Road Trip Read online

  ROAD TRIP

  by

  J. Tanner

  Published by RTH Publishing

  Copyright © 2011 by J. Tanner

  All rights reserved

  Author Web Site:

  authorjtanner.wordpress.com

  Version 2011.11.30

  ROAD TRIP

  Mr. Parker wielded the remote control like a three-fifty-seven magnum, taking careful aim at Pat Sajak’s temple with one eye closed, savoring the moment, rubbing the buttons with dying fingers, watching the imaginary hammer pull back. “Bang!” he shouted. Goodbye Pat Sajak. Goodbye Vanna. They would be back though, rising from the grave in just sixty-three channels. But for now, goodbye Wheel of Fortune; Hello General Hospital. “Bang!” he shouted again.

  As the video faded in a voice said, “—for staying with us today and not channel-surfing. And now back to today’s topic ‘Love from beyond the grave!’ Our third guest is Mr. James Bullock. Welcome Mr. Bullock.”

  Parker lifted a gnarled finger from the CHANNEL UP button and struggled to lean slowly forward for a better view of the TV. The burgundy vinyl imitation Lay-Z-Boy creaked as he shifted his weight. He squinted terribly, crinkling his entire sagging face and rubbed the white scruff on his neck with the back of his hand.

  Eduardo, the shows host, holding a microphone and wearing an exquisitely tailored suit, said, “Mr. Bullock. let me get this straight. You were on a business trip to Jamaica when your chartered plane crashed into the ocean because of foul weather. Your body washed up on a beach several days later and since your wife didn’t answer any of the letters from the Jamaican authorities you were buried on the island. Then you woke up in a coffin and dug your way out of the shallow grave to find out you had been pronounced dead and your wife didn’t even care enough to attend the funeral. Tell us your story Mr. Bullock.”

  The TV camera angle swung to show an instantly forgettable chubby man with male pattern baldness and socks that fell down exposing bone-white shins. He filled the wide chair like an incorrect piece in a jigsaw puzzle, bending and shifting but never achieving quite the right fit.

  “Zombie!” the old man said from his recliner.

  The pudgy man on the TV looked confused. “But you just told it all,” he said to Eduardo.

  The host was unfazed. “Well, if you have nothing to add, we’ll take some questions from the audience.”

  A young woman in a UCLA sweatshirt stood up and asked how Mr. Bullock felt about his wife and he said he still loved her. A murmur swept the audience. An aging housewife with a thin mustache and a thick smoker’s voice rambled for several minutes but forgot her question before she finished. She melted back into her seat, flushed with embarrassment. A teenage boy in a beret stood and indicated that he had a question for one of the other guests.

  The camera pulled back, revealing the entire panel. At the far left sat a middle-aged man with a deep tan and a pancaked nose. He drummed all four fingers on each hand continuously on the sides of his chair. Next to him sat an olive-skinned black woman with thick snaking dreadlocks and a loose fitting outfit the color of mulch. Her arms were adorned with large golden bracelets and she wore matching hoop earrings. She held the hand of an pale Caucasian man with shallow cheeks and eyes that never blinked. And on the far right sat the pudgy man with the ill-fitting socks.

  The punk wearing the beret pointed at the only woman on the stage and said, “Assuming your story is true, why would you go through all the trouble to bring that ugly guy back from the dead. I mean, get on with your life! Find somebody new for God’s sake! Why him?”

  The rest of audience applauded and nodded vigorously.

  When they calmed the black woman said, “Sometimes love is just crazy dat way.”

  “Sumbitch!” the old man shouted at the screen. “Two zombies and a voodoo witch to boot!” He stuffed the remote in his shirt pocket and hoisted himself to his feet using the aluminum-framed walker stationed by the recliner for support. Leaning on the walker, he hobbled out the front door of his decrepit house, unaware of the peeling paint and the weed-choked lawn and the missing slats in the picket fence bordering the sidewalk. He lifted the rubber-stoppered feet of the walker off the ground and placed them back on the concrete six inches from their previous positions. Only then could he gingerly take a short step forward and finally bring the other foot forward to meet the first. He did that a hundred and thirty-seven times to get to the slightly larger house next door. The smell of freshly cut grass floated over the yard and all the autumn leaves had been recently raked into a neat pile, but the wind blowing off the San Francisco Bay stirred the tall spruces and created a golden rain that threatened the orderly yard. From the porch he peered through the screen door into the house, shading his eyes with a hand.

