light. She was a little scuffed, but I could still make out the ringlets of red hair and the eyes that sparkled even in the worn photo. I had seen plenty of beautiful women on TV, but never anyone so beautiful in quite this way. I flipped the picture over and saw—written in smudged round letters—“Amber.”
I stuck the picture back in the fold, slipped the wallet in my jacket pocket, and stood up.
I knew I had to get rid of the body. Mother always told me it was one of the most important parts. I didn’t have the time or tools to bury him right now, so I’d have to stash him somewhere where nobody would find him. This is why it helps to prepare ahead of time, but once again I’d messed up. Of course, it’s easier to hide someone when no one else knows they’re supposed to be looking for him. Still, I didn’t want to just dump Chris in the woods—who knew what might get after him. Suddenly I got an idea.
I jogged over to the tracks and walked along the bank, and pretty soon I found what I was looking for. The culvert—a corrugated drainpipe running under the tracks—was less than three feet in diameter. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do.
I went back to my pack and pulled out a rolled-up sheet of plastic that I’d found last week in an empty boxcar. I had been using it as a groundsheet to keep the moisture out as I slept. It had worked pretty well, but I wouldn’t need it anymore.
The hardest part was getting him to the culvert. His license said 175 pounds, but he felt a lot heavier than that. I carried him over my shoulder at first, but then it got to be too much, so I just put him down and dragged him the rest of the way over grass already soaked with dew. It seemed to take forever, and I kept waiting for Josh and Steve to show up, wondering where their buddy was. Finally I got him over there, laid him out, and wrapped him up. After I finished, I just looked down at him for a minute. I couldn’t really see him through the plastic, but I knew the expression on his face hadn’t changed.
“Sorry things turned out this way,” I said, standing over him beneath the cold stars. I felt like I should say something, like I should try and reassure him.
“I’ll try not to screw it up too bad.”
I was worn out after hauling him all that way, but I managed to get him stuffed in there pretty well. I put him in headfirst and pushed and pushed until he was out of sight.
Then I said good-bye one last time, climbed up onto the tracks, and headed for town.
Steve and Josh were waiting about a half mile away where the tracks passed an empty lot. I took a few deep breaths and walked up to them.
“Hey, guys,” I said. They jumped at the sound of my voice. They’d been talking and hadn’t seen me.
“Christ, you scared the crap out of me,” Steve said.
“Good thing you showed up,” Josh added. “We were just about to leave your sorry ass.”
“How’s the old man?” Steve asked.
“He’s gone,” I muttered.
“Got rid of him, huh?” Josh said.
“Well…,” I said.
“I don’t want to know,” Josh said, holding up his hands and laughing nervously.
“Let’s get out of here,” Steve said. We left the tracks and headed down to Steve’s car, a beat-up Ford Escort parked in the corner of the lot. I sat in the backseat as we drove off, not saying much of anything. Not that it would have mattered—with the music thudding from the zillion speakers Steve had in his car, they probably wouldn’t have been able to hear me anyway. A little while later, they pulled over in front of a house partway down a crowded street. The lights were out in all the houses. A street lamp cast the only glow around. Josh clicked off the stereo, and the car suddenly went silent and still.
“Here you go, pal,” Steve said, glancing up to look at me in his rearview mirror. “Try not to look too hung over tomorrow. We’ve got a big practice.”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding, “big practice.”
I got out of the car. As I was heading across the lawn toward the house, Steve rolled down the window and called out, “Need a ride in the morning?”
That’s right. School.
“No thanks,”