The Town You Won’t Forget

The Second Chapter of The Case of Brittlestone, by Will Reading

It was in my gut. A feeling long that was forgotten. The feeling that something terrible is going to happen. Don’t know when it will happen or what will happen, but whatever happens, won’t be good. Lingering like a parasite, my aching feeling worsened as an eerie sense of familiarity grew outside the window. Fortunately, there wasn’t much time to sulk. Gabe, the cab driver, was a bit of an odd fellow.

Slouched into the spongy seat, I caught a strong whiff of left-over tamales as I entered the car. Just my luck getting stuck with a driver whose weakness is cheap Mexican. Three take-out containers sat between my legs, guacamole leaked from the side physique did not match his job title. He was large, too large for his German station wagon. Combining his height with his unconventionally bulky build made for a comedic scene. His clothing choice of a luxurious navy blazer and khaki pants made him stand out like a sore thumb amongst the anarchy of the car, contrasting his dark skin complexion.

“So Gabe,” I started abruptly, “who is he?”

“Well, if I told you, it wouldn’t be an anonymous source, would it?” he chuckled, probably in an attempt to ease the mood and change subjects, but I wasn’t having it.

“Cut the bullshit. I know-”

He cut me off. His voice got deeper than I thought possible.

“Just wait.” on the top one. The man reached over me and popped the glove box where a bible, pack of gum, and a bottle of cologne lay. He sprayed the cologne, trying to cover the smell, but just ended up making us cough. Whatever restaurants he stops at should be forced to give him breath mints or mouthwash.

“Hello, you must be-”

No time for introductions as Gabe hit the pedal before the door closed. Gabe swerved the wheel recklessly, like a kid first learning to drive a golf cart.

Like his driving skills, Gabe’s

The whole case bugged me, but it wasn’t just because of Brittlestone. The anonymous source, an unknown piece on the chessboard. I didn’t like it one bit. It’s beyond shady. He knew my name and family and knew where to find me. I shudder at the thought of what he could do, knowing my past. If he wanted to, I could’ve been thrown in a jail cell by now. I never had a choice the moment Bill said my father’s name; the chains of the past held me to my fate. They even got a driver for a pretty expensive drive. I needed to figure out who this source was, if he knew me, and make sure never to let him tell a soul about my past.

Gabe remained unfazed, only slightly adjusting his grip lower on the steering wheel, and his eyes remained glued on the road ahead.

“You talking about the boss?” he responded. His voice was booming. In all honesty, it made me almost too intimidated to respond.

“Who else would I be talking about?” I answered with heat in my tone.

Those two words were all it took for him to shut me up. Although I don’t like being in the dark, it was better than getting burned in the light. If he meant to imply it or not, I didn’t have a choice anymore.

Gabe wasn’t someone I could take lightly. His behemoth appearance made my rat-like one decide to keep my mouth shut.

The actual drive went smoothly. We stopped for the occasional gas fill-up, smoke break, and bathroom stops. Gabe occasionally attempted to have some weird form of small talk about the unique trees or cars we would pass. Eventually, I just rested my head on the window, letting the pack of cigs put my mind in false ease. I looked out the window to the miles of flat land and lengthy trees, which meant we were heading in the right direction.

To fill the silence between us, Gabe turned on the radio, twisting the knob over to station 101.6, which blasted Rolling Stones’ Sympathy For the Devil. The first and only song I got on vinyl. My dad got it for my brother and me on our eighth birthday. I couldn’t tell you how many times I listened to that record.

After another twenty minutes, we reached the city limits. Brittlestone isn’t an easy place to spot -the tallest building was the town with its towering three stories. The only way to notice the town is to look for the cross on top of the church.

Next, I noticed the town’s sign out of the corner of my eye. For a second, my brain convinced me I was five again, coming back with my family from grandma’s house. I would see the sign and get giggly to be back home. Now, seeing the sign, I want to throw up.

Even after all these years, the sign remained untouched. No evidence pointed out the passing of time. Not a scratch had ruined the white paint. All the wood, however, looked brand new. And the letters were crystal clear, proudly stating the words.

Welcome to Brittlestone! The town you’ll never forget

“Ironic,” I mumbled to myself as we passed.

