C4 antho - Chamber Four

~166~ The Chamber Four Fiction Anthology
Battered and despondent, Wyatt drives toward the freeway
and buys a bottle of bourbon at a truck stop counter just
before 1 o’clock. He checks into a room that smells of bird
dogs and cigarettes, the paper bag tucked under his arm. He
listens awhile to the low whine of freeway traffic before turning
on the TV. A long swallow of whiskey lingers warm in his
throat. He tips back the bottle again, and his chest fills with a
hollow ache.
After sleeping awhile, he awakens on top of the bed,
shivering. A train horn blares; rail cars clatter in the night
air. The television glows. “You’ll have flatter abs in seven
days,” says a perky, spandexed woman. CALL NOW! blinks in
neon orange across her breasts.
He sees himself in the mirror next to the closet, the
image startling. His eye is puffy and blued; a crust of dried
blood clings to his upper lip. He wets a washcloth and cleans
himself up. Finding the bottle standing open, he caps it and
drops it into the trash. He checks out, fills a pair of coffee
cups, turns up the country radio, and drives hard through
the darkness with nearly 300 miles between him and home.
When the morning sun begins rising behind him, he’s fit
to burst, and pulls off at an interchange for a break. Nearby
sits a small wrecked building near a grove of trees. Planks
cover the windows; daylight sifts through holes in the roof.
Inside, tires lean against the walls. Empty beer bottles, some
of them in shards, litter the floor, along with heavy gear
wheels, rusty farm tools and the hard iron teeth of machinery
built for ripping up the ground. In one corner a fire has
burned through the floor, climbed the wall, and charred a
broad smudge across the ceiling. Wyatt walks over and uses
the hole as a urinal.
When he’s finished he steps back and begins looking
around. At the back of the building the floor rises two steps