In the Darkest Corners

A woman's resolve is tested among the living and the dead.

The smile on Hattie’s face masked the broken confidence ready to leach through her skin. She held the smile a little longer, maybe a little too long, thought it could be misconstrued as flirtatious, then let it wane as she carefully considered her words and her coworker’s reaction to them.

“Your girlfriend might have a problem with what you’re suggesting,” Hattie said. That’s right, mention Gabe’s girlfriend this time, not his wife.

“Who says we have to tell?” Gabe replied.

“I’ve got a boyfriend.”

“You all say that when you won’t admit what you really want.”

Hattie stirred her coffee in slow swirls, aware that she forgot to add cream, but unwilling to prolong the conversation by adding any. Carter Township’s water and sewer department break room closed in around her with every step closer Gabe took, her breathing growing shallow as if he were sucking up all of the available air. She peered down into the murky depths of her Styrofoam cup and considered the ramifications of tossing the steaming liquid into his face.

Gabe closed the gap and touched Hattie’s wrist, startling her and causing coffee to spill onto his hand.

“Agh! Get a grip, woman,” Gabe said, pulling away and reaching back behind her for some napkins.

With a small space between them, Hattie slunk around his imposing figure and scurried toward the exit. Goosebumps formed across her skin, and she shivered, trying desperately to stuff down the anxious tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“If you change your mind, you’ve got my number,” Gabe said, not even bothering to look back while wiping off the coffee.

Hattie sat at her desk, waiting out the hours until the weekend. She worked as the lone woman for the township’s only privatized service center, studying to become a certified technician within the department. Her current status as records and billing administrator in the front office had been an open door to opportunity, but as the last few months edged by, she struggled to maintain composure.

Even after receiving her CDL and OSHA heavy equipment operator status, management disliked the idea of placing her in the field. At some point she would need to get in the hole, and that prospect made her just as nervous as it did the insurance company and lawyers. Some of the older men near retirement wanted her to succeed, had daughters her age and treated her like family. But many were like Gabe. She was fresh meat.

An older technician, Ken, one of those who held her confidence, stopped by with a set of keys in hand for a service vehicle. He sported a sheepish grin, a dead giveaway he brought uncomfortable news, like a child who smashed his mother’s favorite mug and wanted to own up to the consequences.

“Heeeeey, Hattie, do you want the good news or bad?” Ken asked.

“Bad,” Hattie said.

“O’Boyle wants you to drive number six up to Phil tonight instead of Monday morning.”

“And the good news?”

“He’s willing to let you leave work early.”

This became another part of Hattie’s initiation, a hazing ritual of sorts, where for the last year she had been tasked with driving vehicles two hours North to Phil Spencer, a regional mechanic for the company. Nobody, not even Ken, knew that this responsibility turned into her only saving grace. She really did have a boyfriend. Phil Spencer.

“How long do you think this will last?” Hattie asked.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret. I bumped up my retirement date. Susan wants to move to our lake home now that the kids are done with college. That means there’s an opening. I’m going to recommend you as my replacement. I don’t know if they’ll listen, but—”

Before Ken could finish, Hattie jumped up and gave him a bear hug.

“Okay, little lady, it’s no guarantee, but you looked like you needed some encouragement,” Ken said.

“Thank you, Ken. I’m going to miss having you around,” Hattie said.

“Yeah, well, I’m not gone yet, and just make sure you bring back the truck on Monday, so O’Boyle doesn’t think you’ve gone rogue,” Ken said.

The two parted ways and Hattie called Phil with the news. They could spend the whole weekend together instead of a passing excursion on Monday.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Phil said.

Hattie’s stomach twisted into knots.

“You mentioned before about a long weekend. I just thought, you know, this would make it easy,” Hattie said.

“I don’t like you driving up this way at night is all. It’s hard enough to find during the day. The woods and back roads near the shop play tricks on you, and I’d feel terrible if something happened.”

“Is that it?”

“What do you mean?”

“If there’s somebody else, or you don’t want to see me, please say so. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster today and can’t handle another drop.”

“Hattie, don’t start up on that. There’s nobody. With all you’ve put up with, I’m surprised by your lack of confidence. I’ve never met someone so accomplished, yet so uncertain. I really do worry about you, and these parts have a tendency to mess with a weak… mind.”

“I’ve never been so in love and so angry at the same time. You think I’m weak-minded?”

Phil went silent.

Hattie went silent.

“You love me?” Phil asked.

“Yes,” Hattie said. She heard Phil sigh.

“I love you, too. When are you leaving?” Phil asked.

Crisp Autumn air rushed through the barely cracked windows of the service truck. While the noisy traffic coming off I-75 could be distracting, Hattie’s positive outlook drowned out the sound. She sat comfortably high on the bench seat and enjoyed the spacious ride every time she made the trip. The trucks were too old for built-in GPS, so she relied on her cell phone’s GPS and maps to guide her to Phil’s home.

By 8pm the sun disappeared, ushering in nightfall. Hattie turned on the CB radio and listened to the chatter of semi-truck drivers who replayed the day’s events, a mix of close calls with distracted drivers and one diatribe about overzealous cops. As she got closer to her destination, the chatter dipped to a couple sporadic quips and then nothing altogether. After taking her exit, she would be greeted by thirty minutes of slow-going dirt roads speckled with deep set potholes the county would never fix unless compelled by irate locals.

