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His generation still clung to the glory days of the Mountain State despite its depleted coal industry and opioid epidemic.
The scowl plastered on her face didn’t require a doctorate in psychology to interpret.
That smile, which she admittedly had read all wrong, irked her, and the fact that he’d just referred to her—a mature, professional woman—as a ‘pretty little thing’ really pissed her off.
“You know what? You’re right. I really should watch my mouth. Thank you, so fucking much.” She winked and booked it straight out of the building.
She whipped her head toward the movement and saw it was just the lady who had been behind her. The woman wore a black coat and black pants that matched the dark hair covering most of her face. Even though Dr. Strobel only saw a glimpse, she saw that the woman had pale, almost alabaster skin.
The rum and Coke she’d had on the plane nearly came bubbling back up when she spotted the pile of what looked like human shit in the corner.
being trapped in what was basically a mobile port-a-potty.
Someone might as well be marching in front of her, yelling, “Woman walking alone at night! A woman is walking alone at night!”
It was then that she noticed the smell and heard someone shift in the seat behind her. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Get the fuck out of the car, kick off your heels, and run. No! Go for the mace in your purse. This is your car. Douse this motherfucker. Spray mace inside of a car with you in it… Seriously?
breathing in the taste of what could only be human excrement and/or decay. It took every ounce of courage to lift her head just enough to peer into the rearview mirror. What she saw made her stomach ice over. A woman stared back at her. Greasy strands of dark hair hung over her face, thick like heavy curtains. She gasped when she noticed the woman’s eyes hidden beneath the strands, opened so wide that they looked like golf balls embedded in her pale flesh.
And she was grinning.
Her lungs constricted; she hadn’t taken a breath since the person in the back of the car stole her last one.
“You—” She started to speak but choked on the sandpaper texture of her tongue. She cleared her throat and tried again. “You can take whatever you want. I have cash, jewelry…hell, take the fucking car.”
“A pretty little thing like you shouldn’t use filthy words,”
female voice said from over her shoulder. Oh my God. That’s exactly what the old man said to you in the airport. How the fuck could she know that? She must’ve been in there, right behind you and followed you out. It has to be that woman who followed you into the garage. Dr. Strobel let her eyes drift back up to the mirror and saw the face was closer. She immediately ...
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The woman behind her didn’t say anything, only continued to grope the seat.
Who what? Hangs around baggage claim unnoticed and follows random people out to their cars to breathe on their necks and creep them out?
Is she actually recoiling from the light?
so that only meant that she had ducked down out of her line of sight. There was no way the woman had exited the car.
The headlights were shining directly on her back, and that meant the car was pointed straight at her. The engine revved. “Shit!”
She cradled her leg and rolled over just in time to watch the car’s grill drill her face. Her head smacked back against the pavement so hard that she heard her skull crack despite not feeling anything. She tried to sit up, but her body was paralyzed. Her only view was that of the front tire, a foot away from her face. The engine revved, and the car inched forward.
Doctor Strobel tried to scream, but the front two tires sped over her face and torso like a speedbump. She felt her body twist and bend backwards, followed by a loud crunch. One eye still worked, and it was pointed at the bottom of her prized luxury car that stopped with her underneath it. She watched it reverse and felt the weight of the tire inch across what was left of her skull. The pressure built up, and in one sudden burst, Dr. Strobel ceased to be.
UGH! Fuckin rad description! 😅😅😅
Derrick Stockton, twenty-five and still full of the urge to lash out against the old-timer who’d just asked him that, restrained himself.
but they all ingested caffeine like it held the cure for cravings.
At the time, he didn’t know their stories, of course; they were just an assimilation of letters and numbers seared into his brain’s rolodex. He knew them much better now. He considered them family and didn’t dare miss the weekly meeting.
He didn’t always have that outlook, but a lot had changed since he worked the twelve steps with his sponsor.
