Go Beyond

© 2001 Christopher Brown
All rights reserved.

Ryan McCormick crested the top of the hill, his steps crunching loudly on the loose white gravel that served as the shoulder of the small two-lane highway. Night had pressed in many hours ago, leaving this particular stretch of wooded West Virginia road as still as a grave. The only sound came from across the street, the buzzing of a tactless neon sign that blinked spasmodically, like a broken strobe light.

This flashing light was enough to make the man pause in the middle of his large stride, something he never did. He was a man of action, not a man of deliberation. The building connected to the sign was new, so new, in fact, that a second, non-flashing sign stuck on the side of the road announced the grand opening of the Dame Fortune. The date on this other sign read August 18.

Today's date, McCormick noted.

A frown shadowed the man's features at this new addition. He had been traveling this path for the past twenty years, and all around him things were springing up—houses, trailers, fences—but nothing had ever come up directly in his way. It had been built right in the middle of the clearing he had to cross. It was the only way he knew how to go. He had never contemplated going another direction; he had just plowed ahead each year to his inevitable destination and accepted it.

Now his mind snatched at the numerous possibilities of not going across the field. He could flee down the road in either direction. To the west lay the small town of Point Pleasant and, if things hadn't changed too much, the road to the east would lead him to a small covered bridge. Under the bridge ran a creek deep enough to swim away in.

Both of those options had one major drawback, which was distance. Miles lay between both the bridge and the town. He could try to go around the bar, but that would just put him on the other side of the clearing, still on the same path to where they normally caught up with him.

His last option was to go straight into the building and hide in there. It was possible, if the place was big enough, that he could hide out long enough to give them the shake. A glance at his watch told him that he only had fifteen more minutes to run, anyway.

Now all he had to do was make up his mind. Indecision wracked his body, causing it to slump forward slightly, like a poor man's Quasimodo. This isn't what they taught you at medical school, he chided himself. Do something!

Behind him, the unmistakable sound of feet smashing leaves and the voices of his pursuers floated through the air like so many feathers. His decision made, he pounded across the street to the building's door, jerked it open, and went inside.

It appeared to be a small bar. Six or seven round tables occupied the floor space, which was covered in sawdust.

"Welcome to the Dame Fortune. You look like a man who needs an escape. Let's see ... Bud Light. Draft, of course, not bottle. Am I right?" the voice greeted him in deep baritone before the bell atop the door stopped its angry jangling.

McCormick looked at the bartender, one dark eyebrow raised in silent wonder. Then he made his way to the bar and sat down as his beer was set on a napkin. He slipped a hand around the frosted mug, savoring the icy chill on his flesh. He licked his lips without realizing it, raised the glass to his lips, and took a long drink.

"Cold enough for you, sir?" the bartender asked.

"Yes, quite. Thank you. But I must ask, how did you know my brand?"

"I'm a bartender. It's my job," replied the bartender with a wide smile, and then extended a thin hand to McCormick. "By the way, the name's Jeffrey. This is my place."

"Ryan. You do a wonderful service," McCormick told him, shaking hands.

The bartender's cheeks reddened and his face glowed at the words. He walked away with a short bounce in his step to retrieve a small rag from a bucket. McCormick watched while the bartender used the rag to wipe down the opposite end of the bar.

He was young, no older than twenty-three, but probably younger. He had fine sandy brown hair, a face that was too thin, and a body that was too long covered in a green polo shirt and blue jeans. But he was agile enough behind the bar, moving with grace around stacked boxes of glasses and silverware. McCormick took another drink of his beer, wiping away the head mustache with the back of his hand.

"Need a refill already?"

McCormick glanced at his watch, nodded. There was still ten minutes left for him tonight. "Yes, please."

Jeffrey took away the used mug and replaced it with another frosted one filled with cold beer. That white rag whisked around the bar again, only this time McCormick noticed that the bartender wasn't paying attention to his work. His eyes were fixed on McCormick, his face drawn out in a mask of indecision.

McCormick looked down at the bar to avoid those penetrating brown eyes. There was something frightening there; not so much scary as familiar. Very familiar, yet he couldn't quite place it in his memory. He glanced over at his watch again. Only eight minutes left now.

