Preview of Photograph and the Atomic Juggernaut

“I killed your father.”

Colonel Samuel Jefferson Sr. drew a long, shallow breath. His hospital suite was reminiscent of a guest bedroom out of a home décor catalog, generic decorations and modest colors, not a sterile and clinical space like seen on a television medical drama. The minimal machines hooked up to him were compact and quiet, only the whispers of electronic tones and a ghostly hum. His tenure in the military had afforded him a high quality of care during his end stage of life. His thinning gray hair maintained the tight cropped cut of his military service and he wore a button-down shirt rather than a coarse hospital gown . Even at this stage, dignity was important to him.

The afternoon hour was deep, and the shadows began to form in long gray masses on the tile, creeping like black snakes from the flowers on the windowsill toward the girl sitting across the room in the wooden guest chair with faded orange cushions. She wore a simple dress, more suited to a little girl than one on the verge of adolescence. The Colonel had picked it out himself; he wished to keep her embedded in the fantasy of youth rather than the oncoming reality of adulthood.

“Come closer, Dana. This is important. I may be a villain in this story, but I am not the only villain. And you may be the hero.” He smiled with a slight wince of pain. “Even if you are still just a little girl.” His eyes, a mixture of yellow and pink from age and disease, focused with a hint of the steely blue iris of his youth before returning to the gray that settled in over the last decade of his life.

Dana Jefferson sat up, confused by her grandfather’s confession, and, using her feet, dragged the chair to the side of her grandfather’s bed. The smell of simple soap overpowered the musk of his cologne, the antiseptic plastics, and a trace of cigarette smoke from someone who was in the room prior to her visit. He reached out a frail, dark, spotted hand, which she accepted into hers. She examined their matching skin tones. His hue was weathered into a deep tan forged through years of sunlight, hers was the mix of her mother’s coffee and her father’s ivory.

“Dana, I am so sorry for what I am about to burden you with. As you know, I have made my career … my life …” he paused and looked into her eyes without blinking “… our life about the preservation of our liberty and our nation. Do you understand that?”

Dana nodded. Her grandfather had raised her since her father died, which was preceded by her mother’s death from a swift terminal illness. Before then, all three generations had lived in her grandfather’s large, comfortable, but not extravagant rancher in New Mexico. She learned how to properly unfold and raise the American flag on the tallest pole with every sunrise at the front of his property along the canyon road. On the morning after her mother passed, she raised the flag to half-mast, only to be rebuked by the Colonel when he returned home with her father.

Her grandfather continued. “As you know, I spent my time working on engineering—you understand what that means, right? We built things. We improved things. We made things safer for our soldiers abroad so that they could ensure we were safer at home.”

“Like the balloon camera?”

“Yes, the balloon camera!” He let out a short, dry cough as he started to chuckle excitedly, his yellowed eyes opening wide at her appreciation of his invention. “We didn’t just use that camera for taking pictures of mountains and rivers for mapping. That camera also contained a small charge, or, rather, an explosive. We would send those cameras out to be intentionally discovered and shot down. We would allow the insurgents to take it back to their camp and …”

“You killed them?”

“Yes. My projects were malevolent,” he replied. He misread the stillness on her face as miscomprehension of the word, not acknowledgment of the deed. “That means they were very bad and harmful. I am what is known as a casualty engineer. Everything I built was meant to … kill.”

He felt her hand twitch in his, so he softened his grip. She recoiled her hand.

“My life’s work, Dana, was a very special weapon. So special that it required your father’s hands to create my dream.” He stopped and turned his gaze to the flowers on the windowsill, which were growing darker as the setting sun backlit their silhouette, making their shadows more jagged as they reached the wall across the room.

“The device was breathtaking. If you’ll pardon my flair for the dramatic, my last years have afforded me the opportunity to branch out beyond the binary responses of giving and receiving orders.”

She did not realize that, despite withdrawing her hand, she leaned in closer with every pause in his story.

“I made something terrible, a nightmare … it proved too dangerous during testing. We didn’t intend to travel the path we took. We had protocols that were not tested because of the many pressures.” His throat tightened as his confession continued. “There were too many parties whispering offers of large sums of money into our ears.”

He slammed his gaunt fist onto the bed, and then drew his closed hand to his chest. Dana bolted upright in her seat, as she had never seen this inclination to violence and outbursts from her usually restrained grandfather. She remained silent as a light breeze from the open window cupped her cheeks with invisible, cold palms. He paused before he spoke his next words with a low, somber tone, hanging on each word.

“I gave your father cancer because we needed that wretched weapon to be ready. I am so sorry.”

Dana began to slowly retreat in her chair. This was too much for most twelve-year-old children to process, but her acuity with grown-ups was ahead of her peers. She exhaled one word, the last she’d ever speak aloud to him.

“Why?”

