The Late Night Ride
First published in ‘Story to…Pod People’ - second issue
release date - 17 November 2008
May looks to his eyes; so deep, blue and reassuring. ‘Do you like working in the city?’
The moment that he becomes aware of her focused attention, he suddenly smiles broadly. ‘I don’t really like it or hate it,’ he replies with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘I don’t like having to catch the last train home when I finish at one o’clock in the morning, or five-thirty in the morning to get in to open the store at seven. But it’s no big deal really; the train only takes an hour each way.’
‘Don’t your parents worry about you?’
There is a look of incomprehension on John’s face. ‘Worry? They’re the ones that sent me for the interview. And besides I think it’s different for guys anyway.’
It would have been easy to accept that it was just a difference in sex. Easy for her to believe it is just another obsolete double standard. But she wondered how he had coped the first time he had made the trip, when he had been her age. She moves her seat closer to his, her mind filling with all the movie portrayals of semi-deserted late night trains populated with drunk derelicts and violent, strung out addicts. ‘But don’t you get scared?’
‘I’m usually too tired to be worried about anything. I have to close up the store on Friday and Saturday nights and I have to make the last train or wait to four o’clock the next morning for another one,’ John admits, dismissing the suggestion. ‘I fall asleep by the time we get to Central. The only thing that I worry about is waking up at my station. There isn’t a train back in the other direction for another two hours.’
‘So nothing’s ever happened? You’ve never been mugged or anything?’
‘Oh you know-,’ John says flippantly, not looking at her. ‘Things happen, but it’s nothing that’s worth talking about. I’ve never been hurt and I’ve never had anything taken from me. Technically I haven’t been mugged.’
‘But people have tried,’ May persists, seizing on his admission. His almost offhand attitude seems somehow almost too casual, as if he is striving hard to convince her of something he does not believe. ‘What happened?’
‘This is so boring.’ John announces languidly, his forced smile at odds with his tone. ‘Are you sure that you really want to know about it?’ He sighs softly when she nods her head. When he continues, it is in a quiet, flat monotone, as if reading from a technical manual. ‘Let’s just say that I’m not the nicest person when I’m woken up.’ As she watches, like the tide turns, grey steel floods over the blue of his eyes and his face hardens, frightening her. ‘Sometimes the passengers aren’t the ones who have to be scared. Sometimes it’s the muggers who do.’
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Cruisin’
First published in House of Horror (UK) Issue 8
Blake leant against the silver BMW in the near empty car park, sucked deeply on his cigarette then looked at it carefully to see how much was left and cringed.
Two drags. Only two more drags.
It would have to be the last one of the day. If Caroline smelt it on him, there would be hell to pay, which is why he couldn’t risk smoking in her car. He was certain she’d be waiting up for him to deride him again.
Her list of his failures, both as a man and as a husband, was already endless and he didn’t need to hand her another example.
He took another drag, feeling like a schoolboy trying not to get caught behind the toilets, and shook his head.
Maybe she’s right. Fifty years old and scared of my own wife. It’s ridiculous.
He took his last drag slowly, savouring it, rolling the smoke in his mouth before sucking it deep into his lungs. He held his breath as he stubbed out the butt and then smiled when he checked his watch.
Blake was an investment consultant specialising in servicing regional and rural clients, the majority of which took advantage of their night out in the big city when they came to meet with him, happy to claw back some of the high fees they paid him. The nights usually dragged on as they moved from restaurant to bar to strip club until the early hours of the morning but not tonight.
Tonight his clients had been farmers. The old-fashioned type who were early to bed and early to rise. He still had an hour until she expected him home and he could do the one thing that made him forget all his problems.
Yeah. Time for some cruisin’.
He unlocked the BMW and grinned quietly to himself as he eased down into the driver’s seat. He took his slim, black leather driving gloves from the red and blue sports bag sitting on the passenger’s seat, pulled them on, started the car and eased his Beach Boys CD into the player. She’d probably check the trip meter, but he could explain the extra kilometres by telling her that he’d had to drop the farmers off at their hotel.
He’d started cruisin’ occasionally during the separation from his first wife, Alicia, just before their spiteful divorce. After she’d taken a lot more than half of everything and started living the high life with her lesbian lover, Felicity, the late night drives had become his secret habit, a way of releasing all the tension and feeling in control.
