My name is Angel Day. That is not a joke. Dad’s family name was Day. Mom always wanted a little angel. So go figure: I use a lot of pseudonyms. For a while, I ran with the handle RidgeRider, until the deaths and disappearances of all my friends and fellow motorcyclists began.
As I look back on all the bad luck and mayhem, I probably should have guessed early on that something supernatural was affecting events around me. In the press of events, as I struggled to survive, I did not have a clue. I just kept playing my video games and tuning out of the cruel, external world.
The more I got involved, particularly in role-playing games, the less aware I was of what the games were doing to me. After a while, I became the games, and everything changed. The death of my friend Rudy brought me back from the brink. I shudder to recall the midnight ride when I found him.
Rudy, like the rest of us, was a free spirit caught in a world strangling his soul. He would play video games all night, except when he climbed on his Hog for his midnight ride along the high ridge where the power pylons run in a series. He set the trend. We imitated his macho style.
The police left us alone as long as we stayed off the main roads. No one rode the ridge except the fearless. Rudy knew no fear. For a while, I was like him. We would ride alone or together in the moonlight along the ridge, laughing and gunning our cycles, sometimes doing wheelies skirting the edge of the cliff that led to the valley. Death was a risible fiction: we were going to live forever just like in our games.
One night, I found Rudy near his bike on its side, its front wheel still spinning. He sat there like a zombie in the moonlight, a stupid grin on his face and smoke rising from his ears. I kid you not—smoke! I tried poking him to get a reaction, but he just sat there, silent and weird. I checked his pulse and found none. I panicked. I broke all our sacred rules and dialed 911.
I waited until the rescue team was visible along the ridge. Then I rode in the opposite direction. The rest is history. Rudy was found dead of an apparent cardiac arrest. His parents wasted no time to bury him along with their guilt and shame. No one knew I called 911 that night. I put a basket of bright plastic flowers on the ridge where I found Rudy. He would have smirked and shrugged at the gesture if he were still alive. I missed him.
I would have thought Rudy’s death an isolated, freak event, but two weeks later, I was riding the ridge again, and came to the place where I put the basket. There, next to the basket, was Abby’s body sitting in the same way as Rudy’s had been. Abby had smoke coming out of her ears and no pulse. She felt cold to the touch. I saw her bike on its side by the base of the nearest pylon. My hair stood on end. I looked around frantically using the light from my cellphone. No one else was in sight, but it was dark.
I called 911 and waited for the rescue team to come into view. I escaped in the opposite direction. As with Rudy, the coroner judged that Abby had died of a coronary attack. Hers was the second freak attack at the same place at roughly the same time of night. The police began looking for the person who placed the 911 call and asking questions. They never discovered me in their search.
On the Net, the other ridge riders spread rumors in our chat room about the strange, spooky deaths of Rudy and Abby. Some warned of riding the ridge at all. Sammy texted that the goat killer murderer might be responsible. Anita texted that a vengeful ghost haunted the ridge where the two had been killed.
Arnold, a macho man, texted that he was not afraid of ghosts, and the goat killer was not known to have struck individuals: it killed only couples. He bragged that he would ride the ridge as he had always done. His body was the third I found in the same place as the others. Again, he was sitting with smoke coming from his ears. I was in a quandary because of the police’s interest in the 911 caller on the two former occasions. This time, I did not call 911. Instead, I rode my bike home and waited.
The next day at noon, a construction crew found Arnold’s body where I saw it the prior night. Three teens dying of cardiac arrest at midnight in the space of five weeks was deemed worthy of a massive investigation. Murder was suspected. As a consequence, all the known friends and associates of the deceased were interviewed by Inspector Dermat, of Police Homicide. The police had no idea about our being gamers together, or about our using the chat room to share our nocturnal activities.
Dermat interviewed Sammy, but he did not give up our secret. In our secret chat room, Sammy texted the policeman asked about the 911 caller and the motive for murder any of the victims’ friends had. Sammy said he knew nothing about either matter. Anita texted she had not been questioned but knew nothing. She heard the police were patrolling the ridge.
I resolved not to ride the ridge for a while. I could not imagine what had killed the three bikers, but I was more afraid of encountering the police, than coming face to face with the killer.
Meanwhile, the entire city was buzzing with theories about the mystery of the ridge rider killings. I followed the features written by Sheila Cranberry, an investigative journalist. From her articles, I gathered the investigation was going nowhere. Forensic evidence showed tracks of many motorcycles along the ridge. None of the townspeople knew anything of substance regarding the killings. Dermat’s investigation was going nowhere.
