The Mystery on Highway 599 and Other Short Stories

By Dahn Batchelor

The 26 stories in this book are are both amusing and suspenseful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456734756

Dahn Batchelor

About the Author coming soon...

Book preview

The Mystery on Highway 599

Anyone who as ever driven his or her vehicle on Highway 599, the lonely road between the town of Greenstone and the village of Ghost River in northern Ontario knows that the last thing you want to have happen to you is for you to be stranded on that winding road. But anyone wishing to travel from the town of Greenstone to the city of Sioux Lookout going west which is a driving-distance of 400 kilometres and is 9 kilometres west of Ghost River, realizes that this route is the quickest way between those two large communities. There are no other roads connecting those two communities unless of course, you want to take a much longer route by heading south to the city of Thunder Bay and then either go northeast or northwest to your destination, depending on which of the two other communities you are going to. To say that you are driving in the wilderness on that lonely road, is an understatement. The area is so thick with forests, sometimes it is difficult to see exactly where you are.

Millie and Billy, both aged 25, were on their way from Greenstone to Ghost River to visit her parents. They left in the morning as the sun was rising behind them and figured that they would arrive at her parent’s home sometime in the late afternoon as long as they drove no faster than 50 kilomtres an hour. To drive faster on that road is risky because if you lose control of your vehicle, you will be in real trouble since there are no gas stations, repair garages or motels on that route.

At about noon, they pulled along the side of the road to eat their lunch which they had brought with them. Billy turned on the radio and they listened to some music from a station in Sioux Lookout and then they heard the newscaster make an announcement.

The Ontario Provincial Police have advised us that the serial killer, Gerald Hopkins has escaped from the Selkirk Mental Health Hospital for the criminally insane in Manitoba two weeks ago. Since he has escaped, three people have been found dead under mysterious circumstances. Hopkins was last seen two hours ago walking east of Sioux Lookout on Highway 599. The police are advising all motorists and residents in that area to not let anyone inside their vehicles or homes unless they are known personally. Hopkins is described as being thirty-nine years of age, bearded, one hundred and eighty-two centimetres tall and weighs eighty-one kilograms. He was last seen wearing a blue shirt and black pants and is carrying a large hunting knife in between his pants and his belt. He is to be considered extremely dangerous. Do not approach him but call the police as soon as you see him. We will give you more updates when we receive them from the police. And now we will return you to back to our music.

As the music began, Billy turned off the radio and turned to Millie saying softly, I hope that guy didn’t stop off at your parent’s house.

Millie replied, If they didn’t hear the news about him and he stopped off at their house for a drink of water, it is quite possible that they would invite him in and give him the water.

Why don’t you phone them on your cell phone?

Millie pulled out her phone from her purse and dialed her parent’s number. After it rang ten times, she said, Perhaps they are in the Sioux visiting one of their friends somewhere.

Billy asked, "Do you know their neighbour’s phone number?

Millie replied, I don’t know their number but I do know their names. I will get Bell Information to give me their phone number. When she was given the number, she dialled it. It was picked up on the third ring.

Millie spoke first. Mister Reynolds. This is Millie Baxter.

Hi Millie. How are you?

I’m fine. I tried to reach my parents on the phone but no one picked up the phone."

Oh, that is because they left in their van about an hour ago.

Did they say where they were going?

I have no idea. They went with some man.

Suddenly Millie felt faint and asked, Do you know who he was?

I didn’t see his face because his back was to me but he got into the van with them and they all drove down the street.

Millie asked, What was the man wearing?

He was in overalls.

Millie hung up the phone and looked distressed. She then told Billy what she had been told.

Billy began to smile which caused Millie to ask angrily, What is so funny? Do you realize that man may be that escapee from that hospital for the criminally insane in Manitoba?

What was he wearing?

Overalls. Then Millie added, He could have changed into them after attacking one of his victims."

Billy replied, I don’t think you have to worry. I just remembered that your dad told me last week that he had some dynamite, blasting caps and fuses in his fridge in his barn. He says that because dynamite sweats in temperatures of thirty-three degrees Celsius or over and as a result, becomes very unstable, he keeps the stuff in the fridge. He told me that whenever he uses it on his farm to remove the stumps, he takes it out of the fridge and uses it while it is still cool outside. That’s why he generally does his blasting in the cool of the mornings.

