Dani Miller’s father once told her: “It doesn’t matter how bad the day gets. If you didn’t draw that pistol on your hip, it’s a good day.” In her rookie years she had no idea what he was talking about, the thrill of adventure cried to loudly. As she spent more time in the force, she came across officers who had drawn in the line of duty and with gradual certainty she learned what her old man meant. It was good advice. There had been dull days, there had been heartrending days, but in the end he would have called them good days.
She hadn’t the faintest idea that the last of her good days was already behind her.
The train barreled past her idling squad car, oblivious to the cars piling up, waiting on its passage. Dani – riding shotgun - watched through her window, and Phillip, her partner, swore under his breath, shaking his head.
Three minutes had passed and the never-ending slew of railcars showed no sign of letting up. The cars surrounding their black-and-white rumbled quietly and spewed hazy clouds of pollutants into the crisp November air. A faint mist of snow danced across the gray sky, the easterly wind blowing them towards the Rocky Mountains who towered over the buildings of the small town of Wellington Colorado. To the east the already thinning buildings grew sparse before giving way to the vast prairies beyond.
Still grumbling, Phillip rolled down his window and pressed a cigarette between his lips. Dani wanted to snap at her partner as cold air invaded the warmth of their cruiser, overpowering the small dash heater, already working overtime. She bit down on her tongue and allowed the man his nerve-calming remedy.
“Gaddamn trains,” he spat, to himself as much as to her. “It’s lucky we weren’t on a call.”
Dani nodded but knew a response was not warranted. She subtly moved her hands closer to the onslaught of warm air still blasting from the overworked vents in the dash. A few flakes of snow drifted through the open window to leave miniscule dark patches on the sleeve of her dark-blue uniform.
“You know, when I was a kid I wanted to be an engineer?” Phillip asked. “Of course, that was before I knew what assholes trains were!”
She cracked a grin, a faint chuckle escaping her lips. Meeting her partner’s steely eyes, she rolled hers.
“I ain’t joking rookie,” her heavyset companion said before taking a long pull on his smoke. On the exhale he continued, “I figured I’d see the country the way the old-time vagabonds did. You know how it feels when you’re young and the world seems a whole lot grander and a hell of a lot less dangerous? Don’t you?”
“Sure,” she replied, but she did not. Her dad – ever the cop – had made damn sure that she knew exactly what a place this world was. And it was far from a pretty sight.
“Well…” Phillip began, but she tuned out his diatribe and turned her attention outside. Her gaze ran along the three lanes of idling traffic, taking in each and every face surrounding her. Her fellow captives of the never-ending train looked away one by one. They shifted uncomfortably in their seats and refused to meet her gaze. Dani could not help but stifle a laugh. It was strange how a cruiser turned her into a social pariah. She was in the same mind-numbing situation as they were, and boredom’s creeping grip was closing in on her. Yet her uniform changed their perception of her into that of an unfeeling automaton, a robot hell-bent on getting them in cuffs for the slightest infraction.
It was almost funny until an elderly lady sitting in her idling Prius caught Dani’s eye and slowly flipped her the bird.
Ain’t life grand, she grumbled. Phillip continued babbling about trains and the general assholery of the railroad, but her ears were tuned into the continual bing-bing-bing of the crossing. The steady bell cut over the slew of sputtering engines, and provided a welcome auditory distraction from her partner’s meandering rant. It was meditative, in a way. A steady bell accentuated by the constant red flash of the lights mounted to the black and white striped barricades.
For a moment, her floating mind wondered how many engines it would take to haul this big of a load. She considered asking Phillip, he would know, but then realized that would be far from a prudent course of action. Growing tired of watching the flashing lights, she resumed people watching.
One car up and over from the cruiser was a black hearse that looked to be out of an old movie. It had popped out of a nineteen-fifties Bogart flick and driven out into the streets of the twenty-first century. The paint was marred with age, but places still gleamed in the muted sunlight. The windows were tinted heavily – so heavily that she wondered if it was legal – but the back window had been replaced recently, still naked glass.