The GPS navigator guided Hattie through every turn, but a feeling of dread washed over her when she heard the voice say “recalculating”. The app never responded with a correction. She pulled over and switched on the cab’s emergency flashers. Hattie knew the route by day, almost by heart, although the road signs were impossible to spot in the darkness, hidden by low limbs and overgrowth. A half-dozen times she made her way up, and the rest Phil drove down to visit, a fact she realized made her too unfamiliar with her surroundings.

Two signal bars on the phone turned green and the GPS provided directions for the next turn. As a precaution, Hattie grabbed a pen and scrap paper out of the glove box, copied down the remainder of instructions and breathed a sigh of relief. When she put the truck in drive, the CB radio squawked and squealed loudly, making her jump. She reached to turn it off when it went clear. A voice whispered coarsely through a tinge of static.

Haaaaaattieeee.

Silence followed.

Hattie switched off the CB, rolled up the windows, leaned over and locked the passenger door. She picked up her phone and called Phil, only to be greeted by his voicemail. She wanted to leave a message, a desperate cry to meet her so she could tail him back to his place. Weak-minded. She hung up, took a deep breath and pulled away from the shoulder.

The emergency lights continued to pulsate in a circular motion, reflecting an eerie yellow glow across the road and trees. What should have given her comfort by revealing those things using darkness as a veil, only made her aware of the blackness beyond the reaches of the light. As she crept along, the sound of dirt and stone crunching under the tires rose to a level that pushed at her eardrums. Hattie’s eyes adjusted to nature’s boundaries, in stark contrast to an abandoned pickup truck leaning into the ditch with the driver’s side door open.

When Hattie rolled past, a sharp pain hammered her chest from the inside. On the side of the truck it said Carter Township Water & Sewer. The windshield was smashed and front end crumpled. The emergency light exposed blood on the hood of the vehicle, a glistening reminder of the accident’s severity. Had it been Phil? If he took a repair out for a test drive, it’s possible he got lost, wondering through thick underbrush, near death. The thought grabbed hold of her imagination and she envisioned dreadful scenarios. The blur of a figure standing by the roadside brought her back to reality and caused her to slam on the breaks.

Hattie couldn’t make out the details, a man to be sure, about Phil’s height and build, but he didn’t walk toward her, wavering slightly against the breeze. If the injuries were severe, she would need to drive this person to the hospital, or at least to Phil’s house to call an ambulance. She opened the door and stood shielded behind it.

“Hey! Are you okay?” Hattie shouted. The sound of her voice echoed.

The man stopped wavering and leaned forward. Instead of falling, his toes dragged behind his feet, scraping pebbles and dirt aside as he floated in her direction. Hattie delayed her retreat back into the truck as her mind registered an incongruency with the natural laws of the universe. In that brief moment she recognized the empty stare from the same man who made recent advances on her in the break room — Gabe.

His clothes were tattered and stained by blood. A long gash formed across the top of his skull, slid down his forehead and stopped at his nose, which was broken in several places. Gabe opened his mouth to speak. A small Gardner snake slithered out, a replacement for his missing tongue. Not Gabe. Dead-Gabe.

He reached a single arm out toward Hattie while the other arm hung limp and useless, dislocated from its socket. She screamed and climbed back into the truck. The tires spit up gravel when she slammed her foot onto the gas pedal, fishtailing the rear end. Dead-Gabe’s body lurched forward to grab at the door. Hattie turned the wheel and the back end slid out and slammed the corporeal entity into the ditch.

Hattie fussed with the written directions, trying to see the next turn a mile ahead. According to what she wrote, it would be the street Phil lived on, a short distance from the encounter with Dead-Gabe, or whatever tricked her mind into believing that’s what she saw. A cross-section of road came into view, a right turn toward safety and into Phil’s arms. The only problem was Dead-Gabe stood at the crossroads, blocking her path, an obstacle of supernatural proportions, or a morbid reminder of her weakness.

Dead-Gabe approached. Retreat. Go back. Admit defeat. Stop pushing forward and recognize these are powerful forces that can’t be controlled. Hattie slammed on the gas pedal again and roared toward the decaying body, a barrier of flesh and bone, vulnerable and temporal, much like her. She screamed on impact. With several thuds, Dead-Gabe hit the front grill, rolled under the wheels and disintegrated in Hattie’s rear-view mirror. A floppy rag doll of brokenness disappeared in the night as she turned on Phil’s road and then finally into his driveway.

A man stood on the porch, a bug light barely illuminating his presence, and for a moment she expected the terror of Dead-Gabe to resurface. Phil came out to greet her, but not with open arms or a smile, which left her confused. She stepped out of the vehicle and broke down in tears, walking directly into his arms for a hug. When she pulled away to look up into his face, he stared blankly into nothingness.

“What? What is it?” she asked.

“Ken called. He said they found one of our service trucks off the freeway. It had been speeding, ran across the median, and crashed into a tree. I… I thought it was you,” Phil said.

“Gabe.”

“They found his body in the woods a short way from the accident. Dead. He had been drinking. Ken couldn’t understand why he took the vehicle, or what he was doing headed up this way.”

“He must have followed me. He wanted to — it doesn’t matter.”

“What if he caught up to you? Stopped you.”

Hattie wanted to tell Phil about her experience and reconsidered. What good would it do, even if he believed her. She hugged him, a reward to enjoy, even if for a short time, and said, “I can manage.”