Dancing on Daddy's Shoes

by Mark McDonald

Chapter 14: Abs is in town. He's looking for his son and finds far more than that on the night of the prom.



Dancing On Daddy's Shoes - Chapter 14 - Dancing The Demon's Dance

Abner had dozed off. He sat beneath a tree sufficiently sheltered from sight from the road but with enough of a view from the woods that he would have no trouble seeing Susan's car as it left the parking lot. Disturbed only by the occasional car with screaming teens as they drove by, he took little notice of anything else. Checking his watch, it was still early, only 9:00. They'd be in there for a couple of hours yet. There would be time enough to catch a wink or two before then. The noise of all those kids leaving when they shut the party down would be enough to wake him when it was over. With that, Abner closed his eyes again.

But something nagged at him, tugging at the corners of his mind, preventing him from actually drifting completely off. In the distance, the sound of the band wavered in and out with the opening and closing of the gym doors. He attributed this to worrying about being able to get out of here before his wife was found with her head caved in. It was a legitimate worry as worries go. Unable to take his mind off his concerns, he happened to glance in that direction at the sound of some students laughing a bit too loudly when he caught sight of Susan's Honda pulling out of the parking lot. The car turned right, out on State Road 881

Abs got to his feet, his legs asleep from sitting oddly on the ground for so long, stumbled, fell and scrabbled back up again. When he looked, he saw the face of his son staring at him from the driver side window. Ben's face was drawn in a comical expression of disbelief. There was something else there too. Abs caught the unmistakable whiff of fear on the air.

Abs raced around and climbed in his car. Down by the school two police officers with separate cruisers directed traffic. To his left Mountain View was deserted. This was the long way around. Town traffic came from the east on Abs right, where it was only fifteen miles or so from town. To the west, the road meandered around the base of the mountain past the only rail line and back to the town from the north.

Abs pulled out slowly so as not to attract attention, turned left and began to follow Ben.

-*-

Ben's head was craned around to the left almost to the limits of its motion. He had been distracted by movement in the leaves. Thinking that it may have been a deer or a dog or maybe a razorback, he had been horrified to see a face peering back at him from the undergrowth. This face was free of hair, both on top and on the face, but the eyes were what grabbed his heart and gave it a good hearty squeeze. They were the eyes of a demon he had hoped had fallen back into the pits of Hell.

"Oh Crap!" Ben hollered, scaring poor Kimberly half to death.

"BEN, God damn it, you almost made me pee myself." Kim noticed the car's engine beginning to labor and checked the speedometer. They were traveling at nearly 58 miles an hour and speeding up. "Slow down Ben, the limit is 45 through here."

"My Dad was back there, hiding in the fucking woods."

"What?" Kim asked, she turned and saw the headlights of a vehicle some distance behind them swinging out onto the highway from a place where Kim could not remember ever seeing a road. "You're Dad drives a motorcycle." Kim said worried as she turned back around, "That's a car."

"He had a car, an old POS something or other; he used to work on in his spare time. I saw him Kim, back there, tucked just off the road."

Kim turned and looked back again. The car was closer, but in the fading light of the late Spring sky, she could not tell what kind of car it was. "Why would he be waiting for you in the woods?"

"Maybe found out Mom let me use the car. Maybe he just fucking hates me, he hates everyone that has something he doesn't. He hates me on general principal."

Ben hit the first of the roads curves, a wide lazy thing, not too difficult to negotiate at the posted speed. Ben was closing in on sixty when he hit this one however and the back of the car threatened to slide out onto the verge from the force of the turn. Kim clutched at seat and the dash squealing in fear as Ben fought the car for control.

"BEN, you have to slow down, you might kill us," Kim insisted.

"If I don't Kim, then he certainly will. At the very least, you'll wish you were dead. Remember when you were a little girl?" Ben said peering in his rearview mirror. "He's catching up." The car was nearly on them. The driver was obviously more experienced and had caught them effortlessly. Inside the other car, Kim could see a bald man, his face was shadowed but Kim could tell he was large. "That doesn't look like your Dad."

"Kim, that's him, he's lost the beard and shaved his head, but that's him."

"Ben, maybe he just wants to talk to you about something."

Ben found time to roll his eyes, "Do you really believe he came all the way out here, staked out the school and is chasing us down because he wants to give me a couple of rubbers and talk to me about safe sex? It's an odd time to have one of those father and son heart to hearts. He was hiding Kim. He's after me." Ben tried hard to think of a way to get Kim out of this mess without getting her hurt. "I need you call 911."

Kim slapped her forehead, "911, of course, Duh!" Kim said, but only stared at Ben afterward.

"Kim, call the police," Ben said trying to keep his attention on the road.

"Okay," Kim said agreeably, "give me your phone,"

"My phone? Kim, I don't have a stinking phone. Use your phone," Ben said caustically. Kim's face had an immediate air of defeat, she sulked embarrassed but said nothing. "Oh for Pete's sake Kim, tell me you have a phone, please!"

