Deserted

by E. H. Reinhard

  “Ugh.” Bobby stretched and yawned. “I should go to bed.”

  “Come on,” Kerry said. “You’ll feel better if you just stay up. You can sleep when you’re dead.”

  “Fine. Give me a minute to get dressed.” Bobby rolled himself off the couch and stood.

  “All right. We’ll be in the truck. Hurry up.” Kerry pulled the front door closed and walked after Ben toward his pickup truck parked in the driveway.

  “Your dad is going to be pissed. Maybe you should have went back with Kitty last night,” Ben said.

  “I slept on the couch. Nothing happened. We sat up all night, drank, and talked. With your brother.”

  “I know. I doubt your old man is going to buy that story, though.”

  “Well, it’s the truth. And don’t worry about Daddy,” Kerry said. “So where is this place we’re going for breakfast?”

  “Just up the road a few miles. It’s a little diner near the highway. Pretty decent food.”

  Kerry opened the passenger side of the truck and hopped in.

  Ben took a seat behind the wheel. He cracked his neck from one side to the other and looked over at Kerry. “I think I’m still drunk. And this cleanup is going to be a bitch.”

  “Well, with every party comes the next morning.”

  “Yeah, but dad makes us load up all of the bodies, take them a mountain over, dig holes in the desert out in the hot-ass sun. It’s just a pain in the ass.”

  “Kitty and I will help.”

  Ben smiled as he stared at her. “Let the men handle it.”

  Kerry gave him a smile. She looked over at the house’s front door to see Bobby walking out and locking the door behind himself. He walked to the truck’s passenger side and opened the door. Kerry slid across the bench seat, closer to Ben, who turned the key in the ignition, which did nothing more than make a single click.

  “Son of a bitch,” Ben said.

  “Starter?” Bobby asked.

  “Yeah. Give me a second.” Ben opened his door, took a wrench from the door pocket and crawled down under the truck.

  Kerry could hear the sound of him pounding on something metal underneath her feet.

  Ben came back up a moment later, reached into the cab of the truck, and turned the key. The motor fired. Ben hopped back inside and placed his wrench back into the door’s pocket.

  “I’m going to have to swap that later. It’s on its last legs.” Ben put his arm behind Kerry, across the back of the seat, looked over his shoulder, and backed from the driveway.

  “Did you talk to Kitty this morning at all?” Bobby asked.

  Kerry shook her head. “Phone is dead. Why?”

  “She just seemed kind of annoyed when I took her back last night is all.”

  Kerry shrugged. “Oh well. She didn’t want to hang out, so whatever.”

  Ben leaned toward the steering wheel and looked at Bobby. “Did Mom call you this morning?”

  “No clue. My phone was off. That dumb bitch Brenda keeps calling my phone at all hours of the night, so I shut it off. Why?” Bobby asked.

  Ben leaned back and stared out the windshield. “She called me this morning.”

  “What did she want?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t answer. Guessing she probably just wanted to know what time we’ll be over.”

  “She didn’t leave a message?” Bobby asked.

  Ben shook his head. A half mile up the gravel road, Ben made a right onto the highway. “The place is going to be up here on the right. The Desert Diner.”

  “Pretty original name they chose,” Kerry said.

  “I guess they didn’t want to confuse anyone,” Ben said with a chuckle.

  A mile and a half up the highway, Ben clicked on his directional and made a right into a small parking lot. The right side of the building was a gas station with two old pumps out front under a canopy. A garage door stood next to the single door, with the word gas above it. A rack of tires with a chain securing them sat near the front door. The left side was glass windows with another single door. A homemade wooden sign reading The Desert Diner sat crooked on a façade over the entrance.

  Kerry looked out the windshield at the small building as they pulled up directly in front of the diner section. She stared in at the couple of red vinyl booths lining the left side and the long diner counter running up the right. Kerry saw no other cars in the lot and no customers inside. A neon Open sign with half of the O burned out hung in the glass front door.

