Fair Exchange II

Not a sequel to Fair Exchange, just a variation on the concept. Don't drink and drive!

Rudy was drunk. Of course, it was Friday night. It was part of the natural order of the universe--the sun rises and sets, the tides ebb and flow, Rudy gets drunk on weekend nights. Shane looked over at his friend, slumped in the passenger seat and snoring raggedly. Well, perhaps ‘friend’ wasn’t quite the word. Once upon a time, sure, back when they were younger. But one by one their small clique of high school friends had broken up, in the end only Shane sticking with him as the others found no place for someone like Rudy in their increasingly adult lives. He had persisted in hanging out with Rudy mostly because he considered his time spent with him a sort of walk on the wild side, the one touch of rebellion in his otherwise painfully mundane life.

Before him, the two-lane road stretched forward out of the twin cones of his headlights into the darkness beyond. The rhythmic disappearance of the broken white line as it passed beneath his front bumper was almost hypnotic, but he refused to let it distract him, his eyes constantly scanning the road. The roadside icons of majestically leaping deer don’t quite convey the harsh reality of just how much damage one of God’s creatures can do when it comes through your windshield at 50 mph. Just last month, his brother had completely totaled his car in a collision with a large buck, flinging himself flat toward the passenger seat when he saw the massive brown shape hurtling at him, coming to a stop in the ditch with half the bleeding corpse thrust through the windshield to rest on his back. Besides, Shane had taken his usual precaution of downing two generic Excedrin substitutes, with 65 mg of caffeine per tablet, sort of a poor man’s No-Doz. For someone who weighed 125 lbs. and never drank coffee or any of the many coffee-derived products that choked this new slacker-driven market, they were more than enough to keep him alert the rest of the way home.

With a wet grunt, Rudy snapped his head up beside him and looked blearily around. “We there yet?”

“No, Rudy, we’ve got another 30 miles or so. I don’t know what the hell you were thinking, going to this roadhouse in the middle of nowhere.” Actually, he did--Rudy, who was a walking advertisement for AA when drunk, had found himself gradually having to travel further and further from home to find a place that would tolerate him long enough for him to get satisfyingly smashed.

“Told you--great plashe. Lotsa atmust… atmush… atmushphere.” He was right--it had certainly been one of the more interesting places he’d ever been, patronized by a strange combination of bikers and hillbillies. Of course, Shane had spent half the time there hiding in the bathroom listening to the sounds of various substances splashing into various toilets from various orifices and praying that no one would investigate the stall in which he cowered, but he felt satisfied that he’d had his fill of hanging out on the wrong side of the tracks for the month, if not for the year. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more determined he grew to cut himself loose from Rudy. It’s bad enough going to a dangerous shithole like that as it is, he thought, without having to worry about what might happen if one of the other drinkers in the increasingly hostile bars Rudy patronized took offense at his behavior. And it was almost impossible not to take offense at a guy who jumps up on the pool table, drops his pants, and takes a dump while shouting “Turdball in the corner pocket!” Luckily, some tiny sober corner of Rudy’s alcohol-ravaged brain had still been functioning well enough tonight for him to maintain some rudiments of a survival instinct, for he’d spent the entire evening drinking in a corner, only occasionally getting that look in his eyes, which always faded when he half-stood and got a good look at the clientele.

Ahead of him on one side of the road, eyes flaring yellow in the light of his high-beams, stood some sort of animal. “Coyote?” he thought idly to himself. He was dimly aware of Rudy leaning shakily forward in the passenger seat. “Watch shiss,” he said, and Shane braced himself for some prolonged vomiting. Instead, Rudy lurched over sideways, blasting Shane with a vertiginously foul draft of alcohol fumes, and grabbed the wheel, hauling it hard right. He held on stubbornly as Shane fought to correct, but it was useless. His foot jammed hard against the brake, he could only watch as the furred form in his headlights grew larger. Flashing through his brain faster than words came the recollection--god only knew where he’d heard it--that it’s possible to tell if a hit-and-run driver was braking or not at the time of impact, since braking lowers the front bumper enough to catch the victim below the knees and hurl him over the car, rather than knocking him backwards. He wondered if the dog, for he could see now with perfect clarity that it was a German shepherd, was tall enough to come through his windshield. At the last second, it started to turn to leap aside, bringing its head around with awful slowness. Then, with a resonating thump that he felt in his bones, they collided.