"Uh, no." Kim said in a petulant young girl's voice. Still she dug around inside her black clutch to make sure.

"What kind of teenage girl doesn't have a cell phone?" Ben cried.

"The kind whose mother doesn't buy one for her," Kim snapped back.

"Oh shit! HANG ON!" Ben cried as he went into a steeper turn. The car Abs was driving backed off some, giving Ben a bit of distance to play with. Instead of breaking to take the turn, Ben floored the accelerator. The car lurched forward, the back end fishtailing, trying to follow the commands of the driver, the engine and the laws of physics at the same time. The front wheel drive pulled the car into line on the short but treacherous turn. Ben found a straight away, saw that his father was still trying to negotiate the turn and had fallen out of view behind them. Ben killed his head lights and instantly Susan's beat up rice-burner blended into the mountain night.

Not much longer, twenty miles to town, "We're almost there."

"We should have turned around Ben. There were police at the school." Kim whined, frightened. One hand was buried into the seat cushion, the other clutched at her seat belt.

"He's between us and them. Wanna turn around and see what he does?" Ben asked with a certain sarcastic bite.

Kim shook her head. "No, not really." With Ben's statement came clarity. It seemed that particular option hadn't been a good idea to begin with. She was scared. But at the moment she was scared of only one thing, a wreck. She had no idea why Ben's father would be chasing them down. She couldn't quite convince herself that he had harmful intentions. Still, he was chasing them. You'd think if he wanted Ben to pull over, he'd be flashing his lights or honking his horn.

Kim turned to look out the rearview mirror. The lights of Abner's vehicle were just sweeping around the bend in the road. "He's still back there."

"Yeah, I know." Their thoughts were jolted as the car's right front wheel landed in a pothole. The rear wheel followed it with a mighty crash making everything in the vehicle not bolted down to rattle.

-*-

When Abs cleared the turn, the car was gone. There was no sign of it on the road at all. "Clever boy," he mumbled to himself as he scanned the darkness for signs of where Ben might have turned off.

He couldn't tell if they had gotten off on one of the many side roads that ran deep into the hills here or if he's just pulled off into the woods. Either way it would be nearly impossible to follow him once he was up in the hills or to tell exactly where he pulled off for that matter. Problem was there were no lights on this road. The highway was an old one. Very few people, apart from the permanent residents of the area and the students ever really used it anymore. Ben probably knew the area pretty well. For generations, almost all the boys in the area came down this road here to fish in the Tennessee or drink whatever boys drank away from prying eyes. If Abs hung around here much longer there was the very real risk of the cops tracking him down.

They're close to the railroad tracks. They'll be in town soon, can't let them get that far.

Abs stepped hard on the accelerator and rocketed forward in hopes of catching dust trail down a side road or a pair of tail lights going around a corner or up a hill. After a few minutes, something sparked not far in front of him. It wasn't more than a bright firefly flash in the distance. But it had been too brief, too bright, to be a lightening bug. Clutching the wheel to pull himself forward out of the glare of the dashboard lights, Abs leaned forward and squinted against the darkness.

In the greenish half-light glow beneath his chin, he looked no less a demon than had the gates of Hell opened and vomited him out. His neck was laced with cords of muscles, twined and standing out in stark relief of his skin. The shadows fell here and there creating the visual effect of empty spaces between them, making his head look only partially attached. He looked to be a rotting corpse, his massive chest pressed against the steering wheel, his eyes a pale sort of ghastly jaundiced yellow. There the complex roadmap of blood vessels appeared to be black, pumping bile like poison through his system.

He trained on the narrowing road before him and waited. "Come on… come on…" he muttered under his breath. The evil deity to whom he prayed did not disappoint him. Soon, there was another spark, then another!

"Gotcha mother fucker." He had been considering removing that chain only days before he left for his cabin, if for no other reason than to silence Susan's incessant nagging about how much noise it made while she was driving. "Well now, she won't be complaining about that any more, will she?" he asked himself with great glee. He burst into menacing laughter at his own sick joke, taking a second to mentally pat himself on the back for his quick wit. Now, here in the gloom of the back roads of the Tennessee Mountains he was grateful he had never taken the time to dislodge that chain from the trailer hitch. Tonight it was a homing beacon. He couldn't help laughing at the irony of it. And so he laughed and laughed and laughed as the RPMs of his car's engine rose steadily.

-*-

"He's not turning around Ben." Kim's voice was rising in octaves as the mounting stress weighted more significantly on her brain. Ben said nothing. His idea had not been meant to get Abs to turn around and give up, but to buy time to think. The ploy had not given him enough time. Behind them, Ben could hear the tow-chain skipping of the surface of the street. He knew it was beckoning to his father like a signal flare.

Whatever he wanted Ben felt Abs wasn't going to stop until he got it. Kim turned to him and spat, "BEN, are you listening to me. I said he's not fooled by putting your lights out, you have to do something."