The drives had stopped when he started dating Caroline. Being with her had taken away the stress and self-doubt he felt in the way that only a beautiful woman who is twenty-five years younger can. He had known that people had been laughing behind his back - calling her a gold-digger and a trophy wife, him a cradle snatcher and worse – and he hadn’t cared. Caroline may have loved money more than she loved him, but she’d made him feel virile and powerful again, so he’d found that he hadn’t needed the late night escapes.
He’d happily signed the prenuptial agreement and for the first six months their marriage had been good, if less intimate than he would have liked.
Then everything had changed.
He’d heard the three words he never imagined he would.
Global Financial Crisis.
The Bloody GFC.
Suddenly their assured lifestyle and future luxury retirement of cruises and overseas tours had vanished into thin air, and then when the money had stopped coming in, Caroline had shown her true nature.
Blake’s frown faded as he eased the BMW carefully from the parking spot and his smile returned.
GFC. Good for cruisin’. That’s what it should stand for.
Blake self-consciously removed his gloves before he paid the bored attendant at the exit and waited until he was out of sight of the parking station to pull over and slip them back on. Holding his hands up to see the gloves better, his eyes flicked to a movement in his rear vision mirror.
Almost two hundred metres back up the road a tall, full-bodied young woman in a short red dress weaved across the pedestrian crossing. He watched as she stumbled in her high heels, her legs splayed and she bent almost double to stop from falling over. Her drunken laughter echoed down the empty street as one of the shoe-string straps of her dress slipped off her shoulder, dropped to her elbow and one of her generous nubile breasts spilled out of the dress.
Blake’s eyes opened wide and he hunched down in his seat in case the young woman saw him and thought that he was some sort of voyeur. She stood up unselfconsciously, aware that her breast was exposed but too drunk to care and continued across the brightly lit crossing. Although he couldn’t see any detail from where he sat, Blake could still make out the dark red colour of her nipple against the pale white of her large breast as she struggled to co-ordinate walking and scooping the uncovered breast back into her dress at the same time.
The young woman finally managed to pull the strap back up to her shoulder as she reached the footpath and then she stopped suddenly, frozen in place like an animal caught in headlights. Her head whipped around, looking down the street in the direction she’d come from and then up ahead of her.
She’s scared. What has she seen? What has she heard?
Blake used the electronic button to lower the grey tinted driver’s window then adjusted the side mirror so that he could see the young woman better. Whatever she sensed had sobered her and she stood shivering, breathing deeply as she checked the street again. She reached into her small handbag and retrieved her mobile phone, took one look at it and dropped it back in the bag.
She’s all alone. I should go and see if she needs a lift.
Blake’s hand moved to the door handle and the young woman suddenly started down the street again, disappearing past the corner shopfront, walking as fast as her high heels would allow, her handbag clutched tightly under one arm. He waited for five minutes, watching the crossing to see if there was anyone following the woman, anyone else had seen her panicked flight. When no one appeared, he shrugged, then pulled away from the gutter and turned right towards the cliffs a few streets away.
She wasn’t being followed. She’s probably already home safe and sound, but I might go cruisin’ down to the cliffs anyway.
The road he drove along ran parallel to the main road, but he had to give way to all the streets that it crossed, and Blake slowed for each one. A ticket from the police would be far too hard to explain to Caroline. He kept checking out his driver’s window as he crossed each of the streets and one block back from the cliff road he saw the young woman again. She was halfway across the crossing, still walking at a fast pace, chest thrust out in front, her long legs flashing at she glanced back over her shoulder every few steps.
She’s still scared. Still not sure if she’s going to make it home.
The woman ran on and Blake pumped the accelerator, ignoring the ‘Give Way’ sign in his rush to get down to the cliff road where he could intercept her before anything happened to her. He cringed as the BMW bottomed on the dip on the other side and failed to see the newly erected ‘No Through Road’ sign as he tapped the brake.
The laneway narrowed, with cars parked along one side behind the houses, and Blake slowed even more. He’d be able to have the damage under the car looked at without Caroline knowing but he wouldn’t be able to hide a scratch on the paintwork. He came to the end of the street, saw the newly created footpath blocking his access to the cliff road and thumped the steering wheel. The footpath was only a few inches high but he knew that he couldn’t go over it. He looked back over his shoulder, started to reverse and then stopped.
What if she turns this way and I go the other way? I’ll miss her.