Through the window she could see clear through the back, over the coffin that rested within. She wondered if it was occupied, she wondered who might occupy it. Behind the wheel a man sat, his features obscured by long, matted black hair and a flat-cap pulled low over his eyes. He was a large man, easily six-four, six-five, broad shoulders and corded arms. He gesticulated frantically, babbling incessantly at the figure in the reclined passenger seat.
The figure in the passenger seat remained motionless. The head was balding, with its scant hairs jutting wild from an otherwise barren skull. The brittle-looking tufts of hair, askew and wild, reminded Dani of old photographs of Albert Einstein. But what held her gaze wasn’t the near-bald head, or the wild gestures of the driver.
What held her gaze was the fact that the man seemed engaged in a hearty argument, but the second party did not move. The companion seemed uninterested in the debate, sleeping. Even as the driver rambled with increased emphasis, the passenger did not move.
“Are you listening to me, dammit?!” the driver howled loud enough for Dani to hear his cry carrying over the steady bing of the crossing signal, and Phillips continuing ramble.
Frustrated, the driver leaned over the passenger to pull the reclining chair upright. The passenger’s head lulled to the side, hanging there, unmoving.
Strange, Dani thought.
The driver seemed cowed, his trembling hands reaching out to right the head with near-religious reverence. His movements reverted to a controlled sanity and his voice quieted. Quieter or not, Dani could not drag her eyes from the hearse. Her hackles were raised; something about the odd couple in the hearse seemed off, wrong, terrible.
She glanced over to Phillip and wondered how to tell him. If she spoke up would he write her off? Would he label her paranoid or worse a hysterical girl?
She cast a furtive look back to the hearse, her eyes scanning for any signs of life in the passenger seat. She looked for a twitch, a gesture, even the faintest turn of the head.
There was nothing.
The driver turned his attention back to the road, falling silent. He stared forward at the flashing red light in a sulk. He slumped over the wheel, looking like a child who was just grounded, a kid who was told they weren’t getting ice cream.
Something is wrong.
Dani glanced to Phillip and hissed, “Phil, something’s wrong.”
“Yeah? What gave you that idea?” he grumbled and pointed to the train.
“Three o’clock. The hearse.”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“The passenger isn’t moving.”
“So?”
“I think… I think it’s a body.”
Phillip tossed his head back and let out a single, guttural, “Ha!” He looked to her, rolling his eyes, “C’mon, what’d give you that idea?”
“Phil, call it intuition, okay? Something is off with that guy.”
“Look, kid,” he grumbled, pinching his nose. “We can’t go pulling over every spook ‘cause something seems ‘off.’ It’d be nice, but there’s this thing called the Constitution, and it says we can’t go pulling over every spook, no matter what our gut tells us.”
Dani groaned, but knew that her partner was right. Without probable cause there was nothing they could do, and a passenger lumped in their seat was far from cause, let alone probable. Her eyes scanned the vehicle for any tell-tale sign of wrongdoing. An open hatch, a low tire, a busted taillight, anything that could warrant a quick stop and once-over.
It looked clean. Damn.
“Then can you do me a solid?” she asked.
He groaned, but nodded.
“Just follow them for a bit, maybe pull up alongside. Can you at least do that for me?”
His eyes asked her, ‘Are you fucking serious?’ but one look at Dani’s face told him that she was not only serious, she would not be dissuaded. With a drawn-out groan that bordered on comical he caved, “Fine. But if your hunch is hooey – and I’m pretty damn sure it is – then you owe me coffee. That square?”
“Make it coffee and a donut.”
He shot her a curt nod of agreement and glanced down the tracks to see the end of the relentless trail of railcars. “Thank God in Heaven! The end is in sight!”
Officer Phillip Marlow had no idea how right he was.
#
The barricade raised and traffic resumed at its usual pace. Phillip touched the accelerator, ducking between two cars. He gunned it, but somehow the hearse managed to stay at least two lengths ahead as it wound through the mid-morning traffic. Phillip wondered if the driver had seen the rookie take an interest in him, he wondered if the guy was trying to make a quick getaway. Or maybe the fellas just got places to be, he reminded himself as he gunned between a school bus and a Toyota.