  “Are you sure we want to eat here?” Kerry asked.

  “Absolutely,” Ben said. “Don’t be thrown off by the looks. The guy who owns the place, Dale, has his mom working in the kitchen while he mans the service station. The woman can cook something fierce.”

  “Okay, okay,” Kerry said. “I trust you.”

  They stepped from the truck and walked to the front door, which Ben held while Kerry and Bobby entered. The bells attached to the top of the door jingled from the opening and closing.

  “Boys,” a woman’s voice said. “What brings you in so early?”

  “Just up and about. Getting an early start, I guess you could say,” Ben said.

  “So you mean that you haven’t went to sleep yet?” the woman asked.

  “Maybe,” Ben said with a laugh.

  Kerry looked at the woman, somewhere in her sixties and about thirty pounds overweight, walking from the kitchen area. She wore a clean white apron over a blue button-up shirt and black pants. Her name badge read Marge. The woman grabbed a stack of menus from a holder near the front-most section of the diner counter and stepped out.

  “Who’s the pretty girl?” she asked.

  “This here is our cousin. In from out of town,” Ben said.

  “Well, it’s a pleasure,” Marge said. “Sit at the counter, or did you guys want to mix it up and take a booth?”

  “The counter is fine,” Bobby said.

  “Wherever you’d like,” Marge said.

  The three sat down directly in front of where they stood.

  “Coffees?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll have one,” Ben said.

  Bobby also had a coffee while Kerry declined and asked for a milk.

  Kerry stared at the menu, contemplating what to order for breakfast.

  Marge approached and set Kerry’s milk down before her. “Make a decision yet?” she asked. She looked left to right across the group.

  Both Bobby and Ben confirmed.

  “You can take their order first. I’ll be ready in a second,” Kerry said.

  “Sure. What are we eating, boys?” Marge asked.

  She took their orders. Ben got a steak and eggs. Bobby ordered French toast with a side of eggs and hash browns. Marge returned to Kerry for her order, which was two eggs over easy, toast, and bacon. “The coffees will be out in just a second, fellas. I put on a fresh pot for you.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said.

  Bobby flashed her a smile, and Marge disappeared into the kitchen, returning a couple minutes later with a carafe of coffee that she left with Bobby and Ben.

  The three chitchatted about nothing in particular for a few minutes before a man came from the connecting gas station.

  “Dale.” Ben took a sip of his coffee and set it back down before him. “How’s the gas-station business?”

  The man, Dale, looked somewhere in his forties by Kerry’s best guess. He wore a pair of denim overalls and a plaid shirt. His stomach pushed against the overalls, making them rise from his ankles and expose his white socks. “The gas-station business is slow.” Dale scratched at his brown hair with graying sides and pushed his yellowing oversized glasses up his nose. “Be better if you guys filled up before you left.”

  “Maybe,” Ben said.

  “Come on. I’ll give ya the full service. Pump it, fill your tires, check the oil, and even wash your windows.” Dale laughed and jammed a hand down the back of his overalls to get after an itch. “Is the grill working okay, Mom?”

 
“Working great,” she said. “It’s cooking like a dream.”

  Kerry watched as Marge worked the grill, visible from where they sat.

  “We had a new grill put in the other day,” Dale said. “Cost me an arm and a leg, but the old one was turning to shit.” Something caught Dale’s attention out front of the diner. He stared at the windows.

  Kerry turned to see a couple of black sedans and a van fly past, going well over the speed limit.

  “All right. Enjoy your breakfast, gang,” Dale said. “Make sure you come next door for that fuel.” Dale walked back into the adjoining gas station.

  Kerry heard the sounds of plates clacking together and watched as the older woman plated up the food. She brought it over to them on a large tray, which she set down to place their meals before them. Kerry glanced up at her as she placed her breakfast in front of her. Marge was staring out the front windows. Kerry turned and looked to see a black sedan pulling into the diner. The car looked identical to the couple that had just passed.

