Kirk Jones - Aetherchrist

I want to run. And though I don’t know whether I feel safer inside or out, I feel like staying here is the best option, at least for tonight. I want to look out the window, but I’m afraid someone will be waiting there, waiting for it. I want to stand under a hot shower, but I’m afraid I’ll step out and someone will be there, watching.

I turn the channel again, this time forward to 5. I cringe every time the dial clicks, wanting to see more, but afraid to see too much. This channel is me in real time, so I take a deep breath and turn to 12. On my countertop, sky-blue diodes sprout through a mesh of blood and copper wiring. Through a cracked television screen, I stare back at myself, wide-eyed, mouth agape. Dead. I turn the channel. The dial revolves like the cylinder of a six-shooter. Each chamber, each channel, is piecemeal prophecy leading to my death on screen. I’ll be dead soon, but I’m not sure how. So, I turn back to channel 2, hoping the TV will eventually bridge the gap between the day I came to Springfield to sell knives and the day I’ll end up sprawled across the pavement in a lifeless heap.

It takes me back to the day Jim and I first drove out here. On channel 3, I’m walking through a hallway of black-and-white sets. On channel 4, my television is disassembled on the table. This channel is relaying what I saw when I took the television apart, like a POV. Channel 5 brings me back to where I am now. Every other channel is static and death, so I shut the TV off and try to fall asleep.

Iwake up at 3 a.m. to Jim frantically tapping at my window. I eye him through fog and glass for a minute and let him in. He’s breathing heavy. “I need your help,” he whispers.

I try to wipe the sleep from my eyes. “It’s three in the morning!”

“This is important! Get dressed.”

As I throw on my clothes, Jim tears through my luggage. “Bring something to change into once we’re done.” He throws a pile of clothes into my arms and heads for the door.

I toss the clothes onto the bed. “What’s going on? Where have you been all day?”

“Just grab your shit. I’ll explain on the way.”

I ball up the shirt and pants in my arm and lock up. Jim’s waving me toward his vehicle as I double-check the doorknob. He shifts into reverse before I’m fully in the car and rolls out of the parking lot as quietly as possible.

I rub my eyes again. “What the fuck is going on?”

Jim focuses on the road. He runs one hand up and down the side of the steering wheel while the other hand white knuckles it. “It’s bad.”

“Did you get caught screwing some guy’s wife?”

He shakes his head. “No. No.”

“Well, what happened?”

“Just hang on!” He runs his hand through his hair. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

We pull into a driveway encompassed by pines. Jim kills the headlights as soon as we turn in and we follow a dim fluorescent light. I can barely make out a small cabin under the stars before we’re in the garage.

“I met someone,” Jim says as he steps out of the car. “Come on.”

I get out.

“Leave your door open. No noise.” Jim rattles a set of keys at the cabin door and enters, waving me in behind him. When we’re both inside, he closes the door and turns on the flash bulb on his phone. He drags the light across the hardwood floor until it hits the blood-soaked bed in the corner. Before anything else comes into view, it becomes apparent that Jim’s in way over his fucking head. I’m in way over my fucking head. He turns the flashlight on me. “I need you to help me clean it up.”

“It?” I point to the body. “It’s a fucking human being!”

He turns to the body. Light splashes across the corner of the room. “It was an accident!”

The light bobs up and down on the body as Jim talks. The girl’s mouth is wide open. Small, dark clots punctuate her lips and teeth. The light catches a deep black at the back of her throat. Even so, death hasn’t robbed her of her beauty. It’s obvious she was out of Jim’s league. I wonder if he had taken her by force, not being able to cope with rejection. The fact that her hands are cuffed to the bed on both sides helps plant this suspicion in my mind.

Jim starts crying. “I checked the gun before we started. She wanted me to hold it against her head. The clip was empty.”

I back away from the body. “No way. No fucking way.”

“I don’t even own a gun!”

“I know. Calm down,” I tell him. But my inner monologue keeps repeating the obvious. Bad. Fuckingbad. Fuckingbadbadbad.

I look for a place to sit down. Then I realize putting my hands on anything might incriminate me. “I don’t know.”

“I’ve got to do something!” He looks around the room. “There’s a lake at the end of the back yard. We could drop the body there. Or we could burn the place. I think maybe we should burn it.”

“You shouldn’t have brought me here, Jim.”

“I had no choice!”

“Either of the options you mentioned, you could have taken care of it yourself. But you know what? We’re both fucked now. This whole town is under surveillance. The motel we’re staying at, the streets and the houses we’re visiting. Fucking everything is on camera.”

“Bullshit. This place is so Deliverance, most of these people don’t even know what a video camera is probably.”

“I’ve seen it. The folks I tried to sell to, on Harbor Road, they showed me the footage. They’ve got me walking up and down the street. They knew the motel didn’t leave coffee in my room this morning.”

Jim starts patting himself down. “Fuck it. I’m burning the whole place. They won’t have any footage then.” He pulls out his Zippo lighter. “We need fuel.” He heads for the back door. “I think there’s a kerosene tank out here.”

I try to think of a viable solution to this. If the entire town is under surveillance, then they’ll know I’m not responsible for this. But if I help Jim, then I’m guilty of trying to cover his ass. If I turn my back on him, I could be considered guilty by association anyway. If I report him to the local authorities, at least I’d be doing what’s right. Not what I would consider right in this circumstance. But what’s legally right, anyway.

Think, damnit! I don’t actually have to turn him in. All I have to do is appear like I’m turning him in. If I try to subdue him with the gun, if he hasn’t already disposed of it, then let him get away, it’ll look like I made my best effort to stop him.

Jim walks through the back door with a large coffee can filled with kerosene. “This is the only thing I could find to bring it in. It’ll take a few trips.”

“Do you still have the gun?”

“It’s in the trunk.”

“We should throw it in the lake.”

“Door’s unlocked. Grab it,” he says as he douses the body with kerosene and heads back to fill the coffee can again.

I head out to the car and pop the trunk. Jim’s got the gun buried under his spare tire. Stupid fucker did a shit job of cleaning it off. There’s still blood on it… and the clip is empty. If I try to stop him, he’ll call my bluff. I have to find the bullets inside.

I check the nightstand closest to the door. There’s nothing in the drawer except an old issue of Cosmo . There’s nothing on the surface, either, except a lamp. I run my hand across the floor and hit a few small objects. They roll to the other side of the bed. Has to be the bullets. I have to crawl under and scoop them toward me. I manage to get four and load the cylinder as Jim’s walking back through the door. He dumps the kerosene on the floor and it pools out onto my jacket. “Watch it!”