Dead Man's Curve
Short Story
DUUUMMFFF!
The slam of the car hood.
Peter was satisfied. Plenty of oil in the old green Subaru. He’d bought it for fifteen hundred dollars from a friend. The same friend he’d buy weed from on occasion. The Subaru was mostly a town car. Peter had hoped it would get him around for a year at least, but the old gal was still running almost three years later.
He rarely took her out of town. The furthest trip was over the mountain to his Dad’s place. Less than two hours. So when Emma invited him camping up in Pennsylvania, he was hesitant.
Peter crunched across the gravel driveway and up the front porch steps. The house was old and rundown. It was split into two separate apartments. Peter lived upstairs. He knew that he was becoming more and more of a hermit. A recluse. Only going out for necessities or occasionally taking his dog Bella for a walk downtown.
That’s one reason he had decided to go. It would be an adventure for him.
Peter marched up the steps to his apartment as Bella barked from above.
“You ready to go for a ride girl?”
As Peter made his final rounds through the apartment, ensuring everything was shut off, he felt the excitement build within him. He actually had plans for once. So many days spent alone. And it was true, in a lot of ways Peter enjoyed the solitude. Just a man and his dog. But loneliness had won in the end. It was a specific kind of loneliness. Peter had friends and family to visit, but this type of loneliness could only be cured by spending time with a woman.
Again Peter was satisfied, everything was off. He stooped and picked up Bella, before shuffling out the door, quickly checking the knob. Locked up and ready to roll.
Peter let Bella down in the yard to do her business. As she pranced around, searching for the perfect spot to empty her bladder, Peter took out his phone and typed Emma’s address into Google Maps. It would be about a three and a half hour drive, when avoiding highways.
It was a perfect day for a drive. Sunny and warm, but not too hot.
Peter placed Bella carefully into the backseat, a little dog bed and blanket were waiting for her. Bella jumped slightly as Peter slammed the car door. He then hopped in the front seat, fiddled with his keys, before starting the engine. The windows were down, the playlist was booming, and they were on their way.
~~~
They’d been in the woods three days when the truck crunched gravel on the sloping ridge above their camp. It was mid-afternoon, the sun beaming down warm rays upon the bank of the creek where Peter and Emma stood with their toes in the cool water. Bella snuggled contently in a pouch slung over Peter’s shoulder.
They were passing a small glass pipe back and forth, but Emma, hearing the crunch of gravel, quickly put the pipe back in its bag beneath her beach towel.
Emma then gave Peter a stern look and waved him out of the water, further back beneath the shade of a tree jutting out over the rocky bank of the creek.
The truck had stopped on the curve of the ridge above where they stood. Emma and others who frequented these woods called it dead man’s curve. It was a one lane gravel drive that swung out above the water. There was no guard rail and it was very hard to see if anyone else was coming around the other side of the jutting rock wall, so you sort of said a prayer each time you made the drive. But, the chances of running into anyone was thin, they were deep in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The only other vehicle Peter and Emma had encountered was a white SUV, driven by a Park Ranger. In fact, that’s what Emma was concerned about, the very reason she ushered Peter beneath the shade of the tree, out of sight from the ridge above.
Emma had relayed the warning of the Park Rangers to Peter on that first afternoon at camp.
“Never leave the bowl or weed sitting out,” she had said as the two of them sat smoking at the picnic table.
They had unpacked most things and the tent was assembled. Emma cracked open a Twisted Tea and took a small sip while Bella sniffed curiously around the camp. Peter gazed out at the creek, listening to the babble of the water, letting his mind drift slightly, while also keeping one eye on his wandering pup. He smiled as Bella did a half turn, one back leg raised, and relieved herself.
“We probably won’t see anyone out here, but the Park Rangers do like to stop in sometimes. I brought this guy Bill out here one year. We were partying, drinking and smoking. He had a small plastic bong that he brought. He was fucked up when the Ranger busted into camp. I saw the lights from the truck and yelled to him to get everything away. Well, he threw the plastic bong under this very picnic table. Not the best hiding spot. The Ranger saw it right away. All neon yellow, sitting in the dirt right there. We got a ticket and he took our stash. Coulda been worse I guess, but what a buzz kill!”
Peter nodded, but his eyes remained on Bella. She had found another spot to pee.
DUUUMFFF!
The slam of the truck’s tailgate.
