Off the Beaten Path: Eight Tales of the Paranormal Read online

  She edged closer to the pub and wavered near the entrance.

  “Waiting for someone, love?” The bouncer was a man with a massive physique but a strangely melancholy expression which didn’t seem to match.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “It’s quiet tonight. Don’t think there’ll be any trouble.”

  Sasha shook her head. “I know. It’s not that.”

  He winked. “Don’t worry about going in on your own. I’m just here.”

  As she stood at the bar alone, Sasha was reminded of a dream where she was in this pub by herself and had forgotten to put any clothes on. Suddenly feeling like a child lost in a supermarket, she hesitantly ordered a red wine from the landlord. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed his stepson cast a nervous glance at her before skulking out of sight; she wasn’t sure which of them felt more uncomfortable. She stood at the bar for a couple of minutes and fiddled with the stem of the glass, staring at it in a way that paid it far more attention than it deserved, wondering whether she would look more or less conspicuous if she took a seat.

  “Hello again.”

  Sasha spun around. “Hi.”

  “I wondered if you would come back. Want to sit down? There are a couple of seats in that corner there.”

  Sasha followed him to a heavy-topped table, fundamentally tacky with years of spilt drinks. The tapestry upholstered seats were sticky in places, threadbare and dotted with cigarette burns.

  “Nice in here. Cosy, isn’t it?” he asked.

  Sasha edged towards the wall as he moved his chair closer to her.

  “You look cold,” he commented.

  “Do I?”

  “A little. Have you thought about what I said?”

  “What bit was that?”

  “Why did you come looking for me?”

  “I didn’t. I drink in here, that’s all.” She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t, though.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Why did you come back then?”

  “To offer salvation.”

  “I told you, I’m not looking for any and I’d prefer it if you changed the subject.”

  “Why did you come looking for me then?”

  “I didn’t. I think you were looking for me.”

  “You’re right. I was.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the moment I saw you I knew you were troubled. I wanted to help. It’s what I do.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do. This life – your life – and then nothing. If that’s how you see things, is there any point to your existence?”

  “You know nothing of my life. How can you comment?”

  “You must have faith in something. How do you live?”

  “Very well, thank you. I have a perfectly fun, rational, happy time, not bogged down by all that hell fire and damnation stuff that forces my mum and dad to run around like little mice ministering to people they can’t stand.” The words she spoke, so carefully rehearsed, so much a part of her own repertoire, the rationale for her existence, sounded empty, even as she forced the conviction.

  “They believe in a glorious afterlife, and they are working for it.”

  Sasha paused for a moment to sip her wine before replying. “We are a collection of bones, a bundle of nerves and reflexes and synapses all rolled up in a pretty skin. When we die we’re worm food and then we enter the chain again. There is no possible argument you could present that would convince me otherwise. If I get to be an oak tree or a slug next time, then I want to be happy now, when I’m intelligent enough to appreciate it, not spend my life in denial for something that might – no – that probably never will be.”

  “If you believe that, why did you need to come here and tell me? You could have stayed away.”

  Sasha gazed into the blood-red depths of her wine glass. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “I can show you. I can show you what is beyond the light.”

  Her expression hardened, mingled bitterness and fear, a terrifying challenge laid down and, even as she said it, she knew it was too late to go back. “Yeah. You said that last night. Go on then, impress me.”

  He paused. “There is a condition though.”

  “What?”

  “I take your soul. No return to this life. That is the price for a glimpse of paradise.”

  Sasha laughed, a staccato, slightly hysterical sound. “Well, that’s cheating then. That means I’ll be dead. What’s the use in that? I get to go to heaven because I’m dead, that’s no proof. How can I come back to say you’re right or wrong? If what you say is true, then I get to see heaven eventually anyway.”

  “You seem sure of that. I thought you said we were stardust, cowpats, worm food.”

  “And I thought it was the other side that made pacts for your soul. Since when did God start doing it, is He on a recruitment drive?” She rubbed her hands into her hair and her voice raised an octave. “And why am I even having this conversation with you?”

  “Who said anything about God?”

  “But…” Sasha felt cold rush into the roots of her hair, like the seconds before the anaesthetic takes hold.

  He leaned forward and his smell filled her head. All at once she was dizzy and calmer. “That’s the choice I offer. You go home to a long lifetime of unfulfilled uncertainty. Or you come with me for instant revelation and redemption.”

  She stared at him, she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to lean over, rip his clothes off and kiss his beautiful mouth, or run away, as far as she could get from this terrifying creature.

  “You’re crazy and I’m leaving,” she whispered.

  Sasha couldn’t sleep again. The presentation had been finished the night before. The DVD shelf offered nothing. Hours ticked by and she stared at the bedroom ceiling, trying to pinpoint what had gone wrong.

  An apathetic Sunday dawn coloured the curtains as Sasha drank her third coffee.

  “I can’t believe you went back looking for him. Not when he obviously freaks you out.” Mandy flicked the switch of the kettle.

  “I wasn’t looking for him, he just happened to be there.”

