Deadburbia Read online

  Deadburbia

  Brad D. Sibbersen

  ©2017 Brad D. Sibbersen. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent of the publisher, save for brief passages quoted in the context of reviews or scholarly works. This book is a work of fiction. All elements are creations of the author, or are used fictitiously. No similarity between any institution, product, or individual, living or dead, is intended or should be inferred, and if such exists is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by lisabook

  For Kim, 1997

  Epilogue

  October 23, 2009

  The pills helped with the pain, there was no denying that, but they made him groggy, and they muddled, to a considerable degree, his sense of time and place. He often, especially upon waking, found himself in a distorted, timeless haze, momentarily untethered from his own present, unsure of whether he was late for the first day of middle school, late for work at the lumber mill, or not late at all because it was Saturday, or a holiday, or he had retired ten years ago. Fortunately, this was not the issue it might have been. He was retired. He was a widower. He'd had the same address and phone number for going on twenty-five years now. In short, there were no pressing engagements he had to attend to before taking the time to orient himself each morning and get his head straight. Of course, once he'd been dressed and out the door, his boots crunching in the pre-dawn snow, before he'd realized that he hadn't needed to get up early to deliver the morning edition of the Point-Herald to the customers on his paper route for several decades now. But such incidents were rare.

  It was in such a haze that he fumbled the bedside phone – jangling, shrill, insistent – from its cradle. The digital clock next to it read 3:12 AM.

  "H'lo?" he managed.

  "Dad...dy?" There was a weird, echoing quality to her voice, like a land line with a bad connection. But it was unquestionably Kimmy.

  "Dad... ...dy... ...stran... ...ded... ...need... ...you... ...r... ...help..." He intuited more than heard the words; they were indistinct, almost ethereal. It was like trying to listen to someone while you were underwater. Still, she managed to give him directions – vague, but, he hoped, serviceable. He didn't bother to dress, just threw a robe on over his pajamas and slipped, barefoot, into some sneakers. He was on the road in less than two minutes. He'd nearly reached the expressway on-ramp when it hit him, instantly, like a low, acidic blow to the guts. His stomach simultaneously clenched and sank. That couldn't have been Kimmy on the phone. Kimmy had disappeared – died – in 1996. Shaking as if palsied, he pulled off to the side of the road, buried his face in his hands, and wept.

  February 24, 1996

  1

  Carter had been quite pleased when his team won the Raspberry Jam tickets, not so much because he wanted to see the band, but more because of the way they'd pulled it off. The Youth Now!'s weekly challenge had been to witness door to door and set up as many follow-up visits as possible. To facilitate this, each team had been given a box of colored thumbtacks. If the resident seemed open to a second visit by a Youth Now! member, a green thumbtack would be surreptitiously placed somewhere near their front door. A yellow meant that they were probably not interested, and red was reserved for people who were openly hostile or asked them not to return. On their first canvas, Carter's group swapped out the green and red tacks, which meant that every subsequent group that came through approached only the "hostile" houses. Some of these follow-up visits were already legendary. Carter heard that one crazy guy had chased Dustin Taylor's group off his property with a baseball bat. Needless to say, Carter's team took the challenge in a landslide. A little underhanded, sure, but God helps those who help themselves, right?

  Carter was less pleased, however, with the way the trip to the show had turned out. No one else on his team was particularly interested or able to go, so he'd claimed all four tickets for himself and immediately invited Nikki, figuring he could sell or just give away the other two seats. Instead, Nikki had insisted on inviting that chubby-faced dingbat Kimberly Collins, and then, when Kim found out that there was still one unused ticket, she invited that secular kid she'd been crushing on all semester. Which was fine as far as it goes – Carter had plenty of secular friends – but this Eric guy was "alternative" or "grunge" or something, and an avowed atheist. Or agnostic. Same thing.

