Tales From the Midnight Shift Vol. 1 Read online

  TALES FROM THE

  MIDNIGHT SHIFT

  VOL.I

  © 2013 Mark Allan Gunnells

  Digital Edition

  Published by

  GALLOWS PRESS 2012

  Moosup, Ct. 06354

  Cover, Interior Design

  © Tom Moran

  Editing

  Vicki Hunter, Billie Moran

  Photo Stock © 2012 Can Stock Photo

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidences are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this work may be copied, printed, or stored without written permission of the publisher.

  www.gallowspress.com

  Table of Contents

  GOD DOESN’T FOLLOW YOU INTO THE BATHROOM

  JAM

  ACTS 19:19 PARTY

  PLAYING POSSUM

  THE BARTER SYSTEM

  THE ROOM WHERE NO ONE DIED

  THE GIFT CERTIFICATE

  CHRISTMAS GETAWAY

  BIG DOG

  COLLECTOR’S MARKET

  ACCIDENTS HAPPEN

  SNUFF

  THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

  OUT OF PRINT

  THE WORLD’S SMALLEST MAN

  An Excerpt from SEQUEL

  GOD DOESN’T FOLLOW YOU INTO THE BATHROOM

  When the Reverend Granger returned home from his afternoon walk, he found sixteen-year-old Missy Sanders waiting on his porch. She wore a sleeveless powder-blue blouse and denim shorts, her curly blonde hair held off her neck in a ponytail. Her knees primly together, she sat on the steps and stared off into the distance, unaware of the Reverend’s approach.

  “Missy,” Reverend Granger said, eliciting a startled squeak from the girl. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “That’s okay,” Missy said, her voice soft and tentative. She was a shy girl. “I didn’t see you coming up the walk.”

  Reverend Granger squatted down next to Missy, keeping a respectful distance. “You looked like you were miles away.”

  “Just thinking. Oh, and looking at your trashcans. What happened?”

  Reverend Granger glanced at his trashcans, lying on their sides near the street, garbage strewn about the lawn. He felt anger rising within, but he squashed it back down again. “This mutt has been going around the neighborhood, turning over trashcans and scrounging for food.”

  “Well, the poor thing certainly has made a mess.”

  “Not to worry,” Reverend Granger said. “It’s all under control.”

  Missy smiled and looked away, her face flushed. She fiddled with the frayed ends of her shorts and avoided the Reverend’s eyes.

  The silence stretched out over several moments. The sun was slipping quietly over the distant horizon, and shadows began to leak out into the world. Finally, the Reverend placed a hand on Missy’s shoulder and said, “Is something wrong, Missy?”

  Tears began to spill from the girl’s eyes, and she covered her face with her hands. Her sobs were soft and discreet.

  Missy’s pain pierced the Reverend’s heart like a hot poker. “Shhh, it’s okay, Missy. Just tell me what is troubling you.”

  “I just need someone to talk to, Reverend,” Missy said, wiping her eyes with her fingers, her breath coming in hitching gasps. “I need some advice, I guess.”

  “What about your parents? They can’t help you?”

  Missy’s eyes widened and she said, “No, I don’t want my parents to know. Please promise me you won’t tell them.”

  The Reverend held out a hand and said, “Come on inside, Missy. I’ll make some iced tea and we can talk. How does that sound?”

  Missy sniffled, nodded, and took the Reverend’s hand, allowing him to lead her inside. Reverend Granger’s house was small and sparsely decorated, but the wood floors and overstuffed bookshelves lent it a warm, homey feel. In the living room, Missy sat in a recliner and waited while the Reverend made the tea.

  “Now then,” Reverend Granger said, handing a glass to Missy, “what could be so bad that it would have you crying on my porch steps?”

  Missy sipped her iced tea, darted her eyes around the room, cleared her throat, and said, “It’s Billy.”

  “Billy Henson?” Reverend Granger asked.

  Missy nodded.

  “What about him?”

