Stranded

By Arturo Hernandez

For as long as he could remember, Melvin Amarillo has always felt a monumental fear for the world around him. Fear of his own shadow, fearful of the dark and of higher up places, an illogical fear of bugs, birds, cats, fish, dogs. One time he nearly soiled his pants after glimpsing himself in the restroom mirror of a 747, mistaking himself for someone waiting to mug him and take his wallet. His first--quick--steps (he was a year old at the time) occurred when he was scurried away by a big cockroach that had jumped on the coffee table that he'd been balancing on. Ever since that day, Melvin knew that valor would not be his mien.

So when his boss, second in command of a reputable engineering enterprise, had asked him yesterday to deliver some very important papers concerning the designs to the new Civic Center through the very center of Carver Landings (and at night because Melvin had not finished preparing the papers till then) to the persons in charge of beginning construction on the center, Melvin nearly had a nervous breakdown.

For Melvin knew that Carver Landings was not the ideal place to be driving through at night. The good people who were forced to live there lived in fear, night and day. There were daily reports on the evening news of gang rumbles, of drug related battles between mere children, of the occasional drive-by massacre--Carver Landings, the nineties killing fields. Reports of whores being arrested for delivering the pleasure of sex on every corner to anyone willing to pay for it. This surely wouldn't be a drive a monumental coward like Melvin Amarillo would have gladly taken upon himself to do, sober or drunk.

He had begged Mr. Lambright to consider someone else for the task, explaining to him that he had planned a special dinner that same night for his mother who had just come to town to visit him. Melvin's eyes were very close to crying.

Mr. Lambright, nonetheless, did not care, insisting that business came first and above all other things.

Melvin reluctantly agreed.

As Melvin drove through the Landings, sweating, his mind sharp as a knife, his eyes searching for the slightest disturbance, he repeatedly cursed his fat, bald boss in his mind, calling him the foulest words ever. This would be the last crazy demand he would do for that madman, he said to himself as he made a left turn down Kimbo Street, a badly lit road.

Striking a large bump in the road, the Audi he was driving bounced upward into the air.  Melvin groaned.

The light ahead turned yellow;  Melvin slowed the Audi.  There was one street lamp at the corner of the intersection, barely enough light for Melvin. He looked out the passenger side window, spotting some kids playing basketball.

He was quite impressed by one of the kids, a tall one, who was making every shot. This is one God-damn long light, he pondered as he watched the game progress.

Melvin watched as the tall boy deftly shook off two defenders and like a flying gazelle jumped skyward to thrust the basketball through the net. The tall boy then strutted--like a roster strutting through a hen house--through the other kids, their heads drooping in despair.

Suddenly Melvin heard a large thumping noise from behind him; a long, white Cadillac full of what appeared to be a gang of teenagers pulled up right beside him, yanking him away from the game he'd been watching--apparently the thumping he had heard coming from behind. Gangster rap, Melvin thought. The blood in his heart froze.

He turned his head away, hoping they would ignore him if he did, and looked up to see if the light had change, but it was still red.

However, they weren't ignoring him: Melvin could hear them laughing at him and taunting him over the loud music. Hey Butthead, he heard them repeat. Two of them, he noticed through the corner of his eye, were hanging out the back window shooting him birds.

Melvin quickly checked to see if his doors had been locked--a stupid check, for he knew for sure that he had locked all the doors to the Audi before entering the Landings.

His head then jerked violently to his left as if he had been slapped in the face in response to a few eggs that had been thrown at the passenger side window; he wet his pants instantly.

Some deep innard courage seemed to provoke him to look their way, and when he did he noticed that the one driving the Cadillac, a muscular behemoth with long black hair draping the Cadi's door, was holding a shot gun straight at his face.

"Hey Butthead!" The behemoth shouted at him, holding the gun steadfast and in the direction of Melvin's head. He was grinning wildly.

Behind the behemoth Melvin then spotted the hairy buttocks of one of the other gang members sticking out the window. He turned away, and with out looking to see if the light had change, stepped on the petal. The Audi, being a car with an above average pick up, sped off down Kimbo street, leaving the Cadillac a good twenty yards behind it.