  “Hello? Shan? You here?” he said.

  “Come on in, Mr. Parker.”

  Mr. Parker let himself in and followed the transparent plastic mats from the front door to the family room. A lengthy tan sofa lined one of the white walls and an empty wood coffee table sat in front of it. The only other furnishing was a large television set placed center-stage along the wall opposite the couch. In the middle of the room, on a cushion removed from the sofa, sat a boy. He wore a red basketball jersey with JORDAN and 23 emblazoned in white on the back. Close shaved hair glistened with sweat on his dark scalp. His entire body convulsed as he jerked a joystick back and forth and jabbed buttons with spastic ecstasy. The maddening digital landscape on the television screen blazed by, beeping and booming.

  Mr. Parker watched for a moment.

  “It’s Friday, aren’t you supposed to be in school?” he asked.

  “Yep,” said the boy, still transfixed by the video game.

  “Does your mom know you’re here?”

  “Nope. She’s gone.”

  “Where she go?”

  “Tahoe. For the weekend.”

  “Why didn’t you go?”

  “Steve took her. Said he had a surprise for her. She thinks he’s gong to ask her to marry him. She says she’s going to say no, but, well, you know her…”

  “They didn’t want you along for the honeymoon.”

  “Exactamundo.”

  Mr. Parker scratched his neck. “Steve the white guy with the big truck?”

  “No. That was Dennis. Steve is the guy with the BMW.”

  Mr. Parker nodded acknowledgment. “You wouldn’t be moving in with him would you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The old man stared at the screen without really looking at it. “Well, toodleloo!” he said.

  “See ya,” Shan said.

  Mr. Parker shuffled out of the room and went all the way to the front door before turning around and shuffling back. “Almost forgot why I came over here,” he said. “Got to show you something. Turn that Atomi off for a minute.”

  “You mean Atari.”

  “Fine. Atari. Just turn it off.”

  “It’s not Atari. It’s Nintendo.”

  “Just turn the damn thing off. Puts the TV on channel six.”

  “I’m getting close to my high score.” The screen exploded bright blue and white. “Darn it! See what you did? You made me die.”

  “I didn’t make you do anything. But since you’re dead can you puts the TV on channel six.”

  Shan unplugged the game and flipped the channel to make the old man happy. Some talk show had just ended and the credits were rolling over shots of a chandelier-laden hotel lobby with a indoor waterfall that plummeted a full two stories to a rocky pool on the lobby floor. A baritone voice-over said, “All of the guests of the Eduardo show stay at the luxurious Cascades Hotel, where impeccable service and attention to detail will wash your troubles away…”

  “Shoot! It’s over,” said Mr. Parker, snappin
g his fingers.

  “What was it?”

  “Zombies! Dead folks right there on the boob-tube.”

  “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said, and you’ve said some dumb stuff.”

  “I saw them. Swear it.”

  Shan shook his head. “It was just a movie. There was this smart black guy—like me—stuck in this house with a bunch of dumb white people—like you. And these creepy zombies were after them and all the white people died because they didn’t listen to the black guy. So listen to me when I say it was just a movie. Zombies aren’t real.”

  “Oh no?” said Mr. Parker. “And what if I can prove they’re real? What then? Will you come and help me kill’em?”

  “Okay. Sure. And if you can’t prove it you buy me a double cheeseburger.”

  The old man nodded curtly.

  “And fries.”

  The old man nodded again.

  “And a chocolate shake.”

  “Deal!” Mr. Parker said. He spat on his palm and extended a hand.

  “That’s really gross.”

  The old man stared gravely and pushed the hand emphatically forward. So Shan reared back and hokked up the biggest spitball he could. Scraping phlegm off the back of his throat and making a sound like white noise and finally spitting the goopy wad on his hand. He gripped the old man’s hand with a slimy squish and shook once. When they let go a greenish cord, like cheese on a hot pizza, strung limply between their hands and then snapped.

