Swerve

by Vicki Pettersson

  I launch myself at the door again, slapping at the opening with my shoe, screaming so that Daniel can surely hear me in the car. So that they can hear me all the way out on the damn highway. “Get away from me! Get the fuck away! Get out!”

  The boots move—a retreat!—and I’m taking a breath to shriek even louder when a single word blooms.

  “No.”

  The steel door ricochets off my nose, the crack jarring my spine. I feel a warm gush over my face, but before I can lift a hand, the door strikes me again, harder, pitching my skull against the wall behind me. A yellow star flashes, my limbs tingle, and the entire room tilts. I don’t feel myself falling, though the concrete beneath me is surprisingly cool.

  I think, Abby.

  I hear, Krist-i-ine.

  OhGodohGod . . . it’s the Coal Man, back from the dead . . . this time he’ll reach me.

  That’s right. I’m coming for you, Kristine. I’m following close. I’m right . . .

  The yellow star flares as if the desert sun has burned right through the roof, and then it snaps to black while my eyes roll back into my head. I think I hear my mother cackle. Then the whole world disappears.

  I take a giant step back.

  I bolt upright with the stale reek of toilets heavy in my nose. I try to inhale, but gag on phlegm and blood instead, and my pulse drums from the base of my skull. My foot is throbbing too, but I ignore it to pull in my legs, curling tightly into myself as I touch my tender nose. My hand comes away bloody.

  Clearing the junk from my mouth in one inelegant gob, I then claw my way up the wall, the concrete scraping at my bare back while a cockroach skitters behind the toilet across from me.

  Far off, in another world, cars whoosh by on the I-15.

  Where the hell is Daniel?

  Where the hell is he?

  I grab the cashmere shell from the floor and yank it over my head, causing the room to spin. My gut tries to rise into my throat as I finish shoving the rest of my scattered clothes into my tote, all but my soiled scrub top. I use that to staunch my bleeding nose and get a whiff of coffee when I suck in air. Then I peer around the half-open door, now red-speckled with my blood.

  The three other stall doors are all ajar, but that tells me nothing. Each can still hold a full-grown man with a knife. I’m pretty sure I can sprint past the stalls, even with a spinning head, but the exit burns before me in a blocky wedge of light, threatening to blind me as soon as I flee the dim room.

  What if he’s waiting outside, just beyond that open doorway? What if he isn’t alone?

  What if I am?

  “Daniel,” I try to call out, but my voice has been shocked into a whisper. Yet the thought of Daniel, naively texting or listening to jazz radio or still talking to his mother in the car, is what pushes me forward. I don’t know how long I’ve been unconscious, but I think the attack was quick enough that he hasn’t had time to worry—not yet.

  I cringe when the stall door announces my movement in an elongated squeak, and press my back against the long wall to sidestep past one and then all of the other stalls. Easing toward the skillet of blinding light, every step is a fight against the urge to retreat, to cower . . . to simply sink in a fetal position on the floor. Soon enough, though, I’m standing directly across from the rusty sink, just inches from the open doorway, and I realize I can see outside. The clouded, dented mirror reflects the entry, an unexpected stroke of luck.

  I scan the mirror for movement, but all I see are heavy-­shouldered cacti drooping atop the buff-colored terrain. I inch forward a half step, blood thrumming in my ears, stuck in my throat. Two dying palms slide into view. They’re tall, but thin, and offer no place to hide. I’ll have to step outside if I want to see more.

  If I want to see Daniel.

  My heart kicks as I bolt past the opening, half-expecting a gloved hand to yank me back by my hair, so I’m shrieking as I race into the flat stretch between those two struggling palms, yet my breath is so thin I think I’m going to pass out from fear alone.

  How stupid would that be after what just happened?

  My heels spew dust as I whirl, head pounding in the blinding light. The truck behind the Dumpster remains silt-covered, untouched. The desert beyond that is fenced off, government land with a view for miles, and there are still no other cars in the lot. No brush to hide in. Nothing moves.

