There were worse things than watching people die all day. The choked last breath, the way the blood pooled beneath their skin, the pallor that stole over their features, the unnatural stillness—Todd Mackewain was used to it all by now. At least, he told himself he ought to be.
The Gift had come to him from his grandmother when he was only eight.“Gift” being her words, not his of course—Todd didn’t see how witnessing a mugging gone wrong the moment you locked eyes with someone—especially someone who had just passed by the entire line of empty urinals at the Yellow Hammer Travel Center, only to choose the one right next to yours—was anything other than grimly awkward. And how exactly were you supposed to make friends on the playground when the moment you met the eyes of potential-friend-number-one you saw the tragic end of his life in a crosswalk years later? The future was not written in stone of course—but the glimpses he gained from the first moment he locked eyes with someone revealed “the probabilities of possibilities,” as his Gran had called them. Unless something or someone intervened dramatically in the current order of events, the future was already set in motion—the final domino just waiting to fall.
He’d been a friendly kid up until this point. But for obvious reasons, at the age of eight he began preferring a lonely existence. He’d never told his mother why. He knew she’d never believe him. That was why he’d been given the Gift, and not her in the first place.
“She has too little imagination,” his Gran had said when he’d asked her why it was coming to him instead of to her own daughter. “She is so focused on certainties, she cannot see possibilities.” She shook her head gently from side to side on her death bed, tsking with her tongue like she always did when she knew she was obviously right.
But Todd wasn’t quite sure what she meant.
Gran had insisted up and down on her death bed, her papery hands stroking over the dark locks of his hair tenderly, that this was in fact a Gift and not a curse.
“You’ll see someday child. You’ll see.”
The memories flashed before his eyes as he stared into the foam of his Pilsner and took his first swig. He sucked his teeth.
It wasn’t too bad, definitely drinkable. But it had that under fermented taste of a half-baked homemade beer. And he was pretty sure the owner of this tiny roadside bar in backwoods Alabama had no idea what a Pilsner was. Oh well.
His mind turned again towards his last day with Gran. Because it had been her last day. Hers was the first death that flashed before his grey eyes just moments after she spoke those very words about the Gift she was passing along to him. In his eight year old mind’s eye, he’d seen her fragile ribs rise and fall just as the sun was setting out her bedroom window. The sky was purple-orange, her face turned towards the light as she breathed in, as if sucking that beautiful fading light into the very core of her being. She didn’t breathe out.
The sound of a bar stool scrapping along the pine planks of the flooring drew his attention, and he glanced up to see the man who’d apparently survived into adulthood without understanding the bro code governing public restrooms.
“Huh…this seat taken?” The man asked after seeing the intensity of Todd’s gaze.
“Naw man. It’s all yours,” Todd said easily, and nodded to the empty stool. Considering the terribly violent end of the man’s life, Todd found it in himself to overlook the man’s lack of urinal etiquette. Besides, he’d come out to the bar tonight for a drink, and a little human companionship.
“I’m Todd,” he said and extended his warm right hand, keeping his left on the pilsner impersonator.
“Steve.” The man shook his hand, then settled on to the stool next to Todd and removed his cowboy hat, revealing a round head with thinning hair trimmed uniformly short as if to disguise the loss. He was chewing a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, and removing this, he leaned his weight on his left hip in order to remove a hulking leather wallet from the back pocket of his wranglers.
“Whiskey, neat,” Steve said to the barman as he finally got himself arranged. The wad of bills in the wallet looked mostly like hundreds from where Todd sat. Was it disturbing to sit next to someone whose last moments you’d already witnessed?
Yeah, it was spooky as hell.
But on the other hand, sitting next to Steve meant he didn’t have to choose between avoiding eye contact with another stranger, or risk seeing another (potentially gruesome) death. It was as good as it was going to get for Todd in a social situation this evening, he figured.
“What brings you out tonight Steve?” Todd asked, feeling friendly. He took another swig of his beer.
“I’m just passin’ through,” Steve drawled, “on my way to see my kid sister and her new baby in Castleberry. You?”
“I drive a big rig. Based out of Cincinnati. Just takin’ a little roadside break before I pick up my next trailer and head north again.”
“Aww, nice, nice.” A too short pause. “You make good money?” Todd choked on his beer.
“Enough,” he said, inhaling through his nose. Perhaps the man’s social ineptitude was not confined to urinal etiquette. “It’s just me right now.”
“Must be nice,” Steve said oblivious once more, “no old lady back home holding you down.” He gestured to the ring on his left hand with a stubby index finger and raised his brows meaningfully, taking a too-long sip of the whiskey the barman set in front of him.
Todd turned towards his pilsner again, which he suddenly found less repulsive to stare into than his present company.
