Just After Sunset Trivia Quiz

Answer: A honky tonk bar

At a train station in Crowheart Springs, Wyoming, David decides to set out and locate his fiancée, Willa, who he's told wandered off to town while they awaited their next train, their previous one having derailed back at the Wind River junction point. The other passengers, there on the platform, tell him not to go-- there are wild animals, after all-- but he takes the three mile hike to town despite their advice.

What he finds is a honky tonk bar and Willa, inside, seated alone at a table. She hints to him that something might be odd, even though the bar is full of dancing patrons. He quickly realizes the truth is that none of them survived the derailment. Willa suggests they stay at the bar to enjoy the music together, but both agree they should head back to the train station to tell the others the truth.

What they come to realize is that they died nearly twenty years earlier. The train station, condemned many years before, is scheduled for demolition. They make one last plea to the others on the platform, stating that if the building is destroyed, they'll be lost without it. This being said, they leave alone, cast away for trying to disrupt the others' hopeless fantasy. The pair return to the bar to spend their afterlives together.

Answer: Running

Shortly after the passing of her infant daughter, Amy, Emily struggles to process her grief properly and it leads to the dissolution of her marriage to Henry. Running from home, she checks into a hotel, and calls her father. She books a ticket on a flight the next day to Vermillion Key, Florida, to their old conch shack on the coast, in an effort to better manage her emotional state.

What follows, that summer, is simple. In addition to continue developing her running as a pastime, she takes on plain hobbies and healthy eating habits, all in an effort to figure out her new life. One day, however, she stumbles upon the house inhabited by Jim Pickering and his alleged 'nieces', and even though she's warned not to go near, she spies a body in the trunk of his car and finds herself knocked unconscious.

When Emily awakens, she does so taped to a thick chair in Jim's dining room while the homeowner, clearly crazy, cleans himself up. She informs him that the only person who knows her whereabouts is the bridge keeper a short distance down the road, and as he goes to tie off this loose end, she uses her muscle strength to move and free herself from the bindings, smashing the chair against his refrigerator. By the time Jim gets home, she already has the upper hand; she fights back, flees the house through the bedroom window, and races down the beach.

She nearly gets away as well, stumbling on a local, Spanish-speaking gardener who makes motions to protect her, but dies at Jim's hands (and a pair of scissors). All seems hopeless for Emily, but she realizes that Jim can't swim, and she manages to drag him out deeper into the ocean, letting him go in the water as she returns to shore. Fortunately, she's able to watch as her captor drowns in the distance before she heads back to her home down the beach.

Answer: Devilled eggs

Melancholic about her standing in life (which she considers too thin for her), Janet watches her husband, Harvey, while he sits at the kitchen table and prepares to eat breakfast. What shakes her out of her ennui is the fact that he claims he woke himself up screaming the previous night-- something she didn't hear while in the other room.

In his dream, Harvey believes that he woke up, walked down to the kitchen, and experienced odd things as though he was going about his day. First, he looked out at the neighbours' car and saw it was dented. Second, he headed to the fridge and saw a tray of devilled eggs. Third, he received a hard-to-decipher phone call, presumable from one of their three daughters, Trish, in which she said the police were looking for their number because something happened to one of her siblings.

Janet slowly comes to the realization that the dent in the neighbours' car is real-- it's out there and it's marked with blood. She also worries about the fact that she just finished making devilled eggs, having put them in the fridge before Harvey came downstairs. As she begins to regret wanting a more complicated life, the phone rings in the other room, and Harvey heads out to pick it up.

Answer: Rick Hardin

As John Dykstra departs from Jacksonville headed for Sarasota as part of a biweekly trip, he realizes that he needs to use the rest stop bathroom, a consequence of having a bit more to drink than usual while talking up his writing at a local bar. When he arrives there, however, he finds that the typically vacant rest stop has another car in the parking lot, and its owner is in the restroom committing an act of abuse against his significant other. John listens, but struggles to act...until he thinks of what his alter ego, Rick Hardin, would do in the same situation.

And when Rick Hardin acts on it, he starts by activating his own car alarm, alerting the people in the restroom to the distraction. When the man inside makes his exit, Rick hits him with the tire iron, telling the victim to take the waiting car and leave while she can, not stopping until she gets to safety in Sarasota. He leaves his victim there at the rest stop as he gets in his own car and drives off. Partway home he throws up on the side of the road and acknowledges that, even then, he's unsure where the line is drawn between John and Rick.

