Old Brady Road by Mike Davis

Old Brady Road by Mike Davis

The sun idled above Old Brady Road like an accusing, unblinking eye. Brutal heat shimmered off bubbling blacktop, as the air assaulted reluctant lungs.  A barely perceptible breeze, feeble as a dying whisper, ruffled only the tips of the long prairie grass.

Old Brady didn’t slash through the countryside; she ambled along, in harmony with the rural tranquility.

Serene. Unobtrusive. Potentially lethal.

She coiled around hills and threaded through scrubland, passing the ghosts of dilapidated homesteads, ancient settlements, and long-dried riverbeds, each of which had ultimately been unable to withstand the harsh climate.

The scenery changed along her route, much like a busy laborer changed a soiled T-shirt: casually and without drama. Dense woodland softened to rolling hills of brush before giving way to sweeping plains.

At midday, with the horizon wavering and the sun a blinding, molten orb, the road belonged to nobody but herself.

And then Walt Johnson, in his new, flame-red Dodge Ram pickup truck. It was new to him, at least. The 1950 classic, lovingly restored by the best shop in the land, had cost him every cent of his inheritance, but it was worth it.

He felt the rumble of the new, retrofitted V8 in his increasingly fragile ribs as the truck eagerly devoured the miles between him and the town of Jennin. The broad, toothy grin—which comes as standard with any new vehicle—was welded in place, deepening the furrows in his leathered face. But the Ram was more than just a truck to Walt. It was a new suit of armor—a ‘fuck you’ to a world he knew looked down on his type with increasingly unmasked disdain.

 Despite the thrill of his new toy, Walt still reveled in the backdrop, as he had done since he was a child, riding shotgun in his daddy’s truck on the way to the market or into the city to get things that were too exotic for the stores of Jennin. Although that was now more than half a century in his rearview mirror, to Walt, this would always be cowboy country, and anyone whose childhood fantasies included the Lone Ranger, Billy the Kid, or the James Gang could not resist the enchantment of these back roads.

  The Ram was Walt’s contemporary covered wagon, and despite the heat, he had the windows rolled down, letting the wind whip his defiantly long, thinning gray hair about his exhilarated face. The engine generated 345 horses, which he dreamily pictured galloping alongside him. This is how life is supposed to be; city living is for fools. Nothing confirmed that more than a drive through their morning rush-hour traffic.

Ahead and to his left, a glimpse of vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges signaled the roadside memorial—a solemn reminder of lives lost on the road—and the start of Jennin County.  Walt pinched his left earlobe between thumb and forefinger and recalled his daddy’s grim words of warning.

Hold your ear as the place grows near. Look straight ahead, lest you end up dead.

He smiled at the absurdity of it, despite having broken the rule only once himself. Back when there had been just nine names on the plaque, he and a group of kids from school had ridden their bikes out there to see the latest wreck—a brand-new 1976 Stingray that had lost a game of chicken with a cow. As they had pulled up to the memorial, amid a cacophony of nervous laughter and false bravado, Arlo Scott had lost control of his front wheel on the loose gravel and hit the deck hard. He had knocked a front tooth clean out—root and all—and skinned his knee almost to the bone. The boys had pedaled away at full pelt, screeching and screaming in terror, Arlo struggling to keep up, with a busted knee and a tooth gripped tightly in his hand.

Today, as then—and every day in between—the flowers were fresh, and the area around the memorial neatly weeded. Walt assumed it was the work of some do-good women’s group from town. Eleven names were now inscribed on a grayed wooden plaque, nailed to a whitewashed post, a few feet from the road edge. Six in one column, five in another. Each one victim to Old Brady’s hidden teeth: unexpected curves, straying livestock, the hypnotic hum of tires on a deserted road.

The list had stagnated for over a decade. The new interstate exit had opened, providing drivers—mostly residents—direct access into Jennin, and people no longer had a reason—or the patience—to cruise along Old Brady. As Walt often lamented, everyone was always in such a rush these days, faces glued to screens, never seeing the world around them.

As he drew closer to the memorial, a coyote stepped from the shallow ditch and sat beside a potted purple petunia, on the dusty gravel shoulder in front of the plaque.

The animal’s ice blue eyes appeared to stare directly at him.

 Walt glanced up absently from the critter to the plaque as he passed. Was the list now two even columns? He snatched his eyes away, then laughed at himself, even as his grip tightened on the wheel.

A half mile later, his momentary lapse forgotten, Walt caught sight of a car in the rearview mirror, cresting the hill about half a mile back. It was white and might have been a cop car, so he eased the Ram back to five above the speed limit.

In no time at all, the car was right on his tail.  But it was no cop. It was one of those fancy electric sedans that filled the city streets—a Tesla of some sort.

