The Horn Screamed

Fiction|Horror|Fantasy … Part One

The horn screamed. It rang out liked the last gasp of the Titanic; like the desperate wail of a mother as her child’s hand slipped out from hers in a crowd, death awaiting, a momentary lapse, a phone call’s distraction, a misstep in a parking lot filled with holes and broken tarmac as a thousand cars circled, like buzzard’s eyeing lunch and careless in letting their hunger show. It reached in and shattered the still morning air, the peaceful feeling a carefully edited play list on my iPod had crafted, wrenching away the fragile pocket of sanity, peeling back the scab that covered the wounds that had already healed slowly, leaving Reality, in all its twisted forms, perched over the steering wheel like some sadistic angel.

One knowing I was about to die and thinking that I might just be thinking, that this angel might actually save my life. Then flying off, or however the fuck angels get around, leaving nothing behind but bad dreams and one ear bud, playing some demonic twist on “Closer to God”, as Trent Reznor peered out from the GPS disappointed by the manner in which his song was being used. Then fading back into the circuit boards as the airbag exploded with devilish certainty and my head bounced off the headrest and what little sense still lingering was sent scurrying into the afterlife.

I had witnessed death before; seen its glaring misshapen face staring at me; cloying, ill-tempered, humorless and alone, as it pried apart my fingers, the few left clinging to a surfboard snapped in two; smiling through rotted teeth, forked-tongue probing the fetid air that whirled around me, tasting the blood that seeped from the crack in my skull, seconds before I slipped casually into oblivion, six feet from the pier. Six miles from a home I had frequently found irksome, six stinking minutes from the soft yet distant caress of Syesha’s hand as she sent me out into the waves and returned to the more pressing concerns hurled her way by an older man named Gus.

Death loomed over me, slapping away the hands of swimmers pulling me up from beneath the water, stabbing sharpened fingers into my eyes so I could see nothing except its ghoulish face laughing; giving up only when I spat salt water into its face and found my own laughter within.

The large white air bag pushed my face deeper into the bone behind it, blinding me, forcing me to peer out from above the head that snapped to and fro, robbing me of the last breath I would take in this body; expelled in one shortened sigh as that goddamned horn filled the space with sound grating and unworldly, loud and unrelenting as all of Life’s chatter, an endless stream of interactive bullshit and “I am not listening” ran through me, downloading a thousand thoughts of what I had not yet had the chance to accomplish, of all the ideas I had not yet had the time to conceive of, of all the women I had not yet had the chance to know and break up with miserably and with regret.

I remained seated and aware, fused to the seat belt that held me prisoner in a small mid-ranged Kia, that I still owed money on and waited, patient in the knowledge, however brief and bereft of solace, that the other, nearsighted, dead from the neck up, amp’d on Red Bull and cough drops driver in his three-ton pickup would suffer sleepless nights, cold sweats and endless nocturnal erections, as he replayed the senseless, pointless, careless demise of a decent man, that he and only he had caused.

I thought of my mother and home, of my father and his home with a second wife half his age, and that endless grin etched on his face. I thought of my sister and husband, flying in from Kansas on a red-eye, with him crabbing about lost time at work and what a thoroughly dead and worthless person I had been anyway, genetically deficient of anything worthwhile, spending a pointless life hopelessly sucking the marrow out of anyone within reach, in a feeble attempt at becoming a man. And of Cora Lee. The parrot I had rescued from a tree in MacArthur Park, who cursed eloquently and sang off-key songs by the Bee Gees.

… for I was dead and the dead no longer had the privilege or need to view the dead as a means of gauging the life that still remained within them.

Life rallied for a brief moment, pitched up and fought tooth and claw, as the metal tore, the flesh gave way to muscle and bone and the pain, subtle and almost pleasant at first, alighting on a body that had not experienced anything more emotional than a good pee in a long while, building unnecessarily, for I was already resigned to it being unyielding, until the eyes teared up, the lips quivered, the scalp bristled with impending doom and the soul scampered out of the body, wishing to watch its former shell destroyed by this immovable object and that newly pimped irresistible force.

Then there was quiet. Like that moment in church when everyone’s head is down in deep thoughtful prayer and yours is up, watching, wondering what the hell is going through their minds. The quiet that precedes the slap; it was all there, the blinding light, the smells of gasoline, motor oil, melting brake pads and human waste, housed in a once practical, now demolished metal box, that would soon be recycled along with my DNA to become a garish lunchbox or some cheap spatula fabricated outside Beijing. Quiet mixed with the slow motion antics of those horrified or sublimely fascinated by body parts twisted out of their normal pattern, eyes fixed and staring out windows at a world they had once dominated and now, were merely an unmoving part of, no more or less than a rock, a fake lawn or yesterday’s delivered pizza box.

Where was I and why was I not peering into the wreckage as I was prone to do; eyes transfixed, mind racing to incorporate the gory details of the latest victims into a morbid mental database of horrific statistics and bad taste visuals, stored over the course of a lifetime, I was once proud to call my own. Where were the involuntary heaves as the stench of life’s expiration filled my nostrils and sent my lunch hurling towards daylight, only to be held down by sheer force of will and the survival imperative to not look like a fucking wuss. These simple pleasures would be no more, for I was dead and the dead no longer had the privilege or need to view the dead as a means of gauging the life that still remained within them. The horn screamed on.

Part Two coming soon.

Joe Luca is writer and editor for ILLUMINATION and a published author and writer of children’s stories, short fiction, non-fiction articles, screenplays and poetry. Publications include Child’s Life, Children’s Playmate and others. There are some other articles below — have a read. And thank you for stopping by.