  “What did you go to The Cat alone for? You should have called me if you wanted to go out. Please tell me you’re not going to see him again. He sounds like a psycho. He’d probably take you into the alleyway and bludgeon you, then spread your entrails over the pavement in the sign of a cross or something.”

  “Yeah. Thanks Mandy. I’m not going back, don’t worry.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you think I smell of desperation?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think I come across as desperate?”

  “Dunno. Isn’t that the only way to come across?” Mandy grinned.

  Sasha sighed. “I might have known I’d get no sense from you.”

  “Thanks buddy.” Mandy set a mug down in front of Sasha, who pulled it towards her, grimacing at the fine oily film skimming the top of her drink.

  “Don’t you wash these cups?”

  “You don’t have to drink it. You can sod off. What do you want anyway, apart from inspecting my domestic arrangements? Jesus, Sasha, I don’t know what’s the matter with you lately.”

  “Sorry.” She took a deep breath and feigned a smile. “I finished my presentation for the budget meeting already. I’ve got nothing to do tonight. Want to go out?”

  “I can’t go out tonight; it’s my turn to have Lucy.”

  “Is it? I thought Des had her in the week.”

  “We changed the arrangement, remember? Des wanted to do something with his snotty new girlfriend tonight.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember,” Sasha frowned, “it doesn’t matter. I’ll watch a film or something.”

  “Sorry…”

  “Really, it’s fine. Of course it is.”

  On the third night, Sasha knew the truth.

  “Back again, love? Meeting someone tonight or have you gone all i
ndependent?”

  Sasha smiled at the doorman with the melancholy face.

  “I’m a new woman. All on my own and not a bit scared.”

  The doorman stared at her for a moment, confusion etched into his broad features. Then he relaxed. “That’s the spirit,” he said. “Have a good night then.”

  He was at the bar waiting for her, perfect white teeth and sweetness that filled her head.

  “You came back.

  She nodded and hugged herself. Why was she still bothering to dress like this?

  “Are you cold?”

  “No.” She rubbed her bare arms.

  “You’re shivering.”

  She nodded. “How does it work? Do you do it?”

  He smiled, but his eyes were sombre. “No. I cannot take what is yours. Only you can give it freely.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you all right with that?”

  “No.” Her own frankness took her by surprise. “I’m a bit scared.”

  “It’s okay to be scared.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” He paused, his gaze stripping her naked and vulnerable, his flawless black skin shimmering at the cheekbones as they were caught by the lamplight. She felt that familiar tingle again, the desire to have him almost overwhelming, but a fear as well, a terror that made her want to run. At that moment, Sasha really believed that he was something supernatural. The trouble was that she couldn’t decide whether it was angel or demon. He spoke again, interrupting her reverie.

  “Have you made your decision?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “You’re sure you want what I offer? You’re prepared to pay my price?”

  “Paradise,” she murmured, “yes, I want to see it.”

  “Shall we go now?”

  She stared at him, caught in a trance.

  “Sasha,” he asked, “what do you think?”

  She had to remind herself to breathe.

  “I think you’d better get me a drink first.”

  “Great Plains” is a little story whose bones were written nearly twenty years ago. I dusted them off recently, applied some flesh, and now I introduce… Gershwin Lovell.

  Great Plains

  Jason T. Graves

  Beyond the glass, weathered fence posts and the tall grasses of late summer whipped by, blurred at the edge of vision like a tawny lion forever leaping. Ahead, the early riders of a thunderstorm scuttled across the roadway, sailing southward. In the far distance, a low line of dark blue suggested the first ramparts of the Rocky Mountains.

  Gersh fretted, drumming his fingers without thought on the leather wrapped steering wheel of the stolen Lexus. Surrounded by the glory of the Great Plains, he had true attention for only two things: the sun sailing down somewhere behind the clouds ahead of him and the gas gauge riding perilously below empty.

  In his mind, he could hear his mother’s voice admonishing him, “Gershwin you don't pay enough attention to the details, honey. You think so big sometimes that the small stuff suffers.” Summer had always called him Gershwin. Her favorite music was anything from a musical, and her favorite composer was George. Thus, when she delivered her one and only child into the world, he was christened Gershwin Lovell. No middle name needed, she reasoned, with such a fine first name.

  Growing up had been lonely, as far as he could remember. His mother had doted on him inasmuch as she was able to, what with her being a flighty, creative type who was constantly broke. His father, a self-focused lawyer named William Blakely IV, was as distant to Gershwin as William’s father had been with his own son. He would show up every few months and take his inconvenient offspring out for a Saturday afternoon of “big fun” and then disappear without so much as an, “I love you, son!”

  Gersh did not want much, just a dad who would be there to play catch with him and to tuck him in bed at night. He had asked once, when he was five, saving up his courage and struggling to get his request just right—Bill always insisted on things being just right. Instead of being impressed with Gershwin’s effort, Bill had looked displeased and disappeared faster than usual. Afterwards, Summer had tried to explain about Bill’s other family, his real family, in Chicago. She had cried and choked, and Gersh had crawled into her lap and hugged her and said something funny that made her laugh.

