Clayton dropped his briefcase. It clattered to the floor, its emptiness echoing his own feelings. “I didn’t want the job anyway.”
The policeman nodded. “Your full name, please.”
Clayton glanced at the alarm clock: 12:50.
He waited. When the footsteps didn’t come, he let out a sigh.
Not that he was expecting any.
Still, there was something missing now. It was too quiet. It seemed he had gotten used to the late night ritual.
He glanced over at the window, at the stream of moonlight that cut a bright line into his apartment. There was no light, either.
Nor would there ever be, Clayton knew.
It had vanished, along with Rose’s life.
Clayton shivered, despite the warm breeze drifting in through the open window. And even though he was exhausted, there would be no sleep for him tonight.
I’m a big fan of murder-mystery stories, and magazines such as Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock. I wrote this story specifically with the idea of submitting it to Ellery Queen. A tough market, and sure enough, a few months later I received my first rejection letter from the legendary mystery magazine. But, not too long after, Eric from Nocturne Press came to me asking if I had anything I could send him for the premiere issue of Post Mortem magazine. I had this story fresh in my mind, so I sent him the story, he liked it and bought it.
THE CYCLE
It was as unbelievable and grotesque as anything he had ever seen.
The sign read: Road kill for sale. Good ‘n’ fresh.
That was ghoulish enough, but it was what was written beside it, crudely, in fading red paint that really appealed to Craig’s sense of the macabre: Souls for sale.
Wearing only jeans and a cap, Craig Becker stepped out of the dust-coloured Jeep Cherokee (its air conditioner had been on the blink for the past few days, since around Montgomery) and towelled the sweat from his face with his black Easy Rider T-shirt which stank of long drives, cheap motels and, suitably, of weed. His body was tanned and, despite the love handles that were creeping over the sides of his jeans and the curls on his chest that were starting to gray, in good shape.
Flinging the damp shirt across the back of his neck and shoulders to block the fiery sun, Craig crunched over dirt to the stand by the side of the road. The stench of dead flesh was strong
Contrary to what the sign proclaimed, the road kill looked neither good nor fresh — flies swarmed the collection of dead possum, fox, deer and other assorted road kill and buzzed around the scores of tins.
“Howdy,” the man sitting behind the stand said, accent typically southern.
“G’day,” Craig said. “Hot.”
The man stood, looked up at the rich blue sky and nodded. “Suppose it is. What can I do you for?”
The man was stick-thin and ugly. Not ugly in the deformed, inbred way that Craig had seen in countless films, but in a ‘poor son-of-a-bitch got the bad end of the deal, looks like a monkey crossed with a weasel, no woman with one good eye would ever go near’, sort of way.
“Saw your sign. Thought I’d stop and take a look. It’s not every day you see this kind of thing for sale.”
Thin lips peeled back, unveiling stubby yellow teeth. “No, don’t suppose you would see this kind of thing in…England?”
Craig shook his head. “Right blood-line, wrong country. Australia. Melbourne.”
“Aus… tra… li… a,” the man said thickly. “What brings ya’ll the way down here? Grand Canyon’s about a thousand miles that away.”
“I’m no tourist,” Craig said, pointing to his cap. “I’m a regular Joe.”
The rat-like man squinted up at the cap. “I love Bush,” he read. “That supposed to be some kinda joke? Who’s Bush?”
Lordy, Craig thought, but smiled and said, “It’s a play on words. You know…George Dubya as opposed to a lady’s…” Craig could tell by the man’s blank stare that this guy knew a hell of a lot about road kill, and that was about it. “Anyway,” Craig said, scanning the array of dead animals, “I’m driving around America, doing the quest thing, trying to find the real America, just like Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper.” Craig went for his T-shirt, but decided against it. If the guy didn’t know who the President of his own country was, then he surely wouldn’t know…
“You mean like in that movie? Easy Rider?”
“That’s right,” Craig said, surprised. “Except I’m riding in a Jeep, not on a Harley. Not nearly as romantic, but hell, don’t wanna die before I see this country. Don’t wanna end up as road…” Craig swallowed. “Name’s Craig, by the way.”
“Almus,” the man said. “You hungry?”
Craig hadn’t eaten anything since the bacon and eggs this morning. He wasn’t a big fan of either food, but the diner — Patty’s Good Eat In — had offered little else that wasn’t deep fried, or that didn’t require him to look up a dictionary to find out what it was.
“Sure,” he said. “You got a barbecue going nearby or something?” Craig looked past the stand and into the woods, but couldn’t see a house.
“No,” Almus squawked. “I meant did ya want to buy some road kill?”
Craig’s stomach lurched. Was this guy serious?
A distant cry cut Almus’s laughter short. It had sounded like some big cat or a wolf. Almus looked over his shoulder, and when he turned back, he looked unnerved. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to laugh at ya.”
“Forget it. So people buy these dead animals…for food?”
“’Course. Why else?”
Craig thought for a moment. “To get stuffed and mounted?” he offered.
“This here’s good eatin’. You’d be surprised how tasty these critters are. An’ it’s a good business, too. It don’t cost nothing for me to get them; I just wait ‘til some animal is run over, then I scrape it off the road, clean it up a bit, an’ sell it.”
“You sell many?”
“I do all right.” He turned to the line of strung up, flat-as-a-pancake carcasses, tails hanging limply, fur bloody, dead eyes glaring. “Now, I’ve got fox, beaver, wild cat, deer…”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Craig said, the hot afternoon air making it difficult for him to breathe. All he could smell was baking meat. “I’m suddenly not that hungry.”
Almus shrugged. “Suit yourself.” A gleam sparkled in his otherwise glassy eyes. He moved over to the table next to the one that housed the road kill. Craig followed. “Would you be more interested in one of these?”
Tins of varying sizes sat atop a splintery table. There were around twenty, the smallest being the size of a coffee tin, the largest the size of a paint can. Most of them were rusted and full of dints; some still bore their labels, though most of the brands were faded, and those that Craig could read he had never heard of.
“These the souls?” Craig asked.
Almus nodded, the twinkle in his eyes growing more fervent.
There was something distinctly odd about this man — and it wasn’t just his homely looks or that he sold road kill and souls by the side of the road in backwater, USA. Craig sensed purpose in him, a deeper intelligence that he was trying desperately to cover up.
“When a varmint is killed, their soul escapes and floats up to heaven…or down to hell, depending on what God sees fit. Only, if you’re quick enough, you can catch the dead critter’s soul. You have to be quick, mind you, or else you’ll miss your chance. And you gotta know how to catch it.”
“And you know how to?”