A Penny Down the Well: A Short Story Collection of Horrifying Events (31 page)

“
Yeah, real funny,
asshole.” I turned back to the SUV and investigated the source of
the smoke. The grey washed over the entire surface of the SUV’s
innards like a graveyard mist. I didn’t know a thing about fixing
SUV’s. I peered toward the old man and shook my head. Round
two.

I went back into the shop where the
old man rocked and smiled at my misfortune. I remained polite. “May
I please borrow your phone? No service out here.” I could have said
a thousand other things.

The old man stared. Awkward eyeballing
matches seemed common to this place. I imagined it took a minute
for my language to filter through the brains of the inbred morons
that called Humansville home.

“
Ain’n no
phone.”

“
What?”.

“
Here ain’n no phone, son.”
He said again.

I did hear right. “So, what am I
supposed to do? Rot?”

The old man’s smile faded
with the question. A gruff, guttural sound coughed from his
mouth. His eyes turned back outside as rocks and asphalt shot
out from spinning tires. I followed the old man’s gaze and noticed
a police cruiser.
Lucky
me
, I thought. I left the store without
another word for the old man. An officer stepped out of the cruiser
as I moved through the threshold of the shop’s door, a door that
hung by the top hinge and threatened collapse. The police officer
was tall, at least six and a half feet so, and his large,
wide-brimmed hat and mirrored aviator shades made him more
imposing. He wore a pressed, tan and brown uniform. The sun high at
this hour reflected from his sheriff’s badge perfectly.

“
Afternoon, sheriff. Hey,
listen, I’m having some tro—“ The officer lifted a finger to cut me
off—a proverbial shut-the-fuck-up—to which I obliged.

The officer continued to the front of
the SUV, long legs moving him forward in unnatural strides, like a
circus performer on stilts. A blue pinstripe ran down the side of
his pant legs in a clear contrast to the rest of his earthy
uniform. He bent down over the engine and took a quick whiff. The
officer pendulum-bobbed back and forth for a minute while he
inspected the guts of the vehicle, then rose. His thin, cracked
lips parted with all the trouble of someone who hadn’t spoken in
ages.

“
You got a radiator leak.
You blew a gasket, I bet. That’ll cost you a bit to fix, mister.” A
dark brow rose and he tilted his head my way. He peered at me from
over the crest of those mirrored glasses. I saw my pitiful stance
in the reflection. I saw my inadequacy.

My jaw dropped from being
cut off and kept slack with the bad news. The SUV was in trouble
and I was stuck in this Podunk town. I knew the repair costs would
be horrendous because I was stuck without the repair, there likely
wasn’t another repair shop within a hundred miles, and I didn’t
know a thing about repairing vehicles. I took in an agonized
breath. I watched myself fold in dismay through the mirror of the
officer’s glasses.

“
I can give you a ride over
to Miss Judith’s place. Her husband, Mortimer, knows a thing or two
about fixin’ cars. Maybe he can do something.” His dried lips went
thinner and his broad arms crossed. He waited for my decision, but
showed no sign of impatience. He had all the time in the world. I
didn’t have a choice.

“
I suppose there isn’t a
Meineke or a Ford dealership around here?” I barely got the
question out before the sheriff started to laugh, a loud, booming
laugh, primed by the mile-long abyss inside of him.

“
How
about you get in the cruiser? I’ll take you out to Judith’s.” The
officer went back toward the driver’s side of the cruiser. He
didn’t wait for an answer because he knew what my answer
was.
“Ford dealership. Oh, that’s a
good one,” the sheriff said and he laughed on as he rounded the
cruiser.

I looked toward the backseat of the
broken SUV. I couldn’t leave without my trunk. I ran over, opened
the back door and dove in. I tried to get my arms around the broad
container. My fingers tucked beneath the leather bands that kept
the trunk together and searched for leverage.

“
Sheriff—“ I shouted from
near the SUV, “I need to take this trunk with me. It has valuables
in it. I’d rather not leave it here. Heat sensitive, you know?” I
offered the sheriff a crooked smile. I pulled out the bulky storage
trunk and was nearly thrown to the ground. My trouble was made
worse by the sheriff’s next question.

