1. Bad Stop (D2)

(D1.5)
__The rain pounded the windshield so hard it felt like tiny fists trying to get in at him. It was like they were trying to get inside, to wash the blood off his hands and shirt, then beat him for what he'd done.
__R. Lee Munson pulled off Route 9 into the tiny gravel lot of a roadside bar. Well, it looked like a bar. He squinted through the rainwash his wipers couldn't quite keep at bay and strained to read the piercing red neon in the window. There was only one other vehicle on the lot, a pick-up truck. The other six or seven spots were empty. Across the street was a cornfield. Next to the bar was a junkyard. The spot was blissfully secluded.
__The weather pattern shifted slightly and he could make out a design above a single word. The design was an eye with a curling neon iris. The word: PSYCHIC.
__"Great," he spat. Then he laughed. "We'll see about that."
__Turning, straining to reach the satchel in the back seat, R. Lee pried his hand under the shovel handle, nudged the rake, then found the case under a pile of loose wet garbage bags. He hoped they were just wet from the rain. It was going to be hard enough to clean the blood off himself. He hated the thought he'd have to detail his car.
__Maybe the psychic has some cleaning solution? He chuckled. "I wonder if they know I'm here."
__
__Inside the shop, Ardelene was straightening her fake gypsy scarf and head wrap adorned with tiny fake crystals as she studied her reflection in the mirror. She had to make sure she looked authentic.
__When the car pulled into the lot, she jumped up from her chair and smacked the television's power button. The Price is Right would have to wait.
__She pulled on her slippers and bracelets, quickly pulled the scarf and head wrap from the table in the center of the room, gave the crystal ball a quick buff, and muttered her mantra, "Cross my palm with gold. Cross my palm with gold...."
__Now she stood transfixed, staring at a glint of light on the fake jewel that dangled from her head wrap in the middle of her forehead. There was something in that tiny blue glow, like the point of a sniper's laser scope that vanished when she turned ever so slightly.
__Turning so the glint appeared once more, she allowed herself to forget about the source of the light and fell into it headlong.
.


__Ardelene found herself in a forest. Her body felt different, stronger, strange. She wasn't use to the shift in her center of gravity, wasn't used to the collection of objects between her legs that moved naturally with her gait but were nonetheless unfamiliar to her. Her right arm felt strained, taxed, and her left hand awkwardly clutched two long-handled items. The eyes that were not her own, slightly glazed with poorer vision, glanced back at what was dragging at her right arm.
__The body of a man in a shirt and tie was dragging along the ground behind her. The tie pulled like a red paisley noose, the loose end wrapped and clutched by her right hand. Her manly right hand was as strained and purple as the bald head of the man being dragged.
.
__The jingling of the bell over the door snapped her out of the vision and Ardelene turned toward the sound.
__Stepping in from the rain was a hulking shadow dripping silver drops of rain. He smiled and said, "Sorry to startle you. Pourin' cats n' dogs out there." His laugh was weak, fake. Like my costume, she thought.
__Ardelene was still trying to shake the images from her vision, her daydream -- yeah, that was it -- a bizarre uncontrolled daydream.
__"Can't drive," the man said, "The rain and all." He remained standing in the doorway, his face and features mostly hidden in silhouette. His voice, his manner of speaking, was probing, testing. It was somehow familiar, like she'd heard it in her own head once before.
__Trying her best to compose herself for the unexpected customer, Ardelene motioned for the table in the center of the room where the crystal ball waited. Her brow knitted under the glinting jewel on her forehead as she found herself unable to shake the feeling, the imagery, the realism of the vision. She never had a vision before. Her fortune-telling shop was like all the rest, a flim-fam, faux, a fake. She told people what they wanted to hear, used vagueness and pulled from her customer's expressions. "Will my husband get the promotion he wants?" They were always easy questions, and always provided a fifty-fifty solution that didn't matter in the present.
__Ardelene slowly took her place at the table, easing into the chair, not sure if it were her own legs she was feeling, or the legs of the man she inhabited in the vision.
__Flashes: The tie, the body, the tools, the woods, the dirt, the blood. She gasped and rubbed her eyes. Her mouth opened and spilled the words, "Ain't nothin' under here. Nothin' grows under the forest, Clye."
__The man had approached the table but didn't sit. Now he tensed. "What? ...What did you say?"
__Ardelene's eyes were watery, tears drew black mascara tracks down her cheeks. "I, I don't--" Her eyes fell to his right hand which placed a small wet case on the table. In the orange glow from the crystal ball she could see a raw red burn across the back of his hand.
__Like a burn caused by a silk tie pulled taught against his skin.