Red Conscience
Andrew Cutter

Better Acquainted With the Tire
Chapter One

	The first real stumbling block in my relationship with Kaitlyn Ackart occurred early in March of the seventeenth year of my life.  It was late at night and I was driving her home from the Cineplex.  It had been a group event planned by my good friend Andre and myself, who were endeavouring to become better acquainted with the ladies who had caught our eyes.
	It was a chilly evening.  The winter months had matured and would soon pass on the weighty function of time to the adolescent spring.  The snow had melted in February but the resurging cold had frozen solid the few puddles left over from the thaw.  The winter had been a strange one.  Temperatures fluctuated wildly, rising in heat-laden passion for a few weeks and then falling suddenly into the depths of wicked cold for a couple more; sometimes rebounding for one day and then crashing the next.  It too much resembled the fervour of my own love life.  I desired nothing more than a reprieve from the heart-wrenching uncertainty I faced each morning when I woke from my peaceful slumber.
	My ambiguous life orbited around lady Kaitlyn.  I had met her the previous autumn through a friend’s friend’s friend and since then I had engaged Andre in many a winded discourse about her abounding beauty, her incessant wit, and my generally growing affection for her.  Her affections were hard to capture.  I had been chatting with her more frequently and with greater confidence over the MSN network.  And though Andre insisted she was nearly as crazy for me as I was for her, she praised larger group outings like that night’s.
	“Andre’s really crazy, eh?”  Kaitlyn had broken the silence.
	“Oh yea!  But he’s a very good friend; helps me out.”  I was nervous.  Sweat no longer dripped down my back, but seemed rather to flow along the streambeds on either side of my protruding spine.
	“Like tonight?”  Kaitlyn knew how we operated.
	“Hah!  Well, yea.”  I wasn’t sure how to answer.  It was Andre who had first offered Kaitlyn a ride.  She was en route to his home in the countryside but he had conveniently forgotten that his car was full with other passengers.  So the arduous task of driving her home had fallen to me.  I thought too much of her intelligence to think that the trick had slipped her.
	“Well, I’m glad he did.”  This was the first display of warmth she had shown me.  I was elated.  I chanced a glance at her.  She was dressed simply; blue jeans and a creamy white cable sweater.  The unadorned clothes only succeeded in emphasizing her considerable physical refinement.  Her face was fair with a few well-drawn lines bordering her breathtaking smile.  Her hair was blonde and it was naturally streaked with golden brown.  When she spoke it was soft and caring and her laugh was full of mirth.
	“It’s a few kilometres ahead on the left.”  Her road was dark.  Crippled by my excessively tinted side windows and low powered headlights, I felt as though I was travelling through a long mountain tunnel.  Darkness has never been my friend.  I am and always have been Matthew Desera: city boy, champion of artificial street lighting, one never afraid to take comfort in the soft hum of the electric light bulb.
	To abate my growing anxiety, I struck up a conversation about our families.  Kaitlyn lived with her parents, two younger brothers, and her best friend – a three-year-old canine the family had come across at the side of a highway and did not have the heart to pass by.  She carried on about him with all the love she might afford her dearest girlfriend.  He was breedless, a mutt, and, as she hoped, likely prone to longevity in life.  She described him as having a long silky grey coat, with an oddly striped tail similar to a racoon’s, and great tufted ears.  I strained to hold back chuckles at the eccentric description.  However, Kaitlyn broke into laughter at the thought of her homely looking pet and so did I.
On the left side of the road my headlight beam struck a small hanging sign reading, “The Ackarts”.  I signalled and proceeded to pull the car into her relatively short, for a country home, laneway.  “Here you are, mademoiselle.”  Having always hated corny clichés I have sadly had to endure an involuntary reflex of mine where I utter them frequently in the presence of women.
	She stepped out the car door and then turned, leaned down slightly with her head back in the car, and surveyed me.  She smiled.  My chest filled with an indescribable feeling of attraction toward her.  My eyes were captivated by her leaning stance.  “We should get together again sometime.  Just the two of us.”  She handed me a piece of paper and on it was a phone number, presumably hers.  “Night.”
	“Goodnight!” I returned vaguely.  I would have fallen over if it weren’t for the seatbelt holding me in place.  She turned with a grace I hadn’t imagined compatible with the human form and walked to her front door.  She turned for a moment and with an elegant wave of her hand she went inside.
	I backed the car out of her driveway slowly.  My mind skimmed over the evening’s events.  It rested on those that were particularly appetizing; I savoured the times she had cast her eyes in my direction and each of her incredible smiles like the last bite of the richest chocolate cake.
	My mind was not on driving.  As I pulled out backwards onto the highway, a hard thud rippled through the tranquility of my heart.  The car’s right backside heaved into the air.  I slammed on the breaks.  A sense of dread swept over me.  I took a moment to catch my breath.  Knowing what I might find, even fearing it, I unlatched the car door and stepped outside.
In front of the car a small dark mound was silhouetted by the reflection of the moon’s glare on the glassy pavement.  I could see fur rustling in the light breeze.  My heart fell as my eyes adjusted to the scene before me.
Tufted ears.  Silky grey coat.  A racoon tail.  The only differences between this dog and the one Kaitlyn so lovingly described a few minutes earlier were the glazed eyes and the small trickle of blood that escaped its mouth.  My mind raced in an effort to decide what to do.  How could I explain?  Should I explain?  I had killed my love’s dog.

