9 Tales Told in the Dark 12 by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

Author:9 Tales Told in the Dark [Dark, 9 Tales Told in the]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bride of Chaos
Published: 2016-04-21T22:00:00+00:00

Road

After her father leaves, she decides not to sleep.

The daylight hasn’t been up two hours. Her eyes heavy and sore with fatigue, Martha walks down the shoulder of the long two-lane nowhere road leading to Vivid Greene, and there are no cars, rarely are at this time of morning. Though there isn’t any reason for it, she kicks off her shoes, picks them up off the ground, and begins to run; she always runs faster without her shoes: the pads of her feet clapping against the gravely blacktop, stones lodging and dislodging between her calloused toes. The feeling of the world beneath her every step. Above her, power lines hum and dip and arch, stretching out into the bright infinity ahead.

She follows them.

After a while, she hears a motor revving behind her ears, and then a horn sounds and she jumps and lands hard on her hands and knees. Sweating and cold from it, panting and swallowing the thick spittle that occurs with dehydration, her lungs feeling frozen and dry. Moisture running from her eyes and down her cheeks. She feels awake now; alive for the moment, her insides washed with adrenaline, she feels her heart beat against her ribcage. She picks herself up, dusts herself off, and turns around. Behind her and creeping slowly closer on the far side of the road is a Dodge Hodgepodge, apparently built from junkyard parts of various sun-faded hues, rattling and squeaking and coughing up a cloud of sour smelling exhaust behind its rear wheels.

She turns around, sees the car. Facing forward again, she continues on, her walking now slowed to a trot. She looks back as the car inches closer, and she picks up her pace, but the car accelerates just faster than her legs carry her until it's beside her, matching her speed. Then the passenger side window opens.

“Goddam, honey!” a young man's voice calls from inside the car. “What'n Christ's name are you doin' runnin' barefoot in this kinda cold?”

She stops and leans on her knees and breathes heavily, each inhale turning her lungs to paper. The car stops beside her. She pretends not to notice it.

“What’s the matter, can’t talk?”

She brushes her hair from her face and tucks it behind her ears then looks up. “Hey,” she says, squinting at the driver’s features, “I know you.”

“You oughtta,” he says. “I only stand behind my pop and stare at you every goddamn Sunday at church.”

“Your dad’s the new reverend.”

“Ooh, good eyes.”

“Why you always standing behind him?”

“Learnin’ the trade.”

“You wanna be a preacher?”

“Hell no.” He pauses a moment to think. “Well, if the money’s good, since I’ll probably end up taking care of my sister.”

“Something wrong with your sister?”

“Don’t worry about it.” he says. “Ain’t your monkeys, ain’t your circus.”

She smiles and spits a wad of foam onto the road.

He smiles back.

“So why you barefoot exactly, naturegirl?”

“I gotta run an errand,” she says.

“Barefoot?”

“I run faster without my shoes.”

The boy reaches over his passenger seat and pops open the door. “Get in.”

“I'm fine.

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