His foot still mindlessly pressed against the brake, he watched in horror as the limp body sailed up and away from his car, not tumbling at all, head twisted backwards at an angle that was painful to look at. A memory of his Little League days shot through his mind, of his dad trying to teach him to throw a knuckleball, meant to travel to the plate without spinning. Hey, dad, I finally got it right! he thought crazily as Rudy’s gurgling cackle echoed in his ear. “Got’ im! 10 pointsh!” Shane watched until the car’s spin swept the headlights away from the gruesome sight, and as the car continued to turn he kept his eyes locked on the darkness into which the dog had vanished. Only when the car had spun almost completely around was he able to break his gaze, and braced himself for the impact. When it came, it was something of a disappointment. The car ran backwards off the road, jolting several yards over rough, steep ground before smacking into a tree with a solid crash. It wasn’t going all that fast at the time, but it was enough to shatter the rear window and press him back into his seat as if an invisible weight had been dropped on him. The engine sputtered a few times, and died.

The silence that followed was broken only by Rudy’s wheezing gasps, which Shane knew enough to interpret as laughter. “Good one, dude!” he choked out between laughs.

Shane slowly turned his head to look with loathing at Rudy’s hunched form, shuddering and swaying as he spit out his ragged chuckles. He felt guilty when he accidentally stepped on one of the snails that sprang up like mushrooms to cover the walkways around his apartment with every rain. Now he’d hit and hurt (just say it--killed) a dog, someone’s pet. He fumbled for his seat belt with shaking fingers, finally unbuckling it and staggering from the car, as unsteady on his feet as Rudy had been on the way out of the bar. He made his way cautiously back to the road, with the car’s headlights behind him pointing into the misty air like searchlights advertising the tragedy. After a few slips, he gained the surface of the road, and began walking toward where the body must lie.

Shane felt as if he’d walked a mile, but knew it could only have been several dozen yards, when he saw the blood gleaming black on the asphalt in the light of the gibbous moon. A wide smear like the track of a giant slug, it ran straight from the ruined body lying splayed and broken on the shoulder to his feet, an accusing finger pointing directly at him. Tears filling his eyes, he stumbled forward and sank to his knees beside the body, wanting desperately to offer it some kind of comfort but knowing it was far too late. “Oh god, I’m sorry, doggie. I’m so sorry.” He wept openly then, blindly stroking the dog’s side, ignoring the sharp pricks of shattered ribs. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” He repeated it without hearing it, a mindless mantra pouring out his grief. He was aware that it really wasn’t his fault, but that was no help at all. He’d always scoffed when he’d heard the clichéd response to sudden death, “at least he didn’t suffer,” but now he clung desperately to that thought as his only solace. Now he guiltily thanked God that, if the dog had to die, he was at least killed outright. The suffering of animals, as pure and all-consuming as any of their emotions, had always been difficult for him to bear. For them, there is no future relief to look forward to, to draw comfort from; there is only the eternal agony of right now. To see this once-beautiful creature struggling to draw breath into its shattered chest and to know that it was his fault would have been to much for him to bear.

