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Ben slipped out of the fog on Leyton’s moped and cut the engine, letting it coast silently towards Lonesome’s garage. He left it out on the roadside and walked past the sea of scrap surrounding the garage. He entered Lonesome’s workshop and looked around. There was no sign of his Camper van anywhere. He heard a toilet flush behind him and turned to see Lonesome emerging from the can. The mechanic's surprise at seeing Ben standing there was obvious.
“I need to use your phone,” said Ben.
“There's no phones in Sweetwater,” said Lonesome. “They never bothered with lines this far out.”
“Your radio then. You can’t be a mechanic out here unless you’ve got something to talk on.”
Lonesome gave him a dirty look and shuffled from one foot to another, as the wheels in his head began to turn.
“It’s an emergency,” said Ben.
Lonesome sighed and reluctantly nodded.
“Back here,” he said.
Ben followed Lonesome into the back office. Faded nudie pictures seemed to adorn every inch of the walls and more random car parts littered the mechanic's floor and desk. Lonesome lifted a stack of Haynes manuals off a large, antiquated radio and turned it on.
“Who do you want?” he said.
“Police,” said Ben. “My girlfriend’s missing.”
Ben stood behind Lonesome, watching him fiddle with the radio’s crackling tuner. He caught sight of his own reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall. His eyes immediately focused on Jo’s surfboard pendant hanging around his neck, as it caught the glare of the fluorescent strip lighting overhead. Ben stared at the pendant and thought about Jo. His mind began to lose itself in a swirl of dread and regret again. When he woke that morning to find Jo gone, he was worried she’d finally had enough and decided to leave him, but now he was scared she’d done nothing of the kind. He was scared it was this place, and one of the maniacs who lived here, that was responsible for her disappearance.
“...they can’t make it out until tonight.” said Lonesome.
“What?” said Ben, re-tuning into the here and now.
“The police won’t be able to get out here until late tonight,” said Lonesome. “Some bad road accident out west’s got them all tied up.”
Ben began to pace, as his mind raced through his available options.
“They said you should wait at the trailer park,” said Lonesome quickly. “And that they’ll meet you there when they can.”
Ben nodded absently, still lost to his thoughts. He turned and limped back out across the workshop, with Lonesome sauntering after him. Ben then stopped and frowned at the mechanic.
“Where’s my Camper van?”
“It’s at my main scrap yard a few miles out of town,” said Lonesome. “I’m looking for parts for your repair.”
Lonesome gestured to the assortment of motor spares covering the workshop floor.
“This stuff’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
Ben’s eyes lingered on Lonesome’s features, searching the man’s face for a tell of some kind. But there were no obvious signs, even though Ben knew he was lying.
“Have you seen Crazy?” said Ben.
“Crazy? Nah., I suppose you could try the golf course.”
“The golf course?”
Ben's look of confusion slowly turned to realization, as he remembered the junkyard at the back of Crazy's beach shack.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “The golf course.”
*
The headlight on Leyton’s scooter cut through a faint shroud of fog still covering the beach. The mist was beginning to thin rapidly now, especially since the wind had picked up to help it on its way. Ben slowed the scooter and parked it out on the beach road. As he waded through the dissipating fog towards “Crazy’s Golf”, strange, huge shapes begin to form ahead of him, like prehistoric beasts emerging from some forgotten land. These shapes slowly revealed themselves as post-apocalyptic towers of rusting scrap metal and elaborate driftwood constructions; salt-bitten landmarks that mapped out Sweetwater's own novelty golf course.
Ben saw Crazy slumped down against a large, disused water tank that lay on its side with arced sections cut out to allow golfers to play through its innards and back out again. Crazy sat beneath the edifice like a sacrifice at the altar of some gigantic, rusting deity. He looked up at Ben with large, melancholy eyes as he approached. He then deliberately looked away again and took a swig from a bottle of whiskey.
“Hard at it?” said Ben.