Peter and Emma stood silently beneath the shade of that tree, staring up towards the ridge where the truck had stopped. They couldn’t quite see the truck in its entirety, the brambles, bushes, and the steep angle at which they looked made it impossible to make out who was really up on that ridge. But someone was up there.
The crunch of gravel beneath boots echoed down towards the creek. Then came the snapping of branches before the loud splash of water. Both Peter and Emma’s eyes grew as their gaze turned from the ridge to the bank of the creek. 70 yards to the left of where they stood the water rippled and shook.
The two onlookers (three if you include Bella) waited quietly as they listened to the slam of the truck door and then the crunch of gravel as the vehicle backed its way around dead man’s curve and was gone.
Peter and Emma’s eyes locked and the same question arose in both of their minds. Did someone just toss a body into the cool water below dead man’s curve?
~~~
The reliability of Peter’s Subaru wasn’t the only reason he was hesitant about the camping trip.
The drive from Winchester to Emma’s small home in Biglerville had been pleasant, except for the last twenty minutes, when Peter got caught behind a large dump truck on a freshly chipped road. Peter did his best to keep a fair distance between him and the truck, but the fresh gravel kept flying back amidst large clouds of dust, threatening to chip and crack his windshield.
But the Subaru had no problems with the trip. Really it was a very good car, although the odometer was pushing closer and closer to 300,000 miles. It was old, it rattled loudly at times, and felt more to Peter like driving a go-cart than a car. The ride wasn’t as smooth as the brand new Nissan in which Peter had bought with Judy, his now ex-wife. He’d lost most everything when they’d separated, the Nissan and his sanity included.
The real reason Peter was hesitant about the camping trip was that he barely knew Emma. They’d met like so many other would-be couples, via the internet. More specifically, Facebook dating. They were both desperate, it seemed. But Peter thought there was a real connection or at least there was the possibility of one.
Peter made sure to explain where and specifically who he was going camping with to his family. Peter could tell that his mother thought he was crazy, but he also knew that his family had come to almost expect such decisions from him. His relationship with Judy had begun after they met locked up together in a psychiatric ward. Maybe camping was a strange first date, but it couldn’t top a first date in a mental hospital, could it?
Having been slowed by the dump truck on that freshly chipped road, Peter and Bella arrived later than expected to Emma’s. It was farm country, mostly open fields with small little houses scattered about on the winding back roads. Emma’s house was a trailer, but as Peter pulled into the short driveway he felt the place had charm. She’d made a modest and cozy home for herself.
The trunk and doors to Emma’s Ford were open and the back of the car was nearly overflowing with stuff, the camping necessities. Peter pulled to a stop in front of the white shed and Bella began spinning in anticipation on the back seat as he twisted the key from the ignition. They had arrived. Emma was walking down the steps of her small back porch as Peter climbed out of the Subaru.
“Well, hello Peter. Thought for a second, you might not show.”
“We’re here, we made it,” Peter answered with a smile.
Peter towered above Emma by a good twelve inches, his broad shoulders spread as he opened his arms, inviting Emma for a hug. They embraced for just a moment.
Emma still held her beauty at 42, although Peter didn’t notice that familiar lustful spark rise up within him. He wondered if he’d fried his proverbial circuits with all that porn. For longer than Peter would like to admit, his only lover was his hand, while mindlessly staring at his computer screen. Or maybe it wasn’t the porn, he thought, maybe there just wasn’t that spark. Peter wished it was just the porn because he liked Emma from the start. His circuits would repair themselves eventually, he hoped.
~~~
“Who the hell pulls up that road, stops, throws something or someone down that cliff and then backs out around dead man’s curve? They gotta be hiding something. That was a big splash,” said Emma in a half whisper.
“You think it was a body?” Peter answered with a nervous smile. “Like a human body?”
“I don’t know. Coulda just been a hunter throwing scraps of a carcass. Hunting is illegal out here. But that was sketch. I gotta go see what’s down there.” This time her voice raised above a half whisper.
Peter gave Bella a little kiss on the side of her face. The whole thing did seem eerie to him, but she was probably right, just hunters dumping the remains of a deer or something. But why make a special trip to dead man’s curve? There were plenty of other places to leave a carcass.
Emma began wading into the creek, the pink and yellow innertube bobbing around her calves, rising up to her waist as the water grew deeper.
“You coming?” Emma called out, keeping her eyes transfixed on the bank of the creek some distance ahead. It was still too far to see if something was floating along that bank upstream.