“Dana, my beautiful Dana. We needed men to test it before it was ready. I told your father that the safety shields were ready, but I knew that we had radioactive leakage. I knew putting him inside that machine would be a long, slow, painful death sentence. I was promoted after that. I received a promotion for killing my own son … AND A DOZEN MORE MEN!”

An attendant from outside the room peered in when he heard Dana’s grandfather shouting but then slunk back behind the portal window. Her grandfather lowered his voice below speaking but above whispering.

“I am not asking you to vindicate me or change my legacy but to safeguard others. Your father and I discussed this before he died, but it was my burden to complete the mission, and to right our wrongs. It appears I will not be able to complete the mission, Dana.” He lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders to mock a military stand of attention while stranded in his bed. “I had made preparations, but I did not anticipate that my health would descend this rapidly before you turned eighteen. Here.”

He reached into his shirt pocket. His fingers struggled as he pulled out a piece of paper.

“There is a safe deposit box back in New Jersey where your father and I worked on this evil machination. You may access it when you are a legal adult; the contents are yours. You will find all the information you need, as well as, my dear, the last of your father’s plans. Something designed for war, but with the hope of wonderful civilian uses.”

She kept her eyes down as she took the folded piece of crisp, white paper. She could see the ink bleeding through the back in a few places. One spot grew in size but faded in color as a tear saturated the document.

“Do you know that I used that balloon camera to take pictures of you? I have some exceptionally beautiful photos of your eyes; those wonderful hazel fingerprints you see the world through. They soften my heart every time I look at them, and they hardened my resolve to tell you this story one day. Every eye is unique, and both of yours are extraordinary.” He winked at her. She faked a smile.

“Do you still like roller skating, my dear?”

Her lips parted as she raised an eyebrow. Dana and her mother would roller skate in the house when Colonel Jefferson and her father were away on their extended trips. It was typically forbidden inside, especially in the parlor, so they went to great lengths to hide their secret roller derby activity, even going so far as to polish the floors to hide the scuffing from their toe stops.

His rough cheeks retracted into a smile, his capped teeth catching the last reflections of the sun before it surrendered to the horizon.

Dana tucked a strand of her full black curls behind her ear, stood up, and, without saying a word, weakly hugged her grandfather. She turned and paused so he would not have the satisfaction of seeing the tears that welled in her eyes, and she walked out of the room with the wish to never see him again.

Her wish was granted that night.

“Futures” – Jimmy Eat World

For a Tuesday night, the Stroudsberg Inn was busier than usual. Being one of the few bars in the middle of the Pine Barrens, a million-acre swath of forest cast across southern New Jersey, dictated that most patrons were a steady crowd of well-worn contractors, local business owners brokering side hustles, and a rotating cluster of singles who cross-dated with regularity. Dana Jefferson enjoyed her work behind the bar as well as the steady tips and the requisite free advice she doled out. The youngest bartender by age and tenure, she still knew a good number of the patrons by actual name or nickname, even if it was one she kept to herself. The rednecks who harassed her because of her peanut-colored skin were few and far between, and she could count on the other staff to escort the most racist patrons outside.

Dana checked her hair in the mirror behind the bar, not from vanity, but to confirm her thick black waves were in place after running back from the walk-in cooler. She smeared the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand and studied her reflection, mocking herself with a flirty wink and dimpled smile. Her teeth flashed blueish white from the neon sign to her left, but her light brown eyes still sparkled back in their true hues. “You are so hot, you’re going to make at least ten bucks in tips tonight,” she whispered to herself, “so we don’t have to choose between toothpaste and underwear.” Her smirking reflection faded.

She walked over to the end of the bar and retied the knot in the front of her flannel button-down before pulling a bottle opener from the pocket of her waist apron.

“Hey Paula, another one?”

A short woman in a faded black T-shirt and light-blue satin jacket sitting at the bar in front of her nodded, shaking her long braided brown ponytail. Paula was Dana’s teammate on the Asbury Angels, a roller derby team out of Asbury Park. Dana had moved to New Jersey a year ago with only a few bags and a steamer trunk in her rusty blue Ford Bronco. An only child, she spent her adolescence rotating through a handful of boarding schools across New Mexico and Arizona, sponsored by the trust fund her parents and grandfather established prior to their deaths. Making friends in a new state as a twenty-three-year-old had been a challenge, but the Angels gave her the first semblance of family since she was a child. Paula became the first of her many sisters on the team and looked up to Dana despite being her elder by several years.

“I was talking to Mary Beth, and we got the next practice dates set. Looks like we may be sharing the park with those whiners from Cape May,” Paula noted dryly. She reached into her purse and pulled out a photocopied sheet. The teams in the league often shared facilities and costs for practice, fermenting a sisterhood of skaters that went beyond the matches. Dana enjoyed meeting the other team members before the rough-and-tumble of an event, especially since the rosters frequently changed as women moved from one town to another. The only drama was often the result of someone dating and then breaking up with a fellow skater, something Dana was now personally familiar with.