Phillip glanced over at Dani, her eyes fixed on the back window of the hearse. She watched like a hawk, noting as the driver resumed his argument with the passenger.
That’s the liveliest body I’ve ever seen, Phillip scoffed.
The hearse pulled off onto a county road heading east, out of town. The buildings lining the road went from industrial warehouses to sparse in seconds flat. Long stretches of prairie went uninterrupted as the road grew bumpy. Phillip felt his stomach pitch and slosh as pavement gave way to gravel.
“You sure about this, kid,” he asked. “I’m giving you an out, just in case you don’t want to buy me donuts and coffee.”
“Positive.”
He shrugged and pressed the gas a little further, squinting to see through the haze of gravel the black vehicle’s tires were kicking up at his windshield.
“You’re also washing this damn thing,” he growled as a particularly large pebble ricochet off the glass with an unforgiving whack.
“Sure,” Dani responded, but it wasn’t a response. She hadn’t heard a word out of Phillip’s mouth, her entire attention focused on the hearse ahead.
Phillip’s lips drew in a thin line, suddenly feeling Dani’s suspicion. The kid was green but she already had proven her ‘detective’s gut’ – as he liked to call it. She had a nose for trouble, and Phillip wasn’t sure whether that would be a blessing to her career or a curse. His eyes flicked from the road to the pistol on his hip and he uttered a silent prayer that he would not have to use it today.
The road widened into four unmarked lanes, and Phillip pulled onto the inside. His unflinching eyes were fixed on the hearse as he depressed the gas a little farther. He kept the increase subtle, not wanting to raise any unwanted attention to their squad car.
Not yet.
For each foot Phillip gained, the long car pulled ahead. It was as if the driver’s sole intent was to stay well ahead of the cops on its tail. Suspicious, but not illegal, Phillip reminded himself. The hearse always stayed within its five-mile-an-hour grace window, never speeding but never slowing enough to give him an inch.
Phillip was tempted to gun it and close the gap. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was spend the afternoon filling out a report when the monitor in his cruiser emailed his boss that Officer Marlow was going ten over the limit, all in hopes of catching a glimpse inside some hearse that his rookie partner thought looked off. Yeah, that’d go over well.
Phillip scanned the car for anything he could use to pull the guy over. He went through the same mental checklist that Dani had ticked off minutes earlier. Taillights? Lighting up brilliant red with each tap of the brakes. Tires? Filled to the brim. Hatch? Closed up tighter than a nun’s pussy. There was nothing.
“Look, kid, if we’re doing this, we’re doing this right,” he said. “Call in the plates and see if we can get some intel on who own the thing, okay?”
She nodded, squinting against the sun reflecting off the metal surface. She paused, looked again, and then turned to him, “No dice. They’re completely covered with mud.”
Bingo. “Well, you wanted to pull the bastard over. Now you’ve got a reason to.”
She grinned as he flipped the red-and-blues, gunning it. The hearse began to slow and edge over to the shoulder of the road. Certainly, the driver was hoping they had gotten a call and were going to blow right by. No such luck, buddy, Phillip thought, staying on the hearse’s tail.
Ahead, the hearse ground to a halt and Phillip glanced over his shoulder, back the way they came. He hated making a stop this far from the main thoroughfares, but it couldn’t be helped.
“Dani, make the call. Black hearse off County Road Six, obscured plates.”
She nodded, “Should I call for backup?”
“Nah, not yet.”
It was a logical choice, but one Phillip would come to regret.
Dani grabbed at the handset and spoke in rapid fire to dispatch before hanging up. She looked at Phillip, her eyes almost pleading for some kind of acknowledgment. Without so much as a nod, he turned his attention back to their quarry.
He guided the cruiser smoothly to the side of the dirt road. Once both cars were parked, engines idling, Phillip exited with Dani hot on his heels. He wasn’t sure why, but his hand edged closer to his gun, his fingers twitching. His forehead broke out in a steep, inexplicable sweat, and his heart thumped in his chest.
