by Dave Daren
Just like in Piney Crest, I didn’t hear any birds chirping overhead and it was that realization that made me think to look down at the banks a bit closer. Near the surface of the green-tinged water was a dead… thing. Decay had progressed too far for me to tell what I was looking at, but it was apparent that the sickly sweet odor that hung under the chemical smell was rot.
I swallowed my disgust and pushed away the urge to vomit as I continued my slow pace around the water’s edge. The thickest cluster of trees was at the halfway point around the water’s uneven circumference.
The mouth of the service road was far enough away that, when shielded by the darkness and the low trees, I doubted I’d be seen. I pulled my phone from my pocket to check the time as I slowed to a halt.
I only had a half an hour or so before the dump was supposed to happen, and the sun had nearly disappeared over the horizon already. I didn’t want to risk losing track of time and getting caught wandering in the area, and so I carefully climbed my way into the shrubbery and brambles of the underbrush and lowered myself onto my haunches.
It was far from the most comfortable position I’d ever folded myself into but it offered me a good viewpoint to the head of the lake where it looked like the dumps had occurred before, and the shrubs were just high enough to cover the top of my head if I kept my shoulders hunched. I stayed perched on the balls of my feet in case I needed to make some sort of getaway. I couldn’t help but think I was being paranoid, but I didn’t relax, either. My father had always taught me it was better to be over prepared, and it was a lesson I’d taken to heart.
I settled myself in with a heavy sigh and simply waited. My heart hammered in my chest already, and I could feel each nerve in my body thrum with anxiety.
The sun disappeared from the sky as I stayed crouched and ready for whatever came my way as the minutes ticked by. After an eternity of waiting, I couldn’t help myself anymore, and I pulled my phone out to glance at the time. Disappointment shot through me when I saw that eight o’clock had already come and gone. I stared at the uncaring little numbers on my dimmed phone screen that read 9:16.
My legs had gone numb and something in the brush made my skin itch, and paired with the sinking feeling I’d been quite elaborately set up, I started to rise back up to my feet.
Before I could fully unfurl myself and satiate my aching limbs, the low rumble of an engine cut through the darkness. I dropped back into a low crouch and squinted as the sweep of headlights came into view from my vantage point.
Knox Chemicals had arrived for the dump.
I leaned forward on my haunches as if that would provide me a better view as a second vehicle pulled along the service road. I held my breath and shifted my phone into my hands and switched to my camera. Through the screen of my phone, I was able to zoom in to get a better look at the figures milling about outside the vehicles. The headlights shone onto the water and cast strange, ominous shadows out across the lake. They also, luckily for me, provided me enough light to see what was happening.
I couldn’t make out what was being said but could at the very least discern the low hum of masculine-sounding voices. I counted six people through the screen of my phone, and all six were dressed in stark white Tyvek suits. They looked like faceless blobs in the deeply contrasted light. I squinted at my screen and zoomed in further to get a better look at the trucks they’d driven to the area.
They looked like the sort of trucks that could have made the deep tire treads I saw during my preliminary investigation of the area. I couldn’t get a clear look at license plates from where I sat, or anything defining about the vehicles save the large, tarnished yellow barrels that the white-suited men were beginning to unload from the truck bed.
I sucked in a low breath as I watched two of the figures heft a barrel down. Something sloshed out of the top, but it was too dark for me to see quite what puddled onto the lake’s edge.
Carefully, I crept forward ever so slightly and extended my arms. I needed as many clear pictures as I could get of the scene. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and I doubted anyone I told would believe me either if I didn’t capture photographic proof.
As the men lifted up a barrel to drain the contents into the water, I pressed down on the button of my phone’s camera to take a continuous stream of photos.
The shutter flashed a sudden, blinding white light. The world felt like it slowed to a standstill as I remembered Emma had turned on my flash, and I’d not had a chance to shut it off. My heartbeat echoed in my ears, and I gave a sharp breath as I dropped my phone into my lap and lowered myself closer to the ground.
I prayed no one saw the flash, but the mens’ reactions were nearly instantaneous.
“What the hell was that?” I heard one of the faceless men shout into the night.
The two holding the barrel dropped it into the water with a splash, while the others looked around. I held my breath and kept as still as I could manage as I prayed no one spotted me.
“I think it came from over there,” a different voice piped up. “Somebody’s out here. I told you I thought I saw a car along the road.”
Fuck.
I carefully slid my phone into my pocket and shifted higher on the balls of my feet. I couldn’t make out any more of the frantic conversation and that just set me further on edge. If they were whispering, it was because they didn’t want someone to hear them.
They didn’t want me to hear them. I counted down in my head.
Five.
A set of headlights from one of the trucks started to move as someone turned the vehicle in a slow, clumsy arc.
Four.
The plastic booted feet of numerous Tyvek suits splashed around the edge of the water and brushed through the dirt.
Three.
A beam of a flashlight cut through the darkness, and I tucked my head lower into my chest.
Two.
My heart hammered in my chest as I shifted up into a runner’s stance.
One.
