Halcyon Days

Author's Note: As usual with my serials I will be posting chapter here about ten chapters behind the most recent chapters that are up on my Patreon. If you like my stuff and have a few bucks a month to spare I invite you to come on over and help to support stories like this, otherwise just sit tight and it will be posted here in its entirely in due time. Settle in folks because we're likely in for another long one. I hope you enjoy it! ❤

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Halcyon Days

Under the blazing prairie sun the ash gray ribbon of empty highway stretches to the horizon beyond the hail dented hood of my silver CR-V. I glance down to my odometer just in time to watch it roll over past 300,000 miles, a milestone achieved with not a single sign post or landmark in sight to commit to memory to mark the occasion. To my right was a vast ocean of cheery mustard yellow that contrasted spectacularly against azure blue where canola kissed open sky. To my left was an arid expanse of parched tan-green mottled with patches of glaucous gray, a semi-arid land so barren it wasn’t even salvageable for grazing. I was dead center of Nowhere, USA. As my eyes return to my dashboard it wasn’t the mileage that snags my notice but the slowly and inexorably dropping fuel gauge beside it that was now fully hitting the red. The tank was nearly as empty as my bank account.

After a few more minutes I speed by a sun faded green sign announcing that I was 24 miles out from a place called ‘Halcyon’. After another peek at the gauge and a quick calculation I mutter a swear under my breath as I knew the trusty old Honda wouldn’t quite get me there. It looked like I’d have quite a hike ahead of me unless I could hitch a ride, but the fact I hadn’t seen another living creature beyond the suicidal ground squirrels that kept darting across the road and the red tailed hawks lazily cruising on high thermals for the past half an hour or more gave me little hope. Even once I make it to this map speck my prospects wouldn’t be much improved. With 37 dollars to my name and a belly already grumbling in protest at my lack of breakfast this morning this endless road trip would hit its end one way or another, or at the very least a pause. But I wasn’t worried. Something would present itself. It always did. 25 bucks of fuel should be enough to get me to Rapid City which left 12 whole dollars to buy myself a gas station feast. Now I just prayed that Halcyon even had a gas station.

Not keen on taking the shoe leather express the rest of the way after my car runs dry I begin scanning forward and back for other cars, farm houses, anything that might indicate that I wasn’t completely alone in this God forsaken state. If I could just find someone, anyone, I might be able to convince them to let me siphon a gallon or two to let me limp into town. The road ahead was as deserted as ever. Glancing into the rear view, same thing. My jade eyes flicker with annoyance as I make eye contact with myself in the mirror.

“I know, I know.” I grumble. “I should plan this stuff better. But it’s not like that last chick’s boyfriend gave me much of a choice. It was hit the road or hit the dirt. Did you see the size of that corn-fed son of a bitch!” I pull my gaze back to the road. “And now I’m talking to myself. Great.” Turning on the stereo the driving rhythm of ‘Lonely Boy’ picks up right where I’d turned it off last night. Cranking the volume I push the accelerator determined to swallow up as many miles as I could before I was forced to abandon ship.

Scooping up my phone I hold it up long enough to see that I was still in a dead zone. I drop it again on the passenger seat. Staring up at me from the screen is my background, a photo of myself at 18 and my big brother Ric the day after my high school graduation. We were a couple of freckled red-headed hellions ready to take on the world, each in our own way. I look at the time. 8 pm back in Georgia was a couple of hours away. I should be good whether I got a lift or not. As my eyes drift back to the road I sigh, a familiar pang of homesick mixed with the guilty relief of not being there stirring inside me. Cranking up the tunes I put the petal to the metal, burning the tank dry at double time as I sailed across the seemingly infinite rolling plains.

With the needle touching E I come over a rise to see a shallow valley open up beneath me where a small meandering creek cut through landscape. Frightened by my car a doe and her fawn bound off to the north to disappear into a stand of willow that hugged the waterway. Not even a quarter mile to the south an old wooden trestle bridge spanned the valley to allow trains to pass. What grabs my attention though was the shiny dome of bright tangerine orange just beyond the small bridge ahead, the brilliant hue shining like a beacon after hours of yellows, greens and browns. Parked by the side of the road on the opposite side of the highway was a classic VW Beetle. Yes!