Ben turn to her, "Yes Kim," Ben said as an odd calm washed over him. "I know. I'm trying to…" Ben turned his attention back to the road in front of him and terror filled the whole of his being. "OH SHIT KIM,"

Kim spun around but never saw the railroad crossing guard mechanism they hit. They were both ejected from the car. Ben flew across the seat and wrapped Kim up in his arm before the impact with the railroad crossing gate and broken down DOT truck parked along side it, waiting for its master to return and repair it. The position of the truck made it impossible to maneuver the car to avoid both by the time he saw it. If Ben had had his lights on, then it would have been visible. If he had been going the speed limit, it would have been avoidable even without his lights on. Neither case was true.

Susan's Civic impacted with the great steel arm and motorized mechanism that powers the crossing arm, placing as best he could, as much of the Impact on the driver's side of the car in order to spare his passenger. He then tried to hold her to prevent her from being ejected. The result was that the windshield of the car was forced out of the frame on impact. Ben and Kim were thrown free of the wreckage and Ben's body protected Kim from the impact with the ground.

The side of Kim's face impacted with the ground and gravel strewn about from the rail bed over time. Her knees and legs had deep abrasions as did her nose, cheeks and chin. Her forehead had a deep cut along the hair line. Ben's chest impacted with the dashboard on the way out of the vehicle then Kim landed on Ben after he had landed on the ground. The dash board broke three ribs and punctured one of his lungs. The fall to the ground fractured a portion of his skull. Unknown to either of them, Ben began bleeding in his brain. His impact with Kim broke three bones in his left arm and forced his leg and ankle around pulverizing his ankle, Talus bone into dust.

He never lost consciousness during the beating he took from the crash, he wanted to however. The pain that racked him was more than exquisite it was otherworldly. He tried to stand, rolling to his left slightly to give his right arm leverage. He tried to slide his leg below himself but only toppled over in the attempt. Ben's nerve endings sang but his brain did not join the chorus. He was already going into shock.

The world was a blur of dark and darker shades of black. Noises hummed relentlessly in his head. Lights, like phantoms, flashed on and off again, over and over in his head. After his first attempt at standing failed he remained still. He had to battle to breathe. Inside his chest as he fought for breath, was a deep rattling gurgle. He was vaguely aware that there seemed to be fluid deep down inside him obstructing his attempt to breathe.

You have to find her… GET UP!

Her who, Ben wondered? "Ohhhhh Jesus!," Ben groaned, trying to protect his arm and injured side.

He ordered himself again to get up, but he could not, so he did the next best thing. He lay there trying to collect his thoughts. Kimberly… Where the hell did Kimberly go? They were out together. "Kimberly…" Ben moaned. "Oh shit, KIM!" They hit something and then… What? He couldn't remember. But she was out there somewhere, dead or alive, she was out there. He had to find her.

He called out to her. "KIM! Where are you?" Behind him rose a soft groan in the high grass not far away. He could vaguely recall something (or someone), landing on him, but not much else. She must have bounced over there, he thought to himself. Looking in the direction where the moaning came from, he could just make out a glimpse of pale skin beneath the black dress she wore but could not see how badly she was injured. After a minute or so, he could hear her softly crying. He was gratefully relieved. It meant she was breathing, she was alive!"

"KIM, KIM! Answer me Kim."

"What happened?" Kim croaked. She began sobbing again. It was a pretty good sign. "Aw God, I'm dying."

"How badly are you hurt? Can you stand?" Ben cried out. In the grass there was movement and soon Kim was standing. She was covered in her own blood. It was all over her, streaked through her hair, in dark patches that glistened in the moon light down her dress. Her legs, her beautiful, beautiful legs were a wash in red. The hose she wore were shredded and hung in dripping strips. Her dress was torn and hung loosely from one shoulder. She walked through the grass, limping and pathetically mewing in pain as she did. Nothing seemed to be broken on her, but she was favoring her right arm. It hung limply at her side as she hobbled closer.

In the distance and through the haze of pain, Ben could hear the modified engine of his father's Toyota approaching.

Ben tried to reach out to her as she got closer, "Help me up Kim. My leg is broken; I think my arm is too."

Kim tried to help him up. Fighting the pain and the tears being moved invoked, he strained to help her right him, but Ben was too heavy to lift, the pain too great. Unexpectedly Kim fell very still. She crouched next to him, easing his head down beside her. The whispered warning that fell from her mouth felt to be a portent of prophesized evil come to bear on the heads of all mankind, "Oh Ben, he's here." He could hear the engine of his father's vehicle idle down and then shut off.

Both of them could hear the driver's side door open. Soon Abs boots were crunching through the gravel and coal strewn around the ground. These were slow, deliberate steps. Ben could hear the pumice mixed in with the gravel popping, its delicate structure giving way under Abs' boots the way Susan's head had. They were the steps of a man savoring the moment, surveying a great lost treasure sought for years, but only now rediscovered. Ben knew Abs would take his time. He would try to terrify them. He would feed off that energy much the way a vampire would feed on blood. When they had no more fear to offer him, then and only then would Abs end it.

