Over My Dead Body

Eddie Merrick couldn't shake the feeling. Like something was about to happen. Something bad. The sensation was so strong, so intense, it felt like a presence occupied actual space on the seat beside him.

He wondered if maybe he shouldn't have heisted the car on a Friday night. And on Halloween. Way too many people out and about. But he hadn't been able to resist the shiny new 1940 Ford Coupe sitting in the parking lot of Murphy's Bar with the keys dangling in the ignition like an invitation. He swore this was the last time. One more good score and he'd get out of this town, go somewhere with a lot of trees. Get an honest job. Now, sitting behind the wheel of the car, he couldn't wait to get rid of it. He estimated pulling into Paulie's Garage in fifteen minutes, give or take. Another ten minutes and he'd be handing the keys to this bucket over to Paulie himself. As he hung a left onto Jersey Avenue Eddie felt a crawling sensation in his testicles and along his spine. Like someone was watching him.

You're just antsy. You think because it's your last time, you're gonna get pinched. Stop being so superstitious.

He switched on the car radio and got the news. A man's nasally, urgent voice said that the president promised not to send "our boys" into the war. Eddie didn't believe it. If Roosevelt planned on keeping the U.S. out of it, then why had he enacted the draft? The Jerrys wouldn't be happy until they took over the whole damn world. Eddie had seen Hitler a few times on the newsreels. A man that relentless wouldn't stop until you stopped him. Looking for a way out of his dead end life, Eddie had tried to join the Army four years ago, on his eighteenth birthday. They turned him down flat because of his bum leg. When he was thirteen, Eddie's old man beat him unconscious with a baseball bat for bringing home a bad report card. Eddie had never hated the drunken bastard more than he did the day he left the recruiter's office with that rejection slip in his hand.

Eddie soon tired of the news. He fiddled with the radio until he came across a station playing his favorite song, Glenn Miller's "In The Mood." He took it as a good omen, and hummed along with the tune. He turned right onto Mercer Street and gunned the engine.

There was a flash of bright red through the windshield. He mashed his foot down on the brake pedal—a second too late. There was a sickening thump as the car collided with whatever had crossed its path. The Ford screeched to a halt, and Eddie stared out past the gleaming black hood, his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel in a death grip, cold sweat prickling his skin. Someone screamed and Eddie's head snapped around. At the curb stood a girl and a boy, dressed respectively as a witch and a pirate. From the witch's right hand dangled a plastic jack-o'-lantern bucket. In her left hand she gripped a broom. The pirate carried his booty in a white paper bag with a picture of a skull and crossbones on the side. A black eyepatch covered one eye while the other eye gazed in shock at the red clump in the middle of the street.

The radio was still blasting "In The Mood." Eddie reached out with trembling fingers and switched it off. The sudden silence was deafening. He got out of the car and, his heart thudding in his chest, limped toward the red bundle.

It was a little girl. Dressed like Red Riding Hood. She lay on her back a good thirty feet beyond the car's grill, awash in the headlamps like an actress playing a death scene on a stage. And dead she was; if the enormous amount of blood pooling around her head didn't tell you the story, her open and vacant eyes sure as hell did. She had landed in such a way that the back of her skull had cracked open like a raw egg. An insane and unbidden thought arose in Eddie's mind: You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. He felt his gorge rise.

"Margaret?" said the witch in a tiny voice. She was twelve or thirteen. "Get up, Margaret."

The boy who was much younger, rolled an accusing blue eye toward Eddie. "You ran over our sister. You're a bad man." Then a single tear welled up in that eye and spilled down his cheek.