As I slow I begin looking around for the driver of the car. Turning off my music I coast across the bridge then roll to a stop on the wide grassy shoulder directly across from the old bug. I turn off my engine and step out into the hot, dry summer. There is a kind of quiet out here on the Great Plains that I never experienced even in the most remote areas of the Chattahoochee. Beyond the the incessant wind and a high pitched din of a million grasshoppers there as just…nothing. It was the kind of silence that you felt in your soul, a vague unnerving sensation of being completely and utterly alone. And with quiet came…thoughts…guilt…awareness…as the things I left behind begin to catch up. I shake my head and begin to explore.

The car itself, which was dusty but in immaculate condition, was unoccupied except for, of all things, an antique Underwood typewriter sitting in the back seat. Standing tall I peer around for any sign of the driver. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The car seemed to be abandoned. Wouldn’t it be just my luck to come across another vehicle that had run out of gas. I walk to the side of the bridge and look down to see if perhaps the person was fishing at the water but I find nothing there but tall, undisturbed grass.

“Hello?” I call out, my voice quickly swallowed up by the wind.

Glancing back to the beetle and then to my car I start to think. Classic car. Out here in the country where people trust each other. Probably doesn’t even have a locking gas cap. I had jerry can and hose in the back of my car, ready to go. I could nip a gallon or two and be gone before anybody knew a thing, assuming this car wasn’t here for the same reason mine was. I think about it a moment, even imagining leaving a fiver under the wiper blade to show I was a good guy, but then shake the temptation away. I was many things but, as of yet, a thief was not one of them.

“Fuck.” I mutter as I start looking around once more.

Eventually my eyes fall upon the only thing there really was to see, the train bridge. Scanning closer through the grass I then notice a subtle but definite path that cut through the foliage toward it. Squinting up at the top of the stout trestle framework I can see nobody atop the structure. Seeing how it was my only lead I set off through the waist high grass. I figured if nothing else I’d be able to see for miles from atop the edifice.

The sharp blades of grass scrape my bare calves and tickle my tanned toes and ankles around my sandal straps as I hike up the slope toward the tracks. Though overgrown the path was easy to follow and along the way I find wrappers and beer cans, evidence that this was a point of interest for the local rednecks. I break from the grass and climb mass of dark gray crushed stone that underlie the track’s ties.

I crest the mound and stand atop the near track and peer down the line to the west where in the distance I can make out a pair of titans standing proud over the flat plains around them. One was a faded gray grain elevator, the other an equally faded blue water tower. Halcyon beckoned.

Through the heat waves rising from the tracks I see no figure, human or otherwise. Looking the other way, back across the train bridge, I see a dark mass of blacks and rich reds and deep greens and white lace where should have been nothing. It takes a second for the layers of cloth to form into a recognizable shape.

“What…the…hell?”

In the center of the bridge, laying across the tracks with her ankles over one rail and her head resting on the other, was a buxom woman in a long full dress that looked vaguely Victorian. If not for the more modern canvas backpack laid at her side I might have thought I was looking at some ghost from the turn of the twentieth century that haunted this bridge. My thoughts quickly shift from ghost to corpse as I stare at the unmoving figure.

“Hey! HEY!” I shout. “What are you doing out there? HEY!!!” Not a twitch, not a stir, nothing. “Oh God. What in the hell did I stumble into here?”

Pushing the dark thoughts of what was likely happening here aside I hurry toward the woman without delay. If she wasn’t a cadaver yet she soon would be laying in the middle of FUCKING train tracks like that!

Padding from tie to tie I trot out onto the bridge. With no railing to either side there was nothing between me and the precipitous drop to the valley floor below, which I could see clearly through the gaps between the thick wooden ties beneath my feet. As I go I nervously glance backward and forward for any signs of an approaching locomotive, suddenly thankful for the clear view that the vast vacant landscape provided.

“Hey!” I call again toward the peculiar figure, again to no response.

As I got nearer details began to emerge. The woman looked to be about my age, though it was hard to tell from the side. She appeared to be of Asian or possible Native American ancestry, her long, straight raven black hair spread down over the gray rocks like spilled ink. Her small hands were folded over her stomach, as disturbingly still as the rest of her. The dress that I initially thought was one garment turns out to be mishmash of layers of different styles from different eras. Despite the summer heat the woman seemed to have on two entire outfits at the same time with a few extra pieces added to that. She wore thick soled black leather boots and on her head…headphones? They covered her ears and it was then that I could just make out the tinny sound from orchestral music vibrating the headphones at maximum volume. Stopping a dozen feet away I take in what I was seeing. At last I see a sign of life as she blinks. Never had I been so relieved to see somebody blink.

This strange woman in her strange clothes, still oblivious to my presence, lay unmoving before me. Her dark eyes stare vacantly into the cloudless sky as tears streamed down her temples.