  Resetting my sights on the bathrooms, I begin limping toward the Beemer. I try to keep that in view too, but the sun glints atop the windshield in a blinding slash, so I can’t tell if Daniel sees my wild waving or not. What about my bloody nose? God, what about my fear?

  Because it’s spiking again, I realize. Because my arms are pinwheeling and pumping and I’m trying to reach that car on legs that suddenly refuse to work.

  Because Daniel always, always, sees me.

  “Daniel!” My throat burns with the cry, but my shallow breath still unfolds in a desperate puff. I am a rubber band being drawn back, panic pulling at me, even as I fight to gain ground. My hearing thins out, the sound of the crows and interstate traffic stretch into nonexistence, and there’s not even room anymore to suck in air. There’s only one thing left in the world, and that’s the white of the BMW’s hood glaring at me beneath the sun.

  “Daniel!” I scream again.

  Then—snap!—I’m back, wheezing at the driver’s side door with an aching foot and head and nose. My tote falls to the black-veined tarmac, and I cup my hands and peer inside.

  The car is empty.

  My heart thumps as I yank open the driver’s side door. Unlocked. Unguarded. “Daniel . . . ?!”

  Braced against the open door and hood, I whirl back to the sturdy brown building. The men’s and women’s bathrooms oppose each other, the twin dark interiors set like black, unblinking eyes. “Daniel!”

  A sound jingles in the arid stillness. It’s a ringtone that calls for a laugh track.

  “Green Acres.”

  I spot it on the white leather of the driver’s seat, tucked against the seat back. Daniel’s phone.

  Because the world is still spinning, because this phone has always been my connection to Daniel whenever he’s not right next to me, and because it’s the only thing I can think to do, I pick it up.

  Imogene Hawthorne’s voice trills in my ear, as merry as her ringtone. “Darling, is that you?”

  “N-no, Mrs. Hawthorne. It’s me. Kristine.”

  Silence slivers the line before her tone pitches higher. “Kristine! Darling, how lovely to hear your voice! And I told you, please call me Imogene.”

  But I can’t even answer. I’m staring at one of the battle-scarred crows, the smell of coffee and blood stuffing my swollen nose. The bird looks like a chunk of feathered charcoal as it waddles around on cracked feet, panting in the midday sun. It watches me back like it’s wondering what I’m going to do.

  So, what am I going to do?

  “Some old friends just popped in for a surprise visit. We’re drinking mint juleps on the north veranda, and I thought Daniel might want to say hello.”

  I search for a reply, but what are the right words after being attacked in a deserted rape trap, and then emerging to find your fiancé missing?

  “No, no, they’re on their way . . .” Imogene’s voice muffles. She’s reassuring her old friends with minty-fresh breath. She enunciates every word, like she’s an actor in a play. To me, she broadly declares, “It’s absolutely lovely at this time of day. Daniel and you really should be here.”

  I stare at the gaping mouth of the men’s room, thinking we should both really be here.

  He can’t be in the women’s bathroom. I’ve just come from there, and I’ve had a 360-degree view of the surrounding desert ever since. The only movement comes from the cars on the highway ribboning behind me . . . plus I am certain Daniel would have answered my cries if he’d hear
d them. He’d have come running at my screams. If he could.

  “Kristine?”

  “Sorry.” I wipe sweat from my brow, and shield my eyes with my hand as I stare at the men’s room. My nose has stopped bleeding, but the newly paved blacktop burns through the bottom of my flats, and my underarms are already sticky. My new cashmere, I find myself thinking, is getting soiled.

  “You sound distracted.” Imogene is annoyed with me, as usual.

  I continue staring at the men’s room.

  “Kristine?”

  “We’ve run into some . . . some . . .”

  Something bad.

  “Some traffic?”

  “Yes.” Emboldened by my stillness, the large crow has inched closer and is now just ten feet away. It tilts its head at my whisper. “I mean, no. Except . . .”

  I’m at the first rest stop outside of Vegas. A man just attacked me in the bathroom. He’s gone now, but so is Daniel and there’s nowhere to hide except . . .