Guilt Manifested
Chapter Two

	Several things flashed through my mind.  The first was that I might not actually be the one who had given the deadly blow – why else would the dog be laying out in the middle of the road?  In fact, maybe the dog wasn’t even dead.  Perhaps he was just sleeping.  I would call him and he would get up.
	“Here, um…” I had forgotten the poor mutt’s name.  No matter.  Dogs lack the cranial capacity to recognize some human-given name.  As if he’d answer to only one name anyway.  “Here old sport, er, Champ…  Spot?  Come on, come to Matthew.”
	He failed to move.  The moon had drifted a little further west across the night sky.  It could be seen reflected in the dog’s glazed eyes.  I struggled to believe that this was how a dog always looked while sleeping.
	I worked up a little courage and inched toward the body.  “Fred?”  Nothing.  “Marco?”  I was getting desperate.  I kneeled down on the cool, rough pavement, the tiny divots digging into the skin of my panted knee.  I leaned over the still body.  Some Midnight Blue paint chips were imbedded in the dent that marked the animal’s skull.  Patches of torn flesh could be seen, the blood no longer running, a result of the rough landing the dog had made on the pavement.
	“Get up!”  I hollered.  “Get up!  Get up!”  With rising agitation I shook the corpse harder and harder.  “My God, just please let him get up!”  I gave the corpse an unholy kick.  The weight of the body shifted and then lolled back into its original position.  A cool breeze rushed up the slope of the valley that stretched out below the opposing shoulder of the highway.  The distant twinkle of the city lights beyond it seemed unreachable.
	A sense of incredible isolation swept my body.  I ached with the misery of knowing what I had done.  Already on my knees I turned my eyes heavenward.  The stars organized themselves into the patterns I am so familiar with.  To the west lay Orion’s Belt, above me The Big Dipper, and above it stood the mighty North Star, Polaris.  Mars glowed a faint red, hovering above Orion in its spot next to the Moon.  I clasped my hands together, remembering as a child doing the same.  My mother would stand behind me, her hand running through my hair.  I regretted not having done this in so long.
	“God, please…  Please just let me figure this out…” Tears escaped the corners of my eyes.  “I promise, well…  I’ll…  I don’t know.  Please, just…  Just tell me how to…  how to…” And it was then that an idea came to my mind.  It was so ridiculously simple.  A laugh almost escaped through my tear-moistened lips.
	I clamoured to my feet and rushed to my still-open car door.  I reached down next to the driver’s seat and pulled the lever that popped the trunk.  Swinging around to the back of the car I threw open the trunk lid and looked down into the darkness.  A woven basket stood alone in the emptiness.  Reaching inside the basket I found what I was looking for: a soft, red and white chequered blanket.  It was the one Kaitlyn and I had stretched out together on after a picnic in the park that last unseasonably mild Sunday afternoon.  In my distraught state the irony of what I was about to do made me convulse sickly with laughter.  There really wasn’t anything humorous about it.
	I shook open the blanket and walked over to the dog.  After looking at him one last time I threw it over his body.  The soft cover stuck to his lifeless fur where the blood had pooled.  The red squares seemed to yawn and stretch as the blood soaked through and discoloured the white.  I slid the edges of the blanket under his back and then around his abdomen.  Curling the corners around his nose and wrapping his tail next to his body, the dog was completely encased in the picnic accoutrement.
	It didn’t seem so real now.  It wasn’t really a dog, more of an oversized pita, or perhaps a recently purchased roll of carpet.  I bent down at the waist to pick him up, “Ah, ah!  At the knees!”  I scolded myself.  In the correct manner I reached around the bundle and lifted it up shakily.  Heavier then I had first thought, I had to throw the bundle over my shoulder to carry it very far.  The blood that had previously soaked the chequered blanket now came through my shirt.  Slow ooze brought the blood briefly to my shoulder, and then it slid down my back and brought a chill to my spine.  It was cold.  Cold blood.  I had never felt cold blood before.
	I tossed it into the trunk and closed the lid.  Bending over I wiped my knees clean of the gravel and dirt that had stuck to them and then straightened up as I brushed off my hands.  Once again my gaze was drawn over the valley and toward the city.
I smiled.  The twinkling lights didn’t seem so distant anymore.  The streaked white light of the roadways, the motionless glow of suburban neighbourhoods, and the pale orange of the city’s streetlights seemed to blend together.
On the horizon a red light flashed, presumably atop some radio tower.  From this vantage point it seemed to hover on its own above the sleeping city.  Eternally watchful, on and off it flashed its incessant red.  Some primal instinct warned me of that colour.  The city didn’t seem so friendly anymore.  The red light grew to fill my entire field of vision, blocking out all other light.  At first captivated I now turned from it in fear.  I moved too quickly to get into the driver’s seat of the car and hit my head on the doorframe.  Rubbing the sore spot I sat down, brought my feet in, and then slammed the door on my hand.  I barely managed to contain a squeal of pain.  Pushing the door open with my foot I brought my aching appendage inside and closed the door with my remaining good hand.
The red light seemed to fill the window.  The flashing red glow reflected off of the polished leather dashboard and the vacuumed carpet of the car.  The red light filled the air, forcing my mind to associate the new car smell with that discouraging red.
	I started the engine and pulled from the shoulder onto the roadway.  At first I had intended to head south back to the city, back to my home, back to the comfort.  But that way didn’t seem so welcoming anymore.  For once in my life I wanted to get away from the unfriendly light.  I signalled and turned north at the next intersection.  I sped up.  The red light reflected in my rear view mirror.  I pressed down on the accelerator, but no matter how fast I went, or how many curves the highway took, the light continued its inhospitable flash on that reflective surface.