  “Looks like we have some of the law stopping in,” Marge said.

  Kerry stared at the car, and a man in a suit stepped from the driver’s side. Sunglasses wrapped the man’s eyes, blocking the early-morning sun. He walked to the door of the diner, entered, and walked straight to the counter. The man lifted his sunglasses from his face and glanced down at Ben, Bobby, and Kerry eating their breakfast just a few feet away.

  “What can I get you?” Marge asked the man.

  “Just a couple of coffees, ma’am. One black and one with cream and sugar.”

  “That’s going to be a dollar ten.”

  “That’s it?” the man asked.

  “Fifty-five cents each. Unless you show me a badge, and then it’s on the house.”

  The man reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a set of credentials.

  Kerry briefly glanced over and saw the letters FBI across the white background of his ID. The man looked at her, and Kerry quickly looked away.

  “Now, what is the Federal Bureau of Investigations doing out here in the country?” Marge asked. “Must be something important. I saw a bunch more cars just pass through a minute ago.”

  Kerry glanced up at the man, who was still staring directly at her. The man moved quickly, putting a hand inside his suit jacket. Kerry snatched the knife Ben had been using to cut his steak from the edge of his plate and lunged at the agent. She plunged the blade directly into the front of his throat and took the agent to the ground. The waitress, Marge, screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Kerry jammed her hand into the jacket of the agent, who was squirming on the floor and holding his throat. She yanked the man’s gun from his shoulder holster, turned it on Marge, and squeezed the trigger. With the sound of the shot, and through the smoke from the gun, Kerry saw a puff of red hang in the air behind the woman’s head. A stream of blood rolled down Marge’s forehead before she fell to the ground, collapsing behind the counter.

  Kerry’s eyes went left toward Dale, who was running from the adjoining gas station. She heard two shots, and Dale dropped to his knees. Bobby passed Kerry and put another bullet into Dale’s chest. Dale dropped face-first to the white linoleum floor. Kerry glanced out the diner’s front windows to see another agent coming from the passenger side of the sedan out front.

  “Outside!” Kerry turned the gun on the flailing agent she was sprawled upon and put the barrel of the gun to his right temple. She fired, spraying the white floor with red on the opposite side of the man’s head.

  Kerry heard multiple shots coming from behind her, along with the shattering of glass. She lifted her head and weapon and took aim at the agent outside. The man had a gun up over the roof of the sedan, aiming into the diner. Before Kerry could get a shot off, Bobby rushed through the void of the broken diner window, continuing to fire on the agent. Kerry heard return gunfire and saw Bobby drop in the parking lot.

  “Give me the gun!” Ben shouted, ripping it from Kerry’s hands and running through the doorway of the diner. She watched as Ben ran around the front of the car and advanced on the open passenger door. Kerry heard two gunshots, and Ben’s body jerked backward in an unnatural way. He fell to the ground on the far side of the car, out of her view.

  “No!” Kerry rushed from the front toward Bobby—the fed car was off to her left, the agent out of view. She knelt at Bobby’s side and immediately saw his eyes open, staring at the ground—dead. Kerry scooped up Bobby’s gun and walked directly toward the rear of the black sedan. She looked around the back to see the agent, shot, holding one side of his neck with his left hand. The man sat on the ground between the open door and the car. He was facing the other direction, waiting for someone to come around the front of the car. His gun was in his right hand, pointing at the sky, directly in front of his chest. Kerry walked straight toward him, aiming the barrel of Bobby’s gun at the back of the man’s head. She squeezed the trigger.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The air was filled with sandy dust. Gravel from the roads made a constant metallic tinking sound as it bounced from the cars’ wheel wells. Beth, Scott, Bill, and I drove in one of the fed-issued cars that hadn’t received gunfire. Philben led with Chris and Gallo in the car in front of us to the diner where the shots fired had been called in by one of Philben’s agents, named Jenkins. We left the Levy homestead scene with the first wave of responding agents Philben had called in. Paramedics were en route via helicopter to airlift two agents, who had survived gunshot wounds, to the nearest hospital that could treat them.