Ben knew something else with great clarity of mind that the idea nearly caused him to pass out. His father would make sure Kim's parents understood exactly how much their daughter had suffered. One way or the other, he would make sure Thomas Glass would enjoy the same terror Kim was about to experience.

The head lights had been left on. All the better to see you with my Dear… Ben thought as a verse of the Perrault nursery rhyme danced in his head. Ben and Kim could only see the colossal silhouette Abs cast as he passed in front of those lights. All at once he stopped. He was facing them, they could both see that, it was then Abs began to chuckle to himself.

"So," his father greeted cheerfully. "Had a little fender-bender did ya?"

"Run Kim," Ben whispered.

Confused, either by the impact or fear, Kim didn't run, she only asked, "Ben?"

Ben lay frustrated, unable to help, scared but more than that, he was angry. If he could, he was going to do what he could to kill Abs. Only Ben wasn't so confident he'd be successful. It was best to get Kim as far away as possible in either case. "Kim, do as I'm telling you and fucking run into the woods, go, run away. DO IT NOW KIM!"

But Kim was frozen, she could not run, she could not even move. She simply knelt next to Ben and whimpered, frightened.

"That's right little girlie, run. I like it when they run. Makes it feel like it's really more of a challenge. So run, please. Cause I can tell you right now when I'm done putting this worthless pile of shit out of my misery, I'm gonna come and get me a little snapper pie."

For an old man, as Ben saw him, he was fast, faster than Ben could have imagined. Before either of them could blink, he had her. He pulled her to him across Ben's prone body, as he stepped over Ben to get closer. "I just bet you're about the tightest thing I've ever seen. All grown up now too." Abs grabbed her already torn dress at her bodice and in one fluid motion ripped it from her body, leaving her only black strapless bra, panties, hose and shoes. "That's better," he said. Taking her by the neck, he forced her to stand. Kim mewed in pain and panic, wishing silently she had found her legs and had run when Ben begged her to. With Kim now standing semi-erect, Ben's father then reached down and grabbed her crotch in an iron claw of a hand. She squealed as he cupped it roughly squeezing it in a painful handful of flesh. She tried not to cry out, but each attempt to be strong was subdued with a tighter and tighter grip. Soon it felt like he was trying to rip her genitals from her body.

Kim finally cried out clutching the man's arm with her left hand and tried to bend her knees to position her body as far from his reach as possible. Around the edges of her face, an all too familiar burning began to grow. She cried out hard and loud, weeping and thrashing to get free, convulsing cries of pain and fear. Abs pulled back viciously and Kim cried out again, "Don't pull away from me bitch. Keep it where I can get to it." Abs snarled shaking her by her neck.

What had just transpired before his eyes had taken less than five seconds, but Ben had seen enough. There was no pain in the world that was going to keep him from preventing this somehow. No pain, that is, except the one in his arm and ankle that is. He tried once more to get up on his own and failed. Now, to his horror, his vision was starting to close out on him. What he could still see was cloudy, but a large part of his field of vision was simply gone. He had a truly fucked headache and a dry mouth. He feared he was going to pass out soon, leaving Kimberly helpless.

Beside him, a large rock, coincidently the very one that had fractured his skull though he wasn't aware of that, lay close at hand. He rolled it to him and clutched it frantically to his chest. Ben then bent his damaged leg at the knee, dragging his now unsupported foot clumsily along the gravel beneath. The pain sent new flashes of light into his brain. Struggling to get his leg braced beneath Kim, he set himself against the pain that he knew was just a head of him. Suddenly, Kim jerked backward trying again to free Abs' grip. When she did she jammed Ben's limp ankle down into the ground like a hammer drives a nail.

It did the trick. Ben was all at once awake and alert, brought back from the depths of a fading consciousness. He screamed out against the anguish of the pain in such a ghastly shriek, it distracted both antagonist and victim from the course of their business. His father stood directly above him, almost straddling him where he lay. Ben forced the large rock he had gathered and drove it with all his force upward in to Abs scrotum.

The effort brought new worlds of pain to Ben. His side flexed and tried to retreat. Ben's left arm, useless as it was still tried to brace against further abuse. Ben screamed in shear agony as white hot pain flashed in him. Every nerve ending felt as if it had been dipped in flaming alcohol. But he was dimly aware that his scream wasn't the only one on the air. Both Kim and his father were screaming as well. Hearing Abs cry out made Ben smile in spite of the suffering he endured.

Above him, like magic, Abs iron maniacal of a hand let go of Kim's crotch. The burning at the edges of her mask ceased all at once. The pain in her groin however had evolved into a throbbing sort of heat.

