Moon Regardless by Nick Manzolillo

Author:Nick Manzolillo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: World Castle Publishing, LLC
Published: 2021-02-23T16:55:42+00:00

Chapter 12: The Alphabet Chart

When Hap asks if the handcuffs can come off, the man who can only be the serial killer the Providence Journal dubbed the “Eye Doctor” shakes his head. “Not without trust and the right angle of force,” the doctor snorts to himself. A bump in the dirt road nearly sends Hap’s head into the dashboard. “No key, anyhow,” the man says, followed by what could be either a chuckle or a moan.

Streetlights become scarce as they drive further into the woods. With the knife removed from his throat, Hap becomes bold enough to ask the man who he is.

“I have a doctorate, you believe the news. Hah.” The Eye Doctor speaks slowly as if English is his second language. The faint glow from the headlights causes his crooked teeth to form shadows that drip into fangs. “Mad Arab,” The Eye Doctor, who may very well be a racist, muses to himself. A streetlight finally beams in the distance, but its glow is severed as the car turns, bumping down another dirt road where only blackness awaits.

Moments ago, they drove through a small, dead town called Scituate that Hap wants to say is familiar, though he can’t quite recall if he ever passed through it with Tiff. Perhaps for a Memorial Day festival? The little post office, church, gas station, and fire station were consumed by small-town charm. Hap almost felt safe till he acknowledged the handcuffs shackling his wrists. The New England stone walls, lining property lines from the 1800s, are the biggest difference between here and the sticks of Pennsylvania. This whole woodsy countryside was once flat farmland.

The car twists once more before the tall man pulls into the short gravel driveway of a single-story home with peeling paint and black windows that remind Hap of the haunted house on Federal Hill. Oddly, there’s a candy cane Christmas decoration glowing in the front window.

The Eye Doctor kills the ignition and leaps out of the car, crunch-crunching on the gravel over to Hap’s side. He’s hauled out of his seat and tossed onto the gravel as The Eye Doctor pats his handcuffed wrists behind his back. Hap looks up, trying to avoid gravel going up his nose. The stars out here, funneling along the Milky Way, would be breathtaking under different circumstances. The Eye Doctor trots toward the house, creaking up a front stoop. Immediately, a lamp beside the front door comes to life, and the tall man claps giddily before dragging Hap into his lair.

The house stinks worse than piss, and it’s dusty, but it’s a home—small, but arguably livelier than Hap’s current apartment. Christmas lights hang dead along the walls. In the corner of a living room inhabited by a couch full of wool blankets and a coffee table stacked with junk, there stands an artificial Christmas tree with a toy train track encircling it. More than junk, the coffee table is cluttered with books, scraps of paper, and what look like stacks of

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