Truck Cemetery

By Claudio Hernández

The truck kept the secret and he knew it. Thirty years later, agent Majestik witnesses the horrible deaths of a handful of old people, crushed by a truck. And they knew it. They knew the secret because they were the secret. And they, even after death, visited Majestik, who at the beginning of it, the unbeliever saw them as nightmares or hallucinations, but later, his stinking rotten and stinking bodies told him they were zombies or ghosts and talked to them. But death had some rules and they could only help a little to clarify the case. And alone, the next on the list to die, could talk and reveal the secret. A well-kept secret that they had to destroy at this time, because the curse had been unleashed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jul 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781547538836

Book preview

Prologue

Hi.

My name is Stivo. I'm young, very young. Too young to write maybe. Even though I think there is no fine line fixed for that. Or at least to write things like the ones that I want to write. But.... You'll see, there is something that won't let me sleep at night. When I lie down, I make sure to keep my legs tucked under the sheets so I'm safer. If by any chance of letting one of my legs lean over the edge of the bed, I'm quite sure that a cold hand would encircle my ankle with its long fingers and pull me at the same time.

Dragging me to the endless world that seems to exist under the bed. And there I would probably find myself face to face with HIM... not without first perceiving the bad breath that always seems to accompany this type of things that live under the bed...

Is it pure imagination?

Anyway, I do not want to prove it. It's better to prevent certain things. One can not know exactly if all this is the product of the imagination or if it's really real ... so I try to lie down, trying not to let my feet fall on the edge of the bed. There are things that, however strange and incredulous they may seem, are not at all pleasant to check.

..... One ends up falling deeply asleep and know nothing that happens around them. Maybe a horrible being of old and saggy skin is watching you continuously while you are dreaming peacefully. It's even probable that it touches you with one of its long, bony fingers.

But let's begin at the start. Where were we? I already said what my name was or at least how the others call me. I said that I was too young to write certain things. No, don't take me wrong. I'm not trying to write obscene and cheerful things. No way. That remains for the heated and permanently aroused writers. It's not sex that has led me to this typewriter or inserting a blank paper in it.

What had pushed me to type is one ... I really do not know how to explain it. But it's fine, I'm going to make a small effort regardless. It was a terrifying story that on one regular day, an old man told me on the porch of his house, which quickly acquired sympathy on my part. We had a simple conversation about how hot that summer was in Road Mill and how you saw that the water evaporated from the taps ... but the truth is that the issue arose when I said that I wanted to be a writer, but for that I needed to start with something ... with a story and that at the moment I did not have any. The old man stared at me for a moment with his tired eyes and full of wrinkles. He must have thought of something, since it was like this for what almost seemed like an eternity, then reluctantly he said.

I think I can help you.

I was perplexed.

.... What will he do now? Will he tell me of his battles in Vietnam?

I have something to tell you. Something that I should have told someone long ago. I think it's time. I think you are the right person to listen to my story. A personal story which has been told from... He stopped a while to exhale the smoke of the cigarette which he held in between his trembling yellow fingers. He closed his eyes and searched his memory. I got the impression that he was inventing a lie. It's the reaction of when you're going to say something and you get stuck all of a sudden. Well that part I won't tell you yet. I'll just tell you the story. Then we'll see.

What would we see afterwards?

Alright, I said, reluctantly trusting him in some way.

I want you to know that what I am going to tell you is something that has really happened.

Now I was impressed. He was going to tell me something real.

... You will see how it is one of his war stories ...

You want to hear it? The old man asked with the cigarette hanging from his lips.

I nodded.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to hear him out or not, but I gave in to it out of respect. He told me that it was about time someone wrote about it. He warned me that it was a terrifying story, which I liked more since it was my specialty, and... I loved scary stories.

What happens now, are you going to bring me one of your ghosts? ...

So the old man encouraged me to listen to a story. His story. A true story, he affirmed several times with a rather humorous tone in his voice. And he told me that if I wanted to, that could be a good story to start writing something really important. That it was time for someone to listen to it and consequently write about it if they felt like it. But he put special emphasis on it.

Write it, boy, you will make me happy. Someone else should know what happened.

It's a real fact, boy, do not fail me...

So I accepted, but ... by God, how was I going to imagine that what the old man, with remarkable wrinkles on his face, was going to tell me, was going to end my pleasant dreams from that day on. And he told me the story spontaneity and above all naturalness, studying each of the words that was going to parade through his lips.,

He told me about it on a hot day when the sun was freakishly fucking hot. With his eyes almost closed in front of the sun impassively. He barely shook his head.

Fuck.... what the old man has to endure. Is it normal to spend the day looking at the sun as if they were expecting it to one day go out permanently ...?