"Are you late for something?"

"Nothing I wish to attend," McCormick said.

"Yeah, I hear ya. Don't ya just hate it when you're expected at things like that?"

"Yes, I do."

"Funerals, especially," Jeffrey continued, obviously warming up to a favorite subject. "Who really wants to go look at a corpse, much less the corpse of someone you once liked or even loved? I hate open caskets the most, though. Those really cock up your memory book, know what I mean? All pasty-faced and bloated, full of that shit they pump into them."

He stood still for a moment, finally taking in a few deep breaths. McCormick had bobbed his head in the needed places during the tirade, but he couldn't really agree. Not only was the younger man's description of death crude, it was demeaning. McCormick had been a doctor once and had come to terms with death a long time ago.

Not all death, he told himself quickly. He took another look at his watch and was relieved to see that another three minutes had passed. He only had five more minutes to endure the bartender's foul mouth and to evade his pursuers. His mind swam with the different possibilities that would occur. McCormick figured not even God could predict would happen.

"Is the beer that good?" laughed the bartender.

"Pardon?"

"You're just smiling like a virgin on dollar night with your hand clamped around that empty mug. Something good must be running through that head of yours."

"Just thinking of how good it is to be sitting here, right this moment, drinking a beer, watching the time pass by."

"Hoping that Morgan Taynor doesn't walk through the door," the bartender stated.

Ryan's head snapped to the bartender as if he'd been slapped. He locked eyes with the young man, his hand slipping off the beer mug.

"How did you know that?" he asked.

The bartender offered up a slick smile that creased his forehead, crinkled his cheeks, and killed his eyes. McCormick knew that smile. That smile was a trademark of his family, one his father had made all the time while playing poker or gambling on Sunday football with his bowling buddies. His brother had used it numerous times on various young ladies in their high school.

"I'm a bartender. Like I said, it's my job to know my customers."

"I do not believe you should know them that well," McCormick retorted and stood up quickly. One foot slipped off the stool, causing him to stumble.

Then he was striding briskly toward the door, his footsteps throwing up small puffs of sawdust behind him. His mind was awhirl with heavy thoughts, such as who this bartender was, why he was reminded of himself when he looked at him, and how he knew about Morgan Taynor. There was no way this young man could know about him. The incident had occurred twenty years ago.

"You forgot to pay your bill, Mr. McCormick," the bartender said in a low voice that chilled McCormick and caused him to stop in mid-stride. He slowly turned back to the bar, his face an unhealthy pallor of white. He knows my last name, McCormick thought first, then: How does he know my last name?

"It's not a miracle, McCormick. It's history with a little black magic thrown in for good measure."

"Black magic?" McCormick repeated, still rooted to the spot where he had stopped.

The bartender grinned. "That old black magic, baby. The kind that kills your family and rots your soul."

McCormick stared at Jeffrey, his mouth slightly open. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to escape his killer in here, not replace him with a different one. He felt control of the situation spinning out of his grasp, like a top bouncing uncontrollably off the walls.

"What do you want?" he asked the bartender.

"Not much, just a little bit more of your time," the bartender told him.

"What for?"

"To get to know you."

McCormick looked at his watch, shook his head. "I have no reason to stay here and do this with you or for you." Then he turned again, going for the door. He was aware of the bartender moving around behind him, but he was determined not to show fear by turning around. He laid his hand on the doorknob with a triumphant smile.

The knob twisted out of his grip and the door flung open. The wood banged into his shin and shoulder, the force driving him to the ground. McCormick landed on his back, spread-eagled, arms outstretched in a comical vee.

"There ya are, ya bastard," yelled Morgan Taynor. In one hand he held a small pistol and in the other was a can of Falstaff beer. He pointed the pistol at McCormick's prone form. Behind Morgan, a smaller man had also pushed into the bar and was blocking the doorway, erratically jerking a shotgun from side to side.

McCormick knew that pistol.