  The years passed and Gersh grew bigger and Bill’s visits grew less frequent, until they stopped completely around the time that Gersh turned eleven. Summer was fading into autumn by then and the ardor of her many boyfriends was dropping like crisp leaves. She had begun asking Bill for money—just until her project du jour became the rage of Omaha—and then she would pay him back. Bill had seen the writing on the wall and pulled the big and final disappearing act.

  Gersh looked back on his childhood, at his nine-hours-per-year sperm donor and the string of artsy, musician types that had slowly given way to the overwound hosebag alcoholics, like the one who currently shared Summer’s bed. Nothing... no daddy in the bunch. He could be bitter about that, and he was, but he reasoned that revenge probably tasted sweeter and certainly paid better. On the day before his sixteenth birthday, he had stolen the hosebag’s booze money and bought a bus ticket to Chicago.

  “Hi, Dad! It's my birthday, remember?” he said when Bill opened the front door of his oversized colonial in Naperville.

  “What the hell? Gershwin? What are you doing here? Get the hell out of here!”

  That hurt.

  “Uh, I just spent all my money to come up here,” he said to the red-faced Bill, who stepped out of the colonial and shut the door behind him.

  “Listen,” he said in a furious whisper, “you can tell Summer that this won’t work. I'm not giving her another dime—”

  “Mom doesn’t know I’m here—I left without telling her.”

  “What? Why would you do that?” Bill got redder. “I can’t have you here. You’ve got to go home.”

  “I think her alky boyfriend would probably kill me.”

  Bill became wary. “Why?”

  “I stole his booze money to get here.”

  “Aw, dammit, Gersh!” Bill fretted and ran a beefy hand over thinning hair.

  “Bill?” a woman’s voice said inside the house.

  “Crap!” Bill said and pulled out his wallet. “Here! Five hundred and thirty, just please go home. I'll come visit in a week and we’ll get Summer straightened out, okay?”

  The door opened and a soft-around-the-edges woman in her forties—professionally frosted hair, manicure, tailored clothes—stood at the threshold.

  “Hello!” she said with genuine enthusiasm. “Are you looking for Billy? He’s not home from Lacrosse practice yet. Would you like to come in and wait for him?”

  “No, sweetie,” Bill IV’s lawyer side kicked in full force, “Joe is only here to collect for a charity through the school. He was just leaving.”

  “Oh, which charity?” she asked, sincerely interested.

  Gersh could see Bill sweating. I could really lower the boom on you, you schmuck, he thought, but your wife seems like a really nice person. You’ve ruined my life, but I don’t want to be like you.

  “It’s a charity for orphaned and abandoned boys,” he said truthfully.

  “Oh, that’s so sad! Was Bill generous?”

  “Uh, I’d be rude to say...”

  “Bill!” she scolded him playfully. She put a hand on his shoulder and kissed his cheek. “He’s a softy.”

  Gershwin gaped. You’ve got her at home and you’re off in Omaha knocking up my mom? What’s wrong with you?

  “Yes, well, Joe was just leaving.” Bill laughed unconvincingly.

  “Uh, yeah. Pleasure,” Gersh said and walked away. He heard the door bang shut behind him. He was angry—at Bill mostly, for being such a two-faced jerk, and at himself for having even a little hope that Bill would be happy to see him and provide Gersh with some compelling reason why he had been absent for the last five years. Oh, well, I got what I came for, he thou
ght, as the money rested securely in his pocket. But, I still have to buy a bus ticket back to Omaha.

  He looked in the white Lexus in the driveway—Bill’s car, he was sure—and saw that the keys were on the center console. Bill had always been cavalier about his cars, as far back as Gersh could remember. He tried the door and found it unlocked. Dang!

  He climbed in, cranked the engine and backed out of the driveway. As he pulled away from his father’s house, in his father’s car, he gave little thought to the idea of grand theft, preferring to think of it as borrowing. Maybe this’ll get Bill’s attention, he thought.

  Gersh made the seven hour drive back to Omaha straight through, stopping only long enough to get some gas and leave some water. When he arrived at his apartment building in the late evening, there was a police car waiting in the parking lot. Summer’s idiot boyfriend again, was his first thought, but then he remembered that he was driving a stolen car. It really sank into his consciousness what he had done. He had acted impulsively, but the possible outcome of that act was time at the juvenile correction center.

  Not having that, he thought and turned the car around. He headed west, for no better reason than that was the direction he had been traveling. He got paranoid any time he saw a police car and, after one followed him on I-80 near Aurora, he struck out onto secondary roads. In the crackling insight that blesses only the mad and the teenaged, he realized that his goal should be California. He had tried to head west-southwest, which is how he ended up on this God-forsaken two-lane road somewhere in central Colorado. He felt like he had been driving in circles.

  Up ahead he saw a building on the left, sitting at the junction of two roads. It’s new, he realized, maybe they know where I can get gas. As he pulled into the parking lot, the engine started running roughly. Damn! He shut the engine off to conserve what little fuel remained in the lines.