!” exclaimed the clown. He laughed his trademark “Jubee laugh,” then his voice sweetened again. His scowl disappeared as if nothing had happened. “So you want to see my New clown car or not?” Jubee asked politely.
The children, who were now crying and cowering back from the clown, began to nod dumbly. Obviously they were afraid to say no, and had never witnessed to this side of Jubee. Jubee jumped up and down with joy, literally, and then he turned to the camera, to the studio audience and addressed them. The camera zoomed in for a close shot upon his face. There was nothing unusual about his appearance; it was the normal clown make-up one was used to seeing clowns wear. No, that part was sane. What scared Jeremiah were the clown’s eyes. Jubee’s usual bright blue eyes were now blood red. They seemed to be focused on Jeremiah’s position in the room. Jubee leaned in and whispered to the audience, to Jeremiah, “Heeeeeeeeey there kiddos! Have I got a treat for you… You’re gonna want to see this. Perhaps you’ll just die when you see my BRAND NEW CAR!”
Then the camera panned out quickly. Jubee waved his right hand horizontally toward the background like a game show host would to his contestants, when they were about to find out what they could win. Then from the left side of the screen drove in a dirt brown, two door, 1979 Buick LeSabre. Gracie the “les-bean” mail lady was behind the wheel. She gave the horn a nice long familiar honk of the horn before she climbed out. Shivers shot up and down Jeremiah’s spine. He was so disgusted, but too enthralled to turn away. It was just like Jubee had said. He did want to see this. He felt like he might die if he didn’t. And though he started to feel like he was going to throw up, his eyes stayed glued to the tube, just as his bottom stayed glued to the loveseat’s cushion.
As Gracie clambered out of the vehicle, Jubee’s midget clown friends followed closely behind her. There were seven of those gross little midget pals in all. When they each reached their freedom from the car, they all ran around comically honking their noses and spinning their bowties. The kids had all together forgotten about the past transgressions and were now yipping with delight as the midget clowns each made them a balloon figure, which incidentally tied into the pirate theme, as the balloons were fashioned into swords. The kids ran around with the makeshift swords slashing through the air, trying to behead each other, feinting their deaths in comical fashion, gurgling and grunting as they fell to the ground.
“Ah, yes there kiddos. Here’s the best that my clown money could buy. Look at the wonderful features on my clown-mobile. We got four tires…” said Jubee and the kids all oohed and ahhed. “Let’s see, we got a steering wheel for turning the car. Oh! And lookie here, what we got here is pretty neat-o. It’s a seatbelt! You kids know what a seatbelt does for you?” asked Jubee. All three kids hand’s shot strait in the air. Jubee’s focus turned to the audience once again, but this time his demeanor was endearing. “What about you kids at home? Do you know what a seatbelt’s for?”
“It’s so you don’t get hurt when you are in a crash into another car!” shouted Susie.
“It also helps to wear one when you hit other things too, Susie. Such as walls, lakes, and deer…” replied Donald.
“Say, you guys are smart. That’s right,” said Jubee as he winked to the audience. "You know what my favorite feature is?" Jubee said, then proceeded to sit behind the wheel. He raised his right arm back as far as it could go. Jeremiah leaned into the television the furthest he could go without slipping off the couch. Jubee turned and faced Jeremiah and grinned nastily. To Jeremiah, the clown's eyes seemed to be on fire. "I love the HORN!" screamed Jubee, laying on it as had as he could. He pressed the horn down for a solid eight count, and then played the "two shaves and a hair cut" rythem while he laughed his trademark laugh. “But you know what feature this car doesn’t have kiddos?”
All the kids began to shake their head “no.” And Jubee overly dramatic began to frown and make mimish crying motions.
“It doesn’t have a machine to play all of Jubee’s favorite songs. Like a CD player, it hasn’t got one of those. All it has is a stupid radio, and my clown buddies and I hate the radio don’t we?” said Jubee. All the little clowns who had been running around in the background goofing off now responded with short little blasts from their horns. And all the kids laughed along with Jubee. “Hey there kiddos, what do you say to taking a spin in this here clown car of mine? I’ll take you to a place where you can really act like pirates searching for buried treasure! What do you say kiddos?” asked Jubee. The kids and Gracie all shouted with tremendous approval.