Dana reached for a glass and poured herself a ginger ale from the dispenser. “Are your folks having Sunday dinner?” she asked. Dana appreciated the weekly invite to Paula’s house and the banter of her family around homemade casseroles and potato salad. As one of her few friends in New Jersey, Dana had latched onto Paula’s parents and sister as a surrogate family whenever she could shoehorn her way into familial events. She didn’t mind being a fifth wheel if there was a warm meal and corny jokes from Paula’s mom.

“No-go on dinner this week, we’re going to my uncle’s down in Cape May. I’d let you tag along, but he’s a little, you know,” she thumbed her nose into the air, “proper, my dear.”

“Must be nice to have that kind of money in the family.” The friends sipped their drinks in silence as the conversation steered into an uncomfortable lane. Dana let Paula take the wheel to drive the next topic.

“Have you talked to Angela recently?” Dana sensed that Paula approached the subject with caution as she dipped her fries into an excessive mound of ketchup on her plate.

“No. Not recently.” Dana looked for any misplaced items on the bar, hoping to dodge the follow-up question she was sure would crash into the conversation.

“So, not since you two broke up? Nothing?” Paula pointed an accusatory fry at Dana.

“Nope. I said my things, she said her things, and luckily we had our own places, so only the exchange of toothbrushes and a shirt or two was necessary.” Dana found a pile of napkins that looked not-quite-aligned and began to straighten the stack. She loathed talking about breakups. She was a proficient heartbreaker, rarely single, and had left a trail of former boyfriends and girlfriends behind her. Unfortunately for her partners, her priority was not her relationships; rather, it was tracking down the long trail of clues left by her family. If she discovered another lead, she found herself severing ties and moving on romantically and geographically. When she landed in New Jersey on the trail of the most recent breadcrumbs, she took a shot with Angela but found the relationship challenging to maintain as both teammate and girlfriend.

Dana leaned in after patting down the pile of napkins and taking a quick survey for any empty glasses on the bar. “Paula, I have to admit, Angela and I were just a bad idea. I mean, she’s great, and oh my God, she’s gorgeous, but I had to rip the Band-Aid off before we got too deep. And I do feel bad. She was more into me than I was into her.” She smirked. “I do miss seeing her brothers on a regular basis. Family full of jocks and they always had some story about a prank war during baseball season or some rowdy tale about a cheerleader.” She wagged her bottle opener and winked. “Or three.”

Paula held up her glass in solidarity before chugging the rest of the contents.

“Yes, indeed, she is a looker. I mean, I don’t, you know …” she struggled as her words sought the politest route, “… I just date guys, but girl, she is smoking hot.”

“Looks aren’t everything. I’m old enough to know that.” Dana glanced back at the bar and up at the clock. “I have to close out a few tabs. I’m only here until ten. Be right back.”

The barroom was slowly thinning as the late dinner and happy hour crowd filled their gullets, and Dana began her check-ins. One of her recent favorites was an older single guy named James who ordered a pitcher and bacon burger every Tuesday and Thursday. She sauntered over to his table where he slumped a bit more than usual on his stool.

“James, are you alright, big guy?”

He looked up with heavy eyelids, more buzzed than usual.

“I had a long day, skipped lunch to make my quota at the yard.” He fumbled and subsequently dropped his wallet. “So, I think I was already running on empty.”

Dana looked past him out the window to his old compact car in the parking lot, and then down at his keys. She slowly slid them off the table into her pocket and felt the lump of folded dollar bills next to them. She could buy new underwear and pay the electric bill later. I’ll just have to work harder on tips next week, she reasoned.

“Cab fare is on me. Just remember it next time.”

As Dana walked back to the bar, Paula hopped off her stool and tapped a small pile of bills under her glass. She began to button her jacket, its colorful embroidery of “Asbury Angels” stretching across the back.

“See you at practice. Don’t forget the schedule, sweetie!” she chimed as she trotted to the door. “And hey.” She paused for dramatic emphasis. “Call Angela or just get an ice cream or something. We can’t have our big brawler going soft on us. Or going full road rage with a broken heart!”

Dana reluctantly held up an okay sign with her hand as Paula left. Her tip jar count left her in the positive by only ten dollars after paying for James’s cab fare and comping Paula’s drinks. She said goodbye to the cooks and grabbed her leather coat as she snuck out the back door. Dana glanced at the tag inside the black worn leather as it fell under the lamplight in the lot. The faded “S. Jefferson” written inside by her mother sparked a warm smile. When she packed the coat for her first day of boarding school, she hid it at the bottom of her suitcase, unsure if she was allowed to bring her mom’s handmade jacket, complete with tuxedo tails, and slightly embarrassed by the sloppiness as it engulfed her small thirteen-year-old frame. But all these years later, in the cool New Jersey evening, it fit snuggly, accentuating her broad shoulders, a proper uniform for any imaginary upcoming battles. She retained few possessions from her earlier life stages, but those that she kept, like the jacket, were more valuable than all the tips she’d ever earned.