Melvin peered in his rear view mirror to see the Cadillac still behind him, about ten yards. He gasped. But then, to his surprise, the Cadillac turned down another street.

Sighing, Melvin slowed the Audi down.

The Audi now was making a strange noise as it cut through the darkness, a slight thumping sound coming from the right back tire, the same tire that had hit the bump on the street a short while ago. And then seconds later, a loud Boom erupted from behind Melvin, instantly sending the Audi swerving and Melvin yelping for help. No, not a freaking blowout, not now, thought Melvin to himself as he finally got control of the car again; steadily he pulled it alongside the curb. He got out of the car frantically to inspect the damage done; it was a blowout alright. A large rupture ran down the side of the tire. Melvin, acting as if he had been the one cut, moaned at the sight of the now totally useless tire.

The real bad thing about this whole mess was that Melvin had forgotten to install a replacement tire in the trunk of his car.

Melvin quickly got back in the car. Lifting the carphone off its base, he punched in a number on it. He eyes opened wide in fear. "Gerald, this is Melvin. I've got a flat and I'm stuck in the middle of Carver Landings with out an extra tire to get me going again--" he looked at his watch, "its nine thirty now. If you can, please come pick me up." He hung up.

Melvin decided--remembering that his boss had other matters to attend to tonight and wouldn't be back in the office for another hour or so--he wasn't going to wait around for his boss to come pick him up, so he grabbed his pocket size gun, put it in his suit jacket, and got out of the Audi.

The air around him stank.

He squinted through the darkness, noted a gas station a few blocks down the street, and started walking towards it.

He had gotten a block closer to the gas station when he heard that same inferno, thumping music behind him. His heart began to pump faster and he started to sweat again. He turned around to find that it wasn't that same car full of crazies pumping out the gangster rap, but a few kids, one of the kids, the tallest of the four was holding a very large radio on his shoulders and dancing to the thumping. The other kids were dancing as well, and rapping to the music.

Melvin began to walk faster.

The gas station was well lit, yet there was no one there to assist Melvin with his problem. He thought for sure that the dancing kids could see him now in the light of the gas station. An easy target for gangsters. He left the station, heading down Kimbo street, hoping that along the way he would come upon the police.

But as he made his way down Kimbo, seconds going by slowly, he discovered that in this neighborhood police were as scarce as gold on a beach.

He could still hear the music behind him pounding away like some Indian war music. They were following him. They wanted something from him. They wanted his money, Melvin thought. And unlike the cops, money was not scarce to find Melvin. He had brought along--regretting it greatly now--three hundred dollars with him in his wallet, in his back pocket. And every once in a while he would pat his behind to make sure it was still there.

A block away, his eyes caught a house, its lights were on. He made a run for the house, hoping to find some sanctuary there from the mean street. He could use the owners phone--dial 911. Hoods steer clear from brightly lit places. And this house was just that, bright.

"Hey mister!"

They were yelling at him. He turned around, as he sped down the street, to see it was the one kid holding the radio on his shoulders that was doing the yelling. He turned his attention back to the brightly lit home in front of him and increased his speed. They wouldn't catch this man.

The tall one, holding the radio now to his side, yelled out again, "Hey mister! Come back here!" The tall kid began to run after Melvin but was quickly stopped by his friend who grabbed the tall kid's shirt from behind. The kid nearly ripped free.

"Let the man go, Nelson. If he doesn't need our help, let him be. He'll learn the hard way," the friend said, raising his free arm with its missing hand in the air at the fleeing coward.

Breathing heavily, Melvin darted up the steps; he looked over his shoulder and saw that the gangsters had retreated into the darkness of the street. Just like roaches, he thought.

He knocked at the door, rang the doorbell;  no one answered. Was anyone home? He could hear the television on, but that meant nothing. Perhaps the owner wished potential burglars to believe someone was home? He knocked again, and this time someone did answer.

"Come on in, the door's open," the voice informed him.