“Are we going to go down to the swimming pool?” asked Paco.
“Why no Paco, I thought we’d try somewhere a little different this time. Have you guys ever been swimming in a quarry?” asked Jubee.

Jeremiah had heard enough and couldn’t contain the vomit inside him any longer. He rushed to the bathroom down the hall, fell to his knees, and purged himself of all the contents in his stomach. After he was done puking his guts out into the toilet, which hadn’t made him feel any better, he wondered over to the sink and began to slash his face with water. The water felt so cool and refreshing on his feverish face. He looked at himself in the mirror. His long face was very pale and his brown colored eyes were stained a pale pink. His thinning peppered hair was disheveled. He splashed another cool puddle of water on his face and turned the faucet off. It was a dream, he told himself. I fell asleep, I’m drunk, and it was just a dream—a very bad dream. What am I now? Am I feeling guilty or something over Duncan’s death? Is that it? No, that little fucker deserved to die. I’m just tired and need to get sober. I’m just not thinking right, right now…
As he returned to the living room, he saw that the television was now turned off and the lights were on. When he entered the room, he saw the reason for this was sitting wide awake on the sofa with a big dumb grin on his face.
“You ain’t gonna yell at me are ya, Jerm-y?” asked Christian hopefully. Jeremiah didn’t respond but crossed over and sat down on the loveseat, relieving himself of a long sigh. He leaned over and put his head into his lap. There was a long pause before Christian had the courage to speak up again. But when he felt like there was no danger from Jeremiah getting angry at him for being up so late, he spoke again. “I like Jubee’s new car, don’t you?”
“What did you just say?” asked Jeremiah, whipping upright.
“Wh-wh-what do you mean? Doncha like Jubee’s new car?” asked Christian. Tears began to develop in his eyes as he feared that now he would be told off for sneaking downstairs.
“Settle down ya blubberin’ baby. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. What kinda car did Jubee get?” asked Jeremiah, still believing what he saw before was a just a dream. After all it had to be a dream. A show like that couldn’t be aired on television. A clown going berserk on his kids wouldn’t fare well with the mom’s and dad’s of America. And if it was a dream, thought Jeremiah, then I really don’t know what kind of car Jubee drove, do I.
“A Bu-wick Lesaber…” responded Christian.
“A WHAT?”
The scared look was back again. Christian cringed and repeated what he said like a kid who was finally telling the truth to his mother about breaking the lamp while playing baseball inside the house. Jeremiah stood up and started pacing back and forth in the living room. It couldn’t have been real, thought Jeremiah. It just couldn’t. Even if it was, would that mean anything? I’m drunk and it couldn’t. It’s all a big coincidence. Yeah, that’s what it is, a coincidence. He crossed over to the DVD player and was going to turn it back on to verify if it was the truth, when Christian spoke up again.
“You’re scaring me like Jubee did. I ain’t never seen Jubee act like that before. Are you mad at me too, Jerm-y?”
As if that settled that fact, Jeremiah halted what he was doing and faced Christian, who cringed further back in his seat like he was getting ready to be hit. “You mean Jubee’s never acted like this before?” asked Jeremiah.
When Christian realized the hit was not coming, he straightened out and leaned into Jeremiah to whisper, “No, never, not till tonight I’ve never seen him so mad it Donald and Susie…”
“But he’s always gotten a Buick LeSabre?”
“No, it’s a brand new one…” replied Christian like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Then he added, “Yesterday he got a V-dub-ya… I like this one better. It’s neater—now all his friends can ride with him in comfort…”
Jeremiah’s knees at once grew very heavy and he plopped down to the floor. “Never?” he asked.
“Never…” responded Christian.
A dazed dream state stole over him and he sat that way for a long time. Deciding he was now desperately tired and it was way past his bedtime, Jeremiah found the strength to stand once again and started to leave the room. “Well, I’m sure you ain’t gonna see him do it no more after tonight. I’m sure he’ll be fine tomorrow,” said Jeremiah in a voice that was not quite his one, in a voice which was distant.
“Jerm-y?” asked Christian before Jeremiah could leave the room. Jeremiah stopped mid step and faced Christian. His face was emotionless.