Glancing down the barren road, Phillip could make out the soft rumble of the main roads in the distance. Scanning the plain he made out a few distant structures, but only one house stood within earshot, jutting out against the windswept landscape. It was an old house, but in decent repair. On the porch, a young woman sat reading a book – probably twenty-four, twenty-five. She glanced up with mild interest.
Dani shot a quick wave at the woman to mask her own trepidation. The woman waved back and then turned her attention back to her hardback book.
Ahead, the hearse loomed.
Phillip heard the squeaking creak of a hand-cranked window, and the driver poked his head out, “Problem, officers?”
“You know your license plate is obscured?” Phillip called back.
“Darn it, no sir. I did not,” the man called back, middle-aged and affable. “I just got back from a fishin’ trip and we must’ve kicked some mud up on the plate. Here, I’ll get that wiped down, right quick.”
The door creaked, and the man placed one leg outside the hearse.
“Please, stay in the car, sir. Keep your hands on the wheel.”
“Aw, shoot, you ain’t going to write me a ticket for an honest screw up, now, are you?”
“We’ll see. For now, sit tight. Okay?”
Phillips felt the cold grip of his pistol in his clammy hand. He was trembling.
“Sure thing, officer. I don’t want no trouble.”
Dani looked to Phillip with wide eyes, asking for a sign, any sign. He kept his gaze fixed on the car, stony and impenetrable. The kid would have to figure this out for herself. His stomach gurgled and he hoped the clenching felling in his gut was nerves. He hoped that Dani hadn’t seen anything and this whole stop was for nothing.
“Is anyone in the car with you?” he called.
“Just Mother, but she’s resting.”
Phillip edged past the rear bumper of the driver’s side, inching forward towards the open window. He leaned in, his hand still gripping his pistol.
“Now let’s talk about that…” Phillip’s words choked off. His face twisted in a hideous mask of revulsion and astonishment.
He took a step back.
His pistol slid from its holster, clenched in trembling hands. He began to bring it up, shouting his hoarse order, “Step out of the car, right fucking-”
There was a loud pop and a hole blew outwards from the hearse’s door.
Phillip looked down lethargically to see a crimson dribble descending from his chest. His fingers tingled, growing numb as the hazy daylight began to dim.
His gaze was still fixed on the thing in the passenger seat.
The horrific, hideous thing.
He began to wobble on his feet, feeling a throbbing ache in his chest.
He collapsed.
#
Maria Martinez jerked to attention, her book falling from listless fingers to thud dully on the wooden planks of her porch. She looked out, fixing on the idling hearse and the two cops. The sound had been muffled but was unmistakable. A silence gunshot had torn through the air seconds before. She watched the male officer look down, his movements sloth-like. He stared at his chest before collapsing onto the dirt road like a discarded plaything.
Frozen, trembling, Maria could not believe her eyes. The driver exited the hearse, a smoking gun clutched in over-large hands. The second cop – a woman – struggled to draw her own gun from its holster. Her wide eyes glinted in terror across the dull dirt between the house and the car, they flashed between the man and her fallen partner.
Before the gun left her hip, a second pop sliced through the midmorning calm.
The woman joined her lifeless partner on the ground, her chest shuddering in its final death throes. The driver stood over the dying woman his smoking, silenced pistol unwavering, and put a second, final bullet in her head.
Maria bit her tongue, resisting the urge to scream bloody murder.
He didn’t see you, she told herself. He didn’t-
He saw her.
The driver looked directly at her, tipping his flat-cap in a mockery of refinement. Cold, black eyes fixed on her, and a warped, almost childlike, smile cracked his gaunt face.
She leapt to her feet, spinning in place to race back into the house. Her heart pounded rapid-fire as she stumbled through her front door, sickened and panicked.
Suddenly, she could not remember where she had left her phone.
#
“Get her, stupid child!” the woman’s voice howled from the car. Malignant, accusatory, wicked and dripping with menace.
The driver did not need to be told twice, but she repeated the command nonetheless. She could be overbearing at times, demanding and cruel, but she was still Mother. He loved her, wholeheartedly and without question. He knew better than to disobey.