Melvin grinned and opened the door. "Thank you," he said, his eyes searching the living room for the owner of the voice and of this home. No one in here, he wondered. "I need to use the phone--"no one answered, "hello?"

"Sure," the voice returned, but from where it was coming, Melvin had not the slightest idea. The kitchen, he thought, and he made his way towards it.

As he approached the kitchen, something down the hall and in the room at the very end of the hall caught his attention. He peered down the hall; that smell he had smelled earlier, only it was much stronger now, returned to bother his nose; it was coming from down the hall where a purple light was creeping out the room at the end of the hallway.

"The phone is down here," the voice said; Melvin heard

it come from that room where the purple light was beaming from.

"Down here, Mr?"

"Just call me Melvin, Sir," Melvin told him uneasily, not sure if the voice coming from the room ahead was either male or female.

As he drew closer to the room, the floor beneath him began to squish, and he nearly slipped. "I believe you spilled something on the floor," Melvin told the voice.

"Yes, I think I did do that."

When Melvin went to step again, he found he couldn't raise his foot off the floor. He tried again. But the floor and his feet were as one now and could not be separated. His heart began to pump faster.

"I can't move."

"Yes I think you can't," the voice said.

Melvin began to whimper softly, muttering curses as he tried to wrench his feet free from the strange gunk, which now was creeping up his legs. He slapped at the creeping blackness and managed to get his slapping hand stuck to his knee.

"Help me!" Melvin cried out.

Melvin's heart nearly exploded, for strolling out of the room was the owner of the voice, and it wasn't human, whatever it was. It was glowing brightly of purple, one very enormous eye bulging from its insect like head, and a tongue the size of a full grown rattle snake whipped out between its toothless mouth. The thing was throwing up black ooze, the same ooze that was climbing up Melvin's legs.

The creature sighed. With its grasshopper-like hands, it lifted Melvin's limp body off the ground, and with its snake-like tongue lapped at Melvin's white haired head.

"Too bad, I was hoping for live food," it hissed.

"This is Melanie Kimstock reporting live from Carver Landings where a most uncanny murder has taken place. The San Fransico police department right now have not commented on the situation, but we do have information on the cause of death.

"Apparently, a man in his late twenties (unfortunately no name has been given to us by our On-The-Spot source) was found totally drained of his bodily fluids via his heart and abandoned in the this field," the reporter pointed to the lot behind her; a few neighborhood kids were jumping up and down and making funny faces behind her as she made her report. "Right behind me. A few neighborhood kids found the body this morning."

Melanie directed one of the kids to appear in front of the camera.  It was the boy with the missing hand.

"What is your name, young man?" She asked the boy.

"William Hunster, Maam. Me and my homies found the body this morning while we were on our way to shoot some baskets at Boner's court. Sammy puked his brains out when he found the body. But not me. I'm use to shit--"the boy, forgetting he was on TV, stopped suddenly and covered his mouth.

"Thank you William," Melanie quickly cut him off. They were reporting live.

"A most despicable crime Ms. Kimstock."

Melanie turned toward the stranger's voice. She gasped: he was the weirdest sight she's ever seen. The man appeared human but not totally. His skin was a light purple, the hair hanging in his only eye (the other eye was covered by a patch) was black and shiny and had a plastic look about it. His mouth was toothless. And he wore a tall, black hat on his head, and a black  shroud over his  body.

She seemed wary of this stranger, like a child would be of a stranger bearing candy. "Yes, very despicable," the reporter replied.

"I come from the old country, Ms. Kimstock. Things like this hardly ever happen there. We live a peaceful and quiet life in the old country. It truly shocks me to see such things."

She eyed him with great suspicion and asked, "Where exactly are you from Sir?"

"England," he told her.

"You live around here?"

"Yes," he said, pointing to a bright white house down Kimbo street. "Over there."

"Would you like to say something to the people of San Fransico, any comments on this brutal slaying?"

The man nodded and smiled at the camera. "One must be very careful now a days. Who knows what they might find in such a crazy world as this one."

Copyright © 1997 by Arturo Hernandez