Carver Pike - Scalp

“I said stop it, dammit!” he yelled, losing his cool.

The pounding ceased. The truck engine grumbled as Andre pushed the gas pedal down harder. He didn’t care if he got pulled over by cops. He’d prefer it actually. Anything to stop him from being alone with the thing in the back of his truck.

He had to be pushing eighty miles per hour when the real thumping started. Carl pounded against the window with a heavy fist.

It spiderwebbed, starting at the center with small cracks spreading out.

Andre had to make a decision fast. He could slam on the brakes, hop out, and if he was quick enough he might be able to put a few more bullets in his cousin, or he could keep driving and hope Carl wouldn’t be able to do much damage to him from the bed of the truck.

The Carl thing decided for him when he slammed his head against the glass, and it shattered. Andre, in an attempt to grab his gun and stay away from the thing, let go of the wheel for only a second. The truck was moving too quickly down the highway. It cut left and flipped.

Tires screeched.

The truck went over with a loud thwomp.

Andre was weightless and then he wasn’t.

Weightless and then he wasn’t.

Weightless and then he wasn’t.

The truck kept tumbling as it tore through the guardrail and plummeted down the side of the mountain. It was a small decline. Metal struck rock and the truck jerked to a halt in a small ravine. If he’d been wearing a seatbelt, Andre would have been upside down with the rest of the truck, but he’d turned halfway and now lay on his back.

Andre’s ears rang and Johnny Cash sang ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down.’ It was an odd thing, thinking about the change in song, but he realized he’d never heard the track switch. One second Carl was drumming on the back window, way offbeat, to ‘Big River.’ Now God was going to cut him down. And it felt that way. Every bone in his body ached.

He didn’t see where the Carl thing went. He would have been flung far away with the truck’s first flip. This couldn’t be the end of it though. That thing was strong. It would continue after him, Andre had no doubt, and his current position wasn’t the best to be in when that happened.

If he remained in this spot, he would die. He was sure of it. For a moment, and it was only the briefest of moments, he considered accepting his death and riding it out. Every inch of his body hurt. Death would be the easiest way. Yet, he’d seen what Carl had become, and death no longer seemed certain to him.

“Fuck,” Andre muttered through his torn, tattered lip.

His teeth had bit through it and his cheek was sliced open. The copper tang of blood filled his mouth. But he could move his arms and legs. That was a good thing. He was alive. Maybe the Carl thing wasn’t. Dragging himself free of the truck cab wreaked havoc on his body. Everything in the truck was crushed. The frame was bent so badly he could barely fit his body through the driver’s side window. The front windshield and the passenger side were mangled.

He was nearly out of the truck when he saw his rifle outside on the ground. It was a miracle. That thing could have flown out anywhere, but it landed here beside the truck. It gave him a new sense of hope like he might actually stand a chance out here.

This is bad. You don’t get up and walk away from something like this.

Halogen Williams wasn’t liking his first night on shift. As a new park ranger, it was his duty to make sure nothing bad happened in these woods, and a wrecked pickup with a missing driver would be considered bad to most people. Things of this nature didn’t really fall under his responsibilities, so he was glad when the state troopers showed up.

“You said I had a boring area,” Hal said as he spit a black wad of tobacco onto the muddy ground.

Last night, Hal had ridden around with his boss, Gus, during an unofficial – which really meant unpaid – practice run. Gus was an asshole by nature and wasn’t too shy to admit he was ready to pawn this “shitty shift” off on Hal.

“What’s so shitty about it?” Hal had asked.

“What’s not? It’s boring here. You ain’t gonna see no college girls skinny dippin’ in these parts of the woods. Nope. It’s all quiet nights with the animals and insects.”

“Well, I’ll do my best to keep this part of the park safe and clean.”

Stonewall National Park was a labyrinth of dirt roads zipping between Virginia pines, slippery elms, green ash, and a handful of other trees. It came complete with a couple of rivers, two lakes, and the old Stonewall Forge battleground now turned into a field trip destination during the more pleasant months of the year. The rest of the time, it was nothing more than a set of abandoned buildings.

This week was one of the biggest conferences Stonewall Forge hosted. Some kind of teenage leadership thingamajig. Hal didn’t know much about it, and he didn’t care to. As long as they stayed on the campus, they would be safe from wildlife, and he wouldn’t have to get involved much.

Now, standing in front of the crushed pickup, Hal was reminded of his days on the police force. He’d only worked a few years in Nashville before deciding law enforcement wasn’t for him. Lawmaking wasn’t what it looked like on TV, and he wasn’t going to be able to outrun his dead wife and daughter’s memory by pulling over speeders, arresting drunks, and fighting with gangbangers. When he was a young cop in Summersville, West Virginia, he’d been good at it, but those days were gone. It just wasn’t in him anymore.

He’d moved back to his wife’s hometown of Clydesville to face his demons. This was where it happened. Sheila had always loved it here, they both had, and he had no other place to go. So he returned. Life moved at a much slower pace here than it did in Nashville. Even slower than it did in Summersville. It was almost painfully slow, but he’d decided he liked it this way.

“You done shined that light of yours on a real mess here, Halogen,” Gus said. Hal had only known the man a couple of days and he was already sick of his light bulb jokes. “You really illuminated this shitshow,” he continued.

“Funny,” Hal replied.

“Your parents done slapped a real doozy of a name on you, didn’t they?”

“My dad was drunk, and my mom was high when they decided on it.”

“And they couldn’t have changed it when they were sober?”

“Apparently they both liked the name and thought it was a good idea.”

“Well, it wasn’t.”

Hal glanced right at the older, self-righteous asshole. Gus clamped his mouth shut, which was good for him. Hal wasn’t one to mess with. Clydesville was a small town and he already had that reputation. For some reason, Gus seemed to think his position of authority over him gave him the right to throw verbal jabs in his direction.

“Keep it up,” Hal warned him.

“Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch. Come on. Let these troopers take over this mess. Ain’t got nothin’ to do with us anyhow.”

It just so happened the highway was where Halogen’s area ended, but the truck had flipped right into his zone of responsibility, or ZOR as Gus liked to call it. There wasn’t much a park ranger could do in this situation, so Hal was lucky enough to walk away from it. Yet, it bothered him.

Where is the driver of the truck? And what would make him flip like that?

Had to be alcohol. Nothing would make a man run away from his own wrecked vehicle like drunkenness. If Hal were a betting man, he’d say the cops would get a call later that this truck was stolen. It wasn’t, but the owner would claim it was so he could walk away free from blame. If the cops had any sense about them, they’d see the driver’s bruised and battered face and know he’d been driving the truck when it flipped.