The Gift of Illusion

Chapter Four





1





The tall trees hung thick branches over the dirt road, raining down dead leaves that fluttered about in the morning breeze. A few of the leaves landed on the blue Escort as it hiked down the narrow trail kicking dirt out the back of its tires. James Ackerman stopped the car suddenly as he arrived at a fork in the road. He looked both ways trying to remember which path he had taken hours ago. According to the clock radio, it was almost seven in the morning. He had survived the night hiding out by Catfish Creek, but there wasn't much time left now. Resources were running low. This body was getting weaker by the minute, this mind further exhausted. Death was waiting just over the next horizon. He needed to initiate new contact, change course, or risk becoming trapped on a sinking vessel.

James reached underneath the front passenger seat to retrieve the stone figurine. His gateway. He would only use it as a last resort. He slid the small statue into the interior pocket of his sport coat, abandoned the Escort in the center of the fork, and walked west through the woods. Twenty minutes later, he stepped out of the woods on to Parker Avenue.

An old gas station was across the street. A tall, longhaired man climbed out of an eighteen-wheeler and walked around the corner to the front door of the station.

James hurried across the street and entered the station.

The store clerk sat behind the counter staring mindlessly at the morning news on an old eight-inch black and white television set. The longhaired trucker passed by James on his way to the front counter.

“Two packs of Marlboro reds in a box,” said the truck driver.

The clerk reached over his head and pulled the cigarettes from the shelf.

“Is that all?” he asked.

The truck driver nodded and handed the clerk a credit card. After signing the store copy, the truck driver took his receipt and left the store.

James crept up to the front counter and grinned at the wiry store clerk. The clerk had tanned, leathery skin, and a small crooked mustache.

“Eddie, is it?” he asked, looking down at the white nametag pined to the clerk’s shirt.

“Yep. How can I help you, pal?”

James leaned over the counter. “This is your lucky day, Eddie. I have something for you."





2





James sauntered out into the parking lot and looked around for his car. He had no idea where he was or how he had arrived here. He vaguely remembered sleeping in his car, and walking through the woods, but it had all felt like a strange dream. Nearby, a longhaired man was talking on a payphone.

“Excuse me.”

The man took the phone away from his ear and covered it with the palm of his hand.

“Have you seen a blue Ford Escort?”

“No,” said the half-shaven man with a fresh cigarette hanging from his lip. “Ya lose your car or something?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a problem. I’m gonna finish my call now.”

James walked around the corner and passed by a semi on his way to the back of the building. A few tiny drops of sweat ran down his face and met at the base of his neck. Rotting trash and sewage littered the back of the gas station; a stench of rats, newspaper, gasoline, and beef jerky. There were two dumpsters but neither held any dump, the trash never made it inside. He found an orange hose wrapped up in knots on the opposite side of the building. Just what he needed to calm his nerves, cool water, but when he turned the nozzle, nothing but a single warm drop fled from the rubber tube. Frustrated, James threw down the hose and strolled around the side of the building, back into the parking lot. He thought of calling the police and reporting his car stolen, but figured he’d better find out for sure.

While he waited for the truck driver to finish his call, he wiped away the sweat from his forehead. The beads of sweat tickled, itched.

A moment later the truck driver hung up the payphone.

“Hey, do you think you could do me a favor?”

“Depends. What?”

“Could you give me a lift to my house? Or at least just drop me off in town? I would really appreciate it. I’ll even pay you.”

“I don’t think that’d be a problem.”

“Thank you so much.”

James followed the truck driver around the corner to the semi waiting on the other side. He could feel his heart beat faster with each second that passed. Muscles tightened to the point of tearing. His hands vibrated like a resonating church bell. He tried to calm himself, relax. If he could just get home, everything would be all right.

“What’s your name?” The truck driver fired up the eighteen-wheeler. “Mine’s Dante.”

"It's..." James could barely find the breath to answer. "It's James...Ackerman.”

Dante frowned. “James Ackerman, huh? Sounds familiar. Have we met before?”

“No...I don’t think...so.” He threw his head back on the headrest and gasped for air while his eyes pulsated in their sockets.

“Well, anyway, if you couldn’t already tell, I’m a commercial truck driver. Lucky for you, I have a little time to kill before my next shipment.”

Dante pulled the eighteen-wheeler up to the curb of Highway 41.

“Now where exactly would you like me to drop you off?”

James didn’t answer. He may not have even heard the question over the loud screaming in his ears.

“Just name a street.”

Dante turned left on to Highway 41 then glanced over at James panting intensely in the passenger seat. “Hey, man, you okay? You don’t look too good. Maybe I should take you to the hospital instead.”

James grasped the edge of the seat desperately trying to hold on to life while inside his body temperature fueled to unthinkable heights.

Dante grabbed James’s shoulder and shook him a little, feeling an immense heat rise from the stranger’s body.

“Hey buddy, c’mon now!” he yelled. “Tell me what’s wrong!”

James stopped breathing. His jaw dropped open.

Dante turned the semi around and began heading east down the highway. The closest hospital was fifteen minutes away, but it would have to do.

“Shit!” Dante yelled. “What in the hell did I do to deserve—”

A bright orange flame shot out from James’s gaping mouth.

Dante nearly jumped out of his seat as the stranger then burst into flames. He frantically fought to clear the smoke from his face while reaching to open the window. The bright orange flames now died down and gave way to a light blue simmer. James’s body sizzled like a thick cut of bacon. Soon he’d be cooked, well done.

Dante didn’t realize just how fast he was going. He coughed and rubbed his eyes while the smoke filling the cab thickened. While searching for the brake pedal with his foot, he inadvertently turned the wheel to the right, steering the semi off the road and into the grassy median where, up ahead, two parked police cars sat with a deputy inside each, unaware of the monstrous wrecking machine heading in their direction at over seventy mph.

Eddie watched from the gas station parking lot as the eighteen-wheeler plowed through the median down the highway and collided into two police cars. The force of the collision pushed both cars side-by-side fifty yards down the median and almost tore one completely in half. A soundtrack of twisting metal; the smell of gas—rubber, flew on the back of the wind.

Eddie smiled and imagined what the impact had done to the policemen waiting like two halves of a wishbone ready to be split apart.

Snap.