The driver weaved impatiently left and right. 

“Hold your horses, snowflake,” Walt grumbled. “Your avocado toast will keep.”

Unlike Walt, the Tesla driver was not caught up in the romance of the scenery. He just wanted to get past. Quickly.

As they crowned a slight rise, the sleek sedan nosed out, making its move.

It was clear to Walt that while the driver’s slipstreaming abilities were unquestionable, he didn’t know the road very well; if he had, he would never have attempted to pass at that spot, just before an unseen right-hand curve where the loose gravel verge waited like a skidpan. Concerned more for his new truck than the well-being of the idiot driving the silent rocket, Walt stuck an arm out of the window and waved him back. To stress the point, he drifted the Ram across the center line, barring passage.

Rubber screeched on hot asphalt like the anguished cry of a dying prehistoric creature in one of those Doug McClure movies from the 70s that Walt and his pops had loved so much.

While the Tesla’s tires helplessly sought purchase, the Ram cruised smoothly around the bend, with Walt watching the dramatic, inevitable scene play out in his mirror. The sedan careened off the road and ploughed through knee-high grass and scrub, kicking up a cloud of dust and roadside debris.

“You stupid Son of a bitch!” Walt mumbled. His foot tapped the brake—more a reflexive action or a faded memory of decency than any genuine desire to help. But with mild disbelief, he watched as the sedan bounced back onto the road.  “You ain’t too smart, city boy, but you can drive, I’ll give you that.”

Back in control, the Tesla driver was furious and approached fast, lights flashing and horn blaring. Bizarrely, he seemed to hold Walt accountable for his little off-road excursion. With the route ahead now straight, flat, and empty, he was intent on exploding past in an emphatic demonstration of anger, torque, and horsepower.

Walt felt the familiar old ache of the challenge. His grin widened as he hit the gas.

The oppressive atmosphere lightened along that section of Old Brady, as though the road were happy to see disciples return to pay homage.

Walt let out a childlike whoop of excitement as both vehicles climbed quickly above ninety miles an hour, his knowledge of the road leveling the playing field. He felt seventeen again. Immortal.

For reasons he didn’t understand but also didn’t resist, Walt reached over, popped the glove box, and grasped the butt of his nickel-plated pistol.

The young driver drew level. He looked like every Gen-Z Walt ever came across—manicured beard, slick hair, curated tattoos, and an entitled aura.

Walt slowly stretched his arm out the window and pointed the pistol at his rival. He believed he was making a gesture rather than a legitimate threat to the kid—one part show, two parts bravado. However, he also somehow felt that he was no longer entirely in control.

In an instant, and with an impressive reaction speed, his challenger stamped on the brakes and disappeared from view. This time, the squeal of rubber on tarmac was immediately interrupted by a muffled ‘pop’ and the ‘whomp-whomp-whomp’ of a shredded tire. Several tons of soon-to-be scrap metal and lithium-ion batteries lurched sideways before pitching into a barrel roll.

Walt watched in his mirror, awestruck, as the sedan rolled several times before digging into the loose dirt on the roadside and sliding to a halt on its roof. A blinding white light burst from the wreckage as the batteries exploded, immediately engulfing the entire vehicle like an enormous Roman candle. He checked the road for witnesses the way a thief checks an empty room, then cruised on towards Jennin, very impressed with himself.

Very impressed with his new truck.

Surprisingly unconcerned about the welfare of his dueling partner. But nobody could have survived that, anyway. The guy was beyond help.

Overcome with an abrupt and leaden drowsiness, Walt decided to give the town a miss and head straight home. He could go later, after a brief nap, when some of the guys were getting out of work, and could admire his new ride.

& & &

As Walt cruised along Main Street later that afternoon, heat waves still shimmered off the roads and sidewalks, and ephemeral melodies and riffs escaped from the open windows of cars and shops, filling the air with a disjointed blend of strained emotions and cheery backbeats.

Jennin was not so small that everybody knew everybody, but with a population of around fifteen thousand, he was pretty much guaranteed to run into someone he knew. More importantly, they would see him. 

He parked the truck in a slanted bay at the curb and left the engine running to keep the temperature inside the mobile sweatbox bearable while he hurried into the air-conditioned liquor store.

Many of the other parked vehicles also had their engines running—a pod of giant, snoozing, steel mammals. It should have been a Mecca for the opportunistic car thief, akin to an unsupervised kid in a candy store, but the deterrent of the local gun culture and the relatively crime-free small-town setting eliminated that anxiety. A ‘hold up’ at a convenience store in Jennin usually meant nothing more than a queue at the checkout.

When he re-emerged, carrying two six packs and a carton of Marlboros, Walt was pleased to see his cuddly friend, Jerry Watson, shuffling along the sidewalk towards him.