The two men were both farmers, by their dress. Taynor was dressed in jeans and a thick red-and-black flannel shirt. Both his pants and shirt had permanent dirt streaks where he'd wiped his hands throughout the day. The smaller man was Taynor's cousin, Mitch, and he was dressed in a grubby white shirt with holes in the collar from constant chewing. He wore it underneath a pair of greasy, mud-stained overalls.

"Betcha thought y'as gonna git away from me, dintya?" Taynor asked McCormick. McCormick crab-walked backward, knocking over chairs in his mad dash to get away. The door swung shut behind the two men as they crammed further into the bar, stalking the fleeing McCormick.

"Excuse me, fellas," Jeffrey called out. "But the only person allowed to carry a weapon in here is me."

"An' who da fuck does ya think ya is?" Taynor spat out, not taking his eyes away from his prey.

"I's da fuckin' owna," mimicked Jeffrey before putting a bullet square into Mitch's chest. Then he turned to Morgan, smiled in that familiar way, and pointed to the ground with the barrel of his thirty-eight chief's special. "Drop your gun, Morgan."

"Ya shot mah cuzzin!" Morgan exclaimed, spinning toward Jeffrey.

McCormick grabbed the closest chair and hurled it. It blindsided Morgan, sending him cartwheeling to the floor as he pulled the trigger. The shot flew high over the ducking Jeffrey's head.

"Hey man, nice shot," Jeffrey called to McCormick, slipping over the top of the bar and heading toward Morgan. He kicked the pistol into a corner, then planted a kick into Morgan's side as the downed man tried to rise.

"That's for shooting at me," Jeffrey said, and then kicked him again. "And that's for showing up late." Morgan fell back to the ground with a groan and was still.

"Showing up late?" McCormick asked.

Jeffrey looked over at McCormick, who now sat resting at one of the tables, wiping sweat from his brow with a white handkerchief. His hand trembled slightly as he refolded the linen and stuffed it back into his pocket.

"Yeah, late. They should have come through the door two minutes before they did, before you were even out of your seat," Jeffrey told him. "Now come help me get him to the bar."

"I cannot," McCormick said, rising from his chair. "I need to leave before he gets back up."

"No can do. You need to go over to the bar and have a seat, too," cackled Jeffrey while dragging Morgan toward the bar.

"I most certainly do not have to go have a seat at the bar," McCormick retorted. "If it is the money for the drinks that you want, you are out of luck. I do not have any money on me."

"Yeah, I know. You got caught with your pants down, literally. Had to run out of Morgan's house with your undies around your ankles," Jeffrey grunted, settling his quarry on a stool by the bar.

"How do you know that? Wait, let me guess—black magic, correct?"

"Not for that, no. My mother told me about the pants thing," Jeffrey said, pulling out his gun and pointing it at McCormick. "Now come on over and join our little family reunion."

McCormick glanced between the door and Jeffrey, debating his chances of clearing the former before the latter cleared him. His control of the situation was lost, that much he knew for certain. This odd young man who had pulled them into the Dame Fortune was calling the shots, but McCormick wasn't sure how much of fate any one person could control.

Now he was also curious about the ending fate had chosen for him. Twenty years ago, fate had dealt him a bullet to the chest. Now it seemed that things were changing, some for the better, and there were obviously things going on here that he needed to know. With that last thought in mind, he nodded in quiet contemplation and walked over to the bar.

"That's much better, McCormick," Jeffrey said. "You gotta go along to get along, isn't that right?"

"Yes, so I was fond of saying," McCormick replied, staring at the bartender, a glimmer of understanding beginning to worm its way into his conscious.

"Let me wake up Morgan here and we'll get to know each other better, the three of us."

McCormick watched as Jeffrey filled a mug with cold water and ice, figuring that the concoction would go straight into Taynor's face. But he was wrong. Instead, Jeffrey walked around behind Morgan, yanked the back of his pants open, and summarily dumped the ice-cold liquid there. Morgan yelped and immediately sat up straighter in his stool.

"Jayzus H. Christ!" he exclaimed, then slumped back against the bar with a groan. "I think mah ribs are broken."