The sensation Abs experienced initially was only a reaction to the instinctual knowledge of what he knew was coming next. It would be his brain's only chance to react for a time. So react it did. Then his screaming all at once, dried up. He grabbed his jeans at the union of its legs almost knocking the rock from Ben's hand. His knees buckled and then he seemed to just lock up. Abs posed like that for a few seconds and then pitched forward without a sound, face first into the gravel to Ben's right. To Kim, it looked like an invisible assailant had shoved Abs forward from the back.

Abs's legs finally relaxed and Ben took the opportunity to bring the rock down on his father's right ankle smashing the man's calcaneus, the lower fibula and tibia as well. Ben would have crushed his skull with it but Abs head had fallen out of Ben's reach. Abs twitched and tried to roll away to prevent the additional injuries he knew where happening but was powerless to prevent. The pain in his groin was still a major motivation in the life of Abner Ackerman at the moment. Ben lifted the mighty rock once more and brought it down on the joint at the back of his father's knee. It did little damage except to open a major gash in his father's leg. Not much but it helped to level the playing field just a bit more.

Kim watched as Ben did his best to disable his monster of a father, oblivious to the concept of self preservation. Ben was a mess. She had to get him some help. He was bleeding from at least a half a dozen places, including his ears and his mouth. As he tried to breathe, foamy blood gurgled from his mouth. When Ben finally turned to Kim and cried, "Kim, GO!" Blood spewed from his mouth in a grizzly display.

This time she didn't wait. Staggering backward, terrified, she fled. Ben was right, her experience with Kirk had taught her that when a man wanted something bad enough, he could probably take it long before help ever arrived. She would not be able to stop Abs alone. If she could do anything at all for Ben, it would be to run and find help. In the back of her mind however, she knew that there was no way she would get back in time to keep Abs from killing Ben. It was the ultimate sacrifice he was making for her. When that realization hit her it couldn't have stopped her faster than if she'd hit a brick wall. He's going to die if I don't do something.

She had managed to run ten yards into the woods and had gotten turned around. Now she didn't know which way was out. Until, that is, she heard Abs growl from somewhere behind her, "Gonna kill you now, boy." She searched the ground around her franticly for something to use as a weapon and found only a large pine branch that was too clumsy and heavy to wield effectively. Still, she felt she had to try something. "I'm coming Ben…" she hefted the large branch between her body and her left arm and began dragging it out of the woods behind her.

-*-

Ben was about to fade out. He could feel himself slipping away when his father growled deep and low in his throat, the pain subsiding enough that he had once more regained some control over his damaged body. "Gonna kill you now boy."

Somewhere in the distance, he thought he heard Kimberly crying out for him. Is she still in trouble? Oh God, I can't make it to her… Please… Let her get out alive.

He let his head turn toward the road. No one… Where is everyone? He was stunned that no cars had come along this barren stretch of road. It wasn't even that late, 9:30 at the latest. Someone should have heard or seen the accident, sent help, screamed for them to hold it down, something! There was nothing, no help, no savior. Ben pushed off with is right hand and found himself kneeling. He planted his left foot and pressed his lower leg bones into the fractured joint of his ankle until it felt stable and then used is right leg to lift himself to a full stand. Ben cried out in great pain as he stood. It was not only the grinding of what felt like broken glass in his ankle, but the gravity pulling on his left arm as the broken shards of bone from three breaks ground against each other.

When Ben cried out, to Abner it sounded a lot like the roar of some great monster and for a moment, Abner experienced a flicker of fear.

Ben's only intent was to simply get across the tracks. He had no plan beyond that. His thoughts were becoming confused and disoriented. For just a moment, he was at his grandmother's house, Susan's mother. She was sweet and had spoiled Ben with ice cream and honey after her good old fashion country dinners.

Someone called his name, "Ben…" It was a voice he felt he should have known. In his half dazed state however, it was his Grams that spoke his name. But the image didn't match the voice. "Ben… he's coming, look out." The visage of his Grams evaporated. The softly decorated country décor of her old-time kitchen vanished. It was an effect Ben was familiar with. One he had seen once before, standing on the porch of his best friend Tim Glass as the world dissolved around him. As it had that night, he found himself lost in the middle of a night-time landscape and a monster close on his heels.

The sound of Kim's voice had brought him back, 'Now, exactly why am I here again?'

Behind Ben, some monstrous creature roared his name, "BEEEEEENNNNNN!"

'Oh yeah, now I remember.' That thought was more than he could take and he began laughing as he limped along the line. Down line Ben saw a linesman's box. There would be a phone to the dispatcher in there. He wouldn't live to see help arrive but Kim might. Ben locked his eyes on the equipment box and leaned forward to give himself momentum.

"Where are you going Ben?" cried his father, "You can't hide from me."

When Kim reached the tree line she was shocked to find Ben stumbling clumsily along between the two rails of the track on the raised track bed. He was moving away from her, east away from town. Not far behind, about twenty feet was Abs. He was making bad time and losing ground on Ben with each step. Abs right foot flopped about like a cat's toy on a string. His injury not withstanding, he was still up and moving. Even more alarming to Kim was the idea that he seemed to be getting better at walking with each step.