People like Steve reminded him why he preferred to be alone. Not only because he always hated that first look; the glance in their eyes which, no matter how beautiful, intelligent, or interesting, ended in the painful image of their death. Whether they were old and peaceful, or young and terribly tragic, or worst of all—violent at any age, it always ended the same. No getting out of Death or taxes. He’d known that statement to be true his whole life. And the Gift never, ever let him forget it—just how little power anyone had over Death in the end. Just how weak and puny ever single Soul was in those final moments, no matter the circumstances.
“Well what do you do for a living Steve?” Todd said, steering the conversation away from the painful awkwardness of his solitary existence towards a safer…more interesting topic.
“What do you think?” Steve picked up his leather wallet and flipped through the bills, fanning them so Todd could see. As he’d suspected, they were hundreds.
“Something in finance?” Todd smirked, the dimple in his chin shadowing further into the stubble. Steve reared back with a laugh that somehow reminded Todd of a braying donkey, and slapped Todd on the shoulder so hard he almost knocked him off his bar stool.
“That’s a good one Todd.” Steve swiped at his eyes. “I guess you could say I’m in “finance” in a way.” He leaned in conspiratorially and a bit too close for Todd’s liking. He could smell the whiskey and beans on the man’s breath. “I’m a bookie.”
“A bookie?”
“Yeah. A bookie, for the races.” He stage whispered behind his hand, then took another sip of whiskey.
“What sorts of races?”
“Why the only kind worth paying attention to of course!” Steve leaned on his stool again and pulled a fresh toothpick out of the other pocket of his jeans. He brandished it above his head like a magic wand before placing it in the corner of his mouth. He flicked the old one, split and chewed, onto the floor.
“The… Derby?”
“NO! NASCAR!” Steve slapped him on the back again. He was only halfway through one whiskey and he was acting drunk. Lightweight. Todd looked at his beer and realized that if he was going to make an exit back to the quiet solitude of his cab anytime soon, then he’d better start drinking.
“Oh yes, of course,” Todd said, taking a giant gulp. “Silly of me. Those racehorses are so last century.” He was being facetious but Steve didn’t catch it. He took another long draught.
“I know right? Glad to have someone around who finally thinks like me!” Steve proclaimed, and then, to Todd’s horror, he raised his voice above the din of the small room and yelled, “Turn all the race horses into glue, that’s what I’m saying! Who needs ‘em?!”
And suddenly the eyes of every other person in the bar were on Todd and his cluelessly, tastelessly, loaded companion.
There was a group of older gentlemen in flannel shirts and straw hats in a back booth who looked up in abject horror. Then a group of younger gentlemen, their Carharts and dirty t-shirts marking them as manual laborers. They were Todd’s sort of people, he could tell, though he tried not to make eye contact with any of them. They knew enough to know not to take a man like Steve and his bluster seriously.
And then there was a group of ladies at a small round table by the front door. They were laughing, and it was clear enough that they hadn’t heard a single word that Steve had said, and only looked up because of the volume of the disturbance, and the fact that their server, who was halfway through serving the next round of drinks, seemed to be looking; her ice blue eyes were kohl lined and narrowing in judgement at Todd and his unfortunate companion. And that’s when he saw her.
Blonde hair cascaded over her bare shoulders in loose ringlets, and she was wearing some sort of tiara on her head. She was leaning her head back and laughing uproariously at something. She wore a knee length simple white cotton dress adored with a garish pink sash that said “BRIDE TO-BE” in a curly script, and on her elegant feet, comfortable looking tan sandals. As she continued to laugh, she slapped her knee with her left hand which he noticed was adored with a too-large diamond ring. Todd realized that the women accompanying her at that small table by the front door must be celebrating her impending nuptials by getting her rip-roaring drunk, themselves with her. He hoped she had a safe ride home.
He turned away before her happiness could become his grief with the meeting of their eyes. Then he turned his attention back to Steve, who he realized, had never. stopped. talking.
“So of course everyone assumes when you’re a bookie on races it about those dumb horses, and I’m like, ‘no man, why would I want to watch a bunch of animals run around in a circle with a bunch of skinny guys bouncing along their backs with their butts in the air?”
“Mmmmm,” Todd said, taking another large sip of his beer, raising his eyebrows and glancing furtively towards the door. He could make a break for it, but then he’d miss out on that delicious barbecue bacon cheese burger he’d already asked the kitchen for. Maybe he could get them to throw it in a to-go container for him. In the meantime, he decided to try for another subject change.
“So you’re going to visit your sister huh? She just had a baby?”
“Yeah man…three days ago. But you know her deadbeat husband has been using that kid as an excuse to not pay me the interest on what he owed me from last season, and I’ve about had it.” Steve slammed down his empty whiskey glass and ordered another. “So I figured, now that the kid’s out—I’d come on up. Pay the happy family a little visit.” Todd’s jaw dropped. Welp. Subject change didn’t help. Like at all.
