Chapter 2

The next thing I remembered with any clarity was sitting in Stu’s car. We were moving.

“Highway,” I said. The words came slowly to my lips.

“About time you said something I could understand,” Stu said.

My head ached. The rain hitting the windshield moved too slowly. It looked thick and ran slowly before the sweeping wipers. It took all my focus to turn and look over at Stu. My chin lolled to the left and stuck to my shoulder. The last time I felt this groggy, I had drank way too much vodka at a Fourth of July party.

“The car,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, yeah. Your car is getting towed. Don’t worry about it. It’s not like you’re gonna be driving it anytime soon. We’re swinging by Ella’s house on the way home. I texted her and she wants a look at you.”

“Ella’s house?” I said.

“I’m not sitting in some emergency room unless she says to go there;” Stu said. “There’s a nice lump on the side of your head. I think you’re fine, but when your best friend is a doctor, why not ask?”

Stu, Ellen and I went to grammar school together. We rode the bus together right until junior year of high school. When we became seniors, I got a used car after I passed my driving test. I drove those two everywhere.

Memories of those nights cruising through town, weekend trips to Boston, and hanging out at Hodak’s farm floated through my hazy mind.

“Kaylyn,” I said.

“Yup. Been texting her too. She’s put Emma to bed. She’s worried about you. We’ll call her once Ellen gets a look at you.”

I braced myself against Stu walking up Ellen’s driveway. She met us at the door. I smiled when I saw her shaking her head like a disapproving mother.

Ellen didn’t have a family of her own. She focused so relentlessly on medical school and her residency that a social life took a distant back seat. I was grateful of that right now.

I sat in a chair in the middle of her kitchen while she looked me over. The recessed lights burned my eyes. My head started aching all over again.

After a few minutes, I sat in straight-backed chair in her mostly glass sun porch that looked over the backyard. Rain hammered the aluminum roof so I couldn’t hear the two of them talking in the next room, though they were only fifteen feet away from me. Stu shook his head while Ellen lectured him. I saw Stu pull out his phone and make a call.

“Probably calling Kaylyn,” I thought.

After a minute or so, they came into the room. Ellen pulled a foot rest over and sat in front of me.

“How you feeling, kid?” Ellen had nicknamed me “the kid” a long time ago. My birthday is late in the year and I was always the youngest kid in our class. My parents probably should’ve held me back and started school the following year, but they didn’t.

“Things are clearing up. My head still hurts but I can see straight and everything doesn’t feel like slow motion anymore.”

“That’s good,” Ellen said. “I don’t think you have a concussion. But you did hit your head on a hard surface and you need watching. I told Kaylyn what she needs to do for tonight.”

“Thanks, E. I owe you one. You too, Stu.”

 “Yes, you do,” Stu said. “Let’s get you home.”

I called in sick in the morning. I didn’t tell my boss what really happened. I just said I had been throwing up all night.

“Sounds like a stomach bug.” He said. “Stay home until it passes. We don’t need you spreading that around the office. I’ll have Tony disinfect your desk just in case.”

“Really?” I thought. “I bet Tony will love that.”

I only slept a couple hours. Whatever rest I got was born out of exhaustion and mental fatigue. I woke up to the dull ache. It hurt less than when I was at Ellen’s, but I wasn’t 100% yet.

The entire day consisted of nothing but ibuprofen, tea and lying on the couch. Not only did my body ache but I couldn’t shake the image of the guy in the boots. It haunted me. I kept trying to convince myself that he wasn’t looking at me from across the rest stop dining area. But I knew he was. Feelings of dread covered me like a too-heavy blanket on a warm night. Sweat beaded up on my skin while I struggled to keep my fear under control.

The footprints. How could they just appear with no trail coming from anywhere that made sense? Where had he come from? What did he want? How did he get from the stall to right beside me when I fell?

I didn’t tell Kaylyn about him. Considering the fall on the hard floor, she would chalk up my fears to a mild concussion and delusion.

After hours of wrestling with all the ‘what if’s’, I had nearly convinced myself to let it go and move on. That’s when Stu texted me.