“Yeah Christian?”
“Will you ever take me swimming at the quarry?”
“Sure, what ever you want buddy-boy…” said Jeremiah in a noncommittal fashion. Then Jeremiah walked slowly up the steps and went to bed for the night. He had a dreamless sleep. And when he awoke in the morning, he had all but forgotten the night’s events and blamed his momentary memory loss upon his blistering hangover. It wouldn’t be till later that he remembered what had transpired, but even then, it seemed so far away and he marked it down as happening in a terrible nightmare. The fact that it was never mentioned again by Christian helped to solidify that fact.
IX
Over the next few days, nothing much happened out of the ordinary. Jeremiah, scared from his recent nightmare, had taken it upon himself to not touch the bottle at all the next few days, going to bed sober. Every subsequent night it took him longer and longer to fall asleep. It seemed like every little noise hindered Jeremiah from drifting down. From the shuffles and scratches his wife made periodically all the way to the hissing of their next door neighbor’s air conditioning unit across the street kept Jeremiah wide eyed every night.
A week after the clown nightmare, after a day of back-breaking labor trying to repair the fence, Jeremiah believed he was going to finally overcome his insomnia. His feet dragged heavily up the steps as he climbed up to his room. It was just a little after nine-thirty and he didn’t even undress, but simply plopped down onto his mattress, and fell asleep almost immediately as his head hit the pillow. There was no thinking about anything as he closed his eyes, he freely drifted away.
It was too good to be true he thought as he awoke to a startling noise. Disoriented, he looked to the alarm clock on the nightstand he saw that he had only been down for an hour. Though he looked around for the source of his awakening, he couldn’t spy anything out of the ordinary. His wife was silently sleeping beside him, but there was nothing else. As he laid back, content to try and fall asleep again, the noise which had disturbed him rang out again.
It came from the street below. It was the revving of a car’s engine. Slowly, Jeremiah sat up and walked over to the window. Down below he saw the outline of a car sitting idly in front of his house. The car revved its engine again. Goddamn kids… Jeremiah thought.
“Germ, what is it?” said he sleepy wife from behind him.
“Oh nothing honey. Go back to bed. It’s just some stupid kids in a car below,” replied her husband. Then the car below revved its engine another time, but this time it encored with a loud long honk of it’s horn.
“Oh just go do something about it, why doncha? You ain’t been sleeping well and those kids might be there forever…” she said groggily.
“Okay honey, go back to bed,” said Jeremiah as he raced out the door already thinking the same thing.
It’s them… thought Jeremiah as he raced down the steps and toward the front door. It’s gotta be them. If I catch those mother fuckers, I’m gonna… Well, he didn’t know what he was going to do, but for sure he thought that it wouldn’t be anything nice. He spun open the door with such force that it hit the other side of the wall and bounced back into his face stubbing his toe as he tried to run through it. He swore up a storm but kept on running with the pain. Jeremiah got about five feet down past the porch when the car’s wheels started to squeal and the driver of the car took off down the street. Jeremiah had already come to a complete stop, standing motionless in awe and fear.
It couldn’t be, could it? Thought Jeremiah. What Jeremiah actually saw when he ran down the porch was a 1979, darkly shaded, Buick LeSabre peeling away. He couldn’t read the license plate number, but he saw that the plates were West Virginia plates, recognizing the “Wild, Wonderful” slogan on them. Though he had tears welling in his eyes, he could have sworn that the person who had been driving the car was none other than Duncan himself. It just couldn’t be. Duncan is dead. I saw him die. Hell, I pulled the damn trigger… three times… No, that couldn’t be Duncan. I’m tired, tears were in my eyes, it’s dark, I must be mistaken… That wasn’t Duncan, it was those damn kids who made the phone call. Thought Jeremiah as he tried to reassure himself.
But what then displeased Jeremiah was the question that followed his logic. Why on earth would these kids be harassing me, then? The same car could have been coincidental, but the fact remained that this was not the first time. They indeed had to be harassing him, but then why? Jeremiah could only come up with one conclusion, one that only men like him can come up with. They had to have known something. They had to have seen something, but what? Did they know about his scam? No, that couldn’t be it. Perhaps there were some kids who saw him down at the quarry. He didn’t know. But he did know that he was going to make it a point to find out.
