Disco-Ball Converse

5-minute Listen | Short story | Horror/Sci-fi

Narration:

He picked up the witch about five miles north of the Pentameter turnoff. She was pretty, with golden hair and big deer-in-the-headlights eyes, but he could tell. You could always tell. She had a short skirt, a red parka and sparkly, disco-ball Converse. They glinted in the dying light as she walked toward the pickup. She was carrying a broomstick, one of the old-style straw ones. His mouth curled in distaste.

The big silver pickup truck pulled over and she walked round to the back, dumping the broom in the tray. Then she scrambled into the passenger’s side.

“Thanks,” she said, with a breathlessness that seemed engineered to convey innocence. “Just as close to Bristolforge as you’re going. Boy, am I glad you showed up! I’m freaking freezing.” She pulled her parka tighter around her and shivered.

The man merely nodded. They drove the next mile in silence. Finally, she said, “Sooo … do you live around here?”

“Nope,” he said. His drawl was as low and flat as his pickup’s tray, “Targus actually. Just passing through.”

“Oh,” she said, and he couldn’t tell whether her tone was one of relief or disappointment.

“You’re Arcana, aincha’?” The question was phrased as a statement.

“Yeah.” She blushed.

“They chase you out onto the interstate?”

“Sort of,” she was hesitant now, not sure exactly what he was wanted. “There was a Galvaflu breakout in Midtown. They… thought I’d cast a pox. I- I didn’t!” she stammered quickly. “It was just, you know, population density. Actually, I was giving out salves and putting up wards all over town but when people see you casting they kind of … assume the worst …” She trailed off.

“I seen it,” he said tonelessly, “My Ma was a spell-graph and she caught hell for it. So did I at school. Lost my shoes over the telephone wires a couple times. But she was just doing the best she could. We never blamed her none for what she was.”

The little witch seemed to relax a bit. “Yeah, people can be very prejudiced. They don’t always realise we’re assigned. It’s a little helter-skelter that way. A new witch in town is always a source of concern and if you don’t make a marked improvement to the livelihood of town life over a very short period, you know, better harvest, less childhood fatalities … I’m sorry, I’m blathering,” she giggled.

“No, no,” he said, not managing to muster much enthusiasm but at least making a show of the attempt. “I am deeply interested in the plight of your people.”

She seemed to think this was funny. That was good. Keep her talking.

“I’m headed all the way up the interstate,” he said Anywhere specific you want me to drop you off?”

“Just five miles North along to Bristolforge. I know of a commune on the way there that I’m sure will let me stay for the night.”

He grunted. Coven, he thought to himself. You mean coven. Then an idea occurred to him.

“You know, I got this canker sore on my big toe. Gives me hell when I drive for long stretches. You don’t think you could … ?”

She laughed nervously. “I can’t really do it on, like, a whim. There’s a procedure. You know, like a ritual.”

“Huh,” he said, “I just thought seeing as I did pick you up an all. Unless there’s some other way you wanna make it up?” He grinned without looking at her, his lips curling back to display a gangrenous green canine.

She grimaced. “Su-sure, yeah. I can make you something. I’ll need some elderberry root though.” Elderberry. Always friggin’ elderberry. You’d think if it was so important to all their damn spells, they’d keep it on their person.

“Yah,” he said. “Alright. They’s a rest stop just off to the right some. We can pull in there for it. You can, uh, forage or whatnot.”

She smiled weakly and nodded. Even with an image spell on her she couldn’t be more than twenty-five, looked far closer to nineteen. It made him sick how they infantilised themselves. Creepy.

The pickup pulled over. He looked at the witch. She seemed to be having difficulty making eye contact.

“Pretty sure there’s some elderberry bushes just over there in that clearing.”

She opened the door and hopped out. Once she had closed the door, he picked up his CB radio. “Fiver One Niner, Alpha-Charlie. I got a Pretty Birdie coming your way.”

“Roger that, Echo-Delta. Approaching for intercept.”

He turned lazily to look for the witch.

She wasn’t there.

He leaned out the window in agitation. Damn it, where had she gone? He heard a rattling sound in the back. What by Baal was she doing? Then there was a whooshing sound and a flash of something rushed over the hood of the pickup and into the fading evening.

“Jaysus, Mary n’ Joseph on a spit!” he yelled and scrambled out of the pickup. Ollie was waddling up out of the bushes, rope in hand

“Well, Hells Dave, why’d you let her get to her broom?” Ollie panted, clearly winded from the walk.

“I didn’t know she was gonna use her stick!” he protested but the big man was shaking his head in disgust.

“Dave, you had one freakin’ job. Why didn’t you just keep her in the cab? She couldn’t have weighed more than one hunn’ert pounds, little thing like that … ”

“I was … I mean I thought-”

“I’m not paying you to think, Dave. You gotta be tighter with your game. Damn it, man, we had the goddamn fire going n’ everything. Jesus!”

Ollie bent his head in fury and stalked off. Dave looked off into the distance. He thought he could just make out the twinkle of the girl’s disco-ball Converse among the blanket of stars.

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I have been especially fond of this story ever since I wrote it. There’s a lot that isn’t particularly original about it - a typical treatise on the dangers of hitchhiking. The usual suspects are all here. You have the vulnerable young passenger, the sly hick who means to do her harm, the ratcheting tension. What I like about it is that it consistently points to a world outside itself. You hear names that could feasibly pass for our own but aren’t: Bristolforge, Galvaflu, Targus. Then there’s the suggestion of a whole world of witches, reluctantly intermingled with our own through some kind of uneasy truce. I like that the girl gets wise to the hick’s plotting pretty quickly, probably from the jump. I also like that it’s from his perspective and you can see his hypocrisy close up. And there’s always the threat of violence just lurking in the shadows. To me, this story is short and sweet, simple melody that could be expanded on but doesn’t need to be.