Her truck sat parked in the far back corner of the lot to keep prying eyes away from the large backpack tucked in the footwell of the passenger side. She leaned on the hood for a moment as she unfolded a sheet of paper with a list of road names from her back pocket. The first ten were crossed off, leaving another twenty to go. The next on the list was a county road number, followed by a number indicating a mile marker. She studied it before opening the truck door.

“Are you girls ready for another run?” she inquired of the bag next to her. “I think maybe we’ll have a little more fun and do a little less detective work tonight.”

“When You Close Your Eyes” – Night Ranger

“Son, you need to keep your eyes off the road, that’s the trick.”

Nick Andrews never liked driving at night in the Pine Barrens, but his dad was easily spooked by deer and critters on the back roads. Heading home late together from overtime work for the electric company meant miles of unlit two-lane roads that were often populated by more opossums than pickup trucks. Nick was grateful for the job—albeit as an hourly fill-in—especially when career choices without a college degree across the county were limited. His dad, Mitchell, had pulled a few strings to get him in the door.

“If you leave the headlights and interior lights off, after about five minutes your eyes should adjust, especially on a cloudless night like tonight.” Mr. Andrews tapped the windshield to acknowledge the deep navy-blue sky above them. The white paint of the hood glowed slightly under the stars.

The old, dented Ford F150 rattled sporadically as they moved through the woods. Nick alternated between squinting and widening his eyes as the lines in the road began to swell and grow with his dilating pupils. The best way to avoid blinding a deer at 2 a.m. was as his dad suggested: to drive with no lights on, at least for the next half hour, when the stretch of road would be devoid of streetlamps.

“Are you and the guys going out to play paintball this weekend? Or is Saturday motocross?” his father asked as he unscrewed a thermos of decaf coffee.

Nick shrugged. He had neglected participating in either activity for months, but his dad hadn’t notice. Between the overtime shifts he took to save up tuition money and his intermittent courses in electrical engineering at Ocean County Community College, Nick was exhausted. The little free time he had in his schedule was spent with his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Lindsey. Being a lineman in the Pine Barrens meant climbing poles on a daily basis and swapping out box parts for homeowners who often mistook him for one of the many locals trying to steal parts for the scrapyards, which was often the reason he was called out in the first place—that and removing the occasional burnt glove of would-be thieves who were not able to ground themselves properly.

“I’m not going anywhere this weekend. Just studying.” Nick tensed as he anticipated the possible and probable topics that would come up next.

“You can go out, you know. Look, I’ve been saving up my OT, and we can use that toward next semester, so you can cut down on the work and pick up an extra class or two.”

“Appreciate it. Right now, I just want to get to bed.” Here it comes, he thought.

“So, you and Lindsey … are you guys in a rough patch?” Nick felt the sarcasm in his father’s voice needle into his ear canal. He did not want to talk about his girlfriend—or ex-girlfriend depending on the day of the week, especially with his old man after a grueling day of labor.

“We were supposed to go to her cousin’s birthday party last weekend, but there was a schedule conflict. I don’t think we’re going to hang out this weekend.” The silence shrouded him as he waited for a follow-up question that did not materialize.

The truck barreled through the blue-black darkness as the forest gave way to a more thinly populated section. On the right, the trees were about half the height of the woods on the left. According to a local urban legend, decades ago a forest fire was blocked by the newly paved and widened roads as it blazed across the county. The new pavement and extended shoulders were wide enough to stop the spread and saved countless homes but stunted the growth of the burned section. Today, the shorter tree line that had grown in let in some moonlight, just enough to allow for shadows and shapes to be visible at a greater distance down the road. Nick continued to squint at the inky soft forms ahead. A tiny blot in the distance stood out.

“Hey, Dad, do you see something up there?” Nick nodded his chin toward the blackness far down the road. He dropped the speedometer about ten miles per hour as they both stared at a shape moving along the center line about a half mile ahead. “Should we hit the headlights?”

“Not yet, kid, keep back a bit. Might be a bear. About the right height for an adolescent.”

The speedometer ticked down another hash on the dial as Nick assessed the object’s rate of speed. Whatever this thing was, it was moving with intent and skill, prowess and power.

“We’re not getting closer, and we’re holding the same speed. How fast do bears run?”

“They’re pretty fast. But thirty to thirty-five is pushing it outside of a sprint. He must be after something fierce. Do you hear the growling from here?”

Nick rolled down the window. As soon as the air seal of the window broke, a chilly wind blew his hat off his head and into the back of the truck cab, ruffling his short blond hair. A faint metallic set of tones crept in with the cool air. It was a low rumble, not heavy but thick, like a loose, low guitar string rattling with distortion. Nick cautiously depressed the gas pedal, and the tone started to rise thanks to the Doppler effect as they closed the gap with the figure ahead.