But Billy. He never works on his farm on Sundays other than milk the cows and feed the chickens. Why would he be driving east?

Billy thought for a moment and then replied; Now I remember. He told me that he figured that the nitroglycerine in the dynamite was becoming unstable since is was too old and because of that, he is taking the dynamite to the quarry off of Highway 599 to dispose of it by blowing it up?

Even the blasting caps and fuses?

"I don’t think he will be needing them anymore. He told me that all the stumps have been removed from his fields.

Why would he take my mom with him?

Probably for the drive.

Do you think we will see them at the quarry?

I doubt it. The quarry is only about an hour east of his farm so by the time they get there and detonate the stuff, and return home, they will have been back home by two or three. We should probably be there around four-thirty. Don’t worry.

Millie thought for a moment and then said, I am worried. Who is the man who went with my mom and dad?

Perhaps he is just a friend.

An hour later, a summer storm hit them. Within minutes, the clouds above them darkened and the rain came down in torrents. When Billy turned on his car’s wipers, it didn’t help so he pulled his car over to the side of the road and turned off the engine. All they could do was sit in the car and listen to the music. An hour later, they were both asleep.

At two in the afternoon, Billy woke up and discovered that the area was shrouded in a fog. He looked through the windshield. Approximately 20 metres ahead of them in the middle of the road was a mid-sized van that had stopped. He nudged Millie who then awoke and he then pointed to the vehicle and asked, Isn’t that your dad’s van?

She focused her eyes on the licence plate and replied with some concern in her voice, "It is. What’s my dad doing this far from home?

Suddenly, a man wearing black pants and a blue shirt stepped from behind the vehicle. He was bearded and carrying a knapsack on his back.

Millie explained in horror. Billy! That’s the man they’re looking for.

Billy immediately pushed the button on his door that locked the doors of his car. The windows were already up because of the previous rain.

Millie began crying, "What has he done to my parents?

Billy tried to soothe her by suggesting that they were probably unharmed. It really didn’t help Millie overcome her fears.

The stranger began approaching their car. When he reached it, Billy lowered his window down few centimetres and asked, Can I help you, Sir?

The man smiled and said, I have run out of gas and need a lift to the nearest gas station.

There was no way that Billy was going to let that man into his car. He said, I am sorry but I never let strangers into my car but if you wish, I will call a friend in Ghost Town and ask him to call a garage and get them to bring a container of gas to you.

The man didn’t reply to the suggestion but immediately pulled on Billy’s door handle to get it to open. When he couldn’t get it open, he tried the other doors without success. Then he screamed, Open the damn door!

Billy turned the ignition of his car on but it wouldn’t start. Unbeknown to him, the rain as been blown onto his engine and then seeped into his carburetor.

The man removed the knapsack from his back and opened it. Billy stared at in horror. He saw five dynamite sticks inside it. The man then pulled one of them out and placed it on the ground. Then he pulled a length of fuse out along with a blasting cap. As he cut the fuse into a shorter piece and inserted it into a blasting cap, he said to Billy, If you don’t open the door, I’ll place this dynamite stick under your gas tank and light it.

Billy recognized the kind of fuse it was and realized that he could use that knowledge to his advantage. He then laughed as he said to the man. If you light the fuse, you will only have three seconds to get away. That isn’t enough. We will all be blown to bits. You should have made the fuse longer.

The man smirked and then said, Thanks for the advice, sucker. I’ll go back to the van and throw this stick of dynamite under your car from there however; I will spare you if you both get out of the car now.

Millie hollered out, Like you spared the people in the van.

The man walked back to the van sneering, Have it your own way.

Millie said to Billy, Open the doors so we can escape.

No need, Honey. As he lowered the windows, he said, Duck down as far as you can. She followed his instructions without asking why.

They could hear the man yell out, That isn’t going to help you.

Billy lowered all the windows in the car and unlocked the doors while he watched the man flick a lighter on. Then Billy ducked his head below the dash.