Answer: To help lower his cholesterol

When Richard Sifkitz gets the test results back from his doctor, he realizes that he has bad cholesterol and his doctor, as a preventative measure, suggests he get in the habit of exercising to stave off the effects of a shrinking metabolism. Working from home as a freelance artist, generally, Richard lands on buying a stationary bike, setting it up in his basement in the room where he paints. The odd events that follow him start with the painting he makes at that time-- one of four workmen he refers to as Berkowitz, Freddy, Whelan, and Carlos.

When Richard gets the idea to paint the road that his workmen may be cleaning, he finds that it's motivating to use it as a backdrop to ride alongside, and this creates a good rhythm for him to enjoy the bike more and more. He determines that the road leads to Upstate New York-- a town near the border called Herkimer-- and he finds that he almost hypnotically rides for hours. One day, when he paints a few old beer cans into the scene, he returns the next morning to find that they've vanished from the piece.

This is when the dreams start. One night, he dreams that he's in the body of another man, and this turns out to be Carlos, one of the guys from his painting, preparing to commit suicide. The next day, he draws the garage where the workman commits his final act. It's enough to spook him out of riding for a week...

...but he doesn't stay off the bike for long, and each time he rides, the road starts to change. He gets a sense of being followed on the bike and he prepares himself to dismantle it, but like an addict, he always takes one more ride in the woods until one day, at last, a truck bears down on him and knocks him off the device. It's then that he realizes the men he painted were, possibly, real at one time-- David Berkowitz (the Son of Sam), Freddy Albemarle, Michael Whelan, and Carlos Delgato. The workmen dismantle his bike while he lays on the road in the Canadian wilderness and they warn him: "Don't kill the job; let it die on its own." It's almost an insistence, he realizes, to let them keep their jobs as clean-up men in his own mind and body. They leave the bike destroyed when they leave.

Two months later, Richard receives a gift in the mail. Opening the box, it's a baseball hat, not unlike the one the workers had in his painting. He puts it on and heads back to work, letting himself pull back from his regimen.

Answer: The 9/11 Attacks

It was August 2002 when Scott Staley helped his neighbour, Paula Robeson, with her air conditioner unit, and it was a week after that when he came home to find the red-framed, heart-shaped sunglasses in his apartment. This was dismaying, and worse, he started finding a number of odd souvenirs-- familiar ones-- in his apartment shortly after, all from people he once knew.

Scott seeks a therapist to help him with his issue, but there was no chance of finding an appointment in the immediate future. Instead, a month later, he got the idea to dump the items in a bag and throw them out. When he reentered his apartment, however, they were still there, all items he remembered from the cubicles surrounding his in Light and Bell's home office, once on one of the higher floors of the World Trade Center buildings. That's when he started hearing the voices at night.

The situation started to get better when he tried to ignore it, but running into Paula, he realized he just needed someone to talk to; over lunch he would unload his grief and reveal that he was supposed to be in the office on the day of the attack. A voice in his head told him not to go in, so he didn't. Paula explained he might have had overwhelming survivor's guilt and suggested that he hand over one of the items as 'payment' for listening. He gave her a lucite cube with a penny in it, an item from the desk of a former co-worker who perished on 9/11, an item she would give back to him a week later, clearly distraught, as she came to understand how its previous owner died in vivid detail. She would ask Scott never to speak to her again.

To cope with the burden and grief, Scott ultimately decided to return the items to the families of those they belonged to, and in doing this, he realized that the items wouldn't come back to him. Others might show up, he reasoned, but this at least helped.

Answer: A nuclear explosion

Janice spends the afternoon at her boyfriend Bruce's house following his graduation and she reflects on the reality of the next few years. As both of them are headed to different colleges-- him to a rich Ivy League school and her to a less expensive state college, she realizes that their relationship probably won't last the long haul. In fact, an upcoming hike in the Appalachians, just him and his friends, is probably the easiest way for them to ease into not sharing their time anymore.

Worse, she knows that Bruce's upper-class family doesn't like her; they see her as a starter model for a girlfriend and that her lesser class isn't suitable. She knows, however, that they did the best they could and had a good time, and more than that, she has ambition for the future and plans to become a journalist.

The afternoon, unfortunately, is interrupted by a blast of flames and smoke. As she stares out across the water in Connecticut, she watches as the nuke destroys New York City. As Bruce's family stares in disbelief, a seemingly endless sonic boom rocks the afternoon party and Janice wonders about what's next.

Answer: Evens

In this story, Shiela sends a letter and a manuscript to Charlie, a family friend, describing one of her brother's former patients. A psychiatrist, Johnny Bonsaint was treating someone known solely as N., and she warned from the outset, the manuscript-- labelled to be burned-- seemed like a bit of a Pandora's box.

As Johnny explained, N. visited him for therapy to attempt to cure both his insomnia and his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, both of which started when he visited a place called Ackerman's Field in Maine. On a later visit to his office, N. tells him never to go there, despite what he tells him in subsequent sessions.