“Welcome home, David,” Gabe said without thought. Brittlestone? Home?

Supposed memories were attempting to resurge, I began to breathe in the cigarette smoke hoping it would be enough to drown them out, but one slipped through the cracks; the face of my mother. The horrific shock on her teary eye face made me begin to hyperventilate.

“Not again, not again, not again,” I kept repeating. I needed to get out. I shakily tried to rip my seatbelt off and open the door.

“What are you doing?” Gabe asked. He turned to me and grabbed my hand. I tried to resist, but his grip was tight.

“I need to get out!” I shouted, “I can’t go back. Not there-” Bam!

It all happened in half a second. An object slammed into the car, smashing the windshield and forcing the vehicle to swerve off the road. I blacked out for a couple of minutes.

When I came back, the world was vigorously spinning like it asked for me to throw up, which I obliged. Blood blurred my vision. My head was throbbing with pain. I checked to make sure it wasn’t anything serious.

Luckily, I only stuffed a couple of nasty cuts and probably a concussion.

My heart didn’t stop pacing. I desperately tried to remember the rules.

“Four,” I breathed in for four seconds.

“Seven,” I held my breath for seven seconds.

“Eight,” I exhaled for eight seconds.

I repeated breathing till my heart came down to somewhat normal.

Once I was rational again, I dragged myself out of the car. Gabe was standing in front of me with the glow of the headlights shining on him. I couldn’t see what he was looking for, but I could see his face frozen in terror, locked to the ground. After painfully getting myself to stand up, I saw what crashed into us. A deer laid on its side, dead. Eight horns stemmed from its mangle head. How could one this big be right outside the town? The reddish fur gave away that it was a whitetail deer.

As I got closer, I saw the horrific unnatural condition it was in.

Two seconds ago, the animal had enough speed to knock a car off the road.

Now it looks like it has been dead for weeks. Its tongue was missing along with all of its teeth. Beetles and flies swarmed over the lifeless animal, feasting on its open chest. The breast was gouged, unveiling the rotten organs creating a pool of blood surrounding the deer.

My first thought, nature took its course before we intervened. Possibly a coyote attacked before we took it to death’s door, but it couldn’t have the force to jump in front of the car. Another unexplainable thing was a black liquid flowing through its body. It was dead, I was sure of it, but the deer’s veins pulsed throughout the body. Its unseeing black eyes stared right at me. I couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

“Jesus,” was all I could mutter under my breath.

Gabe went over to the deer and began to pray. Although I was crapping my pants right now, Gabe held a different expression. He was less afraid but sorrowful as if this was his childhood dog. While he was praying over the deer, I don’t know how else to describe it as this faint glow around him. Maybe it was a trick of the moonlight. I put my hand on his shoulder. I wasn’t a religious man by any definition; frankly, I disliked it, but I didn’t know what else to do.

After a couple more whispered words, Gabe closed the deer’s eyes and stood up. Standing next to him, I realized he was taller than I thought. Although I’m not the tallest out of the bunch, I’m not the shortest either, but Gabe had a foot and a half on me. It makes you wonder how the guy with a pro offensive lineman’s body became a cab driver.

“You know I didn’t take you for the religious man,” I said in an attempt to ease the atmosphere.

He gave me a soft smile, “I guess I am.”

His smile gave levity before we turned to see the car’s condition.

“Fortunately, as of right now, nothing appears broken beside the left headlight and the windshield, but we won’t know for sure till we drive the damn thing,” Gabe said while he scanned over the engine.

We nervously hopped back in the car, hoping to turn the vehicle on and wouldn’t blow the whole place up. Luckily, the engine turned on.Unlikely, the engine was making a sound that even I knew it wasn’t supposed to make.

So we began to pull the car back onto the road. Once we got back on the road, the tip of the clock tower was visible. Then the gas station would pop on your left, where a lonely clerk sat reading a comic book while a group of teenagers tried sneaking beers into their jackets. Then the town came into full view.

There it was; Brittlestone.

After being gone so long, it’s funny how normal the town looked. In my head, I still remember it as the place of ghouls and monsters on twisted, creepy roads, but it was what you would expect in any small town. If the street light weren’t there, you wouldn’t guess there was a town at night. Although built in the early era of America, Brittlestone’s structure appeared pre-planned. The whole place was set up as a firm square with half being used for the diners, church, town hall, and the shops, while the other half was where the neighborhoods and church were built.