Crazy shrugged with the heavy, exaggerated movements of a drunk.
“It’s my day off,” he said.
Ben sat down next to him. Crazy handed him the bottle. Ben held it in his hands without taking a hit. He just brooded over the golden liquid inside.
“Why the hell did you ever build this monstrosity?” he said.
“I made the best of what was to hand,” said Crazy. “That’s all anyone can do around here.”
“I actually kind of like it. It doesn't pretend to be something it's not.”
“Everyone's a critic.”
Ben took a last look at the booze and handed it back to Crazy.
“Where is she?” he said.
Crazy stared dead ahead, but there was nothing to see, only more fog. He lifted the bottle again, but Ben rested his hand on it and stopped him. Ben moved closer and looked the older man in the eye.
“Where is she?”
“You know, I’ve been in Sweetwater nearly twenty years now. And I’m still an outsider.”
Ben let go of the bottle. He slipped his hand into his pocket, retrieved his tobacco and began to roll a cigarette. He lit it without taking his eyes off Crazy.
“Sometimes, you just want to go home,” said the old man. “You know? You need to go home. But then you realize...you realize you don’t know where that is anymore.”
“You tried to warn me yesterday, didn’t you?”
Crazy took a deep breath and looked at the bottle again. Ben could see it was an effort for the older man to keep it from his lips.
“I like you Ben, I really do. Forget about Sweetwater and go, get out of here any way you can.”
“It's too late for that now.”
“Forget her. Just go.”
Ben grabbed two fistfuls of Crazy’s dusty tuxedo and hauled him to his feet, shaking him.
“Tell me where she is,” he snapped. “Please Joe.”
Crazy looked at him. There was a somber expression on his craggy face.
“You know Irma?” he said. “She was always talking. I mean she was a regular chatterbox. One day, there was this family, with a couple of cute kids. They stayed at the van park. Now Irma never had any children of her own. So it wasn’t a surprise to any of us when she took a liking to those kids.”
Crazy looked at the ground for a moment, at the booze, and then finally faced Ben again.
“So, of course, her conscience started up, and I guess it began gnawing away at her. She didn’t think it was right, what they were planning. And so she spoke up. She warned those folks. She told them to get away. Do you know what the others did to her when they found out?”
Crazy put his finger to his lips and whispered the slightest shush.
“They cut her tongue out.”
Ben slammed Crazy back against the rusting metal tank, but then quickly turned away from the old man before he did something he'd regret.
Crazy lifted the bottle and took another hit.
“I don’t know why they still go to all that trouble. So much blood. And it never works. It never changes anything.”
Ben circled back and grabbed Crazy again, stared into his eyes.
“What never works?” he said.
The older man shrugged and tried to lift the bottle again. Ben smacked it out of his hand and it exploded on the ground. Crazy watched the escaping booze soak into the earth with what seemed like a profound sense of loss. The old singer was coming apart at the seams.
“Crazy,” said Ben. “Joe...where do I find her?”
Crazy looked at him, suddenly sober again.
“They're going to kill me for talking to you.”
Crazy picked Ben's cigarette up off the ground and pulled on it. He closed his eyes, relishing the taste; the condemned man’s last request. He sighed.
“She’ll be at the cannery, or the hotel.”
“Thank you.”
Crazy nodded and stared out into the fog. No problem, he thought. I was through with this life anyway. Maybe I'll make a better go of things next time around.
Something flashed up ahead of them in the fog. Ben stared along the beach and spotted what looked like the headlights of a stationary vehicle. Anger flashed in his eyes. He left Crazy and began limping towards the glow. Crazy staggered back over to the tank and began urinating against it. He began muttering the song “Viva Las Vegas” to himself.
Ben strained to see, as he waded through the dissolving fog across the beach. The vehicle ahead of him slowly began to take shape. Soon, enough of it was revealed for Ben to recognize it. It was the freezer van that ran him off the road out of town, stranding him in Sweetwater.