  "You liked the band, right?" Kim was asking Eric in the backseat of Carter's baby blue 1989 Omni. "They were kind of alternative, right?" After the show Kim had accepted three beers from some kids in the parking lot, and Eric, grinning, had actively encouraged this. Now she was giggly and annoying (more so than usual), and her sour breath stank up the car.

  "They weren't bad," Eric admitted. "That opening band was terrible though. You can always tell when a Christian band is trying way too hard to be... normal..."

  "Secular, you mean," Carter interrupted from the driver's seat. It was the first time he'd directly addressed Eric all night.

  "Yeah, that."

  "How so?" asked Nikki, suddenly taking an interest. She'd been quietly staring out the window for the last fifteen minutes, absently curling a lock of her auburn hair around her index finger.

  "Because their songs are all carefully written so that they could be about Jesus or just some girl they like, depending on what you feel like reading into it," Eric explained. "Let's face it, all these Christian bands really want to be mainstream, because that's where the money's at."

  "Why do you hate Jesus?" Carter snapped. It was high time to put this know-it-all in his place.

  "I don't hate Jesus," Eric said, smiling. He was clearly pleased to have gotten Carter's goat. "I just don't believe in him. It's like asking me why I hate the Easter Bunny, or Batman."

  This kid was infuriating. And Kim was eating it up. Nikki too, probably. There was a big boat of car creeping along in front of them at five under. Carter swerved around it, cut it off, and flipped the driver the bird.

  2

  J'Trayvon was not a happy young man. His plan, tonight, had been to drive over to Belknapp Mall, two or three friends in tow, and participate in the Cruise, or, as the white kids inexplicably called it, "Motorhead". The Cruise took place in the mall parking lot, where whoever cared to show up drove in an endless circle around the perimeter listening to the radio, interacting with people in other cars, seeing and being seen. You could meet girls there. Sometimes people brought beer, or weed. But his Ma said he couldn't use the car tonight, not because he'd done anything wrong or because she needed it, just one of those obtuse parental decrees designed solely to make his life miserable. He'd taken the car anyway, of course, but only after Ma had fallen asleep, at which point he'd slipped it into gear, carefully pushed it out of the driveway, and started it up two doors down. The Cruise took place every Saturday night from approximately 8:00 PM, when the mall closed, to roughly 11:30, when the traffic arriving for the Belknapp Theater's weekly midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show began to arrive and effectively broke the circle up. By the time J'Trayvon's Ma had fallen asleep and he'd pushed the car out of the driveway, it was 12:05. He'd subsequently collected Hustle, his cousin, who didn't have access to a car at all, and now the two of them were aimlessly driving up and down the portion of interstate closest to Hustle's neighborhood, not so much enjoying the experience as stubbornly refusing to admit defeat and go home. J'Trayvon was disappointed and irritable. He wasn't actively looking for trouble, but he wouldn't have entirely minded if some came their way.

  That's when the white kids in the pale blue bitchmobile gave them the finger and cut them off.

  3

  Eric had initially accepted Kim's invitation as a lark. Attend a Christian rock concert
on a sort-of double date that included Nikki Cartwright, one of the prettiest, prissiest, most unobtainable girls in school? Sure, why not? At worst, it would be good for some laughs. But the night hadn't turned out half bad. The band had been decent, and Kim – a girl he'd, quite frankly, barely noticed before – was looking surprisingly fetching in her pink denim shorts and too-tight yellow t-shirt. She kept touching his arm, too, and trying to draw him into conversation. She clearly liked him. He couldn't see himself dating a fluff chick, but he'd be a fool not to at least kiss her goodnight. Assuming Jesus allowed that, of course. He smiled to himself. Actually, that dilhole Carter was probably the one who would...

  "Hey," he said out loud, breaking out of his reverie, "what's that guy doing?"

  The big square American car they'd cut off, older than Carter's but in pristine condition, had pulled up alongside them and was repeatedly jumping ahead and then drifting back, trying to get their attention. Carter made a show of not looking as the passenger side window rolled down and a black man extended both arms, giving them the double finger. "He's just pissed because I cut him off," Carter said. "They were going like thirty miles an hour," he added in justification. The big car suddenly feinted right, as if to hit them. Kim squeaked and grabbed Eric's hand. He let her.