His Majesty’s Disposal Service
Chapter Three

	My headlights caught the reflective blue of an Ontario Government issued directional sign.  I had been driving for over an hour.  The white lettering indicated that I was approaching the King’s Highway Number Seven.  His Majesty seemed likely to have a better idea of where I was going than I did.  The trees whipped by on either side of the road at a thankfully quick pace.  It had been about half an hour since I had seen any light in them and they carried a dark and mysterious aura.  The flashing red light I had left behind a while ago, but occasionally I would look into the rear view mirror and have to look away.  In my mind’s eye it lingered there still.
	I came to the highway and stopped at its edge.  Where was I headed?  It seemed unreasonable to go any further.  Indeed, it was unreasonable to go as far as I had.  I edged the car slowly over to the westbound lane and pulled off onto the shoulder.  I turned the ignition key and the engine stilled.  My head leaned back against the headrest.  Time to catch my breath.
Everything was silent.
I took my hands off of the wheel.  The ruffling of my jacket as I set my arm at my side seemed louder than anything I had heard before.  Headlights appeared over a distant hill and came swiftly toward me.  They grew larger and the shape of a transport truck loomed behind them.  The truck went by without hesitation and a whipping wind in its wake made my own car shudder.  I got out and went to the trunk.  Taking the small bundle in my arms I walked to the edge of the shoulder.   A culvert stuck out of the highway embankment and poured its steady contents into a deep ravine.  I adjusted the bundle in my arms to one side and began to swing it back and forth.
One.
Two.
Three swings.
I let the bundle go.  It made a valiant effort to travel horizontally before finally falling and then tumbling down the steep embankment into the dark ravine.  I watched until I could no longer make out the falling shape, the clambering of falling pebbles filling the night air for some time after.
It was finished.
Back inside my car, my thoughts returned to getting home before my parents noticed I was still away.  I made a half turn across the eastbound lane of Highway Seven and headed back south home.  I would be thankful to be in my warm bed again.

