Chris Grabenstein - The Crossroads

“The jack’s in the back,” she said.

Rain blew sideways and the flimsy umbrella did little to keep Judy from getting drenched as she walked to the rear of the car. Bud followed. When the light from the emergency flashers hit his face, each burst made him appear ghoulish, like someone flicking a flashlight on and off underneath their chin.

Judy opened the hatchback and hoped Bud’s bad back wouldn’t prevent him from rolling the spare tire up to the front of the car.

Apparently, it did.

So she pushed it up the pavement with one hand while balancing her worthless umbrella in the other. Bud followed behind her. The way he dragged his feet, like his shoes were ill-fitting cinder blocks, Judy figured the guy’s back must be killing him.

Bud talked Judy through the tire change. He told her what to do and Judy did it.

“Sorry I couldn’t take care of the job myself,” Bud said when the tire was changed.

“You helped plenty. Thanks!”

“Guess you owe me one.”

“Guess so.”

“Say—do you live around here?”

“Yes. See that tree with the cross? Down there near the intersection? Well, that tree is in our backyard.”

“You don’t say?”

“Yep.”

“Sort of an eyesore, isn’t it?”

“Excuse me?”

“The old wooden cross. The rusty bucket of dead flowers. It’s an eyesore, all right.”

“I guess.”

“You folks ought to chop it down.”

“The memorial?”

“The whole tree.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll mention it to my husband.” She climbed into her car.

“We’d appreciate it!” Bud snapped her a crisp two-finger salute.

Judy nodded and eased back onto the highway.

She wanted to reach the crossroads and turn the corner because every time she looked up at her rearview mirror, she saw Bud glimmering in her taillights—swinging his arms like he had an ax and was chopping down a tree.

“Sharon?”

Gerda Spratling stumbled around her bedchamber.

“Sharon? Where are you, girl?”

Miss Spratling found a small silver bell and shook it violently.

“Sharon!” She jangled the bell even harder.

Sharon slid open the panel doors.

The storm had torn down the power lines to Spratling Manor. The only illumination came from lightning flashing through the casement windows.

“Is everything all right, ma’am?”

Sharon carried a fluttering candle that sent shadows skipping across the cavernous room. The candlelight made everything in the creepy old house even creepier—especially Miss Spratling.

“Sharon, dearie, have I ever told you about Clint Eberhart?” A girlish smile crept across the old woman’s wrinkled lips. “Oh, he was the most. The absolute most. Thick, wavy hair. Such a dreamboat. Clint doesn’t think I’m ugly….”

“Can I bring you anything, ma’am?”

Thunder cracked. Glass rattled.

“Bring me champagne!”

Sharon tried to figure out what they sold at the gas station that might pass for champagne. Maybe ginger ale.

“No. Never mind. Clint will bring the bubbly! Daddy promised.”

“Yes, ma’am. If you require nothing further…”

“Only that you be happy for me!”

Sharon backed away. Inched toward the door.

“Oh, Daddy!” Miss Spratling screamed. “You have made me the happiest little girl in the whole wide world!”

Boom! Another blast of thunder rocked the bedroom. Zipper whimpered.

“Hey, Zip—did you know that sound travels eleven thousand feet per second? And there are five thousand, two hundred and eighty feet per mile.”

Lightning flashed.

“One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five—”

Thunder exploded.

“Okay, see? That lightning was less than a mile away, ’cause for every four point seven seconds between—”

The sky flared white. Thunder roared instantaneously with the flash. Then Zack heard an explosion—like a wooden crate being blown to bits by a stack of dynamite.

The lightning must’ve hit something in the backyard!

Zack and Zipper raced to the window.

Wet oak leaves pressed against the glass and slid down like slow green hands.

The big oak near the highway was tearing itself apart. Lightning must’ve hit it. One half of the huge tree crashed down behind the house. Dead branches snapped off it like crisp icicles. The other half slammed across the highway, blocking the crossroads with a barricade of branches.

Zack and Zipper pressed their noses against the window.

“Wow. Awesome.”

Zack sensed movement. On the far side of the fallen tree.

He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the shadow of a man walking through the woods. A man with a big swoop of combed-back hair.

“Zack?” his dad called from downstairs.

He turned to answer. “Yeah?”

“You guys okay?”

“Yeah. We’re fine.”

When he looked out the window again, the man was gone.

It feels good to be back inside a body—the same nineteen-year-old body he died in.

He still wears the boots, blue jeans, and black leather jacket he wore on the final night of his life. His hair is still full and thick, still combed straight back with a wavy doo-wop flip, still glued in place by glistening Brylcreem.

Wherever he goes, he leaves behind the minty scent of his oily hair cream.

He walks away from the oak tree and down to the road.

His flip-top Ford Thunderbird glimmers in the moonlight. The chrome grillwork on the convertible sparkles. There’s no hint of where the front end crumpled and slammed the V-8 engine back into the driver’s seat to crush his legs.

He hops in. Grips the steering wheel. Listens to the bent-eight engine purr and roar. He is ready to peel wheels and raise hell.

Raise some before he has to go there.

He had been terrified when the lightning bolt struck his tree, afraid it was God calling in the loan on his soul, demanding payment in full and interest past due.

When the tree split, he figured he was a goner, that it was time to move on, time to finally leave this limbo where he had been held prisoner for nearly fifty years.

But it seems he isn’t heading downstairs for fire, brimstone, and pokes from the devil’s pitchfork. Not just yet, anyway.

The stump. The roots. They sink deep into the earth. They hold him here. He doesn’t have to let go or move on.

He glances up toward the second-story window of the house behind him.

The boy’s bedroom.

I’ll be back for you later, four-eyes. Never did like nerds who wore glasses. Counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder? What a baby.

He has killed children before.

He looks forward to doing it again.

“That was pretty incredible, hunh?”

“Yeah.”

“Zipper wasn’t afraid when the tree came down?”

“Nah.” Zipper was on top of Zack’s bedspread, curled up against his legs. Zack was tucked in under the covers. “We’re both fine, Dad.”

“Good. I’ll call those tree men first thing tomorrow. Get the backyard cleaned up.”