He checked the chamber of his pistol, more out of habit than need, and headed up the pathway towards the ancient farmhouse. The door hung open, flapping idly on creaking hinges, as if a beckoning invitation to enter. To take.
Long, muscular legs carried him up the dirt trail. Reaching the steps to the porch, he cast a quick look back at the long, dirt road. Abandoned, but for how long? He knew time was short. The pigs were certain to have called dispatch before the stop. Some middle aged woman with fake curls in her hair and too much makeup caked on her face would be waiting for a call-back. A call-back that would never come.
Shit, he thought, mentally flinching. Mother hated his dirty words, but they still slipped out. Sometimes he had to remind himself that Mother could not hear his dirty thoughts.
Another fear gripped at the man’s heart. He knew that a passer-by could pass by at any moment, catching sight of the stopped cars and the felled cops. One call to 911 and it was over! Or, they would stop to offer assistance, and they would find Mother in the passenger seat. She would never let him live that down, would she?
No matter the means of discovery, he would be in the shithouse in no time. He made the decision then and there. The hunting trip would be canceled.
He’d have to improvise, and he knew that a golden opportunity had just fallen in his lap. Mother would not like it, but he wouldn’t like it either. He figured that sometimes she should stow her bitching and appreciate what he provided. Of course, he would never dare say such a thing to her.
He turned the brim of his cap backwards, and stormed up the steps.
A plan was forming in his mind as he stepped into the creaking farmhouse.
Time to improvise.
#
The loose floorboard in the foyer let out an ominous creak, as if to tell Maria that the unwanted visitor was in her house. By that time she had haphazardly ransacked her living room in search of her cell phone. She was hallway up the stairs when the horrid creak moaned throughout the house.
She froze, her breath trapped in her trachea, her heart in a free-fall. She stood stock still and trembled like a cornered mouse. Nowhere to turn. Nowhere to run.
And no phone to call for help.
God, please don’t let me die, she entreated without uttering a sound as she tip-toed up the remaining steps. She repeated a silent request to Heaven that her stairs wouldn’t cry out with each step.
She was almost to the top, her heart beginning to beat again, relief coursing through her. Only two more steps to go…
The step let out a long, arduous creak under her weight.
Again, Maria did her best impression of a deer in headlights. She held her breath, listening with cautious ears for any sign that the man had heard her. The heavy footsteps clomped around the downstairs, seemingly uninterrupted.
She breathed a slow, relieved sigh.
“I can hear you up there, Missy,” the voice called up to her, tinged with the South. “Come on down, I ain’t planning on hurting you.”
Maria swore under her breath and threw caution to the wind, bounding up the remaining stairs. She tore down the upstairs hallway, knocking a picture frame askew in her mad flight. Her bedroom door hung open and she glimpsed the familiar – and all too welcome – sight of her phone charging on her bed. She put on an extra burst of speed, her breath coming fast, catching in her ragged throat.
We just worry for you, Maria, her Papa had said shortly after she chose to move into her grandmother’s old house. Out here on your own, like this, what if something happened?
I’m fine, Papa, she would say, allowing a hint of exasperation to creep into her voice.
It turns out her father’s concerns may have been warranted after all.
She hurtled through her open door. Lunging forward she yanked her phone from the long white charging cable that attached it to her wall. She held the phone in trembling hands and pressed her thumb against the unlock button. For the first time since buying it, the phone would not read her fingerprint.
She tried again, tapping her foot and glancing towards the open maw of her door. The heavy footsteps carried down the hallway, not rushed but intent.
“Come on Missy, don’t make this harder than it’s got to be.”
“Come on, come on, come on!” Maria hissed as the fingerprint icon on her screen filled.
The phone buzzed, politely telling her to TRY AGAIN. She had to resist the urge to hurl the phone at her wall and scream. The footsteps were agonizingly close, a certain, steady march down her hallway. An inevitable impending doom for her.