“That’s not a bear,” Nick whispered. The darkness was interrupted by tiny flashes of light coming from the bottom of the shape as it wobbled in tiny arcs back and forth across the lines. “Sparks! Dad! Dad! Do you see?”

“I do. I don’t know what the hell that is. It’s moving side to side over the double yellow. Is it … dancing?”

Nick saw the sparks in greater detail as they erupted, flaring in a tiny storm on the road each time the figure changed direction. Rhythmic and repetitive, the swerving pattern belonged to a now visible biped, but the shape was too dark in the achromatic night to make out more detail.

“I’m catching up to it,” he murmured as a new flurry of sparks shot out, outlining what looked like two ski boots mounted to wheels. The pickup heaved forward unevenly as it decided between gears. Nick banked to the right side of the lane as they closed the gap and pulled up next to … a woman on skates.

At forty miles an hour, they matched her speed, holding the truck parallel to her. What looked to be black curls played with the darkness and were pinned back by headphones, and a clear plastic shield similar to shooting goggles rode on her hairline. She wore a cropped leather jacket with long tails in a tuxedo style, and her forearms were excessively padded from elbow to glove. Her dark irises stared back at him. She pulled one earbud out of her ear as she laughed, yelling, “You almost caught me!” She flashed a gigantic smile in direct contrast to Nick’s agape jaw.

Her slim-fit cargo pants were tucked into a pair of large plastic and metal boots, with extended shin guards attached to kneepads. The spasms of sparks illuminated more details of the skates as she swerved away from the truck. The four slim wheels on each skate were built out of coiled metal around a core wheel, like a two-inch-thick guitar string, growling and grinding at dizzying speed.

As suddenly as they caught up to her, she shot ahead of them in a firestorm of sparks, the metallic tones converging into a distorted chord. Nick hit the headlights and then the high beams as she rocketed ahead, her oversized roller skates grinding against the pavement as she abruptly swerved left onto an unmarked side road. He slammed the brake pedal down to the floor mat and skidded the screeching truck to a stop almost perpendicular to their travel lane.

“Well. That was something,” Mr. Andrews declared as he stared at Nick, one hand still holding the sun visor he had grabbed for stability and subsequently ripped from the header, his other hand clutching the coffee thermos that was now half empty from spilling in the cabin.

“Dad, did you …”

“See? Yeah, she was like a …. photograph.”

“Photograph?”

“Yeah, that girl’s like a photograph. That’s the only way you’ll catch her.”

The father and son sat silently for another moment before Nick reengaged the gear shift to continue home.

“Somnambulist” – BT

Nick stared at the ceiling in the dark. Such a cliché thing to do, he thought to himself as the fan in his bedroom droned. He had spent the last two hours trying to make logical sense in his head of the events that transpired on his way home, and of the mysterious girl with the beaming smile, despite the impending alarm clock that would erupt in thirty minutes to let him know it was time to get up for class. Sleep was finally pressing on his eyelids when the alarm rang, making him question if what had happened was all a dream.

“Nick, breakfast! Get in here and stop thinking about girls on roller skates.”

Nope, not a dream, he reprimanded himself.

Nick sat up and looked around the room. He had taken down his posters that had been on his walls since high school a few months ago after he turned twenty-one but could still see the pin holes, tape remnants, and sun-faded rectangles on the far side over his desk. His engineering books were organized on his shelf in alphabetical order by subject. Despite his thin finances, he chose not to resell them. One day they might be fun relics for his children to peruse, as he enjoyed paging through his mother’s old schoolbooks. He looked down at his feet. He fell asleep in his work boots as usual and began his ritual of taking off his shoes before putting on his clothes for the day.

Down the hall, across the rancher’s length, was one large room containing the kitchen, dining room, and family room—the open floor plan his mother had requested before she died. His father had done the work himself to convert the space per her wishes, including the handmade bookshelves, and Nick had had his first self-managed project laying out the electrical plan and doing the wiring himself before he joined the union. Every outlet was also fitted with a USB port, and two recessed lights, one on each side of the room, ran off a small solar cell he had installed on the roof on each side of the skylight. The Pine Barrens provided diverse weather across the year, so having a set of solar-powered lights in case of a thunderstorm, blizzard, or hurricane seemed like common sense to him. But the more likely recurring power issue was the occasional drunk driver taking out the power line pole at the end of the street, which also ensured job security.

“So, what the hell did we see last night? Was that a next-gen hoverboard?” his dad asked.

Nick sat down at the table and folded his toast into triangles.

“No way. Something like that would have hit all the big boy sites,” he said as he took a ravenous bite of his breakfast. “The tech blogs, the human-interest rich-folk-gawking, the financial pages. I bet I could run a search and not find anything close to that unless it was written about by Bill Cooper or Isaac Asimov.” His voice faded. “They were so cool looking.” He picked up his glass and saw that his dad was standing at the counter, head bent low.

“You sound like your mom. You got all her brains, and my beautiful hands. Make money with your brain because your hands won’t last forever.”