  "Oh my gosh!" gasped Nikki as the big car feinted into their lane again. Carter chanced a glance at the man in the passenger seat, who was staring intensely at him now. Shit, he was their age. Just some kid.

  "They're not gonna hit us," Carter said confidently. That's clearly mommy or daddy's car, and there's no way they're gonna risk banging it up. They're just messing with us."

  "But what if they have a gun?" Kim asked.

  "Why do you assume they have a gun?" asked Nikki pointedly, turning to Kim in the back seat. "Because they're black?"

  "It's okay. She saw it on the television," Carter said, quoting an old movie he couldn't immediately identify. The driver of the big car suddenly gunned it, pulled ahead, and swerved into their lane, cutting Carter off this time. But he'd anticipated this and was already braking. Unhappy with this result, the driver of the big car cut back into the left lane, slammed on the brakes, then swung in behind them, nosed right up to their bumper, and turned on his high beams. The entire car was bathed in harsh light. Kim let go of Eric's hand.

  "A-holes," said Nikki.

  Ahead, just visible through an isolated path of ground fog, Carter saw an exit coming up. You'd miss it nine times out of ten because the exit sign ("Exit XXVII – Old Bee Tree Road") was situated only a few yards from the exit proper, but he'd seen it in time and he had an idea. Grinning, he took his foot off the accelerator without touching the brake. As the Omni began to unexpectedly slow down their pursuers panicked and stomped on the brakes, fishtailing all over the highway. Furious, the driver gunned it as soon as he regained control and pulled up beside Carter again – just as Carter reached the exit. Making a dramatic show of cutting the wheel to the right (this was for Nikki's benefit) and simultaneously slamming on the brakes, he just managed to make the turn onto the exit ramp as the other car flew past. "Yes!" he said, pumping his fist and punching the roof of the car.

  "Props, Carter, that was... pretty impressive," Eric said from the back seat.

  "You know it," Carter replied, checking his mirrors to make sure that the driver of the other car hadn't actually been bold enough to back up on the freeway in order to follow them. But no, he didn't see any headlights behind them. In fact, he couldn't even see the exit anymore. The darkness back there seemed to shimmer, like hot, dry summer air at high noon. He'd never seen that effect at night though. The light at the top of the ramp was red, so he pulled to a stop and looked for signage indicating the way back to the interstate.

  4

  "Mother mother mother fuckers!" shouted J'Trayvon, slamming his fist down on the expansive dashboard of his mother's car. He was looking for the next exit so he could turn around and get those motherfuckers.

  "Man, you need to chill out," said Hustle.

  "Maybe you need to chill out, Harold," said Tray sulkily, addressing his cousin by his real name. Hustle smiled. He was a lot bigger than Tray (people usually assumed he was much older than his fifteen years, which came in handy when they needed to buy beer), and he knew his cousin, despite being older, was loath to defy him.

  "Maybe we should just call it a night," he finally said as Tray found an exit, pulled off, and turned around on the interstate. "We ain't doin' shit-all but wasting gas."

  "My gas to waste," mumbled Tray. They continued in silence for a minute, until Tray said "Look for that exit. It was something weird, some weird name. I didn't catch it."

  "You really wanna keep fucking with them white boys?" Hustle sighed.

  "I just wanna put a scare in 'em. You can't be dissin' people like that."

  "And how we gonna scare them? Two guys versus a whole car full of guys?"

  "One of them was a girl, for sure, maybe two. 'Sides, I got this." Tray lifted his shirt to reveal – of all things – a Luger shoved beneath his belt. His disappointment was palpable when, instead of being impressed, Hustle laughed at him.

  "Where the hell you get that? The museum? And you gonna blow your junk off sticking it in your pants like that. I don't care what the gangstas do, ain't never a good idea to point a loaded gun at your junk."