Peter scratched Bella behind the ears and watched Emma’s quick movements as she pushed herself further upstream into deeper water.
Peter thought about Emma’s question. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know exactly what came tumbling down that cliff into the water. It was a big splash. Even if it was just a mangled deer carcass, did he really desire to be swimming right up next to it? And what if what they found was a human body? Then what? It would be a whole ordeal. And he’d bet he’d wake up nights for the rest of his life, seeing that corpse in his mind’s eye. It’d been bad enough when his Dzedu died, his grandfather. He’d been there to help lift Dzedu’s lifeless body into that dark green bag. Peter never forgot that last look upon his grandfather’s face as the men zipped up the body bag. He had wanted to be there for his Dzedu in those last moments, but now, in a way, he wished he hadn’t been there.
Pushing these thoughts away, Peter began wading upstream with Bella still snuggled in the pouch, her head bobbing with each step.
~~~
The first time Peter had waded into the water of the creek had been out of necessity.
It was the morning after their first night at camp. There was a chill in the Spring air, cold enough for Emma to pull on her sweatshirt as she made coffee. She had woken first, sitting at the picnic table watching the sun rise as Peter and Bella snoozed in the tent.
The night before, after unpacking everything and setting up camp, they’d been in a hurry to find firewood, the darkness had quickly begun to fall.
“With all those grunts and noises she makes, kinda reminds me of a piglet. She’s a pig-wawa! You know, like a mix between a pig and a chihuahua,” Emma said enthusiastically.
Peter smiled and laughed, looking down at Bella as the three of them sauntered down the gravel drive leading away from their camp. They’d left a trail of branches and loose sticks behind them as the sun threatened to shut out the lights for the night.
“That should be enough wood for tonight,” Emma said as she pulled open a small tarp. “Now we just walk back towards camp and pick all that crap up, put it on the tarp. Your job is to chop up the big stuff.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Peter responded.
It was more difficult than Peter had imagined. One long dense branch had been particularly tough to chop through and Peter had broken into a good sweat. He knew he was out of shape, he couldn’t remember the last time he had done any real exercise. But he felt good as the big branches slowly turned into a pile of small pieces fit for the fire pit. Emma lit the fire with ease and they’d sat staring into it until both of them had been good and drunk.
The next morning when Peter awoke and struggled out of the tent, he had pushed Emma’s pillow with his hand and laying there beneath it was a knife. He wasn’t too surprised, but his heart sort of sank a bit. After all, they really didn’t know each other. Could Emma really trust him? A guy more than twice her size, with who knows what on his mind.
The thought had crossed his mind that night to try to make a move. Maybe throw an arm around her and see what she said. In the end he had decided against it, but he’d laid awake for more than a few minutes contemplating. He felt almost obligated to try something, thought maybe she’d feel disappointed if he didn’t make a pass at her. Instead he ended up cuddling Bella close and drifting off to sleep.
Before picking Bella up out of the tent that morning, he placed the pillow back in its spot, the knife once again hidden.
Peter smiled at Emma as she handed him a cup of coffee. It was the coffee that sent him down the hill to the creek, Bella following after. That first sip and Peter felt his stomach lurch. It was coming and it was coming now.
Emma sat back at the picnic table as Peter’s mind balked at his predicament. He shuffled his feet one way then the other, then froze, hoping his stomach would settle. He wanted to run to the tree where they’d do their business, but then a fart and the hot squirt of diarrhea.
He didn’t say anything, just wandered down the hill towards the creek in shame. Bella waited anxiously on the rocky bank, wanting to follow Peter into the water, but too unsure to try it.
It felt almost like a baptism to Peter. The water was frigid, but he lowered himself into it quickly. The cold took his breath away. He sat there for a few moments as the water washed filth from his shorts. He then wondered if this was really too much worse than trying to shit in the woods, while leaning against that tree? He had struggled with that as well the night before. It had hit him relatively quickly then too. He tried to dig a hole in the tough root ridden soil below the tree, but gave up halfway through and just went. He did a half assed job of covering it with loose dirt and walked back to the fire with sweat on his brow.
As he raised himself from the creek bed, satisfied that most of the shit was washed away, he looked forward to the end of the trip, when he’d be able to take a dump in peace.
~~~
Bella began to squirm in the pouch as the water grew deeper. Peter had pushed himself through the water with large strides in an effort to catch up to Emma. Now the water was up to his abdomen, the bottom of Bella’s cloth pouch had become soaked.