When N. originally stumbled upon the site he found a picturesque, nearly-empty field and he attempted to photograph it, but walking into the area he was surprised to find seven disturbing, massive rocks, all of which created illusory faces depending on how he looked at them in the light. Seeing these through the camera, however, it appeared there were actually eight rocks. Touching each one helped him confirm the number. Sensing an odd, liminal thinness to the area, he headed back to his car, turning around only once and seeing something terrible standing amongst the stones.

Starting to experience odd dreams and a compulsion to count and place objects, he returned to find the trail almost intentionally blocked. He proceeded anyways, this time bringing a digital camera (though none of his photos would end up developing), and this time hearing something in the darkness calling his name. Counting the stones, however, seemed to help quell his anxieties once again. While odd numbers were bad and unsafe numbers (especially primes), even ones were secure.

In December, N. would receive a letter and a key to the chains at the bottom of the trail to the field, and while winter would be quiet and calm, spring brought the nightmares-- those of a creature escaping-- back to the forefront. He realized that the solstice heightened these night terrors, and that he was the only one who could prevent this escape. The weight of the world was on his shoulders alone.

N. stopped attending sessions in June; Johnny found his obituary in the paper shortly after-- a suicide. Following the funeral, Johnny would investigate Ackerman's Field for himself, finding the stone circle (if it could really be a circle) and an envelope left for him. This note, from N., contained the key. Over the weeks, Johnny would start to develop compulsive tendencies. He dreamed of the river nearby, and the field, and the weakness of the eighth stone. After winter, the tendencies worsened, and he, too, would commit suicide in the spring.

In a second letter, Shiela expresses to Charlie that he should disregard the manuscript and her prior note. She investigated the field herself, and there is nothing to be considered in the wake of her brother's death.

After her obituary is published, outlining a copycat suicide at the bridge where her brother was found, Charlie emails his assistant insisting that he shall be headed to Maine to investigate the event.

Answer: A professional hitman

When pharmaceutical magnate Drogan calls Halston in for a job, it's to the latter's surprise that the target isn't a person, but a cat. For $12,000 (Halston's going rate), Drogan is willing to pay to put an end to the animal who has, as he says, killed three already, all members of his family. The first appeared to be death by accident, but the second, he claims, fit the old wives tale of the cat stealing the breath of a sleeping person. The third occurred when he attempted to have his son take the cat to the vet to be put down; the car crashed and the cat came back.

The reasoning, Drogan believes, is that in years of testing medical advancements on cats, one finally struck back. For the tens of thousands he killed to create life-saving medicines, it's time to pay the piper.

Halston agrees to take the job and has the cat bagged up and placed in his car, intending to kill it quickly and mercifully. What he doesn't prepare for is the cat chewing through the double-thick bag, getting out in his car and causing an accident that pins his body to his seat. When he comes to, the cat fights him, seemingly becoming a hellcat that tortures him before going in for the kill. To Halston's dismay and with a lack of ways to fight back, the cat rams in through his mouth, killing him by clawing into his body and out the stomach.

When a local farmer stumbles on the scene of the accident, he wrenches open the car door to find Halston's body. The cat, emerging from his stomach, rushes out, seemingly as though he has somewhere else to be.

Answer: Grand Central Station

Anne gets out of the shower and picks up the phone and, to her surprise, it's Jimmy. This information is some she receives with great shock-- she was cleaning up for his funeral; he died two days earlier in a plane crash.

Jimmy explains that he's not quite sure where he is, but he appears to be alright. He and the other passengers on the plane are in a place that looks like Grand Central Station, but with many, many doors. The only reason, he suggests, that he was able to call is because his phone might have rung through moments after he died in the crash. He doesn't know what door to take, he says, but he does know to warn her not to let the McCormack kid clean the gutters in the autumn, and worse, she shouldn't go to the bakery, Zoltan's, on Sundays. The phone cuts off when, as it appears, his battery runs out.

That autumn, Anne receives the news that the McCormack kid died, falling from a roof and breaking his neck while cleaning the gutters. This may have happened at their old cabin.

Five years later, now remarried, Anne visits New York City while her husband works. One Sunday she heads to a bakery to buy bagels, but she stays clear of Zoltan's. It's a good thing, because an explosion rocks the neighbourhood, killing the dozen-or-so people who are shopping there.

When Anne returns to the house, she barely misses the phone ringing and no message is left. She calls star-sixty-nine, but it gives a number from the previous night. She calls it back on a whim, hoping beyond hope that it might reconnect her to Jimmy, but it's just a recorded message for "The New York Times".