"Probably," Jeffrey told him cheerily, with a wide smile, and then slapped him good-naturedly on the back. "It's good to have you awake, though. Now we can get down to it."

"Just exactly what are we getting down to?" McCormick asked as Jeffrey returned behind the bar.

"Our family reunion, of course. But, first things first; who needs a drink?"

Both McCormick and Taynor raised their hands in a half-assed gesture of acquiescence. Jeffrey was already getting their drinks, as if he had known in advance they would say yes.

Or maybe it was because he didn't really care what their answer was.

McCormick wasn't sure which it was, so he just watched as another Bud Light was lined up in front of him and a can of Falstaff was popped and put in front of Morgan. Jeffrey then ducked under the bar for a brief moment, came back up with a bowl of salted peanuts and a bowl of pretzels. He set the pretzels in front of Morgan and the peanuts in front of McCormick.

"Okay, that about does it, I think. Everyone should be—wait, no, that's not right," Jeffrey said. He switched the two bowls. "There. Perfect." Jeffrey looked over at McCormick, who was staring at him with a crooked smile.

"How in da hell didya know I ate peanuts with mah beer?" asked Taynor, taking a handful of the salted nuts, eating them slowly, and savoring the taste.

"You want to tell him?" Jeffrey asked McCormick.

"His mother told him."

"Exactly right," Jeffrey smiled.

"I dun git it," Taynor said, shaking his head.

"You never were the brightest of light bulbs, Morgan," sighed McCormick.

"You shut yer hole, doctorman, or I'll kill ya's again!"

"I do not think that will happen tonight, Morgan," McCormick chuckled. "You see, our fates have been changed. Ordinarily, you would have shot me dead about ten minutes ago down in the valley. But as you can see, I am still here, not dead. Of course, I am still not certain how you got here and why we have kept replaying that night over for the past twenty years."

"I can answer that one for you, McCormick," Jeffrey said. "You see, after Morgan and Mitch chased you down and killed you, they were shot dead by the police fifteen minutes later."

"The police?" McCormick said, startled.

"That's right," Jeffrey said, leaning across the bar, sneering at McCormick, that wicked smile playing across his features again. This time it lit up his eyes. "She didn't die."

"Who din die?" Morgan asked.

"My mother," Jeffrey said. "By the way, Morgan, my name's Jeffrey. Though you both probably remember me better as Dalton."

McCormick choked out the beer in his mouth, showering the bartop with liquid foam. Morgan spat a mouthful of half-eaten peanuts into his hands. The name meant quite a bit to the both of them.

"That's right. You delivered me, Doctor McCormick. And you, Morgan, you were my stepfather for a year."

"Stepfather?" balked Morgan. "Bullshit, ya was mah boy."

"No, I wasn't," Jeffrey told him. "I was McCormick's boy. You know he was fucking mom long before you found out."

McCormick listened to all of this with only half an ear. The realization that he had a son was still settling into the thick stone that was his brain. He remembered delivering the boy, wishing that the baby were his. Of course, he had asked her when she became pregnant, but she had denied him any claim to the child. He should have known better, followed his instincts, and pushed the subject with her. They had been lovers for almost seven months before she became pregnant.

McCormick had first met Dalton's mother in medical office where he worked. She had gone there whenever her regular doctor was on vacation. She had flown in the door, a tangle of designer clothes and windblown, long blonde hair. He had chatted her up during the visit and she had accepted his invitation for dinner that evening.

He learned that she was married, and while Morgan wasn't abusive, he left much to be desired in a husband. He was a country boy, dirty and crude, into drinking beer and killing deer, not raising a family and taking his wife out. She had hopes of being a model, beautiful, the small town girl made good. It was a story he had heard before.

"Then why," he had asked her that night, "did you marry him?"

She had smiled, her lips turned up seductively. She had slid a hand under the table, her fingers walking along the inside of his thigh as she replied, "You weren't here."

"Let me pay the check."

They had left, going back to his small house. She had attacked him on the stairs, practically ripping his lips off with a ferocious kiss. His passion had met hers, his hands roaming around her body with....

"Hey, McCormick, get back on the clock," snickered Jeffrey, interrupting the memory. "Quit thinkin' about Mom and pay attention here."

