Bad Memories - Final Chapter
Another Twisted Short Tale - Chapter 2
A new twisted short story for my Morbid Ink Project (my paid subscribers get the first look at all my stories). The final chapter will publish a day or two later. The tale will also be available for subscribers to Medium in the near future.
I glanced over, not wanting to believe him. However, his face was colorless as he spoke.
“Like I said, it’s a cursed soul. It will surprise you how many times I’ve tried to kill myself.”
His hushed voice became nearly a whisper.
“I hate the idea of drowning. Unable to breathe and unable to stop the water from entering your lungs. I’ve always feared water, ever since I had that nightmare. So, I won’t go near a lake or river.”
“Yeah! You’re nuts alright. Nobody else is afraid of death,” I stated with a forced grin. “You need to lighten up here.”
My glance over showed me he didn’t hear my comment.
“Listen, I’m not a doc, but it’s obvious you’re acting this way because you keep thinking about it,” I explained. “Any shrink will tell you that.”
But my comment wasn’t fooling Erik Ford a bit.
“Yeah, most people would agree,” he said. “Unlike them, I’ve been to my share of psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, you name it. I’ve had treatments like hypnosis and electroconvulsive therapy. Hell, I’ve tried them all.”
The man shrugged and leaned back, letting out a deep breath.
“Still, not one of them can rationally explain why I was born with a memory of Logan Casper’s life and the memories of the last day of those lives before him. Each memory shows me exact details about the ultimate day when the person in our cycle will drown. So, I have that to look forward in a couple of hours.”
I stayed silent, wanting to yell at him to be quiet. We were in the middle of the Montana plains during the summer with no one around for miles except for the wind and open range. Still, this guy is yammering about drowning and reincarnation. It was enough to drive his partner nuts. No wonder Smithy wore the headphones and listened to music.
The silence stretched on as both men immersed themselves in their own thoughts. One thinking about his choices while I couldn’t stop wondering if my partner might become violent.
“I told you; you wouldn’t like to talk with me,” Erik suddenly sighed.
“No, it’s interesting,” I lied, while trying to think of some way to change the subject. “We just need to get off this topic. It’s a downer, you know what I mean?”
“Well, in thirty minutes, all bets are off,” he said guardedly as he glanced down at the clock.
I looked at the blue-green numbers, which showed it was almost midnight. The time surprised me. It also angered me, since we missed our last delivery for the day. We were still over a hundred miles out of Scobey. Now we’d have to pick it up on the way back.
“See, that’s why you’re talking stupid,” I finally exploded in frustration. “Just because someone tries to predict the future, if something comes close, you’ll claim they’re accurate. I read about it. It’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy. I swear to God, you’re caught up in this crazy stuff because you’ve been telling yourself this for so long.”
My tone turned sarcastic.
“I’m telling you, it’s a load of crap. So, you’ve had nightmares and you’re afraid of death. Explain who the hell isn’t in the same boat.”
I expected Erik to shut up or lash out. Instead, he turned thoughtful after my rant.
“Hmm, self-fulfilling prophecy, yeah, I remember that. I really considered it for a while. A couple of my head shrinks told me the same thing. But they couldn’t explain why I remember drowning, in a mine, or off the coast of France, or in a ditch outside of a tavern in Manchester. Those are terrible memories, my friend.”
I glared at him, but went silent. We returned to our thoughts. At this point, I was fed up with his lunacy, so my thoughts focused on getting to our hotel. Erik pulled out his cell phone and started typing out a message.
About thirty-five miles down the road, the full moon lifted from behind the mountain range in front of us. It wouldn’t be long before we pulled out of the flatlands. I glanced down at the clock and realized it was now a couple of minutes past midnight.
“Well, it looks like you’re safe,” I told Erik in a snarky tone. “Not a cloud in the sky and no rivers between here and the hotel. Just stay out of the bathtub.”
He glanced over, showing his concern. He didn’t smile at the jest, but his eyes suddenly widened at the sudden boom we heard.
Immediately, the truck jerked, and the backend started pulling hard toward the shoulder. I fought with the steering wheel, trying to keep the vehicle on the road while down shifting. Glancing back in the rearview mirror, I noticed our taillights revealing smoke as tire debris shot out into the darkness.
“We’ve got a blowout!”
While I kept trying to slow the truck, the rear wheels on one side struck a series of heavy potholes, causing the entire vehicle to slide toward the ditch. We could feel the vibration of the rumble strips pushing into the cab. I had no option but to let the truck move over into the emergency lane while attempting to keep the trailer upright. However, luck wasn’t on my side. As soon as the blown-out tires on the passenger side struck the edge of the dirt, the trailer’s back end continued to slide down the embankment next to the road.
Before I knew it, the tilt of the vehicle became too much, and the rig fell over on its side. I remember hanging on to the steering wheel as I watched the world outside the front windshield turn over at a forty-five-degree angle. The truck slid along the top of the ditch on the passenger side of the truck, then violently plowed down into the bottom. We were still cruising at a fast clip when we overturned, so the bumpy glide through the long grass in the roadside ditch seemed to last forever.
When the rig finally came to a stop, I was choking from the dust that filled the cab. I hung in my seat above Ford, who I couldn’t see for several minutes while the air cleared. Then, I heard his coughing and saw him lying on the broken door window.
“Are you alright?” I asked, while trying to unhook my seatbelt.
“Still alive,” he coughed out.
While I struggled to remove myself from the driver’s seat, I heard him groan. I stopped and looked down. The dashboard lights showed me his legs, pinned under his seat at an odd angle. Then I realized he didn’t have on his seatbelt during the accident.
“Christ, where are you hurt?” My hand automatically went to the ignition switch and shut off the diesel engine, which was still running.
