The Death Run (A Short Story) (4 page)

They all went out to dinner at an anonymous city restaurant, and for the first time in a long time, Colin remembered that his parents used to get along.

After dinner, they went to the store and then drove back to Colin’s new apartment, groceries in hand.

“You sure you have everything?” Mother asked for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“I’ll be fine. Relax.”

Colin’s father pulled out his wallet and gave him a bundle of bills. “Take it. Just in case there’s something you need. Or want.”

Colin shook his head. “No, Dad. You keep it. I’ll be fine.”

“No, you take it. Even if you don’t need it, you get something for yourself that you want.”

Colin shrugged, took the money, hugged his parents, and watched them walk to the truck. Mother turned back and waved before she got in the cab.

It was how he’d imagined that night. He put the groceries away, unpacked the one important bag, which he left on the floor for a few moments as he looked around. After another survey, he took the bag to his bedroom and pushed it under the bed.

Once the bag was put away, he experimented with the antenna on his used television. Once he found a few decent channels to choose from, he pulled a box in front of the secondhand couch to use as a coffee table, and reached for the scissors.

The late-night news droned in the background, while Colin leaned against the couch, the floor littered with scraps of newspaper. It had been easier to sit on the floor, since his lone lamp didn’t have a stand and cast only a dim light over a small circle in the corner of the dark room.

At last, the scrapbook would be complete: an account of the whole story.

The one that only he would ever know.

Five years ago, they’d been up on the hill. He and Danny. Corey didn’t have time for them anymore, what with hockey practice and being part of the “in” crowd.

But that night, late that night, the lights of a pickup truck had reached over the top of the hill, and Corey’s new gang had crashed the hangout.

Danny thought he stood a chance at being part of things. Thought everyone liked him. He sat there, drinking what Terry and Graeme mixed for him, the firelight gleaming in their eyes.

Colin had known that look. Graeme had beaten him up too many times for him not to know. There were gentle drunks, who fell asleep. There were funny drunks, who made everyone laugh. And there were mean drunks, who got their kicks at someone else’s expense.

Graeme had always been the last kind, and Colin had always known it.

Graeme didn’t even need to be drunk to be like that.

He was mean through and through.

Colin had tried to step in and tell Danny it was time to head home, but Danny hadn’t wanted any part of it.

“C’mon man,” Danny had slurred. He’d patted Graeme on the back and held out his beer to Colin. “Lishen up. Pahty’s jest gettin’ started.” He’d tossed his straggly hair out of his eyes and looked at Graeme. “Right?”

“Right!” Graeme’s eyes had glinted, and something about the look he’d given Colin had sent a chill down his back. “Why don’t you stick around? We could have some fun.”

“No thanks.” Colin had turned to Danny one last time. “You coming?”

“You run off, li’l man,” Danny had sputtered. The sound of Graeme and Terry snickering behind him still rang in Colin’s ears. “Corey’ll get me home. Right, Corey?” Danny’d slung his arm around Corey, more for support than anything else.

“Yeah, sure.”

“I don’t think …”

“Don’t worry about it, Colin.” Corey’d had a sharpness in his voice. Out of patience for his baby brother. “I’ll get Danny home.”

Colin had shrugged like he didn’t care, and made his way about ten feet down the side of the hill, to a little opening obscured by the shack. They’d built the chute years before with pulleys and cables. Colin, Corey, and Danny would stand in a row, feet on their scooters, holding the handles and flying down the side of East Ridge at breakneck speed. It took them out to the edge of the gravel pit, a few blocks from the Anderses’ place.

They’d built it big enough to carry all three of them at once, and the chute had kept them from being grounded for being late on more than one occasion. Even though Colin and Corey lived with their mother at the north end of town, they could get home in twenty minutes using the chute.

It put them within five blocks of the Anderses’ place in six minutes, instead of the forty-plus it would take walking.

When Colin woke the next morning, he’d heard the news. The whole town was talking about the official version.

Corey had taken Colin aside and told him to drop it, to stay out of it, that he hadn’t meant for it to happen.

“Bullshit, Corey. You just didn’t care enough to make Graeme stop.”

“You weren’t there. It wasn’t like that.”

“Yeah? Graeme’s a pusher, Corey. He put stuff in Danny’s beer. No way Danny took that junk before. He wasn’t even drinking before you brought them up there.”

Corey had wavered on the edge, and for a moment Colin thought Corey would believe him and accept what believing him meant. Corey shifted his weight from foot to foot until he’d turned back to Colin with a hard look in his eyes, and grabbed him by the jacket and pushed him up against the wall.

“Don’t you ever say that again. It’ll come down to you and me and what everyone wants to believe. And they’ll believe me, Colin. They’ll believe me. I’ve got a scholarship and a shot to turn pro, and you’re not gonna mess that up.”

He’d let go of Colin then and turned away. But when Corey turned back, Colin unleashed a swing that broke Corey’s nose.

Colin had stood there, breathing hard, scrawny arms tensed and ready. Corey hadn’t even flinched. He wiped the blood on the back of his hand, his ice-blue eyes fixed on his brother, then turned and stomped into the house.

“You son of a bitch!” Colin had screamed the words, nobody there to hear them.

Six months later, Corey had left town. Colin had spent two more years trapped, trying to justify to himself why he didn’t tell everyone the truth about Graeme. Then he started lying to himself, and before long he believed the lie that everyone else had told, and just tried to forget about Danny.

He’d gone to college. Kept it all buried until he’d ended up back home.