  “Except?” Imogene prods, still crisp, still projecting her voice, still playing her part.

  Except the phone bleeps in my hand, the triptych chimes of a text coming through, and I look down. Daniel has his phone preferences set to show messages directly on the lock screen—every second counts when you’re a trauma surgeon—and that’s how I find myself staring at my own name in the sender’s box: KRISTINE RUSH.

  And in the body of the text?

  Say good-bye.

  Now.

  Or he dies.

  My fingers scrabble over the car’s center console, because that’s where I left my phone. The dash is empty, my plastic coffee cup lies in the abandoned footwell, and the coffee staining the passenger’s seat is nearly dry. No phone. Yet Daniel has left something else behind, and I press a hand to my stomach when I see it. My other hand floats up to cover my mouth because my throat is welling up again. It’s about to balloon with sound as I watch keys, rocked by my movement, sway beneath the fob in the ­ignition.

  I got rid of Imogene. I told her the hospital was calling through with an emergency while I scanned the backseat for Daniel’s travel bag—gone!—but now I’m wishing she were still with me. I could use some kind of connection with the outside world, the one I was a part of just ten minutes ago, and the one that still makes sense. I want someone with me, even a woman who barely tolerates me, yet instead I’m alone.

  Except that I’m not.

  Bracing against the door, I lever myself upright and face the stunted brown building while the sun attacks my head. This time my gaze is drawn to the five long slats along the restroom’s roofline. Assuming the men’s room has the same layout as the women’s side, someone could stand atop the steel sink, peer through those vented slats, and survey the entire lot while still remaining hidden.

  As if roused by the thought, the three chimes sound again.

  Drive.

  A simple, familiar word . . . one that doesn’t compute. I glance around the empty lot, then back toward the interstate. Why doesn’t anyone stop? Why doesn’t anyone help me? Who’s going to help Daniel?

  The merry chimes trill once more in the heat.

  I said DRIVE.

  A hot breath of dust rises off the Mojave floor to swirl around my ankles. Cars tear down the interstate behind me, but I don’t move. Daniel is here, and I can’t leave him. He certainly wouldn’t leave me. Yet I also can’t bring myself to step back toward that building.

  More chimes.

  Drive now. DRIVE. Or you will be driven.

  The words slap me so hard that I feel like I’m facing an entirely new direction, staring at the horizon of some hostile new land I don’t recognize. I take one tentative step toward the building to try and bring myself back around, and it’s not safe—no—but at least it’s not entirely unknown. I take another step.

  More chimes.

  OK.

  Have it your way.

  Inside the building, Daniel screams.

  The agonized cry rolls from the vents in a single, billowing sheet, shooting chills along my limbs despite the blazing sun. I freeze, and the sound cuts off into a series of sharp staccato yips—ohGodohGod, what the hell forces that sort of sound?—and then, a blessed pause. Suddenly, another full-throttle screech writhes in the air.

  I take a giant step back.

  The screaming stops.

  And the phone bleeps in my palm.

  Good. And no police.

  “Daniel!” I yell, and five seconds later, more chimes.

  Shut up and drive. Or he dies.

  Just get on the road or he dies.

  No police or he dies.

  I’m watching. Believe it. Or . . .

  I know. Or he dies.

  Now. Drive.

  I swivel, whimpering when I crack the open car door with my hip. Chased by a long, thin moan, I fumble my way inside. Drive, I think, groping for the keys. Because that will stop his pain. Drive as instructed, and Daniel doesn’t get hurt.

  I’m sweaty and shaking, and my hand slips three times on the ignition. With each fumble I expect to hear another tortured but muffled scream shoot through the car interior, but cool air finally blasts from the AC vents, and haunting twenties jazz roars from the speakers. Daniel’s favorite music. He’d been listening to it while waiting for me. I turn down the volume to practically nothing, shift gears, and press my foot to the gas.

  Self-disgust cramps my belly as I back from the lot.

  “Daniel . . .” I say one last time, but his name slips away, along with the brown concrete box, until both are left far behind in the rearview mirror.