Cranberry dug into the data to discover Anita’s being a classmate of two of the victims, Rudy and Abby. The investigative reporter elicited information about the victims’ love of riding the ridge at midnight for fun. She wrote nothing about our online association and nothing about me. In her third article, she began to ask rhetorical questions about the methods of the murders. She broached the subject of paranormal causes. The paper did not publish her articles afterward. It was as though she had touched a live wire and been forced to go silent.
Because of the ongoing official investigation, I retreated into my shell and just gamed. While I played, I had vivid recurring images of the deceased bodies sitting on the ridge with smoke coming out of their ears. I wondered what would cause the smoke. I searched the Net for answers.
I read an obscure piece about a woman showing up in a hospital in Chicago breathing smoke that turned out to be produced by a toxic mix of chemicals she had ingested in a suicide attempt. Each of the three victims had experienced hardships. I could imagine any of us committing suicide. I could not imagine us entering into a suicide pact. Since nothing in the public record indicated the presence of toxic chemicals in the victims’ bodies, I thought suicide should be ruled out.
I posited the three might have died of fright. I conjured images scary enough to stop their hearts. Yet their postures when I found them did not show signs of being discomfited. In fact, they appeared to be at peace. They were all seated on the ground. Their eyes were wide open. I kept coming back to the fact of the smoke rising from their ears. Perhaps, I thought, some supernatural agent was able to stop hearts from beating instantly and to make brains boil.
After another three weeks, the police homicide investigation was terminating in a cold case. Police patrols of the ridge diminished. I began to ride the ridge again. I felt cold and lonely as I motored along the ridge. I was alert to whatever danger lurked at midnight. I often stopped in the place where my three associates had died. I looked in all directions and listened carefully for any sound that might lead to an answer.
One midnight, Sammy came from the opposite direction. We met near the base of the pylon where the others had died. Three small baskets of flowers now marked the places where their bodies had been found. In the darkness, we decided to dismount and sit for a while to talk. We talked about Rudy, Abby, and Arnold.
While we discussed the strange deaths, we heard snapping, popping sounds. We looked all around but saw nothing capable of making the sounds. The night air was cool because of a slight breeze. My spine tingled. Disconcerted, Sammy said we should be riding now. We left the spot, and I discounted what I had heard.
Sammy returned to the pylon the next night. I was not there because I got lost in a game. I know he was at the pylon because the day afterward, construction workers found his dead body below the pylon. This fourth death made everyone in the community think a serial killer was rampaging in the area.
In the chat room, Anita texted Sammy told her he wanted to investigate sounds he heard near the pylon on the ridge. That made sense to me. I did not respond to Anita’s text. I wondered whether Sammy’s ears had issued smoke as the other three victims’ ears had done. I knew that Anita was curious because she texted something about needing to know the truth. I was afraid for her, but I did not dissuade her from riding the ridge.
A policeman dispatched to watch the ridge, apprehended Anita and took her to the police station for questioning. She was arrested for murder, but because she was a minor, her name was not used in the press. From her, the police learned about our secret chat room. They learned our chat room names. They learned about ridge riding. They learned my handle RidgeRider.
I immediately changed my handle, and RidgeRider disappeared from the Net forever. I stopped visiting the chat room. I thought the police had no way to make a murder conviction stick. Anita could never have killed her friends. I realized, though, that the police would discontinue their surveillance of the ridge because they had a prime suspect. I was free for a while to investigate on my own.
With trepidation, I pulled on my slickers and rode my Hog up the ridge in a light drizzle. Fog rose from the valley. I stopped by the pylon and surveyed the four baskets representing the four victims under it. The air was wet and still. I heard a slight crackle. Then I heard a hiss and pop. I looked around. I looked down into the valley. I saw no one in any direction.
I noticed an acrid smell. A faint blue light appeared in flashes. I looked for the source. My eyes ran up the pylon to where the power lines ran through the metal skeleton that held them. I was mesmerized by the glow of the blue light. It was cool and alluring when it shone. It was a will o’ the wisp. I watched the place where the light sparked in the sleeve for the power line.
I had my hand on the metal frame and was about to ascend when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I almost died of fright. My hair stood on end. I breathed in consciously. The hand on my shoulder was palpable. The figure behind me was chortling. I was afraid to turn around.
“I don’t think you want to make the same mistake your friends did, do you?”
“Don’t touch me. Get away.”
“You’ve nothing to fear from me.”
“Stand back. Let me look at you with my cellphone light.”
“As you wish,” the figure said, as he took his hand off my shoulder and stepped back.
I pulled out my cellphone and tapped on its light. There stood a homeless man I had often seen in town collecting bottles and cans. His beard and hair were streaming with water. He held a plastic bag with his collection of gleanings. His teeth were rotten and visible in his smile.
“You’re the homeless man who’s always collecting things.”