“
Think someone in my town’s
gonna steal your stuff, mister?” The sheriff’s face was stone
sober.

I thought to drop the chest and start
running down the road. Maybe it was time to escape—to surrender
myself. I didn’t need the SUV, did I? I held onto the trunk, bent
my knees and tried to rest it on something, or gain an advantage in
a situation that was becoming desperate.

“
N-No! No, I don’t think
that. I would just hate for something to be ruined, you know?” I
moved toward the cruiser and swayed back and forth blind. The
officer was kind enough to open the back door. I shoved the trunk
inside. The trunk’s brass corner dug into the sun-bleached leather
of the backseat. With a few adjustments of the chest, I covered the
scratches from view. I had enough financial
problems. 

The officer returned to the front
seat. As the officer sat, the cruiser leaned to the left as the
suspension gave toward his side. I heard the sizzle of the warm
leather seats against the officer’s sweaty back. He didn’t flinch
or readjust. I reconsidered going along with him. I watched his
wet, hairy neck through the flaking, black, chicken wire grate
separating the front seat from the backseat. I watched the infinite
reflection of the officer’s mirrored sunglasses through the
rearview mirror, reminding me of a carnival funhouse. I observed
the officer’s unusual stillness as he waited for me to sit beside
him. I didn’t have a choice. I did, however, have my
belongings.

I opened the front door and sat down
beside the sheriff. There wasn’t as much radio equipment in the
front seat as I’d expected. I’d been in a few cruisers when I was
younger, for ride-alongs and never for deviance. The interior
leather stung me with its heat, which I imagined had gathered for
years. My skin nearly fused to the leather and was saved only by
instinct. I tossed and turned in the seat until the heat dissipated
enough to allow me to relax. My relaxation, however, was relative
only to the seat. The situation was uncomfortable. I closed
the door and the officer pressed on the gas. We rode out of the
parking area in front of the store and onto the empty highway. In
the passenger side mirror, my SUV was swallowed by the brown dust
that pervaded the place like a biblical plague. The consumption
that played out above the “objects are closer than they appear”
warning made me nervous.

The drive along the highway was mostly
silent. I tried to start a conversation.

“
So, nice town, huh? Good
people.” I waited for something. Anything. I watched the sweat run
down the sheriff’s forehead. I saw the salty droplets weave in and
around his wrinkles. I saw him sneer without looking at me. His
voice churned from deep down within him, like stone on
sandpaper.

“
Humansville’s a nice
enough town. Don’t always take too kindly to outsiders.” The
sheriff said.

“
Really? I didn’t
notice.”

The sheriff looked my way, over the
frame of the mirrored aviators. He didn’t say anything and we swept
back into a painful, ear-ringing silence. Ten minutes later, he
turned onto an unpaved country road. C.R. something. It didn’t make
a difference. If something terrible happened out this far, there
was no chance for salvation. 

A mailbox was staked into the dry dirt
right at the intersection with block letters stuck to the aluminum
siding that read “Orson.” I assumed it was the last name of
Mortimer, the mechanic, and Judith, his pleasant wife that was
worth mentioning before her husband. The country road was less
forgiving than the pot-holed highway leading to it. With the bumps
in the dirt road, eating the melted candy bar became a bad
idea.

A mile or two down the road, we pulled
out in front of a plantation-style home, with a pillared doorway
and windows displayed across the second floor that gave the blue
and white-trimmed home facial-type characteristics. I stared up at
the house at it stared back at me, each of us assessing one
another. The house, like everything in Humansville, was outdated
and ill-maintained. Vines grew from the ground and wrapped around
the house, each like slithering fingers from the earth gripping the
structure, waiting for the right time to pull it down.

The cruiser turned and
parked. The sheriff shut off the engine and asked, “Have I seen you
before, mister?”

I shook my head, caught off guard by
the question. Seen me before, he asked? In this place? I knew that
if I’d come this way once, I’d never come again.

