Larry Brown's Ghost

This story won 2nd place for its group during the 1st round of the 2025 NYCMidnight Flash Fiction contest.

Jarvis found the address in a phone book at an all-night diner on the town square.  He had stepped in for a cup of coffee when he got off the bus earlier that morning, and scanned the pages as he stirred in cream and sugar.  Dawkins had never been very bright, but it struck Jarvis as another level of stupid to list one’s name and address while on the run.  

He had walked past the house three times that day to check for any problems; kids running around in the front yard, dogs that might make a commotion.  Anything that might let Dawkins know he was there.  But there was nothing.  Just a small weathered house with peeling blue paint, weeds tall around the porch, a rail yard beyond the fence in the back of the lot.

Jarvis leaned against a telephone pole down the street until a few minutes past midnight, when he saw the last light in the house go out.  He walked up on the porch and knocked on the screen door.

“Who is it?” he heard Dawkins call from inside.  There was aggravation and slurring in Dawkins’ voice.  He’s drunk, Jarvis thought to himself.  That was a plus.  Jarvis knocked again, and he could hear Dawkins mutter to himself as he shuffled to the door.

“Goddamnit, who is –” Dawkins flung the door open, eyes wide when he saw Jarvis staring back at him.  Dawkins tried to slam the door, but Jarvis already had his right foot inside.  The door bounced back, hitting Dawkins in the ribs as he back-pedalled, and then turning to run down the hallway.  Jenkins pulled the pistol from the waistband at the small of his back and followed Dawkins through the house.

Dawkins had good length on Jarvis as he pushed through a screen door in the kitchen and into the yard, running toward the fence behind the house.  Jarvis hit the door as Dawkins was landing on the other side of the fence and turning to run into the rail yard.  Dawkins had distance, but Jarvis had sobriety.  Even with the gun in his hand, Jarvis made quick work of the fence, landing easily in the gravel on the other side.  

Jarvis almost smiled when he saw Dawkins trip on a railroad tie and smash into the dirt.  But he was up quicker than Jarvis expected and back running at a full clip.  A steep bank crowned by a barbed wire fence bordered the opposite side of the rail yard, empty except for a lone boxcar on the farthest track.  Jarvis could see Dawkins scanning the yard as he ran for a place to escape, but he was stuck.  Jarvis kept pace, following Dawkins as he veered to the left and ran wildly toward the boxcar.  He had gained to within a few yards when Dawkins dove into the car’s open door and scrambled inside.  

Jarvis stopped and looked around.  He didn’t see any signs of yard bulls, and there was no light save the moon and what little glow came from the lights in town.  Inside he could hear the echo of Dawkins crawling toward the far end, followed by heavy coughing and wretching.

After several minutes, Jarvis spoke calmly.  “Come on out, Dawkins.”

Dawkins moved around inside the car.  Jarvis knew that he was trying to find anything to fight back with.  He had Dawkins cornered now, but Jarvis would wait him out.  He didn’t wish to climb into the dark with a desperate man unless he had no other choice.

Jarvis crouched down in the ballast and stared at the door of the boxcar.  He tapped the pistol’s barrel against his left knee, and waited for the excuses that he was sure were coming.

“Jarvis, I don’t know what those others told you, but I didn’t take any of that money.”  Dawkins’ voice sounded weak and pleading as it floated out the door from the back of the boxcar.  Jarvis didn’t respond, he just kept staring at the door and keeping time on his knee with the gun.  His hand reached for his shirt pocket, but he cursed under his breath when he remembered he was out of cigarettes.  When his hand went back down to his side, he felt the small box in his jacket pocket.  Jarvis smiled and slid his hand inside.

Dawkins spoke up again from inside the car, his voice high and strained.  “Damnit Jarvis, I didn’t have a penny to my name when we made the decision to split up!  How the hell is a man supposed to survive on the run without anything to spend?  I did everything just like you said to do on that job, just like you said!  We wouldn’t have made it out of there if I hadn’t drove as good as I did.”

Jarvis stayed low and quiet, slowly easing his way toward the door as Dawkins rambled on.

“I’m not saying I did it, but if I had taken any of that cash it was just because I needed it to get out of town the way you told me to.  If I took any of it, it was only that I looked at it like a loan.”

Jarvis was at the car now.  He never took the gun out of his right hand, but instead used his left to reach inside the jacket pocket for the small box.  Jarvis slid the box open with his index finger, and pulled out the five or six matches that were left.

Dawkins was crying now, mumbling something about second chances and loyalty when Jarvis struck the matches on the boxcar’s side.  As the match heads caught, the box car was briefly illuminated in a bright orange flash.  In that split second Jarvis saw the surprise on Dawkins’ face.

Jarvis leveled the gun, and several more flashes followed.