"Shit or get off the pot Pop," Ben fired back and be hobbled along. The pain in his leg seemed to be gone now and he was making much better time than his father who was still hurting in the lower leg pretty badly.

Abs laughed, "It took dying to make you brave enough to face me? That's fucking comedy boy. If I'd known that's what it would take, I would have killed you a long time ago."

"You keep talkin Pop, but I'm still walkin. Why don't you go home and hang your worthless, stupid ass from a rafter where no one will fuckin find The BODY!"

"Holy shit Ben. What did your dear old Dad ever do to you to deserve that?" That one question held more humor than Abs and Ben had ever shared at any point in their lives. Both men were suddenly racked with gales of mutual, hysterical laughter. Still they limped along, two soldiers sharing the hilarity of their tragic personal experience after battle. Ben was almost doubled over from laughing. Abs, also still laughing heartily, wanted to take advantage of this but was laughing too hard to do anything but stand there and roar with the humor of it. "You know, I left something for you at home. Call it an over due birthday present. Too bad you won't live to see it."

Limping away, leading him as far away from Kim as he could, Ben called back, "So tell me anyway?"

Each step for Abs was molten steel under his now battered skin. But the nerves were beginning to weaken or perhaps his foot and ankle were dying. He wasn't going to be able to catch Ben this way. It was going to come down to who fell down first. One way or the other, the police were going to catch him now. Abs was only concerned about one thing, doing Ben before they got here.

"I left it in the hallway Ben. I'm afraid it's probably startin' to stink by now though."

Ben stopped dead. Inside him, his gut spun wildly. He understood perfectly well what his father was insinuating. Putting words to the idea was more than poor Ben could handle. Between the pain and this new, horrible idea Ben vomited uncontrollably.

"Don't thank me boy," his father said for a minute, savoring his victory, "It really was my pleasure."

He turned on his father with yellowish gore hanging from his chin, glaring at him. "No… you couldn't have."

Kim watched the exchange from the edge of the woods, but she could not hear clearly what Abs was saying to Ben. Ben looked furious at whatever it was and Kim prayed that he would not let himself be goaded into approaching Abs. Strains of what Abs said drifted in and out of her hearing coupled with the distant sound of a train horn.

Kim's head turned west, her eyes searching in the darkness at a point in space where she felt she would see the first hint of what she knew she's soon see, Train's coming…Kim fretted. She turned her gaze back to the drama playing out to the east, Ben get off the tracks.

Abs pressed on now that Ben was still. He could make ground on him now. "You bet I did, shoved my boot right through her face. She didn't even recognize me at first." Abs crowed.

"You're a liar." Ben fired back out of breath, "You've never told me the truth, not once."

"That hurt Ben." Abs said mocking his son with a sympathetic tone. "I told you all kinds of truth. I'm the one that called you a worthless pussy, remember. That was the truth. That shit your mother fed you, now that was 100 percent unadulterated bullshit, Son."

"Mom's not dead," Ben insisted. "You're trying to trick me into coming over there."

"Right on one count, Benny Boy. Judges, anything on the first part of Ben's answer," Abs made an angry buzzing noise, "Judges say she's as dead as a fucking coffin nail boy. Don't worry though, you'll see her soon enough."

Ben ran his bloody fingers through his hair, NOOOOO, he's lying. Don't listen to him. But Ben knew he wasn't lying. Abs was evil, but he wasn't a liar. If he said he'd killed her, then Ben could count on the fact that his mother was dead. "YOU SON-OF-A-BITCH!"

"Never claimed otherwise my boy." Abs said lurching closer, smiling larger with each step.

Ben fell backwards, painfully stumbling over the rail switch that diverted trains to a local spur. Leaning against the long lever to rest, trying to let the pain in his shattered ankle and ribs fade, the rail switch shifted slightly under Ben's weight. Beneath him, he noticed that the padlock that was put in place to keep the lever in a stable position was splintered. It wasn't unusual to find a rail switch with a busted lock. Vandals did things like this all the time.

The train horn sounded, this time much louder. Ben could here the thrum of the diesel engines coming through the valley. Abs laughed, "Hey Ben, train's coming, better move yer car!"

Through the valley, Ben could see the head light of the lead engine. Kim was standing on the rail bed. Her black satin underwear stood out in sharp contrast against her creamy white skin, even in this darkness. He could only pray that she moved back away from the tracks. His father was supporting himself on one foot. If he teetered Ben noticed, he would touch a rail tie painfully with his bent and shattered left leg, just enough to steady himself. Ben could see the pain reflected in Abs face, a face that, for the first time, Ben recognized as his own. In his original timeline, Ben had never really gotten to know his father. His mother had never taken him to see Abs in jail, thankful just to be rid of him.

Now Ben could see the family resemblance and he hated his father more than ever for giving him a face that he would forever see as someone else's, a monster's face.

