Carver Pike - Scalp

Hal hadn’t felt right all day. He woke up later than usual, feeling hungover again, despite the fact he hadn’t had anything to drink. It had to be a lack of water. Every time he had a doctor’s appointment, he was reminded of the same few things. He was supposed to watch his sodium intake, be careful with the amount of sugar he consumed, and drink lots of water. Hal followed none of that advice. He barely wanted to live at all, so why would he choose to live such a horrible life. He loved salt and sugar, and he hated drinking water. Coffee kept him going. It was one of the few substances loyal to him, and in return, he was loyal right back.

He’d tried to call Gus earlier that afternoon but hadn’t been able to reach him. He’d tried the day guard too. The one who worked his post when the sun was up, but he’d had no luck getting him to answer his phone. He couldn’t get the nagging feeling something wasn’t right to leave his mind. It was those damn kids camping by the lake. If he’d only turned them away the first night, everything would be fine, but no, he’d had to be the cool guy, the nice park ranger.

You should have been an asshole and told them to go have sex someplace else.

“What the hell is taking so long?” he said aloud, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.

The sun would be setting soon. He needed to hurry and get to work. The streets were really quiet today. He’d hardly passed any other cars on the way to the Burger Bin. This local fast food joint was a nice, hip diner on the inside. It was the local place to take dates for a burger and a shake. They’d recently added a drive-thru window, and this was where Hal now sat, idling, waiting behind three other cars so he could pick up something quick to take with him to work.

He hadn’t moved an inch since joining the other cars in line.

“I swear they must have had to fly to North Carolina for the beef,” he said barely above a whisper.

If his stomach didn’t rumble to remind him of his hunger, he might have pulled out of the line and left. There wasn’t anything else to get for dinner, especially not this late. Sure, he could go into the grocery store and see if they had any of those rotisserie chickens they sometimes had ready for take-out, but most of the time they ran out by this time of evening. Then what? He’d be stuck eating Pop-Tarts or Doritos for dinner.

No, he’d stick around a little longer. All it took was one asshole to order a ton of irregular stuff for a family of eight to make this line take forever.

As he waited, Hal’s eyes traced the scenery around him. Further back in the parking lot was the grocery store and along the plaza was a bakery, a tattoo parlor, a shoe store, a discount clothing store, a cell phone provider, and all the other usual shops you’d expect to find in an outdoor strip mall. Other than this burger joint, there was a bank located on the other side of the parking lot. The DMV was around the corner, along with a car dealership, and the most upscale townhomes in the area.

He always thought it was weird seeing these two-story, cream-colored buildings pop up right next to all the metal and discount painted on prices at the dealership. Right now, a man was walking five dogs all at once. Hal couldn’t help wondering if he owned all those dogs himself or if this was some kind of business of his. He’d heard of dog walkers before but thought that was only a thing in New York City or maybe in Los Angeles.

“Come on,” Hal heard the man say as he tugged the leashes of the dogs, leading them to a patch of grass between the townhomes and the plaza.

Hal looked at the shopping center again and over at the windows of an electronics store. At this hour, the place should have been open, but the lights were off. Next door to it, the cell phone provider had its lights on but there was nobody inside. That wasn’t all that odd, given that it was a small town, but he didn’t even see employees inside. As he looked through his rearview mirror at the rest of the parking lot, he thought it looked quite sparse.

There was that thing going on at the university, so he knew quite a few people were headed out of town for that, but he’d never seen Clydesville this void of life. The grocery store always had a decent crowd. There wasn’t much else for people to do. Curiosity got the best of him. Nobody was behind him in line, so he pulled his car out of the drive-thru and drove toward the bingo hall at the end of the plaza. Everything else in town could be empty, but that would never be the case at the bingo hall. Half the town’s elderly spent their retirement checks in there.

Sure enough, as he rolled his window down at the curb, he noticed there were people inside the bingo hall. Only they didn’t seem to be playing bingo at all. The frosted windows didn’t allow him to see much of what was going on, but he could tell people were roaming about. Usually, everyone was seated and trying to win money.

“Is it a break between games?” he asked aloud.

He wasn’t into bingo himself, but he’d visited the hall once out of boredom. He couldn’t remember there being a time where the old folks moved aimlessly about.

As he sat in his truck watching the place, one of the people inside approached the window and slapped the glass. The shadowy palm slid downward, and it gave Hal the chills.

He pulled out his phone and dialed the police station. Of course, there wasn’t much to report. Nothing at all really, but he was curious if they ever checked out the Cloud 9 trailer park. He figured he could ask about that and gauge if the cops mentioned anything weird.

The phone rang and rang until Hal finally hung up.

Weird. Someone always picks up.

This place wasn’t exactly the crime capital of the world. There should never be a reason for the phone to go unanswered.

Hal’s stomach rumbled and he looked once more at the drive-thru he’d left only a couple minutes before. The line still hadn’t moved, so he drove back to the line. This time he didn’t pull to the back but instead drove alongside it.

He came upon the red sports car that had been idling in front of him first. Because of its tinted back window, Hal hadn’t been able to see the occupants of the car. As he pulled up alongside it, he realized it wouldn’t have mattered either way because there weren’t any occupants. The car was empty. It idled there, parked, with nobody behind the wheel.

“What the fuck?”

The next car was the same. So was the truck in front of it.

“What in the actual fuck is going on?”

The drive-thru window was empty too. He glanced beyond the truck idling at the window and stared into the brightly lit interior of the Burger Bin. Usually, there would be a teenager with a visor on manning the window. This evening, the inside of the burger joint was empty.

The barking of dogs pulled his attention to the right where he watched the man walking his dogs try to hold them back from an approaching beagle.

“Come on, now,” the young man said, pulling back on the leashes clutched tightly in his fists. “Back.”

The beagle continued toward him and the other dogs, seemingly unafraid of their threats. Something about the dog seemed wrong. It reminded him for a second of the dog he’d seen headed toward the young people camping at the lake. It looked rough like it hadn’t been washed in a long time. Its fur, for being as short as it was, looked like it was blowing in the wind.

Hal rolled down his window. There wasn’t any wind.

His mind went back to the trailer park and the ravenous mutt that attacked him with so much fury Hal still couldn’t open his driver’s side door without giving it a serious boot each time he pulled the handle. That dog really fucked up his truck.