“Motherfucker...” he whispered to himself.
Ben picked up the pace, dragging his prosthetic leg as he limped towards the van.
“Crazy!” he shouted back. “Crazy, it’s them!”
He heard the van’s engine being gunned and its tires squeal as it accelerated away. The Van left the road and swerved at Ben, forcing him to dive into the sand. The van sped past, narrowly missing him, then mounted the road again, heading towards “Crazy’s Golf”. Ben picked himself up in time to see it screech to a halt there.
“Crazy,” he said.
Ben began to rush back towards the golf course. He could make out the van's red taillights piercing the fog and hear its engine running. As he drew nearer, he could make out the figure of a man drag something towards the van's rear. He heard its tail shutter lift open and then slam shut. He was close now, close enough to see the figure climb back into the front of the van. He could make out a cartoon jumping fish painted on the side of the van, next to the words “Always Fresh – Olander’s” written beneath.
The freezer van’s tires squealed again, burning rubber as it pulled away sharply, its rear lights quickly retreating into the mist. Ben stumbled back to the crazy golf course. He was out of breath, filled with panic and unable to see the old man anywhere.
Crazy!” he shouted. “Crazy!”
Ben jumped on Leyton’s moped and started it up. He aimed it in the direction of the disappearing van and raced off in pursuit. The shroud of fog was still thicker away from the beach and Ben could barely see anything ahead. He snatched small glimpses of gravel road and little else, but he could hear the van’s engine up ahead, so he pushed the moped harder and harder. He climbed the coastal road in the opposite direction of town, but quickly became disoriented after that. There was no sign of the van's tail lights, and every now and then he had to turn sharply to hold the road, as it twisted and snaked to greater heights.
After a few moments, a surreal sense of isolation and inertia closed in around Ben. With no horizon, and surrounded by fog, he seemed to be speeding along in his own serene bubble. There was a comfort in the sensation and the drone of the moped's engine almost lulled him into a trance-like state. The spell was broken when he saw headlights flash on in the distance ahead and then sweep around towards him. Suddenly the van’s engine was bearing down on him.
Ben yanked the moped to one side and it glanced off the edge of the van’s bull bars. The moped skidded away along the road, as Ben was separated from it, bouncing through the air. He hit the gravel and rolled across it, ripping up his clothes and skin. Then there was nothing beneath him. He instinctively reached out, panicking, and gripped on to bare rock, as he felt his legs swing out and dangle into thin air. He yelled and opened his eyes to find himself hugging a cliff edge. His feet scrabbled against the rock's surface and managed to find purchase. A series of clanging sounds rang out far below, as falling gravel showered down and ricocheted off something metallic at the foot of the cliff. Ben clung on tightly to the rock face and looked up to see the van's headlights illuminating the jagged cliff edge he had skidded off. The headlights then retreated and swept away, as the van reversed and turned back down the road.
Ben strained and pulled himself back up on to the cliff edge. He peered back over the side and down into the abyss below. A large, swirling patch of fog was drifting away, as the sea breeze slowly chased it from the cliffs. Ben stared down through the window opening in the fog as it gradually expanded. It slowly revealed a long, steep drop down into a narrow ravine, ending in a rocky overlap of spurs near the ground. There, at the bottom of the ravine, Ben saw vehicle upon dead vehicle, all smashed and impacted against the rocks. It was a twisted heap of tangled metal. More than a dozen abandoned cars and Camper vans covered the floor of the ravine. Ben stared down at the metal graveyard in horror. The stripped and crumpled skeleton of his own Camper van lay on the top of the pile.
Ben grimaced with pain from his scraped and bruised joints, as he staggered back over to Leyton’s moped. He righted it and tried the engine, but it failed to turn over. He cursed himself and tried it again.
Nothing.
Ben stared out into the fog in the direction he imagined the cannery to be, as he tried the engine again and again. His fear for Jo was all consuming now. He tried not to think about what might be happening to her or Crazy at that very moment.