Randall watched him with a condescending glare that could be easily punched off his face. Derrick had seen this same look several times in his two years of coming to meetings. These were the folks who’d had periods of sobriety and went back out, former old-timers. Now they had to start back over on Day 1, picking up that twenty-four hour chip with shame or humility or both, and they sat there eyeballing him with his two years and his youth and probably saw themselves. Not all of them responded this way, of course, just pricks like Randall.
But, judging by the mean-spirited haze in the stranger’s eyes, Derrick guessed that he’d either just found his way back to the rooms or was on his way out. Perhaps he did have decades of clean time and had fallen victim to complacency, practicing the spiritual principals of the program less and less as the years ticked away and drifting back into the bitter morass of selfishness and self-pity.
She
died with this disease but not from it. I know she’d want me to say that. She told me that whenever I was surrounded by darkness and I couldn’t see any light, it only meant that it was my turn to be the light. I’ll never forget those words because they saved my life.”
I was seeing therapists and shit, but I know now I never fully confronted my demons.” Derrick chuckled at the thought and looked up, suddenly unaware of how long he’d been sharing.
“Anyway, I got pulled over again a few years later right after I got my bachelor’s degree in social work. It’s funny looking back on it now; I was drinking my way through college while planning on a career helping other people get their shit together…completely delusional.
It was in that semi-conscious state that I got hit with a white-hot moment of clarity, and it was a simple one: I drank to drown my sorrows, and I drank to celebrate. It didn’t matter the outside circumstance. I drank because I liked the effects produced by alcohol. Simple as that. I don’t know where that truth came from, but it hung a little truth tag on my faulty belief system, and drinking, in my mind, no longer became a choice. That was my bottom. That was me acknowledging my powerlessness over alcohol, and looking around a dirty jail cell will definitely highlight the unmanageability of
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That’s the memory I choose to take away from them. That as long as you’re spiritually fit, you can find your
way out of the darkest situations…or die trying.
And you wonder why you have anxiety; he thought and then ignored the intuition.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
About six months after he’d gotten sober, Derrick finally put his degree to use and got hired as a peer support specialist at Recovery Landing, a nonprofit organization
founded by people in recovery.
“I heard they’re moving toward MAT,” she said.
An image of a scarred, disfigured face hidden behind black hair flashed through his mind. He shook it away and looked back at Shannon. “Thanks.”
I’ll tell ‘em about the kid who reminded me to remain teachable.”
leaving Derrick still standing by his used Subaru staring at a black car he hadn’t noticed until that very moment. It was parked on the other side of the street from the church, right in front of a house. Someone moved in the darkness of the front seat once Derrick looked in that direction. He couldn’t identify the make and model, but it looked fast, yet unassuming.
the interior dome light turned on as the woman opened the driver's side door. An older man sat in the passenger seat, staring daggers at him. The petite female cop had dark hair pulled back into a bun, but he couldn’t make out much more than that from where he stood. He watched as she stepped out and shut the door behind her. She wasn’t in uniform. She wore a black leather jacket and dark jeans that fed into boots that looked too cozy to be functional for an on-duty cop. The male cop was a bit slower getting out, and
The two of them talked about something inaudible to Derrick as they approached him.
We’re with the West Virginia State Police Department.” Townhouses flooded Derrick’s mind.
Derrick remembered the River’s Edge Subdivision sign. “Sorry. You guys just caught me off guard.” He dry swallowed and centered himself before trying to form another thought. “Are you wondering why a West Virginia cop is in Ohio, Derrick?” “Yes, why—wait, how do you know me?”
Derrick vividly recalled sitting in her office when he was sixteen. That was the last time he’d seen her. She’d been his childhood psychiatrist when his parents were alive, before all the bad things happened, the stuff he knew better than to dwell on.
Wait, wasn’t he like, nine when his parents died?
She was the last link he had to his parents.
He thought of his childhood dog, Clark, the brave German Shepherd who protected him, and loved him, and died for it.