Answer: A hitchhiker

When a middle-aged man named Monette goes to a church to confess, he explains that he's a salesman from Northern New England who has been facing a rough time in his life. According to his story, told to the priest on the other side of the confessional wall, he picked up a deaf-mute hitchhiker on a rainy day, intending it to be a good deed and finding the opportunity to vent to another body in the car. It developed, however, into a bit of a rant.

As he told the man, his wife, Barb, started sleeping with another man, Cowboy Bob, about two years earlier. Worse, Barb had been embezzling money from the local school district, the office of which she worked for, using it to fund the couple's new hobbies and likes, specifically fancy lingerie. Once she realized how deep she'd gotten, she flipped to the idea of making it all back in the lottery which, naturally, only lost more money.

When Monette stopped at a rest stop to use the restroom, he left the hitchhiker alone in his vehicle and returned to find him gone, having apparently stolen his St. Christopher medal from his rearview mirror. Two days later, while out on the job, he received the news that both his wife and Cowboy Bob were killed, beaten to death in a motel. Returning home, he found the medal left in the bedroom with a note saying "Thank you for the ride." The priest suggests a certain amount of penance, but both he and Monette agree it can't all be Monette's fault for being so trusting.

Answer: Heal people

It was when his father faced near-certain death in the 1980s that the narrator first encountered the power to heal. When he and his brother, Ralph, and their significant others, Ruth and Trudy, stayed at his house in the days they thought would be towards the end of his life, they remained in his room. On one day, they were all surprised by the arrival of an older woman and a young, sick girl named Ayana who, letting themselves in, walked to the side of the bed and kissed his father near the mouth.

That night, after the weird event occurred, the narrator received a call from his father's nurse, Chloe, in his hotel room, indicating that it seemed a miracle had occurred, and by the time they all visited the next day, he would already be upright, eating with an actual appetite. Within the year he would be stronger than anyone else his age. His father would pass away, unexpectedly, choking on a piece of food four years later, but he would remain healthy for the last years of his life otherwise.

A year after the miracle, while suffering from kidney stones, the narrator, in the doctor's office, was met by a man in the waiting room who, as if from nowhere, arrived to bring him on a walk out the door, around the block, and to a hospital. There, the pair made their way to a quiet wing of the building to find a young boy sealed off in a plastic tent. A small kiss, again, was all it took before the narrator was able to depart. The man who brought him said that he would see him at least once more in his life.

That time would come in 1987 when the man would take him to the scene of a car accident. Breaking into the back of an ambulance, the narrator would kiss the man on the lips, an act that he knew would save the victim's life. After this, none of them would see each other ever again.

A short time later, after both Ralph and Ruth had passed away, the narrator visited Trudy in her declining years, attempting to give her a kiss and return her to better health. It didn't work, however, indicating that his healing work had likely come to an end.

Answer: Port-a-potty

After Curtis Johnson goes for a bike ride on Turtle Island, he receives a call from neighbour and rival Tim Grunwald about the lot at the end of Gulf Boulevard. He's in a tight spot, he explains, and he ready to settle, which is especially rich, Curtis thinks, after their recent bout. Originally Curtis, admittedly, cheated the original lot owner, Ricky Vinton, out of the land at a low price. Tim, meanwhile, purchased the land as well, paying top dollar for it with the eagerness to develop it. The fight turned into lawsuits and those put a pause on construction. The fight came to a head when Curtis' 17-year-old dog, Betsy, hit an electric fence on the property.

When Curtis arrives at Durkin Grove Village, it turns out that Tim has no remorse for the events that occurred; he wanted the dog dead. When he takes out his gun and reveals he has nothing to lose, apparently being afflicted with a terminal illness, he takes Curtis' phone and forces him into a port-a-potty on the property, locking him in and tipping the vestibule onto its side, blocking any exit before leaving him there to die.

Curtis ends up spending the night there, realizing there's no way through the sheet metal walls and with no one looking for him. What he finds when the sun rises, however, is a light coming in from the seams at the bottom of the tank, an indication that the unit isn't as tightly shut as it seems. He uses Betsy's dog tag, still on his keychain, to unscrew the hard plastic closing the floor of the tank in and pulls himself out the bottom, surviving the ordeal. He uses a nearby trailer to change, but rides back home on his Vespa in the rain, plotting to visit Grunwald on the way.

He catches Grunwald as his most vulnerable, seated in his hot tub, and joins him there, dipping into the water and nearly drowning his adversary. Curtis doesn't kill Grunwald, but says he looks forward to watching him rot and reminds him that any confession about the past two days would be equally incriminating for himself.

Two days later, while Curtis ponders the idea of getting a new puppy, a gunshot rings out from the his neighbour's house.