At first, he could hardly believe Graeme, Terry, and Judd even talked to him. They took him out for a few beers, and that’s when it happened. They got loaded. Colin thought he was making his peace with them, until he watched Graeme pop the lids off the beers and slip a thin sheaf of paper out of his pocket.

After a few more minutes of fumbling, he’d returned with the beers.

Unaware that Colin had seen him. Unaware that Colin remembered seeing him with a sheaf like that before.

The night Danny had died.

“Easy with the stuff, man. We don’t want anyone croaking,” Judd said.

Graeme fixed a cold stare on him. “What’re you worried about?”

“Bad for business, man.” Judd snickered. Then they all laughed, all three of them. Judd looked at Colin. “Had to fix that one OD. Wouldn’t a got much of a sentence as teens, man, but couldn’t take the chance with Da—”

Judd had stopped short. Colin had played it cool.

It was amazing what people would say when they were stoned.

That was the night Colin had started having the dreams.

At first, he could barely recall what had happened. He woke up with a start, in a sweat, half sitting before his eyes were even open, panting and sweating in the black night.

Then pieces would stay with him, a little at a time, until he could see the whole thing unfolding.

Danny, laughing and drunk, staggering between Corey and Terry.

Corey, looking miserable, but not doing anything about it, just staring into the fire.

Colin could see himself in black and white, standing by the fire, trying to talk to his brother.

Corey told him to forget about it, to go home. That he’d take care of Danny.

Colin was at the chute then, watching himself glide down the side of the hill. One firecracker exploded behind him, but there weren’t any lights in the sky.

Then he was seeing the rest of them, at the top of the hill. Graeme and Terry laughing. Arms around Danny. Taking turns pointing a gun at their heads.

“Go ahead. Do it.”

Laughing as they passed him the gun.

One lone, loud firecracker, but no lights in the sky.

Just the flow of red dripping into the fire.

Blackness. Then Judd’s voice cutting through the void. “Had to fix that one.”

They’d killed Danny. It didn’t make sense in the dream. Danny hadn’t overdosed, but it didn’t matter. In his gut, Colin knew it wasn’t an accident. He’d always known.

They’d killed Danny, as surely as if they’d pulled the trigger themselves.

Colin had needed justice for Danny, and if he played it right, there would be a payback. Payback for every time Graeme had shown him the back of his fists.

The answer had come to him much the way the dream had. Slowly, in bits and pieces, until things fell together. Until the day he saw the story in the paper about Mike Danforth’s funding for a new team.

It had been so easy to pretend with Officer Scott that he hadn’t known.

All the pieces were in place; he just needed to do it. It was as good a shot as any, so Colin decided it was time for him to pull the trigger, so to speak.

And if it worked out, he’d get a payoff that would keep him comfortable for a few years, and at the best, he’d get out of town with a new job to go along with the cash.

Being quiet had its advantages. People forgot you were there. And when they forgot you were there, they did things they shouldn’t and said things they oughtn’t. That’s how he knew Mrs. Griffin and Walt Anders were more than friends.

Mrs. Griffin would be the first one on the street when the truck hit. That was logic, pure and simple. What he didn’t know was whether anyone would take enough notice of him to remember if they’d seen him.

Colin made sure he was seen around town, and spent enough time talking to the right people to get noticed.

He’d made sure they had the right mix for their drinks that night. With Judd, Graeme, and Terry being dealers, it wasn’t hard to find out where they kept their stash. Judd was so clever with his secret codes, but he wasn’t smart enough to keep his mouth shut when Colin was sitting at the bar stools just a few feet away in the restaurant they hung out in every day of the week.

Being invisible, except when needed as a punching bag, had been his lot in high school. But being the invisible man turned out to have some advantages.

He’d set everything in motion, and fate had taken care of the rest.

The tragic deaths of three young men had even obscured the gossipy bit of news about local gal Eileen Brenner being pregnant with Corey Clarke’s baby. It was all speculation at that point, but being just shy of sixteen, there was talk of statutory rape charges.

The only surprise had been Jim Stephensen. Colin knew there was another source involved with the drugs, so when he’d cleaned out the money, he’d left the note.

Figured it would shake Jay loose.

He just hadn’t realized that the Jay working the Four-Oh was Jim.

It made sense, though. Jim had withdrawn from everyone. Colin had hardly seen him in the five years since Danny’s death.

People chalked it up to grief, but now Colin knew better. It was guilt.

He went to his room and pulled the bag with the cash in it out from under the bed. Since he hadn’t needed any of it for his backup plan, he stashed it in a vent, behind the headboard, and pushed the bed back in.

Two hours later, it was all over. A repeat of a talk show droned while the completed scrapbook lay on the floor. Colin sprawled out on the couch, under a blanket, slipping into the soundest sleep he’d had in years.

One of Sandra Ruttan’s most painful childhood memories is of her mom driving her and her sister to the town dump, and her stuffed white lamb being pried from her arms and tossed in the garbage. She was a walking disaster in her formative years. At age eight she was hit by a car while riding her bike home, and her head was cut open. Just before her ninth birthday she was running along the beach and landed on broken glass: her foot was partially severed. The muscle had to be stitched back together, leaving some uncertainty about whether she’d walk again, and the doctor was so fed up with her screaming that he told her if she didn’t shut up, he’d cut her foot off. She went to school with the doctor’s son, and forever felt sorry for him. After her tenth birthday she fell down a waterfall and almost drowned. Her later adventures have included being in Seville when they found 4.5 tons of explosives set to blow up the Semana Santa parade and being in a car crash in the Sahara desert. There is absolutely no explanation for how she’s managed to stay alive as long as she has. Keep up to date at her website,
www.sandraruttan.com
or
http://sruttan.wordpress.com/
.