I shot off like a gun into the darkness.
It might have been a while since I’d been able to go on my morning run, but my body moved like I hadn’t taken any time off at all. I’d been a cross-country runner in high school, and during my entire undergraduate career, I’d juggled track and field with my studies.
The beam of the flashlight landed where I’d been seconds before, but I didn’t dare look back as I cut blindly across the sparse prairie in the dark. I was completely exposed to Knox’s goons.
I felt my heart hammer in my chest as it kept time with my feet as I sprinted at the very edges of the trucks’ high beams. I could still hear the shouts and scrambling of the men behind me, but I didn’t dare stop to take stock of what was happening.
I closed my eyes as I ran and tried to pull up a mental picture of my surroundings. Just past the mouth of the service road where the trucks sat was the gated Prism Industries plot of land.
My eyes burst open, and I squinted into the darkness. I could just barely make out the edge of the fence. I had the advantage here, and I doubted they even knew it. The white suits they wore made them stick out, even in the dark. I spared a single glance over my shoulder and saw two figures hot on my tail. I didn’t know where the other four had gone, but I didn’t have time to worry about them.
I ran as fast as I ever had as my arms pumped at my sides and my lungs drew in air with each long stride. I had made it past the trucks along the service road and used that as a marker to where I needed to go.
In the swinging beam of one of their flashlights, I caught sight of a metal flash. I kept my head low as I hopped the low gate, and then I ducked between one of the chain-link fences where I took a moment to catch my breath. I didn’t dare move as I heard the low, breathless hum of the two men in the rapidly shrinking distance.
“-think they went in there?” one disembodied voice said. For the first time that night, I was thankful for the sparseness of the plains. There wasn’t anything to block the
sound from reaching me as I hid.
“I don’t know,” I heard another voice say. “We should probably check.”
Good, I reasoned. I needed them to climb in to check, because it would take them that much longer to catch me once I slipped free of the fence.
I felt blindly along the chain links to feel how wide the gap was between the two fences. It wasn’t going to be comfortable, but I could easily crouch between the two. I couldn’t do more than hope it wouldn’t make a sound as I began to creep along the tankards. I didn’t dare turn on the flashlight on my phone to see where I was going as I all but crawled.
The metal gate I had leapt over gave a low groan as the men made the jump themselves. I picked up my pace as I heard their footsteps crunching across the worn-down gravel. The suits they wore didn’t do much to help conceal their presence.
“Are you sure anyone’s even here?” the gruffer of the voices asked. “Could it have just been an animal or something?”
I felt my way to the end of the fenceline and took a deep breath. I couldn’t predict when they’d swing their flashlight, so I went on faith as I snuck through the open air toward the gate by the Prism Industries sign.
I didn’t have a chance to hear the other man’s response before I shimmied under the gate along my belly. I couldn’t risk another sound with the pair so close.
And then, I ran.
I don’t think I had ever ran so fast in my life, and for the first time, my life depended on it. I only slowed for a moment to pull my keys from my pocket. I didn’t dare flash my headlights, but I clicked the unlock button on the car, just once, and listened for the faint, telltale click of my locks to guide me in the right direction.
My pulse jackhammered, and I felt every footfall against the uneven road as it vibrated up my leg. I didn’t stop running until I all but collided with the solid shape of my car.
I took a deep, shuddering breath as I pressed my back against the driver’s side door of my car. I wanted to slump down onto the dirt as the adrenaline coursing through me seemed to suddenly run out. The men in the Tyvek suits were still far off in the distance, just white specks I could barely make out.
I was too far off to see much of anything in the dark, but it almost looked like they were heading back toward the headlights facing the lake.
Wherever they were heading, it wasn’t toward me, and that’s all that mattered. I took another shaky breath as I pulled my phone from my back pocket. I quickly tapped in my passcode and opened my photos app to get a look at the pictures I’d taken. I didn’t want to waste any time in sending them off to Brody for safekeeping.
The darkness paired with the dimness of my screen’s settings made it almost impossible to see anything in the photos. I glanced up again, just to make sure no one had followed me before I quickly adjusted the brightness setting. I winced at the change and had to take a moment to adjust to the blinding new setting.
The photos were more incriminating than I’d dreamt they’d be. I hadn’t been able to take many before the flash gave away my position amongst the brush, but even the few seconds I managed captured a very telling picture. And right there, in dark, worn writing along the side of the barrel the men had in the air were the words Knox Chemicals.
It almost felt too easy after the note on my car and then the barrels with Knox’s name quite literally written all over it. I swiped through the pictures and quickly added them all to a message.
“Hey!” A sharp, threatening voice boomed. I looked up and the blood in my veins ran cold.
Up ahead of me, no more than ten yards away, was one of the goons from the trucks, or at least, I assumed it was one of Knox’s goons. The man wasn’t wearing one of the stark, white Tyvek suits, which explained why I’d missed his approach in the dark.
What I didn’t miss, however, was the sleek, silver gun firmly in his hand.