Within a second, there was an enormous explosion that rocked the car. A blast of air passed by the opened side windows and the windshield blew inwards and landed in the back seat. When debris stopped raining down on the car, Billy raised his head and looked out where the windshield had been. The man was gone and the van was completely destroyed.

Millie asked, What happened? How come our car didn’t blow up?"

Billy smiled and replied, The dynamite instantly blew up in his face as soon as he lit the fuse. The impact set off the rest of the dynamite that was in his backpack and in the back of the van. It was already unstable to begin with because of the temperature outside being over thirty-three degrees Celsius.

But why did the stick of dynamite in his hand go off as soon as he lit it? Billy laughed and said, As you may remember, ten years ago, I worked with a demolition crew on a part-time basis when I was going to university and I recognized the fuses that your dad was using. It is called; PETN Instant Blasting Fuses and they are packed in 100-metre coils. They burn at a speed of almost ten thousand meters per second and are inserted in non-electric blasting caps.

How did you know that it was that kind of fuse?

"The detonation cord is just thin plastic tubing containing PETN compound, which is a highly explosive organic compound belonging to the same chemical family as nitroglycerin and it’s used as an instant blasting fuse. I recognized it because we used the same stuff when we were demolishing buildings.

Why would dad use those kinds of fuses?

"You can wrap them around trees several times and then string the fuse ten metres away and when you light it, it will bring down the tree. When the killer lit the first fuse, less than a thousandths of a second later, it set off the blasting cap and the dynamite in his hand and the same in his backpack and in the back of your dad’s van and that is when the killer became instant dust and history.

Billy thought for moment and then pulled out his cell phone and pushed some buttons and then two seconds later, someone answered. Billy began, Hi. It’s Billy… . We’re fine although your daughter is a bit shook up. Instead of explaining what had happened, he said, Can you get a mechanic to go east on five ninety-nine about twenty kilometres east of Ghost Town and get my car started again? He listened to the response and then replied, OK, we will see you both then and do we have a story to tell you. Bye.

Millie was all smiles and then asked, How did they—

Billy interjected and smiled back and then laughed as he said, Are you ready for this? Apparently when your folks and their friend were carrying some of the explosives down a trail leading to the bottom of the quarry, someone stole their van with the rest of the explosives, fuses and blasting caps still in it.

Well, dad won’t be too happy when he learns what has happened to his van.

Billy smiled and replied, He will certainly be happy if the first thing we say to him when we meet him is how we survived the ordeal with Gerald Hopkins. Then we can tell him the bad news about his van.

Millie responded, That’s somewhat the same as when a man is on his vacation and he is given good and bad news at the same time. The good news is that he inherited a rare two-million dollar painting and it’s hanging on his living room wall. Then he’s told the bad news. His house burned to the ground and his home insurance expired the day before the fire.

A practical joke to enjoy

This is an excerpt from my memoirs. Volume 3: RISING FROM THE ASHES

When the town of Wells in British Columbia decided to hold its fiftieth anniversary in 1984, hundreds of those of us former Wellsians from around the world, returned to that small town deep in the mountains, for the celebration of the birth of that town that many had earlier referred to, as the one place on Earth during World War Two, that was closest to Heaven.

My mother, Ruth Batchelor, and my brother Dale returned to Wells for the Anniversary along with Althea Fullerton (my aunt) who was the wife of Harold Fullerton. He was the school principal in Wells during the war years. Althea’s daughter, Sharon, the older of her two children also came. I brought my wife, Ayako and our two daughters, Sarah and Michelle and Dale brought his wife, Ruth.

You will note that my mother’s name and my brother’s wife’s name are the same; Ruth Batchelor. That fact is a significant part of this story.

The Anniversary was a three-day celebration and on the last day of the celebration, we all gathered at the large Wells Community Hall to meet one another in one place. Now as you can appreciate, many years had gone by since many of the four hundred of us that were living in Wells during the war years, had obviously grown older.

My mother was 33 years of age when we moved from Wells in 1945 and when she returned in 1984, she was 39 years older. Everyone knew her in Wells when we were there between 1941 and 1945 but they would hardly recognize her in 1984, especially since by then, she was 72 years old. That of course went for all of us. For example, I was eleven years of age when I left Wells and was 51 years of age when I returned for the visit in 1984.