McCormick looked up and nodded, "Where is your mother, Dalton?"

"She died two years ago."

"What did she die of?" Morgan asked in a cracked voice. He had been listening to the conversation, sipping his beer, in a quiet, contemplative manner.

"Cancer of the esophagus," Jeffrey said. "Too many cigarettes."

"I'm..." Morgan began, but McCormick cut him off.

"Cut the crap, already. Why exactly did you bring us here?"

"I told you. This is our family reunion."

"Then why ain't yer ma here?" Morgan asked.

Jeffrey snorted, looked at Morgan. "I knew my mother just fine. I lived with her for eighteen years. It was the two of you that I never knew."

"Your mother never told me that you were mine, Dalton. I do not see why I had to be dragged into this," McCormick said. He glanced over at the door, only fifteen feet away, then back to the gun on the bartop. The door may as well have been fifteen miles away. He used a hand to wipe absently at the back of his neck and was surprised to find that he was sweating.

"Mom told me you were a smartass."

"He always been a smartass," Morgan said.

"Too smart for you, Morgan. Why, you had to solve our issues with a gun," McCormick retorted.

"Horse's ass! You was screwing mah wife."

"Because you weren't doing it right."

"Shut up, both of you!" screamed Jeffrey. "Goddammit, this is my time now, do you hear me?" His hands pounded on the bartop as warm spittle sprayed from his lips. "Do you have any fucking idea how hard it was to grow up without a father?"

McCormick looked back at Jeffrey, blinking his eyes rapidly. The bartender's face seemed warped, longer than it was minutes ago. The chin was pointed, curved upward. The once brown eyes were glowing amber stuck deep into dark circle pits. Then the image passed. Jeffrey spoke again, screaming at them.

"And not to mention that your stepfather was the talk of the town for the first fifteen years of your life. They still talk about how stupid you were, Morgan. 'Hey look, there goes Taynor. Yeah, it was his dad shot the doctor and then shot up the police, all without dropping his beer.'"

"I loved yer ma..." Morgan began, but was interrupted immediately.

"What the hell were you thinking about? Love? McCormick shot your wife and all you could do was grab a beer, your shotgun, and go out hunting!" Jeffrey continued, his cheeks puffed out and bright red with anger. "Even when the police shot you dead, you wouldn't let go of your beer can. Did you know that some smartass sent a bouquet of Falstaff cans on pipe cleaners to your funeral instead of flowers?"

"Well..."

"Well what? You stupid bastard!" Jeffrey yelled. Then he shot Morgan once in the face. The body toppled off the stool and landed with a thud on the floor.

McCormick balked, jumped off his stool, and promptly fell as he slipped on Morgan's blood. Jeffrey came around the bar then, pointing the gun down at McCormick, his face twisted into an evil sneer. McCormick kept scooting backward, trying to pull his eyes away from the blood and sawdust mixture, but unable to. Something told him that in his future was something similar.

The bartender stalked him along the floor, taunting him as he crawled, tossing chairs when he came across them. Nothing stopped his tormentor's the mad advance. He kept coming at him slowly, smiling that McCormick family smile. It was a family reunion, after all.

"Wait a minute!" McCormick pleaded. "Just wait a goddamn minute, Dalton!" He kept moving as he spoke, the beginning of a plan surfacing in the back of his mind. "I am your father, Dalton. I would never have abandoned you like Morgan did, you must know that!"

Jeffrey's foot paused, stuttered on the sawdust, then stopped a few feet from McCormick's body. Jeffrey cocked his head to the side in a contemplative manner, his mouth turning down into a frown as he considered McCormick's words.

"You know I am not lying to you, Dalton," continued McCormick. "I was never given a chance to be your father."

"Then why did you shoot her, McCormick, huh? Why'd you do it?"

"I was frightened, scared. Like you are now. I never meant to hurt her, but Morgan came screaming into the room, trying to hit me."

"But why did you even bring a gun?" questioned Jeffrey.

"I...I—" McCormick stammered.

"You what?!" Jeffrey exploded at him. "You brought it to a meeting that was supposed to be just the two of you for what?"