“I think the door caved in—my leg’s busted,” he groaned out.
After unstrapping myself, I carefully lowered my legs down, landing next to Erik.
“Hold on a sec.”
I pulled out a flashlight from the console and turned it on. Ford’s pale face had a few scratches from the broken glass. However, the seat and the door crushed his right leg. I tried lifting the seat to release his leg, but the passenger seat remained fixed to the floorboard. The only thing I accomplished was causing Erik more pain from his movement.
As I thought about the situation, he looked up at me.
“I told you. It’s my birthday.” He dropped his head back on the mixture of glass and grass covering the ground.
“Oh, shut it,” I growled. “We had tires go flat. That’s not a curse. Nothing more to it.”
Forcing the conversation back to reality, I laid out some options after trying to call out on the emergency channel using the CB radio. Unfortunately, I had damaged the antenna when I rolled the truck over on its side.
“Well, I was thinking of using the jack to pry your seat out of the way…”
“Yeah,” he interrupted with an eerie grin. “The jack is on this side behind me. Unless you lift the truck upright, you’re not getting to it. Here, take my phone. See if we have any cell coverage.”
Reaching down, I took it and looked at the double lines running through the signal bar. Erik attempted to pull his leg, but the pain was too much.
“Nope, no service here. But this is a low spot. I need to get up on the highway and lay out the signal flares. Are you ok if I leave for a couple of minutes?”
Erik’s expression showed his fear, but he nodded.
“Just don’t forget me,” he said.
“Listen, I’m not going anywhere, so you’ll be fine. There’s not a cloud in the sky,” I pointed up at the moonlight coming into the cab.
I didn’t want him to freak out when I left, so I gave him the flashlight. It was one of those long ones with plenty of batteries that’ll stay on for hours.
“I’m going to put out the signal flares, then I’m going to walk around and get a signal for your phone. We’ll have the troopers and an ambulance before you know it,” I gave him a reassured grin. “Nothing to worry about.”
Erik Ford sighed, looking at the flashlight.
“I’m not worried. Go on and get some help.”
After crawling out of the truck, I worked my way over to a compartment on the driver’s side and pulled out a few signal flares and another flashlight. While I walked around the trailer which lay on its side along the embankment, I looked over the damage.
The trailer’s backend remained up on the emergency lane, angled down into the ditch. The cab lay at the bottom. From what I could see, the side of the trailer cut through a guardrail before coming to a stop. However, the long metal section remained embedded under the overturned trailer. A deep gouge in the earth, created by the piece of guardrail, cut into the ditch.
As I walked along, I heard some bottles inside the trailer still fizzing from the pressure of the CO2 releasing their contents. With the trailer on its side, I couldn’t determine how much damage happened to the cargo. I assumed that the crates inside had scattered all over. It would be a mess, but nothing he couldn’t clean up. A few two-liter bottles breaking open would only leave everything sticky inside.
Well, it looks like I’ll be up all night if my partner’s in the hospital!
Even with the metal piece pushed into the trailer, the damage didn’t appear too bad under the beam of my flashlight. With a shrug, I went out next to the highway and laid out the signal flare. Walking back to the front of the wrecked vehicle, I called out to Erik. I heard him mumble something, but I couldn’t be sure what he said.
“I’ll be right over. I’m going to try for a cell signal,” I yelled back.
After throwing down another flare along the roadside, I started walking around while staring at his cell phone. I looked around in the moonlight and noticed a higher spot across the road.
“Hey, I’m going across the road,” I yelled back to the truck.
I didn’t hear a reply as I ran over to the other side of the highway and climbed up the other embankment. As I suspected, the greater height over the road finally gave me a single bar on his phone and I dialed 911. A few minutes later, I was on my way back to the truck. After crossing the road, I yelled out to Erik.
“Everything’s good. We got an ambulance and tow truck on the way.”
I crawled up to the driver’s side using the frame mounts on the underside of the truck cab. When I reached the top, I looked down at Ford through the open door.
“How are you holding up?”
It took about thirty minutes before the ambulance arrived, along with a state trooper’s vehicle. I was sitting on the front tire of the truck. I pointed up at the open door above me.
“He’s inside,” I told them mechanically.
The trooper and one paramedic crawled up to the top and looked down at Erik Ford.
“Christ, shine your flashlight down there,” one man said.
There was no need since the flashlight that Erik still remained on. I didn’t bother to take it out of his hands when I got back. I couldn’t even go inside the cab of the truck when I saw him lying down there. The flashlight filled the area, and the ghastly beam revealed his face. Despite the dark mix of fluids covering his head, Erik’s eyes stared at me with his mouth open, seemingly still screaming out his last.
“What the hell is covering his upper body?” I overheard someone’s voice.
“It’s the broken bottles from the trailer. All that soda spilled down and mixed together when I called 911!” I yelled to them while looking up at the moon.
The feeling of anger and despair filled me enough to want to scream at the night sky. After discovering his body, I went to the other side of the cab and followed the ditch. That’s when I saw how the guardrail cut through the cargo of my trailer like a knife. The slope of the cut earth caused by the truck sliding to a stop built up a dam of carbonated liquid behind the cab. It apparently spilled over and descended into the cab and covered Erik while I was laying out the flares.
“Hell of a way to die,” the ambulance driver whispered to the trooper. “Pinned down with no way to call out.”
Overhearing the comment, I sighed and pulled myself up. The trooper came down from the cab and asked me a few questions before telling me about the tow truck coming out.
“Sorry about your partner,” he said before calling back to the station using the microphone attached to his uniform.
“Yeah, you never know when the reaper comes for you,” I replied as I trudged away.
FINIS