Our Former Lives in Art
Stories
giving up the ghost“Look, Frank, trick-or-treaters,” Carrie said, breaking the silence of the last half hour. “What are they doing all the way out here?”
“Here” was a country back road, eastern Alabama. Halloween, 1980.
“Those aren’t trick-or-treaters,” Frank said, easing the truck onto the sandy shoulder of the road. Up ahead, flipped on its side, half on the shoulder and half in the ditch, was a red-and-white-striped GMC Jimmy, one taillight blinking off and on, a maniacal, fluttering eye. Behind them, perhaps twenty feet, a knot of people huddled on the side of the road, not moving.
“Maybe we should drive on to the bait shop,” Frank said. “Call the police from the pay phone.” He had heard stories of people faking accidents in order to rob or rape unsuspecting Good Samaritans, and he couldn’t help but wonder if this was it, the night a knife slid across his throat or, worse, Carrie’s. The night everything was written out for them. The next morning, a work crew or a vagrant ...
read full excerpt from: Our Former Lives in Art ebook