Behind him he heard irregular footsteps scuffling toward him on the pavement. He took a deep breath, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and stood up. Rudy staggered to a stop beside him and looked down at the body. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, no sound emerging. Finally, he looked at Shane with bloodshot eyes and said, “S**t, man, I’m sorry. You know me, man, I jushh... sometimes I don’ think.” He gently kicked the dog’s side with one battered sneaker, and Shane was sure he could hear the crackle of bones shifting. “Well, he shouldn’t have been out on the road like that. No plashe for amnimals.” Maybe he was starting to sober up. Unfortunately, he more than likely would never remember this night. “S**t, he’s way f****n’ dead, man.”

The idea that Rudy could do that and not even remember reverberated in Shane’s head, red flaring behind his like a eyes matador’s cape. Before he was aware of what he intended, he’d turned and punched Rudy with all his might, feeling the cartilage of his nose give way beneath his fist. Something in his hand gave as well, letting out a hollow pop, and he cradled it in his other as he stared at clumsy figure who stumbled back and sat heavily down on the road, blood streaming from between the fingers he held to his face. “F**k, dude, are you fuckid duts? It’s just a fuckid dog!” He looked up at Rudy with murder in his eyes and began to rise, the combination of the crash and the pain having apparently cleared his head, but the cold gaze that met his stopped him, and he sat back down. “Ya fuggin’ p***y,” he muttered sullenly, looking morosely at the blood staining his shirt, but that was all he did.

“Maybe you’ll remember this in the morning now, a*****e,” muttered Shane. Behind him, Rudy attempted to stop the blood coursing from his nostrils, but Shane ignored him. Looking around, he spotted a driveway leading off into the woods back where he’d… where the accident happened. The dog must have been waiting to cross the street, he thought, his good fist clenching. Lot of good that did. He glared at Rudy, feeling the already shattered cartilage crunching again under his fist, but he couldn’t raise his arm. Too much blood, too much violence. He wanted no more of it. This was it--Rudy could drink himself to death on his own. He’d have gladly given up all his so-called “adventures” for a life of quiet banality if it would undo this night. His parasitic pseudo-wild life lived vicariously through Rudy just looked pathetic now, the feeble attempts of a solid conformist to convince himself that he’s a rebel.

Taking a deep breath, he squeezed his eyes shut and stooped over to pick up the already cooling body of the dog. Swallowing hard, trying not to throw up, he slid his hands under its side, scraping their backs over the rough asphalt. He felt the bare patches where fur and skin had been stripped away, and had to stop for a moment for more deep breathing. Inhaling the rich, coppery aroma of blood didn’t help much, but there was nothing he could do about it. With a final push that stripped a hangnail from his ring finger, he shoved his hands the rest of the way through. Bracing himself (unbidden came the thought, lift with your knees!), he gathered the corpse to his chest, and stood up. Maybe he couldn’t make things right, but he at least wasn’t going to leave the dog lying there like so much roadkill. He couldn’t bear the thought of some child walking out to the road to wait for the school bus, only to find her beloved pet lying in a twisted heap like discarded trash. Of course, out in West Hogfuck like this, the dog’s owner was most likely a 92-year-old farmer, but he drew strength from the thought nevertheless.

As he walked past one of the mile markers that periodically dotted the roadside, he glanced idly at it (anything to keep his mind off his burden), and stopped in his tracks. Oh, lovely, he thought. He’d thought the road hadn’t looked familiar, but since he’d only been down it once, that hadn’t worried him. But according to the sign, they were in the wrong county. One lousy turn to make, and he’d gone the wrong way. He had no clue where they might be now. He would just have to hope that the house at the end of the driveway had a telephone, and that the owner would be gracious enough to let the people who’d killed his dog use it. He walked onward, soon reaching the dirt driveway. Suddenly Rudy was standing beside him, swaying a little in place. It looked like the adrenaline rush had faded, and he was falling back into drunkenness. He peered blearily at the limp body in Shane’s arms for a moment, finally deciding not to say anything. Blood was caked down his face and over his shirt, but at least it had stopped running from his now-bent nose. Shane kept walking.