The town hall and stores made of red bricks have lost their color. Although there were apparent modifications and replacement of old stores, the town appeared to resist the flow of modern architecture for the most part. If you were just a traveler stopping through, you would’ve guessed you had accidentally stumbled back to the eighteen hundreds. The saving grace of the town, however, was the trees. Their beautiful flaming orange leaves persisted against the incoming winter season.

We went straight through the heart of the town on Willow street, where ninety percent of the stores and people dwell. Things like the grocery market, gas station, and town hall had only slight changes. Some things must have closed like the Ben & Jerry’s or Ricky’s Italian restaurant. But I could tell new shops were built, and two other neighborhoods were added.

I felt sick looking at all of it. Nostalgia was a bittersweet drink. Each pleasant piece of nostalgia was another reminder of what happened. No childhood memory would make me feel any better being in Brittlestone.

As we got further down the street, I noted another odd thing. No cars, no people. The place was ghost quiet - only the horrendous car engine gurgling was audible. There were only a few scattered in the restaurants, either working or huddling at the booths. It felt everyone was in awe of our arrival, with the few eyes I could see being pointed at me.

“Do you know what’s going on, Gabe?” I asked in hopes he would know what was going on.

Gabe didn’t react. I look to a window where eyes are peeking from the curtain before retreating from view. I couldn’t tell who was scared more, the town or me. We eventually made it over to the north side of Brittlestone, where the wealthy live. The divide between the rich and poor was set by grass. The north side had lush emerald grass, and the south side had dirt. The neighborhood was set along with an upside-down “T” shaped neighbor with a total of twelve houses. Anderson’s household.

Like the rest of the north side of Brittlestone, the house was luxurious. Each house was the size of the town hall, with all but one owning a fountain in the front. The gardener would be fired if a single strand of grass was overgrown—the upper-class pride itself on perfection with their perfect yard, perfect house, and perfect family. The ladder was the biggest joke I heard.

Believe me. I knew how all these families ended up. The parents hate themselves and each other. The children escaped in drugs, the mother escaped in wine, and the fathers escaped in work. Then they reluctantly eat dinner together. Each conversation is just a jab at one another.

Reputation is what made you here. Your last name could make or break you. So it was critical to ensure your children would marry someone of equal stature because god forbid they end up with someone they loved. So they keep their fangs behind closed down, smiling with their lips in public.

I hated all of it, how prideful they acted, how their parents looked at me, how their kids treated me, and how helpless I was to all of it. They were all so kind and compassionate to Oliver and me at my mother’s funeral, but I could hear their whisper. Blaming me for what happened, I was too cowardly to save my mother, forcing my father to drink, the fall of the Blake family. Maybe I was, but what gave them the right to look down at me? I guess the crowd just loves their gallows.

Gabe pulled the car to the top of the arch driveway.

“Should I expect to see you again?” I asked, still in awe at the size of the house.

“Certainly,” Gabe answered.

I reached for the door handle, but Gabe grabbed my shoulder.

“One more thing.”

He handed me another envelope, almost identical to the one Bill gave me before. Inside the card was an old Brittlestone postcard. The front was a picture of the town hall at Christmas time with reefs and lights that appeared just thrown at the townhome. On the back was writing:

David, Welcome back home! Although it isn’t your first time here, let me give you some advice.

- Your true identity and past will stay a secret if you follow my directions

- Gabe will give you a burner phone to contact him. Use it as a last resort

- Joseph Pierce will be your new name

- Find the killer

Good luck! <3 I will be watching :)

Fantastic, they got me in the palm of their hands. I was hoping that whoever this anonymous source would be Anderson, but I doubt the playfulness of the tone. Whoever this is, they are either likely related to the killer or are them. This was a game to them, and I was the dog doing tricks for them, but why me? I need to find the connection between this kid and me before they get bored of my tricks.

Gabe handed me the phone and repeated that it was a last resort.

“Good luck,” Gabe said in a soft voice.

We shook hands before he drove off, leaving me at the front door of the Anderson’s.