X
The next morning, Jeremiah called an old friend who worked at West Virginia’s DMV. Though he hadn’t spoken to Frank in several years, they went way back and talking to him after so long wouldn’t be any more trouble to Jeremiah as if he picked up the phone to call his mother (who incidentally had not received a call from her son in several years too). Frank had been with the DMV now for about sixteen years, and had come in handy quite a few times in operations Jeremiah had worked before. From fake license plates all the way to fake ID’s, Frank had been Jeremiah’s hookup when it came to things such as these.
Frank and Jeremiah had graduated high school together and before that they had graduated grade school much the same way, arm in arm. When they got older, they used to still see each other every Tuesday night down at the bar. But that all ended after they both married. Every Tuesday turned into every other Tuesday, till pretty soon it was only every once in a great while. Life has a funny way of doing that to great friends, life long friends. It seemed to Jeremiah that the only time he ever talked to Frank anymore was when he was working a new angle. And that is why he hadn’t talked to Frank in what seemed to be forever, because he had given up the life a few years back to go legit with that pharmaceutical company.
Jeremiah called up Frank and after they said their reunited pleasantries, such as, how’s the wife, what’s new, and etcetera. They talked about old times for awhile and whatnot. The stuff one usually talks about when they greet old friends. Frank was the one who got down to business first, and Jeremiah smiled into the phone. His old friend sure knew him well enough to know this call wasn’t a social one. Jeremiah asked Frank to find out all the information he could about any person who had a 1979 Buick LeSabre registered in West Virginia. Frank didn’t ask why, but told Jeremiah he would get right on it and email him later with the information. They said their goodbyes and false promises to get together another time, and then Jeremiah hung up the phone.
He was happier than he had been in weeks. It seemed like Frank was just the medicine he needed. Nothing could spoil his day. Even Christian didn’t get on his nerves. He went on with work, if you can call it that, surely he would. He made a few dollars, ate a wonderful dinner made by his wife (pork chops with fresh green beans and mashed potatoes on the side, grown in his wife’s garden, covered in Jenny’s mom’s delicious, county fair award winning gravy), then he took her upstairs and fucked her brains out. To Jeremiah, it was a perfect day. And to top it all off, he feel asleep with ease as he knew the addresses of the puck ass kids would soon be lying in his hands.
But the pleasantness did not last long. The very next day when Jeremiah was checking his email and the latest update of his account in Switzerland, he saw that Frank had worked fast indeed. There in his inbox, blinking rapidly was a new email. The subject heading read, “Yo! Bitch… Here’s the info you wanted…” Jeremiah smiled as he moved the mouse over to click on the new entry. At the top Frank had wrote a little note telling Jeremiah that he, Jenny, and yes, even Christian, should come on by next Saturday and they could grill out and catch up. Jeremiah made a point to remember to tell Jenny about it, so she could write it down on the calendar. Jeremiah read on.
Frank had sent the entire list of people registered with a 1979 Buick LeSabre attached to the email in a PDF file. Jeremiah right-clicked on the file program and waited patiently for it to download on the screen. “Damn PDF’s always take fucking forever to get up on the screen,” said Jeremiah aloud. After about a minute, the file finally popped up and Jeremiah scrolled down the list. At first it was a bunch on nonsense which he figured he didn’t need. Then he saw the title heading and his jaw dropped when he saw what was below. He had expected he might find quite a few cars to look through, but he had never expected this. There were two entries, just two, no more, no less. Well, that should make things a bit easier, thought Jeremiah. What he read didn’t make him very happy though. Actually, it down right upset him and he picked up the keyboard and through it against the wall. It fragmented when it hit, causing a loud thud and nice gash in the drywall. The noise had startled his wife who was in the next room sewing. When he stormed out of his office and headed down the hall toward the door to his garage she asked about it, but he ignored her and slammed the door behind him.
The screen had given him two names and addresses like he wanted. But it also gave further information, like the ages of the folks who owned them and what color their car was. Both did not match what Jeremiah was hoping for. It was a dead end.