Foot Play
Chapter Four

“Matthew!”  Kaitlyn ran up to me as I entered the school library.  She threw her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder.  She was crying.  “Oh, am I glad to see you.”  I put my own arms around her.  We’d never been this close before.  “It’s our dog, Marco –” So the mutt’s name was Marco after all, “He’s gone missing.  Oh, Matt!  I don’t know what I’ll do if something’s happened to him.” She looked up into my eyes, sniffling.  “Are you okay?”
I was certainly not all right.  I was as pale as a ghost and presumably this had tipped her off to my own mental state.  My mind grappled for a response.
“Well, I just hate to see you like this, is all.”  It was the truth.  The tears streaming down her face were like drips of poison on my heart.  What made it all the worse was that I was the guilty party to her discontent.  
“Ohhhhhh…  That’s so sweet.”  The tears seemed to relent a little. Her gaze returned over my shoulder, but she still clung tightly to me.  “He’ll probably come back.  Maybe he just got lost.  It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gone missing for a short while.”  The hope in her voice was painful to my ears.  I knew he was not simply ‘missing’.  He would not be coming back.  I looked down at her pale features.  Her contrastingly rosy cheeks were tear streaked and her hair was noticeably out-of-sorts.  It made her no less radiant.  I was lost in my inspection of her when her eyes returned to mine.
“Oh.  I…  I’m sorry.  I can’t imagine how I look.  I’ve been crying all night and – ”
“Beautiful.”  I blurted out.
“What?”
“Angelic.”  I was in it now.  But she wasn’t letting go.
“Well, I don’t know about – ”
“Pulchritudinous.”
She giggled.  “Now you’re just being silly.”  She had stopped crying and we turned to go to the study tables where our friends were seated.  Kaitlyn stopped at the photocopier and picked up some papers she had been running off.  “I thought we could put these up later, if you wanted to help me…?” She held up some eight by eleven posters of Marco with the words ‘Missing’ printed underneath.
“Oh well, yea, certainly.  I’d love to help.”  The photo was face on, Marco’s great tufted ears sticking straight up in the air and an oversized tongue dripping with great gobs of saliva hung from the left of his jaw.  One noticeable difference between the photo and the last time I saw Marco was that he was alive, and not wrapped in a towel.  His well-constructed flesh and lack of freely flowing blood engendered his appearance with a sense of being something almost pleasant.
Arriving at the table, I held a chair out for Kaitlyn and then sat to her right.  Topher and Kathy were at the far end, Andre was on the other side of Kaitlyn, and across from him was Drew.  Some other person I didn’t know sat next to Drew across from Kaitlyn.  Each of them greeted us in turn.  Andre and Drew exchanged quick glances with one another and each had a knowing, smart-ass smirk across his face.
“So did Matt get you home last night, Kaitlyn?”  Andre’s smile broadened.  “All in one piece?  No vicious attacks?”
“Yes, Andre.”  Kaitlyn rolled her eyes.
“Well, I always say a drive home without injury or death is a good drive home.”  Andre had no idea.  “However, vicious attacks can be interpreted however you like.”
“Matthew was a perfect gentleman.”
“Sure he was, sure he was.  Never known him to be otherwise, right Drew?”
Drew Robertson knew a little more than he’d be willing to tell Kaitlyn of my exploits, or so I hoped.  One particular summer evening came to mind when Drew, Topher and I had attended a rather rambunctious party.  After a few alcoholic beverages I became quite the ladies man, or so I thought.  There were a few pictures out there I preferred did not make it into Kaitlyn’s hands.
Much of the rest of the conversation at the table was filled with sexual innuendo, nudges, and winks between the guys.  My attention was more drawn to the bit of foot play underneath the table.  The girl I loved, sitting next to me, seemed happier now.  She was bent over, looking at her books, but a smile crept across her face each time she reached her foot over to mine.  Maybe she would just forget about the dog.  It happens all the time, people losing their pets.  However, I could not help but feel that I was lying to her, that all of this was undeserved, and that I was the lowest scum on the Earth.
The bell rang and Kaitlyn ran off to her locker with a wink and a smile that crushed my heart.  I could not help it, on the way to our lockers I told Andre and Drew what had happened the previous night.
“Oh man…  And she’s hoping that the dog will just come back?”  Andre asked.
“Yea.  But I know it won’t.  I killed it, guys!  He’s gone.  What do I do?  Should I tell her?”
They both looked at me, their faces knotted with sympathy and reflective thought.  They each had their own women troubles but I felt safe in thinking this was one of the largest immediate problems one of us had faced.
“Yes,” decided Andre.  “No,” Drew commented at the same time.  I could tell this was not going to be helpful.
“Well, I just think you could hurt her otherwise,” they both said.
Andre explained: “Well, if you don’t tell her then what can you expect in the future?  You really love this girl, don’t you Matt?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then you’ve got to think long term here.  Sure, maybe not telling her will give you gains right now, but in twenty years you’ll wake up next to her and realise that you’ve built your relationship on a lie.  The guilt will follow you around until you can’t contain it anymore.  Then you’ll have to tell her.  And think how much more she’ll be hurt then that you couldn’t tell her before.  The trust will be broken, Matt.  You really should tell her.”
Drew countered with a somewhat more immediate reason not to tell her.  “She’ll hate you for it, Matt.  Just think: you’ve killed her dog.  You don’t know each other well enough to get over this.  If you even want a future with this girl you cannot tell her.”
“I think she’ll understand what happened.  We’ve been friends for quite a while, I know her and she will get over it, even if it takes a little while.”  Andre had a lot of faith in the power of forgiveness, but quite frankly, I did not.  I decided not to tell her.  The dog was gone, and maybe this way she would be able to accept it slowly rather than having it thrust upon her.
Andre and Drew both agreed not to tell her what had happened and headed off to class.  I grabbed my books, closed my locker, and turned in the direction of my history class.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the red light of one of the school’s security cameras.  It flashed on and off, warning me.  I turned my back on it and hurried to class.

