“Stop The War”

Union Rd was the only road that went through the whole of Wilson because for a long time it was the only road that Wilson had. Or needed. Around it had been built the first homes and McMansions, at the time dwarfed by all the farms (back when there still were farms). Now, the road, for decades unused and falling apart, had to be navigated carefully by the Police Cruiser for potholes and gaps, something which wasn’t helped by how nervous the officer was, a nervousness shared by the young teenager sitting beside him. For the twenty minutes that the kid, John, had sat at the station almost every officer on duty had told him what a great job he did, how well he handled it, tough kid, and so on. Now there was a knot in his stomach as he wondered what they’d think when they saw the large pile of vomit right next to the car, at the scene. For Lt. Garily, the problem was that the oldest unsolved case in Wilson’s history had been “solved” not by himself, the oldest officer on it’s police force, but by some young punk who’d probably been looking for a quiet place to smoke some dope.

The last two members of the Class of ‘71 had been found; not in a dumpster or buried under one of the many houses that were being built back then, but in their own car, in the much-hunted-for ‘66 Chevrolet, in one of only three untouched wooded areas left in Wilson, New Jersey. Why the fuck didn’t I ever look there, Garily kept asking himself as his long career dissipated before him.

It turned out that Mark and Jane hadn’t been murdered. The young high school students weren’t heavy drug users who pissed off Atlantic City mobsters and been whacked, nor had one of the Mexican workers around at the time raped Jane, then killed both of them (perhaps the most popular theory in Wilson lore); and neither had killed the other because one got pregnant and then left town. They were both killed by a vacuum cleaner pipe hooked in to the exhaust of Mark’s Chevrolet. The bodies, though terribly decomposed by 30 plus years, were both in one piece, resting on eachother–the kid had said.

Garily brought the car to a halt outside that part of the woods.

“Stay here” he told the kid, who was more than happy to follow such directions.

He walked up to the old car slowly. The paint had peeled off, the windows and lights were caked with the grime and filth of time, the plate and logo were unreadable; but it didn’t matter. The Cop had seen every picture of every possible design, paint job, or disguise the ‘66 Chevy could have. This was that car, this was their car. Garily cautiously tried clearing the passenger window to see if he could get a better look inside. It was no use; just the same two dark masses of something. He lowered his hand to the door handle; his palm had gotten sweaty as hell and his fingers were shaking.

He tried once–it didn’t work. He tried again–still nothing. For a moment there was a brief hope that he wouldn’t have to be the one to do this. They’d need firemen with special tools, he thought, all this time has sealed it shut. He gave a another tug and heard the stubborn door’s dirt seal go crack! and start to open. The smell of old death and decay flew at him and knocked him back. He’d spent thirty years in the suburbs giving traffic tickets and chasing imaginary pedophiles; this smell was new. He covered his nose and mouth with his arm and went forward again, pulling the decrepit door open in one brave swoop.

It took a moment for him to realize what he was looking at. It didn’t look human, but didn’t look like anything else either. Then he saw little clues: Teeth, fingers, bones. Garily backed away and fell down on the forest ground. He got out his radio.

“It’s them.”
he
told whoever
would be listening
on the
other end“It’s them.” he told whoever would be listening on the other end, as if they’d just understand what he meant. He dropped the radio and pondered his futile situation. The orange suburban sunlight blasted through the newly opened tomb and made the two shapes seem almost peaceful. 30 years later, Lieutenant Steven Garily had solved his first–and only–missing persons case. And he’d probably lose his job because of it.

But no, he wasn’t fired. Just “retired early” after an agreement was made with the Wilson Police Department and he agreed to take a pension cut so they could pay for the lawsuit brought by the kid’s mother for the ‘emotional distress’ of seeing two dead people and it was your job to find them, not his! And the parents were flown in from Florida to give a very belated funeral for their children. And the now-adult siblings and classmates pitched in for the Mark & Jane Suicide Prevention Fund. And for years the kids would tell tales of ghosts in the woods and on the streets after dark. And when every inch of Wilson had been turned into tract homes and McMansions, still one patch of land was deemed untouchable and unsellable by developers and left alone.

And it was only when the car had been emptied out and prepared for demolition that the note was found; some Mexican worker at the wreck yard happened to be looking through the car for anything of any worth and found it, a thirty year old message lying on the bottom of the passenger seat. The Newspapers had by then gotten tired of the story and put it on the eighth page:

What we do now, we do for love. Love of mankind. Wake up. Stop the killing. Stop the war.

–M&J