A hundred yards down the rutted driveway stood a small house, looking as if it had been abandoned for some time. A single light burning in a window beside the door wasn’t quite enough to dispel that illusion, but at least there was probably someone home. As Shane stepped onto the porch, Rudy following uncertainly behind, the steps gave a sodden creak. He looked down, wondering if they’d hold his weight, and took another hasty step to stand before the door. He attempted to shift the body around so he could knock, but couldn’t manage it. He stared levelly at Rudy, who eventually raised a hand and knocked tentatively at the door, leaving small round dots of blood behind.

He had to knock three more times before the door eased slowly, painfully open. As it swung inward, he caught a glimpse of his blood-smeared face in the diamond-shaped Judas window, and hoped the occupant wouldn’t just shoot them on the spot.

In the open doorway stood an elderly woman. No, thought Shane, that’s not right. This woman is old. Wrinkles crisscrossed her withered face in such great numbers that they seemed to give more substance to her face than the flesh did. Her sunken eyes, however, gleamed brightly. She peered up at him, parting her lips to reveal a perfect set of teeth. He was still trying to think of something to say when she croaked, “You’re the boys who killed my Henry.” Her voice was frail, but still carried a certain indefinable undercurrent of strength. Shane swallowed and attempted to reply--she must have heard the crash and guessed what happened--but he only managed to stammer out, “I’m so sorry.” She stared into his eyes for a moment, then into Rudy’s, who gazed back at her with an attempt at belligerence that fell awkwardly flat. Finally, he dropped his gaze, and she turned back to Shane, who had begun to recover his equilibrium. “I’m sorry, ma’am, he… um, he ran right out into the road and I couldn’t stop in time.”

Again the level stare. “Did he,” she said flatly. Shane glanced at Rudy, who was inspecting his bloody shoes with great intensity. “Did he really,” she repeated, her voice as lifeless as the staring eyes of a shark.

“Well, um, yes. Look, I’m very, very sorry about this. I know that you must have been very close to him, living out here like this by yourself. I mean, if you do live here by yourself.” Her gaze penetrated Shane’s eyes, the world around him fading out. His words echoed idiotically in his ears as he babbled on. “We’ll replace him, of course. We’ll give him a decent burial and we’ll come back tomorrow with a new dog, or we could take you to a pet store, it wouldn’t be any trouble, we’d be happily to… we would happily drive you and your, uh, new friend back out here, really, I mean, since it was, um, our fault and all…” He continued in that vein for a few more tortured sentences, then let his voice trail off. Her stare never wavered.

“No, you shouldn’t replace my dog,” she said, her voice stronger. She turned her eyes to Rudy. “You…” she began, letting the word hang between them. She looked him up and down as he squirmed nervously. Her too-perfect teeth gleamed as she grimaced, or perhaps she’d just been alone so long she’d forgotten how to smile.

Shane shifted awkwardly on his feet, the night chill beginning to creep beneath his coat. Was she senile or something? He’d always felt so awkward around the elderly, never knowing where eccentricity stopped and Alzheimer’s started. Rudy finally tired of waiting out the silence, and said, “Yeah, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll replace it, all right? S**t, it was an accident. I can’t help it if your dog is too dumb to avoid cars.” Shane rolled his eyes, wishing he had a hand free to smack the man who was now officially his ex-friend. Rudy shuffled his feet a little and at last raised his head to meet her gaze, staring back at her with wide-open, sarcastic eyes as if talking to a stubborn child. “All right? S**t!” A drunken glint appeared in his eye, and he gestured with a stained hand at his face. “Besides, look how bad I got fucked up! I could sue you, you know! He should have been leashed!” He nodded emphatically, pleased with his gambit.