Blake turned the car lights off and tried to wait patiently, focusing on the song that was playing, tapping along on the steering wheel and bobbing his head in time to the beat. Like most of the Beach Boys songs, it didn’t go for very long and by the time it ended, the woman still hadn’t appeared, so he hummed along nervously until the next song ended as well.
By now, she’s either gone the other way or got a lift with someone she knows.
Blake turned the headlights back on, made a tight three-point turn before heading back up the road until he came to the cross street where he stopped at the Give Way sign.
Unless she lives in one of the houses on cliff road. Pretty deserted down that way at this time of night. She’s probably even more terrified than she was.
His eyebrows furrowed as he peered at the road the young woman had fled down and eventually his hand moved to his left blinker. He drove slowly to the main road and stopped again, looking up and down the street, but there were no other cars or people on it, and no sign of the young woman in the red dress. He sat trying to make up his mind what he should do when the Beach Boys started singing Surfer Girl and he chuckled softly.
It’s got to be a sign. It has to be. If she lives on the cliff road, she must have been a surfer girl once.
He put his left blinker on again, turned onto the main road and when he came to the t-intersection at the end, he turned right onto the cliff road. The road weaved along the coastline before it became a gravel track which lead up to Mannering Point and beyond to Saunders Inlet, where the more daring girls from the town liked to sunbake topless.
A twin row of houses sat back to back on his left with short lane ways providing access to the houses facing the ocean and the walkway along the cliff. On his right, the houses were mostly double storey, their windows and shutters closed to block out the strong, cold wind that was blowing off the water.
Blake studied the empty road in front of him, his heart beating faster. There were no lights on in the houses on either side, so it wasn’t likely that she’d just entered any of them, and if she were still walking down the cliff road, he should have been able to see her despite the fact that some of the street lights were out.
The walkway! She must live in one of houses on the cliff!
Blake drove through the first and second cross streets, barely slowing as he gazed out the passenger’s window to the exposed cliff pathway, hoping to see her by the red of her dress.
She’s so scared that she must be running. I’ve got to get to her quickly!
He sped to the third intersection, then slammed his breaks on as he caught sight of her running along the pathway, handbag and high heels discarded, a terrified expression on her face as she risked a quick look back over her shoulder. As suddenly as she appeared, she disappeared out of Blake’s sight, her arms flailing wildly.
I’m not fit enough to catch up with her. I’ve got to get in front of her.
Blake gunned the engine, streaking through the next intersection, putting his blinker on well before the one after it. He slowed down to take the corner and stopped the BMW at the end of the road, almost touching the railing between the road and the walkway.
I’ll need something to help calm her down.
He leant over to the passenger’s set and rummaged inside the red and blue sports bag on the seat until his hand found what he was looking for. He got out of the BMW, making sure to lock it as he stepped over the barrier to stand on the darkened pathway. Like the houses on the street, the ones facing the cliff had their shutters closed and lights out and there was not another person to be seen.
The young woman came around the curve of the cliff, still running, still looking behind her and she didn’t see Blake in the shadows until she was almost upon him. When she did, she moaned loudly and her eyes flew open with fear.
‘Please,’ she moaned, stepping off the path toward the cliff edge as she backed away from Blake. ‘Please.’
Blake raised his free hand to her in a calming gesture and smiled. ‘It’s okay,’ he said softly. ‘Everything’s okay. I’ve got you now. Come and get in the car.’
The woman sobbed, tears streaming down her face and took another step backward as he moved closer to her. ‘Please,’ the young woman begged. She pointed down the pathway behind Blake. ‘I just live a few houses away. I can walk.’
‘That’s good,’ Blake replied as he took two steps toward the woman, closing the distance between them to less than a metre. ‘You’re almost home, aren’t you?’
He reached out his hand toward her to take her arm and she leapt away from him. One of her feet went past the edge of the cliff and Blake snatched at her arm as she screamed and fell backward. His hand grabbed hers for a moment, then she slipped from his grasp and she was gone, her scream whipped away by the wind.
Shit! I’ve lost her!
Blake stepped up to the edge and peered over. The young woman’s body lay broken and lifeless on the rocks at the bottom, the waves of the incoming tide splashing over her. He glanced up and down the pathway to see if anyone had witnessed what had happened and sighed deeply as he felt the tension return.
He hurried back to the BMW, got in quickly, put the rope and masking tape back in the bag, threw the leather gloves in after them, then checked his watch and shook his head dejectedly.
No time to find another one now.
Such a waste.
I would have had so much fun taking her cruisin’.
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