XI
Frustrated, Jeremiah spent the remainder of the day secluded in his garage cleaning spark plugs and whatever else he could get his hands onto to occupy his thoughts. Around suppertime, his wife finally gained the courage to open the door, inviting him to eat with them. Jeremiah gave a long sigh and apologized for his actions before. But his wife had already shut the door and walked away. In fact, she had barely poked her head through the door the door in the first place in fear of Jeremiah’s foul temper. Though he would never in his lifetime hurt her, she knew, she still didn’t want to be caught in the crossfire when Jeremiah was in one of his moods.
Jeremiah made his way inside, cleaned the grease off in the kitchen sink and proceeded to apologize for his actions before. When Jenny had asked what was wrong, Jeremiah gave her his famous stare, which meant that it followed under the “don’t ask” category. She then changed the subject to the menu of dinner. She had made Jeremiah’s favorite dinner in order to cheer him up. Then Jenny added that she didn’t have all the ingredients so she hoped he wouldn’t mind that she went over her monthly budget to buy them, to make sure he knew that she went out of her way in order to create that cheer. Jeremiah gave a resigning smile and sat down to eat his wonderfully cooked, though simple, spaghetti with meat sauce. Jeremiah was so pleased with the meal, it’s a wonder how something as little as food can cheer a man up, and he even let Christian eat his dinner in front of the television. Christian always begged to do this, so he could watch Jubee, but Jeremiah always insisted upon his eating at the table with them (He knew that if he ate in the living room, Christian was sure to ruin the upholstery).
As that damn clown sang and danced in the background (he was quite back to normal, never once yelling at the kids) and Jeremiah began to scarf down his plate of spaghetti, Jenny made mention that a package had arrived for him today.
“Why didn’t you let me know?” asked Jeremiah looking up surprised at his wife.
“Oh—you know, you were in one of your moods. Would you take a package to you when you get in one of those moods?” replied his wife. Her eyebrows were arched high and Jeremiah looked into her deep blue eyes. Ashamed with himself, he looked back to his plate and started to shove food into his mouth as he again apologized. Jenny just rolled her eyes at this.
“No, suppose not…” said Jeremiah as he spat little bits of sauce onto the table cloth. “Well, where is it?”
“It’s on top of the fridge,” she said pointing to the fridge as if Jeremiah hadn’t any clue what she was talking about. “A young cute boy delivered it about noon. And if I had know what kind of manner’s you were going to use tonight, after I slaved over an open stove, I might have just ran off with him, Mr. Talks-While-He-Chews…” Then she flashed Jeremiah a flirtatious smile and went back to her own plate. Jeremiah stood up, walked over to the fridge and pulled the package down. It wasn’t a very large box. It may have been about the size of good sized book. It was brown and covered all over with postal tape, as if the sender did not entirely trust the postal men. Jeremiah opened the junk drawer, which was located next to the fridge and pulled out a pair of scissors, then walked back to the table where he proceeded to open the box. After wrestling with the severe amount to tape, he finally opened got the box opened and his mouth fell wide.
“Who did you say delivered this package?” Jeremiah asked shrewdly. “Was it UPS or the post office?”
“Actually, I think it was neither as far as I can tell. It was just some short, brown haired boy, dressed in plain street clothes” replied Jenny never looking up from her plate. “He did leave a name though…” “What?” Jeremiah blurted out surprised.
“Oh—I dunno, something that sounded like… urgh… I can’t remember…” Jenny looked up to the ceiling as if what Jeremiah wanted to know had been scrawed up there. “Oh yeah! I think it was something like Doug or Duncan. Yeah, Duncan that’s it!” she said, excited that she had remembered it correctly. She looked back to her husband and saw that all the color had drained from his face. His eyes were distant. “Germ? What’s wrong honey? Was it something I said?”
But Jeremiah didn’t respond to her inquiries. He dropped the scissors he had been holding tightly in his hands to the table, turned around, and marched back into the garage, leaving a trail of blood behind him where the scissor blades had bit deeply into his palm. Curious to his reaction, Jennifer stood up and walked over to where the package was lying on the table to see what the fuss was about. In the box seemed to be what looked like the remains of a plastic toy gun, shattered into many pieces. Puzzled how that would set Jeremiah off into another one of his moods, she shrugged and closed the four pronged lid and tossed it into the trashcan. Then Jennifer went back to her dinner, ate the rest of her food, and finished off the dishes. Jeremiah never did return from the garage that evening, and she went to bed puzzled about her husband alone.