Jerry struggled to keep his three hundred-plus pounds moving in the oppressive heat, sweating and huffing in a way that made Walt feel quite athletic.

Walt leaned against the hood of his truck and twisted open a beer, waiting for his suffering friend to draw closer.

“Hey, Jer.” He finally called out, “Whaddaya think of my baby?”

Jerry looked up, and a grin spread across his reddened jowls. “Oh Man! You got her, huh? Now that’s a truck, all right. Yeah, baby, that’s a truck!”

“Not a truck, my dude, the truck. Wanna brew?” He tossed Jerry a beer without waiting for an answer.

His friend snatched it from the air, opened it, and guzzled like a man drinking secretly in his garage to keep his addiction hidden.

“C’mon, I’ll take ya for a ride!” Walt said as he climbed in. He placed the beer and cigarettes on the middle seat while Jerry pulled himself into the cab with considerable effort.

A car horn blasted twice in anger as Walt backed out without looking. Both he and Jerry opened the windows and presented their middle fingers in synchronized response. Walt floored the accelerator, and the truck roared away, leaving long, black marks on the road and an acrid cloud of rubber smoke drifting on the air.

“How’s she handle?” Jerry asked.

“Like a dream. And fast? This thing can pull, man!  I already tried her out this morning on a dude with one of them Tezlers.”

“Yeah? How’d you do?”

“I killed him, a’course,” Walt admitted. “Totally killed him!”

“A Tesla, ya say? A white one wiped out on Old Brady Road this morning.” Jerry looked across in mock accusation. “You been a bad boy, Walt?”

“Nah. Every other car on the road is one of them goddam virtue vehicles these days. These woke warriors think nothing of dropping a hundred grand to rub their environmental morality in your face.”

Jerry laughed and punched him on the shoulder. “Relax, guy. I’m just yanking your chain.”

Walt dialed back his defenses. “I know. Anyway, I came back on the interstate. Wanted to stretch her legs a little.” He patted the Ram’s dash. “These horses gotta run.”

“I hear that.” Jerry grabbed two fresh bottles. “Another brewski?” He opened them both and handed one to Walt.

“So,” Walt said with as much nonchalance as he could muster. “Old Brady’s claimed another, huh?

“No! But the guy’s lucky to be alive. McConnell’s gonna pick the wreck up in the morning after the cops go over the accident site.”

“How do you know that?” Walt’s panic rose.

“He asked me to lend a hand. Apparently, Bryan is still out with the flu. Or the ‘rona. Some shit.”

“Still baked from the weekend, more like,” Walt said, as the cogs whirred in his increasingly worried head. “But how’d you know the guy made it? Didn’t it—” Walt caught himself before giving away details of the accident.

“Got thrown clean out when the car rolled. Prolly not wearing his seatbelt. That mighta actually saved his life.”

“Hmm.” Walt felt sure the guy had been strapped in.

“Anyway, I told McConnell I was busy. Best to stay clear of Old Brady for a while, now. That road, she don’t forget.”

“Come on, Jer. Not you too?”

“Yes, sir! You’d better, too. It’ll wait, patient as an old god, for the next man to push his luck. That road’ll have its due. Mark my words,”

Walt scoffed. “You believe all that old puckey?”

“Enough to stay away for a while. I ain’t planning on being number twelve.”

& & &

The Ram sat at the T junction at the end of Main Street, engine idling as Walt’s brain raced. Had the not-dead guy gotten his license plate? It was just a temporary tag for now—small print on paper and harder to read—but still. And he’d certainly seen Walt’s face when…shit! He had pointed his fucking gun at the dude. Why in hell had he done that? What had come over him, out there on Old Brady? Racing was one thing. As was hogging the road a little and accelerating when someone tried to pass. But pulling a gun? That wasn’t his style. It was in the truck for protection, not aggression. Well, mostly.

The gun had to go, just in case the guy remembered enough to send the cops his way. He prepared to turn right and head home to find a suitable hiding spot for it when a voice filled his head. Not the voice he referred to as his ‘unborn twin’, who often whispered idiotic suggestions in his melon. No, this was a female voice that may or may not have been his mother. Or perhaps his Aunt Binny.

Did you and that silly old truck of yours leave any other signs out there on the road?

It was a good question. Had he braked too hard, or cornered too aggressively, leaving tell-tale rubber marks? Maybe he’d drifted onto the shoulder, providing the forensic people with a perfect tread pattern to tie back to his Ram? The window had been open at one point. What if an envelope or a bill with his name and address had blown out and lay on the road like an invitation to a nosy detective?

The woman’s voice prompted again: You sure the paper tag didn’t tear off while you were out there playing the fool?

Walt jumped from the cab and dashed around to the front. He was relieved to see the tag still there. He ran to the back of the truck. “Oh, shitshitshit!”