“You are most observant. Let me guess. You are the one who placed the four baskets of flowers for the dear departed.”
“How do you know that?”
“I watched you do it. I am not noticed much. I watch, though, and I know things.”
“What do you know about my friends?”
“I know four of them are dead, and one is in jail, fighting for her life.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police about me?”
“No one asked me about you or anything else for that matter,” the man said, as he dropped his bag on the ground. “I’ve watched you ride the ridge as I did with a bicycle many years ago. I rode here before the pylons were laid and before the power lines were strung.”
“Did you see what killed my friends?”
“What killed your friends is very difficult to see, but when you see it, it comes in a flash and suddenly is gone.”
“So what is it that killed my friends? Please tell me.”
“You’ve seen as much of it as you can without suffering the same fate as they. You’ve had your hand on the metal skeleton that could kill you.”
“Are you trying to tell me that this metal scaffold is the murderer?”
“It’s not quite that simple, but the easy answer is yes, this metal tower killed all four.”
“How can that be?” I asked him, intrigued by his nonchalance.
“The power that runs through those lines above us is so potent that if you touched a wire, you would instantly be fried and your blood and brains boiled.”
“And my ears would exude smoke?”
“Most likely, yes. The current that would run through your body would be like a stroke of lightning. Some have survived a direct hit from lightning, but most have perished.”
“So my friends climbed up this frame and touched the power line?”
“Near enough, they did. But the power in those lines is so great that they did not have to get all the way up to the lines themselves.”
“How far up would they have to go?”
“The second horizontal beam or a little higher would be enough to cause electrocution. It would be the same as if you stuck a fork in your electrical outlet at home. Only here there’s no fuse or circuit breaker.” He laughed.
“How can you laugh about this?”
“Electricity has been around a long time now. The principles are well known. Why people don’t treat it with respect, I just don’t know.”
“Why did my friends climb this tower?”
“They climbed it for the same reason you were going to climb it. They were curious about the light from the blue electric sparks. They thought they could see the blue light better if they got closer to it. Indeed, it coursed right through them, one by one. Did you think, perhaps, evil witches fried them with their magic wands?”
“I had no idea what killed them. The papers said they died of cardiac arrest.”
“If I were a coroner, I would say cardiac arrest. Electric shock will stop the heart dead.”
“Why haven’t you been to the police to tell them this?”
“Look at me. Do you think the police would believe me if I told them such a thing?” He smiled ruefully, and I knew he was right.
“I can’t go to the police either, but for a different reason.”
“You don’t want to be on their radar, so to speak?”
“That’s right. So tell me, what do you think I should do with this information?”
“Let it save your life. There, on the pylon, is a sign that says Danger and a lot of other things about this scaffold. You never read the sign. Your friends didn’t read it either. So here we are. Are you any wiser for my having deterred you from climbing to see the blue flame?”
I looked up and saw a beautiful blue arc of electricity as if it were responding to what the homeless man just told me.
“My friend Anita is in jail on charges of murder simply because the police found her up here.”
“They’ll never convict her of murder with what they have. She’ll be held for a while and freed sooner than you think.”
“Tell me why you came here tonight in the rain.”
“Some nights I cannot sleep, so I do what I did when I was a boy. I walk the ridge now because I’m unsteady on a bike at my age. Rain or shine—the weather doesn’t matter to me now. I’m not afraid of getting wet. I’m not afraid of the blue fire anymore. Why don’t you get back on your bike and ride away? I’m going to wait here and watch for a while.”
“I don’t know your name. I owe you thanks.”
“You don’t need to know my name any more than I need to know yours, angel. You owe me nothing. This scaffold wanted a death tonight. If there’s something owed, it’s the scaffold.” He laughed and shook his head. He had a crazed look.
I left the homeless man gazing upwards, waiting for the blue fire to arc again. I revved up my Hog and rode the ridge for a while and returned to the valley.
Two days later, I read in the newspaper the investigative reporter’s account of construction workers finding the body of an old, homeless man under the power lines where the bikers’ bodies had been discovered. In the same issue of the paper, I read the news of the release from custody of my friend Anita. The police reopened their murder investigation because, they said, the murderer had not been found after all.
I returned to my gaming somewhat sobered by my latest experience on the ridge. The homeless man had saved my life. He had climbed the metal frame and felt the final fire. The frame had taken him instead of me. I wondered whether he was conscious of his sacrifice.
Perhaps, I thought, there was something in what he said about the frame being owed a life that night. I shivered when I thought how close I had come to death by electrocution. Yet, when I think of the indescribable beauty of that blue arcing electric fire, I envision ridge riding toward that flame not just for a night or a moment, but for eternity.