“Neither will my brain,” he countered to his father. He regretted the words as he momentarily recalled the day his mom told him the definition of meningioma. Nick put his water down but kept his hand on the glass, drawing small circles with his thumb. He cleared his throat to bridge the silence that hung between them. His father, unfazed by the comment, moved to back to the looming mystery.

“Do you think that girl was with the military? We’re really not too far from the base and reserve complex.” He was talking about Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, an amalgamation of Army, Navy, and Air Force facilities that employed many of the locals in civilian and enlisted roles. Nick had learned at a young age how to identify the aircraft, day or night, as they flew in and out on training missions and deployments, sparking the birth of his interest in engineering.

“I doubt it,” he said, pointing his toast crust at his father. “They’d be doing that stuff under lock and key, and anything with speed goes out west to the desert. Salt Flats or dry lakebeds. Places like that.”

Nick stood up and grabbed his backpack and laptop from the couch. He paused to pick up a shopping bag from a high-end menswear store that contained a dress shirt with the tags still attached.

“I’m going to run. I have to return this shirt Lindsey bought me, and I have to get to campus early for lab time. This laptop screen is too small for the specs for my assignment.” He grabbed the keys to his truck from the hook by the door. “I’ll see you at work around noon before shift starts.”

“Son.” Mr. Andrews intercepted him at the door. Nick looked down at his feet, preparing for another lecture on bad girlfriend choices. “Let’s not tell anyone about last night. I mean, someone else had to have seen her. Let them talk first. I don’t need anyone at work thinking I’m out of sorts.” Nick understood the implications. His dad’s coworkers had questioned his behavior during and after his wife’s illness, and Nick saw he held on to his sanity one day at a time. He glanced at the bag in Nick’s hand. “And that’s a nice shirt. You might need that for a job interview. You should keep it.”

Nick nodded back at his dad. His father’s eyes were the same blue as his mother Josephine’s, as well as his own. Mitch’s rounded jaw and soft cheeks contrasted with his mother’s angular features, including the pointed nose and chin that Nick saw every morning in the mirror. He was his mother’s child, and he knew each day that his father felt joy and pain seeing her in him.

Nick plodded out to his faded red Ford Ranger pickup next to his dad’s white F150 in the gravel driveway. Once behind the wheel, he thought about the mysterious girl they saw, the wonderful machines on her feet, and the bliss in her smile as she soared into the night. He looked at his calendar appointments on his phone: school, work, study, and Lindsey. Repeat. He opened the phone’s browser to the shopping app.

“You can’t catch a photograph without a camera,” he said softly to himself as he scrolled through the images of new and refurbished equipment. He clicked on a highly rated wireless camera and selected the next-day shipping option. With a small smile, he pulled out of the driveway and headed toward the college computer lab.

“One Night in Bangkok” – Murray Head

Dana studied the patrons seated at the bar and the ones standing at the high tables near her section. The crowd was thick once again with packs of working-class comrades and middle-aged married couples out on their Friday date night. If anything stood out, it was the lone young man sitting by himself, a short pile of neatly stacked file folders on the bar in front of him. She didn’t recognize him personally but his short blond tousle of hair and runner’s frame had become as of recent a frequent fixture, albeit never in her section where she could prod him with charming banter for tips. She elbowed her coworker Grant, who was a long-time employee of the Stroudsberg and knew most people in the surrounding area.

“Hey, do you know that guy?” she asked with another nudge. “He’s been in here recently, a few times now.”

Grant ran a hand over his receding hair and laughed in his deep booming voice.

“I think I do. Handsome, right? You interested? I think he was dating Lindsey Chandwick,” he stated and then assumed a slightly British accent with his confirmation, “of the Cherry Hill Chandwicks.” Dana smiled with a shrug, indicating her lack of name recognition. “Her dad’s a dentist from a long line of noble tooth pullers. They have a lot of money. That guy,” he nodded toward the solitary young man at the end of the bar, “was dating above his station in life, in my opinion. My little brother went to school with him. They used to meet up for paintball together. Nick Andrews. I think that’s the right name.”

Dana raised an eyebrow and pulled her bouquet of black curls into a loose bun. She tightened the knot of her flannel button-down tied at the waist.

“Let’s see what the big nerd is doing.” She retrieved her bottle opener and flipped it in her hand on her way behind the bar. She planted herself in front of Nick and gave the opener a final flip to grab his attention. “Let me guess, Blondie, a Miller Lite?”

Nick looked up from one of the folders on the bar in front of him. He opened his mouth but only inhaled.

“You’ve been in here three times over the past week. You order a Miller Lite, look at your homework or whatever that is, and then leave after thirty minutes. So, am I right?” She tapped the opener next to his pile.

“Sure. Yes. One. Please.” He slapped the folder closed..

“You can drink when you want, but if you’re here to ask me out, that’s not going to happen.” As she leaned on the bar, her dark curls liberated themselves and swung in front of her shoulders. Her unblinking hazel eyes bore into him.