  It’s a test of endurance.

  Less than an hour after Daniel picked me up beneath University Hospital’s porte cochere and pressed that indulgent cup of coffee into my hands, I slip back into interstate traffic, alone. I accelerate with my still-throbbing foot while gripping the steering wheel at the ten and two o’clock marks. Safety first pops in my head, and a strangled laugh leaps from my throat. Spooked by the sound, I clench my teeth so hard that my head resumes its aching pulse, but I don’t cry.

  When I’m once again a part of the steady traffic stream, I peer inside the vehicles of my fellow travelers to see if anyone is looking back at me. They’re not, and I can’t believe it. My fiancé is trapped in the bowels of this desert, injured and terrified, and these people are just trying to reach their destinations without having to stop for gas. My terror, Daniel’s torture, doesn’t even register in their world. They might as well be from another planet.

  When my hands have steadied somewhat, I finally snap off the music playing quietly in the background. Silence replaces the twenties jazz, and I immediately feel guilty. Daniel loves the stuff.

  Don’t you get enough of this in the OR? I asked when we first started dating, trying hard to sound diplomatic. It was nine months earlier, and we were in this same car, “I Wish I Had You” by Fats Waller scrolling across the LCD screen. The crooning wasn’t so bad, but the tinkling of the piano, along with the writhing wail of the horns, grated on my nerves. It was like being tormented by some speakeasy ghost.

  “This is a classic,” Daniel said, grinning. “It was one of my dad’s favorites. Actually, it was playing the first time I saw him splint a kitten.”

  So it was a healing moment, I’d thought, and one that had clearly imprinted on the son. I’d placed my hand atop his in apology. His father died, like mine, when Daniel was still young, so I understood the desire to bring a cherished memory back to life. I also recognized the strange ways in which the loss of a parent could manifest itself.

  For example, I can barely stand to look at a horse to this day.

  Now I’m squinting in the rearview mirror, the strong scent of the spilled coffee actually turning my stomach as I scan the vista behind me for a vehicle that’s matching my pace. There’s onl
y one in the first five miles of this living nightmare; a truck driver who pulls even with me and remains that way for a good thirty seconds before I finally build up enough nerve to lean over into the passenger’s seat and catch a glimpse of his face. My movement’s too abrupt, though, my angle awkward, and so the driver catches it. He has the gall to smile down at me, and though I jerk back and refocus on the road, my hands are suddenly shaking again.

  My hatred for the truck driver is sudden and violent. It’s a chemical reaction, something poisonous that I thought was buried deep, but it binds with Daniel’s scream to cause my face to flush, and my breathing grows ragged. The roots of my hair feel like they’re crackling, and the sole of my aching right foot sends the car jerking forward. I swerve in front of the semi, nearly shaving its front bumper with mine. The move earns me a blast of protest from the trucker, a low-register, high-decibel world-­filling HONNNNNK! that blares through my body, which is both satisfying and more infuriating still, and I glare at the truck in the rearview as I leave it in the dust.

  Then I’m immediately sorry.

  This is why I stay out of the desert. This is why I try to remain in control and away from dark places. If I don’t, my natural instinct is to explode.

  Without looking away from the road, I stretch back, fingers scrambling for the small ice cooler we’ve brought along for the trip. We had planned to stop along the way and fill it—to do so at the same time that I changed clothes—but my hand still fists when I reach in to find it bone dry and empty. There is nothing to cool me here.

  The steady hum of the tires rolling over the road is finally what calms me, and I try to figure out what to do next. I know the man-in-boots is behind me because that’s where I’ve left Daniel, but what do I do with that information? Speed up? Slow down? Both feel wrong.

  I glance at the phone I’ve tossed onto the coffee-stained seat next to me, then reach out to stroke the black rubber case. I can still see it clutched in Daniel’s elegant, tapered fingers, skillful hands that stitch and mend and support. Loving hands, that also seek and slip, embrace and knead. How many times has he fallen asleep with this phone in his palm? How often have I taken it gently from him, careful not to wake him?