"It was for protection, dammit!" McCormick howled back at him, crying now. Wet rivers flooded his cheeks.

"Against what?" pressed Jeffrey, bringing a foot down cruelly onto McCormick's right ankle. McCormick cried out, feeling the bone bend, then break. He stopped moving and just lay still on the floor.

"It...she was going to...break it off...could not let..."

"You couldn't let her break it off? So you decided you were going to kill her instead. Where's the logic in that? Tell me, Dad," came Jeffrey's relentless pounding, the last word thick with sarcasm. McCormick let his mind drift back to that night, his last as a living person, and how she looked, so beautiful.

"I loved her, Jeffrey," he said simply. He couldn't have let her break it off. What would she have done then? Gone back to Morgan? He couldn't have allowed that.

"Loved her enough to try and kill her. Well, let me tell you something, father of mine; you didn't kill her," the voice seethed. "All you succeeded in doing was crippling her."

"It was an accident," McCormick said quietly, mentally watching her move across the hotel room toward him, crying. He was holding the gun out before him. He had just told her that he would rather kill her than see her with someone else. She had rejected him, telling him that she had a son now, and that she wanted to raise her family in good faith.

She also told him that Morgan was meeting her in ten minutes.

McCormick realized that he had panicked. Reason had fled and he went violent. He had swung at her, hit her, knocked her down. Kicked her. He'd screamed at her, vile insults that belied his upbringing and education, and he'd leveled the pistol on her.

He'd been about to do what he'd promised when the door came crashing in. His pistol had been pointed at her in his rage-shaken hand. When the door came flying open, kicked off its hinges by a large West Virginia farmer, his hand had jerked two inches higher while his head had swiveled toward the door. He'd heard the loud report, didn't believe the gun had fired, but then he'd seen the blood pouring from the top of her head and he knew he had shot her. Then Morgan had bellowed something unintelligible, came flying across the bed at him. He could remember that now. He saw it clearly.

He had been knocked back against the wall, the gun falling from his grip. Morgan had slipped in the growin pool of his wife's blood and fallen to the ground beside her.

McCormick had taken that moment to make his exit. As he'd plowed through the door, he had simply run Mitch over, barreling into him with a shoulder. He had made his way around the building and into the woods, heading for Route 2.

"It was an accident, Dalton," McCormick repeated as he came back to his present situation. "I never meant for her to be crippled."

"No, you meant for her to be dead," Jeffrey said, hunkering down near McCormick, almost whispering now. "And I can't decide which I hate you for the most; trying to kill my mother or making her a fucking cripple. But, despite all that, she tried and did a damn good job raising me. Of course, she had no help, because no man would touch her after you. Her face was slack on one side from the brain damage the bullet caused. But she loved me, more than you or anyone else ever did."

McCormick was weeping steadily now. Jeffrey just stared at him, shaking his head.

"I've realized that it doesn't matter why I hate you, McCormick. I still hate you." Jeffrey laughed. "And you've been repeating this night once a year for twenty years. That spirit of yours has been running around. Didn't you ever wonder why? I'll tell you why. Violent death. You died violently. So did Morgan. Someone has to put your spirit to rest."

"And where do you fit in exactly?" McCormick wanted to know.

"I think you know the answer to that question. I'm going to put your spirit to rest. Sure, I could have said a few words over your grave, sprinkled the soil with some holy water. It was Mother's final wish that I do that for the two of you. Through it all, she still loved you both. But I decided to do it this way."

"Why?" croaked McCormick.

"So I could kill the two of you for ruining my life," Jeffrey said, pressing the gun against McCormick's temple. The sound of the hammer being pulled back echoed loudly in the stillness of McCormick's mind.

Minutes later, the door opened and Jeffrey walked out into the dawning day. He walked until he reached the side of the highway where he paused, looked up at the breaking sun that was chasing away the shadows.

"It's done, Mom. I love you."

Jeffrey began walking down the shoulder of the highway and, as the line of sunlight pushed its way over the ground to the bar, The Dame Fortune disappeared, as if it had never been.

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