Now comes the fun part. The only way we might remember who was who in Wells during the war years was by our name tags since there was a good chance that we would at least; recognize the names of our friends, if not their faces.

Ruth Batchelor, my brother’s wife entered the hall approximately fifteen minutes before my mother did. As the older women who remembered my mother began searching for the names of women they knew back in the 1940s, one of the older women spotted my sister-in-law’s name tag.

You can’t imagine the shock that showed on her face of this much older woman when she looked at a woman who was only 48 years of age, instead of a woman that would be 72 years of age or older in 1984, the approximate age that this much older women was.

The woman took a close look at my sister-in-law and then cried out, My God, Ruth! You have hardly aged at all. Then she turned to a group of other older women close by and said, Come here, everybody. Ruth Batchelor is here and you aren’t going to believe what you are going to see.

About fifteen older women approached her and looked at her in awe. One of the women asked, How is it Ruth that you have managed to remain so young-looking for so many years?

Now my sister-in-law was no slouch when it came to having some fun at someone else’s expense, so she smiled and replied, Oh. It’s living in Hawaii that did it. Everyone in Hawaii ages very slowly. It’s something to do with the water.

I am convinced that many of the women surrounding my sister-in-law really believed her. After all, she was the living proof of that statement. Perhaps if they too went to Hawaii, it would make them appear younger also.

Unfortunately, their hopes came crashing to the floor, not unlike one’s finest china, shattered into little pieces when my mother arrived at that very moment and cried out, Hi, everybody. I’m Ruth Batchelor!

Almost every face was turned towards her as she and my aunt and my cousin entered the front door of the hall. One of the women next to my sister-in-law replied, No, No, my dear. That’s not possible. Here is Ruth Batchelor.

As my mother approached them, they saw her name tag with her name on it. Then my mother said with a big smile, Oh, I see that you have already met my daughter-in-law, Ruth.

All the time that this was unfolding before me, I struggled to suppress the smile that was slowly forming on my face. Struggling to suppress a smile under those circumstances is no different than trying not to pee when your bladder is about to explode.

It was then that I saw something I had never seen before. It was the complete metamorphosis of their faces changing from one of absolute happiness; to the faces of women in mourning attending the funeral of a loved one. Alas. Going to Hawaii would not make them appear younger.

Perhaps there is some truth in my sister-in-law’s statement about going to Hawaii so that one could age slower. My mother lived in Hawaii for 40 years and she really did look younger than she actually was but not as young as my sister-in-law.

Unfortunately, my father, Louis and my uncle, Harold were not able to come back to Wells for the fiftieth anniversary, as they had died years earlier and years later after 1984, my mother, my aunt and my sister-in-law, also passed away.

Everyone has cherished moments in their lives and that moment when the two Ruth Batchelors entered the hall minutes apart, and appeared before the older women, years apart was one I shall remember with great glee for I too enjoy a good practical joke at someone else’s expense.

I have never really developed the skill of suppressing a smile. For at least an hour after the two Ruth Batchelors were standing side by side, I walked around the hall with a smile on my face that is best described as being sardonic as if fixed permanently. My two lips were pressed tightly together while I was trying to suppress laughter that was attempting to break out.

The painting of Jennifer Burns

This is an excerpt from my memoirs. Volume 2: PATIENCE MY SON. THE SNAIL WILL REACH THE ARK.

It was during 1957 when I lived in the City of Winnipeg that I got a job with the Winnipeg Tribune working in the composing room operating a linotype machine. Four months later, I was asked to report to the managing editor in the editorial department.

The managing editor asked me if I would like a job as a copy writer. That job entailed me to rewrite some of the news coming over the telex machine by reducing the news into articles of five hundred words in case the city editor later needed them as fill-ins. The good news was that I would get a raise to fifty dollars a week. Hey! That was a lot of money then. The bad news was that my shift would be from four in the afternoon until twelve midnight beginning Sunday afternoons and ending Fridays at midnight. That sucked.