XII
I know how I can put a stop to all this silly nonsense, Jeremiah said to himself as he lifted a glass of bourbon to his lips. It’s stupid of me not to have thought of it before. Sooooo easy. Duncan is dead, and if I have to prove it to myself, then so be it. Jeremiah finished off the drink, slammed it down upon the table rather theatrically, and lay back in his recliner, drifting off to sleep (one he had recently bought to be put in the garage after the incident the week before). It’s those damn kids. Duncan can’t still be alive. I’ll just go see if I’m crazy or not.
All night he dreamt that he was being chased by Duncan in a dirt brown LeSabre. He could hear the horn of the car and Duncan’s high pitch maniacal laughter getting closer with every step he took. There was no place for him to hide. He knew that the car would always find him even if he wanted to. It would always be right on Jeremiah’s tail.
Jeremiah was running along the Highway 33, just outside of Buckhannon. It was like a marathon race and people were lined up on the side of the road taunting and jeering him on. There was his mother, who wept, complaining that he never called anymore, at least not since his father died. Then there was his father, who told Jeremiah to give up because he wasn’t going to amount to much anyway. His wife, Jenny, was the next person in the long line of people. She didn’t talk to Jeremiah, but instead hollered to the car, to Duncan, asking him to take her with his “cute little boy-ass.” Duncan obliged her by honking the horn in the sequence of “two shaves and a hair cut,” as if that was the standard way of saying “Right on baby!” Christian was there and so was Tommy. Tommy cackled out while patting Christian on the back, admitting that he was “finally glad someone around here was going to get pummeled.” After a long line of all the people he ever knew, from the dusty old bat who was his second grade teacher, Mrs. Abernathy, to even that damn clown (Jubee wasn’t dressed in his usual attire this evening, but instead in white leather chaps as he spanked the ass of Gracie the “les-bean mail lady”). Jeremiah knew where he was going to end up. He knew where Duncan and that ugly ass car were taking him, leading him.
It was like he recognized every ugly tree, every blade of grass, even down to every damned one of those miserable clouds up above. The background wasn’t the sea of ugly yellows, oranges, and greens anymore; they had taken on a look of their inverse colors. Jeremiah thought the whole scene had looked like a negative picture. Even the folks, who were aligned on the side, were in their own unique negative tones, all were, except that ugly car closing in behind him.
Jeremiah finally saw what he had been waiting for. It was the rusty sign which said Fleisher’s Quarry. He parted right onto the beaten path in the nick of time, just as the LeSabre fender narrowly missed connecting with the back of his calf, and kept running on down the path. Meanwhile the car halted to a screeching stop, reversed and pulled in behind him. Jeremiah could hear the branches of trees breaking as they came in contact with the thunderous car rumbling down the path behind. All the while Duncan never let his hand release that infernal horn, as if it were blaring Jeremiah’s death march. It was one long droning acapella set in the demonic 1979 LeSabre horn’s key.
At the end of the line where Jeremiah could run no more stood his ex-partner Phil. Phil was wearing the same clothes as the day Jeremiah had shot him, blue jeans, a white Van Halen t-shirt, an ugly green plaid jacket, and that awful cowboy hat he used to wear. He was grinned a toothless smile, as most of his teeth had been knocked out when Jeremiah shot him there.
“End of the road partner…” said Phil doing his best John Wayne impersonation. Fleshy pieces of skin on the back of his head fell as he took off his hat. Doing so in a gentlemanly fashion, bowing gracefully so Jeremiah could see the large pronounced whole he had given him. Phil stood straight up and grinned when he saw that Jeremiah was looking horrified. “You only got one place left to go. And you can do it the easy way, or the hard way,” he said and then pointed to the blood red water below.
Just then the LeSabre crept up into the opening and stood still, about twenty yards from Jeremiah. Jeremiah looked to Phil, the water, and the LeSabre as the car revved its engine. Phil leaned into Jeremiah and whispered, “Personally, I’d prefer it if you went the hard way.” And the LeSabre leapt to life, tires spinning throwing gravel into the nearby woods, and horn blazing it sped toward Jeremiah.
