THE MECHANIC

THE MECHANIC

With her intestines hanging out of her overalls, Jane Rawlings lay in the middle of the road. The heat of the gasoline flames crackled toward her and illuminated the starry skies. It took a long time before she gained enough courage to shift her head over her shoulder.

Jane braced herself and tried to forgive the biker who lay dead on his back. Clutching her bleeding stomach, she wished she’d spoken to Drake before he died. That deceitful voice in her mind whispered, telling her that her pension money had been stolen, but she found it impossible to believe his lies. Shut up, she thought. She was determined to uncover the truth before dying. She tried to forget about her guts spread out over the road, a brutal shot to the abdomen.

She realized with shocked astonishment that her hands were singeing now, and her skin was melting. Her arms were weak and shaking. It was her blood. Jane knew it with certainty. She’d encountered the potency of the black liquid in her veins once before.

“Was it worth it?” she asked herself.

Drake burst into her workshop, his bike almost slamming into her carjack. He drove into the garage—he was there to tell her he got robbed, and the crystal meth stolen. In her rage, Jane grabbed a spanner and tried to beat the truth out of him, but he kept on saying the same thing.

“They got to the drugs an’ the money, shawty. I’m tellin’ ya the truth,” his deceitful voice begged.

It was amazing how retirement anxiety had forced Jane Rawlings to exploit illegal investment opportunities. Perhaps it was the thought of being unable to pay for her husband’s treatment after he was diagnosed with leukemia. It pushed her over the edge—this pension could yield much more when invested in the drug market. But the guy in the black leathers unexpectedly got mugged, or so he swore.

“Get out of my shop,” her furious voice commanded.

It was amazing how friends could turn into enemies in an instant and how the trust relationship between them was shattered—even before Jane decided to kill him—as soon as she heard his lies. He jumped onto his bike, leaving a black tire mark behind.

Although she lay on the tar screaming, no one came to her rescue. Jane could barely feel her hands and legs, numbed either by the adrenaline or by the acidity of the black sludge in her veins. The flames crackled around her as she looked at Drake’s body, turning yellow so quickly, feeling at peace with her life without any retirement anxiety. She caught a glimpse of his cracked-open skull as his brains peeled out and bled onto the road.

“Ya should invest your dollars in crystal meth, yo,” Drake suggested. And that’s when Jane realized she had to do something, especially since her pension paid out next to nothing. Jane remembered sharing a joint with him in the toilet that day. Drake took a bottomless drag, leaning backward, blowing through his nose the thick smoke as he coughed or laughed she wasn’t sure which.

And she felt safe to invest it with him and, for the moment, totally disgusted about how inflation had shrunk her life savings. She stared at his face in total confidence, confidence that her boyfriend could multiply her money so that she could pay for her husband’s treatment. She scanned the handwritten contract in a haphazard way, unaware of the escape clause at the bottom, and it occurred to her that his intentions were truthful.

“Where do I sign?” she asked, surprised at how potent the joint in her mouth was.

“At the bottom, shawty,” he said friendly, his tone was soft and giggly.

He smoked in silence. Jane watched his face while his red eyes stared deep into hers till Drake started to laugh while pointing outside. She peeked through the window, but the sun’s glare made it hard to see anything except for the shadow of her husband. He was walking with a beer tray, balancing it with his shivering hands.

“Jane?” he called, his face sickly and pale.

“Yes, my love.” Her voice was also giggly. Jane tried to stash the joint without him smelling it.

She tiptoed out of the toilet, not wanting to look suspicious, but when she took that final step at the end of the stairs, she started to laugh for no apparent reason, and he knew.

Jane walked around the chairs toward her husband and sat on the seat she was so accustomed to. The sun beamed one solid white ray into her eyes that shot a pain into the back of her head before she could put on her sunglasses and face him. She smiled.

“Are you smoking weed again?” He looked at her, his disappointment evident since she promised to quit.

Jane sat back, tucking a dreadlock behind her ear to reveal the tattoos on her forehead. She looked over her shoulder at the torturing bathroom window, bubbling thick and white.

“Whatever!” she said aloud.