  “Sick,” Shan said.

  After wiping his hand on his pants, Mr. Parker said, “It might take us a while to find them zombies so you better grab a couple days of stuff.”

  “Just a sec,” Shan said. He grabbed his keys and stuffed them in his shorts pocket. “Okay, I’m ready now.”

  “That’s it?”

  Shan shrugged. “I’m a kid.”

  * * *

  Shan double-checked to make sure all the doors were locked so he wouldn’t get yelled at. He hopped over the small picket fence separating his and Mr. Parker’s yards and sat down on Mr. Parker’s porch. From the porch he watched as the old man made the arduous journey down to the sidewalk taking tiny steps one after the other and navigating the harsh ninety degree turn by the gate and walking the endless length of sidewalk and eventually making the home stretch and meeting Shan on the porch.

  “I don’t remember if I locked my front door,” Shan said. “Could you go check it for me?”

  “No,” said the old man as he entered his house.

  Shan couldn’t help but smile; Mr. Parker was catching on.

  Inside, in a living room lit only by horizontal bands of light sneaking between the partially closed louvers of venetian blinds, straight-backed chairs and dark wood tables looked rooted to their eternal positions. Dust motes flicked in and out of the dying beams. Shan glanced at the unfamiliar black and white faces filling row after row of picture frames. These must have been Mr. Parker’s friends—all long dead now—only gray faces behind glass.

  Shan walked down the narrow hall. Mr. Parker was on his hands and knees rolling back the worn carpet from the wall. He mumbled but Shan couldn’t make out the words yet. Shan stepped closer trying to see over his shoulder.

  “Didn’t believe me, huh? Thought I was loony, huh? That it? Thought my noodle was getting soft didn’t you? No such thing as zombies. Pheh! You’ll see. You’ll see.”

  Shan stood on the tips of his toes. Mr. Parker pried up a short floorboard and tossed it aside. The smell of moldy dirt rose from the hole. Twisting his neck around, Mr. Parker cracked a smile revealing his unnaturally perfect teeth. “You still so sure there’s no such thing as zombies?”

  Shan jammed his hands in his pockets and jerked his head up and down as quick as he could manage. No way did Mr. Parker have a dead body under his house. No way. Sure he was kind of weird but he wasn’t a sicko…

  Was he?

  Shan could hear his breath echoing inside his head. Mr. Parker thrust his hand down in the hole. It came up covered in cobwebs. An insect scuttled across his arm and fell back into the darkness. In his hand was a shotgun. Shan’s heart slammed against his ribs. Jeez, if Mr. Parker shot him and he got blood all over his brand-new Michael Jordan jersey his mom would kill him. Mr. Parker set the gun aside and reached back into the hole. When his hand emerged again it held an ornate gold box about the size of a video game cartridge. The gold had turned a dull greenish-brown in the carved recesses of the box.

  “Don’t just stand there gawking,” said Mr. Parker. “Help me up.”

  Shan pulled him to his feet. Though only slightly taller, the old man seemed tower over him. His arm still strangled by delicate white webs, he held the crusty old box in front of Shan. “Open it,” he said.

  Shan’s hands were glued to the bottom of his pockets.

  “Open it,” Mr. Parker whispered.

  Shan pried one trembling hand loose and reached for the box. He touched the damp lid and looked up at Mr. Parker for reassurance. Nothing but shadow played across that face. Finally, Shan had to look away. He focused on that box. It was so small. Nothing that small could hurt him. What was he so afraid of?

  He lifted the lid free.

  Inside, laying on a bed of snow-white cotton was a finger. A withered old finger. Severed at the second knuckle in a gruesome black mess that stained the cotton.