Then suddenly, out of his periphery, Todd saw a blonde head coming towards them on unsteady feet. She leaned between them on the bar, and ordered another pitcher for her table.
“Sorry y’all,” she said drawling heavily in her inebriated state, Todd studiously avoided her gaze. “Sisters need another pitcher!” She tossed a twenty on the counter, and began carrying the pitcher back to her table and the waiting group. Todd smelled something delicious and began sighing in relief as he saw the barman carrying a mouthwatering burger towards him from the kitchen. Finally. His stomach growled. But his eager anticipation was short lived, because in a moment he heard the scrape of a chair leg, and the crash of the pitcher, and knew that the beautiful woman behind him had just gone down.
Before he could think, Todd had leapt off his bar stool, and the next second he was leaning over the woman’s stunned face. Her eyes were deep blue as her gaze slid to his own.
In a moment, that was not this moment he reminded himself, he saw her lying in much this same position. Her blonde hair fanned around her face, pooling in her own blood. There were hand shaped bruises around her throat, and…and she was wearing a wedding dress. The dangling pearls in her ears were splashed with blood, her fingernails were ragged from clawing at the hands and arms of the man who now stood over her. And where there had been laughter, now there was only terror and shock in her eyes. Before the vision ended Todd noticed that that man was wearing a shiny new ring on his left hand.
Todd jerked back to the present, shaking his head.
“Whew!” She said, “That was quite a spill!” As if realizing her double entendre she started laughing even harder.
“What’s your name?” Todd asked, still looking into her eyes—some part of him relieved to see the light returned from where they’d darkened in his head just a moment before.
“Margery,” she drawled, drawing out the syllables much longer than he imagined she’d be doing sober.
“Nice to meet you Margery, I’m Todd. May I help you up?”
“Todd…that’s a nice name, Todd,” she said as he helped her to her feet, keeping his hands on her elbows until he was sure she was steady. “Cute chin dimple too,” she said, swaying towards him and tapping his chin once with a perfectly manicured finger.
Todd felt like he’d just been struck by lightning.
“Margery! You spilled the pitcher!” A plump redhead whined.
“Maybe you should get home,” Ted said gently, backing away slightly.
“Yeah…” she said looking longingly over her shoulder at the group of her friends. She seemed suddenly sober. Not actually sober of course. But quiet. Thoughtful. “I don’t think the girls are ready to leave yet. But I am getting married tomorrow…I guess I’d better get some beauty rest.”
“Sure, sure. Wouldn’t want any dark circles for the big day now would we?” Todd said, fighting to stay calm. But even as the words left his mouth, all he could think of were the dark circles of hand prints around her throat, the dark circle of blood beneath her head.
Tomorrow. She dies at the hands of her new husband…tomorrow.
Horror choked him as she smiled at him once more, then stumbled back towards her friends, narrowly avoiding the giant puddle of beer currently being mopped up by the barman.
It was in that moment that Todd knew he was about to do something crazy.
He asked the barman if he didn’t mind if he took over with the puddle of beer, if only he’d get him a second burger real quick.
“And put it with the other one in a doggy bag would you? I think I’ll take them to go.”
Todd left his subpar beer at the bar with a generous tip, told Steve to stop-carrying-around-so-many-hundreds-for-the-love-of-God, and a few minutes later he asked Margery if he couldn’t give her a ride home.
Her friends were wasted enough to buy the story that dropping Margery off would be “no trouble” because it was “right on his way.” He was an old childhood friend after all—didn’t she remember seeing him at Jim Bob’s graduation party all those years ago? A friend of a friend is your friend right?
Todd learned another sad lesson about humanity that night, and the lesson was this: If you are too drunk and too lazy to care about the bride you are supposed to be celebrating to drive her home at a reasonable hour the night before her wedding—then your pretty friend might just be kidnapped by a strangely gifted truck driver who has decided to do the insane thing and try and save her from being murdered on her wedding night.
These things do happen from time to time.
He was angry because it was easy. But the cool air on his face as he led a heavily leaning Margery towards the cab of his truck, felt like a breath of relief. After all, if they had been better friends, this never would have worked. She was passed out before they even got close to her house. Todd looked over at her sleeping head leaning against the truck window, a line of drool already snaking its way towards her chin, and Todd drove Margery straight out of town.
This is Part One of a multi-part short story/novelette. Be sure to Subscribe to be the first to know when a new part drops. And leave me a comment letting me know how you liked it or share with a friend! I’ve been writing non-fiction online for over 15 years, but this is my first foray into sharing my fiction publicly—so be gentle with me.
I’m excited. And I’m having fun. I hope you do too.
XO
Gracie