Shane cut him off as fast as possible. “Should I, um, take him around back? I’ll bury him for you, I mean, if you want. I don’t mind.” She didn’t appear to hear him at first, continuing to meet Rudy’s mocking gaze. In the face of the old woman’s continued silence, his nervousness had given way to his usual attitude of dumb aggression. Finally, without shifting her gaze, she said, “Yes, you will bury him behind the house. There is a shovel.” Shane took this as his cue to disappear, backing awkwardly down the porch. As he groped behind him with his foot, looking for a purchase on the ground, the step gave way beneath him with the wet rip of decayed wood. He sat down hard on the cold ground, a jolt of pain arrowing up his spine. Rudy’s idiotic laughter followed him as he struggled to his feet and disappeared around the corner of the house.

 

Rudy looked down at the old woman as she stood before him, her wispy gray hair shining in the light cast from the small lantern on the table in the room behind her. At first, her continued stare had made him nervous, but when she wouldn’t stop, it got kind of ridiculous. “Look, what’s the big deal?” he whined. “Dogs are cheap. Shane’ll replace it and everything will be fine.”

“No, I do not think he will,” she said, her voice grating on his nerves. She turned around and walked back into the house, leaving the door open. Rudy peered dubiously after her, then followed her in. “So, you live here by yourself, or what?” he asked, looking around. The front room of the house was much better kept than he’d expected, though the surprisingly clean ranks of animal figurines covering the many shelves that lined the walls must have been a nightmare to dust. He stood in the middle of the room, arms dangling loosely at his sides, trying to think of something to say. Truth be told, he felt pretty bad about hitting the dog, but there was no reason to go making a federal case out of it. He got weird when he was drunk. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? If she didn’t want them to replace the dog, f**k her. They’d just take off after Shane got back from burying it. He snorted as he thought of his p***y-a*s friend laboring to dig a hole in the cold and dark behind the house, and winced at the pain that flared in his nose. It had been broken before--you couldn’t cause trouble at as many bars as he had without paying for it once in a while--but he’d never imagined he’d see the day when Shane would turn on him. What the f**k had gotten into him?

The old woman sat down at the table and began digging through a small wooden box with an ornately carved hinged lid, picking through what looked like dried plants and bits of colored glass or stone. Rudy walked aimlessly around the small living room, wondering what the hell was taking Shane so long. He glanced idly through an open doorway into the kitchen, which meant that other door must lead to whatever passed for a bedroom in this place. Behind him, the old woman muttered to herself and continued to root through the box, finally holding up a withered gray object with a whispery cackle of triumph. Rudy turned his attention from a series of abstract glass creatures--at least he thought they were supposed to be animals--that looked like knots of spaghetti with hooves and squinted at her find curiously, wondering if she was genuinely crazy. The woman cradled the shrunken thing delicately in her left palm, stroking it a few times while muttering something under her breath, then rose from the table. He didn’t like the look in her eyes, but he couldn’t seem to break away from her stare. “I think you will,” was all she said as she raised her arm stiffly over her head and brought it down again faster than he would have imagined possible, striking the crown of his head with the flat of her palm. There was a blinding white flash that seemed to come from inside his head, and Rudy swore he could feel her hand moving through him, coming out his crotch as her arm arced downward. He staggered back, a hot trail burning through him from his head to his dick. “Jesus, what the f**k did you do?” he tried to yell, clawing at his chest, but only succeeded in producing a grating rasp. “What the f**k did you do?” The heat spread through him, until he felt like he was on fire. No, like he was fire, as if his skeleton had burst into flame and was roasting him from within. He desperately ripped his shirt off, some corner of his brain still insisting that it must have somehow caught fire, then dropped heavily to his knees, keening wildly. He was beyond words, feeling only the fire inside him. He toppled to one side, and lay writhing on the floor. The pain was like nothing he’d ever felt. It overwhelmed his brain until even his spastic twitching was stilled, and he could only lie there helplessly, a pure core of pain looking out at the world through glassy eyes. Then, finally, it began to abate. No, it was as if he grew accustomed to it. He still felt as if his bones had turned to lava, but somehow he could bear it. Almost. He was still trying to piece his thoughts together enough to wonder what was happening to him, when he saw his fingers shortening. He felt with horror his bones flowing inside him. “Jesus f**k they melted” was his last coherent thought. His arms were shrinking, the fingers drawing into the palms. He could feel his ribcage swelling, his legs retracting, his feet extending.