He wrote, “Dude – how you doing?”

“Better. Love daytime TV.”

“Good, Wanna get your car?”

“Yes.”

“Ok. I’ll leave work early. Get u @4.”

“Cool. Thx.”

“Hope tow guy doesn’t have muddy boots!”

I stared at my phone, re-reading the message. I didn’t remember telling Stu about the muddy boots guy. Maybe I mentioned it when I was going in and out of consciousness in the car. While I thought about what to write next, Stu sent another text.

“Cat got yur tongue? Or yur fingers?!”

I powered off my phone and put it on the coffee table.

Stu picked me up a little after four o’clock. We didn’t talk much on the ride to the towing company. He didn’t bring up the muddy boots guy. I felt relief that he didn’t go there.

We pulled into a wide parking area in front of a gray, sheet metal building as big as an airplane hangar. We could see a few guys working of some vehicles with hoods up or elevated on lifts. From inside a small office, a man in his 60’s came out holding a clipboard.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m here to pick up my Honda Civic. You took off the side of the Pike last night.”

“Right.” He looked down at his clipboard. He flipped a few pages.

“Here it is. Killingworth. Edward?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll need to see some identification.”

I handed him my driver’s license. After looking it over he handed it back.

“That’s you, all right. Name’s Desmond White. I brought your car in myself last night. Pretty tough spot you picked to wash your windows.”

“Yeah. Well, I didn’t have much choice. Some nasty stuff on my windshield.”

“I saw that,” Desmond said. “Looked like oil. I got all of it off for you. Wasn’t too bad. I have some pretty strong stuff we use here. I put a can in your trunk in case that happens to you again. Get yourself some clean rags so you can take care of it right next time.”

I thanked and paid him. I thanked Stu yet again. He got all melodramatic and said, “Let this be a lesson to you, kid. How many times have I told you to keep that car of yours clean? Five hundred? A thousand times? Next time, I won’t be so quick to come to your rescue.”

“Get the hell away from me,” I said.

“No problem,” he said.

We went our separate ways for the night. As I drove down Page Boulevard, away from White’s Garage and Towing I zoned out. The processing part of my brain took over operating the car while I kept playing the events of last night over in my head.

The shadow in the trees on the side of the road. There, in the darkness behind the whipping rain and thrashing boughs. A space that was too dark. A shape that wasn’t natural. It was no shadow. It was him. I knew it had to be him.

“You picked an interesting spot to pull off. You know where you are?” Carl’s words repeated back to me. What did a truck driver from Tennessee know about a dirt patch on the side of one of a thousand miles of road he travels every week?

“Well. He must know something about it?” I thought. “Why else would he ask me?”

I didn’t watch the news regularly. I tried to think about what I had heard or read about something happening on that stretch of the Pike. Nothing came to mind. I mean, people had accidents all the time. I remember a Trooper being hit while he walked back to his cruiser after stopping a drunk driver.

I could picture a bunch of makeshift shrines on the side of the highway. You know the ones with small crosses and flowers. Sometimes balloons or candles were set up when their birthday came around every year. The Pike had been built in the 50’s, I think. So it had been around 30 years before I was born. Maybe something bad had happened in that spot. Carl was twice my age and I might talk with other truckers at rest stops all the time. He would know more about something like that than I would.

When I got home I talked to Kaylyn for a few minutes when small feet tapped into the room. Emma had drawn a picture of me. Daddy with an ice pack on my head and a thermometer sticking out my mouth. She handed it to me, smiling.

“Are you feeling better, Daddy?”

“Yes, little one. But Daddy’s real tired. I’m going to go lay down.”

“Don’t you want something to eat?’ Kaylyn asked.

“Not now. I don’t have any appetite. Maybe later.”

Emma gave me a hug. “Brush your teeth before you lay down, Daddy. You could forget and wake up with yucky-mouth.”

I laughed. “I will, honey.”

My boss, Mitchell Baker called me into the office as soon as I got to work the next day.

