ASHFALL INSTITUTE | SHADOW REALM

LEBLANC’S GARAGE

P. A. Moore

The empty night was hot and humid. The Hellish Oklahoma month of August pressing down like a fever. Her old Chevy pickup rattled along with the windows rolled down, begging the slightest breeze.

She’d driven hours on the deserted highways between Ardmore and Bowlegs. The distance wasn’t that far, but the worn out, bone-shaker truck Old Man Barrow left behind barely hit forty anymore. Tonight, even treadless tires wouldn’t stop her. She was on a mission, and she needed to be home by dawn.

Then came the pop. And the slow, mocking ba-lap… ba-lap… ba-lap of a dying tire slapping asphalt. She sighed heavily.
“Oh no, please no.” Her hands tightened on the wheel. “Ain’t this a nice little joke courtesy of Mr. Barrow?”

She wrestled the flivver onto the shoulder, and that’s when she saw it. A lone light ahead. A sign she didn’t recall ever seeing.

LeBlanc’s Garage.

Maybe an eighth of a mile. Close enough to limp the truck without bending a rim.

“It ‘pears you’d be havin’ a situation there.” The mechanic’s voice drifted from the darkness.
He stepped into the dim overhead light, wiping oily hands on dirt-stained overalls.

“Well it does seem so, don’t it?” she said, dry as dust. “I don’t believe we’ve met…and I know most folks around these parts.”

“Ya, dat be true. I’m new ‘round here. Hail from down dare in Loos’ana, but work done dried up down thatta way.”
He leaned over the ruined tire keeping his eyes fixed on her.

She studied him with an unblinking dark stare.
“You don’t look like you missed many meals. You got a pretty little Cajun wife keepin’ you fat and happy?”

“Non, ma cheri, I’m all alone in dis world. ’Cept for ma pets.”
He gestured toward a murky pond behind the garage where alligator eyes broke the surface.

She didn’t flinch. If anything, she felt a shiver of anticipation.

“Ahhh, mon cher, I too arose from the moss-laden charm of Louisiana bayou country. How well I remember the decadence of the French Quarter in its heyday. The centuries fly by so quickly.”

Her smile widened. Long, glinting, white canines catching the light.

The frogs fell silent.
The crickets cut off mid-chirp.
The alligators slipped beneath the surface.

Satisfied, she tightened the last lug nut, aired up the tire, and wiped the edges of her mouth with a stained rag that was lying on the ground near the motionless mechanic.

She bid him adieu without looking back.

Mission accomplished.

P. A. Moore is the pen name of Pamela King, philosopher, artist, and musician. This story is part of the Shadow Realm fiction catalog at the Ashfall Institute.