His tailbone sprouted from the base of his spine, running down his pants leg like a twitching snake. His skull softened, contracting and narrowing. His view of his hideously reshaped hands was blocked as his nose turned black and thrust away from his head, drawing a cone of flesh behind it. Just before they disappeared from sight, he saw his fingernails growing into claws. He stared numbly at this protrusion from his face as he felt the final movements in the reshaping of his body. Then, at last, it was over. He hadn’t noticed, but the pain had gone. He felt exhausted, unable to move at all. His breath came in pants, his tongue spilling onto the floor as his sides heaved. He tried to collect his thoughts, but it was like grasping at fog. He couldn’t complete a thought. Pictures flashed through his mind--bright eyes glowing in a beam of light, a fist flying at his face--but they were gone before he could comprehend them.

He groaned feebly as his body was again assaulted, this time by an itching that felt like a million insects walking over him, the insistent tickling of their legs brushing every millimeter of his skin . He sensed the old woman bending over him, and was rocked as she easily yanked his pants off. The pink of his face darkened as short hairs sprouted all over it. The itching slowly subsided as hair grew out over his entire body, finally fading completely. He lay there for a moment, still panting, but feeling more or less all right. He felt as if he should feel bad, but wasn’t sure why. Had he been sick? He tried to get to his feet, rising easily to all fours. A dim impression flashed through his brain that he should be standing on his hind legs, but it quickly passed. He looked up eagerly at the old woman as she towered over him, her wrinkled face split by an enormous grin that bared her gleaming white teeth. He barked with pleasure at this, and she bent over to scratch behind his ears. Her mouth moved, and she made a series of odd noises, one of which he recognized as the me-noise. He wagged his tail and pushed against her scratching fingers, and she made the good-noise. For the first time in a long time, he was genuinely happy.

 

Hands aching, Shane tamped down the soil of the small grave. It had taken a little while to find a patch soft enough for digging, and he’d had to do it almost one-handed, but he was finally finished. She was right, of course--they could never truly replace her dog. Living out here in the middle of nowhere, they must have formed a very close bond. But still, he would have died eventually. Life goes on. If she persisted in refusing, he’d just buy another dog and bring it back here tomorrow--she’d have to accept it. Then he remembered his car, and realized he probably wouldn’t be driving anywhere for a little while. He hadn’t seen any telephone wires leading to the house, so they’d just have to walk until they found some help. Lovely, a midnight stroll with a drunken moron. At least things could only get better from here.

As he rounded the corner of the house and approached the porch, he heard a bark. Well, he thought, at least she’s got another dog to keep her company. Then he heard her voice, now kindly rather than cold, and froze in his tracks. “Yes, you’re a fine replacement, Rudy. What a good dog.” Shane walked slowly toward the porch, looking through the open front door to see the woman bending over a handsome German shepherd, scratching its head contentedly. Scattered on the floor around her feet were Rudy’s clothes. Woman and dog turned at the same time to look at him, and he was sure he saw a dim flare of recognition in the dog’s eyes, its tail wagging merrily away. “You needn’t worry about replacing my dog, young man. Your friend has already done so.” Shane wasn’t given to belief in the supernatural, but somehow, between the look in her eyes and the look in the dog’s eyes, he knew exactly what had happened. He turned and fled up the driveway, slipping on the gravel, tearing up his hands, but not intending to stop until he was far, far away. The evil cackle of a thousand witches from a thousand cheap horror movies echoed in his head, but all he heard behind him was her gentle cooing to the dog. Somehow, that was much worse.

Author's Note

Not much to say here. I think this is the story in my current crop that's closest to being publishable.