“
I’ve never been here
before, no.” I confessed.

The officer stared at me unconvinced.
I felt at a disadvantage as he stared into my eyes and watched the
sweat bead at my forehead, leaving me only the image of myself and
my pitifulness in his reflective lenses. He opened the car door,
rendering a hellish screech of metal on metal from an under-oiled
hinge. The sound sent me back. I was surprised there was anywhere
left to go. The door slammed and I sat there in the relentless
heat, with the looming stench of my own body, the officer’s cheap
cologne, what could have been vomit from old arrests, and an air
freshener shaped like a tree that read, “Have a nice day!” long
overdue for a changing.

I was a mess. The unsettling
atmosphere grew worse when I noticed a teenage girl in a blue dress
swinging outside on the broad, wooden porch. The girl’s blonde hair
curled at her forehead. Her eyes were as blue as the dress she
wore. The girl stood, either out of excitement, respect, or fear,
as the sheriff approached. I opened the passenger door of the
cruiser to let in the Missouri heat and humidity, which felt
temperate and comfortable in comparison to the cruiser. I waved
like an idiot, which caught the girl’s attention, and caused her to
step to the peak of the four stairs that led to the entrance of the
old house.

“
Whatcha got, sheriff?” She
laughed while looking my way and pointing. No one taught the girl
that pointing was bad manners. I looked off as I was singled out
and blushed. I noticed a vehicle graveyard, with cars and trucks
ranging from several decades old to others more recent. The newer
cars bore a polished gleam subdued only by the tickling of high
grass around their tires and the dust from the wind. Maybe
they were vehicles Mr. Mortimer Orson was working on. None of the
hoods were opened and there were weeds nearly as high as I was
growing around each of the vehicles. Mr. Mortimer could have been a
collector. He collected cars. I imagined he collected bodies out in
the woods. People graveyards. I thought about my trunk and what the
kids said as they rode off.

“
Lacy, run inside and get
your pa. Tell him there’s a gentleman out here that’d like to have
him look over his car.” The officer instructed.

The girl nodded and rushed into the
house, shouting with a voice that died like an echo in a canyon,
“Pa! Someone’s here for—“

“
It’s an SUV. Sport Utility
Vehicle.” It didn’t occur to me that correcting him, as opposed to
the children at the old man’s shop, was a bad idea until after I
did it. The sheriff looked back my way and I felt like an ant under
a magnifying glass. The heat didn’t subside until he looked away
and lost interest.

I took time to notice the gun in his
holster. The gun was larger than those I’d seen police officers
with in the past. The barrel seemed roughly eight inches in length.
My attention was drawn away from the weapon when I heard the creak
of old hinges and worn springs from the door of the house. A short,
round man stepped out and allowed the screen door, with its grey
matting torn and pockmarked, slam behind him. He wore an under
shirt that was stained with blotches of brown and red, too short to
keep from exposing the underside of his enormous belly. His pants,
unable to properly reach his waist, fumbled around him, held only
by the pinch of his stomach against his groin. The man used a
soiled, red cloth to wipe at his hands as he approached me and the
officer. The man’s lips were buried behind a neglected mustache,
but the twitching and turning of the antenna-like wiry hairs
suggested he was preparing to speak.

“
I heard this fella needs
some help.” He laughed before breaking into a smoker’s cough. He
hacked away, which made a response impossible. The officer and I
waited for the man to collect himself. I assumed it was over when
he forced the air from his lungs into his swampy throat and
launched a mucus wad the size of an infant’s hand into an
unsuspecting blade of tall grass. He continued before we could
intervene, while his voice was still laced with the thick
obstruction in his throat. “So bad you couldn’t even bring it out?
That’s rough.” He extended a crusted, dirty hand my way. “I’m
Mortimer Orson.”

Mortimer’s hands were bronzed, as if
dipped into a molten furnace. His fingernails were outlined with a
deeper red, speckled and jagged on the tips from biting or hard
work. Every crease in his stubby hand and short fingers was a bit
darker than the rest of his skin, but none of it was
natural.