“You sure you’re feeling better, Ed? You don’t look like you’re 100%.”

“I’m not at full strength but my doctor says I’m clear to work. I’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”

“Fine. Check with Tony. He picked up the slack while you were out. And buy him lunch today. He wasn’t thrilled at having to wipe down your cube.”

“Sure, boss.”

I watched the clock all day. Nothing could motivate me to be there. The work from the past few days and some new requests that just came in stared at me in defiance on my monitor. By the time everyone around me was packing it in for the day, I had hardly accomplished anything.

But as people started saying goodbyes to each other and the office thinned out. I got a second wind. I looked at the clock. If I pushed through till 6:30, I could finish at least one these reports. I texted Kaylyn and told her I’d be late catching up. She wrote that it was no problem. She and Emma had rented a movie and would watch it after dinner. By the time I got there, they’d probably both be asleep on the couch.

With a small amount of satisfaction, I sent the completed file to the manager who requested it. I checked the time. 6:45pm.

“Not too bad. At least I won’t have to fight traffic at this hour,” I thought.

My car sat alone in the mostly deserted parking lot. The rainstorm that had swept through the region was long gone. Tonight was calm and a little warmer. I’d probably make it home by 8:30pm. I could see a couple more late nights in my future before I got my head above water at the office.

I drove with far fewer cars on the secondary roads around the office. “What a difference an hour makes,” I thought.

Once on the turnpike, I hit up the first rest stop to get gas and grab a coffee. The clerk, Arline by her pre-printed name tag, took my money. “Arline,” I thought “I wonder if they spelled it wrong.” Thankfully, I got in and out of there in about 10 minutes despite it being pretty crowded.

As I merged back into the three lane highway, the usual commuting traffic of passenger cars was replaced with big trucks. For every four-wheeler on the road there were five big haulers taking up the center and right lane. As long as I stayed in the passing lane doing 80mph, it was smooth sailing.

The truckers’ driving patterns reminded me of a flock of geese. One truck would pass another one as they climbed an incline in the road. Once they crested the hill, the heavier tractor trailer would gain speed and pass as many trucks as he could before the next climb. I wondered if it was a game they played. Maybe they were drafting like NASCAR drivers. How many points for passing one truck? Did you get double points for passing two? And what if…

Brake lights illuminated the entire road ahead. I hit the brakes and barely had enough room to stop behind the SUV I was following.  I could see the driver throw two hands up in the air like I had actually made contact. “Whatever,” I said to myself. “Take a chill pill.” The traffic looked like it was crawling along where the Pike bent to the left.

I tried searching on the radio for the traffic advisory channel. Why didn’t I save it as a pre-set? Stupid. I checked the State Police Twitter feed. The last few posts were about accidents that were hours old, near the outskirts of Boston. The further we crept, I could see we were being funneled into the passing lane. “Road work or an accident,” I said to no one. After about 30 minutes I could see where the traffic was opening up again. I texted Kaylyn to let her know I would be later than I thought. She replied with a single letter; “K”.

Then I saw the overturned tractor trailer. The back double doors of the trailer pointed up in the air as the rest of it lay along the slope on the side of the highway. I noticed there was no guard rail here. My skin felt cold all over. I swallowed hard in my throat. The panic I had felt just 48 hours ago came rushing back in a flood of fear.

“No,” I breathed. The back of the trailer read “THS” in big block letters. That meant something to me, but I couldn’t remember what. The closer we crawled, I knew that was the spot where I pulled off the road. The exact freaking spot. I started to text Stu but my hands shook and I couldn’t spell anything right. I saw a Trooper putting new road flares down where the original ones were sputtering out. Once I got through the bottle-neck, I pulled over to the right side shoulder and put my hazards light on. I stopped the car and got out. I looked down the slope. Police spotlights lit up the disabled truck. On the side of the trailer I confirmed what “THS” stood for: Tennessee Hauling Systems. A sour taste climbed up my throat.