Emma was still a few yards ahead, closer to the western bank of the creek. They could see a mass floating there, 20 yards further down.
“You’re gonna want to get a stick or something. I wouldn’t get too close,” Peter called out. “Actually, here, I got a stick,” he said as he looked to his right. One was floating out from the east side of the creek.
“Oh, perfect!” Said Emma and they both drifted towards the center of the creek.
Peter handed Emma the branch and then retreated to the eastern shore, keeping his distance. He glanced up towards dead man’s curve nervously. They were in clear sight of that ridge and Peter began to worry that the truck would return and see them poking around in the water. The man would climb out of his truck with his rifle in hand and gun down both of them. Again Peter pushed his thoughts aside and gave Bella another gentle kiss.
There really wasn’t a bank on the western side where Emma was easing herself closer to the mass. The cliff was steep and the water was deep.
Peter walked up the far side of the creek, his shoes squishing in the mud, the water at his ankles grew murky. He stared across to the opposite bank as Emma moved within a couple feet of the mass. It looked like pale meat bobbing in the water. Perhaps a torso, a ribcage and lungs. Emma poked her stick at it, but the mass kept retreating as she moved closer.
“I can’t tell what the hell that is, I wanna get it up on shore,” Emma called across to Peter.
“I’m not sure we wanna know what that is,” Peter answered.
Emma struggled with the branch, too disgusted to get too close, but too curious to stop poking at it. After 10 minutes of prodding, she had the mass close to the western edge, but then lost control and it bobbed away from her. She gave up and began drifting downstream.
“I think it is a piece of meat or something, a carcass. I just can’t tell from what sort of animal.”
Again Peter’s eyes slanted upwards towards dead man’s curve. Then they both began moving downstream, back towards camp.
~~~
They returned to Emma’s home that evening, she had invited Peter to stay one more night.
Peter sat on the toilet, overjoyed by the comfort of an indoor bathroom. He looked down and there on his inner thigh was a small tick. He pulled the bloodsucker out with ease and flushed it.
Peter waltzed to the living room and plopped down on the couch. Two ferrets wandered around his feet. Bella let out a short growl as one of them poked its head up near the edge of the couch.
“It’s OK girl,” Peter said quietly.
Emma sat near the window smoking a cigarette. A small fan blowing the rank smoke out the open window.
It was getting late and Peter’s head began to bob as he dozed in and out of sleep.
“You can sleep with me in my bed, if you want,” said Emma.
Peter nodded sleepily and smiled.
“OK.”
They climbed into bed together, Emma turning her back towards Peter. Bella shuffled and scratched at the soft warm comforter, before spinning and plopping down. She let out a short sigh and closed her eyes.
Peter laid awake, looking across towards Emma. There was surely no knife this time. He adjusted himself and felt that familiar lustful spark rise within him. More than anything he wanted to pull Emma close and kiss her. But he let the moment pass and the two of them drifted into a deep sleep.
~~~
It was a couple days later, Peter and Bella had made it home safely.
Peter’s phone buzzed at his desk. It was Emma.
“Hey Emma.”
“Hey Pete.”
“What’s up, everything ok?”
“Yeah I guess. I’m just calling to let you know that I contacted the camp and told them about what we saw. I just couldn’t live with the feeling that we could have found someone’s body down there. The woman I spoke to sounded worried and I guess the cops are down in the water right now,” she said with a sigh.
“Oh shit, really?”
“Yeah, I guess there was a missing persons report out in the area. Do you really think that we found a piece of a body?”
“I don’t know. It was pretty weird though.”
“They said they’d call me back if they needed any more information, so I just thought you should know.”
“Yeah, that's fine. Thanks Emma. You ok?” Peter said gently.
“Yeah, I’m good. Getting a new dog soon! My parents already picked it out and everything. It’s a damn Mastiff puppy! They think I need some protection or something, you know, with me living on my own out here. Not sure I’m ready for all that puppy energy though.”
“Oh that’s amazing. You think the ferrets will mind?”
“I’ll definitely have to train the dog, but I can’t wait to meet her.”
“You’re gonna fall in love.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s probably true. I had fun with you Peter.”
“Yeah, me too Emma. We’ll have to do it again sometime.”
“For sure. Well take care and we’ll talk soon?”
“For sure Emma. Talk soon. Bye.”
“Bye.”
That was the last time Peter and Emma spoke.