He barely moved in the whole story. His ass was crushed in the old chair with legs splintered and eaten away by time. And by the time he finished telling it, it had already gotten dark. God knows how many hours I stayed there absorbed in front of him, sitting right in front on the floor, with the sun burning my back. Paying special attention to each of the words that seemed to cut the air like blades, spoken from dry lips and consumed by time. I saw a dozen cigarettes parade through them. My rear was numb and when I got up, a twinge of pain invaded my entire body in a lacerating pain like an electric shock.

The old man rose reluctantly from that ramshackled, dusty chair and shuffled into the house. I watched him until he disappeared behind the door that closed behind him. An instant later a dim light came on inside the house reflecting through one of the dusty windows. The shadow of the old man took a seat again inside and a moment later I thought I heard him snore.

I looked at my watch and it was already half past twelve at night. I spent all day sitting there without eating or anything. Except listening. Oh my God, how would Mom react?

As I walked away from there back home, I wondered if it was all true what he had told me. The expression of his eyes made it clear that this was the case.

At least he told it with all the naturalness of the world. And for that reason I try to keep my feet well hidden, under the sheets when I go to bed. Since that day I have discovered things that I thought did not exist. But, you know? There could be something under our bed. Something with gray claws with long wet damp fingers, which could be closed around our ankles ... just in case, do not leave your foot hanging by the edge of the bed. They could discover something unpleasant.

As maybe I would not advise you to continue reading these lines, what comes next, it seems incredible, but that's how it happened.

I spent the rest of the night writing the first draft of the story. Mom was hysterical, when she saw me reappear, because she thought I was lost. Things that every mother would do. I did not sleep all night, even dawn broke and I was still there, on my typewriter.

Mom was worried. But it's nothing. Now I have to work. A long road awaits me until this story sees the light.

I'm going to start from the beginning. I'm going to start with the description of the old man, of how everything started. I'm going to modify it a bit, the conversations that we had, to make the story more credible, at first. But the story will remain valid. It's normal to adapt things in a way that fits within a novel.

But the feeling is the same and the story too.

Before starting with the tale, I want to say that I never knew what the old man's name was. I never saw him again, even though I passed several times in front of his house. Maybe he died. Sometimes I think it could be the protagonist of the story judging by the physical description he made of Majestik. It could well be the same, the Sheriff, but a few years younger ...

Everything is there, forming part of the mystery.

Oh, if you are going to continue reading and doing it in bed. Do have your feet well hidden under the sheets, alright?

Join me from the beginning.

The beginning

1

I don't even know how I started, but the truth is that there I was in front of him. Engaging in a conversation about how the sun felt that summer in Road Mill and how the lizards would be doing it in the quarries. Any conversation. No more important. Perhaps that encounter was premeditated by a strange force of fate. It was something casual. As casual was the idea of telling him that I was excited to become a good writer one day. But at the moment I did not have to write.

Well, you can write about something that happened to you. I suggested the old man with features terribly punished by the passage of time, his eyes unwavering and unmoving as he stared off into the sun. His eyes were squinted,gleaming dimly like the ones found on guinea pigs. He had wrinkles like dunes on his forehead and his whole face, some of those features were more pronounced since he had to try his utmost when he looked directly at the sun. It was like a mania. But the rest of the aforementioned features betrayed the age of man or perhaps the suffering over time. It is curious how the skin sags as time passes, like bags filled with grain, losing it’s contents overtime. His shirt was dirty and a large yellowish spot formed at chest level. Sweat ran capriciously down his chin and neck in big drops. He was fat... His bulging belly showed that he drank too much beer and if you looked around you could see dozens of empty and crushed cans scattered on the ground like seeds. There was garbage around the lonely house..A lonely house with an old dog tied to a long rusty chain. The animal was sleeping with a span of pink tongue dropped down the side of the mouth on the sand. From time to time I could feel a wave of soreness. Probably from the armpits, from there you could see a pair of natural rivers of sweat sliding down to the waist, which suddenly melted with the smell of the animal's feces.

A romantic story he added smiling showing me a single crooked tooth, under the large yellow-gray moustache that partially covered his upper lip. His lips were dry and they seemed to hurt when they stretched into a scowl. His lips were almost blackish from the tobacco and terribly cut.

I never had a romantic story. I answered and added I never had it nor do I think I never will. Those are not the things that I'm lucky about. Besides, I'm only fifteen years old...

I thought the same as you, boy but I eventually married and had a family ... now I have nothing left. He cut me short with a certain brightness in his eyes and added And now I smoke like a condemned man while I had never done it before.

Besides, those kinds of stories do not motivate me, I said, evading him from a bad memory. I was beginning to feel melancholic.

Do you want to be motivated? Do you want a real reason? The old man left aside his family and possibly the memories associated with them. He opened his eyes wider, letting the sun's rays strike his weak corneas with fury. And it was at that instant when I noticed that his eyes were dark. Brown maybe. Well I got a story that will motivate you. I assure you. It's a true story. Based on real facts. A story that will make your hair stand on end. Something that happened right here in Road Mill while you were still hanging on your father's eggs.