“I brought beer for you and your friend,” he bragged.

“He’s just in the toilet.”

She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don’t forget to take the hospital card tomorrow,” he reminded her, struggling to hold the bottle with his trembling hand.

“Okay, I’ll remember, my dear.” Jane prepared herself for the worst. “I’m going to finish my beer, then pack your hospital bag.”

He was still trying to pick up the bottle, but his hand didn’t have enough grip, so it spilled into the tray.

“Lemme help you.”

Her husband sighed and finally gave up hope.

“It’s only getting worse.”

“I don’t think so; you look much better than yesterday.”

He leaned back, and he didn’t drink again. He tilted his head against the wall, looking at the toilet. His mind was distant.

“Why’re you so quiet?” Jane said, the question came out as a joke.

“How’re we gonna pay for the treatment, Jane?” He was murmuring, and as he stared into the distance, she positioned the bottle in front of his lips.

“Drink.” The word seemed like an obvious request, but for him even an easy task like that was becoming nearly impossible.

They sat in silence for a while. Jane looked at the empty workshop and realized it was midday. She needed to go and pack the hospital bag and lock up the shop. It was all she could do for now.

“Lemme take you back to bed, Johnny,” she said, “the customer can help himself out. I need to go and pack your bag, and I won’t forget that medical card again, I promise.”

“Aren’t you gonna finish your Miller?” He asked, but Jane just shook her head. She heard Charlotte open the door to come and fetch her father.

The girl spoke before Jane could. “He wanted to treat you with a cold one before starting his treatment tomorrow. I think I should restrain him the next time he tries a stunt like that.”

They all laughed at the sound of her voice.

“Grab his arm!” Jane said, helping him to his feet.

As Jane returned to the house, relief spread across her face upon seeing the biker walking into the garage and sitting on top of his Harley Davidson. He didn’t hesitate to rev the motorcycle and drive away with a bag full of money. The contract was sound, the drugs were fresh, and the buyers were waiting.

“I hope the man has paid for your services?” Her husband’s voice was suspicious.

They walked down the narrow hallway, where Charlotte held the main bedroom door open with her sneaker. Obviously, there would be no discussion with her family about her investment choices. They carried him to his bed with great effort.

The room had been cleaned, and the scent of toilet spray masked the urine smell that had permanently stained the bed covers. The caretaker was a nurse, and Johnny didn’t take the intrusion on his privacy well. Jane was surprised by how much it bothered him. The nurse took pride in her part-time job and was a natural caretaker.

But as these comforting memories faded, Jane was violently thrust back into her grim reality. She attempted to rise from the tar, with her guts still spread over the road, but her arms were practically gone. Melted away in the pungent smell that’d singed up to her shoulders. Her bones were ivory white. As she stretched her arms out, she felt her hands burning as if her flesh had been liquidized. The sloppy running sensation in her fingers made her vision blur as her blood sugar plummeted.

She pulled herself slowly over the road, and the look of forgiveness entered her soggy eyes.

“Perhaps it wasn’t your fault!” She stared at the biker lying next to her on the road. She wasn’t sure, but it felt as though everything had started to fall apart after her husband died from the experimental treatment. She’d never imagined that Johnny’s death would be so terrible to face. The burden was so heavy that she could barely keep her eyes open. She blamed herself for not having been able to afford proper treatment.

“It was a mistake.” She seemed sure of if now.

Someone was pulling on her overalls. Jane suddenly grasped that she never noticed the infected person hiding in the shadows. And she couldn’t look away from his hideous mutations. He was carefully undressing the overalls from her charred body, stealing it. It fitted him loosely, and the sleeves were missing, highlighting how underfed he really was. It was weird how the mutated feared their own. Since Jane started showing signs of disease, they didn’t dare to attack her. And even now, while she lay there, half-dead, the contorted thing acted as if it didn’t want another infection—as if it was superstitious about what was really happening to him.

The mutated creature zipped up his new overalls—made in the USA, faded blue, with smoldering sleeves. The warm embers served as a grim reminder of the black liquid, the sludge that now seeped from the overalls onto his skinny arms. Leeched into his flesh.