One Minute to Midnight (9 page)

Six months passed. A small band of
human survivors was picking up the pieces of their shattered lives
when Sharp Tooth approached them. They were living in a farmhouse
not far from her forest, and they were armed with weapons they had
picked up from fallen comrades before and after the war. It was
night, and they were inside the house, huddled around a kerosene
lamp, reading and telling stories. Sharp Tooth peered through the
window and could see that there were three men, four women, and six
children. Her security detail consisted of a pack of wolves that
would stand by, invisible in the dark, just in case Sharp Tooth
needed them.

"Hello, inside? I would like to talk
to the people living in this house!" Sharp Tooth yelled.
The lamp went dark, but she could see them huddling around the
windows, looking out to see who was there.

"Do not fear me! I want to hold
council with you. Come outside and I can promise your safety."
Sharp Tooth called.

Sharp Tooth stood in the open, taking
the risk that they would not fire on her. Her wolves would rip them
apart if they so much as fired a warning shot. The sound of rifles
dropping on the floor allowed her to breathe easier. The front door
creaked open and from the darkness within people began to shuffle
out onto the front porch. The wolves stood by, nodding to one
another and moved out into the open just enough so that the
occupants of the house could see them.

"Who's out here?" One of the male
humans asked. He was fortyish with a graying beard and wore a
tattered flannel shirt.

"I'm Sharp Tooth, Kodiak, and my
snarling, yet peaceful friends are members of the wolf clan. We are
only here to discuss our coexistence together, with respect." Sharp
Tooth said.

She stepped from the shadows and
almost laughed when the bearded man who had just been speaking
stumbled backwards and landed on his butt, hard. The others were
turning to run. "The bear speaks!" Panic rose and feet turned to
flee.

"Stop, please! I beg you. This has to
end. We are alive on this planet together and we can all survive,
but there has to be mutual respect."

The bearded man picked himself up
again, brushing the dirt from his pants.

Sharp Tooth asked that the other
humans come outside and they all sat around the fire learning from
each other for the first time in thousands of years. A truce with
the humans was struck, and the small group of survivors spread out
across the land, passing on Sharp Tooth's message of peace and
terms for coexistence. Humanity was no longer permitted to
slaughter forest animals, but they could keep domesticated
livestock such as pigs, chickens, and cows. The wolves and foxes,
and other predatory creatures would no longer hunt on human farms
for said livestock. Population control of deer, rabbits, and other
creatures would be handled by the forest animals, and large
populations would be migrated by vote of the council. Sharp Tooth
lived another twenty-five years without losing another mate, and
her cubs grew to lead their forest tribes, always remembering what
their mother had shown them: that all life was precious and unique.
Humanity remembered the war with nature as the stories became
legend and myth. Weeks after the war ended, as Sharp Tooth stood on
the bank of the river where Blood Maw had been killed, she thought
she saw his smiling reflection in the water. She smiled in return,
and moved on with her little ones.

the great grave caper

"My girlfriend knows
a guy who's in some kind of satanic cult, and he'll pay a thousand
bucks for a human skull." Dan Tollinger said.

My name is Devon Smiley and that was
the day I met Dan Tollinger. My response changed the course of my
life, forever.

I had never been a troublemaker, nor
had I been into mischief of any kind. In fact, my life was really
quite dull. I woke up in the morning, shower, eat, brush my teeth,
go to school, go home, eat, study, go to bed, rinse and repeat. The
directions on a shampoo are more complex than my old daily routine.
I was a senior in high school and bored by the mundane minutia of
everyday life. But, a change was coming. Because I didn't have any
friends, or outside social contacts my father suggested that I
begin writing to express myself. I wasn’t some depressed
psychopathic teen sitting in my room devising ways to blow up the
planet. I just had a wall between me and most other people,
blocking my ability to connect with them.
I had been daydreaming through another day at Derringer High, when
the class bell rang and halls filled with students like rats in a
maze. We were trapped in the humdrum existence of droning on from
one station to another for a piece of cheese in our government
sponsored social experiment called public education. It's funny,
when you're a kid who keeps to himself, how people around you
appear to be extras in the movie of your life. I never understood
what made people tick, I guess. I was between classes one day,
walking with my extra long bangs over my eyes, when a stranger
stood in front of me, blocking my path. Like static on a
television, the noise of other student’s conversations buzzed in my
head. You can grow to dislike people for no particular reason and I
hated every last one of them.
"Hey dude, my name's Dan."

I must have looked
shocked, or stoned, but someone approaching
me
in the hallway was completely
unexpected.

"I'm, uh, Devon." I
mumbled.

"Good to meet you, Devon. This is my
first day here. You want to hang out after school?"

"Sure."
He high fived me and walked away. For the rest of that day, dread
tightened my stomach, as my mind ran in circles trying to figure
out what on earth the two of us would do together. I never had any
friends outside classroom acquaintances, and if I was supposed to
feel elated that this one person reached out to me, it was not
happening. Dan was in my last period, which was Political Science.
He sat across the room and did not seem to notice I was there. No
one said anything to him either. Who knows, I thought, maybe this
guy was going to be my new best friend. My mother always told me
that strangers are only friends you have not met yet, so I focused
my attention on class until the end. My Political Science teacher
was talking endlessly about the Constitution and all twenty-seven
amendments, a subject that could put an insomniac to sleep. Mr.
Drum sounded like Ferris Bueller's economics teacher and I was
about to go down for the count when the bell rang. Dan quickly
found me in the hallway afterwards.

"Hey Devon, want a lift home? I'm
parked out back in the student lot."

"Uh, sure man. That would be great. I
hate riding the bus anyway."