I leaned toward him, resting my elbows on my knees as I listened to this old man ramble..

For them to say that things do not happen in Road Mill, the old man continued, his body thrown forward. He had almost closed his eyes again and again the sea of wrinkles in them. Things do happen here...

What sort of things? What do you mean? I intervened with a humoured expression.

Real things he responded.

All things that happen are real, isn't it? I inquired, now perplexed.

The old man remained in silence for a long and ominous while. It was like suddenly he forgot all the things he had to say. He squinted his eyes further and continued.

All the things that happen can be real or at least they seem to be. But what happened here exactly twenty years ago, may not seem real. Or at least it may seem like a story taken from a crazy or twisted mind.....Perhaps you may be thinking that..

No, I said, shaking my head. I had not heard anything yet regarding this story anyway. Then we would talk if the story was credible or not.

Maybe you will not say the same thing when I finish telling you this story.

The old man opened his eyes again and stared at my expression. Now I really checked that he had brown eyes and that more than half of those wrinkles outlined on his face were the product of the passage of time. The man seemed to be of an advanced age now that I think about it. Sixty or seventy years old probably. He was almost bald, but the only hair he had left on his scalp was a faint yellow color. The old man fumbled in one of his pockets and pulled out a box labeled Chesterfield, grabbed a cigarette and lit it in his trembling hands. He inhaled deeply and gasped for a moment. He coughed a couple of times and spat to the ground, away from him, which almost hit the dog and added. Do you feel like hearing it? Do you want to hear it? If you want a good story to begin with. Something real...

At that moment I didn't believe there was anything under my bed. The nights transmigrated in pleasure and rest and not even years ago it had occurred to me to be a writer someday. Now I was facing an old man, marked with the scars of time and trembling fingers who was about to let go of one of his battles. Something that happened at Road Mill, where I was born. And before I finished listening, I started to believe that there were things under the bed ...

I made a movement with my head. I was dying to hear it. Something told me that this was going to be a great story.

If you finish this, you will feel frightened to go out after midnight... so do not blame me. Today I think you can leave after midnight, although I'm not sure ... in case I do not leave after midnight. If my belly hurts, I can bare it. The pharmacies will open the next day. I prefer a belly ache over discovering that he came back again. He leaned back and I noticed a large scar between the sea of wrinkles at the height of his forehead.

Suddenly I felt the hairs on the back of my neck standing. I felt cold. Perhaps fear... But I let him continue his introduction to the story. I did not know why I had felt cold at the time. The old man did not have a horrid face to be afraid of. On the contrary, he seemed nice. One of those old people punished and corroded by time. With the rear at the height of the back and crushed after sitting endless hours and hours in the same chair that gave way under his weight. A chair that would one day be left alone, swaying in the wind and filling itself with dust and miserable bugs gnawing at the wood. A chair that had housed a crushed and smelly ass. A chair that would have endured an endless weight and occasionally a fetid fart. I was glad that the chairs lacked smell. Otherwise, we would be facing a manifestation of chairs in a row.

Let your words parade one after the other. And again his statements made me cold despite the copious sun that fell that day. However, I began to sweat from behind, but I did not smell my armpits like the old man. He was sweating and felt cold at the same time.

Is that normal?

His words. It was his words, which gave me the chills.

Look, if he came back again. this time in search of new something new. I really do not wish for that to happen. But if it happens I'd rather be six feet under before...

He fell silent for a moment.

I think he was going to say something that compromised him in some way.

After a long pause he continued along the cigarette smoke.

You see what happened is...

Truck Cemetery

2

––––––––

It was a cold evening and honestly what could you expect from a winter night? Cold and silent were the streets of Road Mill......They were empty, delicately illuminated by hundreds of streetlamps pointing toward the ground in misshapen shadows. Once in a while you managed to see something moving in the distance. Perhaps a dog wandering.... Yes, some of those stray dogs days ago, ramshackle with the tail in the crotch and the head down, dragging snout daubed by snot on the asphalt in search of something to fill their stomachs. That night there were no stars in the sky nor was there a moon. The sky was totally covered in clouds. Powerful, gray clouds that threatened to rain. In the environment there was a dense and spongy humidity forming a fog of some sorts. But in reality it was humidity. A fateful moisture that penetrated your bones. At the end of the street, any street, because it was practically impossible to know which of them was given the little illumination that radiated those street lights, as tall as palm trees, a street lamp flickered.

A man wrapped in a dirty blanket, stumbled towards the end of the street. Wrapped in the haze as the only cozy option. A dense fog that did not let you see beyond a span. He was a vagabond. A man of advanced age but who had not yet seen a single white hair. God knows how many streets that poor man would have walked alone with his dirty blanket around his thin body and from how many cardboards he had made a bed. A jumble of hairs, cut to shreds and filthy began to get wet with the first drops of the night.

It had started to rain.

The man stopped for a moment, belched with a bitter taste and looked up at the sky. His eyes were terribly dark. He