No tag.

He leaped back behind the wheel and headed left toward Old Brady and the roadside memorial. That was the point where everything started to go wrong.

He glanced at his watch. In another hour or so, the sun would go down, and looking for signs of his involvement would be futile. He pressed down on the gas, and the Ram responded with a grunt from its exhaust that should have made him smile.

When he eventually saw the carcass of the Tesla—a twisted specter of scorched, rent metal—Walt lifted his foot from the accelerator. His pulse quickened while his eyes searched the asphalt for the missing tag, or any signs, any faint whisper of proof that could bind him to the wreck. But what would such evidence look like, exactly? He was being ridiculous. The marks on the road were, to his eyes, directly from the Tesla itself. But his weren’t the eyes of a seasoned crash investigation expert, were they?

Looking for a piece of paper that may or may not have flown from his truck along this section of the road wasn’t exactly—

The memorial flashed by on his right.

But that couldn’t be. The Tesla’s lights had blinked out several miles past that damnable shrine.

He braked and made a U-turn, doubting his tired, beer-diminished vision while pushing down the rising, morbid chant of his daddy’s childlike doggerel of warning.

There it stood, the wooden plaque on its post, rising out of the scrub, and surrounded by flowers, like a newly occupied grave.

 The Ram rolled to a stop on the shoulder, parallel to the pauper’s tombstone for eleven. Or was it twelve he’d seen? He had begun to doubt his own memory. There was no sign of the coyote—only the potted plant, now toppled over, its purple flowers spilled out like a wine stain on a beige carpet.

The plaque indeed contained twelve monikers, but as Walt squinted to read, the final name at the bottom of the second column faded like breath on a bathroom mirror, leaving no trace that it had ever been there.

But it had. He’d seen it. Perhaps not clearly—he still wasn’t ready to accept his need for glasses—but the name ‘Charles Valentine’ had lodged itself in his head. He was certain of it. If he went home and looked up the accident on the local news website, he’d see that it was the driver’s name.

Walt opened the truck door and stepped out. As soon as his booted foot hit the dirt, he stopped and smacked the heel of his palm against his forehead. “Great going, moron,” he hissed. “Come out here to make sure there are no signs, and whaddaya do? Start leaving signs!”

So now there were footprints and tire marks. He snatched up the fallen petunia. “Flowers,” he whispered. “That’s why I was out here, if they ask. Placing flowers for the dead.”  He chuckled at his genius and brushed off the dust from the pot, making sure to leave a good set of prints.

He stepped over to the plaque and placed the pot prominently at the base of the post. “Better decide which name I’m here to visit.” As he looked up, his blood thickened, and palpitations fluttered in the center of his chest. The same sensation he got when he made the coffee too strong. But this wasn’t caffeine-induced. The twelfth name was returning—no, appearing— one letter at a time. Each one flared like a hot iron branding the wood, before cooling into permanence.

W a l t e r  J o h n s o n

Walt staggered backward, a strangled cry bursting from his throat. Fearing the ground might suck him under, he hurled himself into the truck and floored the accelerator. The Ram’s rapid forward momentum slammed the door for him. The rear wheels fishtailed, scattering loose gravel and dirt, before they found purchase and roared away.

Walt wiped sweat from his brow with an equally slick forearm. The road twisted before him, shimmering under the ghostly pall of the moon.

When had it gotten dark?

He must have been having a blood sugar episode or something. Or exhaustion. Yes! He must have passed out and hit his head. Or hallucinated. It could even be a touch of the madness that took his daddy. There was no way any of that really just ha—

A figure stepped out from between the lanes in front of him, like a person emerging from a picture. She was frail, diminutive, and draped in deep purple—an old-fashioned dress, cinched at the waist and buttoned to the neck. A neat black hat topped it off. She looked like a pioneer woman on her way to yet another funeral. Her movements weren’t quite right, not quite human. Smooth. Gliding. Her skin was pallid, but her eyes lucid. And they stared into him.

Walt jerked the wheel to the right, heart hammering like a trapped bird, but the Ram slewed left across the centerline as if it—and the road—had minds of their own.

The maw of the ditch deepened and widened. Dark, cold, and ravenous.

Metal shrieked in complaint as the Ram left the road.

Glass exploded into geometric raindrops.

Flesh met iron with a thud of sickening finality.

A coyote howled, and then silence.

& & &

Old Brady had been starved for too long.

Charles Valentine had eluded her, but the road would have her tribute—her toll. One way or another, the legend of Old Brady Road would always be fed, resurrecting the campfire stories and the nightmares of Jennin’s populace for a few more years to come.  Interstate exits be damned.

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright Mike Davis 2026

Image Source: Ahmed Zayan from Unsplash.com