  Ahead of us, Philben slowed, made a quick left from the gravel road out onto the highway, and hit the gas. Driving our vehicle, Beth followed suit. I looked over my shoulder, past Bill and Scott, sitting in the back, and out the rear window—two marked sheriff’s cruisers were following us at our request.

  We pulled up on the scene of the diner within minutes. Beth locked up the brakes and slid to a stop at the highway’s shoulder behind Philben’s car. One of the sheriff’s cruisers passed us and pulled in at the front of Philben’s car while the other tucked in behind our vehicle. I stared out my passenger window at the small diner, attached to an equally small service station with a pair of gas pumps out front under a canopy. The entire building was half the size of a normal town-corner gas station and stood just twenty yards from the highway’s edge. A black SUV was parked on the far right side of the building near a pair of green dumpsters—I figured it belonged to an employee, based on its location. Two more vehicles sat parked out front—a small pickup further to the left near the diner entrance and a sedan, identical to the one we were in, parked to the right of the diner nearer the service station. Three bodies caught my eye in the parking lot. One of the men appeared to be an agent by his style of dress. The man was on the ground, slumped in the open passenger door of the sedan. He made no movement to look in our direction as Philben, Gallo, and Chris piled out and took firing positions with their rifles over the roof of their car. Our group did the same. I glanced over my right shoulder at the deputies that had pulled in behind us getting out and taking aim at the business.

  “Son of a bitch! Jenkins!” Philben called. “Jenkins!”

  Philben’s line of sight was focused on the man in the doorway of the vehicle. He didn’t move an inch from Philben’s attempt to get his attention—his chin rested against his chest. Blood covered the open door of the car.

  I quickly looked over the other two men down in the parking lot, dressed in street clothes. One was at the front of the black sedan, the other not too far from the front doors of the diner. Both men looked to be in their early twenties. My eyes went to the diner itself. The business was lit inside, ready for customers. The windows didn’t start until a couple feet off the ground, not allowing me to see if anyone was lying on the floor.

  “Rosatti!” Philben shouted.

  Nothing moved inside.

  “Shit!” Philben motioned to the deputies to his left and then pointed to the left side of the building
. He got the attention of the deputies on the far side of Beth, Bill, Scott, and me and did the same to the right. The men split off and took positions. The deputies I could see on the right side of the building disappeared around the corner to the back.

  “We need to see if anyone here needs medical attention,” I said. “Watch my ass. I’ll check these three outside and try to get a better look into the building.”

  I left the cover of our sedan with my rifle tucked into my shoulder and at the ready. Staying low, I ran to the trunk of the sedan. I took a quick glance around the quarter panel at the downed agent in the doorway. Keeping my weapon aimed at the building, I went toward the man. He faced away from me—the back of his head wet with blood—and I saw a visible entry wound from a gunshot. I reached out with two fingers to try to find a pulse—another bullet wound caught my eye on the side of his neck. I pulled my hand back. The agent was deceased.

  I focused on the building. Positive I saw no movement from within, I went toward the man at the front of the car. He lay facedown with two visible gunshot wounds exiting his back. I quickly confirmed him dead. A flash of color caught my eye inside of the diner, and I yanked my weapon up and took aim into the building—nothing was there. I wasn’t certain whether I’d actually caught someone out of the corner of my eye or it had been my imagination.

  From my position, I had a better view inside of the business than I did down at the street. Two men lay on the ground inside. One, in a suit on his back near the front counter, had a three-foot-diameter blood pool under his head. My eyes went to the other man, larger and wearing denim overalls. He lay facedown, also not moving. I walked in a crouched position around the front of the sedan to the final man lying in the parking lot, my weapon still trained on the diner. I approached the man and glanced down at the blood pooling on the weather-beaten blacktop. He was dead. I made my way back to the cover of the cruisers.

  “Well?” Gallo asked.