The world around me slowed as if I were moving through syrup. I felt panic as it swelled up into my throat. I didn’t look down at my phone as I blindly tapped at Brody’s contact and prayed the message with the photos sent.
Before I could be certain, however, a shot rang out from the man’s gun with a frightening flash of the muzzle.
I’d heard stories before of people that had survived shooting attempts, and they all talked about the way they’d seen their lives flash before their eyes or that they’d experienced some sort of epiphany in the seconds that led up to what they assumed would be their last breath.
But the only thing I focused on was the sound of the bullet leaving the gun, and all I could think of was that it didn’t sound anything like it did on TV. I didn’t have time to move or to even cry out before the bullet connected with its target.
I cried out as my phone practically turned to pieces in my hand. The bullet had broken straight through it and sent it flying from my grasp into the low grass that lined the shoulder of the road.
Without the screen’s light illuminating me, I was plunged back into darkness. My hand throbbed, and my ears rang as I bent down to blindly feel for the shattered device. The man in the distance pulled back the hammer again, but a second shot never came. I fumbled for a second longer before my fingers curled around what I really hoped was my phone before I threw myself into the driver’s seat of the car.
I tossed the shattered phone onto the passenger seat and ignored the growing ache in my hand as I wrestled my key into the ignition. For a terrifying moment, I was afraid the damn thing wouldn’t turn over, but soon I heard the familiar purr of the engine.
I threw the vehicle into drive just as two sets of headlights focused onto me. Shit. I’d nearly forgotten about the trucks.
Their engines revved and the bright, white lights that beamed through my windshield made me feel as if I was going to go blind, but I had no time to waste. My foot slammed down onto the gas pedal as I peeled off the shoulder and made a sharp, squealing turn.
The trucks’ headlights blinked off in my rearview mirror, and I felt my stomach drop into my feet. I could barely make out the shape of them as they roared down the dirt road after me.
If they wanted a chase, I’d give them a chase.
Chapter 11
My tires squealed as I careened around the lazy bend in the pockmarked dirt road. I jerked my wheel to the side to keep on the road, but it hardly mattered.
The land around the dumpsite was nearly as flat and barren as the dumpsite itself. There weren’t any lights for miles, no residences or businesses I could try to seek safety in. The only thing I had was a full tank of gas and a car that had seen worse than Texas backcountry.
In the rearview, I could only see the faint outline of the two trucks. They drove side by side, like some sort of monstrous conjoined beast as they bore down on my small car.
My heart pounded in time with the thrum of my engine and I pressed my foot down harder against the pedal until I could feel it nearly touching the base of the car. Both of my hands clenched the steering wheel, and my knuckles were white from the pressure.
I didn’t dare look down at the speedometer as I prayed it would be fast enough.
Unlike the trucks behind me, I kept my headlights on, and the mercury-yellow lights swept across the empty near-desert landscape as dirt and dust flew up around me with every turn of my wheels.
Behind me, one of the trucks gained on the other, and they split apart along the narrow road until one was driving in the open field. I didn’t need to be a genius to know that they were planning on boxing me in.
The truck to my right broke free of its stasis alongside its partner and nosed toward me like a shark in the water. I gripped the steering wheel tighter as I willed my car to go faster, to just go fucking faster.
The trucks’ engines both revved and roared, and I knew they had the horsepower to run me down, so I’d just have to be smarter.
I gritted my teeth as I yanked on the wheel and sent my tires spinning wildly to the left as I veered completely off the road and over the lip of the raised
shoulder.
My car left the ground for a singular, terrifying moment, and I could have sworn my heart stopped beating until the tires skidded against the sandy dirt once again. The suspension bounced as I hit the ground, but I didn’t let up off the pedal.
I flicked off my own headlights and careened through the darkness as my body thrummed with adrenaline. I didn’t need to look back because I could practically feel Knox’s goons still hot on my trail.
I didn’t have a plan when I veered off of the road, but one was quickly forming as I all but blindly sped across the barren landscape with nothing but the moonlight overhead to guide me, and even it was barely enough.
As both trucks sped after me, I continued to weave my car in as close to a zig zag as I could manage without letting myself get hit. Every time I felt like I was putting any sort of substantial distance between myself and my pursuers, they seemed to gain on me all over again.
So, I let them. I took a deep, shaking breath as I let up on the gas, slowly at first. The trucks both continued to scream through the night after me without any sign of stopping.
I prayed I’d judged the distance between them well, and I watched the speedometer as the mileage ticked lower and lower with each passing second. The trucks hadn’t seemed to notice.
When they were close enough to rumble and rattle the earth behind me as both their engines roared like twin beasts, I shifted my foot from the gas and slammed on the brakes so hard I felt the wind escape my lungs like I’d been punched.
My car lurched forward, and for the first time, I realized I hadn’t secured my seat belt while the monotonous pinging of the safety alarm came into focus.
The trucks barreled past where I’d stopped, and I threw my car into reverse. I didn’t bother turning as I simply launched myself backward as fast as I could accelerate. I whipped the wheel around again to aim back toward where I prayed the road was and shifted into drive without breaking speed.
