Terry Bisson - Dead Man's Curve

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DEAD MAN’S CURVE

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

DEAD MAN'S CURVE

By Terry Bisson

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

DEAD MAN’S CURVE

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

"You're not going to believe what I'm going to tell you," Hal said.

"Probably not."

"But I'm going to tell you anyway."

"Probably are."

"There is another world."

"Probably is."

"Camilla, quit acting silly. If you could see me over the phone, you'd know that I was

serious. Another world! Besides this one."

"Like Lechuguilla," I said. "Like the Ruwenzori."

"No. Really different."

"Like the Moon?"

"The Moon is part of this world. I'm talking about something much, much more amazing.

Get your clothes on, I'm coming over."

"The Moon is not part of this world. And I don't walk around the apartment with no

clothes on. And I'm watching Unsolved Mysteries, so don't come over until nine unless

you can keep your mouth shut."

Hal was my best friend, is my best friend, all the way from grade school, on and off. We

were the only ones from our class, eleven years after graduation, who weren't married.

The only halfway normal ones, anyway.

Hal went to Bluegrass Community College in Frankfort, and sold dope. I worked at the

KwikPik and watched Unsolved Mysteries.

DEAD MAN’S CURVE

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Joke.

Hal didn't arrive until 9:07. I was sitting on the front steps of the Belle Meade Arms,

smoking a cigarette, waiting for him. My last boyfriend wouldn't let me smoke in the

apartment, and I kept the prohibition (along with the apartment) after I got rid of him. It

was a warm July night and I could hear Hal's 85 Cavalier a block away. The transmission

had a whine. It's probably the worst car ever made and I ought to know; my last

boyfriend worked for a Chevy dealer.

But enough about him.

"There is another world," I said, trying to sound mysterious like Robert Stack on

Unsolved Mysteries.

"Once you see it you won't laugh," Hal said.

"Patagonia?" I said. "Tibesti? Macchu Picchu?" We knew all the neat places. As kids we

had shared stacks of National Geographics. I was looking for Oz. Hal was looking for

where his father had gone. We never found either.

"Not the Moon. Not Lechuguilla. Not Machu Picchu. This is really different."

"Where did you read about it?"

"I didn't read about it. I found it. I've been there. This is serious, Camilla. I'm the only one

who knows about it. It's not even like a real place. It's another world."

"I thought you said it was real."

"Come on. Get in the car. We're going for a ride."

We drove out Old 19 to Dead Man's Curve. It's a long hairpin near the top of Caddy's

Bluff, over the Kentucky River. Nobody gets killed on it anymore. In the old days, before

the interstate, they say people made a living stripping parts off the wrecks at the bottom

of the bluff. The ones that didn't go into the river.

"I never come here that I don't think of Wascomb," I said. In high school, Johnny

Wascomb had taken Dead Man's Curve at fifty-nine mph. It was still the record as far as I

knew. Ironically, he didn't get killed driving but in an accident in the Navy. He was the

only dead person I knew.

"Funny you should mention Wascomb," Hal said. "I was seeing if I could take the curve

as fast as him when it happened."

"When what happened?"

DEAD MAN’S CURVE

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"You'll see." Hal drove up the bluff, around the curve, and turned into an old logging

road. It was dark back in the trees.

"Is this a Stephen King thing?" I asked, alarmed.

"No, Camilla. I'm just turning around." Hal backed out onto the highway and started

down the hill, around the curve. Going down, we were on the outside; that's what made it

Dead Man's Curve.

"I drive home from Frankfort this way twice a week. As an experiment, I started taking

the curve at forty, forty two, forty four. In two mph increments. The way Wascomb did."

"I never knew he did it that way."

"He was very scientific."

"He went fifty-nine in his GTO," I said. "Not some dinky Cavalier."

"I'm not even going to go fifty," Hal said. "Watch what happened to me at forty-two."

Hal set the Cavalier on forty-two as we went into the curve. From where I was sitting it

looked like thirty-nine. The white guard posts along the road flickered past, low in the

headlights. The curve tightened but Hal kept his speed up. A third of the way around, the

big trees gave out and I knew we were over the cliff.

The tires squealed but only a little. The posts flickered past one by one by one. They were

all the same distance apart, and we were at a steady speed, so it looked like nothing was

moving. The cable that connected the posts undulated in the headlights like a white wave;

then the wave seemed to open, and suddenly the world turned inside out like a sock, and

we were in a room.

Not in the car. A white room. We were sitting on a sort of bench, side by side. I sensed

Hal beside me on my right but I didn't see him until he stood up.

He stood up and I stood up with him. He turned and I turned with him. In front of us was

a wall. No, it was a window. Beyond it I could see endless rows of hills, white, but dark,

like snow in moonlight. Then Hal turned again and I turned with him. Another wall. I

wanted to see through it but Hal stepped back. We stepped back. I saw stars and the white

room was gone. What I had thought was stars were leaves in the headlights, across the

road. Through the windshield. The world had turned inside out again, or outside in, and

we were back in the car, stopped at the bottom of the hill where Old 19 connects with

River Road. I recognized the stop sign with the bullet holes.

Hal was on my left again, not my right. He was looking at me. "Well?" he said.

"Well?! What the hell was that?" I said.

DEAD MAN’S CURVE

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"You saw it too, right?"

"Saw it? I was there. We were there!"

"Where?" Hal was suddenly like a lawyer or a cop, interrogative. "What was it? What

was it for you?"

"A--white room. Like a waiting room."

"Then it's real," he said, putting the Cavalier into gear and turning onto River Road back

toward town. "I had to know if it was real. I almost wish to hell you hadn't seen it too.

Now I don't know what to do."

Two

The next day Hal picked me up at the KwikPik after work. He was twenty minutes late. I

sat out front and waited for him.

"Sorry I'm late, Camilla," he said. "I wanted to tell my professor about it."

We both knew what it was. "What did he say?"

"He didn't have time to talk about it. He had to run out. He has two jobs. He said it might

have something to do with the white posts flickering in the headlights. Hell, I had already

figured that out. My theory is, they set up a resonance and open a portal into another

universe."

Hal reads science fiction. I never could get into it.

We headed out Old 19. "I tried it faster and slower," Hal said. "I tried it with the radio on

and in low range, etcetera. It only works at forty-two, only in this Cavalier, and only at

night. Last night was my third time. I had to take you with me to be sure I wasn't a

hallucinating or something."

Hal pulled into the logging road. "Wait," I said. "How do we know for sure we can

always get back?"

"One wall leads back. You step back into it. It's the easiest part. It breaks the spell or

something."

"Spell. That's not very scientific. What if we get trapped?"

"You've been trapped in this world all your life, Camilla."

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DEADMAN’SCURVEGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.com1DEADMAN'SCURVEByTerryBissonGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.comDEADMAN’SCURVEGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.com2"You'renotgoingtobelievewhatI'mgoingtotellyou,"Halsaid."Probablynot.""ButI'mgoingtotellyouanyway.""Probablyare.""Thereisanotherworld.""Probablyi...

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