  "It ain't loaded!" Tray snapped. "It don't even work. Ain't got no, whaddya call it, pin."

  "Firing pin?"

  "That's it."

  Hustle shook his head. And people called him dumb.

  "Hey, there it is! That's it, right?" Tray said, touching the brake.

  The sign ahead read "Exit LXVI – Burnt Orphanage Road". That was a weird name. Even the exit number was weird. Those were roman numerals, Hustle remembered from school. But he'd never seen roman numerals used on a highway exit sign before. Mostly they were for telling you what year movies were made. "Must be," he acquiesced, and Tray was just able to make the sharp turn off the highway.

  Several minutes later, when a big 18-wheeler passed the same spot, the exit and the sign were both gone.

  5

  "Did you see that?" Nikki said as Carter pulled into the intersection and turned left, which seemed as good a choice as any. The light had been red for a long time, but he'd been hesitant to run it because it felt like a trap. He could picture some local constabulary lurking out there in the darkness, just waiting for someone to run this interminably long light so he could ticket them. "The light..."

  "It was green," he said.

  "No, wait, stop!" she said. Sighing inwardly, he slowed down. "Look!" she said, leaning over her seat and staring out the back window. Everyone followed her gaze. The light behind them was red now, but as they watched it blinked once, twice, and then turned green. Except it wasn't green. It was blue.

  "That's different," said Eric.

  "That's weird is what it is," said Nikki. "I've never seen a blue traffic light before."

  As if responding to their criticism, the light turned red again.

  "How much do you wanna bet that the middle one is white instead of yellow?" Eric said. "USA! USA!"

  Instantly, the center light came on. It was, indeed, white.

  "Wow," said Kim.

  Then all three lights came on in rapid succession, top to bottom. They blinked once, twice, and then they began cycling in inconsistent, unpredictable patterns, no single light ever the same color twice in a row. Red gave way to purple and then to white, blue changed to yellow and then to brown. There was even one color they didn't recognize, a sort of red-green, and it made Nikki's head hurt.

  "It must be having a nervous breakdown," she joked nervously.

  "Okay," said Carter, turning his attention back to the road. "We've all seen the pretty colors. Can we go home now?"

  The road they were on almost immediately curved to the right, away from the expressway, but Carter stubbornly followed it for about a mile until they found themselves in a quie
t residential neighborhood of not-quite-identical houses, distinctly middle-middle class. At this hour the streets were deserted, but the streetlights were of such a harsh intensity that the middle of the road was bathed in wan, artificial light so concentrated that the streets and sidewalks enjoyed the clarity of, perhaps, a slightly cloudy day. Yet the perfectly manicured lawns and darkened houses just a few yards away were draped in menacing shadow, as if resisting the light and preventing it from traveling so far from its source. Carter crept along, anticipating speed bumps that never materialized, following the curve of the road until he came to another intersection. He stopped at the blinking red light there. The night was eerily silent – he could hear the traffic light buzzing above them. There was a bright, modern convenience store across the street on the right, aping a 7-11's color scheme but obviously some upstart competitor. It was clearly open but there were no cars in the parking lot. Across the street from the not-a-7-11 was a church, its architecture an unpleasant mish-mash of classic and modern.

  "I don't like that church!" Kim suddenly cried.

  "I don't like any church," Eric mumbled.

  "No, there's something wrong with it. Did you see the sign?"

  Carter was already rolling through the intersection, so by the time Nikki and Eric looked, the sign, whatever it said, was out of sight. "What did it say?" Nikki asked.

  "It didn't say anything, it... it..." Kim was grasping for the words but couldn't find them.

  "Check it out," Eric said, hoping to distract her, "the mailboxes here are red, like in Canada." They were red, and there were three of them in a row, followed immediately by a sheltered bus stop and a phone booth so pristine it could have been erected yesterday. As they crawled past they could hear the phone ringing. Carter pulled to a complete stop at the sign on the corner. Square and a bright, lime green, it boasted the misspelled suggestion to YELD.