"OK, but you gotta promise to loosen
up. You're like an oil drum man...tight, sealed up. You're way too
stiff for your own good, brother. But don’t worry; we're going to
take care of that. I've got something planned I think you'll like."
Dan said.

We were walking to the car when he
told me about the human skulls and how much money we could make
from just one of them. I was pretty freaked out by the
conversation, but there was something in what he was saying that
made sense. I had never thought of becoming a grave robber before,
but there seemed to be something exhilarating about desecrating a
grave. I wasn’t convinced, but I was enchanted.

"Look, these people don't need their
skulls anyway. They're dead, right?" Dan said.

"Yeah, sure. But it just seems kind of
wrong. You know?"
We walked to his car a candy apple red 1969 Dodge
Charger.

"Hop in bro, and we'll be on our way."
Dan smiled.
"Nice ride, is this yours?"

"Hell yeah! Restored her myself, and
had a guy in Mechanicsburg put the paint job on. Pretty sweet,
huh?"
I nodded and got in on the passenger side which was littered with
empty Camel cigarette flip-top boxes. Dan fired up the engine and
as his car roared to life, like a hound from Hell, he lit one
up.
"Smoke?" Dan asked.

"No thanks, I don't touch
em'."

Dan shook his head slowly from side to
side.
"Brother, we are going to work your demons free and get you
loose."

He didn’t know that I had an asthmatic
condition, and cigarette smoke exacerbated it. Besides, those
things were slow death one stick at a time. I didn't bother to
explain any of that to Dan. My mother was a heavy smoker for years,
and what I've found is that smokers can get defensive about their
addiction, so it’s an invitation for trouble to tell them they are
killing themselves, and how everyone has to breathe in their
unfiltered smoke. The seats were new black leather, his dash
immaculate and completely restored, and he had a chrome skull shift
ball with red eyes that lit up. Neat car. I wasn’t too sure about
the driver, on the other hand. I was about to find out just how
disturbed my new friend really was. Later, at my trial, witnesses
would testify they never saw me get into a candy apple red Dodge
Charger that day after school.
"So, here's the deal. We're going out tonight on a little caper to
get PAID!" Dan said.

"My Mom isn't going to let
me..."

"Your mom is at work tonight and your
dad is out of town, right?"

I don’t know how he knew this. I
should have gotten out of the car and never spoken to him again.
But that’s not what I did. I had never been adventurous, nor had I
left the house for anything more than brief trips to the grocery
store, or out to dinner with my parents. I figured that having a
cool friend with an awesome car was going to turn my fortune around
at school. I had the feeling that people were finally going to
notice me.

"What time are we doing it?" I
asked.

"Well, it’s Friday night, so how about
midnight? I'll pick you up at your house."

"Do I need to bring anything? Shovel,
pick?"
"I got you bro. I'm bringing bolt cutters and a crow bar. If we
need a shovel for anything, we're already doing more work than we
need to. Besides, have you ever dug down to a coffin with a shovel?
We'd be there all night, and the object is not to get busted by the
cops for grave robbing." Dan explained.
"Gotcha, I'll be ready."

He pulled up to my house and I got out
of the car.
"See you tonight, man. This is going to be exciting!" Dan
said.

I walked up my driveway, and as I
turned to wave his car was already gone. I don’t remember hearing
the sound of his car rumble down the street, and the street
actually was empty in both directions. For the rest of the
afternoon I tried to make sense of that disappearing act, but it
was tough. A car does not simply vanish into thin air, especially
one with as loud an engine as Dan's car had. I was beginning to get
nervous about this plan of Dan's, and I thought about calling it
off several times, but I didn't have his number. There were not
many times in my adolescence where I needed a parent home, but this
night was one of them. I felt alone, like I was about to strike a
deal with the Devil and the saints weren't watching. Intuition is a
funny thing, and if you listen to the suggestion of that inner
voice, you may just avoid an unforeseen catastrophe. I ignored
every instinct to tell Dan no. Instead, I waited anxiously for him
to arrive at my house.

It was eleven fifty-nine p.m. when I
heard the roar of Dan's engine and winced at the glare of his
headlights illuminating my dark living room wall. I took a deep
breath and walked outside to meet Dan. From the brightness it was
impossible to see him sitting inside the car, but when I got in on
the passenger side, Dan was in the driver’s seat. His head was
covered in a black wharf fisherman's cap, and his face was almost
obscured by one of those thin face masks that have a skull print on
them. All that was visible was his eyes. His appearance was
frightening, and I felt like I was riding in a car with the
undead.
"Hey bro, where's your mask? You got anything to cover your face?"
Dan asked.

"What? No, you never mentioned I'd
need one?" I was trying to remain calm.

"Here, put this on." He tossed a ski
mask over to me.
I put the mask over my head and it smelled like mothballs.
"This thing stinks!" I said.

"Quit bitching, man! That thing was in
the bottom of a trunk two hours ago. You should just be glad I
brought you anything at all. Don't you know these places have
cameras in them now? The good cemeteries, anyway." Dan
said.

"Well, then why are we going to the
good cemeteries?" It felt like a stupid question.
"More above ground graves and mausoleums. Rich people love to be
seen even after death." Dan replied.
It seemed like a reasonable explanation. Dan and I drove without
conversing for some time as we listened to his collection of heavy
metal music, and I tried to calm my nerves. I felt like I was
living in a surreal dream world, not yet sure if it would turn out
to be a nightmare. But I had feeling it would. Dan drove us out
into the country where there were no street lights, and everyone
who would have cared was sound asleep. We flew down one back road,
and then another, winding our way toward destiny. After about
fifteen minutes and just as I was beginning to think that he was
just going to dump me out on a country road, we were there. Just
before he cut the headlights I noticed a large wrought iron gate
with stamped metal angels hovering above it.