  “Well, we’ve sort of been going out for the past month.”

  “I see,” the Reverend said. Billy Henson came from a rough family, and he had a reputation as a lady’s man and a heartbreaker.

  “He’s not like everyone thinks he is,” Missy said, a note of desperation in her voice. “He can be so sweet and gentlemanly when he wants to be. My parents don’t like him, though, so we have to be kind of secretive about it. I know it’s a sin to lie and all, but it’s not fair the way they judge him. I have to lie so that we can be together.”

  Reverend Granger, sitting on the sofa facing Missy, said, “Is that what’s troubling you? The lying?”

  “No, or at least that’s not the main problem.”

  “What is?”

  Missy downed half her glass of tea in a single gulp, her face reddening. Biting on her lower lip so that her voice came out slightly distorted, Missy finally said, “Billy wants to have sex.”

  “Ah,” was all the Reverend said.

  Missy fidgeted in her seat, fingers drumming on the sides of the glass. “I’ve never, you know, done it before. Billy has, though, lots of times. He says it would be special with me, because we’re in love and all.”

  “And how do you feel about that?” Reverend Granger asked.

  Missy shrugged and stared intently at her feet. “A little scared. I mean, I do love him, and I don’t want to lose him.”

  “And you think you’ll lose him if you don’t have sex with him?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to think he’d break up with me over this, but he keeps bringing it up. It seems very important to him. I want to make him happy.”

  “And what about you, Missy? Would it make you happy?”

  Tears came close to the surface again, but the girl held them back this time. “I don’t know what I want. I’m all mixed up inside, you know. That’s why I wanted to come talk to you.”

  Reverend Granger leaned forward and managed to catch Missy’s eye, demanding her attention. “I can’t tell you what to do. Ultimately, you’re responsible for your own decisions. I can tell you what the Lord wants you to do, and that is wait. The Good Book makes it perfectly clear that the act of love is to be shared only by those who are wed.”

  Missy broke eye contact, gazing into the depths of her tea as if to divine the secrets of the future. “I know you’re right, Reverend. Maybe I just needed to hear it said out loud.”

  “And there are practical concerns to consider, as well,” Reverend Granger said, his voice softening. “Sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy. These things aren’t just stories you read about in the paper; they’re real.”

  Chuckling to herself, Missy said, “You know, when I was a kid, my mom told me that a girl could get pregnant just by kissing a guy. Funny thing is, I believed her. For years, I thought it was the truth.”

  “Parents tell their children a lot of wild tales,” the Reverend said with a smile. “In fact, when I was eight, my mother told me that God doesn’t follow you into the bathroom.”

  Laughter sputtered from Missy’s lips. “What? Why would she tell you a thing like that?”

  “It was a Sunday afternoon, we’d just left church. The preacher had said something in his sermon about how God i
s always with you, he sees your every move. This upset me, and my mother didn’t understand why. Finally I admitted that I didn’t like to think that God was watching me when I was on the toilet. My mother just laughed and said, ‘Don’t worry, God doesn’t follow you into the bathroom. He waits outside the door until you’re finished.’”

  Between giggles, Missy said, “And you believed her?”

  “Of course. She was my mother, why would she lie to me?”

  Laughter tapering off, Missy sat her glass on the coffee table and said, “Speaking of bathrooms, would you mind if I used yours?”

  “Oh, not at all,” the Reverend said, pointing down the hall. “It’s the last door at the end of the hallway.”

  “Thanks.” Missy started across the living room then paused. Turning back, she said, “I really appreciate you talking to me about this, Reverend. It has made me feel a lot better.”

  “That’s what I’m here for, Missy.”

  At the end of the hall, Missy pushed open the bathroom door and grimaced. Something smelled foul in the Reverend’s bathroom. So foul, in fact, she considered waiting until she got home. But her bladder was insistent, and she took a deep breath and shut the door behind her.