“Oh sure. Sure.” He swallowed a stutter and cleared his throat as he broke the intensity of her gaze. “I got a different question for you though when you bring that beer back.”

“Ask me now, let’s get it over with.” She beckoned with a flippant wave before ostentatiously cupping a hand behind her ear. He slid the folder across the bar and tapped it with two fingers. She looked at the closed folio skeptically and pulled a bottle from the cooler under the bar.

“Is this you?” Nick slid a finger between the cover and the pages, indicating that she should make the reveal herself. She popped open the bottle first and lifted the manila flap. There, in black-and-white, was a bird’s-eye view of a blurred woman in the center of a road, a trail of sparks and lens flare behind her on the image. Dana pursed her lips.

“Okay,” she lowered her head and brought her face within a few inches of his, her eyes locking with his. “I got enough creeps in here. You finish your drink, Blondie, and then you leave.”

Nick closed the folder but held her gaze.

“I saw you a couple of weeks ago. You passed my truck. Well, it’s not my truck, but I was in it. But anyway …” he paused, “can I see them? Your skates?”

Dana pulled back. She felt trapped, her secret now exposed by a stranger, even if he did have a kind face and would lose to her in an arm-wrestling match by her own estimate.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but like I said, there are enough weirdos and stalkers in here. Want another example? Don’t look, but that guy at the table under the window? The guy in brand-new work clothes and expensive tactical boots? He’s been in here three times this week like you, just staring at me. Only orders from the other wait staff. You can go over to him, ask him for a date, and hop in his Mercedes or whatever he drives.” Nick glanced quickly, then looked back at Dana.

“For a guy in nice clothes, he sure drives a broken-down beater,” Nick said with a forced laugh. “Every time I pull up, he’s looking under his rust-bucket Bronco, probably watching the oil leak.” Dana kept her eyes locked on Nick as her confident façade dropped and the color drained from her cheeks.

“I’m the only one with a rust-bucket Bronco here.”

Nick glanced back at the man under the window. He had the build of a linebacker or tight end, and his pant legs were pulled over his boots, which were impeccably clean. A water and a beer sat untouched on the table as he tinkered on his phone. His haircut was a military regulation flattop, and his face was clean-shaven and whisker-free, odd for 10 p.m. on a Tuesday. Nick lowered his voice to a bar-level whisper.

“Every time I’ve been here, I’ve seen him looking under that truck. Every time. I even went over once after he went inside to see if it had a leak or flat tire.” Dana did not blink as he concluded. “Every time I’ve been here. Every time.”

Dana darted her eyes back and forth between the man in the corner and Nick. Of the two men suddenly stalking her, at least she knew the name of one, thanks to Grant, and his motivations were literally laid out before her in black-and-white photography paper. She pulled a pen and notepad from her waist apron and scribbled a short note: back door dumpster 3 minutes.

She tore the sheet and slid it to Nick. He turned the paper over and puffed his cheeks as he looked back to her face. She winked twice. He downed his entire beer and walked out the front door.

***

Dana peeked out the employee entrance and waved at Nick as he milled in a circle.

“That truck?” she whispered.

“Yep, that’s the one.” Nick pointed to a blue, decades-old Bronco with liberally applied primer paint.

Dana jogged over and knelt in the muddy gravel next to her vehicle, with Nick following and doing the same. She poked her head under the front bumper, shifting her focus back and forth from the truck to Nick.

“If you guys are in cahoots, that’s a bad idea. I should tell you I’m from a military family, and I’m in a roller derby league, so I have absolutely no qualms about putting you face down in the … shit …”

In the reflection of a small puddle under the front suspension was a faint glowing red dot. Nick pointed at it and then traced a line back up to the suspension, ending at a small plastic box the size of a 9-volt battery with a tiny red LED, partially covered by a piece of tape attached to one side of the box.

“Holy Ghost, will you look at that,” she whispered while reaching a hand toward it.

“Don’t touch it, let me think for a minute. For now, get back inside,” Nick suggested. “Keep working. At closing time, I’ll pull up back here and drive you home.” Dana gave Nick a sideways glance and arched her eyebrow. He mirrored her with own attempt at flexing his brow.

“Do you trust the guy who wants to ask you about your roller skates or Mister ‘On the next episode of Murder She Wrote’ who put a tracking device on your car?” he asked.

“You do have a point, Angela Lansbury. Be at the back door at 12:30, and like I said, any funny business …” She pointed back and forth between her fist and below his belt buckle. Nick nodded. As she walked back inside, she glanced back, unsure if they were now in on this together, or if he was part of some larger conspiracy. She saw Nick grab the tracking device and scan the parking lot. He jogged to a lone yellow compact car with out-of-state plates and attached it under the front fender with the remaining bit of tape. She gave him a thumbs-up and shut the door.

***

Punctually at 12:30, Dana was at the back door with a large blue canvas backpack on one shoulder as Nick pulled his truck around.