She began to glance around, eyes darting through her all-too familiar room for any means of escape. Finally, her panicked gaze settled on her window. There was a quick, one-sided debate in her mind before realizing there was no option. She darted across the room, feeling her foot catch on the ugly afghan rug she hated, but did not have the heart to throw out.
She went down, feeling the jolt run through her bones as she hit the unforgiving floor.
Bruised, but unbroken, she forced herself back to her feet and resumed her headlong dive towards the window.
Her trembling hands fiddled with the lock that held the thick glass pane fast, only to discover it had rusted shut. She had never needed to open the window before, and now her lack of attention was coming to haunt her.
She pressed her elbows against the sill for leverage and pulled on the lock with both hands. Tremors of exertion ran through her shoulders and back, her arms quivering with strain. Small beads of sweat dotted her forehead, and her eyesight seemed to blur with the effort.
Finally, with a grinding screech, the lock tore from its catch, and the window slid open. She looked out over the horizon to see storm clouds moving in and snow darting across the bleak sky. The wind was picking up, what had been a calming breeze minutes before was building into a gale-force assault.
The footsteps behind her were closing in, she was certain that if she turned she would see the large figure of her pursuant, framed by her doorframe with a flat-cap obscuring his face, a silenced pistol in his hand.
She didn’t look. She slid over her sill and onto the steep roof of the old house. Her stomach lurched and she could not help but plead with the powers-that-be in hopes that no shingles were loose. Sinking down to a sitting position beneath her window, she began to slide along the precarious roof.
Shingles dug into the soft flesh of her backside, screwing her face with a wince of pain. Sweat poured down her forehead, and tears brimmed her eyes, breaking free to tear thin tracks down her reddened windswept cheeks. Her phone was all but forgotten, but still clenched in a dead man’s grip, her hand turning a pasty white.
The window was a quick lateral glance from her current perch. She knew that one look out the open orifice and the invader would catch sight of her. She cursed herself for leaving it hanging open, but knew there was nothing to do now. She had to go up.
Maria chanced a look down, immediately regretting her decision. Her vision swam at the sight; the two-story drop looked to be hundreds of feet down, the ground seemed to drop away at a frantic pace, as if it were trying to outrun her pursuer as well. Her head felt numb and foggy, disoriented as she stared at the sheer drop to the cracked earth below.
Part of her wanted to break down and slide back into her room. She wanted to curl up under her bed and wait out the invader. She wanted to closer her eyes and realize this had all been a terrible nightmare.
Inch by agonized inch, she forced herself up the jagged roof. She counted her lucky stars that her shingles held, their tacks embedded deep into the house’s frame. The ridges dug deep into her skin and the rough sandpaper-like texture rubbed the palms of her clammy hand raw. She forced the discomfort from her mind, moving up, wincing with each sluggish scoot.
She heard the man inside her room scream out something unintelligible. She heard the glass mirror on her dressing table shatter, and the sound of furniture being thrown about, as if in a wicked storm of senseless malice. A chair hurtled through her open window, catching the pane and sending shards of glass exploding outwards.
Maria closed her eyes, biting back a blood-curdling scream.
“Dammit, girl, you’re making this harder on yourself!” the driver growled. A few muted pops of the gun followed, and Maria couldn’t help but wonder if she’d have to re-wallpaper her room.
She halted her ascent, staying perfectly still and holding in her breath. The wind cut through her clothes, sending shivers coursing through her body. The billowing snow caught in her dark hair, leaving white flakes speckled throughout. She told herself that it was all a nightmare, that she had fallen asleep reading her novel, that she was drooling on her porch, snoring softly right now. Despite her wish, the throbbing pain in her palms told her she was awake. It told her there was no waking from this nightmare.
A shaggy mop adorned with a flat-cap poked from her window. Looking left. Looking right. The gaunt, scraggly face turned towards her and a devil’s smile spread from corner to corner. “There you are!”
She recoiled, allowing the building scream within to break free. She held up her hands to cover her face, and kicked her feet in a subconscious effort to escape.
A shingle gave way, slipping out from under her weight.
She felt the world tilting around her and gravity seemed to break.
She plummeted.