Generally around eight in the evening, I was finished with my work and there was nothing left for me to do. Despite that, I had to remain in the editorial department as everyone else had gone home or was out on a job as a reporter and someone had to answer the phone in case of an emergency. I was it.

Now you know what they say about people who have time on their hands; they are up to no good.

I noticed that the managing editor had a fairly large painting of his wife above the cadenza behind his desk. Now in my early years, I was an above average portrait painter so I thought to myself, why don’t I make some alterations on the painting; after all, it’s not like I didn’t have spare time to do it. NO! I wasn’t going to paint a mustache below her nose.

I decided to paint a fly on the tip of her nose. The problem was; what kind of fly should I put on her nose? Originally I thought of a blue-bottle fly. That’s the one with the bright blue metallic looking body but that would be spotted within days of it appearing on the woman’s nose. I settled for an ordinary dirty brown housefly.

I chose to paint the fly on her nose ever so slowly so that no one would recognize the time consuming gradual changes in the painting. I spent a month painting the fly on her nose.

First, I began with the legs, then the thorax and the head and finally the fly’s wings.

Now I don’t know if you know this but a fly has a long snout and it regurgitates its food and the enzymes in the fly’s vomit softens up the food it wants and then it sucks up the vomit and the food not unlike a small kid slurping up a thick milkshake through a thin straw.

In order to make the picture of the fly more realistic, I decided to paint some flies vomit on the surface of the woman’s nose. I have never seen flies vomit so I wasn’t sure what colour it is so I made up the colour and painted a small gob of bright green vomit on the surface of the woman’s nose where the fly’s snout touched it.

Did the managing editor see the fly on his wife’s nose? "No, he didn’t. After all, no one looks at a portrait of his wife all the time, especially when he is rushed for time.

About a week later, I realize that there was something missing in the picture. Think of it. If you had a fly on the tip of your nose, would you ignore it? Hardly! Your eyes would turn inward and focus on that disgusting creature that has the temerity to squat on your nose and squirt its vomit on the tip of your nose

It took me a month to re-focus the woman’s eyes. She now looked cross-eyed. I decided to change the colour of her eyes from brown to sickly-looking green flies vomit. I chose that colour because I learned in my earlier lessons in painting that you should balance colour and what better way to balance the colour of her eyes than with that which that disgusting creature had planted on the tip of her nose.

Another month went by before it suddenly dawned me that again something was missing. No woman who is staring cross-eyed at a dirty house fly on the tip of her nose would be smiling.

I changed the shape of her mouth so that if that was all that was altered on her face, you would conclude that she has just been informed that her husband has been having an affair—with a three-hundred and fifty pound man—who is gay.

Long before the painting was finished, word got around that some gradual changes were being made on the boss’ wife’s portrait. Employees were constantly going into the boss’ office to discuss some mundane matters with him but their real purpose was to see what changes had taken place on the portrait.

It didn’t dawn on him that anything was amiss, even when his employees were not staring directly at him.

However, sometime later in the year, he discovered the horrible truth. Some nasty creep had altered the face of his beautiful wife. He had spent almost five hundred dollars to commission a portrait artist to paint the likeness of his wife on canvas and now he couldn’t display it ever again.

Being a former investigative reporter, it didn’t take him long to find out who that wonderful, charming, talented artist was. First, he concluded that whoever he was, he had to have the editorial department all to himself. Second, he looked at my employment application form and there under the heading of hobbies, was printed the words, portrait painting. I was fired on the spot. Something to do with mischief.

Like driftwood at sea, we met

This is an excerpt from my memoirs. Volume 3: RISING FROM THE ASHES

In 1975, I was 41 years of age and alone and living in Toronto, a city of almost a million people and still, I hadn’t found a woman that I wanted to marry. Perhaps it was because my expectations were too high. I met many women who had at least four of the attributes I was looking for in a mate but either they were too young, too old or were already going out with other men. Alas, all that seemed to be left for me were women who had only two of these attributes which was probably why they too, were alone.

I went out of my way to find my dream girl. I joined church groups, went to parties, even bars but I was unsuccessful in finding the woman I wanted to marry.

When I say that I was alone, I don’t mean that I