I stepped over the guard rail and started running down the slope. From my right, a Trooper who couldn’t have been more than 25 grabbed my bicep and stopped me cold. He was so strong my feet came off the ground for a second before landing again. He raised me up so I didn’t land on my ass.

“Where do you think you’re going, pal?” he said.

“Carl. Is that my friend Carl?” I said.

“You know the driver?” he asked.

“Is it Carl Goldberg down there?” I asked. Panic obvious in my tone.

The Trooper stared back without answering me. He examined me like a doctor looking for symptoms of illness.

“Well is it!?”

“Yes. The driver is Carl Goldberg of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. But how do you know him?” he said in a flat, even voice.

“He helped me the other night. I needed help and he stopped for me. He helped me right here. Right there.” I pointed at the truck with my free hand.

The Trooper’s eyes narrowed. After a few seconds he said, “Come with me.”

He never let go of my arm, but the grip eased up a little. We walked across the slope over to a two more Troopers. He told me to stay put, about ten feet away from them. He turned his back on me and talked low enough so I couldn’t hear them. The other two looked in my direction a couple times. One of them nodded and then walked up to the road. He shone an incredibly bright flashlight up the highway. I looked and saw he shone it on my Honda. He walked straight over to me. “He just checked my tags,” I thought.

“That your car?’ he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I had that car towed two nights ago from this location.”

“I know,” I said. “I called to report that I had to leave it. Oil on the windshield during the rainstorm. I picked it up from White’s Garage.”

“And you’re saying that this trucker, Goldberg helped you out?”

“Yeah. He tried to clean off the windshield, but the rain turned the slope to mud. He gave me ride to the next rest stop instead of trying to drive it out.”

“Huh.” He said. “Wait here.”

“Is he ok?” I asked.

The Trooper didn’t answer me as he walked back over to his cronies. More flashing lights rolled up on the shoulder. In a minute, two paramedics descended the slope carrying an orange back board. It was the kind that had handholds cut out all around the edges and several straps tied across to keep someone from falling off.

Insticntively, I ran down the slope toward the front of the tractor. The Troopers shouted in a single voice, “Stop!” I didn’t care if they arrested me. I had to see him. He could be hurt badly.

I made it around the rig and found Carl lying in tall grass. I’ve never seen someone injured so horribly. His eyes stared into the sky. His mouth gaped open. Parts of his legs were…were missing. His belly had been ripped open and his insides were all pulled out. The sour feeling in my stomach rose like a geyser into my mouth. I puked a hot stream of coffee and lunch into the grass. Bent at the waist, I coughed until it hurt. I dropped into a squat that lasted five seconds. I rocked forward onto my knees, gasping for breath.

With nothing left inside to eject, I shuddered. A coldness gripped me, causing me to shiver. My arms were pulled back by strong hands. I heard the handcuffs snapping into place. The merciless steel clamped around my bony wrists.

Coughing once more, I said, “Who…did this? What happened…to him?”

“We were going to ask you the same thing, Mr. Killingworth,” one of the Troopers said.

Another one said, “Let’s go.”

They stood me up, turned me around and marched me back up the slope. They ignored my repeated questions. I was stuffed into the back of a cruiser. I looked to out the window and saw faces in the procession of cars. Their scanned back and forth from me to the truck, back to me. I saw smart phones pointed in my direction.

I turned my head toward the woods. A couple minutes passed and I saw them carrying Carl’s body toward the ambulance. More emergency vehicles had arrived behind me. I saw firemen and guys with State Police coats carrying big utility boxes down toward the truck.

I wondered for a second and then I knew it was the crime scene guys. A Trooper broke free from the group and got into the front seat. He looked over his shoulder at me.

“Looks like your car is getting towed again, Mr. Killingworth.”

“Why?” I said.

He didn’t answer me. He put the car in gear and pulled into the mass of automobiles and trucks. He sounded the siren briefly and the cars opened a space for him. He gunned the engine and we raced ahead. He kept his flashers on and cars moved aside.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“Barracks,” was all he said.

“I need to call my wife. She’s going to be worried about me.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. The rest of the ride was spent in silence.