Incessant Red
Chapter Five

I listened as the rolling thunder faded into the distance and peace returned to the household.  Kait had had to put the kids back to bed three times in the night while I remained here trying to sleep.  I had work to get to in the morning.  To top it off my mother had called twice through the night to tell me that my father needed a ride to the doctor’s in the morning.  Dad had been dead five years.
My head started to ache and I forced myself up to go to the kitchen for a glass of water.  I flicked the light switch.  Nothing.  The power must be out.  No matter – I know my way around the kitchen well enough.  I crossed the tiled floor toward the cupboards and smashed my head off of the low hanging light in the kitchen’s centre.  I stifled a holler for Kait and the kids’ sakes.  I bent over a little and continued my way in the dark.  Feeling my way along the counter I found the cupboard where the glasses are kept.  Leaning over, bracing myself against the cupboard with my left hand, I reached in to grab a glass with my right.  I took one out and proceeded to slam the cupboard door on my hand.
“Son of a –!”  I caught myself before it came out, but it was a good shout.
“Hun?” Kait called from the bedroom.  Damn it.  I had not wanted to wake her up; she had acquired scarcely any sleep tonight.
“It’s fine, Kait, just getting a glass of water,” I called back in a whisper.  Moving to the tap I poured myself the glass of water and took a few sips.  Leaning on the countertop, I looked out the window at the city lights that still shone brightly some distance to the west.  My own neighbourhood was as dark as the countryside.  I made my way back to the bedroom, finished off the water, and set the glass on the nightstand.  I crawled in gently next to Kaitlyn.
She kissed me softly on the cheek.  “Are you okay, Matthew?”
“Yea, I just had a little bit of a headache.  I just need to get some sleep, I guess.”
“You’re mom will be fine; we’ll get through it.”
“I know, I know.”  I kissed her softly, longingly on the lips.  “Good night, Kait, and thanks.”  I turned over on my side and my eyes lingered on the nightstand.  Kaitlyn began rubbing my shoulders and I started to drift off to sleep.  I felt like I could get through anything if I just had her next to me for the rest of my life.  Her and the kids.
A click came from downstairs as the central air hummed back to life.  The refrigerator joined the soft symphony of sounds.  The electricity was back on.  In front of me, on the nightstand, the clock radio sprang back to life.  The red numbers lit up “12:00” and began to flash.  My heart fell and I gave a shudder that drew an inquiry from Kaitlyn.  The guilt flowed through me like it had happened only yesterday.
“Honey, what’s the matter?”
My heart was pounding.  The red filled my field of vision.
“Matthew, you’re shaking!”  Kaitlyn leaned over my shoulder and looked at my face.  I tried to look at her, but the flashing red held my gaze.  I could not turn away from it.
“You’re so pale!”  The light took over my thoughts.  I could not move.
“Kait...” My voice weak, her name seemed separate from myself.
“What is it, Matt?!”  Anxious to know my ailment, her beautiful voice wavered with an oncoming torrent of tears.
“I... I need to tell you something.” I could not take my eyes from the clock radio display.  My fists clenched the sheets.  The feel of the chequered blanket.  The cold blood running down my back.  The sickening new car smell.  But most of all, that colour.  That light.
Eternally watchful, on and off flashed the incessant red.