Jeremiah closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and jumped into the open air. Mid flight his body turned around so he was facing the sky. As he opened his eyes, he saw the LeSabre jump off of the cliff and careen strait for him. Even if he were to survive the fall into the water, he knew that the car would surely land on top of him. When he hit the water in his dream, is when he woke up screaming and wet.
His wife jumped back, fearful of what he might do, and shouted, “Jeremy, Jeremy! You’re awake—and, and you were screaming… It’s okay; it was just a bad dream. You’re fine now,” she said trying to soothe him from a distance.
She had splashed a cup full of freezing water on Jeremiah, as he would not wake when she had just tried to shake him. Duncan was cowering behind her. Duncan was the one who ran into the kitchen for the glass, sniveling the whole way. They were both still in their pajamas, Jenny in her nightgown, and Duncan was wearing his too-small-for-his-size “Jubee footies”. To Jeremiah, it looked like he was scared enough to piss his pants, if he hadn’t already. Hell, Jeremiah wasn’t sure if he hadn’t pissed his pants too. But he didn’t care. He was angry, embarrassed, not to mention scared shitless, all rolled up into one bundle of nerves ready to explode and he screamed, “GET OUT! Get the fuck out of here. What have I told you about disturbing me while I’m in here?” And the two scurried back into the house like frightened mice. Jenny slammed the door on her way in, but Jeremiah didn’t seem to notice.
Instead of going in and apologizing like he should have done, making that much worse the longer he waited, he opened the garage door, slipped into his Charger and took off down the driveway. He was set to do what he had meant to do last night. No bad dreams of big bad cars and their ghostly drivers could keep him away from finding out the source of his torment. If he would be patient in finding out whom those damn kids were, even if it couldn’t be by the car they drove, eventually the answer would come. Eventually they would make a mistake and Jeremiah would find out about it. No, he could wait; put both of his ears to the ground to get to the bottom of this. But as far as his silly notions of the tormenter being a person who was supposed to be dead, well, he could take care of that business right now.
XIII
Jeremiah drove to the nearest tool rental shop, which was outside of town about thirty miles on his way, where he could pick up an air tank for underwater diving. He rented a ten pound capacity tank, a suit (as it was getting on to mid October by now), and bought goggles at the Meglomart. Then he headed down the highway where he picked up 119, and eventually Highway 33.
It took him a good two hours to get to the dirt pathway on the opposite side of the quarry. On this side of the quarry the path down was a lot smoother and the trees on both sides were trimmed back a few feet more. It took no time for Jeremiah to pull up next to the water and have all his gear on within ten minutes. After he double checked the pressure valves and air release, Jeremiah walked down to the water, and began to wade in. When he got far enough, he pulled the facemask, which had been sitting atop his head, off and spat into the interior side of the plastic (to prevent fogging). After he rinsed out the saliva, he placed it on his face, and put the breather into his mouth. He took two test breaths and dove under.
The water itself was quite pleasant this time of the year. Whereas the weather outside may have been chilly, the water was still heated up from the previous months of summer. Near the surface, since the sun was shining brightly that day, the visibility was clear and fine. Jeremiah could see teems of fish swimming below him. Mostly, they were all bluegills, but every now and again he saw a few bass swimming about. At first he made his way along the surface of the water so he wouldn’t lose his direction. Though the sun was out and helped the visibility along the surface, near the bottom of the quarry, which was quite deep, the visibility was terrible he found. He figured, that even though he had enough air for three hours, if he got there and back quickly enough, he could possibly say he hadn’t used any and that there was a leak in the thing, so he could get his money back. But after the first hour of searching with no success, his hopes for such a thing had died off.
It wasn’t till a half hour later, when panic started to set in that the car and Duncan weren’t really there, he finally found what he was looking for. There were two cars about 50 feet in front of him side by side. From the looks of it, the LeSabre had fallen straight down, right side up. Whereas the red Pontiac Sunfire which became Phil’s makeshift sepulcher had flopped down the other way. Relief washed over his whole body and the tensions he had been carrying for the past few weeks flowed away along with it. He knew the car hadn’t been stalking him. He just knew it. Jeremiah started to turn around and head back to his car when he stopped. No, he had to see this all the way through, to the dead floating corpse inside the car. He had to verify Duncan was dead if he ever expected him to stop haunting his thoughts.