Abs limped up the tracks. Ben was too tired and injured to move any more. It would end this way then. Ben would stand his ground here, keeping Abs on the side of the track with the rail switch when the train passed. It would be between Kim and Abs, at least for a while. Ben hoped she would take the initiative and run like Hell while she had the chance.

The horn from the approaching train sounded again, closer this time. Ben's eyes followed the tracks from where the train was to where his father was limping along, trying to shorten the distance between them. He would have to remain here and keep his father on course as long as possible. He viewed the elevated rail bed, dreading the jump he knew he would have make to keep his father on the south side of the tracks. Ben once more gauged the distance between Abs and himself.

Then Ben noticed a curious thing. Abs was using the inner edge of the rail and the crossties as a flat surface to steady his course. He was sliding his good foot along the rail, hooking against the thing to keep himself on a straight line. Ben watched as Abs slipped his foot between the stock rails and the point blades of the spur. Ben's attention leaped briefly to the rail switch for a second and then slowly back at his father, who was now only a few steps away. "Hey Dad,"

"Yeah son," Abs said in the kindliest of voices.

Ben smiled a tremendous smile and spat, "Fuck you." Ben thrust the entire weight of his body against the rail switch. At first it stuck, driving a deep and disturbing pain into the core of Ben's chest. Then it gave, spinning around to Ben's left and sending him toppling down the rail bed embankment in a heap. The point blades closed with crushing force against the stock rails of the main line trapping Abs good foot between them, crushing it in a giant vice, locking him to the tracks. Abs was trapped.

The scream of pain that erupted from his father was agonizing. Ben didn't realize that men could scream that way. Abs had fallen to his knees, the train behind him was now getting close. Abs suddenly raised his head and howled a blood curdling sound from deep in his chest. In the track bed, Ben could feel the vibrations from the train's large steel wheels. Ben watched as Abs tried to pull his leg free, but the tendons beneath the burst flesh of his ankle would not give way.

The horn blared again, this time it was deafening. Ben watched as his father's head swung around to gage both distance and time. Abs struggles became panicked as he understood that he was now nearly out of at least one very valuable commodity, time. He struggled with agonizing determination to a standing position. Abs searched the tracks for an escape. When he found none he grabbed his trapped leg and tried to pull it free. Abs opened his mouth to scream., his face wild with panic, the train's lamp giving a strange surreal light to his father from behind. Abs wavered; his mouth open, the only sound on the air was the sound of the train's horn, making it look to Ben as if that awful sound was coming from his father.

From where he lay, he could see Kim running in their direction, still on the opposite side of the tracks with the train now in full site. The Engineer saw the mangled wreck of Ben's car and a man and a woman close enough to get killed by the on rush. He blared his horn to warn them, and startled beyond words, Kim jumped backward. Ben watched as she lost her footing and fell back away from the tracks and out of sight down the embankment.

The horn was still blasting when the train hit what was left of his mother's Civic. It smashed it back into the crossing gate, bringing the gate mechanism down with a thunderous crash. The car was forced down the track bouncing and rolling as it went. The train hit it again and shoved it off the track in a twisted heap. Abs was still screaming when the train hit him from behind. His body seemed to explode in a shower of blood and body parts, all of which was highlighted by the engines powerful torch. Parts of his father rained down on Ben as the trains breaks engaged sending sparks flying from all the steel wheels as far as Ben could see down the tracks.

The train it turned out was pulled by only two engines. It coasted by and managed to stop some 250 yards down the line. By the time the crew had come back to inspect the damage and look for survivors, Kim was already by Ben's side. The Engineer stopped short of the site. Kim was cradling Ben's head and whispering to him. "I'm still here Ben. Kim's scrapes from her fall down the steep track bed had stopped bleeding but not before she had once again been slathered in blood. Ben was fading in and out of consciousness and the girl with him was pleading for him to hang on. All around them and strewn down the tracks were the obvious signs of another. A person that was no longer recognizable as a person.

Kim looked up at the engineer, she was trembling and obviously injured. She spoke in a weak and shaky voice, "Please help us,"

"I radioed for help. It should be here soon." He approached and crouched beside her. He could see that she was clad only in bloody undergarments. "Where are you injured," he asked gently?

"It's… It's… It's not me, it's B… B… B… en. He's h… h… h… urt real bad," Her breaths were coming in hitches and fits. Completing whole thoughts was more than a challenge at the moment.

The man looked down at Ben and saw a visible depression in the boys head. He examined Ben's eyes with a pen light and found them dilated. Nor did they respond to the light of his flashlight. The boy was breathing however, but the rest of his body was a mess. "Sweetheart, I…" He wanted to tell her that he didn't think her friend was going to make it and move her away from him before the moment came. But he found he couldn't. The rest of his crew came running up and stopped short where he was kneeling beside this young girl and this badly battered young man.

One of them whispered, "Jesus, they're just kids." All of them were heart sick. Some of them even knew associates in the industry that had been involved in accidents like this. The actual scene was far more gruesome than words had been able to convey.

