DEAD END
by Judith Skillings

XXRebecca let the screen door slam.
XXShe crossed the porch, strode down wooden steps, headed towards the grove of black walnut trees with their leaves not fully unfurled. Maurice padded along behind. Rebecca had carried the cat home for company during the weekend. She made him walk back for the exercise. At the edge of the bridle path, she slowed to fish keys out of her jeans’ pocket—keys to the automotive restoration shop she’d been masochistic enough to accept as inheritance.
XXMonday. Memorial Day. Six days to go.
XXRebecca pushed open the front door with her hip, letting Moe slip into the office. She tossed the keys on the desk, followed the cat’s erect tail and swaying belly to the lunchroom. She had the coffee pot in her hand before the smell registered.
XXMingling with the scents of gasoline and cutting fluid was something putrid. A odor reminiscent of opening the family’s summer cottage—the stench of a mouse tempted by D-Con that crawled behind the stove to die.
XXRebecca set down the carafe. Ignoring Moe as he bumped her leg, she reached into the circuit breaker panel, flipped on the overhead lights for the back room. The cold tubes flickered, then hummed in protest. She opened the door and entered the silent machine shop, grabbed the bridge of her nose to keep from gagging.
XXMoe watched from the doorway, his tail swishing the floor.
XX“One quick sweep then I’ll feed you.” Rebecca snatched a broom. Breathing through her mouth, she headed to the far corner where the odor was strongest.
XXShe’d been fifteen when Uncle Walt bought the Empire glass beader. The day after Thanksgiving he’d dragged her along to a local factory where they’re produced. Unadorned metal boxes, beaders use minute particles of glass oxide impact beads and around 80 pounds of air pressure to blast rust and peeling paint off car parts. Or from ten-speed bicycle fenders. That was how Walt had trained her to use it. The blasting area is five feet square. The separate dust collector stands seven feet tall. Both rest on skinny metal legs.
XXRebecca swept. She retrieved a pile of bead silt, two split washers and five hex-head screws.
XXNo decaying rodent.
XXIt takes a two-handed tug to latch the beader’s door shut to create vacuum. There’s no way for an animal to climb up and into the machine. Still.
XXShe flipped the “ON” switch. The motor whirred to life. Interior bulbs glowed with the harshness of an all-night diner. Then one sputtered and went out. Hissing pressure sucked the long rubber gloves into the beading area and suspended them stiffly in dusty air.
XXRebecca wiped at the machine’s tempered glass window with the sleeve of her shirt. She leaned closer, trying to peer through the haze of a hundred scratches. There was the engine block from a 20/25 and something—pale. Rebecca swiped at the window again. She thrust both arms shoulder-deep into the black gauntlets. She spread the gloves apart and stared.
XXA naked, dead man stared back.
XXThe bloated corpse embraced the block from behind. Knees hugged the metal, modestly obscuring his genitals. One foot pressed against the sealed door like a sprinter poised for the start of a race he’d never run. His wrists were lashed together. His left eye was shut. The right one glazed. Even in death his stingy mouth twisted into a leer.
XXRebecca had found the source of the stench.
XXIt was indeed coming from a dead rat—the human kind.
XXShe shut her eyes, blotting out the grey-whiteness of death. Her head sagged against the cool front of the beader. The pulse of the machine merged with the throbbing tightness in her chest. Perspiration trickled down her temple into the corner of her mouth.
XXNot again.
XXHer breath erupted as a gasp, forcing her to suck in the over-ripe odor of decaying flesh. She coughed and turned her back on the lifeless form in the humming machine.
XXRebecca slid to the concrete floor and hugged her knees.
XXDear God, not again.