  Sitting on the toilet, Missy fought the urge to gag. The longer she sat in here, the worse the smell became. It was a little like the smell of rotted meat, with something coppery underneath. She finished up as quickly as she could, flushing as she pulled up her shorts. Out of the corner of her eye, something caught her attention.

  The shower curtain, a deep olive green with lighthouses all over it, was partway open, and she could see something furry inside the tub. She reached out with a slightly trembling hand and pushed the curtain aside.

  It appeared to be a dog, but it was hard to tell with the head removed. Blood was puddled in the basin of the tub, and the stomach of the animal was slit open, spilling its intestines. Missy doubled over and vomited onto her feet.

  Backpedaling, slipping in her own bile, she turned to run from the room and found the Reverend standing in the doorway. His expression was serene, but his pants were open, his throbbing organ pointing at Missy like an accusatory finger. He gripped a pair of scissors in his right hand.

  “Reverend…what…?” Missy stammered, her voice quavering.

  “It’s okay,” Reverend Granger said, stepping over the threshold and easing the door shut. “God can’t see us in here.”

  Missy tried to break past the Reverend, but he grabbed her arm and shoved her back into the room. Her feet tangled together, and she fell into the tub, right next to the decapitated mutt. She opened her mouth to scream, but then the Reverend was above her, stuffing the dog’s intestines into her mouth, choking her on their putrid vileness.

  “Shhh, it’s okay, Missy,” he was saying, even as he tugged at her shorts. “God’s waiting outside the door until we’re finished. He won’t know, no one will have to know.”

  Missy tried to push up, but her hands slipped in the blood and she knocked her head against the side of the tub. The world went gray around the edges, and she gratefully gave into unconsciousness. The last thing she saw was the Reverend Granger lowering himself on top of her, the scissors held just above her throat.

  JAM

  8:10

  Elliot was running late for work. Which wasn’t unusual, was actually quite the norm. He knew on some level that he was probably acting out his dissatisfaction with his job through chronic tardiness, but he wasn’t one for self-analyzing.

  He checked his watch as he sped down the interstate at eighty miles per hour, twenty over the posted speed limit. He was already ten minutes late, and he was about twenty minutes away from his exit, add another fifteen to get to the office from there. That put him at his desk at around 8:45. Even for someone who was perpetually late, that was pushing it. But as long as he made it to the office in time for the weekly department meeting at 9:00, he should be fine.

  On cue, as if the gods had heard Elliot’s thoughts and decided to teach him a lesson, he rounded a curve in the road and saw nothing but cars up ahead. Stationary cars. As in not moving, still, going nowhere. Across all four lanes cars just idled, stretching away to the horizon. It was like a fucking parking lot.

  “Son of a BITCH!” Elliot shouted, banging his hands on the steering wheel. A traffic jam, just what he needed. Whenever he was in a hurry he could always count on a train blocking his path, or an endless succession of red lights, road construction, heavy rain having washed out a chunk of the street, or a goddam traffic jam. He just couldn’t catch a break.

  Elliot braked to a complete stop behind a gray SUV. He was in the second lane from the right, and he was soon boxed in as other cars rounded the curve and got in line. The jerk on his left, some teenaged dick with a backwards cap, actually honked his horn, as if it were just a matter of people not realizing they should be going forward. Jackass.

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER…

  Traffic had not moved, not an inch, not a smidge, not a bit. Elliot assumed there must be one hell of a car accident somewhere up ahead. He could only see about a mile and a half away, then the interstate crested a small rise and dipped down out of his field of vision. Whatever it was had blocked all four south-bound lanes and had traffic at a standstill.

  But was it only the south-bound lanes? Elliot noticed that the traffic in the north-bound lanes of the interstate had petered out until it stopped altogether. The north-bound lanes were as empty as the south-bound lanes were packed with immobile vehicles. Could the hypothetical accident have been so bad that it effectively sealed off the south-bound and north-bound lanes of a major highway?