"How many Chief," one of his crew asked?

Chief Farway glanced over his shoulder and said, "Looks like it's gonna be two. The girl's in shock I think." There was a sudden, sharp pain to his right cheek. He turned to see where it had come from and Kim slapped him again.

"He's not dead! He's not gonna die. Do you hear me? Now help him!"

"Honey…" Kim slapped the man again.

"I SAID HELP HIM," she screamed at the Engineer with all the fight and fury of a tornado.

Chief Farway turned and shouted, "Call the state police on the radio, get them the fuck out here. Get Jackson to bring some blankets from the cab, bring it back with a bottle of water, no two bottles and bandages from the first aid kit and a fucking tourniquet. HURRY!"

When he looked back at Kim she was nodding rapidly. To him, it looked more like a convulsion. "Thank you," the girl said and went back to attending her friend. "Ben, help is on the way, hang on. Please hang on." She then sat and rocked him gently. Down the road they could see the authorities coming. "I hope I didn't hurt you," Kim said without looking up. When Chief Farway didn't answer, Kim did look up and lock eyes with him.

His first thought echoed that of his crewmen, 'Good God, they really are just kids. This is someone's little girl. I probably killed someone's kids,' He leaned in once more and asked, "Are you hurt miss?" The girl was covered in blood and wearing only her undergarments. 'What in the hell was going on here?'

The girl was not crying, Farway sensed she did not want to let go in front of her boyfriend. That would be too much like admitting that the kid wasn't going to make it. If Farway had ever seen a kid that wasn't going to make it though, it was the boy this young lady was cradling in her arms.

"Help is coming. I can hear the sirens. What about you, are you hurt?" Just then, one of the train crew, Jackson presumably, was heard running along the rail bed, gravel from the bed crunching beneath his hurried steps.

"Good Gawd," he cried out when he saw the carnage. "Did we hit them?"

"I thought so at first," Farway said grabbing one of the blankets from Jackson. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the Honda wrapped around the crossing guard control, "But I think they hit that trying to avoid that truck."

"There's blood all over the number one engine, we hit something and it weren't no deer either."

"That car is not on the tracks. It didn't even get close. How do you know it wasn't a deer."

"Deer don't wear blue jeans boss." Jackson informed him. "I wonder if what we hit didn't get here in that?" Jackson pointed to a spot just behind where the smashed Civic lay. Abs' Toyota was parked just off the winding mountain road on the shoulder.

"Jesus Christ," Farway muttered, shaking his head.

'I need to call my daughter when this is over, tell her that I love her.'

"Did we hurt anyone on your train," the young lady in the blood streaked underwear asked?

"No Sweetheart," Farway assured her in his softest voice, "you didn't hurt anyone."

"Good, that's good," Kim sighed, relieved.

"Just be still, Okay? What's your name? Can you tell me if you're hurt," But it was clear she was hurt, the question was, just how bad. Kim still wouldn't answer, Farway reckoned she didn't want her young man to hear. Farway didn't know what to do. He did know what not to do however.

He looked at Jackson and said, "Don't move them, even though she's sitting up, she may still have injuries we can see that could get worse if we move her. The boy isn't going anywhere, so just keep her still. I'm going to go flag down the cops when they get close."

"Miss, what's your name," Jackson asked this time?

"My name?" Kim seemed to have to think about it for a moment. She looked straight into the man's eyes and said, "I'm Kimberly. I'm sorry about your train."

"My name is Dave, Dave Jackson," They could hear the sirens of the approaching emergency vehicles.

"Here they come Ben…" Ben responded by going into a serious grand mal seizure.

Together, they helped to stabilize Ben. Dave pulled his wallet out and shoved it into Ben's mouth and received a healthy bite to one of his finger for his efforts. Kim whined in distress and held onto Ben as best she could. She was no longer concerned with anything other than Ben's survival. If Ben was going to die tonight, she wanted him to know she was with him. She had stayed with him and it seemed important that he know that.

"Is he your boyfriend?"

Kim could only stare blankly back at the man remembering the near intimacy they had shared just before reentering the school gym, "Tonight was our first date." With that, Kim stalwart resolve broke. Her face crumbled as she leaned over and kissed Ben's bloody forehead. Dave Jackson, a thirty year employee of the railroad, veteran of two foreign wars, wounded twice in Vietnam and generally one tough son-of-a-bitch couldn't help himself. He broke down and cried with Kim. The questions were over as far as he was concerned. He couldn't stand another heart breaking answer.

Dave Jackson reflected back to a time when his own baby sister had been killed by a drunk driver. She had left the house happy, laughing and full of life. No one, least of all Emily, would have believed that when she shut the door behind her, it would be the last time. Dave prayed to himself that this night would not be the last time their parents would ever see their children. He sat silently with Kim and Ben until paramedics arrived to take over a few moments later, thinking about just how fast life could turn on a dime.