Reluctant, but steadfast, Jeremiah turned back around and began to swim toward the cars once again. He passed by the upside down Sunfire and saw that it’s color no longer was bright red like he remembered it, but a dull red which barely shown through as algae had covered most of the car. When he looked through the windshield, he was able to see Phil’s rotted skeleton grinning his toothless grin at him as he was in Jeremiah’s dream. He shivered and pressed on to the car and other dead person he had so determinedly set out to see.
When he grew close to the LeSabre, he noticed that most of the color was still intact as the cars color was a dull brown to begin with. But with this little light, he determined he wouldn’t be able to tell any color change unless he was right up next to the blasted thing. And for his concern, the further he stayed away from the car, it was the better. As far as he could tell from this point too, no algae had yet started to grow on the shell yet. This marked Jeremiah as a bit odd, but he didn’t press the point as he knew nothing of biology and the colonizing habits of seaweed. There were two things that disturbed Jeremiah about the LeSabre though, one was that he still couldn’t see Duncan from his vantage point, and the second was as he drew closer, he started to hear a faint sound. It was a familiar sound he couldn’t quite grasp. But as he grew closer and closer, though he didn’t sign of a body, he soon was able to recognize the sound.
It was the sound that had been following him, and haunting for the past several weeks. It was the sound of the LeSabre’s horn. It was quietly still squealing away. All this time, and it was still blaring away, like it was hoping that someone would hear its stressful cry and come to its rescue. Or to alarm someone of foul play, thought Jeremiah. But how is it possible?
Though he was scared silly of the horn, and the shadow he made as he glided through the water reminded him of some sort of creepy specter following his every move, Jeremiah shoved on. He had to see the corpse of Duncan and put the superstitious thought away to bed, forever. Yet, even when he was within reach of the car, he still could not see what he was after. He could not, in fact, see much of anything within the car. Which he realized was due to some sort of algae growth on all of the glass when he put his hand up to the driver side window. He began to wipe it away when he froze. He yanked his hand back. There was the body had come all this way to see, the body he had shot three times and threw over the quarry wall’s edge.
Duncan’s skin on his face was all but gone, not only was it rotted away, but it looked as if it were picked clean. As though somehow the fishes had managed to find their way in and strip the flesh away. There were no eyes in his hallow darkened sockets. Duncan’s formally skinny cheeks were bloated and fat and his mouth hung wide open. It was as if the fish had deliberately left the portion of his skull below his nose alone on purpose, so that when Jeremiah looked upon Duncan, his mouth would look like it was screaming with rage. But the image that frightened Jeremiah the most was the hand. That hand that had reached over in confused help, the hand that reached to Jeremiah in rage was laying on the horn, blowing it madly.
Jeremiah jumped back and screamed as the hand fell away from the steering wheel. But the sound was muffled. That horn! That horn—fucking horn! Why won’t it shut off! Jeremiah’s hands cuffed his ears as the horn began to grow steadily louder and still louder. He fell to his knees and collapsed over. He felt like he was going to vomit. He felt like his head was going to explode from the blasting sound of the horn if he didn’t get away from there. He felt—like he couldn’t breathe! It was as if someone or something had simply stepped on his hose cutting off the air supply. Quickly he looked at the pressure gage around his wrist and found that he still had plenty of air. There had to be at least an hour left in the tank. But there was no air.
Panicking, he tried to make a break for the surface. But it was no good unless he took the damn pack off. He was just too heavy to make it that far. Jeremiah was starting to feel light headed. When he tried to unbuckle the strap, he got confused upon which way they were supposed to go and he kept getting stuck. Even when he thought he had them the right way, they still wouldn’t budge. The more he struggled, the more he needed oxygen. But it was no use. He simply couldn’t make it to the surface and he couldn’t get the pack off. The last thing that Jeremiah thinking before he blacked out was about the blasted horn as it droned it’s haunting melody into his ears. And somewhere in between this life and the other side, and Jeremiah’s body lay upon the quarry lake’s floor, he heard the horn stop blowing its hateful cry.