  Elliot turned on his car radio and tuned it into the local station, WJAM 106.6. If there was some disaster up ahead, WJAM was sure to be covering it. The hours of 7:00 to 11:00 were devoted to Dillard and Kimbo—or Dullard and Bimbo, as Elliot thought of them—the station’s morning disc jockeys. Elliot rarely listen to them because their inane and monumentally boring chatter was enough to tempt him into plowing straight into a guardrail.

  “—and that’s why I always use tinfoil instead of plastic wrap,” Dullard was saying as Elliot found the station.

  “Well folks, you heard it here first,” Bimbo said with a laugh. “How to avoid that unfortunate freezer burn. Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you why I prefer whipped cream over chocolate sauce.”

  “Hey, hey, keep it G-rated there, Kimbo,” Dullard said with mock seriousness. “There may be kiddies listening.”

  “Oh come on, Dillard, you think anyone is listening?”

  “Yeah, my mom for sure.”

  “Please, everyone knows your mom prefers the Chuck and Kelly show on WBKY.”

  “Mom, no, you swore—“

  Elliot punched the button to silence those humorless pricks. Whatever was happening apparently wasn’t dire enough to warrant a break in the standard routine of easing people into their work day by making the commute so excruciating that they were practically begging to get into the office by the time they finally got there.

  TEN MINUTES LATER…

  Elliot dug through his satchel looking for his cell phone. He obviously wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He had the car in park and was considering turning off the engine altogether. The gas gauge was hovering just above the E, and he needed to conserve every drop.

  He finally found his cell phone, but pushing the small button on the side did not turn the damn thing on. Apparently the battery had no charge. Leaning over, he popped open the glove compartment and rummaged around for the battery charger that plugged directly into the car’s otherwise unused lighter.

  “Gotcha,” Elliot said, snagging the charger and plugging in the phone. The small screen lit up and played a little tune, letting him know it was operational and happy to be so. He keyed in his boss’s number and put the phone to his ear. Nothing. He looked down at the small screen and saw that the phone was not getting a signal.

  “Goddam piece of SHIT!” Elliot yelled then
tossed the phone into the passenger’s seat. It pulled loose of the charger and lay there, dead, as useless to him as a block of cheese in a crisis.

  He would definitely not be there for the 9:00 meeting, and he had no way to get in touch with his boss. And it wasn’t even his fault this time, for Christ’s sake. Act of God, force of nature, my dog ate my homework, whatever, but for once it wasn’t his fault and he had no way to let his boss know that.

  HALF AN HOUR LATER…

  Most of the people around Elliot had turned off their cars, several of them stepping out to stretch, walk around, grab a smoke. Conversations were struck up, laughs were shared, complaints were swapped, speculations arose. The prevailing theory seemed to be that two tractor-trailers had collided, one laid out across the south-bound lanes, the other across the north-bound lanes. There was nothing to support this particular hypothesis—Dullard and Bimbo, heard through the rolled-down windows of several cars, had still made no reference to the colossal traffic jam on the interstate—but it seemed as plausible as any other.

  Elliot sat on the hood of his Celica, playing a handheld Tetris game he’d found in the glove compartment when searching for the phone charger. Maybe his boss had heard about the traffic jam and concluded that Elliot was stuck somewhere on the interstate, or maybe she thought he was an irredeemable slacker and was planning to fire him as soon as he got in. Either way, he didn’t give much of a fuck at this point. It would almost be a blessing to get fired, to be able to wake up in the morning without a sense of dread weighing down on him like a coffin lid.

  Elliot stretched his neck until it popped, then leaned his head back and gazed up at the sky. Easter-egg blue, with a few cotton-candy clouds floating by like barges in the sea. Damn, nothing like a traffic jam to get a person’s poetic juices flowing.

  He looked around at everyone milling about the interstate, visiting other cars, walking dogs, a ragtag game of football had even broken out in the median between the north and south-bound lanes. It was like an old-fashioned block party, Elliot thought. Not that he’d ever been to a block party, but he’d seen them on television. The whole situation had a surreal quality to it, like something experienced in a dream.