Burn Scars, Eddie Generous [read full novel txt] 📗

and trailer ahead of him. A Zellers bag whipped by his ear and out the window. He glanced in the mirror for red and blue lights to start spinning in the sea of darkness. No sweat, nobody followed their twosome convoy. Sitting behind the wheel had him suddenly tired and woozy again, but managing to hold it together, despite that the longer he drove with a body in back, the more his anxiety upped, seemingly upending the rest of his core functions. If Cary didn’t beep him soon on the walkie-talkie, he might have to pull over, run into the woods, and start life anew as a hermit.

 The minutes mounted as the miles mounted. Soon they were out of the county and driving the straight and narrow of the farmlands east of Andover and closer to the village Peyton. Finally, the walkie-talkie beeped and Rusty lifted it to his cheek to hear above the steady thrash of wind.

“Gonna take a left at the drive-in sign.”

“Got it. Okay.” Rusty wasn’t sure if he got the message across given how loud the cab of the truck was, but it didn’t matter.

The rig started breaking a half-second after the turn signal started blinking. Rusty mimicked and followed onto the oddly wide gravel road—most country roads out there were about one and a half lanes, some slimmer than that even. Cary flipped his blinker again and pulled into the drive-in laneway. The big sign was dark, but the bit of moonshine coming through the steadily moving clouds banked off the back of the big screen, showing off a native visage in traditional headdress. Done in brownish red on a blue hued white.

—

“Shove a bum, chum,” Cary said as he opened the driver’s door of his truck.

The rig was in the shadows next to the chain-gate crossing the entry of the drive-in. The marquee sign read SEE YOU NEXT YEAR and nothing else. Rusty had heard they’d closed the drive-in for good, but it didn’t seem like it.

“Come on, scooch,” Cary said when Rusty was taking too long.

Rusty got the buckle unlatched and slid across the bench seat, crunching glass pebbles beneath him.

“When I was little, I had a cousin who lived out here. Me and my brothers used to come over and swim in Cold Lake. Not just a name. It’s some cold.”

“Figure that’s because it’s deep?” Rusty asked, licking at a split in his bottom lip. The swelling made it impossible to keep his tongue away right then. A few minutes earlier, he’d kept touching his eye, unable to stop himself.

“Sure. The Gelee River runs under a bridge on an old no winter maintenance road; lake has spots way deeper than you could dive, well at least without a tank. Road’s closed now, but no trouble for this girl.” Cary rubbed the truck’s dash as he backed up to straighten out.

“I wouldn’t dive anywhere,” Rusty said, looking out the side window.

Not a mile down, the gravel road slimmed and once through a stop sign, they reached the first warning that the road was not kept up by the county. Rusty peeked out the back window when Cary nailed the first deep rut in the gravel gone to dirt. It had been seasons, many, and the telltale ATV and dirt bike skids and grooves suggested others considered a closed road as an invitation.

“Jesus,” Rusty said.

“Hope Dwayne doesn’t bounce out,” Cary said and then laughed.

Tree branches began reaching over the path and thwapted the windows and hood, trailing witch’s fingers along the body of the truck. They rolled up a steep hill and Cary pressed the gas pedal to the mat, shooting gravel in their wake and pinging the undercarriage with a steady rhythm as the engine gave a pleased growl. Rusty half-turned again to watch the freezer, the casket. It was almost startlingly white under regular light, but took on a demonic red gleam every time Cary touched the brake pedal.

Once to the apex of the hill, the tree branches shifted, as spreading open arms as the bridge came into clear view far below, as well as the black river cutting directly across the world below the bridge.

“There she is,” Cary said as he began coasting. His expression, when exposed to the green and orange dashboard lights, made him look like some kind of b-movie maniac.

The truck picked up speed and skidded with each tap of the brakes. Cary had both hands on the wheel while Rusty had one hand in a fist and the other on the grab handle above the doorframe, white knuckling while he held his breath. The bridge was suddenly before them, looking almost too skinny for even a truck. They bounced in their seats over a set of moguls created by rainwater runoff. The bridge was suddenly beneath them, smoothing out the track a great deal, but remaining far from level. Heavy, warped boards thumped beneath the wheels until Cary brought the truck to a slick stop.

The bridge wasn’t wide enough to open their doors—the rusted girder rail frame rising to about halfway up the body of the truck. Rusty shot a glance out the window and saw glints of the overcast moon on the water beyond the bridge.

“Out we get. Don’t fall in,” Cary said as he held the window button on his door until the glass slid all the way down.

Rusty said nothing. One more brick in this particular wall.

Cary looked over his shoulder. “Maybe that’s easier?” The broken window was straight access to the bed of the truck. “Nah, like a race driver,” he said and then slipped sideways and pulled himself out onto the bridge’s framework.

Rusty weighed the options and went with the door window as there appeared to be much more room for his feet—the freezer took up most of the truck bed. He climbed up, his ass hanging