“Was he still inside?” he asked as he opened the door for her.

“No, Captain Creepy left about a half hour ago. Go out the back of the lot.” She shoved her bag into the cramped space behind her seat. “There’s a delivery entrance we let the big trucks use. It lets out about fifty yards down from the driveway.”

Nick pulled on to the road and started driving toward his house. Dana looked down at her apron, neatly folded in her lap, and smiled.

“You didn’t ask me where I live. Or my name. You want that punch now or when we get to your storage unit filled with bodies?”

“Oh my God … Nick. I’m Nick Andrews. And I just assumed my house would be a safe bet. I’m not really thinking clearly right now.” She was relieved he said the same name Grant had told her. She placed one foot on the dashboard.

“Dana. Dana Jefferson. Call me ‘DJ’ and I’ll drop kick you.”

“Full disclosure: I live with my dad, I go to community college, I work for the electric company, and I just want to see your skates.” He scanned the rearview mirror. “And now I’m curious who else is stalking you.” He returned his gaze to the road. “Besides me.” She watched the corners of his lips curl up at his joke and allowed herself to reciprocate the expression.

Nick turned on the radio at a low volume. A classic rock station hummed in the background as the truck rolled over the cracked asphalt in the darkness. The only other soul on the road was a fox that ran into the opposite lane before changing his mind and returning to the safety of the woods.

“You must want to see my skates pretty badly to set up cameras to stalk me,” she said.

“The lonely hobbies of a lineman. I put the camera on one of the electric poles after my dad and I saw you the other night. We were the idiots in the truck without headlights? Remember?”

“Ah, yes. I go skating late at night on the roads when there’s no traffic. And I don’t skate when I see cars, I just dive into the woods and let them pass. It’s the only way I can road test ’Laverne and Shirley.’”

“Your skates are named ‘Laverne and Shirley’?” he interjected.

“Yes. Skating’s my hobby, and I built my own. I’m a tinkerer. Except for auto body repair, as you saw in the parking lot.” She watched him flick on his turn signal as they approached an empty intersection. Attention to safety, probably not a murderer, she concluded.

“You know, my dad came up with a nickname for you. He called you ‘Photograph.’ He said that was the only way to ‘catch a girl like that,’ or something to that effect.”

“Photograph. That’s funny. Better than DJ.” She looked out the window and watched the trees passing for a few minutes. Nick put on his blinker and pulled into his driveway. As Nick turned the ignition off, Dana grabbed his forearm lightly.

“Here’s the rules. I am sleeping in your room and locking the door, thank you. You said you live with your dad, so tell him you know me from school and my car broke down. You don’t mention the skates. You don’t look in my bag. You wake up at six and drive me back to my truck.”

“Sure thing.”

“I’m serious: you don’t mention the skates. If your dad brings it up, he’s mistaken. That wasn’t me. He’s mistaken.”

“Sure, okay.”

Dana released her grip on his arm.

“Don’t. Mention. The. Skates. Have you mentioned them to anyone else?”

“No, no, no. No! My dad didn’t even bring it up the morning after we saw you.”

“Before we go inside, I need to know how you tracked me to the bar, Community College Boy.”

Nick uncurled the photos from his jacket and handed them to her. Dana took the good-faith gesture.

“I had a hunch you’d be in that area. The roads are long and straight around there, based on the grid maps I use at work. Power lines, property lines, roads. Anyway. Then I just guessed that you might be someone local, and there’s only a few bars around.”

“You’re a clever boy,” she noted, “and in my experience, clever boys are nice guys. Is there anything else you can tell me that won’t trigger me to kill you in your sleep in a proactive strike?”

“I’ve spent a lot of money on beer in the past few weeks.” He weakly smiled. “Don’t tell my dad.”

“Fair enough,” she laughed.

“And just so we’re clear,” he countered, holding up his hands, “you’re not going to rob us, right? Help yourself to the pantry, but we’re not exactly rich folk.”

“You and me both, buddy. Nick.”

He opened the truck door silently and gingerly took out the house keys to avoid any rattling. He held the door for Dana after unlocking the deadbolt. As they walked into the dark house, Nick pointed to the bathroom door and made a formal gesture toward his room with a bow. She smiled at him while nodding and closed the bedroom door, which was followed by the click of the lock. Light snoring from his father’s room droned in the background.

Nick sat down on the couch, set the alarm on his phone, and, for a change, pulled off his boots. He lay back, staring at the ceiling, and admitted to himself that she was probably the most attractive girl he’d met in a long time. He hadn’t dated anyone other than Lindsey since high school; college classes and work kept him busy enough. It would be nice to hang with someone new, even as a friend … but, really, he just wanted to see her skates. He imagined the blueprints and technical specs for such amazing devices as “Laverne and Shirley.”

As he closed his eyes, he heard a door lock unclick. A moment later, he felt Dana’s breath on his ear.

“Tomorrow, can you show me those electrical grid maps?”