  Mr. Parker whispered, “Roundabouts forty years ago my car ran out of gas somewhere, I’m not sure exactly where, in Louisiana. I was on my way to Mardi Gras and was pretty damn lost in the swamps. Since it was late and any gas station I could have found would have been closed I had no choice but to sleep in my car. It was dark as an armadillo’s ass-hole and colder than a winter at the north pole. Something sloshing through the swamps woke me up. It was coming closer and closer but I couldn’t sees it at all. At first I thought it was some sort of critter. But the shape of a man came out from the trees. I hollered, but he didn’t answer. Just kept walking closer. Abouts then I was starting to get a might nervous so I said I had a gun and I knew how to use it so he better stay back. But he just kept walking closer and I didn’t really have a gun or I might have shot the bastard then and there. He walked right up to me and when the clouds parted letting the dim light of the moon through, I got a glimpse of his rotting brown face and I screamed. The thing grabbed me by my noggin and I heard it gurgle brraaainssss. I punched and kicked and something went in my mouth and I bit down as hard as I could and the thing squealed like a pig and shuffled off into the darkness. I felt the relief wash over me like summer rain. Then I felt the thing in my mouth squirming around like a slug. I spit in out on the ground and it flopped round like a landed catfish. I put it in this here box and I swear it looks the same today as it did forty years ago.”

  Shan studied the ancient pale skin, the bulging knuckles, the raggedly chewed nail. The way they looked horribly old and yet still somehow alive in the tiny tomb.

  The finger twitched.

  And Shan jumped back, slammed into the wall and let out a yelp. He felt the tears perched at the edges of his eyes. Mr. Parker was swaying back and forth in fits. His teeth flopped around in his mouth and horrible choking gasps lurched from his throat. But something wasn’t right. He was… laughing. Choking and wheezing and laughing. Hysterically.

  Shan felt his jaw unhinge. Mr. Parker held the box up. He turned it over and showed Shan the hole in the bottom where his finger had been inserted. The bed of cotton and the black mess had hidden the rest of Mr. Parker’s finger from view. “Scared the bejeezus out of you,” he said between fits of laughter.

  “Did not.”

  “Hogwash! You nearly jumped out of your britches and darned near wet them too I bet.”

  “You’re exaggerating. And you lost! That didn’t prove anything. You owe me a double cheeseburger.”

  “It was worth it to see you jump like that.”

  “I didn’t jump,” Shan said.

  “Like a frog on a frying pan you did. Com
e on, lets go get your burger. We’ll take my car.”

  “You don’t have a car.”

  “Want to bet?” said Mr. Parker with a smile on his face.

  * * *

  Shan stood in the doorway to the garage, hands jammed into pockets, fiddling with loose change and a toy soldier and some spongy thing that he rolled between his right thumb and index finger aimlessly, watching Mr. Parker shuffle into the darkness. The room felt cramped even though unseen. It reeked of mildew and pesticides.

  “Just a minute now…” echoed Mr. Parker’s voice.

  “Just a minute now…

  “Here it is.”

  A thunderous clatter, like a thousand marbles all being dropped at once, filled the stale air. Shan took a step back into the house and wondered what that thing in his pocket really was.

  “Well, that wasn’t it,” Mr. Parker said.

  “Wait a minute! Here it is!”

  And with that the dim illumination of a single hanging bulb crept around the room, among the water stained cardboard boxes marker-labeled PARTS and CHRISTMAS and BOAT and KIDNEY, and along the dusty shelves stacked to precarious overflow with jars of nuts and bolts and an unnamable black goo, and over the central heap covered by a olive drab military-style tarp. Shadows cast from the swinging bulb danced and swayed across the dusty piles of junk.

  The lone bulb buzzed incessantly.

  “Heh, heh,” chuckled Mr. Parker, his loose false teeth rattling in his mouth. “She’s right under here.” He patted the tarp vigorously and the dull thump of metal clanged from underneath.

  “Didn’t believe me didya, you little dickens.”

  “Nope,” said Shan. It was getting harder to play it cool but he thought he had just the right ring of indifference on that last nope. Of course, it never hurt to pad a little. “Listen, I’d better get home. You can buy me my double cheeseburger later.”

  “You don’t wants to see her? I know you wants to see her.”

  Shan glanced at his wristwatchless wrist—the old man would never know—and said, “Well… I guess I can spare a minute or two.”

  “Don’t just stand there then, help me pull this here tarp off.”